A little ranting and raving is always good for the soul…and the body. It gets the blood flowing and the mind working. It proves that you’re alive!
And the book, All Governments Lie!, has me in a ranting mood. Fascinating! I suppose it’s because I see a kindred spirit in Izzy. It’s a library book and so I’m barred from using a highlighter on almost every page. I would if I could!
And I just read the review of a new book that I must read; The Cigarette Century. The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined
Some data from the book review; “…The single most shattering statistic about life in America in the late 1990’s was that tobacco killed more people than the combined total of those who died from AIDS, car accidents, alcohol, murder, suicide, illegal drugs and fire.” 400,000 Americans died from tobacco use each year! And yet, today…50 million Americans continue to smoke. In fact they are encouraged to smoke. Legally. To compound the evil, all of us pay a small amount of our federal taxes towards rewarding tobacco farmers for growing the crop that will kill.
In 1998, tobacco companies knew they were in trouble so they decided to ally themselves with politicians forever by proposing a settlement with the states of $246 billion dollars over 25 years. Now every state is tied to the purse strings of the tobacco companies. They are addicted to the money just as surely as the smoker is addicted to the cigarette. It didn’t cost the tobacco companies a dime; they simply passed the cost on to the addicts. And they have proved that they will pay any amount for a cigarette. As long as that money shows up every year, you will never see a law that actually bans tobacco use outright. Yes, there will be laws that irritate the smokers and make life more difficult for them, but no one cares about that…as long as the money rolls in.
And I’m supposed to support the ‘war on drugs’? Why? If we were truly the moral and ethical nation that we claim to be, we would imprison all those that deal in tobacco and we would do it now!
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