When is a conviction not a conviction?

Shyam

Many people have suggested to me that the multi-billion dollar global 'MLM' racket is comparable to the multi-billion dollar global tobacco racket, in that it has been gradually allowed to grow and to infiltrate traditional culture to a degree where it can be severely limited (by public education), but not stopped (by traditional law enforcement). However, I would contend that, although the noxious effects of nicotine addiction are obviously far more-deadly, 'MLM' addiction is even more pernicious - in that 'MLM' frauds have been designed to self-perpetuate, silence their victims and isolate their beneficiaries from liability. Indeed, 'MLM' frauds behave like variations of the same, sustainable computer virus. History has proved that when an 'MLM' fraud has effectively run its course in one country, it simply moves on to infect the minds of ill-informed individuals elsewhere. This is exactly what is happening right now in India, where (due to the previous maintenence of an absolute monopoly of information) very few people currently seem to be aware that'MLM' is addictive, let alone that it has noxious effects.

Fifty years ago, the bosses of the US tobacco industry still maintained an absolute monopoly of information over the facts that nicotine is an addictive drug and that smoking has noxious effects. Today, after a long struggle, that monopoly has been effectively destroyed in the USA, but nicotine addiction remains an enormous, and growing, problem elsewhere; particularly, in poor African countries (where a packet of cigarettes still costs just a few cents). That said, the USA seems to have become a country which is not run for the benefit of its people, but for the benefit of billionaire racketeers. The recent refusal (without comment) of the US Supreme Court (at the request of the Obama administration) to get involved in a 10 year legal battle between the American people and the tobacco industry, has left many people baffled http://www.ricolawblog.com/articles/rico-law/tobacco-1/ . However, immediately after the Supreme Court debacle, the value of shares in tobacco companies rocketed.

In brief, after examining the evidence, various US courts previously decided that, for more than half a century, the bosses of the US tobacco industry had engaged in a vast conspiracy to defraud the American public by maliciously combining to hide the truth about the deadly risks of smoking and pasive smoking, in order to make money. Not only that, but the bosses of the tobacco industry were judged to have systematically denied that nicotine is an addictive drug (contrary to the findings of their own researchers), whilst secretly introducing dangerous additives into cigarettes to render nicotine even more addictive. This extensive, and highly-organized, fraud was judged to have generated hundreds of billions of dollars illegally whilst destroying the health, and causing the deaths, of countless millions ill-informed Americans. However, various other legal rulings have blocked the US government from recovering (under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act) $280 billions of past, illegal tobacco profits and a $14 billions penalty to finance a national campaign to reduce smoking. After coming to office, the Obama administration appealed (on behalf of the American people) to the US Supreme Court in order to obtain the $294 billions, but the Court declined even to examine the matter.

In other words, the billionaire bosses of the US tobacco industry are convicted racketeers sitting on a pile of stolen cash, but (after making promises to reform) it's 'business' as usual.

The billionaire bosses of the 'Amway' mob and, their many copy-cats, must have followed this protracted farce with great interest.

David Brear (copyright 2010)