11.19.07
Know The Enemy: Dr. Thomas Frieden and CSPI
Activism. Is there any other word out there that strikes such fear into the hearts of reasonable people everywhere? Sure, fine, there can be good activism, but how often do you hear about that as opposed to activism that is generally aimed at screwing you over? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But even in the sordid world of activism, there are people and organizations that stand out above the rest as being absolutely reprehensible; and Dr. Frieden and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CPSI) are right up there at the top.
Those poor souls who live in New York should already know this man, but let me fill the rest of you in on just who the good doctor actually is.
Dr. Frieden is the “health czar” of New York (aka the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene for New York City), and has been since 2002. While this may sound like a relatively benign position that would ordinarily be charged with monitoring flu vaccines and licensing restaurants; Frieden has turned his office into the mecca of “health” activism. But just what does that mean? It means that Dr. Frieden is in the business of telling people that they are too dumb to manage their own lives - so he is going to do it for them.
You see, Dr. Frieden has not only orchestrated the New York smoking ban, but also the trans fat ban (ignoring all of the science out there in lieu of his own opinions), a government “monitoring” program of diabetics (so they can scold diabetics who don’t take proper care of themselves), mandatory calorie listings on restaurant menus (see it on this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes)… And more disturbingly he spent $2 million on city money to tackle breast feeding (women in New York should breast feed for at least 6 months) and distributes custom “New York” condoms (city approved!). His rationale? As he put it, “when anyone dies at an early age from a preventable cause in New York City, it’s my fault.” Interestingly, his definition of “preventable cause” is anything that he disapproves of (including “insufficient” breast feeding).
All of this personal activism and all with a city budget of $1.6 Billion. That scares me to no end. When an activist like Frieden has not only power and money, but also feels that he is justified in his actions, it is an equation for trouble. As one woman challenged during a public forum with Dr. Frieden:
“Your approach to public health shows contempt for the public, contempt for the marketplace, contempt for the principles of autonomy and choice. Our bodies aren’t yet the property of the state, nor yet the city.”
But Tom Frieden isn’t just content micromanaging the citizens of New York. He is also a public cheerleader for CSPI, which is the notorious “food police” activist organization that has condemned soft drinks, fat substitutes, irradiated meat, biotech food crops, French fries, and just about anything that tastes good.
However, CSPI doesn’t just go around condemning food and drink, but also goes so far as to threaten restaurants with lawsuits over supposedly mislabeling of “low fat” items, nutrition and calorie labeling (they work with Frieden with this one) and just about anything else they can leverage to get their way. Apparently, “they see legal action as leverage to enact all the restrictions on food they have long supported.” Yikes!
Some of the things they push for through relentless letters, petitions, press releases and public scare tactics are:
- extra taxes on foods with fat, sugar, and sodium (the so-called “Twinkie tax”);
- government-mandated “warning” labels on high-fat, high-calorie menu items;
- mandatory nutrition information on restaurant menus, menu-boards, meat packages, hamburger wrappers, food commercials, ice cream stores, movie theatres, bakeries, hot dog stands, etc., etc.
- requirements that broadcasters give free “equal time” to government-supported advertisements of “healthy” foods;
- restrictions on baby food packaging requiring that tapioca be labeled as “chemically modified food starch”;
- labels warning parents that soft drinks may be replacing low-fat milk, fruit juice, and other drinks in their children’s diets;
- labels warning of contamination from fresh, unpasteurized juices;
- stricter regulations on genetically enhanced foods, which are already the most regulated food products in the U.S.
But much like Dr. Frieden (and perhaps why he cheerleads for them) is that CSPI believes in forcing their personal opinion on the general public. They fight against sodium, caffeine, meat, dairy, [any] drinking of alcohol and wine… In fact, they hate alcohol so much that they advocate for severe tax increases on beer, increased restrictions on marketing, poster-sized warning in restaurants and they even oppose winemakers promoting the health benefits of wine, accusing them of “hawking America’s costliest and most devastating drug.”
But don’t go thinking that CSPI just wants you to eat better. They really don’t want you eating anything more that you should (and it better be healthy!). Jacobson claims that we should limit our consumption to just-above-starvation levels because “with animals, hundreds of studies show that if you give them 80 to 60 percent of their normal calories, they live much longer.”
In the end though, their opinion is that food will kill you. For instance, on Good Morning America, Jacobson promoted CSPI’s report condemning ice cream and warned “Just know that you’re going to kill yourself.” Even fruits and veggies are bad news, as they say “naturally, you should eat lots of them, because they’re good for you. Just keep in mind that they may be killing you,” (referring to pesticide use).
And while CSPI may sound like some whacked-out fringe organization, the scary truth of the mater is that they are mainstream enough to work with Dr. Frieden on the menu labeling fiasco in New York City (and now elsewhere) and they claim to have over 900,000 subscribers to its “Nutrition Action Newsletter” which other nutrition sources claim “falls outside the realm of generally accepted nutrition guidelines and recommendations.”
They also bring in $17 million in yearly revenue from various funding sources and has a lawsuit docket that includes a frivolous lawsuit against Burger King claiming that they are putting their customers at a higher risk of heart disease by using oils with trans fats (“partially-hydrogenated oil, the deadly trans-fat-laden ingredient”).
Oh yeah, and Jacobson pulled in $276,434 in compensation from CSPI to wage his personal jihad against food.
So this is the state of things when it comes to the nanny state. Once the nanny state takes hold, the downward slope is slippery and bottomless… You can thank Dr. Frieden and CSPI for helping to oil that slope… And you can bet that oil is trans fat free.
Boink Blogs said,
November 19, 2007 at 9:43 pm
[...] The Enemy: Dr. Thomas Frieden and CSPI arclightzero placed an observative post today on Know The Enemy: Dr. Thomas Frieden and CSPIHere’s a quick [...]
mpinkeyes said,
November 20, 2007 at 5:19 am
Once you are on the path to nanny statism there is no turning back. Once the people get used to having the government look out for them on one issue the government moves to the next. And on and on it goes. People don’t even realize after a while that they are no longer thinking for themselves when it comes to commom sence issues. And then they have you where they want you.
We need to turn around this type of thinking, and fast.
Holly said,
November 20, 2007 at 6:39 am
Until that man has to attach a small, screaming, angry, hungry child to HIS leaking and sore breasts for six months, he can fucking go to hell.
micky2 said,
November 20, 2007 at 9:17 am
Is that his picture ?
The guy doesnt even look like he craps.
Almost looks like hes going to turn into some kind of reptile. Hmm, no. Theres too much potential for salmomella there. Dr Evils brother ?
I know what I’d like to say , but i’m sure we can all pretty much guess it would coincide with everyone elses feelings.
What would be the solution ? Argue private property ?
Seems like private property is becoming less and less of a point to be made these days, how come ? Why isnt it being brought up and used to counter act this crap ?
It goes right along with the smoking bans in restaurants. Nutrition and calorie count ? Being a pro in the restaurant bus. for so long I would have no objection to listing ingredients. Once I have to start listing calorie and butrion levels I have to hire and pay for a nutrtionist, throw away my existing menus, print up new ones. All at my cost and inconvenience And pray that these scientific questions about nutrition and calories dont start getting thrown at my waiters. And you dont even want to begin to try and figure out individual metabolism rates.( which is a good point to argue against these measures) All wait staff will have to take a crash course in nutrition and menu planning. Once I have to start changimg my recipes the shits gonna hit the fan. Enough bitching.
There has to be a way to stop this and it can probably be done by using the base of our rights to private property. But too often now it seems that as long as you make contact with the public the rules change and lean towards what the govt. says the public wants. But did the public really say that they want it ?
The people didnt really have a say so in ethanol. It just kinda got handed to us. And so have alot of other things.
If our representatives are guilty of facilitating these things that we are really not asking for we should be able to put their ass on the curb right away and not have to wait another 4 years.
If they make promises on the campaign trail and then start doing all this weird shit once they’re in office we should be able to have a means to vote them out IMMEDIATLY !
Have little voting keosks at strategically placed locations so we can just drop by on the way to work or the store and like an ATM just put in our PIN and tell dickhead to hit the road.
We need to start coming up with solutions and stop belly aching. I am just as guilty as the next guy of bitching, if not more. But unless Americans start becoming informed of just badly they’re getting screwed and what their rights are in private matters it will just snowball.
I dont believe that we will become a socialist collective state, but who needs the inconvenienve and hassle of going through all these motions to find out it wont work ? In the meantime alot of time and liberties will of been wasted.
Look at all the people who got screwed for so long on the bottled water issue and didnt know about it until now. Think of all the money and time you could of applied to something else in your life in the last 20 years.
We were told by who ? Who told us our tap water was bad ? The govt. stood to get sizable kick backs from beverage companies in the form of campaign donations etc… , scientists were getting research grants and the next thing you know, BOOM ! every preppy shithead in the world had a freaking bottle of water strapped to his ass everywhere he went.
The same technique is being used to sell us the Gerbil warming scam.
Dont buy it ! Or for the next 20 years you’ll be running around with a buch of shit you had to pay for and didnt really ever need.
They always start these fucking initiatives with “something is bad for you”
Shouldnt we all be hip to that old trick by now ?
tekel said,
November 20, 2007 at 10:35 am
ha ha, great post. Dr. Frieden is in the business of telling people that they are too dumb to manage their own lives - so he is going to do it for them.
Nice work, if you can get it. For the record, I think that nearly all of the “food science” stuff out there is essentially a bunch of bs. And as far as suing Burger King for making people fat- might as well sue Coney Island for giving people sunburns. The most reprehensible aspect of nanny-state thinking is that it betrays the confusion of cause with effect.
deaconblue said,
November 20, 2007 at 7:45 pm
It’s the “magic bullet theory” in practice. A throw back to the old ways of communism, one size fits all.
As usual, Micky2 brings up an important point. We are all individuals, and are unique. We each have different tolerances, allergies, and metaboilisms, which means that we each handle various food stuff differently. There is no single plan that will be beneficial to all. Why else are there a 1,000,001 diets out there?
So what’s next? You can’t be outdoors during the day because you may get a sunburn and melanoma?
arclightzero said,
November 21, 2007 at 7:46 am
What’s worse than the government is when individual people or groups try to exert control over people through the government. At no time should the government be a tool for lunatic activists; yet we know that the government is a firm follower of the “squeaky wheel gets the most grease” philosophy.
I don’t fear the government as a whole so much as I fear an individual like Dr. Frieden who has figured out how to use the tool of government to force his beliefs and views on people. And this extends all over the place. Look at who’s behind most of the nanny state laws. There are always activists and activist groups who are most directly responsible for forcing these issues. While the government should be spanked for allowing themselves to become a tool for activists, we should really be trying to sever the artery that feeds it. We should be going after the activists and trying to cripple them before they can get their way.
arclightzero said,
November 21, 2007 at 7:48 am
Hahaha… Yeah, doesn’t he just look like an arrogant jackass? I bet that his life is a very sad and miserable one. He strikes me as somebody who just doesn’t enjoy anything; and as such he wants to make sure nobody else does either.
arclightzero said,
November 21, 2007 at 7:51 am
It is, but sadly the argument against private property is always “the common good” which somehow trumps all. Of course, I can’t help but to wonder how it is that this pinko commie rhetoric ever made it into our culture. I always thought that part of what made us what we are is the fact that we honor individual and property rights over the “common good.” If we lose that, what do we have that distinguishes us as Americans?
arclightzero said,
November 21, 2007 at 7:52 am
Amen to that! I couldn’t have said it better myself.
arclightzero said,
November 21, 2007 at 7:55 am
That’s just it. You can’t limit and regulate everything that may have a negative effect on people. Everybody is different. it’s like the nail salon example. The smell of a nail salon nauseates me, so should we ban nail salons? Perfume aisles? Asian food? Salt? Peanuts? Diesel exhaust?
Where do you draw the line?
Darth Chaos said,
December 6, 2007 at 1:58 pm
CSPI is a Rockefeller depopulation front group. They orchestrated the use of trans fats and aspartame just so they can get people hooked on those toxins, only to “betray” (it’s all staged) aspartame and trans fats so they can say “see, we told you the people are too stupid to think for themselves”. It’s nothing but a ploy to be used by the criminal American Ziofascist government as an excuse to take away freedom and liberty in TOTAL violation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. CSPI is a treasonous organization of the worst variety. They are no better than the Nazis, who by the way, were also funded by the Zionists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcrECHXva6I
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcrECHXva6I&rel=1]
arclightzero said,
December 6, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Darth Chaos, I agree. I have seen some of what CSPI does and has done, and it is very shady and dishonest. If I remember, CSPI spearheaded the anti-saturated fat campaign and told people to use trans fats instead, only to turn around now and tell people they shouldn’t use trans fats. I saw a “study” by one of their people where they talked about how much healthier trans fats were over saturated fats. I guess it just goes to sow that they really have no clue and are just looking to control people and be the food police. Now they have people like Frieden on their side and have the power of nanny state government backing their lies. It’s dangerous.
Darth Chaos said,
December 8, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Thank God somebody else knows how shady CSPI really is. Their feud with the Center for Consumer Freedom is a ruse. Both organizations are funded by Rockefeller interests (CSPI by the Rockefeller organizations that head the CFR, and CCF by corporate CFR members such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo).
Somebody has to make a documentary exposing this. I think I might just do that. Nothing fancy, though. Just a simple documentary with website screenshots and video interviews.
I have a mini-documentary on YouTube titled “Food as a weapon: The Rockefeller depopulation agenda” that explains it all in a nutshell.
Darth Chaos said,
December 8, 2007 at 8:43 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0caF25knUA
It’s titled “Food as a weapon: the global population reduction agenda”.
NY trying to hobble supermarkets « Ban the Ban Wisconsin said,
April 3, 2008 at 7:58 am
[...] (more on the NY public health czar) [...]
darthchaosofrspw said,
April 10, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Trans fats was CSPI’s 9/11. They staged the crisis so they can pose as our saviors. CSPI is a criminal organization guilty of mass genocide.
Flavius X said,
June 24, 2008 at 12:06 am
Have any of you ever worked as a “civil servant”?
It’s our taxes paying for this ‘enfente terrible’ and his minions of political correctitude, complete with group-think, mandatory ’sensitivity training’ radical feminism, liberal orthodoxy and self-righteous fervor. This is the most intolerant and hostie work environment this white heterosexual man has endured, including academia and corporate culture.
The money comes bottom up for re-distribution according to top-down policy, living beyond means on other peoples’ money - damn the torpedoes - full steam ahead. George Orwell understood this - what can I add?
The next step « Ban the Ban Wisconsin said,
July 10, 2008 at 1:22 pm
[...] a real headline from the news today. This is the work of Dr. Tom Frieden, somebody with whom I have taken issue with in the past and who has ties the notorious John F. Banzhaf III, the lawsuit-happy founder of [...]
The next step | RYOmag.com said,
July 13, 2008 at 2:01 pm
[...] a real headline from the news today. This is the work of Dr. Tom Frieden, somebody with whom I have taken issue with in the past and who has ties the notorious John F. Banzhaf III, the lawsuit-happy founder of [...]