MoveOn.org, PLEASE! Move On!

Leave me alone, I am asking nicely now.

I have tried to un-subscribe from your email lists by way of both the 'un-subscribe' links in your emails and the options found on your web sites. I have gone so far as to comply with the 'un-subscribe' bot's request for more information as to why I would ever want to leave MoveOn.

Still, to my intense indignation today what arrived in my email? A disgusting piece of spam with the audacity to first Thank me for support I did not provide last weekend (at least get your spam correct, lol), but then proceeded to ask for my further support!

No.

Excuse me.

Make that Hell NO! I do not support MoveOn.Org's political agenda of continued and further unconstitutional taxation of a minority!

How much more is the cigarette smoking population of California supposed to pay for? Hey, I have an idea! Let's tax your kids' juice boxes! Yeah! Or, no wait! Even better! Let's toast the passing of taxation on that wine you drink, ok?

How about you walk what you talk, MoveOn?

So in the end, what did I learn?

It's just another organization claiming to be 'the' answer, 'the' ones who really want to make change.

But, in the end, they've all got a damn agenda.

:popcorn:

But they cost an extra tuppence each, so the rant goes on....

Safari allows you to "bounce" an e-mail back to the sender as if it was never opened or read. The sender then assumes your e-mail address is bad, and in theory, you're name will be removed.

In theory. It depends upon how automated their system is.

.

I say they can get through. I find it very nice that way.

What a ridiculous assertion .... EVERYONE is taxed by smoking .... Smoking taxes society .....

A little filthy lucre isnt asking much to help mend the negative effects smoking causes ...

There AINT no free lunch, bud ....

I sure hope you get your money back from here though, afore you go ....

'Your money is no good here ....'

"EVERYONE is taxed by smoking .... Smoking taxes society."

Wise up, Sue, before you cough your head off.

And it makes me cringe to see smokers being called a persecuted minority, with the ethnic and racial connotations of the term minority and the history the US has had in that department.

But why do we have to foot any miscellaneous bills that come up? Hmm? How is that justifiable? Oh we have this expense in the budget that needs covered. Oh! I know where we can get the money add another tax on cigarettes, nobody will oppose that. Everybody knows it's pc incorrect to be pro cigarette smokers.

By the way, I never mentioned as to whether I am a smoker, non-smoker, never have smoked-er, future smoker, might have once thought of smoking-er, or any status of any sort.

Also, adding a tax to let's say for the sake of a healthy debate junk food (that great fast food America gobbles up), or how about all those lattes? Or like I previously said on liquor? Why not? Aren't these things just as big a drain in their own way on America's health and economy?

Personally, if I see one more fool drunk or one more disgusting overweight American stuffing a twinkie while guzzling their diet coke I think I'll gag.

Singling out one part of the population to tax is unfair and goes against our constitution. Leave your personal feelings and agendas at the door and I will too. By repeatedly taxing the cigarette smoking population when another bill needs paid while never taxing the rest of the population that is taxing a minority.

The definition of a minority group can vary, depending on specific context, but generally refers to either a sub-group that does not form either a majority or a plurality of the total population, or a group that, while not necessarily a numerical minority, is disadvantaged or otherwise has less power (whether political or economic) than a dominant group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority

BTW, I don't believe it is my place to ever tell people how to live their lives or what they should do. I have my beliefs and opinions, but I think what someone does is neither right or wrong, just their life they're leading. After all, who am I to tell someone else how to live their life, right? So, please, indulge me a bit and don't tell me to quit smoking. If not for that reason, then for the reason that you have no way of knowing, as I said before, whether I smoke or not.

because you have a filthy, disgusting habit that has a tremendous cost to all of society in so many ways, especially health-wise and economically.

Do you even care that thousands of people DIE each year just from the effects of second-hand smoke, when they don't even smoke themselves, and hundreds of thousands of others are adversely affected? Do you even care that parents who smoke greatly affect the health of their children, who have no voice in the matter? Do you even care that the health costs of smoking total billions of dollars a year and that we ALL pay for that? Do you even care that people affected by smoking, including those with asthma and other respiratory difficulties, have to be very careful where they go so as to minimize the effects of any second-hand smoke? Do you even care that smokers die each year by the hundreds of thousands, far earlier than they should and directly due to the effects of smoking?

My son is greatly affected by smoking, it literally makes him ill. Yet, his idiot father and stepmother not only insisted on smoking around him, they even refused to allow him to complain about it and got mad whenever he did. That is, until I went to court and put a stop to that bullshit. They have their own young son and they are ruining his already-delicate health by their selfish, thoughtless smoking around him, let alone how much money cigs cost when they're always complaining of being broke and even got a reduction in child support. But they always seem to have money for their smokes.

I'm sorry, but you are NOT a "persecuted minority", far from it. YOU are the one who CHOOSES to smoke, whereas racial and ethnic minorities have no choice in the matter. YOU make that CHOICE. When I was a smoker (I quit nearly sixteen years ago), I was the one who chose to light up the cigs and inhale. NO ONE put a gun to my head and forced me to do so. Only I made that choice, just as I made the choice to finally quit. Yes, I definitely believe tobacco companies deliberately hook people and I'm certain that they knew more than forty years ago of the dangers of smoking (there's more than enough evidence that they did) and deliberately withheld that so as to hook more people on their deal-with-the-devil products.

But people can choose to smoke and they can choose to QUIT, also. Yes, it's damned hard and tough and difficult, far more so than what most non-smokers think. But it's certainly worth it and you feel so much better physically afterwards. It CAN be done, IF you CHOOSE to do so. So, please, stop the whining bullshit about being a "persecuted, overtaxed minority." YOU are the one who CHOOSES to be in that minority and at great cost to the rest of us.

yes smoking is odious and awful.

But as much as I hated cigarette smokers a long time ago, they have paid the price. Okay? they go out and smoke in rotten little areas of sidewalk. Their addiction already costs them dearly. AND YA KNOW WHAT!!

We are still having people die of diseases like pulmonary fibrosis.

In my view it is because cigarette smoking addiction is now replaced AT A FANATICAL LEVEL by all the other chemical industry effuvia that is allowed to flourish and prosper. I have to work from home because all the perfumes and colognes and other benzene conatining items are left without legislation, hell, without even so much as a health warning, while we medievally continue to point the finger at the cigarette smoker.

I am chemically sensitive. I cannot deal with Glade air freshener, or Lysol disinfectant. I wonder why Chris Reeves' young wife died of a fast moving, non stoppable LUNG CANCER even though she was not a smoker. Was it that she had been in one newly sanitized, Lysoled and air perfumed hospital room too many?

Let's let up on the smoker, okay? We need to address the real causes and until we stop letting the chem industry off the hook, as we bug spray and rose mildew detonate, as we vaporize our underarms with gawd knows what arsenal of chemicals so we don't have whiff orf perspiration, until then it is hypocrisy to pound on the smoker so badly.

I DO plan to quit as soon as I graduate this fall, but I have no problem paying extra taxes for this harmful habit. I consider it more than fair, since I'm subsidizing RW, evil corporations every time I buy a pack of cigarettes.

I figure the higher the price, the easier it will be to quit. So I say bring on the taxes!! LOL

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

If you want to burden the health care system with people suffering cancer and other diseases due to smoking, then feel free to do so, but by doing so, you lose any moral ground to complain when people decide to tax your habit in order to pay for the added health care expense that chronic smoking imposes on society.

And while the OP may have a valid complaint
re: recieving unwanted solicitations, the addition
of that 'tobacco tax' reference is just a little BIZARRE.

from a few groups, but it seems that once you are on a mailing list, you are never taken off. Since I do work with charities in the first place, my name is out there in the public domain for those charities to swoop up and send me lots of mail. I've asked a number of times to be taken off of certain mailing lists, and it's been a fight to do so. (Believe it or not, there are some charities that I just don't want to be associated with. Some affiliated with certain religious groups or beliefs that I am not a part of. And the Attorney General has rules for these organizations. If you request to be taken off their mailing list, they must do so.)

But, calling and requesting to be removed doesn't always work. So, I send the pre-paid envelopes back with a note asking to be removed from the mailing list until they actually do it.

Political organizations are the worst spammers sometimes. With email, it's easy. Just block the address, and you won't receive anymore Moveon.org emails.

wow, that's a pretty big assumption. Did you come up with that one?

Would you think I was immoral if I said I smoked cigarettes?

you try to have it both ways: 1) Keeping taxes low on cigarettes and 2) continuing to smoke.

Smoking itself is an amoral activity in my view, but it is rather low and contemptible to oppose people raising taxes on cigarettes to offset the costs to society smoking imposes for the selfish sake of wanting to maintain purchasing power for cigarettes.

the tobacco companies paid out MILLIONS upon MILLIONS to the states, supposedly for the purpose of offsetting the cost to society.

God, what a bunch of self-righteous, "I never do anything that impacts society negatively" bunch of whining bullshit.

It's nothing in the world but the same kind of mental gymnastics the righties use to justify condemning anyone who doesn't adhere to their idea of right and wrong.

As I've said before, freedom is messy and freedom is dangerous and either you believe in it or you don't.

free to smoke. They also need to recognize the problems and affects of their freedom on the rest of society, especially health-wise. Freedom is NOT free, you are NOT free to just do whatever the hell you want and damn the consequences to everyone else. You wanna fuck up your own health by smoking, fine, by all means, you have the freedom to do so. You do NOT have the "freedom" to cause harm to anyone else because of it, or to expect society to pick up the health tab for it.

Freedom is not free, the price of freedom is responsibility for your actions. Just like the gun owner must be responsible for his guns, and those who drink must be responsible for the consequences of their drinking.

the extreme, I think the point is to level the playing field on other things that may be a COST to general living in a civilization, with emphasis on CIVIL. Alcohol, fast food, SUX's I mean SUV's, extreme sports, corporate corruption, pension fraud, I could go on. The thing is, cigarettes are heavily taxed, go to a different well. Making smokers scapegoats will only work until the next group gets targeted & it may be YOU.
Please be nice to people, even if they are different from you.

On edit: this was directed to post #5 Selatius

accept my abject apology & let me welcome you to DU properly:
Welcome to DU! Glad to hear from you!

Who is trying to keep taxes LOW on cigs? They are already taxed to
Edited on Sun Oct-15-06 02:45 AM by spacelady
the extreme, I think the point is to level the playing field on other things that may be a COST to general living in a civilization, with emphasis on CIVIL. Alcohol, fast food, SUX's I mean SUV's, extreme sports, corporate corruption, pension fraud, I could go on. The thing is, cigarettes are heavily taxed, go to a different well. Making smokers scapegoats will only work until the next group gets targeted & it may be YOU.
Please be nice to people, even if they are different from you.

On edit: this was directed to post #5 Selatius

:popcorn:

to STFU about election fraud.

Spam them back. Send them weekly checks for $.01.

Smoking kills ten times more people every year than drunk driving. It kills more people than homicide, suicide, poisonings, AIDS, and car crashes COMBINED. It costs about $73 billion dollars a year in healthcare to deal with smoking-related illnesses. It's also demonstrably hazardous to anyone and everyone around you, not to mention an offensive and disgusting habit. The very best thing that you can possibly do, for yourself, for those around you, and for society, is to quit smoking immediately.

Cry me a river, unhelpful, cob-up-your-butt post. Next time, maybe you will be targeted. Or maybe you are one of those rarified sorts that could not be frowned upon?

why should I? consider it an investment in the future.

(or is giving the people around you health problems) then you should be contributing to a fund to pay for it.

Sorry, you want stop paying cigarette taxes? Stop smoking. The rest of us are tired of paying for you and other smokers' UNNECESSARY AND EASILY AVOIDABLE HEALTH PROBLEMS.

PS: And don't friggin lecture me about it's my choice if I want to smoke, I'll accept the consequences ... my father just died on Oct. 4th of throat and lung cancer 100% due to his years of smoking. I was forced to live in a house filled with his cigarette smoke for the first 18 years of my life. Can't exactly open a window to air out the house in the middle of the winter in New York State. So yeah, he had a choice but I didn't.

Yes, it was aimed at the original poster.

I've never felt better. You should look into it. I was a pack a day smoker and was as addicted as anybody. The first week was excruciating, but the benefit is definitely worth it.

I quit more than 2 years ago, cold turkey. Best thing I ever did.

:toast:

Spamhaus and Spamcop come to mind.

Just because they are organizations with a good cause is no excuse for spamming. I do it to anyone who spams.

I swear, I need a weed whacker to go through my email boxes.

Thanks for the laugh!

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Are so welcoming!

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and use it to cudgel us doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate beefs with MoveOn.

Take their discussion forum, for example. Its members screaming at each other and freepers disrupting and it's obviously not meant to input into MoveOn positions or policy.

Another example. I had the opportunity to talk to one of Wes's advisers right after 2004. We'd worked so hard and whoooosh, it was stolen. Wes and Joan just went into a cocoon for months when we needed to hit back, to mobilize. The gentleman I spoke to told me he was no longer working with them because 'Wes and Joan are completely uninterested in input."

I admit to feeling sort of bitter about the whole experience with them. Since, I've understood that pioneers sometimes go off cliffs, lol, and hopefully can scramble back up to a passable road.

But their brand of "grassroots" activism is still troubling, very shallowly conceived and if I had one wish, it would be that they'd rethink what 'grassroots" could mean to their enterprise.

They want our money.

They got our money and the election was taken away from us, and they went off to count their money I suspect more than to whimper and whine over the loss.

Any organization that is so trickle down instead of trickle up is always suspect to me - their behavior in Oct 2004 through to their disappearance after the election - who knows maybe they were in cahoots with Rove.

...of doing something about--something as simple as setting your spam filter--that specifically attacks what is a very important liberal grassroots movement, then, yeah, I'm not going to be terribly welcoming. SO sorry to disappoint you.

I'm self-taught and have no idea what a spam filter is, much less how to set it.

Just sayin'.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

woman who got pregnant out of wedlock and abortion is illegal in her state? She could have prevented it by choosing not to have sex.

was click on the 'unsubscribe' link. Moveon really does overdo it, didn't have the time to read it.

His "drive-by" makes me laugh every single time.

gets to start threads now? I thought we had a failsafe installed to prevent this. mods?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

It's annoying to keep getting mail you've nicely refused.

Notice the star by the person's name?

But I am capable of discerning when I am in a discussion with people whose minds are already decided on an issue, making any further debate only more senseless quibbling.

When I originally posted this entry, I admit I had just come from checking my email and was steamed up over MoveOn's repeated failure to unsubscribe me despite my repeated requests. And, my main reason for wanting to be removed is because I felt, and still do, that their statement of values is in direct opposition to what this smoking tax (and any other similar taxes that target a minority population) does.

It is not our governments job to regulate how we live our lives, to dictate what we can or cannot do. You wouldn't want them to tell you that if you want to continue to drink your cokes that there will now be a $2.55 tax on each can would you? For the government to say, you can have that Big Gulp, only now you pay an extra $1.75 for each one to offset rebuilding emergency rooms that are long past needing renovation and repair?

It doesn't seem that anyone in this thread has addressed these core issues.

Do you want the government to now regulate, through taxation, how you live your life?

"It is not our governments job to regulate how we live our lives, to dictate what we can or cannot do."

It seems many are of the opinion government should regulate how we live sometimes. Government shouldn't regulate abortion or marriage but should regulate guns and smoking. Same ole' shit, different causes.

I'm happy to pay taxes on gas, cigs, etc especially If (like in England) they are going for a Universal health care. AND Yes i'd pay it on my kids juice box if need be.

If you really want to bitch about taxes... why not start with Asshats tax plan of taxing middle income families to death and giving millionaires huge tax breaks.

BTW that huge price jump in cigs was reason enough for me to quit. Jan will be 2 yrs and I haven't missed it!

isn't going to health care, schools, critical infrastructure but to line the BushCo cronies' pockets. I've never seen so little accountability in our government. It's obscene.

Meanwhile, families struggle paycheck to paycheck and sweat bullets at tax time. It's sickening.

I actually think cola drinks are as unhealthy as smokes.

I agree with you somewhat. I believe cigs are unfairly targeted for taxes because we do not have any idea what else contributes to fatalities besides the smoking.

Did you read about the man who paid $15,000 to find out what chemicals and pesticides were in his body? I was amazed at the teflon in his system and all of the other chemicals; especially as he had no uncommon relationship with any of these chemicals or pesticides. Just a normal human who decided to find out what was in his body. Amazing stuff. I don't remember whether or not there were tobacco residues.

I am a former smoker and I'm glad I quit; however, I do think smokers are unfairly maligned and taxed.

trying to unsub from their lists. Plus, now they're calling me even after I explained civilly and in detail why I wasn't interested in working with their group and after I wished them well.

Now I just report their mail as spam and don't answer the phone when their phone bank number comes up.

by the way.

The majority in this country seem to want to make gay marriage illegal, too.

on its members. They said they'd support the propositions their members supported.

I really don't understand all the animosity toward this newbie. I've had the exact same experience trying to get off of their lists, for one thing. And, I still get calls after two years.

As far as being a grassroots organization, they're not. They're very top->down and imho, it's a shame because people really responded to them. On the other hand, they may just be having growing pains as an org.

am I lost? lol

thank you, smoking is a very, excuse the pun, smoking gun issue. It's real easy to jump on smokers right now. In fact you would be called pc incorrect to not do so.

What disturbed me, however, is peoples assumptions. For one thing, I never stated whether I am, indeed, a smoker or not. Could it be, perhaps, that I am simply a person concerned with this issue? Second, if a smoker, how does anyone know if I am the sort of smoker that is totally rude and inconsiderate of others? By this I mean the type that smokes around non-smokers, sending those fumes of death recklessly into the air. Maybe I only smoke in the privacy of my home?

And it's very easy to blame smoking for the health care issues this nation is facing and the rising costs associated with them. It's very tangible.

Whereas the health costs associated with our nations steadily increasing (and scary) rates of obesity, are not as easily attributed to any one twinkie, so to speak. One can't just point to the candy machine and rally the troops behind that one thing as their battle cry against the found enemy. There are just too many things contributing to obesity and all the health problems and the drain it is placing on our country. Which, btw, unless you have your head in a hole, you can't watch a news program for more than a week without seeing at least one story covering the subject.

So cigarettes and smokers make an easy target.

But this piece of legislation is not the answer, smokers should not be asked to pay for among other things, run-down emergency rooms that are long past need of renovation.

Enough said. Move on (oops, no pun intended, seriously)

about 3 years ago when it became clear that they >do< arbitrarily pick positions and impose them on their members. This isn't the first time. They did it with gun control, with the Sierra Club's internal elections, with the Lamont/Lieberman primary, and with immigration policy. What gives them the right to arrogantly decide what the liberal position is on issues that are debated and have good liberals on both sides?

that Fall asking them what the plan was if Ohio was stolen.

I was so disappointed because they had made it possible for me to participate from home. They are a young outfit, though. There's lots of time for them to do lessons learned.

/clarity

To begin with, you would have figured it out.

There was no one you could call. To talk to.

I mean even Bev (may she live with worms in her ears and hyenas in her butt) Harris at least let you call and talk to her.

MoveOn It was trickle down rather than trickle up. Right at the beginning.

To top it off they missed the most important issue of all in '04 - the corruption at the polling places and further corruption at the Registrar of Voters Offices across America.

If anyone here knows of one voting activist (Just one is all I am asking) that MoveOn sent a check to, I'd love to know about it.

...with 90% of that being tax.

I'm a happy smoker too - so all you fucking puritian bleeding hearts can go drown in a lake. :)

Fuck off with the "its my lungs too" BS - I don't smoke in public. I smoke in private. If you don't like smoke, you are free to leave my house. :)

with respiratory problems who come to your house!

On edit: And for that matter, don't those of us with respiratory problems own them?

this cigarrette tax.

organization. Regardless of whether you donated and got a star, if in your very first posts, and first threads you start, you bash an important progressive organization (and Moveon IS valuable due to its organization of phone banking and other volunteering activities), EVEN IF YOUR POINT IS COMPLETELY VALID, you will naturally raise immediate suspicion among the regulars that you are a right wing troll.

If you don't care about that, or flaming out your account in the first few dozen posts, then by all means, have at it.

If you DO care about it, and your agenda is other than simply bashing liberal organizations and then the DUers who come flame you when you do, then you should consider carefully what you post.

This has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the actual merits of your post and everything to do with common sense in joining a group and establishing credibility within.

Think about it.

decide they can start ignoring the forum rules and call out newbies because they disagree with them instead of addressing the substance of the OP?

Whether MoveOn has done more good than harm is debatable. Our forum rules aren't last time I checked.

influence people's early impression.

Since they have now bashed the forum based on the response of some of the people, I was pointing out that some of this reaction could be expected.

There are no rules against posting the thread that they posted, on DU.

However, the "common sense" rules regarding how people respond to things and behave as a group, also don't change, and are not confined to DU.

If you, or the mods, consider my post to be calling out, then so be it, I guess it will be deleted.

that are a reaction to a post count and not to the OP.

Your point is well taken.

Welcome to DU, Twilasue. You certainly stirred up a hornet's nest with your first thread! I know from personal experience how very hard it is to quit smoking. After trying and failing, many people go into denial and may say that they smoke because they choose to do so.

You claim that you may not in fact be a smoker yourself but may only be bringing a matter of concern to our attention on behalf of those who do smoke. Please, let's be real here. We all know that you do indeed smoke so why pretend otherwise? No one is going to condemn you for being a smoker. It is an addictive habit and we all know people who have been caught up in it.

Some proudly boast that they quit smoking "cold turkey". Fine if you can do that, but many of us could not. It does take some determination to quit, but you can ease yourself into doing it gradually. Personally I made up my mind to quit by gradually withdrawing from nicotine.

I determined that I would only smoke one cigarette after each main meal, that is three cigarettes per day. It was hell at first having to put off having a cigarette but knowing that I could have one after my next meal helped me to do so.

After a couple of weeks my cravings had diminished to the point that I could give up my cigarette after lunch. This meant I no longer had to take cigarettes to work with me. Next I gave up my after breakfast cigarette and then I would look forward to my one cigarette per day after supper. Finally I was able to give that up too.

It helps to have something else to do with your mouth and so I chewed gum rather than smoke. Now after many years I no longer have any cravings for cigarettes and in fact I prefer not to be around people who are smoking as the smoke offends me.

I am posting this is the hope that it may help some out there who have not been able to quit smoking. I suggest that you try my method and I think you will be able to succeed. It does take some determination though. Good luck!

Sounds like you need a new email account. I have several and every one of them has a spam filter. So it can't be hard to find one that will spam out moveon's emails.

there, the next mail from them will go to the Bulk folder. Somehow, MoveOn's mail doesn't do the same thing. I have no clue why.

I've also unsubbed a least three times from their lists the regular way and am not unsubbed or, am only paritially unsubbed because the traffic has gone down but it hasn't stopped.

I guess I assumed that once you spam it out, it's gone. But still, there is this other button labeled 'DELETE'. It comes in handy too. LOL

lol

so that you will never see Move-On mail. Last I checked you could block 100 specific addresses. Not much good for blocking the general spammer who uses throwaway addresses - but very good at removing specific repeat emailers. (The general spam filters are much better at detecting and blocking patterns (subjects/bulk mailing/body content) than specific addresses.)

On Yahoo, the options button on top right of the page will take you to a page where you can block specific addresses - or you can build filters from the same page if you want to send them to a specific folder if you want to collect them for some reason.

that will give me carpal tunnel deleting them manually. :)

move on rocks!

..to get MoveOn emails at another email address.

It bothers me, and this has nothing to do with my personal interests. If cigs cost ten bucks a pack it wouldn't affect me in the slightest. Except, of course, for having to watch poor and homeless people getting the shakes and having psychotic breaks because they are no longer able to afford what they're addicted to. Selling a product to people and then raising taxes on it... Basically the same thing as the "War on Drugs." Just more sick hypocrisy from our guberno-corporate rulers.

Sorry to see you attacked personally by people who didn't read your posts. Unfortunately, that's the way things work here. You apparently came to talk about democracy. But there's already a "smokers vs. anti-smokers" war going on here so people won't see your point.

There are a lot of great things about DU, but it's not a place to talk about this particular issue IMO.

Welcome!

arises, and I hear someone who is actually close to on topic rather than attacking, lol. Boy, you all are such a welcoming and open-minded bunch, aren't you? That is so nice to find these days!



Too bad that a site with "Democracy" in it's name has members that don't seem interested in discussing the issues rationally and calmly, like adults, rather than slinging mud and calling names and forgetting the issue altogether. It's easy to let our emotions speak instead of our heads.

Prop 86, if anyone takes the time to actually read the text, is just more money going to special interest groups, creating new state bureaucracies with very little of the tax actually going to anti-smoking programs and little accountability.

Intitatives out there - and there is NO oversight.

Some years back Californians voted thirty million dollars to aid the plight of endangered cougars .

I love cougars (scared to death of 'em but I love them anyway.)

What is troubling is that whatever group comes up with the idea gets this money. Does a cougar ever get so much as a kitty kibble or dog crunchie out of it?

Damn if I know or if you know... But the person who gets it on the ballot is laughing all the way to the bank.

It's how people interact on the internet.

Show me any political website where rational discussion is the norm...

Hit delete, as I do. Just as you don't have to answer the door or pick up the phone if you don't want to, you also don't have to open your e-mails.

Welcome to DU, by the way.

here's hoping you stick around a time or two :kick:

If discussing an actual issue and staying on point without slinging mud at new people is so difficult for all you 'old timers' (guess everybody here has 1000 posts or more, lol), by all means refund my money and I'll happily withdraw my support and never disgrace your site again, lol.

I was just trying to do something good. It's money I really shouldn't have spent anyway, don't know why I did. Had a good feeling about this place, huh. Intuition isn't always right.

So, I'll gladly take that refund.

But am glad you brought this up.

However after seeing the response of righteousness this has invoked I FINALLY realized how I CAN MAKE MONEY as an activist - (Before this I never thought I could)

YEP Come 2008 I am gonna put an initative on the ballot that will make cig packs $ 40 a pack and my sponsoring Organization "The Carol The Reporter Feel Good School For People who Read Bad News and Wanna Feel Better about It" will sponsor this initiative. Then my cat and I are gonna take the resulting money and fly off into the sunrise and put our previously overworked bottoms down on the warm Bahamas sands and enjoy.

So thank you TwilaSue I just might ask you to join me.

Can I be the first official member? It sounds so swell! Because I'm a person, you know, who never, ever took an interest in politics before this, well, ok, you can forget that state senate campaign I worked on in 1995, please! don't hold that against me, I can still act like I know absolutely nothing really well!! (my guy did lose after all, so what do I know, right? lol)

Great post!!

"The Carol The Reporter Feel Good School For People who REad Bad News and Wanna Feel Better about It", gosh, it just kind of rolls right off your tongue, don't it?

lmao!

And what does this mean?: "Hey, I have an idea! Let's tax your kids' juice boxes!"

California doesn't tax food items, hmm?

And this: "Let's toast the passing of taxation on that wine you drink, ok?"

Was taxation on alcohol just recently passed in CA?

Enlighten those of us on the East coast.

My point, if followed along, was if we can tax cigarettes because they are unhealthy, then it stands to follow that we can also tax other things that next election someone else deems are unhealthy. Maybe sugary sodas, are nation is way, way obese. Imagine the amount of money it is costing to care for all the health issues that come from being obese? It effects every part of your body!

So let's tax twinkies!! That sounds like a good idea to me.

Seriously, in my opinion, a scary side to this piece of legislation is the idea that some people have that it is our government's job to pass legislation that will dictate how we are to live our lives. Even if that is by levying a tax that disallows us from pursuing an activity that is unhealthy.

So today we are heavily taxed for smoking, tomorrow it's a huge tax on booze, now you can't afford no more nights out with your buds, do you really want the gov't dictating these things in any way, shape or form?

Then there is the legislation itself. It is unclear exactly who, what or where this money goes to or is managed by or so forth. One item mentions the state of emergency rooms being past due for renovation due to age. And smokers are being asked to foot the bill for this, ummmm, hmmmm, why? And, no, it does not say that these emergency rooms were worn out by smokers pacing the floors jonesing for a cigarette or that they were worn out by treating only cigarette related emergencies. Just in need of being brought up to date and, hey, someone needs to pay for them. I guess they thought, hmm, where will we get the money from? SMOKERS! This is CA, no one will disagree with us, they will look bad if they do, it will be pc incorrect. And nobody will come out against it if we mention 'the children', too! There's a good catch phrase for you! 'The Children', it's being done for our children, nobody dares to say anything against anything that purports to be for the good of the children! Right? Right! Well, I for one am here to say that it is amazing what you learn when you actually read these dang small printed pieces of legislation! I may go blind, but I'm going to keep reading!

you cited. I'm not even going to bother with this gem, "Even if that is by levying a tax that disallows us from pursuing an activity that is unhealthy." This thread is about to make my head explode, and that would really be unhealthy.

Poor, persecuted smokers. Almost right up there with that other persecuted group...

The sooner the better - don't let the door hit your ass on the way out - no, I hope the door spanks you GOOD!

Don't go away mad - just go away - PERIOD...

and you appear to be determined to want to fight anyway. I'm an ex-smoker. I personally would like to see the damn things illegal, let alone just taxed. My husband still smokes. If they pass this, he says he is quitting. Don't blame me if that doesn't make me a happy woman to contemplate having him around much longer than I will if he continues to smoke.

Allow me to ask you a final question; why are you so ready to write off DU just because your initial negative post didn't elicit the responses you apparently thought you should have? DU has much value just as does MoveOn does in some areas. It looks as if you were just looking to argue. Or, did you seriously want a fair debate? Perhaps more open-mindedness on all sides would work better?

They used to be a great organization but I don't know what they've been doing lately.

Maybe they've been taken over by the right wing too. Why not? Everybody else has too.

and it was a painless, fast process. Their emails were so useless that I'm surprised I stayed on their list that long.

I haven't kept up with their agenda, though I won't shed any tears for the cigarette smokers. I do think there are better areas to target during these important times, however.

They don't like Monkey.

You're not a real DUer until you've been called a freeper a few times. :hi: Now light up a cigarette and Make some comments on other threads. Don't run away so fast.

Welcome Twilasue. And by the away, the owners of this site have allowed you to post and don't share the sentiment as some do that you need to "establish yourself" before sharing your opinion.

That being said, it's good to know the hot button issues around here so you'll know what expect when you decide to post one.:-)

but I'm guessing they are FOR Prop. 86? It looks to me that this initiative is less about the health issue of smoking and more about raking in big dollars for the pet projects of the hospitals and other medical groups. Something about it stinks.

As in you have obviously have read and LEARNED, (hold tight folks - a new concept here, maybe? lmao) because, it seems that you like myself took the time to become informed on the issues rather than to simply believe what some organization like, hmmm, well let's just say 'moveon.org' for the fun or it, ok?, say is the right position to take.

Ain't a little bit of educatin' just grand? lol!!

thank you for seeing what the real issue of this thread was and not just blindly responding with your emotions instead, why am i still laughing, hmmm???

:hi: