Not cheery news, but a dose of realism. As much as I avoid involving
myself in religion, other than to denounce it, the old Apostles had
this one right. We need to change our basic nature. But where they
got it wrong was in trying to get an outsider to come into their
lives. The Truth that sets us free is already inside. We just need
to look for it. As long as we enjoy violence, and that is what we are
doing, we will not find change possible. Even worse are those of us
who work so hard to change our Ruling Class and replace it with a
People's government. That has been tried over and over without
success. Anyway, I'm not going to wander down such a morbid path so
early in the week. My land line went out Saturday night during the
heavy wind storm, and the promise of repair has still not occurred. I
can't even access my voice mail with my cell phone, so I have no idea
if I have clients needing services. Good old Century Link. They
wanted me to buy some sort of repair insurance in case the problem was
my doing. I explained that all land lines on Snow Creek Road were
out, so it seems hard to believe that I was the cause of the outage.
Oh well, in the face of the end of the Human Species, my little
grumble is nothing.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/31/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> The Great Unraveling
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_great_unraveling_20150830/
> Posted on Aug 30, 2015
> By Chris Hedges
>
> In times of national crisis and public outrage, strange and dangerous
> candidates often arise. Above, Donald Trump. (Christopher Halloran /
> Shutterstock)
> The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by
> the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling.
> Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire,
> recognize
> that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global
> wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents
> promised, has been funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious,
> oligarchic
> elite, creating vast economic inequality. The working poor, whose unions
> and
> rights have been taken from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined
> over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and
> underemployment, making their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The
> middle class is evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and
> offered factory jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing.
> Corporations have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing
> them to stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying
> taxes. And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread
> democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into corporate
> leviathans.
> Democracy, especially in the United States, is a farce, vomiting up
> right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump, who has a chance to become the
> Republican presidential nominee and perhaps even president, or slick,
> dishonest corporate stooges such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, if
> he
> follows through on his promise to support the Democratic nominee, even
> Bernie Sanders. The labels "liberal" and "conservative" are meaningless in
> the neoliberal order. Political elites, Democrat or Republican, serve the
> demands of corporations and empire. They are facilitators, along with most
> of the media and most of academia, of what the political philosopher
> Sheldon
> Wolin calls our system of "inverted totalitarianism."
> The attraction of a Trump, like the attraction of Radovan Karadzic or
> Slobodan Milosevic during the breakdown of Yugoslavia, is that his
> buffoonery, which is ultimately dangerous, mocks the bankruptcy of the
> political charade. It lays bare the dissembling, the hypocrisy, the
> legalized bribery. There is a perverted and, to many, refreshing honesty in
> this. The Nazis used this tactic to take power during the Weimar Republic.
> The Nazis, even in the eyes of their opponents, had the courage of their
> convictions, however unsavory those convictions were. Those who believe
> something, even something repugnant, are often given grudging respect.
> These neoliberal forces are also rapidly destroying the ecosystem. The
> Earth
> has not had this level of climate disruption since 250 million years ago
> when it underwent the Permian-Triassic extinction, which wiped out perhaps
> 90 percent of all species. This is a percentage we seem determined to
> replicate. Global warming is unstoppable, with polar ice caps and glaciers
> rapidly melting and sea levels certain to rise 10 or more feet within the
> next few decades, flooding major coastal cities. Mega-droughts are leaving
> huge patches of the Earth, including parts of Africa and Australia, the
> west
> coast of the United States and Canada and the southwest United States,
> parched and plagued by uncontrollable wildfires. We have lost 7.2 million
> acres to wildfires nationwide this year, and the Forest Service has so far
> spent $800 million struggling to control conflagrations in California,
> Washington, Alaska and other states. The very word "drought" is part of the
> deception, implying this is somehow reversible. It isn't.
> Migrants fleeing violence and hunger in countries such as Syria, Iraq,
> Afghanistan, Libya and Eritrea are pouring into Europe. Two hundred
> thousand
> of the roughly 300,000 migrants to Europe this year have landed on the
> shores of Greece. Two thousand five hundred have died so far this year in
> the sea, on overcrowded and dilapidated boats or in the backs of trucks
> such
> as the one discovered last week in Austria that held 71 corpses, including
> the bodies of children. This is the largest influx of refugees into Europe
> since World War II, a 40 percent jump since last year. And the flood will
> grow ever greater. By 2050, many climate scientists predict, between 50
> million and 200 million climate refugees will have fled northward to escape
> areas of the globe made uninhabitable by soaring temperatures, droughts,
> famines, plagues, coastal flooding and the chaos of failed states.
> The physical, environmental, social and political disintegration is
> reflected in an upsurge of nihilistic violence driven by rage. Crazed
> gunmen
> carry out massacres in shopping malls, movie theaters, churches and schools
> in the United States. Boko Haram and Islamic State, or ISIS, are on killing
> rampages. Suicide attackers methodically commit deadly mayhem in Iraq,
> Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Israel and the
> Palestinian
> territories, Iran, Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Mauritania,
> Indonesia,
> Sri Lanka, China, Nigeria, Russia, India and Pakistan. They struck the
> United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and in 2010 when Andrew Joseph Stack III
> flew a light plane into a building in Austin, Texas, that housed offices of
> the Internal Revenue Service. Fanaticism is bred by hopelessness and
> despair. It is not the product of religion, although religion often becomes
> the sacral veneer for violence. The more desperate people become, the more
> this nihilistic violence will spread.
> "The old is dying, the new struggles to be born, and in the interregnum
> there are many morbid symptoms," the theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote.
> These "morbid symptoms" will expand until we radically reconfigure how we
> relate to each other and the ecosystem. But there is no guarantee such a
> reconfiguration is possible, especially if the elites manage to cling to
> power through their pervasive global security and surveillance apparatus
> and
> heavily militarized police forces. If we do not overthrow this neoliberal
> system, and overthrow it soon, we will unleash a Hobbesian nightmare of
> escalating state violence and counterviolence. Masses of the poor will be
> condemned to misery and death. Some will try to violently resist. A tiny
> elite, living in a modern version of Versailles or the Forbidden City, will
> have access to amenities denied to everyone else. Hatred will become the
> primary ideology.
> The attraction of Islamic State, which has up to 30,000 foreign fighters,
> is
> that it articulates the rage felt by the wretched of the earth and has
> thrown off the shackles of Western domination. It defies the neoliberal
> attempt to turn the oppressed into human refuse. You can condemn the
> group's
> medieval vision of a Muslim state and its campaigns of terror against
> Shiites, Yazidis, Christians, women and homosexuals-which I do-but the
> anguish that inspires this savagery is genuine; you can condemn the racism
> of white supremacists who are flocking to Trump-as I do-but what they are
> responding to is their similar frustration and despair. The neoliberal
> order, by turning people into superfluous labor and by extension
> superfluous
> human beings, orchestrated this anger. The only hope left is to
> re-integrate
> the dispossessed into the global economy, to give them a sense of
> possibility and hope, to give them a future. Short of that, nothing will
> stem the fanaticism.
> Islamic State, much like the Christian right in the U.S., seeks a return to
> an unachievable purity and utopianism, a heaven on earth. It promises to
> establish a version of the seventh-century caliphate. Twentieth-century
> Zionists seeking to form Israel used the same playbook when they called for
> the re-creation of the mythical Jewish nation of the Bible. ISIS, as the
> Jewish fighters who founded Israel did, is attempting to build its state
> (now the size of Texas) though ethnic cleansing, terrorism and the use of
> foreign fighters. Its utopian cause, as was the Republican cause in the
> Spanish Civil War, is attractive to tens of millions of youths, most of
> them
> Muslims cast aside by the neoliberal order. Islamic State offers a vision
> of
> a broken society made whole. It offers a place and sense of identity-denied
> by neoliberalism-to those who embrace this vision. It calls for a turning
> away from the deadening cult of the self that lies at the core of
> neoliberal
> ideology. It holds up the sanctity of self-sacrifice. And it offers an
> avenue for vengeance.
> Until we dismantle the neoliberal order and recover the humanistic
> tradition
> that rejects the view that human beings and the Earth are commodities to
> exploit, our form of industrialized and economic barbarity will collide
> with
> the barbarity of those who oppose us. The only choice offered by "bourgeois
> society," as Friedrich Engels knew, is "socialism or regression into
> barbarism." It is time we make this choice.
> We in the United States are not morally superior to Islamic State. We are
> responsible for over a million dead in Iraq and 4 million Iraqis who have
> been displaced or forced to become refugees. We kill in greater numbers. We
> kill more indiscriminately. Our drones, warplanes, heavy artillery, naval
> bombardments, machine guns, missiles and so-called special forces-state-run
> death squads-have decapitated far more people, including children, than
> Islamic State has. When Islamic State burned a Jordanian pilot alive in a
> cage it replicated what the United States does daily to families by
> incinerating them in their homes in bombing strikes. It replicated what
> Israeli warplanes do in Gaza. Yes, what Islamic State did was cruder. But
> morally it was the same.
> I once asked the co-founder of the militant group Hamas, Dr. Abdel Aziz
> al-Rantisi, why Hamas sanctioned suicide bombings, which left Israeli
> civilians and children dead, when the Palestinians had the moral high
> ground
> as an occupied people. "We will stop killing their children and civilians
> as
> soon as they stop killing our children and civilians," he told me. He noted
> that the number of Israeli children who had been killed at that time was a
> couple of dozen, as opposed to hundreds of Palestinian children. Since
> 2000,
> 133 Israeli and 2,061 Palestinian children have lost their lives. Suicide
> bombing is an act of desperation. It is, like Israel's saturation bombing
> of
> Gaza, a war crime. But when seen as a response to unchecked state terror it
> is understandable. Dr. Rantisi was assassinated in April 2004 by Israel
> when
> it fired a Hellfire missile at his car in Gaza from an Apache attack
> helicopter. His son Mohammed, in the vehicle with him, also died in the
> attack. The downward spiral, more than a decade after these murders,
> continues.
> Those who oppose us offer a vision of a new world. We offer nothing in
> return. They offer a counterweight to the neoliberal lie. They speak for
> its
> victims, trapped in squalid slums in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and
> North America. They condemn the grotesque hedonism, the society of
> spectacle, rejection of the sacred, profligate consumption, personal wealth
> as the primary basis for respect and authority, blind celebration of the
> technocrat, sexual commodification-including a culture dominated by
> pornography-and the drug-induced lethargy that are used by all dying
> regimes
> to keep the masses distracted and disempowered. Many jihadis, before they
> became violent fundamentalists, fell victim to these forces. There are
> hundreds of millions of people like them who have been betrayed by the
> neoliberal order. They are a powder keg. And we offer them nothing.
> The wretched of the earth increasingly do not believe in the efficacy of
> nonviolence. They saw how nonviolence failed in Tunisia, which contributes
> the largest number of jihadis to the fighting in Iraq and Syria, and how it
> failed in Libya, Egypt and Iraq, a country where the U.S. puppet regime
> gunned down nonviolent protesters in the streets. The wretched of the
> earth-including in the United States, where we are seeing a mounting number
> of assassinations at the hands of police, 23 so far this year-intend to
> counter state violence with insurrectional violence. They have learned to
> speak in the language we taught them. Keep shooting unarmed black men and
> women in the streets of American cities while ignoring the nonviolent
> protests calling for an end to the state lynching and terror, and guess
> what
> will happen?
> "Once their rage explodes, they recover their lost coherence, they
> experience self-knowledge through reconstruction of themselves; from afar
> we
> see their war as the triumph of barbarity," Frantz Fanon wrote in "The
> Wretched of the Earth," "but it proceeds on its own to gradually emancipate
> the fighter and progressively eliminates the colonial darkness inside and
> out. As soon as it begins it is merciless. Either one must remain terrified
> or become terrifying-which means surrendering to the dissociations of a
> fabricated life or conquering the unity of one's native soil. When the
> peasants lay hands on a gun, the old myths fade, and one by one the taboos
> are overturned: a fighter's weapon is his humanity. For in the first phase
> of the revolt killing is a necessity: killing a European is killing two
> birds with one stone, eliminating in one go oppressor and oppressed:
> leaving
> one man dead and the other man free."
> Do those in power read history? Or maybe this is what they want. Once the
> wretched of the earth morph into Islamic State, or adopt counterviolence,
> the neoliberal order can lift the final fetters that are imposed upon it
> and
> start to kill with impunity. Neoliberal ideologues, after all, are also
> utopian fanatics. And they, too, know only how to speak in the language of
> force. They are our version of Islamic State.
> The binary world the neoliberals created-a world of masters and serfs, a
> world where the wretched of the earth are demonized and subdued by a loss
> of
> freedom, by "austerity" and violence, a world where only the powerful and
> the wealthy have privileges and rights-will condemn us to a horrifying
> dystopia. The emerging revolt, inchoate, seemingly disconnected, is rising
> up from the bowels of the earth. We see its flashes and spurts. We see its
> ideology of rage and anguish. We see its utopianism and its corpses. The
> more despair and desperation are manufactured by the neoliberal order,
> whether in Athens, Baghdad or Ferguson, the more the forces of state
> repression are used to quell unrest and extract the last drops of blood
> from
> collapsing economies, the more violence will become the primary language of
> resistance.
> Those of us who seek to create a world that has hope of viability have
> little time left. The neoliberal order, despoiling the Earth and enslaving
> the vulnerable, has to be eradicated. This will happen only when we place
> ourselves in direct opposition to it, when we are willing to engage in the
> acts of self-sacrifice and sustained revolt that allow us to obstruct and
> dismantle every aspect of neoliberal machinery. I believe we can do this
> through nonviolence. But I am not blind to the inevitable rise of
> counterviolence, caused by the myopia and greed of the neoliberal
> mandarins.
> Peace and harmony may not engulf the Earth if we succeed, but if we do not
> remove the ruling elites from power, if we do not overthrow the neoliberal
> order, and if we do not do it soon, we are doomed.
>
>
>
> http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
> The Great Unraveling
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_great_unraveling_20150830/
> Posted on Aug 30, 2015
> By Chris Hedges
>
> In times of national crisis and public outrage, strange and dangerous
> candidates often arise. Above, Donald Trump. (Christopher Halloran /
> Shutterstock)
> The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by
> the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling.
> Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire,
> recognize
> that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global
> wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents
> promised, has been funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious,
> oligarchic
> elite, creating vast economic inequality. The working poor, whose unions
> and
> rights have been taken from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined
> over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and
> underemployment, making their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The
> middle class is evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and
> offered factory jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing.
> Corporations have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing
> them to stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying
> taxes. And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread
> democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into corporate
> leviathans.
> Democracy, especially in the United States, is a farce, vomiting up
> right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump, who has a chance to become the
> Republican presidential nominee and perhaps even president, or slick,
> dishonest corporate stooges such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, if
> he
> follows through on his promise to support the Democratic nominee, even
> Bernie Sanders. The labels "liberal" and "conservative" are meaningless in
> the neoliberal order. Political elites, Democrat or Republican, serve the
> demands of corporations and empire. They are facilitators, along with most
> of the media and most of academia, of what the political philosopher
> Sheldon
> Wolin calls our system of "inverted totalitarianism."
> The attraction of a Trump, like the attraction of Radovan Karadzic or
> Slobodan Milosevic during the breakdown of Yugoslavia, is that his
> buffoonery, which is ultimately dangerous, mocks the bankruptcy of the
> political charade. It lays bare the dissembling, the hypocrisy, the
> legalized bribery. There is a perverted and, to many, refreshing honesty in
> this. The Nazis used this tactic to take power during the Weimar Republic.
> The Nazis, even in the eyes of their opponents, had the courage of their
> convictions, however unsavory those convictions were. Those who believe
> something, even something repugnant, are often given grudging respect.
> These neoliberal forces are also rapidly destroying the ecosystem. The
> Earth
> has not had this level of climate disruption since 250 million years ago
> when it underwent the Permian-Triassic extinction, which wiped out perhaps
> 90 percent of all species. This is a percentage we seem determined to
> replicate. Global warming is unstoppable, with polar ice caps and glaciers
> rapidly melting and sea levels certain to rise 10 or more feet within the
> next few decades, flooding major coastal cities. Mega-droughts are leaving
> huge patches of the Earth, including parts of Africa and Australia, the
> west
> coast of the United States and Canada and the southwest United States,
> parched and plagued by uncontrollable wildfires. We have lost 7.2 million
> acres to wildfires nationwide this year, and the Forest Service has so far
> spent $800 million struggling to control conflagrations in California,
> Washington, Alaska and other states. The very word "drought" is part of the
> deception, implying this is somehow reversible. It isn't.
> Migrants fleeing violence and hunger in countries such as Syria, Iraq,
> Afghanistan, Libya and Eritrea are pouring into Europe. Two hundred
> thousand
> of the roughly 300,000 migrants to Europe this year have landed on the
> shores of Greece. Two thousand five hundred have died so far this year in
> the sea, on overcrowded and dilapidated boats or in the backs of trucks
> such
> as the one discovered last week in Austria that held 71 corpses, including
> the bodies of children. This is the largest influx of refugees into Europe
> since World War II, a 40 percent jump since last year. And the flood will
> grow ever greater. By 2050, many climate scientists predict, between 50
> million and 200 million climate refugees will have fled northward to escape
> areas of the globe made uninhabitable by soaring temperatures, droughts,
> famines, plagues, coastal flooding and the chaos of failed states.
> The physical, environmental, social and political disintegration is
> reflected in an upsurge of nihilistic violence driven by rage. Crazed
> gunmen
> carry out massacres in shopping malls, movie theaters, churches and schools
> in the United States. Boko Haram and Islamic State, or ISIS, are on killing
> rampages. Suicide attackers methodically commit deadly mayhem in Iraq,
> Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Israel and the
> Palestinian
> territories, Iran, Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Mauritania,
> Indonesia,
> Sri Lanka, China, Nigeria, Russia, India and Pakistan. They struck the
> United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and in 2010 when Andrew Joseph Stack III
> flew a light plane into a building in Austin, Texas, that housed offices of
> the Internal Revenue Service. Fanaticism is bred by hopelessness and
> despair. It is not the product of religion, although religion often becomes
> the sacral veneer for violence. The more desperate people become, the more
> this nihilistic violence will spread.
> "The old is dying, the new struggles to be born, and in the interregnum
> there are many morbid symptoms," the theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote.
> These "morbid symptoms" will expand until we radically reconfigure how we
> relate to each other and the ecosystem. But there is no guarantee such a
> reconfiguration is possible, especially if the elites manage to cling to
> power through their pervasive global security and surveillance apparatus
> and
> heavily militarized police forces. If we do not overthrow this neoliberal
> system, and overthrow it soon, we will unleash a Hobbesian nightmare of
> escalating state violence and counterviolence. Masses of the poor will be
> condemned to misery and death. Some will try to violently resist. A tiny
> elite, living in a modern version of Versailles or the Forbidden City, will
> have access to amenities denied to everyone else. Hatred will become the
> primary ideology.
> The attraction of Islamic State, which has up to 30,000 foreign fighters,
> is
> that it articulates the rage felt by the wretched of the earth and has
> thrown off the shackles of Western domination. It defies the neoliberal
> attempt to turn the oppressed into human refuse. You can condemn the
> group's
> medieval vision of a Muslim state and its campaigns of terror against
> Shiites, Yazidis, Christians, women and homosexuals-which I do-but the
> anguish that inspires this savagery is genuine; you can condemn the racism
> of white supremacists who are flocking to Trump-as I do-but what they are
> responding to is their similar frustration and despair. The neoliberal
> order, by turning people into superfluous labor and by extension
> superfluous
> human beings, orchestrated this anger. The only hope left is to
> re-integrate
> the dispossessed into the global economy, to give them a sense of
> possibility and hope, to give them a future. Short of that, nothing will
> stem the fanaticism.
> Islamic State, much like the Christian right in the U.S., seeks a return to
> an unachievable purity and utopianism, a heaven on earth. It promises to
> establish a version of the seventh-century caliphate. Twentieth-century
> Zionists seeking to form Israel used the same playbook when they called for
> the re-creation of the mythical Jewish nation of the Bible. ISIS, as the
> Jewish fighters who founded Israel did, is attempting to build its state
> (now the size of Texas) though ethnic cleansing, terrorism and the use of
> foreign fighters. Its utopian cause, as was the Republican cause in the
> Spanish Civil War, is attractive to tens of millions of youths, most of
> them
> Muslims cast aside by the neoliberal order. Islamic State offers a vision
> of
> a broken society made whole. It offers a place and sense of identity-denied
> by neoliberalism-to those who embrace this vision. It calls for a turning
> away from the deadening cult of the self that lies at the core of
> neoliberal
> ideology. It holds up the sanctity of self-sacrifice. And it offers an
> avenue for vengeance.
> Until we dismantle the neoliberal order and recover the humanistic
> tradition
> that rejects the view that human beings and the Earth are commodities to
> exploit, our form of industrialized and economic barbarity will collide
> with
> the barbarity of those who oppose us. The only choice offered by "bourgeois
> society," as Friedrich Engels knew, is "socialism or regression into
> barbarism." It is time we make this choice.
> We in the United States are not morally superior to Islamic State. We are
> responsible for over a million dead in Iraq and 4 million Iraqis who have
> been displaced or forced to become refugees. We kill in greater numbers. We
> kill more indiscriminately. Our drones, warplanes, heavy artillery, naval
> bombardments, machine guns, missiles and so-called special forces-state-run
> death squads-have decapitated far more people, including children, than
> Islamic State has. When Islamic State burned a Jordanian pilot alive in a
> cage it replicated what the United States does daily to families by
> incinerating them in their homes in bombing strikes. It replicated what
> Israeli warplanes do in Gaza. Yes, what Islamic State did was cruder. But
> morally it was the same.
> I once asked the co-founder of the militant group Hamas, Dr. Abdel Aziz
> al-Rantisi, why Hamas sanctioned suicide bombings, which left Israeli
> civilians and children dead, when the Palestinians had the moral high
> ground
> as an occupied people. "We will stop killing their children and civilians
> as
> soon as they stop killing our children and civilians," he told me. He noted
> that the number of Israeli children who had been killed at that time was a
> couple of dozen, as opposed to hundreds of Palestinian children. Since
> 2000,
> 133 Israeli and 2,061 Palestinian children have lost their lives. Suicide
> bombing is an act of desperation. It is, like Israel's saturation bombing
> of
> Gaza, a war crime. But when seen as a response to unchecked state terror it
> is understandable. Dr. Rantisi was assassinated in April 2004 by Israel
> when
> it fired a Hellfire missile at his car in Gaza from an Apache attack
> helicopter. His son Mohammed, in the vehicle with him, also died in the
> attack. The downward spiral, more than a decade after these murders,
> continues.
> Those who oppose us offer a vision of a new world. We offer nothing in
> return. They offer a counterweight to the neoliberal lie. They speak for
> its
> victims, trapped in squalid slums in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and
> North America. They condemn the grotesque hedonism, the society of
> spectacle, rejection of the sacred, profligate consumption, personal wealth
> as the primary basis for respect and authority, blind celebration of the
> technocrat, sexual commodification-including a culture dominated by
> pornography-and the drug-induced lethargy that are used by all dying
> regimes
> to keep the masses distracted and disempowered. Many jihadis, before they
> became violent fundamentalists, fell victim to these forces. There are
> hundreds of millions of people like them who have been betrayed by the
> neoliberal order. They are a powder keg. And we offer them nothing.
> The wretched of the earth increasingly do not believe in the efficacy of
> nonviolence. They saw how nonviolence failed in Tunisia, which contributes
> the largest number of jihadis to the fighting in Iraq and Syria, and how it
> failed in Libya, Egypt and Iraq, a country where the U.S. puppet regime
> gunned down nonviolent protesters in the streets. The wretched of the
> earth-including in the United States, where we are seeing a mounting number
> of assassinations at the hands of police, 23 so far this year-intend to
> counter state violence with insurrectional violence. They have learned to
> speak in the language we taught them. Keep shooting unarmed black men and
> women in the streets of American cities while ignoring the nonviolent
> protests calling for an end to the state lynching and terror, and guess
> what
> will happen?
> "Once their rage explodes, they recover their lost coherence, they
> experience self-knowledge through reconstruction of themselves; from afar
> we
> see their war as the triumph of barbarity," Frantz Fanon wrote in "The
> Wretched of the Earth," "but it proceeds on its own to gradually emancipate
> the fighter and progressively eliminates the colonial darkness inside and
> out. As soon as it begins it is merciless. Either one must remain terrified
> or become terrifying-which means surrendering to the dissociations of a
> fabricated life or conquering the unity of one's native soil. When the
> peasants lay hands on a gun, the old myths fade, and one by one the taboos
> are overturned: a fighter's weapon is his humanity. For in the first phase
> of the revolt killing is a necessity: killing a European is killing two
> birds with one stone, eliminating in one go oppressor and oppressed:
> leaving
> one man dead and the other man free."
> Do those in power read history? Or maybe this is what they want. Once the
> wretched of the earth morph into Islamic State, or adopt counterviolence,
> the neoliberal order can lift the final fetters that are imposed upon it
> and
> start to kill with impunity. Neoliberal ideologues, after all, are also
> utopian fanatics. And they, too, know only how to speak in the language of
> force. They are our version of Islamic State.
> The binary world the neoliberals created-a world of masters and serfs, a
> world where the wretched of the earth are demonized and subdued by a loss
> of
> freedom, by "austerity" and violence, a world where only the powerful and
> the wealthy have privileges and rights-will condemn us to a horrifying
> dystopia. The emerging revolt, inchoate, seemingly disconnected, is rising
> up from the bowels of the earth. We see its flashes and spurts. We see its
> ideology of rage and anguish. We see its utopianism and its corpses. The
> more despair and desperation are manufactured by the neoliberal order,
> whether in Athens, Baghdad or Ferguson, the more the forces of state
> repression are used to quell unrest and extract the last drops of blood
> from
> collapsing economies, the more violence will become the primary language of
> resistance.
> Those of us who seek to create a world that has hope of viability have
> little time left. The neoliberal order, despoiling the Earth and enslaving
> the vulnerable, has to be eradicated. This will happen only when we place
> ourselves in direct opposition to it, when we are willing to engage in the
> acts of self-sacrifice and sustained revolt that allow us to obstruct and
> dismantle every aspect of neoliberal machinery. I believe we can do this
> through nonviolence. But I am not blind to the inevitable rise of
> counterviolence, caused by the myopia and greed of the neoliberal
> mandarins.
> Peace and harmony may not engulf the Earth if we succeed, but if we do not
> remove the ruling elites from power, if we do not overthrow the neoliberal
> order, and if we do not do it soon, we are doomed.
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/growing_evidence_ties_high_antib
> iotics_use_to_type_2_diabetes_risk_20150831/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/growing_evidence_ties_high_antib
> iotics_use_to_type_2_diabetes_risk_20150831/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/growing_evidence_ties_high_antib
> iotics_use_to_type_2_diabetes_risk_20150831/
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/northern_forests_face_onslaught_from_hea
> t_and_drought_20150831/
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/northern_forests_face_onslaught_from_hea
> t_and_drought_20150831/
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/northern_forests_face_onslaught_from_hea
> t_and_drought_20150831/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/european_union_calls_for_emergen
> cy_talks_about_20150830/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/european_union_calls_for_emergen
> cy_talks_about_20150830/
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/european_union_calls_for_emergen
> cy_talks_about_20150830/
> http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/oliver_sacks_neurological_innovato
> r_and_awakenings_author_dies_at_82_201508/
> http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/oliver_sacks_neurological_innovato
> r_and_awakenings_author_dies_at_82_201508/
> http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/oliver_sacks_neurological_innovato
> r_and_awakenings_author_dies_at_82_201508/ http://www.truthdig.com/
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Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
[blind-democracy] When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family Heirlooms
The dehumanization of David Adier, causes me to explode in instant
rage. The frustration of knowing that David Adier story, and so many
others, will never be known to the vast majority of Americans. The
owners of our mass media will make certain of this. Added to this
article are the accounts of those people ten years ago who lost
everything they owned during hurricane Katrina, and were cheated out
of their insurances by the very companies they had trusted to protect
their property.
Why is it that when a robber sticks a gun in your back and says, "your
money or your life", he is considered to be a criminal, while the bank
or insurance company which makes off with your home or your premiums,
is considered a "Pillar of the Community"?
The answer ought to be obvious to everyone. The banks and Wall Street
companies make the laws. They make laws and rules that protect their
interests. And they own the police whom they charge with protecting
their laws.
The crazy part is that the Working Class folks seem to never figure
this out. The Working Class has been so dummied down that they seldom
question whose laws are controlling their lives. But then, isn't that
what happens after years of constant hammering by the propaganda
machine of the Ruling Class?
I tried talking to a friend about the insurance robbery that went
unpunished in New Orleans. He said, "Wow! That's horrid! Hey, I
gotta go, the Sea Hawks are coming on in five minutes."
Carl Jarvis
On 8/30/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Dayen writes: "The few remaining defenders of the Obama administration's
> failure to prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial
> crisis argue that the bankers' actions were unethical but not criminal."
>
> Well Fargo building. (photo: David Adier)
>
>
> When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family
> Heirlooms Rescued From Nazis
> By David Dayen, The Intercept
> 29 August 15 H
>
> The few remaining defenders of the Obama administration's failure to
> prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial crisis argue
> that the bankers' actions were unethical but not criminal. President Obama
> himself has made this claim: "Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall
> Street . wasn't illegal," he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes in December
> 2011.
> The president might want to take this up with David Adier, who says he was
> victimized by Wells Fargo breaking and entering into his family's home in
> Morris Township, New Jersey, and then committing property damage and theft.
> Burglary is a felony subject to prison time - if anybody but a bank does
> it.
> Adier's case is doubly disturbing because of what was taken: items his
> father retrieved from his family's apartment in France before fleeing the
> Nazis in 1940, including a Kiddush cup, a Seder plate and a sewing machine
> used by his grandmother.
> Adier has since filed suit against Wells Fargo. According to the complaint,
> Wells Fargo's contractors deemed the house abandoned, despite explicit
> instructions that it was not. The house had been in Adier's family for 40
> years, Adier and his sister had grown up there, and Adier's father had
> lived
> there until his death in August 2012. According to Adier, who lives 30
> miles
> away in Bayonne, he missed two payments on the home's mortgage over the
> next
> several months due to troubles with his small business. On November 29,
> 2012, Wells Fargo's contractors illegally broke in for the first time.
> "I feel like they ripped my family history from me," said Adier. "This was
> the house I grew up in, where I had nothing but great family memories.
> They've taken away my life, my childhood, my sense of security."
> Adier is not alone. Since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in 2007,
> banks have hired contractors to inspect properties in foreclosure and
> determine whether they are abandoned. If they make that subjective
> determination - based on overgrown grass, or a broken window - they are
> authorized to enter the home, change the locks, and "trash-out" the
> property
> by removing all belongings.
> Banks claim they must secure abandoned properties to protect their
> investment and fulfill responsibilities under state laws. But the
> contractors frequently get things wrong, illegally ransacking properties
> still inhabited by homeowners, spurring hundreds of lawsuits. "It's
> happening at exactly the same rate" now as during the previous seven years,
> argues Adier's attorney, Josh Denbeaux.
> Homeowners have been complaining for years about coming home to find that
> their keys no longer work. Contractors took the remains of Mimi Ash's late
> husband. They took Angela Iannelli's pet parrot, Luke. They took the
> American flag off a house belonging to Rick and Sherry Rought, who had
> bought it entirely in cash from Deutsche Bank after the bank had foreclosed
> on its previous owners. Nilly Mauck's condo was trashed because contractors
> mixed up the number of the property they were supposed to inspect. Nancy
> Jacobini's home was broken into while she sat on her couch; she locked
> herself in the bathroom and called 911. A year later, the same contractor
> broke in again.
> "I've got this client, they are away from their home," said Matt Weidner, a
> foreclosure defense attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida. "They come home to
> find a dude in there hacking their goddamn house apart. There's a hammer
> sitting in the wall, like they said fuck it, we're done for the day, we'll
> just shove this in here." The partially demolished home has sat that way
> for
> three years, amid litigation.
> Denbeaux blames the business model. According to contracts he has acquired
> in discovery, banks pay contractors a small fee to do the drive-by
> inspection, but several hundred dollars to padlock the doors, and hundreds
> more for a trash-out. "Whether they do a lock-out or a trash-out is based
> on
> a report by day laborers," Denbeaux said. "They know how to say the
> property
> is abandoned and make money."
> "I've had cases in which people had summer homes ransacked because they
> were
> 'abandoned' in January," Denbeaux continued. "Have you tried surfing on the
> Jersey shore in January?"
> Adier believes this kind of calculation led to the trash-out of his
> family's
> home. David's father, Henri Adier, escaped occupied France in 1940. The
> Nazis had sealed off apartments belonging to Jewish residents, and Henri
> and
> his family snuck back in to retrieve items of personal significance. "They
> made pains to keep the seal on," David said. "They took what they could get
> and fled into the night."
> Henri Adier eventually took those heirlooms to Morris Township after World
> War II, where he got married and taught French to students at Morristown
> High School. Later in life, David's mother contracted diabetes and Henri
> contracted Parkinson's disease. David cared for his parents for 15 years,
> with his father finally passing away in August 2012.
> The mortgage on the house was current at the time of Henri Adier's death,
> and David was the executor of the estate. His business was significantly
> damaged during Hurricane Sandy at the end of October 2012, making it
> difficult for him to catch up on the two payments then in arrears.
> Soon afterward, David's sister found stickers on the property from the
> mortgage services company LPS, saying that inspectors believed the house to
> be abandoned, and if they didn't hear from the residents they would
> "protect
> their interest in the property."
> According to the Adier lawsuit, David's sister called LPS and received
> assurances that nobody would take action. Nevertheless, LPS broke into the
> house on November 29, 2012, changed the locks and "winterized" the
> property.
> "I was shocked to find out they had ransacked the property," David said.
> "They opened every cabinet, every box and helped themselves to whatever
> they
> wanted." They even stole the brass door-knocker on the front of the house,
> David alleged, along with the relics his father had spirited out of France.
> The damage ruined any chance to rent out the property and generate income.
> During this period, when David contacted Wells Fargo, he was told he "was
> not the person on the deed." According to David, Wells Fargo asked for the
> death certificate, then paperwork affirming that he was the executor of the
> estate. He didn't get the right to talk to the bank until March 2013.
> Tom Goyda, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo, claims that "the home was
> unlocked and in disarray" when contractors came to secure it. He added that
> Wells Fargo was unaware of any items removed from the home until mid-2014.
> Under New Jersey law, mortgage companies are responsible for securing
> abandoned properties and can be held liable for code violations. Goyda said
> contractors performed exterior maintenance on the property to keep it to
> code. "While we hold our property preservation vendors and our own team
> members to high standards of honesty and integrity, and we take any claims
> like those being made in this case very seriously, we have found nothing to
> support the allegations made in the lawsuit."
> Adier countered that the house was not even in foreclosure when contractors
> first broke in - in fact, the foreclosure process did not begin until March
> 2013 and is still not complete. Even if a property is in foreclosure,
> without a court order banks do not have the right to enter if they are
> informed it is not abandoned. "They either need to own the property as a
> result of a sale, or they need a judge to say, even though this is not your
> property, you can go in," said Denbeaux, Adier's lawyer. "Wells Fargo never
> sought a court order in this case."
> Last year, the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency
> accused contractors of routinely disregarding signs of habitation and
> illegally breaking into homes. The inspector general called the practice of
> property preservation "largely unregulated" and riddled with fraud. The
> banking industry responded by promising stronger background checks of
> contractors. But the complaints have continued.
> Neighbors informed the Adiers each time contractors were on the property.
> Morris Township police refused to investigate, calling it a "civil matter."
> After years of what David Adier called a "cat-and-mouse game," he filed
> suit
> in New Jersey Superior Court last month, seeking compensation for
> trespassing and negligence.
> "It was a complete and utter violation," David Adier said. "I devoted 15
> years of my life dealing with my parents' health needs. I thought I'd be
> able to get some peace. I've had no peace."
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> Well Fargo building. (photo: David Adier)
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/28/wells-fargo-contractors-stole-
> family-heirlooms/https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/28/wells-fargo-c
> ontractors-stole-family-heirlooms/
> When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family
> Heirlooms Rescued From Nazis
> By David Dayen, The Intercept
> 29 August 15
> he few remaining defenders of the Obama administration's failure to
> prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial crisis argue
> that the bankers' actions were unethical but not criminal. President Obama
> himself has made this claim: "Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall
> Street . wasn't illegal," he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes in December
> 2011.
> The president might want to take this up with David Adier, who says he was
> victimized by Wells Fargo breaking and entering into his family's home in
> Morris Township, New Jersey, and then committing property damage and theft.
> Burglary is a felony subject to prison time - if anybody but a bank does
> it.
> Adier's case is doubly disturbing because of what was taken: items his
> father retrieved from his family's apartment in France before fleeing the
> Nazis in 1940, including a Kiddush cup, a Seder plate and a sewing machine
> used by his grandmother.
> Adier has since filed suit against Wells Fargo. According to the complaint,
> Wells Fargo's contractors deemed the house abandoned, despite explicit
> instructions that it was not. The house had been in Adier's family for 40
> years, Adier and his sister had grown up there, and Adier's father had
> lived
> there until his death in August 2012. According to Adier, who lives 30
> miles
> away in Bayonne, he missed two payments on the home's mortgage over the
> next
> several months due to troubles with his small business. On November 29,
> 2012, Wells Fargo's contractors illegally broke in for the first time.
> "I feel like they ripped my family history from me," said Adier. "This was
> the house I grew up in, where I had nothing but great family memories.
> They've taken away my life, my childhood, my sense of security."
> Adier is not alone. Since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in 2007,
> banks have hired contractors to inspect properties in foreclosure and
> determine whether they are abandoned. If they make that subjective
> determination - based on overgrown grass, or a broken window - they are
> authorized to enter the home, change the locks, and "trash-out" the
> property
> by removing all belongings.
> Banks claim they must secure abandoned properties to protect their
> investment and fulfill responsibilities under state laws. But the
> contractors frequently get things wrong, illegally ransacking properties
> still inhabited by homeowners, spurring hundreds of lawsuits. "It's
> happening at exactly the same rate" now as during the previous seven years,
> argues Adier's attorney, Josh Denbeaux.
> Homeowners have been complaining for years about coming home to find that
> their keys no longer work. Contractors took the remains of Mimi Ash's late
> husband. They took Angela Iannelli's pet parrot, Luke. They took the
> American flag off a house belonging to Rick and Sherry Rought, who had
> bought it entirely in cash from Deutsche Bank after the bank had foreclosed
> on its previous owners. Nilly Mauck's condo was trashed because contractors
> mixed up the number of the property they were supposed to inspect. Nancy
> Jacobini's home was broken into while she sat on her couch; she locked
> herself in the bathroom and called 911. A year later, the same contractor
> broke in again.
> "I've got this client, they are away from their home," said Matt Weidner, a
> foreclosure defense attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida. "They come home to
> find a dude in there hacking their goddamn house apart. There's a hammer
> sitting in the wall, like they said fuck it, we're done for the day, we'll
> just shove this in here." The partially demolished home has sat that way
> for
> three years, amid litigation.
> Denbeaux blames the business model. According to contracts he has acquired
> in discovery, banks pay contractors a small fee to do the drive-by
> inspection, but several hundred dollars to padlock the doors, and hundreds
> more for a trash-out. "Whether they do a lock-out or a trash-out is based
> on
> a report by day laborers," Denbeaux said. "They know how to say the
> property
> is abandoned and make money."
> "I've had cases in which people had summer homes ransacked because they
> were
> 'abandoned' in January," Denbeaux continued. "Have you tried surfing on the
> Jersey shore in January?"
> Adier believes this kind of calculation led to the trash-out of his
> family's
> home. David's father, Henri Adier, escaped occupied France in 1940. The
> Nazis had sealed off apartments belonging to Jewish residents, and Henri
> and
> his family snuck back in to retrieve items of personal significance. "They
> made pains to keep the seal on," David said. "They took what they could get
> and fled into the night."
> Henri Adier eventually took those heirlooms to Morris Township after World
> War II, where he got married and taught French to students at Morristown
> High School. Later in life, David's mother contracted diabetes and Henri
> contracted Parkinson's disease. David cared for his parents for 15 years,
> with his father finally passing away in August 2012.
> The mortgage on the house was current at the time of Henri Adier's death,
> and David was the executor of the estate. His business was significantly
> damaged during Hurricane Sandy at the end of October 2012, making it
> difficult for him to catch up on the two payments then in arrears.
> Soon afterward, David's sister found stickers on the property from the
> mortgage services company LPS, saying that inspectors believed the house to
> be abandoned, and if they didn't hear from the residents they would
> "protect
> their interest in the property."
> According to the Adier lawsuit, David's sister called LPS and received
> assurances that nobody would take action. Nevertheless, LPS broke into the
> house on November 29, 2012, changed the locks and "winterized" the
> property.
> "I was shocked to find out they had ransacked the property," David said.
> "They opened every cabinet, every box and helped themselves to whatever
> they
> wanted." They even stole the brass door-knocker on the front of the house,
> David alleged, along with the relics his father had spirited out of France.
> The damage ruined any chance to rent out the property and generate income.
> During this period, when David contacted Wells Fargo, he was told he "was
> not the person on the deed." According to David, Wells Fargo asked for the
> death certificate, then paperwork affirming that he was the executor of the
> estate. He didn't get the right to talk to the bank until March 2013.
> Tom Goyda, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo, claims that "the home was
> unlocked and in disarray" when contractors came to secure it. He added that
> Wells Fargo was unaware of any items removed from the home until mid-2014.
> Under New Jersey law, mortgage companies are responsible for securing
> abandoned properties and can be held liable for code violations. Goyda said
> contractors performed exterior maintenance on the property to keep it to
> code. "While we hold our property preservation vendors and our own team
> members to high standards of honesty and integrity, and we take any claims
> like those being made in this case very seriously, we have found nothing to
> support the allegations made in the lawsuit."
> Adier countered that the house was not even in foreclosure when contractors
> first broke in - in fact, the foreclosure process did not begin until March
> 2013 and is still not complete. Even if a property is in foreclosure,
> without a court order banks do not have the right to enter if they are
> informed it is not abandoned. "They either need to own the property as a
> result of a sale, or they need a judge to say, even though this is not your
> property, you can go in," said Denbeaux, Adier's lawyer. "Wells Fargo never
> sought a court order in this case."
> Last year, the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency
> accused contractors of routinely disregarding signs of habitation and
> illegally breaking into homes. The inspector general called the practice of
> property preservation "largely unregulated" and riddled with fraud. The
> banking industry responded by promising stronger background checks of
> contractors. But the complaints have continued.
> Neighbors informed the Adiers each time contractors were on the property.
> Morris Township police refused to investigate, calling it a "civil matter."
> After years of what David Adier called a "cat-and-mouse game," he filed
> suit
> in New Jersey Superior Court last month, seeking compensation for
> trespassing and negligence.
> "It was a complete and utter violation," David Adier said. "I devoted 15
> years of my life dealing with my parents' health needs. I thought I'd be
> able to get some peace. I've had no peace."
>
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>
rage. The frustration of knowing that David Adier story, and so many
others, will never be known to the vast majority of Americans. The
owners of our mass media will make certain of this. Added to this
article are the accounts of those people ten years ago who lost
everything they owned during hurricane Katrina, and were cheated out
of their insurances by the very companies they had trusted to protect
their property.
Why is it that when a robber sticks a gun in your back and says, "your
money or your life", he is considered to be a criminal, while the bank
or insurance company which makes off with your home or your premiums,
is considered a "Pillar of the Community"?
The answer ought to be obvious to everyone. The banks and Wall Street
companies make the laws. They make laws and rules that protect their
interests. And they own the police whom they charge with protecting
their laws.
The crazy part is that the Working Class folks seem to never figure
this out. The Working Class has been so dummied down that they seldom
question whose laws are controlling their lives. But then, isn't that
what happens after years of constant hammering by the propaganda
machine of the Ruling Class?
I tried talking to a friend about the insurance robbery that went
unpunished in New Orleans. He said, "Wow! That's horrid! Hey, I
gotta go, the Sea Hawks are coming on in five minutes."
Carl Jarvis
On 8/30/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Dayen writes: "The few remaining defenders of the Obama administration's
> failure to prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial
> crisis argue that the bankers' actions were unethical but not criminal."
>
> Well Fargo building. (photo: David Adier)
>
>
> When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family
> Heirlooms Rescued From Nazis
> By David Dayen, The Intercept
> 29 August 15 H
>
> The few remaining defenders of the Obama administration's failure to
> prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial crisis argue
> that the bankers' actions were unethical but not criminal. President Obama
> himself has made this claim: "Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall
> Street . wasn't illegal," he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes in December
> 2011.
> The president might want to take this up with David Adier, who says he was
> victimized by Wells Fargo breaking and entering into his family's home in
> Morris Township, New Jersey, and then committing property damage and theft.
> Burglary is a felony subject to prison time - if anybody but a bank does
> it.
> Adier's case is doubly disturbing because of what was taken: items his
> father retrieved from his family's apartment in France before fleeing the
> Nazis in 1940, including a Kiddush cup, a Seder plate and a sewing machine
> used by his grandmother.
> Adier has since filed suit against Wells Fargo. According to the complaint,
> Wells Fargo's contractors deemed the house abandoned, despite explicit
> instructions that it was not. The house had been in Adier's family for 40
> years, Adier and his sister had grown up there, and Adier's father had
> lived
> there until his death in August 2012. According to Adier, who lives 30
> miles
> away in Bayonne, he missed two payments on the home's mortgage over the
> next
> several months due to troubles with his small business. On November 29,
> 2012, Wells Fargo's contractors illegally broke in for the first time.
> "I feel like they ripped my family history from me," said Adier. "This was
> the house I grew up in, where I had nothing but great family memories.
> They've taken away my life, my childhood, my sense of security."
> Adier is not alone. Since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in 2007,
> banks have hired contractors to inspect properties in foreclosure and
> determine whether they are abandoned. If they make that subjective
> determination - based on overgrown grass, or a broken window - they are
> authorized to enter the home, change the locks, and "trash-out" the
> property
> by removing all belongings.
> Banks claim they must secure abandoned properties to protect their
> investment and fulfill responsibilities under state laws. But the
> contractors frequently get things wrong, illegally ransacking properties
> still inhabited by homeowners, spurring hundreds of lawsuits. "It's
> happening at exactly the same rate" now as during the previous seven years,
> argues Adier's attorney, Josh Denbeaux.
> Homeowners have been complaining for years about coming home to find that
> their keys no longer work. Contractors took the remains of Mimi Ash's late
> husband. They took Angela Iannelli's pet parrot, Luke. They took the
> American flag off a house belonging to Rick and Sherry Rought, who had
> bought it entirely in cash from Deutsche Bank after the bank had foreclosed
> on its previous owners. Nilly Mauck's condo was trashed because contractors
> mixed up the number of the property they were supposed to inspect. Nancy
> Jacobini's home was broken into while she sat on her couch; she locked
> herself in the bathroom and called 911. A year later, the same contractor
> broke in again.
> "I've got this client, they are away from their home," said Matt Weidner, a
> foreclosure defense attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida. "They come home to
> find a dude in there hacking their goddamn house apart. There's a hammer
> sitting in the wall, like they said fuck it, we're done for the day, we'll
> just shove this in here." The partially demolished home has sat that way
> for
> three years, amid litigation.
> Denbeaux blames the business model. According to contracts he has acquired
> in discovery, banks pay contractors a small fee to do the drive-by
> inspection, but several hundred dollars to padlock the doors, and hundreds
> more for a trash-out. "Whether they do a lock-out or a trash-out is based
> on
> a report by day laborers," Denbeaux said. "They know how to say the
> property
> is abandoned and make money."
> "I've had cases in which people had summer homes ransacked because they
> were
> 'abandoned' in January," Denbeaux continued. "Have you tried surfing on the
> Jersey shore in January?"
> Adier believes this kind of calculation led to the trash-out of his
> family's
> home. David's father, Henri Adier, escaped occupied France in 1940. The
> Nazis had sealed off apartments belonging to Jewish residents, and Henri
> and
> his family snuck back in to retrieve items of personal significance. "They
> made pains to keep the seal on," David said. "They took what they could get
> and fled into the night."
> Henri Adier eventually took those heirlooms to Morris Township after World
> War II, where he got married and taught French to students at Morristown
> High School. Later in life, David's mother contracted diabetes and Henri
> contracted Parkinson's disease. David cared for his parents for 15 years,
> with his father finally passing away in August 2012.
> The mortgage on the house was current at the time of Henri Adier's death,
> and David was the executor of the estate. His business was significantly
> damaged during Hurricane Sandy at the end of October 2012, making it
> difficult for him to catch up on the two payments then in arrears.
> Soon afterward, David's sister found stickers on the property from the
> mortgage services company LPS, saying that inspectors believed the house to
> be abandoned, and if they didn't hear from the residents they would
> "protect
> their interest in the property."
> According to the Adier lawsuit, David's sister called LPS and received
> assurances that nobody would take action. Nevertheless, LPS broke into the
> house on November 29, 2012, changed the locks and "winterized" the
> property.
> "I was shocked to find out they had ransacked the property," David said.
> "They opened every cabinet, every box and helped themselves to whatever
> they
> wanted." They even stole the brass door-knocker on the front of the house,
> David alleged, along with the relics his father had spirited out of France.
> The damage ruined any chance to rent out the property and generate income.
> During this period, when David contacted Wells Fargo, he was told he "was
> not the person on the deed." According to David, Wells Fargo asked for the
> death certificate, then paperwork affirming that he was the executor of the
> estate. He didn't get the right to talk to the bank until March 2013.
> Tom Goyda, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo, claims that "the home was
> unlocked and in disarray" when contractors came to secure it. He added that
> Wells Fargo was unaware of any items removed from the home until mid-2014.
> Under New Jersey law, mortgage companies are responsible for securing
> abandoned properties and can be held liable for code violations. Goyda said
> contractors performed exterior maintenance on the property to keep it to
> code. "While we hold our property preservation vendors and our own team
> members to high standards of honesty and integrity, and we take any claims
> like those being made in this case very seriously, we have found nothing to
> support the allegations made in the lawsuit."
> Adier countered that the house was not even in foreclosure when contractors
> first broke in - in fact, the foreclosure process did not begin until March
> 2013 and is still not complete. Even if a property is in foreclosure,
> without a court order banks do not have the right to enter if they are
> informed it is not abandoned. "They either need to own the property as a
> result of a sale, or they need a judge to say, even though this is not your
> property, you can go in," said Denbeaux, Adier's lawyer. "Wells Fargo never
> sought a court order in this case."
> Last year, the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency
> accused contractors of routinely disregarding signs of habitation and
> illegally breaking into homes. The inspector general called the practice of
> property preservation "largely unregulated" and riddled with fraud. The
> banking industry responded by promising stronger background checks of
> contractors. But the complaints have continued.
> Neighbors informed the Adiers each time contractors were on the property.
> Morris Township police refused to investigate, calling it a "civil matter."
> After years of what David Adier called a "cat-and-mouse game," he filed
> suit
> in New Jersey Superior Court last month, seeking compensation for
> trespassing and negligence.
> "It was a complete and utter violation," David Adier said. "I devoted 15
> years of my life dealing with my parents' health needs. I thought I'd be
> able to get some peace. I've had no peace."
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> Well Fargo building. (photo: David Adier)
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/28/wells-fargo-contractors-stole-
> family-heirlooms/https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/28/wells-fargo-c
> ontractors-stole-family-heirlooms/
> When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family
> Heirlooms Rescued From Nazis
> By David Dayen, The Intercept
> 29 August 15
> he few remaining defenders of the Obama administration's failure to
> prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial crisis argue
> that the bankers' actions were unethical but not criminal. President Obama
> himself has made this claim: "Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall
> Street . wasn't illegal," he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes in December
> 2011.
> The president might want to take this up with David Adier, who says he was
> victimized by Wells Fargo breaking and entering into his family's home in
> Morris Township, New Jersey, and then committing property damage and theft.
> Burglary is a felony subject to prison time - if anybody but a bank does
> it.
> Adier's case is doubly disturbing because of what was taken: items his
> father retrieved from his family's apartment in France before fleeing the
> Nazis in 1940, including a Kiddush cup, a Seder plate and a sewing machine
> used by his grandmother.
> Adier has since filed suit against Wells Fargo. According to the complaint,
> Wells Fargo's contractors deemed the house abandoned, despite explicit
> instructions that it was not. The house had been in Adier's family for 40
> years, Adier and his sister had grown up there, and Adier's father had
> lived
> there until his death in August 2012. According to Adier, who lives 30
> miles
> away in Bayonne, he missed two payments on the home's mortgage over the
> next
> several months due to troubles with his small business. On November 29,
> 2012, Wells Fargo's contractors illegally broke in for the first time.
> "I feel like they ripped my family history from me," said Adier. "This was
> the house I grew up in, where I had nothing but great family memories.
> They've taken away my life, my childhood, my sense of security."
> Adier is not alone. Since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in 2007,
> banks have hired contractors to inspect properties in foreclosure and
> determine whether they are abandoned. If they make that subjective
> determination - based on overgrown grass, or a broken window - they are
> authorized to enter the home, change the locks, and "trash-out" the
> property
> by removing all belongings.
> Banks claim they must secure abandoned properties to protect their
> investment and fulfill responsibilities under state laws. But the
> contractors frequently get things wrong, illegally ransacking properties
> still inhabited by homeowners, spurring hundreds of lawsuits. "It's
> happening at exactly the same rate" now as during the previous seven years,
> argues Adier's attorney, Josh Denbeaux.
> Homeowners have been complaining for years about coming home to find that
> their keys no longer work. Contractors took the remains of Mimi Ash's late
> husband. They took Angela Iannelli's pet parrot, Luke. They took the
> American flag off a house belonging to Rick and Sherry Rought, who had
> bought it entirely in cash from Deutsche Bank after the bank had foreclosed
> on its previous owners. Nilly Mauck's condo was trashed because contractors
> mixed up the number of the property they were supposed to inspect. Nancy
> Jacobini's home was broken into while she sat on her couch; she locked
> herself in the bathroom and called 911. A year later, the same contractor
> broke in again.
> "I've got this client, they are away from their home," said Matt Weidner, a
> foreclosure defense attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida. "They come home to
> find a dude in there hacking their goddamn house apart. There's a hammer
> sitting in the wall, like they said fuck it, we're done for the day, we'll
> just shove this in here." The partially demolished home has sat that way
> for
> three years, amid litigation.
> Denbeaux blames the business model. According to contracts he has acquired
> in discovery, banks pay contractors a small fee to do the drive-by
> inspection, but several hundred dollars to padlock the doors, and hundreds
> more for a trash-out. "Whether they do a lock-out or a trash-out is based
> on
> a report by day laborers," Denbeaux said. "They know how to say the
> property
> is abandoned and make money."
> "I've had cases in which people had summer homes ransacked because they
> were
> 'abandoned' in January," Denbeaux continued. "Have you tried surfing on the
> Jersey shore in January?"
> Adier believes this kind of calculation led to the trash-out of his
> family's
> home. David's father, Henri Adier, escaped occupied France in 1940. The
> Nazis had sealed off apartments belonging to Jewish residents, and Henri
> and
> his family snuck back in to retrieve items of personal significance. "They
> made pains to keep the seal on," David said. "They took what they could get
> and fled into the night."
> Henri Adier eventually took those heirlooms to Morris Township after World
> War II, where he got married and taught French to students at Morristown
> High School. Later in life, David's mother contracted diabetes and Henri
> contracted Parkinson's disease. David cared for his parents for 15 years,
> with his father finally passing away in August 2012.
> The mortgage on the house was current at the time of Henri Adier's death,
> and David was the executor of the estate. His business was significantly
> damaged during Hurricane Sandy at the end of October 2012, making it
> difficult for him to catch up on the two payments then in arrears.
> Soon afterward, David's sister found stickers on the property from the
> mortgage services company LPS, saying that inspectors believed the house to
> be abandoned, and if they didn't hear from the residents they would
> "protect
> their interest in the property."
> According to the Adier lawsuit, David's sister called LPS and received
> assurances that nobody would take action. Nevertheless, LPS broke into the
> house on November 29, 2012, changed the locks and "winterized" the
> property.
> "I was shocked to find out they had ransacked the property," David said.
> "They opened every cabinet, every box and helped themselves to whatever
> they
> wanted." They even stole the brass door-knocker on the front of the house,
> David alleged, along with the relics his father had spirited out of France.
> The damage ruined any chance to rent out the property and generate income.
> During this period, when David contacted Wells Fargo, he was told he "was
> not the person on the deed." According to David, Wells Fargo asked for the
> death certificate, then paperwork affirming that he was the executor of the
> estate. He didn't get the right to talk to the bank until March 2013.
> Tom Goyda, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo, claims that "the home was
> unlocked and in disarray" when contractors came to secure it. He added that
> Wells Fargo was unaware of any items removed from the home until mid-2014.
> Under New Jersey law, mortgage companies are responsible for securing
> abandoned properties and can be held liable for code violations. Goyda said
> contractors performed exterior maintenance on the property to keep it to
> code. "While we hold our property preservation vendors and our own team
> members to high standards of honesty and integrity, and we take any claims
> like those being made in this case very seriously, we have found nothing to
> support the allegations made in the lawsuit."
> Adier countered that the house was not even in foreclosure when contractors
> first broke in - in fact, the foreclosure process did not begin until March
> 2013 and is still not complete. Even if a property is in foreclosure,
> without a court order banks do not have the right to enter if they are
> informed it is not abandoned. "They either need to own the property as a
> result of a sale, or they need a judge to say, even though this is not your
> property, you can go in," said Denbeaux, Adier's lawyer. "Wells Fargo never
> sought a court order in this case."
> Last year, the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency
> accused contractors of routinely disregarding signs of habitation and
> illegally breaking into homes. The inspector general called the practice of
> property preservation "largely unregulated" and riddled with fraud. The
> banking industry responded by promising stronger background checks of
> contractors. But the complaints have continued.
> Neighbors informed the Adiers each time contractors were on the property.
> Morris Township police refused to investigate, calling it a "civil matter."
> After years of what David Adier called a "cat-and-mouse game," he filed
> suit
> in New Jersey Superior Court last month, seeking compensation for
> trespassing and negligence.
> "It was a complete and utter violation," David Adier said. "I devoted 15
> years of my life dealing with my parents' health needs. I thought I'd be
> able to get some peace. I've had no peace."
>
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>
Saturday, August 29, 2015
[blind-democracy] A Fresh Look At Home Schooling
A very interesting article, Bob. Thanks.
Here is my first concern. Where are the children of poor working class
families in this wonderful world of home teaching? I have several
friends and neighbors who home schooled their children. Some did this
from early grades through high school. Some did an, "In and Out"
thing, where they sent their children to public school for a year and
then home schooled them for a time, sending them back again.
Regardless of the differing approaches, those families who did home
schooling had children completing their education at a higher level
than their peers in standard public schools, or in private religious
schools.
So if this is the difference around the nation, how do we bring the
advantages of home schooling into the lives of the children who need
it the most? If we are going to break down prejudice and
discrimination, enlightening our nation's children has to be high on
the list of things to do.
Anyway, we need to block all the eager profiteers pushing into the
field of education, and we need to move toward elevating our
children's futures to the top of our survival list.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/29/15, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Here is a most thought-provoking article about home schooling. No, these
> folks aren't doing it for religious reasons or because they don't believe
> that humans are helping to cause climate change. In fact, they appear to be
> rather progressive. They're doing it because they believe our education
> system, (public and private) is badly broken. Their most common complaints
> are too much teaching to the test and one size does not fit all.
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/08/25/homeschooling-in-bosto
> n/
>
>
>
> Our Kids Don't Belong in School
>
> More and more of Boston's smartest families are opting out of the education
> system to homeschool their children. Is this the new model for creating
> elite
>
> kids?
>
> By
>
> Bridget Samburg|
>
> Boston Magazine|
>
> September 2015
>
>
>
> Claire Dickson was homeschooled her entire life, and is entering Harvard as
> a freshman this fall. / Photograph by Ken Richardson
>
>
>
> When Milva McDonald sent her oldest daughter to Newton public school
> kindergarten in 1990, she was disturbed by what she saw. The kids were
> being
> tracked,
>
> even at that young age. And then there were the endless hours the small
> children spent sitting at their desks. It felt unnatural. In the real
> world,
> you
>
> wouldn't be stuck in a room with people all the same ages with one person
> directing them, she thought.
>
>
>
> During that single year her daughter was in the school system, McDonald saw
> enough to convince her that she could do better on her own. That would be
> no
>
> small feat: Newton's public schools have long been rated as among the best
> in the state. (In our Greater Boston rankings this year, they're 10th.) But
>
> she'd always worked part time-she's now an online editor-and she was
> fortunate that she could maintain a flexible schedule. So she yanked her
> daughter
>
> out of school, and over the next two decades homeschooled all four of her
> children-including her youngest, Abigail Dickson, who's now 16.
>
>
>
> McDonald's first homeschool rule was to throw out the book and let her
> children guide their learning, at their own pace. In lieu of a curriculum
> or
> published
>
> guides, McDonald improvised, taking advantage of the homeschooling village
> that had sprouted up around her. One mother ran a theater group, a dad ran
> a
>
> math group, and McDonald oversaw a creative-writing club. Their children
> took supplementary classes at the Harvard Extension School and Bunker Hill
> Community
>
> College. "I wanted them to be in charge of their own education and decide
> what they were interested in, and not have someone else telling them what
> to
>
> do and what they were good at," she says.
>
>
>
> Trending:
>
> The 24 Richest Stores in America Are All in Greater Boston
>
>
>
> And by any measure, it's working. McDonald's daughter Claire-the third of
> her four children to be homeschooled-will enter Harvard College as a
> freshman
>
> this fall.
>
>
>
> Back in the '90s, McDonald was considered a homeschooling pioneer; now
> she's
> joined by a growing movement of parents who are abstaining from traditional
>
> schooling, not on religious grounds but because of another strong belief:
> that they can educate their kids better than the system can. Though far
> from
>
> mainstream (an estimated 2.2 million students are home-educated in the
> U.S.), secular homeschooling is trending up. Last year, 277 children were
> homeschooled
>
> in Boston, more than double the total from 2004; in Cambridge the number
> was
> 46. (In surrounding towns, the numbers are growing, too: During the
> 2013-2014
>
> school year, Arlington had 55; Somerville, 36; Winthrop, 5; Brookline, 11;
> Natick, 36; Newton, 33; and Watertown, 24.)
>
>
>
> There's enough momentum that major cultural institutions-from the Franklin
> Park Zoo and the New England Aquarium to the Museum of Fine Arts and MIT's
> Edgerton
>
> Center-now regularly offer classes for homeschoolers. Tellingly, even
> public
> school systems are becoming more accommodating. In Cambridge, for example,
>
> homeschoolers have the option to attend individual classes in the
> district's
> schools. Some take math or science classes and participate in sports-last
>
> year, one homeschooler took music and piano lessons. Carolyn Turk, deputy
> superintendent for teaching and learning at Cambridge Public Schools, says
> she's
>
> seeing more of this "hybrid" approach than in the past. "In Cambridge we
> look at homeschooling as a choice," she says. "Cambridge is a city of
> choice."
>
>
>
> homeschooling in boston
>
>
>
> Milva McDonald sits with her two younger daughters, Claire and Abigail. /
> Photograph by Ken Richardson
>
>
>
> The Boston Public Schools, meanwhile, have begun to view homeschooling as
> one of the many laboratories in which it can explore new teaching methods.
> "These
>
> people are looking to do instructive, nontraditional education. It's all
> different types of people from all incomes," says Freddie Fuentes, the
> executive
>
> director of educational options for Boston Public Schools. Fuentes, who
> personally helps parents with academic plans, finds that many homeschooling
> parents
>
> want "very deep, expeditionary learning" for their children. "A lot of them
> are looking at innovative ways of learning," he says. "We as a school
> system
>
> need to think about innovation and the cutting edge."
>
>
>
> In other words, homeschooling is arriving here in a very Boston-like way:
> It's aspirational, intellectual, entrepreneurial, and innovative. But is it
> right
>
> for my son?
>
>
>
> Sponsored Content
>
> Suggested:
>
> To the Sea, To the Sea..
>
>
>
> Growing up in New England, going to public schools, I always felt that I
> could chart my own path within the traditional system. In high school, I
> was
> empowered
>
> enough to propose other courses in lieu of chemistry and electives. I
> designed my own college major as well-spending hours convincing
> administrators to
>
> approve alternatives for academic requirements.
>
>
>
> I hoped that when my son's time came around, he would be able to shape his
> education as I once did. But when he turned three, I started wondering
> whether
>
> such unconventionality would be frowned upon in today's high-pressure,
> test-focused system. I'd heard plenty of stories of late-night tutoring
> sessions
>
> with third graders, and children who were physically ill from the stresses
> of school. Acquaintances from Wellesley to Boston told me about homework in
>
> first grade. Lots of it. Lengthy projects that consumed hours of time,
> often
> started and completed by the parents. Kids caving under pressure to perform
>
> at specific levels in certain grades.
>
>
>
> That was certainly true for Tracy Ventola, whose three-year-old fell apart
> every afternoon once she got home from preschool. "She'd unravel," Ventola,
>
> 41, tells me from her Arlington home. "Crying, hitting, yelling. It was her
> relief. She just had to let it out." Ventola, who had taught private school
>
> in Rhode Island, says that she and her husband struggled to unpack the
> cause
> of her daughter's behavior. Maybe the preschool was too focused on teaching
>
> numbers and letters? Hoping that another year and a change in models would
> help, they moved her to a Waldorf school, known for its imaginative,
> play-based
>
> approach to early education. No such luck.
>
>
>
> As before, Ventola found herself spending hours helping her daughter
> decompress from her school day. "School in general wasn't a good fit for
> her. Even
>
> the kinder, gentler Waldorf approach was still too much stimulation for my
> sensitive child," says Ventola, who now writes the homeschooling blog
> offkltr.com.
>
> With about 20 other youngsters and a whole lot of social expectations and
> pressures, she says, "She was overloaded emotionally, socially, and
> spiritually..
>
> School was running our lives."
>
>
>
> Discouraged by stories like this, I sought a child-led, open environment
> where my son could learn by doing. But when I applied through the Cambridge
> public
>
> school lottery to a Montessori school and came up empty, I began to think
> about homeschooling more seriously. I don't have a degree in education and
> lack
>
> teaching experience, save for one summer spent as a tennis instructor, and
> a
> winter giving ski lessons. But I'm pretty good at math. And Massachusetts
>
> makes it relatively easy to opt out: Families submit an application and
> curriculum plan to their districts-most towns expect annual plans. Was it
> ridiculous
>
> to consider taking on the responsibility of teaching my son?
>
>
>
> Not knowing where to turn, I decided to seek out people like me-secular,
> educated, urbane-who'd chosen to take their kids' educations into their own
> hands.
>
> That's how I found myself at the Cambridge Public Library on a cold, rainy
> day last March to learn about homeschooling from the Advocates for Home
> Education
>
> in Massachusetts (AHEM). I entered sheepishly at first, as if I were
> violating some basic, strongly held American tenet. In theory, I wanted my
> son to
>
> be a part of the public schools. I trust in the community, the great
> democratic ambition to educate all of our country's children in a
> supportive, and
>
> free, learning environment.
>
>
>
> But when you enter homeschooling territory, the first thing you'll notice
> is
> how clearly, boldly, and unabashedly parents proclaim that traditional
> schooling
>
> is broken. "Here it is, 2015, and we don't have recess in a lot of public
> schools, and we're keeping them in schools longer every day," says Patrick
> Farenga,
>
> a homeschooling advocate and president of HoltGWS, the company founded by
> John Holt, the father of homeschooling. "In a time that we customize jeans,
> we
>
> can't imagine doing this with education?" he continues. "We've decided that
> in third grade a child should read, but school is not based on any
> biological
>
> evidence for how children learn."
>
>
>
> Some of the system's harshest critics are trained teachers who'd quit their
> academic gigs, often out of frustration, to educate their brood. Megan
> McGrory
>
> Massaro left a seven-year stint as a middle school English teacher in
> Massachusetts schools, both public and private, to stay home when her first
> daughter
>
> was born. "You can't allow your child to explore their own interests in the
> classroom.. It's a broken system," says the Pembroke resident. "We've lost
>
> sight of the goal here. Freedom and liberty and happiness? I feel like
> we're
> sucking that out of our children."
>
> Similarly, after six years spent teaching second grade in Quincy Public
> Schools, Deanna Skow says, "I felt my love for teaching dying. I felt a
> little
>
> soul-crushed by all of the testing. I watched children lose interest in
> learning." She and her husband, a philosophy professor at MIT, opted to
> skip
> traditional
>
> school altogether for their two children, ages two and five. Ironically,
> Skow initially set her home up like a preschool, with lessons to learn
> numbers
>
> and letters. "I got so much pushback from him," she says of her older son.
> She's since adjusted her style. "When I did relax, I could see him take the
>
> reins," she recalls. "It's hard for me to turn off the teacher completely."
>
>
>
> She then states the constant refrain among homeschoolers: "I want my
> children's education to be meaningful and engaging and for them to have the
> gift of
>
> time to study and explore their true passions.. This is not the type of
> learning environment that is offered in public schools."
>
>
>
> I reached out to Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers
> Association, to see what she thinks of these critiques, but she was
> unavailable
>
> to comment for this story. However, Richard Stutman, president of the
> Boston
> Teachers Union, sniffed, "It's a subject that never comes up in my world."
>
> When asked what he thinks of parents taking their children out of public
> schools because they think the system isn't working, Stutman says, "My
> opinion
>
> is that there is a social cost to homeschooling. I have no comment or
> opinion as to whether parents who homeschool are qualified."
>
>
>
> Qualifications are one thing, it's true. And educating children at home
> requires tremendous time and resources as well. In fact, many homeschooling
> families
>
> make major sacrifices to educate their kids. One partner may give up a
> full-time job to be with the children-the loss of income can mean going
> without
>
> vacation, or selling one of the cars. Regardless, they firmly believe
> they're making an invaluable impact on their children's lives.
>
>
>
> And that's what makes me panic a little. How could anyone think that she or
> he alone has what it takes to get a child from toddler to college-ready?
>
>
>
> Robert Holzbach, 43, has complete confidence that he can handle the
> workload
> required to educate his four daughters. "I thought whatever a teacher can
>
> do with 30 kids, I can do with four," he says. Holzbach had been working
> 80-hour weeks as a financial adviser before his oldest child was born. Even
> before
>
> his wife, a full-time technical architect for Partners HealthCare, got
> pregnant, they began discussing the possibility of homeschooling their
> children.
>
> Holzbach now teaches his 12- and 11-year-olds; he plans to take the seven-
> and five-year-olds out of school once they complete second grade. "What
> terrifies
>
> me about school is taking a test, even if you get an A-plus, and forgetting
> it the next day," he says in his Winthrop home. "There's no incentive to
> learn
>
> long-term."
>
>
>
> Trending:
>
> The Beautiful Chaos of Boston's Fall Move-In, in One Heat Map
>
>
>
> While talking to me, Holzbach pulls out a single sheet of paper; it's a
> sample task list from a recent day of homeschooling: two hours of math, a
> one-hour
>
> history lecture, 40 minutes discussing the Brooklyn Bridge, time spent on
> Portuguese, 90 minutes of history reading. His daughters can choose when to
> do
>
> what, but it all has to get done by the end of the day. And they also must
> practice typing. I like how seriously he takes the individual subjects, and
>
> I like the flexibility.
>
>
>
> Holzbach has always emphasized reading, too, and fortunately, his older
> daughters are passionate about books. This year, they read Moon Over
> Manifest,
>
> by Clare Vanderpool; The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt; and E. L.
> Konigsburg's Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth,
> to name
>
> a few. They could happily read all day long, and some days they do. If the
> family seems to need a break from one another, Holzbach will declare it a
> reading
>
> day and the girls may retreat to their rooms upstairs or to the brown
> leather couches in the living room.
>
>
>
> homeschooling in boston
>
>
>
> Richard Holzbach homeschools his two older daughters. / Photograph by Ken
> Richardson
>
>
>
> For other subjects, Holzbach relies on a variety of materials. He uses the
> well-known Saxon Math books, published by Boston-based Houghton Mifflin
> Harcourt,
>
> which offers an entire line of textbooks for homeschoolers. He also uses
> Khan Academy, a free learning website that has received more than $10
> million
>
> from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Holzbach regularly introduces
> subjects through the Great Courses-multipart lectures, available for
> purchase,
>
> that cover history, literature, science, music, philosophy, and more.
>
>
>
> He also has a wealth of regional resources catered to the homeschooling
> trend. Public libraries and major museums and organizations-from the Museum
> of
>
> Fine Arts to Mass Audubon-offer day programs. Alternative learning centers
> that provide daylong classes, semester programs, and communal learning
> programs
>
> have exploded. There are more than a dozen around Massachusetts, including
> Parts and Crafts, in Somerville; Trellis Community Learning, in Pembroke;
> and
>
> the Macomber Center, in Framingham.
>
>
>
> And aided by the Internet, homeschooling parents are finding it easier to
> build a village. On a given week, for example, Kerry McDonald says she lets
> her
>
> four children-ages eight, six, four, and 20 months-guide what they talk
> about and explore, using homeschooling family play dates found via Yahoo
> boards
>
> and other online forums to supplement the learning. McDonald tells me about
> meet-up offerings, including math classes, soccer, and museum visits.
>
>
Here is my first concern. Where are the children of poor working class
families in this wonderful world of home teaching? I have several
friends and neighbors who home schooled their children. Some did this
from early grades through high school. Some did an, "In and Out"
thing, where they sent their children to public school for a year and
then home schooled them for a time, sending them back again.
Regardless of the differing approaches, those families who did home
schooling had children completing their education at a higher level
than their peers in standard public schools, or in private religious
schools.
So if this is the difference around the nation, how do we bring the
advantages of home schooling into the lives of the children who need
it the most? If we are going to break down prejudice and
discrimination, enlightening our nation's children has to be high on
the list of things to do.
Anyway, we need to block all the eager profiteers pushing into the
field of education, and we need to move toward elevating our
children's futures to the top of our survival list.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/29/15, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Here is a most thought-provoking article about home schooling. No, these
> folks aren't doing it for religious reasons or because they don't believe
> that humans are helping to cause climate change. In fact, they appear to be
> rather progressive. They're doing it because they believe our education
> system, (public and private) is badly broken. Their most common complaints
> are too much teaching to the test and one size does not fit all.
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/08/25/homeschooling-in-bosto
> n/
>
>
>
> Our Kids Don't Belong in School
>
> More and more of Boston's smartest families are opting out of the education
> system to homeschool their children. Is this the new model for creating
> elite
>
> kids?
>
> By
>
> Bridget Samburg|
>
> Boston Magazine|
>
> September 2015
>
>
>
> Claire Dickson was homeschooled her entire life, and is entering Harvard as
> a freshman this fall. / Photograph by Ken Richardson
>
>
>
> When Milva McDonald sent her oldest daughter to Newton public school
> kindergarten in 1990, she was disturbed by what she saw. The kids were
> being
> tracked,
>
> even at that young age. And then there were the endless hours the small
> children spent sitting at their desks. It felt unnatural. In the real
> world,
> you
>
> wouldn't be stuck in a room with people all the same ages with one person
> directing them, she thought.
>
>
>
> During that single year her daughter was in the school system, McDonald saw
> enough to convince her that she could do better on her own. That would be
> no
>
> small feat: Newton's public schools have long been rated as among the best
> in the state. (In our Greater Boston rankings this year, they're 10th.) But
>
> she'd always worked part time-she's now an online editor-and she was
> fortunate that she could maintain a flexible schedule. So she yanked her
> daughter
>
> out of school, and over the next two decades homeschooled all four of her
> children-including her youngest, Abigail Dickson, who's now 16.
>
>
>
> McDonald's first homeschool rule was to throw out the book and let her
> children guide their learning, at their own pace. In lieu of a curriculum
> or
> published
>
> guides, McDonald improvised, taking advantage of the homeschooling village
> that had sprouted up around her. One mother ran a theater group, a dad ran
> a
>
> math group, and McDonald oversaw a creative-writing club. Their children
> took supplementary classes at the Harvard Extension School and Bunker Hill
> Community
>
> College. "I wanted them to be in charge of their own education and decide
> what they were interested in, and not have someone else telling them what
> to
>
> do and what they were good at," she says.
>
>
>
> Trending:
>
> The 24 Richest Stores in America Are All in Greater Boston
>
>
>
> And by any measure, it's working. McDonald's daughter Claire-the third of
> her four children to be homeschooled-will enter Harvard College as a
> freshman
>
> this fall.
>
>
>
> Back in the '90s, McDonald was considered a homeschooling pioneer; now
> she's
> joined by a growing movement of parents who are abstaining from traditional
>
> schooling, not on religious grounds but because of another strong belief:
> that they can educate their kids better than the system can. Though far
> from
>
> mainstream (an estimated 2.2 million students are home-educated in the
> U.S.), secular homeschooling is trending up. Last year, 277 children were
> homeschooled
>
> in Boston, more than double the total from 2004; in Cambridge the number
> was
> 46. (In surrounding towns, the numbers are growing, too: During the
> 2013-2014
>
> school year, Arlington had 55; Somerville, 36; Winthrop, 5; Brookline, 11;
> Natick, 36; Newton, 33; and Watertown, 24.)
>
>
>
> There's enough momentum that major cultural institutions-from the Franklin
> Park Zoo and the New England Aquarium to the Museum of Fine Arts and MIT's
> Edgerton
>
> Center-now regularly offer classes for homeschoolers. Tellingly, even
> public
> school systems are becoming more accommodating. In Cambridge, for example,
>
> homeschoolers have the option to attend individual classes in the
> district's
> schools. Some take math or science classes and participate in sports-last
>
> year, one homeschooler took music and piano lessons. Carolyn Turk, deputy
> superintendent for teaching and learning at Cambridge Public Schools, says
> she's
>
> seeing more of this "hybrid" approach than in the past. "In Cambridge we
> look at homeschooling as a choice," she says. "Cambridge is a city of
> choice."
>
>
>
> homeschooling in boston
>
>
>
> Milva McDonald sits with her two younger daughters, Claire and Abigail. /
> Photograph by Ken Richardson
>
>
>
> The Boston Public Schools, meanwhile, have begun to view homeschooling as
> one of the many laboratories in which it can explore new teaching methods.
> "These
>
> people are looking to do instructive, nontraditional education. It's all
> different types of people from all incomes," says Freddie Fuentes, the
> executive
>
> director of educational options for Boston Public Schools. Fuentes, who
> personally helps parents with academic plans, finds that many homeschooling
> parents
>
> want "very deep, expeditionary learning" for their children. "A lot of them
> are looking at innovative ways of learning," he says. "We as a school
> system
>
> need to think about innovation and the cutting edge."
>
>
>
> In other words, homeschooling is arriving here in a very Boston-like way:
> It's aspirational, intellectual, entrepreneurial, and innovative. But is it
> right
>
> for my son?
>
>
>
> Sponsored Content
>
> Suggested:
>
> To the Sea, To the Sea..
>
>
>
> Growing up in New England, going to public schools, I always felt that I
> could chart my own path within the traditional system. In high school, I
> was
> empowered
>
> enough to propose other courses in lieu of chemistry and electives. I
> designed my own college major as well-spending hours convincing
> administrators to
>
> approve alternatives for academic requirements.
>
>
>
> I hoped that when my son's time came around, he would be able to shape his
> education as I once did. But when he turned three, I started wondering
> whether
>
> such unconventionality would be frowned upon in today's high-pressure,
> test-focused system. I'd heard plenty of stories of late-night tutoring
> sessions
>
> with third graders, and children who were physically ill from the stresses
> of school. Acquaintances from Wellesley to Boston told me about homework in
>
> first grade. Lots of it. Lengthy projects that consumed hours of time,
> often
> started and completed by the parents. Kids caving under pressure to perform
>
> at specific levels in certain grades.
>
>
>
> That was certainly true for Tracy Ventola, whose three-year-old fell apart
> every afternoon once she got home from preschool. "She'd unravel," Ventola,
>
> 41, tells me from her Arlington home. "Crying, hitting, yelling. It was her
> relief. She just had to let it out." Ventola, who had taught private school
>
> in Rhode Island, says that she and her husband struggled to unpack the
> cause
> of her daughter's behavior. Maybe the preschool was too focused on teaching
>
> numbers and letters? Hoping that another year and a change in models would
> help, they moved her to a Waldorf school, known for its imaginative,
> play-based
>
> approach to early education. No such luck.
>
>
>
> As before, Ventola found herself spending hours helping her daughter
> decompress from her school day. "School in general wasn't a good fit for
> her. Even
>
> the kinder, gentler Waldorf approach was still too much stimulation for my
> sensitive child," says Ventola, who now writes the homeschooling blog
> offkltr.com.
>
> With about 20 other youngsters and a whole lot of social expectations and
> pressures, she says, "She was overloaded emotionally, socially, and
> spiritually..
>
> School was running our lives."
>
>
>
> Discouraged by stories like this, I sought a child-led, open environment
> where my son could learn by doing. But when I applied through the Cambridge
> public
>
> school lottery to a Montessori school and came up empty, I began to think
> about homeschooling more seriously. I don't have a degree in education and
> lack
>
> teaching experience, save for one summer spent as a tennis instructor, and
> a
> winter giving ski lessons. But I'm pretty good at math. And Massachusetts
>
> makes it relatively easy to opt out: Families submit an application and
> curriculum plan to their districts-most towns expect annual plans. Was it
> ridiculous
>
> to consider taking on the responsibility of teaching my son?
>
>
>
> Not knowing where to turn, I decided to seek out people like me-secular,
> educated, urbane-who'd chosen to take their kids' educations into their own
> hands.
>
> That's how I found myself at the Cambridge Public Library on a cold, rainy
> day last March to learn about homeschooling from the Advocates for Home
> Education
>
> in Massachusetts (AHEM). I entered sheepishly at first, as if I were
> violating some basic, strongly held American tenet. In theory, I wanted my
> son to
>
> be a part of the public schools. I trust in the community, the great
> democratic ambition to educate all of our country's children in a
> supportive, and
>
> free, learning environment.
>
>
>
> But when you enter homeschooling territory, the first thing you'll notice
> is
> how clearly, boldly, and unabashedly parents proclaim that traditional
> schooling
>
> is broken. "Here it is, 2015, and we don't have recess in a lot of public
> schools, and we're keeping them in schools longer every day," says Patrick
> Farenga,
>
> a homeschooling advocate and president of HoltGWS, the company founded by
> John Holt, the father of homeschooling. "In a time that we customize jeans,
> we
>
> can't imagine doing this with education?" he continues. "We've decided that
> in third grade a child should read, but school is not based on any
> biological
>
> evidence for how children learn."
>
>
>
> Some of the system's harshest critics are trained teachers who'd quit their
> academic gigs, often out of frustration, to educate their brood. Megan
> McGrory
>
> Massaro left a seven-year stint as a middle school English teacher in
> Massachusetts schools, both public and private, to stay home when her first
> daughter
>
> was born. "You can't allow your child to explore their own interests in the
> classroom.. It's a broken system," says the Pembroke resident. "We've lost
>
> sight of the goal here. Freedom and liberty and happiness? I feel like
> we're
> sucking that out of our children."
>
> Similarly, after six years spent teaching second grade in Quincy Public
> Schools, Deanna Skow says, "I felt my love for teaching dying. I felt a
> little
>
> soul-crushed by all of the testing. I watched children lose interest in
> learning." She and her husband, a philosophy professor at MIT, opted to
> skip
> traditional
>
> school altogether for their two children, ages two and five. Ironically,
> Skow initially set her home up like a preschool, with lessons to learn
> numbers
>
> and letters. "I got so much pushback from him," she says of her older son.
> She's since adjusted her style. "When I did relax, I could see him take the
>
> reins," she recalls. "It's hard for me to turn off the teacher completely."
>
>
>
> She then states the constant refrain among homeschoolers: "I want my
> children's education to be meaningful and engaging and for them to have the
> gift of
>
> time to study and explore their true passions.. This is not the type of
> learning environment that is offered in public schools."
>
>
>
> I reached out to Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers
> Association, to see what she thinks of these critiques, but she was
> unavailable
>
> to comment for this story. However, Richard Stutman, president of the
> Boston
> Teachers Union, sniffed, "It's a subject that never comes up in my world."
>
> When asked what he thinks of parents taking their children out of public
> schools because they think the system isn't working, Stutman says, "My
> opinion
>
> is that there is a social cost to homeschooling. I have no comment or
> opinion as to whether parents who homeschool are qualified."
>
>
>
> Qualifications are one thing, it's true. And educating children at home
> requires tremendous time and resources as well. In fact, many homeschooling
> families
>
> make major sacrifices to educate their kids. One partner may give up a
> full-time job to be with the children-the loss of income can mean going
> without
>
> vacation, or selling one of the cars. Regardless, they firmly believe
> they're making an invaluable impact on their children's lives.
>
>
>
> And that's what makes me panic a little. How could anyone think that she or
> he alone has what it takes to get a child from toddler to college-ready?
>
>
>
> Robert Holzbach, 43, has complete confidence that he can handle the
> workload
> required to educate his four daughters. "I thought whatever a teacher can
>
> do with 30 kids, I can do with four," he says. Holzbach had been working
> 80-hour weeks as a financial adviser before his oldest child was born. Even
> before
>
> his wife, a full-time technical architect for Partners HealthCare, got
> pregnant, they began discussing the possibility of homeschooling their
> children.
>
> Holzbach now teaches his 12- and 11-year-olds; he plans to take the seven-
> and five-year-olds out of school once they complete second grade. "What
> terrifies
>
> me about school is taking a test, even if you get an A-plus, and forgetting
> it the next day," he says in his Winthrop home. "There's no incentive to
> learn
>
> long-term."
>
>
>
> Trending:
>
> The Beautiful Chaos of Boston's Fall Move-In, in One Heat Map
>
>
>
> While talking to me, Holzbach pulls out a single sheet of paper; it's a
> sample task list from a recent day of homeschooling: two hours of math, a
> one-hour
>
> history lecture, 40 minutes discussing the Brooklyn Bridge, time spent on
> Portuguese, 90 minutes of history reading. His daughters can choose when to
> do
>
> what, but it all has to get done by the end of the day. And they also must
> practice typing. I like how seriously he takes the individual subjects, and
>
> I like the flexibility.
>
>
>
> Holzbach has always emphasized reading, too, and fortunately, his older
> daughters are passionate about books. This year, they read Moon Over
> Manifest,
>
> by Clare Vanderpool; The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt; and E. L.
> Konigsburg's Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth,
> to name
>
> a few. They could happily read all day long, and some days they do. If the
> family seems to need a break from one another, Holzbach will declare it a
> reading
>
> day and the girls may retreat to their rooms upstairs or to the brown
> leather couches in the living room.
>
>
>
> homeschooling in boston
>
>
>
> Richard Holzbach homeschools his two older daughters. / Photograph by Ken
> Richardson
>
>
>
> For other subjects, Holzbach relies on a variety of materials. He uses the
> well-known Saxon Math books, published by Boston-based Houghton Mifflin
> Harcourt,
>
> which offers an entire line of textbooks for homeschoolers. He also uses
> Khan Academy, a free learning website that has received more than $10
> million
>
> from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Holzbach regularly introduces
> subjects through the Great Courses-multipart lectures, available for
> purchase,
>
> that cover history, literature, science, music, philosophy, and more.
>
>
>
> He also has a wealth of regional resources catered to the homeschooling
> trend. Public libraries and major museums and organizations-from the Museum
> of
>
> Fine Arts to Mass Audubon-offer day programs. Alternative learning centers
> that provide daylong classes, semester programs, and communal learning
> programs
>
> have exploded. There are more than a dozen around Massachusetts, including
> Parts and Crafts, in Somerville; Trellis Community Learning, in Pembroke;
> and
>
> the Macomber Center, in Framingham.
>
>
>
> And aided by the Internet, homeschooling parents are finding it easier to
> build a village. On a given week, for example, Kerry McDonald says she lets
> her
>
> four children-ages eight, six, four, and 20 months-guide what they talk
> about and explore, using homeschooling family play dates found via Yahoo
> boards
>
> and other online forums to supplement the learning. McDonald tells me about
> meet-up offerings, including math classes, soccer, and museum visits.
>
>
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
We Humans are silly Geese. You would think blind people would relate
to that, "All You People", remark as an insult.
And you would think that none of us blind people would be so blind as
to refer to other minority groups as, "All You People".
But I can positively say to, "All You Sociologist", you like to
complicate the subject with charts, grafts, theories, and piles of
papers, pointing out why we lump people into groups that we can then
say, "All You People".
But the fact of the matter is that it is because we have become lazy.
Maybe even brain dead.
At least dull and lazy, because it just does not take a great deal of
brain energy to realize that all of us fall into any number of groups
where we become, "All You People".
Forget the idea that this lumping is for convenience sake. It is a
put down, pure and simple. It dismisses our individuality. We are
just another cow in the herd, another sheep in the flock.
Trump lumps "All Illegals" and can then send them all home. Just a
faceless herd of cattle. Easy to ship out all you 11 million
faceless, nameless nuisances. Easy to sit in a safe room in Colorado
and push a button that takes out nameless, faceless Terrorists. Not
someone's brother, or son, or grandmother, or daughter. Not a person.
"All You People", is one step closer to being able to do with us as
the Masters see fit.
Do not ever allow yourself to be labelled as, "All You People". And
never, ever make the mistake of thinking of others in that light. We
are each of us special individuals. We deserve respect. We are
charged with paying respect to others.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/26/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> When the movie theater owner threw me and my guide dog out of the movie
> theater in Westbury back in the early 80's, he said, "I know all about you
> people".
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 12:37 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White
> People ...'
>
> "Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you people"
> Whenever I hear the words, "You People", whether they are tied to Blacks,
> GLTB's, women, or goat herders, I can safely say that the speaker of such
> words knows absolutely nothing of value on the subject. As a Blind Man, I
> have had those very words laid on me and my friends, over and over again
> with nothing of value ever coming out of them. "All of the politicians who
> resort to such words are of absolutely no help. And that's the good news.
> Usually the speaking of these patronizing words constitute the beginning of
> trouble. When we were working for the passage of our Commission for the
> Blind in Washington State, a long-time state senator grabbed my hand with
> his pudgy, wet hand and said, "You People deserve everything you're asking
> for". And then he went into the senate and voted against our bill.
> "You People", is a way of dismissing those we do not want to deal with. I
> have come to the place where I reply, "There is only one People talking to
> you. I am not, you people. I will call you by your name, and request that
> you call me by mine. I would never be so rude, so thoughtless as to refer
> to you as, you people. Please show me the same respect."
>
> Do not be afraid to demand respect. It may be the only way you'll get it.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
> On 8/25/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>>
>> Boardman writes: "After listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly
>> told a quintet of respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, 'Yeah,
>> well, respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to
>> white people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem.'
>> More than being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the
>> reality that white violence against black people is an offense that
>> only white people can stop."
>>
>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (photo:
>> Charlie
>> Neibergall/AP)
>>
>>
>> Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
>> By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
>> 25 August 15
>>
>> Black Lives Matter activists push edges that need pushing
>>
>> After listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a quintet of
>> respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, "Yeah, well,
>> respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white
>> people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem." More
>> than being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the reality
>> that white violence against black people is an offense that only white
>> people can stop. And she was also avoiding her own, very real role in
>> promoting federal policies that have made black lives matter less and
>> less over the past two decades.
>> Hillary Clinton's meeting with Daunasia Yancey, Julius Jones, and
>> others of Black Lives Matter began well enough on August 11 in Keene,
>> New Hampshire, after an early glitch. The Secret Service kept the
>> activists out of the room where Clinton was speaking because the room
>> was full (they heard her speak with others in an overflow room). But
>> then the Clinton campaign arranged the after-event meeting at which
>> cordiality and calm were the rule.
>> This was in sharp contrast to the Social Security rally in Seattle on
>> August 9, where Bernie Sanders was interrupted by other Black Lives
>> Matter activists. There, two women took over the podium as the
>> candidate began to speak. They waved their arms and shouted, silencing
>> Sanders. Bernie held out his hand to shake one of theirs. Then came
>> the tip-off: no one took his hand. As Sanders gave way, these Black
>> Lives Matter women took over the event and shut it down. On their
>> website they had posted a comment echoing Malcolm X in 1964, who had
>> echoed Jean-Paul Sartre:
>> There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost.
>> We will ensure this by any means necessary.
>> After the event, Sanders issued a statement expressing his
>> disappointment "that two people disrupted a rally attended by
>> thousands" in support of Social Security. He added that "on criminal
>> justice reform and the need to fight racism, there is no other candidate
> who will fight harder than me."
>> The next day, Sanders published his detailed racial justice platform.
>> The question for Hillary Clinton: Have you changed?
>> The echo of revolutionary rhetoric was absent from the 16-minute
>> exchange with Hillary Clinton in Keene (the full videotape was released
> August 19).
>> Both Yancey and Jones spoke quietly and coherently, but they were
>> substantively much more militant than the sloganeers of Seattle. After
>> a friendly-looking handshake and some shoulder-touching from the
>> candidate, Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter in Boston read from
>> her iPhone as she asked about the difference, if any, between the
>> Hillary Clinton of twenty years ago and the Hillary now:
>> … you and your family have been personally and politically responsible
>> for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in
>> impoverished communities of color through the domestic and
>> international war on drugs that you championed as First Lady, Senator
>> and Secretary of State.
>> And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that
>> violence and how you plan to reverse it?
>> For the next fifteen minutes, Clinton ignored the question and refused
>> to offer any plan to ameliorate the suffering caused by US drug
>> policy, or any other policy. Her body language was stiff, leaning back,
> "listening hard"
>> but appearing unreceptive. Everything she had to say was contained in
>> her empty and opaque first sentence in irrelevant response:
>> Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today.
>> Clinton never came close to addressing her own actions. She
>> filibustered, in effect, for a minute or so about "concern" and
>> "re-thinking" and "different circumstances" and "looking at the world
>> as it is today," without actually saying anything specific or
>> meaningful. She was talking down to her listener, almost lecturing,
>> without content. Hillary Clinton seemed to be suggesting that the
>> policy she and her husband supported in the 1990s was good then, but
>> maybe, just maybe, it needed to be re-thought in some ways now.
>> Yancey replied politely, with Clinton interrupting: "Yeah, and I would
>> offer that it didn't work then, either, and that those policies were
>> actually extensions of white supremacist violence against communities
>> of color. And so, I just think I want to hear a little bit about that,
>> about the fact that actually while … those policies were being
>> enacted, they were ripping apart families … and actually causing
>> death.
>> "Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with you," Clinton replied. She's not sure?
>> She's had twenty years to think about race in America and she's not
>> sure whether she helped or hurt? She running for president and she's
>> not sure what she thinks is real? Next she said, "I'm not sure I
>> disagree that any kind of government action often has consequences,"
>> which means nothing and is unresponsive. That was Clinton's choice, to
>> be unresponsive, rather than admit she'd been wrong twenty years ago,
>> when "there was a very serious crime wave that was impacting primarily
>> communities of color and poor people."
>> Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you people From
>> there, Clinton slid into a meandering but empty defense of Clinton
>> administration actions as a response to real community concerns. Doing
>> so, she evaded the reality that the Clinton response was a top-down
>> answer, that community involvement in solving its own problems was
>> something to be tolerated as little as possible. She continued in the
>> same vein in addressing the present, mentioning "systemic issues of
>> race and justice that go deeper than any particular law" without
>> particularity. Clinton seemed at a loss for anything to say until she
>> seemed to stumble on the old pat-on-the-head, patronizing flattery for
>> the critic who objects to cops killing black people:
>> What you're doing, as activists and as people who are constantly
>> raising these issues, is really important. So I applaud and thank you
>> for that, I really do, because we can't get change unless there's
>> constant
> pressure.
>> But
>> now the next step, so, you know – part of you need to keep the
>> pressure on and part of you need to help figure out what do we do now,
>> how are we gonna do it? [emphasis in original] Slick moves. Praise the
>> victims for objecting to their victimhood.
>> Compliment them on their efforts to end victimization. Tell them it's
>> up to them to bring authority to heel, and to heal. And put the
>> responsibility on the victims to figure out what the victimizers
>> should do differently. And be extra careful not to come close to even
>> implying that the president or the cops or anyone in between has any
>> personal or institutional responsibility for victimizing people in the
>> first place. Good job, Hillary Clinton.
>> Six minutes into the empty rhetoric, Clinton has answered no questions
>> and offered no solutions, but bloviated "sympathetically" to get to this:
>> We need a whole comprehensive plan that I am more than happy to work
>> with you guys on, to try to figure out, OK, we know black lives
>> matter, we need to keep saying it so that people accept it, what do we do
> next?
>> Julius Jones tried to get Hillary Clinton to address specifics As
>> Clinton began to ramble on along this track, Julius Jones, founder of
>> Black Lives Matter in Worcester, Massachusetts, gently, almost
>> tentatively intervened to say how honored he was to have Hillary
>> Clinton talking to him, and such, but mass incarceration hasn't
>> worked, like so much else:
>> The truth is that there's an extremely long history of unfortunate
>> government practices that don't work, that particularly affect black
>> people and black families. And until we, as a country, and then the
>> person who's in the seat that you seek, actually addresses the
>> anti-blackness current that is America's first drug – we're in a
>> meeting about drugs, right?
>> America's first drug is free black labor and turning black bodies into
>> profit, and the mass incarceration system mirrors an awful lot like
>> the prison plantation system. It's a similar thread, right? And until
>> someone takes that message and speaks that truth to white people in
>> this country, so that we can actually take on anti-blackness as a
>> founding problem in this country, I don't believe that there is going
>> to be a solution....
>> Jones pointed out that there's a lot of money in prisons, that the US
>> spends more money on prisons than it spends on schools. Throughout,
>> Clinton was keeping a sober face and going "Mmmm" as if agreeing to
>> his points. She seemed to agree when he said that African-American
>> people were suffering more than others. And Jones expressed the fear
>> that the plantation evolving into the prison system would evolve into
>> new horrors unless something changed. So he returned to Yancey's
>> original question in a different form:
>> You know, I genuinely want to know – you and your family have been, in
>> no uncertain way, partially responsible for this, more than most,
>> right? Now, there may have been unintended consequences. But now that
>> you understand the consequences, what in your heart has changed that's
>> going to change the direction in this country? Like, what in you –
>> like, not your platform, not what you're supposed to say – like,how do
>> you actually feel that's different than you did before? Like, what
>> were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons
>> for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black
>> people in this country? [emphasis added] How does Hillary Clinton
>> "actually feel that's different" from before?
>> This is a potentially devastating moment for candidate Clinton.
>> Without missing a beat, a staff member interrupts, breaks the flow,
>> and says something about keeping on schedule. Jones objected to the
>> interruption and the staffer even said, "I'm not interrupting," but
>> he'd given the candidate another 20 seconds to frame her answer:
>> "Well, obviously it's a very thoughtful question that deserves a
> thoughtful answer."
>> Then Clinton vamped on her "commitment" to make things better, going
>> into a long riff on how she had spent much of her life trying to make
>> things better for kids, all kinds of kids. She agreed that "there has
>> to be a reckoning,"
>> but also a "positive vision." Once you face the truth of racial
>> history, she said, then most people will say: so what am I supposed to
>> do about it?
>> That's what I'm trying to put together in a way that I can explain it
>> and I can sell it ¬– because in politics, you can't explain it and you
>> can't sell it, it stays on the shelf.
>> Clinton then referred to other movements – civil rights, women's
>> rights, gay rights – and started a mini-lecture on how these movements
>> had plans in place so that, once they had raised consciousness, they
>> could get laws passed. Her spiel was self-servingly ahistorical,
>> comparing the year-old Black Lives Matter to other movements that took
>> decades to evolve. Her point was that Black Lives Matter needed a
>> plan, which is undeniable. The point she didn't make clear was that
>> she had nothing to contribute. She covered that absence by saying:
>> Your analysis is totally fair. It's historically fair. It's
>> psychologically fair. It's economically fair. But you're going to have
>> to come together as a movement and say, "Here's what we want done
>> about it," because you can get lip service from as many white people
>> as you can pack into Yankee Stadium and a million more like it, who
>> are going to say, "Oh, we get it. We get it.
>> We're going to be nicer." OK? That's not enough, at least in my book.
>> That's
>> not how I see politics.
>> So, the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of
>> your movement is so critical. But now all I'm suggesting is, even for
>> us sinners, find some common ground on agendas that can make a
>> difference right here and now in people's lives. And that's what I
>> would love to, you know, have your thoughts about, because that's what
>> I'm trying to figure out how to do…."
>> [emphasis added]
>> If the "analysis is totally fair," why is Clinton's response so pallid?
>> Clinton spent another minute or so making the same point in another
>> way, once again absolving herself of commitment to any particular
>> goal, or strategy, and once more laying it on the victims to deal with
>> their victimization by the white culture she represents and helped
>> shape in its present form. They had been talking about 14 minutes by
>> then and Hillary Clinton had answered no questions and had offered
>> nothing. A staffer interrupted, saying it was time to go.
>> But Julius Jones quietly refused to accept the patronizing pat on the
>> head with the implied promise of a bone to be tossed at some
>> indefinite time in the future. With quiet patience he opened up the
>> only meaningful dialogue of the encounter, as reported on Democracy
>> NOW!:
>> JULIUS JONES: Respectfully, the piece that's most important – and I
>> stand here in your space, and I say this as respectfully as I can –
>> but if you don't tell black people what we need to do, then we won't
>> tell you all what you need to do. Right?
>> HILLARY CLINTON: I'm not telling you; I'm just telling you to tell me.
>> JULIUS JONES: What I mean to say is that this is, and has always been,
>> a white problem of violence. It's not– there's not much that we can do
>> to stop the violence against us. [emphasis added throughout] That is
>> the moment of truth. Blacks are almost powerless to stop white people
>> from killing them. Blacks have always been almost powerless to stop
>> white people from killing them. White people need to decide that
>> killing black people is wrong and will no longer be allowed by the
>> white power structure. Clinton must know this, it's so obvious. She
>> said, "I understand what you're saying," but she gave no evidence that
>> she understands. And when Jones tried to pursue his argument, she cut
>> him off, her voice rising peevishly, sarcastically echoing
>> "respectfully" with no respect:
>> JULIUS JONES: And then, we are also, respectfully, respectfully—
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, respectfully, if that is your position,
>> then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal
>> with a very real problem.
>> JULIUS JONES: That's not what I mean. That's not what I mean. That's
>> not what I mean.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Well—
>> JULIUS JONES: But like, what I'm saying is you –what you just said was
>> a form of victim blaming.Right? You were saying that what the Black
>> Lives Matter movement … needs to do to change white hearts is to come
>> up with a policy change.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: No, I'm not talking about—look, I don't believe you
>> change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of
>> resources, you change the way systems operate. You're not going to change
> every heart….
>> In the end, Clinton promised nothing – so you know what to expect
>> Clinton creates a straw man argument – Jones didn't say "change every
>> heart." Then she uses that falsehood to say again what she's been
>> saying all along, to say what Jones said she said. Once again Clinton
>> puts the responsibility for creating change on the people with the
>> least power to create change. This is nothing but bad faith. (Even
>> Bill Clinton has apologized, at the N.A.A.C.P. convention, for
>> increasing the mass incarceration of black young men: "I signed a bill
>> that made the problem
>> worse.")
>> Ironically, Hillary Clinton's nasty suggestion that "I will talk only
>> to white people" actually implies a more relevant tactic. She has no
>> intention of doing anything like that, it seems. But it would be a
>> start for Hillary Clinton to talk to her 1990s self and say, out loud,
>> that mass incarceration for profit was a morally and economically
>> corrupt idea and today I reject it. Then today's Hillary Clinton might
>> have more credibility when she expressed sympathy for people oppressed
>> in part by her own past policies.
>> (A
>> sometimes hilarious pro-Hillary version of this event by Maggie
>> Haberman appeared on page one of the August 20 New York Times.) What
>> happened in Keene was that she concluded with her voice reaching an
>> almost angry intensity, with her finger pointing at the black man's
>> chest, and with her message reiterated that, if America fails to
>> change, it's the victims' fault.
>> So maybe she really is talking only to white people. Hillary Clinton
>> has been in public life for decades. How can she possibly be so
>> unaware of racial reality as she presents herself. How can she
>> possibly know at least some of the things that need to be done to
>> improve Black lives and all lives? Her message – or really, her lack
>> of message – is certainly what a whole lot of white people want to hear.
>> In that respect, she's little different from Scott Walker, who
>> responded to a reporter asking him if he would meet with Black Lives
>> Matter by calling the question "ridiculous." Walker added: "I'm here
>> to talk to voters in New Hampshire about things that matter."
>> Does Black Lives Matter matter enough to enough people?
>> For Scott Walker, suggesting that Black Lives Matter is something that
>> doesn't matter is designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or one
>> could say that Walker continues the grand old tradition of
>> marginalizing the marginalized. And no wonder, since Black Lives
>> Matter is a conscious, conscientious threat to Walker and all his ilk.
>> Black Lives Matter describes itself as:
>> … an ideological and political intervention; we are not controlled by
>> the same political machine we are attempting to hold accountable. In
>> the year leading up to the elections, we are committed to holding all
>> candidates for Office accountable to the needs and dreams of Black
>> people. We embrace a diversity of tactics. We are a decentralized
>> network aiming to build the leadership and power of black people….
>> Historically, all political parties have participated in the
>> systematic disenfranchisement of Black people. Anti-black racism,
>> especially that sanctioned by the state, has resulted in the loss of
>> healthy and thriving Black life and well-being. Given that, we will
>> continue to hold politicians and political parties accountable for
>> their policies and platforms. We will also continue to demand the
> intentional dismantling of structural racism.
>> So far, Hillary Clinton only pretends to be interested in thinking
>> about that. She has better rhetoric and a more flexible and subtle
>> approach to racial issues than Walker and his fellow Republicans. She
>> seems to offer more sympathy to victims of the American system, but
>> it's hard to see how she's offering a presidency that would deliver
>> very much better results than any of theirs.
>> The official position of the Sanders campaign on racial justice (9
>> pages) is unequivocal in principle:
>> We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that
>> affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing
>> the four central types of violence waged against black and brown
> Americans:
>> physical, political, legal and economic….
>> It is an outrage that in these early years of the 21st century we are
>> seeing intolerable acts of violence being perpetuated by police, and
>> racist terrorism by white supremacists.
>> Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with Black Lives Matter people speaking
>> truth to would-be power, offered nothing better than equivocation and
>> victim blaming.
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
>> TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
>> Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
>> America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
>> and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
>> Sciences.
>> Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
>> Permission
>> to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
>> Supported News.
>> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
>> valid.
>>
>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (photo:
>> Charlie
>> Neibergall/AP)
>> http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
>> Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
>> By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
>> 25 August 15
>> Black Lives Matter activists push edges that need pushing fter
>> listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a quintet of
>> respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, "Yeah, well,
>> respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white
>> people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem." More
>> than being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the reality
>> that white violence against black people is an offense that only white
>> people can stop. And she was also avoiding her own, very real role in
>> promoting federal policies that have made black lives matter less and
>> less over the past two decades.
>> Hillary Clinton's meeting with Daunasia Yancey, Julius Jones, and
>> others of Black Lives Matter began well enough on August 11 in Keene,
>> New Hampshire, after an early glitch. The Secret Service kept the
>> activists out of the room where Clinton was speaking because the room
>> was full (they heard her speak with others in an overflow room). But
>> then the Clinton campaign arranged the after-event meeting at which
>> cordiality and calm were the rule.
>> This was in sharp contrast to the Social Security rally in Seattle on
>> August 9, where Bernie Sanders was interrupted by other Black Lives
>> Matter activists. There, two women took over the podium as the
>> candidate began to speak. They waved their arms and shouted, silencing
>> Sanders. Bernie held out his hand to shake one of theirs. Then came
>> the tip-off: no one took his hand. As Sanders gave way, these Black
>> Lives Matter women took over the event and shut it down. On their
>> website they had posted a comment echoing Malcolm X in 1964, who had
>> echoed Jean-Paul Sartre:
>> There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost.
>> We will ensure this by any means necessary.
>> After the event, Sanders issued a statement expressing his
>> disappointment "that two people disrupted a rally attended by
>> thousands" in support of Social Security. He added that "on criminal
>> justice reform and the need to fight racism, there is no other candidate
> who will fight harder than me."
>> The next day, Sanders published his detailed racial justice platform.
>> The question for Hillary Clinton: Have you changed?
>> The echo of revolutionary rhetoric was absent from the 16-minute
>> exchange with Hillary Clinton in Keene (the full videotape was released
> August 19).
>> Both Yancey and Jones spoke quietly and coherently, but they were
>> substantively much more militant than the sloganeers of Seattle. After
>> a friendly-looking handshake and some shoulder-touching from the
>> candidate, Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter in Boston read from
>> her iPhone as she asked about the difference, if any, between the
>> Hillary Clinton of twenty years ago and the Hillary now:
>> … you and your family have been personally and politically responsible
>> for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in
>> impoverished communities of color through the domestic and
>> international war on drugs that you championed as First Lady, Senator
>> and Secretary of State.
>> And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that
>> violence and how you plan to reverse it?
>> For the next fifteen minutes, Clinton ignored the question and refused
>> to offer any plan to ameliorate the suffering caused by US drug
>> policy, or any other policy. Her body language was stiff, leaning back,
> "listening hard"
>> but appearing unreceptive. Everything she had to say was contained in
>> her empty and opaque first sentence in irrelevant response:
>> Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today.
>> Clinton never came close to addressing her own actions. She
>> filibustered, in effect, for a minute or so about "concern" and
>> "re-thinking" and "different circumstances" and "looking at the world
>> as it is today," without actually saying anything specific or
>> meaningful. She was talking down to her listener, almost lecturing,
>> without content. Hillary Clinton seemed to be suggesting that the
>> policy she and her husband supported in the 1990s was good then, but
>> maybe, just maybe, it needed to be re-thought in some ways now.
>> Yancey replied politely, with Clinton interrupting: "Yeah, and I would
>> offer that it didn't work then, either, and that those policies were
>> actually extensions of white supremacist violence against communities
>> of color. And so, I just think I want to hear a little bit about that,
>> about the fact that actually while … those policies were being
>> enacted, they were ripping apart families … and actually causing
>> death.
>> "Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with you," Clinton replied. She's not sure?
>> She's had twenty years to think about race in America and she's not
>> sure whether she helped or hurt? She running for president and she's
>> not sure what she thinks is real? Next she said, "I'm not sure I
>> disagree that any kind of government action often has consequences,"
>> which means nothing and is unresponsive. That was Clinton's choice, to
>> be unresponsive, rather than admit she'd been wrong twenty years ago,
>> when "there was a very serious crime wave that was impacting primarily
>> communities of color and poor people."
>> Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you people From
>> there, Clinton slid into a meandering but empty defense of Clinton
>> administration actions as a response to real community concerns. Doing
>> so, she evaded the reality that the Clinton response was a top-down
>> answer, that community involvement in solving its own problems was
>> something to be tolerated as little as possible. She continued in the
>> same vein in addressing the present, mentioning "systemic issues of
>> race and justice that go deeper than any particular law" without
>> particularity. Clinton seemed at a loss for anything to say until she
>> seemed to stumble on the old pat-on-the-head, patronizing flattery for
>> the critic who objects to cops killing black people:
>> What you're doing, as activists and as people who are constantly
>> raising these issues, is really important. So I applaud and thank you
>> for that, I really do, because we can't get change unless there's
>> constant
> pressure.
>> But
>> now the next step, so, you know – part of you need to keep the
>> pressure on and part of you need to help figure out what do we do now,
>> how are we gonna do it? [emphasis in original] Slick moves. Praise the
>> victims for objecting to their victimhood.
>> Compliment them on their efforts to end victimization. Tell them it's
>> up to them to bring authority to heel, and to heal. And put the
>> responsibility on the victims to figure out what the victimizers
>> should do differently. And be extra careful not to come close to even
>> implying that the president or the cops or anyone in between has any
>> personal or institutional responsibility for victimizing people in the
>> first place. Good job, Hillary Clinton.
>> Six minutes into the empty rhetoric, Clinton has answered no questions
>> and offered no solutions, but bloviated "sympathetically" to get to this:
>> We need a whole comprehensive plan that I am more than happy to work
>> with you guys on, to try to figure out, OK, we know black lives
>> matter, we need to keep saying it so that people accept it, what do we do
> next?
>> Julius Jones tried to get Hillary Clinton to address specifics As
>> Clinton began to ramble on along this track, Julius Jones, founder of
>> Black Lives Matter in Worcester, Massachusetts, gently, almost
>> tentatively intervened to say how honored he was to have Hillary
>> Clinton talking to him, and such, but mass incarceration hasn't
>> worked, like so much else:
>> The truth is that there's an extremely long history of unfortunate
>> government practices that don't work, that particularly affect black
>> people and black families. And until we, as a country, and then the
>> person who's in the seat that you seek, actually addresses the
>> anti-blackness current that is America's first drug – we're in a
>> meeting about drugs, right?
>> America's first drug is free black labor and turning black bodies into
>> profit, and the mass incarceration system mirrors an awful lot like
>> the prison plantation system. It's a similar thread, right? And until
>> someone takes that message and speaks that truth to white people in
>> this country, so that we can actually take on anti-blackness as a
>> founding problem in this country, I don't believe that there is going
>> to be a solution....
>> Jones pointed out that there's a lot of money in prisons, that the US
>> spends more money on prisons than it spends on schools. Throughout,
>> Clinton was keeping a sober face and going "Mmmm" as if agreeing to
>> his points. She seemed to agree when he said that African-American
>> people were suffering more than others. And Jones expressed the fear
>> that the plantation evolving into the prison system would evolve into
>> new horrors unless something changed. So he returned to Yancey's
>> original question in a different form:
>> You know, I genuinely want to know – you and your family have been, in
>> no uncertain way, partially responsible for this, more than most,
>> right? Now, there may have been unintended consequences. But now that
>> you understand the consequences, what in your heart has changed that's
>> going to change the direction in this country? Like, what in you –
>> like, not your platform, not what you're supposed to say – like,how do
>> you actually feel that's different than you did before? Like, what
>> were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons
>> for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black
>> people in this country? [emphasis added] How does Hillary Clinton
>> "actually feel that's different" from before?
>> This is a potentially devastating moment for candidate Clinton.
>> Without missing a beat, a staff member interrupts, breaks the flow,
>> and says something about keeping on schedule. Jones objected to the
>> interruption and the staffer even said, "I'm not interrupting," but
>> he'd given the candidate another 20 seconds to frame her answer:
>> "Well, obviously it's a very thoughtful question that deserves a
> thoughtful answer."
>> Then Clinton vamped on her "commitment" to make things better, going
>> into a long riff on how she had spent much of her life trying to make
>> things better for kids, all kinds of kids. She agreed that "there has
>> to be a reckoning,"
>> but also a "positive vision." Once you face the truth of racial
>> history, she said, then most people will say: so what am I supposed to
>> do about it?
>> That's what I'm trying to put together in a way that I can explain it
>> and I can sell it – because in politics, you can't explain it and you
>> can't sell it, it stays on the shelf.
>> Clinton then referred to other movements – civil rights, women's
>> rights, gay rights – and started a mini-lecture on how these movements
>> had plans in place so that, once they had raised consciousness, they
>> could get laws passed. Her spiel was self-servingly ahistorical,
>> comparing the year-old Black Lives Matter to other movements that took
>> decades to evolve. Her point was that Black Lives Matter needed a
>> plan, which is undeniable. The point she didn't make clear was that
>> she had nothing to contribute. She covered that absence by saying:
>> Your analysis is totally fair. It's historically fair. It's
>> psychologically fair. It's economically fair. But you're going to have
>> to come together as a movement and say, "Here's what we want done
>> about it," because you can get lip service from as many white people
>> as you can pack into Yankee Stadium and a million more like it, who
>> are going to say, "Oh, we get it. We get it.
>> We're going to be nicer." OK? That's not enough, at least in my book.
>> That's
>> not how I see politics.
>> So, the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of
>> your movement is so critical. But now all I'm suggesting is, even for
>> us sinners, find some common ground on agendas that can make a
>> difference right here and now in people's lives. And that's what I
>> would love to, you know, have your thoughts about, because that's what
>> I'm trying to figure out how to do…."
>> [emphasis added]
>> If the "analysis is totally fair," why is Clinton's response so pallid?
>> Clinton spent another minute or so making the same point in another
>> way, once again absolving herself of commitment to any particular
>> goal, or strategy, and once more laying it on the victims to deal with
>> their victimization by the white culture she represents and helped
>> shape in its present form. They had been talking about 14 minutes by
>> then and Hillary Clinton had answered no questions and had offered
>> nothing. A staffer interrupted, saying it was time to go.
>> But Julius Jones quietly refused to accept the patronizing pat on the
>> head with the implied promise of a bone to be tossed at some
>> indefinite time in the future. With quiet patience he opened up the
>> only meaningful dialogue of the encounter, as reported on Democracy
>> NOW!:
>> JULIUS JONES: Respectfully, the piece that's most important – and I
>> stand here in your space, and I say this as respectfully as I can –
>> but if you don't tell black people what we need to do, then we won't
>> tell you all what you need to do. Right?
>> HILLARY CLINTON: I'm not telling you; I'm just telling you to tell me.
>> JULIUS JONES: What I mean to say is that this is, and has always been,
>> a white problem of violence. It's not– there's not much that we can do
>> to stop the violence against us. [emphasis added throughout] That is
>> the moment of truth. Blacks are almost powerless to stop white people
>> from killing them. Blacks have always been almost powerless to stop
>> white people from killing them. White people need to decide that
>> killing black people is wrong and will no longer be allowed by the
>> white power structure. Clinton must know this, it's so obvious. She
>> said, "I understand what you're saying," but she gave no evidence that
>> she understands. And when Jones tried to pursue his argument, she cut
>> him off, her voice rising peevishly, sarcastically echoing
>> "respectfully" with no respect:
>> JULIUS JONES: And then, we are also, respectfully, respectfully—
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, respectfully, if that is your position,
>> then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal
>> with a very real problem.
>> JULIUS JONES: That's not what I mean. That's not what I mean. That's
>> not what I mean.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Well—
>> JULIUS JONES: But like, what I'm saying is you –what you just said was
>> a form of victim blaming.Right? You were saying that what the Black
>> Lives Matter movement … needs to do to change white hearts is to come
>> up with a policy change.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: No, I'm not talking about—look, I don't believe you
>> change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of
>> resources, you change the way systems operate. You're not going to change
> every heart….
>> In the end, Clinton promised nothing – so you know what to expect
>> Clinton creates a straw man argument – Jones didn't say "change every
>> heart." Then she uses that falsehood to say again what she's been
>> saying all along, to say what Jones said she said. Once again Clinton
>> puts the responsibility for creating change on the people with the
>> least power to create change. This is nothing but bad faith. (Even
>> Bill Clinton has apologized, at the N.A.A.C.P. convention, for
>> increasing the mass incarceration of black young men: "I signed a bill
>> that made the problem
>> worse.")
>> Ironically, Hillary Clinton's nasty suggestion that "I will talk only
>> to white people" actually implies a more relevant tactic. She has no
>> intention of doing anything like that, it seems. But it would be a
>> start for Hillary Clinton to talk to her 1990s self and say, out loud,
>> that mass incarceration for profit was a morally and economically
>> corrupt idea and today I reject it. Then today's Hillary Clinton might
>> have more credibility when she expressed sympathy for people oppressed
>> in part by her own past policies.
>> (A
>> sometimes hilarious pro-Hillary version of this event by Maggie
>> Haberman appeared on page one of the August 20 New York Times.) What
>> happened in Keene was that she concluded with her voice reaching an
>> almost angry intensity, with her finger pointing at the black man's
>> chest, and with her message reiterated that, if America fails to
>> change, it's the victims' fault.
>> So maybe she really is talking only to white people. Hillary Clinton
>> has been in public life for decades. How can she possibly be so
>> unaware of racial reality as she presents herself. How can she
>> possibly know at least some of the things that need to be done to
>> improve Black lives and all lives? Her message – or really, her lack
>> of message – is certainly what a whole lot of white people want to hear.
>> In that respect, she's little different from Scott Walker, who
>> responded to a reporter asking him if he would meet with Black Lives
>> Matter by calling the question "ridiculous." Walker added: "I'm here
>> to talk to voters in New Hampshire about things that matter."
>> Does Black Lives Matter matter enough to enough people?
>> For Scott Walker, suggesting that Black Lives Matter is something that
>> doesn't matter is designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or one
>> could say that Walker continues the grand old tradition of
>> marginalizing the marginalized. And no wonder, since Black Lives
>> Matter is a conscious, conscientious threat to Walker and all his ilk.
>> Black Lives Matter describes itself as:
>> … an ideological and political intervention; we are not controlled by
>> the same political machine we are attempting to hold accountable. In
>> the year leading up to the elections, we are committed to holding all
>> candidates for Office accountable to the needs and dreams of Black
>> people. We embrace a diversity of tactics. We are a decentralized
>> network aiming to build the leadership and power of black people….
>> Historically, all political parties have participated in the
>> systematic disenfranchisement of Black people. Anti-black racism,
>> especially that sanctioned by the state, has resulted in the loss of
>> healthy and thriving Black life and well-being. Given that, we will
>> continue to hold politicians and political parties accountable for
>> their policies and platforms. We will also continue to demand the
> intentional dismantling of structural racism.
>> So far, Hillary Clinton only pretends to be interested in thinking
>> about that. She has better rhetoric and a more flexible and subtle
>> approach to racial issues than Walker and his fellow Republicans. She
>> seems to offer more sympathy to victims of the American system, but
>> it's hard to see how she's offering a presidency that would deliver
>> very much better results than any of theirs.
>> The official position of the Sanders campaign on racial justice (9
>> pages) is unequivocal in principle:
>> We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that
> ..> affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing
> the
>> four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans:
>> physical, political, legal and economic….
>> It is an outrage that in these early years of the 21st century we are
>> seeing intolerable acts of violence being perpetuated by police, and
>> racist terrorism by white supremacists.
>> Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with Black Lives Matter people speaking
>> truth to would-be power, offered nothing better than equivocation and
>> victim blaming.
>>
>> William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
>> TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
>> Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
>> America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
>> and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
>> Sciences.
>> Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
>> Permission
>> to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
>> Supported News.
>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>
>>
>>
> "Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you peopl" e
>
>
>
to that, "All You People", remark as an insult.
And you would think that none of us blind people would be so blind as
to refer to other minority groups as, "All You People".
But I can positively say to, "All You Sociologist", you like to
complicate the subject with charts, grafts, theories, and piles of
papers, pointing out why we lump people into groups that we can then
say, "All You People".
But the fact of the matter is that it is because we have become lazy.
Maybe even brain dead.
At least dull and lazy, because it just does not take a great deal of
brain energy to realize that all of us fall into any number of groups
where we become, "All You People".
Forget the idea that this lumping is for convenience sake. It is a
put down, pure and simple. It dismisses our individuality. We are
just another cow in the herd, another sheep in the flock.
Trump lumps "All Illegals" and can then send them all home. Just a
faceless herd of cattle. Easy to ship out all you 11 million
faceless, nameless nuisances. Easy to sit in a safe room in Colorado
and push a button that takes out nameless, faceless Terrorists. Not
someone's brother, or son, or grandmother, or daughter. Not a person.
"All You People", is one step closer to being able to do with us as
the Masters see fit.
Do not ever allow yourself to be labelled as, "All You People". And
never, ever make the mistake of thinking of others in that light. We
are each of us special individuals. We deserve respect. We are
charged with paying respect to others.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/26/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> When the movie theater owner threw me and my guide dog out of the movie
> theater in Westbury back in the early 80's, he said, "I know all about you
> people".
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 12:37 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White
> People ...'
>
> "Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you people"
> Whenever I hear the words, "You People", whether they are tied to Blacks,
> GLTB's, women, or goat herders, I can safely say that the speaker of such
> words knows absolutely nothing of value on the subject. As a Blind Man, I
> have had those very words laid on me and my friends, over and over again
> with nothing of value ever coming out of them. "All of the politicians who
> resort to such words are of absolutely no help. And that's the good news.
> Usually the speaking of these patronizing words constitute the beginning of
> trouble. When we were working for the passage of our Commission for the
> Blind in Washington State, a long-time state senator grabbed my hand with
> his pudgy, wet hand and said, "You People deserve everything you're asking
> for". And then he went into the senate and voted against our bill.
> "You People", is a way of dismissing those we do not want to deal with. I
> have come to the place where I reply, "There is only one People talking to
> you. I am not, you people. I will call you by your name, and request that
> you call me by mine. I would never be so rude, so thoughtless as to refer
> to you as, you people. Please show me the same respect."
>
> Do not be afraid to demand respect. It may be the only way you'll get it.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
> On 8/25/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>>
>> Boardman writes: "After listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly
>> told a quintet of respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, 'Yeah,
>> well, respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to
>> white people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem.'
>> More than being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the
>> reality that white violence against black people is an offense that
>> only white people can stop."
>>
>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (photo:
>> Charlie
>> Neibergall/AP)
>>
>>
>> Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
>> By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
>> 25 August 15
>>
>> Black Lives Matter activists push edges that need pushing
>>
>> After listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a quintet of
>> respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, "Yeah, well,
>> respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white
>> people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem." More
>> than being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the reality
>> that white violence against black people is an offense that only white
>> people can stop. And she was also avoiding her own, very real role in
>> promoting federal policies that have made black lives matter less and
>> less over the past two decades.
>> Hillary Clinton's meeting with Daunasia Yancey, Julius Jones, and
>> others of Black Lives Matter began well enough on August 11 in Keene,
>> New Hampshire, after an early glitch. The Secret Service kept the
>> activists out of the room where Clinton was speaking because the room
>> was full (they heard her speak with others in an overflow room). But
>> then the Clinton campaign arranged the after-event meeting at which
>> cordiality and calm were the rule.
>> This was in sharp contrast to the Social Security rally in Seattle on
>> August 9, where Bernie Sanders was interrupted by other Black Lives
>> Matter activists. There, two women took over the podium as the
>> candidate began to speak. They waved their arms and shouted, silencing
>> Sanders. Bernie held out his hand to shake one of theirs. Then came
>> the tip-off: no one took his hand. As Sanders gave way, these Black
>> Lives Matter women took over the event and shut it down. On their
>> website they had posted a comment echoing Malcolm X in 1964, who had
>> echoed Jean-Paul Sartre:
>> There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost.
>> We will ensure this by any means necessary.
>> After the event, Sanders issued a statement expressing his
>> disappointment "that two people disrupted a rally attended by
>> thousands" in support of Social Security. He added that "on criminal
>> justice reform and the need to fight racism, there is no other candidate
> who will fight harder than me."
>> The next day, Sanders published his detailed racial justice platform.
>> The question for Hillary Clinton: Have you changed?
>> The echo of revolutionary rhetoric was absent from the 16-minute
>> exchange with Hillary Clinton in Keene (the full videotape was released
> August 19).
>> Both Yancey and Jones spoke quietly and coherently, but they were
>> substantively much more militant than the sloganeers of Seattle. After
>> a friendly-looking handshake and some shoulder-touching from the
>> candidate, Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter in Boston read from
>> her iPhone as she asked about the difference, if any, between the
>> Hillary Clinton of twenty years ago and the Hillary now:
>> … you and your family have been personally and politically responsible
>> for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in
>> impoverished communities of color through the domestic and
>> international war on drugs that you championed as First Lady, Senator
>> and Secretary of State.
>> And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that
>> violence and how you plan to reverse it?
>> For the next fifteen minutes, Clinton ignored the question and refused
>> to offer any plan to ameliorate the suffering caused by US drug
>> policy, or any other policy. Her body language was stiff, leaning back,
> "listening hard"
>> but appearing unreceptive. Everything she had to say was contained in
>> her empty and opaque first sentence in irrelevant response:
>> Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today.
>> Clinton never came close to addressing her own actions. She
>> filibustered, in effect, for a minute or so about "concern" and
>> "re-thinking" and "different circumstances" and "looking at the world
>> as it is today," without actually saying anything specific or
>> meaningful. She was talking down to her listener, almost lecturing,
>> without content. Hillary Clinton seemed to be suggesting that the
>> policy she and her husband supported in the 1990s was good then, but
>> maybe, just maybe, it needed to be re-thought in some ways now.
>> Yancey replied politely, with Clinton interrupting: "Yeah, and I would
>> offer that it didn't work then, either, and that those policies were
>> actually extensions of white supremacist violence against communities
>> of color. And so, I just think I want to hear a little bit about that,
>> about the fact that actually while … those policies were being
>> enacted, they were ripping apart families … and actually causing
>> death.
>> "Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with you," Clinton replied. She's not sure?
>> She's had twenty years to think about race in America and she's not
>> sure whether she helped or hurt? She running for president and she's
>> not sure what she thinks is real? Next she said, "I'm not sure I
>> disagree that any kind of government action often has consequences,"
>> which means nothing and is unresponsive. That was Clinton's choice, to
>> be unresponsive, rather than admit she'd been wrong twenty years ago,
>> when "there was a very serious crime wave that was impacting primarily
>> communities of color and poor people."
>> Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you people From
>> there, Clinton slid into a meandering but empty defense of Clinton
>> administration actions as a response to real community concerns. Doing
>> so, she evaded the reality that the Clinton response was a top-down
>> answer, that community involvement in solving its own problems was
>> something to be tolerated as little as possible. She continued in the
>> same vein in addressing the present, mentioning "systemic issues of
>> race and justice that go deeper than any particular law" without
>> particularity. Clinton seemed at a loss for anything to say until she
>> seemed to stumble on the old pat-on-the-head, patronizing flattery for
>> the critic who objects to cops killing black people:
>> What you're doing, as activists and as people who are constantly
>> raising these issues, is really important. So I applaud and thank you
>> for that, I really do, because we can't get change unless there's
>> constant
> pressure.
>> But
>> now the next step, so, you know – part of you need to keep the
>> pressure on and part of you need to help figure out what do we do now,
>> how are we gonna do it? [emphasis in original] Slick moves. Praise the
>> victims for objecting to their victimhood.
>> Compliment them on their efforts to end victimization. Tell them it's
>> up to them to bring authority to heel, and to heal. And put the
>> responsibility on the victims to figure out what the victimizers
>> should do differently. And be extra careful not to come close to even
>> implying that the president or the cops or anyone in between has any
>> personal or institutional responsibility for victimizing people in the
>> first place. Good job, Hillary Clinton.
>> Six minutes into the empty rhetoric, Clinton has answered no questions
>> and offered no solutions, but bloviated "sympathetically" to get to this:
>> We need a whole comprehensive plan that I am more than happy to work
>> with you guys on, to try to figure out, OK, we know black lives
>> matter, we need to keep saying it so that people accept it, what do we do
> next?
>> Julius Jones tried to get Hillary Clinton to address specifics As
>> Clinton began to ramble on along this track, Julius Jones, founder of
>> Black Lives Matter in Worcester, Massachusetts, gently, almost
>> tentatively intervened to say how honored he was to have Hillary
>> Clinton talking to him, and such, but mass incarceration hasn't
>> worked, like so much else:
>> The truth is that there's an extremely long history of unfortunate
>> government practices that don't work, that particularly affect black
>> people and black families. And until we, as a country, and then the
>> person who's in the seat that you seek, actually addresses the
>> anti-blackness current that is America's first drug – we're in a
>> meeting about drugs, right?
>> America's first drug is free black labor and turning black bodies into
>> profit, and the mass incarceration system mirrors an awful lot like
>> the prison plantation system. It's a similar thread, right? And until
>> someone takes that message and speaks that truth to white people in
>> this country, so that we can actually take on anti-blackness as a
>> founding problem in this country, I don't believe that there is going
>> to be a solution....
>> Jones pointed out that there's a lot of money in prisons, that the US
>> spends more money on prisons than it spends on schools. Throughout,
>> Clinton was keeping a sober face and going "Mmmm" as if agreeing to
>> his points. She seemed to agree when he said that African-American
>> people were suffering more than others. And Jones expressed the fear
>> that the plantation evolving into the prison system would evolve into
>> new horrors unless something changed. So he returned to Yancey's
>> original question in a different form:
>> You know, I genuinely want to know – you and your family have been, in
>> no uncertain way, partially responsible for this, more than most,
>> right? Now, there may have been unintended consequences. But now that
>> you understand the consequences, what in your heart has changed that's
>> going to change the direction in this country? Like, what in you –
>> like, not your platform, not what you're supposed to say – like,how do
>> you actually feel that's different than you did before? Like, what
>> were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons
>> for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black
>> people in this country? [emphasis added] How does Hillary Clinton
>> "actually feel that's different" from before?
>> This is a potentially devastating moment for candidate Clinton.
>> Without missing a beat, a staff member interrupts, breaks the flow,
>> and says something about keeping on schedule. Jones objected to the
>> interruption and the staffer even said, "I'm not interrupting," but
>> he'd given the candidate another 20 seconds to frame her answer:
>> "Well, obviously it's a very thoughtful question that deserves a
> thoughtful answer."
>> Then Clinton vamped on her "commitment" to make things better, going
>> into a long riff on how she had spent much of her life trying to make
>> things better for kids, all kinds of kids. She agreed that "there has
>> to be a reckoning,"
>> but also a "positive vision." Once you face the truth of racial
>> history, she said, then most people will say: so what am I supposed to
>> do about it?
>> That's what I'm trying to put together in a way that I can explain it
>> and I can sell it ¬– because in politics, you can't explain it and you
>> can't sell it, it stays on the shelf.
>> Clinton then referred to other movements – civil rights, women's
>> rights, gay rights – and started a mini-lecture on how these movements
>> had plans in place so that, once they had raised consciousness, they
>> could get laws passed. Her spiel was self-servingly ahistorical,
>> comparing the year-old Black Lives Matter to other movements that took
>> decades to evolve. Her point was that Black Lives Matter needed a
>> plan, which is undeniable. The point she didn't make clear was that
>> she had nothing to contribute. She covered that absence by saying:
>> Your analysis is totally fair. It's historically fair. It's
>> psychologically fair. It's economically fair. But you're going to have
>> to come together as a movement and say, "Here's what we want done
>> about it," because you can get lip service from as many white people
>> as you can pack into Yankee Stadium and a million more like it, who
>> are going to say, "Oh, we get it. We get it.
>> We're going to be nicer." OK? That's not enough, at least in my book.
>> That's
>> not how I see politics.
>> So, the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of
>> your movement is so critical. But now all I'm suggesting is, even for
>> us sinners, find some common ground on agendas that can make a
>> difference right here and now in people's lives. And that's what I
>> would love to, you know, have your thoughts about, because that's what
>> I'm trying to figure out how to do…."
>> [emphasis added]
>> If the "analysis is totally fair," why is Clinton's response so pallid?
>> Clinton spent another minute or so making the same point in another
>> way, once again absolving herself of commitment to any particular
>> goal, or strategy, and once more laying it on the victims to deal with
>> their victimization by the white culture she represents and helped
>> shape in its present form. They had been talking about 14 minutes by
>> then and Hillary Clinton had answered no questions and had offered
>> nothing. A staffer interrupted, saying it was time to go.
>> But Julius Jones quietly refused to accept the patronizing pat on the
>> head with the implied promise of a bone to be tossed at some
>> indefinite time in the future. With quiet patience he opened up the
>> only meaningful dialogue of the encounter, as reported on Democracy
>> NOW!:
>> JULIUS JONES: Respectfully, the piece that's most important – and I
>> stand here in your space, and I say this as respectfully as I can –
>> but if you don't tell black people what we need to do, then we won't
>> tell you all what you need to do. Right?
>> HILLARY CLINTON: I'm not telling you; I'm just telling you to tell me.
>> JULIUS JONES: What I mean to say is that this is, and has always been,
>> a white problem of violence. It's not– there's not much that we can do
>> to stop the violence against us. [emphasis added throughout] That is
>> the moment of truth. Blacks are almost powerless to stop white people
>> from killing them. Blacks have always been almost powerless to stop
>> white people from killing them. White people need to decide that
>> killing black people is wrong and will no longer be allowed by the
>> white power structure. Clinton must know this, it's so obvious. She
>> said, "I understand what you're saying," but she gave no evidence that
>> she understands. And when Jones tried to pursue his argument, she cut
>> him off, her voice rising peevishly, sarcastically echoing
>> "respectfully" with no respect:
>> JULIUS JONES: And then, we are also, respectfully, respectfully—
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, respectfully, if that is your position,
>> then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal
>> with a very real problem.
>> JULIUS JONES: That's not what I mean. That's not what I mean. That's
>> not what I mean.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Well—
>> JULIUS JONES: But like, what I'm saying is you –what you just said was
>> a form of victim blaming.Right? You were saying that what the Black
>> Lives Matter movement … needs to do to change white hearts is to come
>> up with a policy change.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: No, I'm not talking about—look, I don't believe you
>> change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of
>> resources, you change the way systems operate. You're not going to change
> every heart….
>> In the end, Clinton promised nothing – so you know what to expect
>> Clinton creates a straw man argument – Jones didn't say "change every
>> heart." Then she uses that falsehood to say again what she's been
>> saying all along, to say what Jones said she said. Once again Clinton
>> puts the responsibility for creating change on the people with the
>> least power to create change. This is nothing but bad faith. (Even
>> Bill Clinton has apologized, at the N.A.A.C.P. convention, for
>> increasing the mass incarceration of black young men: "I signed a bill
>> that made the problem
>> worse.")
>> Ironically, Hillary Clinton's nasty suggestion that "I will talk only
>> to white people" actually implies a more relevant tactic. She has no
>> intention of doing anything like that, it seems. But it would be a
>> start for Hillary Clinton to talk to her 1990s self and say, out loud,
>> that mass incarceration for profit was a morally and economically
>> corrupt idea and today I reject it. Then today's Hillary Clinton might
>> have more credibility when she expressed sympathy for people oppressed
>> in part by her own past policies.
>> (A
>> sometimes hilarious pro-Hillary version of this event by Maggie
>> Haberman appeared on page one of the August 20 New York Times.) What
>> happened in Keene was that she concluded with her voice reaching an
>> almost angry intensity, with her finger pointing at the black man's
>> chest, and with her message reiterated that, if America fails to
>> change, it's the victims' fault.
>> So maybe she really is talking only to white people. Hillary Clinton
>> has been in public life for decades. How can she possibly be so
>> unaware of racial reality as she presents herself. How can she
>> possibly know at least some of the things that need to be done to
>> improve Black lives and all lives? Her message – or really, her lack
>> of message – is certainly what a whole lot of white people want to hear.
>> In that respect, she's little different from Scott Walker, who
>> responded to a reporter asking him if he would meet with Black Lives
>> Matter by calling the question "ridiculous." Walker added: "I'm here
>> to talk to voters in New Hampshire about things that matter."
>> Does Black Lives Matter matter enough to enough people?
>> For Scott Walker, suggesting that Black Lives Matter is something that
>> doesn't matter is designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or one
>> could say that Walker continues the grand old tradition of
>> marginalizing the marginalized. And no wonder, since Black Lives
>> Matter is a conscious, conscientious threat to Walker and all his ilk.
>> Black Lives Matter describes itself as:
>> … an ideological and political intervention; we are not controlled by
>> the same political machine we are attempting to hold accountable. In
>> the year leading up to the elections, we are committed to holding all
>> candidates for Office accountable to the needs and dreams of Black
>> people. We embrace a diversity of tactics. We are a decentralized
>> network aiming to build the leadership and power of black people….
>> Historically, all political parties have participated in the
>> systematic disenfranchisement of Black people. Anti-black racism,
>> especially that sanctioned by the state, has resulted in the loss of
>> healthy and thriving Black life and well-being. Given that, we will
>> continue to hold politicians and political parties accountable for
>> their policies and platforms. We will also continue to demand the
> intentional dismantling of structural racism.
>> So far, Hillary Clinton only pretends to be interested in thinking
>> about that. She has better rhetoric and a more flexible and subtle
>> approach to racial issues than Walker and his fellow Republicans. She
>> seems to offer more sympathy to victims of the American system, but
>> it's hard to see how she's offering a presidency that would deliver
>> very much better results than any of theirs.
>> The official position of the Sanders campaign on racial justice (9
>> pages) is unequivocal in principle:
>> We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that
>> affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing
>> the four central types of violence waged against black and brown
> Americans:
>> physical, political, legal and economic….
>> It is an outrage that in these early years of the 21st century we are
>> seeing intolerable acts of violence being perpetuated by police, and
>> racist terrorism by white supremacists.
>> Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with Black Lives Matter people speaking
>> truth to would-be power, offered nothing better than equivocation and
>> victim blaming.
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
>> TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
>> Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
>> America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
>> and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
>> Sciences.
>> Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
>> Permission
>> to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
>> Supported News.
>> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
>> valid.
>>
>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (photo:
>> Charlie
>> Neibergall/AP)
>> http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
>> Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
>> By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
>> 25 August 15
>> Black Lives Matter activists push edges that need pushing fter
>> listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a quintet of
>> respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, "Yeah, well,
>> respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white
>> people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem." More
>> than being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the reality
>> that white violence against black people is an offense that only white
>> people can stop. And she was also avoiding her own, very real role in
>> promoting federal policies that have made black lives matter less and
>> less over the past two decades.
>> Hillary Clinton's meeting with Daunasia Yancey, Julius Jones, and
>> others of Black Lives Matter began well enough on August 11 in Keene,
>> New Hampshire, after an early glitch. The Secret Service kept the
>> activists out of the room where Clinton was speaking because the room
>> was full (they heard her speak with others in an overflow room). But
>> then the Clinton campaign arranged the after-event meeting at which
>> cordiality and calm were the rule.
>> This was in sharp contrast to the Social Security rally in Seattle on
>> August 9, where Bernie Sanders was interrupted by other Black Lives
>> Matter activists. There, two women took over the podium as the
>> candidate began to speak. They waved their arms and shouted, silencing
>> Sanders. Bernie held out his hand to shake one of theirs. Then came
>> the tip-off: no one took his hand. As Sanders gave way, these Black
>> Lives Matter women took over the event and shut it down. On their
>> website they had posted a comment echoing Malcolm X in 1964, who had
>> echoed Jean-Paul Sartre:
>> There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost.
>> We will ensure this by any means necessary.
>> After the event, Sanders issued a statement expressing his
>> disappointment "that two people disrupted a rally attended by
>> thousands" in support of Social Security. He added that "on criminal
>> justice reform and the need to fight racism, there is no other candidate
> who will fight harder than me."
>> The next day, Sanders published his detailed racial justice platform.
>> The question for Hillary Clinton: Have you changed?
>> The echo of revolutionary rhetoric was absent from the 16-minute
>> exchange with Hillary Clinton in Keene (the full videotape was released
> August 19).
>> Both Yancey and Jones spoke quietly and coherently, but they were
>> substantively much more militant than the sloganeers of Seattle. After
>> a friendly-looking handshake and some shoulder-touching from the
>> candidate, Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter in Boston read from
>> her iPhone as she asked about the difference, if any, between the
>> Hillary Clinton of twenty years ago and the Hillary now:
>> … you and your family have been personally and politically responsible
>> for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in
>> impoverished communities of color through the domestic and
>> international war on drugs that you championed as First Lady, Senator
>> and Secretary of State.
>> And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that
>> violence and how you plan to reverse it?
>> For the next fifteen minutes, Clinton ignored the question and refused
>> to offer any plan to ameliorate the suffering caused by US drug
>> policy, or any other policy. Her body language was stiff, leaning back,
> "listening hard"
>> but appearing unreceptive. Everything she had to say was contained in
>> her empty and opaque first sentence in irrelevant response:
>> Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today.
>> Clinton never came close to addressing her own actions. She
>> filibustered, in effect, for a minute or so about "concern" and
>> "re-thinking" and "different circumstances" and "looking at the world
>> as it is today," without actually saying anything specific or
>> meaningful. She was talking down to her listener, almost lecturing,
>> without content. Hillary Clinton seemed to be suggesting that the
>> policy she and her husband supported in the 1990s was good then, but
>> maybe, just maybe, it needed to be re-thought in some ways now.
>> Yancey replied politely, with Clinton interrupting: "Yeah, and I would
>> offer that it didn't work then, either, and that those policies were
>> actually extensions of white supremacist violence against communities
>> of color. And so, I just think I want to hear a little bit about that,
>> about the fact that actually while … those policies were being
>> enacted, they were ripping apart families … and actually causing
>> death.
>> "Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with you," Clinton replied. She's not sure?
>> She's had twenty years to think about race in America and she's not
>> sure whether she helped or hurt? She running for president and she's
>> not sure what she thinks is real? Next she said, "I'm not sure I
>> disagree that any kind of government action often has consequences,"
>> which means nothing and is unresponsive. That was Clinton's choice, to
>> be unresponsive, rather than admit she'd been wrong twenty years ago,
>> when "there was a very serious crime wave that was impacting primarily
>> communities of color and poor people."
>> Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you people From
>> there, Clinton slid into a meandering but empty defense of Clinton
>> administration actions as a response to real community concerns. Doing
>> so, she evaded the reality that the Clinton response was a top-down
>> answer, that community involvement in solving its own problems was
>> something to be tolerated as little as possible. She continued in the
>> same vein in addressing the present, mentioning "systemic issues of
>> race and justice that go deeper than any particular law" without
>> particularity. Clinton seemed at a loss for anything to say until she
>> seemed to stumble on the old pat-on-the-head, patronizing flattery for
>> the critic who objects to cops killing black people:
>> What you're doing, as activists and as people who are constantly
>> raising these issues, is really important. So I applaud and thank you
>> for that, I really do, because we can't get change unless there's
>> constant
> pressure.
>> But
>> now the next step, so, you know – part of you need to keep the
>> pressure on and part of you need to help figure out what do we do now,
>> how are we gonna do it? [emphasis in original] Slick moves. Praise the
>> victims for objecting to their victimhood.
>> Compliment them on their efforts to end victimization. Tell them it's
>> up to them to bring authority to heel, and to heal. And put the
>> responsibility on the victims to figure out what the victimizers
>> should do differently. And be extra careful not to come close to even
>> implying that the president or the cops or anyone in between has any
>> personal or institutional responsibility for victimizing people in the
>> first place. Good job, Hillary Clinton.
>> Six minutes into the empty rhetoric, Clinton has answered no questions
>> and offered no solutions, but bloviated "sympathetically" to get to this:
>> We need a whole comprehensive plan that I am more than happy to work
>> with you guys on, to try to figure out, OK, we know black lives
>> matter, we need to keep saying it so that people accept it, what do we do
> next?
>> Julius Jones tried to get Hillary Clinton to address specifics As
>> Clinton began to ramble on along this track, Julius Jones, founder of
>> Black Lives Matter in Worcester, Massachusetts, gently, almost
>> tentatively intervened to say how honored he was to have Hillary
>> Clinton talking to him, and such, but mass incarceration hasn't
>> worked, like so much else:
>> The truth is that there's an extremely long history of unfortunate
>> government practices that don't work, that particularly affect black
>> people and black families. And until we, as a country, and then the
>> person who's in the seat that you seek, actually addresses the
>> anti-blackness current that is America's first drug – we're in a
>> meeting about drugs, right?
>> America's first drug is free black labor and turning black bodies into
>> profit, and the mass incarceration system mirrors an awful lot like
>> the prison plantation system. It's a similar thread, right? And until
>> someone takes that message and speaks that truth to white people in
>> this country, so that we can actually take on anti-blackness as a
>> founding problem in this country, I don't believe that there is going
>> to be a solution....
>> Jones pointed out that there's a lot of money in prisons, that the US
>> spends more money on prisons than it spends on schools. Throughout,
>> Clinton was keeping a sober face and going "Mmmm" as if agreeing to
>> his points. She seemed to agree when he said that African-American
>> people were suffering more than others. And Jones expressed the fear
>> that the plantation evolving into the prison system would evolve into
>> new horrors unless something changed. So he returned to Yancey's
>> original question in a different form:
>> You know, I genuinely want to know – you and your family have been, in
>> no uncertain way, partially responsible for this, more than most,
>> right? Now, there may have been unintended consequences. But now that
>> you understand the consequences, what in your heart has changed that's
>> going to change the direction in this country? Like, what in you –
>> like, not your platform, not what you're supposed to say – like,how do
>> you actually feel that's different than you did before? Like, what
>> were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons
>> for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black
>> people in this country? [emphasis added] How does Hillary Clinton
>> "actually feel that's different" from before?
>> This is a potentially devastating moment for candidate Clinton.
>> Without missing a beat, a staff member interrupts, breaks the flow,
>> and says something about keeping on schedule. Jones objected to the
>> interruption and the staffer even said, "I'm not interrupting," but
>> he'd given the candidate another 20 seconds to frame her answer:
>> "Well, obviously it's a very thoughtful question that deserves a
> thoughtful answer."
>> Then Clinton vamped on her "commitment" to make things better, going
>> into a long riff on how she had spent much of her life trying to make
>> things better for kids, all kinds of kids. She agreed that "there has
>> to be a reckoning,"
>> but also a "positive vision." Once you face the truth of racial
>> history, she said, then most people will say: so what am I supposed to
>> do about it?
>> That's what I'm trying to put together in a way that I can explain it
>> and I can sell it – because in politics, you can't explain it and you
>> can't sell it, it stays on the shelf.
>> Clinton then referred to other movements – civil rights, women's
>> rights, gay rights – and started a mini-lecture on how these movements
>> had plans in place so that, once they had raised consciousness, they
>> could get laws passed. Her spiel was self-servingly ahistorical,
>> comparing the year-old Black Lives Matter to other movements that took
>> decades to evolve. Her point was that Black Lives Matter needed a
>> plan, which is undeniable. The point she didn't make clear was that
>> she had nothing to contribute. She covered that absence by saying:
>> Your analysis is totally fair. It's historically fair. It's
>> psychologically fair. It's economically fair. But you're going to have
>> to come together as a movement and say, "Here's what we want done
>> about it," because you can get lip service from as many white people
>> as you can pack into Yankee Stadium and a million more like it, who
>> are going to say, "Oh, we get it. We get it.
>> We're going to be nicer." OK? That's not enough, at least in my book.
>> That's
>> not how I see politics.
>> So, the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of
>> your movement is so critical. But now all I'm suggesting is, even for
>> us sinners, find some common ground on agendas that can make a
>> difference right here and now in people's lives. And that's what I
>> would love to, you know, have your thoughts about, because that's what
>> I'm trying to figure out how to do…."
>> [emphasis added]
>> If the "analysis is totally fair," why is Clinton's response so pallid?
>> Clinton spent another minute or so making the same point in another
>> way, once again absolving herself of commitment to any particular
>> goal, or strategy, and once more laying it on the victims to deal with
>> their victimization by the white culture she represents and helped
>> shape in its present form. They had been talking about 14 minutes by
>> then and Hillary Clinton had answered no questions and had offered
>> nothing. A staffer interrupted, saying it was time to go.
>> But Julius Jones quietly refused to accept the patronizing pat on the
>> head with the implied promise of a bone to be tossed at some
>> indefinite time in the future. With quiet patience he opened up the
>> only meaningful dialogue of the encounter, as reported on Democracy
>> NOW!:
>> JULIUS JONES: Respectfully, the piece that's most important – and I
>> stand here in your space, and I say this as respectfully as I can –
>> but if you don't tell black people what we need to do, then we won't
>> tell you all what you need to do. Right?
>> HILLARY CLINTON: I'm not telling you; I'm just telling you to tell me.
>> JULIUS JONES: What I mean to say is that this is, and has always been,
>> a white problem of violence. It's not– there's not much that we can do
>> to stop the violence against us. [emphasis added throughout] That is
>> the moment of truth. Blacks are almost powerless to stop white people
>> from killing them. Blacks have always been almost powerless to stop
>> white people from killing them. White people need to decide that
>> killing black people is wrong and will no longer be allowed by the
>> white power structure. Clinton must know this, it's so obvious. She
>> said, "I understand what you're saying," but she gave no evidence that
>> she understands. And when Jones tried to pursue his argument, she cut
>> him off, her voice rising peevishly, sarcastically echoing
>> "respectfully" with no respect:
>> JULIUS JONES: And then, we are also, respectfully, respectfully—
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, respectfully, if that is your position,
>> then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal
>> with a very real problem.
>> JULIUS JONES: That's not what I mean. That's not what I mean. That's
>> not what I mean.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: Well—
>> JULIUS JONES: But like, what I'm saying is you –what you just said was
>> a form of victim blaming.Right? You were saying that what the Black
>> Lives Matter movement … needs to do to change white hearts is to come
>> up with a policy change.
>> HILLARY CLINTON: No, I'm not talking about—look, I don't believe you
>> change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of
>> resources, you change the way systems operate. You're not going to change
> every heart….
>> In the end, Clinton promised nothing – so you know what to expect
>> Clinton creates a straw man argument – Jones didn't say "change every
>> heart." Then she uses that falsehood to say again what she's been
>> saying all along, to say what Jones said she said. Once again Clinton
>> puts the responsibility for creating change on the people with the
>> least power to create change. This is nothing but bad faith. (Even
>> Bill Clinton has apologized, at the N.A.A.C.P. convention, for
>> increasing the mass incarceration of black young men: "I signed a bill
>> that made the problem
>> worse.")
>> Ironically, Hillary Clinton's nasty suggestion that "I will talk only
>> to white people" actually implies a more relevant tactic. She has no
>> intention of doing anything like that, it seems. But it would be a
>> start for Hillary Clinton to talk to her 1990s self and say, out loud,
>> that mass incarceration for profit was a morally and economically
>> corrupt idea and today I reject it. Then today's Hillary Clinton might
>> have more credibility when she expressed sympathy for people oppressed
>> in part by her own past policies.
>> (A
>> sometimes hilarious pro-Hillary version of this event by Maggie
>> Haberman appeared on page one of the August 20 New York Times.) What
>> happened in Keene was that she concluded with her voice reaching an
>> almost angry intensity, with her finger pointing at the black man's
>> chest, and with her message reiterated that, if America fails to
>> change, it's the victims' fault.
>> So maybe she really is talking only to white people. Hillary Clinton
>> has been in public life for decades. How can she possibly be so
>> unaware of racial reality as she presents herself. How can she
>> possibly know at least some of the things that need to be done to
>> improve Black lives and all lives? Her message – or really, her lack
>> of message – is certainly what a whole lot of white people want to hear.
>> In that respect, she's little different from Scott Walker, who
>> responded to a reporter asking him if he would meet with Black Lives
>> Matter by calling the question "ridiculous." Walker added: "I'm here
>> to talk to voters in New Hampshire about things that matter."
>> Does Black Lives Matter matter enough to enough people?
>> For Scott Walker, suggesting that Black Lives Matter is something that
>> doesn't matter is designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or one
>> could say that Walker continues the grand old tradition of
>> marginalizing the marginalized. And no wonder, since Black Lives
>> Matter is a conscious, conscientious threat to Walker and all his ilk.
>> Black Lives Matter describes itself as:
>> … an ideological and political intervention; we are not controlled by
>> the same political machine we are attempting to hold accountable. In
>> the year leading up to the elections, we are committed to holding all
>> candidates for Office accountable to the needs and dreams of Black
>> people. We embrace a diversity of tactics. We are a decentralized
>> network aiming to build the leadership and power of black people….
>> Historically, all political parties have participated in the
>> systematic disenfranchisement of Black people. Anti-black racism,
>> especially that sanctioned by the state, has resulted in the loss of
>> healthy and thriving Black life and well-being. Given that, we will
>> continue to hold politicians and political parties accountable for
>> their policies and platforms. We will also continue to demand the
> intentional dismantling of structural racism.
>> So far, Hillary Clinton only pretends to be interested in thinking
>> about that. She has better rhetoric and a more flexible and subtle
>> approach to racial issues than Walker and his fellow Republicans. She
>> seems to offer more sympathy to victims of the American system, but
>> it's hard to see how she's offering a presidency that would deliver
>> very much better results than any of theirs.
>> The official position of the Sanders campaign on racial justice (9
>> pages) is unequivocal in principle:
>> We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that
> ..> affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing
> the
>> four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans:
>> physical, political, legal and economic….
>> It is an outrage that in these early years of the 21st century we are
>> seeing intolerable acts of violence being perpetuated by police, and
>> racist terrorism by white supremacists.
>> Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with Black Lives Matter people speaking
>> truth to would-be power, offered nothing better than equivocation and
>> victim blaming.
>>
>> William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
>> TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
>> Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
>> America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
>> and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
>> Sciences.
>> Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
>> Permission
>> to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
>> Supported News.
>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>
>>
>>
> "Hillary argues: all we've ever done is try to help you peopl" e
>
>
>
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