Booze News

FreeMyDrink Invokes Red Scare Tactics to Combat the LCB

Drink up, comrade!
Drink up, comrade! Photo: FreeMyDrink

The fight to fix or ditch the LCB has been a pretty heady mess from the get-go, no doubt. Sure, we all want cheaper booze, but at what cost to the state and its financial struggles? But with the Harrisburg-based right-leaning think tank Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives jumping into the mix this week with a new website and campaign that borrows heavily from McCarthy-era red scare tactics, the argument gets pushed deep into the realms of absurdity. The FreeMyDrink website, which puts forth talking points on why the LCB should be dismantled, appears to be shooting for a Shepard Fairey aesthetic with stylized propaganda that depicts Chairman Mao with the words “State-run Liquor Stores … Always the Chairman’s Choice.” Needless to say, it misses the mark. Rather than street cred, the site comes off like your kooky old gramps’ going off on his paranoid delusions of a secret communist plot to undermine the U.S. and its drink-cheap-or-die patriots. You remember what the Beatles sang about sparking a revolution, right? “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.”

FreeMyDrink Invokes Red Scare Tactics to Combat the LCB