"Educate yourself and you will not be ignorant enough to purchase the product. Nobody is forcing you to purchase anything, that is the beauty of the system. If you beleive that it is a lie based on your perception than you have the right not to purchase this. Do you think that all the programs on television that ask you to send money to save the poor are exclusively legitamite? Are you naive enough to think just because something sounds like it is morally acceptable that it is on the level? The fact that I have educated myself about the damage tha tobacco can do, it is still my choice to purchase it and beleive what they tell me if I choose not to educate myself. I do not blame the corportation for this, I accept everyones ability to form their own conclusions. "Educating yourself on the dangers of tobacco is only a recently afforded "luxury", as the multi-nationals and their puppet politicians deliberately misled millions of people for decades. (Additionally, I do not believe tobacco as a plant is as harmful as the mass-produced delivery device churned out by the billions with "secret" ingredients (trade secrets, of course!).
And I stand with you 100% in defending your right to smoke even this mass-produced crap, if you are so inclined. What I object to is deceit and criminal negligence; lying and manipulating. No, I do not believe we need another war on a plant. But we should indeed revoke the charters of irresponsible corporations. It is our right, and we ought to exercise it. Do you trust what these same multi-nationals are slipping into the other products they make? Can they be trusted? What bombshell are they sitting on now, waiting for just the right opportunity (like when they invent the cure to the disease, so they can sell that to you too.)?
"The corporations create and sell products to a market. If it did not exist, they would not do it. Your problem is not with the corporation it is with the people that buy the products that support it. Your allusion to buying the crap hook line and sinker has less to do with my ignorance and more to do with your lack of objectivity and choice to decide on what is best or moral, or proper for the rest of us...who the hell gave you that right to make a judgement on something I choose to purchase or beleive. People have choices in this society, and if the choose not to exercise them the the benefit of all, the you should go after the masses, not the corporations that reap the benefits from this ignorance."
No, I don't have the right to decide what is best for "the rest of us", nor do I support any entity that claims such a right. When have you heard me support any such restrictions on an individual's freedom? It is this very thing that the corporations have done for too long. The corporate world has been doing just what you described. They have been making products irresponsibly, with heavy pollution of our air and water, hiring governments around the world to force people into their "market" or their factories, depending on what they believe them best suited for.
I am advocating democracy and rationality, not the removal of choices, but the addition of choices. With every merger, there are fewer and fewer choices, both of products and legislators. When coke eats pepsi, and mcdonalds eats burger king, will that be more choices, or fewer?
And yes, you are accurate when you say that my problem is with the people making these choices, not the corporations. I'm not talking to the corporations, I'm talking with my fellow citizens, who the real power really rests with, should we decide to use it. I have every confidence that as more and more people are aware of alternatives, they will voluntarily choose them. I would have it no other way!! I am not about imposing my will on anyone, but I am about advocating what I do believe is the most sane system yet devised: democracy. And I don't know why you find that so objectionable.
: : They are masters at creating a need where one did not exist before. Example: commercial shows a huge pill that a man is climbing to the top of, with the pharmacological name of the drug at the top. When the man reaches the top, the announcer says, "ask your doctor if XXXXXX is right for you." They don't say what it is, what it is for, and why you would need it, (you don't) it is just something to sell you to create a cash flow for their investment.
"It also has a consumer of a product asking a doctor what the prescription is and may have the effect of educating a patient enough to put pressure on the doctor to justify or persuade the patient from using the drug."
The doctors are merely agents of the pharmacutical industry, getting bonuses and kick backs from every sale.
" Are you ignorant enough and have little faith in people to make their own decisions. We are all not simple fools who take everything we read and watch to heart as truth. You are not as objective and insightful as you assume, you merely choose to look at the cynical argument of something you beleive you can not control. If you have a problem with your above mentioned example, then perhaps you should write your congressman, or organize a group of people who think the same as you and exercise your right to opt for stricter laws...attack the government that structures laws that allow corporations to advertise for something you disagree with...once again your agument is weak."
Most people serving in congress are exclusively supported by huge industries, irrespective of party affiliation. They will smile and tell you how they would love to help, but they golf and jet-set around with the corporate executives most of them will either become, or previously were prior to their "election". And I am trying to organize my fellow citizens, inside and outside of this bulletin board!
Mike, The Everett Citizen
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