“The arts of Power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.”
— Henry Clay, U.S. Senate, March 14, 1834
American business and consumers are being assaulted by a class of individuals and organizations I call the Demonizers. The method of attack used by these groups has not changed since Henry Clay described it in 1834: Identify a victim; demonize it with false or misleading accusations; whip up a public resentment against the victim; and then, while the public is distracted, engage in “abuses and encroachments” to gain power.
Who Are the Demonizers?
The best known of the Demonizers are opportunistic public-interest groups with familiar names, such as The American Lung Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Handgun Control Inc., and Earth First! Individuals who fit the description include the many lawyers and state attorneys general who have targeted Microsoft and the tobacco industry; Theo Colburn, a radical environmentalist who has targeted the chlorine industry; and Ralph Nader, who wants to ban . . . everything.
For lawyers, the motivation is money. They will take billions of dollars from the pockets of the nation’s smokers if they finally catch the tobacco industry in a legal corner. Most public interest groups are in it for the money, too, despite their pleasant-sounding names. The Natural Resources Defense Fund, for example, raised millions of dollars in contributions and membership dues a few years ago by demonizing Alar, a harmless chemical used to regulate the ripening of apples.
Many Demonizers are advocates of bigger government. These are the folks we used to call socialists, but who now prefer to be called “progressives.” Their goal is passage of laws creating new taxes, regulations, and entitlement programs. Journalists believe it is rude to lift the skirts of progressive advocacy groups to reveal their true agenda, so even spokespersons for Greenpeace, who dress up like tree stumps and chain themselves to construction equipment, are treated as authorities on the most complex matters of public health.
(Conservatives demonize people, too, but not nearly as often or as well as socialists.)
Who Are the Victims?
The latest victims of the Demonizers are tobacco companies. Stalked by greedy lawyers, prosecuted by publicity-hungry state attorneys general, and libeled by the direct mail fundraising machinery of “public health” organizations, the tobacco industry has been forced to negotiate terms for its very existence.
Microsoft, the giant computer software company, seems to have little in common with tobacco companies except its enormous size and ample profits. Alas, these are the precise and only requirements for being a target of the Demonizers. Those lawyers, state attorneys general, and “public interest” groups that are so expert on the long-term health effects of second-hand smoke in Courtroom A and on Channel 5 are just as expert on the fine points of antitrust doctrine in Courtroom B and on Channel 7.
Other industries know what Microsoft and the tobacco industry are now learning. The crop protection industry learned it when Rachel Carson portrayed pesticides as “death rain,” a Frankenstein-like monster set loose on an unknowing public. More recently, the previously mentioned campaign against Alar produced a national panic as mothers ran after school buses to take perfectly good apples out of children’s lunch boxes, and thousands of gallons of perfectly good applesauce were poured down kitchen drains.
The plastic packaging industry remembers when the Environmental Defense Fund made the plastic “clamshell” hamburger container the poster child for its campaign against plastics of all kinds. Facts about plastic packaging–that it is more energy efficient than most of its substitutes, that it remains stable and does not produce leachate in landfills, even that plans were in the works to recycle hamburger containers–were deliberately ignored so that a generation of children would grow up fearing and loathing a safe and useful product.
Who Will Be Next?
Gun owners and people who drink alcoholic beverages lead the list of future victims. In a recent Wall Street Journal essay, Mark F. Bernstein identified junk food as “the next big public health crusade, the next thing everyone used to wrestle with (or perhaps even enjoy) in peace until we decided it was all part of a sinister plot.”
Bernstein makes a perfectly plausible case–given the standards of today’s debate–for holding the junk food industry responsible for the 300,000 deaths caused each year by obesity. The article is illustrated with a picture of Ronald McDonald on a horse, his hands tied behind his back, with a hangman’s noose around his neck.
The real victims of a campaign against junk food would not be Twinkies, Moon Pies, or Big Macs, any more than the real victims of the War on Drugs have been capsules and syringes. (Drug warriors take note.) The Demonizers don’t declare “war” against inanimate objects. They attack people who consume the condemned products in moderation, causing no harm to their own health and certainly no damage to the life or property of others. The person on the horse with a hangman’s noose around his neck is you, me, all of us.
Time to Fight Back
The Demonizers have been successful largely because consumers and people in industry have failed to recognize their common tactics and true agendas. Every time one industry finds the courage to fight back against a Demonizer, other industries pay protection money to the very same organization, financing its latest campaign. The Demonizers, by contrast, are closely networked, well funded, and well aware that their success stems from working together.
It isn’t difficult to imagine how we can fight back. Step One is to document the true agendas, tactics, funding, and organization of the Demonizers. Step Two is to put this information in the hands of representatives of those industries that have been, or are about to be, demonized, creating a sense of urgency about the threat and building solidarity among companies that otherwise seldom have cause to work together.
Step Three is to put the information produced by Step One into the hands of journalists and elected officials whenever a Demonizer surfaces. Delivered to reporters immediately after (or even while) a story is written, and to elected officials immediately before or after testimony at a public hearing or meeting, such information will cripple the effectiveness of the Demonizers.
Demonizing the Demonizers
Armed with information about the Demonizers, a national network of independent think tanks, advocacy groups, volunteers, and business allies could respond swiftly, confidently, and accurately whenever a Demonizer appears in print and whenever a spokesperson for a Demonizer is scheduled to testify before a local, state, or national elected body.
The result: a steady outpouring of letters to the editors, op-eds, and personal correspondence to editors, reporters, and elected officials offering evidence of lies, deceptions, and unsavory tactics used by the Demonizers. In short, the Demonizers would be demonized in front of their most important audiences.
If you think the campaign I’ve just described would make a valuable contribution to the defense of our civil and economic liberties, or that it just would be fun to join, please give me a call at 312/377-4000. Depending on how much interest is expressed, this could be a major Heartland project in the coming year.
