This is Chapter 20 of my new book, working title “The Industry Playbook: Corporate Cartels, Corruption and Crimes Against Humanity” that is being published online chapter by chapter.
This is the beginning of Part 2 – Breaking Free of Big Tobacco.
In the previous part, we detailed the many strategies from the Tobacco Playbook. I contend that overall Big Tobacco did win the overall war. After all, they’re still around and still very profitable. But without a doubt, they did lose some key battles especially within the USA. How did this occur? In this section I detail out four specific areas.
Let me state that the war cannot be won by science alone. While that piece is important and was largely the reason for the war in the first place, that’s just a starting point.
Beyond science, it is through the methods described herein that the dangers became publicly known and widely accepted.
- Whistleblowers and Media Coverage
- Discovery & Litigation
- Real Grassroots Organization
- Culture Shift
The foregoing chapters explain what we the people were up against when it came to Big Tobacco. It explains the many strategies and tactics inside of the Industry Playbook that are used to promote and protect profits, even at the cost of human lives.
Awareness of these tactics is useful for you personally. Collectively, understanding what led to that success is critical. Again, it is not just so that we understand what happened in Big Tobacco, but we can collectively aim at the same things against those that commit crimes against humanity today while utilizing the Industry Playbook all the same.
This is broken up over four sections.
Whistleblowers are instrumental. These are the insider’s that leak documentation or share what is really going on. Generally, without whistleblowers, there is no breaking free. Because of the power of insiders, you must understand the smear campaigns and worse that comes from Big Tobacco against them. This includes not just whistleblowers but how it effectively stops would-be whistleblowers. We’ll see the role that whistleblowers play, particular with their interfacing with the media.
While the justice system is not without its flaws and corruption, it may be the least economically influenced of the three branches of government in the USA! The legal process allows for discovery and litigation in a process that was essential for these truths coming to light. The courts are where so many battles were fought. While Big Tobacco had total victory for a long time, this eventually did shift. With each shift cracks in their defenses grew and grew. As you’ll see, it was the discovery of internal documents that proved Big Tobacco’s crimes for the world to see.
We’ve seen how Big Tobacco captured politics to work in its favor. However, especially on a real grassroots and local level, the battles were easier to fight by the people, instituting change on this smaller but still immensely useful level.
Ultimately, it was the science, the whistleblowers, and the court cases predominately that led to a cultural shift. This is the most important step, yet in many ways the most difficult one to achieve. The fact is that people could withdraw their funding from any company, and it would collapse quickly. But getting to that mass action is not easy, so how a culture shifts is analyzed here.
These factors as well as additional smaller ones are explored in the following chapters. These lessons from history with Big Tobacco act as our starter ground for diving in even deeper in Part 7 – The People’s Playbook with other industries and more contemporary examples.
Key Takeaways on Introduction to Breaking Free
- Correct and accurate science is insufficient to overcome the power of industry. While it is crucial, it is not enough without other levers to get it out in the open.
- Whistleblowers are the key part of revelation as these insider’s come from the industry itself to show wrongdoing. Thus, bringing to light their information can be enough to turn the tide of war. And for this reason, industry uses many strategies to overcome any would-be whistleblower.
- The discovery process in litigation is crucial for showing the lies of industry. While their PR spin says one thing, internal documentation can show what they knew when.
- The political power of industry can be immense able to capture the highest levels. Ironically, it is the local level of politics that becomes that much more difficult to sway showing the real grassroots organization can be successful.
- Ultimately, this is a culture war. Every strategy and tactic can shift the dominant viewpoint of the culture which can best be seen by zooming out over the arc of history.
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Links to all published chapters of The Industry Playbook can be found here.
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