Corporate Front Group Warns PETA’s New Neighbors of “Violence”

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The Center for Consumer Freedom, a corporate front group formed by Philip Morris, is warning Dupont Circle businesses that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may bring “violence” to the Washington, D.C. neighborhood.

CCF’s press release and letter warns neighbors of the “potential for harassment, violence, and mass pet killings” from a “radical animal rights group.”

“It’s not unusual for ordinary people to be unsure about how to act around the group’s employees,” CCF warns. “Please be assured that most of them are harmless unless provoked.”

Lines like that might make you wonder if this is all a joke. But Rick Berman and his crew at the Center for Consumer Freedom are dead serious. The letter is part of an ongoing media campaign by the group to demonize animal rights activists as “animal rights terrorists.” And it’s part of a broader scare-mongering campaign by corporations, politicians and industry groups called the Green Scare.

It’s not just PETA they’re going after. CCF bought a full page ad in The New York Times labeling the Humane Society as a terrorist organization. Yes, the Humane Society. And they’ve gone so far as to label Charlotte’s Web “animal rights extremism.”

Stunts like this are intended to instill two types of fear. They are meant to make the general public afraid of animal rights activists. And they are meant to make animal rights activists afraid of using their rights. The sole purpose in branding groups like PETA and the Humane Society with words like “violence” and “terrorism” is to have a chilling effect on free speech.

CCF likes to call activists “crazies,” as they did in this media stunt, but I question the sanity of any group that cares more about “delicious liberties” than the real thing.

Tagged as: Center for Consumer Freedom, Green Scare, Opposition, Peta, Rick Berman, Terrorism Warnings