War vet victimized for smoking

As Didi watches her elderly father declining day after day - not from smoking, but from old age and weariness having to deal with victimization from anti-smoking medical crusaders – she thinks about the wars he's been in, the taxes he's paid and the extra taxes he's paid for his self-medicating cigarettes and she hates her government for letting him down.

“The worse thing the government has done is making smoking such an anti-social habit that so many people think they have permission to vent their venom on smokers – even old smokers like my dad.”

"The government will never ban smoking because alcohol prohibition didn't work," says Didi, "and, knowing this, it should act as a moderate voice between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking lobby.”

"Right now, it's taking the side of the anti-smoking lobby and making it okay for every Tom, Dick and Harry to victimize smokers," says Didi, "and for this it's no better than the Third Reich."

"No German hated the Jews -- or at least made their hate known -- until Hitler came to power and started blaming them for Germany's problems," says Didi, "and in this sort of climate more and more smokers are going to become depressed even if they they weren't that way already."

"It's against the law to discriminate against every other aspect of being human -- your age, your ethnicity, your religion, your sexual preference, etc -- but it's perfectly okay to discriminate against smokers," sighs Didi. "Where's the justice in this?"

"Even if you smoke in your own time, in your own space, the government sanctions discriminatory measures against you," says Didi. "European employers have been given the right to fire employees who admit to being smokers. When is this madness going to end?"

"The message seems to be: stop smoking and we'll treat you nicely," says Didi, "but having quit smoking hundreds of times I know that that's not true. Victimizers are victimizers through and through and will quickly find something else they don't like about you."

"A climate fuelled by anti-smoking venom marginalizes smokers," says Didi. "This doesn't bother me because I don't get out much these days, but some smokers do have mental health problems far more serious than depression and I am wondering how long will it be before one of them snaps and gets really stuck into the smug non-smoking victimizers."

“Victimizing an elderly war veteran for smoking is really the pits.”

Read more by Didi on this issue:

mental health self-medicators?

dealing with elderly parents and doctors

Anti-smoking vaccine?

the gods of war

We see them in old movies when they were young and fighting for freedom, now we see them in veterans’ marches, adorned with medals. At cenotaphs around the world we worship at their altars. Marina’s gods of war are not mythical gods but real life men now well into their 80s and older who fought in WWII - and like to be compared with Olympian gods - and the war they fought in has achieved a reverence similar to that of a religion that previous and later wars never achieved.

“I attribute this religiosity surrounding WWII to the artful manipulation of those who fought in that war, in combat or behind a desk, whose coincidence of birth at a critical time in our history endowed them with spectacular opportunities after the war that they have milked non-stop ever since at our expense,” says Marina. “And, just like the early Christians used Jesus’ death to inspire guilt and line their pockets – he died for us, you see – the gods of war used the death of their fallen mates to do likewise.”

“The gods of war enjoyed unprecedented hero status and respect after WWII,” says Marina. “Their war films, veterans’ marches, war medals and endless stories about the war assured them respect and reverence that it is totally out of proportion to the achievements of earlier and later generations, as if WWII were the only war ever fought or the only war worth remembering.”

“My generation, the Boomers, held the WWII vets in awe, opened doors for them, offered seats for them, called them sir and m’am, never spoke out of turn to them and never questioned their right to the best of everything from our taxpayer dollars,” says Marina. “They deserved it – they fought for our freedoms – or so we were forever told!”

“Compared to the freedoms the gods of war had after the war – no censure on drugs or family size, no politically correct speaking or environmental restrictions – our lives are so circumscribed by their rules and regulations, far more than the simple Ten Commandments they grew up with, that I don’t feel very free at all.”

“WWII was an abomination caused by greedy old men and should not be revered,” says Marina, “and those who fought in it were pawns not gods and should be exposed as such before they wreak even more damage upon us.”