“Ink Master” stars Nunez and Peck Sued for Sexual Harassment: Support the plaintiff by boycotting the show and Spike TV

graphic is from *here*

This far too typical news story was sent to me and I was asked to share it with you, request your support for the plaintiff's case, and encourage you to join the boycott. 

Please remember that women work everywhere in and beyond the traditional 'business world', and no place, public or private, out to permit and support the physical, sexual, and spiritual degradation of women by men.   -- Julian

From the first link contained in the letter below.

Katz Melinger PLLC: Viacom, Spike, Original 

Media, Original Ink, and “Ink Master” stars 

Nunez and Peck Sued for Sexual Harassment

Nunez and Peck allegedly engaged in blatant sexual harassment, 

creating a hostile work environment, and supervisors allegedly knew 

about and tolerated such behavior, says Kenneth J. Katz, attorney 

for the victim.

We hope that this suit will not just rectify the wrongs done to our client, but will also remind other employers to ensure a safe work environment, free of illegal discrimination and harassment


Hello Radical Pro Feminist,

My sister was recently sexually harassed at work, by two of the judges of the TV show Ink Masters, Oliver Peck and Chris Nunez. She asked her employer, Spike TV, for help and was ignored at first. When she kept asking for help she was fired. 

Here is a link to the PR release by her lawyer about her lawsuit:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11670281.htm

In the body of that page is a link to the actual complaint filed with the court of new york, be warned before you read it, they said some very vile things to her. Men like myself get very, very angry with adult boys who treat women this way. 

Below is a link to our facebook group to boycott the show and their advertisers until they fire the two abusers. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Ink-Master/612023592201790

We would really appreciate it if you used your presence to bring this to the attention of concerned and supportive people. 

My sister spent several years doing part time work on TV shows and was so excited to finally be a real member of a production and then she ran into these two, now she doesn't want to work in TV ever again. Seeing support from people who read her story and left supportive comments and shared it over the past few days has really cheered her up. 

Thanks for your time. 

~An angry brother

A Message from Gloria Steinem to the Public Regarding the Trafficking of Girls and Women

While I wish it were the case that Western whites asking for money wasn't necessary to achieve justice and liberation for all girls and women worldwide, it remains the case that whites asking for money to support the activism of women of color is an on-going necessity. This is so in large part because whites in the West have much more money than people of color in the West, and whites listen to whites more than to people of color, especially female people of color.

With gratitude to all the women and girls, white and of color, who work so hard to liberate women and girls from systems of gross exploitation, economic abuse, and misogynistic harm.

I was what follows by email and may also be found *here*:

Dear Friend of Women and Girls, 

Many things have changed in the years since I lived in India as a student, but one thing that has continued - and grown worse as the worldwide network of sex trafficking has spread - is the destruction of the lives of women and girls bought and sold in the sex industry.

When I go back to the India that I love - the world's largest democracy, one in which a greater percentage of people vote than in the United States - I know I can go to a section of all major cities and see young women lined up in the street like cattle. If I look through the doorways of brothels in, say, Sonagachi, the main sex trafficking district of Kolkata, I can see the little girls of six or ten that brothel owners tell reporters don't exist.

Among the brave people in India fighting this lethal sex trafficking industry is my friend Ruchira Gupta. A journalist herself, Ruchira was reporting on rural poverty, and was surprised to find villages with almost no young girls and women. When she asked why, she was told, "Don't you know?  They've all been taken to Mumbai and Kolkata."

Once she discovered the depth of this reality for at least three million women and girls in India - entrapped, de-humanized and often sent to an early death by injury, despair and disease - she started Apne Aap, which means Self Help; a healing and respectful safe place where women and girls could find refuge, support, advocacy, community and skills to support themselves and their children.

Ten years later, Apne Aap Women Worldwide has grown into a model for anti-sex trafficking activists in other countries. It now has centers in New Delhi and Bihar, as well as Kolkata, and it supports human rights against the sex trafficking and prostitution industry, from working for legislation and law enforcement at the top to offering alternatives and community at the bottom.

The truth is that if Apne Aap had as many supporters outside India as the brothel owners have foreign customers - men from rich countries who literally buy "sex tours" to exploit the poverty of women and children in India - Apne Aap would win.

At an Apne Aap community center, each woman and girl gains access to vocational training, literacy classes, basic education, and learning about her rights and how to recognize when they've been denied. She learns how to file a police report. And I'm proud to announce that in the last year, four teenage girls campaigned against their traffickers and helped to put those criminals behind bars. This is the way the law should function, but sadly, this story is the exception.

In addition to your financial contribution, Apne Aap appeals for your support to help strengthen the Indian anti-trafficking law, the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act. By signing on, you will be joining Apne Aap's thousands of members in asking for measures that protect girls and women, and impose realistic penalties on the pimps, johns, and traffickers who exploit them. Click here to sign the petition. 

I am personally inspired by the bravery, wisdom, innovation and impact of this small organization. It has transformed the scared, abused, uneducated girls and women I met when I first visited India into women who are speaking out for themselves and for others, from the halls of government to international survivors' conferences.

I ask for your support for all the women of Apne Aap. They have given you and me a practical, hopeful way out of the worldwide human rights abuse of sex trafficking.

No longer will you feel helpless, with nowhere to start, when you see and read the news.

And that is a gift in itself -- for you -- or for friends and family in whose name you contribute.

With new hope,

  

Gloria Steinem

Advisory Committee Chair

Apne Aap Women Worldwide

  

** Donations made in India to Apne Aap Women Worldwide or in the United States to Apne Aap International are tax deductible.

What are the lessons of "9/11"?

image is from here

What, exactly, are we supposed to never forget and what are we supposed to never surrender?

The meaning of significant political acts of terrorism are told to us, formed for us, by media that is controlled by white and male supremacist corporate conglomerates owned by a few white het men in the West, each of whom has some very significant "interests" in how stories get told and who gets implicated as "dangerous". Needless to say, white het men must not ever be implicated as "dangerous", while virtually all other groups of people can be, in media--and every other group has been defined by WHM as diseased, dangerous, invasive, threatening, insane, untrustworthy, deceitful, deceptive, and violent.

Below is one link to what Democracy Now! has to say, which, while progressive, usually steers far clear of naming "white supremacy" and "male supremacy" and "capitalism" as the key forces which created both the conditions that made "9/11" possible, but also the spins of it made into solid, largely unquestioned stories distributed in off-line and on-line media. The Twin Towers, let's not forget, is where gross violence against the world was perpetrated, but was called "commerce" instead. The victims of commerce, who died on every other day than "9/11/2001" and also on that day, are not remembered, named, or honored as heroes--ever.

http://hw.libsyn.com/p/c/6/a/c6aadaf3ada64df8/9_11_11_Radio_Show_part_2.mp3?sid=f081207ff8a29b99312a856ae53e7d46&l_sid=18778&l_eid=&l_mid=2714355

Here are some lessons from my point of view:

1. Corporate capitalism, formed out of and steeped and marinated in male and white supremacy, cannot bring peace to anything. It only brings terrorism to the poor, to the Earth and its non-human beings, and to women across race, sexuality, and ethnicity, and to men who are not white or het.

2. The West, including especially the US, is a terrorist state, a terrorist organisation on a grand, horrific scale, and any claims it makes--ad nauseam--to "goodness" and "greatness" are soaked in the blood of those it destroys to maintain itself.

3. The US is a pro-genocidal, racist, rapist white male supremacist State. Any attacks against it will result in massive military force, rapist force, racist force, deadly force, grossly and inexcusably exceeding the force used in any attack against it.

4. The supremacist structures of the US and other Western countries remain something their media won't discuss. How it is that men continually maintain (and abusively use) tools of power such as military warfare, terrorism against classes of people (such as by men across race,. class, and sexuality against women; such as by whites across gender against people of color; such as by the rich against everyone not-rich; such as by the politically powerful against the Earth)? The means and methods have been documented, experienced, reported on, catalogued, and survived (by some). Yet we are made to re-conceive the horrors of the inner and outer workings of these systems of terror as if they are perpetually "not understandable" or "incomprehensible". They are fully understandable and comprehensible to the perpetrators. They are deeply understood by the victims of them.

5. The US keeps its deadly power alive by scapegoating "foreign" groups as THE Terrorists of the World. Whether it be the Japanese and Germans, Communists, the Vietnamese, Central Americans, Mexicans, women, gay men, the poor on welfare, or Muslims, we can note how the enemy is definitionally, defiantly, and absolutely never "us" if "us" includes white het men from the US.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, and David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, are Conservative White Het Male Supremacists

photo of Boris Johnson and David Cameron is from here

Violence erupting among young poor Black men in London is a necessary response to all the violence against the Black community in England, committed by the capitalists, media, politicians, economic theorists, and military.

Anyone who argues otherwise is perpetuating lethal anti-Black activism in the form of well-organised systems of racist oppression and human destruction.

When will the racist thugs among the white het male-dominated police forces, white het male-dominated political leaders, WHM supremacist media (including that owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch), be held to account for the violence against Black people that they routinely and commonly commit?

Globalised Western corporate capitalism has produced unprecedented horrific poverty among people of color, grotesquely unjust and unearned wealth among whites, and the disparity between the two groups necessitates violence against the WHM supremacist State. Nothing short of violent retaliation will get anyone's attention. Nothing short of violent retaliation will get the media's attention. That violence by the poor will always be seen as more dangerous than the on-going violence of the white rich against the poor is something that is a fact of life in a white supremacist nation-state.

We see the same thing in the US and in every other country where male supremacy, white supremacy, and corporate capitalism are ideologically and institutionally fused to one another in the behavior and values of white wealthy mass murderers of the poor. We must keep in mind that multiracial regions globally, regionally, and in so many places locally where people of color live with (or near) whites, “the poor” are always disproportionately children and women of color. The poor may also be men of color, white women, and white men and children. But the poverty of whites is a by-product of racist/misogynist corporate capitalism: it is very specifically and deliberately designed to commit genocide and gynocide without media and elected politicians ever bothering to notice. 

A Few Thoughts About Speech and Freedom

image is from here

There have been many conversations that were begun here but not finished. The most glaringly recent example is what appeared to be a good discussion with MRA James Huff, on politics and reality. But he decided to not show up for the rest of it after an initial engagement here.

He didn't send any email explaining why he was leaving the conversation: James, if you read this, please let me know why you decided to duck out in such an irresponsible way. For all the free speech rights you enjoy, you've become shockingly silent. Why is that? (I hope it's not due to family illness; but if it were, you'd surely have been able to let me know that.)

This is typical, in my experience, of men who fight for men to have more not less rights, more not less power, more not less social advantages and entitlements. Men speak up when it suits their own interests but get quiet in the face of sustained challenge to the patriarchal power they have and enjoy exploiting.

In my country, rich white publicly heterosexual men are fighting tooth and nail to make sure none of 'em are taxed one bit more than they already are--including taxed just the way that poor and working class people are taxed; that is, without loopholes, without corporate welfare, without access to the meaningful and fair use of laws, lawyers, and all manner of economic systemic help that benefits the rich while punishing (and never privileging) the poor. There are actually ads on television from Big Oil stating that taxing Big Oil and other mega-industrial energy companies would be a bad thing for "us". Why? Why is it bad for us if they pay what they owe, just like every poor US American? How does reducing national debt work against the interests of poor and working people? (It might mean that the interest rates on the debts poor and working class people carry would be lowered, after all.) Are energy conglomerates' wealthy stockholders and CEOs more important human beings? Are the rich entitled to better, less economically terrifying lives than poor people? (I know that the wealthy believe this, but is it right, just, or true?)

In my country, those who state that a man or men have raped them are immediately accused of lying and are made to prove they were raped. Men who lie about never having raped anyone ever don't get scrutinised by media and the public; they are not ever made to prove they didn't commit rape, once or many times. To speak out about rape is to be immediately accused by white male-owned, white male-dominated media of committing the "crime" of speaking out against rapists.

In my country, white, het, and male supremacy are so intimately and intricately embedded in values, practices, and social structures that even to state opposition to those values and practices, whether interpersonal, institutional, or both, is not, in and of itself, a meaningful form of activism.

As I've discussed here in the past, me stating views about things, as I often do, does not necessarily constitute radical activism in my opinion; it functions, perhaps, as a place for such activism to be brought into recognition and regard. (I've written about this before.) Actively and meaningfully supporting the struggles of oppressed people (with accountability to the oppressed) to gain power, liberation, and freedom from those people and systems that harm them is meaningful activism to me.

I hope in the coming months to link to far more activist efforts globally--to the organised struggles of Indigenous people, radical women of color, Feminist Lesbians, and white women. Their speech-through-action needs a larger public stage.

This blog centers on the struggles of women globally to support their work and to publicly analyse and challenge the powers that harm women unrelentingly. But it is the work of women on the ground, not in cyberspace, who are the front line in feminist struggles. More power to them.

When you hear or read pro-oppression speech, note how it frames up discussions; note how it uses ideas like "objectivity" and "rationality" and "science" to bolster its truth-claims. Note which of many forms of masculinist Eurocentric supremacy are embedded in such terms. (See Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, and Marimba Ani, Yurugu:An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, for much more on this.)

When you read books about "the history of [something]" note whether it assumes that only those who write and get published constitute the tellers of the history being described. Note how many poor women of color are the tellers of both history and truth. And please remember that poor women of color across sexuality and region are the majority of the world's population; they are not what white men call them: a minority. White het men are a minority within a minority of white men: they just get to speak so much, so often, with such overwhelming authority, that we think there are more of them than there actually are.

When we encounter efforts to attain freedom, what are we wanting freedom from and what are we wanting freedom to do? And, most especially, who is the "we"? Is our sexual orientation assumed to be normal and natural, or is it generally socially despised, exploited, or ignored? What color and gender are we? Where do we live? What sorts of privileges do we have?

Beware of the "we" that won't own or name their own structural and social privilege. They likely don't speak for the majority: poor women of color globally who are not without privileges and power but usually without institutional support, without leadership roles within nation-states, and without published books written in their own voices, detailing their own regional and personal-political struggles.

Was Osama bin Laden Born in the U.S.A.? His birth certificate reveals a surprising answer...

image is from here

What if Osama bin Laden was a U.S. American, from birth? What would the fanatical Christian White Right-wing do with that information? Would he become statused, post-mortem, as 'not such a bad guy after all'? Would he move out of the ranks of Adolph Hitler and join the ranks of Timothy McVey?

How much longer will U.S. media focus on bin Laden, rather than the real terrorists of the last ten years: the white het male rich folks who control media, public policy, foreign policy, and government?

When will we see CEOs and corrupt mass murdering politicians hunted down by Navy Seals, for example, with cities and towns across Amerikkka cheering wildly into the night when their bodies are reported dumped into an ocean?

I realise that any "good' Amerikkkan wants to see the bloody body--photos, video please!! "Can you show us the Navy Seals actually killing bin Laden?", many across this perverse country are asking--or demanding.

Meanwhile, there's that debt and deficit, and all that trafficking and raping going on, and all crimes of the white rich against poor people and people of color that broadcasters and reporters never wish to discuss honestly or in any systemic detail. We've got an increasingly white supremacist country, an oligarchical one now more than ever.

We have a death-adoring, murderer-worshipping society, folks. That's what it is and that's who we are. We cheer at assassination, unless it's of our own leaders. Otherwise, bring it on. From here: When asked whether she was glued to the television after the dramatic news, Kirstie said it was not worth her time, although she was glad to hear that the military finally got bin Laden. "No, he's dead. Ding dong the witch is dead. What else do we want? He's dead -- on to the next one."

She probably doesn't mean any of these usual suspects:

But, Seals, they're also hiding in plain site.

U.S. Amerikkkans are a blood-thirsty mob--we want more al Qaeda leaders murdered because we actually think al Qaeda is harming or threatening us more than rich white men--born in the U.S.A., with the long-form birth certificates to prove it.

Here's what the world's worst and most blood-thirsty enemy forces look like, in case you didn't know:

image is from here at Cracked.com

CNN is letting us know how many trillions of dollars bin Laden cost the US, as if rich white men in the US haven't cost us far more than that--the loss of millions of homes, for example, the loss of social programs, the failure of the public school system, allowing men to leave this country, rape girls, and return unarrested--how much money are those girls' lives worth? The U.S. also makes a "medical practice" of stealing medical experts born, raised, and working in Third World countries. The "good" U.S. knowingly lets people in the Third World die unattended by appropriate levels of care while we use their professionals medical knowledge here. And, how callous can an article be as the one linked to from CNN? How much money are the lives of hundreds and thousands of Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani lives worth--those snuffed out by U.S. military rulers and the soldiers they train to want to kill? "At any price: freedom" makes a good slogan to allow the rich scumbags to get richer because they're so tied to the military industrial complex, but it doesn't make for anything resembling a humane society. Not that the rich and powerful care about anyone but themselves.

The Two Largest Economic Terrorist Organisations on Earth Are...

Two of the World's Largest Terrorist Organisations 

Against the Global South, Indigenous People, and the Poor:

image is from here

image is from here

All that follows is from ipsnews.net. With thanks to Kanya D'Almeida. Please click on the title below to link back.

Colonial-Style Land Grabbing Back on the Table 

By Kanya D’Almeida 

WASHINGTON, Apr 19, 2011 (IPS) - The highly-contested Principles on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI), a set of priorities that peasants’ collectives and food rights groups have been battling for years, are back on the table this week, as the annual Conference on Land and Poverty opened at World Bank headquarters here Monday. 

RAI is "dangerously deceptive" for couching the act of annexing land in the language of human rights and corporate social responsibility, said Shalmali Guttal, a representative from Focus on the Global South.  

"Corporations and governments will win, but local communities, eco-systems and future generations will lose; the takeover of rural peoples’ lands is completely unacceptable no matter what ‘guidelines’ are followed," Guttal stressed.  

A number of organisations including the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) jointly formulated the RAI framework, which they describe as a ‘responsible’ means of acquiring vast tracts of farmland. [article continues after the grey block of text. Another block appears a bit later. Both are part of the original presentation of material.] 

Great Rhetoric Masks Ruinous PolicyThroughout the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that took place here last week, World Bank President Robert Zoellick repeatedly issued warnings about the worsening food crisis, going so far as to call spiking food prices the "biggest threat to the [world’s] poorest nations." "You are all aware of the ingredients," Zoellick said told reporters, "take high food inflation, mix in price gyrations, and then stir in higher fuel costs, and you get a toxic brew of real pain contributing to social unrest." While his comments have largely been met by nods of agreement and high praise from the international development community, protestors and rights- groups refuse to be silenced by what they believe to be empty rhetoric, and continue to speak out forcefully for the right of millions to food. According to Ibrahim Coulibaly from the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations in Mali, "Land grabbing is banditry; it’s about seizing or taking over the only resource that poor people have left and giving it those who already have too much." "The breaching of international human rights law is an intrinsic part of land grabbing," stated Sofía Monsalve from FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN). "Forced evictions, the foreclosure of vast stretches of land for use by rural peoples, the blatant denial of information, and the prevention of meaningful local participation in political decisions that affect people’s lives are all human rights violations."

The principles are a set of non-binding suggestions for investors to consider before participating in large-scale land-acquisition, and are supposedly based on the possibility of a "win-win" situation for both private investors and impoverished peasants. They include broad notions that investments on land should be transparent, environmentally sustainable and strengthen food security rather than jeopardise it.  

Farmers and community organisations have been struggling against the RAI principles, on the grounds that they mask shortsighted annexation by transnational corporations for quick profits.  

International civil servants, farmland investors, bankers and government officials, meeting here Apr. 18-20, will discuss regulatory criteria for implementing these disputed policies.  

GRAIN, an independent research organisation supporting community struggles, reported Monday that since 2009, the biggest proponents of RAI principles - pushing the agenda onward even while local communities resist - have been the European Union, the FAO, G8, G20, IFAD, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the World Bank. 

 
Investing in a Food Crisis  

In his 2010 commentary ‘Responsibly Destroying the World’s Peasantry’, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter wrote that between 2006 and 2009, land equivalent to the total arable area of France was negotiated for sale - with millions of hectares passing from state or peasant ownership into the hands of Western investors including Wall Street banks and private hedge funds, entities that have come to view land as an investment safe haven in a time of financial turmoil.  

De Schutter writes that initial attraction to large-scale land investment was born of the belief that beating hunger was dependent on increased food production and that paltry investment led to scarce supply, resulting in the conclusion that if investors could be lured to the agriculture sector, they should be encouraged to stay.  

"Both [this] diagnosis and remedy are incorrect," De Schutter said. "Hunger and malnutrition are not primarily the result of insufficient food production; they are the result of poverty and inequality, particularly in rural areas, where 75 percent of the world’s poor still reside." 

Fighting Through Earth DemocracyWhile blatant land acquisition remains a tough fight, the loss of natural resources due to less straightforward backroom deals at times presents a much more formidable foe. At a time when the multilateralism of emerging markets has taken centre stage, locals in the Global South are up against not only transnational companies but also state governments that are hand in glove with international corporations. "Five years since the government of India agreed to a 12 billion dollar deal with the South Korean Pohang Steel Company (POSCO) - which plans to set up a primarily export-oriented steel plant on the east coast of Orissa with a captive port, a captive power plant and a captive mine - the communities of this coast have been resisting," Vandana Shiva, the Indian environmentalist-philosopher, told IPS. Locals have been resisting the deal on the grounds that they have a prosperous bio-diverse economy, where food is produced according to the needs of the people and where the laws of the land - under the decentralised democracy of Panchayati Raj as well as India’s Forest Rights Act - allow them to object. While researching POSCO, Shiva found that since the Asian financial crisis the ownership of the company had passed largely into the hands of financiers like Warren Buffet and Goldman Sachs. "So as a result of this so- called globalisation and multilateralism, what does democracy in India look like today?" Shiva asked. "The poor people fighting a company owned by Wall Street, refusing to give up their land, saying ‘we will face bullets, we will face killings, but we will not give up’." "This is the global corporate world that ordinary people in local villages are facing, and they are facing it through what I call ‘Earth Democracy’ - links to the earth and fights where they are on the ground," she added.

"In the past, agricultural development prioritised large-scale, capitalised forms of agriculture, neglecting smallholders who feed local communities," he added.  

"Since governments have failed to protect agricultural workers from exploitation in an increasingly competitive environment, it should come as no wonder that smallholders and agricultural labourers represent a combined 70 percent of those who are unable to feed themselves today," De Schutter concluded.  

A joint statement was issued Sunday in honour of the International Day of Peasant Struggles by farmers, fisher folk, rights and research organisations, and collectives representing hundreds of millions of peasants from South Asia, Latin America and Africa. Over 50 million hectares of arable agricultural land, "enough to feed 50 million families in India", have, in the last decade, been snatched from farmers and placed securely in the hands of private, multinational and transnational corporations, the statement read.  

High Quest Partners, a private strategy consultation firm working in the service of global food, agro- business, and bio-fuel companies, reported last year that global investment in farmland has hit 25 billion dollars and is likely to triple in the very near future.  

"The food price crisis happened because of the commoditisation of food. RAI will legitimise land grabbing worse than in the colonial era," Henry Saragih from La Via Campesina, an organisation representing 200 million peasants worldwide, warned Sunday.  

"One of the objectives of colonialism was to find and absorb the essential resources of the colonies," Saragih told IPS. "Control over oil, gas, and mining came later - control over food production was always a top priority."  

The Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil expressed fears as to the impact of RAI policies on indigenous communities in South America.  

"[It] will have a devastating effect in the Amazon and Cerrado by giving the green light for illegal activities of large cattle ranchers, agribusinesses, mining and lumber companies to destroy protected forests and biodiversity in food production by small farmers," the network’s representative Maria Luisa Mendonça said. (END)

In the West: Oligarchy = White Supremacy = Patriarchy = Corporate Capitalism (get it?)

image is from here

image is from here

image is from here

CEO Compensation 1970-2000 (Conley, D.)

[source: *here*]

Economic Justice Action Alert: Michael Moore: "The Execs at GE Are Laughing at What a Bunch of Suckers We Are for Filing Our Taxes -- Let's Make Them PAY!"!!!!!!!!!

image of Michael Moore is from here

I'm not a fan of Michael Moore but nor do I jump on the "despise Michael Moore" bandwagons either. To me, he is a white het male supremacist who is also a progressive liberal when it comes to U.S. economic and military policies. He doesn't ever name patriarchy (or misogyny) as a problem, never addresses the horrific depth of white supremacy, nor does he see heterosexism and anti-Indigenism as foundational to the existence of the U.S.

That said, he gets some good points across in some media precisely because he doesn't do any of the above. Even his movie on capitalism has to make it sound as though he likes capitalism.

His politics need to be radically reworked into a more pro-feminist, pro-Indigenous, anti-heterosexism policy or series of campaigns, but let's hear what he has to say on an upcoming tax-day related action.

What follows is from AlterNet. You may click on the title to link back.

 

MichaelMoore.com / By Michael Moore

Michael Moore: The Execs at GE Are Laughing at What a Bunch of Suckers We Are for Filing Our Taxes -- Let's Make Them PAY

The joke's on us, folks. GE and tons of other corporations will have a tax bill for 2010 of ZERO.

April 15, 2011  |  

Friends,

Do you wonder (like I do) what the tax accountants and executives are doing over at GE this weekend? Frantically rushing to fill out their IRS returns like the rest of us?

Hardly. They're taking the weekend off to throw themselves a big party and have a hearty laugh at all of us. It must really crack them up to see us like suckers scurrying around to make sure we report everything to Uncle Sam -- and even send him a check, if necessary.

The joke's on us, folks. GE and tons of other corporations will have a tax bill for 2010 of ZERO. GE had $14.2 billion in profits in 2010. Yet they will contribute NOTHING to the federal government while every last dime is soaked from us.

In the latest budget deal, our politicians could have tackled the deficit by stopping the flow of these ill-gotten billions to corporations. Instead they cut billions from "wasteful" programs that do "wasteful" things, like create new jobs, drive economic growth, and help the needy and our nation's children. It's Democracy in reverse and it sickens me.

GE spends $20 million a year to lobby Congress to throw themselves this party. But do you know what speaks louder than $20 million? 20 million votes! 20 million people, and more, standing together and taking to the streets. That starts now, with you.

This coming Monday, April 18th is Tax Day -- and that's the day when "we the people" will demand our country back from these corporations in events all across the country. You can find the nearest event to you here.

MoveOn members -- along with union, community, and environmental allies -- will gather outside the headquarters and local offices of the biggest corporate tax dodgers to deliver tax bills from the American people. And we'll demand that our leaders make these corporate deadbeats pay.

We're doing this because we don't buy into the Big Lie: that greedy teachers caused the crash on Wall Street! That the selfish firefighters sent millions of jobs overseas! That pregnant woman, infants, and children are sending us into deficit!

No, it was the big corporations that did this. It was the CEOs and the top 1% of the country. THEY brought on the mortgage crisis. THEY made off with trillions of dollars from our economy. THEY are systematically destroying the middle class. And THEY have bought and sold the very people elected to represent us!

On Monday, we will have something to say to Exxon, Chevron, and the big banks that crashed our economy and got billions in bailouts, like Citigroup and Bank of America, who pay little or no federal income tax. In fact, the IRS will likely give them a tax REBATE. If that doesn't boggle your mind then nothing will.

The Tax Day events are about sending this message: We are coming after you, we are stopping you and we are going to return the money, jobs, and homes you stole from the people. This is your tipping point, Corporate America. And I, for one, am glad it's going to happen this Monday.

If you've never been to an event like this before, this is the time. And don't go alone, because none of us can win this fight by ourselves. Plus, it's more fun and exciting to go along with friends and family to be part of real democracy in action -- not the store-bought kind Big Business gets on Capitol Hill.

I really hope you can make it. This is our chance, my friends. Take the time on Monday to

make your voice heard. I can guarantee you I will. Please join me.

Yours,

Michael Moore

MMFlint@aol.com

MichaelMoore.com

Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author. He directed and produced Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko. He has also written seven books, most recently, Mike’s Election Guide 2008

Feminist Action Alert: The 12th AWID International Forum: April 12-22, 2012, Istanbul, Turkey

What follows was a press release sent to me.

The 2012 AWID Forum Website is now Online!

 

The 12th AWID International Forum:

Transforming Economic Power to Advance

Women's Rights and Justice

April 19-22, 2012 | Istanbul, Turkey

Visit the new 2012 Forum website and find out more!

The 12th AWID International Forum is fast approaching. In a little over a year close  to 2,000 women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world will come together to strategize, network, celebrate, and learn in a highly charged atmosphere that fosters deep discussions and sustained personal and professional growth.

The 2012 Forum will take place April 19-22, 2012, in Istanbul, Turkey. AWID is very excited to announce that the Call for Proposals and the 2012 Forum Website are now available in English, Spanish, French and Turkish!

Visit the AWID 2012 Forum website and find out more about the Forum theme, how to submit a proposal, submission guidelines, logistical information and answers to frequently asked questions.

You can also find downloadable Word and pdf versions of the Call for Proposals.

Please send us your feedback on the website to forum12@awid.org and check the website regularly for frequent updates on Forum 2012 preparations including fundraising information.

The People's Budget, a review by Jeffrey Sachs, with added commentary

image is from here

Economic-political conservatives think the above idea is "terrorism"--but against who is it terrorism? Who is terrified, for real, in reality, if the richest U.S. Americans pay more taxes while remaining the richest people in the U.S. and if we stop our decades-long terroristic and mass-murderous war on Asia?

What we have here, is a failure of the president of the United States to be a moral and a political leader. Not that I have much faith in any president of the U.S. being moral--the country is founded on immorality and perpetrates it as a matter of common, normal practice. Perhaps foolishly, I'd hoped for more from this current president. What this shows is that it is a figurehead position, ruled, in reality, by wealthy Corporate-Christian white het males. That's social-economic-political supremacy of the few against the many. Where have we heard of that before?

On a much deeper level, what we have is an on-going refusal by media, government, corporations, and the public, to engage in meaningful action designed to end economic terrorism in the form of poverty, gross power- and wealth-hoarding, and virulent political dishonesty and corruption among government officials. We don't need military the wars that are currently being funded disproportionately by working (not rich) tax-payers, who are also the population from who become soldiers, for the economic benefits of doing so, if you survive, of course. Women the world over pay the price for the U.S.'s economic policies, which are intimately linked to the U.S. military's terroristic policing and destruction of the world.

Click on the article's title below to link back to the source website, at HuffingtonPost.com.

What we need is a People's Party that is led by feminist Black, Brown, and Indigenous women.

The current budget negotiations have been a dialogue among the wealthy. The big debate has focused on which programs for the poor should be axed first. There has been no discussion of raising taxes on the rich, and quite the contrary, the White House and the Republican leadership agreed to further tax cuts last December. Obama has repeatedly expressed regret at slashing community development, energy support for the poor, and other programs, but he is not fighting the trend, only regretting it. -- Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs

Economist and Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University

The People's Budget 

Posted: 04/ 8/11 09:52 AM ET

Just when it seemed that all of Washington had lost its values and its connection with the American people, a bolt of hope has arrived. It is the People's Budget put forward by the co-chairs of the 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. Their plan is humane, responsible, and most of all sensible, reflecting the true values of the American people and the real needs of the floundering economy. Unlike Paul Ryan's almost absurdly vicious attack on the poor and working class, the People's Budget would close the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, taming health care costs (including a public option), and ending the military spending on wars and wasteful weapons systems.

There are now four budget positions on the table. Far to the right is Paul Ryan's plan, an artless war on the poor that would take a meat-cleaver to Medicaid (health care for the poor), food stamps, support for child care, the environment, and the rest of government other than the military, Social Security, and Medicare (that is, until 2022, when the slashing would begin on Medicare coverage as well). Ryan would keep taxes below 20 percent of GDP (specifically, 19.9 percent of GDP in 2021), at the cost of destroying entitlements programs and other civilian spending.

Then there is President Obama's budget, which is really a muddled proposal in the center-right of the political spectrum. It would keep most of the Reagan-era and Bush-era tax cuts in place. Like the Ryan proposal, Obama's tax proposals would keep total taxes at around 20 percent of GDP. The result is a major long-term squeeze on vital programs such as community development, infrastructure, and job training. Also, Obama's plan never closes the budget deficit, which remains as high as 3.1% of GDP in 2021.

In the progressive middle is the People's Budget. Like Ryan's plan, the People's Budget would cut the budget deficit to zero by 2021, but would do so in an efficient and fair way. It would close the budget deficit by raising tax rates on the rich and giant corporations, while also curbing military spending and wrestling health care costs under control, partly by introducing a public option. By raising tax revenues to 22.3 percent of GDP by 2021, the People's Budget closes the budget deficit while protecting the poor and promoting needed investments in education, health care, roads, power, energy, and the environment in order to raise America's long-term competitiveness. The People's Budget thereby achieves what Ryan and Obama do not: the combination of fairness, efficiency, and budget balance.

The fourth position is the public's position. The Republicans often say that they want Congress to respect the voice of the people. The voice of the people is crystal clear. In one opinion survey after the next, the public says that the rich and the corporations should pay more taxes. The public says that we should tamp down runaway health care costs through a public option, one that would introduce competition to drive down bloated private health insurance costs. The public says that we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce Pentagon spending. (Just yesterday, Defense Secretary Gates let loose the predictable Pentagon canard that we should stay in Iraq if the Iraqi government asks for it. Better yet, we should respond to what the American people are asking for: to bring our troops home).

The fact is that the People's Budget is the public's position. That's why it is truly a centrist initiative, at the broad center of the U.S. political spectrum. Ryan reflects the wishes of the rich and the far right. Obama's position reflects the muddle of a White House that wavers between its true values and the demands of the wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists that Obama courts for his re-election. Many Democrats in Congress have also gone along with the falsehood that deficit cutting means slashing spending on the poor and on civilian discretionary programs, rather than raising taxes on the rich, cutting military spending, and taking on the over-priced private health insurance industry. Only the People's Budget speaks to the broad needs and values of the American people.

The current budget negotiations have been a dialogue among the wealthy. The big debate has focused on which programs for the poor should be axed first. There has been no discussion of raising taxes on the rich, and quite the contrary, the White House and the Republican leadership agreed to further tax cuts last December. Obama has repeatedly expressed regret at slashing community development, energy support for the poor, and other programs, but he is not fighting the trend, only regretting it.

Most of Washington has stopped listening to the people. Campaigns are now so expensive that most politicians do anything to court the favor of the rich. Yet ultimately the public will prevail. Twice before in American history -- during the Gilded Age of the 1880s and in the 1920s, just before the Great Depression -- big corporate money effectively owned Washington. But in both eras great progressive leaders (including the two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin) came along to restore the true meaning of American democracy: a government truly of the people, by the people, and for the people. With public protests against government by the rich now spreading in Wisconsin, Ohio and beyond, and with the launch of the People's Budget by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a great national movement to restore American democracy has begun.

Follow Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeffdsachs

Be Outraged. And Organise Against the Major U.S. Banks and the Government: "The Next Housing Shock" by CBS's 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley (April 3, 2011)

image of someone who has probably never spent a day in prison is from here

This story would be unbelievable if it were fiction. The history of the U.S. is the history of displacing people from their homes. We begin with the English, French, and other European men who came here to steal land from those who already lived here, pretending this was a New World, not an Old World they were trespassing on. We move into the many ways wealthier people gentrify neighborhoods, forcing working poor and working class people out, allowing wealthier whiter people in. Because all the effected people so far are not white and men, we don't expect them to organise against the U.S. government's and corporations' fraudulent, thieving ways.

But now imagine the shock of the banking industry when they attempted to foreclose on a middle class white woman for not paying her mortgage, and using a fraudulent document to try and kick her to the curb. As you'll see, she was an attorney who had trained the FBI in how to recognise forged and fraudulent documents. And she showed them.

I hope everyone who has been negatively affected by what you see here will organise to hold the banks accountable, if you haven't already. These banks charge us all kinds of ridiculous, shareholder-enriching fees for making tiny mistakes, like buying something that cost five dollars over what we have in our checking account because we're not shareholders and only have a few dollars to our name. What do we charge them for illegally taking our homes, leaving us homeless, while committing fraud?

Women of all colors have been the primary movers and shakers of justice-seeking activism. The portraits of the alleged heroes of so many social justice movements erase the women out of history, fictionalising the accounts of social change to make it seem as though only men have the capabilities to lead--yet another form of gross theft and intentional dishonesty. So don't forget those women of all colors, who have been active for decades, for centuries, on the land that is this relatively new country, as you watch what follows.

Everything that follows is from here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361572n&tag=related;photovideo#ixzz1IahYVgGG

The next housing shock

April 3, 2011 5:00 PM

As more and more Americans face mortgage foreclosure, banks' crucial ownership documents for the properties are often unclear and are sometimes even bogus, a condition that's causing lawsuits and hampering an already weak housing market. Scott Pelley reports.

Mortgage paperwork mess: the next housing shock?

And what of the Poor and Working Class in Amerikkka, for whom The American Dream was never in reach?

What needs to happen is the middle class and anyone wealthier being led by the working poor into class consciousness and revolution. The middle class has been fucked over, to be sure. But not more so than the poor in this racist-sexist-classist country. What needs to happen is men being led by women into consciousness about patriarchal atrocities and abuses. What needs to happen is people of color, including especially Indigenous Americans, leading whites into race consciousness and environmental consciousness, toward ending all this CRAP, once and for all, not pretending there can be such a thing as a just war or a just racist capitalist patriarchal civilisation. What follows is from AlterNet and may be linked back to by clicking on the title just below.

AlterNet / By Leo Gerard

Greedy Corporations and the Wealthy Fatten Themselves on the Rest of Us -- Join "We Are One" Rallies to Stop the Freeloaders

The rich have been sucking the economic lifeblood from the middle class for decades. Today, "We Are One" rallies are happening all over the country.

April 3, 2011  |  

The nation’s greedy corporations and insatiable wealthy are fattening themselves on workers. There’s no trickle down. It’s the opposite; the rich have been sucking the economic lifeblood from the middle class for decades.

When reckless Wall Street banksters get taxpayer-funded bailouts, billionaires get tax breaks and gigantic corporations like GE and Bank of America pay absolutely no federal income taxes, they’re getting for free the very public services that enable them to make massive profits in this country – the courts, the roads, the trade regulators, the patent enforcement.

The middle class doesn’t get those big time special deals and loopholes. Workers pay their taxes. As a result, it’s workers footing the bill for the government services that enrich the rich. Greedy corporations, their CEOs and the right-wing politicians they buy with tens of millions in campaign cash are freeloaders.

It’s time workers stood up to the freeloaders. Join Monday’s We Are One rallies. These demonstrations across the country by religious groups, social justice organizations and labor unions will illustrate that the middle class is mad as hell and not going to take trickster economics anymore.

It’s time for greedy corporations and the insatiable rich to pay their fair share. It’s time to stop cuts to the government programs most treasured by and vital to the middle class and the vulnerable in this country – education, public transportation, Social Security. It’s time to stop right-wing attempts to terminate democratic rights like collective bargaining and voting without harassment. It’s time for the middle class to stop paying for everything and for the insatiable rich and greedy corporations to start sharing the sacrifice required to recover from the economic crisis caused by reckless gambling by Wall Street bankster corporations.

March for your rights Monday. March for the middle class facing record rates of foreclosure, unemployment, child poverty, and loss of opportunity as country club conservatives cut off college loans and Head Start.

March for the right of college students to register and vote in the towns where they study. March for the right of workers to band together, elect representatives and bargain with employers for better pay and working conditions. March for the right of the people to insist that corporations pay at least the same rate of taxes as workers do. March to end tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent who have now acquired more wealth than all the workers in the bottom 90 percent.

Greedy corporations, the insatiable wealthy and their purchased politicians have for three decades skewed public policy to enrich themselves while pushing down wages and benefits for the middle class.

From 1947 to 1975, a time of strong unionization in the workforce, real wages of average workers increased with productivity. The 75 percent rise in productivity and the nearly matching rise in wages gave the United States the largest, most vibrant middle class in the history of the world.

Since 1978, productivity grew 86 percent, but compensation for workers grew only 37 percent, and if the cost of benefits, mostly uncontrolled health insurance increases, is removed, the real average hourly wage did not rise for 35 years, according to Alan S. Blinder, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Here’s how it works: The nation’s largest corporation, General Electric, earns tens of billions in profits from the labor of its workers but refuses to share the benefits with them. GE is expected to demand that its 15,000 unionized U.S. workers accept benefit cuts. So they’ll pay more for their retirement and health care and have less money to live and to pay taxes.

Meanwhile, the share of national income captured by the richest one percent rose from 8 percent in 1975 to 23.5 percent in 2005.

Under Dwight D. Eisenhower, the president in the 1950s, the nation’s richest paid an effective tax rate of 70 percent after loopholes. Today, it’s 16 percent – significantly lower than the 25 percent forked over through payroll deductions by individual workers earning between $34,500 and $83,600 a year.

That resulted from deliberate policy changes. Beginning with Ronald Reagan, country club conservatives cut taxes for the wealthy, while at the same time ending routine minimum wage increases and undermining the bargaining rights of labor.

The changes were made by increasingly wealthy politicians increasingly influenced by lobbyists. For example, 60 percent of the freshmen in the U.S. Senate and 40 percent in the U.S. House are millionaires. By contrast, only 1 percent of Americans are worth more than $1 million.

Compounding that is corporate influence, which worsened last year when the U.S. Supreme Court enabled corporations to donate unlimited money in secret. The upshot is corporations like General Electric, spending millions to lobby and paying zero in federal income taxes. GE spent $200 million to lobby for loopholes in the federal income tax code over the past decade, made $26 billion in American profits over the past five years, and not only paid absolutely no federal income taxes, but got itself a $4.1 billion rebate from the IRS.

That is far from an anomaly. Two out of every three U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. And the situation hasn’t improved since then. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has written repeatedly about tax avoidance by the likes of Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, Wall Street banks that former President George W. Bush handed hundreds of billions in bail out dollars.

Bank of America got a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, even though it made $4.4 billion. Goldman paid only 1.1 percent in federal income taxes on its $2.3 billion in profits. New York Times reporter David Kocieniewski wrote in his story about GE that such tax dodging by corporations has resulted in a significant decline in federal revenue from corporations – from 30 percent in the 1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.

Tax avoidance is a virtuous cycle for greedy corporations and the wealthy. They pay less in taxes, then have more money to lobby politicians to lower their taxes. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that lawmakers are hiring lobbyists right from their K Street firms to write legislation. And Congress’ new right wingers are increasing this trend. Since they took office in January, nearly half of the 150 former lobbyists working in top policy jobs in Congress were hired. 

For workers, however, it’s a vicious cycle. They’re forced to pay the taxes shirked by greedy corporations and the insatiable wealthy. And they’re forced to suffer service cut backs.

Right now, right wingers are trying to cut $51.5 billion from the federal budget – demanding elimination of programs essential to the middle class and poor such as subsidies for home heating for the impoverished. But if the wealthy paid their share, say hedge fund manager John Paulson who earned $2.4 million an hour in 2010 – then those cuts would be unnecessary because the federal government would have an extra $69.5 billion in revenue.

Forty-three years ago on April 4 Martin Luther King was assassinated after standing up for the right of public sector workers in Memphis, Tenn. to negotiate for better lives.

In his last speech, Rev. King said God had allowed him to go to the mountaintop where he’d looked over and seen the Promised Land. “I may not get there with you,” he cautioned, “But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land.”

Greedy corporations and the wealthy have made it to the mountain top. And they’re shoving American workers down the hillside to ensure the Promised Land is reserved only for the richest.

The promise of America democracy is equality. Equal rights, equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity. Freeloading by greedy corporations and the insatiable wealthy is denying those promises to the vast majority of citizens. Americans must unify and march to wrest back those rights and secure the American Dream for all.

Take a first step. Join one of the 600 We Are One demonstrations on April 4.

Leo W. Gerard is the international president of the United Steelworkers union. He is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee.