Consumer advocate David Horowitz' nine Emmys, nationally syndicated show, Fight Back! With David Horowitz, bestselling book, Fight Back! And Don't Get Ripped Off, and plentiful honors from consumer, civic and religious groups make him an imposing combatant in an interview. But Contributing Editor David Rensin found him unpretentious, though fervent; witty and inexhaustible. Said Rensin later, "I'm going to give him a call before I make any major purchases."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: Who gets ripped off the most?

David Horowitz: Senior citizens. They fall for every scam you can possibly think of because their education did not teach them basic consumerism. My mother is 82 years old, but she's very aware, because she learned on the streets. She still lives in New York; she still fights with the grocer and the fruit merchant and the butcher. When I say fights, I mean she's out there asking questions. People in their 30s, 40s don't ask questions. Kids today are very concerned about television commercials: They want to know why the pictures on the outside of the boxes don't look like the products inside. They ask why we should buy these things. There's a whole new generation growing up.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Can you imagine a world in which you wouldn't have a job such as yours?

David Horowitz: No. When I started, about 15 years ago, management said to me, "Do you think you can do this on a regular basis without repeating yourself? How can you get all these different complaints?" And I said, "If you had five people doing this and you solicited for mail, you would never, ever run out of ideas." There is an endless amount of material that hasn't ever been touched. It's like a vast warehouse of some unexplored natural resource. As long as people are on this earth, there's going to be a new consumer problem every day: a product that doesn't work, a new kind of scam or a new investment scheme.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Why does American business want to rip off the consumer?

David Horowitz: It doesn't. Business is in business to stay in business and not give people the business; otherwise, it's out of business. In fact, I think corporate America is starting to wake up a little bit. Consumerism is now becoming a priority of major corporations. But that has nothing to do with hyping to sell a product. Salesmen will do anything they possibly can, within the legitimate guidelines that are placed on them by the Government and by their own voluntary standards, to make a sale.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: What's your gut feeling--was Coke forced to bring back the original formula or was it all planned beforehand?

David Horowitz: As a guy who was brought up on the streets of New York, a Bronx kid, I'm very suspicious about this whole thing. I feel that somewhere in the bowels of Madison Avenue, some guys got together in a little dark room with a green lamp shade, sat around the table and one said, "I've got a great idea to make Coke a word that will be on the lips of everyone in the world for months and years and to increase our sales and our marketing in a way that we never thought possible. We'll announce that we're going to change the formula. Now, think about that. If people love the new taste, they'll go crazy. If people love the original formula, they'll go nuts. Then what we'll do is bring back the old Coke, which we'll call something like Classic Coke, and we will now have more shelf space at the supermarket."

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Defend "new and improved."

David Horowitz: It's another one of these Madison Avenue hype terms that are just jokes. And people fall for it. The Federal Government says that in order to label a product NEW AND IMPROVED, you can only call it that for a limited period of time and that something must actually have been done to change the product. But if a product is new and improved, what was the old stuff--crap? What does new and improved mean? Does it mean that they put in a new ingredient that's going to get your wash a little whiter? Who's going to tell the difference? Does it mean that they put a scent in the soap powder that's going to make your wash smell a little better?

We are psyched out by the advertising industry. There are surveys in which you're actually wired up and they determine how a television commercial you're watching translates into what you buy at the supermarket. We're conditioned more than Pavlov's dogs. They can condition us to buy anything, to respond to words. Organic is one. People buy organic shampoo. They buy organic food. You know what the word organic means? Legally, absolutely zip. Hypoallergenic is another one. I wear more make-up than most women, and I happen to be allergic to mascara. I'm still trying to find out which ingredient I'm allergic to, because even though I use hypoallergenic mascara, my eyes puff up. So I don't use mascara. I use eyebrow pencil--and my eyes still puff up.

I can go with this list forever. Vitamin enriched is another. Healthful. And the clincher, natural goodness. The only way we can reverse this trend is through awareness and information. That's the kind of advocacy that I'm really behind.