Happy Meals: Happy Happy Joy Joy, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #176

June 28, 2010 Mike Gold 0 Comments

The professional buzz-killers are at it again.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, also known in these circles as the holier-than-thou food fascists, want to sue McDonald’s because they “unfairly and deceptively” market toys to children in its Happy Meals.

Let’s see. They say there’s a hamburger in there. And fries or some sort of salad or fruit; your choice. And a drink. And a toy. It sounds like a Cracker Jack idea to me, but the Consumption Jihad believes otherwise, and they’re ready to fight.

“McDonald’s marketing has the effect of conscripting America’s children into an unpaid drone army of word-of-mouth marketers, causing them to nag their parents to bring them to McDonald’s,” Center for Science in the Public Interest Big Brother Stephen Gardner stated.

Yeah, that pretty much describes how advertising works. If you like something, you try to get more of it and you share your experiences with others. If you don’t want your child to endure these horrors, keep them away from television. You’ll save a fortune in cereal expenditures as well.

Of course, your child will hate you but don’t sweat it: if you’re one of them Food Nazis he/she/it will anyway. Better you should use television as a learning experience – tell your kids why you object to something.

Here’s a fact that might surprise the intellectual elite: McDonald’s is not in the health food business. Here’s another shock: kids love McDonald’s, and they do not need to hear about it on television to do so. I was taken to my first McDonalds in 1955 at the age of 4½ and I thought it was the best tasting meal I ever had. And it probably was. McDonalds just started franchising – they didn’t advertise on television in those days.

I will gleefully concede that a diet of pure crap is not good. But in moderation McDonalds really is okay. Your kids will grow up just fine as long as their Happy Meals are a part, and a small part, of a generally well-thought out diet.

But the CSPI goosesteppers act as though everybody is stupid but them. It’s the parents’ responsibility to raise their children, not the courts, and certainly not a gaggle of totalitarianist food fascists. Parents do all kinds of stupid things; you don’t have to pass a test in order to impregnate or get impregnated. But the absolute fact is our species has continued to survive, to thrive, to overpopulate, and to suck the life forces out of our planet. We have more information at our fingertips than all previous generations combined. We have a greater ability to educate than ever before.

Sadly, a lot of that information is contradictory due, in large part, to the Center for Science in the Public Interest and their fellow travelers. What was okay last year might be on the shit list next year, and vice versa. I still don’t know what to do about eggs… except on Halloween.

CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson believes “an awful lot of parents would be relieved if this one pressure was removed from them.” Well, thank you Michael for doing our thinking for us. Go sue everybody that does things you don’t like, and do not let us make our own choices. Only the Center for Science in the Public Interest should be allowed to raise our children.

Media metaphysician and www.ComicMix.com editor-in-Chief Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website above for times). Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political and cultural rants pop up each and every day at the same venue.