Partisans, Smoking, and "Wrecker Ralph"

Partisans, Smoking, and "Wrecker Ralph"

Joseph Harnett, Goshen

A friend says it's time for me to start writing again. I'm not certain. After all, I have had no desire to get involved with the ridiculously partisan articles that have graced the pages of The Voice on too many subjects this past year.

Partisanship is such a wonderful thing. It makes your life easy. Pick a side: Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, Lifer or Choicer, Christian or "lion"—whatever! It doesn't matter. Come one, come all! Once you choose your team(s) you never hafta bother to think again. If someone isn't on your team, you don't need to listen to anything they say. After all, they must be "effing" idiots or they'd understand how absolutely RIGHT you are. And if they aren't idiots, then they must be lying, scheming, unprincipled connivers pretending not to understand just for personal gain. Or maybe, just maybe, they are actually members of a vast conspiracy to enslave the country by denying the benefits of your team's obvious superiority of principle, ethics and defense of "the common citizen." (Note: I include the possibility of multi-team membership in deference to a friend who's a 100% left-liberal Democrat except on abortion—where she is a 100% "moment of conception" member of Feminists for Life.) Guess I'm weird, but I just can't get into the partisan bit.

Besides, I know my babblings (spoken or written) are meaningless. For example, a Green Party member told me he didn't understand the point of the "tobacco" articles I wrote last year ["Comparing Heroin and Tobacco," August 25, 2000; An Election Day Reply , November 17, 2000]. He asked if I meant people should get monetary compensation for quitting smoking. When I agreed (tongue in cheek), he said he could dig it. After all, it had only cost $30 in hypnotherapy fees for him to quit. Yep! Of course, this was just another example of the actual point of my tobacco articles. A sizeable percentage of nicotine addicts break their habits with one or two hypnotherapy sessions. Does anyone wish to claim that an equal percentage of heroin addicts do this? Does anyone truly believe nicotine is more addictive than heroin?

Does tobacco really kill 3,000 people a day? One anti-tobacco ad said that number was "TRUTH"! Another ad implies that each smoker will kill 37 other people with second-hand smoke. It that's "truth," we've all been killed many times over! (Did you know you're already dead?) But the same schmucks who tell us these lies roar with total outrage about old lies told by tobacco companies. (But that's different! I'm telling you lies for YOUR OWN GOOD! Their lies were for greed! So my lies are morally superior!)

When I look at one side I see greedy, lying tobacco execs raking in and spending drug money. When I look at the other side, I see greedy, lying trial lawyers, attorneys general, politicians and special interest groups raking in and spending payoffs and taxes from drug sales. And what do the smokers paying for all that get for their money? One side gives them their fix, the other gives them TV ads full of morally superior lies. Like Orwell's animals, I look from the pigs to the men, the men to the pigs, and I can see no difference!

Did you know that 90% of all members of the "corporate media" with political party affiliation are Democrats? Did you know that some of the biggest media moguls (e.g., Ted Turner) are left-liberal Democrats? Ain't it odd that Gabrielle Bernard thinks the word "corporate" is synonymous with "arch-conservative Republican"? For example, the "corporate media" insists on calling Ralph Nader a "wrecker"—just as Ms. Bernard does [It Was Predictable, December 14]. When Anderson ran in 1980 and Perot ran in 1992, "corporate media" called them "a healthy addition to the American political process." (Seems like a double standard to me!) Anderson and Perot mostly got their support from disaffected Republicans and independents likely to vote Republican, so it’s odd that an arch-conservative Republican "corporate media" should be calling poor Ralph a wrecker for getting some votes from disaffected Democrats. Maybe Ms. Bernard could explain this weird anomaly to me.

Have you noticed the price of gasoline? It's IMPOSSIBLE these low prices could be a result of a simple supply and demand. Obviously, it's the result of collusion between the oil companies and the Bush oil boys to induce Americans to drive more. Increased gasoline sales will provide oil companies obscene profits. It will also consume inordinate amounts of oil, producing an artificial scarcity which the Bush administration will use to justify raping our pristine Alaskan wilderness. I'm surprised "Wrecker Ralph" hasn't told us about this vast new conspiracy yet. And shouldn't Senator Dodd be demanding an investigation?

Happy New Year!