smoking healthier than homosexuality?

Justina reports that the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, has caused a stir by telling students at the University of Tasmania this week that smoking is healthier than living a homosexual lifestyle, at least for men, and that smokers deserve a big apology for being unfairly demonised.

“The claim was made during a debate on same-sex marriage with Greens leader, Christine Milne,” says Justina, “and while Wallace's comments may not prevent Tasmania from becoming the first Australian state to legalise gay marriage he does shed some much needed light on dodgy official health statistics claiming that smokers have the worst health outcomes than any other community group and as such deserve to be taxed exorbitantly for their vice.”

“Wallace presented the gay community's own health statistics showing that gays have a higher rate of illicit drug taking, mental health problems suicide and shorter lives than any other community group - ostensibly because of discrimination – and because of this deserve to be given exorbitant sums of money from the public purse.”

“Bearing in mind that smokers receive far more discrimination than gays  – and it’s officially sanctioned, too,” says Justina, “it does seem ridiculous that smokers are taxed for self-medicating themselves and yet gays claim health funding for illicit drug taking!”

“The most vocal critic of Wallace's comments so far is Australian Marriage Equality national convener, Alex Greenwich, who called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to boycott the Christian Lobby 's national conference next month – but a spokesperson for the PM claimed that her attendance at the event would not be an endorsement of such comments.”

"Greenwich claimed that the Christian Lobby was basing its campaign against gay marriage on fear rather than facts and was hurting vulnerable gay people," says Justina, "and yet that’s the same argument smokers have been using for decades against those in government hell bent on demonising them – but fat lot of good it did them – the more they were stressed and denormalised, the more they smoked and the more tobacco tax they paid!”

“Wallace concluded the debate by claiming that further normalising homosexuality with the attribution of marriage is wrong because it encourages young men into a lifestyle that may reduce their lives by up to 20 years,'' says Justina, “and his clincher was a comparison with smokers whose lives may be reduced by seven to 10 years.”

“We tell all our kids at school they shouldn't smoke, and yet encourage them to embrace the homosexual lifestyle!”

See also:

smokers should read gay pride book


smokers pay unfair health risk penalties

Anti-smoking media tarts

The bulk of anti-smoking ‘research’ has, according to Becky, been conducted by a very small number of people in the public heath field who then promote their research via media and public presentations, gaining more and more prominence for themselves, warranting them being called media tarts.

“Tobacco control was a sweet deal by which governments could legitimately claim a much bigger slice of Big Tobacco’s massive profits for their own revenue – as well as slugging the hapless smokers with tobacco tax,” explains Becky, “but what has not been much publicized (for obvious reasons) is that in return for giving governments a means by which they can increase revenue – and save lives, hopefully – the WHO made two demands: give us a cut of the loot and employ our anointed anti-tobacco activists in lucrative lifelong positions within public health departments as tobacco ‘controllers’.”

“I don’t have to tell you who these anti-smoking public health tarts are – you know who they are already by their regular appearances on TV, the radio and in newspapers whenever they want to announce some ‘new’ research or some draconian tobacco control measure.”

“These anti-smoking public health tarts have been around since the early days of the war against smoking - when they were mediocre university students with no prospects and thought it would be a lark to join some radicals going around knocking fags out of old men’s’ mouths.”

“They got into the anti-smoking movement in its early days, and have benefited enormously from the tobacco fraud perpetrated upon us,” says Becky. “They received first class tickets and accommodation for all of the World Conferences on Tobacco and Health – rarely attending any of the presentations – and they’re now at retirement age.”

“Rather than collecting their lucrative government pensions and moving on to a new life, these guys cannot give up and will not give up,” sighs Becky. “They’ve made a hatred of smokers their entire life focus, and despite their huge gains in tobacco control some of them are still deeply resentful that the Godber Blueprint goal of 1975 – ‘there will be no smoking by 2000’ - never materialized.”

“By seeing Big Tobacco as the source of the problem, it was felt that once its media, marketing and political campaigning was banned that smoking would stop,” says Becky. “Obviously, for smoking to have continued – and to have attracted a new generation of smokers – it is not the industry’s fault, and could very well be the fault of the anti-smoking media tarts themselves in bringing the issue to the fore time and time again.”

“In many ways, some of these guys have been as much duped by the system as ordinary non-smokers have been,” explains Becky. “Some genuinely expected that their work would see the end of smoking by 2000, but those who saw the bigger picture – that it was never intended to ban smoking – are delighted that the media spotlight remains on them and their work continues with a new generation of smokers.”

“Unfortunately for them, though, it’s not just their age that is catching up with them,” laughs Becky. “Their bogus old research – tarted up in a million different ways to make it look relevant forty years later – is becoming as much a joke in media circles as their autocratic styles.”

“The younger generation of smokers sees these sad old anti-smoking media tarts as deceptive frauds peddling self-serving propaganda under the guise of public health credibility and scholarship,” explains Becky. “They are not fooled by old farts calling themselves 'Dr' when, in fact, it is a PhD in some obscure social science that these guys have, not a medical degree; and neither are they fooled by the so-called anti-tobacco ‘research’ because much of the evidence to support anti-smoking research was simply made up – similar to the Climategate research.”

“Also, the anti-smokers dream that smokers will be legally discriminated against in employment, opening up employment for the less qualified, is being torn down,” says Becky. “Colorado, Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee and Virginia have enacted anti-discrimination protection for smokers - putting them into a ‘protected’ class - and several states have adopted measures preventing local bodies from enacting further smoking restrictions.”

“The autocratic style of the anti-smokers – we are right and you are wrong – is seen as stupid and old-fashioned,” says Becky. “It worked well in the 20th century with the regimented children of the Baby Boomers, but Gen Y is altogether a much smarter generation – very media savvy – and can see through these old media tarts and what they’re doing – trying to justify the persecution of smokers as a health measure!”

Read more by Becky on this issue:

Bogus health research

Sinful Pleasures

Licensed to smoke?

Le Grand Fag Parasite

self-employment in parasitic britain

parasites and brain drains

rights and responsibilities

Under the social contract we are all pretty much aware of our rights and responsibilities, but Carmel wants to make it known that the only right that smokers have at present is the legal right to buy tobacco products - they have NO rights relating to discrimination against them shown when they actually use their legal product.

“When I returned to work after a long break I was shocked by the change in attitude of the people around me,” says Carmel. “I thought I had a legal right to challenge anyone who used smoking as a reason to hire, fire or vilify someone – but that isn’t true at all.”

“I agree that cigarette smoking is a health hazard to smokers and those caught in the slipstream of cigarette smoke; and I am well aware that it is a dirty, highly addictive and expensive habit having been banned world-wide in workplaces - and public buildings,” says Carmel. “I not only uphold that law but also consider it to be an excellent law, but I am adamant that the choice to smoke is personal and I should not be discriminated against, or vilified, because of that choice.”

“What’s the good of being able to buy a legal product that you can’t use?” asks Carmel. “And why is it okay to discriminate against and vilify smokers when it is not okay, for instance, to behave that way towards someone else who is different in some way?”

“What sort of society are we living in that allows this situation to exist?” asks Carmel. “I pay my taxes like everyone else – actually a whole lot more tax because I smoke – and I expect to be protected by my government under the social contract. It is taking my money but not protecting me!”

"If governments worldwide banned the sale of the substance, and ceased reaping a profit from nicotine addicts like me," says Carmel, "then I’d have a real chance to face my addiction and conquer it."

“I grew up within a generation that thought drugs were groovy and smoking cigarettes was a sign of sophistication,” says Carmel, “so I am not only dealing with nicotine addiction but also a powerful emotional factor supporting my smoking habit.”

“The more authorities dictate to me what I can and cannot do, the more likely I am to dig my heels in,” says Carmel. “I know it is no longer fashionable to smoke, but giving up cigarettes is not going to be as easy for me as discarding my flares and platform shoes – and why should I when I actually enjoy smoking?”

“Unlike drivers who have a god-given right to emit noxious vehicular fumes, smokers have NO such right because smoking has no 'social utility'; and, unlike drinkers, smokers can't even smoke 'responsibly' because cigarette smoke apparently never dissipates and always offends.”

“Furthermore, because smoking is a ‘choice’, smokers have NO redress against discrimination in employment and accommodation and vilification from the public at large (unless, of course, they also belong to a 'real' minority group).”

“The ONLY right smokers have is the right to purchase tobacco providing they’re 18+ and can afford it – but there’s absolutely nowhere in a built-up area where we can smoke in peace and quiet without being vilified,” says Carmel. “I guess the next obvious legislation is to ban smoking beyond city limits – forcing all smokers to sell up and move.”

“Hey guys, we vote and we pay a sin-tax for smoking so how about giving us a break?”

Read more by Carmel on this issue:

workplace nicotine nazis

sniffing out smokers

smelly co-workers

Is smoking a choice or a need?

street government

Sapphire believes that there are two governments in every land – one ruled by the young and free which operates in the streets, and the other ruled by the geriatrics and health nuts which has no jurisdiction over her and young people generally.

"When bars and clubs start enforcing bans on drugs decreed by the public health lobby we'll just move the party outside or go back to what we've been doing for years -- partying at home," laughs Sapphire. "I feel sorry, sort of, for the hospitality industry losing out on us, but the bar and club owners really should have taken a stand."

"Their main source of income -- and attraction -- came from us, not the geriatrics and the health nuts running the public health lobby," says Sapphire. "It's ridiculous that they've forced us outside to smoke or do drugs. Hardly anybody is taking advantage of the smoke-free environment inside, and of those most are so old that they are not going to be around much longer."

"How is the government going to made amends to the hospitality industry when these bans close down thousands of bars and clubs?" asks Sapphire. "What about the tourist industry? What young people would want to come here when the whole country is geared for health nuts and geriatrics trying to live for eternity?"

"Who wants a night out at the gym or a place where the old folks hang out in their drug free zones?"

"I'm not sure which group is more responsible than the other for the current crackdown on all of our vices," says Sapphire, "but there's definitely a health agenda behind it and I think alcohol is going to be next."

"Like I said, it won't bother me what they do because I have my street government," says Sapphire, "but the world is going to become an awfully boring place for everyone else when all the health bans on drugs take effect."

"Bring back the likes of cigar chewing Winston Churchill and vodka swilling Boris Yeltsin," laughs Sapphire. "Now they were politicians to admire and would have kicked the current politically correct idiots back to kindergarten where they belong."

Read more by Sapphire:

health nuts, geriatrics and smokers

unruly teen alienated by stepfamily

We’re all gonna die!

drugs create genius?

health and safety madness

Tobacco and America's Convict Past

In accordance with the official story of America's glorious past, Mikki was expecting to find pilgrims and martyrs in her ancestry, but instead she found a convicted felon who evaded execution in the Old Country by transportation and worked as a slave alongside kidnapped Negroes on the tobacco plantations of Virginia.

"Bearing in mind that many Americans can only trace their ancestors back to the 1800s, I'm just happy to have found my ancestor, and don't feel any shame about it,” says Mikki, “but I do feel anger about the lies our government fed to us about our glorious past and kept us in complete ignorance about our convict past -- and now I can understand better why tobacco has suddenly become such a dirty word."

"If the smokers of 18th century Europe knew that the stuff they tamped into their pipes was related to the misery and death of slaves, felons or otherwise, on the tobacco plantations of the New World -- as well as the evil doings of slave-drivers and profiteers -- this knowledge may have changed the history of smoking," says Mikki. "More likely, though, their attitude would be the same as today's motorists who know full well that the stuff they pump into their vehicles is related to the death of our troops and innocent civilians in Iraq -- as well as the evil doings of our political masters and related war profiteers and oil barons -- and rather than changing history by changing their habits they'd choose, instead, to ignore the evils happening in far away places."

"After 1775, when transportation to the old American colonies ceased -- and commenced in the new colonies in Australia, for the purpose of nation building rather than as enslavement for the enrichment of others -- the Founding Fathers and esteemed citizens just buried their dirty past,” says Mikki, “and by that I don't mean their ties to England but the fact that so many of them were engaged in white slavery, either as tobacco planters, traders or shippers or as transported felons working on the plantations."

"Many of these so-called esteemed citizens would have changed their names -- accounting for why so many Americans can't trace their ancestors -- and those that didn't would have concocted fanciful stories about their past or would have remained shamefully silent (like my family did)."

"Ancestry just wasn't talked about until recent times, was it?" asks Mikki. "I guess past generations had an inkling that their roots were tarnished in some way, and that's why the shameful silence was perpetuated and the glorious birth of the colonies was romanticised to such an extent that we all thought we were related to sweet little Pilgrims. Pah!"

"The South has long had to bear the guilt of Negro slavery, but how many of us know about the white slave trade that continued well after 1775?” asks Mikki. “It was a system euphemistically called 'indentured servitude' by which English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh citizens were swept off the streets and workhouses (for no other reason than failure to find work) and transported to the colonies and enslaved.”

“And how many of us know that a lot of these unfortunates before 1775 were actually convicted felons with death sentences commuted to transportation to America to work as slaves on tobacco plantations?" asks Mikki. "The shipping merchants gained more money by passing these felons off as 'indentured servants' and although they acted unscrupulously towards the slave buyers in the white slave markets, they actually did the felons a favor because 'indentured servants' tended to survive their slavery a lot better than the known felons."

"I can understand that those whose ancestors died or lived miserable lives on the old tobacco plantations may now wish to wipe the industry off the face of the earth, but they're 400 years too late in their stop-smoking campaign."

"I can't see how denying today's smokers a small pleasure is going to put right an old evil," says Mikki. "As far as I know, no slaves are working in the tobacco industry today."

"These people should open their eyes and hearts to what's happening in other industries -- especially the offshore global industries profiting from war and slave labor -- and spare their descendants the horror of discovering that their ancestors (that's the anti-smoking brigade of today) stood by and did nothing while enjoying gas-guzzling automobiles and cheap shoes and clothes made from slave labor."

Read more by Mikki on this issue:

a nation built on white slavery

globalized slavery

whitewashing slavery

Britons never will be slaves?

so you think you’re a slave?

out of sight, out of mind

digging up your ancestors

is slavery the human condition?

the ghosts of slavery

kidnapped children

black v white slavery

slave migrations

Anglo Slavery

lies, felons, slave-drivers and profiteers

Barack Obama Smokes?

Barack Obama’s losing fight to rid himself of the smoking habit is now public knowledge and is causing a stir among the chattering classes and Sissy wants to know why on earth it should matter.

“Many voters did not even know that he had ever smoked and are righteously indignant and shocked that a person with such an ‘abominable, filthy and disgusting’ character flaw could ever stand for office,” says Sissy. “But, in view of the legality of the habit, and his quitting smoking not being a requirement of nomination, what business is it of anyone’s?”

“As long as he can perform the duties of office and uphold the social contract we invest in him,” says Sissy, “then I really cannot see why a smoker in office would be worse than a drinker or a drug-taker, especially when tobacco calms the nerves and aids concentration.”

“I don’t understand why he ever bothered to take it upon himself to do the ‘quitting’ thing in the first place,” says Sissy. “And why is a presidential candidate’s smoking habit more important to voters than slaughter in Iraq or the state of the economy?”

“I would say that drinking, drug-taking, womanizing, gambling, lying, violence or abuse of women and children are far worse character flaws than smoking,” says Sissy, “and I certainly wouldn’t vote for anyone with those flaws.”

”To my mind, Obama risks being considered a wimp for trying to fit in with the Politically Correct herd mentality if he went on the quitting train,” says Sissy. “I’d rather that he remain his own smokin’ man.”


Read more by Sissy on this issue:

once a smoker always a smoker

backing a winner?

addictive friends

peace up in smoke?

walking on water

a life changing vote

who’s the boss?

candidates and spouses

and check out:

Secrets of Barack Obama’s Age

Obama, Clinton or McCain?

once a smoker always a smoker

Reports that Barack Obama has broken his pledge to quit smoking by sneaking a few cigarettes now and again – and comments about his deteriorating performance - do not surprise Sissy as much as his ridiculous decision to quit smoking in the first place.

“People lapse and lose focus when they quit smoking, so why did he put himself through all this totally unnecessary public humiliation?” asks Sissy. “Frankly, his timing to quit smoking – running for office - was atrocious, as was his estimation of his willpower.”

“He doesn’t seem to have much insight into why tobacco smoking first attracted him and always will,” explains Sissy. “He’s not so much a nicotine addict as a smoking addict – chewing Nicorette isn’t going to help him when he needs to see and smell smoke and take it into his lungs. Can’t he see that?”

“It pains and embarrasses me to see him so unfocused,” sighs Sissy. “I’m sure the other candidates take a shot of something or other before they go on stage, and if this guy needs smoke in his lungs in order to function at his best then he should just do it – and do it openly (it’s legal!) We are sick to death of hypocrites in politics.”

“On the other hand, if he is serious about quitting for good then being the type of smoker he is it may take him several years, and many relapses, before he succeeds,” says Sissy, “but even then he will always be a ‘smoker’ and just like a drinker on the wagon it will be a day at a time, a personal fight against a personal demon for as long as he lives.”

“Obama ignored all of the basic principles of giving up smoking,” says Sissy. “You do it because you want to quit not as a promise to someone else; you choose a calm, stress free time to commence the quitting process; and, if you’re a lifetime smoker (as he was) rather than a social smoker, you must have realistic expectations about your success.”

“That he’s now falling off the quit wagon and performing badly doesn’t surprise me,” says Sissy, “but it does make me feel angry that some idiot has compromised Obama’s chances by filling his head with so many illusions about what he is capable of doing, and what he is not capable of doing without a great deal of pain, effort and help.”

“His deteriorating performance since quitting smoking is so painfully evident that I shudder to think what he would be like in office, with more stresses than ever,” adds Sissy. “If he doesn’t pull himself together right now, while the race is still on, recant his pledge to Michelle and announce to the world ‘I’m a smoker, take me or leave me’ then I don’t see how he can win.”

“Even if he beats Hillary, he has ultimately to face McCain and the formidable Republican machine and things are going to get really dirty and nasty,” sighs Sissy. “But, since the GOP is in league with the tobacco companies perhaps Obama may have won himself a get out of jail free card on his smoking!”


Read more by Sissy on this issue:

Barack Obama Smokes?

backing a winner?

addictive friends

peace up in smoke?

a life changing vote

who’s the boss?

candidates and spouses

and check out:

Secrets of Barack Obama’s Age

Obama, Clinton or McCain?

smoking invasions

Like most smokers, Moya, 48, is under considerable pressure at work to quit her enjoyable habit even though smoking is something she indulges in at home -- not at work -- and she is fuming that her civil liberties are being violated and invaded in this manner. She sees the whole quit smoking campaign as being as criminal, shortsighted and venal as the Iraq invasion, and believes that it's pushed by the same type of opportunistic people, for the same reasons.

"Although it's not a life-threatening violation of my civil rights -- as the criminal invasion of Iraq was, and still is, to Iraqi citizens," says Moya, "the quit smoking war is still very much a criminal act -- it's creating discriminatory attitudes in my place of work that are violating my civil liberties to enjoy a legal product in the sanctity of my own home."

"What I do at home is absolutely no business of my employer and it's deplorable that a comment I made to a coworker about smoking ended up being reported on my employment file," says Moya. "This is Big Brother gone crazy and next thing they'll be wanting to know what we eat for breakfast and what we do in bed."

"As I see it, the quit smoking campaign came about as a result of someone getting lung cancer and successfully litigating against the tobacco companies," says Moya. "That person may very well have developed lung cancer from a bacterial infection whether he or she smoked or not, but once the precedent had been set -- and the dollar signs started flashing -- that was the end of freedom for smokers."

"From then on, smokers became the enemy and the lies started coming thick and fast -- such as smokers are killing themselves and others (some of us may very well be doing that, but so are drinkers, drivers, meat eaters, gun owners, etc); we are bankrupting the health services with our smoking-related diseases (and paying for them ten times over with tobacco tax); and we crave liberation from the thralls of addiction (yeah, sure, we embrace the efforts of the nicotine-Nazis with love and gratitude.)"

"The illegal invasion of Iraq -- against UN decisions -- came about as a result of Mr Bush and the warmongers being frustrated at failing to nab Osama and going after Saddam instead," says Moya. "One criminal excuse after another was given in order to justify the illegal invasion -- Saddam was a monster (he may have been, but so are lots of other rulers and even Hillary Clinton is seen as being one by a fellow Democrat! ); he had stockpiles of WMD (Hans Blix found none); and the Iraqis crave liberation (yeah, sure, they embrace our gun-toting troops with love and gratitude)."

"The quit smoking campaign and the decision to invade Iraq are also alike in that they were based on shortsighted premises by people who have no understanding of consequences and no way to back off without losing face -- making them dangerous people."

"Their jobs -- their wealth and their pension funds -- depend upon successfully completing their mission and maintaining control over the outcome," says Moya. "They refuse to admit that they were wrong in invading Iraq -- that Saddam was the right person to rule a divided nation -- and they also refuse to admit that they were wrong in making such deceitful claims against smokers."

"The Iraqi people they claimed to be 'liberating' are now living in fear, anger and helplessness, wishing Saddam were back in power," says Moya. "And that's the way many ex-smokers feel. The rewards of being a non-smoker are not what they were cracked up to be -- all of the hidden reasons why people become smokers in the first place come back with a vengeance when they give it up."

"I have personally seen several acquiantances at work sink into deep depression when they quit cigarettes," says Moya. "Now they are on prescribed medication and spending just as much on their meds as they did on cigarettes. Big deal!"

"And there has been no massive decrease in the so-called smoking-related diseases either," says Moya. "Rather that admitting that other factors cause these diseases, the health authorities now claim that people who once smoked have already done the damage. Hmm, more reason to keep on smoking, then?"

"Finally, by far the closest likeness between the quit smoking campaign and the invasion of Iraq is, you guessed it, money!" sighs Moya. "They want a bigger cut of the Iraqi oil fields and they want a bigger cut of our money -- if not in tobacco tax then in quit programs and products."

"They've already pushed the Iraqis too far by overstaying their welcome -- and they're pushing smokers to the end of their tether, too," says Moya, "and I have no idea whether they doing what they're doing out of grotesque money-grubbing greed, arrogant self-righteous hubris or just plain dumb stupidity."

"The only way the warmongers can win decisively in Iraq is the same way the anti-smokers can win decisively in the smoking war -- imprison or shoot all the dissidents."

"I don't think there are enough prisons and bullets to achieve this end and while fellow citizens may not be too concerned about this sort of thing happening in Iraq they may start squirming when the dissendent smokers at home start getting rounded up -- or will they?"

"Judging from what's happening at work -- and what's happening in society at large --I honestly fear that our national identity as a feircely proud and free nation has been so watered down with foreign immigrants from totalitarian nations that the concept of civil liberties is fast disappearing from our national psyche."

"That so many so-called democratic freedom lovers still see the Iraq invasion as justifiable -- as justifiable as smoking and other bans -- is really scary," says Moya. "I feel so sorry for the next generation raised on Big Brother television and Big Brother government -- as well as control freaks at school and work -- because they will never know what freedom is."

"And most of all I feel sorry for the Iraqis -- especially the ones who smoke, and that's an awful lot of them -- because if western style democracy takes off in that country, they're going to be hit with an invasion of their smoking rights next."

out of sight, out of mind

The recent Internet publication of old books and articles relating to the settlement of the American colonies has shocked many people, especially retirees, in their new found hobby of ancestry. Looking for ancestral pilgrims and martyrs in accordance with the story of America's glorious past they were taught, they found instead -- as Mikki did -- a convicted felon who evaded execution in the Old Country by transportation – a form of global offshoring of people - and worked as a slave alongside kidnapped Negroes on the tobacco plantations of Virginia.

“He survived, but many didn't, and while our times may be different the social issues are the same,” says Mikki. “Lies, felons, slave-drivers and profiteers (especially in far away places).”

"Reading the truth about our early colonists, even the so-called pilgrims and martyrs had blood on their hands and greed in their eyes so being related to any of the early Americans is nothing to be proud of," says Mikki. "The whole period of colonization from 1607 to 1775 was far from a glorious beginning -- it was tainted by convict transportation, white and black slavery, indigenous massacres, human misery, biblical greed and massive profiteering that makes our current global CEOs look tame."

"It's the curse of globalization, isn't it," sighs Mikki, "out of sight, out of mind. Evils happening in far away places tend not to bother us, and that's why offshoring is as popular now as it was in 1607 when white slavery to the colonies commenced.”

"By the 1800s, after two hundred years of profiting from slavery, the newly rich American bucks and debutantes descended upon Europe to make advantageous marriages and it was at this time, I think, that ancestry necessarily became a hushed affair."

"Neither the rich Americans nor the impoverished European nobility wanted the dirty facts of the American colonial period to become public knowledge and spoil their marriages of convenience -- tainted American money buying titles of distinction, bucks for baronets and that sort of stuff."

"It was, however, well known among the British gentleman's clubs in the 1800s that a lot of prominent Americans were tainted by convict ancestry and ill-gotten gains," says Mikki, "but these facts, along with others relating to the dissolute nature of some European aristocrats, just didn't become common knowledge."

"It was important in those days to keep up social appearances and maintain an absolute divide between the upper and lower classes," explains Mikki, "and if that meant allowing into gentile society some fabulously rich Americans of dubious birth then so be it."

‘Today, fabulously rich people of all cultures have arrived at that status by the same means – enslaving their own and others in the most heinous global trade of all.”

Read more by Mikki on this issue:

a nation built on white slavery

globalized slavery

whitewashing slavery

Britons never will be slaves?

so you think you’re a slave?

Tobacco and America's Convict Past

digging up your ancestors

is slavery the human condition?

the ghosts of slavery

kidnapped children

black v white slavery

slave migrations

Anglo Slavery

lies, felons, slave-drivers and profiteers

cigarette muggers

Zaina and her partner were recently mugged for their cigarettes and she points out that this is what happens when governments regularly increase tax on a legal product that is addictive -- like cigarettes -- in order to fund schools and hospitals. The time has now arrived when cigarettes have become too expensive to buy for many smokers and some will necessarily resort to crime in order to get what they want. Is this how we want our schools and hospitals funded?

"I was standing outside a restaurant with my partner having a smoke when we were mugged by a gang of youths," says Zaina. "Okay, they didn't actually bash us up -- they pushed my partner and stole his packet of cigarettes -- but the effect was the same as a mugging."

"We felt violated and wounded by this experience," explains Zaina, "and more so because we had no redress -- we could hardly call the police and complain about being pushed around and having cigarettes stolen, could we?"

"This sort of thing never happened when restaurants allowed people to smoke inside," says Zaina, "and, as the tax on cigarettes goes up even more, I expect these muggings to increase and become even more violent. Is this really how we want our schools and hospitals funded?"

"By forcing us outside to smoke the restaurant owners are exposing us to muggers," says Zaina, "but I don't blame the restaurant owners because they are merely complying with the new rules. It's the fault of the mugging government in every respect!"

"The government enforced the no-smoking rules on public establishments and imposed draconian taxes on cigarettes and it might find the whole exercise backfires when someone gets badly hurt and takes legal action -- reversing the whole legal process that started the non-smoking campaign in the first place."

"Already we've read about lots of smoking-related violence -- smokers reacting violently against people trying to stop them lighting up in non-smoking areas, and anti-smokers behaving violently towards smokers smoking in smoking areas," says Zaina. "I don't know how many smokers have been mugged for their cigarettes like we have -- it's not the sort of thing that makes front page news, is it? -- but I predict an increase in this sort of crime when the taxes increase so much that poor people can no longer afford to buy their cigarettes."

"A huge increase in cigarette smuggling to avoid tax is also going on," sighs Zaina. "It's really upsetting to see a pleasurable thing like smoking attracting criminal elements."

"The government is crazy if it thinks that people will just cut down or stop smoking when it becomes too expensive for them to buy cigarettes," sighs Zaina. "We're talking about an addiction here, not a preference for one thing over another like buying a cheap bottle of wine when you can no longer afford French champagne, or a bottle of methylated spirits when you can no longer afford a cheap bottle of wine."

"Most smokers have already been forced by exorbitant taxes to buy cheaper brands of cigarettes, and when the cheapest brand become too expensive to buy the ugly consequences of the anti-smoking campaign are really going to manifest themselves big time."

"The government knows that cigarette smoking is most prevalent among low socio-economic groups," says Zaina. "What plans does it have to prevent theft, violence and slaughter when it raises the taxes on tobacco products to the tipping point?"

"I believe most smokers are honest law-abiding people -- we have accepted the new smoking rules and accommodated to them without stirring up a revolution," says Zaina, "but I do not know whether my partner and I will be able to sit by silently while not only the government bullies us but the poorer smokers, too."

"After our mugging experience we have decided to stay home from now on -- or to restrict our dining out experiences to places where there is a private smoking area," says Zaina. "But now we worry about being mugged at the point of sale -- places where we buy our cigarettes."

"When people get desperate they do desperate things -- and even if tobacco outlets are set up as fortresses the purchasers are exposed to muggers when they leave such establishments."

"Imagine having to look around and see who's watching you every time you buy a pack of cigarettes," sighs Zaina. "It's not a nice way to live and I am angry that the government is creating a criminal environment around the sale and use of a legal product."

"It is almost as if the government is deliberately creating a crime situation by raising taxes so much that poor people have to resort to crime to get their cigarettes (and then it can take the ultimate step to ban smoking altogether)," muses Zaina. "but since it makes such a big deal about tobacco tax being used to fund our schools and hospitals I can't see any logic in that argument."

"If our schools and hospitals are funded by tobacco tax, and everyone who smokes suddenly quits, buys their cigarettes tax-free off smugglers or mugs for them, then what? Where is the money for the schools and hospitals going to come from?"

"No, I don't think the government's ulterior motive in increasing tax on cigarettes is to create such a bad crime situation that it has a good reason to ban smoking -- that would be like cutting off its nose to spite its face," says Zaina. "So, that leaves me with the horrifying realization that the government hasn't a clue."

"It had no idea what Pandora's box it opened when it targeted smokers and put the tax screws on them, but it's going to find out pretty soon," sighs Zaina. "Reminds you of the invasion of Iraq, doesn't it?"

"In the meantime, I can't understand why schools and hospitals can't be funded by regular taxes," sighs Zaina. "If tobacco is so bad, then it's mind-boggling that the government would depend upon it in this way."

"And, if it's not so bad, then it's mind-boggling that the government would tax it to the point where consumers can no longer afford it and have to resort to crime."

anti-smokers target women, avoid men

After several attacks from anti-smokers who deliberately avoided smoking men in order to target her, Gilda, 56, is wondering whether the anti-smoking crusaders are chicken-livered cowards or whether the campaign is designed to stop women, not men, smoking.

"Traditionally, men have always smoked in our society -- they had smoking rooms and smoking jackets and tobacco clubs where they hung out -- but it's only in relatively recent times that women took up the habit," explains Gilda. "It was very popular with emancipated women from the 1920s onwards, but didn't catch on with working class women until the 1950s."

"We all know what happened after the late 1960s," laughs Gilda, "and I'm wondering whether the anti-smoking campaign is just another backlash by men and their dependent women against feminism."

"Nobody in their right mind could object to the image of a macho guy smoking, let alone try to stop him -- he's so cool," laughs Gilda, "but it's a different story with women smokers, isn't it?"

"Guys of my generation -- the baby boomers -- are reasonably comfortable with women smokers," says Gilda,"It's the older men, the younger men and immigrant men of all ages who seem to have trouble with women smoking."

"Where I lived last year was an elderly couple in their 70s and although the wife was pleasant the husband was incredibly hostile to me -- not only attacking me for smoking but for being a single women, too," laughs Gilda. "He was from the old school who felt a woman's place was at home, under a man's thumb, and that smoking was something guys did, not women!"

"That guy would have a lot in common with Islamic men and might enjoy living under Sharia law where he could stone a few women to death," sighs Gilda, "and his beliefs are pretty widely held by men, and dependent women, of his generation. Too young to have fought with the smoking men and women in WWII, and too old to have enjoyed the 70s. Poor, lost souls."

"There were other smokers in the apartment block -- mostly male -- but that guy left them alone and just attacked me!"

"With immigrant men from backward cultures who denigrate women you expect a bad reception -- and I've had plenty of those in recent years thanks to our government opening the flood gates to middle-eastern refugees," sighs Gilda. "They just don't seem to understand -- or want to understand -- that women in our society have equal rights to men, including the right to smoke."

"At a outdoor coffee bar one lunch-time I was accosted by a middle-eastern man who screamed at me for smoking and raised his hand as if to strike me," says Gilda. "I didn't even see him arrive with his wife and baby and sit behind me. I was too busy reading. Considering we were seated on the sidewalk with vehicles belching out their poisons I was surprised that he didn't see the irony of what he was saying and, why, indeed, he didn't use the non-smoking section of the coffee bar if he objected to cigarette smoke."

"Again, several male smokers were seated outside but this guy left them alone and attacked me," sighs Gilda. "And guess what, the male smokers smirked rather than coming to my aid. Very gallant of them, eh?"

"Young men, too, seem to be particularly averse to women smoking," says Gilda. "I'd be a rich woman if I were paid a dollar for every young man who thought it was his male prerogative to insult a lady for smoking."

"But it's not just men who behave badly towards smoking women," says Gilda. "Women of all ages -- even my own -- seem to be coming out of the woodwork and beating up on members of their own sex who smoke."

"And, like the cowardly male anti-smokers, they target women smokers and leave the male smokers alone," says Gilda. "The young girls at my office have similar complaints so it's not just older women being targeted. In fact, some of the young girls have told me stories about being physically assaulted for smoking by the men in their lives."

"While it's sensible for female crusaders to avoid male smokers in case of violence, it's downright cowardly for the male crusaders to attack women and leave male smokers alone, isn't it? asks Gilda. "So, what is it? Are we looking at deliberate discrimination against female smokers, or just cowardice?"

"Do the anti-smokers want to stop everyone from smoking, or just women?"
"Is the hidden agenda of the anti-smoking campaign to regain tobacco for exclusive male use?"

"Are macho male smokers behind it all?"

"Don't laugh," sighs Gilda. "In this crazy world of government spin and faceless male elites ruling the world behind the scenes, anything is possible."

"You'd think, wouldn't you, that after fifty years of feminism we'd have more respect and political clout than we have today," adds Gilda. "We're going backwards -- no doubt about that -- and I blame globalization and immigration for eroding the feminist values that the grand old dames of the 20th century won for us."

"And, yes, smoking is a feminist issue," asserts Gilda. "Remember the cigarettes Virginia Slims and their slogan 'you've come a long way, baby'? It's all about being treated equally, and if women are being victimized for smoking and men aren't, then something is going on that all women,smokers or not, should be alerted to because you don't know what's coming next."

elizabethan smokers

Leila, 43, is a thoroughly modern woman -- a heavy smoking and drinking executive -- and points out the irony of our times. It was in the final years of the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth that smoking took off, and it's in the final years of the reign of the second Queen Elizabeth that it's being killed off.

"Because Camilla smokes I don't think Charles will do a James I and call for a total ban on tobacco use when his time comes," laughs Leila, "but even if he had such power -- which of course he doesn't -- I doubt whether he would fare much better than dear old James, the Scottish moralist, who was derided as an idiot by his English subjects."

"However. when I look at Gordon Brown -- the new British PM and another Scottish moralist -- I think of James I and shudder," sighs Leila. "It looks very much like he will succeed at doing what James I tried to do as far as smoking is concerned and this worries me."

"Why? Well, England took off in every respect when Elizabeth I came to power," explains Leila, "and it may be a long bow I am drawing but what if tobacco use made England great and the global gnomes caught on to this fact and deliberately caused British supremacy to falter by poisoning our minds against tobacco?"

"Look at how far England has dropped in world esteem since the anti-smoking lobby gained sway in our government," explains Leila. "And it's not just England that's losing ground to the nefarious anti-smoking lobby but western civilization itself."

"All of our great leaders smoked -- look at pictures of them and a cigar or a cigarette is invariably stuck in their mouths or fingers," says Leila. "Who can forget Winston Churchill who died at 91 with a cigar keeping him perky?"

"Since him, our leaders have been lacklustre puppets," sighs Leila. "Britain has gone to the dogs and I blame this entirely on the sneaky prohibition on smoking."

"Look at China, its economy is going gang-busters and it's all due to tobacco!" laughs Leila. "China is now where England was in the early 17th century. Where else would China have gained such impetus to explode in all directions? It has to be extensive tobacco use."

"As China ups its tobacco use, it gains in world power," laughs Leila, "and as we go down in tobacco use, we become feeble, stupid, fat and lazy."

"I doubt whether I'd be as successful as I am without smoking," confides Leila. "I have brainwaves like you'd never believe when I have a heavy smoking session, and energy to burn, too. Sure, I'm addicted to the stuff and would go crazy without it -- and may die an agonizing death at 92 because of it -- but what the hell?"

"Can't you guys get it? The global gnomes want to destroy British power and western civilization with it and they've discovered the secret of how to do it."

"They looked at the history books and tried to figure out how a little island off Europe -- with no significance whatsoever -- suddenly became a superpower with an industrial revolution that shook the world."

"Sure, it all started with Henry VIII when he threw off the Roman Catholic yolk, but it was only when Sir Walter Raleigh brought back tobacco from the Americas that things got really going."

"I don't think Queen Elizabeth I smoked," muses Leila. "She merely gave her name to an age and the real power was in the hands of men who huddled together in taverns smoking their guts out and thinking up wonderful schemes to change the world. And they didn't just think -- they set out and accomplished amazing deeds. All of the great scientific discoveries and explorations of the 17th-20th centuries were inspired by tobacco!"

"Without tobacco we'd still be ploughing fields and eking out a meagre living off the land, " says Leila. "We're only learning now how advanced the South American civilizations were -- and they accomplished that with tobacco. The Spaniards robbed them of their smoking culture and replaced it with Christianity. Had they twigged the real importance of tobacco, the world would be speaking Spanish not English!"

"The global gnomes came to the same conclusion I did -- it had to be tobacco -- and in denigrating smokers and banning us from using this glorious substance they are dooming us to a life of servitude and compliance."

"As more and more of us are badgered into quitting, this once great nation of brilliant minds and eccentrics will fast become a politically correct morass of mediocrity, stupefied by alcohol."

"Five hundred years of glory is over," sighs Leila. "Prepare yourselves for the next Dark Age."

powwows and peace pipes

Celeste is a school teacher -- no, she doesn't smoke on school premises -- and she points out that what is sadly missing from the ongoing war between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations -- and the ongoing harassment of smokers by community bullies that results from it -- is a genuine desire to resolve the conflict.

"I was watching the great foes of Northern Ireland -- the Republican extremist Martin McGuinness and the Loyalist extremist Ian Paisley -- finally resolve their differences after an endless war that took many lives and ruined even more," says Celeste, "and it suddenly occurred to me that the tobacco war has been going on for almost as long and it's about time that it, too, ended."

"It's probably not a particularly appropriate suggestion," laughs Celeste, "but what they need to do is to sit down, have a powwow, resolve their differences and smoke a peace pipe."

"Personally, I don't encounter much harassment where I live and work -- we're a pretty laid back sort of community," says Celeste. "While the principal doesn't approve of staff who smoke he's happy to butt out of our personal lives after working hours, and I'm happy to preach all the anti-smoking stuff to the kids because they need to be informed of the health hazards of all drugs."

"It's a different matter, though, when my husband and I have to travel," sighs Celeste. "What's with you city people? There are so many non-smoking signs and self-appointed citizen smoke police in the city that we can't believe we're in the same country!"

"Twice in the past six months I've been harassed by these self-appointed citizen smoke police -- for smoking (with my own personal ashtray) in a park and then outside a library, neither area prohibiting smoking," sighs Celeste, "and I can imagine how horrific this sort of environment would be if you have to put up with it every day."

"What's more scary is that when my husband and I tally these harassing encounters he receives half as many as I do -- and he smokes twice as much," sighs Celeste. "The harassers, so far, have all been male, so it's not just smokers they are targeting but women smokers particularly -- and this puts a nasty slant on it all."

"As I see it, if the ongoing war between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations came to an end, so would the ongoing harassment of smokers by community bullies that results from it," says Celeste. "So, how about it guys? Are your agendas negotiable or non-negotiable? Are you like Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, willing to make peace; or are you like Hamas and Israel, with the former pledged to destroy the other?"

"If we put up a wigwam on some neutral ground, provided you with the finest feathers to adorn your noble heads and gave you the choice of smoking the peace pipe or swigging back some fine whisky, or both, would you meet for a powwow?"

"It was once the time-honored way ancient cultures -- and some of our ancestors -- resolved their differences," says Celeste, "and it's a tragedy, really, that smoking the peace pipe would now be seen as a filthy, dirty, stinking and totally anti-social habit."

"Smoke -- in all its forms -- has incredible powers over and above its mundane uses," says Celeste. "It's been used for thousands of years as a medium for communication, healing and rites in a variety of ancient cultures."

"And tobacco -- like most plants -- has medicinal as well as toxic properties," explains Celeste. "We don't even know half of the magic of plants and herbs that ancient cultures knew -- this knowledge, an oral one, died out when the last ancient culture was wiped out."

"Lighting tobacco and smoking it," says Celeste, "is a peaceful and healing experience for me and, I'd say, for all smokers. It's why we do it, guys. Get it?"

"I'm certainly not going to advise that everybody should take up the habit," laughs Celeste. "On the contrary, I think it only appeals -- in its deepest sense -- to people with a spiritual connection to our ancient roots."

"What can be more fundamental to being a human being than our relationship with fire?"

"I know there are social smokers -- people who just put a cigarette in their mouths to make out while they're in company with smokers -- but they're not real smokers," says Celeste. "And I don't think chain smokers are real smokers, either -- they need stronger medication for what ails them."

"Someone who smokes alone, or in quiet accord with another smoker, is showing a spiritual connection to our ancient roots," says Celeste, "and it's this 'peace pipe' affect that's sorely needed in the tobacco war."

"Once the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations have made their peace I don't expect that harassment of smokers by community bullies will stop overnight," sighs Celeste, "and I don't think powwows and peace pipes are a particularly a good way to deal with bullies in any case."

"What the harassing bullies need is a bit of zap-pow and a piece of pipe stuck where it hurts."

smoking milch cows

There are so many lawyers, anti-smoking organizations and government health departments stacked up against the tobacco companies that Eileen, a social worker, is convinced that the whole smoking issue is one big Milch Cow.

"It's not just the tobacco companies getting milked for all they are worth but us, the stupid smokers, too," says Eileen, "and I'm not apologizing for using the 'stupid' word for smokers because that's what both sides of the issue think of us, and frankly I sometimes think of myself like that, too."

"The smoking issue is the most convoluted thing I've ever come across and because lawyers are involved I believe it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

"What's a cosy legal battle in plush offices for them is a dirty war of abuse on the streets for us," says Eileen, "and I am angry with the tobacco companies as well as the others for turning the lives of smokers upside down, robbing us of our hard earned money and causing others to abuse us."

"On a social level, the 'suits' from the tobacco companies and their so-called enemy 'suits' in the other camps probably do lunch together every day, entertain in each other's homes and send their kids to the same posh schools," says Eileen. "And, if they ever DO think about the fallout abuse that their cosy little war costs us, the stupid smokers, it would be followed invariably with peals of sneering laughter because -- wait for it -- I have yet to find evidence that any of the tobacco company guys actually smoke."

"The tobacco companies make such an absolute fortune from us -- the stupid smokers -- that the other stuff, the legal war, is merely a game they enjoy playing," explains Eileen. "And because money is no problem for either side, they are going to keep their legal wars going forever -- and don't the lawyers love that!"

"Do you realize that we -- the stupid smoking Milch Cows -- get slugged with income tax and tobacco tax to pay the other side as well?" asks Eileen. "We are paying for the whole thing! How does that grab you? Doesn't it make you feel uber stupid?"

"In my social work I get to see the real victims of the smoking war," explains Eileen. "Low income and disadvantaged people -- including single moms, disabled people and the elderly -- who are already victimized by society because of their circumstances. On top of this, they then get abused for smoking."

"Most of these people smoke to make their miserable lives a bit better," says Eileen, "and every day I think how much better off they would be if they could stop smoking (impossible, I've tried) or if this stupid smoking war would end and give them back a bit of dignity -- and a lot more dollars in their pockets."

"In my social work I also get to see some of the BIG people involved in the tobacco war from the government's angle," says Eileen, "but of course I don't work with them like I do the victims of tobacco. I just 'see' them swanning around in their power suits, puffed up with importance, believing they're on a crusade to save us from tobacco when everyone knows what they're really doing."

"Oh sure, there are some genuine souls who naively believe that giving up smoking to spare yourself a horrible death is a good thing," sighs Eileen, "but they just don't understand that most of the people I'm working with would die a horrible death in any case, one that is totally unrelated to smoking."

"When they think of a smoker -- if they ever do -- they are probably thinking of someone like me," says Eileen. "Someone with a bit of education who should know better and, with a bit more pressure, might give up the deadly habit."

"Well, if I ever do succeed in quitting it will be to avoid kicking myself over and over again for being milked by these guys," laughs Eileen. "It will have nothing to do with the health benefits I might gain because I know I will suffer far worse health problems by quitting. My life may be better than those of the poor people whose troubles I try to resolve, but it is still miserable in its own way and smoking helps get me through it all."

"I get dizzy trying to count the number of do-goody organizations on the tobacco gravy train -- oops, sorry to mix my metaphors," laughs Eileen. "Every day a new one seems to pop up and our tax payer dollars just keep on flowing for them."

"Can you believe that all this has been going on since 1964 when Congress protected the tobacco companies from the effects of litigation by means of the Surgeon General's warning label?" sighs Eileen. "I was born a year later, so all of my life this rubbish has been going on and it is never going to stop."

"When the first of these do-goody organizations came into being its purpose was to educate the public and hold the tobacco companies to the same degree of accountability as other industries," explains Eileen, "and, as far as I am concerned, that purpose was achieved long ago. But, seeing the dollars rolling in and a life-time career ahead of them, these guys dug in and encouraged a multitude of other parasitic types to join in for whatever other purposes they had in mind."

"I make no apologies for using the parasitic word either," says Eileen, "because that's what most of them are. They feed off our addiction, our desire to smoke and the miseries of our lives that caused most of us to start smoking in the first place."

"Even if their purpose were genuinely to help us stop smoking so that we could save money and live a healthier life," says Eileen, "they can offer us nothing to fill the gap that smoking filled, a gap that we might fill with something far more dangerous."

"These people know nothing about 'gaps' or their myriad causes," confides Eileen, "and that's why they have no right to dictate what is good or bad for us. Like most think tank types, they think of other human beings as cohorts or metrics on a chart, stripped of all humanity. They make pronouncements from ivory towers that even they, in their saner moments, must find appalling."

"It has been said over and over again -- by smokers as well as non-smokers -- that if tobacco is the killer they make it out to be then it should be banned," says Eileen, "but these guys have no desire whatsoever to put the tobacco industry out of business or to make cigarettes illegal. They don't see the inconsistency of what they're telling us and even if they did, they don't care. Why should they? Parasites by nature only feed off hosts certain to keep the milk and honey flowing forever."

"The tobacco industry, as I see it, has fulfilled all of the requirements asked of it and the burden of responsibility has now shifted fairly and squarely to the cigarette smoker," says Eileen. "It's time for these do-goody organizations to go away and find some other milch cow."

"We are, of course, still stuck with the government -- the biggest parasite of them all because without tobacco tax it wouldn't be able to fund invasions and do other goods things," sighs Eileen. "So, even if the others disappeared off the scene we are still going to get milked."

"Moo!"

smoking president, new deal?

Dilly comes from a generation that remembers FDR, and the prospect of having a new smoking president in the form of Barack Obama really lit up her life because a New Deal is exactly what this country needs in relation to smoking.

"When I heard that Obama had quit smoking I couldn't believe it," says Dilly, "and I refuse to believe that he, too, had succumbed to the lies and exaggerations of the anti-smokers or had sold his soul for votes."

"What this country needs is a strong and true leader -- not a puppet," says Dilly. "He needs to be representative of the common man -- someone who smokes, drinks and likes a good time -- and puts forward his vices as strengths, not weaknesses to hide from the public or swear off."

"Obama is an attractive candidate in own right and didn't need to quit smoking for health reasons or anything else," says Dilly. "I don't believe non-smokers would have turned against him because he smokes, and even if some of them were so petty that they did this, their votes wouldn't have been worth winning."

"If a third of this country smokes, then at least one of the three candidates for nomination should be a smoker in order to represent our rights," says Dilly. "We don't want an anti-smoker like Hillary Clinton representing us and maybe going as far as banning the sale of tobacco products (if only to wean Chelsea off the habit, as if any parent can stop an adult child doing things they want to do!)."

"Everyone knows that Bush is a former alcoholic -- and may have been a former crackhead, too -- and while he necessarily had to give up his vices in order to run for the presidency, I don't see why Obama has to give up smoking in a similar bid to become pristine."

"There's a huge difference between an alcoholic and a smoker," says Dilly, "and if Bush had been able to continue drinking without getting drunk he would have been a lot more acceptable to the average Joe. There's something about a 'reformed' person that's irritating, right? And in an important job like the presidency you wonder whether they're paying more attention to fighting their demons than keeping an eye on the ball."

"For instance, in that shot of Bush at the school when told about 9/11 was his delay in acting due to respect for the kiddies or a fuddled brain?"

"One thing I know about cigarettes is that after a smoke I can focus my attention on a task more clearly than anyone I know who doesn't smoke," laughs Dilly, "and that's the sort of focused attention I want my president to have."

"Frankly, I think Obama has done more damage to his reputation by quitting because now the opposition is using his former habit against him in a manner that nobody dared use against Bush," sighs Dilly. "The anti-smokers have no manners or common decency whatsoever. If they can turn two-thirds of the nation against the other third -- just because they smoke -- then they can do incredible damage to Obama, whether he smokes or quits."

"For that reason, I think Obama should have stood his ground on smoking."

"It would be refreshing if any public figure -- and especially a presidential candidate -- actually stood up and defended their choice to smoke," says Dilly. "Because tobacco is a legal substance I don't really believe anyone should have to defend smoking it, but if he had to I would have liked to have heard Obama say: 'Yeah, I know smoking is a health hazard, but thankfully, because I live in a free country, I am able to make a personal choice about it -- and because choice is something we seem to have less of every day under the present regime, it's important for me to make this stand'."

"He might have gone on to say to all those highly impressionable people out there that he didn't encourage smoking -- it was a personal choice he had made, not to be seen as a sign that it's okay for everyone else to smoke -- and imagine the impact he would have had on a nation that's fast becoming a PC mess."

"By qutting, it almost looks as if Obama is admitting it was stupid of him to smoke -- so he's playing into the hands of the anti-smokers who make out all smokers are morons," sighs Dilly. "Frankly, I'm tired of being told by people who barely graduated from grade school that they are smarter and stronger than I am because they don't smoke and I do."

"Sometimes I feel like pinning a picture of a smoking Einstein on my front door so that people who knock and are greeted by myself in a similar mode have something to think about," laughs Dilly, "but I don't think most of the anti-smokers have the brains to make the connection."

"No, I don't wish to denigrate the anti-smokers -- that would make me as bad as they are," sighs Dilly, "but if they believe that our silence and refusal to quit equates with stupidity or weakness then we have to divest them of that thought."

"So why did Obama quit?" asks Dilly. "On one television show was it put forward that Obama was henpecked into quitting by his wife? Oh dear, more bad publicity because who wants a henpecked husband for president?"

"Obama himself said something about 'health' being his main reason for quitting, but come on, Obama, you're too intelligent to swallow the 'health' propaganda."

"We're electing a president -- a strong person to lead us -- and nobody should care if you smoke or not," says Dilly. "There are a lot worse things than smoking."

"Which brings me back to Hillary," sighs Dilly. "OMG, at least the Bush family isn't as anti-smoking as the Clintons -- I hear that Laura Bush and the twins enjoy a puff behind the scenes -- whereas the Clintons are supposedly old friends of John Banzahf of the relentless ASH organization."

"I choose to believe that Obama knows what he is doing and that all the bad publicity comes from a certain camp within his own party," says Dilly, "and whether he smokes or not, I still think he is the best person for the White House."

"Go Obama!"

health nuts, geriatrics and smokers

Sapphire is 19, an arts student, and a sad example, perhaps, of the total ineffectiveness of anti-smoking propaganda and a bad reason, perhaps, for the government to ban the sale of tobacco products completely.

"I drink, take drugs and of course I smoke," laughs Sapphire. "The more I come across propaganda designed to make me stop doing something the more I want to do it, and if they banned alcohol and cigarettes tomorrow it wouldn't bother me because there's nothing you can't get off a dealer."

"If the aim of the anti-smoking health nuts was to get us out of your workplaces, restaurants, bars and clubs then you've won," says Sapphire, "but in doing so you've created a generation gap and a social chasm like no other one before – except, perhaps, for the Prohibition on alcohol years. Smokers and non smokers are being divided, as are young people and older people. Are you happy now?"

"Well, guys, eat up and pump up in your nice, clean smoke-free environments -- and enjoy your liquor for as long as you can afford it," says Sapphire, "because as more smokers quit, or if tobacco is banned, all those taxes the government has ripped off smokers have to be made up somehow – think carbon tax, guys!"

"And, while you're thinking about that, think also about the next wave of health nuts who may ban alcohol and all the nice sweet and fatty food you enjoy so much," laughs Sapphire. "Right now, the health system may perform operations on 80 year olds and older, but it can't possibly afford to do so forever.”

“Who is going to look after you if you ever do live longer than smokers?"

"It ain't going to be me and my smoking friends!”

Read more by Sapphire:

unruly teen alienated by stepfamily

street government

We’re all gonna die!

drugs create genius?

health and safety madness

smoking and boiled frogs

Deira, a closet smoker, likens the slow but spectacularly successful gains of the anti-smoking movement over the freedoms of smokers to boiling water and cooked frogs.

"I honestly believe it is far too late to undo the damage," says Deira. "We did nothing but grumble when they turned on the heat 25 years ago -- and increased the heat a degree higher with each passing year -- and now we're cooked."

"I'm a closet smoker because I'd lose my job, my home and respect in the community if my secret habit became known," confides Deira. "I never smoke outside my home and even then I only smoke in the kitchen next to the exhaust fan over the cooker so that my neighbors can't smell the cigarette smoke and get me evicted."

"I notice more and more smokers are now coming out angrily demanding restitution of their rights," says Deira, "but they're wasting their breath -- what remains of it after years of smoking -- and can't possibly catch up with the spectacularly successful efforts of the anti-smoking movement in changing community values."

"The anti-smokers are now in government -- from the top right down to the lowest minion of the public service," laughs Deira, "and no pro-smoking political party will ever gain the ground that the anti-smokers took from them years ago."

"Don't they get it?" laughs Deira. "The time to have stood up and spoken up for smokers' rights was 25 years ago when the anti-smokers coughed their first disapproving cough."

"It's like everything else that's gone to the dogs in our community," sighs Deira. "We stood by in a spirit of tolerance and fair play and let them take away our rights one by one."

"Sure, it was fair to have non-smoking areas -- people who don't smoke shouldn't have to put up with smoky rooms," says Deira, "but who would have thought that in giving them these areas they would take away ours?"

"Sure, it was fair to have warning labels on cigarette packs -- tobacco companies need to protect themselves from litigation," says Deira, "but who would have thought that these labels would turn into ugly, gory graphics of diseases no smoker I know has ever had or is likely to have?"

"Sure, it was fair to increase taxes on cigarettes -- the health risks of smoking need to be paid for," says Deira, "but who would have thought they would deny us medical help when we needed it?"

"Sure, it was fair to smoke outside in the snow and sleet when there's nowhere else to smoke," says Deira, "but who would have thought they would then deny us this place to smoke when summer came and they wanted to be outside?"

"Sure, it was fair to smile and act chastised when someone you knew voice their disapproval," says Deira, "but who would have thought that total strangers -- even people who sell you cigarettes -- now have a God-given right to sneer at you?"

"I could go on and on," sighs Deira, "but I got the message years ago and I am angry that smokers who were in positions of power years ago chose to ignore what was going on and did nothing to stop the situation getting worse."

"A whole generation of young, vigorous people raised on anti-smoking propaganda are now in those positions of power," says Deira, "and I have nothing but contempt for all those old fogies, pushed out to pasture and stripped of their rights to smoke, bleating on to each other about civil liberties."

"No pro-smoking politician or activist will ever be able to preach to anyone other than fellow-smokers," says Deira, "and since so many of us are now closet smokers, who are they kidding about being able to turn the tide?"

"The tide's gone out and it ain't ever coming back in!"

"Nobody can have a reasonable discussion about freedom to smoke with any of these young people in positions of power," says Deira. "They have been brainwashed -- literally fed with anti-smoking propaganda since they started school -- and every time I have tried to put forward my position, with reasonable evidence, I have been contradicted with propaganda and abuse. It's like trying to argue with a religious fanatic -- you just don't bother!"

"What really hurts about these anti-smokers in positions of power is that they do not wish to make smoking less harmful by encouraging the tobacco industry to come up with a benign cigarette -- and they do not wish to delve into the myriad of reasons why anyone would take up smoking in the first place," says Deira. "They just want to stop everyone from smoking, and that's that. They know best. They're God or God's on their side."

"Even those who make their living off smokers -- the tobacco companies, the club and bar owners and the tobacco shops -- are bowing to the New World Order and meekly accepting the government's bullying tactics, telling them what they can and cannot do on their own premises," says Deira. "They are diversifying, trying to find a new way to make money. Not one of them, as far as I know, has come out in front of the media and supported the smokers who support them -- but then what media would give the time of day to lost causes?"

"Damn it," curses Deira, "even when you get online and try to find a site that supports smokers you check out their links and find that they are moles for ASH."

"Face it guys, you're cooked," laughs Deira, "and NO, you're not welcome to come join me in a closet smoke under the kitchen exhaust fan."

"If you had been on the ball, doing your job and protecting our rights over the past 25 years -- rather than partying and enjoying the perks of power -- I wouldn't have been forced into becoming a closer smoker. Okay?"