The immoral greed of Atlas Shrugged destroys a community

Since this story is still drawing comments, let me add one more:

This relationship between Clearwire and TeleTech was obviously a scam to avoid paying severance pay, among other benefits. They shuffled employees back and forth in a time-line short enough to comply with the WARN Act and at the same time deny severance to those it knew it would terminate.

The excuse by TeleTech is laughable. In less than one month, they reanalyzed their entire operation and decided that they needed to dump the employees. What a lie.

This was planned from the beginning to avoid the costs associated with severance and whatever other benefits the employees would have earned.

Clearwire and TeleTech are two very sleazy operations.

But on a very human level, what do you have to do to yourself to become the official liar (aka spokesperson) for them? What do you have to tell yourself each day that you know you are going to lie your fanny off, and do it all with a straight face? What a degenerate crew.

OK, add more misery to the problems we face in The Great Depression V. 2.0. Three hundred fifteen lives are being destroyed while the people at the top collect their bonuses and expense out their lifestyle.

Thank the author of Atlas Shrugged for providing the rationale that unlimited, immoral greed is good. You are being destroyed by the Top 1% of households who now pull in 24% of all personal income. It is most likely that you are not in that 1%, and to support them is in your own way signing your economic death warrant.

They aren't creating jobs with their tax breaks, they are hoarding cash, investing in metals and other commodities, making bets in the stock market, and otherwise making sure they continue to get a bigger slice of the pie by destroying the Middle Class - that's you.

Just a thought to keep in mind the next time you think these people are like you, and that your best interests and theirs are identical.

They aren't.
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A local look at 315 lives lost to the Great Depression V. 2.0

I've added this article from the local Pensacola News Journal as an example of how the Great Depression V. 2.0 is killing the life out of our economy, and our society.

It's the story of shuffling 315 people between two companies in order to avoid paying any severances. The master company, Clearwire - an entity that gives every impression of being near-bankrupt - and TeleTech, a sub-contractor who agreed to accept the 315 people Clearwire wanted off the payroll.

TeleTech announced it would take them, but in just one month, announced all 315 would be terminated. An obvious scam to get around the federal WARN Act, a toothless bit of feel-good legislation that some sold-out stooge of the ruling elite bragged about at re-election time.

I took this article as an opportunity to note that we are in The Great Depression Version 2.0, and we need to admit it.

See the article for how people are being destroyed in this economic disaster, and take a look at the following commentary to think about why, and what can be done to fix it.

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The Great Depression Version 2.0 - it's time we began to deal with our economic realities admitting the truth about us being in a Depression.

Depressions are long-term events. That's why you hear the foolish talk about this being the upside of the now-ended Great Recession.

But the truth is that if you look at the Great Depression of the '30s, you'll find the same ups and downs. The economy doesn't just hit a certain level and stay there. It varies up and down; what makes it a Depression is that the long-term range of economic activity remains unacceptably low. Recessions are part of the Depression's long-term record.

In our local experience, we see in the Clearwire debacle the reality of the modern internationalism of the economy. The lesson here is simple: No owner is going to pay more for labor than absolutely necessary.

You can't beat the cheap overseas wages.

And if the CEO didn't go for those low-cost jobs, he or she would be unemployed by the Board in short order.

That's the Real World folks.

The real problem with our economy is that people are out of money. They've shut down the credit cards, the homes are being foreclosed, the cars and trucks are being repossessed, and the energy industry is celebrating with the finance industry the cold-blooded looting of our wallets.

When your economy is based on consumerism - 70% of ours is powered by your ability to purchase - then what you better do is figure out how to get money back into our hands.

We can't afford welfare - and we can't afford warfare. We can't shelter the Third World within our borders, and we can't continue to emulate the Roman Empire and bankrupt ourselves with endless wars.

End the "welfare enslavement" of urban America, and end the "foreign aid enslavement" of America's population.

Put the money back into our pockets, and we'll pop right back to prosperity.
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Are you disappointed in your congressman too?

I've spent some time on a news-interview program I host expressing myself about the quality of representation my US House district, FL - 1, covering the western quarter of the Florida panhandle and marked specifically by Pensacola, gets from its incumbent, Jeff Miller (R).

Today, I got an email from a listener and I responded. I'm sharing this not because everything in it is of national importance in and of itself, but rather to express that what we get from Congress is the result of all the individual House districts having incumbents who are . . . disappointing.

You may well be disappointed in your congressman, or some other public figure that impacts your life. Take this exchange as a clarion call to yourself to pen a letter - or email, these days - to express that disappointment. If enough of us do, maybe it will awaken congressional members to understanding why they rate so far down the ladder in America's hierarchy of trust, and confidence.
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In reply to your message:

-----Original message-----
From: "kathy" XXXXX@cox.net
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:29:05 -0500
To: kenneth@kennethelamb.com
Subject: Jeff Miller

> Ken, why do you have such "hard" feelings for him?????

> > > > Cutie Pie>

Kenneth E. Lamb writes:

It is so strange that I answer your email about Jeff today. Just this afternoon, I had a man come into my store and thank me because "you are doing your job" putting Jeff - and a number of other officeholders - in the spotlight for their conduct.

Now about me and my attitude about Jeff Miller (FL Dist 1 - R).

Jeff is a brilliant, articulate, hard-working person. I don't have "hard" feelings about him; I am disappointed in him. And I express that disappointment regularly because new things keep coming up that involve him that further disappoint me in him.

Jeff cut his political teeth at the University of Florida (UF), and did so well he got tapped into Florida Blue Key - you can Google it. It is an honorary for aspiring political types. I attended UF, wrote for the Florida Alligator, and got a number of awards from the university for my work and leadership on behalf of bettering the university. I know Florida Blue Key.

One of its cardinal principles is that you shut up, keep your head down, and do what you are told by those above you.

In the FL House, Jeff excelled. By following the Blue Key model, he rose quickly. That was the right way to move up the ladder. Of course, it also explains why the Florida Legislature is such a mess. I have no qualms with how he played the legislative game; term limits meant that in 4 years he would be one of those with an additional 4 years left before hitting his term limits who would be in charge of the House. He was a whip in first term - that is, sincerely, very impressive.

But now Jeff is in the US House. I know that the adage is that to "get along you go along."

However, that adage fails to incorporate the reality that Jeff will be a member of the US House for as long as he wants to be a member. I believe the House re-election rate for incumbents is about 97%.

Jeff, for the first time in his political life, now has the freedom to do what he wants vis a vis being able to "rock the boat." As I once told his Chief of Staff, "The Bushes need Jeff more than Jeff needs the Bushes."

What that means is that he doesn't have to shut up, keep his head down, and do what he is told.

But regardless of that reality, he does it anyway.

Besides squandering his freedom, and his intellect, I am extremely disappointed in the way he's handled his Armed Forces committee assignment. For example, his public remark when the Walter Reed controversy about conditions there became a national story of disgrace was, "I didn't know anything about it."

Uh, excuse me congressman, it's your job to know about it. Are you so disconnected from your committee assignment that with veterans coming through your district office no one on your staff ever once heard any of them talk about Walter Reed?

Kathy, there is no way on the face of this planet he didn't hear about it. But he shut up, kept his head down, and did what he was told - implicitly told even if not explicitly told.

Well, I consider that to be an absolute crime against those who passed through the hospital - people who put their life on the line for this country - and Jeff moves it down the ladder of his priorities to place it below protecting the then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield, and of course, his BFF, George Bush. That's disgusting, Kathy.

Or take his trips to Iraq. Here we have a situation of national visibility that our service members were under-armored, both in the equipment they used, and in their own body armor. How many stories did you read about families in the US sending Kevlar jackets, and scrap metal to Iraq to try to protect their loved ones?

So where was Jeff? I guess at The Fish House, hanging out with his homies, or lushing it up on the cocktail circuit. While people are dying - and while Jeff has the intelligence to know it - he doesn't say a word. He lets them die because he keeps his mouth shut, his head down, and does what he is told by those he considers to be over him. I really don't see how he faces himself in the mirror - any normal person would be dying of guilt for selling out those service members the way Jeff did.

How much blood is on his hands through his selling his soul to his political ladder-climbing?

If Jeff thinks I'm wrong, and that the members were properly protected - then I'd love to see Jeff spend 30 days in the field with them in Sadr City, or the Sunni Triangle. Let's see what great things he has to say when it's his life on the line.

You may recall when Sec. Rumsfield made his most arrogant, and disgusting remark, essentially along the lines of, "You go to war with the Army you've got."

That from a guy who spent his service time flying jets over NY City, serving a president who went AWOL from his reserve unit, with a VP standing only a heartbeat away from the presidency that believed he "had more important priorities" than ever serving in the military.

Kathy, it's pretty easy to not worry about combat deaths if you've never been in the thick of them.

But Jeff - all he did was quack the same old Bush support - and I find that immoral. It's not political - it's life and death. It's not GOP or Democrat - it's life or death. It's not conservative or liberal - it's life or death. And Jeff let death win - because he shut up, kept his head down, and did what he was told.

Finally, I have a real problem with someone whose family is getting corporate welfare - in his case, farm subsidies. Jeff voted against helping the elderly pay for their prescriptions, and against raising the minimum wage. Both were programs that involved earned money.

But when it comes to his family, well, he has no problem with getting "money for nothing." Welfare, Kathy, is welfare. And hypocrisy is hypocrisy.

I could go on, but my point is ultimately that I don't have any "hard feelings" for Jeff - I have extreme disappointment. I am vocalizing that disappointment in what has proven so far to be a vain attempt to get through to him: "Jeff, you can be yourself now - the only people that matter will send you to Congress forever - so why don't you live up to your potential?!"

Allow me to share one other point: I've been following the congressman in the New York Times and the Washington Post - well, actually, I've been waiting to see him quoted in a significant manner on some national issue.

So when does Jeff finally end up at the top of the story? When he was quoted coming out of Washington's Mayflower Hotel following a Fred Thompson rally. Great - he sure knows how to pick them.

And speaking of his support for Fred, did you know his local district office actively participated in arranging a campaign appearance for the former senator on a visit to Pensacola? Did you know that is highly illegal? And did you know it is so illegal everyone knows it's illegal? And did you also know that no one in a position to do so said a word about it?

Yes, Kathy, this area is corrupt.

I want to add this last item in answer to your question:

I was first introduced to Jeff by the former Escambia County attorney, David Tucker, when Jeff was getting ready to run for the FL House. He was "Jeff who?" running against an incumbent.

Rule One: Never bet against an unindicted incumbent's re-election. So putting my name with his was the height of political folly.

But I was so impressed with him that when I was invited to attend Jeff's campaign kick-off rally at the Santa Rosa Community Center in Pace, I jumped when asked to give the rally's "make the crowd come alive" speech immediately before he gave his speech.

I did it because I truly believed he would be different. I truly believed he would throw off the yoke of politics as usual and actually make a difference.

I am so very, very, disappointed . . . that I was so very, very, wrong.
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How long until the bloodbath?

I found this on the Washington Times site today. The headline question above that it inspires should be a "must answer" question for the presidential candidates, and every member of Congress:

Border patrol agent held at gunpoint
Officers fear Mexican military encounters will turn violent
Jerry Seper * Wednesday, August 6, 2008

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

"Unfortunately, this sort of behavior by Mexican military personnel has been going on for years," union Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said on its Web page.

"They are never held accountable, and the United States government will undoubtedly brush this off as another case of 'Oh well, they didn't know they were in the United States.'

"It is fortunate that this incident didn't end in a very ugly gunfight," said the local's posting.

The NBPC represents all nonsupervisory personnel among the agency's 16,000 agents.
Border Patrol spokesman Michael Friel did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson said Tuesday that the department had no information on the incident, and referred further questions to the Border Patrol. "It is not an incident that we are aware of," she said.

Ricardo Alday, spokesman at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday that Mexico and the United States are engaged in "an all-out struggle to deter criminal organizations from operating on both sides of our common border."

"Law enforcement operations have led, from time to time, to innocent incursions by both U.S. and Mexican law enforcement personnel and military units into the territory of both nations, and in particular along non-demarcated areas of our border," he said.

"We always try to solve these incidents in a cooperative fashion, and as acknowledged by the Border Patrol, this was the case in the episode at Ajo," he said.

Since 1996, there have been more than 200 confirmed incursions by the Mexican military into the United States.

Local 2544, the largest in the NBPC, is headed by veteran Border Patrol agent Edward "Bud" Tuffly II. He noted on the Web page that the local's leadership would "withhold further comment on this incident until we see how our leaders handle it."

"We don't have much confidence in most of them," the local's posting said.
Sunday night's incident bears similarities to other incursions by armed men in Mexican military gear in recent years:

* The incident occurred in the same area where heavily armed Mexican soldiers riding in a Humvee shot at a Border Patrol agent in 2002. A .50-caliber bullet ripped through the agent's rear window as he sped away.
Mexican officials denied at the time that the shooters were Mexican soldiers, saying they were criminals using military uniforms. It is a position they steadfastly have maintained.

But the agent who reported encountering the gunfire was certain he saw soldiers, said Mr. Tuffly. He said at the time that the agent was able to identify their attire "down to a T, and it matched exactly what they [Mexican soldiers] wear."

That purported incursion began after a Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation police ranger reported being chased by men in a Humvee.

* A year ago, U.S. law enforcement authorities were confronted by gunfire from automatic weapons as they chased and caught a drug-smuggling suspect in Texas trying to flee back into Mexico, the Hudspeth County (Texas) Sheriff's Office said.

No one was hurt in that incident, and the gunmen were not identified, although the area has been the scene of similar incidents over several months, including a confrontation in January 2007, when heavily armed men in Mexican military uniforms fired on Texas officers with a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a camouflaged Humvee.

The men were identified at the time by Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West as "soldiers."

In that incident, Hudspeth County deputies pursued three sport utility vehicles back to Mexico after spotting them driving north from the Rio Grande. The pursuit ended on the U.S. side of the border when the deputies encountered 10 heavily armed men in what they described as battle-dress uniforms.

At that time, deputies found 1,400 pounds of marijuana in one of the vehicles abandoned after it blew a tire early in the pursuit. Another made it into Mexico and a third got stuck in the Rio Grande and was burned by the "soldiers" after it was unloaded.

* In November 2007, the Border Patrol chased a dump truck full of marijuana in the same area when it also got stuck in the river while trying to return to Mexico. While agents sought to unload 3 tons of marijuana, the driver - who had fled - returned with a heavily armed group of men wearing Mexican military uniforms and carrying military-style weapons.

The soldiers backed the agents away and bulldozed the truck back into Mexico.

"Nothing was ever done," Local 2544 said. "Nobody was ever held accountable. Particularly galling is the fact that the Mexican military often pulls these stunts in Humvees donated to them by the American taxpayers. We note that Border Patrol agents have historically driven worn-out, junk vehicles."

A coalition of Texas border sheriffs has demanded that the U.S. and Mexican governments investigate incursions into the United States by heavily armed drug escorts dressed in Mexican military uniforms "before someone gets killed."

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. of Zapata County, Texas, who founded the coalition, said a growing number of suspected incursions and violence aimed at the area's law enforcement officers is making the border "a pretty dangerous place."

Sheriff Gonzalez said three of his deputies in 2006 spotted 25 men dressed in military uniforms in the U.S. during a late-night patrol. He said the men marched two abreast and carried duffel bags and automatic weapons, and that his "outmanned and outgunned deputies" were forced to retreat.

"The only thing you can do in that kind of situation is seek cover," Sheriff Gonzalez said. "I'm not going to lose someone in an unfair fight."

The State Department on Tuesday also confirmed a separate case in which two California police officers were arrested at the border Friday on charges of attempting to smuggle guns, ammunition and training materials into Mexico.

A Mexican court is expected to decide Wednesday whether the two Monterey County officers will remain in jail or be released on bail.

The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana said Mexico holds the largest population of U.S. prisoners outside the United States.

* David R. Sands contributed to this report.
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It should be obvious that our Border Patrol agents are being sold down the river (the Rio Grande in this case) by our government. How long do you expect it to take for them to be completely demoralized and just quit putting their life on the line for a government that isn't going to back them?

Ask your congress member. In person. At a public function.

When the member weasels, tell the member that he or she is weaseling, and that being a weasel is unsatisfactory.

Then ask, "When are you going to quit being a weasel?"
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