Sunday 4 April 2010

War it is, then.


See that? You can't smoke in it. It has no intact windows, no electricity, partial floors and holes in the roof. If you smoke in it, you will be fined and so will whoever owns it. They'll be fined for allowing you to smoke in there even though they had no idea you were in there. Ignorance of the presence of a smoker is no excuse. The law is clear - if you own it, you are responsible for making sure nobody smokes in it.

To many of the rabid antismokers, that law makes perfect sense. These are the same people who consider smokers as unthinking, weak, inferior beasts. The same ones who are terrified of amounts of tobacco smoke so small, they are undetectable even to a sniffer dog. Those are the enemy, and they have waged war on smokers for years.

To date, we have responded with 'Okay, let them have a non-smoking carriage' and they took the whole train. We responded with 'Okay, we'll have smoking and nonsmoking areas, and even whole nonsmoking pubs' and they took every public space for themselves. They have now moved on to smoke-free outdoor areas starting, as always, with 'the cheeldren'. Banning smoking in play areas - no problem, few were smoking in there anyway - then extending the ban to entire parks and soon all outdoor areas where the feeble lungs of a nonsmoker might collapse if they so much as see a pack of cigarettes on display.

Now they are coming to your house.

We smokers have attempted compromise at every turn. We have not demanded all the pubs back, we have asked for some. We have asked for private smoker's clubs, staffed by smokers, but have been refused. The ban is total. No compromise at all. And we are called 'selfish'.

We are also called many other names, any of which, if applied to one of the government's pet groups, would get the name-caller arrested. We smokers are expected to shut up and get out of the way because we are inferior.

I say 'enough'.

The antismokers don't want any form of compromise at all. Okay, that's how they want it. We will not compromise. We must now demand every pub, every restaurant, every bus and every train, every last space available as a smoking area. The application of a 'No Smoking' sign in any premises must be treated as if it was a 'No Jews' sign.

If you are so scared of a little tube of paper filled with leaves, stay at home. Stay out of sight. Go outside if you want fresh air. Don't like it? Tough. We didn't like it either but nobody in government will listen to us and nobody is willing to allow us any space at all. Not even in our own homes.

We have weapons. We have second hand and third hand smoke, and now we have the Smoker Breath of Death. Yes, the idiots believe it. All we have to do is exhale at them and we don't even have to be smoking. Make use of those weapons, don't be shy, you and I know they are totally harmless but our enemy believes in them.

I've been considering how best to get the message across to the local chavs. Arguing with them won't work. They are deeply indoctrinated. Something simple, snappy and to the point. So here are a few prototypes.





I see no reason to pull punches. I see no reason to play fair. I see no reason not to use extreme scare tactics and I see no reason to restrict myself to proven, statistically analysed data. The enemy never have. They have crushed us with propaganda and we have tried to fight back with facts. Facts are useless against the spin and lies they use against us.

Labour. Tory. Lib Dem. SNP. Any party who regards the smoking ban as a 'done deal' will find something like this in the hands of their local constituents shortly. I'll have to dig out the appropriate pictures for those who don't have posters yet.

They will be handed around the pubs. Some ugly little guy will strike up a conversation while al-fresco smoking and say 'Hey, have you seen this?' - then hand over a printout. When they hand it back, he'll say 'Nah, you can keep it. I can print more'.

They will be left on buses and trains and in pubs and libraries and in fact, everywhere I go. They will be single sheets, multiple image leaflets and fridge magnets.

Will it make a difference? If I'm the only one doing it, no. I'll do it anyway. If there was even one person per town handing these out, especially in places where smokers congregate, then maybe there will be a noticeable dent in certain majorities.

These are prototypes. The more different ones there are the better. Kids will collect them and trade them and try to get the set. No compromise, remember, no conscience and no mercy. Our enemy has none and we will not win by being nice. Forget the 'cheeldren'. They will smoke or not smoke according to their own choices. Nothing we do can affect that. The enemy is making smoking far more attractive to children than we ever could anyway.

I'll have to think up more. I need a real killer line that will really slap those docile smokers awake. No long speech, they won't listen. One absolutely killer line.

Have a go here.

You don't need high quality printouts. It just needs to be clear whose face is on it, and it has to be legible. That's all. You don't need all that many. They'll get passed around. They'll get photocopied and scanned and reprinted.

A simple method, easily replicated, equally applicable to smoking, drinking, food... this is how they beat us down in the first place. Keep the methods simple and make them easy for untrained people to grasp. Use the Righteous methodology. It has worked throughout human history and it can work the other way too.

Remember. Offer no compromise at any stage. If you are tempted, remember what happened when we conceded one smoking carriage and think about where you can smoke on the railway system now. The Righteous methods only work when the user is unrelenting and uncompromising. One sign of weakness and you lose.

It sounds impossible. We are up against an enemy who is extremely well funded and who has the entire government on their side. Just remember where they get that funding. You are paying them to beat you up. Doesn't that annoy you at all?

We have a choice, as smokers. We can sit back and accept pariah status and complain about it or we can start to do something about it. We can come up with schemes, drop them and say 'Oh, it won't work, we're all doomed' and wait until the smoke inspectors enter our homes and we have CCTV in the garden.

Or we can try.

What's it gonna be then, eh?

26 comments:

Pavlov's Cat said...

We have not demanded all the pubs back, we have asked for some.

They will not compromise on this as they know that there will be no Non-smoking pubs, well none that last but a few months.

I recall the cockend that runs Wetherspoons banned smoking in 'some' pubs prior to the ban in a unilateral show of anti-smoking suck-up solidarity.

The drop in profits was so instant and so great. They [in business time scales] made an almost instant reversal as they re-instated smoking as they were not competing on a 'level playing field' and would wait for the ban instead. Cunts.

MU said...

http://i39.tinypic.com/kcgduw.jpg

banned said...

Pavlov's Cat TIM MARTEN is the cockends name you meant, Founder and Chairman of Weatherspoons.
Over the years various retiring couples set out to mine-host non-smoking pubs, not one succeeded, ever.

Some dippy bint in the Telegraph last week offered this on the subject of healthy eating

"We must make Turkey Twizzlers as anti-social as drink driving and smoking already are."

Telegraph Fail.

banned said...

Pavlov's Dalek, nice link, duly stolen.

PT Barnum said...

Slogans? Here's some I swiped earlier (from witty stickers):

Warning: Smoking causes EVERYTHING!

Smoking Thrills

I can't believe they're not healthy.

Get laid - flash your packet!

People kill people.

Warning - smoking attracts busy bodies.

I especially like the second one :)

I'm liking this idea of spreading the word. A lot.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Place "warning" signs over the existing signs saying

"WARNING: Smoking will make you thinner"
"WARNING: Smoking looks cool"
"WARNING: Smoking is relaxing"
"WARNING: Smoking is pleasurable"
"WARNING: Smoking is rebellious"

Leg-iron said...

AntiCitizenOne - just for you.

Pavlov's cat - they will not compromise because compromise is a weakness to be exploited. One non-smoking carriage became one smoking carriage, then the whole train, then the buffet, the waiting room, the platform and now every square inch of the rail network and any covered area outside it.

Same with the buses. We were pushed to the back or upstairs, then off the buses, out of any bus waiting rooms, out of any bus station and now out of any bus stop. Even though the ban theoretically does not extend to one-panel-with-a-roof bus stops, they all have no smoking signs.

They can't compromise. Neither should we. One compromise lets them get the wedge in.

Leg-iron said...

Pavlov's Dalek - Chilling because it's true. Some around here have experienced it. That one is going in my printer for sure.

Leg-iron said...

PT Barnum - those sound like they should be on T-shirts.

Hmmm....

Spartan said...

Ok ... l'm in. l'll even take pics of where l've put them.

Saying that, can't we have a website of our own to post them? One with no means of the righteous posting ... as they do to us on their sites.

l'll donate a few quid.

l'll do an article on how exactly to get your cigarettes/tobacco from abroad legally with no limits on amounts despite what HMCE promotes. l'll show how to use, in detail, the HMCE regulations against themselves.

No retreat ... no surrender!

Stewart Cowan said...

Insist that every local council funds a Smoking Pride parade, includes smokers in its equality and diversity obligations, allows Forest to go round schools promoting safer smoking and has dedicated police staff to deal with anti-smoking hate crime.

I guess some animals are more equal than others.

Frank Davis said...

Can I 'borrow' that Conservative 'Smoker eh?' poster? When and if we ever have an election, I'd like to use it every day.

Leg-iron said...

Frank - spread them everywhere.

I remember all that stuff in your last article too, including losing the aerials from models.

I used to heat up a bit of sprue with a match, stretch it out and use that as a replacement. It actually makes better aerials in most cases.

Of course, children plus matches - not allowed now.

So they won't have the fun of cutting the heads off five boxes of England's Glory, stuffing them into an old plastic model, getting the airgun...

Leg-iron said...

Stewart - all those minorities might have genuine grievances. They might indeed be getting pushed around.

But, unlike the smokers, they aren't paying to be pushed around. They are not paying extra tax that funds those who want to punish them.

On that basis, we have the justification for a full war. No prisoners.

Leg-iron said...

Spartan - I don't have the programming skills but I'd be willing to help out anyone who does.

Let the antis in. We can crush their protests and it's fun to do it.

They have never experienced intolerance, they just apply it. Let's show them what it's like.

Spartan said...

Nor l Leggy but hopefully someone out there has. ln the meantime, posters and t'shirts me thinks.

Re Zippos. l see that the John Wayne family openly promote his image on numerous Zippos despite him dying of cancer ... along with this quotation on the 2007 issue.

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do those things to other people and I require the same of them."

.... makings of a good poster/t-shirt :)

Captain Haddock said...

Slogans ...

"You wouldn't dare throw me outside if I was Black, Gay or Jewish" ..

"Smokers have Human Rights too"

"Intolerance is spelled ANTI-SMOKER"

"You don't like Smokers ? .. Here's Ten Pence, go ring someone who gives a fuck"

knirirr said...

I don't have the programming skills but I'd be willing to help out anyone who does.

I recommend Drupal if you have a server on which to host it.

Chief_Sceptic said...

" Smoking makes you Free " ...

PT Barnum said...

We need an acronym.

All
Smokers
Hate
Exclusion
and
Spite

Gendeau said...

So, now sign of mellowing after turning 50 then?

Best of luck and happy birthday

Anonymous said...

Many happy returns.

Karen

Antipholus Papps said...

"You wouldn't dare throw me outside if I was Black, Gay or Jewish" ..

But you've forgotten about all that excellent research, undertaken by the Third Reich, that scientifically proved how healthy folk are at risk from second-hand Jewish moral turpitude and pollution of the gene pool by blacks and gays.

But won't somebody think of the chiiildren?"

As the mighty Bill Hicks said: "What does that mean? They reach a certain age, they're off your fucking love list? Fuck your children if that's the way you feel and fuck you with 'em. You either love people in general of all ages or you shut the fuck up!"

Unknown said...

Bloody brilliant campaign LI, so good I've done a piece on it stealing many of your words and all of your pics here.

Anonymous said...

It is a brilliant piece of work,its a shame it cannot be turned a real campaign and is only likely to be seen on the net.
It sums up well, the discrimination and persecution that smokers feel we experience here in the UK.
Vote UKIP, no one else is listening.

Leg-iron said...

Anon: it's already being seen outside the Net. I print those posters and hand them around smokers in the pub.They're left in the newspapers I find on the bus and also 'accidentally' forgotten here and there.

I'm working on getting some of the pubs and small newsagents interested in putting up a few. If they are, I'll print good-quality ones for them.

The Tory ones are almost irrelevant here. I really need SNP and Lib Dem ones to go with the Labour ones.

It's far too late to make a big impact on the election, but there's time to make a noticeable dent. And all it costs is printer ink and paper.

The best ones are those printed in good (not high - uses too much ink for too little gain)quality on 6x4 or 7x5 photo paper. Those are almost like trading cards and are pocket-sized, ideal for carrying around.

I doubt I'll be more than an annoyance for the main parties but I certainly intend to maximise whatever annoyance I can cause.

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