Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA): the new Koch Industries

When it comes to corporate juggernauts, the Grocery Manufacturers Association is right up there with the fossil fuel industry, the banking cartel and “defense” contractors.  Or maybe the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would be a better comparison.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce does intense lobbying and bribing on behalf of its corporate members.  And when they make political “donations,” nobody knows which company provided the funding.  All we know is, the money was contributed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

This is called money laundering.  And this is exactly what the Grocery Manufacturers Association does.  When the Grocery Manufacturers Association bribes politicians and purchases elections, nobody knows which members of the Food Syndicate provided the funding.  Was it Safeway?  Tyson Foods?  Pepsi?  Burger King?  Nope, it was the Grocery Manufacturers Association.  That's all you need to know.  Move along.

I hadn't even heard of the Grocery Manufacturers Association — what an innocuous-sounding name — until last Fall when they spent tens of millions of dollars convincing Washington voters that they didn't really want this cumbersome new law that would have required all GMO foods to be labeled.  Washington voters had originally thought they wanted this GMO-labeling law, but after a relentless ad campaign, they realized what an expensive intrusive law this would be; and the initiative got voted down.  (This exact same sequence happened earlier in California.)

The State of Washington has strict campaign disclosure laws, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association had to pay a fine for not revealing the specific companies that had financed their campaign.  Plus they ultimately had to disclose these companies' identities anyway.  The Grocery Manufacturers Association reacted the way all good corporate citizens react when they've violated a law:  They're suing to have Washington's campaign disclosure laws overturned.

And at the national level, the Grocery Manufacturers Association is bribing Congress to pass a federal law that would prevent states from passing any GMO-labeling laws in the future.  Washington and California were too close for comfort.  One of these years, a state's voters might actually be smart enough to vote for a GMO-labeling initiative no matter how many jillions of dollars Monsanto and the GMA have spent to brainwash the voters.  Can't let this happen.  Thank God the Grocery Manufacturers Association is nipping this little problem in the bud.