The Isolation of Shared Experience

Video by Alan Watts 

http://www.trueactivist.com/gab_gallery/what-is-wrong-with-our-culture/

Sometimes you just gotta shake your head and move on.

On April 8, 2013, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request, seeking from the DOD: “Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes distributed or used by the Air Force.”

Under a section labeled “Extremist Ideologies” the document states, “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements.  The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”

Another section states that “Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publicly espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”

The highlights are mine, and I was ready to respond to these (adjective of your choice) statements, but what would be the point?

Please accept this in the spirit in which it was intended. . .

From

• Stephen Dunn
 

To

• holidayman58@yahoo.com

Dear NSA:

I am sending myself an email in the hopes that you read it, because (and I mean this from the bottom of my heart)

FUCK YOU!

Very truly yours,

Stephen Dunn

Who Can You Call When the Police Are the Ones Robbing You?

It starts with a sign that says “Welcome to Tenaha: A Little Town With Big Potential!” You exit a mini-mall, where you stopped for snacks for you and your two young sons. It is a bright Thursday afternoon. As you approach the city limits you hear the squawk of a siren. You glance in the rearview mirror and your heart sinks into your stomach as you see those flashing red and blue lights and a police interceptor riding your bumper. A "tall, bull-shouldered" officer comes up to your window and asks for your identification. You have no idea why you are being stopped. After several minutes, the officer walks back to your car, his right hand hovering uncomfortably near the grip of his pistol. He does not return your ID, but instructs you to follow him to the police station. You ask why and he just repeats, "Mam, I need you to follow me to the police station." He gets back behind the wheel of his cruiser and you have no choice but to follow. After all, you have your children in the car.

You enter the police station and the first thing you notice are two long tables in the corner "heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like." Now that you are in the police station, the officer that stopped you, and two others surround you and officer "bull-shoulders" says, "Mam, we are placing you under arrest. Please turn around." Your jaw drops open, the officer puts a hand on your shoulder and places you in handcuffs. He then proceeds to pat you down thoroughly, running his latex gloved hands under your breasts ard around your hips and thighs in front of your children who are now screaming and crying. You manage to stammer out, "Why are you doing this?" and the officer replies, "I smelt the odor of burnt marijuana."

This cannot be. Not only do you not have any drugs in your possession. Not only did you not use drugs in your car, but you have not even smoked marijuana in the ten years since you left college. You are placed in a cell and your children are ordered to sit on a wooden bench. After an hour, in which time you are not allowed to make a phone call or talk to your children, the officer finally returns and removes you from the cell. When you are brought back into the reception area, your children run to you but they are ordered back to the bench. There on the table are your cellphone, wedding ring, and watch, that were taken from you. Also on the table is $227 in cash that you had in your pocketbook.

The officer says, "Mam, you have two choices. You can sign your property over to the city of Tenaha or you will be arrested for child endangerment, in which case you will go to jail and your children will be placed in foster care." All you want to do is get out of there, so you sign their paper, and shaking from head to toe, you gather your children and leave.

When you make it back home, you fall into your husbands arms and sob uncontrollably. When you are finally able to explain what happened, your husband flies into a rage. He grabs the phone and calls your family lawyer, who refers you to someone he knows who handles these types of cases. A few days later you meet with the attorney who listens knowingly to your story. After you finish, he shakes his head and tells you that there is very little you can do. "You needn’t be found guilty," he says, "to have your assets seized by law enforcement, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture can be claimed, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence." To proceed against the Tenaha police department “would be like kicking a basket of rattlesnakes.”

Couldn't happen you say. Not in America in this day and age.

Well, this is very close to what happened to Jennifer Boatright, a waitress from Lubbock, Texas, as reported by Sarah Stillman in an excellent expose, titled "Taken," that appeared in the New Yorker. Boatright, who refers to herself as a honey-blond Texas redneck, said that the report filed by Tenaha Officer Barry Wasington stated that the children could have been used as possible decoys, meant to distract the police.

In 1984, Congress passed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. It established a special fund that turned over proceeds from forfeitures to the law-enforcement agencies responsible for them. Local police who provided federal assistance were rewarded with a large percentage of the proceeds, through a program called Equitable Sharing. Soon states were crafting their own forfeiture laws. The Act was intended as a law enforcement tool to seize the assets of organized crime and drug kingpins. Property suspected of being used in the commission of a crime or purchased with the profits from criminal activities could be "taken."

Lieutenant Harry Thomas, a retired officer from the Cincinnati, Ohio police department, explains in www.policestateusa.com:

I was around in the days of yore when the first drug forfeiture programs started. If you could prove that a guy’s stuff was purchased with the proceeds of drug trafficking, you could take the stuff. It was a great idea, and it hit these guys where they lived. And for a few years the law chugged along that way.

Then law enforcement administrators started thinking about just how much plunder there really was out there. That thing about proving that the guy’s stuff came from drug proceeds was a real drag. They said, “HEY! We have a great idea. Let’s take people’s stuff WITHOUT proving that it came from drug proceeds!!” And they did. The law was changed. Law enforcement didn’t need to convict people of anything. They didn’t even have to CHARGE them with anything. They could just take the stuff!

The way it was explained to me in training was that the stuff was being treated as a separate entity, independent of its owner. In other words, the guy wasn’t being charged with a crime. His car, or his house, or his cash was being charged with a crime. Stuff could now commit crimes, and be convicted of them. A cop could hold a trial at the side of the road, convict someone’s money of drug trafficking, and then put the money in jail.

Agencies scrambled to create drug “interdiction” units to patrol their expressways, such as the I-75 corridor from Florida to Michigan which runs through my city. In my agency, our higher-ups got so addicted to stolen money that there wasn’t enough in our city to satisfy them. They cut some kind of a deal with our county sheriff and got a team of our guys commissioned as deputy sheriffs. Now they could patrol our expressways all the way to the county line, miles outside city limits.

They’re still doing it. Just last week I drove I-74 into Ohio, and sure enough, there was a Cincinnati police unit just over the state line, nowhere near the city limits, watching for anyone who meets the “profile.”

So what to do with all that dough? Buy TOYS!!!

SWAT was the latest fad. Soon agencies all over the country were buying military hardware that had never before been needed or used in civilian law enforcement (this was before Congress passed laws allowing the military to GIVE surplus hardware to the cops). Questions were raised. SWAT is a legitimate concept, and is needed in cases of barricaded persons, hostage situations, etc. But most agencies, even big ones, go for months and sometimes years without experiencing such events. The toys gathered dust. Officials and concerned taxpayers asked, “What do you NEED this stuff for?”

No need? We'll CREATE a need! And that’s why things that used to be handled in a low-key, non-confrontational way by street-savvy beat cops now require SWAT intervention, including routine service of warrants for insignificant and non-violent offenses.

“The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window,” Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve.

The FBI website states:

To accomplish its goals, the Bureau provides training, resources, and operational assistance to field offices and entities to ensure that asset forfeiture is incorporated into as many investigations as possible.

The initial burden of proof in a judicial action is...probable cause. After seizure, the USA’s office must make an independent determination of whether the property can be forfeited. After finding the forfeiture action has merit, a verified complaint must be filed, in effect, charging the property with violating the law.

Sarah Stillman relates another case where the probable cause was "the odor of burned marijuana,” although no contraband was found in the car. “They impounded my car, and they impounded me, too,” James Morrow said, recalling the night he spent in jail. When he finally agreed to sign away his property, he was released on the side of the road with no money, no vehicle, and no phone. “I had to go to Walmart and borrow someone’s phone to call my mama.”

Ms. Stillman quotes several more cases, but this one is truly outrageous.

“I was almost numb,” Mary Adams, a sixty-eight-year-old grandmother with warm brown eyes and wavy russet hair, recalled. When I visited her this spring, she sat beside her seventy-year-old husband, who was being treated for pancreatic cancer, and was slumped with exhaustion. His wife, watched him attentively as he shuffled over on a carved-wood cane to greet me. Leon explained his attachment to their home in numerical terms. “1966,” he said. “It’s been our home since 1966.”

“I love digging in the dirt,” Mary Adams said, referring to their modest, marigold-lined front yard, and “sitting on the porch, talking to neighbors.”

Their home also proved a comfortable place to raise their only son. At thirty-one, slender and goateed, Leon, Jr., occupied a small bedroom on the second floor. When his father, who had already suffered a stroke, fell ill with cancer, he was around to help out. But, according to a report by the Philadelphia Police Department, the younger Leon, allegedly sold twenty dollars’ worth of marijuana to a confidential informant, on the porch of his parents’ home.

Leon, Sr., was in his bedroom recovering from surgery when he was startled by a loud noise. “I thought the house was blowing up,” he recalls. The police “had some sort of big, long club and four guys hit the door with it, and knocked the whole door right down.” SWAT-team officers in riot gear were raiding his home. One of the officers placed Leon, Jr., in handcuffs and said, “Apologize to your father for what you’ve done.” Leon, Jr., was taken off to jail.

The police returned about a month after the raid. Owing to the allegations against Leon, Jr., the state was now seeking to take the Adamses’ home and to sell it at  auction, with the proceeds split between the district attorney’s office and the police department. All of this could occur even if Leon, Jr., was acquitted in criminal court; in fact, the process could be completed even before he stood trial.

Mary Adams was at a loss. She and her husband were accused of no crime. Instead, the civil case was titled Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. The Real Property and Improvements Known as [their address]. For years, Mary had volunteered for the Philadelphia More Beautiful Committee, and as a block captain she always thought that civil forfeiture was reserved for crack houses and abandoned eyesores. Now her own carefully maintained residence was the target.

“I don’t even know what I’d do, being without a home in my condition,” Leon Adams said, his voice a raw whisper. “It’s scary, just even thinking about it.”

In the Colonial period, the English Crown issued “writs of assistance” that permitted customs officials to enter homes or vessels and seize whatever they deemed contraband. As the legal scholars Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen have noted, these writs were “among the key grievances that triggered the American Revolution.” The new nation’s Bill of Rights would expressly forbid “unreasonable searches and seizures” and promise that no one would be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process.”

Regarding the situation in Tenaha, defense attorney David Guillory from nearby Nacogdoches said, "These were roadside property waivers, improvised by the district attorney, which threatened criminal charges unless drivers agreed to hand over valuables. It was a highway-piracy operation, policing for profit.”

“It’s the Guantánamo Bay of the legal system," Guillory continued. He produced a nine-page spreadsheet listing items funded by Tenaha’s roadside seizures. Among them were Halloween costumes, Doo Dah Parade decorations, “Have a Nice Day” banners, poultry-festival supplies, a popcorn machine, a thousand-dollar donation to a Baptist congregation that was important to the district attorney's reelection, and a hundred-thousand-dollar police boat, and a twenty-one-thousand-dollar drug-prevention beach party. Subsequent reports confirmed that Barry Washington, as deputy city marshal, had received a total of forty thousand dollars in bonuses from the fund, and that these bonuses had bought luxury-car rentals and first-class plane tickets to New York, New Jersey, and California.

In Detroit, an initiative targeted gay men for forfeiture, under the “annoying persons” ordinance. The practice was referred to as “Bag a Fag.” Undercover officers would arrest gay men citing “nuisance abatement,” and seize their vehicles. Many people targeted by the practice are too intimidated to talk. What stands out is how pervasive and dependent police really are on civil asset forfeiture. "It’s their bread and butter," said a representative from the A.C.L.U.

"Thanks to civil asset forfeiture laws, possessions that took you a lifetime to acquire can be taken in the blink of an eye, or, more accurately, the flash of a badge. The forfeiture laws were designed as a new government weapon in the 'war on drugs.' But they've done little more than provide law enforcement with a license to steal."

Under current law, as the A.C.L.U. representative explains, "Law enforcement agencies need only meet a low legal standard - known as probable cause - before they can seize everything, from family photos to life savings. In recent years, forfeiture laws have become a major source of funds for law enforcement agencies as the value of property seized has soared into the hundreds of millions of dollars."

Last year, the program took in nearly $4.2 billion in forfeitures, a record.

Often there’s no chance of leniency from the court, either. According to a report in ProPublica, only 30 of the 2,000 civil forfeiture cases that occurred in Philadelphia between 2008 and 2012 ended with the judge rejecting the seizure. Other times, victims who aren’t even convicted come out of the case clasping to whatever assets remain.

Even a false statement on a loan application can trigger forfeiture. Physicians are subject to forfeiture of their entire assets based on a clerical error in medicare billing. In New Jersey, a man was accused of practicing psychiatry without a license because he was counselling people in his mother's home - even though counselling does not require a license - and the police confiscated his house and furniture. The government even tried to forfeit a farmer's tractor for allegedly running over an endangered rat.

"Even if you're a law-abiding citizen who's never been convicted of a crime, local police are allowed to confiscate your property and money and keep it for themselves, with the stipulation that this windfall be spent on programs likely to result in additional confiscations where the police can keep the booty for themselves," wrote Jennifer Abel in an October, 2007, article published by the Hartford Advocate.

In the Spring 2007 edition of Justice Policy Journal, Jared Shoemaker examines the negative impact on law enforcement goals and practices when police agencies aggressively pursue civil asset forfeitures as a means of supplementing their budgets, as well as how police agencies' addiction to forfeiture revenue leads to disregard for individual due process rights, sometimes with tragic and life-altering consequences for innocent individuals.

If they break into a house and the owner, thinking the intruders are thieves, takes hold of a gun to defend himself, the police can then shoot the resident. In Ventura County, California, a homeowner was killed this way, and no drugs were found in his property.

Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor of the Progress Report says, "The former owner has to pay a nonrefundable bond of 10 percent of the value of the property and pay attorney fees that can amount to up to $100,000. And if the government thinks the money you use to pay your lawyer is also tainted, it can seize that too, so it becomes impossible to hire a lawyer."

Civil forfeiture is being expanded by all levels of government into ever new activities. It can be a powerful weapon by government to stifle dissent. People become afraid to protest or change the laws, because the government will come after everything they own. The press will be afraid to criticize or even publicize this, because they too would become targets. We would then not be able to tell the difference between the police and organized crime.

"We need a Constitutional provision prohibiting civil asset forfeiture by all levels of government. Government should only be able to confiscate property if someone is convicted of a crime. Any action by government against an individual and his property should be a criminal, not civil, case. We need these reforms soon, before America becomes a police and terrorist state," says the A.C.L.U.

As Chip Mellor, president and general counsel of the Institute for Justice, points out, "This money may be used for better equipment, nicer offices, newer vehicles, trips to law enforcement conventions and even police salaries. Thus, law enforcement agencies benefit in a very direct way from every dollar in assets and currency they manage to seize and forfeit. This profit motive forms the rotten core of forfeiture abuse.

"These three factors incentivize forfeiture: by making it more profitable for the agencies that engage in it; by making it easier to keep seized property; and by making it more expensive and difficult for owners to challenge the action.

"When public officials and their agencies have a direct financial stake in the outcome of their actions, courts must subject such actions to even closer scrutiny than is done now. The Supreme Court held that an impermissible bias exists when the fact finder has a financial interest in the outcome."

The Atlantic Wire comments, "Forfeiture laws have noble intentions at heart. They're meant to give police the right, pending a judge's approval, to seize money, vehicles and real estate from drug kingpins, Wall Street con men, or mobsters. Bad people should not be able to keep the good things they buy with bad money. But more and more cases are popping up where civil law is used to seize assets in cases where no criminal charges are laid, and often against citizens who may not have enough money to properly defend themselves in court."

On June 11, 1997, Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties Union, testified before the Committee on the Judiciary Of The United States House of Representatives, on The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act:

Civil forfeiture as a whole stands outside the doctrines of due process and criminal procedure. Despite the widespread use and well documented misuse of civil forfeiture, it is an arcane legal doctrine which exists merely because of its historical foundation and its fiscal advantage to law enforcement agencies. While promoted as a civil cause of action, its ramifications are more akin to the harsh punitive aspects associated with the criminal system -- without any of the important fundamental constitutional due process protections for civil rights and liberties. This leaves many citizens unprotected from law enforcement's overzealous and unencumbered use of these laws. The time is long overdue to reform the unfair civil asset forfeiture system.

The Cato Institute published a report by the Institute for Justice, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture.” Most state laws are written in such a way as to encourage police agents to pursue profit instead of seeking the neutral administration of justice. The report graded each state and the federal government on its forfeiture laws and other measures of abuse. The results are appalling: Six states earned an F and 29 states and the federal government received a grade of D.

As the economy collapses, the police have become revenue generators.

“We all know the way things are right now, budgets are tight,” Steve Westbrook, the executive director of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, says.

Harry Thomas concludes, "Life is GOOD for law enforcement agencies! The only difference between them and pirates is the absence of an ocean. Highway robbery is back in vogue, literally!"

Lest We Forget

Fifty years ago today, at the "March on Washington," before an audience of 250,000 people, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed "I have a dream."

"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring -- when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children -- black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics -- will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

And today the bells did ring. Not for freedom, because we have not achieved that yet, but for the man who had the courage to stand up and say that a man should not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.

His voice rang out to those who stood in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial and across the National Mall to the steps of the Capitol itself. He spoke of Mr. Lincoln with a timbre and a resonance and a cadence that fired the conscience of a nation. He reminded us that the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was a promissory note, and that five score years later,  America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

He spoke these words in 1963, a time when lynchings were a way of life. When police brutality with clubs and boots and fire hoses and attack dogs was an every day occurrence. When in many states blacks could not vote or had to pay a "poll tax" to exercise their rights. A time when people of color could not gain lodgings in the motels along our highways. A time when segregation lived more in the hearts of men than in the streets of our cities.

President John F. Kennedy was so worried about what King might say, or the reaction of the crowd, that he had a Secret Service agent positioned by the podium ready to literally pull the plug.

Instead, Dr. King called those in attendance the veterans of creative suffering. He spoke in parables and metaphors, invoking scripture, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, the Constitution, and lines from "My Country Tis of Thee."

He admonished the gathering that "we can never be satisfied" until justice and freedom were the law of the land. The deep spirituality and rousing patriotism of the 17 minute sermon appealed to the mind of reason, inflamed the heart of brotherhood, and sent soaring the soul of righteousness.

To watch the speech in full (and every American should), please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

U2's tribute to "MLK" can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDH7oD_AQW8

Labor Day

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Consider the following definition of labor: production of raw materials, as in mining and agriculture; manufacturing or transformation of raw materials into objects serviceable to man; distribution, or transference of useful objects from one place to another, as determined by human needs; operations involved in the management of production, such as accounting and secretarial work; the service sector, including wholesaling, retailing and vending; professional trades such as carpentry, computer programming, performing arts, professional sports, and the sciences; and personal services such as those rendered by physicians, teachers, and waitresses.

Agitation for the recognition of Labor Day was begun by the Knights of Labor in 1882. The Knights of Labor hoped to gain their ends through politics and education rather than through economic coercion. The Knights strongly promoted their version of republicanism that stressed the centrality of free labor, preaching harmony and cooperation among workers and owners. On June 28th, 1894 Congress passed a Bill making the first Monday in September a legal holiday throughout the Union.

The form for the observance of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday: A street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations," followed by a festival for the workers and their families. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the civil significance of the holiday. Today, celebrations include rallies, picnics and cookouts, parades, speeches, and athletic and sporting events. Labor Day signifies summer's last hurrah and the return to business as usual. By Labor Day, the kids are back in school, football season is in gear, and the glorious fall and winter festivals hearken.

But in the true spirit of profit never taking a holiday, to take advantage of large numbers of potential customers free to shop, Labor Day has become an important sales weekend for many retailers in the United States. Some retailers claim it is one of the largest sale dates of the year, second only to the Christmas season's Black Friday. Ironically, because of the importance of the sale weekend, those who are employed in the retail sector not only work on Labor Day, but work longer hours. More Americans work in the retail industry than any other, with retail employment making up 24% of all jobs in the United States.

Perhaps most importantly, Labor Day is considered the last day of the year when it is fashionable to wear white.

This country was built upon Herculean feats. The building of dams, interstates, skyscrapers, aqueducts, levees, and telegraph lines, involved almost unimaginable engineering and labor. These monumental achievements may best be symbolized by the joining of the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869, and the driving of the Golden Spike.

Unfortunately, the entire history of mankind has been a war on labor. In Egypt, Greece and Rome, slavery was institutionalized. The "Dark Ages" were marked by indentured servitude under the feudal system. Much of early American commerce was based on slave labor, in both the southern AND northern colonies. After the Civil War, imported labor from China, and immigrant labor from Ireland, were used for the backbreaking and dangerous jobs of manifest destiny. After the turn of the century, attempts to unionize for better wages and safer working conditions were met with brutal reprisals and firings, and strikes were broken by police and professional strikebreakers from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, with many horrible injuries and great loss of life.

As the new century unfolded, the greed of the "robber barons," the excesses of the stock market, and the devastation of the dust bowl, converged to create the perfect financial storm that plunged America into the Great Depression. The collapse was so deep that it took a world war to pull the country out. With the aid of the G.I. Bill, the battle-hardened veterans got college educations and vocational training and went into business. These returning soldiers were backed up by wives and girlfriends who had held down the homefront by working in factories and raising families as single parents. The incredible war industry was turned to producing consumer goods such as automobiles, refrigerators, and televisions. The American Dream and middle-class were born.

This new working middle-class fueled an economic engine unparalleled in human history. Unionized labor won such concessions as a five day workweek, an eight hour workday, paid vacations, and benefits such as health care and retirement pensions. The next three and a half decades would mark the heyday of the unions. In the early 1950's, around a third of the United States' total labor force was unionized; by 2012, the proportion was 10%, falling to 5% for the private sector. Over the last few decades, unions' influence has waned and workers' collective voice in the political process has weakened. Partly as a result, wages have stagnated and income inequality has skyrocketed.

The change was ushered in when a former actor, Republican Governor of California, and staunch anti-labor ideologue, was swept into the White House. Ronald W. Reagan became President, when he was sworn into office on Tuesday January 20th, 1981. Now the business of America was first and foremost -- Business. The wealth of the planet would be mined and consolidated into the hands of the few, and the rest of us could live on the "trickle down" of the vastly rich and powerful.

More than any other labor dispute of the past three decades, Reagan’s confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or Patco, undermined the bargaining power of American workers and their labor unions. When Reagan fired nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers after they refused to call off an "illegal" strike, Ronald Reagan not only transformed his presidency, but also shaped the world of the modern workplace.

Air travel was significantly curtailed, as management, military air traffic controllers, and scabs who crossed the picket line were moved in. It took several years and billions of dollars to return the system to its pre-strike levels. The economic costs far outweighed the meager pay increases that Patco demanded, the strike prompted mainly by requests for shorter shifts and more time off. Studies showed that overwork of air traffic controllers dramatically affected safety of commercial air travelers.

The strikers were working class men and women who had achieved suburban middle class lives as air traffic controllers. Many were veterans of the U.S. armed forces where they had learned their skills, and their union had backed Reagan in his election campaign. Nevertheless, Reagan refused to back down. Several strikers were jailed; the union was fined and eventually made bankrupt. Many of the strikers were forced into poverty as a result of being blacklisted for employment.

The mass firing also polarized our politics in ways that prevent us from addressing the root of our economic troubles: the continuing stagnation of incomes despite rising corporate profits and worker productivity. Reagan’s unprecedented dismissal of skilled strikers encouraged private employers to do likewise. Phelps Dodge and International Paper were among the companies that imitated Reagan by replacing strikers rather than negotiating with them. Many other employers followed suit.

As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted, "that was an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers, and employers got that message loud and clear -- illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad." Union-busting consultants were hired by many employers to fend off unionization.

Reagan went on to appoint three management representatives to the five-member National Labor Relations Board, including NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson. Under Dotson's chairmanship, claims brought before the NLRB upheld employers in three-fourths of the cases. Even under Republican Richard Nixon, employers won only about one-third of the time. Reagan attempted to lower the minimum wage for younger workers, ease the child labor and anti-sweatshop laws, tax fringe benefits, and cut back job training programs for the unemployed. He tried to replace thousands of federal employees with temporary workers who would not have civil service or union protections. His administration closed one-third of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's field offices, trimmed its staff by more than one-fourth and decreased the number of penalties assessed against employers by almost three-fourths. In its place, Reagan sought "voluntary compliance" from employers on safety matters.

Ironically, decades before, Reagan was the first president of the Screen Actors Guild to lead that union in a strike.

The union movement has traditionally espoused a set of values -- solidarity being the most important, the sense that each should look out for the interests of all. From this followed commitments of mutual assistance, a sense of equality, a disdain for elitism, and a belief that democracy and individual rights did not stop at the plant gate or the office reception room. These values are increasingly foreign to American culture.

The most recent attack against organized labor came from Wisconsin. In a bitterly contested election, Republican candidate Scott Walker won the Governorship. One of his first official acts was an effort to strip public sector workers of collective bargaining rights. This unprecedented action caused one of the largest labor mobilizations in modern American history, when as many as 100,000 Wisconsin residents surrounded and occupied the state capitol in protest. Although the uprising reanimated the American labor movement in the wake of the Great Recession, Walker narrowly survived a recall vote and pushed through his anti-union agenda, thus crushing any hope for a labor revival.

Teachers in Wisconsin protested Walker's activities through “grade-ins” at administrative offices, petitions, and informal bargaining. The teachers were seeking a raise in wages, which sat, on average, below $10,000 a year.

Meanwhile, as Governor Walker sought to make a name for himself in national politics, other citizens in his state went unnoticed. Milwaukee is the largest city in the state and anchors the most segregated metro area in the country. For black men, the jobless rate tops 50 percent, and the incarceration rate for black males is the highest in the nation. With the loss of manufacturing jobs, Milwaukee has become a poster child for the decades-long decimation of private sector unions. The political center of gravity in Madison was far afield from the struggles of non-union workers and black and Latino communities.

Daniel R. Amerman, CFA, points out that the real U.S. unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%. That is a depression level unemployment rate that convincingly shows that the U.S. economy is in far worse condition than what is presented by the government or the mainstream media. The "headline" rate of unemployment does not take into account that if a person has been out of work for a long time, already has applications on file at every reasonable prospect, and hasn't filled out a new application recently -- then from an official perspective that person is not only no longer unemployed, but a non-person altogether. Alternatively, if someone with a master's degree in engineering, lost their job, and is working 15 hours a week flipping burgers at minimum wage to keep a little money coming in, then from an official perspective that person would be fully employed.

75% of the collapse in the private economy is being covered by increased government spending. The U.S. government is covering up a gaping hole in the private economy by having the Federal Reserve manufacture money out of thin air at a rate of over $100 billion a month. The current government approach is a lose-lose proposition that temporarily covers up failure at the cost of impoverishing tens of millions of Americans over the long term.

And while we're talking about flipping burgers, here is an example of what business, or management, or corporate America, or whatever you want to call it, does when left to their own devices. Bloomberg News reports that McDonalds has partnered with Visa to launch a website to help its workers making an average $8.25 an hour to create a budget. But while the site is clearly meant to illustrate that McDonalds workers should be able to live on their meager wages, it actually underscores exactly how hard it is for a low-paid fast food worker to get by. The site includes a sample “budget journal” for McDonalds’ employees that offers a laughably inaccurate view of what it’s like to budget on a minimum wage job. Not only does the budget leave a spot open for a “second job,” it also gives wholly unreasonable estimates for employees’ costs: $20 a month for health care, $0 for heating, and $600 a month for rent. It does not include any budgeted money for food or clothing.

Bloomberg News found that it would take the average McDonalds employee one million hours of work to earn as much money as the company’s CEO.

At the same time, McDonalds has begun paying their employees with payroll debit cards issued through J.P. Morgan Chase bank. Outrage has been building over the fee-laden payroll cards since the Times Leader reported on June 17 that Natalie Gunshannon of Dallas Township, PA. had filed a lawsuit against McDonalds for making the cards compulsory. The cards are loaded with fees that leave workers essentially paying the bank for access to their wages.

According to the lawsuit, the J.P. Morgan Chase payroll card carries fees for numerous transactions. They include a $1.50 minimum charge for an ATM withdrawal, $5 for an over-the-counter cash withdrawal, $1 to check the balance, 75 cents per online bill payment and $15 to replace a lost or stolen card. Government officials have endorsed payroll cards as a legal form of wage payment.

In regard to the suit, Natalie Gunshannon stated:

"I’m a young, single mom. When I started my job at McDonalds, I didn’t expect that the only way I would be paid would be on a debit card. When I asked if McDonalds could pay me through direct deposit to my local credit union, which doesn’t charge withdrawal fees, I was told that the debit card was the only option. The federal government has helped reduce fees on credit and debit cards that most consumers use, but those protections don’t apply to the kinds of cards companies like McDonald's are using to pay employees. In the end, when the fees from getting my own hard-earned wages through this card are taken out, my pay would go below minimum wage."

Bloomberg News noted that neither McDonalds nor Visa returned requests for comment by the time of publication.

The newest attack on labor is the Affordable Care Act. Many people believe that "Obamacare" is about healthcare reform. Others believe it is about healthcare control. Both are right, but the truly insidious purpose of this mammoth Bill (that was passed into law without one single Congressman or Senator reading it) is to increase unemployment.

NBC News filed this report:

To tell somebody that you’ve got to decrease their hours because of a law passed in Washington is very frustrating to me,” said Loren Goodridge, who owns 21 Subway franchises. “I know the impact I’m having on some of my employees.”

Goodridge said he’s cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 hours a week so he won’t trigger the provision in the new health care law that requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week. One employee who has worked at one of Goodridge’s stores for more than a decade said it was “horrible” to learn he was among the employees whose hours would be limited, and that it would be a financial hardship. “I’m barely scraping by with overtime,” he said.

Goodridge said offering health insurance to many more workers would require him to pass a significant price increase on to his customers. "The consumer only has so much money in their pocket," he said. "I just don't feel, knowing my customers and knowing my business, now is the time to be raising prices."

The White House dismisses such examples as "anecdotal." Jason Furman, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, said, “We are seeing no systematic evidence that the Affordable Care Act is having an adverse impact on job growth or the number of hours employees are working."

In a letter to Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has 1.2 million members, joined other labor chieftains in warning that the ACA as presently written could “destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the backbone of the middle class.”

UPS, the nation’s fourth-largest employer said that it will no longer offer health coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2014 to employees' spouses who can get it though other means. UPS cited the 2010 health-care law as part of its thinking. The shift is a sign of corporate America’s increasing willingness to make deep changes to benefits once taken as a given by workers. “The feeling is drastic times call for drastic measures,” said Rich Fuerstenberg, a partner at New York-based benefits consultant Mercer Inc.

I know first hand, the hardships caused by loss of health-care insurance benefits. In 2008 I was working full-time for a retail chain and had health insurance through work. I had to go in for emergency spinal cord surgery. Fortunately, my working relationship with my company was such that they held my position. After several months of rehabilitation, I was able to return to my job, but only on a part-time basis. I still had much physical and occupational therapy to go, as well as follow up doctor's visits, prescriptions, tests, and the possibility of further procedures. But due to my part-time status, I was no longer eligible to receive health insurance.

Another widely misunderstood factor of the war on labor is job loss. Most people believe job loss in America is due to outsourcing, the shipping of American jobs to other countries where labor costs are lower. To an extent this is true. We like to pick on China and say that all of these jobs are going to China, but they’re losing jobs as well. The reason for the job losses can be summed up in one word: automation.

Productivity gains spawned by automation are driving a worldwide decline in jobs, even in developing nations. Over the past decade, U.S. jobs have declined by more than 11 percent. But at the same time, Japan’s employment base has dropped by 16 percent, while the number of jobs in countries including Brazil have declined by some 20 percent. In India, growing use of automation is holding down job growth despite the large amount of outsourcing work that is flowing to the country.

According to a study by the Hackett Group, 750,000 more jobs in IT, finance, and other business services will go offshore by 2016, at which point outsourcing to low-cost destinations like India and China will slow significantly for two reasons. One is that, by then, most of what can be offshored will already have been. The other is that many of the functions that are currently being shipped overseas will have become automated in the next four years.

The study has a couple of key implications. The most significant is that the "jobless recovery" may be structural and thus permanent, and that no amount of anti-outsourcing legislation will change that. To quote Bruce Springsteen, "These jobs are going boys, and they ain't coming back."

But not only are currently employed Americans being besieged from all sides, but the outlook for Generation Xers and Millennials is grim.

Student loan debt has reached a new milestone, crossing the $1.2 trillion mark. This pushes student loan debts to dizzying new heights, as they now account for the second highest form of consumer debt behind mortgages. Student loan debts measure at 6% of the overall national debt. This is no small figure, and national debt carries many consequences including slowing economic growth (translating into fewer jobs being created) and rising interest rates. Capital will not be as easy to access.

With more and more emphasis being placed on a college education to compete, rising costs of an already expensive degree, and underemployment of college graduates running rampant, student loan debt is a problem that will cripple economic possibilities and success to come. For far too many young Americans, student loans have become a form of financial enslavement that robs the future of hope.

The AFL-CIO (The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) envisions a future in which work and all people who work are valued, respected and rewarded. While the AFL-CIO represents millions of working people who belong to unions and have the benefits of union membership, the labor federation embraces all people who share the common bond of work.

Work is what we do to better ourselves, to build dreams and to support our families. But work is more than that. Work cures, creates, builds, innovates and shapes the future. Work connects us all.

John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO said, "The union movement stands for the fundamental moral values that make America strong: quality education for our children, affordable health care for every person - not just some - an end to poverty, secure pensions and wages that enable families to sustain the middle-class life that has fueled this nation's prosperity and strength."

The United States currently has the highest levels of income inequality in the advanced industrial world, and the majority of U.S. workers have experienced declining real wages for 25 years.

In the marketplace, it's "one dollar, one vote." What that means is that in an election, a millionaire gets to cast a million votes, and a billionaire gets to cast a billion votes, or 3 times the entire U.S. population, through campaign donations and super-PACs. Elaine Bernard, the Executive Director of the Trade Union Program at Harvard University, and member of the Advisory Board for the National Jobs for All Coalition states:

The worksite is a place where workers learn about the relations of power, especially about how few rights they have to participate in decisions that greatly affect their lives. The autocratic hierarchy at work undermines democracy. It is not surprising that after spending eight hours a day obeying orders, people do not then engage in robust, critical dialogue about the structure of our society.

"Free" labor entails no rights other than the freedom to quit without penalty. That's one step up from indentured servitude, but a long way from democracy.

Workers have no right to employment security and no protection against unjust dismissal in the private sector, unlike workers in most other advanced industrial countries. The U.S. workplace is governed by the doctrine of "employment at will." As long as the dismissal is for "no reason," it's legal. Most Americans believe that there is a law that protects them from being fired for "no cause." But they're wrong.

Further tilting the balance of power against workers, the Supreme Court held that corporations are "persons" and therefore protected by the Bill of Rights. This means that employers are entitled to hold compulsory sessions to lecture employees on the employers' views of unions without granting employees or their unions the right of response. The First Amendment protects transnational corporations designated as persons, but not the rights of real persons as workers.

Lastly, I would be remiss if in talking about Labor Day, I neglected to say a few words regarding our current state of affairs. As you know from my 4th of July, Memorial Day, and other installments, I consider myself to be a very patriotic person and very committed to the ideals upon which this nation was founded. But I am also committed to the human race of which we are all part. When I see working families living below the poverty line, and middle class families struggling from one inadequate paycheck to the next, when I see our government turn a blind eye to corporate corruption, and Wall Street profiteers deliberately manipulating the markets, when I see the dampening effects of world politics on the global economy, I am angered. When I hear talk of jobless recoveries and double dip recessions, when highly skilled people trained in the most advanced technologies compete for entry level jobs, making it impossible for young and unskilled workers to make a living, when seniors who have diligently saved all their lives for retirement are forced back into a brutal job market just to put food on the table when their pensions and retirement funds evaporate, I am outraged.

The interconnecting structure of civilization is inconceivably complex, but there is a fundamental difference between the "me first" mentality of the 1990's and the "me only" mentality of the new millennium. I firmly believe that there should be a job that pays a living wage for everyone who wants one, and I uphold the premise that there should be a job for everyone using their God given talents. Governments and politicians won't effect change, people must effect change. For better or worse, we are all here at this time on this planet, and if things are to improve, there must be a conscious effort to do so by all of us. I don't have the answers, but maybe it is appropriate to say on Labor Day, that just working towards the goal of a better standard of living for every man, woman and child is the beginning of a solution.

I'd like to close with a few quotes:

"It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label." - Barack Obama

"The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds."
- Abraham Lincoln

"Our movement is of the working people, by the working people, for the working people." - Samuel Gompers

"People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights."
- The mission statement of the U.S. Department of Labor

"Live long and prosper." - Mr. Spock

So for everyone who has to punch the clock, but would rather punch the boss, I extend my wishes for a safe, healthy, and happy Labor Day. And remember, everyone's job is hard, that's why they pay you.

Every one in the world should read this every morning of their life

The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather'd race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow'rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
See in the east th' illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away--

from "An Hymn To The Morning"
by Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (1753 - 1784) was the first published African-American woman. Born in Senegambia, she was sold into slavery at the age of 7 and transported to North America. She served her master and wrote in Boston, Massachusetts, the birthplace of American liberty.

Absolutely, No Problem

Several disturbing articles have been coming out of Japan recently about the ongoing environmental catastrophe at Fukishima. There are imminent threats of meltdowns, uncontrolled chain reactions, and massive releases of radiation, into the air, the water aquifer, serving tens of millions of people, and an ever-expanding dead zone in the ocean. There is already planning underway for the permanent evacuation of Tokyo, and reported cases of radiation poisoning along the entire West Coast of the U.S.

Then I read this head shaking story by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and editor of naturalnews.com. In a totally bizarre attempt to mollify the residents of the affected area, the Japanese government has gone on a propaganda spree to convince the people that they are "safe."

The so-called Fukushima Radiation Health Risk Advisor, nicknamed "Dr. Brainwasher," has been touring Japan, giving speeches where he uses "a hypnotic, droning speech pattern to try to convince his audience of absolutely bizarre quack science beliefs."

The story was first broken by Uwamae Masako, who now lives in Taiwan after escaping Fukushima and leaving behind many friends and family members.

What follows is a true, [edited] firsthand account:

"I'm a mother who has two kids. I lived in Koriyama, Fukushima. When the earthquake happened, I heard from the radio that the nuclear plant exploded.

After the electric power was restored, we watched TV. Our government said that there was no direct effect, but I felt uneasy. The danger of the third reactor is different from others, because it generates power from MOX (mixed plutonium and uranium oxide) fuel. If the plutonium diffuses, it will be extremely dangerous -- it will make a lot of people die even if the diffuse amount is as little as one teaspoon.

Those big US corporations asked for their people who were within 80 km (even 100 km) to evacuate.

Many residents listened to the government, who claimed that people could live there without problems and enjoy outdoor activities as usual.

The expert, Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, even said that radiation wouldn't affect happy people. Many people believed him, because he is from Nagasaki, which had suffered from the radiation of the atomic bomb. However, the exposure to radiation is more complicated than you can imagine. The more serious problems included eating food that had been exposed to radiation. It was just like letting your internal organs be exposed to radiation.

Three months after the explosion, my friend who lived there told me that many kids there experienced serious nosebleeds and other symptoms like incessant diarrhea, chest pain, recurrent headaches and more severe allergies. Their faces were as red as if they had been sunburned and their vision became poor... After the explosion, more and more residents got sick. A junior high school student died because of acute leukemia.

I gave up my friends and my job, even my home, because I knew no matter how cautious I was, I couldn't avoid coming into contact with contaminated water, land and air, so the only thing I could do was to be far away from my home.

We finally came to Taiwan because contaminated food was everywhere in Japan, even in kids' school lunches.

Japanese TV news deceived people, saying that the rising radiation levels were because of atmospheric pollution coming from China.

Watch the Japanese propaganda video that promises radiation won't harm you if you just 'laugh'."

*
*

What follows are translated excerpts from the propaganda lectures given by Dr. Yamashita:

"To tell you the truth, radiation doesn't affect people who are smiling. Only those who are worried. This has clearly been demonstrated by animal studies."

"Drinking [of alcohol] may be bad for your health, but happy drinkers are less affected by radiation."

"Laughter will remove your radiation phobia."

"If you laugh, radiation won't get you."

"Internal exposure has 10 times less health risk than external exposure."

"Children can play outdoors. Absolutely, no problem"

"Adults over 20 years have very little sensitivity to radiation. Almost zero."

"Men don't have to worry. All we need to do is protect women, children, infants."

"Not a problem if you continue to live here. Just wash your vegetables, that's all."

"If the radiation level is below 10 microsieverts/hour, it's safe for children."

"I can tell you this, the health effects are minimal."

"We don't have to worry about the health effects of ordinary people."

*
*

In a video clip, Dr. Yamashita can be heard to say that the residents are "safe." When an audience member challenges him on that statement, Dr. Yamashita changes his language and says, "I try not to use the word "safe." I am hoping that you "feel" safe."

For the full transcript of Uwamae Masako's report, and to watch the video of Dr. Brainwasher, visit Natural News at:

http://www.naturalnews.com/041720_Fukushima_radiation_Japanese_government_propaganda_brainwashing.html

Elysium

I would love for love to be the answer. Love is definitely part of it. But evil can only be fought with good—and good cannot prevail without sacrifice.

This is the message that writer/director Neill Blomkamp delivers in the SF thriller Elysium (in classical Greek mythology, the blessed dwelling place at the ends of the earth to which certain favored humans were conveyed by the gods).

The moviemaking itself is by the book: The hero, Max, played by Matt Damon, faces insurmountable odds to save the daughter, who is dying of cancer, of his childhood sweetheart. Max must face a ruthless, indestructible mercenary and Jodie Foster (who steals the show) at her alpha-bitch best as Secretary of Defense Delacourt. In the process, Max takes a licking but keeps on ticking.

We saw the movie at an early Sunday matinee, and there were only five of us in the theater. The theater was small, what I would expect in a private screening room on Elysium. I had a bottle of water in my left cupholder, and a box of Raisinets in my right. What unfolded over the next few hours was a movie that was good, trying to be great—and almost making it. Blomkamp competently weaves many of today's hot button issues throughout the thoroughly entertaining fight scenes, gun play, and special effects.

Although the allegory is a little heavy handed (Blomkamp names a corporate CEO Mr. Carlyle, a nod to the infamous Carlyle Group), I couldn't help but smile and wonder how many others picked up on many of his inside jokes. Back on Earth, in a ghetto-ized LA, Spanish is spoken, with English as a second language. And playing on American Francophobia, the primary language on Elysium is French. I repeatedly winced, and fought down a rising anger, as I watched all the things I have been speaking out against, stare back at me from the screen. Failed immigration policies, a militarized robot police force, wealth inequality, healthcare only for the privileged class, total surveillance, unsafe working conditions (Max is exposed to a deadly dose of radiation), corporate greed and collusion with the government, and government employing mercenaries to carry out its dirty work.

The director warns us of the danger in letting loose the dogs of war, even to those who let them off the leash. And of course, the ultimate reminder that freedom is never free.

Movies are not created in a vacuum. And no matter how relevant the message or powerful the vision, the bottom line for greenlighting a project is the expectation of profit. Many of the issues underlying Elysium, are too often relegated to the conspiracy theory fringe. But catering only to that segment of the population, could never carry the movie on its own. Therefore, the powers that be must have determined that the themes of the movie must have appeal to a wider audience.

Will Elysium join the lexicon of great films? No. Will it be long remembered? Probably not. Am I glad I saw it? Yes, because it gives me hope. And after all, what more could you ask.