[Peace-discuss] James Heins

[E. W. Johnson via Peace-discuss]

Heinous.

On 10/08/2014 08:49 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote:
> James Heins took out a full page ad in today's paper in support of 
> Phyllis Wise. He is listed as follows on sciencecorruption.com: 
> http://sciencecorruption.com/ATN172/00004.html
>
> A James Heins     [ Prof.]
>
>
>         — A University of Illinois cash-for-comments economist who
>         worked for the tobacco industry —
>
> *Professor James Heins* was one of the original cabal of economists 
> who became the nation-wide network working for the Tobacco Institute. 
> It was put together by tobacco lobbyist *James Savarese* and 
> *Professor Robert Tollison* of George Mason University who 
> collaborated in the 1980s to provide the tobacco industry with 
> academics willing to write propaganda material ... always provided 
> their names were not linked to the industry or to any of the cigarette 
> companies.
> The idea was simply that the academic 'sleepers' would be available on 
> a cash-for-services basis when needed to counter attempts to increase 
> excise taxes, or to ban public smoking, or just to appear as 
> independent experts at Congressional hearings and promote the industry 
> causes.
> Economist were by far the most useful academics to the tobacco 
> industry because the distinction between economics and politics was 
> never clear: so support of the cigarette companies could always be 
> claimed as support for free-market economics ... the rights of 
> individuals to make public choices ... small government ... or even 
> the first Amendment to the Constitution.
> The economist always claimed to be 'independent', 'professionals' and 
> they wre recognised 'academics' from some credible university. They 
> never revealed the source of their funding in their op-eds or 
> letters-to-the-editor.
> If ever put under cross-examination, they must be able to claim with 
> weasel-word precision, that they had never received a penny from the 
> tobacco industry. Therefore all payments were laundered, either 
> through tobacco industry lawyers (usually *Covington & Burling*), the 
> principle organisers, *James Savarese & Associates*, or through Bob 
> Tollison's *Center for the Study of Public Choice* at George Mason 
> University.
> The aim was to have, in each State, at least one academic economist, 
> one academic lawyer, and one academic from a business management, 
> business law, marketing or advertising discipline willing to jump into 
> action and write op-ed articles for their local newspaper, or to 
> appear at local ordinance or legislative hearings. Copies of these 
> articles were always to be sent to a local Congressman who sat on some 
> important (to the tobacco industry) committee.
> The academics were always expected to wave their own and their 
> university's credentials vigorously, and loudly proclaim their 
> "independence' from any crass-commercial motives. And those who could 
> boast of being 'non-smokers' were especially prized — since without 
> this addiction, their non-dependent-on-tobacco status was thought to 
> be proved beyond any doubt!
>
>
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