I came across a Facebook group I'd never seen or heard of before yesterday. It's called Transform Tobacco, although I really can't tell what they think they're transforming, because it's not hard to figure out that it's an industry front group supported by R.J. Reynolds and the group used to be called nocigtax.com.
Okay, fair enough, they have the right to do what they want to oppose taxes on their industry, and that's exactly what they're doing. Here's what they say on their page:
Vermont tobacco consumers & retailers: Contact your legislators in the House and the Senate and tell them that raising tobacco taxes is a bad idea!
As you might guess, almost all the comments I've seen on the site are very hostile to their message, arguing that cigarette taxes should be higher, many arguing that cigarettes should actually be illegal, and so forth. I haven't seen many comments pointing out the stark fact that tobacco companies make money by making their customers sick and eventually killing them, which is probably a tribute to the politeness of internet users.
I did notice one guy, apparently an actual human being, defending the tobacco companies. His name is allegedly Andrew Glover, and his Facebook profile indicates that he lives in Barre. I just had to wonder: what kind of person supports tobacco companies? Is this really his honest view?
Here's what I found out. After following a couple of links I found that he apparently joined Facebook in 2007 but may not have actually posted anything until 2013. And why is he all of a sudden posting in support of the cancer industry? (Sorry, I mean the “cancer-COPD-heart disease industry”.)
You guessed it. It turns out that he's the Director of Marketing at Hibbert & McGee Wholesales, a regional candy, tobacco, grocery and sundries distributor.
Way to astroturf, RJR and Andrew!
People, what is going on out there? I look down this table, all I see are white flags. Our numbers are down all across the board. Teen smoking, our bread and butter, is falling like a $#!t from heaven! We don’t sell Tic Tacs for Christ’s sake. We sell cigarettes. And they’re cool and available and addictive. The job is almost done for us! Now, go slam your f*(%in’ brains against your desks until something useful comes out!
I like that. Let’s transform it into a different industry entirely…how about renewable energy? We need more of that.
They say this in the comment thread:
But the original posts I tried to put up on the page have either been blocked or taken down.
Quel surprise!