PAY OUR RESPECTS TO THE  VICTIMS AND HEROES  OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK and Our American Freedoms

PART III - Behind the Scenes of the Anti-Freedom Campaign
Their tactics of terror and their effect on others

Do not make the mistake of believing that we are exploiting this tragedy for our own ends.  Long before this terrorist attack struck our beloved country and put a spotlight on what it means to be free in America we were screaming it from the rooftops to little avail.  How dismally unfortunate that it took the rooftops to come down to underscore what we've been saying all along.

President Bush addressed the Congress and the nation on Thursday, September 20, 2001 and explained clearly and precisely what our nation stands for.  He laid out in no uncertain terms who our enemies are and what it is we are about to defend:

FREEDOM

HE REPEATED THIS WORD 13 TIMES
 
 

NYC C.L.A.S.H., as a group of citizens on the grassroots level who have worked hard to defend this freedom we are probably the most informed, aside from a myriad of smokers' rights groups that exist around the world, about the behind the scenes agenda by government funded health organizations, pharmaceutically funded anti-tobacco organizations and small groups of anti-smoking zealots across the country. It is not what it appears to be on the surface.

Now that we have your attention, we can finally convince you that freedom is at stake of being lost at the hands of American traitors who are emotionally challenged, unable to grasp it's importance beyond their own needs.
 
 

THE IMAGE THEY PRESENT TO THE PUBLIC

In order to repress a section of society they resort to emotional blackmail via a deviant campaign of lies and gross distortions as to what fuels the pursuit of smokers' rights.

 
Let's get something straight...
 

1. Three liberty depriving statements that are fundamental to the justification of the anti-smoking campaign are:

Every citizen who speaks out against smoking bans are pawns of the tobacco industry.

Smokers are irrational "addicts."  Nobody chooses to smoke.  Smokers are tricked and hooked.

Smoking is a cause of death and disease that must be "prevented" at all costs.
 

...these are out and out lies intended to sway the public into believing that smokers are not worthy of the same rights as everyone else and in need of rescue.

We challenge anyone to find one shred of evidence that we have the backing of the tobacco industry. Even non-smokers have sided with smokers by realizing that the loss of liberty is a greater threat to their well being than smokers are.  How could they possibly be linked to "Big Tobacco?" By claiming anything less than that they are fighting a corporate demon would be tantamount to exposing themselves as the tyrannical beast that the anti-smoking cartel really is.

Millions of people have quit smoking. Those who continue to smoke certainly do make a conscious choice by weighing the risks and the benefits. People do actually ENJOY smoking. It is beyond reason that anti-smokers do not claim that there cannot possibly be any enjoyment in other risky behaviors such as race car driving, parachuting, mountain climbing or in becoming a police officer or a firefighter but when it comes to cigarette smoking it's impossible, in their narrow mindedness, that anyone enjoys their choice.

 

"So what do you think of this job?" one firefighter asked another at Ladder 24 on W. 31st St.  It was four days after the World Trade Center destruction, and the two were headed for the first of the wakes for three men from their company.  More than 100 time that many firefighters were missing and presumed dead.  "I never loved it as much as I do now," the other firefighter replied. NY DAILY NEWS, Sept. 23; pg. 31

Do you mean that after all that loss of life and devastation this man does not choose to reduce his risk by quitting something he loves to do?

We do not attempt to compare and diminish the massive loss of life due to a terrorist attack and the bravery of our heroes during the process of doing a job they love to smoking. We seek to show how no one's choice of enjoyable risk taking should be dictated to.  The anti-smokers proclaim that smokers are mentally defective in this area but not the men and women who choose to run towards danger?

Whatever ills MAY come from smoking is none of anyone else's business to "prevent."  It is not a contagious disease that a cure must be found for because it infects people without consent.  It is a choice.  Do not be fooled by their invoking of "for the children."  Their claim that "3000 children start smoking everyday," implying that smoking is not a choice because smokers are all hooked young, before they can make an informed decision, is part of their emotional blackmail because the study they quote this number from was for 20 year olds. Health by legislation is totalitarian and cannot be condoned, lest we all eventually are targetted for "good health."  "PREVENTION" in this case means forcible loss of freedom to choose.
 

2. Three liberty depriving lies that are supplemental to their campaign to win support for their fundamental views are:

Secondhand smoke kills.

Smokers kill innocent bystanders.

There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

...these are the fear mongering tactics perpetrated upon the public to terrorize them into turning against their fellow citizens rather than striking an accord.
 
 

St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 5, 1999: "Anti-smoking campaign approach is ineffective," in which Dru Jeanis, a marketing consultant, warned that "We don't need to spend public money sending messages that try to make one class of people [nonsmokers] abhor another [smokers]."

They refuse to acknowledge the two largest events that defy their claims:

1. The 1993 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Report from which smoking bans were borne was invalidated and vacated in 1998 by a federal court judge [decision] who had ruled against tobacco companies on previous occassions. The EPA's case against secondhand smoke was found to be a fraud. The Congressional Research Service arrived at the same conclusion as the court, whereby:

“In this case the EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded industry by violating the [Radon] Act’s procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency’s public conclusion, and aggressively utilized the Act’s authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiffs, products and to influence public opinion.” (emphasis mine).

“In conducting the ETS Risk Assessment, disregarded information and made findings on selective information; did not disseminate significant epidemiologic information; deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines; failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; and left significant questions without answers. EPA’s conduct left substantial holes in the administrative record. While so doing, produced limited evidence, then claimed the weight of the Agency’s research evidence demonstrated ETS causes cancer.”

“Gathering all relevant information, researching, and disseminating findings were subordinate to EPA’s
demonstrating ETS a Group A carcinogen.”

Even if we were to use the now defunct EPA report as a basis, all that they had shown was that in comparison
to the annual natural rate of lung cancer among nonsmokers which is 10 cases per 100,000 nonsmokers, they had come up with a risk assessment that said exposure to ETS increases this rate to a little less than 12 per 100,000 nonsmokers. That is less than a difference of 2 people!

2. The 1998 World Health Organization (WHO) study released what is considered the largest ever and best formulated study on ETS. The research ran for 10 years and included 7 European countries. The study concluded that no statistically significant risk existed for nonsmokers who either lived or worked with smokers. In effect, WHO found that nonsmokers breathing in a smoke-filled room are at no greater risk of developing lung cancer than they are breathing in a clear room.

"Ever exposure to ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] from other sources was not associated with lung cancer risk."

"Conclusions: Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lunk cancer risk."

 

Not one study ever completed on the hazards of secondhand smoke has ever reached the gold standard of statistical significance: The National Cancer Institute explains, “Relative risks of less than 2 are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias, or the effect of confounding factors [other possibilities] that are sometimes not evident.”  Environmental Tobacco Smoke Table - ETS studies and their findings of Relative Risk. "The Dose Makes The Poison" - A chart that explains exactly how many cigarettes need to be smoked to reach unhealthy exposure levels as defined by government agencies.

 
 

Everyone witnessed the magnitude of the ball of smoke-filled debris that engulfed all those who were fleeing the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and which hovered over the city, reaching miles and miles in its wake.
 
 

Medscape - But Dr. Siegel said asbestos is actually low on his list of dust-related health concerns. Individuals with asbestos-related illnesses such as mesothelioma or lung cancer typically "have asbestos exposure not just in high amounts, but usually over long periods of time," he explained. "So a single isolated asbestos exposure, even if it was large in quantity, would be unlikely to cause major lung damage."

How many times have you heard that secondhand smoke is equal to exposure to asbestos?
 

Contaminants Below Levels for Long-Term Concerns - NY Times
But independent testing by a company hired by The New York Times has concluded that the outdoor
street level air in the vicinity of the trade center site does not contain poisons or toxic substances,
especially lead and asbestos, in levels sufficient to raise long-term public health concern. The results,
according to the report by Adelaide Associates of Brewster, N.Y., essentially mirrored the findings
that have been reached and widely reported by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

"Adelaide's conclusions support the E.P.A. and New York City claims that there are no significant
health risks," the report said.

Some predict that there could be more cases of asthma in the city over time, though most say that one-time exposures, even if severe, are generally shrugged off by the body.

This begs the question:  Why then do they adamantly insist that sitting in a separate room while smoking is occuring in the other room is going to harm you in unspeakable ways?  Oh, forget indoor smoking, they say you'll keel over if you sit in a park where someone, somewhere is smoking.

"There's little risk to the general public of any ongoing air pollution related to the World Trade Center,"
said Patrick L. Kinney, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University,
who has monitored air testing results and was briefed about Adelaide's findings.

Professor Kinney and other experts say that the raw throats and sinuses that many residents and
workers complain about are in fact mostly evidence of the body's defensive systems.

But if you complain of a raw throat from smoke from someone else's cigarette it doesn't have the same implications?  Your cough could mean you're actually NOT being harmed.  Imagine that.

But raw throats and sore eyes, one environmental expert said, should generally be likened to the effect of sitting by a campfire.

Sure, campfires are fun.  Care to guess how many carcinogens, and at what rate, you're being exposed to while roasting your marshmallow?  Doesn't hurt you does it?  You don't feel like you're going to die if you don't get far away from that fire, do you?  Cigarette smoke is the same thing.

"If the smoke gets in your eyes, they burn, but it doesn't mean you're going to go blind," said Donald R. Blake, a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Irvine. "This is a tough thing that
people in New York are dealing with," he said. "But we're talking here about a short-term, temporary
problem."
 

N.Y. CAN BREATHE FREE - NY Post - ONE of the big health concerns in the aftermath of last Tuesday's destruction of the World Trade Center was the damage all that dust and smoke could
do to people's lungs.

As the Twin Towers collapsed and sent a wave of soot cascading through downtown, victims were left covered in dense, powdery ash. Many needed to be treated for smoke inhalation.

Experts feared serious air-quality problems, but they now say the general public can breathe easy - there is little threat of any lingering health hazards.

Besides, said Dr. Murray Rogers, chief of pulmonology at Lenox Hill Hospital, "with asbestos, you need a lot of exposure over a long period of time before you suffer any adverse effect. In some cases, he said, people may be suffering psychosomatic symptoms triggered by Tuesday's trauma.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that the health risk from the smoking remains of the towers poses little risk to the general public

"Psychosomatic symptoms" - Is it possible that if someone's head is filled with scary stories about cigarette smoke they will believe they are experiencing physical affects too?
 

THE CHEMICALS
Monitors Say Health Risk From Smoke Is Very Small - NY Times
The first volcano-like clouds of dust and smoke from the fires and building collapses undoubtedly contained potentially harmful particles and gases, which have since dissipated, said Dr. Mark D. Siegel, the director of the medical intensive care unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

THAT Hiroshima-like mushroom cloud of smoke, the one that contained every chemical and toxin imaginable, that appears to be the equivalent (and then some as pertains to chemicals) to oh, we don't know...  millions and millions of lit cigarettes at the same time, is able to dissipate while one smoker's cigarette lingers so long you can't enter a room a day later without it affecting you?
 

After Attacks, Studies of Dust and Its Effects - SCIENCE TIMES (Oct. 16th)
For the moment, almost all of the independent research jibes with the core finding of federal, state and city health and environmental officials: that only people working for a prolonged period in the 16-acre attack site face a significant health risk, and then only if they are not wearing protective masks and clothing. Outside that zone, there is little chance of significant harm, they say.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a $5 million grant last week to help city and state officials monitor air quality in Lower Manhattan...  to see if asthma or other respiratory ailments rose after the attacks. (So far, the only reporting is anecdotal, and it shows no discernible increase in asthma.)

Funny.  We've heard so often how walking by a smoker outside triggers asthma attacks.  But not this?

In the end, many health experts echoed the opinion of Dr. Landrigan, who said that ultimately it was people working at the site who needed to be most careful about limiting exposure and keeping track of health problems.

"Someone who was just there for a few hours on the 11th and had minimal contact with dust since then may have some minute elevation of risk," he said. "But it would be imperceptibly small."

Funny.  We've heard how coming in contact with a lit cigarette being smoked in another room for two
hours a week while dining out is certain death.  But not this?
 

City, feds say WTC air's OK
Rule out risk to health - NY Daily News (Oct. 27)
"You smell it and you feel there must be something wrong with it.  But what I'm told is that it is not dangerous to your health." [Mayor Giuliani]

NYC C.L.A.S.H. has previously explained the smell syndrome as it relates to perceived threats. Click here for opinion.

EPA officials said the health risk a person would face must be calculated by examing exposure over a long period of time -- possibly years.

"The short-term irritation of eyes, nose and throat that some people... may feel does not translate into significant or any long-term health effects," said city Health Commissioner Neil Cohen.

Mr. Cohen, be prepared to hear your words repeated at any City Council hearing held that would seek to impose stronger smoking bans based on the effects of dining in a restaurant for a couple of hours where smoking is allowed in a separate section.

Sandra Mullin, a Health Department spokeswoman, said there was no evidence of a rise in hospital admissions or emergency room visits that could be tied to health effects from vapors or emissions from the site.  "We are not seeing any spike from what we've usually seen at this time of year," she said.

Oh, but pass by cigarette smoke in the street and the anti-smokers have you believe that children are falling to the ground, gasping for air and clogging the hospitals more than ever.
 
 

Everyone is familiar with the rhetoric the anti-smokers present to the public.
Everyone is accosted by the "caring" commercial advertisements and billboards.
Many accept their message as at least being close to the truth.

They are all lies.  They are all meant to garner support for the final vision.

THIS IS THEIR VERSION OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM INTENDED
TO SCARE THE PUBLIC INTO COMPLIANCE

 

THE FACE BEHIND THE IMAGE

We have extracted particular terms and phrases so eloquently articulated by President Bush that stirred our patriotism and stripped down to the bone who we are as a nation. He explained what it is, and who, we will not stand for. After we present this part of our case you can judge for yourself how many of them describe our domestic terrorists, practicing their anti-smoking jihad in an effort to dehumanize, control and deny liberty to a group of Americans.
 
 

President Bush: "We have seen the state of our union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion."

Leading Anti-Smoking Activist, Stanton Glantz, once said:  "In real life, heroes don't smoke; it's the uneducated and poor."  (Psychology Today, September/October 1995, p. 10, "smoke screen").

The NY Times article, "No Cover or Charge to Workers," Sept. 16th, reported:

"By 4 p.m. Mr. Otero had disappeared, and the ironworker and three other men in hard hats were behind the bar serving a growing crowd of policemen, soldiers and firefighters, many with American flags stuck in their hard hats. The place took on the rowdy feel of a bar in a mining town.

"But there were desperately festive moments as well. Someone piled cigarette cartons and cigars on the bar."

"...an avid runner, yet liked cigars.  A powerfully buillt man, he had a kind and humble disposition."

A hero who smoked cigars.  Imagine that.

How About More About That?

CIGAR MAG GIVES HEROES A HOT TIME
 
By JOE CUNNINGHAM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 FIRED UP:
Mayor Giuliani puffs away at the Marriott Marquis yesterday.
- Elizabeth Lippman

November 21, 2001 -- Firefighters are used to rushing into smoky rooms - but yesterday they did it for fun, as Cigar Aficionado magazine hosted an event for the FDNY and NYPD at the Marriott Marquis in Midtown.

Avid cigar smoker Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the mag's cover boy this month, made an appearance at the affair, telling the assembled firefighters and cops, "You're the reason why the city of New York, having been attacked so brutally . . . is even stronger, brighter and more effective now than it was before Sept. 11."

The magazine invited the city's heroes who worked at the World Trade Center recovery effort to participate in a sampling of some of the best cigars in the world.

"This is just a small way for us to say thank you to everybody for the service they've provided to New York," said Cigar Aficionado editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken. "It's an honor for us to honor them."

"It's nice to see the appreciation we're receiving - it's too bad it took a tragedy for something like this happen," said Chief Rich Kirchner, a volunteer firefighter from Freehold, N.J., as he lit up a stogie. "I'm loving this - I'm like a kid in a candy store."
 

Anti-Smoking Terrorist Tactic: Smoking is bad so only bad people smoke and bad people have no place in society. According to Glantz, people who smoke cannot be role models or decent human beings simply because they smoke. He further implies that they should be pitied. Subliminally, the message is that it is okay to manipulate their behavior because they deserve it.

According to Mr. Glantz, any firefighter working to save lives in the NYC disaster is not a hero if indeed he smoked. And we can only guess that he was counting on time to have wiped away recollections that the men and women of the armed services smoked in every war.  Of course, he'll tell you that the government supplied the cigarettes and "hooked" the soldiers.  Again, it is a backhanded blow because that insinuates that everyone, including our brave militia, are mindless.

Terrorism meant to control: The underlying goal behind banning smoking:

Sherry Smith, regional director of advocacy for the American Cancer Society, said, "Banning indoor smoking will not only make the air healthier for nonsmokers, but will encourage smokers to quit. Adults quit smoking at a higher rate when opportunities to smoke have been reduced."

Definitions:
Encourage - remove choice
Opportunities - dictated removal of smoking areas

Or more to their point:
"Focus group participants indicated that industry manipulation and secondhand smoke are the most effective strategies for denormalizing smoking and reducing cigarette consumption. More aggressive advertising strategies appear to be more effective at reducing tobacco consumption."
~Evaluation of antismoking advertising campaigns.Goldman LK; Glantz SA
JAMA 1998 Mar 11;279(10):772-7

And futher:
Of 46 million American smokers, 1.4 million to 2.8 million will quit if a national ban on smoking in public is passed. Fifty thousand others would decide not to start smoking each year the law is in effect. Overall, cigarette consumption would decline by at least 10 percent - about 2.5 million packs per year.
~EPA review of The Smokefree Environment Act, "Costs and Benefits of Smoking Restrictions," 1994

From the American Nursing Assn's Position Statement on ETS:
"The ultimate goal for all smoking policies is to  encourage complete smoking cessation."

Finally, the tyrannical truth:
In 1975 Sir George Godber, British delegate to the World Health Organization (WHO), presented the WHO with his blueprint for changing individual behavior by changing social attitudes. Since his special interest was tobacco, he used it as an example of how his plan could be used. His published address to the WHO contains the following statement: "...it would be essential to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily to ETS."
 
 

Terrorism meant to divide: The underlying goal behind the secondhand smoke strategy:

"Also, ANR does not view the matter of secondhand smoke as a smokers vs. nonsmokers issue.  The tobacco industry promotes this idea to deflect attention away from the health issue. It is a fact--smoking in public is increasingly becoming socially unacceptable in this country. Clean indoor air laws simply sanctify a change in public attitudes about smoking."
~Holly Holmes, Americans For Nonsmokers Rights

NYC C.L.A.S.H. is a group of citizen smokers with no ties to the tobacco companies. There are many groups like us. See how they lie to manipulate you?

"Socially unacceptable" :  It is by their own hand that they have promoted this label

"Clean indoor air laws simply sanctify a change in public attitudes about smoking." : Using the government to bless their terrorism against their fellow Americans

The actual definition of SANCTIFY is: To free from sin and and by edict make it moral.
In other words, if they can get the lawmakers to believe them and enact legislation then it must be true.
 
 

Terrorism meant to disable: The underlying goal behind extraordinary taxation on cigarettes:

"Preventing smoking and smokeless tobacco use among young people is critical to ending the epidemic of tobacco use.  Ultimately, the increase in the tax on ALL tobacco products will act as a disincentive to current and future users."
NYS Assembly Bill A00142, Rep. Alexander B. Grannis, Sponsor

Definitions:
"young people" - exploiting a phrase to elicit blind sympathy and support
"ending the epidemic" - forcing people to give up free will by creating a false perception that it is beyond free will
"disincentive" - removal of adult choice by hijacking our pocketbooks

Assemblyman Grannis is an excellent example of an ultra-anti-smoker.  It is he who sponsored the original smoking bans in New York, he who sponsored a fire-safe cigarette law, he who now sponsors a bill to ban smoking on beaches and in parks, and he who has inked his name to 19 current anti-tobacco related bills as either the primary sponsor or the co-sponsor.

Not only are smokers the victims of taxation without representation but our taxes are used to benefit all. Nonsmokers enjoy the privileges our tax dollars supply them without making a contribution themselves.  Even criminals are afforded the right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall
private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

By their edict smokers hold a station in life below criminal.  They find it within their rights to steal our money (property) for our own good.

Their eventual argument to support their thievery is that smokers are a financial burden to society.
Another lie. The Congressional Research Service, who answers to no one, says otherwise:

"In general,  smokers do not appear to currently impose net financial costs on the rest of society. The tobacco
settlement will increase the transfer of resources from the smoking to the nonsmoking public."
 
 

Terrorism meant to incite hate: The underlying goal behind the marginalization of smokers:

Their anti-smoking message instigates anti-smokers into believing that they are justified in defending themselves against the "criminal" smoker by either harassment or actually physically attacking them:

"If you know of ways to make it miserable for a smoker everytime he lights up, or a smoking bar or business, let us know. We will not condone any action that would severely harm one or worse. We are looking first and foremost "civil" ways of dealing with the government and others to stop smoking, but are prepared to use force if necessary. This includes causing a scene at a tobacco sponsored event to "outnumbering" smokers in public. This is a very serious matter, and society can have control over the government. It's time to take back the streets.'
~Signed, legalviolence@mailexcite.com
 
 

In his Sept. 14th column, "Smoking or Non-Smoking," NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman embraces a third party's sick and twisted analogy. He underhandedly delivers a personal prescription to sustain a civil war that takes place right in our own backyard by admiring an equation that likens terrorism to tobacco companies and terrorists to smokers. In one revolting fell swoop Mr. Friedman has reduced at least one third of those involved in the rescue attempts and at least one third of those they are desperately seeking to locate to the equivalent of the dirt they are bloodying their hands upon.
 
 

September 14, 2001 FOREIGN AFFAIRS Smoking or Non-Smoking? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN  JERUSALEM -- If this attack on America by an extensive terrorist cell is the equivalent of World War III, it's not too early to begin thinking about what could be its long-term geopolitical consequences. Just as World Wars I and II produced new orders and divisions, so too might this war. What might it look like?   Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, offers the following possibility: Several decades ago, he notes, they discovered that smoking causes cancer. Soon after that, people started to demand smoking and non-smoking sections. "Well, terrorism is the cancer of our age," says Mr. Peres. "For the past decade, a lot of countries wanted to deny that, or make excuses for why they could go on dealing with terrorists. But after what's happened in New York and Washington, now everyone knows. This is a cancer. It's a danger to us all. So every country must now decide whether it wants to be a smoking or non-smoking country, a country that supports terrorism or one that doesn't."  Mr. Peres is on to something — this sort of division is going to emerge — but we must be very, very careful about how it is done, and whom we, the U.S., assign to the smoking and non-smoking worlds.   As Mr. Peres himself notes, this is not a clash of civilizations — the Muslim world versus the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish worlds. The real clash today is actually not between civilizations, but within them — between those Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews with a modern and progressive outlook and those with a medieval one. We make a great mistake if we simply write off the Muslim world and fail to understand how many Muslims feel themselves trapped in failing states and look to America as a model and inspiration.  "President Lincoln said of the South after the Civil War: 'Remember, they pray to the same God,'" remarked the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. "The same is true of many, many Muslims. We must fight those among them who pray only to the God of Hate, but we do not want to go to war with Islam, with all the millions of Muslims who pray to the same God we do."  The terrorists who hit the U.S. this week are people who pray to the God of Hate. Their terrorism is not aimed at reversing any specific U.S. policy. Indeed, they made no demands. Their terrorism is driven by pure hatred and nihilism, and its targets are the institutions that undergird America's way of life, from our markets to our military.  These terrorists must be rooted out and destroyed. But it must be done in a way that doesn't make us Osama bin Laden's chief recruiter. Because these Muslim terrorists did not just want to kill Americans. That is not the totality of their mission. These people think strategically. They also want to trigger the sort of massive U.S. retaliation that makes no distinction between them and other Muslims. That would be their ultimate victory — because they do see the world as a clash of civilizations, and they want every Muslim to see it that way as well and to join their jihad.  Americans were really only able to defeat Big Tobacco when whistleblowers within the tobacco industry went public and took on their own industry, and their own bosses, as peddlers of cancer. Similarly, the only chance to really defeat these nihilistic terrorists is not just by bombing them. That is necessary, but not sufficient, because another generation will sprout up behind them. Only their own religious communities and societies can really restrain and delegitimize them. And that will happen only when the Muslim majority recognizes that what the Osama bin Ladens are leading to is the destruction and denigration of their own religion and societies.  This civil war within Islam, between the modernists and the medievalists, has actually been going on for years — particularly in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan. We need to strengthen the good guys in this civil war. And that requires a social, political and economic strategy, as sophisticated, and generous, as our military one.  To not retaliate ferociously for this attack on our people is only to invite a worse attack tomorrow and an endless war with terrorists. But to retaliate in a way that doesn't distinguish between those who pray to a God of Hate and those who pray to the same God we do is to invite an endless war between civilizations — a war that will land us all in the smoking section.

Mr. Friedman, and anyone who rallied to his side after his opinion made print, doesn't deserve to stand in the presence of the men and women who now selflessly struggle physically and emotionally 12 hours a day to reach just one of those trapped beneath the very symbol of NYC fortitude. For many their only comfort and momentary relief is a cigarette break. Tobacco hatred has reached its ugly zenith as he's just lumped the living and the dead heroes in with the terrorists without a second thought. As an active smokers' rights advocate I knew the extent of the blind hatred. Now the whole world knows it too.

America has been attacked because of the freedom it stands for. Mr. Friedman's twisted logic is the antithesis of what we are about to defend in honor of what this great country stands for. Painstaking and deliberate preservation of our civil liberties is our first defense in the face of those who hate what we stand for, yet Mr. Friedman is allowed to print a column that glorifies the anti-smoking movement, fanning the flames of hatred anti-smokers harbor against smokers with his illustrative comparisons and endorsing a movement that seeks to remove the freedoms of one group of American citizens.

Those who will be defending our constitutional rights in the weeks to come will also be smoking cigarettes as a form of comfort.

Not for your health, Mr. Friedman but for our health, you and the rest of your brand of domestic terrorists stay out of the "smoking section" you now associate with evil because it is you and the anti-smoking cartel who are the devils in disguise.

[For more responses to Mr. Friedman's column, please go to A Backhanded Blow Against Smokers]

---

On September 11th, Suffolk County was planning to vote on a legislative proposal that would ban smoking within a 50' foot radius of building entrances.  Naturally, they had to postpone their legislative session due to the terror attack.  In light of the circumstances isn't it ironic that on that very day they were to vote whether or not to procede to abridge the freedoms and deny liberties to the very Americans that were victims of this attack based on nothing more than a self-righteous moral objection?  They were to reconvene on Sept. 20th.  We do not know what transpired during that session as the minutes are not yet available.

Linda Stewart, an active spokesperson for smokers' rights and civil liberties wrote:

I note that on Sept 11 you were scheduled to vote on a plan to further
isolate and discriminate against  citizens who smoke. I trust you had
better things on your mind that day and that the question is still open.

I would urge you to consider that this is not the time to further divide
Americans or to further pit us against one another. It's a time for us
to  unite and to end these petty and unsupported squabbles about whiffs
of smoke against an open sky. It's time, in fact, to end all petty
squabbles and phony divisions.

I write this from NYC where terrorist smoke has bathed the city for
days, and where there has been no "no smoke" section.

I write this from NYC where the cameras constantly pick up frames of
firemen and rescue workers taking short exhausted breaks with coffee
and, yes, cigarettes, and where the NY Times writes of the one open bar
where they drink and yes, smoke.

Do you now intend to reward them by kicking them away from even fifty
feet from your doors?  If you needed rescuing, would you also want them
to stay fifty feet away from you?

Just asking.
L. Stewart
NYC

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ENVIRONMENTALIST FEAR MONGERERS'  ROLE IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER   Just another example of the result of depending on studies that are inherently junk science in order to appease groups that demand to live risk-free lives when there is no risk except in their controlling minds. As the author notes in a follow-up story to this article, Asbestos Column Raised Awareness , "...not to point fingers but to inform an attentive public that bogus health scares may have consequences."

Asbestos Could Have Saved WTC Lives Friday, September 14, 2001 By Steven Milloy Asbestos fibers in the air and rubble following the collapse of the World Trade Center is adding to fears in the aftermath of Tuesday’s terrorist attack. The true tragedy in the asbestos story, though, is the lives that might have been saved but for 1970s-era hysteria about asbestos. Until 30 years ago, asbestos was added to flame-retardant sprays used to insulate steel building materials, particularly floor supports. The insulation was intended to delay the steel from melting in the case of fire by up to four hours. In the case of the World Trade Center, emergency plans called for this four-hour window to be used to evacuate the building while helicopters sprayed to put out the fire and evacuated persons from the roof. The use of asbestos ceased in the 1970s following reports of asbestos workers becoming ill from high exposures to asbestos fibers. The Mt. Sinai School of Medicine’s Irving Selikoff had reported that asbestos workers had higher rates of lung cancer and other diseases. Selikoff then played a key role in the campaign to halt the use of asbestos in construction. In 1971, New York City banned the use of asbestos in spray fireproofing. At that time, asbestos insulating material had only been sprayed up to the 64th floor of the World Trade Center towers. Other materials were substituted for asbestos. Though the substitute sprays passed Underwriters Laboratories’ tests, not everyone was convinced they would work as well. One skeptic was the late-Herbert Levine who invented spray fireproofing with wet asbestos in the late-1940s. Levine’s invention involved a combination of asbestos with mineral wool and made commonplace the construction of large steel framed buildings.  Previously, buildings such as the Empire State Building had to have their steel framework insulated with concrete, a much more expensive insulator that was more difficult to use. Levine’s company, Asbestospray, was familiar with the World Trade Center construction, but failed to get the contract for spraying insulation in the World Trade Center. Levine frequently would say that "if a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down."  That appears to be what happened Tuesday, according to Richard Wilson, a risk expert and physics professor at Harvard University. The two hijacked airliners crashed into floors 96 to 103 of One World Trade Center and floors 87 to 93 of Two World Trade Center. Instead of the steel girders of the towers lasting up to four hours before melting, the steel frames of One World Trade Center lasted only one hour and forty minutes, while the steel frames of Two World Trade Center lasted just 56 minutes before collapsing. Though many were able to escape during those times, thousands apparently were not, including the hundreds of firefighters and police killed when the buildings suddenly and prematurely collapsed. Selikoff was certainly right to point out that some workers heavily exposed to certain types of asbestos fibers were at increased risk of disease. But Selikoff was wrong to press the panic button about any use of or exposure to asbestos. For example, no adverse health effect has ever been attributed to Levine’s technique of spraying wet asbestos, according to Harvard’s Wilson.  We may now be paying a horrible price for junk science-fueled asbestos hysteria. Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of the upcoming book Junk Science Judo:  Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).

 

The anti-smokers practice malice disguised as virtue.  Their war against smoking turns citizen upon citizen in order to divide and seize control.

No one likes to hear this but it is fact and an appropriate comparison:  Hitler was an anti-smoker.  He had teams of youth that acted as informants on anyone who was caught smoking, even their own parents.  He eventually made smoking a crime.  Much like the Taliban has made smoking a crime.

The anti-smoking organizations promote the idea that smoking near children is tantamount to child abuse and are engaging in legal activities that would seek to remove children from the homes of parents who smoke.  They encourage children to belittle their parents for smoking and inform another authority figure about their environment.  They further instruct people, for a fee, on how to sue their neighbors for smoking next door in their own homes.

It doesn't matter whether anyone approves of smoking.  It's none of their business.  Americans smoke, it's legal and we demand our freedom to do so without being terrorized.

The entire smoking issue is trivial, petty, a NON issue created by a handful of greedy corporate figures, such as lawyers, and small groups who are obsessed with control over others for reasons only a psychologist can answer and who pursue their quest with nothing short of religious fanaticism.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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THE LESSON ENJOY WHAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE TO ENJOY IT. We forsake so many things in the hopes that we will live one extra day, one extra year.  We deprive ourselves of pleasure to attain what others promise us.... longevity.  Many have now learned it is never a guarantee.  Life is quality, not quantity.  People have quit smoking because they've been brow beaten into believing they'll live, period.  No one tells them for how long, just that it will be longer.  Smokers and indulgers of certain foods have succumbed to outside pressure that they must give up something they enjoy because life might be longer without it.  But does anyone care that it might not be better? At the funeral for EMS paramedic Ricardo Quinn his brother Gregory spoke a bit about life: "Try to enjoy every day like it might be your last, because that is what life is really about." YOU'RE DARN RIGHT GREGORY!   WE LIGHT THIS NEXT CIGARETTE IN HONOR OF YOUR WORDS WHILE THE ANTI-SMOKERS RUN AROUND LIVING A MISERABLE EXISTENCE TRYING TO GUARANTEE THEMSELVES A LIFE THAT COMES WITH NO GUARANTEES AND FORCING EVERYONE TO CONFORM TO THEIR OBSESSION. The World Trade Center catastrophe opened a great many eyes to this reality EASING JITTERS DOWN TOBACCO ROAD - NY Post, 10/2/01 If you've gone back to unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking since the World Trade Center attack, apparently you're not alone. "I started smoking and now I'm up to a pack every three days," says Kathleen Dunleavey, who works in Manhattan and quit smoking five years ago.  She also has turned to junk food (in fact, she was eating a slice of meatball pizza at her desk when The Post called) and stopped going to the gym. "It comes from being afraid, from being afraid something else will happen.  I feel like we're going to die.  I feel like I may as well enjoy myself now." Still she doesn't feel better.  "I've got a sore throat and I'm tired all the time," says Dunleavy, who's trying to cut back this week. One Manhattan psychologist said many New Yorkers share Dunleavy's problem right now. "Cigarettes are a stress reliever," explains Dr. Iris McGuire.  "When people are stressed out they look for comfort all over." Patty, who lives in Queens, says she's been on an "all-out binge" -- using alcohol, food and cigarettes to deal with the stress.  She also hooked up with an old boyfriend. "It's a little bit of everything -- devil may care, throw caution to the wind, we'll be blown up tomorrow.  It's also self-destructive.  When I get frightened.  I don't act out, I turn inward." When asked about cigarettes, Patty replied, "Are you kidding?  I don't bother with plain old air anymore.  I smoke in my sleep," she says.  "Cigarettes are a quick anti-depressant." McGuire's advice?  "Try to relieve stress some other way -- through excercise like walking, jogging, swimming, or any kind of physical act." NYC C.L.A.S.H. Observation:  Sure, don't do anything risky that truly makes you feel better.  Find a placebo that will "guarantee" you longevity even though you just found out life isn't guaranteed.  So why enjoy it?

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Cancer is a human condition.  Simply being born puts you at risk. No one knows what exactly causes it in many of the cases.  Environment? Genetics? Social conditions? Economics? Personal behavior? It is extremely difficult to pinpoint the reason many people get cancer and should someone place blame on one confounder in particular the medical profession and scientific community is at a loss to explain the mechanisms involved.  They have yet to show how a substance creates a tumor.  They only guess by statistical studies that one thing or another was the culprit loosely based on your personal history.

To narrow this discussion down to smoking, the same applies.  They say smoking causes cancer because statistically more smokers have cancer.  They cannot show you how that occurs.  We concede that smoking has been well linked to lung cancer. What we do not concede is that it kills in the numbers that the health organizations claim.  When they tell you how many cancer patients are smokers, ask how many smokers have cancer.  Cancer will not be eradicated by stopping smoking.

Life is quality, not quantity.  Life is full of risks, some unavoidable and some chosen.  Firefighters and police officers CHOOSE a profession that is risky.  Smokers CHOOSE a behavior that is risky.  Driving itself is risky yet most of us CHOOSE to drive because the benefit outweighs the risk. We all make many conscious choices that involve risk for whatever personal gain we may derive from it whether it be better pay, a sense of accomplishment, convenience or mere enjoyment.

Some choose to limit their risks as much as possible.  That is fine if that is what makes you happy.  But no one should compare their level of risk taking and enjoyment of life to anyone else's because we all seek to enjoy life in our own way, even if that means a chance that life will be shortened - or not.

TELL THE ANTI-SMOKERS THAT YOUR LIFE IS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS !

 
Related Sites:
Visit the SMOKERS UNITED page WE ARE AMERICANS TOO
 

 

PRESIDENT BUSH SPEAKS TO THE NATION:

 "Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom."

That means nothing less than freedom for our own citizens on our own land also.  The anti-smokers want to deny freedom and choice to those who freely choose to smoke.

"...enemies of freedom..."

Anti-smokers are enemies of freedom.  They work to deny smokers the right to assemble in private establishments.

"...a world where freedom itself is under attack."

If we do not accept our freedoms being attacked by overseas fanatics, we should be less accepting in having our freedoms attacked by our own.

'Americans are asking, "Who attacked our country?":

"...its goal is not making money, its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere."

As described throughout our Tribute pages and NYC C.L.A.S.H.'s website, this is exactly what the anti-smokers have in mind to do.  When it comes to terrorist plots they are just as guilty as those who attacked us because they want to create a smoke-free society by imposing their own radical moral beliefs on our own American citizens.

"Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate."

Anti-smokers go about their campaign to eradicate smoking with religious fervor and everyone must conform according to them.  They have imposed rules upon the land based on their own "religious beliefs" by distorting scientific studies.

"These demands [freedom] are not open to negotiation or discussion."

Compromising with fanatics such as the anti-smokers have led to greater restrictions. In order to preserve what freedoms smokers have left our freedom to engage in our choice to smoke can no longer be negotiated. Smokers and nonsmokers alike, the PEOPLE of this country, must stand up to anyone who seeks to deny liberties to any group of people.

'The terrorists are traitors to their own faith..."

Anti-smokers are traitors to our own U.S. Constitution.  They have no respect for it whatsoever.

"Americans are asking "Why do they hate us?":

"They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

Anti-smokers are not in it for public health.  They are in it because they hate that some can actually receive enjoyment from smoking.  Because for some reason they think it is their personal responsibility to stop others from enjoying a legal product.  Without any exaggeration they just hate smoking and thus smokers and have done and continue to do anything within their power to remove smoking from public view by denying smokers the right to assemble in public.  They hate the freedom our country guarantees. That those who choose to smoke can and do. They seek to have a product regulated in their drive to incrementally destroy our choice to smoke.

"These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends."

Although there have been very extreme comments from the street soldiers of the anti-smoking cartel that wished smokers dead we don't claim that the anti-smoker organizations wish us death themselves but they do mean to "end lives" in the way of removing choices from our lives.  They do this by their own disruptive methods that include lying to the public about harm smokers cause nonsmokers and holding up "mountains" of studies, all which are nothing but junk.  Quantity does not make quality but they hold up their stack of papers as proof to disrupt a way of life.  Their lies and manipulation are an atrocity in and of itself and that causes the masses to become needlessly fearful.  They play upon the fear they create in order to segregate smokers from nonsmokers, eventually causing each to take sides against another and creating separate classes.  One class then forsakes the other and friendships are based on this alone.

"We're not deceived by their pretenses to piety."

Nor should anyone be deceived by the anti-smokers' claim that they hold the higher moral ground.  They are intolerant self-righteous puritans who have taken to calling smoking "abnormal" and smokers "socially unacceptable."  They believe that their choice not to smoke makes them more virtuous.  They snub their nose at anyone who opposes their belief.

"...to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."

There is no need to expand on this statement when discussing anti-smokers.  The shoe fits without question.

"The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it and destroy it where it grows."

Again, if we do not accept terrorism in any form then we must recognize that anti-smokers engage in the same tactics and defeat them before they destroy our freedoms from within.  The anti-smoking campaign is an infectious agent.  If we allow it to succeed and continue to grow it will not stop at smoking.  Other facets of our freedom will be challenged by other radical groups within our own borders who seek to remove other lifestyle choices because they have decided on their own that it is immoral.

"This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom."

Everyone, not just smokers, should denounce the intolerance displayed by the anti-smokers.  Intolerance, no matter what it is directed at, cannot be allowed to germinate in our free society. It goes against everything we stand for.

"They understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next. Terror unanswered can not only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments."

Allowing the anti-smokers to continue in their war against smokers is allowing freedom to be denied.  As stated above, once you set the tone that one liberty can be denied then another and another liberty is open to denial because it's been gotten away with before. The foundation of our country will be eroded if we continue to allow small groups of people to dictate to other groups of people.  The anti-smoking campaign is a threat to our very fabric.

"I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here."

We ask you to recognize the threat to freedom that the anti-smokers pose to our country.  We ask you to put aside your "dislikes" in support of the values of America.  We ask you to defend the rights guaranteed to ALL Americans by speaking out against totalitarian restrictions the anti-smokers seek to impose.

"We're in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words."

NO ONE.  This does not mean EXCEPT smokers.

"As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror. This will be an age of liberty here and across the world."

We call out to the anti-smokers who have terrorized the country with their lies in order to create fear so that they may manipulate the minds and actions of people.  We now stand tall as a country, energized by our love for our country and its principles, determined to live free.  You can seek to deny liberty but no one will find your agenda acceptable any longer.

"...it is natural to wonder if America's future is one of fear."  "Freedom and fear are at war."

The anti-smokers instilled fear in Americans on purpose.  They manufactured it to attain control.  As our president has stated, fear-mongering seeks to deny freedom.  Anti-smokers are as guilty as the terrorists we are at war with.

"And I will carry this. It is the police shield of a man named George Howard who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others."

Many of the dead and the rescuers smoke. The rescuers who died and those who toil day upon day to recover all who perished in the World Trade Center are obviously not weak people.  They CHOOSE to smoke. The anti-smokers would deny freedom to them and deny their access to restaurants, bars, parks and beaches.  The anti-smokers consider them "abnormal" and "socially unacceptable" simply because they enjoy a cigarette or cigar.  The anti-smokers should be ashamed.

"Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war..."

As a nation of people going about our daily business many have lost sight of this in the past decade while the anti-smokers have instilled fear and treated a group of people with cruelty by insisting they stand in the cold or refusing them entry to public venues even when separation is an option.  The anti-smokers claim they are not denying "people" just their "behavior."  Sorry?  Behavior is part of a person.  Smoking is legal.  It is not "obscene."   If we are at war with foreign bodies who want to create fear in order to eliminate the freedom we enjoy and inflict cruelty that is devoid of justice then we must begin at home by going to war against anyone who seeks to do the same to our own people.

"...a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings..."

Anti-smokers

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