David Berman, Nashville music scene fixture and, until very recently, the front man for The Silver Jews, has a famous dad. He is Rick Berman, who, according to a recent article in PR Watch, “has perfected the art of setting up non-profit ‘charitable’ groups to advance corporate interests:”
The groups have deceptively helpful-sounding names, like “Guest Choice Network,” the “Employment Policies Institute” or the “Center for Consumer Freedom,” but really serve as well-funded attack dogs for the tobacco, alcohol, chain restaurant, tanning and other industries. The groups’ non-profit status makes their funding hard to trace, which has permitted Berman to operate in the shadows for decades while pocketing millions from unpopular industries for his work thwarting public interest legislation….
[Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] Web site outs Berman’s “charitable” groups as the lobbying tools they are, and describes how he uses them to run attack ads and implement other tactics to fight Mothers Against Drunk Driving, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other public interest groups’ efforts to raise awareness of obesity, secondhand smoke, drunk driving, mad cow disease, and other causes.
David’s pain over his dad’s chosen profession is clear in a post he made recently to his message board:
Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction:
My father.
You might be surprised to know he is famous, for terrible reasons.
My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor.
An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherf*****g son of a bitch. (sorry grandma)
You can read about him here.
Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world.
But there is the matter of Justice.
And i’ll tell you it’s not just a metaphor. The desire for it actually burns.
It hurts.
There needs to be something more. I’ll see what that might be.
What David has done in severing his relationship with his father and posting his hurt and anger publicly takes unimaginable bravery. One can only hope that his honesty has the desired effect – to throw back the curtains and let the sunlight expose this most egregious aspect of the lobbying industry.
[...] Americans Most Trumped Up Reliable Boogeyman Rachel Maddow exposes the corporate-funded Rick Berman-fueled astroturf underneath the ACORN demonization and how the media failed the American people [...]
[...] Maddow exposes the corporate-funded Rick Berman-fueled astroturf underneath the ACORN demonization and how the media failed the American people [...]
Is it me, or does Kleinheider have some stuff about his dad he needs to get off his chest?
[...] 8, 2009 · No Comments Damn, Mary Mancini has a heartbreaking post up. At least it broke my heart. Its gutsy, a little reckless, maybe, but David Berman has a story [...]
One more thing, why is Freddie’s head in the foreground up on the header there with yours in the background?
Smells like patriarchy to me. Think about it.
Well, I mean loyalty is loyalty, is it not? You either are or you are not.
Surely, there are limits but if we go around selling out our people for every unethical, immoral act they commit we’ll be doing nothing but calling each other out all day.
Maybe, I’m old school, but I don’t see bodies on the floor with a smoking gun in his father’s hand. I see a difference of opinion about the conduct of a man’s business affairs. If he would like to air those grievances to his father privately, I would advise him to do so. But this, this is distasteful.
Again, maybe I’m old school, but calling this crankybaby who likes to sell out his father in public a whistleblower sorta makes my skin crawl.
Ethical behavior is important but so is loyalty, so is blood. It may be a delicate balance and a blurry line on occasion but, in my view, this little man isn’t anywhere close to righteous.
One more thing, the elder Berman’s “creative lobbying practices” include convincing the public that there’s nothing dangerous about indoor tanning, we don’t have to monitor how much mercury is in the fish we feed our children, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving are just trying to spoil our fun.
ACK – Some of your questions are legit. Well, one, actually – has David’s adult life been subsidized by his father. I don’t have a definitive answer on that but if it has, well, then that would make him a hypocrite.
I’m interested to know, however, why you think we shouldn’t hold our elders accountable and why we should have an automatic loyalty to them no matter what their behavior.
It’s also irrelevant whether his father’s lobbying tactics supported his family while David was growing up. What did you want him to do at 12, run away?
I don’t see this as a “cathartic cleansing.” Rather, I see it as whistle-blowing at its most difficult.
You’re seriously celebrating this? These types of cathartic cleansings at the expense of elders tend to offend my sensibilities a bit more than some creative lobbying practices.
Brave? This younger Berman strikes me as whiny, petulant, ungrateful child, a 43 year-old one at that.
His daddy’s profession offends his idealist ideologies forged during his life as an “artist”? Boo-hoo. Grow up and show some fucking loyalty.
Did his daddy’s profession disturb him when it put food in his mouth as a child?
What about more recently? How has David Berman been financing his life as an “artist”? Have the Silver Jews been commercially successful or has little Berman’s adult life been at points subsided, directly or indirectly, by his daddy’s evil deeds?
Just wondering.