Have you seen the anti-smoking spot on television with the plucked, headless turkey? These are so hilarious that I can't imagine any smoker feeling any desire to quit because of them. This headless turkey (I suppose nick-named Cold Turkey), is, perhaps, a greater advertising icon than Joe Camel had been in the past, or even of the Marlboro Man during his run.
But the anti-smoking coalition's accident aside, I'd like to point out something which isn't getting much coverage about this. That's the parallels between today's anti-smoking campaign & that of the Nazi Party's propaganda of the 1930's.
That's right. Hitler had run an anti-smoking campaign as well. Apparently, just as now, people then were all too willing to accept the supposed authority of someone holding credentials. But, as I'd heard yesterday from a friend of a friend, only half of a graduating class of doctors got high marks...or words to that effect. The other half barely got their paper. More, the Nazi's "experts" were clearly more in sympathy with the movement than they were with their actual findings. I suspect the same goes for our "experts" today.
It comes down to the fact that just as in the past, we are relying on questionable authority. But do we actually question these authorities? Of course not. We're not "experts" in the field, so what do we know? And that's the point: What do we know? If we can only claim knowledge of a second or third-hand nature -- knowledge we don't bother to verify -- how can we claim any knowledge at all?
Yet most people just accept what they're told without the slightest thought. Remember what happened with cholesterol & eggs not too many years ago? These supposed authorities claimed that in their findings, eggs were, essentially, evil & killing us all. Some years later, these experts decided that, wait! There is good cholesterol & bad cholesterol. The egg industry, I'm sure, is still trying to recover from the destructive effects of these so-called experts.
I'm a smoker. I also eat fatty meats, drink whole milk, & I occasionally drink alcohol. Oh, my! I must be evil. But because I was endowed with a brain -- & I know how to use it -- I've found authorities very questionable from my earliest memories. Time & again, I've been told things which were not backed up -- & when questioned, I was told only that I should be quiet & listen. Well, I have listened. For years. These days, I can no longer just be quiet.
When I was a teen, my eldest sister was studying to become a nurse. Whenever she'd visit, I'd always look through her nursing manuals. They were filled with pictures of the results of all sorts of ailments. Of course, I'm sure each of the victims in these manuals were likely in very advanced stages of whatever illness, & not one suggested any other contributing factor to these results. It was all presented as black & white. Round the same time, my mother was using the prevailing anti-smoking propaganda of scare tactics in her attempt to quit. She would bring home all sorts of brochures & booklets with pictures of lungs, throats, mouths, hearts, arteries, etc in advanced stages of cancer. All the time I was looking through this horror material, I kept wondering if maybe there had been more involved than smoking -- or if these pictures really were body parts with cancer -- from smoking. Of course, no authority would ever manipulate the facts to suit their agenda. That would never happen.
This begs many questions: What about the crap in our food & drink? What about the crap in the air? What about the radio activity & countless synthesized chemicals in the environment? Are we attacking something which may not be the actual evil because it's relatively easy? Sure, while the Nazi's didn't have the same environmental issues to worry about, they did have a greater agenda which is what I'd said in a previous entry about distractions. But let's not get on that today.
I'm simply saying that our authorities have other issues -- sometimes more psychological than otherwise -- which are far more important. Oh, but if we find someone to discriminate against, we not only provide the necessary distraction, but we are given, like children, something to do so our authorities can do as they please.
I'd like to wake up now.
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