Like most fights or debates the battle over Health Care reform revolves around a set of facts muddied and murky through the collective waters of political discourse, which is by the way the purpose of most politicking; to confuse the issue. Take this Associated Press article I stumbled upon a short while ago which does its best to confuse the issue and misrepresent the facts, a testament to the ignorance abound in this highly contested debate.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_bi_ge/us_fact_check_health_insurance
This article written by Calvin Woodward squarely focuses on the profit margins of the Health Insurance industry, arguing against those who say that health insurers reap too much profit by focusing on a hand full of numbers that support this claim. This would be fine except that anybody with even faint trace of a clue about business and economics knows that profit margins tell very little about the story of any business, on their own. Revenue gives a much more revealing story, especially when combined with knowledge of operating costs and of course salary expenditures, where most of the would be profits in this debate have gone. But this is America, you say, where anyone should be allowed to make whatever they can. Well this is America, and that's where your health insurance costs have gone.
See it's not about profit. It's not about the overall success of any one company or what the shareholders and other do nothings have been able to extract from the sidelines. It's about how much fat there is at the top. It's about the amount people dipping their hands into the pot, taking more than they ever could deserve for the nothing it is that they do, making profits for themselves off of the backs of the sick and needy. I know I'm being cynical here, but if you haven't noticed, these types of people, the CEO's and corporate executive types, they're a bit greedy, kind of like me being a bit sarcastic at times. That's where this economy has gone. Take this article for example which does a much better job focusing on the key issue in this debate, rather than a talking point founded in rhetoric.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/04/health_care_ceos_owe_us.html
Those are obscene salaries, and that was only for a few select CEO's in one particular state, which does not account for the many executives within those same companies who no doubt make much more than they're contributions to the general health of the public warrants. I would like to see how much money is bonused and paid out to the fat at the top before coming to any conclusions about Health Care reform. Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press would rather you not. It's much easier to buy into his claim when focusing on such an irrelevant area. Ah, but that's the essence of politics. It's no surprise then that it's also the essence of this debate!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Commodity markets and the manipulators controlling us all
What troubles me foremost about our society is our economy: the state of disrepair that it's in, how it actually works, the creative and worthless ways in which wealth is accrued by the wealthy in the 21st century and how controlled we all completely are by something as fictitiously unparalleled as money. If the game we are wallowing in was played on a level field, served our country rather than particular classes and had actual rules we were all bound to, then yeah I would be all gung ho for the American Dream, yet the sad fact is that the Dream has been one of the worst pieces of fiction ever paraded around to the public. Yes it has been a Dream, but in the utmost worst of the sense, as the American public has been asleep far too long at the wheel, dreaming up ways to make money without hard work or actual social worth. Take the $100,000,000.00 benefactor Andrew J. Hall, who off the collective backbone of American gas prices manipulated his way to a fortune. It's people like him who have artificially driven up the price of oil by storing it on oil tankers and in underground oil banks, using it like the commodity driven market it's become, as it's the commodity markets which have brought this economy down, trading futures and unsubstantiated capital. But it hasn't always been this way, nor should it be allowed one moment more.
Storing oil in tanks is an example of profit being artificially created, synthetically derived and anti-socially driven. Seeing as so many wealthy, affluent capitalists are capitalizing in similar fashion off these markets, keep in mind that there is an inherent artificial depletion of oil built into this business plan, which factors into supply, assuring huge sums of profit unabated. This is not an example of free market capitalism, it's an example of controlled and manipulated markets! People such as Andrew Hall, in cahoots with other self-important wealth hording opportunists have taken to operating clandestinely together behind the scenes to dictate the direction of the markets. Wealth can do that, through shear force! In other words these predators have figured out a way to legally manipulate the system in order to extract huge sums of profit for themselves, while everyone else actually laboring in life, i.e. the meaningful, useful people in our society who have actually contributed to the social well being of this country, are left stuck behind at the pump paying whatever price this cruel and inept game dictates. It's fool proof, works every time and is the single reason the price of gas has been driven to the levels they were. And it's our taxpayer money which will be footing this bonus for Andrew Hall, as he was contracted through Citibank. In other words, a man whose business practices helped contribute to this economic mess is being directly rewarded for these very actions. This, America, is where we've been led by the wealthy, which is why so many need to awake from this Dream, a fairy-tales dream filled with too many bad guys! If it were only that simple, to awake from a dream...
Storing oil in tanks is an example of profit being artificially created, synthetically derived and anti-socially driven. Seeing as so many wealthy, affluent capitalists are capitalizing in similar fashion off these markets, keep in mind that there is an inherent artificial depletion of oil built into this business plan, which factors into supply, assuring huge sums of profit unabated. This is not an example of free market capitalism, it's an example of controlled and manipulated markets! People such as Andrew Hall, in cahoots with other self-important wealth hording opportunists have taken to operating clandestinely together behind the scenes to dictate the direction of the markets. Wealth can do that, through shear force! In other words these predators have figured out a way to legally manipulate the system in order to extract huge sums of profit for themselves, while everyone else actually laboring in life, i.e. the meaningful, useful people in our society who have actually contributed to the social well being of this country, are left stuck behind at the pump paying whatever price this cruel and inept game dictates. It's fool proof, works every time and is the single reason the price of gas has been driven to the levels they were. And it's our taxpayer money which will be footing this bonus for Andrew Hall, as he was contracted through Citibank. In other words, a man whose business practices helped contribute to this economic mess is being directly rewarded for these very actions. This, America, is where we've been led by the wealthy, which is why so many need to awake from this Dream, a fairy-tales dream filled with too many bad guys! If it were only that simple, to awake from a dream...
Saturday, July 25, 2009
W.R. Grace: The epitome of a broken legal system from a functioning standpoint
"Not Guilty" was the verdict as read by the jury May 8th, evidence no doubt to the lack of evidence available to them in the trial, which by no means was lacking in abundance, but rather, excluded by the trial's judge: Donald Malloy. For those unaware, the four remaining executives of the W.R. Grace Company still alive enough to stand trial for environmental crimes charges were acquitted on all charges of conspiracy to knowingly cover up the violation of the Federal Clean Air act, as well as the knowing endangerment of human lives. While a not guilty verdict implies a legal innocence, the actions of the W.R. Grace Co. towards the residents of the surrounding villages of Libby are the very definition of what should be illegal, not the evolution of dodgy cunning legal precedence.
There are a few things that need to be considered before rendering an opinion on the jury's decision, but of utmost importance is Judge Molloy's decision to bar forty-six of the fifty-three items presented as evidence from the prosecution's case, given the absurd reasoning he states for doing so. Below is an excerpt from Judge Molloy’s ruling.
"The Court has a concern that the potential for confusion lurks elsewhere in the government's proffered exhibits, particularly in light of the manner in which the government has presented its case to date. The prosecution's practice of presenting incomplete proof calculated to exclude all evidence adverse to its litigation position, while permissible as a trial tactic, does not induce confidence that the government will eschew the opportunity to argue misleading inferences from documents admitted without either party having an opportunity to examine a witness who can help contextualize the exhibits.”
"While they show the Defendants' knowledge, the government has made clear that it has in mind for them another purpose: to argue that the company's inclination toward discretion in its internal discussion of potential liability issues involving its finished commercial products is in fact evidence of a sinister agreement to defraud the United States and cause releases in and around Libby. The evidence does not support the inference. The potential for confusion of issues and undue prejudice outweighs the limited probative value of the memos."
The only potential for confusion I am able to gather from this statement is the murky wordiness of this overtly confusing rhetoric. If I may gather from the pretentiousness of his Honor’s logic, evident in the ridiculous effort taken to confuse the issue, the Judge is stating that he finds the jury incapable of interpreting the evidence in regards to the charges, and further that he himself fails to see the relevancy of this evidence in regards to the charges, despite his acknowledgment that it proves the defendants were aware of their actions. I am glad I took a foreign language in college to prepare me for my work with translations!
It is the duty of the jury to decide what occurred, not the duty of the judge to filter the available facts, and if this is indeed the case, that the Judge is charged with this overly empowering right, than the entire legal system needs to be retooled! If the Judge is allowed the right to dismiss evidence, than by no means is any American judged in the eyes of the law by their peers; but rather, through the biased eyes of their Judge.
The dismissed evidence was mostly intra-office correspondence; memos stating the outright admission of their deadly practices in print. This, however, was not at trial in the case according to the Judge, because none of the memos the prosecution presented to him dealt with a direct conspiracy to violate the Federal Clean Air Act, a narrow minded interpretation indeed! And that is my problem with the law, the narrow minded, almost mathematical approach at play determining justice in our society, as if only a certain number of variables need to be met to defeat any sordid equation. According to the law Judge Molloy may be correct with his narrow minded interpretation, but this is the very law which has determined W.R. Grace has done nothing wrong. I say the laws on the books even beg of such actions. It’s the system of justice which needs addressing. No way does a civilized society foster such corrupted jurisprudence, which says a lot for our civility. That a company can make themselves billionaires knowingly poisoning so many through such deceptive, cheek in tongue logic, only goes to show how far we have fallen as a society. There are those who say that our system of justice is the best in the world, that there are country’s who have it far worse than we could ever imagine. The latter no doubt is indeed in its obviousness true, but such concessionary logic is insulting when applied in regards to the supposed leader of the free world. Freedom is something that was earned, many years ago by our forefathers, but the very forces which brought on their great indignation towards their oppressors have come full circle, enacting applicable similar forms of injustice on the very people who made this country once great. The ones who drove this country to greatness were not millionaires with the power and capabilities of skirting the law, but hard working, innovative individuals, who lived by the sweat of their brow! That is lost in this injustice, as all that’s left is the scar of the dollar and the unknowable lives affected by this tragedy.
America the beautiful, no more.
It’s sad beyond all hell.
There are a few things that need to be considered before rendering an opinion on the jury's decision, but of utmost importance is Judge Molloy's decision to bar forty-six of the fifty-three items presented as evidence from the prosecution's case, given the absurd reasoning he states for doing so. Below is an excerpt from Judge Molloy’s ruling.
"The Court has a concern that the potential for confusion lurks elsewhere in the government's proffered exhibits, particularly in light of the manner in which the government has presented its case to date. The prosecution's practice of presenting incomplete proof calculated to exclude all evidence adverse to its litigation position, while permissible as a trial tactic, does not induce confidence that the government will eschew the opportunity to argue misleading inferences from documents admitted without either party having an opportunity to examine a witness who can help contextualize the exhibits.”
"While they show the Defendants' knowledge, the government has made clear that it has in mind for them another purpose: to argue that the company's inclination toward discretion in its internal discussion of potential liability issues involving its finished commercial products is in fact evidence of a sinister agreement to defraud the United States and cause releases in and around Libby. The evidence does not support the inference. The potential for confusion of issues and undue prejudice outweighs the limited probative value of the memos."
The only potential for confusion I am able to gather from this statement is the murky wordiness of this overtly confusing rhetoric. If I may gather from the pretentiousness of his Honor’s logic, evident in the ridiculous effort taken to confuse the issue, the Judge is stating that he finds the jury incapable of interpreting the evidence in regards to the charges, and further that he himself fails to see the relevancy of this evidence in regards to the charges, despite his acknowledgment that it proves the defendants were aware of their actions. I am glad I took a foreign language in college to prepare me for my work with translations!
It is the duty of the jury to decide what occurred, not the duty of the judge to filter the available facts, and if this is indeed the case, that the Judge is charged with this overly empowering right, than the entire legal system needs to be retooled! If the Judge is allowed the right to dismiss evidence, than by no means is any American judged in the eyes of the law by their peers; but rather, through the biased eyes of their Judge.
The dismissed evidence was mostly intra-office correspondence; memos stating the outright admission of their deadly practices in print. This, however, was not at trial in the case according to the Judge, because none of the memos the prosecution presented to him dealt with a direct conspiracy to violate the Federal Clean Air Act, a narrow minded interpretation indeed! And that is my problem with the law, the narrow minded, almost mathematical approach at play determining justice in our society, as if only a certain number of variables need to be met to defeat any sordid equation. According to the law Judge Molloy may be correct with his narrow minded interpretation, but this is the very law which has determined W.R. Grace has done nothing wrong. I say the laws on the books even beg of such actions. It’s the system of justice which needs addressing. No way does a civilized society foster such corrupted jurisprudence, which says a lot for our civility. That a company can make themselves billionaires knowingly poisoning so many through such deceptive, cheek in tongue logic, only goes to show how far we have fallen as a society. There are those who say that our system of justice is the best in the world, that there are country’s who have it far worse than we could ever imagine. The latter no doubt is indeed in its obviousness true, but such concessionary logic is insulting when applied in regards to the supposed leader of the free world. Freedom is something that was earned, many years ago by our forefathers, but the very forces which brought on their great indignation towards their oppressors have come full circle, enacting applicable similar forms of injustice on the very people who made this country once great. The ones who drove this country to greatness were not millionaires with the power and capabilities of skirting the law, but hard working, innovative individuals, who lived by the sweat of their brow! That is lost in this injustice, as all that’s left is the scar of the dollar and the unknowable lives affected by this tragedy.
America the beautiful, no more.
It’s sad beyond all hell.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
A call to the American people
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" If only it were that simple, to be heard by so many at once...
What in the name of capitalism's going on here? As our economy continues to consume itself to the benefit and delight of our morally corrupt ruling class, I would like to call attention to the absurdity this bailout package is in light of all the anti-socialist propaganda that has brainwashed this country during and since the Red Scare. And you were afraid of Socialists! This is the government controlling the free market, is it not? This is our government encroaching upon our freedom, no? It's not the absurdity of the bailout package that bothers me most, but fact that our government has simply dictated it's need. See that's the problem; there isn't one. It's the rich who are faltering, not you and I, as this is simply an example of rich, powerful people lobbying for the interests of rich, powerful people. In fact this reaction by our government is the very opposite of what logically should happen, but the elitist capitalists running this show are directing the money towards the upper class and away from the poor, surprise, rewarding failed institutions, which by no coincidence generated enormous profits for the parasites that fed off them as they were driven into the ground. There are no get out of jail free cards in free market capitalism, but our government is now printing them up by the billions and that should infuriate and enrage every single American.
Voting Republican or Democrat; now that's wasting a vote
What in the name of capitalism's going on here? As our economy continues to consume itself to the benefit and delight of our morally corrupt ruling class, I would like to call attention to the absurdity this bailout package is in light of all the anti-socialist propaganda that has brainwashed this country during and since the Red Scare. And you were afraid of Socialists! This is the government controlling the free market, is it not? This is our government encroaching upon our freedom, no? It's not the absurdity of the bailout package that bothers me most, but fact that our government has simply dictated it's need. See that's the problem; there isn't one. It's the rich who are faltering, not you and I, as this is simply an example of rich, powerful people lobbying for the interests of rich, powerful people. In fact this reaction by our government is the very opposite of what logically should happen, but the elitist capitalists running this show are directing the money towards the upper class and away from the poor, surprise, rewarding failed institutions, which by no coincidence generated enormous profits for the parasites that fed off them as they were driven into the ground. There are no get out of jail free cards in free market capitalism, but our government is now printing them up by the billions and that should infuriate and enrage every single American.
Think about it, the logical solution here that would make the most sense and help the greatest amount of people would be to pump that money into the poor, out of work, starving families that make up the most basic levels of our economy and society. Pump that money into the basic infrastructure of our lower classes and allow that money to trickle up, which makes much more sense than trickle down economics as it has to trickle up (as trickle down economics is dependent on the actions and interests of the rich, not on the certainty inherent in the trickle up concept). Give a greater amount of people a greater amount of purchasing power and allow the companies that failed to actually fail and assume the debt. By bailing out these irresponsible companies such destructive capitalistic tendencies will only be reinforced. The public has been brainwashed to believe that without investments by the rich and powerful our economy cannot survive ,but this, in fact, is false. The rich used to become poor when they mismanaged their business, as the capitalist market consumed them, but now that the rich have in fact taken to congressionally protecting their own asses, they have in essence altered the rules of capitalism to favor one class, their own, and are now attempting to pocket taxpayer money using pure political rhetoric. Make no mistake, Congress is stealing from us, this bailout is just a facade. But then again, so is this whole “election”!
Voting Republican or Democrat; now that's wasting a vote
Sunday, August 17, 2008
A rounded view of the whole
It's been a little while but I have many good excuses. I married the most beautiful women in the world in July and we are now in the process of buying our first home. I'm deep into my novel and softball is just entering playoffs, but alas, the world still sucks and the system of global-political capitalism has only grown more corrupt.
On August 12th, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 2/3 of U.S. corporations from 1998 to 2005 paid no federal income taxes, despite recording over $2.5 trillion in sales during that time. I also read recently in Playboy that in 1990 72% of large U.S. corporations were audited by the IRS, while in 2007 only 26% of the same class of corporations received a similar treatment. Fannie Mae reported a $2.1 billion loss in 2007 yet CEO Daniel Mudd earned over $13 million in compensation, including roughly $10 million in company stock and option grants. And our government is in a record deficit fighting imperialistic wars driven by a number of lie ridden propagandized hoaxes while our economy continues to falter, while those who have administered this chaotic reality continue to go unpunished. This is class warfare people not international politics or wars of terror, and we are all players in their game, they being predator capitalists.
So what? Why bring this up? Why hem and haw over something the divided masses have no control over? (divided by the individuality and competition this predatory capitalism has brought about). And not that I'm against individuality, the opposite couldn't be truer, it's the self important individuality this twisted system of predatory capitalism has produced, or better said, has allowed the wealthy to facilitate in order to produce a dependent stream of consumers. And while many conceive individuality and freedom within this system, the opposite is in fact true. The free are the ones who do not have to labor for a living, who pay others to labor for them, who possess the fortune to be independently wealthy. Those are the free; the ones who can drive a company into the ground and earn absurd amounts of compensation all the while. Freedom isn't working to pay off material debt, that's indebtedness.
Let me continue further. predatory capitalism exists in the the very real world of the Playstation 2 (PS2). Coltan is a metallic ore used in a myriad of modern technological applications, most notably in the PS2. After processing, coltan is turned in a powder called tantalum which the PS2 uses in it's design. It uses so much of it that with the release of the Playstation 2, world prices of tantalum surged from $49/pound to $275/pound, leaving a wake of untold blood in it's path. You see, colton is plentiful in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where capitalism is completely unregulated. Children work in unsafe conditions amounting equivocally to slave labor, who, were they on a different continent a bit further westward, would be looked upon completely differently. In the words of Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King, "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms." And while Sony now claims that all their current Playstation components are built with Conga free coltan there is simply no way to assure this. Like any other material good there is a black market, and an ore demanding those types of returns will find a way into the marketplace. Colton has actually been named in a United Nations report, cited for inciting the Second Conga War, the world's greatest war since World War II, resulting in roughly 5 1/2 million deaths, which began in 1998. Sony released the PS2 in 1999. And it's not that simple to blame the Conganese.
Colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, it's all the same thing; the use of force/wealth to accrue more wealth which buys greater force. European and French colonialism completely destabilized this region of the world, creating dependence upon a system there was never a need for, while exploiting not only natural resources but human resources as well. How much wealth driving our country today from the confederate south was earned off the blood of this very slave trade years ago? People this is the reality of capitalism and as long as we continue to allow the super elite to accumulated disproportionate fortunes, this cycle of servitude will not only continue unfettered but lead to far greater crimes against humanity. This isn't about preaching doom and gloom, it's about calling awareness to what has become of the global economy and the connection that the American lifestyle has in preserving this unsustainable cycle. There is a connection between the Enron's of the world and the Haliburton's. There is a connection between excessive CEO payoffs and the wars of the Conganese. There is a connection between the IRS laxing on the elite and two-thirds of U.S. corporations avoiding taxation. Though the wealthy won't let it be heard. Why should they? It's they who own the media.
On August 12th, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 2/3 of U.S. corporations from 1998 to 2005 paid no federal income taxes, despite recording over $2.5 trillion in sales during that time. I also read recently in Playboy that in 1990 72% of large U.S. corporations were audited by the IRS, while in 2007 only 26% of the same class of corporations received a similar treatment. Fannie Mae reported a $2.1 billion loss in 2007 yet CEO Daniel Mudd earned over $13 million in compensation, including roughly $10 million in company stock and option grants. And our government is in a record deficit fighting imperialistic wars driven by a number of lie ridden propagandized hoaxes while our economy continues to falter, while those who have administered this chaotic reality continue to go unpunished. This is class warfare people not international politics or wars of terror, and we are all players in their game, they being predator capitalists.
So what? Why bring this up? Why hem and haw over something the divided masses have no control over? (divided by the individuality and competition this predatory capitalism has brought about). And not that I'm against individuality, the opposite couldn't be truer, it's the self important individuality this twisted system of predatory capitalism has produced, or better said, has allowed the wealthy to facilitate in order to produce a dependent stream of consumers. And while many conceive individuality and freedom within this system, the opposite is in fact true. The free are the ones who do not have to labor for a living, who pay others to labor for them, who possess the fortune to be independently wealthy. Those are the free; the ones who can drive a company into the ground and earn absurd amounts of compensation all the while. Freedom isn't working to pay off material debt, that's indebtedness.
Let me continue further. predatory capitalism exists in the the very real world of the Playstation 2 (PS2). Coltan is a metallic ore used in a myriad of modern technological applications, most notably in the PS2. After processing, coltan is turned in a powder called tantalum which the PS2 uses in it's design. It uses so much of it that with the release of the Playstation 2, world prices of tantalum surged from $49/pound to $275/pound, leaving a wake of untold blood in it's path. You see, colton is plentiful in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where capitalism is completely unregulated. Children work in unsafe conditions amounting equivocally to slave labor, who, were they on a different continent a bit further westward, would be looked upon completely differently. In the words of Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King, "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms." And while Sony now claims that all their current Playstation components are built with Conga free coltan there is simply no way to assure this. Like any other material good there is a black market, and an ore demanding those types of returns will find a way into the marketplace. Colton has actually been named in a United Nations report, cited for inciting the Second Conga War, the world's greatest war since World War II, resulting in roughly 5 1/2 million deaths, which began in 1998. Sony released the PS2 in 1999. And it's not that simple to blame the Conganese.
Colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, it's all the same thing; the use of force/wealth to accrue more wealth which buys greater force. European and French colonialism completely destabilized this region of the world, creating dependence upon a system there was never a need for, while exploiting not only natural resources but human resources as well. How much wealth driving our country today from the confederate south was earned off the blood of this very slave trade years ago? People this is the reality of capitalism and as long as we continue to allow the super elite to accumulated disproportionate fortunes, this cycle of servitude will not only continue unfettered but lead to far greater crimes against humanity. This isn't about preaching doom and gloom, it's about calling awareness to what has become of the global economy and the connection that the American lifestyle has in preserving this unsustainable cycle. There is a connection between the Enron's of the world and the Haliburton's. There is a connection between excessive CEO payoffs and the wars of the Conganese. There is a connection between the IRS laxing on the elite and two-thirds of U.S. corporations avoiding taxation. Though the wealthy won't let it be heard. Why should they? It's they who own the media.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tim Donaghy, Capitalism, Politics and the world we know
I see the legitimacy of the NBA unraveling before my eyes amid allegations of gambling and cheating by league referees and top brass, and I think to myself is there no greater microcosm of the deception that our country is ruled by than through the distanced hand of the dollar here at work? Look how much money is at stake in the NBA arena then consider how greater the stakes are in the political arena and you will see this lurid connection for all of its greedy worth. There is no escaping the fact that money has a great controlling force over every aspect of society, that there is no denying these types of special interests, upheld by this unregulated capitalist system empowering the elite to the dominant levels they now encompass, affect everything you and I do on a level that at first is not always perceivable, but is evermore so the foundation of our lives. But for those who haven't heard.
Tim Donaghy is a former NBA ref who pled guilty in 2007 to partaking in a gambling ring that involved fixing numerous games over the course of several seasons. It called the legitimacy of the NBA into doubt but was adamantly denounced by commissioner David Stern as an isolated incident from one bad seed. But come yesterday the whole story changed and everything now I seen different.
Donaghy gave a deposition to his lawyer claiming that the fixing goes far beyond him, that certain players were ordered to be called differently, that the outcomes of a number of games were fixed for rating and revenue purposes, and that referees, get this, received special interest perks from NBA owners and coaches. Look at this quote from this Fox Sports article:
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8231176/Donaghy:-Refs-fixed-playoff-series,-other-games
Tim Donaghy is a former NBA ref who pled guilty in 2007 to partaking in a gambling ring that involved fixing numerous games over the course of several seasons. It called the legitimacy of the NBA into doubt but was adamantly denounced by commissioner David Stern as an isolated incident from one bad seed. But come yesterday the whole story changed and everything now I seen different.
Donaghy gave a deposition to his lawyer claiming that the fixing goes far beyond him, that certain players were ordered to be called differently, that the outcomes of a number of games were fixed for rating and revenue purposes, and that referees, get this, received special interest perks from NBA owners and coaches. Look at this quote from this Fox Sports article:
"The document also described other alleged infractions, including league officials telling referees that they should withhold calling technical fouls on certain star players because doing so hurt ticket sales and television ratings."
"Donaghy also said refs broke league rules by routinely fraternizing with players, coaches and team management and that the resulting inappropriate relationships may have influenced the outcomes of games. He claims one general manager in 2004 made a game-day phone call to referees to encourage them to call more personal fouls against an opponent."
"Donaghy claims referees have accepted autographs, merchandise and meals from team representatives. He said one official used a team's facility to exercise and another played tennis with an NBA coach."
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8231176/Donaghy:-Refs-fixed-playoff-series,-other-games
This country needs to wake up and realize this is not an isolated incident, that in the far greater arena of politics this is our unruly reality. And for those who see Donaghy as nothing more than an opportunist, is what he's saying really that hard to believe? There is too much money at stake for there not to be manipulation and there is some horrible officiating that has occurred over the years that can now be explained. Fixing a game isn't a new phenomenon, dating back ot at least 1919 among notable scandals. The game six everyone is now talking about from 2002 between the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers does fit the profile for what Donaghy describes in his deposition, but my eyes are suspicious of other games now as well as there have been some whoppers over the years, in the NFL included, where you can't help but wonder if there's a higher force at work. The tuck rule anyone? Everyone immediately denounced Jose Canseco as an opportunist and it turns out he's been fairly accurate with most of everything he's said that is now verifiable. The opportunists are the ones with the ability to create their own opportunities: yes the same lurid elite class that is derailing our country. This is what you get with unregulated capitalism once it has evolved to the level it's at, with the wealth only concentrated in a few. It's also known as the final rung of capitalism, as the rich will eventually undermine themselves. That'll be whenever everyone realizes they're being screwed supporting their system, one thats corrupted by profit.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
How do you like your police officers with machine guns?
This past month on the 24th of April, the New York police department began patrolling the New York City transit system armed with 9mm machine guns, rifles and bomb sniffing dogs. This increased "security" is part of a 50% increase in a homeland security grant, but I beg to differ this makes anyone more secure.
First off, machine guns don't mix well with crowded settings, that is if you're actually trying to protect people, and then you're trusting the judgment of the officer. Do you trust the NYPD to act with caution, when time and again the police are cited for brutality? Look not further back than to the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, the 23 year old groom to be, who, upon exiting a strip club was shot dead by three undercover police officers who'd been investigating an underground prostitution ring, claiming they thought that Bell had a gun. Bell was unarmed. The officers unloaded fifty rounds. All three officers involved in the shooting were just found not guilty by the way. These type of acts are condoned.
And this is just one example of police brutality. What we're really experiencing here is the formation of a police state, as our rights have already been eroded. We don't need police officers patrolling the streets with submachine guns. In fact, all this will serve to do is further desensitize the public to such types of "precautionary" enforcement. I mean why not militarize the whole of society? I'm sure we can find potential threats anywhere.
What I'm saying is that we're not that far away from a militarized existence, that were the class structures to break down from, I don't know, the collapse of the dollar, I could see this unaccountable government resorting to militarism. I mean, what would stop it?
What's to stop a submachine gun carrying police officer from misidentifying a potential threat? I know what the true threat is.
First off, machine guns don't mix well with crowded settings, that is if you're actually trying to protect people, and then you're trusting the judgment of the officer. Do you trust the NYPD to act with caution, when time and again the police are cited for brutality? Look not further back than to the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, the 23 year old groom to be, who, upon exiting a strip club was shot dead by three undercover police officers who'd been investigating an underground prostitution ring, claiming they thought that Bell had a gun. Bell was unarmed. The officers unloaded fifty rounds. All three officers involved in the shooting were just found not guilty by the way. These type of acts are condoned.
And this is just one example of police brutality. What we're really experiencing here is the formation of a police state, as our rights have already been eroded. We don't need police officers patrolling the streets with submachine guns. In fact, all this will serve to do is further desensitize the public to such types of "precautionary" enforcement. I mean why not militarize the whole of society? I'm sure we can find potential threats anywhere.
What I'm saying is that we're not that far away from a militarized existence, that were the class structures to break down from, I don't know, the collapse of the dollar, I could see this unaccountable government resorting to militarism. I mean, what would stop it?
What's to stop a submachine gun carrying police officer from misidentifying a potential threat? I know what the true threat is.
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