ACCORDING TO THEIR WEBSITE, the US Consumer Coalition is a “grassroots organization that works to protect consumers’ right to access free-market goods and services.” Bravo! And so far, so good: as a consumer, I certainly want access to free-market goods and services. I also want access to information about individuals and organizations who protect my right to that access. But the USCC’s mission statement, lofty as it sounds, gives me pause:
“All Americans benefit from a thriving free-market economy. Unfortunately, today the government at both the state and federal levels, is actively engaging in efforts to regulate, restrict, and diminish consumer choice. USCC advocates on behalf of America’s consumers and defends their right to make decisions for themselves and their families without burdensome government interference.
USCC actively monitors the consumer landscape to identify industries that are currently under scrutiny or censure by the government. We build bridges, ensure public awareness and mobilize the powerful voices of consumers and business owners to protect our freedom of choice.” (USCC)
Yet its primary focus is on bashing Senator Elizabeth Warren (a Massachusetts Democrat) and the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer protection agency that came into existence in 2011 thanks to Elizabeth Warren. A secondary target if the DOJ’s attempts to clean up fraud in the banking system.
So why would a grassroots, consumer-oriented group attack the only part of the federal government that exists to protect consumers?give them room to rip off more consumers? Why would that group want to protect the banksters and And why in Grommett’s Wholly Moniker would they hire Newt Gingrich of all people as a paid adviser?
Guess . . .
Senator Elizabeth Warren listens as Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, answers a question during his semi-annual monetary policy report to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday, July 18, 2013.
All I want is the truth
Ah, I knew you’d figure it out: because the US Consumer Coalition is as grassroots as the Tea Party. It is yet another bought and paid for front of Rep*blican operatives who the corporate media turns to repeatedly for their expertise on Elizabeth Warren and get lies and misinformation.
A media full of investigative reporters who are lied to repeatedly and yet never catch on that they are being manipulated. I know that we are told all the time that both sides do things like this. Every Rep*blican voter that I know believes that to be so. It’s how they justify every lying and cheating Rep*blican that gets caught.
Here are passages lifted from an article titled “Who’s Behind the Secretive Group Bashing Elizabeth Warren’s Favorite Agency?” by Patrick Caldwell for Mother Jones (February 26, 2015).
“The US Consumer Coalition is run and staffed entirely by a Virginia public relations firm stuffed with ex-GOP operatives. Brian Wise is one of the group’s founders. Before he became a consumer advocate, the press often described Wise as a Republican political consultant.
[Wise’s] LinkedIn page describes expertise in developing and executing public policy campaigns and corporate image campaigns through the use of non-profit organizations, grassroots mobilization, and strategic communication strategies.’
The Consumer Coalition’s top issues, Wise says, are reforming the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to weaken its power.
In fact, Wise tells Mother Jones [that] a group of donors came to him last year and ‘hired’ his firm, Wise Public Affairs, to set up the Consumer Coalition, which shares staff with his firm. The group’s true funders may never be known. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, the Consumer Coalition is permanently exempt from revealing its donors. 1
The Consumer Coalition’s top issues, Wise says, are reforming the CFPB to weaken its power . . . and attacking Operation Chokepoint, a Department of Justice program intended to force banks to close accounts of businesses they suspect of committing fraud.”
So the USCC is in fact a public relations firm bought and paid for by unnamed special interests to pretend that they are a movement of the people by the people for the people. Just like the Tea Party. In other words, same sold same old . . .
Just gimme some truth
Perhaps this is my naiveté here, but will someone please point out a “liberal” front group bought and paid for by the Dems or their advocates or supporters that exists solely to lie to the media about Rep*blicans or conservative issues.
As John Lennon repeatedly said, “All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth!” 2
FOOTNOTES
1 According to the Wise Public Affairs website, “In today’s political and business climate, you can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.In every business, industry, organization, and community, there are untapped resources for effective grassroots advocacy – your people. Advocate Boot Camp™ is a customizable program that will train your employees, supporters, citizens, or stakeholders to become effective advocates for the issues that matter most to you.” That is the conservative’s idea of a grassroots movement: organized from the top and paid for by monied interests.
2 Gimme Some Truth from the IMAGINE album from 1971 (when Lennon was on President Nixon’s personal “enemies list”) opens with these lines: “I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics. All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth. I’ve had enough of reading things by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians. All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth.”
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)