> Facebook Deletes Gaza-Based News Agency Safa's Account Hosting 1.3 Million
> Followers
> By teleSUR
> 27 March 18
>
> According to a Palestinian activist, this year alone 500 pages of
> Palestinian journalists, activists and bloggers have been deleted.
>
> Facebook deleted account of Gaza-based Palestinian news agency Safa as part
> of a pro-Israeli policy to block and delete users accounts considered
> "inciteful." The agency is allegedly affiliated to the Palestinian
> political
> party Hamas; a claim Safa denies.
>
> Safa's account was disabled along with the accounts of 10 of its editors
> Saturday, after 5 p.m local time. The agency's social media manager, who is
> keeping his identity secret, told the Jerusalem Post "We were totally
> surprised." The news agency didn't receive a warning or an explanation.
>
> "We are now working to restore the account because 60 percent of the
> website's traffic comes through Facebook," the social media manager said. A
> reminder of Facebook's growing power in limiting or facilitating access to
> information.
>
> After the page was deleted, journalists rallied Saturday outside Safa's
> headquarters in Gaza to reject Facebook 's move, arguing the news agency
> had
> garnered 1.3 million followers who rely on it for news information.
>
> The agency responded to the measure by urging Facebook to fulfill their
> stated goal "to allow people to express their standpoints so that the world
> is more open and pluralistic."
>
> Activists have launched a campaign titled "Facebook is fighting Palestine,"
> which is calling for a boycott of the social media company. According to
> them, Facebook has proven their bias because while they delete and block
> Palestinian Facebook accounts, citing incitement, they have failed to do
> the
> same to Israeli accounts that openly call for violence and produce
> derogatory and discriminatory content against Palestinians.
>
> According to a Palestinian activist quoted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz,
> since the beginning of 2018 roughly 500 Facebook pages of Palestinian
> activists, journalists and bloggers who cover the news in the occupied
> territories have been shut down by the social media company.
>
> Clearly violent and inciteful comments on the social media website have in
> fact come from Israeli officials themselves and an action against them has
> yet to be taken by the company.
>
> Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has praised Facebook on its
> censorship policies when it comes to incitement despite the fact that she
> has been shown to carry out the same practice herself.
>
> "They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their
> heads.
> Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell
> with flowers and kisses," Shaked once wrote on her Facebook account.
>
> "They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go,
> as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise,
> more little snakes will be raised there."
>
>
>
e-max.it:
your social media marketing partner
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
[acb-chat] having an id card for voting
----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 06:21:59 -0700
Subject: Re: [acb-chat] having an id card for Cc: "General discussion
list for ACB members and friends where a wide range of topics from
blindness to politics, issues of the day or whatever comes to mind are
welcome. This is a free form discussion list." <acb-chat@acblists.org>
So 1984 is now 34 years old and Big Brother is Bigger and more
confusing than ever before.
Whether you pay nothing for an official ID card, as Abby writes, or
$75 for an official ID card, as posted by the State of Washington,
distracts from the question, Do Americans need official ID cards in
order to prove themselves to be Citizens?
Why, after some 237 years as a nation under our existing Constitution,
do we suddenly need to insist on an official ID card? Maybe we should
simply stamp a little tattoo of an American Flag on the forehead of
each baby born in this Country. Those who come later and are
Naturalized would have a ring inserted in their noses. This would
allow officials to simply hook them and haul them off to the border
when we change our immigration laws.
As I've written before, from the first rumbles of discontent with Good
King George, the Colonists debated just who should have the right to
participate in the newly proposed government. The Constitution spells
it out. White Landholders and Independently Wealthy Men over the age
of 21 years. These Great Forefathers(no fore mothers)feared the
Masses almost as much as they feared the King.
I shouldn't need to, but I'll once again point out that none of the
changes over the years were handed down from the Ruling Class.
Remember, the Status Quo is the Status Quo because it likes itself
just the way it is.
In fact, we see just how far the Ruling Class strays from the truth in
order to tighten who is "allowed" to participate as voters. White
House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders defends the inclusion of a
question on citizenship in the next census, by claiming that it has
been included all along. But a search tells reporters that no such
question has been in the census since 1950.
But why the need to lie about it? And why suddenly all the attention
is placed upon the need for special ID cards? Could there be a real
problem of people voting without being citizens, or voting several
times in the same election? Despite serious penalties, are Muslims
and Mexicans and other non citizens tipping our elections? That's the
rumor. So why don't we simply demand the documented proof before we
go off tilting at windmills?
Or could it be that this is all much to do about nothing? A planned
distraction by the Ruling Class. What's that old saying? If it ain't
broke, don't fix it! Running about like Chicken Little, yelling that
the sky is falling in, takes attention away from the successful
purchase of Senators, Legislators,Governors, Mayors and Dog Catchers
by the Ruling Class. In Washington State, even though there is an
official ID card, we are mailed out our ballots. My ballot comes in
an inaccessible form...print...and I take it to the county courthouse
and use the accessible voting machine. I read the ballot, make my
choices, press a button and the information is transferred to my
ballot, which I can then review before placing it back in its envelope
and handing it to the county clerk. And no one has ever asked to see
my official ID, or my birth certificate, or my passport, or even my
several credit cards. I've been voting since 1956 with no one
wondering if I really am Carl Jarvis. And there are millions just
like me...well, with different names. And the nation has continued
without disruption from the People...just those disruptions from the
inability of congress to pass budgets.
If you do want to restrict the right to vote, then have the gumption
to say so, and to post your reasons. But please stop trying to
convince the rest of us that our troubles will be over if we all have
our Official ID Card.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/28/18, Helen Murphy <murphyhm123@yahoo.com> wrote:
> every body can get a state id card , ssi people can get it I think for 6.00
> for 5 or 10 years. as a senior they mail it automacticlly to you age 65 +
> check with dmv
>
> On Wednesday, March 28, 2018 12:35:39 AM EDT, Carl
> Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>
> Good evening All,
> Good hearing from you, Claude.
> Brian, you are spreading a false message. First, official ID does
> cost in most states. I posted the web information showing a $75 cost
> in Washington State, with a second $75 for the next card when the
> first one expires after four or five years.
> But even worse is your suggestion that such a card will stop people
> from voting more than once. Brian, there are heavy penalties for
> anyone voting more than once, or for voting without being a registered
> voter. An official ID card is simply one more method in preventing
> citizens from voting. If that is your goal, to limit who gets to
> vote, then don't hide behind an official ID card, just say you think
> that poor people should not be able to vote.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/27/18, Claude Everett via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>> I don't know where you live but in California the state ID is not free
>> you
>> have to pay for it, and you have to go to a State department of motor
>> vehicles office to apply for one; then you have to wait for it to be
>> mailed
>> to you at an address, this requires a Financial burden also additional
>> transportation which people may or may not have.
>>
>> Verbally dictated and sent from my iPhone any errors or omissions are
>> solely
>> the responsibility of Siri and not myself
>>
>>> On Mar 27, 2018, at 12:52 PM, Brian via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> No excuse for not having an id card a state id card it's free and it
>>> is use to show profe of a id or drivers licence. every person who wants
>>> to vote should be made to have one. People will try to vote more
>>> thenonce
>>> this did occure whear I voted in the 2016 election. He did not get to
>>> vote the second time. Rember that voting is a privilage so why the fuss
>>> over an id card. If you wantto vote then get an id card if not then
>>> what
>>> are you hiding?
>>>
>>> Brian Sackrider
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 3/16/2018 7:53 AM, Bob Hachey via acb-chat wrote:
>>>> Hi Bob,
>>>> Funny thing, the republicans keep crying voter fraud as they push for
>>>> voter ID laws. Please send to me some hard data indicating more than a
>>>> very small amount of said fraud.
>>>> While you and I take the ID for granted, this is not the case for some
>>>> of
>>>> the more disenfranchised among us. Yes, we are blind, but most on this
>>>> list are relatively well connected. Connected to the internet, friends,
>>>> colleagues, etc. For many nonwhites who are elderly, its is not the
>>>> case.
>>>> They spend most of their days alone and often do not have a driver's
>>>> license or other form of ID. They have usually lived in the same place
>>>> for a very long time and don't remember when they registered to vote.
>>>> Do you want to take away their votes? I for one do not.
>>>> Bob Hachey
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> acb-chat mailing list
>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
>
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 06:21:59 -0700
Subject: Re: [acb-chat] having an id card for Cc: "General discussion
list for ACB members and friends where a wide range of topics from
blindness to politics, issues of the day or whatever comes to mind are
welcome. This is a free form discussion list." <acb-chat@acblists.org>
So 1984 is now 34 years old and Big Brother is Bigger and more
confusing than ever before.
Whether you pay nothing for an official ID card, as Abby writes, or
$75 for an official ID card, as posted by the State of Washington,
distracts from the question, Do Americans need official ID cards in
order to prove themselves to be Citizens?
Why, after some 237 years as a nation under our existing Constitution,
do we suddenly need to insist on an official ID card? Maybe we should
simply stamp a little tattoo of an American Flag on the forehead of
each baby born in this Country. Those who come later and are
Naturalized would have a ring inserted in their noses. This would
allow officials to simply hook them and haul them off to the border
when we change our immigration laws.
As I've written before, from the first rumbles of discontent with Good
King George, the Colonists debated just who should have the right to
participate in the newly proposed government. The Constitution spells
it out. White Landholders and Independently Wealthy Men over the age
of 21 years. These Great Forefathers(no fore mothers)feared the
Masses almost as much as they feared the King.
I shouldn't need to, but I'll once again point out that none of the
changes over the years were handed down from the Ruling Class.
Remember, the Status Quo is the Status Quo because it likes itself
just the way it is.
In fact, we see just how far the Ruling Class strays from the truth in
order to tighten who is "allowed" to participate as voters. White
House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders defends the inclusion of a
question on citizenship in the next census, by claiming that it has
been included all along. But a search tells reporters that no such
question has been in the census since 1950.
But why the need to lie about it? And why suddenly all the attention
is placed upon the need for special ID cards? Could there be a real
problem of people voting without being citizens, or voting several
times in the same election? Despite serious penalties, are Muslims
and Mexicans and other non citizens tipping our elections? That's the
rumor. So why don't we simply demand the documented proof before we
go off tilting at windmills?
Or could it be that this is all much to do about nothing? A planned
distraction by the Ruling Class. What's that old saying? If it ain't
broke, don't fix it! Running about like Chicken Little, yelling that
the sky is falling in, takes attention away from the successful
purchase of Senators, Legislators,Governors, Mayors and Dog Catchers
by the Ruling Class. In Washington State, even though there is an
official ID card, we are mailed out our ballots. My ballot comes in
an inaccessible form...print...and I take it to the county courthouse
and use the accessible voting machine. I read the ballot, make my
choices, press a button and the information is transferred to my
ballot, which I can then review before placing it back in its envelope
and handing it to the county clerk. And no one has ever asked to see
my official ID, or my birth certificate, or my passport, or even my
several credit cards. I've been voting since 1956 with no one
wondering if I really am Carl Jarvis. And there are millions just
like me...well, with different names. And the nation has continued
without disruption from the People...just those disruptions from the
inability of congress to pass budgets.
If you do want to restrict the right to vote, then have the gumption
to say so, and to post your reasons. But please stop trying to
convince the rest of us that our troubles will be over if we all have
our Official ID Card.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/28/18, Helen Murphy <murphyhm123@yahoo.com> wrote:
> every body can get a state id card , ssi people can get it I think for 6.00
> for 5 or 10 years. as a senior they mail it automacticlly to you age 65 +
> check with dmv
>
> On Wednesday, March 28, 2018 12:35:39 AM EDT, Carl
> Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>
> Good evening All,
> Good hearing from you, Claude.
> Brian, you are spreading a false message. First, official ID does
> cost in most states. I posted the web information showing a $75 cost
> in Washington State, with a second $75 for the next card when the
> first one expires after four or five years.
> But even worse is your suggestion that such a card will stop people
> from voting more than once. Brian, there are heavy penalties for
> anyone voting more than once, or for voting without being a registered
> voter. An official ID card is simply one more method in preventing
> citizens from voting. If that is your goal, to limit who gets to
> vote, then don't hide behind an official ID card, just say you think
> that poor people should not be able to vote.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/27/18, Claude Everett via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>> I don't know where you live but in California the state ID is not free
>> you
>> have to pay for it, and you have to go to a State department of motor
>> vehicles office to apply for one; then you have to wait for it to be
>> mailed
>> to you at an address, this requires a Financial burden also additional
>> transportation which people may or may not have.
>>
>> Verbally dictated and sent from my iPhone any errors or omissions are
>> solely
>> the responsibility of Siri and not myself
>>
>>> On Mar 27, 2018, at 12:52 PM, Brian via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> No excuse for not having an id card a state id card it's free and it
>>> is use to show profe of a id or drivers licence. every person who wants
>>> to vote should be made to have one. People will try to vote more
>>> thenonce
>>> this did occure whear I voted in the 2016 election. He did not get to
>>> vote the second time. Rember that voting is a privilage so why the fuss
>>> over an id card. If you wantto vote then get an id card if not then
>>> what
>>> are you hiding?
>>>
>>> Brian Sackrider
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 3/16/2018 7:53 AM, Bob Hachey via acb-chat wrote:
>>>> Hi Bob,
>>>> Funny thing, the republicans keep crying voter fraud as they push for
>>>> voter ID laws. Please send to me some hard data indicating more than a
>>>> very small amount of said fraud.
>>>> While you and I take the ID for granted, this is not the case for some
>>>> of
>>>> the more disenfranchised among us. Yes, we are blind, but most on this
>>>> list are relatively well connected. Connected to the internet, friends,
>>>> colleagues, etc. For many nonwhites who are elderly, its is not the
>>>> case.
>>>> They spend most of their days alone and often do not have a driver's
>>>> license or other form of ID. They have usually lived in the same place
>>>> for a very long time and don't remember when they registered to vote.
>>>> Do you want to take away their votes? I for one do not.
>>>> Bob Hachey
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> acb-chat mailing list
>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
>
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck...
Good Wednesday morning Bob, William, Robin, Ashley and especially my
son James.
If posting the Chris Hedges articles has done nothing else, it has
made very clear that we, each of us, will defend our own prejudices
and personal opinions to the limit. For myself, too much Chris Hedges
results in a "doom and gloom" outlook on our future. As an Optimistic
Pessimist, I hold out hope that one day the Human Species will "find
itself" and we(our future generations)will come out together,
unencumbered by the yoke of some powerful Master.
I think that if I had just one wish for now, it would be that we could
talk among ourselves without so much anger and defensiveness, and the
need to label one another and lash out with hateful words. But then,
that is probably why we are now bombing the Hell out of anyone who
dares stand up to the mighty American Empire. I see that we(Donald
Trump)just announced a 13 billion dollar arms deal with the Saudi
Prince(speaking of how we defend democracy around the world), but
there I go again, wandering down that Marxist road...
Carl Jarvis
On 3/21/18, Bob via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
> Hello:
>
> Amen!!
> The progressive/leftist rhetooric goes on and on. Mostly
> opinion/agenda with minimal evidence to support their claims or
> positions.
>
> Bob Clark
>
>
> On 3/20/18, William Grussenmeyer via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
> wrote:
>> I read most of the article by Chris Hedges. You argue not to attack
>> the author, but all the author does is personally attack and insult
>> everyone he can. He calls people names left and right, personally
>> mentioning The Amazon CEO. He calls these people corporate
>> imperialists and constantly insults their credibility. Now you tell
>> me not to attack the credibility of the author after the author so
>> dearly does just that to everyone else?
>> Well, here's a few critique's of the article:
>> 1) Hedges provides no evidence of any of the claims he makes.
>> References please?
>> 2) Hedges spends much of his time insulting people
>> 3) A lot of web filters block out terrorist propaganda which is all
>> over the internet. Hedges fails to mention that.
>> 4) Hedges seems obsessed with promoting many websites in his article
>> mentioning them over and over like the world socialist website.
>> 5) Hedges fails to mention that many people would like to see Israel
>> wiped off the face of the planet and that people have attempted this
>> before so it is fact not fiction.
>> 6) Hedges clearly hates capitalism and mentions it negatively over and
>> over again like the "corporate narrative."
>>
>>
>> On 3/20/18, Robin via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>> I'm a Leftist & Proud of It
>>> At 05:49 AM 3/20/2018, you wrote:
>>>>Hello:
>>>>
>>>> Eric: I do not call people names. If they subscribe to a stated
>>>>philosophy/movement, I, for example, may call them a leftist,
>>>>socialist, etc. You are what you say you are. Don't be so sensitive
>>>>about your self-stated position. For example, you can call me a
>>>>constitutionalist/fiscal conservative because that is exactly what I
>>>>am.
>>>> Ashley: Don't worry. I am not going anywhere. However, I will not
>>>>address certain issues with certain individuals when it becomes
>>>>pointless. On some topics, it is best to agree to disagree.
>>>> As I stated to Carl, time will tell.
>>>> Have a great day.
>>>>
>>>> Bob Clark
>>>>
>>>>On 3/19/18, Eric Calhoun via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>> > It is becoming harder to get rides, nshley, and drivers will
>>>> leave you. Our
>>>> > Access Services now records vehicles. And for good reason: Too many
>>>> > many
>>>> > incidents.
>>>> >
>>>> > ..
>>>> >
>>>> > Eric from Los Angeles. Be good to each other. Never sweat the
>>>> small stuff.
>>>> > Speak to your mountain; God moves mountains. Come expecting a
>>>> > miracle!
>>>> > Always have faith! Always reach faster, higher, stronger. Eric on
>>>> > Facebook: eric@pmpmail.com. If you're on Facebook, please come join
>>>> > my
>>>> > Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/631397660379317/
>>>> >
>>>> > ..
>>>> >
>>>> > Great is His faithfulness!
>>>> > Original Message:
>>>> > From: Ashley Bramlett via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > To: "General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list."
>>>> > <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > CC: Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb@earthlink.net>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> > Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 22:39:54 +0000
>>>> >
>>>> > Hello,
>>>> >
>>>> > I'd contend that if people needed an ID card, they will save enough
>>>> > to
>>>> > get
>>>> > that. I'll research what it costs for MA; but here its $10 in VA.
>>>> > Given we have the program of Snap which is the food stamp program
>>>> > coupled
>>>> > with many nonprofits and faith communities giving out food, I'm sure
>>>> > the
>>>> > poorer folks can find some food.
>>>> > What does seem wrong to me and I think I'll write my state rep on
>>>> > this
>>>> > one
>>>> > is
>>>> > the fact that its harder to obtain the crucial ID whether its your
>>>> > walking
>>>> > ID or driver's license.
>>>> > Its harder because they closed down a DMV location that was more
>>>> > centralized.
>>>> > I'm not sure how many DMVs were closed, but
>>>> > I'm sure that location was not the only one.
>>>> >
>>>> > If the government of Virginia is requiring photo IDs to vote, then it
>>>> > seems
>>>> >
>>>> > to me they ought to have more places to get that ID card.
>>>> >
>>>> > To those thinking having a photo ID card is too hard, here is this
>>>> > one.
>>>> > How about a requirement to show ID for transit.
>>>> > It's a reality here!
>>>> >
>>>> > Two years back, our paratransit system, Metro Access, made a rule
>>>> > that
>>>> > you
>>>> > cannot take your ride without showing your ID.
>>>> > You are required as a rider to show your Metro access ID prior to
>>>> > boarding
>>>> > the vehicle. How do you obtain this ID?
>>>> > First, you must provide the agency a photo ID. Everyone I know has
>>>> > used
>>>> > their state DMV issued walker's ID card or passport.
>>>> > Second, in your interview to use the paratransit system, they look at
>>>> > your
>>>> > IDS and then take your picture.
>>>> > Your photo is digitally saved.
>>>> > Third, your MetroAccesss Id is printed up for you with the photo
>>>> of you they
>>>> >
>>>> > took.
>>>> > I think this last step is done via mail; they mail you the card.
>>>> >
>>>> > What I'm saying is that it's a requirement to have a state issued
>>>> ID to ride
>>>> >
>>>> > Metro Access because your state ID or federally issued ID in your
>>>> > passport
>>>> > is a prerequisite to your procurement of your Metro Access ID.
>>>> > Drivers have typically accepted another form of photo ID if I
>>>> cannot find my
>>>> >
>>>> > Metro Access one.
>>>> > Drivers are getting strict about this rule. I don't like it being in
>>>> > the
>>>> > cold finding my ID card so I've tried to be more organized lately
>>>> and having
>>>> >
>>>> > it more handy. If my coat has a zippered pocket, I might place it
>>>> > there.
>>>> > Some jackets I have do not have that so that is not an option as I do
>>>> > not
>>>> > want to lose my ID if it falls out.
>>>> > I have always thought this rule was inconvenient and a bit unfair.
>>>> > After all, I believe in equal rights and treatment.
>>>> > Nondisabled riders do not have to prove their identity prior to
>>>> > riding
>>>> > transportation.
>>>> > So, why make the disabled rider do so? I thought about that a while.
>>>> > Its due to past issues.
>>>> > I know drivers have picked up wrong people in the past.
>>>> > Making riders show IDs proves who they are and that the driver has
>>>> > the
>>>> > correct client aboard.
>>>> >
>>>> > As Bob Clark said, IDs are a necessity to function in society.
>>>> >
>>>> > Ashley
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Frank Ventura via acb-chat
>>>> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 3:24 PM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > Cc: Frank Ventura
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Ashley, in many poor communities those non-drive ID cards are not
>>>> > available
>>>> >
>>>> > for many reasons including:
>>>> > a. Poor people work lon hours and can't go to the DMV when it is open
>>>> > b. They can't afford the hefty fees forthose IDs, when it is a
>>>> > choice
>>>> > between feeding families and getting an ID, well you know no.
>>>> > c. Even if they have the time and money, usually they don't have all
>>>> > of
>>>> > the
>>>> >
>>>> > prerequisite documentation. See my previous messages about birth
>>>> > certificates etc.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Ashley Bramlett via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
>>>> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 2:46 PM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > Cc: Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb@earthlink.net>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Frank,
>>>> >
>>>> > That is right. I was going to say this too. They do not just
>>>> accept any form
>>>> >
>>>> > of ID. Your medicare card is not an accepted form of ID.
>>>> > I think having a valid ID is okay.
>>>> > We have to show IDS in Virginia.
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob Clark said
>>>> > " Voting is certainly one of the major responsibilities that a person
>>>> > has.
>>>> > Using your example of the elderly, I am sure that they have a
>>>> medicare card,
>>>> >
>>>> > social security card, checking account, etc."
>>>> >
>>>> > While I agree it's a major responsibility, it does come with some
>>>> > requirements.
>>>> > In Virginia this means you cannot have felony convictions within a
>>>> > certain
>>>> > time frame.
>>>> > The voter must be a citizen age 18 or above.
>>>> > You also have to vote at a designated polling place based on your
>>>> > address.
>>>> > You also have to have an ID. A state ID card is accepted. A
>>>> drivers' license
>>>> >
>>>> > is accepted. Also your passport is accepted. I know they also accept
>>>> > government employee issued IDS and military IDS. I'm not sure what
>>>> > else.
>>>> >
>>>> > I think everyone should have a ID card who does not drive.
>>>> > I do think the DMV is a hastle. If you have no familyy members to go
>>>> > with,
>>>> > maybe a social worker or volunteer from some civic group can take
>>>> you to get
>>>> >
>>>> > one.
>>>> > Last time at the DMV to renew my ID, they let me cut in line I
>>>> > noticed.
>>>> > An ID card shows who you are and as Bob said it gets you many
>>>> > services
>>>> > such
>>>> >
>>>> > as for flying and banking.
>>>> >
>>>> > I guess I don't have strong feelings about voting and IDS, its just
>>>> > something we've always done.
>>>> >
>>>> > Ashley
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Frank Ventura via acb-chat
>>>> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 3:52 AM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > Cc: Frank Ventura
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob, in the states that require voter IDs, none of the examples you
>>>> > gave
>>>> > would allow someone to vote. Social security/medicare cards are not
>>>> > acceptable forms of ID for voting (not even photo IDs) and a
>>>> > checking
>>>> > account? Seriously you think someone will write a check and that is
>>>> > acceptable forms of ID? Again no photo ID there. The reason driver
>>>> > licenses
>>>> >
>>>> > are held as the holy graile in voter ID states is that many poor,
>>>> > seniors
>>>> > and minorities don't have them. One of the reasons I like living in
>>>> > MA
>>>> > is
>>>> > that I can vote without such nonsense and if my vote is challenged my
>>>> > passport is proof of ID. In voter ID states that is not the case.
>>>> >
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Bob via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
>>>> > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 9:57 AM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > Cc: Bob <buildyourownwealth@gmail.com>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob:
>>>> >
>>>> > I do not want to take away anybody's right to vote. Just another
>>>> > example
>>>> >
>>>> > of a liberal's talking point.
>>>> > What I am saying is that a personal id document is required to do
>>>> > most
>>>> > activities in this country. Why should voting be any different?
>>>> > Voting is certainly one of the major responsibilities that a person
>>>> > has.
>>>> > Using your example of the elderly, I am sure that they have a
>>>> medicare card,
>>>> >
>>>> > social security card, checking account, etc.
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob clark
>>>> >
>>>> > On 3/16/18, Bob Hachey via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>> >> Hi Bob,
>>>> >> Funny thing, the republicans keep crying voter fraud as they push
>>>> >> for
>>>> >> voter ID laws. Please send to me some hard data indicating more than
>>>> >> a
>>>> >> very small amount of said fraud.
>>>> >> While you and I take the ID for granted, this is not the case for
>>>> >> some
>>>> >> of the more disenfranchised among us. Yes, we are blind, but most on
>>>> >> this list are relatively well connected. Connected to the internet,
>>>> >> friends, colleagues, etc. For many nonwhites who are elderly, its is
>>>> >> not the case.
>>>> >> They spend most of their days alone and often do not have a driver's
>>>> >> license or other form of ID. They have usually lived in the same
>>>> >> place
>>>> >> for a very long time and don't remember when they registered to
>>>> >> vote.
>>>> >> Do you want to take away their votes? I for one do not.
>>>> >> Bob Hachey
>>>> >>
>>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>>> >> acb-chat mailing list
>>>> >> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> >> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > --
>>>> > YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
>>>> > TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
>>>> > HTTP://BOB-CLARK.COM
>>>> > Telephone: 800-345-9760
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
>>>>TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
>>>>HTTP://BOB-CLARK.COM
>>>>Telephone: 800-345-9760
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>acb-chat mailing list
>>>>acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>>http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> William Grussenmeyer
>> PhD Student, Computer Science
>> University of Nevada, Reno
>> NSF Fellow
>> _______________________________________________
>> acb-chat mailing list
>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>
>
>
> --
> YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
> TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
> HTTP://BOB-CLARK.COM
> Telephone: 800-345-9760
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
son James.
If posting the Chris Hedges articles has done nothing else, it has
made very clear that we, each of us, will defend our own prejudices
and personal opinions to the limit. For myself, too much Chris Hedges
results in a "doom and gloom" outlook on our future. As an Optimistic
Pessimist, I hold out hope that one day the Human Species will "find
itself" and we(our future generations)will come out together,
unencumbered by the yoke of some powerful Master.
I think that if I had just one wish for now, it would be that we could
talk among ourselves without so much anger and defensiveness, and the
need to label one another and lash out with hateful words. But then,
that is probably why we are now bombing the Hell out of anyone who
dares stand up to the mighty American Empire. I see that we(Donald
Trump)just announced a 13 billion dollar arms deal with the Saudi
Prince(speaking of how we defend democracy around the world), but
there I go again, wandering down that Marxist road...
Carl Jarvis
On 3/21/18, Bob via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
> Hello:
>
> Amen!!
> The progressive/leftist rhetooric goes on and on. Mostly
> opinion/agenda with minimal evidence to support their claims or
> positions.
>
> Bob Clark
>
>
> On 3/20/18, William Grussenmeyer via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
> wrote:
>> I read most of the article by Chris Hedges. You argue not to attack
>> the author, but all the author does is personally attack and insult
>> everyone he can. He calls people names left and right, personally
>> mentioning The Amazon CEO. He calls these people corporate
>> imperialists and constantly insults their credibility. Now you tell
>> me not to attack the credibility of the author after the author so
>> dearly does just that to everyone else?
>> Well, here's a few critique's of the article:
>> 1) Hedges provides no evidence of any of the claims he makes.
>> References please?
>> 2) Hedges spends much of his time insulting people
>> 3) A lot of web filters block out terrorist propaganda which is all
>> over the internet. Hedges fails to mention that.
>> 4) Hedges seems obsessed with promoting many websites in his article
>> mentioning them over and over like the world socialist website.
>> 5) Hedges fails to mention that many people would like to see Israel
>> wiped off the face of the planet and that people have attempted this
>> before so it is fact not fiction.
>> 6) Hedges clearly hates capitalism and mentions it negatively over and
>> over again like the "corporate narrative."
>>
>>
>> On 3/20/18, Robin via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>> I'm a Leftist & Proud of It
>>> At 05:49 AM 3/20/2018, you wrote:
>>>>Hello:
>>>>
>>>> Eric: I do not call people names. If they subscribe to a stated
>>>>philosophy/movement, I, for example, may call them a leftist,
>>>>socialist, etc. You are what you say you are. Don't be so sensitive
>>>>about your self-stated position. For example, you can call me a
>>>>constitutionalist/fiscal conservative because that is exactly what I
>>>>am.
>>>> Ashley: Don't worry. I am not going anywhere. However, I will not
>>>>address certain issues with certain individuals when it becomes
>>>>pointless. On some topics, it is best to agree to disagree.
>>>> As I stated to Carl, time will tell.
>>>> Have a great day.
>>>>
>>>> Bob Clark
>>>>
>>>>On 3/19/18, Eric Calhoun via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>> > It is becoming harder to get rides, nshley, and drivers will
>>>> leave you. Our
>>>> > Access Services now records vehicles. And for good reason: Too many
>>>> > many
>>>> > incidents.
>>>> >
>>>> > ..
>>>> >
>>>> > Eric from Los Angeles. Be good to each other. Never sweat the
>>>> small stuff.
>>>> > Speak to your mountain; God moves mountains. Come expecting a
>>>> > miracle!
>>>> > Always have faith! Always reach faster, higher, stronger. Eric on
>>>> > Facebook: eric@pmpmail.com. If you're on Facebook, please come join
>>>> > my
>>>> > Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/631397660379317/
>>>> >
>>>> > ..
>>>> >
>>>> > Great is His faithfulness!
>>>> > Original Message:
>>>> > From: Ashley Bramlett via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > To: "General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list."
>>>> > <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > CC: Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb@earthlink.net>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> > Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 22:39:54 +0000
>>>> >
>>>> > Hello,
>>>> >
>>>> > I'd contend that if people needed an ID card, they will save enough
>>>> > to
>>>> > get
>>>> > that. I'll research what it costs for MA; but here its $10 in VA.
>>>> > Given we have the program of Snap which is the food stamp program
>>>> > coupled
>>>> > with many nonprofits and faith communities giving out food, I'm sure
>>>> > the
>>>> > poorer folks can find some food.
>>>> > What does seem wrong to me and I think I'll write my state rep on
>>>> > this
>>>> > one
>>>> > is
>>>> > the fact that its harder to obtain the crucial ID whether its your
>>>> > walking
>>>> > ID or driver's license.
>>>> > Its harder because they closed down a DMV location that was more
>>>> > centralized.
>>>> > I'm not sure how many DMVs were closed, but
>>>> > I'm sure that location was not the only one.
>>>> >
>>>> > If the government of Virginia is requiring photo IDs to vote, then it
>>>> > seems
>>>> >
>>>> > to me they ought to have more places to get that ID card.
>>>> >
>>>> > To those thinking having a photo ID card is too hard, here is this
>>>> > one.
>>>> > How about a requirement to show ID for transit.
>>>> > It's a reality here!
>>>> >
>>>> > Two years back, our paratransit system, Metro Access, made a rule
>>>> > that
>>>> > you
>>>> > cannot take your ride without showing your ID.
>>>> > You are required as a rider to show your Metro access ID prior to
>>>> > boarding
>>>> > the vehicle. How do you obtain this ID?
>>>> > First, you must provide the agency a photo ID. Everyone I know has
>>>> > used
>>>> > their state DMV issued walker's ID card or passport.
>>>> > Second, in your interview to use the paratransit system, they look at
>>>> > your
>>>> > IDS and then take your picture.
>>>> > Your photo is digitally saved.
>>>> > Third, your MetroAccesss Id is printed up for you with the photo
>>>> of you they
>>>> >
>>>> > took.
>>>> > I think this last step is done via mail; they mail you the card.
>>>> >
>>>> > What I'm saying is that it's a requirement to have a state issued
>>>> ID to ride
>>>> >
>>>> > Metro Access because your state ID or federally issued ID in your
>>>> > passport
>>>> > is a prerequisite to your procurement of your Metro Access ID.
>>>> > Drivers have typically accepted another form of photo ID if I
>>>> cannot find my
>>>> >
>>>> > Metro Access one.
>>>> > Drivers are getting strict about this rule. I don't like it being in
>>>> > the
>>>> > cold finding my ID card so I've tried to be more organized lately
>>>> and having
>>>> >
>>>> > it more handy. If my coat has a zippered pocket, I might place it
>>>> > there.
>>>> > Some jackets I have do not have that so that is not an option as I do
>>>> > not
>>>> > want to lose my ID if it falls out.
>>>> > I have always thought this rule was inconvenient and a bit unfair.
>>>> > After all, I believe in equal rights and treatment.
>>>> > Nondisabled riders do not have to prove their identity prior to
>>>> > riding
>>>> > transportation.
>>>> > So, why make the disabled rider do so? I thought about that a while.
>>>> > Its due to past issues.
>>>> > I know drivers have picked up wrong people in the past.
>>>> > Making riders show IDs proves who they are and that the driver has
>>>> > the
>>>> > correct client aboard.
>>>> >
>>>> > As Bob Clark said, IDs are a necessity to function in society.
>>>> >
>>>> > Ashley
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Frank Ventura via acb-chat
>>>> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 3:24 PM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > Cc: Frank Ventura
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Ashley, in many poor communities those non-drive ID cards are not
>>>> > available
>>>> >
>>>> > for many reasons including:
>>>> > a. Poor people work lon hours and can't go to the DMV when it is open
>>>> > b. They can't afford the hefty fees forthose IDs, when it is a
>>>> > choice
>>>> > between feeding families and getting an ID, well you know no.
>>>> > c. Even if they have the time and money, usually they don't have all
>>>> > of
>>>> > the
>>>> >
>>>> > prerequisite documentation. See my previous messages about birth
>>>> > certificates etc.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Ashley Bramlett via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
>>>> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 2:46 PM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > Cc: Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb@earthlink.net>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Frank,
>>>> >
>>>> > That is right. I was going to say this too. They do not just
>>>> accept any form
>>>> >
>>>> > of ID. Your medicare card is not an accepted form of ID.
>>>> > I think having a valid ID is okay.
>>>> > We have to show IDS in Virginia.
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob Clark said
>>>> > " Voting is certainly one of the major responsibilities that a person
>>>> > has.
>>>> > Using your example of the elderly, I am sure that they have a
>>>> medicare card,
>>>> >
>>>> > social security card, checking account, etc."
>>>> >
>>>> > While I agree it's a major responsibility, it does come with some
>>>> > requirements.
>>>> > In Virginia this means you cannot have felony convictions within a
>>>> > certain
>>>> > time frame.
>>>> > The voter must be a citizen age 18 or above.
>>>> > You also have to vote at a designated polling place based on your
>>>> > address.
>>>> > You also have to have an ID. A state ID card is accepted. A
>>>> drivers' license
>>>> >
>>>> > is accepted. Also your passport is accepted. I know they also accept
>>>> > government employee issued IDS and military IDS. I'm not sure what
>>>> > else.
>>>> >
>>>> > I think everyone should have a ID card who does not drive.
>>>> > I do think the DMV is a hastle. If you have no familyy members to go
>>>> > with,
>>>> > maybe a social worker or volunteer from some civic group can take
>>>> you to get
>>>> >
>>>> > one.
>>>> > Last time at the DMV to renew my ID, they let me cut in line I
>>>> > noticed.
>>>> > An ID card shows who you are and as Bob said it gets you many
>>>> > services
>>>> > such
>>>> >
>>>> > as for flying and banking.
>>>> >
>>>> > I guess I don't have strong feelings about voting and IDS, its just
>>>> > something we've always done.
>>>> >
>>>> > Ashley
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Frank Ventura via acb-chat
>>>> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2018 3:52 AM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > Cc: Frank Ventura
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob, in the states that require voter IDs, none of the examples you
>>>> > gave
>>>> > would allow someone to vote. Social security/medicare cards are not
>>>> > acceptable forms of ID for voting (not even photo IDs) and a
>>>> > checking
>>>> > account? Seriously you think someone will write a check and that is
>>>> > acceptable forms of ID? Again no photo ID there. The reason driver
>>>> > licenses
>>>> >
>>>> > are held as the holy graile in voter ID states is that many poor,
>>>> > seniors
>>>> > and minorities don't have them. One of the reasons I like living in
>>>> > MA
>>>> > is
>>>> > that I can vote without such nonsense and if my vote is challenged my
>>>> > passport is proof of ID. In voter ID states that is not the case.
>>>> >
>>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > From: Bob via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
>>>> > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 9:57 AM
>>>> > To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> > range
>>>> > of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to
>>>> >
>>>> > mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
>>>> > <acb-chat@acblists.org>
>>>> > Cc: Bob <buildyourownwealth@gmail.com>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [acb-chat] If it looks like a duck, and walks like a
>>>> > duck...
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob:
>>>> >
>>>> > I do not want to take away anybody's right to vote. Just another
>>>> > example
>>>> >
>>>> > of a liberal's talking point.
>>>> > What I am saying is that a personal id document is required to do
>>>> > most
>>>> > activities in this country. Why should voting be any different?
>>>> > Voting is certainly one of the major responsibilities that a person
>>>> > has.
>>>> > Using your example of the elderly, I am sure that they have a
>>>> medicare card,
>>>> >
>>>> > social security card, checking account, etc.
>>>> >
>>>> > Bob clark
>>>> >
>>>> > On 3/16/18, Bob Hachey via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>> >> Hi Bob,
>>>> >> Funny thing, the republicans keep crying voter fraud as they push
>>>> >> for
>>>> >> voter ID laws. Please send to me some hard data indicating more than
>>>> >> a
>>>> >> very small amount of said fraud.
>>>> >> While you and I take the ID for granted, this is not the case for
>>>> >> some
>>>> >> of the more disenfranchised among us. Yes, we are blind, but most on
>>>> >> this list are relatively well connected. Connected to the internet,
>>>> >> friends, colleagues, etc. For many nonwhites who are elderly, its is
>>>> >> not the case.
>>>> >> They spend most of their days alone and often do not have a driver's
>>>> >> license or other form of ID. They have usually lived in the same
>>>> >> place
>>>> >> for a very long time and don't remember when they registered to
>>>> >> vote.
>>>> >> Do you want to take away their votes? I for one do not.
>>>> >> Bob Hachey
>>>> >>
>>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>>> >> acb-chat mailing list
>>>> >> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> >> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > --
>>>> > YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
>>>> > TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
>>>> > HTTP://BOB-CLARK.COM
>>>> > Telephone: 800-345-9760
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > acb-chat mailing list
>>>> > acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> > http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
>>>>TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
>>>>HTTP://BOB-CLARK.COM
>>>>Telephone: 800-345-9760
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>acb-chat mailing list
>>>>acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>>http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> William Grussenmeyer
>> PhD Student, Computer Science
>> University of Nevada, Reno
>> NSF Fellow
>> _______________________________________________
>> acb-chat mailing list
>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>
>
>
> --
> YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
> TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
> HTTP://BOB-CLARK.COM
> Telephone: 800-345-9760
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Is this justice?
True enough Miriam. It does seem that we are driven by a frantic,
ever more chaotic System. But lots of that is due to aging. When I
was working for the Department as an assistant director, the work load
could always be counted upon to increase. And with each new
assignment, Shirley, my boss, would smile and say, "I know this is
going to consume all of your time, but when we wrap it up we'll have
time to relax." It never happened. Shirley was a workaholic. I
remember that it was five years after I'd retired, that I went into
the Agency Building for a Rehab Council meeting, and realized that for
the first time my stomach did not clutch. Five years for me to get
past that frantic feeling of not enough time and too much to do.
Earlier in my life, as a sweat hog in the drapery factory, I would
come home after a hard day's labor and realize that I was shoveling my
dinner into my mouth as if I were eating on a time clock. I actually
had to force myself to take a bite, lean back and chew it thoroughly.
The same was true when I was active in the NFB, and working full time
at the Department. This push to do everything was a big part of my
second marriage failing.
With the grim news coming at me from all sides, I receive many emails
demanding that I do this or that, or sign this or that. I have come
to a place where I delete all but a few. I don't send many
organizations money, and I don't volunteer to door bell or telephone
for one cause or another.
We've been spending more time listening to talking books in the
evenings, and I'm playing more of my CD's, and listening to standup
comics on YouTube.
When Cathy and I began contracting to provide services to older blind
and low vision people, I would schedule two appointments before lunch
and two in the afternoon, five days a week. Twenty folks spread
across five very large counties. After dinner we would do our running
record for the day, schedule new clients and order the aids and
equipment for folks. Today I have no idea how we did it. I do
remember Cathy pulling off the highway in the evening, coming back
from Neah Bay or Aberdeen, so she could grab half an hour nap in order
to make it home. Today we hold Monday as our office day. We see an
average of two clients a day, never more than four days a week, and
usually three days in the field. We do a large amount of work over
the phone that we used to do face to face, but we still speak with
groups of folks in the various retirement and assisted living
facilities.
And even funnier is the fact that when keeping the fast pace schedule,
on weekends we grabbed the tools and cut brush, split fire wood,
tended to the horses, and made time for family gatherings. Age. Age
is the real factor. Not blindness, at least not for those of us
who've been blind or legally blind for many years. Energy and stamina
and youth made the world look different.
Sure, it doesn't look good out there, but it's really no different
than it has ever been. We came to these shores and butchered the
folks who lived here, then we mocked many of those folks who came to
these shores after us...Irish, Italians, Polish, etc. And if their
color was not the same, or their religion didn't please us, we beat up
on them and forced them to live in shacks and do our dirty work. We
did free our slaves, rather by accident, and we've been trying ever
since to keep the yoke upon them. We shoved some of our good American
citizens into internment camps, which was our civilized name for
Prisons or Holding Pens, for Japanese Americans. And, maybe worst of
all, we refused shelter to Jews who fled Germany's terrors. But here
we are, wanting to send home people we had allowed into this Land of
Opportunity, because we don't like their color or their religion.
So the only thing that makes it seem so much worse, and so much more
crazy, is that we are getting old. Worn out! We have forgotten, or
never learned how to age gracefully, how to kick back and take it
easy. We've confused effectiveness with busyness. We feel that we
must be letting down when we fail to keep up the pace. While I do
know a few people over 80 who are still on the go full time, they are
rare exceptions. A friend of mine, whom I'd believed to be a man of
steel, finally admitted to me that he always made time in the mid
morning and in the late afternoon for an hour nap. But folks who
didn't know this believed that he was Grandpa Superman!
Maybe there is an entire new profession for Adjustment to Aging.
Topics like: How to get less out of life and enjoy it more. Or, How
to look intelligent while trying to remember who you're talking to.
Or, The Art of staying calm when folks are talking down to you.
Finally, Learning to behave like the children your children believe
they are now parenting.
I had a longer list, but I forgot where I put it.
So my unofficial advice as a volunteer Adjustment to Aging Counselor,
is to begin finding stuff that makes you laugh--look for ways of
helping folks help you--and don't worry if you drool when you laugh or
chew.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/4/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> The news is incredibly discouraging. And as I experience the world away from
> the comfortable isolated nest in which I lived, more or less protected from
> most day to day human contact, aside from what I read and heard on the
> internet, I could hide from the disintegrating quality of most human
> interactions. I won't go into details in this email on list, but the fact is
> that almost all human interaction these days is monetized in one way or
> another. People are part of your life if they benefit financially in one way
> or another. Personal caring has a price. Everyone is pressured for time. Few
> people use time away from work, when such time exists, for relaxation. There
> are errands to do. There's household maintenance. There are work related
> social activities that are mandatory. Communications are by texts on smart
> phones or emails, seldom phone conversations. All problems are considered
> solveable by technology. If one doesn't conform, fit in, for whatever
> reason, one is marginalized. So everyone works hard to fit in, to accept the
> system. It is this culture which now rules our society, that is most likely
> to prevent the change we'd like to see in the world.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> <blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2018 10:30 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Is this justice?
>
> There are days when I read such horrors as this account, that I feel a
> hopeless empty aching in the pit of my stomach. There is so much violence,
> mindless hatred, and fear in the world, that I sometimes feel as though I'm
> clawing my way up an avalanche. I know that we Humans are capable of so
> much more, love, peace, caring for less fortunate, kindness, sharing,...I
> know such words and feelings still exist, but the overload of bad news is
> pushing us closer and closer toward the edge of the cliff overlooking Hell.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
> On 3/4/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>> The Emmett Till Effect in Israel
>>
>> African migrants protest outside of Israel's parliament in Jerusalem
>> in 2014. (Ariel Schalit / AP)
>>
>> Is this justice?
>>
>> Last Thursday, two Israelis were convicted of brutally beating an
>> African refugee to death, but were spared long prison sentences when
>> the judge agreed to reduce the charges against them from murder to
>> manslaughter and grievous bodily harm, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz
>> reported.
>>
>> In November 2016, 20-year-old Dennis Barshivatz and a 17-year-old who
>> cannot be named under Israeli law beat Babikir Ali Adham-Abdo, a
>> 40-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker, for an hour and a half in front of
>> the city hall of Petach Tikva, a Tel Aviv suburb that is a sister city
>> of Chicago, Ill.
>> Barshivatz will serve a maximum of 10 years in jail and will be
>> eligible for release much earlier. The court has yet to determine
>> sentencing for his teenage accomplice.
>>
>> The killing of Adham-Abdo has evoked comparisons to the Mississippi
>> murder and mutilation of the Chicago teenager Emmett Till in 1955.
>> Just as American racists attempted to excuse Till's murder by
>> posthumously accusing the black teen of having flirted with a white
>> woman whose path he had crossed, some Israelis allege that Adham-Abdo
>> had brought on the lethal beating he received when he supposedly
>> sexually harassed a group of Israeli teenage girls at the scene.
>>
>> In the case of Till, the woman he was accused of flirting with
>> admitted over half a century later that she had fabricated the entire
>> claim, and that Till had never made any advances toward her. The
>> allegations against Adham-Abdo were also revealed to be baseless when
>> CCTV footage of the incident was released. The city hall security
>> camera video clearly showed that Adham-Abdo approached the table where
>> the three teens were sitting, spoke to the group for less than 10
>> seconds, then turned and walked away. Moments later, his assailants
>> set upon him and began to brutally beat him.
>>
>> Another parallel between the Adham-Abdo and Emmett Till incidents lay
>> in the grievous injuries wrought to their faces. In both cases, their
>> faces were pummeled so badly that they were unrecognizable.
>> Adham-Abdo's brother was only able to claim the body for burial once
>> he had identified it based on its missing fingers, which had been
>> severed during murderous clashes in Darfur, from which Adham-Abdo had
>> originally fled to Israel to escape.
>>
>> "We don't agree to the penalties," Adham-Abdo's cousin Moussa told
>> Haaretz.
>> "We thought there was justice in the Israeli courts, we thought Israel
>> was a state of justice. If the victim had been an Israeli, the outcome
>> would have been different. There's racism here."
>>
>> Sadly, Adham-Abdo was not the first African refugee to be beaten to
>> death by a group of Israelis in a public place in recent years. In
>> October 2015, during a shooting attack at the central bus station in
>> the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, a security guard shot
>> 29-year-old Ertirean refugee Haftom Zarhum under the premise that he
>> was assumed to be one of the terrorists.
>> The bus station's security footage revealed that Zarhum was clearly
>> unarmed and crawling on the ground like other innocent bystanders,
>> trying to avoid the bullets of the terrorist attackers.
>>
>> As Zarhum bled out on the ground, Israelis took turns kicking him in
>> the face and slamming chairs and benches down on him, while other
>> bystanders actively prevented medics from reaching him to treat his
>> wounds. In June 2016, a judge ruled that one of the Israelis who
>> slammed a bench down on Zarhum's head would not be charged. Charges
>> are pending against four other Israelis who participated in the lynching.
>>
>> The vicious violence against non-Jewish African refugees in Israel
>> follows years in which Israeli political leaders and religious
>> officials regularly whipped up racist sentiments against them,
>> accusing them of bringing to Israel deadly diseases, violent crimes
>> and anti-state terrorism. Official Israeli government statistics have
>> proven all these smears to be baseless.
>> But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's primary justification for
>> expelling the refugees cannot be so easily dismissed: They should not
>> be able to live in Israel, he claims, because they are not Jews.
>>
>> That the refugees are not Jews is true. Of those who are religious,
>> about half are Christian, and about half are Muslim. The belief that
>> non-Jews have no right to live in the Holy Land has always had some
>> currency among Israeli Jews, but it has become increasingly popular in
>> recent years, with the country's current chief rabbi now openly
>> preaching that genocidal doctrine.
>>
>> In 2013, Netanyahu completed the construction of a high-tech fence on
>> Israel's border with the African continent, in order to end the influx
>> of asylum seekers. In the five years that followed, Israeli
>> authorities cajoled over a third of the community, more than 20,000
>> refugees, to agree to self-deport, by withholding their refugee rights
>> and promising instead that these will be granted to them in an unnamed
>> African country. Now Netanyahu has warned that any African refugees
>> who don't agree to self-deport by April
>> 1 will be jailed indefinitely until they do so. The first group to
>> face this choice will be single African men who aren't yet fathers.
>>
>> Human rights activists, journalists and liberal lawmakers who have
>> followed up with refugees already forced out of Israel have learned
>> that the government never fulfilled its promises to them, and that
>> they were quickly made stateless once more. Without state protection,
>> the vast majority of these refugees then fled for the European Union,
>> hoping to find asylum there. Many then endured horrific tortures at
>> the hands of Libyan slave traders, or drowned in the Mediterranean in
>> failed attempts to reach Fortress Europe.
>>
>> Anticipating Netanyahu's April 1 deadline to self-deport, progressive
>> Israelis have begun to publicly oppose the impending expulsion. In
>> recent weeks, groups of doctors and artists, pilots and teachers have
>> taken out advertisements in Israeli newspapers, articulating their
>> objections to the plan. Liberal rabbis have invoked the memory of
>> iconic Holocaust victim Anne Frank in announcing that they plan to
>> resist by hiding African refugees in their own homes, and some
>> Holocaust survivors have also agreed to take them in.
>>
>> But despite these expressions of solidarity, Netanyahu has vowed to
>> carry out the expulsion as planned, reaping popular support for the
>> plan that he sowed with years of racist incitement. A poll last month
>> found that two-thirds of Israeli citizens support the government's
>> plan to round up and deport all the remaining African asylum seekers,
>> who now number only about 36,000, less than 0.5 percent of the
>> population.
>>
>> On Saturday, 20,000 Israelis and Africans marched in the streets of
>> Tel Aviv, calling on the government to allow the refugees to work
>> legally, and to invest in the neighborhoods they live in, so that
>> their presence is not perceived as a burden to long-time residents. It
>> was a brief reminder that the left still exists, even after a decade
>> of rule by what may have been the most racist governments in Israel's
>> history.
>>
>> But it was also an indication of the vigilante violence that could be
>> let loose against African refugees if Israeli racists feel that the
>> government plan to expel them all is in danger of being annulled.
>> According to Israeli news site i24, police detained two Israeli men
>> and seized a gun from one of them after they publicly plotted over
>> Facebook to attend a pro-refugee demonstration and attack the Africans
>> with weapons.
>>
>>
>> David Sheen
>>
>> David Sheen is an independent journalist and filmmaker born and raised
>> in Canada, now reporting from the ground in Israel*Palestine. His
>> written and video work focuses primarily on the country's racial and.
>> David Sheen
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
ever more chaotic System. But lots of that is due to aging. When I
was working for the Department as an assistant director, the work load
could always be counted upon to increase. And with each new
assignment, Shirley, my boss, would smile and say, "I know this is
going to consume all of your time, but when we wrap it up we'll have
time to relax." It never happened. Shirley was a workaholic. I
remember that it was five years after I'd retired, that I went into
the Agency Building for a Rehab Council meeting, and realized that for
the first time my stomach did not clutch. Five years for me to get
past that frantic feeling of not enough time and too much to do.
Earlier in my life, as a sweat hog in the drapery factory, I would
come home after a hard day's labor and realize that I was shoveling my
dinner into my mouth as if I were eating on a time clock. I actually
had to force myself to take a bite, lean back and chew it thoroughly.
The same was true when I was active in the NFB, and working full time
at the Department. This push to do everything was a big part of my
second marriage failing.
With the grim news coming at me from all sides, I receive many emails
demanding that I do this or that, or sign this or that. I have come
to a place where I delete all but a few. I don't send many
organizations money, and I don't volunteer to door bell or telephone
for one cause or another.
We've been spending more time listening to talking books in the
evenings, and I'm playing more of my CD's, and listening to standup
comics on YouTube.
When Cathy and I began contracting to provide services to older blind
and low vision people, I would schedule two appointments before lunch
and two in the afternoon, five days a week. Twenty folks spread
across five very large counties. After dinner we would do our running
record for the day, schedule new clients and order the aids and
equipment for folks. Today I have no idea how we did it. I do
remember Cathy pulling off the highway in the evening, coming back
from Neah Bay or Aberdeen, so she could grab half an hour nap in order
to make it home. Today we hold Monday as our office day. We see an
average of two clients a day, never more than four days a week, and
usually three days in the field. We do a large amount of work over
the phone that we used to do face to face, but we still speak with
groups of folks in the various retirement and assisted living
facilities.
And even funnier is the fact that when keeping the fast pace schedule,
on weekends we grabbed the tools and cut brush, split fire wood,
tended to the horses, and made time for family gatherings. Age. Age
is the real factor. Not blindness, at least not for those of us
who've been blind or legally blind for many years. Energy and stamina
and youth made the world look different.
Sure, it doesn't look good out there, but it's really no different
than it has ever been. We came to these shores and butchered the
folks who lived here, then we mocked many of those folks who came to
these shores after us...Irish, Italians, Polish, etc. And if their
color was not the same, or their religion didn't please us, we beat up
on them and forced them to live in shacks and do our dirty work. We
did free our slaves, rather by accident, and we've been trying ever
since to keep the yoke upon them. We shoved some of our good American
citizens into internment camps, which was our civilized name for
Prisons or Holding Pens, for Japanese Americans. And, maybe worst of
all, we refused shelter to Jews who fled Germany's terrors. But here
we are, wanting to send home people we had allowed into this Land of
Opportunity, because we don't like their color or their religion.
So the only thing that makes it seem so much worse, and so much more
crazy, is that we are getting old. Worn out! We have forgotten, or
never learned how to age gracefully, how to kick back and take it
easy. We've confused effectiveness with busyness. We feel that we
must be letting down when we fail to keep up the pace. While I do
know a few people over 80 who are still on the go full time, they are
rare exceptions. A friend of mine, whom I'd believed to be a man of
steel, finally admitted to me that he always made time in the mid
morning and in the late afternoon for an hour nap. But folks who
didn't know this believed that he was Grandpa Superman!
Maybe there is an entire new profession for Adjustment to Aging.
Topics like: How to get less out of life and enjoy it more. Or, How
to look intelligent while trying to remember who you're talking to.
Or, The Art of staying calm when folks are talking down to you.
Finally, Learning to behave like the children your children believe
they are now parenting.
I had a longer list, but I forgot where I put it.
So my unofficial advice as a volunteer Adjustment to Aging Counselor,
is to begin finding stuff that makes you laugh--look for ways of
helping folks help you--and don't worry if you drool when you laugh or
chew.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/4/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> The news is incredibly discouraging. And as I experience the world away from
> the comfortable isolated nest in which I lived, more or less protected from
> most day to day human contact, aside from what I read and heard on the
> internet, I could hide from the disintegrating quality of most human
> interactions. I won't go into details in this email on list, but the fact is
> that almost all human interaction these days is monetized in one way or
> another. People are part of your life if they benefit financially in one way
> or another. Personal caring has a price. Everyone is pressured for time. Few
> people use time away from work, when such time exists, for relaxation. There
> are errands to do. There's household maintenance. There are work related
> social activities that are mandatory. Communications are by texts on smart
> phones or emails, seldom phone conversations. All problems are considered
> solveable by technology. If one doesn't conform, fit in, for whatever
> reason, one is marginalized. So everyone works hard to fit in, to accept the
> system. It is this culture which now rules our society, that is most likely
> to prevent the change we'd like to see in the world.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> <blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2018 10:30 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Is this justice?
>
> There are days when I read such horrors as this account, that I feel a
> hopeless empty aching in the pit of my stomach. There is so much violence,
> mindless hatred, and fear in the world, that I sometimes feel as though I'm
> clawing my way up an avalanche. I know that we Humans are capable of so
> much more, love, peace, caring for less fortunate, kindness, sharing,...I
> know such words and feelings still exist, but the overload of bad news is
> pushing us closer and closer toward the edge of the cliff overlooking Hell.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
> On 3/4/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>> The Emmett Till Effect in Israel
>>
>> African migrants protest outside of Israel's parliament in Jerusalem
>> in 2014. (Ariel Schalit / AP)
>>
>> Is this justice?
>>
>> Last Thursday, two Israelis were convicted of brutally beating an
>> African refugee to death, but were spared long prison sentences when
>> the judge agreed to reduce the charges against them from murder to
>> manslaughter and grievous bodily harm, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz
>> reported.
>>
>> In November 2016, 20-year-old Dennis Barshivatz and a 17-year-old who
>> cannot be named under Israeli law beat Babikir Ali Adham-Abdo, a
>> 40-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker, for an hour and a half in front of
>> the city hall of Petach Tikva, a Tel Aviv suburb that is a sister city
>> of Chicago, Ill.
>> Barshivatz will serve a maximum of 10 years in jail and will be
>> eligible for release much earlier. The court has yet to determine
>> sentencing for his teenage accomplice.
>>
>> The killing of Adham-Abdo has evoked comparisons to the Mississippi
>> murder and mutilation of the Chicago teenager Emmett Till in 1955.
>> Just as American racists attempted to excuse Till's murder by
>> posthumously accusing the black teen of having flirted with a white
>> woman whose path he had crossed, some Israelis allege that Adham-Abdo
>> had brought on the lethal beating he received when he supposedly
>> sexually harassed a group of Israeli teenage girls at the scene.
>>
>> In the case of Till, the woman he was accused of flirting with
>> admitted over half a century later that she had fabricated the entire
>> claim, and that Till had never made any advances toward her. The
>> allegations against Adham-Abdo were also revealed to be baseless when
>> CCTV footage of the incident was released. The city hall security
>> camera video clearly showed that Adham-Abdo approached the table where
>> the three teens were sitting, spoke to the group for less than 10
>> seconds, then turned and walked away. Moments later, his assailants
>> set upon him and began to brutally beat him.
>>
>> Another parallel between the Adham-Abdo and Emmett Till incidents lay
>> in the grievous injuries wrought to their faces. In both cases, their
>> faces were pummeled so badly that they were unrecognizable.
>> Adham-Abdo's brother was only able to claim the body for burial once
>> he had identified it based on its missing fingers, which had been
>> severed during murderous clashes in Darfur, from which Adham-Abdo had
>> originally fled to Israel to escape.
>>
>> "We don't agree to the penalties," Adham-Abdo's cousin Moussa told
>> Haaretz.
>> "We thought there was justice in the Israeli courts, we thought Israel
>> was a state of justice. If the victim had been an Israeli, the outcome
>> would have been different. There's racism here."
>>
>> Sadly, Adham-Abdo was not the first African refugee to be beaten to
>> death by a group of Israelis in a public place in recent years. In
>> October 2015, during a shooting attack at the central bus station in
>> the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, a security guard shot
>> 29-year-old Ertirean refugee Haftom Zarhum under the premise that he
>> was assumed to be one of the terrorists.
>> The bus station's security footage revealed that Zarhum was clearly
>> unarmed and crawling on the ground like other innocent bystanders,
>> trying to avoid the bullets of the terrorist attackers.
>>
>> As Zarhum bled out on the ground, Israelis took turns kicking him in
>> the face and slamming chairs and benches down on him, while other
>> bystanders actively prevented medics from reaching him to treat his
>> wounds. In June 2016, a judge ruled that one of the Israelis who
>> slammed a bench down on Zarhum's head would not be charged. Charges
>> are pending against four other Israelis who participated in the lynching.
>>
>> The vicious violence against non-Jewish African refugees in Israel
>> follows years in which Israeli political leaders and religious
>> officials regularly whipped up racist sentiments against them,
>> accusing them of bringing to Israel deadly diseases, violent crimes
>> and anti-state terrorism. Official Israeli government statistics have
>> proven all these smears to be baseless.
>> But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's primary justification for
>> expelling the refugees cannot be so easily dismissed: They should not
>> be able to live in Israel, he claims, because they are not Jews.
>>
>> That the refugees are not Jews is true. Of those who are religious,
>> about half are Christian, and about half are Muslim. The belief that
>> non-Jews have no right to live in the Holy Land has always had some
>> currency among Israeli Jews, but it has become increasingly popular in
>> recent years, with the country's current chief rabbi now openly
>> preaching that genocidal doctrine.
>>
>> In 2013, Netanyahu completed the construction of a high-tech fence on
>> Israel's border with the African continent, in order to end the influx
>> of asylum seekers. In the five years that followed, Israeli
>> authorities cajoled over a third of the community, more than 20,000
>> refugees, to agree to self-deport, by withholding their refugee rights
>> and promising instead that these will be granted to them in an unnamed
>> African country. Now Netanyahu has warned that any African refugees
>> who don't agree to self-deport by April
>> 1 will be jailed indefinitely until they do so. The first group to
>> face this choice will be single African men who aren't yet fathers.
>>
>> Human rights activists, journalists and liberal lawmakers who have
>> followed up with refugees already forced out of Israel have learned
>> that the government never fulfilled its promises to them, and that
>> they were quickly made stateless once more. Without state protection,
>> the vast majority of these refugees then fled for the European Union,
>> hoping to find asylum there. Many then endured horrific tortures at
>> the hands of Libyan slave traders, or drowned in the Mediterranean in
>> failed attempts to reach Fortress Europe.
>>
>> Anticipating Netanyahu's April 1 deadline to self-deport, progressive
>> Israelis have begun to publicly oppose the impending expulsion. In
>> recent weeks, groups of doctors and artists, pilots and teachers have
>> taken out advertisements in Israeli newspapers, articulating their
>> objections to the plan. Liberal rabbis have invoked the memory of
>> iconic Holocaust victim Anne Frank in announcing that they plan to
>> resist by hiding African refugees in their own homes, and some
>> Holocaust survivors have also agreed to take them in.
>>
>> But despite these expressions of solidarity, Netanyahu has vowed to
>> carry out the expulsion as planned, reaping popular support for the
>> plan that he sowed with years of racist incitement. A poll last month
>> found that two-thirds of Israeli citizens support the government's
>> plan to round up and deport all the remaining African asylum seekers,
>> who now number only about 36,000, less than 0.5 percent of the
>> population.
>>
>> On Saturday, 20,000 Israelis and Africans marched in the streets of
>> Tel Aviv, calling on the government to allow the refugees to work
>> legally, and to invest in the neighborhoods they live in, so that
>> their presence is not perceived as a burden to long-time residents. It
>> was a brief reminder that the left still exists, even after a decade
>> of rule by what may have been the most racist governments in Israel's
>> history.
>>
>> But it was also an indication of the vigilante violence that could be
>> let loose against African refugees if Israeli racists feel that the
>> government plan to expel them all is in danger of being annulled.
>> According to Israeli news site i24, police detained two Israeli men
>> and seized a gun from one of them after they publicly plotted over
>> Facebook to attend a pro-refugee demonstration and attack the Africans
>> with weapons.
>>
>>
>> David Sheen
>>
>> David Sheen is an independent journalist and filmmaker born and raised
>> in Canada, now reporting from the ground in Israel*Palestine. His
>> written and video work focuses primarily on the country's racial and.
>> David Sheen
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Two Classes in America: the Have's and the rest of us
Of course there is bickering and sniping among, "The Rest of Us".
Such friction is to the advantage of the, "Have's". We are certainly
easier to manage when we spend much of our time at each others
throats.
Do those differences we look at, which often keep us apart, do they
really make any difference when the bottom line is that we are all
serving the American Empire, the Republic that was never a Republic,
but was established as an Oligarchy. And that Oligarchy has continued
to own us since it was set into place by the original "Founding
*Fathers", the White Male, over 21 years of age, Land Holders or very
wealthy.
Below is an article that may be somewhat lengthy, but is worth reading.
Carl Jarvis
****
Is America an Oligarchy?
By
John Cassidy
April 18, 2014
From the Dept. of Academics Confirming Something You Already Suspected comes
a new study
concluding that rich people and organizations representing business
interests have a powerful grip on U.S. government policy. After
examining differences
in public opinion across income groups on a wide variety of issues,
the political scientists Martin Gilens, of Princeton, and Benjamin
Page, of Northwestern,
found that the preferences of rich people had a much bigger impact on
subsequent policy decisions than the views of middle-income and poor
Americans. Indeed,
the opinions of lower-income groups, and the interest groups that
represent them, appear to have little or no independent impact on
policy.
"Our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually
have little influence over the policies our government adopts," Gilens
and Page write:
block quote
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance,
such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a
widespread (if still
contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated
by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent
Americans, then
America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
block quote end
That's a big claim. In their conclusion, Gilens and Page go even
further, asserting that "In the United States, our findings indicate,
the majority does
not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining
policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic
elites and/or with
organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover … even when fairly
large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do
not get it."
It is hardly surprising that the new study is generating alarmist
headlines, such as "
study: us is an oligarchy, not a democracy
," from, of all places, the BBC. Gilens and Page do not use the term
"oligarchy" in describing their conclusions, which would imply that a
small ruling
class dominates the political system to the exclusion of all others.
They prefer the phrase "economic élite domination," which is a bit
less pejorative.
The evidence that Gilens and Page present needs careful intepretation.
For example, the opinion surveys they rely on suggest that, on many
issues, people
of different incomes share similar opinions. To quote the paper:
"Rather often, average citizens and affluent citizens (our proxy for
economic elites)
want the same things from government." This does get reflected in
policy outcomes. Proposals that are supported up and down the income
spectrum have a
better chance of being enacted than policies that do not have such
support. To that extent, democracy is working.
The issue is what happens when some income groups, particularly the
rich, support or oppose certain things, and other groups in society
don't share their
views. To tackle this issue, Gilens and Page constructed a
multivariate statistical model, which includes three causal variables:
the views of Americans
in the ninetieth percentile of the income distribution (the rich), the
views of Americans in the fiftieth percentile (the middle class), and
the opinions
of various interest groups, such as business lobbies and trade unions.
In setting up their analysis this way, the two political scientists
were able to
measure the impact that the groups have independent of each other.
This is what the data shows: when the economic élites support a given
policy change, it has about a one-in-two chance of being enacted. (The
exact estimated
probability is forty-five per cent.) When the élites oppose a given
measure, its chances of becoming law are less than one in five. (The
exact estimate
is eighteen per cent.) The fact that both figures are both below fifty
per cent reflects a status-quo bias: in the divided American system of
government,
getting anything at all passed is tricky.
The study suggests that, on many issues, the rich exercise an
effective veto. If they are against something, it is unlikely to
happen. This is obviously
inconsistent with the
median-voter theorem
—which holds that policy outcomes reflect the preferences of voters
who represent the ideological center—but I don't think that it is a
particularly controversial
claim. A recent example is the failure to eliminate the "carried
interest" deduction, which allows hedge-fund managers and
leveraged-buyout tycoons to
pay an artificially low tax rate on much of their income. In 2012,
there was widespread outrage at the revelation that Mitt Romney, who
made his fortune
at the leveraged-buyout firm Bain Capital, paid less than fifteen per
cent in federal income taxes. But the deduction hasn't been
eliminated.tudy's other interesting findings is that, beyond a certain
level, the opinions of the public at large have little impact on the
chances a
proposal has of being enacted. As I said, policy proposals that have
the support of the majority fare better than proposals which are
favored only by a
minority. But, in the words of Gilens and Page, "The probability of
policy change is nearly the same (around 0.3) whether a tiny minority
or a large majority
of average citizens favor a proposed policy change."
The paper is a provocative one, and there's sure to be a lot of debate
among political scientists about whether it wholly supports the
authors' claims.
One issue is that their survey data is pretty old: it covers the
period from 1982 to 2002. (On the other hand, it hardly seems likely
that the influence
of the affluent has declined in the past decade.) Another issue is
that, in a statistical sense, the explanatory power of some of the
equations that Gilens
and Page use is weak. For example, the three-variable probability
model that I referred to above explains less than ten per cent of the
variation in the
data. (For you statistical wonks, R-squared = 0.074.)
Even in this sort of study, that's a pretty low figure. Gilens and
Page, to their credit, draw attention to it in their discussion, and
suggest various
reasons for why it's not a big issue. They also acknowledge another
possible objection to their conclusions:
block quote
Average citizens are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public
policy; why should we worry if their poorly informed preferences do
not influence
policy making? Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders
enjoy greater policy expertise than the average citizen does. Perhaps
they know better
which policies will benefit everyone, and perhaps they seek the common
good, rather than selfish ends, when deciding which policies to
support… But we
tend to doubt it.
block quote end
Me, too. There can be no doubt that economic élites have a
disproportionate influence in Washington, or that their views and
interests distort policy in
ways that don't necessarily benefit the majority: the politicians all
know this, and we know it, too. The only debate is about how far this
process has
gone, and whether we should refer to it as oligarchy or as something else.
Photograph: Ryan Heffernan
w_130\,c_limit/cassidy-john-2
list of 1 items
John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He
also writes a
column about politics, economics, and more
for newyorker.com.
On 3/2/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Carl,
>
> In case you haven't noticed, the "working class", as you choose to call
> everyone who isn't a member of the power elites, is divided by strongly held
> beliefs and prejudices, by education, experience, income level, ethnic,
> racial, and cultural backgrounds. If you were a young leftist, active on
> twitter, or listened to some of the leftwing podcasts on which the people
> talk about issues and what's going on, you'd discover how truly divided and
> paranoid the Left is, how so much of the discussion about issues becomes
> personal and sort of gossipy. There isn't any "us". It kind of reminds me of
> the politics of the blindness organizations, only even more so.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2018 8:35 PM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Cc: my blog carl jarvis <carjar82.carls@blogger.com>
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump,
> White House
>
> If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: "...But there is no
> "us. The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
> working class."
>
> We, the working class People do not have an FBI or our own CIA. We have no
> state militia, no National Guard, no Police or company Bully Boys. All we
> have are Numbers. And Guts. And Determination. And when we are pushed
> against the wall, as our Greed driven Corporate Bosses must do to us, we
> will start pushing back, shouting "Enough is enough!"
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
> On 3/1/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>> http://themilitant.com/2018/8209/820903.html
>> The Militant (logo)
>>
>> Vol. 82/No. 9 March 5, 2018
>>
>> (front page)
>>
>> Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump
>> White House
>>
>>
>> BY TERRY EVANS
>> Liberals are singing the praises of the U.S. political police after
>> former FBI boss Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and
>> three Russian organizations for conspiracy to "defraud the United
>> States" by interfering in politics here.
>> The Feb. 16 indictments accuse the 13 Russians of participating in a
>> so-called troll operation on the internet beginning in 2014, inventing
>> U.S. identities, promoting a variety of political views to roil
>> viewers and staging rallies related to the 2016 campaign. They make no
>> allegation that Donald Trump's campaign was involved in any way, and
>> they say there is no evidence this operation affected the election
>> outcome. Those charged worked for a company with close ties to the
>> Kremlin, Mueller claims. The evidence marshaled is similar to previous
>> press reports, including a 2015 New York Times magazine piece called
>> "The Agency."
>>
>> "Our FBI, CIA, NSA [National Security Agency], working with the
>> special counsel [Mueller], have done us amazingly proud," columnist
>> Thomas Friedman gushes in the Times Feb. 18. But there is no "us."
>>
>> The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
>> working class. The FBI is tasked by the bosses to spy on, disrupt and
>> frame up working-class militants, Black rights and Puerto Rican
>> independence fighters, and opponents of Washington's wars. Examples
>> include framing up leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the
>> Teamsters union in Minneapolis for speaking out against the rulers'
>> drive to enter the second imperialist world war to decades of
>> Cointelpro attacks on the party and other political groups.
>>
>> Like all the rulers' frame-up grand juries and special prosecutors,
>> Mueller's probe against the Trump presidency starts with a target and
>> then roots around for evidence. The charge that those indicted
>> conspired to "defraud the U.S." is so broad it could be used to target
>> almost anyone for anything. Such laws are written that way to make it
>> easy for the cops and spy agencies to use them to go after working-class
>> fighters.
>>
>> The liberals and middle-class left are determined to criminalize their
>> political differences with Trump to drive him out of office. Democrats
>> lined up in a frenzy to claim Mueller had found the "smoking gun"
>> against him. It went so far that Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler from New
>> York told MSNBC he thought Moscow's interference in the election was
>> the equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — the pretext
>> used by Washington that it had been preparing for years to enter World War
>> II.
>>
>> Underlying the liberals' refusal to reconcile themselves to Trump's
>> election is their scorn for the workers who elected him. In a Feb. 20
>> op-ed entitled "The Madness of American Crowds," New York Times
>> columnist Roger Cohen claimed that working people are "dumb" and "can
>> be led by the nose into the gutter," and were "easily manipulated" to
>> elect Trump.
>>
>> In reality millions of workers, including many who had voted for
>> Barack Obama in previous elections, were angry over the blows
>> inflicted on them from capitalism's political and moral crisis and looking
>> for a change.
>> They voted for Trump hoping he would do something and "drain the swamp"
>> in Washington. But Trump, like his predecessors from both parties,
>> governs to defend the interests of the propertied owners.
>>
>> SWP members campaigning in working-class neighborhoods find widespread
>> interest in discussing how the rulers foist the costs of today's wars
>> and social crises onto the backs of working people and what this says
>> about the values of their system. Many workers want to discuss how
>> past struggles — like the Cuban Revolution and the mighty movement
>> that overthrew Jim Crow segregation — show we can organize
>> independently of the bosses, and through revolutionary struggle
>> develop the capacities to replace capitalist rule with workers power.
>>
>> Such capabilities are completely discounted by those like Cohen who
>> think that workers need to be "learned" on what to do by meritocrats
>> like himself.
>>
>> The alleged activities of the Internet Research Agency and its
>> manager, Yevgeny Prigozhin, itemized in the indictment, are a litany
>> of internet misinformation on a wide variety of political issues.
>>
>> But the scale of the meddling in the 2016 elections by Moscow pales in
>> comparison to that engineered over decades by the U.S. rulers. They
>> have utilized their spy agencies — that liberals are falling over
>> themselves to shower with plaudits — to not only "affect" elections,
>> but to brutally overturn governments.
>>
>> This includes the CIA-organized coup that overthrew the Iranian
>> government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced him with
>> the shah in 1953, establishing a key prop in U.S. domination across
>> the Middle East that lasted for 25 years. The U.S. rulers tried to
>> prevent the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, and,
>> when they failed, backed the 1973 coup by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that
>> overthrew his government. The list goes on and on.
>>
>>
>> Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: But there is no
> "us."
>
> The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the working
> class.
>
>
>
Such friction is to the advantage of the, "Have's". We are certainly
easier to manage when we spend much of our time at each others
throats.
Do those differences we look at, which often keep us apart, do they
really make any difference when the bottom line is that we are all
serving the American Empire, the Republic that was never a Republic,
but was established as an Oligarchy. And that Oligarchy has continued
to own us since it was set into place by the original "Founding
*Fathers", the White Male, over 21 years of age, Land Holders or very
wealthy.
Below is an article that may be somewhat lengthy, but is worth reading.
Carl Jarvis
****
Is America an Oligarchy?
By
John Cassidy
April 18, 2014
From the Dept. of Academics Confirming Something You Already Suspected comes
a new study
concluding that rich people and organizations representing business
interests have a powerful grip on U.S. government policy. After
examining differences
in public opinion across income groups on a wide variety of issues,
the political scientists Martin Gilens, of Princeton, and Benjamin
Page, of Northwestern,
found that the preferences of rich people had a much bigger impact on
subsequent policy decisions than the views of middle-income and poor
Americans. Indeed,
the opinions of lower-income groups, and the interest groups that
represent them, appear to have little or no independent impact on
policy.
"Our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually
have little influence over the policies our government adopts," Gilens
and Page write:
block quote
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance,
such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a
widespread (if still
contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated
by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent
Americans, then
America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
block quote end
That's a big claim. In their conclusion, Gilens and Page go even
further, asserting that "In the United States, our findings indicate,
the majority does
not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining
policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic
elites and/or with
organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover … even when fairly
large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do
not get it."
It is hardly surprising that the new study is generating alarmist
headlines, such as "
study: us is an oligarchy, not a democracy
," from, of all places, the BBC. Gilens and Page do not use the term
"oligarchy" in describing their conclusions, which would imply that a
small ruling
class dominates the political system to the exclusion of all others.
They prefer the phrase "economic élite domination," which is a bit
less pejorative.
The evidence that Gilens and Page present needs careful intepretation.
For example, the opinion surveys they rely on suggest that, on many
issues, people
of different incomes share similar opinions. To quote the paper:
"Rather often, average citizens and affluent citizens (our proxy for
economic elites)
want the same things from government." This does get reflected in
policy outcomes. Proposals that are supported up and down the income
spectrum have a
better chance of being enacted than policies that do not have such
support. To that extent, democracy is working.
The issue is what happens when some income groups, particularly the
rich, support or oppose certain things, and other groups in society
don't share their
views. To tackle this issue, Gilens and Page constructed a
multivariate statistical model, which includes three causal variables:
the views of Americans
in the ninetieth percentile of the income distribution (the rich), the
views of Americans in the fiftieth percentile (the middle class), and
the opinions
of various interest groups, such as business lobbies and trade unions.
In setting up their analysis this way, the two political scientists
were able to
measure the impact that the groups have independent of each other.
This is what the data shows: when the economic élites support a given
policy change, it has about a one-in-two chance of being enacted. (The
exact estimated
probability is forty-five per cent.) When the élites oppose a given
measure, its chances of becoming law are less than one in five. (The
exact estimate
is eighteen per cent.) The fact that both figures are both below fifty
per cent reflects a status-quo bias: in the divided American system of
government,
getting anything at all passed is tricky.
The study suggests that, on many issues, the rich exercise an
effective veto. If they are against something, it is unlikely to
happen. This is obviously
inconsistent with the
median-voter theorem
—which holds that policy outcomes reflect the preferences of voters
who represent the ideological center—but I don't think that it is a
particularly controversial
claim. A recent example is the failure to eliminate the "carried
interest" deduction, which allows hedge-fund managers and
leveraged-buyout tycoons to
pay an artificially low tax rate on much of their income. In 2012,
there was widespread outrage at the revelation that Mitt Romney, who
made his fortune
at the leveraged-buyout firm Bain Capital, paid less than fifteen per
cent in federal income taxes. But the deduction hasn't been
eliminated.tudy's other interesting findings is that, beyond a certain
level, the opinions of the public at large have little impact on the
chances a
proposal has of being enacted. As I said, policy proposals that have
the support of the majority fare better than proposals which are
favored only by a
minority. But, in the words of Gilens and Page, "The probability of
policy change is nearly the same (around 0.3) whether a tiny minority
or a large majority
of average citizens favor a proposed policy change."
The paper is a provocative one, and there's sure to be a lot of debate
among political scientists about whether it wholly supports the
authors' claims.
One issue is that their survey data is pretty old: it covers the
period from 1982 to 2002. (On the other hand, it hardly seems likely
that the influence
of the affluent has declined in the past decade.) Another issue is
that, in a statistical sense, the explanatory power of some of the
equations that Gilens
and Page use is weak. For example, the three-variable probability
model that I referred to above explains less than ten per cent of the
variation in the
data. (For you statistical wonks, R-squared = 0.074.)
Even in this sort of study, that's a pretty low figure. Gilens and
Page, to their credit, draw attention to it in their discussion, and
suggest various
reasons for why it's not a big issue. They also acknowledge another
possible objection to their conclusions:
block quote
Average citizens are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public
policy; why should we worry if their poorly informed preferences do
not influence
policy making? Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders
enjoy greater policy expertise than the average citizen does. Perhaps
they know better
which policies will benefit everyone, and perhaps they seek the common
good, rather than selfish ends, when deciding which policies to
support… But we
tend to doubt it.
block quote end
Me, too. There can be no doubt that economic élites have a
disproportionate influence in Washington, or that their views and
interests distort policy in
ways that don't necessarily benefit the majority: the politicians all
know this, and we know it, too. The only debate is about how far this
process has
gone, and whether we should refer to it as oligarchy or as something else.
Photograph: Ryan Heffernan
w_130\,c_limit/cassidy-john-2
list of 1 items
John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He
also writes a
column about politics, economics, and more
for newyorker.com.
On 3/2/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Carl,
>
> In case you haven't noticed, the "working class", as you choose to call
> everyone who isn't a member of the power elites, is divided by strongly held
> beliefs and prejudices, by education, experience, income level, ethnic,
> racial, and cultural backgrounds. If you were a young leftist, active on
> twitter, or listened to some of the leftwing podcasts on which the people
> talk about issues and what's going on, you'd discover how truly divided and
> paranoid the Left is, how so much of the discussion about issues becomes
> personal and sort of gossipy. There isn't any "us". It kind of reminds me of
> the politics of the blindness organizations, only even more so.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2018 8:35 PM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Cc: my blog carl jarvis <carjar82.carls@blogger.com>
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump,
> White House
>
> If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: "...But there is no
> "us. The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
> working class."
>
> We, the working class People do not have an FBI or our own CIA. We have no
> state militia, no National Guard, no Police or company Bully Boys. All we
> have are Numbers. And Guts. And Determination. And when we are pushed
> against the wall, as our Greed driven Corporate Bosses must do to us, we
> will start pushing back, shouting "Enough is enough!"
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
> On 3/1/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>> http://themilitant.com/2018/8209/820903.html
>> The Militant (logo)
>>
>> Vol. 82/No. 9 March 5, 2018
>>
>> (front page)
>>
>> Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump
>> White House
>>
>>
>> BY TERRY EVANS
>> Liberals are singing the praises of the U.S. political police after
>> former FBI boss Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and
>> three Russian organizations for conspiracy to "defraud the United
>> States" by interfering in politics here.
>> The Feb. 16 indictments accuse the 13 Russians of participating in a
>> so-called troll operation on the internet beginning in 2014, inventing
>> U.S. identities, promoting a variety of political views to roil
>> viewers and staging rallies related to the 2016 campaign. They make no
>> allegation that Donald Trump's campaign was involved in any way, and
>> they say there is no evidence this operation affected the election
>> outcome. Those charged worked for a company with close ties to the
>> Kremlin, Mueller claims. The evidence marshaled is similar to previous
>> press reports, including a 2015 New York Times magazine piece called
>> "The Agency."
>>
>> "Our FBI, CIA, NSA [National Security Agency], working with the
>> special counsel [Mueller], have done us amazingly proud," columnist
>> Thomas Friedman gushes in the Times Feb. 18. But there is no "us."
>>
>> The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
>> working class. The FBI is tasked by the bosses to spy on, disrupt and
>> frame up working-class militants, Black rights and Puerto Rican
>> independence fighters, and opponents of Washington's wars. Examples
>> include framing up leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the
>> Teamsters union in Minneapolis for speaking out against the rulers'
>> drive to enter the second imperialist world war to decades of
>> Cointelpro attacks on the party and other political groups.
>>
>> Like all the rulers' frame-up grand juries and special prosecutors,
>> Mueller's probe against the Trump presidency starts with a target and
>> then roots around for evidence. The charge that those indicted
>> conspired to "defraud the U.S." is so broad it could be used to target
>> almost anyone for anything. Such laws are written that way to make it
>> easy for the cops and spy agencies to use them to go after working-class
>> fighters.
>>
>> The liberals and middle-class left are determined to criminalize their
>> political differences with Trump to drive him out of office. Democrats
>> lined up in a frenzy to claim Mueller had found the "smoking gun"
>> against him. It went so far that Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler from New
>> York told MSNBC he thought Moscow's interference in the election was
>> the equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — the pretext
>> used by Washington that it had been preparing for years to enter World War
>> II.
>>
>> Underlying the liberals' refusal to reconcile themselves to Trump's
>> election is their scorn for the workers who elected him. In a Feb. 20
>> op-ed entitled "The Madness of American Crowds," New York Times
>> columnist Roger Cohen claimed that working people are "dumb" and "can
>> be led by the nose into the gutter," and were "easily manipulated" to
>> elect Trump.
>>
>> In reality millions of workers, including many who had voted for
>> Barack Obama in previous elections, were angry over the blows
>> inflicted on them from capitalism's political and moral crisis and looking
>> for a change.
>> They voted for Trump hoping he would do something and "drain the swamp"
>> in Washington. But Trump, like his predecessors from both parties,
>> governs to defend the interests of the propertied owners.
>>
>> SWP members campaigning in working-class neighborhoods find widespread
>> interest in discussing how the rulers foist the costs of today's wars
>> and social crises onto the backs of working people and what this says
>> about the values of their system. Many workers want to discuss how
>> past struggles — like the Cuban Revolution and the mighty movement
>> that overthrew Jim Crow segregation — show we can organize
>> independently of the bosses, and through revolutionary struggle
>> develop the capacities to replace capitalist rule with workers power.
>>
>> Such capabilities are completely discounted by those like Cohen who
>> think that workers need to be "learned" on what to do by meritocrats
>> like himself.
>>
>> The alleged activities of the Internet Research Agency and its
>> manager, Yevgeny Prigozhin, itemized in the indictment, are a litany
>> of internet misinformation on a wide variety of political issues.
>>
>> But the scale of the meddling in the 2016 elections by Moscow pales in
>> comparison to that engineered over decades by the U.S. rulers. They
>> have utilized their spy agencies — that liberals are falling over
>> themselves to shower with plaudits — to not only "affect" elections,
>> but to brutally overturn governments.
>>
>> This includes the CIA-organized coup that overthrew the Iranian
>> government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced him with
>> the shah in 1953, establishing a key prop in U.S. domination across
>> the Middle East that lasted for 25 years. The U.S. rulers tried to
>> prevent the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, and,
>> when they failed, backed the 1973 coup by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that
>> overthrew his government. The list goes on and on.
>>
>>
>> Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: But there is no
> "us."
>
> The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the working
> class.
>
>
>
Friday, March 2, 2018
Re: [blind-democracy] Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump, White House
If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: "...But there
is no "us. The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers
against the working class."
We, the working class People do not have an FBI or our own CIA. We
have no state militia, no National Guard, no Police or company Bully
Boys. All we have are Numbers. And Guts. And Determination. And
when we are pushed against the wall, as our Greed driven Corporate
Bosses must do to us, we will start pushing back, shouting "Enough is
enough!"
Carl Jarvis
On 3/1/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> http://themilitant.com/2018/8209/820903.html
> The Militant (logo)
>
> Vol. 82/No. 9 March 5, 2018
>
> (front page)
>
> Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump
> White House
>
>
> BY TERRY EVANS
> Liberals are singing the praises of the U.S. political police after
> former FBI boss Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and three
> Russian organizations for conspiracy to "defraud the United States" by
> interfering in politics here.
> The Feb. 16 indictments accuse the 13 Russians of participating in a
> so-called troll operation on the internet beginning in 2014, inventing
> U.S. identities, promoting a variety of political views to roil viewers
> and staging rallies related to the 2016 campaign. They make no
> allegation that Donald Trump's campaign was involved in any way, and
> they say there is no evidence this operation affected the election
> outcome. Those charged worked for a company with close ties to the
> Kremlin, Mueller claims. The evidence marshaled is similar to previous
> press reports, including a 2015 New York Times magazine piece called
> "The Agency."
>
> "Our FBI, CIA, NSA [National Security Agency], working with the special
> counsel [Mueller], have done us amazingly proud," columnist Thomas
> Friedman gushes in the Times Feb. 18. But there is no "us."
>
> The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
> working class. The FBI is tasked by the bosses to spy on, disrupt and
> frame up working-class militants, Black rights and Puerto Rican
> independence fighters, and opponents of Washington's wars. Examples
> include framing up leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the
> Teamsters union in Minneapolis for speaking out against the rulers'
> drive to enter the second imperialist world war to decades of Cointelpro
> attacks on the party and other political groups.
>
> Like all the rulers' frame-up grand juries and special prosecutors,
> Mueller's probe against the Trump presidency starts with a target and
> then roots around for evidence. The charge that those indicted conspired
> to "defraud the U.S." is so broad it could be used to target almost
> anyone for anything. Such laws are written that way to make it easy for
> the cops and spy agencies to use them to go after working-class fighters.
>
> The liberals and middle-class left are determined to criminalize their
> political differences with Trump to drive him out of office. Democrats
> lined up in a frenzy to claim Mueller had found the "smoking gun"
> against him. It went so far that Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler from New
> York told MSNBC he thought Moscow's interference in the election was the
> equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — the pretext used by
> Washington that it had been preparing for years to enter World War II.
>
> Underlying the liberals' refusal to reconcile themselves to Trump's
> election is their scorn for the workers who elected him. In a Feb. 20
> op-ed entitled "The Madness of American Crowds," New York Times
> columnist Roger Cohen claimed that working people are "dumb" and "can be
> led by the nose into the gutter," and were "easily manipulated" to elect
> Trump.
>
> In reality millions of workers, including many who had voted for Barack
> Obama in previous elections, were angry over the blows inflicted on them
> from capitalism's political and moral crisis and looking for a change.
> They voted for Trump hoping he would do something and "drain the swamp"
> in Washington. But Trump, like his predecessors from both parties,
> governs to defend the interests of the propertied owners.
>
> SWP members campaigning in working-class neighborhoods find widespread
> interest in discussing how the rulers foist the costs of today's wars
> and social crises onto the backs of working people and what this says
> about the values of their system. Many workers want to discuss how past
> struggles — like the Cuban Revolution and the mighty movement that
> overthrew Jim Crow segregation — show we can organize independently of
> the bosses, and through revolutionary struggle develop the capacities to
> replace capitalist rule with workers power.
>
> Such capabilities are completely discounted by those like Cohen who
> think that workers need to be "learned" on what to do by meritocrats
> like himself.
>
> The alleged activities of the Internet Research Agency and its manager,
> Yevgeny Prigozhin, itemized in the indictment, are a litany of internet
> misinformation on a wide variety of political issues.
>
> But the scale of the meddling in the 2016 elections by Moscow pales in
> comparison to that engineered over decades by the U.S. rulers. They have
> utilized their spy agencies — that liberals are falling over themselves
> to shower with plaudits — to not only "affect" elections, but to
> brutally overturn governments.
>
> This includes the CIA-organized coup that overthrew the Iranian
> government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced him with
> the shah in 1953, establishing a key prop in U.S. domination across the
> Middle East that lasted for 25 years. The U.S. rulers tried to prevent
> the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, and, when they
> failed, backed the 1973 coup by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that overthrew his
> government. The list goes on and on.
>
>
> Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
>
>
>
>
>
If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: But there is no "us."
The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
working class.
is no "us. The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers
against the working class."
We, the working class People do not have an FBI or our own CIA. We
have no state militia, no National Guard, no Police or company Bully
Boys. All we have are Numbers. And Guts. And Determination. And
when we are pushed against the wall, as our Greed driven Corporate
Bosses must do to us, we will start pushing back, shouting "Enough is
enough!"
Carl Jarvis
On 3/1/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> http://themilitant.com/2018/8209/820903.html
> The Militant (logo)
>
> Vol. 82/No. 9 March 5, 2018
>
> (front page)
>
> Liberals hail FBI witch hunt against Trump
> White House
>
>
> BY TERRY EVANS
> Liberals are singing the praises of the U.S. political police after
> former FBI boss Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and three
> Russian organizations for conspiracy to "defraud the United States" by
> interfering in politics here.
> The Feb. 16 indictments accuse the 13 Russians of participating in a
> so-called troll operation on the internet beginning in 2014, inventing
> U.S. identities, promoting a variety of political views to roil viewers
> and staging rallies related to the 2016 campaign. They make no
> allegation that Donald Trump's campaign was involved in any way, and
> they say there is no evidence this operation affected the election
> outcome. Those charged worked for a company with close ties to the
> Kremlin, Mueller claims. The evidence marshaled is similar to previous
> press reports, including a 2015 New York Times magazine piece called
> "The Agency."
>
> "Our FBI, CIA, NSA [National Security Agency], working with the special
> counsel [Mueller], have done us amazingly proud," columnist Thomas
> Friedman gushes in the Times Feb. 18. But there is no "us."
>
> The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
> working class. The FBI is tasked by the bosses to spy on, disrupt and
> frame up working-class militants, Black rights and Puerto Rican
> independence fighters, and opponents of Washington's wars. Examples
> include framing up leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the
> Teamsters union in Minneapolis for speaking out against the rulers'
> drive to enter the second imperialist world war to decades of Cointelpro
> attacks on the party and other political groups.
>
> Like all the rulers' frame-up grand juries and special prosecutors,
> Mueller's probe against the Trump presidency starts with a target and
> then roots around for evidence. The charge that those indicted conspired
> to "defraud the U.S." is so broad it could be used to target almost
> anyone for anything. Such laws are written that way to make it easy for
> the cops and spy agencies to use them to go after working-class fighters.
>
> The liberals and middle-class left are determined to criminalize their
> political differences with Trump to drive him out of office. Democrats
> lined up in a frenzy to claim Mueller had found the "smoking gun"
> against him. It went so far that Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler from New
> York told MSNBC he thought Moscow's interference in the election was the
> equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — the pretext used by
> Washington that it had been preparing for years to enter World War II.
>
> Underlying the liberals' refusal to reconcile themselves to Trump's
> election is their scorn for the workers who elected him. In a Feb. 20
> op-ed entitled "The Madness of American Crowds," New York Times
> columnist Roger Cohen claimed that working people are "dumb" and "can be
> led by the nose into the gutter," and were "easily manipulated" to elect
> Trump.
>
> In reality millions of workers, including many who had voted for Barack
> Obama in previous elections, were angry over the blows inflicted on them
> from capitalism's political and moral crisis and looking for a change.
> They voted for Trump hoping he would do something and "drain the swamp"
> in Washington. But Trump, like his predecessors from both parties,
> governs to defend the interests of the propertied owners.
>
> SWP members campaigning in working-class neighborhoods find widespread
> interest in discussing how the rulers foist the costs of today's wars
> and social crises onto the backs of working people and what this says
> about the values of their system. Many workers want to discuss how past
> struggles — like the Cuban Revolution and the mighty movement that
> overthrew Jim Crow segregation — show we can organize independently of
> the bosses, and through revolutionary struggle develop the capacities to
> replace capitalist rule with workers power.
>
> Such capabilities are completely discounted by those like Cohen who
> think that workers need to be "learned" on what to do by meritocrats
> like himself.
>
> The alleged activities of the Internet Research Agency and its manager,
> Yevgeny Prigozhin, itemized in the indictment, are a litany of internet
> misinformation on a wide variety of political issues.
>
> But the scale of the meddling in the 2016 elections by Moscow pales in
> comparison to that engineered over decades by the U.S. rulers. They have
> utilized their spy agencies — that liberals are falling over themselves
> to shower with plaudits — to not only "affect" elections, but to
> brutally overturn governments.
>
> This includes the CIA-organized coup that overthrew the Iranian
> government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced him with
> the shah in 1953, establishing a key prop in U.S. domination across the
> Middle East that lasted for 25 years. The U.S. rulers tried to prevent
> the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, and, when they
> failed, backed the 1973 coup by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that overthrew his
> government. The list goes on and on.
>
>
> Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
>
>
>
>
>
If we remember only one thing from this article, it is: But there is no "us."
The spy agencies he applauds serve the propertied rulers against the
working class.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
I'm a non label label
My goodness Bob. You are like the old phonograph record with the
needle stuck in a groove. "Label label label label."
Well then, here's a label you can use if you choose. Carl. I even
answer to labels like:
Carl Jarvis, Jarvis, Mister Jarvis, Dad, Grandpa, Great grandpa, Hon,
and, That Blind Man.
Regarding the leaning of my rhetoric, you have labeled it as extreme
Left leaning, and once labeled you have construed it as
pushing/supporting "their" agenda. So just who are those, "Their" you
reference?
Why can't you accept the fact that my brain works without having to
run to some particular propaganda in order to function. I accept what
you say as your understanding of the world as you see it. I've never
seen the need to label your "interesting" opinions as, "Right Wing
Dogma".
We're just exchanging opinions...aren't we? Although the thought has
crossed my mind that you are pulling my leg by taking extreme
indefensible positions such as declaring that all of us have equal
opportunity. Now that is a real leg puller!
Sorry, I can't differentiate between socialism/communism/Marxism,
having only browsed through some of their literature. I did take a
course in college on, The Young Karl Marx, but that was many years ago
and all I remember is that he and I spelled our names differently.
As for only addressing questions that are "convenient" for me, that is
true. I do that for two reasons. First, I an intrigued by some of
your thoughts, so those are the ones I attempt to address. Secondly,
and please believe that I am not disrespecting you personally, but so
much of what you say is pure misinformation. It would take us far too
much space, and probably get the list moderator upset, if we went into
detailed explanations.
As for your question, "Where has your utopian philosophy been
successfully implemented?"
Nowhere is the quick answer. But actually, I have no such Utopian
government in mind. If I had, I would be blabbing it all over the
internet. But to label(there's that word again)my criticism of
existing governments as "negative and Divisive", is nothing more than
an attempt to shut me down. If you whipped up a lovely chocolate
cream pie and presented me with a slice, and then asked me what I
thought of your efforts, I might tell you, "This is some lovely
looking pie. The chocolate has a rich flavor and the whipped cream
melts in my mouth. But you might have put a bit more salt in the
crust." Would my suggestion about adding salt be negative and
divisive? Would you say, "If you're so critical of my pie, show me a
better one!" I believed that you were asking my opinion. If you are
expecting me to agree with you, then you'll need to spell it out. But
don't tell me that because I would add more salt, that somehow I must
be in cahoots with Morton Salt.
I accept that you believe that capitalism is the superior form of
government. You prove your point by listing, cell phones,
televisions, computers, cars, etc. And most certainly we are
overloaded with a multitude of gadgets, devices and doohickeys that,
in some cases, do make life more manageable.
But is our capitalistic world better? For whom? Are those folks in
the Inner Cities better off? Is what is left of the Detroit area a
place where equal opportunity rules? Have you showered or drank water
in Flint? Do we send all our bright children to the Harvard's and
Standford's for their equal opportunity education? Do we all go to
work in Daddy's Electronic Factory, as vice president" Or are we met
with closed doors because we are the "wrong color", or female, or Gay,
or too old? Or do doors swing wide when we are the governor's nephew,
White, Male, Christian, and have a strong Republican leaning?
Come on Bob, equal opportunity is as much of a myth as that Utopian
government which you tell me I believe in. Yes, there is opportunity,
unequal opportunity. Just from my own personal experience between me
as a sighted man and me as a blind man, would put the lie to your
contention of equal opportunity. I had a growing photography business
in Seattle's north end, and was working as Supervisor in the
Preparation Department in a large drapery factory, supporting my
family until my own business could support us. I worked hard, my
health was good and I had a world of opportunities ahead of me. At 29
I became totally blind. My entire world of opportunities went out the
window. There is no place for a blind man in the drapery business.
There is no place for a blind photographer. However there was one
opportunity presented to me. The blind men and women of Washington
State had fought through legislation many years earlier, providing
free education to any blind person who could make the grades. My
other choices were to work at the Light House for the blind, or find a
street corner and warm up my harmonica.
I seized the opportunity of a college education and the doors it would
open to me, despite being blind. Many of my new blind friends were
also attending the University of Washington. Some 35 or so. All of
us seemingly had the same equal opportunity to gain an education and
go successfully into the job market.
Some of these students were unable to get beyond the many closed
doors, preventing them from employment. Some of them took entry level
jobs in the private sector, dead end jobs paying low wages that were
being set in place to meet Affirmative Action quotas. On average,
those of us entering government work fared better.
Of course, like yourself, there are notable exceptions. A friend who
has been blind all his life, began selling Am-Way. He'd tried opening
a Laundromat and then a Christmas Tree Farm. Both business ventures
failed. But on the third strike he struck pay dirt. Retired today,
he had become one of the three largest Am-Way distributors on the West
Coast. A multimillionaire, he owns business around the planet,
vacations at company expense in Spain, Brazil and Mars, and is a firm
believer in Capitalism. Like you, he loves to bait me. Or is it the
other way around. But he is my friend and I cut him some slack.
Once, after we lay panting from exhaustion over a long debate, he
said, "We both love what we do. You promote people and I promote
Am-Way." And both of us think the other one is nuts.
If I don't stop here, I'll need to publish this as a short novel.
Carl Jarvis(Dad, Grandpa, great grandpa, Hon, and Hey you"
needle stuck in a groove. "Label label label label."
Well then, here's a label you can use if you choose. Carl. I even
answer to labels like:
Carl Jarvis, Jarvis, Mister Jarvis, Dad, Grandpa, Great grandpa, Hon,
and, That Blind Man.
Regarding the leaning of my rhetoric, you have labeled it as extreme
Left leaning, and once labeled you have construed it as
pushing/supporting "their" agenda. So just who are those, "Their" you
reference?
Why can't you accept the fact that my brain works without having to
run to some particular propaganda in order to function. I accept what
you say as your understanding of the world as you see it. I've never
seen the need to label your "interesting" opinions as, "Right Wing
Dogma".
We're just exchanging opinions...aren't we? Although the thought has
crossed my mind that you are pulling my leg by taking extreme
indefensible positions such as declaring that all of us have equal
opportunity. Now that is a real leg puller!
Sorry, I can't differentiate between socialism/communism/Marxism,
having only browsed through some of their literature. I did take a
course in college on, The Young Karl Marx, but that was many years ago
and all I remember is that he and I spelled our names differently.
As for only addressing questions that are "convenient" for me, that is
true. I do that for two reasons. First, I an intrigued by some of
your thoughts, so those are the ones I attempt to address. Secondly,
and please believe that I am not disrespecting you personally, but so
much of what you say is pure misinformation. It would take us far too
much space, and probably get the list moderator upset, if we went into
detailed explanations.
As for your question, "Where has your utopian philosophy been
successfully implemented?"
Nowhere is the quick answer. But actually, I have no such Utopian
government in mind. If I had, I would be blabbing it all over the
internet. But to label(there's that word again)my criticism of
existing governments as "negative and Divisive", is nothing more than
an attempt to shut me down. If you whipped up a lovely chocolate
cream pie and presented me with a slice, and then asked me what I
thought of your efforts, I might tell you, "This is some lovely
looking pie. The chocolate has a rich flavor and the whipped cream
melts in my mouth. But you might have put a bit more salt in the
crust." Would my suggestion about adding salt be negative and
divisive? Would you say, "If you're so critical of my pie, show me a
better one!" I believed that you were asking my opinion. If you are
expecting me to agree with you, then you'll need to spell it out. But
don't tell me that because I would add more salt, that somehow I must
be in cahoots with Morton Salt.
I accept that you believe that capitalism is the superior form of
government. You prove your point by listing, cell phones,
televisions, computers, cars, etc. And most certainly we are
overloaded with a multitude of gadgets, devices and doohickeys that,
in some cases, do make life more manageable.
But is our capitalistic world better? For whom? Are those folks in
the Inner Cities better off? Is what is left of the Detroit area a
place where equal opportunity rules? Have you showered or drank water
in Flint? Do we send all our bright children to the Harvard's and
Standford's for their equal opportunity education? Do we all go to
work in Daddy's Electronic Factory, as vice president" Or are we met
with closed doors because we are the "wrong color", or female, or Gay,
or too old? Or do doors swing wide when we are the governor's nephew,
White, Male, Christian, and have a strong Republican leaning?
Come on Bob, equal opportunity is as much of a myth as that Utopian
government which you tell me I believe in. Yes, there is opportunity,
unequal opportunity. Just from my own personal experience between me
as a sighted man and me as a blind man, would put the lie to your
contention of equal opportunity. I had a growing photography business
in Seattle's north end, and was working as Supervisor in the
Preparation Department in a large drapery factory, supporting my
family until my own business could support us. I worked hard, my
health was good and I had a world of opportunities ahead of me. At 29
I became totally blind. My entire world of opportunities went out the
window. There is no place for a blind man in the drapery business.
There is no place for a blind photographer. However there was one
opportunity presented to me. The blind men and women of Washington
State had fought through legislation many years earlier, providing
free education to any blind person who could make the grades. My
other choices were to work at the Light House for the blind, or find a
street corner and warm up my harmonica.
I seized the opportunity of a college education and the doors it would
open to me, despite being blind. Many of my new blind friends were
also attending the University of Washington. Some 35 or so. All of
us seemingly had the same equal opportunity to gain an education and
go successfully into the job market.
Some of these students were unable to get beyond the many closed
doors, preventing them from employment. Some of them took entry level
jobs in the private sector, dead end jobs paying low wages that were
being set in place to meet Affirmative Action quotas. On average,
those of us entering government work fared better.
Of course, like yourself, there are notable exceptions. A friend who
has been blind all his life, began selling Am-Way. He'd tried opening
a Laundromat and then a Christmas Tree Farm. Both business ventures
failed. But on the third strike he struck pay dirt. Retired today,
he had become one of the three largest Am-Way distributors on the West
Coast. A multimillionaire, he owns business around the planet,
vacations at company expense in Spain, Brazil and Mars, and is a firm
believer in Capitalism. Like you, he loves to bait me. Or is it the
other way around. But he is my friend and I cut him some slack.
Once, after we lay panting from exhaustion over a long debate, he
said, "We both love what we do. You promote people and I promote
Am-Way." And both of us think the other one is nuts.
If I don't stop here, I'll need to publish this as a short novel.
Carl Jarvis(Dad, Grandpa, great grandpa, Hon, and Hey you"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)