And So Lenin Went Underground

Let me assure you, beyond any doubt, businesses are people. 

How else can you explain the wars? 

 –Norman Kingston

Panic became them. As lawsuit after lawsuit trickled in and pounded from the bottom up, desperate times had come.

It was explained to me once that the situation for the cigarette industry was that of a coon on a coon-dog in the middle of a lake. And that coon is drowning him… “JUST DROWNING HIM!”

The question of who was the coon dog was still a question left to be determined. It couldn’t be the thousands of people dying from their product. They were customers. The government was sure ready to act like an agent of punishment, but toppling the men in black would send the economy into a tornado, possibly rerouting the American public into poverty. Poverty does not beget revitalized sales.

The eye of this dying person, this colossal business, looked then to alcohol for its redemption.

If alcohol could become Public Enemy #1, then maybe Marlboro Man could ride into Jerusalem on Joe Camel himself.

This war was not the first of its kind. The first war went through congress. On paper, for many years, it was a raging success. Prohibition meant no man was allowed to even sniff of spirits. Somehow, alcohol still won that round. Moonshine, liquor sneaks in bowling balls… the embargo renaissanced the sin of imbibing as cool and countercultural.

The new war began with generous donations to A.A. This led to the traditional fair: billboards, newspaper ads, general old school marketing. They followed this up with New Found Films Company. NFF, over the course of nine years, released seventeen wide-spread released flicks featuring heroes who said no to alcohol, and villains who were bitterly controlled by it.

Alcohol fought back. They fed the government into their hands. Besides getting mandatory “SMOKING KILLS” stickers on every pack sold, they banned its use under almost every public roof in America. They also bribed the MPAA to slap “Rated R” tags on any flick that even thought about smoking.

But the deathblow came in the form of football. That’s where the tremendous foresight was had. Alcohol linked its fate to that of football usurping all other means of entertainment as America’s beloved addiction. Where went football, so went alcohol.

Cigarettes were a dying breed. The war was over.

…Or so we thought.

A dying coon is a dangerous animal. If alcohol was to be the good ol’ boy of America, there was a chance yet to be the villain.

And so they took it away. No more Wal-Mart. No more grocery stores. No chain market would get their greedy fingers on man’s most precious stick anymore. It was time for Mom & Pop industries, in every seedy corner of every town, to rise. Cigarettes were to become the beacon light of hipsters, environmentalists, independent farmers, anti-government paranoids, druggies, gang members, the unemployed, the unemployable, street rats, down-on-their-luckers. The 99%.

It’s your play now.