Over the past few days, there has been much discussion on Frank’s blog about mounting some sort of resistance to the juggernaut of Tobacco Control and it’s recent fellow travellers in the prohibition and lifestyle control business. The conversation to date has centred mostly around the nomenclature of this resistance movement, and as usual, when you have twenty or so people discussing something which is based on personal opinion, you get twenty different ideas, none of which all can agree on. This one is set to run for a bit longer yet, I would imagine!

However, once the tricky subject of the name of the organisation has been resolved, what then? How does one set about resisting a many-headed hydra that has a global stranglehold, is funded to the tune of billions, has politicians in every country eating out of its hands, and has been busy entrenching its position for several decades? It would seem an impossible task for anyone but an equally well funded global organisation.

I’ve been giving some thought to how we could progress once the vexatious problem of the name is settled to the satisfaction of the majority.

The first thing to do I guess would be to set up a website, which provides a focal point for all those who are, or who will be involved. It would provide a channel of communication, act as an information exchange and provide a point where any actions decided upon can be co-ordinated.

The next requirement is to get as many people as possible involved. This might seem easy given the 1.5 billion or so harassed smokers out there, but sadly most smokers are pretty apathetic when it comes to resisting Tobacco Control; and understandably so really, given the sheer size and ruthless implacability of TC. The phrase ‘Resistance is futile’ springs to mind when considering what can be done.

Once the website is set up, we would then need to reach out to as many people as possible, using all our contacts, asking all other bloggers and friendly sites to feature a link to the website regardless of whether they are smoking sites or not. Vapers (many of whom are anti-TC) are well organised and could be invaluable allies. As could all pro-choice libertarian sites. We need to remember that although the central issue is the restrictions on and persecution of smokers, the prohibitionist net is widening and enmeshing many more than just smokers now, but the basic modus operandum of all the prohibitionist killjoys is based on the anti-smoking template, using the same devious methods. So even if the organisation approached has nothing to do with smoking, it won’t be difficult for them to see how they are being targeted in the same way, and with the same methods as has been applied to smokers for decades. And if those people are able to use their powers of reason, they will realise that unless the foundations of Tobacco Control are undermined and their lies exposed, they will be powerless to stop the relentless march of the killjoys arraigned against them. Because up to now, it’s always been “Oh, tobacco is a special case”. But that no longer holds true as the rhetoric is ramped up against drinkers and fatties; sugar and salt. They are starting to hit the ‘First they came for the smokers, but I wasn’t a smoker, so I did nothing’ realisation.

So, we have our website up and running, but it has to be paid for. Short of some philanthropic billionaire smoker funding the whole operation (which is an unlikely scenario), there would have to be some sort of membership fee. This doesn’t actually need to be much, maybe 5-10 Euros a year. If we had 1000 members, that would more than cover the costs of site hosting etc, and leave a chunk in the kitty for anything that was deemed to be useful for the organisation. Membership would include a couple of relevant bumper stickers (spread the word!) and maybe a brooch, as has been suggested by someone, as a means of identifying others who are party to the resistance movement. Merchandise like T-shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps, maybe cigarette box covers with our logo, could be added to the mix to generate more income. Being a paid-up member would merely give access to a wider range of involvement – we mustn’t exclude those who perhaps don’t wish to pay. The non-paying members would be able to register as a member and have full access to the site and (if it was deemed appropriate) an associated forum where issues could be discussed.

What next? Because so far, we have a small group with a website, and not much else. We need to reach out to a lot more people if we are to be effective in any way. Create a Twitter hashtag like ‘#stopthisstupidity’ or something similar and try to swamp Twitter with it? Make a video for YouTube and relentlessly promote it on Twitter in the hope it will go viral? Whatever it is (and I’m sure there are others who have much better ideas than me) it needs to be disseminated as widely as possible. How did they manage to get the ‘#metoo’ hashtag universally recognised? Because there aren’t really that many women who were seriously affected – I’m sure many (if not most) of them just jumped on the bandwagon because a man touched their knee twenty years ago, or they did something which seemed like a good idea at the time but which they now regret. There must be an awful lot more people who have been adversely affected by the machinations of Tobacco Control, and it’s more recent hangers-on than were ever affected by lecherous old men.

This, to my mind, is the crux of the matter. To make people who have been, and will be persecuted for their lifestyle choices aware of the fact that there are a lot of other pissed off people like them. Just that awareness would, I think, create a groundswell of public opinion that runs counter to the plans of the prohibitionists. Once you have a large enough group of disgruntled people publicly voicing their misgivings about the direction ‘Public Health’ is trying to take us, then we start to chip away at the foundations upon which their propaganda campaigns are built. We aren’t going to get any help from the MSM, who are all signed up to the PH and TC narrative, so it has to be all done via social media. I personally have very little knowledge about how to get the most out of social media, but I’m sure there are those among us who understand how it works and how to maximise impact.

Up to this point, I haven’t touched on how we could take the fight to our oppressors, and frankly, given their bottomless pockets and malign influence on government and the judiciary, I’m at a loss as to what we could possibly do. If we had the financial wherewithal, it would be interesting to go for the jugular, and challenge the FCTC in the international courts. They would then have to convince the courts of the validity of the science upon which the FCTC is based, which if we had top lawyers who were actually sympathetic to our cause could probably demolish all their junk science in short order and expose them for the charlatans that they are. However, the problem there comes down to money, because money talks. Knowing how shaky their ‘science’ is, they would probably prevaricate until we ran out of money, and thus win by default. And we would be going head to head with the WHO, which would be no easy task, given their clout on the global stage. Anyway, that’s just pie-in-the-sky thinking, since without billionaire backing we wouldn’t stand a chance.

So what else could we do? Answers on the back of a postcard, please! 🙂