By~ RUSSELL MOKHIBER
In his first statement in response to the Boston bombings, President
Obama said that “Michelle and I send our deepest thoughts and prayers to the
families of the victims in the wake of this senseless loss.”
In the his first statement in response to the explosion outside Waco,
Texas, President Obama said that “our prayers go out to the people of West,
Texas in the aftermath of last night’s deadly explosion at a fertilizer
plant.”
In his statement on Boston, President Obama said that “any
responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of
justice.”
But when it came to the explosion
in Texas, President Obama said nothing about responsible individuals,
responsible groups or the full weight of justice.
Why not?
Because when it comes to street
crime, President Obama is the top cop.
When it comes to apparent corporate
crime and violence, he’s the enabler in chief.
Make no mistake, if it becomes
clear that the Texas explosion was triggered by a terrorist attack, a la the
Oklahoma City bombing, then Obama will begin talking about “the full weight of
justice.”
But if the focus is corporate crime
and violence, corporate recklessness, workplace safety, “full weight of
justice” rhetoric won’t see the light of day.
After all, it was Obama’s Justice
Department that in December 2011 settled the case of the April 2010 Massey
Energy Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29 miners, with a “non
prosecution agreement.”
Outrageously, the Justice
Department said it would not criminally prosecute Massey even though the Labor
Department concluded that Massey’s “unlawful policies and practices” were the
“root cause of this tragedy.”
Massey had a track record of
skirting the law and even kept two sets of books for at Upper Big Branch — one
for internal use, which kept track of workplace hazards — and one for law
enforcement, which did not.
David Uhlmann, the former head of
the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section, and now a Professor at
the University of Michigan Law School, says had he been in charge of the Massey
Energy case, he would have criminally prosecuted Massey.
In his tenure at the Justice
Department, he criminally prosecuted many major corporations for wrongdoing
arguably less serious than one that results in the deaths of 29 workers.
And he says that the Massey non
prosecution agreement is just part of a disturbing trend, one that has
accelerated under the Obama administration, toward settling major corporate
crime cases with deferred and non prosecution agreements.
Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.
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