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Former Arkansas Democratic Senate Staffers Lobbying Against Employee Free Choice For Wal-Mart
It’s been no secret that targets numbers one and two for Wal-Mart in the EFCA lobbying battle have been Arkansas’ Democratic Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. Disclosure laws make it difficult to determine the exact ways that Wal-Mart lobbyists have courted the Senators, but it’s safe to say that the pressure levied on the two has been intense.
Now it’s clear that Wal-Mart has taken a shrewd new path: hiring former staffers (pictured at right) to try and convince their old bosses and co-workers to vote for Wal-Mart, and against workers.
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that one of Blanche Lincoln’s former staffers has been hired by Wal-Mart to lobby against EFCA:
In Arkansas, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is bitterly opposed to the bill, has hired a Democratic lobbyist—and former staffer of Sen. Blanche Lincoln—to help defeat the bill.
The staffer in question is Kelly Bingel, who worked for years in Blanche Lincoln’s office as a Legislative Director and then Chief Of Staff. Several years ago, she was hired by the lobbying firm Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, Inc., who now have her working for Wal-Mart against Employee Free Choice. (It’s probably pretty intimidating when your old boss shows up to tell you you better vote with Wal-Mart, no?). A snapshot of the lobbying filing is here.
Our research shows a staffer for Mark Pryor has gone down the same regrettable path. Longtime Pryor staffer Walter Pryor (no relation) has been hired by the Podesta Group to lobby for...wait for it....Wal-Mart on EFCA.
A snapshot of Pryor’s lobbying filing is here. This one is doubly bizarre - because he listed on the filings as an aide for Senator Pryor. Likely that’s a mistake - because legislative aides are most certainly not allowed to lobby.
We’ll keep you updated as more information rolls in. In the meantime, it’s up to all of us to convince Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor to vote with workers, not Wal-Mart - even if it means saying no to old friends.
Posted by Eric Bull on Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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COMMENTS
What this lady says is true. I know people who have to work 3 jobs to support their families and they are full time employees at Wal-Mart. They can’t go to a school event for their children because Wal-Mart will not schedule them off or let them work a different shift. I personally have seen all the business fold up after Wal-Mart comes to town. I ‘m not even going talk about the factories or workers in China. I will say I am embarrassed to live in a country where this company reigns and the owners are so castores.
Susan Anderson in
Wednesday, March 18 at 09:40 PM
New Mexico Bans Death Penalty
DEBORAH BAKER | March 18, 2009 10:08 PM EST AP
Excerpted-
“Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe,” Richardson told a news conference in the state Capitol.
With Richardson signing the measure, New Mexico joins 14 other states that do not impose capital punishment. New Jersey, in 2007, was the first and only other state to outlaw capital punishment since its reinstatement by the Supreme Court.
===========
WalMart- New Mexico can go screw themselves. We are going to kill people anyway over ‘suspected’ petty theft.
SanDiegoView in WalMart is American economic suicide
Wednesday, March 18 at 09:59 PM
Are you cracy? Do you know what card check really means to you? Who do you think are going to pay for these unions? Right now in Arkansas, Walmart is the only store that people can at least shop at and find affordable items. Get a union and forget it. Look at the price of a car. Why do you suppose they cost so much? Unions. The average factory rat ( I am from Detroit and know many factory workers) earns over 78.00 an hour. And you wonder at the price of cars? I used to be a big union supporter, but now I care about prices. Believe, we will suffer the cost of the unions. You do not expect Walmart to swallow the union price tag, do you?
Pamela Miracle in Hot Springs, AR
Thursday, March 19 at 02:54 PM
Pamela Miracle
I would love to see where you and others on this site have come up with that dollar amount for the average union auto workers hourly wage. I would like to see some links to where that 78.00 an hour comes from when the hourly wage of the average line worker is around 28.00 per hour. Now I’m quite sure that the auto companies are NOT paying an additional 50.00 an hour toward the benefits for their employees in the form of paid insurance, and retirement. So perhaps you will enlighten me.
As for the price of cars, if Nissan, Toyota, and Mercedes Benz, are building their cars in the U.S. and they are NOT unionized. Why are their cars as expensive, or, as in many cases, much more expensive than those of the big three? I mean if their hourly labor cost is so much less, then shouldn’t the retail price reflect that? Hummmmmm.
Big D in
Thursday, March 19 at 06:22 PM
Big D;
[As for the price of cars, if Nissan, Toyota, and Mercedes Benz, are building their cars in the U.S. and they are NOT unionized. Why are their cars as expensive, or, as in many cases, much more expensive than those of the big three?]
DUH, maybe because they are of higher quality and have more features, standard. It’s about the same, as why is a Lincoln more expensive than a Mercury, when they are basically the same car except for accessories.
[the hourly wage of the average line worker is around 28.00 per hour.]
If that’s true, how come recently, the UAW lowered the new hire ‘starting rate’ from $28.00 an hour to $14.00 an hour? Does the average line worker only get paid the starting rate?
I was watching C-Span awhile back and it was noted that the average at the U.S auto companies was $73.00 an hour, for wages and benefits combined, including retirement entitlements.
Charles in Brighton, Tn.
Thursday, March 19 at 10:14 PM
Charles in Brighton, Tn.
Ahhhhh, so now I get it. You’re saying that if I (for instances) were a union auto worker and benefits are being paid to a retiree, that those benefits for said retiree should be counted as my hourly wage? Why that’s quite creative of you.
That 73.00 per hour of wages that you use, simply put, is bloated and exaggerated. It is used by those that are anti union to try to gain traction for their anti union agenda. The truth is that the hourly wage with benefits is around 52.00 per hour and that’s the capped out salary for a line worker.
As far as the price of the cars, if you compare the vehicles comparably equipped you won’t find more than a few hundred dollars difference between most, if you compare apples to apples. As far as the quality of the vehicles, I would have to agree that the engineering is better in most of the cars that I listed. But the material cost is very similar between those makes, so with that, their should be a huge difference in price and the foreign competitors should be much cheaper, but they are not!
So Chuck, which one of those foreign auto makers do you work for?
Big D in
Thursday, March 19 at 11:12 PM
Big D: I posted some info on GMAC downthread.
Maybe the bloat is due to foreign investments?
Check out the thread about Christopher Gay [with the photo of overturned W/M truck].
ddrb in
Friday, March 20 at 01:07 AM
Lets see. I am from Detroit. My brother works for Fords, my husband worked for Fords Wayne Assembly, mother-in-law worked at Fords, plant, my other brother-in-lalw worked for the Hamtramick plant, This brother-in-law just retired from the Glass house in Dearborn,(by the way he gets $5000.00 a month plus his seperation pay) and I have dated guys from G.M. Diesal. They average 58.00 on the check, plus shift bonus, and different bonuses depending on the job. Do you know what they do for that money? I do. Sometimes they work 8 hours a day, unless the line goes down, which sometimes they cause if they decide they want the day off. Thye get a break in the morning, lunch ( which we used spend in the parking lot drinking beer) break in the afternoon (which breaks are fine everyone is entitled), and they have a floater. He takes over when you have something to do that did not get done on your break. My boyfriend called me 5 and 6 times a day. And if they do not like something, or doesn’t feel it is their “job”, just call the union rep (on site) and complain. Go visit a factory sometime, it will open your eyes. Plus their new union deal Cuts their salary to $55.00 an hour. More inline with their job.
Pamela Miracle in Hot Springs
Friday, March 20 at 09:15 AM
Come off it Pam!
That 55.00 or 58.00 per hour is NOT on the check! That number is the grand total for;
1) Wages
2) Insurance
3) Pension
4) Annuity
(Now here is the one that you have also counted as “hourly wage” and is akin to counting my fathers and neighbors social security as part of my hourly wage)
5) Legacy
That is what is called the “total package”
All of these added together equal that 55.00 or 58.00 per hour of what you call their “hourly wage” this falls WAY short of that 78.00 per hour that you spoke of.
I called my uncle who retired this last year as the shop steward for Chrysler (after 35 years with the company). I asked him about that 78.00 per hour wage, I thought that he would die, he laughed so hard. He gave me a number that he earned as the steward and that is 32.00 per hour ON THE CHECK. I also should mention that he drew 4.00 per hr. over scale as steward.
Why don’t you do the math..........here I’ll do it for you
78.00 X 40 = $3,120 per wk. X 52 = $162,240.00 per year.
Big D in
Friday, March 20 at 02:52 PM
Big D, I will admit I do really not know anything about Chrysler. All my family and friends worked for Ford and GM. The 78.00 is with insurance, and benefits. Ask your uncle how Fords just signed a union pact to take the wage DOWN to 55. 00 an hour if they only make 32.00 an hour. You do the math. No, they do not bring home $162, 240.00 a year. My family make about $92.000/ a year. I just talked to my sis whose husband just retired from Fords, as I stated, and she thought he owned the company when they met because he never worked. She said he went to work, checked out, they went to the show, or shopping , then he checked in and checked out again and left. He is the one making $5000.00 a month. She said they lived on BONUSES. And isn’t shop steward a union job? Not part of the factory workers? I remember the shop stewards now. They are Union to the hilt. Whatever. All I know is what I have learned from experience. My best friend who went 30 and out from Fords also bought my house in Taylor Mich, (where a lot of factory workers were, we called it Taylortucky, cause when the mines went bust in ILL. and Kentucky during the 60’s recession, everyone moved to Mich for factory jobs), and at that time they were making 25.00 an hour because we always argued if they were worth it. You know that old saying,"Never buy an American made auto built on Monday or Friday? On Monday they are hungover from the weekend, and on Friday all they can think about is getting hungover. I guess I am just making all this up. If you do not believe just google: Auto makers saleries. Then read the latest news from Fords where they are lowering their saleries to $55.00 an hour. Besides, you actually have to have lived in that environment, know them, talked with them, Dated them, married one of them to really get the inside story. But think what ever you want. the real question is if we can afford unionization? In Hot Springs we have 2 Walmarts. No Target,, no K mart, no other inexpensive store. If Walmarts goes union they will pass their expenses on to the public. We can not afford that. And what happened to a Secret ballot? Whats next? A show of hands for the next Presidential election? Where does it stop? Do some research. No to card check.
Pam Miracle in Hot Springs, AR
Friday, March 20 at 04:47 PM
Pam
I see the writing on the wall.
So how long have you worked for Wally World?
Big D in
Friday, March 20 at 06:51 PM
Pam
That 55.00 per hour that you tote as “ON THE CHECK” is a lie. I just don’t know any better way of putting it.
It’s just as I have been saying that 55.00 that you use to make your point in fact the total package. That’s.....now follow me here;
HOURLY WAGE + INSURANCE + PENSION + ANNUITY = $55.00 per hour before overtime or bonus.
It doesn’t mean that they get paid $2,080.00 before taxes
And BTW that comes to $108,160.00 not the $92,000.00 that you pulled out of your A$$
I think that one of your heroes RDS said (I’m paraphrasing) Once you are caught in a LIE you lose all credibility.
Try this one on for size......
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/12/middle-class-uaw-how-about-upper-class.html
Big D in
Friday, March 20 at 08:10 PM
Yes! You have to, have worked at WAL-MART Store #2615 in Valdosta, Georgia to OVERSTAND the sick working environment employees must face each and every day--without any real voice.
It is my belief. That every worker at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., should have an equal chance to advance up the ladder on an equal footing, which is not presently being done in many departments according to workers.
Today it was brought to my attention that workers are still being coached, and given a D-Days without merit in order to justify terminations.
Moreover, if you become sick and use your sick time you may not have a job when you return. (Workers name withheld, but available).
Wal-Mart Managers must understand that workers are adults, American Citizens, and should be treated with respect. It is Un-American to treat WORKERS as if they were in China or in some other third world nation.
Moreover as a Retired United States Armed Forces Military Veteran of the Vietnam Era. I received training in people skills, supervisory, leadership and management. And I am very much capable of recognizing a disgraceful working environment when I see one, and Wal-Mart Store #2615 is definitely such an environment.
In addition, workers cannot speak up for themselves because they are fearful of terminations----as so many other outstanding workers.
Why do I use the term workers instead of associates? Because Wal-Mart WORKERS are NOT presently being treated as ASSOCIATES, as defined in Webster’s Dictionary.
Even more sickening is why CUSTOMERS, and former WORKERS continue supporting the ill treatment of American Workers in the State of Georgia in the 21st Century at Wal-Mart Store #2615.
It seems that Wal-Mart Store #2615 and the State of Georgia EMPLOYEES need a union ASAP. And as a person of conscious, my heart grieves when Wal-Mart WORKERS consistently tell me about Wal-Mart’s “OPEN DOOR POLICY.”
This is a door that LOOKS like, TASTE like, FEELS like, SOUNDS like, SMELLS like the real thing, (An OPEN DOOR). But when workers try walking through this open door. They find themselves getting UP, off the floor after running into---invisible Plexiglas. Then out the door they go. How Sad?
But then again who cares? Surely, not Georgia Elected Officials who seem to have sold Georgia Workers down the drain, under Georgia’s unfair “At Will Employment Law.”
A law wherein workers can be fired “for cause, or for no cause at all,” and employers are NOT even required to inform workers why they were fired.
This law also applies to returning United States Military Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan War. Yet Georgia politicians continue to tell the American Citizens, that they support our troops. How sad?
It is up to the VOTERS to remove politicians from office, that keep Georgia’s sick “At Will Employment Law” alive in our nation, and in the State of Georgia.
So please spread the word by writing letters, e-mails, and inform all Americans to educate themselves concerning the “At Will Employment Law.”
Together we stand-----and divided they win, again, and again, and again! G.B.R.
Also: Google: George boston rhynes and Wal-mart Store #2615
No workers rights in Georgia and Workers need help! Please help the workers.....
George Boston Rhynes in Valdosta, Georgia 31605
Friday, March 20 at 08:50 PM
Pam-
$30/hr for 48/hr week. (Six days 8 hours)
30*40=1200
45*8=360
1560wk*52weeks=81120
for a 50 hour week
30*40=1200
45*10= 450
1650*52=85800
add bounuses on to that and you are at your 92,000 figure
The figure will grow if they work any Sunday as that would be double time.
How many shutdowns did they work and for how many hours? Were they 12 or 14 hour shifts for 2-3 weeks.
84-96 hours a week for 2-3 weeks is a gold mine. I know when us electricians go on the shutdowns those are the hours we get. If it is a night shift is it a 17% premium like we get. I am sure it is as good if not better.
Lets do the math
$30*40=$1200
$45*28=$1260
$60*16=$ 960
total for working 7 12 hour days is 3420 good weeks work.
8 hours/day M-F straight time, 4 hour/day M-F time and a half, 8hours Sat at time and a half and 4 hours at double time, 12 hours double time on Sunday.
Now lets assume they get a 17% premium for shift work that is an extra $581.4 for a grand total of $4001.40 not bad for one weeks work. That is what an electrician would make for that week under my contract, I am guessing the UAW’s is just as good.
“ And isn’t shop steward a union job? “
ANY job is a union job. The shop steward is the laison between the workers, management, and union. They are paid employees of the company whose job is to take care of the problems. The union designates who this person is, it is his job to make sure the contract is enforced. Employees of the union work in the hall, not on the job sites. Think of the steward as the HR department.
Wal-Mart start paying your way! in Baraboo, WI
Friday, March 20 at 09:40 PM
STOP THE PRESSES! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOO HOO- FINALLY the TRUTH about EFCA-that it does not eliminate the secret ballot-was published in the WSJ today on its editorial page.
The anti-union mantra perpetuated for over a year now about EFCA ,both in print and by spinmeisters to the public .
NO WONDER ITS BEEN QUIET AROUND HERE TODAY.
What explanation can possibly be given now for the willful distortion of the truth about EFCA ?
ddrb in
Friday, March 20 at 10:39 PM
ddrb in
I was just as surprised as you when I heard the news on the Rachael Maddow show this eve. You could have knocked me over with a feather! This news rivals that of Greenspans news that his BS theory was just that, BS!
I noticed Mary’s absence from this forum, did she make a disappearance about the same time as the truth coming out about the FREE MARKET lie! She is probably trying to get used to the taste of CROW before she makes a reemergence after such an embarrassing realization that she had been so openly and loudly admiring the emperors clothes (or should I say lack there of) lol.
I wonder if the anti-EFCA crowd is going to fallow suite.
Big D in
Friday, March 20 at 11:46 PM
George Boston Rhynes,
“under Georgia’s unfair “At Will Employment Law.”.....A law wherein workers can be fired “for cause, or for no cause at all,” and employers are NOT even required to inform workers why they were fired.”
You talk about ‘equal footing’, yet support an idea that is NOT equal!! Equal, would mean that a company has the SAME rights as an employee, right? Well, can an employee QUIT “for cause, or for no cause at all”? And, are employees required to inform the company why they are quitting? If an employee is ‘fired’, it causes hardship to the employee, right? Well, when an employee quits without notice, it causes hardship to the employer and other employees!! Besides, no company ‘fires’ people without SOME reason!! The employee might like the reason, but, the company DOES have a reason!!
RDS in
Saturday, March 21 at 02:09 AM
Correction:
“The employee might like the reason,”
That should have read: The employee might NOT like the reason,!!
RDS in
Saturday, March 21 at 02:15 AM
George Boston Rhynes
The “at will employment law” is one of best union busting tools that the anti-labor movement has in there arsenal. Until you get a strong pro-labor democratic state government that will push through legislation to over turn this unfair and unjust law, the workers of Ga. are basically screwed.
I can’t even imagine how a union would get started in that type of atmosphere. I mean as soon as the companies caught wind of any union activity everyone that is suspect would be summarily dismissed. I feel for your plight brother. Good luck, the people in your state need it.
Big D in
Saturday, March 21 at 05:50 AM
George B.Rhynes:
Just a suggestion,but if you aren’t familiar with ARAW,you should be,imho.
An absolute treasure trove of current info on the anti-union networks, the politicos and PR groups who LUV them!
Check them out,ASAP:
American Rights at Work - Home American Rights at Work is a nonprofit advocacy organization whose mission is to support workers’ rights to a free choice and a fair chance to join a union.
www.americanrightsatwork.org/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages
Employee Free Choice Act
Contact Us
Our Staff
About Us Employment
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Anti-Union Network
Quick Facts
More results from americanrightsatwork.org »
American Rights at Work - Employee Free Choice Act American Rights at Work is a nonprofit advocacy organization whose mission is to support workers’ rights to a free choice and a fair chance to join a union. ...
www.americanrightsatwork.org/employee-free-choice-act/ - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
American Rights at Work - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dec 5, 2008 ... American Rights at Work (ARAW) is a U.S. self-described nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocates for workers and their right to ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Rights_at_Work - 24k - Cached - Similar pages
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 11:35 AM
Big D: “ I was just as surprised as you when I heard the news on the Rachael Maddow show this eve. You could have knocked me over with a feather! This news rivals that of Greenspans news that his BS theory was just that, BS! “
Note: And, isn’t it pretty interesting that it was in a FRIDAY edition-don’t they all reserve FRIDAY as a hobbit hole,so it won’t get much play over the weekend?
Did you also notice that the Greenspan comment got next to little or NO play in the main stream media,at all.
But you can hear crickets chirping now,its so quiet on both the Free Marketeer front,AND the Rick Berman,loud mouth anti-union posse that’s been spinning distortions about EFCA.
Just an observation, but isn’t it the height of hypocrisy that all the Free Marketeers who hated government so much ,couldn’t run fast enough TO that very government when they lost their asses IN their beloved “Casino Capitalism” Free Market?
There now, those crumpled up tax payer dollars ,courtesy of those underpaid American wage slaves, don’t look so unattractive,now, after all,do they? [Snark]
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 11:47 AM
Big D,
“This news rivals that of Greenspans news that his BS theory was just that, BS!”
Quit ‘spinning’, Greenspan DIDN’T say his theory was BS, he said that it had a FLAW that he hadn’t seen before!! Any thing and any system can have FLAWS that aren’t noticed, until they appear!! And, FLAWS are not usually a problem, until someone does something to expose the flaw, for example, a window has the flaw of being able to be broken when something hits it hard, but, unless something hits it hard, it will function as intended!!
RDS in
Saturday, March 21 at 12:07 PM
RDS (Bob)
Do yourself a favor and take your own advice and stop hitting yourself in the head so hard and often, your brain hasn’t worked right in years.
Face it Bob the whole theory was BULL SHIT! How dumb does one have to be to think that by deregulating Wall Street and allowing the crooks to police themselves could end up any differently? Greed allowed to go unchecked will always give you what we got, or worse. No matter how you try to spin it, the fact is, the “free market theory” was and is a load of BULL SHIT! All it did was give a pack of egg sucking mongrels the keys to the hen house, while you (Bob) and Mary defended them while they robbed us blind.
Big D in
Saturday, March 21 at 01:21 PM
Those with a social conscience will appreciate this item, the pro-WalMart dead heads won’t possibly understand it-
Shoshana Zuboff March 20, 2009, 12:01AM EST
Wall Street’s Economic Crimes Against Humanity
By refusing to consider the consequences of their actions, those who created the financial crisis exemplify the banality of evil, writes Shoshana Zuboff
By Shoshana Zuboff
The financiers at AIG were awarded millions in bonuses because their contracts were based on the transactions they completed, not the consequences of those transactions. A 32-year-old mortgage broker told me: “I figured my job was to get the transaction done…Whatever came after the transaction—that was on him, not me.” A long list of business executives have reaped sumptuous rewards even though they fractured the world’s economy, destroyed trillions of dollars in value, and disfigured millions of lives.
Most experts now blame a lack of regulation and oversight for this madness. Or they point to misguided incentive programs associated with the push for shareholder value that tied executive rewards to a firm’s share price. These factors are surely important, but they ignore the terrifying human breakdown at the heart of this crisis.
Each day’s economic news leaves me haunted by Hannah Arendt’s ruminations on Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann as she reported on his trial in Jerusalem for The New Yorker 45 years ago. Arendt pondered “the strange interdependence of thoughtlessness and evil” and sought to capture it with her famous formulation “the banality of evil.” Arendt found Eichmann neither “perverted nor sadistic,” but “terribly and terrifyingly normal.”
Remoteness from Reality
He was a new type of criminal, a participant in “administrative massacre” who committed his crimes “under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.” Eichmann had no motives other than what Arendt described as “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement…he never realized what he was doing.That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together,” she concluded, “…was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem.”
The economic crisis is not the Holocaust but, I would argue, it derives from a business model that routinely produced a similar kind of remoteness and thoughtlessness, compounded by a widespread abrogation of individual moral judgment. As we learn more about the behavior within our financial institutions, we see that just about everyone accepted a reckless system that rewards transactions but rejects responsibility for the consequences of those transactions. Bankers, brokers, and financial specialists were all willing participants in a self-centered business model that celebrates what’s good for organization insiders while dehumanizing and distancing everyone else—the outsiders.
This institutionalized narcissism and contempt for the “other” found its ultimate expression in the subprime mortgage industry, and the investment business derived from those mortgages. In far too many cases, the obvious risks to borrowers and investors were simply regarded as externalities for which no one would be held accountable. If there was a family forced to relinquish its home or a retiree exposed to unfathomable risks in her pension, these human beings had not been imagined. Their suffering was invisible to those on the inside: it was so remote that for all practical purposes it did not exist.
No Feelings of Empathy
As in war, that emotional distance made it easier to operate in one’s own narrow interests, without the usual feelings of empathy that alert us to the pain of others and define us as human. The narcissistic business model provided the modern day “circumstances” that enabled individuals to ignore the poisonous consequences of their choices. This paved the way for a full-scale administrative economic massacre.
continued-
SanDiegoView in WalMart is American economic suicide
Saturday, March 21 at 05:36 PM
Despite Arendt’s deep understanding of the Nazi system to which Eichmann conformed, she insisted that the central moral issue—not only of the trial but of all time—came down to the nature and function of individual human judgment. “What we have demanded in these trials, where the defendants had committed ‘legal’ crimes, is that human beings be capable of telling right from wrong even when all they have to guide them is their own judgment, which, moreover, happens to be completely at odds with what they must regard as the unanimous opinion of all those around them.”
Eichmann’s trial sent a message to the world that individuals must be held accountable for their judgment, even when they have “thoughtlessly” conformed to toxic institutional circumstances. This message is not restricted to the unspeakable horrors of mass murder. It is relevant to the relationship between individual judgment and institutional processes in any situation. It’s a message that says: you can’t just blame the system for the bad things you’ve done. Yet to the world’s dismay, thousands of men and women entrusted with our economic well being systematically failed to meet this minimum standard of civilized behavior. They did not capably discern right and wrong. They either did not judge, or they did not act on their judgment. This failure defines the raw heart of the public’s outrage at each fresh disclosure of outlandish bonuses. It is less a thirst for revenge than it is a rebellion against this banal evil.
The public’s indignation reflects a sense of morality that points deeper and truer than the laws devised to protect self serving business practices. The call now is to take back our community, to return to a place where people are capable of telling right from wrong because they recognize themselves in one another. The public demands—no, commands—that our leaders reassert their capacity, their duty, to judge what is right, even if that means standing up to lawsuits and angry bankers.
Vacuum of Moral Leadership
Edward Liddy, the Paulson-appointed chairman of AIG, initially recommended that the bonuses given to its employees go forward, though he found it “distasteful and difficult.” Mr. Liddy missed what could have been the shining moment of his career by failing to insist from the start on what he thought to be right, despite “the unanimous opinion of all those around him.” Neither Mr. Liddy nor anyone in the Obama Administration has demonstrated that kind of moral leadership, as they now scramble to respond to the public’s demand that AIG employees return their bonuses.
By now the existential security of millions of people has been threatened or destroyed. No one is safe from the waves of value destruction set into motion by the banal evil of this self-centered business model and the unquestioning participants who failed to assert their own moral judgment. The urgent lesson for capitalism’s heirs redounds through every headline: There is no “other”; there is only us. The damage that was supposed to be “theirs” is now shared misery on a global scale.
Since the days of Eichmann in Jerusalem, our understanding of human rights has evolved to include economic, social, and cultural rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N. includes “the promotion of social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has called the business community to account, stating that “transnational corporations and other business enterprises, as organs of society, are also responsible for promoting and securing the human rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
The economic crisis has demonstrated that the banality of evil concealed within a widely accepted business model can put the entire world and its peoples at risk. Shouldn’t those businesses be held accountable to agreed international standards of rights, obligations, and conduct? Shouldn’t the individuals whose actions unleashed such devastating consequences be held accountable to these moral standards?
I believe the answer is yes. That in the crisis of 2009 the mounting evidence of fraud, conflicts of interest, indifference to suffering, repudiation of responsibility, and systemic absence of individual moral judgment produced an administrative economic massacre of such proportion that it constitutes an economic crime against humanity.
Shoshana Zuboff is the author of The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism. She was the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/mar2009/ca20090319_591214.htm
SanDiegoView in WalMart is a business cult for psychopaths
Saturday, March 21 at 05:37 PM
“it derives from a business model that routinely produced a similar kind of remoteness and thoughtlessness, compounded by a widespread abrogation of individual moral judgment. As we learn more about the behavior within our financial institutions, we see that just about everyone accepted a reckless system that rewards transactions but rejects responsibility for the consequences of those transactions."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTE: But is not that exactly the Ayn Rand model?The basis of Greenspan’s Free Market theory?
Greenspan was an apostle of Ayn Rand. An actual acolyte and physical companion to Rand-not just a disciple of her narcisstic theology.
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 06:14 PM
“ Yet to the world’s dismay, thousands of men and women entrusted with our economic well being systematically failed to meet this minimum standard of civilized behavior. They did not capably discern right and wrong. They either did not judge, or they did not act on their judgment”.~~~~~~~~
NOTE: Ms. Zuboff neglected to mention the power of persuausion and the ultimate understanding that the Nazis ,and also, Wall Street and corporatocracy in general,has ,relating to of the importance of PR.
Now THAT would have been a relevant topic for inclusion.
Acquiescent accomplices to all forms of immorality come in all forms ,and nationalities.
“The propogandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."~
Aldous Huxley,The Olive Tree .
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 06:26 PM
Big D: Bob still thinks he has a gold mine in his WalMart turd polish.
Surprised I haven’t seen him doing an infomercial yet.
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 06:41 PM
ddrb
I think I did see him in a late night infomercial.
It was for an absorbent cloth that that is used to suck up the life savings of the middle class and polish the lies that led us to deregulation. Not to mention great all around turd polisher.
I think it was called SCAM WOW!
Brought to you by the makers of ENRON and IRAQ II, the sequel. But let’s not forget the remake of The Wall Street Crash, ya know, “Once is never enough”!
Big D in
Saturday, March 21 at 08:45 PM
Big D: You are a TREASURE,to be sure!
That’s the BEST laugh I’ve had in a LONG time!
THANKS!
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 09:19 PM
P.S.: By any chance is there a lifetime guarantee,or 100%money back offer if you are not COMPLETELY satisfied?
ddrb in
Saturday, March 21 at 09:22 PM
ddrb
I don’t remember but it does come with a special RINSE AND REPEAT option. It seems that they do guarantee more of the same if we change channels now.
As far as the money back offer, it seems that was reserved for the first WALL STREET thieves to call in and beg for it. But wait; if they call right now they will throw in a quick death to the middle class.
SCAM WOW! Brought to us by people like RDS, Mary, and let’s not forget bbrd and anti-labor groups everywhere!
SCAM WOW......Your home and your retirement are way overrated anyhow! Order yours TODAY! Tell them Bob sent you! Call now!
Big D in
Saturday, March 21 at 09:49 PM
The Zuboff piece has a tone that helps to define, identify and contrast the Christhating, ‘love of money’ abnormal that has become normal in the United States financial and corporate community. A culture of psychopaths shaded by right wing obnoxiousness seeking to legitimize secular conservatism and departures from morality despite the consequences to others.
A great concern is how this has made its way as acceptable practice in the 501 (c) 3 community inclusive of Republican pulpits and rip down artists for example in the Red Cross executive scams that hit awhile back.
WalMart was grown as a garden variety ruthlessness against labor and has needed the vastness of outside help to survive in this culture. That is now in the process of dying. As time went by the Ayn Rand philosophy was exposed for the evil fraud it is yet that found cover in U.S. imperialism and corporatism’s American and international wet dream.
Bushco has shown itself to be self-destructive and as time exposes ever more the evil that constituted the right wing fraud of the Bushco presidency, the right wing Christian pulpits are now lost and contorted at having followed such a pernicious deception. Bush leaves a trail complicit with not only the Wall Street insanity but also inescapably WalMart.
WalMart may be forced to attempt to adjust its image away from the Randian viciousness it is know as to social observers, again deceiving the public with media manipulations (persuasion) etc, but the die is cast and there is no turning back for psychopaths. They are written in stone.
You would have to go back decades and review when the Toffler’s saw corporate psychopathy coming, part of it may have been as early as the 1970 work ‘Future Shock’.
“Profits, like sausages… are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.” - Alvin Toffler
SanDiegoView in WalMart is a business cult for psychopaths
Saturday, March 21 at 11:51 PM
SDV; Perhaps Ms. Zuboff would be interested in the 70’sStanford Research paper-"Changing Images of Man”.
Here is an excerpt from Online Journal,by Peter Chamberlain,discussing the planned collapse of America,as delineated in the Stanford study mentioned above.The title of the piece is “The Planned Collapse of America.”
PLEASE go to Online Journal and read the ENTIRE piece. I promise that anyone who does, will not be disappointed.
To wit:
Changing Images of Man predicts an American economic collapse and a “garrison” (police) state,” if the overwhelming inequities of our economic system are not corrected by powerful multinationals making more humane decisions.
Alternatives to this doomsday scenario are discussed, all of which point to the need to devote all available resources towards transforming the image of man, changing man’s nature, instead of altering the corrupted economic system which has brought America to this dire state.
The authors admit that it is “utopian in 1974 to think of the multinational corporations as potentially among our most effective mechanisms for husbanding the earth’s resources and optimizing their use for human benefit—the current popular image of the corporation tends to be more that of the spoiler and the exploiter.”
The “green revolution” to spread corporate farming to the Third World has been the key to globalization’s destabilizing of world labor markets, in order to create populations of “refugee workers,” who are willing to go anywhere to find work for slave wages. [Think Monsanto and terminator seeds and WTO.]
This is the cause of the wave of illegal immigration into the US from Mexico. This is part of the proof that there are powerful individuals who are using their economic power to undermine nations in a long-term scheme to gain control of nations and multiply their profits.
Here David Rockefeller admits media collusion with his one world plans: “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years.
It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the light of publicity during those years.
But now the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
Rockefeller writes on page 405 of his memoirs: “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” (Activists Go Face to Face With Evil As Rockefeller Confronted)
~~~~~~~~NOTE: Pretty coincidental that the Rockefeller family has a longstanding tie to Arkansas,and that the patent to the terminator seed was heold by Jackson stephen’s Delta Pine and Land out of Little Rock.
ddrb in
Sunday, March 22 at 09:55 AM
...higher quality...
A pro Wal-Marter talking about “quality”???
Bwahahahaha!
Live Better In Cheap Underwear
Ken V in Texas
Tuesday, March 24 at 07:05 AM
Guess what? If you make $78 an hour (which is debatable), you can afford an expensive car. I don’t want cheap items from Wal*Mart at the expense of someone trying to feed his family. I’ll help pick up the slack of a union, as long as I can have a union job, too. From reading some of the comments up there, I’m thinking somebody hasn’t worked for minimum wage lately, or owns stock in Wal*Mart.
BTW, if you want to send your opinion to Mr. Pryor, here’s the link:
http://pryor.senate.gov/contact/
Net Owl in Mountain Home AR
Thursday, March 26 at 10:10 PM
And here’s the link for Sen. Lincoln:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/webreturn/?url=http://lincoln.senate.gov
Net Owl in Arkansas USA
Thursday, March 26 at 10:37 PM
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