July
15, 2006 - So, I learn
from Michael Siegel’s blog that Smokers’ Rights Groups and FORCES are
now “ninjas”. The antis say so! As ninjas were imperial assassins with the
highest warrior rank, I feel rather honoured on behalf of all. I don’t
mind being an assassin – if the assassination concerns the killing of
superstitious hysteria, fraud and especially lies such as those recently
spoken by the US Surgeon General. Less flattering, however, is the
comparison between FORCES and the long-defunct National Smokers’ Alliance.
Let me
state, first of all, that if we had just half of the means the NSA had,
a good chunk of antitobacco operatives would either be in jail already
or have a very bad life indeed, and that is beyond the shade of doubt.
That is because the mountain of easily-demonstrable frauds perpetrated
by those criminals would not go unpunished. For the uninformed, half of
the NSA budget would, to the best of my knowledge, amount to several
million dollars a year.
Second,
comparing FORCES to the NSA is insulting since the NSA never wanted to
openly challenge
the passive smoke fraud – and they certainly had the means to take
gangs such as the Cancer of American Society (error intentional) to court.
They could have easily defeated the antismoking cancer when it was at a
much earlier stage of metastasis 10-15 years ago. But the NSA, created and
financed by Philip Morris, followed the company’s policy to allow the
health “authorities” to scam, unopposed, the American population (and
unfortunately the rest of the world).
There is
more to say about this. The NSA participated to the 1997 FORCES
International two-day conference in Washington, DC, as an “observer”.
After our statement that the only key to the defeat of antitobacco was the
exposure of the passive smoke fraud the NSA actively lobbied the numerous
participants from all over the world (Japan, England, Italy, Denmark and
so on) against FORCES! The tobacco-financed SRGs of the time
promptly obeyed, as they were headed by well-paid lackeys who thought that
all it took to “fix” things was abundant PR money and a good whine. We can
see the results of that stupidity today – a foolishness that still
persists with the conviction by some that the epidemiological fraud is an
issue secondary to other rights. As soon as Big Tobacco closed the money
taps because of the Master Settlement Agreement almost all of those BS
groups shut down, as the opportunists who managed them went to draw blood
somewhere else.
I
believe, however, that the social function of those groups was far more
important than it seemed – and it wasn’t at all that of defending the
right to smoke. It was quite the opposite, in fact. Their function was
crowd control, actuated by the tobacco industry itself. Smokers were
(and are) a population mass larger than any political party and any
minority. Smokers have an immense (potential) power that ranges from
political to economic but – like any power – it needs to be focussed and
coordinated. If smokers were to mobilize in an organised way, they could
easily destabilize and flip antitobacco in a very short time (and this is
true even today) – even regardless of the epidemiological frauds used
against them.
So,
Philip Morris and much of the tobacco industry did their “socially
responsible” bit to help “public health authorities” to con the population
and ensure social stability: they financed smokers’ representation.
The industry ended up absorbing the myriad of spontaneously emerging
grass-root organizations that were popping up everywhere in the US and in
the world, outraged by the perversion of liberty and science. The message
of the multinationals was clear: “Look folks, we are Big Tobacco. We
are rich and we are powerful. We have hooks in the corridors of power of
any nation. Leave the fighting to us -- trust us: we have
professionals, we know how to handle things, and we will look after you”.
They looked after us, alright: they concentrated on stupid lifestyle
issues, cultural stuff, lavish conventions without a political focus, and
on rights of assorted nature. In that way they polarized the attention of
smokers who now felt represented by the “powers-that-be”; and smokers
stopped organizing themselves.
But the
tobacco-financed SRGs absolutely and carefully avoided the key issues:
the passive smoke fraud, the institutional problem concerning the
corruption of the health authorities that adopted it, and the perversion
of constitutional liberties and human rights. They positively refused
to educate smokers on the true state of the “science” (that
science is not, but
junk statistics), and they did not take the frauds to court,
leaving the millions they were supposed to represent defenceless,
ignorant, disorganized and especially devoid of the will to fight (this
reality still persists today with the few surviving tobacco-funded SRGs,
on whose websites the first things you see are pharmaceutical cessation
ads and statements that you must be 18 or older to enter and read!
Click here for a pathetic example; the president of this organization
is "so happy she quit smoking", as smoking is really-really bad for you -
but...).
FORCES
was branded “extremist” and got carefully isolated because it did not go
along with the deception.
That crowd control manoeuvre allowed the frauds on smoking to become
entrenched and a part of the culture while effectively preventing smokers
from achieving a relatively easy victory. After the 1997 conference I was
personally invited more than once to join those “smokers’ rights” front
groups – generous paycheque included, of course. There were just some
"small" conditions attached, either implicitly or explicitly: you shall
not expose the statistical fraud; you shall not challenge the health
authorities; you shall not address the endemic institutional corruption of
"public health". My reply that if I wanted to be a whore I would have
been either a tobacco control operative or an operative of their
organization sealed, of course, my fate with them and with their masters.
When the
NSA folded in 1999 I made a point of calling the president Tom Humber on
the phone at the organization's headquarters; I could hear the echo of the
empty rooms. Now that it was all over, I said, perhaps we could "inherit"
some of the materials the NSA had, as there was nothing to lose and we
could use them. But there was nothing - no databases, no lists of
members (they used to claim they had five millions), and no documents of
any value. "All we have and ever had, Gian, is on our website; there is
nothing else - honest", said Tom. The NSA website (of which we
still have a copy, saved before it disappeared) had a few, sparse
documents mostly assembled thanks to the good will of some researchers who
mostly worked for free or peanuts, and motivated by ideology and by a
sense of justice. I am convinced that the president - this time - was
sincere. The NSA - its millions of members, its powerful organization, its
skilled lobbyists in the corridors of power - was a
multimillion-dollar-a-year bluff - just like the core of evidence
of antitobacco is. The money all disappeared in lavish paycheques, grand
lifestyles and expense accounts. Smokers got screwed all along. And
the story of the NSA, although the most dramatic, is certainly not unique.
Am I ever
happy that I did not take their offer! And I have to admit that I am
rather proud that my integrity is not negotiable in cash or other
benefits, anyway. Truth comes first. From all of this it should be quite
clear how ridiculous it is to compare FORCES with the NSA, or to claim
that FORCES got money from the tobacco industry. We are still here, aren't
we?... But thanks again for calling us ninjas, dear “public health
advocates”: we are looking forward to "kill" as many of you bastards as we
can.
Gian Turci
