Bill O'Reilly's statement that the Americans who voted for Barack Obama did so because they want "stuff" that Obama can give to them, was so obviously racist that it's hard to believe he still has job. His obvious shell shock that even with all the money and power harnessed by the richest and most powerful people in the country, people came out and stood in line for hours, sometimes in the dark, to vote against the corporations. As a woman who has worked full time for most of my life, who was laid off three years ago and spent the last two years getting a master's degree in social work, but have yet to find a job, and who voted for Obama, I just want to take this opportunity to talk about the "stuff" I want and the stuff I don't want..
The “stuff” I want:
Meaningful
work at a living wage.
Safe
and decent housing.
Education,
free and true.
Help
not incarceration for substance abusers.
Freedom
to marry the person you love.
Social
Security from birth through death.
Healthcare
for all
Sustainable
agriculture
Sustainable
energy policy
Expansion
of mass transit.
Expansion
of locally grown organic food.
Expansion
of cooperatively owned local businesses.
Equal
pay
Freedom
for women to control their bodies.
An end
to war.
Reparations
Clean
air and water
Respect
for our elders
Love your
neighbor as yourself
Community
Public
television
Funding
for the arts
The “stuff” I don’t want:
1.Drones.
2.Nuclear energy.
3.Racism
Sexism
Homophobia
Bailouts
of banks.
Bailouts
of corporations
Corporate
funding of paramilitaries
Oil
Killing
sharks and gorillas and tigers and wolves and anything else
Cutting
down the forests to grow palm oil
Fomenting
unrest in sovereign countries.
White
“political commentators” announcing the end of the world as we know it
because democracy worked in spite of all the money and dirty tricks that were
used to try and stop it.
Americans
who hide their money to avoid paying taxes.
I
recently saw the movie, “The Hunger Games.” The defeat on the faces of the
townspeople as they trudged to work or lined up for the lottery reminded me of
something I read about the Homestead strike in “The War
on Labor & the Left” by Patricia Cayo Sexton. In 1892 the striking workers
at the plant owned by Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick successfully fought the
Pinkerton strike breakers who arrived by boat on the Monongahela River for thirteen
hours, the governor of Pennsylvania, Robert E.
Pattison, and a Democrat, sent 8000 National Guardsman to Homestead and declared
Marshall Law. The Guardsman protected the strike breakers and the plant was
reopened with scab labor. The company then pressed charges against the strikers
for murder and conspiracy although no charges were pressed against the strike
breakers. Although the juries would not convict the strikers, the union
crumbled under the costs of the trials and the presence of strikebreakers in
the plant. Strike leaders and the Mayor of Homestead were blacklisted and lost
their homes. The returning men had their rates cut in half and the 12 hour,
seven day week remained the standard for the steel industry. International
reaction overwhelmingly condemned Carnegie and the use of government forces and
mercenaries against the workers. The workers who remained in the broken down
town were described as “discouraged and sullen” in 1894 by the American writer
Hamlin Garland. (Sexton, 1991.)
Multiply this scenario through the
years of labor history before and after the Homestead strike. Multiply
the poverty of the workers contrasted with the wealth of the owners. Multiply
the dead fallen in battle against mercenaries and military and then add in
those killed in industrial accidents, disease and hunger. Combine the workers
dead and defeated with the enslaved human beings who built much of the wealth
of the wealthy and the Native Americans who continue to be denied their rights
while the scraps of lands they are allowed to keep continue to be polluted with
toxic waste. Add in those who died fighting prejudice and racism and those who
are victims of racism today. Aside from the enormous human cost, how much
money-government money, tax dollars- is spent on our own repression? How much
money is spent to keep us down? We are unarmed for the most part, mostly
untrained in the art of violence. We have nothing but our minds and bodies to
fight with and yet, millions if not billions of dollars are spent to make sure
we do not stand up like human beings.
In the October 16-31 issue of
CounterPunch, there’s an article by Daniel Kovalik called, “The Blood Toll of
Plan Colombia.” In speaking about the presence of multinational corporations in
Columbia, he writes, “the rise of right wing paramilitaries in areas designated
for multi-national exploitation is a common one…the best documented example of
this grim phenomenon…involves North Carolina based Chiquita Banana which
actually admitted, in a criminal case brought by the US Justice Department, to
paying paramilitary forces $1.7 million and running them 3,000 kalishnikov
rifles between 1997 and 2004.” Who was the defense lawyer for Chiquita? Eric
Holder.Also from this article are the
following facts from a report by Peace Brigades International, “Mining in Columbia: At What Cost?”
“In the past
10 years 40% of all Colombian land has been awarded to or solicited by
mining and crude oil companies.”
“80 % of the
human rights abuses of the past 10 years were committed in mining and
energy producing regions.”
“87% of Colombia’s displaced
population originates from these areas.” (Kovalik, 2012.)
According to a BBC
article, the US has spent $6 billion dollars allegedly trying to
stop the drug trade with Plan Colombia. (BBC, 2012)
All over the world, through
centuries common people have been subjected to inhuman violence. Most of us in
the US have not seen or
experienced this violence but it is coming closer and closer. I do not believe
the Democratic Party or Barak Obama will change this course, but I do believe
that if Romney and Ryan win the election with their attitude of corporate
entitlement – everything that contains life, anything than can be exploited for
personal and corporate gain belongs to the corporation – things will get worse
faster.
One man does not run the country and
one man or woman cannot change or stop the evil that is so intertwined with
racism and sexism to the point where the cradle of civilization is being
routinely bombed, where the birthplace of all human beings is being routinely
and violently exploited, where the bountiful earth is being raped and polluted
with chemicals, where the waters are filled with toxic and nuclear waste, where
the diversity and uniqueness of our planet is being destroyed by the madness of
men who want everything to be tasteless, odorless, colorless and dressed in a
three piece suit. They’ll keep a stable of women. They’ll look out over the dying planet
with puffed up chests and smile at their metal and plastic world.
We can at least slow that down.
Voting doesn’t stop anyone from doing anything more. We’ve already seen so much
evidence of voter suppression over the past few elections that it’s clear that
those who are suppressing the vote do not believe in democracy. We may not have
actually existing democracy and Barak Obama may not be bringing it along, but
voting for those who openly express contempt for the majority of Americans is
irresponsible. Some people want to be on what they think of as the winning
team. They want to stand next to the important person. They want to be rich and
brush against fame. But most of us are not rich or famous, we are the
majority and we can make a difference if we recognize who we are and act
together for our own interests instead of against them.
References
BBC.
Q&A Colombia’s civil conflict. August 28, 2012. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12447532
Kovalik,
D. CounterPunch. Vol. 19, No. 18. p 2,3. October 16-31, 2012.
Sexton,
P. The war on labor and the left. Understanding America’s unique
conservatism. San Francisco, 1991, Westview
Press, p 80-84
While voter fraud by individuals is rare, preventing
legitimate registered voters from casting their ballots has become common. Studies
by the California and
Massachusetts Institutes of Technology found that 4-6 million votes went
uncounted in the Florida 2000 Presidential election.
2000
36,000
newly registered voters were not added to the rolls.
State
Troopers search voter’s cars, delaying them from getting to the polls on
time.
Ballot
boxes went missing or were uncollected, particularly in African-American
districts.
Polling
places close early in some Democratic districts.
Legitimate
voters were purged from the rolls.
2004
Tens
of thousands of voters were purged from the rolls.
In Ohio,
particularly in African American neighborhoods, people waited for 4-7
hours to vote due to insufficient number of voting machines and
breakdowns.
In one
Ohio precinct, the polls
never opened because the key to the office with the voting machines was
lost.
In two
Ohio counties there were more
votes for Bush than registered voters.
In New
Mexico, there were more votes counted than cast
in half the counties.
In New
Mexico, John Kerry lost in all precincts
utilizing touch screen technology.
2006
A
Democratic candidate in Florida
lost the election after 18,000 ballots were lost due to glitches in touch
screen voting machines.
The voter
ID law comes from the bowels of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a collaboration
of legislators and corporations that incubates “model” bills and uses elected
officials in state after state to peddle a corporate agenda. There have been no
documented cases of voter fraud in Pennsylvania.
The bill is a diversion. Its sole purpose is to stop historically democratic
voters from being counted and bring “our” country back to a time when only
white men of property could vote.
African Americans face a number of obstacles even though it has been nearly a hundred and fifty years since the end of the Civil War. According to the American Psychological Association:
•African American children are three times more likely than Caucasian children to live in poverty.
•Unemployment rates for African Americans are typically double those of Caucasian Americans. African American men working full time earn 72 percent of the average earnings of comparable Caucasian men and 85 percent of the earnings of Caucasian women (American Psychological Association, 2012, para. 4)
The ecological perspective takes into consideration the social environment in which people live. This includes their homes, their type of work and all of the systems they interact with. It includes the way the person in environment interacts with other systems including the legal system. More African American men are involved in the legal system than were enslaved before the Civil War. (Price, nd)
In addition to the economic issues that are facing almost everyone in this climate, African Americans face institutional racism even when the practice is legal. Changes to the drug laws in the 1970’s have resulted in a 500% increase of American’s in prison. Nine-hundred thousand of these 2.2 million people are African American (Mauer & King, 2007). Understanding the difference between what is legal and what is just is important to the person-in-environment perspective. We do not live in a post racial era, but we do live in an era where the media frames our vision of the past and with few, if any, exceptions leaves out the terror and violence that occurred from the post-reconstruction period to the Civil Rights era and beyond.
The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley held a meeting with a representative of Governor Corbett outlining the proposed budget cuts to social service agencies. The United Way 2011 Non-Profit Budget Survey found that although 69% of agencies had their funding cut, 80% of agencies saw an increased demand for services. Funding from donations and foundations have either remained flat for 36% of agencies or decreased for 38%. Twenty percent of agencies saw their state funding cut by 77%. Twenty one to thirty percent saw their funding cut by 9% and thirty one or more percent saw their funding cut by 14%. The cuts resulted in 52% of agencies laying off staff; 32% cutting programs; 46% cutting program hours and 45% expanding their waiting lists for services. Those affected are the least powerful members of our society: neglected and abused children, the mentally disabled, the homeless and the physically disabled (The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, 2012). The panelists at the meeting who represented major social service and educational interests in the area pointed out that prevention programs save money while incarceration, hospitalization and institutionalization cost more money. The only budget not being cut, according to the representatives power point was the prison budget.
This meeting exposed the fact that financial crisis is not the main issue. The crisis is a conflict of values between people and profits. Warehousing people diverts funding from social services that employ social workers “to enhance human well being and help meet the human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty” (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2008, para. 1) to increasingly privatized institutions of incarceration.
•Between 1990 and 2009 the number of people in private prisons increased by 1600%.
•6% of state prisoners, 16% of federal prisoners, and, according to one report, nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are housed in private prisons.
•The federal government is in the midst of a private prison expansion spree, driven primarily by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency that locks up roughly 400,000 immigrants each year and spends over $1.9 billion annually on custody operations. ICE now intends to create a new network of massive immigration detention centers, managed largely by private companies, in states including New Jersey, Texas, Florida, California and Illinois (ACLU, 2011, p. 5).
•In 2011, a Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison after being convicted of taking bribes and kickbacks for sentencing juveniles to a private prison (Peralta, 2011).
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) stated in their 2010 Annual Report that:
“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws… any changes with respect to drugs…or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them...Similarly, reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities” (ACLU, 2011, p. 12).
GEO Group made a similar statement in their Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
“Our growth depends on our ability to secure contracts to develop and manage new correctional, detention and mental health facilities, the demand for which is outside our control …. Any changes with respect to the decriminalization of drugs and controlled substances could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated…Similarly, reductions in crime rates could lead to reductions in arrests… requiring incarceration at correctional facilities. Immigration reform laws … could materially adversely impact us.” (ACLU, 2011, p. 13)
These two corporations are the first and second largest private prison corporations in the country. They also both support the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that brings state legislators and industry together to draft model legislation favorable to corporations (ACLU, 2011). ALEC has promoted legislation like the “truth in sentencing” law that requires inmates to serve up to 90% of their time before being eligible for parole and the “three strikes” law which requires a sentence of 25 years to life after the commitment of a third felony by an individual. In addition to this, private prisons divert local money when they receive government subsides, tax exemptions and utilize water and sewer services. Private prison lobbyists from both CCA and GEO are working in many states including the state of Pennsylvania (ACLU, 2011, p. 38). Both corporations receive major subsidies from the federal government. One study reported that “78 percent of CCA's and 69 percent of GEO's prisons were subsidized” (Fisher, 2011, p. 1).
In a time of record unemployment, prisoners are being paid as little as twenty cents an hour to produce everything from food for school lunches to guided missile parts, a picture far removed from the image of Rosie the Riveter during WWII. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) introduced the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program that allows private industry to partner with prisons to manufacture everything from office furniture to rocking horses. (Sloan, 2012)
In order to understand why programs that help people and create a better social system are being cut we have to understand power. “Families may not fare well, and their needs may not be addressed, if money and power interests define the agenda…the persons and groups who are able to name and frame the issues, and control the discourse, have the power” (Briar-Lawson et al., 2001, p. 261).
It is difficult to know what most people think about the current situation. Political commentators and local business owners are frequently published in the local newspaper. Their views are mostly pro-business and pro-budget cuts. I feel that many people are fighting over crumbs. Ethnic issues also come into play with many long term Allentown residents and residents of the surrounding suburbs. If you read, as I do, the comments from readers of The Morning Call, many have very intense feelings about minorities that they have no hesitation to express anonymously with monikers like “Staberdeath” and “sick of crime.”
I also don’t think there is enough community organizing of those of us who are outside the social service family. Citizens who want safe neighborhoods, good schools and a vital neighborhood could be organized to do a number of things including making sure that all members of their communities have a valid picture ID to vote in the upcoming elections. I don’t believe that most people are aware of the money saved by prevention as opposed to incarceration. I don’t believe they are aware of the various kinds of subsidies businesses receive to come into a community. I don’t believe they are aware of the types of low paying service jobs that do not pay a living wage and that will only put more of a burden on social service agencies that do not have adequate funding.
References
ACLU. (2011, November 2). Banking on bondage: Private prisons and mass incarceration. ACLU. doi:http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bankingonbondage_20111102.pdf
American Psychological Association. (2012). Ethnic and racial minorities & socioeconomic status. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-erm.aspx
Briar-Lawson, K., Lawson, H. A., Hennon, C. B., & Jones, A. R. (2001). Family-centered policies and practices: International implications. New York, New York: Columbia University Press.
Fisher, W. (2011). The corrupt corporate incarceration complex. Retrieved from http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1905:the-corrupt-corporate-incarceration-complex
Kirst-Ashman, K., & Hull, Jr., G. H. (2009). Generalist practice with organizations with organizations and communities (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, Jr, G. H. (2009). Understanding generalist practice (5th ed.). Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole.
Mauer, M., & King, R. S. (2007, July). Uneven justice: Rates of incarceration my race and ethnicity. The Sentencing Project. doi:http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_stateratesofincbyraceandethnicity.pdf
National Association of Social Workers. (2008). Code of ethics of the national association of social workers. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp
Peralta, E. (2011). PA judge sentenced to 28 years in massive juvenile justice bribery scandal. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/11
/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal
Price, D. (nd). More black men now in prison system than enslaved in 1850. Retrieved from http://www.laprogressive.com/black-men-prison-system/
Sloan, B. (2012). The prison industries enhancement system Why everyone should be concerned. Retrieved from https://www.prisonlegalnews.org
/%28S%28ecx1bqfnc5bdvwudrukj3zip%29%29/displayArticle.aspx?articleid=22190&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley. (2012). 2012 Pennsylvania budget analysis. Retrieved from http://www.unitedwayglv.org/Home/Advocate/PA-Budget-Forum.aspx
