Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Democrats: I'll Resume My Donations When You Resume Fighting Republican Trickery?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE


Democrats: I'll Resume My Donations When You Resume Fighting Republican Trickery?

The one factor that contributed most to the downfall of the Democratic Party during the seventies and eighties was allowing conservative Republicans to seize control of the political rhetoric. The Democrats simply sat back and allowed themselves, their constituency and their agenda to be redefined in the eyes of the American people by conservative "spin doctors" without rebuttal. As a direct result, they've allowed the term "liberal" to become a bad word in the political lexicon.

When you consider how methodically the conservatives went about mounting their assault on the liberal agenda you can't help but recognize that it was a stroke of genius. Ironically, the conservatives took the Democratic Party's strength and made it a political liability. First they took the party's penchant for being concern with the plight of the downtrodden and coined phrases such as "bleeding heart liberals" and "tax and spend Democrats." They then played on the frustration of the middle class by tying civil rights legislation, welfare, and crime into one neat bundle as the source of middle class woes; then they attributed all of these problems to what they called the Democrat's tendency to be " bleeding heart liberals". Once the connection was made between minorities, welfare, crime, and the liberal agenda, it was just a matter of repeatedly hammering the message home.

In addition, conservatives used such tactics as spitting out the word "liberal" as though they were saying rapist. In this way they not only implanted a negative attitude toward liberalism in the mind of the voter, but it was said in such a way that the implication was made that it went without saying that all the negative stereotyping of liberalism was true. In other words, their attitude seems to suggest, "I could substantiate what I'm saying about liberals, but I don't think it's necessary since we all know what they're like." And in the election that spawned the "Republican revolution" the voters said, yes, we do.

Through these strategies conservatives accomplished three goals with one ingenious stroke -- they defined minorities as slovenly criminals, they define liberal Democrats as "soft on crime", and they allowed themselves the freedom to place these thoughts in the American psyche without having to substantiate their facts. Moreover, they accomplish all this in every sound bite, and without seeming to be racist, with the use of just one word, "liberal." In fact, conservatives have been so thorough in their disparagement of liberalism that at this point the word "liberal" is treated like vulgarity, and simply referred to as "the L word."

One would think that Democrats would be up in arms in defense of their liberal tradition. It would seem that they would be falling all over one another in an attempt to debate this issue. But instead, these people are falling over one another trying to put distance between themselves and the liberal tradition. Where are their backbones? Where is that one Democrat willing to say, wait a minute! Read your history! It was the "bleeding heart liberal" policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that brought this country back from the brink of disaster.
*******
In 1921 -- eight years before the great depression -- Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations, the first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than anything other -- scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States -- until Nixon's, then Reagan's, and finally Bush's.

Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to come.

Then in 1929 Herbert Hoover came to power. During his administration the stock market crashed, starting the great depression. In spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. During Hoover's administration 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.

Finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. He immediately surrounded himself with a group of the finest minds in the country, including Columbia professors Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Rexford G. Tugwell, and Raymond Moley, known at the time as the "Brain Trust." After assembling these men and others he went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working class people of this country.

The New Deal had two components -- one to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people and to insure that they were never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected workers rights and set a minimum wage for workers.

With his New Deal in place Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal", not only led this country out of the worst, Republican generated, crisis that this country has ever faced, but went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained prosperity that the world has ever known.

One would think that conservatives would have seen the light, but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes seems to supersede all logic. Therefore, from the moment that the New Deal went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they've come to succeeding started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics" -- and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.

Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatch by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. The resulting broadened tax base would not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. When the plan was first floated, even George Bush, Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics."

Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration. What actually took place, however, was even more like the Coolidge era than planed.

 Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.

And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president, but he also added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration combined. And what does the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals was their "contract with America," a capitol gains tax cut -- for the rich.

Due to the continued freewheeling fiscal policies of conservative Republicans, between 1986 and 1989, spanning the presidencies of Reagan and Bush Sr., the FSLIC had to pay off all the depositors of 296 institutions with assets of over $125 billion.

Then in 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement.

Then there was the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987, involving John McCain. The scandal was very similar to the one that is currently playing out on Wall Street. He was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.

In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars.

After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five--Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain--attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.

Then came the George W. Bush administration that caused close to a million people to die uselessly in an illegal war in Iraq, robbed the American people blind, whose fumbling ignited the longest war in American history in Afghanistan, and whose greed came very close to sending the nation into yet another depression.

Now, after all of their repeated efforts to deplete the national treasury, they're unanimously voting against every piece of legislation that the Democrats propose to repair the damage they created, and to bring relief to the American people. Then they have the audacity to claim that they're doing it because they're concerned about deficit spending.

They're against affordable health care for American families; they're against any kind of spending to put Americans back to work, and they're against extending unemployment insurance to relieve the burden of America's unemployed. What's particularly telling, however, is they're also against any kind of strong legislation to prevent the financial community (them) from being able to rob the American people in the future.

The fact is, what they really want is to maintain the status quo, and make damn sure that the American people suffer until the 2012 elections so they'll have a chance to regain power and raid the treasury again. That's their one and only agenda - period.

History is clear. The conservative Republicans don't mind spending money, they just don't want to spend it on those who need it -- us. Remember, they're the party of Alexander Hamilton, one of this country's founding fathers who believed that only those who owned property should even be allowed to vote. He also said:

"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government." Debates of the Federalist Convention (May 14-September 17, 1787).

So, let's set the record straight. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that "bleeding heart liberal", not only brought the nation back from the Great Depression and saved the world from Hitler during his life, but his "New Deal" for the American people gave us the greatest prosperity we've ever known, and allowed him to reach back from the grave to save the nation from Ronald Reagan 50 years after his death.

That isn't to say that the liberal Democratic philosophy corners the market on what is in the best interest of the nation -- it is clear that both parties have had illustrious moments in the past -- but rather, this is one of those defining issues in American politics that determines whether this is to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, or a government where the citizens or nothing more than disposable resources for big business.

In the past the Democratic Party has always been there to draw a line in the sand on this issue, but in recent history the liberal philosophy has been distorted to the point that even Democrats are distancing themselves from their own political philosophy.

But what makes America great, are those dramatic moments in American politics when that one individual has the courage to put everything on the line to defend, protect, and save the American people from disaster. And the annals of modern American history will clearly show that during those moments, it was a "bleeding heart liberal" that stepped up to the plate. First FDR, then Bill Clinton, and now Barack Hussein Obama.

Thus, future historians will record that there is nothing more honorable in American politics than a bleeding heart . . .  because their hearts bleed for America.

Now if we can just find a few.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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A Little Tough Love for the People

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE




A Little Tough Love for the People

This past Friday, June 25, 2010, I attended a breakfast at the Regency West in Leimert Park. The Breakfest was given by The Urban Issues Forum of Greater Los Angeles. It was hosted by Dr. Anthony A. Samad, coordinated by Ms. Arnetta White Mack, and the principal speaker was Minister Keith Muhammad, of Mosque 26B in Oakland, Ca.

Right off the bat the event was unusual in that they fed the participants breakfast at the forum's own expense. The only thing they wanted in return was the chance to educate the people. There was no grandstanding, and no self-serving commercials, only facts, which I took the time to verify thoroughly - I'm something of a cynical sort.

They brought to our attention the flagrant murder of twenty-two-year-old Oscar Grant by Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle on New Years Day of this year. Ordinarily one would use the qualifier "alleged" before "murder" prior to a defendant being convicted, but in this case such qualifiers seem ridiculously inappropriate since the murder took place in the middle of BART station, with a station filled with people, and before the lenses of several cameras and videos.

The details as related by Minister Muhammad are that Mr. Grant had become involved in an altercation with anotherWhite male passenger earlier in his trip, but it didn't amount to much, so Mr. Grant and his friends continued on to their destination. Shortly thereafter BART police stormed onto the train, pulled Mr. Grant and his friends off onto the platform, and threw them against the wall. They then threw Mr. Grant face-first onto the pavement. A short time later, while Oscar Grant was lying face-down on the pavement with his hands behind him, he was called a racial epithet, and Officer Mehserle stepped back and unceremoniously shot him in the back."  So according to reports, one of the last words Oscar Grant heard in life was the word, "nigga."  Officer Mehserle quit the BART Police Force within a week of the shooting, and fled to Nevada.

In response to the foot-dragging in this case, Minister Keith Muhammad along with other members of the religious community and concerned citizens began to petition for the removal of District Attorney Tom Orloff, who suddenly resigned, along with BART Chief of Police, Gary Gee. Officer Tony Pirone, that video footage reportedly shows punching Mr. Grant in the face just prior to the shooting was fired from the force in April. Pirone is appealing the decision.

This case has generated so much controversy in the Bay Area that Mehserle's trial had to be moved to Los Angeles. The controversy, it seems, is with good cause. In response to the highly inappropriate conduct and the blatant murder of Oscar Grant captured on video, Mehserle's only defense is that he thought he was using his taser.

Now, here we have what is supposed to be a highly trained police officer, yet, he can't tell the difference between a taser and a service revolver? That's a bunch of crap - if it were not for the senseless loss of an innocent young life, Mehserle's defense would be almost as egregious as the crime itself.

Mehserle's flimsy defense is insulting. It shows just how little regard the system, and many of the people within it, have for our community - and not just our community, by the way. White people need to understand that those who control the system don't care any more about poor and middle-class white people than they do Blacks. Evidenced of that can be seen in all the names of poor and middle-class White troops who are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of the fact that they can't even come to a consensus as to why we're over there. Well, I've long since come to a consensus of one. It's all about money.

War is big business, and a lot of people are becoming obscenely wealthy by sending poor and middle-class kids to their deaths. They tell us it's in defense of America, but if that were true their kids would be fighting as well. Don't rich kids love America too? That's grist for another discussion, but I can guarantee you one thing - you'll never see the name of a Bush or Cheney child scroll by on the nightly news.

So we should not allow the horrific death that Oscar Grant suffered to be in vain. The community - and by that, I mean the HUMAN community - needs to come together and insist that Mehserle be dealt with swiftly and appropriately, because Oscar represents all of our children.

We've got to begin to understand that due to the apathy that has become the norm in our society, while Mehserle pulled the trigger, it was our disengagement with what's going on around us that held the gun - a gun that's pointed at all of our heads, and, with the trigger cocked.

While it's very commendable how Minister Keith Muhammad and the people of Oakland immediately jumped on top of this particular issue, that is the exception rather than the rule. Atrocities such as this are going on all over the country on a daily basis with little or no mention. And it's not just the blatant murders of innocent young men on the street, but the more subtle murders of coal miners in West Virginia, oil workers in the Gulf of Mexico, and postal workers killing themselves and coworkers on the workroom floor. So while the senseless murder of Oscar Grant was an act of mindless stupidity, American citizens are dying every day as a direct result of the reckless pursuit of the buck.

So again, as commendable as the people of the city of Oakland has been in addressing this particular issue, it only serves to put iodine on a cancer sore. Oscar's death should serve as a symbol of how important it is for us to come together to address the disease itself - and if you're not rich, or rich with a sense of justice, you should be onboard.

When I went to the breakfast this past Friday, I looked around me. I saw maybe fifty people. So I began to ask myself, "I wonder how many poor, middle class, and Black people showed up at the Lakers' parade?" The difference between those numbers show just how little concern we have about our own community, and the plummeting quality of life of the poor and middle class in general. It shows that we're thousands of times more interested in Kobe's jump shot than we are the future of our own children - and the assault on our educational system clearly shows, that's not by accident.

Now, you can deny that, and say that I'm going over the top. But any mathematician will tell you that numbers are quite different from opinions - they don't lie.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Postal Service Employee Abuse Spur Call for Citizen Action Group

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE


Postal Service Employee Abuse Spur Call for Citizen Action Group

Do you know the names of any of the 29 coal miners who died in Montcoal, West Virginia on April 5, 2010, or what has happened to their families since that needless tragedy? Can you tell me the names or condition of the families of the 11 oil workers who were vaporized during the explosion of the oil rig in the Gulf on April 20? Can you give me just one name of the many innocent postal workers who have been killed, maimed, or disabled due to irresponsible postal management over the past several years?

Of course you can't, because the limitless greed of the corporate community - including much of the corporate press - has relegated these poor and middle-class workers to the wastebin of 'unfortunate collateral damage' in their blind pursuit of the dollar. As a direct result, a citizen's action group has been proposed to address the diminishing quality of life of America's poor and middle-class workers.

Since it has become abundantly clear that many of our unions, civil rights activists, and even our government are either unable, or unwilling, to address this issue, an umbrella organization encompassing a coalition of human rights organizations has been proposed to address this issue. Tentatively, the suggested name for the umbrella organization is "Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse" - CARMA, a play on the Buddhist term Karma, or "action" - a sort of C-Party so to speak.

It has been suggested that this coalition be headed by Lewis Maltby. Mr. Maltby is the founder and president of the National Workrights Institute. He also founded the National Workplace Rights Office of the American Civil Liberties Union, and holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Maltby is a nationally recognized expert and prolific writer on human rights in the workplace. He's also the author of Can They Do That? : Retaking Our fundamental Rights in the Workplace. In addition, until 1988 Maltby was a senior executive in the corporate community, so he brings extensive knowledge of the mindset of corporate executives. He indicates that during the time he was in the corporate world he learned that "human rights and corporate efficiency are not only compatible, but mutually reinforcing," so he would also bring a great deal of common sense to what is certain to be a vigorous national discussion. His final decision is currently pending.

Since the U S Postal Service, with more than 600,000 employees, is the second largest employer in the United States, second only to Walmart, it will be a natural target of this new organization. The postal service will also be a target due to its long history of time fraud, blatant abuse, and intimidation of its employees. But what makes the postal service a particularly large target is as a United States government agency it should be in the very forefront of the fight for workers' rights.

For decades U.S. presidents have gone all over the globe lecturing world leaders on human rights. Yet, our very own United States Postal Service is among the worst abusers of workers' rights outside of the third world.

As mentioned in previous columns in this series, the postal service's policy of forcing employees to work four to six hours without pay, falsifying clock rings and deleting hours of employees who were gainfully employed, then intimidating the employees in order to prevent them from reporting the matter is routine business on a daily basis within the postal service. One postal supervisor even reported to this writer that she personally witnessed a manager forge an employee's resignation. This sort of activity is unconscionable, and must come to an end.

On Thursday, April 22, President Obama went to Cooper Union College in New York City and lectured the financial community on the need to curb its corrupt business practices. He pointed out that their business model led directly to this nation's financial crisis, and brought severe hardship upon millions of American people. But ironically, his words also serve to condemn the business practices of his very own United States Postal Service.

The corporate assault on the middle class has become blatant. The Massey Energy Company ignored 1,342 safety violations going back to 2005. That led directly to the death of 29 coal miners. And according to platform-worker, Tyrone Benton, British Petroleum ignored several safety concerns on the oil rig 24 hours before the explosion. That saved the company $500,000 a day in down time, but it led to the untimely death of 11employees, and the worst oil spill disaster in United States history. Similarly unconcerned about the welfare of its workers, the U.S. Postal Service is committing Blatant felonies against its employees with complete impunity on a daily basis.

So the trend is clear. Corporate America has set a policy of ignoring the safety, rights, and financial interests of the American poor and middle-class in their blind pursuit of ever more wealth - and the United States government has no intention of doing a thing about it.  In fact, Republican congressman, Joe Barton of Texas, apologized to British Petroleum for having to take responsibility for its criminal negligence.

This has been going on for years. Michelle Mairesse wrote,

"Judicial Watch represents hundreds of postal workers from the Brentwood Postal Facility in Washington, DC. Until the Brentwood facility was finally condemned by the CDC, Brentwood postal workers handled all of the mail for Washington, DC, including the ‘official mail’ that contained the anthrax-laden envelopes addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy. While Capitol Hill workers received prompt medical care, Brentwood postal workers were ordered by USPS officials to continue working in the contaminated facility. Two Brentwood workers died from inhalation anthrax, and dozens more are suffering from a variety of ailments related to the anthrax attacks. A variety of legal actions are being planned for the disparate treatment and reckless endangerment the Brentwood postal workers faced."

If we want America to remain America, we must fight this sort of reckless disregard for American workers.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Is the Government Putting Something in the Water?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Is the Government Putting Something in the Water?

When I was a teenager my grandfather once told me that when you start thinking that everyone else is crazy, it's time to look in the mirror. Well, it must be my time, because this country is looking more and more like a Stepford society to me every day.

It must be something in the water, because every since the Reagan era the American people seem to be walking in their sleep, allowing the government and multinational corporations to cut their throats at will.

During Iran-Contra we simply stood by while Ronald Reagan sold arms to the very people that our troops are now facing, and there is strong evidence that suggest that he made a deal with the Iranians to hold American hostages until after the election. Then we watched in complete and utter silence as he flooded our inner cities with drugs in order to support his illegal excursion into Nicaragua. We also stood idly by while under Reaganomics he allowed speculators to dismantle our industrial base and sell off some of our largest corporations one piece at a time to benefit a small handful of people.

But the Republicans told us to not to worry. They said, if you'll just give up the right to write off the interest on your credit cards and other debts temporarily, the rewards that the rich are enjoying will eventually "trickle down," and you'll all be showered with the benefits of a robust economy. But their promise never came to past. The only thing that trickled down was our having to pay the tax burden of the rich - and even as I write, the rich are enjoying additional tax breaks while we still haven't regained the simple right to write off the interest on our debts.

As a direct result of our apathy, we're still suffering from the effects of our stupidity today, thirty years later, and due to the assault on our educational system we haven't learned a thing. So now the Republican Party and their corporate cronies have an entirely new generation of victims in which to feed that nonsense. They recycle their crap about every ten years, after the American people have time to forget the disaster they created previously. A simple review of history will show that going all the way back to 1900, with few exceptions, every time the Republicans come into office the middle class has to pay a price. Republican policies were responsible for the Great Depression, but let's just look at recent history.

Due to the freewheeling fiscal policies of conservative Republicans, between 1986 and 1989, spanning the presidencies of Reagan and Bush Sr., the FSLIC had to pay off all the depositors of 296 institutions with assets of over $125 billion, while the American people just stood around and watched.

In 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement. Yet, again, we just stood by and watched.

In 1989 there was the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal, involving Charles Keating and John McCain. Lincoln went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars. Thereafter, John McCain was censured by the Senate for trying to use his influence to protect Keating, who ended up going to the federal penitentiary. Yet, again, we simply stood around with a blank look on our faces.

We also stood by and watched while Dick Cheney, under Bush Sr, reconfigure our military to sell off many of its most vital functions to private corporations. The Republicans are always talking about wasteful spending. Well, consider this - we now spend billions of dollars to have the most awesome military force in the world guarded by private security guards. How does that make any fiscal sense?

Well it certainly made sense to Cheney, because he walked right out the door into the arms of Haliburton to make a killing on the windfall profits from this scam. And if that wasn't enough, he then returned as vice president to expand the money-making potential of the scam by lying to the American people in order to invade Iraq.

That led to the death and maiming of thousands of American troops, and nearly a million Iraqi citizens - and all in the name of exhausting our national treasury and transferring the nation's wealth into the pockets of his friends, cronies, and colleagues. But still, the American people didn't say a word. We simply continued to walk around like zombies with a blank look on our collective faces as we stared into the void of MTV, BET, and ESPN.

The level of our stupidity must have even shocked them. So they looked at one another and said, "What the Hell, we've exhausted the national treasury, but they still have a few dollars in their pockets." So they hit us with the Wall Street scam. Yet, even with that, we're still walking around in a stuporous daze.

They're able to get away with what they have because our current population is so undereducated and distracted by our hedonistic pursuits that we have no sense of history. Also due to our lack of education, they've been able to convince many of us that any attempt to protect ourselves and our families from this corporate fraud constitutes socialism. It's the American way to allow Haliburton to raid our treasury to electrocute our troops and provide them with contaminated water, but it's a socialist plot to spend a dime on putting Americans back to work, or provide our families with affordable healthcare.

Thus, the American people are rapidly sliding down a slippery slope where corruption is considered the norm. That's why I'm weighing in so heavily on the corruption that's taking place in the postal service. In the past, the government protected the American people from fraud and abuse, so private corporations had to steal from us covertly. But gradually the mores of our society changed to where private corporations could do it openly. But now, the government has gotten in on the act. The United States Postal Service has now embraced the philosophy that it's perfectly alright to commit acts of abuse, intimidation, and actual felonies against American citizens - and many the victims of these moral atrocities are the very veterans that this nation claims to honor. 

When are we going to say enough is enough? It had better be soon, because at the rate that America is descending into the despotic abyss, it won't be long before Washington's corporate puppets outlaw our right to dissent.

Where are you, President Obama? The postal service is a United States government agency. You could improve the lives of over 600,000 Americans with a simple phone call. Why hasn't that call been made, Mr. President? Where is that change you promised that we could believe in?


The Postmaster General, and Inspector General, must go!

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Chairman Edolphus Towns
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-5051



Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Mr. President: How About a Little of that Change We Can Believe in?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE


Mr. President: How About a Little of that Change We Can Believe in?

While writing this series of articles I've had the great privilege of becoming acquainted with Dr. Stephen Musacco. Dr Musacco is a therapist, an organizational psychologist, and the author of the book "Beyond Going Postal." In addition to his credentials as a psychologist, Dr. Musacco also has the specialized knowledge of having worked for the postal service for over thirty years.

As a professional and former insider with a through understanding of the inner workings of the postal service, the doctor's assessment of the working environment within the agency is so chilling that one can't help but wonder how such corruption employee abuse, and adminsitrative indifference have been allowed to exist in a United States government agency. Thus, I'm going to devote this week's column to an excerpt from the doctor's professional assessment, a man who is uniquely qualified to speak to what he calls the "toxic environment " that postal workers are forced to endure on a daily basis.

In doing so, I sincerely hope that the public will take heed to this mental health professional's warnings.  It is absolutely essential that the American people press our self-serving Washington establishment into stepping up to the plate to prevent yet another American tragedy BEFORE it happens for a change.  This can be done, and it must be. In this election year the American people must realize that the only way they will ever be secure in their own lives is to make the political establishment insecure in theirs. 

Justice is not cheap.  The doctor's words clearly demonstrate that in spite of what we might have been taught in grade school, justice is not a birthright. One must be prepared to fight for justice.  His words also demonstrate that the time has come for the American middle-class to flex its political muscle - and fast.

At 600,000 strong, plus family, friends, and neighbors - and in an election year where incumbents are hanging on by their fingernails - postal employees are in the driver's seat of a tank. Yet, they're allowing themselves, and their families, to be robbed by a guy with a butter knife - and not just once outside a liquor store, but repeatedly in what is supposed to be the sanctity of their workplace.  This has got to come to an end. 

Why are so many union officials missing in action?  Where are your congressional representatives?  And President Obama, where are you?!!  

Another USPS Workplace Tragedy
by

On the morning of June 2, 2009, a city letter carrier went to work and reportedly fatally shot himself in the head in the locker room at a postal facility in Gastonia, North Carolina. The Gaston Gazette online news report stated that the "Gastonia Police are investigating an apparent suicide this morning at the post office. . . . One of the employees is inside dead from a gunshot wound."

Prior to my retirement from the USPS, at a former district I worked for, there were three suicides within a two year period that I concluded were contributed to in significant part by how these employees were treated in the workplace. The third employee, a city letter carrier, fatally shot himself in a postal jeep and left a letter stating that he could no longer take the job. The night before he committed suicide he told his wife he did not know if he would be able to handle his job anymore. How do I know? His wife told me this one day after his suicide. He was one of the best employees in the office. The District Manager and I interviewed his coworkers after his death, and they stated he would urinate in a bottle while on delivery route for fear he would not meet an artificial deadline set by postal management. During the interviews, one of the postal supervisors told the District Manager and me that the day before the suicide she gave a letter to all the city letter carriers in the station, noting that any future over time used for their routes would be considered unacceptable performance. The suicide at the Gastonia postal facility was the second since December 2005.

Many people have asked: Why is there so much stress and workplace tragedies in the U.S. Postal Service? The answer to these questions is because the postal culture embraces and reflects core values that center on achieving bottom-line results with little or no regard for employee participation, respect, dignity, or fairness. Additionally, there is little or no accountability for the actions of top management in the Postal Service. Many postal facilities consequently have toxic work environments, and they can be a catalyst or trigger for serious acts of workplace violence, including homicide and suicide. The associated rewards system for behavior consistent with the postal culture core values, moreover, enables systemic organizational and individual bullying of employees at all levels of the organization.

I define a toxic workplace environment as a workplace where there is a high incidence of stress-related illnesses. These stress-related illnesses are manifested by psychological and physical deterioration. In other words, these types of environments seriously erode employees' health and well-being. The primary factors contributing to a toxic workplace environment are high job demands, low job control, and low social support. Low social support generally entails a lack of respect and validation of employees' dignity by their "superiors". It also oftentimes includes organizational practices and methods that encourage the bullying of employees to meet corporate goals.

The name of the city letter carrier who committed suicide in Gastonia, NC on June 2, 2009 is Steven Spencer age 60. According to his obituary, Steven was married and leaves two daughters and three grandchildren. He was a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers/ and state representative for Muscular Dystrophy Association. He was the founder of the National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive for Gaston County. He was very active in Scouting, attaining the highest rank of Eagle Scout. He also was a member of the Order of the Arrow. Steven was a veteran of the Vietnam War serving his country proudly in the US Navy.

I find it highly improbable that an employee will kill himself or herself in a postal facility or while on a postal route unless it is to send a clear message that a toxic workplace exists and the person can't handle it anymore. Sadly, it also may be a tragic attempt to better the lot of one's fellow coworkers by drawing attention to the tragic event itself.

Prior to Steven's suicide, I was contacted by a relative of an employee at the Gastonia post office in April of this year. She was concerned because of what she reported as a toxic workplace environment at the Gastonia post office, lack of accountability to address employees' concerns, and that the situation may lead to another workplace tragedy. Unfortunately, her worst concern became a reality on June 2, 2009. She further indicated several employees have resigned their positions at the office because of the toxic workplace environment and others were suffering from negative psychological and physical effects because of this environment.

I was told employees' attempts, mostly city letter carriers, to have their concerns addressed over a two-year period included: filing of discrimination complaints and grievances, unprofessional workplace assessments, town hall meetings, contacts to congressional representatives both locally and nationally, contacts to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and petitions to Charlotte postal District officials as well as to national representatives of the Postal Service and the NALC. She further indicated that none of these measures contributed to fully addressing the workplace environment or alleviating its negative impact for the employees at the Gastonia Post Office.

In order for the U.S Postal Service to become a safe and healthy organization and thereby prevent future workplace tragedies, which have been at an epidemic level over the past three decades, there is an urgent need for congressional intervention and legislation to address its toxic postal culture. Dr. Gary Namie and his wife, Dr. Ruth Namie, along with their colleague Dr. David Yamada, have for years pushed for such legislation at the state and federal level. In order for national legislation for the prevention of workplace bullying to have the intended impact, it would require sanctions to employers or their representatives who are in violation of a new workplace statute that defines workplace bullying as a harmful and illegal activity.

*
The Postmaster General, and Inspector General, must go!

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Chairman Edolphus Towns
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-5051


Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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