[lisarea]

Oh, some of those things make me cringe reflexively, but mostly because it's an indication that someone is going to start spewing silly media talking points.

Last election cycle, we had GMO labeling on the ballot, and there was a constant barrage of ridiculous, alarmist campaigning against it. TV commercials, mailers, and constant robocalls, all sort of citing some superstitious villagers afraid of progress in some big general sense. They even had these obviously prerecorded robodialed "town hall" meetings where they'd have po' family farmers talking about how banning GMOs would force them out of business, and only big factory farms would be able to compete anymore. Seriously, a major component of that campaign was conflating labeling with BANNING.

And they won.

That's what drives me fucking crazy. It's the ridiculous, alarmist bullshit where they paint all of their opponents as unhinged, ignorant extremists, and enough people just swallow that narrative that they can actually get people to vote against labeling the products they buy, based on paternalistic assurances that regular consumers can't be trusted with that information.

But there are plenty of things that people object to these things who aren't just fearful, torch wielding villagers.

For example, I have a real problem with HFCS just because it's encroached on everything and it's like people don't even seem to notice or care how grotesquely sweet most prepared foods have gotten. I mean, A) gross, and B) that just can't be good for people to be getting used to sweeteners in everything. But when I mention that, or the fact that we just plain grow too much fucking corn, someone always manages to parse it as if I'm one of those people they saw on the TV commercials who is just a-skeert of the big words.

Anyways, that's why I'm glad to see them hurting. Because this industry has engineered a huge, pervasive information campaign designed to advance their narrative, and apparently, it's not working as well as I'd thought it was. So hooray.