Tag: United States

Ethics Bob has some Choice Words about Mitt Romney

On By southwerkIn Politics
English: Governor Mitt Romney of MA
Image via Wikipedia

Mitt Romney: Liar, liar, pants on fire. Said he didn’t care about poor people, now brushes it off as “I misspoke” « Ethics Bob

(Here’s a representative paragraph. jp)

But appearing so heartless can be costly to a Presidential candidate. So Romney tried to lie his way out of it, saying he misspoke. But he didn’t misspeak. Misspeaking is when I call my granddaughter by her sister’s name. Misspeaking is when John McCain tells a Romney gathering that he’s confident that President Obama will cure the nation’s ills. Misspeaking is not saying something, then when challenged explaining what you said. He didn’t misspeak.

Mitt Romney: Liar, liar, pants on fire. Said he didn’t care about poor people, now brushes it off as “I misspoke” « Ethics Bob

Ethics Bob is holding Romney to the standard of truth.

I also found Romney’s original statement much more credible than his later correction. The conviction that he worked hard and others have not making them unworthy is part of his make up. Otherwise his overwhelming sense of entitlement would make no sense to him.

I do not believe that the struggles and the pain of American workers and the middle class have any relevance to him. His devotion is only to the comically titled, “job creators.”

James Pilant

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My Welcome to My New Students in Criminal Justice!

On By southwerkIn Teaching

Welcome!

I want to welcome you to this class. I always consider these joint endeavors in which both you and I trying to learn something in a complicated and exciting field.

 

Studying criminal justice is illuminating. It is a difficult field for many reasons. It deals with subjects that may have personally affected us. It deals with injury and death, often with the most unseemly of human actions. It also deals with psychological problems of the most serious and disturbing kind.

 

Please be aware that much of what you have seen on television is rank nonsense to those educated in the field. On television and often in movies, the law is often interpreted incorrectly, serial killers are portrayed as geniuses moving effortless through the population killing at will, and forensic crime solving is portrayed as well funded and almost always successful in finding the perpetrator. We will learn better.

 

Criminal justice in America is executed through thousands of law enforcement agencies in a bewildering set of jurisdictions often governed by contradictory and controversial laws. That it works at all is surprising and that is that it has serious problems a given.

 

You are going to be the future of criminal justice. As professionals, you will advance to become decision and policy makers. The understanding you acquire now may very well change the lives of thousands in the course of your life time.

 

I salute your willingness to engage in this difficult area of study and a lifetime of service to society at large.

 

James Pilant

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The Declaration of Occupy D.C.

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

(I am reprinting this declaration on the assumption that Occupy D.C. wants as wide a distribution of the Declaration as possible. CPAC is meeting this week and it was pointed out that their future leaders would be coming from the congressional class of 2010. Well, my future leaders are coming out of the Occupy Movement. I’ve got a lot more future leaders, who make a lot more sense and who might just save the Middle Class.)

The Declaration of Occupy D.C.

Consented to by General Assembly November 30th, 2011 | PDF

We have been captives of corrupt economic and political systems for far too long. The concentration of wealth and the purchase of political power stifle the voices of the increasingly disenfranchised 99 percent. Corporate dominance subverts democracy, intentionally sows division, destroys the environment, obstructs the just and equitable pursuit of happiness, and violates the rights and dignity of all life.

Occupy D.C. is an open community of diverse individuals, facing different forms of oppression and impacted by economic exploitation to differing degrees, but united by a shared vision of equality for the common good. The harsh economic conditions that have plagued the poor, working class, and communities of color for generations have begun to affect the previously financially secure. This acute awareness of our common fate has united us in our struggle for a better future. We recognize that inequality and injustice systemically affect every aspect of our society: our communities, homes, and hearts. To build the world we envision, we commit ourselves to overcoming our personal biases so we can successfully challenge systems of oppression in solidarity.

We are peaceably assembled at McPherson Square, practicing direct democracy on the doorstep of K Street, the epicenter of destructive corporate and governmental relationships. Recognizing that the term ‘occupy’ is associated with exploitation, violence, and imperialism, we are reclaiming it to mean the peaceful liberation of public space. In this disenfranchised city, we are insisting that our economic and political systems serve the people’s interests. Now is the time to advance and complete the struggles of the many who came before us.

We are assembled because…

  • It is absurd that the 1 percent has taken 40 percent of the nation’s wealth through exploiting labor, outsourcing jobs, and manipulating the tax code to their benefit through special capital tax rates and loopholes. The system is rigged in their favor, yet they cry foul when anyone even dares to question their relentless class warfare.
  • Candidates in our electoral system require huge sums of money to be competitive. These contributions from multi-national corporations and wealthy individuals destroy responsive representative governance. A system of backroom deals, kickbacks, bribes, and dirty politics overrides the will of the people. The rotation of decision makers between the public and private sectors cultivates a network of public officials, lobbyists, and executives whose aligned interests do not serve the American people.
  • The entrenched two-party system overlooks public interests by pursuing narrow political goals. This climate encourages candidates to polarize voters for individual power and personal gain. Citizens’ meaningful input has been compromised by gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and unresponsive politicians. Residents of Washington, D.C., continue to lack autonomy and legislative representation.
  • The 1 percent benefits from economic, political, and legal structures that oppress communities long targeted by displacement, denial of sovereignty, slavery, and other injustices. These persecuted but resilient communities continue to suffer through generations of disproportionately higher rates of unemployment, poverty, criminalization, and homelessness. Facets of the 1 percent campaign to blame these groups for these problems while obstructing healing and restoration.
  • Those with power have divided us from working in solidarity by perpetuating historical prejudices and discrimination based on perceived race, religion, immigrant or indigenous status, income, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability, among other things. These divisions have inhibited our ability to work in solidarity, though today we recognize the power of uniting as the 99 percent.
  • Financial institutions gambled with our savings, homes, and economy. They collapsed the financial system and needed the public to bail them out of their failures yet deny any responsibility and continue to fight oversight. Corporations loot from those whose labor creates society’s prosperity, while the government allows them to privatize profits and socialize risk.
  • Corporate interests threaten life on Earth by extracting and burning fossil fuels and resisting the necessary transition to renewable energy. Their drilling, mining, clear-cutting, overfishing, and factory farming destroys the land, jeopardizes our food and water, and poisons the soil with near impunity. They privilege polluters over people by subsidizing fossil fuels, blocking investments in clean energy and efficient transportation, and hiding environmental destruction from public oversight.
  • Private corporations, with the government’s support, use common resources and infrastructure for short-term personal profit, while stifling efforts to invest in public goods.
  • The U.S. government engages in drawn-out, costly conflicts abroad. Numerous acts of conquest have been, and continue to be, pursued to control resources, overthrow foreign governments, and install subservient regimes. These wars destroy the lives of innocent civilians and American soldiers, many of whom suffer adverse effects throughout life. These operations are a blank check to divert money from domestic priorities.
  • Government authorities cultivate a culture of fear to invade our privacy, limit assembly, restrict speech, and deny due process. They have failed in their duty to protect our rights. Exacerbated by profiteering interests, the criminal justice system has unfairly targeted underprivileged communities and outspoken groups for prosecution rather than protection.
  • Corporatized culture warps our perception of reality. It cheapens and mocks the beauty of human thought and experience while promoting excessive materialism as the path to happiness. The corporate news media furthers the interests of the very wealthy, distorts and disregards the truth, and confines our imagination of what is possible for ourselves and society.
  • Leaders are trading our access to basic needs in exchange for handouts to the ultra-wealthy. Our rights to healthcare, education, food, water, and housing are sacrificed to profit-driven market forces. They are attacking unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, creating an uncertain future for us all.*

A better world is possible.

To all people,

We, the Washington D.C. General Assembly occupying K Street in McPherson Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble and reclaim the commons. Re-conceive ways to build a democratic, just, and sustainable world.

To all who value democracy, we encourage you to collaborate and share available resources.

Join your voice with ours and let it amplify until the heart of the movement booms with our chorus of solidarity.
*These grievances are not all inclusive.

Occupy DC |  Declaration

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Can We Engineer Students to Where They Learn Without Teachers?

On By southwerkIn Philosophy

I was reading Norman J. LaFave’s Web site, Alterworld: Norman LaFave’s Science Fiction Musings on Writing, Science, Technology, Education, Philosophy, Politics and Policy. 

His current article, The Future of Learning and Education…  tells of his thoughts on the future of education. He’s pretty imaginative, but I don’t think he’s wrong. I have been telling my Criminal Justice students that our ability to modify human genetics, alter human behavior with chemicals and change the structure of our bodies with implants is going to radically change the field. I think they only half believe me but the changes are coming anyway.

I am particularly interested in the experiments with brain chemicals that appear that appear to raise intelligence. The average intelligence in prison measured by IQ is about 70. That’s not much. What if we could raise that intelligence to that of an average citizen? Studies show that criminals suffer from poor judgment. One set of studies show that the process they use to make judgments is only partial the pattern used by law abiding citizens. Could we radically reduce crime by increasing inmate intelligence? We are likely to able to use this kind of technique not in some science fiction future, but probably in five or six years. It will be the first wave in new treatments for criminality not by prison but by altering the way their brains work.

The future may also hold direct transference of data from computers to the human brain. That might make much of college teaching obsolete. I can tell you I’m not looking forward to this, I’m a teacher and I enjoy it. However, I suspect the changes may be just far enough ahead for me to close out my teaching career with some dignity.

Both chemical treatment to raise offender IQ’s and direct transfer of information both present moral problems. However boosting intelligence in prison populations is hard to criticize ethically unless you can make a good case that an increased intelligence is a detriment some way. I think it is more akin to providing exercise facilities to build muscles than a punishment.

Direct transfer of information is going to be much more of an ethical dilemma. Will the machine evade the judgment centers of the forebrain and deliver the information without any moral screening? Will humans simply become skill bundles with only a limited humanity? What exactly are we putting in and how does it affect the whole system? As long as it is theory and their are no facts to work with, questions over what is right or wrong become more numerous the more you think about it.

I think raising intelligence by chemical means will be common in the next thirty years. I do not forsee direct knowledge transfer until minimally fifty or sixty years. But technology is not as predictable as when I was a child in the sixties, so we will have to see.

James Pilant

English: Computer tomography of human brain, f...
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Komen Backs Off and We’re Supposed to Forgive and Forget?

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice
English: Prevention Park, is the largest Plann...

Image via Wikipedia

Komen Apologizes; Pledges To Continue Planned Parenthood Grants | Crooks and Liars

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Komen Apologizes; Pledges To Continue Planned Parenthood Grants | Crooks and Liars

Wow, I should be impressed except I’m not.

The organization has already provided solid evidence that women’s health is not their first concern. They have only reversed their decision based on politics. And be clear, they backed down on this particular issue but it is only a temporary setback for their anti-Planned Parenthood stance and their move toward anti-abortion politics.

Think of all the different ways through other grants and political pressure that they can influence the future of women’s health in this country and in the world. They gave up on this point under political pressure but can it be more obvious what the future stance of the organization is going to be? This is not victory for women’s health or a defeat for their organization. It is a truce to allow them to regroup and fight another day.

I want you to read the brief excerpt above. Notice the phrase “disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.” I can drive an ocean liner through that exception. How many district attorneys are there in the United States – just a few thousand? So, all we to do to disqualify Planned Parenthood again is to have one of these district attorney conduct a “criminal” investigation. Now you might object that doesn’t consider the word, “conclusive,” which of course means a conviction. Except that it doesn’t. If they had wanted a conviction to be necessary to disqualify an organization, they would have used that word. I’ll tell you what the word, conclusive means in that sentence – anything they want it to.

From now on they will act to defund Planned Parenthood and services to poor women and we know they will because they have already by their actions demonstrated their intent. If they intended to really reverse the policy decisions of the last few days, there would be firings and changes in personnel at the top of the organization. Do you see any?

One of the most disturbing elements of this whole affair is how stupid the Susan G. Komen Foundation leadership believes the public are. They cut off Planned Parenthood on the most spurious of grounds (a Congressional investigation) against a background of Republican donations and the hiring of a stalwart in the anti-abortion movement. Then they tell us it was non-political. Look at the phrasing of their press release . They claim they were only fulfilling their “fiduciary” duty by cutting off the organization. First, I think they used the word merely because it was multisyllabic and sounded legal. Second, I have to wonder if it was their fiduciary duty to cut off Planned Parenthood what happened between yesterday and today that nullified that duty? Fiduciary responsibilities are not optional, they are binding.

I still believe that giving money to the Susan G. Komen Foundation is a questionable decision based on the events of the last few days. I believe if you look at the evidence you will come to the same conclusion.

James Pilant

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The Work of Luke H. Lee

On By southwerkIn Opinion
Example of supply chain

Image via Wikipedia

Keeping a web site and maintaining it can be a real pain but one of the great pleasures of it, is that you get to provide support to your friends to get the word out about their ideas. Here is a piece from my blogging friend, Luke H. Lee.

The article is significantly longer than this small excerpt and you probably need to see the diagrams for full understanding. So please read the whole thing.

James Pilant

Realizing a better world

If a public information-based supply chain infrastructure system is developed and fully implemented in the real market, the existing efficiency-oriented market process would be changed to a more effectiveness-oriented market process, which is more suitable for the modern information market. This would significantly contribute to the improvement of employment on the whole. The self-generation capability of the market would improve as well.

Luke Ho-Hyung Lee

With the influence of this new, more effectiveness-oriented supply chain process, the existing competition by size would change into competition by quality and service. The existing efficiency-oriented mass production process and mass-market consumption model would also be altered into a more effectiveness-oriented, diversified, or individualized production and consumption system. Owing to these changes, local employment conditions would improve considerably, and the business environment for middle- and small-sized companies and for the general service industry would improve significantly. Moreover, companies that off-shored and outsourced to lower labor cost countries would come back to the domestic arena

Realizing a better world

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I’ve Been Gone for a While.

On By southwerkIn Opinion

I have not written for ten days. I have felt a little burned out. Over the last two years I have written 1,602 posts. Sometimes you need to stop for a while. I felt I was becoming formulaic and boring. Certainly I was boring me.

One day in class, I noticed that I often present original ideas that I have developed from my extensive reading but I never seem to talk about my thinking. In my blogging, I have often simply responded to the thoughts of others. Response is not enough. I believe a writer, particularly a writer concerned with social justice, must of necessity present ideas about what can and should be done. It’s not enough to stand against things, you must also be for things.

Another thing I do at school is carry out my plan to remake the world. I preach endlessly the importance of not accepting my ideas as revealed truth but for my students to develop their own thinking processes so that they can consider and weigh facts to make good decisions based on their own experiences, observations and judgment. My faith in their ability to change themselves and then the world is not always apparent to readers of my blog, and it should be.

Sometimes the weight of the power of the 1 percent leads me to conclude in despair that nothing can be done. That is wrong. We have seen this kind of history with the power of the Robber Barons in the 1890’s and the early years of the 20th century. Their power, their money, their influence in the government were all reduced by the energy and faith of social movements drive by the need for change. That is happening again with Occupy Wall Street.

So, I return to writing the blog with some new ideas, a changed focus and a dedication to faith that change is possible and, in fact, inevitable.

James Pilant

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Justice Scalia Trivializes “Citizens United”

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Please read the article below for more explanation of Justice Scalia’s statement.

Scalia would lead us to believe that the massive influx of corporate dollars allowed into the system by the Supreme Court Decision, Citizens United, will simply be neutralized by people turning off the television.

I had to take a minute to absorb the full implications of his statement, in fact, at first, I thought I had misread the article but after re-reading it, it still said the same thing.

Let me explore this, I can probably come up with a few hundred dollars to give in a campaign cycle. However, a corporation can give hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars. But it will all be “even steven” if people turn off the television sets?

Won’t the hundreds of millions of dollars also buy billboards, internet pop-ups, endless stacks of mailings and radio ads?

And since televisions watching is believed to be addicting with millions of Americans watching on average 4-6 hours a night, how likely is it that millions of them will turn off the set and go to bed? – or read a book? – or take up ceramics?

The Supreme Court Justice who helped turn the United States into one of the most oligarchic nations in the world with one decision, is trying to tell me that my concerns are trivial and there is really nothing to worry about.

No, the decision seriously damaged the prospect of a government for the people by the people. His sad attempt at trivialization is not surprising. His contempt for democracy was demonstrated by the decision making George Bush, the President of the United States.

I do not believe representative government is in anyway important to him.

That his decision making descends to such pitiful generalizations is not a sign of a Supreme Court that deserves our respect. It is a sign of a Supreme Court that no longer relies on any thing but class interest to make its decisions. It’s time for something new.

James Pilant

photograph of the justices, cropped to show Ju...

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Justice Scalia On Unlimited Political Ads: Turn Off The TV

U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia has a simple solution for people who don’t like all the political advertisements unleashed by the court’s decision two years ago that ended limits on corporate contributions in political campaigns – change the channel or turn off the TV.

Scalia was asked about the decision during a presentation before the South Carolina Bar on Saturday, exactly two years after the court handed down the 5-4 decision in the case that led to the rise of Super PACs. They are outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don’t directly coordinate with the candidate.

“I don’t care who is doing the speech – the more the merrier,” Scalia said. “People are not stupid. If they don’t like it, they’ll shut it off.”

Justice Scalia On Unlimited Political Ads: Turn Off The TV

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President Claims to be Concerned with the Mortgage Crisis

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The following article title and brief selection is by Zandar from the web site, Zandar Versus the Stupid.

I very much want you to visit the site and read the article in full. If at all possible explore the web site and look at other essays.

My commentary is below the article excerpt.

Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter Part 84

A White House official said Obama has taken the housing crisis seriously since the start of his term and will look to augment the effort in the months ahead.

“From day one the President has worked to stabilize the housing market and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, including through refinancing efforts, foreclosure prevention programs and programs directed at the hardest hit states,” said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

“The President will continue to expand on these efforts and look at new ways to help homeowners, just as he has over the past few months with new programs to help underwater homeowners and expanding forbearance so more unemployed homeowners can stay in their homes,” she said.

I wish that were true. I wish the mortgage crisis had been an important concern for the White House but it has not been a concern and is unlikely to become one.

When the President was first elected he had large majorities in both the House and Senate. He could have made mortgage foreclosures a priority instead he created TARP, a plan which did not allow for mortgages to be reduced in line with reduced home values but only extended the time for payment. The banks used this program as a club to expedite foreclosure. They told clients to skip payments for three months to qualify for the program, then foreclosed on them telling them they had decided they were ineligible. The government didn’t even keep records of what the program was doing for the first year.

When the robo-signing scandals began, the federal government did nothing. When the scandal expanded to impugn the record keeping and practices of several large banks, the federal government did nothing.

And now the federal government attempts to cut a sweetheart deal with the industry so that they can evade any legal responsibility for their acts while, in theory, bringing some minimal aid to homeowners.

This administration has always been far more a servant of the banks than a servant of the people. I want as many State Attorney Generals as possible to no longer cooperate with the administration and pursue their own negotiations with the financial industry. That will mean that justice at least has a chance of being served.

James Pilant

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Obama Administration Continues to Protect Banks, Ignores Consumers

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

It seems that I can never get free of this subject. Obama never met  banker he didn’t like and whose interest he didn’t place ahead of everyone else. One of the things that average Americans resent is the lack of prosecution of these rogue banks. Just what did the banks do that makes me so angry? They lied directly in court claiming ownership of properties they did not own. The filed false affidavits lying about their ownership. They defrauded many customers by lying about the terms of the mortgage agreement. The lured investors into securities backed my mortgages that they knew would fail as investments and then bid against those investments with derivatives to make ever more money. To add one further insult, these heartless financial wizards foreclosed on serving veterans’ homes contrary to federal law.

Now get this. These arrogant people created their own system of ownership. Under the law of each State enshrined in American law, ownership of real property is proven by a careful record’s trail kept in most states in each county court house. To evade fees and speed the process, the mortgage machine created a computer system called MERS. They would make a single transaction using the county system then they traded the properties much like the homes in the monopoly board game. Instead of careful record keeping, we have a system where in many cases, no one knows who owns the property. In case you missed it, by using their own private system of property ownership, they never paid a dime of taxes on the transfers defrauding the states out of millions of dollars of taxes.

For more than 200 years, owning property has been the goal of Americans. To be a landowner was a mark of prestige, of achievement and security. But keeping property lines straight, land fraud and busted titles have bedeviled citizens. To curb these abuses laws were established to make as certain as possible land ownership, to protect the right to property. The right to own property is not sacred but it is as close to sacred as laws can make it.

These men, these arrogant men created their own separate legal system ignoring the laws of the government and the rights of citizens. They then used it to evade taxes and speculate like Riverboat gamblers playing with chips.

The law provides penalties so that justice may be served. Those who fail to obey the law are punished. Those are hardly radical thoughts. They are the basis of a system that treat both the small and the great equally. The administration is pushing an agreement which will free the mortgage banks from responsibility for their crimes.

What kind of nation do we live in where a petty shoplifter faces jail time and fines and bankers are freely given immunity without any assurance that I find credible that they will behave better in the future. I mean after engaging in a crime spree that makes organized crime look like a child stealing candy, they walk free. Doesn’t that give then the impression that they are above the law. It gives me that impression.

Can’t we have justice? What did I do? What did my fellow citizens do? Are we some of lesser creation that we must watch in awe and envy while those who evade over and over not just the law but evade their responsibilities of citizens to pay taxes and to act for the common good?

What kind of country are we becoming?

James Pilant

The Obama Administration’s ‘New’ Bank Fraud Deal: Still Unfair, Still Unjust, Still Unbalanced

The Obama White House continues to push for a settlement that would let bankers avoid being punished – or even investigated – for a wave of mortgage-related crimes that includes perjury, tax evasion, and several types of fraud.

Despite the President’s new-found populism – rhetorically, anyway – officials in his Administration continue to push an unfair deal designed to conceal the financial Crime of the Century.

The Financial Times reported on new details of the proposed settlement, whose stated purpose is to punish banks and reduce the amount of money owed by underwater homeowners. But it’s increasingly clear that the deal wouldn’t help homeowners very much and wouldn’t punish bankers at all.

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