THANK+YOU+FOR+SMOKING



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__**PROLOGUE**__


 * In the opening scene of the book, we meet our protagonist -- Nick Naylor -- a spokesperson for the Tobacco Industry. The key tension of the book -- how does someone live comfortably working for an industry that kills hundreds of thousands -- is laid out for us. It also, in a satirical way, notes how public policy debates often become framed in "black-and-white" terms, where one side is all good and the other all bad.**
 * pg. 3-4. "Nick Naylor had been called many things since becoming chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, but until now no one had actually compared his to Satan . . . his skin was bright red, as if he'd just gone swimming in nuclear reactor water; and the eyes -- the eyes were bright, alive, vibrantly pimpy. The caption was done in the distinctive cigarette-pack typeface, 'Hysterica Bold,' they called it at the office. It said, WARNING: SOME PEOPLE WILL SAY ANYTHING TO SELL CIGARETTES . . . [Nick Naylor] earned his living by killing 1,200 human beings a day. Twelve hundred people -- two jumbo jet planeloads a day of men, women, and children . . . 400,000 a year! And approaching the half-million mark. Genocide, that's what it was, enough to make you weep, if you had a heart, the thought of so many of these . . . victims, their lives stubbed out upon the ashtray of corporate greed by this tall, trim, nicely tailored forty-year -old yuppie executioner . . ."


 * The opening also drips in cynicism about how even noble causes are ensconced in the same cliches and mercenary behavior. Oscar Wilde once quipped that socialism would never happen because it took too many cocktail parties and today there are many conferences held, some at public expense, for "very serious people" to discuss the issues of the day.**
 * pg. 4. ". . . every conference in sight was calling itself Blah Blah 2000 so as to confer on itself a sense of millennial urgency that would not be lost on the relevant congressional appropriations committees, or 'tits' as they were privately called by the special interest groups who made their livelihood by suckling at them. Nick wondered if this had been true of conferences back tin the 1890s. Had there been a federally subsidized Buggy Whips 1900 symposium? . . . The haters . . . scribbled furiously on their conference pads -- paid for by U.S. taxpayers -- which they'd found inside their pseudo-embossed with the conferences's logo, CLEAN LUNGS 2000. They would take those home with them and give them to their kids, saving the price of a gift T-shirt. //My folks went to Washington and all I got was this dippy attache . . ."//


 * We get three quick examples of how Naylor uses his rhetorical skills to deflect and dampen the moral outrage over those killed by Tobacco Use. The first, is the use of empty rhetorical phrase; the second is to seem reasonable by either splitting the difference between two extremes, usual neutral language ("issue"), and three to change the subject ("everyone likes puppies").**
 * pg. 4-5. "'. . . it is my closely held belief that what we need is not more confron//tation,// but more consul//tation//.' A direct steal from the Jesse Jackson School of Meaningless but Rhymed Oratory, but it worked . . . '. . .It's always been my closely held belief that with an issue as complex as ours, what we need is not mor talking //about// each other, but more talking //to// each other.' He paused a beat to let their brains process his subtle substituting of 'issue' for the 'the cigarette industry's right to slaughter half a million Americans a year.'"
 * pg. 5. "Nick nodded sympathetically as Uncle harry's heroic last hours were luridly recounted. 'I appreciate your sharing that with us all, ma'am, and I think I speak for all of us in this room when I say that we regret your tragic loss, but I think the issue here before us today is whether we as Americans want to abide by such documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. If the answer is yes, then I think our course is clear . . . if we go tampering with the bedrock principles that our Founding Father laid down . . . for the sake of indulging a lot of rankly unscientific speculation, then we're placing at risk not only our own freedoms, but hose our children, and our children's children.' It was crucial not to pause here to let the stunning non sequitur embed itself in their neural processors."
 * "//In Dr. Johnsons famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first." (Ambrose Bierce)//


 * Another way to side step an earnest political position is to get bogged down in trivia, such as obscure historical episodes that either your opponent does not know or would take too much time to disprove or place in context. Hence the example of Murad IV. I have seen people cite the tax policies of the Roman Emperor Diocletian to make a point about American tax policies. There is something called Godwin's Law of the Internet, which states that first person to invoke Hitler or Nazis to make a point about contemporary politics loses. Naylor uses a variant of this technique. He uses it not only to make his opponents look unreasonable, but also to frame the issue in terms of individual responsibility (no one made you smoke that cigarette) instead of a social problem.**
 * pg. 6. "Nick moved quickly for the kill: 'Myself, I'd like to think that we as a nation have progressed beyond the days of summary executions for the crime of pursuing our own definition of happiness.' Thus, having compared the modern American anti-smoking movement to the depredations of a bloodthirsty seventeenth-century Ottoman, Nick could depart, satisfied that he had temporarily beaten back the horde a few inches. Not a lot of ground, but in this war, it was practically a major victory."

__**CHAPTER 1**__


 * This chapter is mostly introducing the main characters and laying the groundwork, but it makes an important point in several places. The irrelevance of truth and the importance of image in convincing people, even about serious issues. Advertising principles are just as present when presenting political and policy views as selling Coca-Cola or designer jeans. The first example is how the "smokesmen" dress and the second is the decor of Naylor's office.**
 * pg. 8. **AVANT-GARDE/HIP** "One advantage to the change in Academy leadership was the new dress code. One of the first things BR had done had been to call in all the smokesmen -- that is, the Academy's PR people, the ones who went in front of the cameras -- and told them he didn't want them looking like a bunch of K Street dorks. Part of tobacco's problem, he said, was that the sex had gone out of it. He wanted them, he said, to look like the people in the fashion ads, and not the ones for JC Penney's Presidents' Day sale. Then he gave them each a five-thousand-dollar clothing allowance. Everyone walked out of the meeting thinking, //What a great boss!// Half of them got back to heir desks to find memos saying they'd been fired."
 * pg. 9-10. **NOSTALGIA** "Nick had given some thought to the psy-decor of his office. Above his desk was a quote in large type that said, 'Smoking is the nation's leading cause of statistics.' . . . Above the couch were the originals of two old cigarette magazine ads from the forties and fifties. The first showed an old-fashionied doctor, the kind who used to make housecalls and even drive through snowdrifts to deliver babies. He was smilingly offering up a pack of Luckies like it was a pack of lifesaving erythromycin. '20,679* Physicians say 'Luckies are //less irritating.'// The asterisk indicated that an actual accounting firm had actually counted them. How much easier it had been when medical science was on their side. The second ad demonstrated how Camels helped you to digest your Thanksgiving dinner, course by course. 'Off to a good start -- with hot spiced tomato soup. And then -- for digestion's sake -- smoke a Camel right after the soup.'


 * We see three more techniques in Naylor's response to the USA Today reporter about Buerger's Disease. First, he switches valences: we're not villains, we're the victims: they blame us for everything. There is also a bit of reductio ad absurdum and hyperbole here as well. Second, muddy the waters by nit-picking on technicalities (research design). Third, make it "complex" instead of simple. Making issues complex makes them difficult to understand and the audience stops paying attention.**
 * pg. 11-12. "'Well,' he began, more in sadness than in anger, 'why //not// blame us for Buerger's disease? We're taking the rap for everything these days. I read somewhere a week ago that cigarettes are widening the ozone hole, so why not Buerger's? What's next? Dolphins? . . . 'Where's the data?' 'What do you mean, where are the data? It's T//he New England Journal of Medicine.// It's all data, for Chrissake.' 'this was a double-blind study?' '. . . Sure.' Fatal Hesitation. Attack! 'And how big was the control group?' 'Come on, Nick.' 'Was this a prospective study?' . . . Buerger's disease has only recently been diagnosed. It has a complex, indeed, //extremely// complex pathology. One of the more complex pathologies in the field of circulatory medicine.' He hoped. 'With all respect, I think further study is warranted before science goes looking, a noose in hand, to lynch the usual subjects.'"


 * Another dimension to this is the manipulation of the press. Journalists, who have a difficult job, are always looking for a story that is easy to write up. That means no messiness, "He says, she says," no gray area and a ready quotation from both sides, to make it seem fair. The reporter knows there will be other stories and he wants to curry favor with sources to help with future stories.**


 * We are introduced to Naylor's boss, BR, a truly charming individual, but what is perhaps most germane for us is the list of "accomplishments" he claims as head of the Academy of Tobacco Studies (ATS).**
 * pg. 13. "BR had flexed a number of executive muscles and made some impressive gains for the industry. He had worked closely with the U.S. trade representative to make Asian countries allow U.S. cigarette manufacturers to advertise during children's morning TV programming. (In Japan alone, teenage smoking of U.S. cigarettes was up almost 20 percent.) He had fought off two congressional print-advertising bans here at home, gotten three southern state legislatures to declare 'Tobacco Pride' weeks, and had brilliantly maneuvered the Los Angeles City council not including a provision in their smoking ban ordinance that permitted smoking in the bar section of restaurants, a coup for which he had been lavishly congratulated . . ."


 * There is also the creation of "fake" science. Many corporations that create public health problems create "research" centers to dispute scientific consensus, which serves the purpose of muddying the waters, not to convince people**.
 * pg. 14. "G -- for Graf -- Erhardt von Gruppen-Mundt, the Academy's 'scientist-in-residence.' Erhardt had a degree in Forensic Pathology from the University of Steingarten, perhaps not Germany's leading academic center, but it made him sound smart. JJ had brought him onboard back in the seventies and had built a 'research facility' around him out in Reston, Virginia, called the Institute for Lifestyle Health, consisting mostly of thousands of pampered white rats who never developed F344 tumors no matter how much tar they were painted with . . . Mainly he testified in the endless tobacco liability trials, trying to confuse juries with erudite, Kissingerian-accented, epidemiological juju about selection bias and multivariable regressions."


 * The continuing discussion between BR and Naylor is interesting because it presents two different communication strategies to defend Tobacco. One, favored by BR is "deny, deny, deny . . . tobacco is the best thing since sliced bread," while Naylor's preference is for admitting the harms, "Yeah, tobacco's bad, so is breathing, it all ends in you dying."**
 * pg. 16-7. "'. . . that stupid proposal you floated last month suggesting we admit that there's a health problem. What was //that// all about, for Chrissake?' 'Actually,' Nick said, 'I still think it was a pretty bold proposal. Let's face it, BR, no one appears to be buying into our contention that smoking isn't bad for you. So why //not// come out and say, 'All right, in some cases, sure, smoking's bad for you. So's driving a car for some people. Or drinking, or flying in airplanes, or crossing the street, or eating too much dairy product. But it's legitimate, pleasurable activity that, done moderately, probably isn't that much more dangerous than . . . I don't know . . .life itself.' I think a lot of people would think, 'Hey, they're not such liars after all.'' 'Stupidest idea I ever heard,' BR said with asperity. 'Stupid //and// expensive. I had to have every copy of that memo burned. Can you imagine what would happen if it turned up in one of these goddamn liability trials? An internal document admitting that we know smoking is bad for you? Jesus Christ on a toasted bagel -- do you have any //idea// what a disaster that would be? 'Okay,' Nick shrugged, 'let's go on pretending there's no proof that it's bad for you. Since that's working so well . . .' 'See what I mean,' BR shook his head, 'defeatism.' . . . 'I don't think I'm going to end up talking the surgeon general into deciding that smoking is good for you. I think we're pas that point, frankly, BR.' 'That's your whole problem! Don't think about what you //can't// do. Think about what you //can// do. You're spending your whole time stamping out wastebasket fires when you ought to be out there setting forest fires.'

__**CHAPTER 2**__


 * This chapter is mostly introducing the "MOD Squad" to let us know that Nick Naylor is by no way unique, nor is it just Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. There is a professional class of lobbyists that make up most of professional Washington, DC. The financial industry has tens of lobbyists for every member of Congress. Most are "below the radar" and they work an inside game, but public health issues raise more public concern and therefore there is an inside game of lobbying legislators and bureaucrats and an outside game targeting the public. It also involves large sums of money: there is a little of money to be made by making people sick. It should also be noted that Medical Organizations (Physicians, Nurses, Pharmaceuticals, etc.) are some of the largest.**
 * pg. 18-20. "The name Mod Squad was not a reference to the 1960s TV show about a trio of hip, racially and sexually integrated undercover cops, but an acronym for 'Merchants of Death.' Since they consisted of the chief spokespeople for the tobacco, alcohol, and firearms industries, it seemed to fit. Nick said that they might as well call themselves that since it was surely the name the press would give them if they ever got wind of their little circle. They were: Nick, Bobby Jay, and Polly. Besides having in common the fact that they all worked for despised organizations, they were also at that age in life -- late thirties, early forties -- where the thrill of having a high-profile job had worn off and the challenge of keeping it has set in. bobby Jay Bliss worked for SAFETY, the Society for the Advancement of Firearms and Effective Training of Youth, formerly NRBAC, the National Right to Bear Arms Committee . . . The Moderation Council, formerly the National Association for Alcoholic Beverages, represented the nation's distilled spirits, wine and beer industries . . . Faced with a rising tide of neo-puritanism, neo-prohibitionism, and disastrous volumetric decline, they resolved that a new approach was needed.


 * Some other of the lovely visitors to the Mod Squad meetings, the names are worth the price of admission . . .**
 * pg. 22. "Discreet as the Mod Squad was, from time to time they invited other spokespeople to lunch to promote camaraderie among the despised. Their guest shad come from such groups as the Society for the Humane Treatment of Calves, representing the veal industry., the Friends of Dolphins, formerly the Pacific Tuna Fishermen's Association, the American Highway Safety Association, representing the triple-trailer truckers, the Land Enrichment Foundation, formerly the Coalition for the Responsible Disposal of Radioactive Waste; others. Sometimes they had foreign guests. The chief spokesman for the Brazilian Cattlemen's Association had come by recently to share with them his views on rainforest management, and had entertained them with this imitation of a flock of cockatiels fleeing from bulldozers."


 * Of course, the mood is gallow's humor: no one likes them, no matter how good they are at what they do.**
 * pg. 23. "'So,' sh said, 'how're we doing?' This was the traditional Mod Squad gambit. The answer was always //awful//, for it was unlikely that medical science had discovered that smoking prolonged life, or that the handgun murder rate had declined, or that somewhere out there some promising young life had been saved, instead of tragically snuffed out by a teenager with a blood alcohol content of .24 percent. 'How did your Lungs thing go?' Polly said, dragging deeply on a long low-tar cigarette. Nick had told her not to bother with the low-tars, since research showed you only smoked more of them to get the same amount of nicotine, a point nowhere to be found in the voluminous literature of the Academy of Tobacco Studies."