Transparency in Government

Due to our campaign of developing and advocating for political campaign contribution limits and other reforms in the new Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) charter, I was asked by the leader of the upcoming TAP Summit on Transparency in Cleveland in July to offer reflections on the general topic.

http://tapsummit.org/post/6802649989/northeast-ohio-american-friends-service-committee  

Supreme Court blocks massive sex-discrimination suit against Wal-Mart

With the decision, the Supremes are saying corpses are not only too big to fail, but too big to sue...

Supreme Court blocks massive sex-discrimination suit against Wal-Mart
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-blocks-massive-sex-discrimination-suit-against-wal-mart/2011/06/20/AGCQ81cH_story.html

Jobs Disaster in the US

By the Numbers

Percentage increase per year of jobs in private/corporate sector from late 1980’s to late 1990’s: 2
Percentage increase per year of jobs in private/corporate sector since: declining
Percentage increase per year of jobs in private/corporate sector in 2009: 0

Employment by private companies in March 2010: less than 110 million
Average annual percent growth of economy (GDP) during last ten years: 1.9
Average annual percent growth of economy (GDP) during Great Depression: 1.3
Annual percent growth of economy (GDP) needed to add large numbers of jobs in private/corporate sector: 3 to 4 or more

At the start of 2011, number of unemployed persons per job opening: more than 4

As of March, 2011, percentage of 16-19 year olds unemployed: nearly 25
As of March, 2011, percentage rate of unemployment among blacks: 15.5
As of March, 2011, percentage rate of unemployment among those with less than a high school education: 13.7

Number of people who had reached the maximum 99 weeks of receiving unemployment as of March, 2011: 2 million

As of March, 2011, officially defined as unemployed: 13.5 million
As of March, 2011, persons not in the labor force but a wanting a job: 6.5 million
As of March, 2011, persons working part time but desiring full-time work: 8.4 million
Total: 28.4 million

Figures from The Jobs Disaster in the United States, Fred Magdoff, Monthly Review, June 2011

Ohio To Become “Publicopoly” if Kasich and Co Have Their Way

Governor Kasich and his corporatization cohorts in the State House and Senate are currently engaged in “Publicopoly” -- a term coined by the pro-corpoate think tank, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Plans to corporatize turnpikes, prisons, education, alcohol sales and the lottery in the state budget are right from the ALEC playbook.

See http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=publicopoly

Click on any “Game Square.” There’s several choices: Government Operations, Education, Transportation & Infrastructure, Public Safety, Environment, Health, and Telecommunications. What public service/asset not yet proposed for sale, rent, or lease will probably soon be...unless we resist.

MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR - June 20-26

JUNE 21 

1940 -- DEATH OF SMEDLEY BUTLER, MARINE CORP MAJOR GENERAL (MOST DECORATED MARINE IN US HISTORY AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH)

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things that we should fight for. One is the defense of out homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket…. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912.

JUNE 24

1996 – LEWIS V UNITED STATES (AMENDED DECISION OF THE US COURT OF APPEALS, NINTH CIRCUIT)

Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Tort Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations in light of fact that direct supervision and control of each bank is exercised by board of directors, federal reserve banks…are locally controlled by their member banks, banks are listed neither as "wholly owned" government corporations nor as "mixed ownership" corporations; federal reserve banks receive no appropriated funds from Congress and the banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own names. . . .

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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com  For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html 

Testimony before Ohio Senate Government and Oversight Committee on Election Reform

Here's testimony presented today on HB 194 concerning election reform. A separate bill on voter ID, HB 159, is also under consideration by the General Assembly. Both would increase barriers to voting. Both are billed as adding "integrity" and "continuity" and reducing voter "fraud" to elections in Ohio.

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TESTIMONY BEFORE OHIO SENATE GOVERNMENT
AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ON ELECTION REFORM
June 16, 2011

My name is Greg Coleridge. I’m the Director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee.

I applaud the Ohio General Assembly for taking an interest in election fraud. This is an incredibly important and urgent issue requiring urgent and sweeping action.

Election fraud is rampant in Ohio. The integrity of our election system and, in fact, republican democracy, is in jeopardy if nothing is done.

Your focus, however, is misdirected. It’s not senior citizens, students, poor people or people of color who are engaged in election deceit. Instead, it’s business corporations.

The widespread, demonstrated, repeated and blatant fraud in our elections and entire political system is born from the absurd legal decision that corporations are persons possessing First Amendment Free Speech rights to lobby and engage in electioneering.

Business corporations have perverted our US and Ohio constitutions, claiming never-intended Bill of Rights protections. They perverted the 14th amendment, intended solely to free slaves, by charging in 1886 that the due process and equal protection clauses applied to artificial legal creations of the state.

The fraud that is corporate personhood has resulted in corporate lobbyists gaining access to public officials and aides that most citizens can never hope to equal.

The fraud that is corporate personhood has resulted in millions of dollars being diverted from corporate treasuries to political advertising – so-called “free speech” that drowns out the voices of real human persons with real needs.

The fraud that is corporate personhood has resulted in corporate employees writing laws under consideration by elected officials – including to corporatize schools by White Hat Management corporate employees and corporatizing the state lottery system by GTECH corporation employees.

The energy and spirit currently contained in HB 194 to document that senior citizens, students, low income persons or person of color are actually citizens and voters should be shifted. Let business corporations document they are real persons, real humans, and real beings with hearts and consciences before We the People permit these piles of legal documents to be involved in the body politic and in our elections.

This is where the real fraud in elections and politics in Ohio lies. This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but a democracy issue. I hope and trust your primary energies in this arena will be directed to end corporate personhood and corporate rule.

Thank you.

The Vancouver Hockey Riot of 2011

The riot pointed out, one more time, the incompetence and stupidity of both our leaders and the media. Oh, such moaning! “The riot was totally unexpected.” What dolts, you put a hundred thousand adrenaline charged, boozed up people in one spot and at least some of them will think it funny to flip over a car or toss a bottle through a window. And that's how it starts. The riot was virtually inevitable, and the civic leaders don't want to take responsibility for it.

The CBC hit a new low. They tried to smear the Black Bloc as somehow initiating the riot, since a number of the rioters wisely hid their faces from the cameras. But blockers smash windows to make a political statement and not for the thrill of doing so. Videos show rioters as ordinary suburban working class youth and not counter culturals or the “goons and thugs” so beloved of the media as rationalizations. (I am pleased that a number of commentators in the CBC comments section noted how mildly the cops treated the rioters compared with the G20 brutality against non-violent demonstrators.)

Nor did the rioters seem a “tiny minority”. Though the active smashers may well have been, they were surrounded by a crowd of laughing, smiling youth egging them on, posing for pictures against the flames, sharing looted goods, more of a carnival atmosphere than a war zone.

The riot was not in the least political in terms of the consciousness of the participants. None of them had a political idea in their heads. Yet in one sense it was political. These youth have no future and somehow know that. Future means working in Walmart. Future means never being able to afford a dwelling in the Vancouver area even if they scored a half-way decent job. .Even if they go to university, they end up $50,000 in debt and the right to work part-time at Starbucks. Those with the slightest grain of consciousness know we are about to be royally screwed by climate change and the corporatist policies of the government.

These kids come from the suburbs, that ultimate anti-community. They belong to no community and have nothing to defend, so they feel detached enough to smash up what does exist.

They hate the police. This is understandable as youth are targeted by them, due to the fact that the majority of crimes are committed by males under age 30 and the police are used to enforce a morality that youth constantly challenge. Part of being young is loud music, beer and pot all of which brings the heat.

Now as they go about smashing and looting, they are not thinking these thoughts, seeing themselves as just having some wild fun. But their alienation lies beneath the surface as a hidden impetus. People who are happy with their lot in life do not smash things up.

One point cannot be stressed enough. Don't be surprised that given an opportunity to riot, youth will take it. What ought to surprise you is they don't riot all the time.

This riot should be a lesson for the criminals who rule over us. Working class youth have done vastly more damage than conscious militant activists. If the inchoate anger of the masses becomes conscious and politicized the bosses are in deep trouble.