Make You Feel My Love, Bob Dylan

Beautiful, very beautiful song

 

Food System, PR Industry and Honesty

Toxic sludge is good for you, video

Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, book

From one of most helpful reviews in Amazon:

Must reading for everyone.  I bought a bunch of copies and am giving them as gifts to my friends.

I used to wonder why I heard so much contradictary news in the major media pertaining to health and the  environment.  First, a news item quotes an authority saying a food is  safe,  the next year the same newspaper says it’s dangerous, and the next  year after that they claim it’s good for you. After reading this book, I  know why.  There are thousands of environmental and health , and scientific  organizations.  According to this book, many (but not all) of  these  organizations are not much more than clever PR fronts, funded mainly by  industry.  For example, I have often seen and continue to see information  provided by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) in the major  newspapers and magazines.  The media usually takes this organization at its  word as a credible scientific source.

According to this book:  The ACSH  is an industry front group that produces PR ammunition for  the food  processing and chemical industries.  They praise the nutritional values of  fast food and receive money from the fast food industry.  They claim  pesticides are very safe and take money from a host of pesticide  manufacturers.  The list goes on and on.. Yet the journalists usually take  the ACSH words almost verbatim as fact and print it in their newspaper.  Most journalists don’t check their sources,  or they’re puppets of  industry.  Then  the  public reads this stuff as if it were scientifically  proven fact.  Public policy and law often gets decided on  the basis of  this  “knowledge.”  Of course, some readers of these  “facts” are skeptical,  but no one seriously challenges the  ACSH’s credibility.  Thus the ACSH continues to operate as if it were an  objective science institute.  Thousands of front groups worldwide use many  of the same techniques.  It then becomes obvious why so many people have a  mistrust for science and don’t know what to believe.

I used to think  this country was a democracy, but now I know who really pulls the strings  on many key issues. It’s not the PR firms, it’s the companies who hire the  PR firms. Don’t miss this book.  For related info on health and  environmental issues, I recommend “Our Stolen Future” by Theo  Colborn