Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Politics of Personal Intimidation
By Nina EastonMay 19, 2010: 6:15 AM ET
(FORTUNE) -- Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb--literally.
Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.
Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door.
"Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened."
When is a protest not a protest?Now this event would accurately be called a "protest" if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be "mob." Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might "incite" these trespassers.
What's interesting is that SEIU, the nation's second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President's Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs -- executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer -- at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.
In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.
Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives -- with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it's any executive -- and they're on the front stoop. After Baer's house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).
Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.
When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU's point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting "emotional." Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: "Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear."
Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing."
Other reasons why SEIU might protest
Bank of America officials dispute Lerner's assertion about the "damage they are doing," citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank's support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.
SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers -- and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank's image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union's lender of choice -- and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.
But SEIU's intentions, and BofA's lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer's front yard.
Why the media wasn't invited
Sunday's onslaught wasn't designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.
Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union's leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.
Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He's not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.
In the 1990s, the Baers' former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the "politics of personal destruction." Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we've crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.
Link to the story on CNN:Money is HERE
(FORTUNE) -- Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb--literally.
Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.
Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door.
"Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened."
When is a protest not a protest?Now this event would accurately be called a "protest" if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be "mob." Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might "incite" these trespassers.
What's interesting is that SEIU, the nation's second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President's Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs -- executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer -- at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.
In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.
Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives -- with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it's any executive -- and they're on the front stoop. After Baer's house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).
Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.
When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU's point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting "emotional." Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: "Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear."
Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing."
Other reasons why SEIU might protest
Bank of America officials dispute Lerner's assertion about the "damage they are doing," citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank's support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.
SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers -- and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank's image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union's lender of choice -- and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.
But SEIU's intentions, and BofA's lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer's front yard.
Why the media wasn't invited
Sunday's onslaught wasn't designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.
Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union's leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.
Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He's not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.
In the 1990s, the Baers' former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the "politics of personal destruction." Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we've crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.
Link to the story on CNN:Money is HERE
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Watch and wise up...
OK People... Watch this, and listen to what he is saying... "This is a WAR AGAINST CAPITOLISM"... The very thing that made it so that he can stand there and say that, and allows him the standard of living that he has...
Also, the LA School District has said that it is OK for him to continue to teach...
Also, the LA School District has said that it is OK for him to continue to teach...
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Republicans Ask For Citizens’ Opinions On Spending Programs
I hope that everyone will make use of this idea, and make them make it work...
May 20, 2010 by Personal Liberty News Desk
In an effort to connect with conservative activists and help curb Federal spending, House Republicans announced last week the creation of a new project designed to allow citizens to vote on what they think should be cut from the Federal budget.
The new initiative, called YouCut, will enable voters to choose from one of five possible cuts each week. The winning suggestion will be brought to the floor the following week and will be voted on by members of the House.
"What we’re saying here is we’re going to listen," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Fox News. "Vote on your priority, and we’ll take it to an up-or-down vote on the floor."
Meanwhile, Democrats are calling the program a simple public relations gimmick that has no realistic chance of trimming the Federal budget.
"It’s not surprising that they are resorting to another gimmick for a round of press rather than a substantive idea for lasting solutions," said Hari Sevugan, the Democratic National Committee’s press secretary. "But if they actually listened to the American people, Republicans would know that knee-jerk opposition, obstruction, delay and gimmicks are not a substitute for leadership."
In response to the program, the Democrats created their own project called GOPSpent, where Americans can vote on the most irresponsible Republican initiatives that favor special interest groups.
May 20, 2010 by Personal Liberty News Desk
In an effort to connect with conservative activists and help curb Federal spending, House Republicans announced last week the creation of a new project designed to allow citizens to vote on what they think should be cut from the Federal budget.
The new initiative, called YouCut, will enable voters to choose from one of five possible cuts each week. The winning suggestion will be brought to the floor the following week and will be voted on by members of the House.
"What we’re saying here is we’re going to listen," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Fox News. "Vote on your priority, and we’ll take it to an up-or-down vote on the floor."
Meanwhile, Democrats are calling the program a simple public relations gimmick that has no realistic chance of trimming the Federal budget.
"It’s not surprising that they are resorting to another gimmick for a round of press rather than a substantive idea for lasting solutions," said Hari Sevugan, the Democratic National Committee’s press secretary. "But if they actually listened to the American people, Republicans would know that knee-jerk opposition, obstruction, delay and gimmicks are not a substitute for leadership."
In response to the program, the Democrats created their own project called GOPSpent, where Americans can vote on the most irresponsible Republican initiatives that favor special interest groups.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Just a few comments about what is going on...
In the press about Arizona...
Ex-NYT Reporter Rues Arizona “Police State,” Reminds of Nazi-Occupied Denmark
“I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon. Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state....Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: ‘I Could Be Illegal.’”
— The New York Times’s Linda Greenhouse, formerly the paper’s Supreme Court reporter, in an April 27 op-ed.
NBC Pretends Snide Liberal Comics Are Real News
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell: “It’s now gone beyond protest to threats of a boycott, as Arizona becomes a laughingstock to some.”
Seth Myers on Saturday Night Live: “Can we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying, ‘Show me your papers’?...”
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart: “It’s not unprecedented, having to carry around your papers. It’s the same thing free black people had to do in 1863.”
Mitchell: “Anger over the law has gone viral. On Facebook today, pages like this one: ‘Arizona, the Grand Canyon State, welcomes you — unless you’re a Mexican or look like one.’”
— NBC Nightly News, April 27. [Audio/video (0:55): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Nothing Gets by These Einsteins
“Law Makes it a Crime to Be Illegal Immigrant.”
— On-screen graphic during a noon-hour segment about Arizona’s new immigration law, MSNBC Live, April 26.
AND HERE IS A LITTLE BIT OF THE TRUTH...
“Critics have focused on the term ‘reasonable suspicion’ to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics. What fewer people have noticed is the phrase ‘lawful contact,’ which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. ‘That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he’s violated some other law,’ says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure.”
— The Washington Examiner’s Byron York, April 26
Tea Party = Oklahoma City Bombing?
Smearing Like It’s 1995
“Watch your words: Former President Clinton warns harsh anti-government talk could lead to violent acts, like the Oklahoma City bombing....There is a lot of attention tonight on comments made by former President Bill Clinton, who has weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies. He warns that sometimes firing people up with caustic comments can have unintended and dire consequences.”
— Fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas on ABC’s World News, April 16. [Audio/video (0:08): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
“In so many ways, this moment feels like that same moment from McVeigh’s era, from Timothy McVeigh’s era in Oklahoma City. You know, you have this profound sense of change going on in the country — it’s cultural, it’s social, it’s technological, embodied in many ways by President Obama that scares a lot of people about the fact that are, think they’re losing their country. You have a right-wing media that is encouraging a lot of this behavior. And you have a right, a Republican Party that, if not encouraging it, is certainly tolerating it at this moment. And I think it’s a very combustible and very dangerous moment for the country in that regard.”
— New York magazine writer John Heilemann on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18.
“What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Reno’s hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound?...Obviously the answer is talk radio. Specifically Rush Limbaugh’s hate radio....Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann naming Rush Limbaugh the “Worst Person in the World,” April 19 Countdown.
“The pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight have drawn criticism as incendiary, as have the use of terms and imagery like the placing of target cross hairs over the districts of vulnerable Democrats who backed health care.”
— New York Times reporter Carl Hulse in an April 15 story.
“I looked up the definition of sedition, which is ‘conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state.’ And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck, and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right next — right up close to being seditious.”
— Time’s Joe Klein on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18. [Audio/video (0:29): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And Finally... Money
Time for a Surgeon General Warning Against Profits?
“Should average Americans think about big Wall Street institutions the way that some have come to think about tobacco companies, that is, companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?”
— CNBC’s John Harwood to President Obama in an interview segment aired on NBC’s Today, April 20. [Audio/video (0:19): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And the most frightening comment recently...
Sam’s Fantasy: Supreme Court Justice Al Gore
ABC’s Sam Donaldson: “Let’s go further. The Constitution does not say you have to be a lawyer to be on the Supreme Court.”
Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “That’s right.”
Donaldson: “I give you Al Gore.”
Stephanopoulos: “Al Gore?”
Donaldson: “All right, he’s 62. But, he’s still a few years kicking. I think he’s confirmable, although there would be a fight to some extent. I think he might make a very good Justice.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, April 22. [Audio/video (0:35): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Ex-NYT Reporter Rues Arizona “Police State,” Reminds of Nazi-Occupied Denmark
“I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon. Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state....Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: ‘I Could Be Illegal.’”
— The New York Times’s Linda Greenhouse, formerly the paper’s Supreme Court reporter, in an April 27 op-ed.
NBC Pretends Snide Liberal Comics Are Real News
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell: “It’s now gone beyond protest to threats of a boycott, as Arizona becomes a laughingstock to some.”
Seth Myers on Saturday Night Live: “Can we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying, ‘Show me your papers’?...”
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart: “It’s not unprecedented, having to carry around your papers. It’s the same thing free black people had to do in 1863.”
Mitchell: “Anger over the law has gone viral. On Facebook today, pages like this one: ‘Arizona, the Grand Canyon State, welcomes you — unless you’re a Mexican or look like one.’”
— NBC Nightly News, April 27. [Audio/video (0:55): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Nothing Gets by These Einsteins
“Law Makes it a Crime to Be Illegal Immigrant.”
— On-screen graphic during a noon-hour segment about Arizona’s new immigration law, MSNBC Live, April 26.
AND HERE IS A LITTLE BIT OF THE TRUTH...
“Critics have focused on the term ‘reasonable suspicion’ to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics. What fewer people have noticed is the phrase ‘lawful contact,’ which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. ‘That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he’s violated some other law,’ says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure.”
— The Washington Examiner’s Byron York, April 26
Tea Party = Oklahoma City Bombing?
Smearing Like It’s 1995
“Watch your words: Former President Clinton warns harsh anti-government talk could lead to violent acts, like the Oklahoma City bombing....There is a lot of attention tonight on comments made by former President Bill Clinton, who has weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies. He warns that sometimes firing people up with caustic comments can have unintended and dire consequences.”
— Fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas on ABC’s World News, April 16. [Audio/video (0:08): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
“In so many ways, this moment feels like that same moment from McVeigh’s era, from Timothy McVeigh’s era in Oklahoma City. You know, you have this profound sense of change going on in the country — it’s cultural, it’s social, it’s technological, embodied in many ways by President Obama that scares a lot of people about the fact that are, think they’re losing their country. You have a right-wing media that is encouraging a lot of this behavior. And you have a right, a Republican Party that, if not encouraging it, is certainly tolerating it at this moment. And I think it’s a very combustible and very dangerous moment for the country in that regard.”
— New York magazine writer John Heilemann on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18.
“What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Reno’s hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound?...Obviously the answer is talk radio. Specifically Rush Limbaugh’s hate radio....Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann naming Rush Limbaugh the “Worst Person in the World,” April 19 Countdown.
“The pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight have drawn criticism as incendiary, as have the use of terms and imagery like the placing of target cross hairs over the districts of vulnerable Democrats who backed health care.”
— New York Times reporter Carl Hulse in an April 15 story.
“I looked up the definition of sedition, which is ‘conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state.’ And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck, and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right next — right up close to being seditious.”
— Time’s Joe Klein on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18. [Audio/video (0:29): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And Finally... Money
Time for a Surgeon General Warning Against Profits?
“Should average Americans think about big Wall Street institutions the way that some have come to think about tobacco companies, that is, companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?”
— CNBC’s John Harwood to President Obama in an interview segment aired on NBC’s Today, April 20. [Audio/video (0:19): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And the most frightening comment recently...
Sam’s Fantasy: Supreme Court Justice Al Gore
ABC’s Sam Donaldson: “Let’s go further. The Constitution does not say you have to be a lawyer to be on the Supreme Court.”
Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “That’s right.”
Donaldson: “I give you Al Gore.”
Stephanopoulos: “Al Gore?”
Donaldson: “All right, he’s 62. But, he’s still a few years kicking. I think he’s confirmable, although there would be a fight to some extent. I think he might make a very good Justice.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, April 22. [Audio/video (0:35): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
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