Amen ... Amen ... Amen ...

Jun 8, 2012 -- 11:16PM, rabello wrote:

Jun 8, 2012 -- 10:44PM, teilhard wrote:

"Food" Marketing Practices have LONG been properly understood to have MORAL Dimensions that Marketeers DON'T necessarily want to acknowledge, much less address ...

E.g., there was the INFAMOUS  "Nestle" Scandal a couple Decades ago, regarding markedly CONCERTED marketing of Infant Formula in Africa, which resulted in MANY tragic DEATHS of Infants ...

The U. N. investigated and castigated "Nestle," extracting solemn PROMISES to clean up their Dealings ... But they continued as before ...

Way back then I took active Part in BOYCOTT of "Nestle" Products and to this day I STILL avoid buying "Nestle" Products whenever possible ... ("Nestle" also owns "Libby" and "Stouffer" Products, which I also intentionally avoid buying ...) ...

I participated in that boycott, too (as well as the "boycott Japanese products" campaign for the save the whale effort) and, like you, still avoid Nestle and its subsidiaries.  Of course, after the decade of hostile takeovers, one doesn't always know that an unethical robber baron "owns" some of the foodstuff one is buying.   Pays to pay attention.

Back then it was OK to say out loud that business -- large and small -- should have the safety of their customers as their number 1 concern.   People understood what was meant by limiting smoking or sellers from selling unhealthy, oversized portions of bad food to anybody with 5 bucks to spend. Nowadays, though, it's pro-seller and anti-consumer.  It is the result of the Reagan Revolution, which taught the Reagan Generation to ask "am I better off now than I was 4 years ago" instead of "are we better people now than we were 4 years ago".  Quite a sad change, really.  

I want my 4-6 glasses of coke with dinner, dammit.

It's the VERY Down Side of the "Me-First" Ethos ...

Jun 9, 2012 -- 12:52AM, solfeggio wrote:

As rabello so rightly points out, in America at least, it really is a pro-seller-anti-consumer world.  So, you better get used to it because that's the way it's going to continue.  The sellers are the big corporations, companies, and banks and lending institutions, and they run things.

Mayor Bloomberg makes a brave attempt to try at least a little regulation of the swill that people insist upon gulping down, and people jump up and down and scream that they 'rights' are being taken away.

All this incessant yammering that Americans seem to have about 'personal freedom' is simply ludricous. 

We who live in the so-called 'developed world' live in about as tightly-regulated a society as you can get.

We have to pay taxes to the government.  We have to get a driver's license if we want to drive a car.  We have to cross streets on the green light.  We have to have a passport in order to travel overseas.  We need various types of identification cards so that we can prove who we are to take money out of the bank or get a job or do any number of things.

We don't have the freedom to kill somebody who is trying to hurt us.  We don't have the freedom to kill ourselves if that is our wish. 

We have to fill out forms in order to get married, graduate high school, get a job, join the military, go to hospital, take out library books, vote, get credit, etc., etc.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that we're all bound by numerous rules and regulations that make this concept of 'personal freedom' a fairy tale.

(Oh, but, yes, there is one area in which Americans proudly claim, over and over and over again, in which they have 'freedom' and that is in gun ownership.  Everybody and his uncle now owns a revolver or a pistol or an AR-57 or a shotgun or any other type of firearm.  Gee, ain't that swell?)

And then there is this idea by the libertarians that less and less and less government is the way to go.  Less government - more personal freedoms?

Ha.  So, then, it would be OK with them if people just started driving whenever or wherever they pleased without having to have a license?  It would be just fine if people could kill each other at will if they felt like it?  It would be great if nobody needed a university degree to get a specialised job?  Or if there were no regulations in medical schools and anybody who wanted to could just say s/he was a doctor and get away with it?

Yeah, right.  Personal freedom.  Be careful what you wish for.

What you need now in America is another Progressive movement, as in the Teddy Roosevelt administration a hundred years ago, to spark new ideas and new ways of thinking about business and government.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address, 20th January 1937

 

Jun 9, 2012 -- 12:52AM, solfeggio wrote:

Ha.  So, then, it would be OK with them if people just started driving whenever or wherever they pleased without having to have a license?  It would be just fine if people could kill each other at will if they felt like it?  It would be great if nobody needed a university degree to get a specialised job?  Or if there were no regulations in medical schools and anybody who wanted to could just say s/he was a doctor and get away with it?

We have laws that prevent us… from harming others.   

If you want to punch yourself in the face, that's legal.  But it's not legal to assault someone else.

Jun 8, 2012 -- 1:15AM, Mlyons619 wrote:

And why libs seem to think that Government meddling is going to solve the obesity problem - especially in light of its rather poor track record, is the ONLY answer.

Several of us have voiced support for more information/education for the consumer rather than banning things.

The only thing it'll do is add weight to an already grossly obese Federal bureaucracy...

This is a New York state proposal, it has nothing to do with the Feds.

Problem is, we TRIED exactly that Tactic for a LONG Time, e.g., with "Tobacco," and got only very minimal Results ...

The BIG Gains have resulted from massively punitive TAXES on each Pack of Cigs, LAWSUITS against "Big Tobacco," and VERY Stringent REGULATION of Sales and Advertising of "Tobacco" ... 

If we're SERIOUS about meaningfully addressing such Problems as "Big Sugary Sodas" leading to genuinely dangerous Health Problems, then mere Information Pamphlets and Stern Lectures AIN'T gonna do it ...

Jun 9, 2012 -- 4:50PM, Ebon wrote:

Jun 8, 2012 -- 1:15AM, Mlyons619 wrote:

And why libs seem to think that Government meddling is going to solve the obesity problem - especially in light of its rather poor track record, is the ONLY answer.

Several of us have voiced support for more information/education for the consumer rather than banning things.

The only thing it'll do is add weight to an already grossly obese Federal bureaucracy...

This is a New York state proposal, it has nothing to do with the Feds.