Left News and Views

From a populist-talk email:

40+ McCain Call Center Workers Walk Off Job in Protest

Dozens Of Call Center Workers Walk Off Job In Protest Rather Than Read McCain Script Attacking Obama

October 27, 2008

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being “dangerously weak on crime,” “coddling criminals,” and for voting against “protecting children
from danger.”

Williams’ daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it’s located in Hobart, IN.

“They walked out,” Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren’t fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. “They were told [by supervisors], `If you all leave, you’re not gonna get paid for the rest of the day.”

The daughter, who wanted her name withheld fearing retribution from her employer, confirmed the story to us. “It was like at least 40 people,” the daughter said. “People thought the script was nasty and they didn’t wanna read it.”

A second worker at the call center confirmed the episode, saying that “at least 30″ workers had walked out after refusing to read the script.

“We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger,” this worker said. “I wouldn’t do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting.”

This worker, too, confirmed sacrificing pay to walk out, saying her supervisor told her: “If you don’t wanna phone it you can just go home for the day.”

The script coincided with this robo-slime call running in other states, but because robocalling is illegal in Indiana it was being read by call center workers.

Representatives at Americall in Indiana, and at the company’s corporate headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, didn’t return calls for comment.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/dozens_of_call_center_workers.php

THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST:
A JOURNAL FROM THE HEARTLAND
November 15, 2008 — Volume 14, Number 20
http://www.populist.com

EDITORIAL
The Change We Need

We¹re under no illusions about Barack Obama being a progressive messiah. We hear Republicans call him the most liberal senator, even a socialist with plans to soak the rich and spread the wealth! Don¹t you wish! Obama has learned to sublimate his progressive instincts and seek moderate consensus. His legislative record shows he will reach across the aisle to seek bipartisan deals. We expect him to operate in a centrist manner similar to that of Bill Clinton and we¹re
sure he¹ll frustrate us in the process. We don¹t like that his economic advisers include Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, but his circle also includes progressives such as economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Democratic voters passed over more populist candidates Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards during the primaries. But after eight
years of Bush and Cheney messing things up, it is worth the fight to get Obama elected.

After all, the designated heir on the Republican side is John McCain, a conservative who supported Bush’s economic and foreign policies, while posing as a maverick on the margins. McCain is known for his hair-trigger temper, his campaign is the captive of corporate lobbyists and he displayed erratic judgment with his selection of right-winger Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Let¹s have some straight talk, my friends. We cannot risk another four years with a Republican president who wants to cut domestic
spending heading into a recession, wants to deregulate health insurance and, if anything, thinks Bush hasn¹t been confrontational enough with Russia. It¹s much better to choose the even-tempered and intellectually inquisitive Democrat who at least will cut progressives in on the deal.

Some of our friends wonder why we support Obama instead of our progressive populist colleague, Ralph Nader, who is running for president as an independent, or former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party nominee.

I would be one of those. Why? Oh, why would you give in to the corporate bullies running our country into the ground?

Our answer is that someone will be elected on Nov. 4 but it won¹t be Nader or McKinney, or Libertarian Bob Barr, or the Constitution Party¹s Chuck Baldwin, for that matter. Nader did an impressive job getting on 46 state ballots while the Greens only managed to get on 32. Libertarians will be on 45 and the Constitution Party 37

There is a point there. If we could just get those third parties to work together as one united third party, we might have a real chance at getting rid of the corporate clones that are our Republican and Democratic candidates year after year.

But on Nov. 5, any of them will be lucky to finish with 1% of the vote, and nothing we could do will change the likelihood of
that reality-based prediction. But we have seen in the past two presidential elections, not placing blame anywhere, that a few hundred votes in a key state can sway the election.

When it comes to choosing between the big two, Noam Chomsky recently told The Real News Network (therealnews.com), he would suggest voting against McCain, which means voting for Obama without illusions. He expects Obama to take standard centrist Democratic policies if he takes office. But Chomsky noted that, over time, the general population tends to do considerably
better under Democratic than under Republican administrations.
Chomsky added, To say it doesn¹t make any difference who wins is to simply express your contempt for the general population, because it does make a difference. A lot of what they say is
correct‹the two parties are effectively factions of one party (the business party) but the factions are somewhat different … over time, the differences show up in benefits, working conditions, wages, things that really matter to people.

So, yes, there¹s a difference.

…If you¹re in a swing state, you have to ask: Is the difference enough for me to pick the lesser of two evils? And there¹s nothing wrong with picking the lesser of two evils. …

So is it worth doing that or is it worth trying to act to create a potential alternative? For example, should I vote Green because maybe someday, with party building, there¹ll be a real alternative? Should I express my disdain for the right-wing orientation of both parties by not voting, let¹s say? Or should I pick the lesser of
two evils, thereby helping people?
We, too, choose the lesser evil and we hope that more progressive reinforcements in Congress will convince Obama (as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid) that Democrats can return to the progressive better angels of their nature.

As we went to press, Obama was leading by 8% or more in states worth 264 electoral votes, only 6 short of the number he needs. Six competitive states where Obama leads (Colorado, Florida,
Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia) could put him over the top and a seventh state, Nevada, would put the race in a tie (which would be resolved in the House, where Obama presumably would win as Dems currently outnumber the R¹s in
27 state congressional delegations).

McCain has no chance to win a fair fight at this point, so he is running a typical GOP smear campaign, questioning Obama¹s patriotism and distorting his ties with a former 1960s radical who is now a respected college professor in Chicago. McCain also lets surrogates raise questions about Obama¹s former Christian pastor (while others suggest that Obama¹s a closet Muslim).

Colin Powell¹s endorsement was a blow to McCain and should help legitimize Obama among independent voters. A poll by Rasmussen Reports found that 80% have a favorable opinion of the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and secretary of state, but only 5% said it was very likely that the endorsement would influence their vote. However, Powell reinforces the view that Obama can be trusted while McCain is reckless and has grow too close to the right wing of the party.

Republicans also are challenging voter registration drives by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. McCain claimed they are destroying the fabric of democracy.

What ACORN actually did was to hire canvassers to go into low-income neighborhoods and register residents to vote. Some of the canvassers apparently decided it would be easier to fill out the forms with names taken from phone books, or cartoons, or football teams. In those cases, ACORN was the victim of fraud. It is unlikely that anyone will try to vote based on those fraudulent registrations, but if they do they can be prosecuted.

Unfortunately, Republicans once again are trying to suppress the vote in Democratic areas. (Greg Palast writes about some of those schemes on page 11 and with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the Oct. 30 Rolling Stone.) Election officials in Lake County, Indiana, which includes East Chicago and Gary, stopped processing voter registration forms submitted by ACORN, apparently assuming
they were bogus, the Gary, Ind. Post-Tribune reported Oct. 19. After potential voters inquired why they hadn¹t received voter cards, election officials resumed checking 5,000 applications
turned in by ACORN canvassers, as well as 20,000 other voter applications unconnected to ACORN that had not been entered two weeks before the election. An election official blamed the backlog on the need to check ACORN applications, but an ACORN spokesman said the group caught nearly all the problem applications and brought them to election officials¹ attention.

Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley also cited ACORN voter registration fraud as a main reason early voting locations
should not be established in predominantly black Gary,  Hammond and East Chicago precincts. Even those who got their registration cards are not home free. More reports of malfunctioning electronic voting machines are coming in.

Problems with e-vote software in New Mexico and Virgina have caused machines to tabulate straight-party votes incorrectly,
VotersUnite.org noted. In past elections, similar problems have been notied in Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

With no way to know how many programming errors were never caught, VotersUnite.org recommends voting for candidates individually, even if straight-party option is offered. Vote carefully.

With the conclusion of his presidential campaign, we hope to welcome Ralph Nader back to our columns in the next issue. JMC

From Progressive Talk:

October 27, 2008

By now it must be clear that the ‘two-party’ system is not only
ineffective; it is corrupt to the bone.

It should be instructive to recount some major points of Obama’s record:

Barak Obama has voted for all the war funding bills that have gone through the Congress; Obama has voted for USA PATRIOT ACT that effectively suspended the habeas corpus, and he voted for the FISA bill that gave free reign to government to spy on all Americans; his Democratic Party has gone along with policies allowing torture, and we have not heard a single word out of candidate Obama regarding the evils of torturing people; had it not been for the Supreme Court rulings, the Democrats would not have been the ones to come to the defense of habeas corpus, this oldest of legal protections granted to human beings against arbitrary government harassment, and neither have we heard anything from Obama, although he is reported to be a constitutional lawyer; it was with the energetic pushing and shoving of the Democratic presidential nominee, Barak Obama, that the theft of people’s money was given legal cover in the recent $700 billion bailout of the banking industry (the actual figures are much higher).

Moreover, as pertains to how the American imperial machinations work beyond the American borders, Obama, or at least his rhetoric, is every bit as dangerous and bloodthirsty as McCain’s.

He was one of the first people to advocate publicly (and on campaign trail, which is even more telling) that Pakistani sovereignty be disregarded and indeed violated completely if, with regards to the ‘war on terror’, the Pakistani government ‘can’t do the job’. He is a strong advocate of increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan and to intensify the bloodletting
in that country, in a war of occupation every bit as barbaric and
immoral as that in Iraq.

As regards the war of occupation in Iraq, Obama has never said he will end the occupation; in his stated policy, he will leave a substantial number of troops in Iraq to ‘fight the terrorists’ and protect the embassy, ‘aid workers’, etc., which is to say he too will leave substantial troops in Iraq, into an indefinite future. Finally, as regards the ongoing, brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people, the theft of their lands, water and resources under one of the most barbaric contemporary colonial ventures, he is every bit a slave to the Israeli lobby and government.

If all these, in and of themselves, were not enough, we are now
witnessing the defection of ‘moderate’ (the lesser of the bigger evil) Republicans onto the bandwagon of this able savior of empire; not just any Republican (for example, Ron Paul), but the likes of the war criminal Colin Powell, whose UN speech in February 2003 — while holding up some phony glass vial, with the CIA chief, Tenet, and the hated Negroponte right behind him — is now remembered only too painfully by the world that continues to pay in blood, sweat and humiliation for the crimes of the American empire.

His running mate’s resume is even darker, but we need not go there.

Despite all this, a good section of the American left is still
agonizing over whether or not to vote for this ‘lesser’ evil!
Luminaries as large as Chomsky and Zinn, The Nation magazine, and even the Communist Party USA, as they did in the 2004 presidential elections, are again raising the specter of the ‘necessity’ of voting, albeit with noses well held, for Obama. Some qualify this support with: “But, don’t have any illusions!” Anybody who supports, even qualified tenfold, voting for an imperial (hence criminal) Democratic Party candidate, is already filled with illusions.

What on earth is the point of voting at all, when the two evils under consideration do not even present a noticeable degree of difference is avarice? Such recommendations coming from the ‘left’ are stunning if it weren’t so infuriating to hear such talk always being qualified with tons of qualifications, which make the recommendations not just absurd, but insane.

A wonderful sample of such was posted on MRZine (Taking Politics Seriously). The authors, Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood, after stating that they would be voting for Obama, proceed to acknowledge all the horrible qualities of Obama the candidate, leaving the reader to wonder why then they are voting for him! And the answer is simple: in effect, it is a vote against McCain. Basically, they are arguing that Obama-Biden ticket is far less scary than McCain-Palin. Obama’s own qualities clearly do not make him a very desirable candidate to be supported by the left, but since the left must by all means necessary defeat the crazy far right, then by simplistic, syllogistic conclusion the left must vote for Obama.

No   We   Don’t.

We can vote for McKinney/Clemente and the Green Party. That is, if your state allows third parties on the ballot and the Green Party in on the ticket. It’s not an option for me here in Oklahoma. The Independents are on the ticket, but the Green Party didn’t make it. At least according to one local election board worker. Of course, I called 20 minutes later to verify who was on the ballot, and was told only the Democrats/Republicans were on the ballot this year. So who knows? I guess we get to see who our choices are on Election Day. It’s ridiculous.

The other point they make is that by voting for Obama, they are acting against racism. To think that one is fighting racism while voting for a candidate that upholds every racist element of the structures of imperialism is to venture into political oblivion.

Such arguments can only come from people who do nothing whatsoever in between presidential elections, and every four years must naturally express some political view, and out of desperate frustration coming from seeing the political field as only what the system presents, must then decide which choice is less bad. This is the gist of their dilemma.

(more…)

Why am I hearing from politicians all over the country?

How rich do these people think we are?

I might send money to one national candidate and one or two local candidates, but I cannot afford to send money to every person running for office in the entire country who claims to share my views. That’s just not practical. Not gonna happen.

Here’s a good example:

Hi Everyone,

Well, so far my campaign has gone really well this year considering the economy. And what’s really amazing is that the momentum just keeps building. I’ve got all kinds of volunteers - high school kids, people in their 80s; it’s super! .. And it’s great knowing that I can get out a message that people really care about like:

a.. Getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan
b.. Universal single payer health care
c.. Eliminating the federal income tax for people making less than $100,000 a year
d.. developing secure sustainable jobs by investing in infrastructure and alternative energy sources

I did so well 2 YEARS AGO I drove the old Democratic candidate out and they’ve gone with a guy they’ve given minimal support. If you’ve seen any of the three debates, you will conclude with everyone else that I came away the clear winner. Even people who heard my interview on Christian Radio (WDAC) said they will vote for me because of my position on the economy.

Two years ago I was only permitted to participate in one debate. This year I got into all three of them. I’ve received a mountain of e-mail and loads of telephone calls from well-wishers. I have been interviewed by every radio and television station and all of the newspapers have covered my campaign. I’ve been invited by Berks County Community Television (BCTV) to comment on the election returns through the night.

We could never get this kind of message out during the year. It takes a congressional election campaign to get this message out at the local level. Ralph and Cynthia are doing a great job at the national level but the message must be carried through here at the grassroots.

I’m going into the last 10 days of the campaign and I want to saturate the local radio stations with commercials - that’s pretty inexpensive; I want to put an ad in the Shoppers Guide which will put me into 106,000 households for only two thousand bucks. I’m going to make 50,000 automated calls (thirty-five hundred bucks). I don’t make those calls in that annoying fashion. In fact my automated calls are only delivered to voicemail or answering machines that will not interrupt people. That whole push will only cost about $10,000. I really need you to come through for me. I can’t do this without you. I know times are tough. Hell, in the last month I lost a third of my retirement funds, so I know what I’m asking you.

Keep in mind that this is not simply a local congressional race. What we do here together in the sixteenth district takes on NATIONAL dimensions.

With your help I can really hammer the Bush clone I’m running against. Can I COUNT on you to HELP ME OUT with a two hundred dollar contribution? Even a hundred dollars will help. I need your help so we can start dealing a death blow to these corporate politicians. I can guarantee that you will not feel bad about contributing to something that you really believe in but you could end up hating yourself if you let this last opportunity slip by. Don’t let this last opportunity slip by. Please help me out.

You can make your contribution very simply by going to my website. You can use any kind of credit card or you can use PayPal. You can bypass PayPal (it’s just a portal then) and use your credit card directly. Please go to: http://www.johnmurphyforcongress.org/donations.htm Don’t put it off till later. I need your help right away. This is the 11th hour. Don’t let this last opportunity slip by.

In Solidarity,

John Murphy

P.S. Along with Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn and Mike Gravel, I have been endorsed by two conservative radio broadcasters! A Libertarian and a Republican! They were willing to overlook my “liberal positions” because of my strong positions on returning our civil liberties, my opposition to the Federal Reserve and NAFTA and demanding the return of our troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and the other 127 nations where they are being quartered at taxpayer expense. The Democrat cannot command the respect or vote of the “paleo conservative” Republicans, Libertarians and Reformers. I can. With your financial support you can exponentiate the power of all of all of my achievements in the last nine months.

On the surface I love this guy, but he’s in Pennsylvania and I’m in Oklahoma. Is he really going to be able to help me in Congress?

I like universal health care, but I’m unsure if eliminating income tax for everyone who makes less than 100,00 a year is practical or even possible.

We definitely need to bring our soldiers home, but we need to be prepared to help them when they get home too. That universal health care would help with getting them the medical and mental health care they, and all of us, need and deserve.

I was impressed with his openness about how much money he’s planning on spending and where. But less impressed with his need to “hammer” his republican opponent. While I am certainly sympathetic to an almost violent need for change in the current political climate, we really have to work past it.

I know it’s hard, but we really have to look past petty concerns and personal grievances and concentrate on what is best for the whole country.

Except that top one percent. I figure they can afford to take care of themselves, now can’t they?

This came in my email last week, better late than never, I guess:

OPEN LETTER TO NOW, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN

National Women’s Caucus of the Green Party of the United States
http://greens.org/gp-uswomen/

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Dear National Organization for Women leadership and members:

The National Women’s Caucus of the Green Party of the United States is dismayed that your recent endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States did not acknowledge the first all-female ticket in recent U.S. history. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente are running for President and Vice President, respectively, on the Green Party ballot line.

Cynthia McKinney served six terms in the U.S. Congress and two terms in the Georgia General Assembly. She is a global human rights and peace activist with a substantial voting record supporting women. Rosa Clemente is a community organizer and journalist who was one of the founders and primary organizers of the first national Hip Hop political convention. Their “Power
to the People” campaign goal is to ensure that public policy reflects the Green Party values of ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence.

Cynthia McKinney has been a steadfast supporter of full reproductive rights for women throughout her legislative career, including opposition to “abstinence only” sex education, funding for contraception and UN family planning. Rosa Clemente has been an outspoken advocate on issues affecting people of color, particularly women, and has directed her campaign toward the 48% of young people who don’t vote, to encourage participation in the electoral process.

Additional positions of the McKinney/Clemente campaign that will benefit women include:

- Equal Rights

- End to forced sterilization and coerced or uninformed consent
procedures,

- Immediate end to the War in Iraq and reinvestment of the money into our communities

- Single-payer, universal “Medicare for All”

- Election integrity where every vote is counted

- Right to same-sex marriage

- Free higher education

- End to the drug war

- Right of return of survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

- Withdrawal from corporate trade agreements such as NAFTA  that are devastating economies worldwide

- Promotion of renewable energy (no coal or nuclear) to create hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing, construction and service jobs

Neither Obama nor his Republican opponent John McCain support these positions.

…

I can’t believe they just wanted acknowledgement. They should be asking why the hell NOW, the National Organization for Women, isn’t endorsing them.

It ticks me off that no one in the mass media even mentions the Green Party or McKinney/Clemente being the first all-female ticket ever. Not even the women on The View.

How wrong is that? Not even the women will acknowledge the women running for President and Vice-President of the United States of America. Maybe women don’t deserve to be there if this is how we treat each other. And don’t hand me that, “but they can’t possibly win” excuse. Maybe if we talked about them, and oh, I don’t know, supported them, they might actually have that chance.

(more…)

…from an investigative reporter who actually investigates, Greg Palast:

ROLLING STONE: IT’S ALREADY STOLEN

Investigation by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast

Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of “GOP vote tampering” on a massive scale.

- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state’s rate of removal.

- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of ‘Jim Crow’ tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as “fraudulent.”

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called “caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

There’s more:

- Since the last presidential race, “States used dubious ‘list management’ rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls.”

Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state’s purging his registration was particularly shocking - he’s the county elections supervisor.

The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.

“Republican operatives - the party’s elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics,” report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are “systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats.”

The investigators level a deadly serious charge:

“If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering.”

Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone. [Media enquiries - Dave Falkenstein, Sunshine Sachs & Assoc, via interviews@gregpalast.com.]

Note - Kennedy and Palast are releasing, simultaneously with the Rolling Stone investigative report what they call, the vote-theft ‘antidote’: a 24-page full-color comic book, Steal Back Your Vote, which can be downloaded or obtained in print from their non-partisan website, StealBackYourVote.org

For updates and video reports, go to RollingStone.com, www.GregPalast.com and StealBackYourVote.org.

From my friend Jan at Progressive Talk:

I just came back from the all-night big corporate supermarket and couldn’t help but notice that a little can of sardines is $2.50. What used to be a 75-cent can of tomato soup is now $1.38 and that’s a so-called sale price. Even potatoes and onions are expensive, as are dry goods like black beans and rice. This is ridiculous.

Then the guy stands there watching you at the self-check out machine to make sure you aren’t shoplifting anything.
I can see why he’d do that, because a couple of small items nowadays might add up to $10.

Like much of the United States, this is a poverty-stricken area I live in. There are hardly any cars on the road at night anymore. Nobody eats at the more expensive down town restaurants except tourists and I can’t for the life of me figure out who the heck would want to come here as a tourist. Yet the Chamber of Commerce seems to be pouring lots of money into tourist promotion. For the out-of-towners there are classy little boutiques where you can buy an expensive designer handbag or sip a $4.00 latte downtown, and for the local folks there’s Dollar General and McDonald’s.

The cops have made a concerted effort to clean up the downtown of the “riff raff” (that’s actually what local people call poor people–even in the newspaper). For a while there, “undesirables” was actually being used to describe the people who used to hang around the north end of the downtown walking mall. Then someone complained about the use of that term to describe people and they switched to “riff raff.”

Several years ago they enacted a new law which forbids
“sleeping outdoors except in designated camping areas” (there are none) and they’ve been jailing the homeless who don’t sleep down at the “Christian” shelter. In fact, there used to be quite a few street people, some of whom I’ve befriended over the years, and they’re all gone now.

There’s no Greyhound bus service to here anymore, but the train still comes through town and stops several times a day on it’s way to DC. My guess is that the police are giving people an ultimatum: either leave Cumberland or go to jail.

And the pious SOBs get in the newspaper and talk about their Christian virtues and how this is a “family-oriented community.” Yeah, lay down your cash on the counter and don’t complain about anything and you’ll fit right in. What a freak show it is around here. This is heartland America. Suck it up or you’ll land in jail, and you’d may as well smile and be polite about the whole screwing you’re getting because if you mouth-off they’ll really
come down on you.

They have so many cops driving around this area it’s like a state-wide police convention is in town–all the time. This is a fairly small town and the mayor doesn’t even walk around
town without a policeman escort.

Maybe he’s afraid some riff-raff will shout something at him.

“Hey mayor! Whatever happened to that $1.2 million the state of Maryland gave you to start a new jobs creation program?”

“What about that big new real estate development that was supposed to go in out in the country east of town?

Whatsamatta? Did you finally figure out that people don’t want to live way up here in western Maryland and commute
2.5 hours to work in DC or Baltimore every day like the Chamber of Commerce said they would?”

“Hey mayor–remember that body the cops found floating face down in the upper Potomac River last year? Whatever happened with that? He was a black guy, wasn’t he? Was there ever an investigation?

” “Hey mayor! How’s your stock portfolio looking
these days?”

Well anyway–$2.50 for a lousy can of sardines. Then the guy stands there scrutinizing your every move to make sure you aren’t stealing them.

What a screwed up society this is.

Jan

(links and graphics added)

I hear you Jan, and it’s not any better out here in Oklahoma either. I swear I feel more screwed over every day. This says it all:

From a Human Rights First newsletter:

In July, Luis Ramirez, a Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah,
Pennsylvania, was attacked by a group of teenagers yelling
racial slurs. Ramirez, a 25-year old father of two, died
later of injuries from the beating.

The incident is part of a disturbing trend. Violent hate crime is on the rise throughout Europe and North America. Our recently published 2008 Hate Crime Survey charts bias-driven violence and assesses government responses in the 56 countries that comprise the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It looks at hate crime by category (xenophobia and racism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim bias, homophobia, and others) as well as by country, and sets out a Ten-Point Plan for stronger government action to combat these crimes.

Violent hate crime can ruin lives, or, as it did in the case of Luis Ramirez, tragically end them. But these crimes are also an attack on the society at large, undermining the notions of equality and the equal protection of the law. HRF is urging governments to enact and enforce tougher laws, backed by stronger systems of monitoring and enforcement, to reverse this dangerous trend.

An August 19th update from Democracy Now:

Judge Reduces Charges in Killing of Mexican Immigrant

In Pennsylvania, a district judge has thrown out first- and second-degree murder charges against a pair of teenagers accused of beating to death a Mexican immigrant in the town of Shenandoah last month. Instead, the teenagers are now being tried on counts of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation in the death of Luis Ramirez. A third teenager has been charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other counts. On Monday, a fourth teenager testified in court that one of his friends kicked Ramirez in the head while he lay motionless in the street. After the teenagers beat Ramirez, one of them told an eyewitness, “Tell your Mexican friends to get out of Shenandoah, or you’ll be laying next to him.”

Well really, what do you expect in a country that is proud of it’s ignorance?

We like to think that America is number one. But number one in what?

Racism, sexism, ageism, weightism, whatever prejudice you can think to name, we practice it here. It is completely insane.

How can we possibly think to grow and thrive as a nation when we cannot even accept each other as fellow Americans or even as fellow human beings. You know, this country is all immigrants.

Even “native americans” aren’t. They may have come over way ahead of the rest of us, but even they started somewhere else. Archaeologists and anthropologists may not be able to agree on how they got here from Africa/Asia/Europe or even exactly when they came over, but they did not start here. We may call their coming here a migration as opposed to immigration but the fact remains that no human being is “native” to this part of the world.

Unless we pull our heads out and learn to accept and adapt we, as a species, are doomed. The earth won’t be inherited by the meek, it’ll be inherited by the insects.

I don’t know if I should scream or cry. Going through my email, I get this link:

http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200810100022

I follow it to find this:

MYTH: The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced lenders into irresponsible lending

In a September 28 Boston Globe column, Jeff Jacoby asserted:

The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and “redlining” because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to ‘meet the credit needs’ of ‘low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.’ Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans.”

Jacoby is not alone in his reference to “minority” lending. On the September 18 edition of Fox News’ Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), “[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn’t get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership … Are you totally without culpability here?” Cavuto later said, “I’m just saying, I don’t remember a clarion call that said, ‘Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.’ ”

But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that “studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households” [emphasis added].

Yeah, and they were “forced” to charge usurious interest rates to those same “greedy” minorities and poor people who dared to think they deserved to own their own homes.

With this government, Repugs and Democraps alike, I’m leaning more towards anarchy everyday.

Some good news for a change.

Adam Turl explains how pressure from below persuaded the Cook County sheriff to stop putting people out of their homes.:

From http://socialistworker.org/:

BANKERS IN Chicago are angry with–of all people–Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

Dart announced October 8 that his office would no longer forcibly remove residents from foreclosed properties, essentially imposing a moratorium on any mortgage-related evictions in the third-largest city in the U.S. and a surrounding county, with a total population of 5.3 million people.

Foreclosures are expected to reach a record high of 43,000 in Cook County this year, and the sheriff’s department was expected to conduct 4,500 foreclosure-related evictions. Two thousand people are evicted from their homes every month in Cook County–as many as 500 as a result of a foreclosure.

The Cook County moratorium applies to foreclosed homes, condominiums and apartment buildings. Renters will still be evicted for reasons not related to foreclosures. Still, this is the first moratorium on such evictions in a major urban area–at least in living memory.

Dart cited the cases of renters unjustly thrown out of their
apartments as a result of the mortgage crisis–at least a third of
such foreclosure evictions affect renters, he said. “These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don’t care who’s in the building,” Dart said.

“Just in the past month,” he continued, “about a third of the people we were asked to evict were under very questionable circumstances. It got to the point that enough was enough.”
Dart is demanding that banks and mortgage lenders send
representatives to notify residents of impending foreclosures at
least 120 days in advance.

While renters and homeowners will sigh with relief at the moratorium, the bankers are hopping mad. The Chicago Tribune, acting as a mouthpiece for its friends in the city’s business establishment, called the moratorium “curious” and claimed that it might be “confusing” for both homeowners and banks.

The Illinois Bankers Association charged the sheriff with breaking
the law and “vigilantism,” and insisted that the moratorium “should not be tolerated.”

But it is the banks that have repeatedly broken the law. Chicago
recently passed an ordinance that gives renters at least 90 days’
notice of an impending foreclosure-related eviction. But lenders
haven’t been following the rule.

The Tribune reported that “some mortgage experts” have “suggested” the moratorium on evictions “could compound problems by making lenders reluctant to extend credit at a time when loans are already hard to get.” The president of the Illinois Mortgage Bankers Association agreed, telling reporters the moratorium “would have a significant impact, because obviously lenders would be hesitant to lend if they knew if someone defaulted, they wouldn’t be able to take the property back.”

Setting aside the question of why anyone, in the face of the current crisis, should trust anything a mortgage banker says, this argument is absurd on its face.

There is an international credit crunch underway, with banks refusing to lend to other banks and businesses, but this is because of the mountains of bad debts these banks have run up over years, mostly on immense speculative investments in obscure financial markets. The idea that a few thousand people getting to stay in their homes would make a dent in this crisis is ridiculous.

More to the point, these banks just got an immense bailout for the crisis they created in the first place. Why should there be no break at all for working-class homeowners and renters?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

No reason at all except for bankers’ greed.

Read the complete story at:

http://socialistworker.org/2008/10/10/chicago-sheriff-stops-eviction

Article from the October 9, 2008 edition of the CHN Human Needs Report:

Congress Enacts Legislation Aimed at Easing Financial Crisis,
But Fails to Address Worsening Recession

Fearing the consequences of more delay in responding to failing financial institutions, frozen credit, and falling stock prices, Congress enacted legislation to throw up to $700 billion at the problem, albeit with somewhat less abandon than originally proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. After the House surprised observers by rejecting the deal negotiated on a bipartisan basis, the Senate passed a similar bill with a few significant additions. To reduce the threat of a run on banks, the financial plan added an increase in the size of insured deposits in banks covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from $100,000 to $250,000 per account. The Senate also added its $150 billion package of extended tax cuts, new tax incentives for renewable energy, and an improvement in the Child Tax Credit, as well as the bill requiring mental health parity in health insurance plans (see articles about the tax package and the mental health provisions in this issue). The Senate bill passed 75-24 on October 1.

Proponents of more substantial aid for homeowners and more teeth in the requirement that the federal government gain an ownership share of financial institutions bailed out by the bill wanted to see those improvements included in the new version. Adding such provisions would have attracted some of the progressive Members of the House who opposed the bill when it was defeated in the House on Monday, September 29. Instead, the leadership in both House and Senate emphasized the need for more Republican votes (only 65 House Republicans supported the bill when it went down on the 29 th ). Despite a vigorous push for a change to allow home mortgages to be renegotiated as part of court bankruptcy proceedings as well as efforts to include economic recovery measures such as an extension of unemployment benefits, no additional forms of help for “ Main Street ” were included.

Even though the bill emerging from the Senate did not substantially strengthen protections for taxpayers and homeowners or help with economic recovery, more House Democrats switched their votes from no to yes than did House Republicans (32 Democrats switched; 26 Republicans did). The final vote for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 ( H.R. 1424) was 263-171, on October 3. The President signed the bill the same day.

More…

I got this email forwarded to me:

October 8, 2008
Dear Friends,
The upcoming election is the most critical election in the history of our nation. The very future of our nation’s foundation is at stake.

Every person will be affected.

If the liberals win, then our foundation will no longer be based on the traditional Judeo-Christian morality. It will gradually but assuredly be based on an ever shifting, ever moving foundation. If the liberals win, the damage can’t be stopped with elections two, four or forty years from now.

America will forever be changed.

We will keep seeing a gradual and growing hostility toward people of faith, especially Christians. The morals of our nation will continue to decline. Our children and grandchildren will pay the price.

In case you may think I’m a “the sky is falling” type of person, you
should know:

When it comes to predictions, I am a very reserved
person.

But not on this one. I cannot overstate the damage a liberal victory will do to our country. The upcoming election is the most important in the history of our nation. Yes, if the liberals win you will lose some of your religious freedoms and free speech rights.
Churches and pastors will not be exempt. You will not be allowed to say certain things about a particular group. Every item of the
homosexual agenda will be approved. All the laws protecting the unborn will be wiped away.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of the Nov. 4 election. That is why I urge you to vote and encourage your family members, friends, Sunday School class and church members to vote. America’s future – the future of your children and grandchildren – is at stake.

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

Of course, those links are all mine.

I know this was intended to get me all worked up if I’m with them. (Or horribly offended if I’m not with them which, obviously, I’m not.) But after reading it, I just felt kind of sad. It must be terrible to go through life so angry and afraid.

Oh wait, that’s what it’s been like to be an intelligent, progressive thinker in this country for the last ~eight~ years.

Oklahoma Law is Among First Signs of Effects of 2007 Supreme Court
Abortion Ruling


CONTACT INFO:DIONNE SCOTT
DSCOTT@REPRORIGHTS.ORG
(917) 637-3649

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:October 10, 2008 

WHAT HAPPENED:
Late yesterday, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a challenge
against Oklahoma legislation which prohibits a woman from getting an
abortion unless she first has an ultrasound and listens to her doctor
describe in detail the ultrasound image. (Oklahoma Senate Bill 1878)

At the same time, the law prevents a woman from suing her doctor if
he or she intentionally withholds other information about the fetus,
such as a severe developmental defect. 

The statute also requires doctors to use a specific regimen for
administering the medical abortion pill, despite that regimen being
less effective and more costly than the one strongly recommended by
the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). 

The Center filed the lawsuit in the District Court of Oklahoma
County, State of Oklahoma on behalf of Nova Health Systems, dba
Reproductive Services in Tulsa. The case is called Nova Health
Systems v. Brad Henry. 

WHAT CRR ARGUES:
The Center for Reproductive Rights argues that the Oklahoma law
profoundly intrudes upon a patient's privacy, endangers her health,
and assaults her dignity. Specifically, the statute prevents a
woman's doctor from using his or her own medical judgment for
treatment. It also dangerously discounts a woman's abilities to make
healthy decisions about her own life by either forcing her to hear
information when she's objected; or allowing a doctor to keep
information from her without her input. 

"Anti-choice activists will stop at nothing to prevent a woman from
getting an abortion, but trying to manipulate a woman's decisions
about her own life and health goes beyond the pale," said Stephanie
Toti, staff attorney in the U.S. Legal Program of the Center for
Reproductive Rights and lead attorney on the case. "Governments
should stop playing doctor and leave medical determinations to
physicians and health decisions to individuals."  

WHY THE CASE IS IMPORTANT:
In Oklahoma, if this law is enforced, Reproductive Services will be
forced to close down. The clinic provides more than 200 women
abortion services a month. If it shuts down, that means more than
2000 women a year throughout Oklahoma and surrounding states will
have no access to abortion. 

Nationally, this case has implications because the law at issue is
among the first signs that anti-choice legislatures are beginning to
take cues from last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the
"Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003." Should this law be upheld,
it could encourage copycat legislation around the country.  

In Gonzales v. Carhart,a case argued by the Center, the majority
reasoned, "[w]hile we find no reliable data to measure the
phenomenon, it seems unexceptional to conclude some women come to
regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and
sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow." The
argument opened the door to measures based on the assertion that a
woman lacks the judgment and independence necessary to make a
responsible decision about her own pregnancy; and that abortion
causes a woman to suffer mental and physical side effects—a claim
recently refuted by an American Psychological Association study. 

No other state in the country requires a woman to hear the
description of an ultrasound image; and Ohio is the only other state
that has prohibited use of the ACOG-recommended regimen for medical
abortion. Ohio's law is currently being challenged in federal court. 

Stephanie Toti is available for interviews. For interview requests,
please contact Dionne Scott at (917) 637-3649 or
dscott@reprorights.org.

Connecticut Decision

HARTFORD, Connecticut - Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.

The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut’s civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.

“I cannot believe it.  We’re thrilled, we’re absolutely overjoyed.  We’re finally going to be able, after 33 years, to get married,” said Janet Peck of Colchester, who was a plaintiff with her partner, Carole Conklin.

Justices overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of the plaintiffs, who said the state’s marriage law discriminates against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.

“Interpreting our state constituional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding.

“To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others,” Palmer wrote.

Connecticut already permitted same-sex civil unions that grant largely the same state rights as to married couple, but lack the full, federal legal protections of marriage.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday that she disagreed with the court’s ruling, but will not fight the ruling.

“The Supreme Court has spoken,” Rell said in a statement.  “I do not believe their voice reflects that majority of the people of Connecticut.  However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success.”

Because Friday’s decision was based on the state constitution, the ruling cannot be appealed to the U.S Supreme Cout, NBC News reported.  The ruling is to go into effect shortly.

Eight same-sex couples sued in 2004, saying their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process were violated when they were denied marriage licenses.

The plaintiffs wanted the court to rule that the law discriminated against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.

Peck said that as soon as the decision was announced, the couple started crying and hugging while juggling excited phone calls from her brother and other friends and family.

“We’ve always dreamed of being married,” she said.  “Even though we were lesbians and didn’t know if that would ever come true, we always dreamed of it.”

From Films for Action:

Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out “Crowd Control”

By Naomi Wolf, From AlterNet.org
Posted on October 8, 2008

Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing “unruly individuals,” and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.

George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the “War on Terror,” the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.

He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined “insurrection” or many other “conditions” he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus — habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial — in the event of an “insurrection.” With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters “insurgents” staging an “insurrection” is strengthened.

U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:

“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.”

If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.

I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification:

“If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?”

“Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders.”

“But these orders are now legal?’”

“Correct.”

“If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?”

“Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken.”

“If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?”

“Nothing.”

“What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?”

“Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq — send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else.”

“What happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms against U.S. citizens?”

“They’d probably be treated as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that deserters — reservists who refused to go back to Iraq — got longer sentences than war criminals.”

“Does Congress have any military of their own?”

“No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The Governors have the National Guard but they report to the President in an emergency that he declares.”

“Who can arrest the President?”

“The Attorney General can arrest the President after he leaves or after impeachment.”

[Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has asserted it is possible for District Attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they represent districts where one or more military members who have been killed in Iraq formerly resided.]

“Given the danger do you advocate impeachment?”

“Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus — which has prevented, with a penalty of two years in prison, U.S. leaders since after the Civil War from sending military forces into our streets — with a ’signing statement.’ He should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of military forces and mercenary forces against U.S. citizens”

“Should Americans call on senior leaders in the Military to break publicly with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?”

“Every senior military officer’s loyalty should ultimately be to the Constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the President.”

“But if these are now legal. If they say, ‘Don’t obey the Commander in Chief,’ what happens to the military?”

“Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That’s what would be considered a coup.”

“But it’s a coup already.”

“Yes.”
Naomi Wolf is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the sequel to the New York Times best-seller The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007).