Forty years since the assassination of Tom
Henehhan (1951-1977)
Tom Henehan: A revolutionary life
By David North
16 October 2017
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the
assassination of Tom Henehan, a member of the political committee of the
Workers League—the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party in the US. On October
19, 1997, the Socialist Equality Party held a meeting in Ann Arbor to
commemorate the 20th anniversary of Tom Henehan’s death.
Below we post the tribute to Tom that
then SEP National Secretary David North delivered at the meeting. This lecture
is also available in pamphlet form atMehring Books .
On the evening of October 16, 1977, Tom
was supervising an activity sponsored by the Young Socialists, the party’s
youth movement, in Brooklyn, New York. Two men, later identified as Edwin
Sequinot and Angel Rodriguez, started a disturbance by attacking another
Workers League member, Jacques Vielot. As Tom rushed to Vielot’s aid, he was
shot five times by a third assailant lying in wait, a professional gunman named
Angelo Torres. Sequinot then pulled out a gun and shot Vielot, severely
wounding him. The injured Vielot rushed Tom to Wyckoff Heights Hospital. Tom
died approximately an hour after arriving at the hospital. He was 26 years old.
The murder of Tom Henehan was a
political attack aimed at intimidating the Workers League and blocking its
efforts to build a socialist leadership in the American working class. Tom’s
death came at a point when the party was gaining significant influence among
city workers in New York, coal miners in West Virginia and Kentucky and other
sections of militant workers.
At the same time, the Workers League was
involved in an historic investigation of the circumstances surrounding the 1940
assassination of Leon Trotsky, the founder of the Fourth International. This
investigation, whose findings were published under the title Security and
the Fourth International, exposed the decades-long efforts of the
police agencies of imperialism and Stalinism to penetrate and sabotage the
world Trotskyist movement. Among other things, the investigation revealed the
insidious links between Joseph Hansen—who later became a leader of the American
Socialist Workers Party—and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In June 1977,
Hansen and the SWP published a statement that warned of “deadly consequences”
if the investigation continued. Shortly afterwards, Tom Henehan lay dead in a
Brooklyn hospital.
Soon after Tom’s death, the Workers
League and the Young Socialists launched a campaign to demand the arrest and
conviction of his killers. The campaign won widespread support from workers and
youth throughout the country, including tens of thousands who signed petitions
to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. Officials from unions representing
3 million workers in the US also endorsed the campaign.
Late in 1980, after three years of
claiming that Torres had fled and could not be found, and that there was no
case to be brought against Sequinot, the New York police finally arrested both
men. Torres had been living in the same apartment throughout this period and
had once been arrested and released, despite an outstanding murder warrant. The
two were tried in the summer of 1981, convicted, and sentence to long prison
terms for acting in concert in the murder of Tom Henehan and the wounding of
Jacques Vielot.
The death of Tom Henehan at such a young
age was a tragic loss for the international working class. Intelligent,
courageous, dynamic, indefatigable and compassionate are the words that best
describe young Tom. He was born on March 16, 1951 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When
Tom was still a young child his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Later,
when Tom was a teenager, the family settled in Kalamazoo. In 1969 Tom entered
Columbia University in New York City, where he met the Workers League during
his senior year. In March 1973, Tom joined the party and dedicated his life to
the political education and liberation of the working class.
During his four years in the party, Tom
played a central role in the development of the youth movement in the US and
internationally and was particularly active in expanding the Workers League’s
influence among coal miners in West Virginia and Kentucky. Tom was charismatic
and, in the best sense of the word, idealistic. He left an immense and
unforgettable impression on all those who knew him and with whom he worked.
* * *
Tom Henehan leading the Gary Tyler march through
Harlem, December 1976
Tom Henehan: A revolutionary life
I would like
to begin my remarks with a recollection. After returning from the hospital
where Tom Henehan had died in the early morning hours of October 16, 1977, I
called Tom’s older brother, Paul, and relayed to him the terrible news. Paul
then told me that he would take responsibility for informing other members of
Tom’s family.
A few hours
later I was told by Paul that Tom’s mother, Mary Elise Henehan, would be flying
to New York the next day. I recall awaiting the arrival of Mary Elise Henehan
with trepidation. I had never before met her. What, I asked myself, could I say
to Tom’s mother that might in some way be of help to her at such a tragic
moment? But when she arrived at our offices, before I had managed to say
anything to her, she embraced me. I, who had been wondering how to comfort
Tom’s mother, was instead being comforted by Mary Elise.
None of us
who lived through the events of October 1977 can forget the strength and
support that Mary Elise Henehan gave us during what must have been the most terrible
week of her life. I realized then that Tom Henehan’s extraordinary qualities
were due in no small measure to the fact that he was the son of an
extraordinary human being. All of us are very proud that this extraordinary
person, Mary Elise Henehan, as well as Tom’s sisters are with us today on this
memorial occasion.
On October
22, 1977, at the memorial held only a few days after the murder of Tom Henehan,
we promised that we would never forget him. Today, 20 years later, we are
honoring that pledge. The very fact that many of those who were present at the
first memorial meeting are here again today—in some cases traveling thousands
of miles—is a poignant expression of the enduring impact of Tom’s personality
upon those who knew, respected and even loved him. Even after 20 years, so many
facets of his personality remain vivid in our memories of Tom: his
intelligence, determination, physical courage, compassion, energy, sense of
humor and enthusiastic enjoyment of life.
Tom Henehan campaigning among youth in
Brooklyn, January 1975
And yet the
purpose of this meeting is not only to recall the past and pay tribute to the
memory of a fallen comrade. We are also, in the very process of honoring Tom on
the anniversary of his death, reaffirming our own enduring commitment to the
ideals and principles for which he lived. Indeed, the power and relevance of
those ideals finds expression in the presence at this meeting of
representatives of a younger generation, some of whom were only infants at the
time of Tom’s death or even not yet born.
Tom Henehan
was only 26 years old when he was assassinated in New York City. When we who
were his contemporaries look at the photographs of Tom, having ourselves aged
by 20 years, we are able to appreciate today, more profoundly than in 1977, how
very young he was at the time of his death. We have a better sense today of how
much more he could have and would have accomplished had he not been murdered.
To this day we feel an enduring sense of loss, but not of waste and futility.
The 26 years of Tom’s life were far too short, but they were not short of
purpose and enduring meaning.
Had Tom not
died in October 1977, had he been privileged to live another 20 years and were
he still with us today, he would certainly have experienced and accomplished
more than what was possible in the space of 26 years. But the essential course
of his life would have proceeded along the lines that were set down when he
decided, in the spring of 1973, on the eve of his graduation from Columbia
University, to join the Workers League and devote his life to the cause of the
working class and the struggle for international socialism.
Tom was, in
the best and positive sense of the word, an idealist. He believed passionately
in justice, equality and the solidarity of mankind. But he did not join the
Workers League in a fit of thoughtless youthful exuberance. Tom matured amidst
the social and political convulsions of the 1960s and early 1970s, and he was
politically radicalized by the Vietnam War, the violent struggles in the
cities, and the obvious inability of liberal reformism to fashion any viable
solution to the problems of poverty and oppression in the United States. Like
many others of his generation, he was drawn to the conclusion that the cause of
the social ills that plagued American society was capitalism.
Campaigning for the Bulletin among workers at
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, October 1976
By the time
Tom first made contact with the Workers League he already had encountered many
of the innumerable political tendencies on the left that were active at the
time—from the splintered fractions of the SDS and the Maoists of Progressive
Labor to the revisionists of the Socialist Workers Party and the Spartacist
League. But none of these tendencies—which had in the course of the previous
decade found supporters among thousands of student youth—won the allegiance of
Tom Henehan.
What was it
that attracted Tom Henehan to the Workers League? Just as the character of a
person is expressed in the philosophy he adopts, an individual reveals, in the
choice of a party, the forces, ideals, principles and aims that motivate him at
the most profound level of his intellectual and moral being. But the relation
between the party and the individuals of whom it is composed is a complex one.
It is undoubtedly true that an individual must choose the party that he wishes
to join. But in a broader historical sense, it is still truer to say that the
members of a party—and especially a Marxist party—are themselves the product of
a historical selection.
The
revolutionary movement is a great fisher of men and women. It seeks out those
who have the capacity to rise to the level of the most difficult of historical
tasks, who are prepared to devote to the socialist cause not merely months or
even several years, but decades and even a lifetime. It demands of its members
exceptional powers of intellectual and moral endurance. Those who are seeking
only superficial answers to the problems of this world will choose a party that
makes few demands upon their intellect, that offers easy and reassuring answers
to complex problems, that adapts to the prevailing prejudices of public opinion
and so-called common sense, and that denies the depth of commitment, intensity
of struggle, and theoretical labor required for the revolutionary
transformation of society. Superficial organizations attract superficial
people.
Of all the
words that could be used to describe Tom Henehan, superficial is the last that
would come to mind. Tom was drawn to the Workers League by its concern for
problems of theory, its study of Marxism as a science, and the profound sense
of history that permeated its perspective and program. Tom’s decision to join
the Workers League expressed an essential seriousness of thought and purpose.
Those of us
who, like Tom Henehan, joined the Workers League in the early 1970s did so
because this was the only movement that placed the problems confronting the
working class in the United States within the broader context of the historical
experiences of the international socialist movement in the 20th century. It
explained that enduring answers to the great political and social questions of the
day were not to be found at the level of radical-sounding but basically
empty-headed slogans (such as: “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun”) or in
the midst of frenetic activism. Rather, the Workers League insisted that the
essential foundation of revolutionary practice consisted in the assimilation of
the theoretical and political lessons derived from the monumental struggle
waged by Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International against the betrayal of the
1917 October Revolution by Stalinism.
Tom printing party literature
Back in the
1970s, the Workers League was commonly denounced by its many opponents within
the radical left as “sectarian.” With this epithet they wished to malign the
very political characteristics that we considered our greatest strength: our
preoccupation with materialist dialectics, our passionate interest in history,
and, flowing from this, our irreconcilably critical attitude toward the parties
and organizations that dominated the mass movements of the day. We were the
party that refused to either forget or forgive the crimes that had been
committed by the Stalinist bureaucracy and its accomplices against the Soviet
and international working class. Unlike the revisionist movements, we refused
to attribute to Stalinism any progressive characteristics. We did not see
Stalinism as a misguided political tendency that was to be influenced and moved
to the left, but rather as the political expression of a counterrevolutionary
bureaucracy that was to be exposed, discredited and destroyed.
Our attitude
to the politics of radical bourgeois nationalism was no less uncompromising.
The Workers League had been founded in 1966 on the basis of the struggle waged
by the International Committee of the Fourth International against the American
Socialist Workers Party’s capitulation to the politics of Fidel Castro. As the
International Committee correctly warned, the SWP’s adaptation to Castroism
represented a rejection of the predominant revolutionary role of the working
class. Castro’s victory represented, no doubt, an embarrassment and setback,
albeit of a temporary character, for the United States. It did not, however,
represent either a new form of proletarian power or a viable strategy of
socialist revolution. No combination of urban and rural guerrilla forces, led
by politicians from the radical petty bourgeoisie, could bring about socialism.
We maintained that the fate of socialism depended upon the conscious political
struggle of the international working class, educated and led by an
international Marxist party, for power.
These were
not popular conceptions in the political climate of the 1970s. The Soviet
bureaucracy and its associated Communist parties still disposed of vast
resources and exercised immense influence over millions of workers. The
“national liberation” movements—as they were then known—enjoyed an immense
international prestige. With the help of funds provided by the Soviet
Union—which saw in these organizations a means of countering the global
influence of the United States—the “armed struggle” waged by the radical
nationalists of the so-called Third World was followed with enthusiasm and
admiration by broad sections of students, intellectuals and other sections of
the middle class. The 1970s were the heyday of national liberation
movements—the IRA, the MPLA, the PLO, the Sandinistas, the Farabundo Marti,
Frelimo, and countless other organizations.
Our
criticisms of such movements, the analyses we offered of the real social
interests expressed in the politics of the bourgeois nationalists, and our
warnings of the inability of these movements to solve the related problems of
imperialist domination, economic backwardness and national oppression were
frequently met with hostility. “You Trotskyites,” we were told scornfully again
and again, “live in a world of theory and are always criticizing movements that
are leading real struggles.”
Tom speaking at a young Socialist meeting in
Jersey City, 1977
Tremendous
pressure was placed upon our movement to adapt and conform to the popular
politics of the radical petty bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, a section of our
international movement buckled under that pressure. By the mid-1970s, the
Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain began to adopt the very conceptions it
had earlier opposed when it had fought against the opportunism of the Socialist
Workers Party. In fact, at the memorial meeting held after Tom’s murder in
October 1977, we listened with a mixture of surprise, alarm and dismay as Mike
Banda, the general secretary of the WRP, transformed what had begun as a eulogy
of Tom into an unabashed tribute to the Palestine Liberation Organization! Praising
the politics of Arafat, Banda declared that in the pursuit of the goal of a
democratic and socialist Palestine, the PLO leaders “were not trying to take
any shortcuts, any pragmatic expedients....”
In the last
20 years, Arafat and the PLO have attempted not a few “shortcuts” and
“pragmatic expedients.” I believe that visits to the White House, a trip to
Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Price, and countless secret parleys with
various Israeli prime ministers qualify as “pragmatic expedients,” if not exactly
“shortcuts.” At any rate, Arafat and the PLO long ago abandoned the goal of a
“democratic and secular Palestine” and have settled instead for (what is called
in the language of international diplomacy) an “entity” in which the
Palestinian masses live in utter poverty and without rights, oppressed not only
by the Israeli regime but also by the police of the so-called “Palestinian
authority.” I have recalled Banda’s speech and drawn attention to the evolution
of the PLO in order to illustrate how completely the historical process has
vindicated the political principles and program for which the International
Committee, the Workers League and Tom Henehan fought.
In a speech
which Trotsky recorded at the time of the founding of the Fourth International,
he referred to the powerful mass organizations of the day—the parties and trade
unions controlled by the Stalinists and the social democrats—and predicted that
they would be shattered by historical events that “will not leave of these
outlived organizations one stone upon another.” In the years since the death of
Tom Henehan we have seen the fulfillment of that prediction. One after another,
organizations that seemed so powerful such a short time ago have been blown to
pieces. The Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union imploded. The Maoist regime in
China presides over a system of brutal economic exploitation that has become
one of the linchpins of globalized capitalist production. Fidel Castro,
deprived of Soviet subsidies, stakes the fortunes of the Cuban economy on the
promotion of a tourist trade that is already recreating in modern form the
squalor and corruption of the Batista era.
In
evaluating the life of Tom Henehan it is necessary to consider the validity of
the cause and the principles for which he fought. From all sides we hear the
claim that socialism is dead. But the entire basis of this claim rests on the
false and cynical identification of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union
with Marxism and socialism. The irreconcilable opposition of Marxism to
Stalinism was the essential premise of the political program and perspective of
the Workers League. For Tom, the struggle for socialism proceeded necessarily through
a fight against Stalinism and the politics of the Soviet bureaucracy. The
collapse of the Soviet Union signified the end not of socialism, but of a
reactionary regime that utilized Marxist phraseology only to betray and
discredit socialism.
Of course,
it cannot be denied that the cause of socialism was dealt terrible blows by
Stalinism. There is, inevitably, a difference between our scientific assessment
of the nature of Stalinism and the way in which the demise of the USSR is
understood at the present time by the broad mass of the working class. It will
take time for the masses to assimilate and understand the complex political
experiences of the 20th century. No one can predict the duration of that period
of assimilation and reeducation. But while political confusion may retard for a
certain period the growth of the socialist movement, there still remain within
the very structure of the capitalist mode of production contradictions of which
socialism is the necessary and, in a historic sense, ineradicable expression.
Speaking at the Young Socialists Fifth National
Conference in Philadelphia, June 1977
These
contradictions find direct and potentially explosive expression in the dominant
role of the transnational corporation, the global integration of production,
and the internationalization of the capitalist labor process. The past 20 years
has seen, as a direct consequence of international capitalist development, a
vast expansion in the size of the proletariat. Another phenomenon of the last
20 years has been the extraordinary polarization of capitalist society between
the fabulously wealthy, who constitute a tiny percentage of the population, and
the broad mass of the people who live in varying degrees of uncertainty and
distress. The process is much lamented but, within the framework of capitalism,
uncontrollable.
The
productive forces grow ever more gigantic and the technology increasingly
amazing. In the realm of science everything seems possible. In the realm of
society, however, humanity seems to be caught in a rut. If anything is to be
learned from the scientific study of history, it is that such a situation
cannot last. Sooner or later the existing barriers to progress will be burst
aside. Beneath the surface of events, notwithstanding the prevailing confusion
and disorientation, powerful objective processes are laying the foundations for
a new eruption of revolutionary cataclysms.
The death of
Tom Henehan was a tragic loss for his family, for his comrades and friends, and
for the cause of the working people. For those of us who personally experienced
the events of October 1977, I think I speak for all of them when I say they
were the saddest of our lives. The sense of loss not only remains with us to
this day, but has even become more profound. Having passed through the
upheavals and convulsions of the last 20 years and witnessed their impact upon
society, we have today a deeper sense of what we lost with the death of Tom.
If we have
learned anything with age and experience, it is the immense significance of
socialist consciousness in the modern historical process. The unending war
against Marxism waged on so many fronts by the bourgeoisie expresses its own
recognition of the power of socialist thought and the danger posed by its dissemination.
Objective conditions provide the working class with the possibility but not the
guarantee of socialism. To an extent even greater than suspected by the
founders of our movement, the fate of socialism, and, therefore, of mankind,
depends upon the expansion of the intellectual horizons of the working class.
In this
sense, socialism is not merely the mobilization of the working class around a
set of economic and political demands but also an immense cultural movement of
the proletariat. But this movement cannot emerge spontaneously. It is only
through the cadre that socialist politics and culture can be brought into the
working class. The cadre—the men and women who make the fight for socialism the
central purpose of their lives—are the human bearers of the only scientific
doctrine of universal social emancipation. What we mourn in the death of Tom
Henehan is the loss of not only a comrade and friend, but a precious and
irreplaceable instrument of social enlightenment and human progress.
Signing up a Young Socialist member in 1976
In
conclusion, I would like to address myself to the younger generation which has
much to learn from the example of Tom Henehan. Through no fault of their own,
the youth have been cut off not only from the revolutionary spirit that loomed
so large throughout the first three-quarters of this century, but even from the
intellectual traditions that inspired earlier generations of youth to immerse themselves
in great and self-sacrificing social struggles. The young people of today are,
indeed, the targets and victims of a ferocious assault on the very process of
socially-critical thought. In countless ways and in innumerable variations, the
makers of official public opinion—in the government, the media and especially
the universities—preach the same dreary message of conformity and complacency.
Money, it is proclaimed, is the measure of all things. The point of life is
simply to live as long and accumulate as much as possible. The most important
decision in an individual’s life is not the cause for which he will fight, but
the mix of mutual funds in which he will invest.
History
shows that the dominance of such empty and egotistical conceptions is characteristic
of a society that is in a process of decay and dissolution. The youth must free
themselves, intellectually and practically, from this fetid environment. They
must think of the future and assume responsibility for it. They must ask
themselves why and for what purpose are they alive. Tom Henehan asked himself
these questions, and acted seriously and passionately upon the answers he
found. And in doing so, he lived a life of enduring significance.
In the
prevailing climate of cynicism, there are no doubt people who believe that to
die at so young an age is merely a personal calamity and that no cause could
possibly be worth such a sacrifice. The same people give little thought to the
fact that their own precious comfort, which they value above all else, rests
upon an economic order that condemns countless millions to privation and early
death. All of us wish that Tom were alive today. But a life must be measured
not by its longevity or other superficial and conventional indices of personal
success, but by what it contributed to the improvement of the human condition.
The fact that Tom is remembered by so many, that he remains a source of
inspiration to people all over the world, is the truest indication of the value
of his life.
It has been
said that youth is the finest period of a person’s life, the time when ideals
count for more than anything else. If a person is not seized by ideals when he
is young, then he never will be, and his life will never amount to anything.
Such people are only to be pitied, for they have condemned themselves, whether
they know it or not, to a life without any real purpose.
But there is
another element of this insight into the significance of youth, and that is the
relation of one’s youth to the rest of one’s life. The moral quality of an
individual’s life is best measured by determining the degree to which he has
remained loyal to the ideals of his youth. That is a very difficult test, not
only for individuals but also for political parties.
Tom Henehan
was part of the youth of this party. He exemplified the ideals that motivated
this party in its youth. Our party has in the course of the past 20 years lived
through many experiences, including that of a bitter political split that
separated us forever from the Workers Revolutionary Party. We have learned a
great deal and become more mature. We have transformed the Workers League into
the Socialist Equality Party. But in all these experiences, and in the midst of
political upheavals that have turned the world upside down, we have remained
true to the revolutionary principles that once inspired Tom and fired his
imagination.
The
resiliency of this party, its unyielding commitment to its founding principles,
and its confidence in the future are derived, in the final analysis, from the
power of its historical perspective and insight into the insoluble
contradictions of the world capitalist system. Capitalism is only one stage in
the historical evolution of man, and the market is not the highest and final
expression of man’s genius. Labor, from which capital is derived, remains the
essence of man; and the movement of history, for all its complexities and
tragedies, leads inexorably toward socialism.
The years
since Tom’s death have been for our party, both within the United States and
among its international sections, a period of political and intellectual
growth. But for all the necessary changes in the forms of our practical work,
Tom Henehan, were he alive today, would still recognize this movement as his
party. His work lives on in this movement. That is why the Socialist Equality
Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International can hold this
anniversary and honor the memory of Tom without a trace of inner discomfort.
This is the party of genuine Marxism and revolutionary socialism, and we appeal
to the youth to come forward and help us build the movement that will put an
end to all forms of exploitation and injustice.
WALL STREET TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: DIE YOUNG… your company pension dies with you!
OPOID AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION KILLS OF MIDDLE AMERICA
TO FINISH OFF THE WHITE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS, OBAMA HAD TO GET US ADDICTED AND DRIVEN TO THE SIDELINES BY HIS LA RAZA MEXICANS.
IT WORKED. NOW OBAMA IS WORKING TO UNSEAT TRUMP FOR A THIRD TERM FOR LIFE MUSLIM-STYLE DICTATORSHIP.
"These gigantic revenues and huge personal fortunes were
accumulated by means of what can only be termed a massive
social crime: the flooding of impoverished working-class
neighborhoods with high volumes of opioids, narcotics that
were being prescribed in vast quantities by doctors and
pharmacists and illegal “pain centers” and “pill mills” that
were a constant presence in the affected areas."
Behind the opioid crisis: Republicans and Obama cleared the way for corporate murder
By Patrick Martin
16 October 2017
Leading Republican and Democratic members of Congress and top Obama administration officials collaborated to shut down efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to stem the flow of prescription opioids that have killed 200,000 Americans over the past two decades, according to a devastating exposure published Sunday by the Washington Post and broadcast Sunday night on the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes.”
The joint investigation by the Post and “60 Minutes” made use of extensive whistleblower revelations by former officials of the DEA, which has the main responsibility for halting the flow of illegal narcotics, including prescription drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Three major companies, all in the top 20 of the
Fortune 500 and hugely profitable, dominate the
distribution of these opioids: McKesson, Cardinal
Health, and AmerisourceBergen, with combined
revenues of more than $450 billion. McKesson
chairman and CEO John Hammergren has the
largest pension fund of any US corporate boss, a
$160 million nest egg.
Fortune 500 and hugely profitable, dominate the
distribution of these opioids: McKesson, Cardinal
Health, and AmerisourceBergen, with combined
revenues of more than $450 billion. McKesson
chairman and CEO John Hammergren has the
largest pension fund of any US corporate boss, a
$160 million nest egg.
These gigantic revenues and huge personal fortunes were accumulated by means of what can only be termed a massive social crime: the flooding of impoverished working-class neighborhoods with high volumes of opioids, narcotics that were being prescribed in vast quantities by doctors and pharmacists and illegal “pain centers” and “pill mills” that were a constant presence in the affected areas.
The consequences have been felt in a historic reversal in the long-term rise of life expectancy in the United States. For middle-aged whites, particularly those living in rural areas, life expectancy is declining and death rates soaring, in large part because of the impact of opioid abuse and addiction.
Appalachia is a center of the opioid crisis. The figures presented in the Post /”60 Minutes” report are staggering—and damning. To Mingo County, West Virginia, an impoverished former mining area on the state border with Kentucky, population 25,000, the mid-sized Ohio-based drug distributor Miami-Luken shipped 11 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone in a five-year period: enough to give two pills a week to every man, woman and child in the county.
In the county seat, Williamson, population 2,938, Miami-Luken shipped 258,000 hydrocodone pills in one month to a single pharmacy. The city of Williamson has filed suit against the company and other drug distributors, charging them with deliberately flooding the city with pain pills to supply the black market. A document filed in the suit charges, “Like
sharks circling their prey, multi-billion dollar
companies descended upon Appalachia for
the sole purpose of profiting off of the
prescription drug-fueled feeding frenzy.”
sharks circling their prey, multi-billion dollar
companies descended upon Appalachia for
the sole purpose of profiting off of the
prescription drug-fueled feeding frenzy.”
Post reporters Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein and “Sixty Minutes” reporter Bill Whitaker conducted dozens of interviews for their exposé, but the principal whistleblower is Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who headed the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control for a decade until he was forced out in 2015.
The Office of Diversion Control oversees the flow of prescription drugs produced by the major US pharmaceutical companies and shipped to hospitals and pharmacies and other prescribers by distributors, including the big three. By targeting unusually large and unexplained sales—for example, several Walgreen’s pharmacies in Florida sold more than one million opioid pills in a year, compared to a nationwide average of 74,000—the DEA unit could force companies to pay substantial fines.
BLOG: NEVER PRISON TIME FOR WALL STREET'S BIGGEST CRIMINALS!
BLOG: NEVER PRISON TIME FOR WALL STREET'S BIGGEST CRIMINALS!
These big three and smaller distributors paid more than $400 million in fines over the last decade as the result of the DEA, but this is a pittance compared to their gross revenues during that same period, well over $5 trillion. One former DEA official told the Post this sum simply represented “a cost of doing business.”
A more serious problem for the industry was the issuance of “freeze” orders, in which the DEA could use its authority to order a distributor to halt a shipment if there is “imminent danger” to the community. According to Rannazzisi, there was increasing resistance from top-level DEA officials, from 2011 on, to approving such “freeze” orders against opioid distributors.
During this period, the drug distributors
hired 46 DEA officials either directly or through law
firms or lobbying groups representing them.
During this period, the drug distributors
hired 46 DEA officials either directly or through law
firms or lobbying groups representing them.
In 2014, industry lobbyists produced a bill, written by a former DEA lawyer, and introduced by Republican Representative Tom Marino, that substantially raised the threshold of proof for a DEA order to halt a shipment. Instead of “imminent danger,” such an order required proof of “a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat,” a standard so strict that, once adopted, there were no further DEA orders to halt drug distribution.
Marino’s bill was initially blocked by DEA opposition, but it was reintroduced with Democratic cosponsors and passed the House of Representatives by a voice vote, without opposition, in April 2015. In October 2015, Rannazzisi was pushed into retirement at the DEA, after previously being removed as head of the Office of Diversion Control by means of heavy pressure from congressional Republicans on the Obama Justice Department. In March 2016, the Senate passed a modified version of the Marino bill, and the House accepted the changes the following month. The DEA was now handcuffed, and the drug distributors could proceed without any concern about federal oversight.
BLOG: WE CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THE WHORES IN CONGRESS TO SELL US OUT, AND TO SELL US OUT CHEAP!
BLOG: WE CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THE WHORES IN CONGRESS TO SELL US OUT, AND TO SELL US OUT CHEAP!
As Rannazzisi told “60 Minutes”: “The drug industry—the manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and chain drugstores—have an influence over Congress that has never been seen before. And these people came in with their influence and their money and got a whole statute changed because they didn't like it.”
The protection of the giant drug distribution companies—amid a nationwide epidemic of drug overdose deaths caused by the products they were distributing—was a bipartisan affair. Congressional Democrats cosponsored the legislation, and a former top Clinton administration official, Jamie Gorelick, was a lead attorney and lobbyist for the distributors.
BLOG: OBAMA PICKED LORETTA LYNCH BECAUSE OF HER LONG HISTORY OF SERVING HIS CRONY CRIMINAL BANKSTERS FROM HER LAW FIRM. THAT IS ALL SHE DID AS ATTORNEY GENERAL. DITTO ERIC HOLDER!
Attorney General Loretta Lynch approved the legislation, and President Obama signed it into law, with the White House issuing a one-page press release to mark the occasion.
BLOG: OBAMA PICKED LORETTA LYNCH BECAUSE OF HER LONG HISTORY OF SERVING HIS CRONY CRIMINAL BANKSTERS FROM HER LAW FIRM. THAT IS ALL SHE DID AS ATTORNEY GENERAL. DITTO ERIC HOLDER!
Attorney General Loretta Lynch approved the legislation, and President Obama signed it into law, with the White House issuing a one-page press release to mark the occasion.
None of those involved, including Lynch and Obama, would comment to the Post or “60 Minutes.” According to the Post, “The DEA and Justice Department have denied or delayed more than a dozen requests filed by The Post and ‘60 Minutes’ under the Freedom of Information Act for public records that might shed additional light on the matter,” indicating that the Trump administration is continuing the stonewalling tactics begun under Obama.
When a “60 Minutes” camera crew came to Marino’s office, his aides called Capitol Hill police to have them removed.
Trump has rewarded the darling of the drug distributors, Representative Marino, by nominating him last month to become the next White House “drug czar,” in charge of coordinating federal efforts against the opioid crisis. Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the main cosponsor of the bill, is now favored to be the Republican nominee for US Senate in Tennessee in 2018. Both representatives come from districts ravaged by the opioid crisis. According to the Post account, 106 people have died in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, the largest in Marino’s district, since he first introduced his anti-enforcement legislation.
The following exchange from the “60 Minutes” program sums up the reality of corporate domination of American life, and the catastrophic impact on working people:
BILL WHITAKER: You know the implication of what you're saying, that these big companies knew that they were pumping drugs into American communities that were killing people.
JOE RANNAZZISI: That's not an implication, that's a fact. That's exactly what they did.
… These weren't kids slinging crack on the corner. These were professionals who were doing it. They were just drug dealers in lab coats.
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
OPEN BORDERS:
IT'S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASSING ALONG THE ILLEGALS' WELFARE AND CRIME COSTS TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS!
“That Washington-imposed policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.” ---- NEIL MUNRO
THEY INVADE OVER AND UNDER OUR BORDERS… and do so by invitation of the Democrat Party.
Lawmen are worried that the cartel tunnel builders on the Mexican border are now using their engineered concoctions to smuggle illegals, not merely drugs.
That's what the Daily Caller has found, describing the new anxiety as one was discovered over the weekend, catching about 30 illegals coming in from Mexico and China. MONICA SHOWALTER – AMERICAN THINKER.com
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
AMERICA UNRAVELS:
Millions of children go hungry as the super- rich gorge themselves and ILLEGALS SUCK IN BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
"The top 10 percent of Americans now own roughly three-quarters of all household wealth."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/america-unravels-millions-of-children.html
"While telling workers there is “not enough money” for wage increases, or to fund social programs, both parties hailed the recent construction of the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, a massive aircraft carrier that cost $13 billion to build, stuffing the pockets of numerous contractors and war profiteers."
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
MEXICO: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS to serve the filthy rich
The same period has seen a massive growth of social inequality, with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American society to an extent not seen since the 1920s.
“This study follows reports released over the past several months documenting rising mortality rates among US workers due to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant mortality, an overall leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of income earners compared to those at the top.”
THE LA RAZA PLAN: California’s final surrender to fly the Mexican flag within 4 years.
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." -- - EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of Mexico
THE UNIDIOSus MAP OF LA RAZA-OCCUPIED AMERICA
They claim all of North America for Mexico!
(WARNING! THE BELOW LINK IS GRAPHIC ON MEXICAN HATRED OF LEGALS)
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
UNDERWAY: THE OBAMA COUP FOR A THIRD TERM FOR LIFE… for 8 years he laid the groundworks for his Muslim-style dictatorship.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/seth-barron-obama-and-building-of.html
“Obama’s new home in Washington has been described as the “nerve center” of the anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said that Obama is “ready to roll” and has aligned himself with the “resistance.” Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a variety of groups organizing direct action against Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,” for example, features lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing .”
THE OBAMA COUP: IT STARTED IN CHARLOTTESVILLE
"We know that Obama and his inner circle have set up a war room in his D.C.
home to plan and execute resistance to the Trump administration and his legislative
agenda. None of these people care about the American people, or the fact that
Trump won the election because millions of people voted for him."
Patricia McCarthy / AMERICAN THINKER.com
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/did-barack-obama-start-charlottesville.html
"Cold War historian Paul Kengor goes deeply into Obama's communist background in an article in American Spectator, "Our First Red Diaper Baby President," and in an excellent Mark Levin interview. Another Kengor article describes the Chicago communists whose younger generation include David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Barack Hussein Obama. Add the openly Marxist, pro-communist Ayers, and you have many of the key players who put Obama into power." Karin McQuillan
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