Yesterday I Learned to Use teh Google (and teh Wikipedia)

A discussion over at a favourite vegan forum about a campaign to encourage Boca to stop using eggs in its veggie products morphed into a discussion about how it can become ethically problematic to support this or that company for a multitude of reasons. Once upon a time, Boca was owned by Kraft, and Kraft was owned by tobacco giants Phillip Morris, founders and funders of the Center for Consumer Freedom (or as someone at the forums called it, the Center for Consumer Freedom From Information). A couple of quick Google searches brought up info on the Boca-Kraft-Phillip Morris connection, and, the Phillip Morris-Center for Consumer Freedom connection is known fact.

I found myself arguing that it made little sense to support a company whose parent company funds anti-animal rights lobbyists. Thankfully, someone more able with teh Google brought up the point that Phillip Morris rid itself of its shares in Kraft in 2007 and it's now a publicly-owned company. (Of course, my additional gripe with Kraft, regardless of whether it no longer has ties to Phillip Morris, is that its products are GMO -- even its Boca products, but that's going off on a tangent...)

In my Googling, though, I did end up finding a website for the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, whose website features a section devoted to exposing Rick Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, as well as the guy behind innumerable front groups funded by big industry to fight against the public's interest. More info on Berman can be found here, and more info on some of the many front groups he oversees can be found here.