On their website, they promoted the TICAP-conference with close connections to the tobacco-lobby to oppose such prohibitions.
Vrijspreker today announced that the conference has been cancelled by the EU. Apparantly the reason for this is a violation in the EU rules. The person they got the news from is someone with a very familiar sounding name ... young Vincent De Roeck whoms vision on global warming already has been adressed.
Vincent De Roeck is unhappy he's not going to be able to be fooled by the tobacco-lobby conference dressed up as a freedom of speech conference (my translation):
An article with some more background on the TICAP-conference and the interesting career of Dr Gio Gori (whom was gonna give the talk "The passive smoking fraud") can be found in the article Parliament acts against commercial interests in the EPOnce again we can see the close ties between libertarians and an industrial lobby, probably because the industry is drawing the card of using the libertarian bias towards "freedom without government intervention" as it seems to be the ways to get libertarian support : somehow there grows a situation where libertarians will claim there's no need to act on ... [insert scientific subject], while the industry is willingly giving them plenty of financial means to spread the viewpoint there's no need for government action on the subject.it's a scandal. I was inscribed for a anti-prohibition conference next week in the European Parliament. Today i discover the bureau of the EP has prohibited it. Freedom of speech ? A typical deed from that disguisitng EUSSR.
Vincent De Roeck and the Iron Lady
.jpg "Vincent De Roeck Margareth Thatcher EUSSR")
People with a firm biological background would call this the perfect symbiosis !
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ReplyDeleteCould you please provide proof that the conference has been funded by the tobacco industry.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Yes please do so!! And also about how you think this alteration is not an infringement on free speech.
ReplyDeleteCarlos
There's a hospital sponsoring this event. What on earth are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that the conference is still going ahead despite all efforts by the EU to cancel it. No tobacco industry involvement, no BP involvement (like all anti-smoking conferences).
ReplyDeleteFree speech is under a great threat, and this incident is just another cog in the wheel that is infuriating the citizens of the EU.
Like it or lump it, the truth always wins
Anonymus wrote :
ReplyDeleteThere's a hospital sponsoring this event.
The "hospital" funding a smokers conference is ... rehabilitation centre
you can't make that stuff up.
wOOt
Dick,
ReplyDeletethey'd be very stupid to directly fund the conference itself, wouldn't they ?
If you read my text, you know the tactics followed by the industry i strenghening the libertarian bias.
When we look at the list of speakers, we find the perfect symbiosis again : a lot of libertarians, combined with some people with a clear background in the industry :
Gio Batta Gori, received plenty of fundings from the tobacco industry
In my first post on the subject, i mentioned an organisation called ARISE. The very same group speaker Jan Snel is associated with. Auch.
Gian Turci from his hand seems to be a libertarian activily seeking the symbiosis, considering he wrote :
I am sure that this will mark the beginning of a good a mutually beneficial cooperation between FORCES, other smokers' rights groups, and the industry. However, I will keep our communications confidential for obvious reasons.
And as mentioned before, Barrie Craven was a member of ESEF, an organisation with close contacts with the industry.
The link between the speakers on the conference and the tobacco industry actually is pretty clear.
J.
The EU rules do not allow to organise events with sponsorship
ReplyDeleteBut the TICAP conference's website stated :
‘Sponsorship will enable your company to link up with many industries located throughout Europe with commercial interests in the subjects under the microscope’.
A clear violation of the rules of the House. In that case, the landowner has the right to kick you out.
Really Mr Klimaat?? There was no sponsorship from "Big Tobacco" and will not believe there was until it has been proven- likely to be never!!
ReplyDeleteIn addition why have antismoking conferences sponsored by Big Pharma been allowed to take place??
You haven't answered the question Jules.
ReplyDeleteThe EU rules do not allow to organise events with sponsorship
Does that include democratically-elected parties like UKIP who actually did sponsor the event?
So, I ask you again.
Could you please provide proof that the conference was funded by the tobacco industry. Conspiracy theory and vague assumptions are not valid proof.
If the EU don't have solid proof (and if they had, I'm sure they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops), then it is conspiracy theory.
Is it acceptable that the EU is making decisions based on unproven assumptions?
Isn't that the sort of thinking that you rail against in the global warming debate?
Does that include democratically-elected parties like UKIP who actually did sponsor the event?
ReplyDeleteyou know very well the conference wasn't banned because of this red herring.
Could you please provide proof that the conference was funded by the tobacco industry. Conspiracy theory and vague assumptions are not valid proof.
i already answered the industry probably didn't directly fund the conference.
They don't follow that route nor do they need to. What the industry does is feeding the bias of certain groups (in casu libertarians) by telling them something they want to hear. In this case : telling them the subject is all about an attack on personal freedom.
To feed the bias, the industry provides fake reports, provides people who can come to conferences to tell everything is a hoax, etc. The industry understood very well that by playing agent provocateur, they can use people by guiding them into supporting the industry, often without even realising. I'm convinced that most people on your conference were honestly believing the cause they were in Brussels for.
But is is clear that there's something terribly wrong with the speakers on the conference ... (above i forgot to mention that John Luik also is affiliated with the industry...)
If the EU don't have solid proof (and if they had, I'm sure they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops), then it is conspiracy theory.
as explained above, i think it's a bit more nuanced.
Is it acceptable that the EU is making decisions based on unproven assumptions?
can you clarify your question ? What do you mean by 'unproven' ?
Isn't that the sort of thinking that you rail against in the global warming debate?
i see the same patern : people claiming global warming is a hoax, and supporting their claim with 'scientific' arguments that are produced by a lobby. Arguments that are worthless; yet get embraced by people because it tells them what they want to hear... Most skepticism on global warming is political, not scientific.
Firstly, Jules, thank you for replying in a non-dismissive manner. I shouldn't have to thank you for that, but unfortunately, such attitudes are very rare (even non-existent) amongst the anti-tobacco lobby.
ReplyDeleteFor example, having spoken to other attendees at TICAP, the running theme from all countries was that they had all received personal condemnation and death threats at some point, merely for taking a stance on a legal product. I'm sure we can both agree that this is unacceptable? Especially considering each country represented was classed as a democratic one.
So, to your points.
I still don't believe you have adequately answered the question.
It is still a fact that UKIP were the sponsors of the event. The Smokefree Partnership used a badly-worded part of the TICAP pre-publicity to push for a ban on a technicality.*
*(I'm not contesting that it is their right to do so. I would however argue that it is a very ugly thing to see unelected charities lobbying for political purposes to deny taxpayers their voice, but that is the way of the world unfortunately, and a different point entirely. We'll tackle that particular abuse of democracy at another time.)
However, it is incumbent on the EU to test if such claims are true. That means providing proof, and not just 'nuances'. Unless, of course, the EU is not democratic at all, and instead just idealistic and political.
You can possibly claim that no event, ever, has taken place at the EU building with regard to anti-tobacco, which hasn't been sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. As a cynic, I would tend to disagree.
However, to extend that to saying that no event has ever been held at the EU building regarding tobacco prohibition, which hasn't included a speaker who has, at some point, been paid by a pharmaceutical company, and then we are truly living in a world of fantasy. If you were to claim this, then you become the conspiracy theorist.
So, therefore, the issue here is simply that one side used EU rules to ban a conference as they had the knowledge (and funding) to do so, whilst the other has never tried as they didn't know they could. Especially as their funding is disallowed, as is lobbying from any tobacco company in the future as I understand it.
Hundreds of millions of euros on one side, as opposed to the forcible restriction of any input whatsoever from the opposing industry, may explain the disparity.
The simple fact is that there was no sponsorship from tobacco companies for this conference. Therefore nothing to break the rule that the EU invoked. The fact that speakers might have been paid by tobacco companies is irrelevant, and has happened countless times on the opposite side of the argument. The sponsor, who did pay, is UKIP, a democratically-elected group of UK MEPs.
You talk of red herrings? Well, the big smelly one was the idea that tobacco companies paid for TICAP. They didn't, there is no proof that they did. And as such, the EU should have told the Smokefree Partnership to shove their objection where the sun don't shine.
The fact that they didn't shows one of three things.
1) That the EU doesn't actually believe in democracy
2) That the anti-tobacco crusaders are scared of something
3) Both of the above
Last point Jules, if I may. Even if passive smoking is as dangerous as you say, which in my opinion is nonsense of course, what is the problem with smokers setting up a pub/inn/club where one chooses to enter and employees are required to be non-smokers?
Why is this such a radical idea that should be resisted at all costs?
Again, I thank you for allowing free speech without moderation (as do I on my blog), but I will be saving this to notepad as I'm afraid that prohibitionists have a habit of destroying true debate on this matter. It's a sad fact of life unfortunately.
I sincerely hope you don't fall into this category.
"employees are required to be non-smokers?"
ReplyDeleteShould obviously read "employees are required to be smokers?". Apologies.