Monthly Archives: June 2011

Really!?! There’s a group called Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harrassment? And this is their mission statement:

Over the course of the last decade, a small cabal of prohibitionists and social engineers has launched an effective, systematic campaign to demonize and (their word) “de-normalize” anyone who lights a cigarette.

They’ve been able to make it work because they’ve understood the nastier secrets of human nature (the easy instincts of hate and fear; the yen to be thought of as Better without effort, talent or charm; and the really nifty general kick of kicking Other People around.) And they’ve mastered how to exploit them through the science of propaganda.

Really!?! You’re going to capitalize Better and Other People for no reason whatsoever? Really!?!

Then, too, they’ve had the money (mostly taxpaying smokers’ money) to make their message a constant drumbeat — drumming it constantly into the heads of almost everybody with ears. That their message is far from truthful can’t compete with the constant beat.

Really!?! Cause you’re the idiots paying a bajillion dollars for cigarettes, and you don’t seem so concerned about your money then.

CLASH’s goal is to stop the cacophony. To make the voices of reason heard. And then to counter the big lies and the big libels with information.

Really!?! Reason? You guys are the morons inhaling smoke directly into your lungs. And you think you’re being reasonable? Really!?!

CLASH’s mission is to rescue the constitutional rights of all — to free assembly, equal protection, and equal access to public life.

Really!?! Equal access to public life? You mean not walking behind a smoker and having them blow a huge cloud of smoke in your face? That equal access? Really!?!

We ardently believe that the right to pursue happiness isn’t — or shouldn’t be — the right of one group to wrathfully pursue the happiness of others and try to run it out of town.

And that Rights, in fact, aren’t — or, in any case, shouldn’t be — a zero-sum game in which for one group to have rights, another is made to have none.

Really!?! That sounds super familiar.

This is not what we once used to call “The American Way.”

Really!?! Cause the American Way should also include not throwing your cigarette butts out your car windows while you’re driving and making me and all the Native Americans cry. Thanks.

And it’s more than a fight about smoking now, it’s a fight about basic values, a highly political fight about the way we’re going to live.

It’s a battle that’s worth joining.

No retreat, No surrender.

Really!?! Cause Captain Jason Nesmith said it way better. Never give up, never surrender! Dicks.