ROFLMAO!
I'll personally pay you back that $100 if you get any evidence from them!
I expect deadly silence! As always...
Bill, care to match the Doc? Willing to give $100 to anyone who can provide evidence that any antismoking groups are funded by big Pharma or by funding organizations that make the promotion of smoking bans one of their primary objectives regardless of scientific foundation or lack thereof?
Come on Bill! Stand up next to Dr. Siegel!
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://www.AntiBrains.com
If they can't come up with the evidence, the groups making the accusations are guilty of slander. The settlement should require such groups to disband and to turn all of their assets over to FORCES.
I have read the material from the site ou link to and do not see where they say that "FORCES is funded by the tobacco companies."
Instead they say Forces is a "smokers rights" group.
Below is what they say about Forces. There are apparently many connections between the two.
Why would you have a contest for something that they have not claimed in the first place?
Give me a break.
FORCES (Fight Ordinances & Restrictions to Control & Eliminate Smoking) is a smokers' rights organization that seeks to oppose smokefree workplace legislation through action alerts, web postings, letters, etc.
For years FORCES has claimed to be a membership organization that did not receive tobacco funding. Internal tobacco industry documents are inconclusive on this point, although documents do show that FORCES and the tobacco industry have worked in partnership in the past.
For example, a 1997 fax from Gian Turci of FORCES Canada to the CTMC [Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council] thanks the group for its hospitality. The memo states, "I am sure that this will mark the beginning of a good and mutually beneficial cooperation between FORCES, other smokers' rights groups, and the industry. However, I will keep our communications confidential for obvious reasons."
However, a 1999 Philip Morris (PM) memo indicated that FORCES did not accept tobacco industry funding.
Many of FORCES' associates, including John Luik, have very close ties and financial relationships with Big Tobacco.
Recently ANR uncovered new information about FORCES. According to FORCES' application for recognition of exemption under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, dated April 25, 2002, Peter A. Bagatelos is listed as the contact person for FORCES, Inc.
Mr. Bagatelos is an attorney with the law firm Bagatelos and Fadem, which also represents Philip Morris. The PM privilege log describes Mr. Bagatelos as follows:
"Bagaelos, Peter A., Esq. Attorney: Bagatelos & Fadem, Local Counsel for Philip Morris; Formerly with Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Nay, Counsel for Philip Morris and the Tobacco Institute." Bagetelos & Fadem is also listed as "Local Counsel for Philip Morris in San Francisco."
For more information about the strategies behind smokers' rights groups, please read The National Smokers' Alliance Exposed. Even though the National Smokers' Alliance is now (sort of) defunct, the background information from this document is still relevant to other smokers' rights groups such as FORCES.
Ok, they don't claim to that Forces is funded by tobacco. However, he is what they do claim:
"Peter A. Bagatelos is listed as the contact person for FORCES, Inc.
Mr. Bagatelos is an attorney with the law firm Bagatelos and Fadem, which also represents Philip Morris."
--
Why not make a contest for what they do claim and see if there are any takers?
Dr. Siegel could have safely bet his house on this one. Already the fact that Forces is a dot org, and not a dot com, is ready proof. But for the scoffers out there, here's a question;
Why would Big Tobacco, who has'nt spent a dime on decent legal battle in court in well over a decade, and refuses to do so, pay a bunch of strangers with no real legal credentials to carry their flag?
Forces is not corrupted by money, tobacco or otherwise. If Forces was, then they've certainly picked the wrong horse to saddle to get rich on. On the other hand, ASH & Co. knows were the money (and power)is, and it aint in the Forces camp.
If Forces was getting money, any money, from BT then I dare say that Bill, among others, might be writing them love letters and submitting copies of his resume for consideration.
On a final and personal note, I have the honor of counting as a close friend one of the original founders of Forces. If I do not mention his name here it is because I have not asked his permission to do so. Some time ago, I had the pleasure of spending the weekend as his guest. I can say that if either my friend or his wife have gotten rich on big tobacco money then they have hidden it quite well. My friend lives in a one bedroom apartment, and writes his Forces articles from a makeshift home office, comprising a chair and a small table. My friend courageously battles the nanny staters on his own nickle. When he travels it comes out of either his pocket or the meager donations Forces receives. He has politely asked me several times to work for Forces. It is a request that I have had to reluctantly decline for two reasons. One is I don't have the time and, two, I'm ashamed to say, is there is no salary involved, either offered or insinuated.
To that person on this blog who has on numerous occasions referred to the selfless and dedicated freedom fighters at Forces as "idiots", all I can say is that I would rather spend a year in a muddy ditch with my friend at Forces than five minutes in a gold-plated mansion with any of the pompous, glorified ambulance chasers that work for ASH & Co..
Why, Michael Siegel, I would have to consider my membership of Forces if your 100 $ gets paid. And that is no joke.
It is not that I find tobacco money 'tainted' (anti smokers don't seem to mind picking up this money). I am just not under the impression that Forces recieves any funding from the tobacco industry. I would regard it as a breach of trust if it were revealed that Forces does indeed recieve any meaningful amount of money from the tobacco industry.
Erik,
To my knowledge, the National Smokers' Alliance is well and truly defunct. Not "sort of" (tricky words there Erik), but dead..dead..dead.
The main reason the short lived NSA is not sort of in business anymore is because they went to Big Tobacco for money, naively believing BT would be seduced by a nation-wide organization of, well, smokers. Imagine that. Unfortunately, BT had other plans for their public image, and financing the NSA was not one of them. No, BT's more perfect strategy was to bend over while the federal and state governments warmed up their various cans of unconstitutional, ex post facto, whup-ass.
But I digress. The leadership of Forces, at the time and same years ago, held several direct discussions with the top man at NSA, telling him that even if it worked (that is, getting sponsored by BT) it would gravely compromise their independent political and editorial base, not to mention destroying once and for all FORCES' legal non-profit status. FORCES told the NSA they were on the wrong track, that BT was not to be trusted, and that they would fail in the end, miserably. NSA did not listen and the NSA took on water and sunk, completely broke.
So what's your problem with FORCES then Erik? You sound incredulous. Let me guess here...I know, as an ASH supporter you cannot remotely fathom the idea of any organization opposing you actually running on the pure but rare fuel of donations coming from people who oppose ASH's brand of tyranny. Like I said, just a guess.
I will top everybody: I pledge to personally contribute Euros 1,000 (US$1,193.45 at the current exchange rate) to any antismoking organization that can demonstrate that we got as much as 1 cent from Big Tobacco, directly or through associated companies. All I got was a lunch with stomach gas and miles and miles of beautiful smiles - nothing else. I guess I wasn't slick & lubricated enough – and we were far too honest, active and direct for their taste, it seems.
Here is one example of where FORCES is called a tobacco industry front group:
"Note: One of 5 articles that ran in Wisconsin newspapers. Provoked the following rant from the Forces International (a tobacco industry front group): Anti tobacco dolts: But would you want your daughter to marry one of them?" From Essential Action's Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control program links tobacco control groups in the U.S. and Canada
with groups in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central/Eastern Europe to monitor and resist Big Tobacco's global expansion.
-- www.essentialaction.org/ tobacco/event/altria04/media.html
Dr. Siegel writes that false claims are unbefitting a public health organization. While there are many persons in public health who are honorable the field has a checkered history.
Medical officials forcibly sterilized 60,000 Americans between 1909 and 1969. The American eugenics movement inspired Adolf Hitler (read "Better for All the World," 2006).
Medical officials experimented on black syphilitics, without their consent, in Tuskegee, Alabama between 1942 and 1972.
Medical officials in many states ignored federal guidelines and experimented with AIDS drugs on foster children in the 90's.
Thanks Gian for your generous offer to boost the prize money. Since there are now only 5 hours to go, I'll double my ante and offer $200 to any anti-smoking organization that can document that FORCES is funded by Big Tobacco.
Not to fan the flames, but I will provide proof of ANR's funding from the Nicoderm interests at RWJF.
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/r...048090&
iaid=143
http://cleanairquality.blogspot....me-to-
stop.html
Do I get a prize?
Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds have been creating, funding, training, promoting and/or collaborating with numerous smokers rights groups for at least the past two decades.
PM created, controlled and funded the NSA during the 1990's, and PM eliminated the NSA shortly after Myron Levin published an article exposing NSA as a PM front group.
The final activity of the NSA was to violate federal election laws (perhaps via orders from PM) by campaigning for George W. Bush's presidency in the 2000 South Carolina primary by smearing Sen. John McCain and claiming that McCain would destroy South Carolina's tobacco farmers and growing communities.
For a better understanding of how PM assisted, trained and collaborated with other smokers rights groups, go to:
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/t...du/tid/
bag36c00
Here are some quotes from that 1991 PM document written by Karen Daragan.
"Smokers can respond better than we can to these zealots' positions on smoking restrictions and excessive taxation. Basically, we can get them [smokers] to deliver our messages for us and it works beautifully because they don't represent big bad tobacco co[mpany], have more credibility [and] can relate to the public better and talk about issues that are affecting them rather than have us talk for them like we did in the past. But they can also go a step beyond. They can...get the antis reacting to them which puts the antis on the defensive for a change."
and
"We don't manage smokers rights clubs and organize meetings like our competitors do. What we do is go out and find the most articulate and devoted activists. We call them our ninjas. We feed them with our most powerful information and arguments, media train them and then have our public relations agency go out and pitch stories and set up interviews for them..."
and
"Right now we have about 30 trained media ninjas across the country...We find them through correspondence with PM, through phone surveys and written surveys among the 12 million people on our database, through word of mouth, LTE's, and visible activists among the already existing smokers rights clubs across the states."
And as I recall, the PM controlled NSA created (with PM funds) the Speakeasyforum.com smokers rights website, and the ownership of that website was transferred from PM/NSA to Wanda Hamilton and Martha Perske after the NSA was axed by PM.
But I consider it irrelevant whether or not speakeasyforum.com, FORCES, the American Smokers Alliance and/or other smokers rights groups and activists are tobacco industry front groups.
A more important question is whether PM considers these folks their Ninjas.
I also find it amazing that while repeatedly proclaiming his support for smokefree workplaces, Mike Siegel has been promoting, defending and collaborating with FORCES and other PM Ninjas (whose mission is to oppose the smokefree workplace laws that Mike Siegel claims to support).
"30 trained media ninjas across the country"
Seriously dwarfed in comparison (if true) to the media giants in the pocket of the pharmaceutical nicotine interests, wouldn't you say Bill?
http://cleanairquality.blogspot....ng-
smoking.html
"Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds have been creating, funding, training, promoting and/or collaborating with numerous smokers rights groups for at least the past two decades."
And that proves that FORCES is a tobacco front group???
"A more important question is whether PM considers these folks their Ninjas."
Bill, how would you say do you distinguish yourself from a tobacco control ninja? ASH seems so convincing and you are so uncritically listening that they don't even need to directly mandate you. Many of your posts here sound like your master's voice.
Bill sounds like he is grabbing for the last straw in his efforts to defend tobacco control against all odds.
Why, for heavens sake, is it so difficult for him to admit only once that something really stinks in his camp and that improvements can be made?
Stubbornness? Or higher interests?
FORCES has only been active since about 1994 or 1995.
All Bill can produce is some stuff dating 1991, nearly 15 years ago, and several years prior to the origination of FORCES.
Oh, and one more question:
Hey Bill, who underwrites SmokeFree PA? How much money do you get from the pharmaceutical industry, the body parts organizations, and government pork-barrel grants to be their mouthpiece? Hmmmm?
"Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds have been creating, funding, training, promoting and/or collaborating with numerous smokers rights groups for at least the past two decades."
Bill, would you say the following analogy isn't true:
"The RWJ Foundation and Big Pharma have been funding, training, promoting and/or collaborating with numerous anti-smoker groups ..."
Godshall writes: "But I consider it irrelevant whether or not speakeasyforum.com, FORCES, the American Smokers Alliance and/or other smokers rights groups and activists are tobacco industry front groups. A more important question is whether PM considers these folks their Ninjas."
Do those two statements make any damn kind of POINT? Or is the whole Godshall posting nothing but an extended gasbag non sequitur, having absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant? Talk about reaching!
PM, along with Lorillard, BAT and RJR have been funding the American Legacy Foundation since 1999.
See Bill, the problem with the antis’ argument that “that research is not worthy of consideration because it was funded by big tobacco” is because most anti-smoking groups ARE INDEED funded by big tobacco – through the MSA. Look into it, get a clue on how to respond to arguments with some sense of fairness and sound logic.
"A more important question is whether PM considers these folks their Ninjas."
Bill is desperatly fishing for arguments in troubled water. How do you know what PM considers and who cares?
Bill, please, come up with some convincing arguments, we would really like to hear them.
Bill is a living argument for limited government; big government gives power and influence to such tin tyrants. Once that is done, liberty is gone.
Bill, we are talking about FORCES here, not other smokers’ groups – let’s not sidetrack the issue as usual. I would like to hear from you a LOGICAL (not emotional) explanation on this: why pro-smoking groups that are funded by Big Tobacco are not credible in anything they say because they are paid off to promote cigarettes – but antismoking groups that are funded by Big Pharma (a large chunk of them) are credible because they are paid off to liberally promote pharmaceutical nicotine?? That is a logical non sequitur because money has one colour – and so does greed.
The implication here is that there is some sort of greater “nobility” if you pocket money from multinationals that make drugs than there is if you pocket money from multinationals that make cigarettes. In the country where I live (Italy) in 2005 we had 11 major scandals about health structures and institutions corrupted by pharmaceutical companies that paid off several major hospitals and over 10,000 doctors. These entities were induced through payolas of all kind to prescribe drugs to non-sick people – and even to a whole bunch of DEAD people, as it turned out! Our own former, rabidly antismoking minister of health is under numerous heavy judicial investigations from several districts for heavy-duty peculate involving direct collusion with pharma multinationals – to the point that he cannot even leave the country and (hopefully) he is going to hit the slammer. In the US I read of scandal after scandal involving BP. BP is not a clean industry either. Yet, if Joe Blow defends the right to smoke or writes a good study with Philip Morris’ money that’s moral and scientific trash; conversely, if he gets a couple of mils from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to say that smokers are killers and he writes a study stating that smoking makes you grow two heads, that is morally legitimate - and it is presented as scientific gospel by sites like yours.
Come on. If it wasn’t so tragic and expensive, it would be laughable.
Bill wrote:
"I also find it amazing that while repeatedly proclaiming his support for smokefree workplaces, Mike Siegel has been promoting, defending and collaborating with FORCES and other PM Ninjas (whose mission is to oppose the smokefree workplace laws that Mike Siegel claims to support)."
It seems to me that if the FORCES folks were PM ninjas, they would be the worst ninjas that PM could find around. Some anti-smoking organizations would be better ninjas, at least when they partner with PM to support FDA regulation on tobacco.
Gian Turci wrote:
"Bill, we are talking about FORCES here, not other smokers’ groups – let’s not sidetrack the issue as usual."
Many of the FORCES affiliates that are listed on the FORCES website (and on this blog) are the same folks that Philip Morris refers to as its ninjas.
Well, Bill, I get the impression that Mr. Siegel is not so sure that his status and views give him an automatic prerogative to boss other people around, as a lot of other people seem to believe.
I don't believe even the greatest saints in history have that right, let alone ambulance and grant chasers.
Let me get this straight Bill... because some tobacco company 15 years ago referred to people who are sort of like me today as their "ninjas" that becomes an important consideration in judging the value of what I might be saying today?
And you consider that to be more "relevant" and important than if I were actually a "front group" getting paid by PM for what I do?
Are you nuts? Or do you just play nuts on TV?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://www.AntiBrains.com
I am NINJA- who knew????? Now I do feel powerful.
Sorry guys, had a rotten day at work and found the perfect (and safe) place to blow off steam. Always feel at home here at Dr MIKE'S PLACE.
Ya know, too bad we can't physically see each other to read the facial expressions that I percieve as I read!! And like I've said before, this is our last outpost folks....the Internet. At least until they find an unknown island to ship us all off to-the new amerika-australia-new zealand- I know, let's take Ireland back!!!
Sorry that was me, not Anon.
Capri
Bill wrote:
"Many of the FORCES affiliates that are listed on the FORCES website (and on this blog) are the same folks that Philip Morris refers to as its ninjas."
... So? If I refer to you as a thief, does that constitute proof that you are one? 
Is this the kind of summary justice of antismokers? If so, who the devil wants to live in the world you are proposing? And, BTW, you have not answered my question on why getting doe from Big Pharma is more "noble" than getting doe from Big Tobacco. I have the feeling that elusion will not get you anywhere in this forum, Bill.
Bill has a problem with a past practice of PM to FIND "ninjas." Or, as he quotes from a 15 year old document:
"We don't manage smokers rights clubs and organize meetings like our competitors do. What we do is go out and find the most articulate and devoted activists. We call them our ninjas."
And Gian Turci rightly argues that there should be no difference between tobacco vs. pharma funding when it comes to credibility.
Put these two together and I'd like to take this all a step further. First I'll pose a hypothetical:
A lone citizen believes -- all on his own, with no influence from anyone other than the core values he was brought up on -- that raising the tax on his cigarettes again is unfair already. He decides to do something civic about it. He wants to print flyers asking others to complain to the politicians and needs people to hand them out. But he doesn't have the money to do it. Where does he turn for it? Well hey, he bets the tobacco companies don't like it either. But he doesn't care about the tobacco companies, he just wants to keep himself from having to pay more. But he'll go to where he thinks he can get the financial help because even though he doesn't care if it helps them, he knows they'll give because there is a mutual benefit. For the lone citizen looking out for his own interests it's "thankyouverymuch" and take the money and run.
Except Bill and his ilk can't have anyone believe that there is even one independent thinker when it comes to the issue of tobacco and smoking. Anyone opposing the anti-smoking/smoker crusade must be speaking for the tobacco companies.
Yet the quote above illustrates that the tobacco companies were seeking out the individual thinkers and to polish what they were already doing, not looking to create them.
That hypothetical situation would -- and should -- be very real... except for the situation created by the anti-smokers: Convincing everyone, including smokers' rights groups, that anyone taking money from an industry that would be supportive of the position being promoted, is not credible.
It's brilliant! It's twofold in its brilliance... Not only have they succeeded in creating the instant suspicion of uncredibility if there's an association but... (drumroll)... it keeps the grassroots opposition PENNILESS!! Where else would a lone citizen or citizens who have found each other and organized going to get money to defend their private interests on this very unique issue? (rhetorical question).
There is no doubt in my mind that the anti-smokers know very well what they've done when it comes to one way to silence grassroots opposition. Without funding smokers' rights groups cannot compete -- on any level of the same paid campaign the anti-smoking groups engage in.
The demonization of tobacco is so great that receiving funding from anyone else is near impossible. It's $10 here and there from private citizens. Even if some other kind of company or philanthropist with money would be remotely willing to help financially it would likely ask to do so anonymously for fear of being accused of ties to tobacco. And anyone that's "anonymous" MUST be related to tobacco. Isn't that right, Bill?
I'd like to know who the very first anti-smoking groups turned to for their start-up money. Could it possibly be organizations/companies that would be sympathetic and gain a mutual benefit by helping???? Is that how it works? Imagine that! And of course we do know who funds them since. It's not the owner of Joe's Car Wash who has little to do with "public health," it's the organizations who get something out of financing someone else that happens to have the same ideas... ACS, RWJF, etc. (I know I'm being repetitive but that's to hammer home the insanity that smokers' rights groups can't conduct business the same way).
Most insane is that while the anti-smoking groups have created the situation where we can't take a cent from the tobacco companies, they do! Millions and millions! (yes, it's our money but it's still handed over by BT).
And I bet the explanation the anti-smokers have is that they use the money for "good" and take it as punishment, so it's okay for them to use it to fund their cause. But hmmmm, just yesterday (3/1) the Colorado Senate exempted bingo halls from that state's proposed ban "to protect churches and youth athletic leagues that use the game to raise money." In other words, so that the charities can use tobacco money for good -- just like the anti-smoking groups. Well, the sponsor of the bill, Sen. Grossman, doesn't see it that way. He said, "This isn’t clean money. This is money stained with the phlegm of the pathetic souls who haven’t been able to kick the nicotine habit." (http://www.lovelandfyi.com/region-story.asp?
ID=4191)
Seems whatcha got there Bill is "stained money."
I'll close this lengthy argument with support for the case that by demonizing anyone who ASKS for a self-serving handout from a sympathetic source is kept PENNILESS and thus SILENT:
March 1, 2006
By Ald. Robert G. Donovan, 8th District, Milwaukee
http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/arti...oking.html?
8218
...Lastly, I would like to point out that this proposed ban was not the result of any kind of grassroots effort on the part of the citizenry. It was proposed and is being supported by special interest groups like the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, and the Black Health Coalition. All these groups have highly paid staffers and lobbyists. Who is the lobbyist for the little guy? What mom and pop business owner can afford to take out television ads or pay people to stick up for them?
They can't. The only way they could would be to turn to people that could provide the money. But they lose that way too. A damn shame... their personal defense silenced because of who would pay for it -- NOT write the words.
Thanks, JustTheFacts, for stating it so clearly.
I also wonder why groups don't counter the argument by giving these organizations funding and support??
If you are worried about how someone could be biased by funding wouldn't it make sense for you to give that funding in the interest of free society?
I bet they would love to take 10% of what your annual budgets will be. The bars are told that they can absorb that, why can't the anti smoking organizations? Hey that would be what one less ad int he Wall street journal, or some other large paper??
-I'm sure they would have loved a budget of the cost of one study, even. Maybe you can not fund a paper on two statistics and say that it leads to "proof" of laws work, (and such)?
Oh how about giving to them, to help stop the possibility of bias then?? I'm sure you can support it, in the name of good advocacy!
How about access to your research, and people? Hey it really doesn't have to cost that much either does it?
Hey how about half or any portion that you say that is coming from tobacco?? Since you seem to think they are getting funding (with no proof).
There's always options, and are you willing to stand up to the plate in a constitutionally republic society for truth?
I think I'm on a roll! Did you want me to expand on the cost free options to help reduce bias more?
Bill wrote:
"Many of the FORCES affiliates that are listed on the FORCES website (and on this blog) are the same folks that Philip Morris refers to as its ninjas."
... So? If I refer to you as a thief, does that constitute proof that you are one? Is this the kind of summary justice of antismokers? If so, who the devil wants to live in the world you are proposing? And, BTW, you have not answered my question on why getting doe from Big Pharma is more "noble" than getting doe from Big Tobacco. I have the feeling that elusion will not get you anywhere in this forum, Bill.
Gian Turci | 03.02.06 - 6:06 am
Hopefully, once the word is passed around enough "that elusion" will not get them anywhere in the world...
I posted the contest on the Speak Ohio forum and Mr. Roger Wren the Tobacco Control Coordinator who is collecting signatures for SmokeFreeOhio there and whom myself and a few others are debating with, and he did not post a reply; even though he made the same accusations against FORCES in the beginning of our conversation. It didn't surprise me in the least.
It seems they believe they need "NO" EVIDENCE/SOUND EVIDENCE whatsoever any longer to accuse ANYONE of anything; from industries, to organizations, to individual product users, themselves.
The sad thing is that with the MAJORITY of the public "this" IS the case. If a "health" advocate/organization states something and no one publicly speaks out against it... Regardless of the lack of evidence, it must be true according to the majority AT PRESENT.
It seems to be a LONG road ahead Mr. Turci; I thank you for your dedication and HELP with finding the TRUTH! Please, KEEP UP THE "GOOD" WORK!!
I'm honestly not sure how the FORCES affiliate argument is relevant to this issue. The claim that some anti-smoking groups and advocates have made is that FORCES is a Big Tobacco front group, not that here are some FORCES affiliates listed that Philip Morris has referred to as its front groups.
l. duguay's ideas could be expanded upon to include contributions from the well funded anti-smoking activists to those in the hospitality industry who lose businesses and jobs after smoking bans are implemented.
The fact that pro-smoking ban groups don't however, exemplifies the fact that the health and welfare of the general public is not their concern.
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