Joe Jackson and the common enemy
Friday, February 28, 2014 at 13:40 Further to yesterday's post (E-cigs, I'm not an expert but …) musician Joe Jackson has responded to one of the comments:
I agree with the last post - we SHOULD all unite in the common cause of fairness, a free market, and getting the 'Public Health' monster off our backs. Unfortunately too many people can't see the wood for the trees. I think it's INEVITABLE that vapers and the producers of e-cigs should try to define themselves AGAINST, rather than with, smoking and smokers.
If you are marketing e-cigs, why would you not take advantage of the enormous power of the antismoking industry and use it in your own favour? And if you vape rather than smoke, of course you're going to think it's because e-cigs are 'better' - healthier, less stinky, whatever. OK, not all vapers, but many. Imagine that for decades, we had been bombarded with negative propaganda and restrictions on drinking coffee; and many people had therefore given it up and now have orange juice with their breakfast instead. Do you really expect 'juicers' to stand up for 'coffeers'?
I'm allergic to dogs, but if someone tried to pass a total dog ban, I would oppose it, on principle. But how many people can see beyond the end of their own nose, and think that way? I'd have to say, not many, and that is one of the most depressing things I've learned from getting involved in the whole smoking issue. The pub industry, for instance, should have fought the smoking ban en masse, on principle - the principle of being able to run their pubs how they want - but all they cared about was whether their own business would suffer if there wasn't a 'level playing field'.
I don't think many smokers or vapers think they have a common cause. But we do have a common enemy, and the only hopeful thing I see in Public Health attacking vaping is that it makes their dishonesty and nastiness more and more obvious. I think we will at some point see a general (delayed) reaction against the excesses of the healthist nanny state, but we still have a way to go.
Joe makes a lot of points, many of which I agree with. In particular, I support his contention that smokers and vapers have a common enemy.
And not just smokers and vapers. People who enjoy alcohol, fatty food or dairy products, not to mention sugary drinks.
The common enemy are politicians and 'public health' campaigners who think they know what's best for us and will do anything in their power to dictate how ordinary, law-abiding adults live their lives.
A handful might revel in being "outlaws" but the overwhelming majority of people don't want to live like that. That's why a group like Forest exists to fight excessive legislation whenever and wherever it raises its head. We want to be part of society not outlawed from it.
The 'good' news is, we have a plan for a campaign that will fight our "common enemy" on a broader front. Hopefully it will unite not only smokers and vapers but everyone who feels their choices are being threatened by an increasingly intrusive nanny/bully state.
It's called Action on Consumer Choice.
Watch this space.
Reader Comments (5)
Never heard of Joe Jackson but will now look him up. Bravo, sir! Inspirational
I prefer outlaw to "unreconstructed smoker" but it depends on what box we're shoved into. There is, at least, some honour and pride in being an outlaw although I don't want to be pushed that way.
I look forward to hearing what Action on Consumer Choice intends to do.
Action on Consumer Choice sounds interesting indeed. I just hope that you, Simon (or whoever will be running it), will be at pains to make sure that it doesn’t become a worthy mouthpiece just for vapers/obese people/drinkers etc, whilst we smokers - who were your original members, and indeed, your original raison d’etre - won’t get sidelined by anti-smokers from within these new targeted groups (because, as you will know from experience and the comments on your previous post, there are many of those lurking superciliously within these new groups; aka the “I know I’m overweight, but at least I don’t smoke” brigade!) It would be dreadful to find ourselves effectively outcast from the best-known and best-established smokers’ supporter group in the same way as we are outcast from pretty much everywhere else now, and even worse to find ourselves fighting the same unpleasant battles against prejudice, insults and, sometimes, downright hatred, on the comments board here as we do elsewhere.
Just a little plea from a beleaguered smoker and regular reader ...
We are all in it together,everyone! Every man woman and child is in this fight. Nanny wont stop with smokers,fatties,drinkers,child lunches at school. No they will be after even themselves before its over. They have to many irons in the fire not to. They are already crossing paths over the e-cig controversy. It would seem the EU nanny staters are even ready to fight a war in the Ukraine after finding out the EU and the UNITED STATES meaning Obama were financing the protestors. Then we find the former president was behind suing Australia over tobacco..........
Ukraine turmoil could be a setback for tobacco firms
GENEVA, Feb 28 (Reuters) – The fall of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich could have an unlikely impact on a wider battle: the global fight by health campaigners to restrict tobacco marketing, which may later affect alcohol and unhealthy foods too.
Yanukovich’s government took the lead in challenging Australia after it enacted tough restrictions on the packaging of cigarettes, a move that supporters said heralded a new global wave of public health legislation.
In March 2012, Ukraine launched a case at the World Trade Organisation to try to overturn the Australian law, a step seen by anti-tobacco campaigners as a stalling tactic by a government with little interest in the issue, and whose legal bills were being met at least in part by one or more tobacco firms.
Now Ukraine’s change of government, and its empty coffers, puts the challenge against Australia into question.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/ukraine-crisis-tobacco-idUSL6N0LX1RS20140228
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Op Eds 2/12/2014 at 15:03:11
Washington Orchestrated Protests Are Destabilizing Ukraine
The protests in the western Ukraine are organized by the CIA, the US State Department, and by Washington- and EU-financed Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that work in conjunction with the CIA and State Department. The purpose of the protests is to overturn the decision by the independent government of Ukraine not to join the EU.
The US and EU were initially cooperating in the effort to destroy the independence of Ukraine and make it a subservient entity to the EU government in Brussels. For the EU government, the goal is to expand the EU. For Washington the purposes are to make Ukraine available for looting by US banks and corporations and to bring Ukraine into NATO so that Washington can gain more military bases on Russia's frontier.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Washington-Orchestrated-Pr-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-Crisis_NGOs_Protest_Russia-140212-424.html
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Where will it end in another world war!
As a non-smoker but a civil libertarian, I recognise the implications of increased crackdowns on smoking disguised as a 'health issue', but it's a hard sell to other well meaning liberals like me. They'd see it at once if the prejudice was, say, racism, but don't recognise they're being taught (with state funding) an unconscious prejudice against a 'bad habit'.
Maybe there just has to be a 'what's in it for me' aspect to such campaigns - a sense that one's own small freedoms, informed adult choices and pleasures are under attack from irrational puritans - and I agree a broader front is what's needed.
Looking forward with interest to more on Action on Consumer Choice, and in the hope of playing a more active part.