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How Do Spell Big Brother? – F. D. A.

Perseverance can be a desirable trait in most instances. But when this trait concerns the now decade-long efforts of Big Tobacco and their political Comrades in Collusion to subjugate and destroy our free market economy – as documented on this site over the past three years, the results can be chilling.

The latest and greatest (and therefore the most dangerous to our threatened free market) comes in the expansion of the Comrades in Collusion — from the original partnership of Big Tobacco and the State Government politicians who sold their Citizen Consumers the bill of goods known as the Master Settlement Agreement (“MSA”) in 1998 to include the biggest brother of them all – the federal government – specifically the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”).

Big Tobacco’s grand design and (covert) purpose of the was – through the use of the political muscle of their bought and paid for state politicians, to create a permanent de-facto monopoly – an end-around the long-standing anti-trust laws of our country, which would wipe out the non-participating members (“NPMs”) of the MSA – the small and independent cigarette manufacturers and retailers, read: Big Tobacco’s competition. Fundamentally, the four companies that collectively form Big Tobacco don’t mind sharing the revenues amongst one another; it’s that pesky independent, free market competitor that really grates on their good-natured qualities.

But the best laid plans of mice and men… fall asunder. It was the sheer greed of both Big Tobacco and the state politicians that quickly led to a large breach in the MSA master plan. The elected state officials, who had promised their Citizen Consumers that the enormous projected revenuefrom the MSA would go exclusively to health care, schools and road repair, couldn’t keep their grubby little hands off all that money for other more sexy (and less deserving) endeavors, while Big Tobacco sought to recoup its losses from the payments to the states under the MSA by simply increasing prices not too soon after the ink had dried on the MSA itself. The substantial increases in Big Tobacco cigarettes created the very demand for the (now substantially) less expensive NPM competitors that Big Tobacco had feared. The result was rather than forcing the NPMs to the brink of extinction and successfully circumventing the federal anti-trust laws, the MSA had created a largely new and much more lucrative demand in our free market – for the now substantially less expensive NPM cigarettes [See the "Confidential and Privileged" inner-circle memo on our home page for the smoke-filled room particulars].

Enter the Feds….

So the sheer greed of the original Comrades in Collusion caused the demise over the past decade of the all-too brilliant subversive attempt to establish a de-facto (anti-trust) monopoly of our economy under the MSA – that wasn’t going to stop Big Tobacco.

The end of this decade has brought us Round 2 of the de-facto monopoly game – and the stakes have been raised. No more does Big Tobacco look exclusively to the state politicians for muscle and leverage, they now seek to employ the heavy hand of the U.S. government, of course all in the name of family, God, health and country.

So here comes “The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act”. Sounds great – why shouldn’t it? After all it attempts to provide further protection to all U.S. Citizen Consumers from that evil (and yet somehow still legal) weed of tobacco.

But wait a minute – isn’t the FDA charged with insuring the safety of food and drugs? I mean – that’s its title isn’t it? In law school we were taught to start at the beginning – words mean something so read the titles and sub-titles of any contract or clause – but when Uncle Sam (AKA Biggest Brother) is involved – such logic is a mere waste of political time and time after all is money.

So the already over-extended FDA is to be tasked with the very antithesis of its raison d’être – to oversee and regulate tobacco and cigarettes – products that are inherently and irreversibly dangerous and not to correct them or insure their safety for public consumption – simply insure that these products are less lethal.

This bizarro world assignment, to federally regulate a less-lethal cigarette, will coincidentally – provide bullet proof protection for Big Tobacco from any future lawsuits (ala the MSA), as Big Tobacco will be able to hide behind the skirt of the FDA’s “compliance”. But wait – there’s more. The strict compliance and regulation applied by the FDA will also… wait for it… create yet another end-around the anti-trust laws of this country and establish a de-facto monopoly through the regulation that will substantially reduce if not irradicate those pesky free market independent NPMs who have continued to prosper over the past decade despite (or perhaps because of in a perverse degree) the MSA.

But rest assured – I don’t think this means the FDA will in any other instance – attempt to regulate less lethal foods or medicine into the marketplace – I mean, it will still work diligently to insure that all other products under its purview are maintained to be safe – not just less lethal, at least I think so, but who the hell can really state with any certainty anymore…

Take Back Your State…

and now - Your Federal Government

SGA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 11:56 pm by S. George Alfonso and is filed under Big Tobacco, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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How Do Spell Big Brother? – F. D. A.

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