Point of Clarification
From:
Edward L. Sweda, Jr.
To: <info@forces.org>
Subject: Point of clarification
Date: Nov. 4, 2003
Regarding Norman
Njomo's letter to Outback Steakhouse in Kirkland,
Washington, I read his letter to say that the sign he objected to said "Proud to Be Smoke-Free." It seems that Mr. Njomo's vehement letter might
be appropriate if the sign had said "Proud to Be Smoker-Free." Since it is
possible for people who are smokers to refrain from the voluntary act of smoking while they are in an Outback Steakhouse, smokers are, in fact, NOT
excluded as Mr. Njomo claimed when he suggested that the restaurant is proud
that it is "for nonsmokers only."
Sincerely,
Ed Sweda
From: Norman
E. Kjono
To: Edward L. Sweda, Jr.
Subject: Point of clarification
Date: Nov. 5, 2003
Mr. Sweda,
Thank you for your comments regarding my open letter to the Outback Steakhouse about its banner that it was "Proud To Be Smoke Free." My open
letter to the Outback was recently published at www.forces.org "Proud
To Be "Smokefree". While I differ with your conclusions, I appreciate
your thoughts and that you took the time to share them.
Your comments that the banner should have read "Proud To Be Smoker Free" to
merit a strong personal response are grammatically correct, but they also intentionally miss the central point. My contention is that any message that
is intentionally divisive and exclusionary regarding any lawful behavior engaged in by any individual is simply not acceptable. Once one crosses the
line to accept the premise that it is OK to demean and ostracize anyone in
the name of any political or mercantile agenda then it only becomes a question of against whom that hurtful and unacceptable behavior will be
applied. The way to address that issue is to directly inform those who promote divisive and exclusionary messages or agendas that their behavior is
out-of-line, regardless of the "justification" they have dreamed up as to why "this" is different. Intolerance is still intolerance, regardless of its
justification and regardless of the excuse is as to why "this" bigotry is "different," and therefore OK, "this time." The anti-mentality -- to demean,
to hurt, and to ostracize one's neighbors and members of one's own community
in pursuit of personal enrichment and political clout -- is unacceptable behavior under any conditions in any civil society, regardless of the
pretense crafted to justify an agenda. It is toward the anti-mentality and
the hurtful agendas that it spawns that the below comments are directed.
Contrast the statement "Proud To Be Smoke Free" with "Proud To Be Fat Free,"
which I also addressed in my letter to the Outback. Both smoking and being
overweight are lawful. Does the statement "Proud To Be Fat Free" relate to
the size of one's buns, the content of food, or both? Displaying such a banner about fat communicates a negative label about both one's physical
stature and the food that target consumers may purchase. I maintain that such a sign about fat would be tantamount to the silly extreme that I
mentioned of the Outback deciding which menu customers receive based on the
size of one's buns -- the regular menu going to those deemed to be of "appropriate" and "approved" stature or weight. Your grammatical quibbling
with "Smoker" versus "Smoke" regarding the Outback's hurtful and mean-spirited banner therefore becomes a distinction without a difference,
since both exclude, demean, and ostracize "Target Group" persons in much the
same manner.
As I pointed out several years ago to self-styled anti-tobacco and anti-fat
"Legal Terrorist" John If. Banzhaf III, Esq. of George Washington University, one cannot demean or object to the lawful behavior of an
individual without also demeaning and objecting to the individual. My comments were made to "bin-Banzhaf" at the time he promoted on his Website,
www.ash.org (September 1996), a tested and proven plan to mass cyanide product tamper with cigarette packages, the plan being devised for the
expressed purpose to kill persons who smoke. There was no legitimate justification for such behavior or distinctions in 1996, and there are none
today. We merely hear the same old tired bigot's justification line again from you: to deny that one willfully promotes negative labels and
unfavorable stereotypes about "Target Group" consumers for special-interest
grant bucks, while one does so. Banzhaf has for years been a master at claiming he is antismoking not anti-smoker, while he directly and willfully
threatens the safety and personal well-being of persons who lawfully consume
legal products of which he personally disapproves.
I also note that you are with Northeastern University, the site for the June
2003 conference of a reported 120 paid professional activists gathering together to outline a strategy to advance a litigation agenda of "Legal
Terrorism" against fast food restaurants in the name of anti-obesity. A product of that litigation strategy, as devised in large part by yourself,
Northeastern's Mr. Daynard and George Washington's Mr. Banzhaf, was a widely publicized undertaking to threaten fast food establishments, ice
cream companies, and school districts with lawsuits if they did not adopt food and beverage policy that the Boston 120 approved of. You, Mr.
Daynard, and Mr. Banzhaf are merely overlaying on food products the anti-tobacco
model of increased "Target Group" taxation, as "justified" by threatening,
negatively labeling and unfavorably stereotyping selected consumers.
Fortunately, to the benefit of all normal parents, citizens and taxpayers,
McDonalds succeeded in throwing the anti-fat jihad out of court, and the Seattle School District voted to renew its beverage vending contract despite
overt threats of personal lawsuits directed against our local school district by Mr. Banzhaf and the Boston 120. I am puzzled why we parents
with children in Seattle area schools have not heard from the Boston 120 since the school board voted to renew its vending contract in defiance of
those self-serving threats. Perhaps we have a toothless anti-fat litigation
tiger who found its special-interest school district prey to be considerably
less hapless and quiescent than anticipated. There is a message in that, one
which you and the Boston 120 will undoubtedly ignore but the Outback Steakhouse should pay careful attention to. The message is that normal
people -- those who care about their neighbors and members of their own communities -- do not put up with self-styled legal terrorists and paid
activists who preen in their personal-preference intolerance-for-bucks, while strutting before bold public banners displayed to announce that one is
proud to exclude "Target Group" consumers. That behavior becomes particularly repugnant when, as appears to be the case with the Outback, a
food service establishment engages in that hurtful behavior in a misguided
attempt to improve their own bottom line in a state that does not have a mandated restaurant or tavern smoking ban.
Statements that one is anti-smoking and not anti-smoker -- or anti-fat, not
anti-fatty -- are, to my mind, at once specious and self-serving: they allow
those of the anti-mentality to demean and vilify "Target Group" individuals
at will by attacking one's lawful behavior, while advancing the cop-out that
hyper-technically they are not really talking about the person that they intentionally demean, abuse and hurt. That argument does not follow in light
of the declared goal of anti-tobacco to "denormalize tobacco use." The only
way to "denormalize" any behavior is to address the individual. Which says
clearly that by definition to "denormalize" one's behavior is to willfully
place them outside the mainstream of public acceptance and discourse so long
as they continue to engage in lawful behavior of which activists such as yourself personally disapprove. The stated goal of anti-tobacco to which you
clearly subscribe -- to "denormalize" the lawful behavior of consuming a legal product -- therefore at once denies and defies your own self-serving
distinction without a difference to the effect that you are anti-smoking not
anti-smoker.
You are, of course, free to continue to BS yourself as you choose to justify
your own behavior, but please do not presume that others do not see it for
what it truly is. In that regard I hopefully recall that there was a time in
the past when the KKK, like anti-tobacco today, was pervasive in state politics and local government. Like anti-tobacco today, supporting the KKK
was in the past a way for politicians to garner votes and campaign contributions based on an exclusionary and mean-spirited agenda. And, like
ant-tobacco today, the KKK in the past also had a virtually unlimited number
of "studies" that "proved" the then-targets of special-interest angst were
also "inferior," thus "justifying" hurtful behavior toward them. It is interesting to note that the KKK rose to its brief period of power at the
same time that the eugenics movement, like anti-tobacco, was promoted in the
name of public health. Fortunately for we as a people and those who bore the
brunt of those agendas, both the KKK and eugenics movement promoters who would "improve the race" through selective breeding and mandated
sterilization are a properly reviled and long-gone footnote in our nation's
history. To willfully apply negative labels and unfavorable stereotypes to
one's neighbors and members of their own communities in pursuit of special-interest bucks and political clout was not acceptable behavior in
the 1920s and 1930s and it is not acceptable behavior today.
I note with interest your comment that "Since it is possible for people who
are smokers to refrain from the voluntary act of smoking while they are in
an Outback Steakhouse, smokers are, in fact, NOT excluded." First of all,
your statement denies one of anti-tobacco's most favored and highly profitable agenda platforms, that persons who smoke are addicts. Check out
historical Centers for Disease Control and Prevention historical adult smoking prevalence: Former Smokers -- those who quit smoking -- abruptly
leveled off, which is to say abruptly stopped increasing, coincident with Dr. Koop's 1988 report that declared nicotine to be addictive. Anti-tobacco
and its revenue sharing partner tobacco companies have handsomely profited
from that new consumer belief in addiction to nicotine that it so aggressively promotes, through enjoying a stabilized adult tobacco consumer
base on which increased taxes are levied. One does not voluntarily consume a
substance to which one is purportedly addicted. Which is it, Mr. Sweda, are
smokers addicts or persons who voluntarily consume tobacco products? As so
well illustrated by your conflicting statement above, perhaps what persons
who smoke and other "Target Group" individuals are really depends on the self-serving anti-mentality spin-of-the-moment.
I also considered your comment as quoted above in light of many evangelicals
who believe that they do not exclude gays or lesbians from attending church,
gays just need to acknowledge that they are inferior "sinners" who are damned to hell for eternity, and who cannot ever be one of God's "Elect,"
when they walk in the fundamentalist Christian church door. It never occurs
to the fundamentalist -- or anyone of an anti-mentality -- that no one should need to put up with such self-aggrandizing, self-inflating, prideful
and hurtful views just to attend church, in the first place. Such demeaning
views of a gay student in Wyoming apparently lead to him being strung up on
a range fence to die a few years ago. According to a recent news report members of a Christian group actually wanted to put up a memorial in a local
park to celebrate that young man's death and the "fact" that on the day he
was hung on a fence "he went to everlasting hell." What decent person should
ever be required to put up that spiritual sickness, just to not be excluded?
I thought about your distinction without a difference regarding doctors who
provide abortion services: it is lawful for a doctor to provide abortions to
consenting patients -- they apparently just need to wear a flack jacket and
bullet proof vest in today's political climate while doing so. Why should a
doctor need to keep a close watch over his shoulder for snipers, just to not
be excluded from the community that he serves?
And I thought about your distinction without a difference in terms of a
young man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas not long
ago. It is lawful to be a member of an ethnic minority, too: apparently one
merely needs to be sufficiently "humble" and properly shuffle so as to not
offend the sensibilities of "superior" members of their own community and consequently be dragged to death behind a speeding truck. It's his fault,
after all, a self-inflicted wound or injury, the anti-mentality says: had he
just humbly submitted to the abusive behavior of a "superior" and "Elect" self-anointed bigot maybe he would have survived the day.
Mr. Sweda, I am not gay, but I do not need to be gay to understand that it
is legally and morally wrong to string a fellow citizen up on a fence to die. I have personal reasons to strongly object to abortion, yet I do
understand that is my choice and my belief, and that such beliefs cannot under any circumstance ever extend to blowing up a clinic, shooting a
doctor, or interfering with those who lawfully choose to use such legal medical services. I am not an ethnic minority, but I do not need to be a
minority to understand that there is no justification for hurting others based on their ethnic origin. I am not obese, but I do not need to be so to
embrace the simple premise that a neighbor need not be of "approved" weight
or stature according to the Boston 120 to be welcome in my home to share a
meal, too. And I am not an Evangelical, nor apparently could I ever be "Elect," since I strongly believe that all are entitled to find their own
spiritual beliefs and solace as the spirit leads them in its own way and in
its own good time. The point is that people are entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, but no one has an ordained or other right to impose
their beliefs on another, particularly through tossing out hurtful negative
labels about others to line their own pockets with another pharmaceutical special-interest grant or new tax revenue-sharing dollar.
The intelligent choice for normal people is to stop trying to become
"Elect," to stop trying to run faster behind the truck, to stop accepting that "someone" "needs" to be hung on a fence every once in a while for the
"good" of society, to stop looking for a higher quality of body armor just
to safely to provide legal medical services, and to stop trying to be abnormally normal over one's weight or choice of legal products. Once we
have accomplished that change in mind set, we then run out of town on a rail
every sick sucker that promotes any agenda that says in word or deed some of
us are more "Elect," perhaps more "justified," than others. When we have finally pumped dry the cesspool of orchestrated intolerance for bucks and
clout I suspect that what we will find in that place is the same thing we find in those agendas today: utter and total emptiness,
representative of no redeeming social value whatsoever to a good and decent people.
In July 1988 federal judge William O. Osteen ordered the EPA report on
secondhand smoke to be vacated, set aside. In December 2002 the 4th circuit
appeals court reversed Judge Osteen's ruling based on jurisdiction, while explicitly affirming the importance of the issues that he raised regarding
the glaring deficiencies in the EPA's fatally flawed report on secondhand smoke. Recently tobacco companies were found to be not liable for the
alleged hazards of secondhand smoke to airline employees. The simple fact is, Mr. Sweda, that trial law and judicial review does not support
anti-tobacco's claims in support for smoking bans. Yet we find lawyers such
as yourself, Mr. Daynard, and Mr. Banzhaf promoting smoking ban and restaurant food lawsuits as if the law supported your position.
The World Health Organization recently completed the largest worldwide study
of secondhand smoke and an international cancer research group published a
study that reviewed 52 other studies of secondhand smoke related to cancer.
Both found that their results were the same as the EPA: none of their risk
factor data, even though carefully manipulated to produce desired results,
can show a risk from secondhand smoke that is supported by legitimate science. Yet we find persons associated with major universities such as
yourself, Mr. Daynard and Mr. Banzhaf promoting "studies" that you still claim support smoking bans.
We read increasing news reports of cities and counties that are repealing
smoking bans or refusing to implement them as promoted. Yet we also observe
a nearly manic pace of pharmaceutical-nicotine-sponsored organizations and
activists aggressively promoting new smoking bans. Public opinion, as illustrated in increasing news reports about unsuccessful smoking bans,
increasing editorials that oppose more smoking bans, and statements from many, many persons such as myself, also does not support your position
regarding anti-tobacco and smoking bans. Yet we routinely observe activists,
such as yourself through your response below, continuing to promote and justify smoking bans as if public opinion actually supports that agenda.
Absent fruitful judicial review, legitimate science, and public opinion
supporting anti-tobacco and anti-fat, from where does support for those agendas come? More important, how can those who lack credible support from
law, science, or public mandate continue to operate as if they were legitimate public health advocacy groups? That answer to those questions is
also the solution to the problem: those agendas come from the same people,
with the same pharmaceutical funding, to promote the same hurtful agendas,
and to line the same special-interest pockets. The solution is to not waste
any further time debating agendas that are not supported by law, science, or
the public; the answer is to utterly ignore any pretense of legitimacy for
those agendas while removing the self-serving bigots who sponsor, promote,
and support them from public office, business revenues, and influence over
public policy.
Considering the above, I find it to be amazing that persons such as
yourself, Mr. Daynard and Mr. Banzhaf still aggressively promote and support
anti-tobacco's agenda to "denormalize" the lawful behavior of legally consuming tobacco products that is engaged in by literally tens of millions
of people who are not part of the Boston 120 elitist group. Truthfully, I believe that there must be something Freudian about that: a few thousand
self-serving activists and politicians, along with a few dozen pharmaceutical and tobacco companies that profit through supporting those
agendas, and who rake in billions each year through negatively labeling and
unfavorable stereotyping their neighbors, constituents, and members of their
own communities, now seek to "denormalize" the behavior of millions who do
not share in or support that self-serving agenda. Last I heard, those whose
agendas are not supported by law, legitimate science, or public opinion are
the ones who have "denormalized" themselves. It appears to me that, realizing at least subconsciously that they are not normal, those of the
anti-mentality seek to lower the bar for dysfunctional behavior to remain comfortable in their current state of intellectual deficiency rather than
growing up with the rest of humanity. Which brings me to my principal objection to the anti-mentality and the special-interest agendas that it
spawns: a few thousand "abnormals" seek to drag millions of consumers and our society down to their own level of self-serving intolerance, so the
"Elect" political insiders can make more money and garner more clout. That
cannot and will not occur.
So explain away, justify, and hyper-technicalize your personal version of
anti-tobacco and anti-fat intolerance all you wish, Mr. Sweda. When the dust
settles we're merely back to self-serving "justification" for the current round of the same old "find an excuse to demean, vilify, ostracize and
demean one's neighbor for fun, bucks and clout." We also confront the same
filthy reality today as we did in the 1920s with eugenics, the 1930s with the
KKK, the 1940s with Jews, the 1950s with communists, the 1960s with civil rights, the 1970s with hippies and rock 'n roll, the 1980s with gays
and lesbians, the 1990s with anti-tobacco, and now -- for a smashing beginning for our new millennium -- anti-fat in the 2000s. It seems to me
that with now nearly a century of "on-line" experience with "bigots for bucks and clout" promoters we the people should finally get it: there is no
excuse for intolerant and bigoted behavior under any legitimate circumstance
at any time. And it seems to me that we as a civil society should stop debating the merits of the current rounds of junk science that "justify"
such mean-spirited behavior, to finally turn our disgust in the direction that it truly belongs: toward those who promote such a despicable basis for
public policy in the first place.
I do appreciate that the Outback Steakhouse did take its hurtful and
exclusionary banner down immediately after I voiced objection to it. Yet the
ban policy that excludes "Target Group" persons who smoke in pursuit of bottom line bucks is still there. So long as that policy is there I will not
be, even though I do not personally use the lounge where smoking was permitted. The bottom-line message to the Outback Steakhouse and other
hospitality businesses about smoking bans is actually quite simple: those who play with anti-mentality snakes get bit. To put it another way, the
Outback can declare persons who smoke to not be among its "Elect," but then
they should not be amazed if the "Non-Elect" do not choose to patronize their temple of intolerance, either -- with the corresponding effect of
diminished proceeds in the collection plate.
Speaking for myself, I really do not care what hyper-technical word-parsing
distinctions without a difference today's intolerant bigots choose to advance to justify their self-serving and delinquent behavior. My personal
view is that it's OK for some abnormals to be self-righteous, they merely need to be prepared to pay for the privilege of being so. It will cost the
Outback at least a few meals a month from me and my family for the foreseeable future. They have their policy, we have our money. They can keep
their policy, we'll keep our money. Unfortunately for the Outback, never the
twain shall again meet.
When, as news reports about the disastrous economic effects of smoking bans
and anti-fat lawsuits continues to surface, politicians and hospitality business owners roll their eyes at meetings with pharmaceutical-sponsored
activists and say "Oh, now I get it, you're one of 'them,'" we'll start making progress on eliminating self-serving agendas from our public policy.
Politicians and hospitality business owners will do so for the most credible
of all reasons: they are coming to understand that their political and economic survival requires they reject the premise that they can demean and
ostracize about 30 percent of their constituent or consumer base and remain
successful. That, Mr. Sweda, is the final and well-deserved requiem for anti-fat and anti-tobacco.
Thanks For Sharing,
Norman E. Kjono
PS: Kindly send regards to "Cyanide John" "bin
Banzhaf" and the rest of the Boston 120 from me. We parents here in Seattle are wondering how many
millions we need to budget to finance the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's
anti-obesity agenda against our kid's schools over soda pop vending machines. A response would be appreciated because we are presently trying to
figure out how to pay our teachers a decent wage while they educate our
children -- the costs of the Boston 120's threatened and predictable lawsuits could make the difference between whether our children are educated
or have no school to go to. Be assured many parents are waiting for you and
the Boston 120. |
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