Freedom to destroy, you might say, is the ideology of the palm lobbyists. Which in fact support various other venomous businesses, from oil to weapons via Monsanto’s agrotoxics.
This is the story of the DCI Group, to which the ‘knights of manga’ in Italy belong . Those who have been lavishing misinformation on palm oil for the past 9 months. Insinuating doubts about the scientific value of the Efsa (European Food Safety Authority) opinion, where it was established that the carcinogenic and genotoxic contaminants involved in the production of the shoddy tropical oil are extremely dangerous.
Freedom to destroy. Palm, oil, weapons, GMOs…
The lobbyists in question have been working for tropical forestravagers for years in the name of palm oil and paper. (1) Their client carnet also includes:
– Big Oil. For oil giant Exxon, they initiated climate change denialism, which is still in vogue today thanks in part to Donald Trump,
– Big Tobacco, to which they offered spirited militancy against legislative restrictions imposed in the U.S. by public health needs, (2)
– National Rifle Association, the very powerful coalition of gun manufacturers in the U.S., to oppose any initiative to reduce their freedom to purchase and carry,
– Monsanto, which is responsible for the H-bomb and Agent Orange, DDT and PCBs, recombinant growth hormones for cattle, saccharin and aspartame–as well as the agrotoxics, glyphosate and dicamba, and GMOs designed to resist them.
– Big Health, to challenge Barack Obama’s health care (so-called Health Care) program through a phantom citizens’ organization. (3)
The consensus factory between fake movements and fake news
The modus operandi of lobbyists is always to give birth to anonymous movements of thought, only ostensibly generated by organizations of ‘liberal’, or rather libertarian, citizens. Through profusion of ‘team’ messages, conveniently ‘anonymized’ and circulated by lobbyists on news agencies. Thanks to the effective public relations networks of the ‘strong powers’.
It is the fake news industry, which many have already tried to expose without, however, having equally effective means of information. Because the regime press-as we have had the opportunity to verify, even in Italy, in the case of the palm tree-does the orders of economic power and big advertisers. That is, of the principals of lobbyists. This applies to weapons in the U.S., to oil and tobacco, agrotoxics, junk food (4) and palm in the rest of the world.
Censored in Europe and sanctioned in the U.S.
The ‘tricks’ of DCI Group-and of Competere (which runs the ‘Campagne Liberali’ site) in Italy-have already been censured by the European Commission. Which called out the aforementioned lobbyists for masking behind the phantom EPA(European Privacy Association) initiatives in support of Big Data holders. Instead of protecting users who should have been concerned about the systematic violation of their privacy. (5)
Disinformation on social media, (6) disputing objective news and activist complaints, is entrusted to professional trollers and haters (7). Indeed, it takes a certain amount of professionalism to cast doubt on scientific texts from authorities accredited to the assessment of public health risks. But you know, work is work (sigh!).
Notice to mariners
Before drinking from the unquenchable cascade of news coming from the Web, it is good to check its source. Who did the news come from, what data is it based on, can it be trusted? Unfortunately, this is often not the case, and to this day there are no rules to protect the authenticity of information. Eyes open!
‘Hell, these people, they really want it, and they never get full of it; they are willing martyrs, those. Because, having cursed God and life, they cursed themselves. They graze on their own pride and anger, like a hungry man in the desert sucking his own blood from his own veins. But they will remain untarnished forever and ever’
(F. Dostoevsky, ‘The Brothers Karamazov’)
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) SEE https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/us/politics/31liberty.html?referer=
(2) See https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/tid/ecm10d00
(4) Competere and DCI had submitted a bid to Federalimentare, in 2013, for a ‘counter-information’ campaign on traffic lights on labels, in the UK. For the ‘modest sum’ of about 400,000 euros, lobbyists allegedly worked for a year – through friendly think tanks – to bring out in the British press vivid criticism of the nutritional labeling system that penalizes junk food
(5) SEE https://corporateeurope.org/fr/node/1474. DCI Group has also suffered sanctions in the U.S.
(6) DCI Group’s service to Big Tobacco is cited as an example. See https://www.vice.com/e n_us/article/nnq4ak/trolls-paid-by-a-telecom-lobbying-firm-keep-commenting-on-my-net-neutrality-articles-806
(7) The so-called bimbiminkia, in the jargon of Millennials.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
