hilarious

Among the long list of socio-political uglies (such as the sudden hysterical concern with drunk driving) that sprang up like so much fungus during the Reagan years (and used by that administration and its successors to deflect working Americans' attention from the fact that they were being economically screwed), the anti-smoking movement was in many ways the most remarkable. Obviously, it has always been a good idea to educate people of the health hazards, and to do what is possible to raise smokers' awareness of how their practice can annoy others. Yet it seems clear that anti-tobacco mania has always been rooted more in puritanism than in health concerns. While Americans have supported ever stronger anti-smoking laws, they have mostly watched complacently as the same law makers eviscerated other kinds of environmental legislation aimed at industrial activity. It's ok if we poison ourselves through our productive activites, or our transportation needs, but not ok if we do so with tobacco. Why? Well, tobacco is, in the end, a pleasure...a vice. Obviously much worse from the perspective of the prevailing "Protestant ethic".
In any case, the anti-tobacco movement has come a long way, and I've always been amazed that erstwhile industry-friendly politicians seemed, for a change, to stick to their principles while sticking it to the big tobacco companies. Amazing, thought I, that Jesse Helms and other right-wing corporate whores would let the government take so much money from their cronies in one of the country's biggest industries...

...Well, as we saw this week, there was no need to ba amazed. In more obvious political maneuvering, Big Tobacco's penalty was cut from 130 billion dollars to 10 billion. Huh? 120 billion dollars that those folks can keep. Logical. Indeed. Jesse, glad you're still around.

I have to say that although I'm no supporter of the big tobacco companies, I have never felt comfortable with the notion of "blaming" them for those people who smoked their way into serious health problems. Anyone who has ever inhaled tobacco smoke would have to be a complete idiot not to realize that damage was being done to the body. The notion that the tobacco companies fooled people into smoking serves to remove all individual responsibility from the individuals themselves. Problematic. In line with the "always look for a bad guy to blame" syndrome that infects the American soul. People are, for the most part, not innocent morons. They are fully capable moral agents capable of making decisions.

In any case, if those presumed 130 billion (arrived at after five years of legal struggle) were to have been plowed into a fund for public health, that would have been fine. But who are we kidding? The main point here is the utter consistency of class-interest over the public good revealed time and again by those currently in power...

...and they were voted in by those espousing "moral values". It's hilarious.