The Marlboro Marine and Mills' "Smoke Screen"

self | 11/13/04 | LS

[LS]

What does a Fallujah Marine smoking a Marlboro and a best-selling novel by an action writer have in common?

The cancer stick. The ciggy. The smoke.

Last year, action writer Kyle Mills wrote a book that departed from his traditional spy/detective/cop genre. "Smoke Screen" (2003), while having a common name to many other books, is the "Atlas Shrugged" of a new generation. No, it doesn't have near the depth of argument of an Any Rand book (nor, fortunately, it's length, which means it is usable in a classroom setting). It lacks the depth of character of "Atlas Shrugged."

But the point is the same: What happens when an entire industry that has been demonized says, in essence, "Screw you. We're shutting down until the public, through its elected officials (and not the courts) decides that people have a right to do things that are dangerous, even deadly."

Mills' hero is a "trustafaraian"---a somewhat lazy Trevor Barnett, thirty-something employee of Terra, a major tobacco company. He works in Terra's history department, sorting records and making sure that there are no "smoking guns" in the documents. Oh, and he stands to inhereit gobs of Terra stock at the age of 65, providing he keeps working there until retirement. Meanwhile, the dividends and payments from his trust account barely keep him alive, as the tobacco stock has plummeted under the burden of continued lawsuits.

Now comes the biggest suit of all. A Montana suit wherein Montana's special bonding provisions may mean that a judgement against Terra would require the company to put up the entire amount (in hundreds of billions of dollars) up front---before an appeal, thereby bankrupting the company.

Mills' hero, completely by accident, works his way into the good graces of the crusty Terra CEO, Paul Trainor (hardly a likeable character), who finds Trevor's honesty refreshing. Trevor, shoved into a TV appearance with an anti-smoking Nazi, admits to a national audience, (paraphrasing), "We sell products that kill people. But so do many other companies, some far worse than us, including most of the food companies." By bringing up diabetes and obesity as the top health problems, Barnett asks if we are going to force people to weigh in twice a month, or sentence them to treadmills, or police their Ho-Hos or Ding Dongs. (Given that just yesterday, in the REAL WORLD, Holland banned all "transfatty acid products," this is not at all far fetched.)

Trainor is so taken with Barnett's approach that he invites him into strategy sessions, and eventually they come up with a response to the Montana suit: SHUT IT DOWN! Close all cigarette manufacturing plants, pull all tobacco products from the shelves, make the smokers go cold turkey, and refuse to budge until the government decides, one way or another, if Americans should be "allowed" to smoke. Barnett's position is, "Quit lying. Admit that cigarette smoking will kill you eventually. If you smoke, 'You're on your own, baby,' which becomes the new mantra of the book." Don't look to the government for help, and government, don't look to the tobacco companies for restitution for past wrongs.

The unions pitch in and make the embargo stick, and the rest of the book takes several twists and turns. I won't give away the ending, but Mills does manage to pull off an incredible coup by having the unions come out the "heroes" of freedom, thus leaving the "working class" the champions of liberty.

Total fantasy?

I wonder. Consider all the companies who would be affected by such a shutdown---not just the immediate tobacco firms, but farmers, truckers, wholesale and retail store owners, and, the biggest losers of all, governments (federal, state, and local). No more golden goose.

The anti-smoking lobby also would lose, big time. It's a little known fact that many of their payments from the industry are dependent on SALES, and thus they really have no incentive to STOP people from smoking. It's the Jesse Jackson/welfare issue all over again: what incentive is there for so-called "advocates of the poor" to really end poverty? They become unemployed.

Which brings me to the Marine Marlboro Man.

This picture will likely increase cigarette sales, and probably to teens especially.

Barnett's solution to teen smoking? Decriminialize it. Once the aura of doing something "cool" is gone---just because it's illegal---teen smoking will fall, if not virtually disappear. Contrary to Barnett/Mills' conclusion that ultimately all smoking might disappear, I don't think so. But the strategy he outlines is a valid one for not only the tobacco companies to consider, but for the food giants likewise to think about. Embargo ALL "snack foods." Shut down all "fast foods." If Eric Schlosser thinks Taco Bell and McDonalds is so bad, let's let the people decide through the legislative process. Shut them down and find out how long Schlosser's view of the "Fast Food Nation" survives. See how many college campuses adopt his book after that. My guess is that within a month, Schlosser would take his life in his hands by visiting any college campus.

Kyle Mills has given us a roadmap, and the Fallujah Marine should be the face of the new strategy of freedom.

[Still Thinking]

I heard that diarhhea runs in the genes. < rimshot >

[Still Thinking]

Well, Little Tommy Daschle is out of a job. There's no telling what the stress will do to him.