FYIO Important article re Codex strategy

[Guest guest]

Two articles by Jon Rappoport of www.nomorefakenews.com that have

direct bearing on whether we will have supplements and natural

medicine in our future or whether we leave it all to pharma ...

 

If you know a supplements manufacturer, tell him what's up.

 

Kind regards

Sepp

 

 

 

Dian

24 February 2005 07:33

undisclosed-recipients

Important article re Codex strategy

 

Thought you all would be interested in reading this.... think about

cooperating to use major PR in the anti-Codex fight...

Dian

Freedom of Choice in Health Care!

 

THE FUTURE OF THE NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY---THE REALITIES

 

FEBRUARY 23, 2005. In this note, I won't bother recapitulating all

the problems the supplement industry is facing from its enemies in

the government and corporate and international-agency sectors.

 

This is about a solution.

 

As a researcher just mentioned to me, " There is an image problem. "

 

You bet.

 

Defenders of unlimited access to supplements have been cast as the

guys in the tin-foil hats. Whereas, the medical honchos are the sane

ones who " are trying to hold the line against non-science and

quackery. "

 

Well, what do you do when you're up against it in this way?

 

And by " you " I really mean the companies that manufacture and sell supplements.

 

What you do is hire a very good and strong PR agency and you vet it

carefully and you contract it to change that image problem.

 

You use the media to make your most knowledgeable leaders into

respected persons, as opposed to nutcases.

 

I could reel off a few names, but I'll hold off on that for now.

 

Companies in other spheres do this kind of PR all the time.

Industries do this all the time. And the government gets tremendous

press in the area of presenting its medical bureaucrats----some of

the most outrageous crooks and hacks---as heroes and watchdogs for

the public good.

 

I've been on this beat for almost fifteen years, and I have yet to

see any evidence that the supplement industry has brought a good PR

agency on board.

 

I believe there are several reasons for this failure. I have to be

frank about this. The nutritional supplement industry is filled with

short-sighted and rather provincial people who wouldn't know an

effective PR agency from a horse running in the Kentucky Derby.

 

The industry also tends to be greedy, in the sense that companies

don't want to put out money for a goal that is not absolutely and

directly and immediately connected to the business of marketing pills

and capsules.

 

The industry wants to hide its head in the sand and hope that its

problems will go away.

 

The industry does not want to be known as an offense-minded team that

goes after the lies the medical honchos are telling day in and day

out---and of course a PR agency, as one of its tasks, WOULD be

attacking the lies of conventional medicine.

 

After all, how are you going to rock the criminals back on their

heels and keep them scrambling to repair their own image? Wouldn't

you rather produce that situation, as opposed to standing there with

your thumb up your butt looking for all the world like an ideal

target?

 

The supplement industry wants to use its lobbyists and political

connections in Washington to work the system on its behalf. Well, on

this point, I have news. You can do two things at once. At the same

time, you can lobby AND use a mighty PR agency to make your own

leaders into respected persons and attack the lying medical honchos

and also get stories in the press about the sensational effects of

supplements.

 

Yes, you can rub your belly and tap your head at the same time.

 

Major corporations have no problem lobbying the government while they

launch PR attacks on opposing elements within government.

 

But I don't think the supplement industry wants to produce a game

plan that will WIN.

 

They want to be honorable and good (in some cases), but winning is

not really on their radar. Not so you would notice it.

 

The supplement industry (part of it) is already committed to finding

pharmaceutical buyers to take over its companies. Sell out. Good bid.

Get out while the getting is good. This has been happening for some

time and will continue to happen.

 

I'd liken this to the oil biz selling its companies to Earth First.

 

Within those trade organizations formed and paid by the supplement

industry, there are slothful bureaucrats who are sliding by and

making no major victories in the ongoing struggle to maintain

unlimited access to supplements for the public. These trade

organizations have also been infiltrated by agents of pharmaceutical

interests.

 

The supplement industry, by and large, does not understand the wide

uses of PR. It cannot envision, for example, the effect of a steady

stream of stories expertly planted in the press that tell of

wonderful healings that have been brought about supplements. Human

interest stories.

 

It cannot envision the effect of an all-out multi-front campaign on

behalf of what is right and true, and against what is false and

immoral.

 

Within the supplement industry, there are many people who believe

that the " universe will make things turn out right. " These people

also believe that attacking the evil ones is against some natural law

and will bring down bad karma on their own heads.

 

This set of beliefs, in this arena, is called LOSING. Can I make that

more clear? LOSING.

 

Of course, the supplement industry is also dotted with foul used car

salesmen who can only look as far as the next buck and the next new

car and the next trip to Europe and the next bowl of caviar (see

below). These hustlers live by the pattern of making dollars and then

moving on when the heat gets too high. They also market inferior

products, for which they make outrageous claims. The supplement

industry should police itself on this count and ride these guys out

of town on a rail.

 

Getting back to the PR campaign...

 

You sit down with a few people from a mighty PR firm and you say, " We

want to change our image. We want press exposure on a continuous

basis. We want the public to see what great effects our products are

having. We want certain medical liars and medical monopolists to feel

pressure in the worst way. We want government agencies like the FDA

to feel the pain of their lies and crimes. We want our best leaders

in the supplement industry to win awards and attain the kind of

prestige they deserve. We don't want to hide under a rock and let the

world go by. We want to be legitimate players and winners in this

struggle. We don't want a good effort. We want to triumph. "

 

The supplement industry is now in the billion-dollar realm. All sorts

of people are buying and using its products. The industry is

mainstream in every sense except image. That image is being

controlled by the PR machines of its enemies.

 

That has to change.

 

It will not change through hope alone or health-results alone.

 

Over the last fifteen years, I have not seen one person in the

supplement industry who seems to know what a true PR campaign entails.

 

This is astounding.

 

Of what other billion-dollar industry could this be said?

 

Therefore, I have to assume my perception is false. There are such

people, but they have not stepped up. They feel they are surrounded

by idiots. They feel bogged down. They feel they are talking to rubes

in their own business. They feel hamstrung. They feel their

trade-organization leaders are dolts.

 

They have to step outside this doldrum and run to daylight.

 

They have to grow up.

 

Otherwise, they will be shot full of holes by medical agencies and

drug companies who correctly view them as the competition. Who spend

money to get the public to see supplements as dangerous and sorely in

need of " regulation. "

 

I know one bright executive of an alternative health firm who has

quit her job and aligned herself with a company that sells

supplements and bankrolls quite expensive clinical trials of its

products. This executive is convinced that the future for the bulk of

the supplement industry is dark. Only the medically-oriented

companies will survive.

 

This is called brain-drain, and I assume it is happening on a broad scale.

 

The supplement industry cannot continue to believe that the Good will

win. The Good, in case you haven't noticed, often loses. Because the

Good does not make its case. The Good stands around and waits. The

Good thinks that knowing the truth is enough.

 

I have much, much experience with THIS. I know some brilliant people

who trust the truth as a weapon that can remain on the shelf and

still can bring victory.

 

Well, in the purely personal realm, this may be so. But when we are

talking about a billion-dollar industry, we are in a different pew.

 

Don't you see?

 

A billion-dollar business that just stands there and poses is, in

effect, saying, " Here we are. Take us over. We're rich and we're

growing and we don't have a clue about how to protect ouselves. "

 

The supplement industry is a guy wearing a three-thousand-dollar

suit, decked out with expensive and flashy jewelry, his stuffed

wallet hanging out of his pants, taking a stroll at 3AM through the

highest crime area of the city. He's grinning and whistling and

smiling and doffing his fedora to all the sharks lurking in the

shadows of store fronts.

 

And believe me, there is no higher crime area than the

medical/pharmaceutical princedom.

 

You may want to believe that we still live in the Mr. Smith Goes to

Washington era. You may want to believe that hiring a few lawyers and

a few lobbyists will give you access to Washington, where the truth

will make itself obvious and change minds. You may seek a return to

strict Constitutional principles and smaller government. You may be

seeking out Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

 

But that won't get you a ride on the subway. That won't get you in the door.

 

" Oh, but we know Senator Hatch. We know Senator Harkin. "

 

Good luck.

 

Times change quickly. Old allies don't guarantee you bupkis.

 

At the moment, the FDA and the drug companies are under attack. A few

of their crimes have been exposed. It's a moment for new insights and

new levels of PR that happen to speak the truth.

 

But I bet NO ONE in the supplement industry has seized the opportunity.

 

When I ran for a seat in the US Congress in 1994, I and my staff

approached supplement company leaders for campaign donations. So I

had a chance to see a few of these leaders up close.

 

One was the president of a quite successful vitamin and mineral

oufit. He spent the fifteen minutes of our conversation talking about

suits and tailors and bootmakers and his trips to Europe and good

food and where to find it. I kid you not. He had the kind of

confidence bred in expensive suburbs, where the new rich strive for

greater acceptance and prestige. He was, all things considered, a

cartoon of a cartoon---and an exceeding bore.

 

Another man also headed up a well-known supplement firm. He was a

good guy. He knew the score vis-a-vis the FDA and the medical assault

on alternative health. I liked him very much. But all in all, he was

what I'd call a TRYER. He was trying to do good. He was embattled,

surrounded by lesser lights. He was walking through a swamp of his

own people in the industry. He was in a twilight zone of blindness

and incompetence. He was puzzled and confused and disheartened.

WINNING had pretty much dropped off his radar.

 

The more the supplement industry sees itself as an underdog, the

greater the chance of long-term failure.

 

In the last year, I have also obliquely rubbed shoulders with a major

publisher in the alternative health field. This outfit originally

made its bones by putting out reams of information---some of it good,

some of it ridiculously overblown---on the successes of alt. medicine

and alt. remedies. But it was now stifled. It was circling a drain of

its own making. It couldn't see or envision the multiple

opportunities for climbing into the world of video and Internet and

other media. It was still living in the world of the old Sears

catalogs, and it was frightened of stepping out into the present

moment.

 

In many cases, these dinosaurs just take it as far as they can, and

then they sell their assets and depart for fairer climes. They put

their hard-won victories into the hands of corporate suits who don't

know a vitamin pill from a plastic key ring from a candy bar.

 

I would liken this situation to that of an old clockmaker. He makes

and sells cheap alarm clocks that tick and keep you awake and make a

horrible noise in the morning. If you say DIGITAL to him, he looks up

from his workbench and frowns and blinks and shakes his head. He's

clueless.

 

Well, the world of PR has been accelerating for the past hundred

years. It's there. The bad guys know exactly how it works. They use

PR like they use after-shave. It's part of every day. They would no

sooner go into battle without a high-powered PR firm at their side

than they would take a vacation without gassing up the car.

 

But the supplement industry is puzzled and self-satisfied and

intentionally blind and living out tattered philosophies.

 

The billion-dollar supplement industry is a sitting duck.

 

And its trade organizations, who are supposed to be covering its

back, are a bunch of hacks who are smiling nervously in the edge of

the storm that is coming.

 

All this reminds me of Apple Computers, in the early days, after the

initial mind-boggling successes. The company was swimming in a

hippie-dippie culture, oblivious to the fact that they were going to

be robbed and shoved off a cliff.

 

Well, somebody finally got smart there. They came back.

 

If you want continued access to nutritional supplements of your

choice, at the potencies you decide you need, I suggest you use this

article and get a message out to the supplement companies. The

sitting ducks. Don't bother trying to be sweet and nice. Make your

demands. Organize consumer groups. Put on pressure. Squeeze them to

do what they refuse to do.

 

It's a PR world. They have the money. They can take the right steps.

 

EXPOSE THE WONDERS OF HEALING NUTRIENTS.

 

HUMAN INTEREST STORIES IN THE PRESS FROM TIERRA DEL FUEGO TO THE ARCTIC.

 

ATTACK THE MEDICAL LIARS. PLAY UP THE DEATHS AND MAIMINGS THEY

CREATE. A DIFFERENT KIND OF HUMAN INTEREST STORY.

 

MAKE TRUE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE IN THE NUTRIENT FIELD WHO DESERVE TO

BE HEROES. THE RESEARCHERS, THE DOCTORS, THE ALTERNATIVE HEALERS. THE

INDUSTRY LEADERS. THE ETHICAL ONES.

 

EXPOSE THE GLORIES OF OLDER TRADITIONAL CURES. THE REAL ONES.

 

MAKE THE DISCOVERERS OF THE VITAMINS SIT ON AN HISTORICAL PAR WITH

THE DISCOVERERS OF THE " WONDER DRUGS. "

 

GO DEEP AND LONG-TERM.

 

AND DRIVE THE CON MEN WITHIN THE RANKS BACK INTO USED CAR LOTS WHERE

THEY BELONG.

 

One final note. Understand this. The nutritional con men are playing

their role in keeping a real PR campaign from happening. They're

scared of that. More press means revelations of their wacko schemes.

They know that. They can smell it. They want the status quo. They

want to last as long as they can in the shadows.

 

In this region of con men, I also include the do-nothings who direct

the trade organizations for the nutritional industry. They're scared,

too. They want to pretend to work. They want nothing but crap and

useless strategies. That's their forte. A true battle for victory

would, by comparison, expose their meanderings.

 

Perhaps you can see, in the overall case I've made here, that many

issues and causes desperately need the same kind of waking up. The

people who are striving in the trenches need to understand the use of

PR in a major way. PR THAT TELLS, FOR ONCE, THE TRUTH. What a

concept, eh? Someone out there might get the idea it's time to create

a PR firm, a good one. No, not in one night. No, not in two weeks.

Forget the instant gratification bullshit. This is long-term I'm

talking about. I'm talking about WORK. Solutions that count.

Solutions you might want to get involved in. On your own. ON YOUR

OWN. With personal force, with imagination, with guts, with a vision

of what could be done. No hand-holding. No wishful thinking. No " I

don't know what to do. " No flailing around. No " help me I'm

confused. " There are worse things one could do than create the right

kind of PR firm with a few tiger lawyers on board and an agenda that

requires grappling with the denizens of the press and making serious

inroads on the ocean of lies we're swimming in.

 

JON RAPPOPORT <http://www.nomorefakenews.com>www.nomorefakenews.com

 

 

 

 

 

CONSENSUS REALITY AND PR

 

FEBRUARY 23, 2005. This is a follow-up to my last piece on the

nutritional supplement industry and PR.

 

PR creates consensus reality.

 

That's coming very close to the secret of the universe.

 

PR is what strives to get people to see and create a particular reality.

 

Lots of people. As many people as possible.

 

In view of this fact, there are two basic strategies. You punch as

many holes as possible in consensus reality. And you create your own

PR.

 

But seeing as most PR is lies, you have to re-think your concept of

what PR is. You have to re-define it as:

 

THE TRUTH TOLD WIDELY.

 

Of course, it helps to know what the truth is in the particular area

you're working.

 

The nasty fact is, there are established outlets that automatically

get people to believe PR. I'm talking, of course, about newspapers

and TV and so on. The major media.

 

The combined PR power of the 100 biggest alt. news websites in the

world have about 1/100000000 of the force of CBS.

 

That's just a fact of life at the moment.

 

In other words, these major media outlets have, over the years and

decades, successfully positioned themselves as hypnotic messengers.

 

Talking high-impact.

 

At the same time, with cable news, and with the Internet in

particular, the hypnotic power of the CBS and the NBC and the ABC is

diminishing.

 

Realize I'm sketching out a multi-front information war. Yes, war.

 

As the Internet gains more credence, the networks stumble. They lose

part of their ability to become the funnel for any old bullshit as

believable truth.

 

So the Internet is a mighty force wave.

 

Still, the networks and the newspapers are taking the position that

THEY decide how reliable the Internet is. And the public, by and

large, buys this.

 

BECAUSE THE PUBLIC WANTS ONE ARBITER OF THE TRUTH.

 

ONE AUTHORITY FIGURE.

 

ONE GOD.

 

In the long, long, long run, we should want people to decide for

themselves what the truth is. But we know that is a long haul. That

is the far goal. Billions of people saying NO to major media.

 

Okay. Meanwhile, if PR tells the truth for once, then it can create a

new consensus reality in which large numbers of people

accept---perhaps through hypnotic habit alone---this new reality,

whatever it may be in specific cases.

 

And then a funny thing happens.

 

You have millions of people accepting the truth as hypnotic command.

 

Get it?

 

It's pretty weird.

 

Truth is supposed to set you free.

 

How can you be free if you accept PR that happens to be the truth,

but you're accepting it at a level that is conditioned reflex?

 

Well, you can't be free.

 

But you CAN BE on the verge of what I'd call a crossover.

 

See, if someone hypnotizes me to believe that there is a red chair in

the room, and there really is a red chair in the room, I might just

go BOOM POW BINGO BONGO BANGO.

 

I might just ignite a spark and open my damn eyes and SEE the red

chair for myself.

 

That could happen.

 

Whereas, if there isn't a red chair in the room and the PR is the

usual crap, and if I believe in the existence of the red chair, I'm

screwed as long I keep believing in the thing that isn't there.

 

Let's take another example. Suppose some new PR agency, through a

miracle, gets fantastic wide coverage of the assertion that the man

in the White House is conning our pants off.

 

And after enough repetition, 50 million and then 100 million and then

150 million Americans buy this assertion.

 

They buy it, however, in the same way they buy the idea they need a

new car as often as possible. They buy it in the same way they buy

the brilliance of the latest kiddie rock star who can barely warble a

comprehensible word.

 

Hmmm.

 

However, if the man in the White House really IS conning our pants

off, then there is the chance of a spark that bridges a gap.

 

At which point, 150 million Americans go BOOM and WAKE UP to the FACT

that the man in the White House is a cheap hustler.

 

It's a two-stage operation.

 

First, you hypnotize someone into believing X.

 

Then, because X is true, that person wakes up and sees X for what it really is.

 

I maintain that a lot of learning takes place in exactly this way.

 

EXACTLY THIS WAY.

 

When I was a raw senior in high school, some of my friends began

bringing jazz records to school. I didn't know jazz from throat

lozenges. I had been raised on Sinatra and Eddie Fisher and Doris Day.

 

These pals brought a boatload of PR along with those records. Their

own PR. " Oh man, you have to listen to Charlie Parker. He's the

greatest musician who ever lived. And Bud Powell. Wow. He's God. "

Blah blah.

 

Because I wanted to believe, and because I wanted to get into

something new, and because I wanted to be hip, I listened to these

records. My buddies played them every morning before school in the

home room of the music teacher. The teacher wasn't there yet.

 

I listened to this stuff and I didn't have a clue. It all sounded

like mumbles and noodles.

 

But I kept telling myself it was fabulous.

 

I did that because I was hypnotized. BY THE PR.

 

And then, finally, after a few months, I woke up. I heard some tunes

and I understood what was going on.

 

And because Charlie Parker and Bud Powell WERE doing some very

fantastic things with the chord changes of popular tunes and blues,

when I woke up, I wasn't just disappointed at being conned. I wasn't

disillusioned like some lapsed Catholic.

 

I woke up to what was there.

 

Same thing happened with Herman Melville. I read Moby Dick and went

to sleep 500 times. But then, because I'd been hypnotized into

believing that he was the man, I read the book again. And again. On

the third or fourth try, I woke up.

 

On the tenth time, I really woke up.

 

Two-stage operation.

 

I'm suggesting that some very adventurous people could start a PR

firm with the express idea of shifting consensus reality.

 

Two-stage operation.

 

THE HYPNOSIS.

 

THEN THE AWAKENING.

 

All from simply telling the truth and getting it out there widely.

 

Which is the revised definition of PR.

 

I know, there are folks who say this can never be done, and you can't

fight city hall, and so on. You can never make an inroad on major

media.

 

Fine.

 

But there are other folks who don't think or say that. Who see a

major and grand challenge.

 

This article is for them.

 

Do it.

 

Are there risks? Of course. Do you have to make some kind of plan? Of

course. Will you experience frustration and setbacks? Of course.

 

Am I talking instant and forever gratification? I'm afraid that's a

bullshit PR myth.

 

A myth many people are hooked on, hypnotically. These folks want

solutions right now and they want to know what one thing they can do

today that will change their lives and the world forever before

dinner.

 

If you say WORK to them, they put that in the bin called NON-SOLUTIONS.

 

" Work? You kidding? I was asking for a solution. I was asking what I

could do right now, once and only once. You know, joining hands

around the tree and chanting OITV^FTRE " )_JN$@# six times in a low

hum. Then the earth opens and the great god Qixkitombresan comes out

with a bullion truck loaded to the gills. "

 

Changing consensus reality. It has a good ring to it.

 

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition.

 

Sepp Hasslberger

 

 

My page on physics, new energy, economy: http://www.hasslberger.com/

 

Critical perspective on Health: http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/

 

Antiprohibition and cannabis: http://www.unsaccodicanapa.com/

 

Communication Agents: http://www.communicationagents.com/

 

Freedom of choice - La Leva di Archimede: http://www.laleva.cc/

La Leva's news: http://www.laleva.org/

 

Robin Good - http://www.masternewmedia.org/

 

Trash Your Television! - http://www.tvturnoff.org/

 

Not satisfied with news from the tube and other controlled media?

Search the net! There are thousands of information sources

out there. Start with

 

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

http://www.truthout.org/

http://www.joevialls.co.uk/

http://www.Rense.com/

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

http://www.padrak.com/alt/911DD.html

http://www.rexresearch.com/