Short comment on Bushies' speech this morning....
In response to a question about unemployement and the transfer of US jobs overseas.. Bush advised the unemployeed to go get retrained. "community college are doing a great thing"....
So let me see if I understand the advise... My college degree and 15 years of experience and technology training, certifications, etc. should now be declared defunct and I should go to a community college and learn a trade. Let's see: I spent 15 years working my way up from $7/hour to a managerial position at $30/hour and now with retraining I might be able to find a job as Day care worker = $ 5 to $8 per hour , Admin assistant = $ 6 to 12 per hour.....while IT jobs are outsourced to someone in India because it's cheaper....
Great advice !
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Good response from Hal Crowther in Charlotte Creative Loafing
Counter-Intelligence
FBI questionee Marc Schultz was the lucky one
BY HAL CROWTHER
I quote:
""I'd like to assume that everyone who reads this will sympathize with Marc Schultz, and no one with the nameless sneak who turned him in. I sympathize with Schultz especially because I wrote the subversive essay he was reading. It was called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity," and it was about America's amazing gullibility, about the hapless majority that George Bush and Rupert Murdoch find so easy to bully and deceive. A "scathing screed" it may have been -- I hope so -- but far short of a radical manifesto. More disparaging assessments of the president's integrity can be found this week in Harper's and The New York Times. And if the FBI can spare the time to read 25 years of political commentary published under my byline, they'll find me uniquely consistent on the subject of terrorism. I always maintained that terrorists are common murderers, regardless of their causes or their politics, and merit no more respect or glamour than a monster who kills one child at a time. That sets me at sharp odds with such Bush lieutenants as Richard Perle and Admiral Poindexter, supporters and even paymasters of terrorists like the Nicaraguan contras who were perceived to be on "our side."Marc Schultz doesn't even belong to my underground army of loyal readers (my throng holds its annual convention in a high school cafeteria in Wichita). He told me, sheepishly, that he'd never heard of me, though I turn up fairly often in his hometown newspaper. His chief misfortune, besides drinking coffee in close proximity to a head case, was his physical appearance. I saw an earlier draft of his published article, titled "Reading While Bearded."
"Yeah, I'm kind of a lefty-looking guy," he told me. "I'm dark, fairly long black hair, a beard. I'm Jewish. Maybe the sight of a dark, bearded man reading in public is enough in itself to strike fear into the heart of a patriotic citizen."
Most of the victims of the Patriot Act have been Muslims and Arabs. With appearance profiling it's obvious that the next wave of suspects will be Jews, Greeks, Italians and Latinos, and so on until no one's safe unless he looks like a Viking, which takes us back to Aryan Supremacists and Hitler's Master Race. In America. I don't know about you, but members of my family fought in every American war of the last century, and they didn't fight for that weasel's right to finger people who look insufficiently Nordic, or who might read something to the left of The New York Post.
Schultz asked me if I thought it was wise to go public with his grievance, or wiser to shut up and count himself fortunate that he wasn't arrested. I told him what I believe to be true for myself and for anyone the government might lean on: Daylight is the best defense. Injustice flourishes in the dark. There's an imbalance of power in any society, and people who abuse it. Add fear -- the legacy of 9/11 -- and you have a climate where freedoms are fragile. Add secrecy and you have the recipe for despotism, for gulags and Gestapos.
Call me Chicken Little. But Marc Schultz was one of the fortunate suspects. He's middle-class, educated and articulate, connected through his father, a lawyer, to people with influence. The FBI might have picked a better patsy than a stringer for Time magazine. Not so fortunate was a middle-aged man identified only as M., profiled by Elizabeth Amon in the current Harper's. Arrested by the FBI on no charge (a co-worker said he wore a surgical mask "more than necessary"), denied bail, M. spent five months in a New Jersey jail with rats, roaches, and rapists, by his description. He was released still uncharged, $30,000 in debt from the experience, guilty only of being a resident alien and a Pakistani.
The cover headline for Amon's article is "Lost in Ashcroft's Dungeons." Under the abominable Patriot Act, Franz Kafka's The Trial is coming true in America, in comic and tragic versions, just under the mass media radar, just off the front page.
Wounded, we're fast becoming the Saddam Husseins, the Robert Mugabes we pretend to deplore. The Department of Justice reported 1,182 arrests under the Patriot Act; from those prisoners, its inspector general received 1,072 accusations that FBI agents and other department employees had violated their civil liberties, and in many cases physically abused them. ""
Counter-Intelligence
FBI questionee Marc Schultz was the lucky one
BY HAL CROWTHER
I quote:
""I'd like to assume that everyone who reads this will sympathize with Marc Schultz, and no one with the nameless sneak who turned him in. I sympathize with Schultz especially because I wrote the subversive essay he was reading. It was called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity," and it was about America's amazing gullibility, about the hapless majority that George Bush and Rupert Murdoch find so easy to bully and deceive. A "scathing screed" it may have been -- I hope so -- but far short of a radical manifesto. More disparaging assessments of the president's integrity can be found this week in Harper's and The New York Times. And if the FBI can spare the time to read 25 years of political commentary published under my byline, they'll find me uniquely consistent on the subject of terrorism. I always maintained that terrorists are common murderers, regardless of their causes or their politics, and merit no more respect or glamour than a monster who kills one child at a time. That sets me at sharp odds with such Bush lieutenants as Richard Perle and Admiral Poindexter, supporters and even paymasters of terrorists like the Nicaraguan contras who were perceived to be on "our side."Marc Schultz doesn't even belong to my underground army of loyal readers (my throng holds its annual convention in a high school cafeteria in Wichita). He told me, sheepishly, that he'd never heard of me, though I turn up fairly often in his hometown newspaper. His chief misfortune, besides drinking coffee in close proximity to a head case, was his physical appearance. I saw an earlier draft of his published article, titled "Reading While Bearded."
"Yeah, I'm kind of a lefty-looking guy," he told me. "I'm dark, fairly long black hair, a beard. I'm Jewish. Maybe the sight of a dark, bearded man reading in public is enough in itself to strike fear into the heart of a patriotic citizen."
Most of the victims of the Patriot Act have been Muslims and Arabs. With appearance profiling it's obvious that the next wave of suspects will be Jews, Greeks, Italians and Latinos, and so on until no one's safe unless he looks like a Viking, which takes us back to Aryan Supremacists and Hitler's Master Race. In America. I don't know about you, but members of my family fought in every American war of the last century, and they didn't fight for that weasel's right to finger people who look insufficiently Nordic, or who might read something to the left of The New York Post.
Schultz asked me if I thought it was wise to go public with his grievance, or wiser to shut up and count himself fortunate that he wasn't arrested. I told him what I believe to be true for myself and for anyone the government might lean on: Daylight is the best defense. Injustice flourishes in the dark. There's an imbalance of power in any society, and people who abuse it. Add fear -- the legacy of 9/11 -- and you have a climate where freedoms are fragile. Add secrecy and you have the recipe for despotism, for gulags and Gestapos.
Call me Chicken Little. But Marc Schultz was one of the fortunate suspects. He's middle-class, educated and articulate, connected through his father, a lawyer, to people with influence. The FBI might have picked a better patsy than a stringer for Time magazine. Not so fortunate was a middle-aged man identified only as M., profiled by Elizabeth Amon in the current Harper's. Arrested by the FBI on no charge (a co-worker said he wore a surgical mask "more than necessary"), denied bail, M. spent five months in a New Jersey jail with rats, roaches, and rapists, by his description. He was released still uncharged, $30,000 in debt from the experience, guilty only of being a resident alien and a Pakistani.
The cover headline for Amon's article is "Lost in Ashcroft's Dungeons." Under the abominable Patriot Act, Franz Kafka's The Trial is coming true in America, in comic and tragic versions, just under the mass media radar, just off the front page.
Wounded, we're fast becoming the Saddam Husseins, the Robert Mugabes we pretend to deplore. The Department of Justice reported 1,182 arrests under the Patriot Act; from those prisoners, its inspector general received 1,072 accusations that FBI agents and other department employees had violated their civil liberties, and in many cases physically abused them. ""
From NPR:
Apparently, it’s no longer enough to watch what you write. In times such as these, it’s also wise to watch what you read. This week, FBI agents paid a visit to Atlantan Marc Shultz after being tipped off about suspicious behavior. Eventually, Shultz realized his offense –- reading an article called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity" in public. He tells all to NPR's Brooke Gladstone
It would be good copy to have a list of all the "leads" the FBI must now respond to. As a youngster growing up in rural NC, the FBI became good friends with my mother. There was a lady up river from us... crazy as a coot.. who would call them periodically and report Mom for sending telepathic messages to Russia.. This was during the late 50's and early 60's... height of the Cold War. The FBI was requested to stop Mom from sending the messages because they were keeping Essie (not her real name...) from sleeping at night... and causing other sorts of electrical interference. .... I don't know how offen Essie called the FBI, but every so often an agent had to be dispatched to the mountains to do an interview. They'd end up having a lovely cup of coffee with my Mom who was a most gracious, kind lady.
Not quite so funny..... these crazy reports turned up in a file the FBI kept of me during the Nixon years and caused pain..
Apparently, it’s no longer enough to watch what you write. In times such as these, it’s also wise to watch what you read. This week, FBI agents paid a visit to Atlantan Marc Shultz after being tipped off about suspicious behavior. Eventually, Shultz realized his offense –- reading an article called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity" in public. He tells all to NPR's Brooke Gladstone
It would be good copy to have a list of all the "leads" the FBI must now respond to. As a youngster growing up in rural NC, the FBI became good friends with my mother. There was a lady up river from us... crazy as a coot.. who would call them periodically and report Mom for sending telepathic messages to Russia.. This was during the late 50's and early 60's... height of the Cold War. The FBI was requested to stop Mom from sending the messages because they were keeping Essie (not her real name...) from sleeping at night... and causing other sorts of electrical interference. .... I don't know how offen Essie called the FBI, but every so often an agent had to be dispatched to the mountains to do an interview. They'd end up having a lovely cup of coffee with my Mom who was a most gracious, kind lady.
Not quite so funny..... these crazy reports turned up in a file the FBI kept of me during the Nixon years and caused pain..
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Well.... the chance to gamble on death and mayhem won't be sponsored by DARPA this week.. The tempest stirred caused a retraction... but hey... DARPA will have other lovely surprises for us later... stay tuned...
Consumer confidence down today... gee wonder why.... all the unemployed white collar and manufacturing folk that had a GOOD job last year ($50K+) and now have to fight for the $10/hr job are becoming visible. ....
And the risks for all the past investments are becoming uninsurable: " Merrill Lynch & Co., Charles Schwab Corp. and dozens of U.S. brokers that buy extra insurance to protect client assets from bankruptcy are losing the coverage because insurers say it's too risky. " Insurers drop bankruptcy coverage on brokerage assetsBy Jed Horowitz Bloomberg News.....
Consumer confidence down today... gee wonder why.... all the unemployed white collar and manufacturing folk that had a GOOD job last year ($50K+) and now have to fight for the $10/hr job are becoming visible. ....
And the risks for all the past investments are becoming uninsurable: " Merrill Lynch & Co., Charles Schwab Corp. and dozens of U.S. brokers that buy extra insurance to protect client assets from bankruptcy are losing the coverage because insurers say it's too risky. " Insurers drop bankruptcy coverage on brokerage assetsBy Jed Horowitz Bloomberg News.....
The newest from our Pentagon's DARPA that our tax dollars are paying for... thanks to Poindexter... the select few may soon be able to bet on assignations, terrorists activities, etc.... bizarre and gross. (NYTimes)
Link from The new Paul Krugman website on our election here in California: FRANK (WOLAK) THOUGHTS ON THE CALIFORNIA CRISIS
Link from The new Paul Krugman website on our election here in California: FRANK (WOLAK) THOUGHTS ON THE CALIFORNIA CRISIS
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)