About Vern Barnet
LINKS:
CRES
web site
KC
Star columns
CAMP
columns
EMAIL:
vern@cres.org
I am really worried about
those
who put more energy into
propagating or
destroying a faith
than in building relationships.
© Vern Barnet, Kansas City, MO, 2006
Updated
as occasion permits.
| BRIEF BIO:
Honored by many faith groups, the
Reverend Vern Barnet, DMn, is minister emeritus of CRES, a Kansas City
community resource for exploring spirituality in all faiths, and now focuses
on writing, teaching, and consulting. He is known to many Kansas Citians
since 1994 through the "Faiths and Beliefs" column published Wednesdays
in The Kansas City Star. His articles, poems, and reviews
appear in many journals. He has taught religion courses at area universities
and seminaries. He founded The Kansas City Interfaith Council in 1989 and
was its convener through 2003. He has been active in many professional
and civic organizations.
Full Bio
|
| MY THEOLOGY
I believe that when we encounter
the Holy, we naturally feel awe; that awe matures into gratitude; and that
gratitude is complete only in service to others.
I believe that we
are born to love unconditionally, but rewards and punishments place conditions
on the Holy and distort us, dividing us within ourselves, from each other
and from the world of nature.
I believe such conditioning
puts us in a secular trance, deepened by perverted desires for pleasure,
status, power and wealth; and that as this fragmented trance obscures the
Holy, we are numbed to the suffering of others, to our own inborn natures
and to the environment.
I believe that religions,
through story, ritual and compassion, can restore us to the embrace of
the Infinite, but that often religions have justified the trance with fear,
greed and violence.
I believe we may be
emerging from this trance as the process of spiritual evolution unfolds
in atom, cell, person and society; and that the universe, making many mistakes,
may yet come to behold itself though us.
I believe this process
includes today's concourse of the world's religions and offers their mutual
purification; that this free nation, where most of us are children of immigrants,
is the best place for authenticity; and that honoring differences can extinguish
the selfish, addictive trance, awaken us to the Holy and call us to service
together.
I believe there's
a lot of work and play and loving to do. Vern Barnet |
070223f The New
York Times
February 23, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
A Foreign Policy Built on Do-Overs
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Watching the Bush team wrestle with Iran, North Korea
and Iraq reminds me of something that used to be said of the Reagan administration:
The right hand never knew what the far right hand was doing.
In fact, my bet is that when the inside history of the
Bush team is written, we will discover that, contrary to its carefully
managed image of a disciplined core operating from consistent, conservative
principles, it has actually been one of the most internally divided administrations
— ever.
The only thing the Bush folks all agreed on was that they
would never do anything Bill Clinton did. Beyond that, it’s been a food
fight. The trial of Scooter Libby, with its testimony about wars between
the V.P.’s office and the White House, the White House and the C.I.A.,
and everyone against the State Department, proves that beyond a reasonable
doubt.
When the former Bush U.N. ambassador John Bolton trashed
the president’s recent deal with North Korea as a “charade,” though, he
highlighted the biggest internal division of all within the Bush team:
how to deal with rogue regimes like Iran, North Korea and Saddam’s Iraq
— whether to go for regime change or behavior change.
On Iran and North Korea, “this administration does not
have clear policies, it has competing impulses,” said Robert Litwak of
the Wilson Center, who just published a smart book on this theme: “Regime
Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11.” “The administration’s
mantra is ‘all options are on the table.’ But the dilemma is that too many
objectives are on the table as well.”
Because this administration was divided for so long on
Iran and North Korea, over regime change or behavior change, it got neither.
All it got was that Iran and North Korea both went out and bought Bush
insurance: a nuclear weapons program.
President Bush obviously recognizes that and is now trying
to remedy it. Bill Clinton was criticized for taking more golf mulligans
— do-overs — than any other president. Mr. Bush will be remembered for
taking more foreign policy mulligans than any other president.
On North Korea, the president has finally decided to focus
purely on changing behavior. He struck a very sensible deal last week with
Kim Jong Il to take his country off our terrorism list and normalize relations,
provided Mr. Kim gives up his nukes.
But we could have had a similar deal years ago — when
North Korea had only two nukes — had the Bush team not been wrangling with
itself over regime change or behavior change. While it wrangled, Mr. Kim
built up his nuclear arsenal, adding six to 12 more bombs. If this deal
is carried out, which is still uncertain, the wasted years will not have
been a disaster. If it isn’t carried out, they will have been very costly.
Why do you think that a year after Mr. Bush told us we
were “addicted to oil” we still have no serious plan to end that addiction?
Because the market fundamentalists in his White House — led by Dick Cheney,
who opposes any government effort to impose carbon caps or taxes to promote
alternative energies, à la California — keep blocking the market
pragmatists who do. And Mr. Bush won’t intervene.
The irony of Iraq is that it’s the one place where Mr.
Bush decisively chose regime change, but he then executed it so poorly,
with insufficient troops, that Iraq never stood a chance. If Don Rumsfeld
and Dick Cheney had spent as much time plotting the toppling of Saddam
Hussein as they did the toppling of Colin Powell, Iraq today would be Switzerland.
Today’s Bush troop surge in Iraq is just another mulligan — the president’s
trying to do in 2007 what he should have done in 2003. In between, we’ve
paid a huge price.
How about we avoid a mulligan on Iran? Let’s put a clear
deal on the table: full diplomatic relations, security guarantees and thousands
of student visas if Iran puts its nuclear program under U.N. inspection
and stops supporting terrorism. If not: more sanctions and isolation. Such
an offer would at least get us some leverage, unite us more with our allies
outside Iran, energize our allies inside Iran and force some excruciating
choices on Iran’s leaders.
“Resolving the contradiction in Washington will sharpen
the contradiction in Tehran,” Mr. Litwak argued. “Taking regime change
off the table in America will put behavior change on the table in Iran.”
I guess we should be thankful that Mr. Bush is trying
to fix some of his mistakes, but we have paid a huge, unnecessary price
for his learning curve. Which is why it’s always best to get it right the
first time. The best golfers never take mulligans, and the best presidents
never need them.
|
|
07.12.20
Blood Brotherhood
What does the United States have in common with Iran, Iraq,
Sudan, Pakistan, and China?
All retain the barbaric practice of capital punishment adandoned by
the civilized world.
07.12.16 City Charter on City
Manager
As far as I can tell, this below is the only section of the
City Charter relating to hiring a new City Manager. But note that the Council
and the Mayor were not engaged in hiring a new City Manager but rather
extending the employment of the present one. Even if the Charter clearly
gave the Mayor the sole power over the Manager's continuing employment
(which it certainly does not), the deceptive process Mr Funkhouser has
employed to rid himself of Mr Cauthen rightly deserves the opprobrium and
disgust it has occasioned.
Sec. 218. City Manager.
(a) Qualifications and
duties. The City Manager shall be the chief administrative officer
of the City. The City Manager shall be chosen solely on the basis of executive
and administrative qualifications. Neither the Mayor, nor any member of
the Council, shall be chosen as City Manager during the term for which
the official was elected.
(b) Appointment.
The Mayor and Council shall jointly conduct a search or recruitment for
a City Manager upon terms agreed upon by the Mayor and Council. Upon completion
of this process the Mayor shall be responsible for submitting a resolution
to the Council for the appointment of a City Manager. If an appointment
is not approved, the Mayor may submit another person for consideration,
or may ask that a search or recruitment process begin anew.
(c) Term. The
City Manager shall serve at the pleasure of the Mayor and Council.
(d) Compensation.
The Mayor may fix the compensation of the City Manager, subject to ratification
by a vote of at least six additional members of the Council.
(e) Suspension or permanent
removal from office.
(1) Mayor.
The City Manager may be suspended with or without pay or removed from office
by the Mayor subject to ratification by a vote of at least six additional
members of the Council at the next scheduled meeting of the Council. During
the period between Council consideration of the suspension or removal by
the Mayor, the City Manager shall be suspended with or without pay as designated
by the Mayor.
(2) Council.
By a vote of nine members of the Council, not including the Mayor, the
City Manager may be removed from office.
(3) Procedure for removal.
(A) Notification
in writing. The City Manager shall be notified in writing of suspension
or removal from office by no later than the next business day following
the Council's action.
(B) Request for statement
and hearing. The City Manager may, in writing filed with the City
Clerk within ten days after receipt of the notification, demand a written
statement of the reasons for such suspension or removal and a hearing before
the Council. This statement shall be provided within ten days of the request.
The Council shall hold a hearing no earlier than five and no later than
fifteen days after the City Manager is provided a written statement of
reasons for suspension or removal from office. The hearing before the Council
shall bea public hearing unless otherwise ordered by a court.
(C) Suspension and/or
removal final. The suspension or removal of the City Manager shall
be final and not subject to review.
(f) Temporary appointment.
In case of resignation, disability, suspension or removal from office of
the City Manager, the Mayor shall designate some qualified person to temporarily
perform the duties of the office and the appropriate compensation to be
paid that person, subject to ratification by a vote of at least six additional
members of the Council. In all other instances of the temporary absence
of the City Manager, the City Manager shall designate an acting City Manager.
07.12.15 Retaining the City Manager
As a citizen, I have watched the entire testimony and the entire
Council session dealing with the Mayor's desire to remove Wayne Cauthen
from his service to the City and City Manager. I wish I had been present
to add my testimony to those who spoke. I did write the Mayor, many members
of the Council, and the Manager before the Dec 13 sessions, an example
of which follows in blue.
The Mayor's request for the resignation of City Manager Wayne Cauthen
appears to have been furtive, dishonest, and premeditated. It seems to
have ignored the high praise Cauthen receives from the business, union,
neighborhood, minority, religious, and other segments of the community.
It also seems to have deliberately been disrespectful of the contract renewal
process underway for months and bypassed the normal consultative style
of the Council. The unprecedented dressing-down of the Mayor to his face
by representatives of the community should lead instead to the Mayor's
resignation if he is unwilling to be instructed by the overwhelming consensus
of the citizens.
It is disingenuous of the Mayor to defend himself by saying on one hand
that his request for Cauthen's resignation is "just" his "personal opinion"
while on the other hand, interpreting the City Charter as giving him sole
power to introduce a City Manager's employment contract. Council members,
with 9 voting successfully to extend employment to Cauthen, and in effect
affirming that the Council will not be bullied by an official who seems
often to act in stubborn, prideful ways. I do admire the Mayor for at least
appearing to listen politely to very straight talk from citizens at the
Business session before the Legislative session. (They were respectful
while being candid in their assessments of the Mayor and his wife.) However,
at the Council session immediately following, his vote did not change,
so did he really hear?
Instead of achieving his goal of ridding himself of a competent, well-liked
manager, Mayor Funkhouser has unwittingly engineered a contract with the
Manager that lasts longer than the rest of the Mayor's term of office.
If he cannot work with Mr Cauthen, the Mayor should resign. We need the
kind of excellent professional management we have experienced since Mr
Cauthen became manager much more than the faux-innocence of a Mayor who
has lost the confidence of two-thirds of the Council.
While some may lament that race has become a part of this issue, how
can one expect minority people to respond when someone so extraordinarily
popular, talented, and competent who happens to be black is treated so
disrespectfully by a white mayor?
07.12.12
Dear Mayor Funkhouser:
My impression as a citizen is that the City has
improved greatly since Wayne Cauthen became City Manager, and so I am confused
by your desire to replace him. Whether it was a response to the replacement
of a missing street sign almost before I got off the 311 phone or the tremendous
improvements in Downtown and work elsewhere in the City, his leadership
seems to have been effective. He has received raises for his good work.
I read the paper faithfully and do not know his failings. Is he actually
inept? Is he having a scandalous affair? Is he stealing from the City?
Is there a revolt among the City employees? Do he fail to take direction
from the Council? Is there a personality conflict with you? If so, can
you get over it?
I do not know Mr Cauthen personally, although
I have met him several times. I do not think he would know me. I have met
you several times, and you probably would not recognize me. I am writing
simply as a citizen and I have no connection with Mr Cauthen. I have been
to a "town meeting" with you and found you impressive in what you know,
what your aims for the City are, and in your support for open government
and the principles of free speech, etc. You won me over and I've been defending
you.
But now . . . .
I do not understand your abrupt announcement and
it does not indicate the consultative style of government we have been
used to and deserve. This is not open government. According to the paper,
you do not want to criticize Cauthen. Then why does he deserve dismissal?
This would throw the management of the City into the turmoil of two
transitions, one with an interim manager and then with a new manager.
Frankly, your reason given in the paper that there
was not time to notify Council members before this hit the news is pretty
adolescent. What a pathetic excuse! You make a decision in your own head
about a major matter and then have to respond to reporters before consulting
with the Council? Can you not say, "No comment"?
Without knowledge of the ins and outs of City
politics, it strikes me strange that the move to oust Mr Cauthen has been
incremental in the way you have treated the contract renewal process. This
sudden announcement now looks like the conclusion of of a long-term plan
to hint, marginalize, ease him out, and then discharge him. If this is
so, this would be dishonest.
Unless there is a very good reason, not just your
whim, to discharge Mr Cauthen, the City should not be deprived of his outstanding
service. You have a duty to explain to us what caused you to change your
mind. This is a City matter and you can have support for your decision
with appropriate explanation.
Please give the citizens the facts that made you
change your mind.
Vern Barnet
07.12.08 On Romney
On Romney:
This week, Mitt made his much-anticipated
religion speech, and stood up for his rights not to be discriminated against
for his beliefs, and not to have to explain the part about Jackson County.
Good for him on both counts.
... Except that you have to wonder why he felt
compelled to dip into dogma just long enough to assure voters that he believes
“Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.”
Romney’s message, which boiled down to let’s-all-be-religious-together,
was certainly different from the John Kennedy version, which argued that
a candidate’s religion is irrelevant. But then Kennedy was speaking to
the country, while Romney had his attention fixed on the approximately
35,000
Iowa
religious conservatives who will tip the balance in the first-in-the-nation
Republican caucus.
Can I pause here briefly to point out that in
New York there are approximately 35,000 people
living on some blocks? If my block got to decide the first presidential
caucus, I guarantee you we would be as serious about our special role as
the folks in Iowa are. And right now Mitt Romney would be evoking the large
number of founding fathers who were agnostics.
--Gail Collins in the NYTimes
071208
He did not give a brave speech, but a pandering one.
--Maureen Dowd in the NYTimes
071209
07.11.29 Isaac or Ishmael?
A reader of my column Wednesday in The Star writes:
"I am all for interfaith communication, sharing ideas, etc.;
however, in the above-referenced article I note that in the next to last
paragraph of the article, "December brings................, the Muslim's
Eid al-Adha commemorating Abraham's offering of Ishmael to God".
I have read our Old Testament several times thoroughly and have never found
that Abraham offered Ishmael. Abraham was asked by God to offer his
son Isaac. Where is this offering of Ishmael coming from?"
My response was a shortened version of the following:
Just as there are different versions of the same story in the
Jewish scriptures (two stories of creation, two versions of the Flood,
two versions of the Ten Commandments (indebted to the earlier Code of Hammurabi),
varied versions of the same events in the Chronicles and in Kings (for
example, Manassah is the worst of kings in 2 Kings 21 but an examplar in
2 Chronicles 33) , four different and sometimes overlapping, sometimes
apparently contradictory gospels (in the Christian scriptures), so it is
not surprising to find that the third great monotheistic religion, Islam,
has different versions of similar stories. Even the parable of the Prodigal
Son appears in Buddhist literature as well as Christian, although the emphasis
is different. Flood stories are found in many cultures (the Biblical stories
come from earlier Babylonian tales, as in the Epic of Gilgamesh).
Even something as simple as the name of a mountain may appear
differently in different portions of a holy text; Mt Sinai and Mt Horeb
are different names for the same place. God is called by different names
in the Hebrew: Elohim, El Shaddai, Yahweh, reflecting the different ealier
traditions that were fused as the Bible developed.
Since I write seeking to respect all faiths, it is important for me
when writing about Christian material to use the Christian stories, and
so forth. Since the Muslim version of the story of Abraham involves Ishmael,
it makes sense in describing the holiday Muslims celebrate to use their
version of the story. It would be inaccurate for me to describe how Muslims
understand their holiday by using the Christian version of the story. That
would be lying. Although Islam speaks of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus
and other figures familiar to Christians (in fact Mary appears in the Qur'an
more times than in the New Testament), you cannot understand Islam in Christian
terms, any more than you can understand Shakespeare's Hamlet by reading
Dante's Divine Comedy.
It is very important for people to realize that religions are different,
and the value to us comes just as much from their differences as their
similarities, just as Christians are fortunate to have several gospels
which have differences as well as similarities.
Thank you for reading my column and for the courtesy you have extended
by giving me a chance to reply to your thoughtful question.
Vern Barnet
07.11.26 Football War
"If we supported our troops and their mission in Iraq with the same
intensity we support this rivalry [between football teams], we would have
won the war already." --former KU interim atheltic director.
The statement and the many comments it has evoked perhaps at least indicates
a connection between football addiction and war addiction.
07.11.21 New stem cell research
Scientists report that by injecting four genes into skin cells,
they were able to reprogram the cells to become "stem cells" very much
like embryonic stem cells, with the possibility of developing into any
of the 220 types of cells in the human body, suggesting new cures for many
diseases and injuries.
Ethical questions avoided?
Hardly. There are at least three nagging questions for Roman Catholics
to consider seriously.
1. The first is, perhaps, merely technical. Can these cells be produced
without the danger of inducing cancer or other diseases or malformations?
2. Is it ethical to benefit from the new technique which could not have
been developed without the prior research, which the Church has declared
immoral?
3. As I currently understand the science, cells produced by SCNT, a
process the Church condemns, may be totipotent, that is capable of producing
all the cells of a human being and the placenta tissue. The new stem cells
are pluripotent, meaning the cells could become cells of a human being,
but they are not totipotent, at least so far in the research produced by
the injection of viruses into a skin cell to reprogram the cell into a
stem cell. Both contain genetic material from one source, the donor, and
not two, as in sexual reproduction. What, then, is the theological difference
between two cells produced by different techniques, both containing genetic
material from one source, the donor, and not two, as in sexual reproduction?
Does it come down to the placenta? Is that what makes human life? If so,
then why could not the SCNT cells be use ethically so long as they are
not grown beyond the blastocyct stage, never implanted? Is it the few genes
that make a cell totipotent rather than pluripotent that define what is
human? If it is potentiality, then with the further development of science,
could not the new technique produce totipotent cells? Should not science
be prohibited from further studies because of the potential for such outcomes?
Instead of resolving ethical and theological issues, in my opinion,
this new research unveils the difficulties of Church theology. I prefer
common law and commen sense, aligned with most of the world's cultures
that say that a human being is born at birth, or as the Jewish tradition
has it, with the appearance of the "crowning of the head." I do not believe
human beings exist in petri dishes. Given the need to rescue either one
3-year old child from a burning lab or a box of petri dishes with thousands
of such cells, or even blastocysts, I'll save the child.
(Earlier full discussion of stem cell issues at www.cres.org/2)
Comments and corrections welcome: vern@cres.org
07.11.17
KCMO's Iniquity
Here is an opinion by one of our most devoted
citizens:
James Everett in The Examiner
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Those who push hatred must be called out
I strongly support freedom of speech and religion.
But free speech does not allow a person to falsely yell out "fire" in a
crowded theater.
In a similar sense, our nation's democratic tradition
strongly supports freedom of expression over publicly licensed airwaves
used by radio and TV. Airwaves are licensed to make sure stations abide
by reasonable rules as to how they are used. For example, public airwaves
should not be used to promote hatred or violence. On Oct. 29, radio station
KCMO 710 AM, in my opinion, violated that rule.
On "The Michael Savage Show," Mr. Savage said:
"I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm
not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not getting on my all fours
and praying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it. You
can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don't
wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up
your behind. I'm sick of you. What kind of religion is this? What kind
of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback
document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don't tell me I need re-education.
They need deportation. I don't need re-education. ... throw 'em out of
my country. I'd raise the American flag and I'd get out my trumpet if you
did it. Without due process. You can take your due process and shove it.
... Make no mistake about it, the Quran is not a document of freedom. The
Quran is a document of slavery and chattel. It teaches you that you are
a slave."
Back in 2004 Michael Savage said, "I think (Muslims)
need to be forcibly converted to Christianity. ... It's the only thing
that can probably turn them into human beings."
In 2006 he called for a ban on Muslim immigration
and recommended making "the construction of mosques illegal in America."
He also attacks other ethnic groups with similar hateful messages.
When Mr. Savage's stupid, outrageous, bigoted
and inflammatory remarks were brought to the attention of the KCMO 710
AM program director, there was no apology, just a feeble response saying
the station runs a disclaimer prior to airing "The Michael Savage Show."
In other words, KCMO takes a typical sociopathic view, namely, if any violence
(physically or psychologically) occurs because someone was screaming hatred
and violence over their licensed airwaves, the station is not at fault.
A specialist at the Federal Communications Commission
told me everything Savage said is covered by the right of free speech.
If you feel KCMO and the FCC are out of line, please send a word of support
to me - jeverett3@mindspring.com - or Mahnaz Shabbir, a Muslim leader in
Kansas City - mahnaz@shabbiradvisors.com - in our attempt to re-educate
both of them what true free speech is all about.
07.11.15
The Pearl-Ahmed Dialogue
The following is a response to the conversation
between Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl's father, and his friend Akbar Ahmed
at Village Presbtyerian Church Nov 13 as the Festival of Faiths Keynote
Speaker Event, written by Hussain Haideri, MD, President, Crescent Peace
Society. It is his personal impressions; he is not necessarily writing
in the capacity as the president of CPS. Edited excerpts are planned to
appear in my Kansas City Star column for Nov 21.
Newton’ s law.
III. For every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction.
During one of my many web surfing experiences,
I came across, purely by chance, Newton’s law, stated above. I always argue
against taking things out of context, but for once, I broke my own rule,
albeit for the right reasons.
I thought, how amazing it would be to apply this
scientific principle, into social, cultural and perhaps most importantly,
in religious conflicts. Let me elaborate: When confronted with the challenge
to defend a potential threat, insult or injustice directed at your religion,
try and resist the temptation of a knee jerk response, and not retaliate,
measure for measure.
Rather, adopt the above principle. Reach out
to the aggressor, or more saner elements in their congregation, and simply
present an equally opposite response. The idea should be to relay your
perspective, but not with aggression or cynicism, but rather with an attitude
that displays disappointment, eagerness to learn more about the opposing
point of view and then ,counter it by something that usually makes great
drawing room talk, but fares poorly when you search for real life examples,
that is dialogue. Unless, of course you are Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed.
What I and around a 1000 fortunate Greater Kansas
City residents experienced on Tuesday night at the Jewish-Muslim dialogue,
at the Village Presbyterian Church, as part of the Festival of Faiths,
was nothing less than scintillating. A practical display of what is simply
preached all around.
There was an honest attempt to do some soul searching,
and scratching beneath the surface of complicated, aggravating and sensitive
issues that transcend religious, political and social borders. The two
“grand fathers” representing their individual faiths explored the root
causes pf hatred that fans extremist actions on both sides of the equation,
and simply perpetuates the mistrust that pre-exists between the two major
Ibrahimic faiths, that have more in common than they realize. What makes
this situation so important, is that repercussions of this debate directly
affects that largest religion in the world, Christianity. Therefore, what
could be more appropriate than sitting face to face in God’s house, as
Professor Ahmed pointed out and sifting through the causes that plague
this dilemma.
Professor Pearl, father of slain Wall Street
journalist Daniel Pearl, and a professor of computer science at UCLA, laid
out utopist views of Jewish and Palestinian states, adjacent, living in
harmony. Akbar , Professor of Islamic studies at the American University
in Washington D.C., agreed, but pointed out that mistrust in the hearts
of people from both sides is high, and work needs to be done to bring down
temperatures. Identify people with a passion for tolerance, mutual respect
and acceptability, and then work with them. The role of the media, to project
harmony and promote peace was alluded to, something that cannot be over-emphasized.
They reflected on the positives within their own faiths, and that of each
others. Judea called Islam “a universal religion” and Akbar appreciated
the “value of learning” in the Jewish faith. Interestingly, just these
two factors may be a great start to initiate bridge building. Islam is
well spread out, and understanding the faith, and the people who represent
it, would be half the battle. What better initiators, than a faith, whose
followers have been described as “ avid learners”, by a scholar on the
other side of the aisle.
The audience had stimulating questions that simply
underlined the fact that there is some serious desire on the part of the
conscientious elements of the society to play their role in achieving peace.
A local church, with such huge following, taking the initiative to host
the event can only sweeten the deal. I am simply waiting, with baited breath,
for the excitement to spill over to the masses locally, and then snowballing
into an effort that spreads across the nation and hopefully, someday, across
the globe, restoring the true image of America as the leader of all states.
07.11.14 Oil and Windows Taxation
This is a great column for lots of reasons, certainly for exactly what
it says. But it also supports my anger against Bill Gates and my puzzlement
about those who think the unbridled free market is a fair, level playing
field. Using illegal tatics and marketing genius, Gates has sold America
inferior products and hampered competition -- and "taxed" us endlessly
since Windows etc is involved in so many economic transactions.
November 14, 2007
Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Two dates — two numbers. Read them and weep for
what could have, and should have, been. On Sept. 11, 2001, the OPEC basket
oil price was $25.50 a barrel. On Nov. 13, 2007, the OPEC basket price
was around $90 a barrel.
In the wake of 9/11, some of us pleaded for a
“patriot tax” on gasoline of $1 or more a gallon to diminish the transfers
of wealth we were making to the very countries who were indirectly financing
the ideologies of intolerance that were killing Americans and in order
to spur innovation in energy efficiency by U.S. manufacturers.
But no, George Bush and Dick Cheney had a better
idea. And the Democrats went along for the ride. They were all going to
let the market work and not let our government shape that market — like
OPEC does.
You’d think that one person, just one, running
for Congress or the Senate would take a flier and say: “Oh, what the heck.
I’m going to lose anyway. Why not tell the truth? I’ll support a gasoline
tax.”
Not one. Everyone just runs away from the “T-word”
and watches our wealth run away to Russia, Venezuela and Iran.
I can’t believe that someone could not win the
following debate:
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE: “My Democratic opponent,
true to form, wants to raise your taxes. Yes, now he wants to raise your
taxes at the gasoline pump by $1 a gallon. Another tax-and-spend liberal
who wants to get into your pocket.”
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: “Yes, my opponent is right.
I do favor a gasoline tax phased in over 12 months. But let’s get one thing
straight: My opponent and I are both for a tax. I just prefer that my taxes
go to the U.S. Treasury, and he’s ready to see his go to the Russian, Venezuelan,
Saudi and Iranian treasuries. His tax finances people who hate us. Mine
would offset some of our payroll taxes, pay down our deficit, strengthen
our dollar, stimulate energy efficiency and shore up Social Security. It’s
called win-win-win-win-win for America. My opponent’s strategy is sit back,
let the market work and watch America lose-lose-lose-lose-lose.” If you
can’t win that debate, you don’t belong in politics.
“Think about it,” says Phil Verleger, an energy
economist. “We could have replaced the current payroll tax with a gasoline
tax. Middle-class consumers would have seen increased take-home pay of
between six and nine percent, even though they would have had to pay more
at the pump. A stronger foundation for future economic growth would have
been laid by keeping more oil revenue home, and we might not now be facing
a recession.”
As a higher gas tax discouraged oil consumption,
the Harvard University economist and former Bush adviser N. Gregory Mankiw
has argued: “the price of oil would fall in world markets. As a result,
the price of gas to [U.S.] consumers would rise by less than the increase
in the tax. Some of the tax would in effect be paid by Saudi Arabia and
Venezuela.”
But U.S. consumers would have known that, with
a higher gasoline tax locked in for good, pump prices would never be going
back to the old days, adds Mr. Verleger, so they would have a much stronger
incentive to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles and Detroit would have
had to make more hybrids to survive. This would have put Detroit five years
ahead of where it is now. “It’s called the America wins program,” said
Mr. Verleger, “instead of the petro-states win program.”
We simply cannot go on being as dumb as we wanna
be. If you hate the war in Iraq, then you want a gasoline tax so you can
argue that we can pull out of there without remaining dependent on an even
more unstable region. If you want to see us negotiate with Iran, not bomb
it, you want a gasoline tax that will give us some real leverage by helping
to reduce the income of the ayatollahs.
If you’re a conservative and you believed that
the Iraq war was necessary to drive reform in the Middle East, but the
war has failed to do that and we need “Plan B” for the same objective,
you want a gasoline tax that will reduce the flow of wealth to petrolist
leaders who will never change if all they have to do is drill well holes
rather than educate and empower their people.
If you want to see America thrive by becoming
the most energy productive economy in the world — a title that now belongs
to Japan, which doesn’t have a drop of oil in its soil — you want a gasoline
tax, which will only spur U.S. innovation in energy efficiency.
President Bush squandered a historic opportunity
to put America on a radically different energy course after 9/11. But considering
how few Democrats or Republicans are ready to tell the people the truth
on this issue, maybe we have the president we deserve. I refuse to believe
that, but I’m starting to doubt myself.
07.11.12 America weakened
It is very difficult to summarize the complex disaster created by George
Bush. at home and abroad. When I find a short summary, I applaud the effort,
even with its defects. Here is one such summary of the international wreakage
by RogerCohen (NYTimes today):
The first change that must be grasped
is America’s diminished ability to influence people. Global access to information
now amounts to an immense à la carte menu. Networks escape control.
To hundreds of millions of people accessing information for the first time,
from central China to Kenya’s Rift Valley, the United States can easily
look
exclusive and less relevant to their future.
The second essential change is the erosion of
American power. Samantha Power, the author and Harvard professor, calls
this “the core fact of recent years.”
America’s hard power — its military — is compromised
by intractable counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its economy
is strained; witness the ever feebler dollar. Its soft power — the resonance
of the American idea — has been hurt by a loss of legitimacy . . . and
by incompetence . . . .
The third essential change is the solidification
of anti-Americanism as a political idea. Jihadist Islamism is the most
violent expression of this, but its agents benefit from swimming in a sea
of less murderous resentments.
07.11.11 Republicans Win White
House
In case you missed this much discussed column:
The New York Times
November 4, 2007
Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats’ Defeat?
By FRANK RICH
WHEN President Bush started making noises about
World War III, he only confirmed what has been a Democratic article of
faith all year: Between now and Election Day he and Dick Cheney, cheered
on by the mob of neocon dead-enders, are going to bomb Iran.
But what happens if President Bush does not bomb
Iran? That is good news for the world, but potentially terrible news for
the Democrats. If we do go to war in Iran, the election will indeed be
a referendum on the results, which the Republican Party will own no matter
whom it nominates for president. But if we don’t, the Democratic standard-bearer
will have to take a clear stand on the defining issue of the race. As we
saw once again at Tuesday night’s debate, the front-runner, Hillary Clinton,
does not have one.
The reason so many Democrats believe war with
Iran is inevitable, of course, is that the administration is so flagrantly
rerunning the sales campaign that gave us Iraq. The same old scare tactic
— a Middle East Hitler plotting a nuclear holocaust — has been recycled
with a fresh arsenal of hyped, loosey-goosey intelligence and outright
falsehoods that are sometimes regurgitated without corroboration by the
press.
Mr. Bush has gone so far as to accuse Iran of
shipping arms to its Sunni antagonists in the Taliban, a stretch Newsweek
finally slapped down last week. Back in the reality-based community, it
is Mr. Bush who has most conspicuously enabled the Taliban’s resurgence
by dropping the ball as it regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Administration
policy also opened the door to Iran’s lethal involvement in Iraq. The Iraqi
“unity government” that our troops are dying to prop up has more allies
in its Shiite counterpart in Tehran than it does in Washington.
Yet 2002 history may not literally repeat itself.
Mr. Cheney doesn’t necessarily rule in the post-Rumsfeld second Bush term.
There are saner military minds afoot now: the defense secretary Robert
Gates, the Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen, the Central Command chief
William Fallon. They know that a clean, surgical military strike at Iran
could precipitate even more blowback than our “cakewalk” in Iraq. The Economist
tallied up the risks of a potential Shock and Awe II this summer: “Iran
could fire hundreds of missiles at Israel, attack American forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan, organize terrorist attacks in the West or choke off tanker
traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s oil windpipe.”
Then there’s the really bad news. Much as Iraq
distracted America from the war against Al Qaeda, so a strike on Iran could
ignite Pakistan, Al Qaeda’s thriving base and the actual central front
of the war on terror. As Joe Biden said Tuesday night, if we attack Iran
to stop it from obtaining a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium, we
risk facilitating the fall of the teetering Musharraf government and the
unleashing of Pakistan’s already good-to-go nuclear arsenal on Israel and
India.
A full-scale regional war, chaos in the oil market,
an overstretched American military pushed past the brink — all to take
down a little thug like Ahmadinejad (who isn’t even Iran’s primary leader)
and a state, however truculent, whose defense budget is less than 1 percent
of America’s? Call me a Pollyanna, but I don’t think even the Bush administration
can be this crazy.
Yet there is nonetheless a method to all the mad
threats of war coming out of the White House. While the saber- rattling
is reckless as foreign policy, it’s a proven winner as election-year Republican
campaign strategy. The real point may be less to intimidate Iranians than
to frighten Americans. Fear, the only remaining card this administration
still knows how to play, may once more give a seemingly spent G.O.P. a
crack at the White House in 2008.
Whatever happens in or to Iran, the American public
will be carpet-bombed by apocalyptic propaganda for the 12 months to come.
Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by once again using the specter of war to
pillory the Democrats as soft on national security. The question for the
Democrats is whether they’ll walk once more into this trap.
You’d think the same tired tactics wouldn’t work
again after Iraq, a debacle now soundly rejected by a lopsided majority
of voters. But even a lame-duck president can effectively wield the power
of the bully pulpit. From Mr. Bush’s surge speech in January to Gen. David
Petraeus’s Congressional testimony in September, the pivot toward Iran
has been relentless.
Reinforcements are arriving daily. Dan Senor,
the former flack for L. Paul Bremer in Baghdad, fronted a recent Fox News
special, “Iran: The Ticking Bomb,” a perfect accompaniment to the Rudy
Giuliani campaign that is ubiquitous on that Murdoch channel. The former
Bush flack Ari Fleischer is a founder of Freedom’s Watch, a neocon fat-cat
fund that has been spending $15 million for ads supporting the surge and
is poised to up the ante for Iran war fever.
There are signs that the steady invocation of
new mushroom clouds is already having an impact as it did in 2002 and 2003.
A Zogby poll last month found that a majority of Americans (52 percent)
now supports a pre-emptive strike on Iran to prevent it from acquiring
nuclear weapons.
In 2002 Senators Clinton, Biden, John Kerry, John
Edwards and Chris Dodd all looked over their shoulders at such polls. They
and the party’s Congressional leaders, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, voted
for the Iraq war resolution out of the cynical calculation that it would
inoculate them against charges of wussiness. Sure, they had their caveats
at the time. They talked about wanting “to give diplomacy the best possible
opportunity” (as Mr. Gephardt put it then). In her Oct. 10, 2002, speech
of support for the Iraq resolution on the Senate floor, Mrs. Clinton hedged
by saying, “A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war.”
We know how smart this strategic positioning turned
out to be. Weeks later the Democrats lost the Senate.
This time around, with the exception of Mrs. Clinton,
the Democratic candidates seem to be saying what they really believe rather
than trying to play both sides against the middle. Only Mrs. Clinton voted
for this fall’s nonbinding Kyl-Lieberman Senate resolution, designed by
its hawk authors to validate Mr. Bush’s Iran policy. The House isn’t even
going to bring up this malevolent bill because, as Nancy Pelosi has said,
there has “never been a declaration by a Congress before in our history”
that “declared a piece of a country’s army to be a terrorist organization.”
In 2002, the Iraq war resolution passed by 77
to 23. In 2007, Kyl-Lieberman passed by 76 to 22. No sooner did Mrs. Clinton
cast her vote than she started taking heat in Iowa. Her response was to
blur her stand. She abruptly signed on as the sole co- sponsor of a six-month-old
(and languishing) bill introduced by the Virginia Democrat Jim Webb forbidding
money for military operations in Iran without Congressional approval.
In Tuesday’s debate Mrs. Clinton tried to play
down her vote for Kyl-Lieberman again by incessantly repeating her belief
in “vigorous diplomacy” as well as the same sound bite she used after her
Iraq vote five years ago. “I am not in favor of this rush for war,” she
said, “but I’m also not in favor of doing nothing.”
Much like her now notorious effort to fudge her
stand on Eliot Spitzer’s driver’s license program for illegal immigrants,
this is a profile in vacillation. And this time Mrs. Clinton’s straddling
stood out as it didn’t in 2002. That’s not because she was the only woman
on stage but because she is the only Democratic candidate who has not said
a firm no to Bush policy.
That leaves her in a no man’s — or woman’s — land.
If Mr. Bush actually does make a strike against Iran, Mrs. Clinton will
be the only leading Democrat to have played a cameo role in enabling it.
If he doesn’t, she can no longer be arguing in the campaign crunch of fall
2008 that she is against rushing to war, because it would no longer be
a rush. Her hand would be forced.
Mr. Biden got a well-deserved laugh Tuesday night
when he said there are only three things in a Giuliani sentence: “a noun
and a verb and 9/11.” But a year from now, after the public has been worn
down by so many months more of effective White House propaganda, “America’s
mayor” (or any of his similarly bellicose Republican rivals) will be offering
voters the clearest possible choice, however perilous, about America’s
future in the world.
Potentially facing that Republican may be a Democrat
who is not in favor of rushing to war in Iran but, now as in 2002, may
well be in favor of walking to war. In any event, she will not have been
a leader in making the strenuous case for an alternative policy that defuses
rather than escalates tensions with Tehran.
Noun + verb + 9/11 — also Mr. Bush’s strategy
in 2004, lest we forget — would once again square off against a Democratic
opponent who was for a pre-emptive war before being against it.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
07.11.09 La Raza
My column in The Star about La Raza's decision to pull its 2009 convention
from Kansas City generated considerable comment. Here is an except from
a reply to one correspondent:
For the record I was a strong supporter
of Al Brooks and could not understand why the Hispanic community, among
others, lent its support to Funkhouser when Al has been so supportive of
minorities of all kinds for his entire long public life. I think Funkhouser
made a major mistake in failing to vet Frances Semler appropriately, though
I understand his amateurish thinking at that stage in the process. I do
not think Brooks would have made such a disastrous error. I also think
Funkhouser erred in not accepting her resignation at the outset.
But I will give Funkhouser credit for making sincere
and repeated efforts to accommodate the Hispanic leadership up to the point
of forcing her out. As far as I can tell, her work on the Park Board (and
I was disgusted with Funkhouser for his comments about the previous Park
Board) has not been affected by her membership of the Minutemen. The statements
Funkhouser offered to have her make seemed to me to be a great compromise,
and the refusal of the Hispanic leaders to accept them makes it clear to
me that they are not interested in forging a constructive relationship,
but rather in winning because they feel powerless.
I think Funkhouser has two good arguments. First,
as an ACLU member, as I am, he supports the right of citizens to hold a
variety of opinions. Since Semler's opinions seem to have no bearing on
her work on the Park Board, there is no reason for her to be removed other
than political considerations. Those considerations were sufficient for
me to support her removal until the power-play emerged with the withdrawal
of the convention. He has repeatedly and publicly stated his own abhorrence
of the Minutemen.
This leads to the second argument I think Funkhouser
has in his favor. If he allowed one group to affect the Park Board appointments
of those who apparently serve faithfully, and caved in to demands in the
face of a threat to withdraw a convention, then, for example, the prejudiced
evangelicals who oppose same-sex relationships would have precedent to
demand that the City abandon its recognition of domestic partnerships or
they will withdraw their convention. Once you start down this road, the
American ideal of a wide public space is abandoned.
In any case, you argue that Funkhouser was refusing
to establish a respectful relationship with the Hispanic community. I look
at the facts of his extensive efforts and his efforts to expand recognition
of Hispanic sensibility in City Hall and do not understand how you can
hold this opinion.
I am unable to see from what you have written
how you have dealt with the main subject of the column, namely all of Kansas
City is being "punished" for an UNELECTED person's once-private views,
when La Raza rewards a city with an ELECTED supporter of the Minutemen.
I am also sorry that my intention of recognized
Hispanic concerns did not come through the final question of the column:
"And are we sharing one another’s burdens?" I think the answer is
No, and I think Funkhouser is responsible for the initial error, as I pointed
out above. In my opinion, this does not excuse the withdrawal of the convention.
Local La Raza could have used the controversy in a creative way. It could
have said, "We accept the statements from Frances Semler and the Mayor
as their best efforts. We find them inadequate, and therefore we are doubling
our efforts to support the convention in Kansas City so the whole City
can see the dignity and richness of Hispanic culture, and we want Ms Semler
and the Mayor to be our guests at the convention." That, it seems to
me, would be a much better way of acting within the relational culture
you cite.
I suspect at root is some personal pique that
has very little to do with Frances Semler and the Minuteman. Otherwise
it surely would have been possible to find a way forward.
After all, the PRESIDENT of the Park Board, appointed
by Mayor Funkhouser, is John Fierro, a member of the Hispanic Community.
This does not indicate to me the neglect or lack of contact or respect
for the Hispanic community.
07.11.08 Next Neo-Con Folly
The gap in blogging (whew, what a busy time!) is broken by these wise
words from one of my heroes, Rabbi Morris B. Margolies, who writes in the
curent KC Jewish Chronicle:
George Bush and his gang are laying the
groundwork for bombing and invading Iran. If the same stupidity, cowardice
and irresponsibility that both houses of Congress exhibited in the run-up
to the bombing and invasion of Iraq still prevail, we will see the Middle
East enveloped by devastation and disaster. We would be exposed to a very
possible use of atomic bombs. We would incur the risk that the state of
Israel might be irreparably damaged.
Those people in Israel and the United States who
advocate war on Iran as essential to the security of Israel are misguided
as well as dead wrong. Their arguments have become increasingly hysterical.
Said the unsavory sage of the Jewish magazine Commentary on PBS last week:
We have not learned the lesson of Nazi Germany. We gave the Nazis too much
time to prepare their murderous mischief and, as a result, World War II
and the Holocaust happened.
The analogy to Iran is ridiculous. Nazism was
indeed a threat. The tactics of talking or negotiating with Hitler were
indeed foolhardy. Nothing short of all-out war could defeat a mighty and
evil enemy that had already annexed much of Europe.
Iran is inimical to Israel. It is headed now by
a man who stated publicly that Israel must perish. But grotesque as is
this threat, he is not stupid. He well knows that Israel is in a position
with the atomic bombs that it definitely possesses to wipe Iran off the
map. Iran, even if it is working with fissionable material, is years away
from creating a nuclear weapon. But a recent report by an inspection group
of the United Nations affirms that Iran is not engaged in producing anything
of the kind. Still, Mr. Podhoretz of Commentary says that the U.N. group
is wrong. Other (unspecified) sources, he says, report just the opposite.
We are at a “d?j? vu all over again.” When the
Bushies in their obsessive determination to rule the universe and take
full command of its oil continued the selling of a war on Iraq, they, too,
ridiculed a United Nations report that there were no “weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq.” “We know the truth,” said Colin Powell in a long speech at the
U.N. “We have incontrovertible evidence that the Iraqis possess weapons
of mass destruction,” said Donald Rumsfeld. “We would rather fight them
there than have to fight them in our own country,” said Condoleezza Rice.
And our great and all-knowing leader used the White House pulpit to define
“patriotism” and “the war on terror” for the American people.
Podhoretz, Wolfowitz, Pearl and other American
Jewish citizens were all pushing for the war on Iraq. The very same gaggle
and their friends are now doing their worst to fan the flames leading to
yet another conflagration.
If these raucous voices are not stilled by the
voice of reason on the part of the American people, I see nothing but desolation
ahead.
07.10.28
Fran Rich (NYTimes) writes today of the "pileup of personal hypocrisies
that have always undone Elmer Gantrys in America, from Jimmy Swaggart to
Jim Bakker. The Ted Haggard revelations were in that tawdry tradition,
and so was the news that the Christian Coalition’s front man, Ralph Reed,
looked forward, as he put it, to “humping in corporate accounts” in collaboration
with the now-jailed K Street lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Their fall from grace
was synergistically augmented by their scandal-prone family-values allies
on Capitol Hill. Even now, the virulent marriage defender David Vitter
retains his Senate seat despite having confessed to unspecified sins after
his name surfaced in bordello scandals in both Washington and New Orleans.
"Also staying put in the Senate is Larry Craig, who, consciously or
not, is calling the whole moral brigade’s bluff. After he was busted in
the Minneapolis airport, Republicans insisted he undergo an ethics committee
investigation on the assumption that he’d disappear before they could conduct
it. Now they will have to make good on their word."
07.09.30 Neo-Cons again
I did not have to get to paragraph eight to know who was behind this.
Will America continue to let its foreign policy be shaped by a group with
allegience to a stupid strategy of protecting another nation's interest
than in a strategy that would work both for that nation and our own?
September 30, 2007
Big Coffers and a Rising Voice Lift Group on
the Right
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Freedom’s Watch, a deep-pocketed conservative
group led by two former senior White House officials, made an audacious
debut in late August when it began a $15 million advertising campaign designed
to maintain Congressional support for President Bush’s troop increase in
Iraq.
Founded this summer by a dozen wealthy conservatives,
the nonprofit group is set apart from most advocacy groups by the immense
wealth of its core group of benefactors, its intention to far outspend
its rivals and its ambition to pursue a wide-ranging agenda. Its next target:
Iran policy.
Next month, Freedom’s Watch will sponsor a private
forum of 20 experts on radical Islam that is expected to make the case
that Iran poses a direct threat to the security of the United States, according
to several benefactors of the group.
Although the group declined to identify the experts,
several were invited from the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington
research group with close ties to the White House. Some institute scholars
have advocated a more confrontational policy to prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons, including keeping military action as an option.
Last week, a Freedom’s Watch newspaper advertisement
called President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran “a terrorist.” The group is
considering a national advertising campaign focused on Iran, a senior benefactor
said, though Matt S. David, a spokesman for the group, declined to comment
on those plans.
“If Hitler’s warnings were heeded when he wrote
‘Mein Kampf,’ he could have been stopped,” said Bradley Blakeman, 49, the
president of Freedom’s Watch and a former deputy assistant to Mr. Bush.
“Ahmadinejad is giving all the same kind of warning signs to us, and the
region — he wants the destruction of the United States and the destruction
of Israel.”
With a forceful message and a roster of wealthy
benefactors, Freedom’s Watch has quickly emerged from the crowded field
of nonprofit advocacy groups as a conservative answer to the nine-year-old
liberal MoveOn.org, which vehemently opposes the Iraq war.
The idea for Freedom’s Watch was hatched in March
at the winter meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Manalapan,
Fla., where Vice President Dick Cheney was the keynote speaker, according
to participants. Next week, the group is moving into a 10,000-square-foot
office in the Chinatown section of Washington, with plans to employ as
many as 50 people by early next year.
One benefactor, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, said the group was hoping to raise as much as $200 million by
November 2008. Raising big money “will be easy,” the benefactor said, adding
that several of the founders each wrote a check for $1 million. Mr. Blakeman
would not confirm or deny whether any donor gave $1 million, or more, to
the organization.
Since the group is organized as a tax-exempt organization,
it does not have to reveal its donors and it can not engage in certain
types of partisan activities that directly support political candidates.
It denies coordinating its activities with the White House, although many
of its donors and organizers are well connected to the administration,
including Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary.
“Ideologically, we are inspired by much of Ronald
Reagan’s thinking — peace through strength, protect and defend America,
and prosperity through free enterprise,” Mr. Fleischer said.
Among the group’s founders are Sheldon G. Adelson,
the chairman and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, who
ranks sixth on the Forbes Magazine list of the world’s billionaires; Mel
Sembler, a shopping center magnate based in St. Petersburg, Fla., who served
as the ambassador to Italy and Australia; John M. Templeton Jr., the conservative
philanthropist from Bryn Mawr, Pa.; and Anthony H. Gioia, a former ambassador
to Malta who heads an investment group based in Buffalo, N.Y. All four
men are long-time prolific donors who have raised money on behalf of Republican
and conservative causes.
For years, the group’s founders lamented MoveOn’s
growing influence, derived in large part from its grass-roots efforts,
especially on the debate about the Iraq war. “A bunch of us activists kept
watching MoveOn and its attacks on the war, and it just got to be obnoxious,”
said Mr. Sembler, a friend of Vice President Dick Cheney. “We decided we
needed to do something about this, because the conservative side was not
responding.”
Mr. Sembler, who is on the board of directors
of the American Enterprise Institute, said the impetus for Freedom’s Watch
“came out of A.E.I.” last winter. He said that at an institute event in
December 2006 he listened to retired Gen. Jack Keane and Frederick W. Kagan,
an A.E.I. scholar, talk about the need for a troop increase in Iraq, a
plan adopted by Mr. Bush in January. “I realized it was not only what we
needed to do,” Mr. Sembler said, “but we needed to articulate this message
across the country.”
Mr. Sembler also said he was frustrated that he
heard reports at institute events earlier this year that the increase was
working, but that the news media was not reflecting the progress.
Mr. Fleischer said: “After the president announced
the surge, and even Republicans started getting nervous, there was a palpable
fear among several of us that this fall Congress was going to cut off the
funding and the Middle East would explode and America would likely get
hit. It really wasn’t much more complicated than that.”
Over the summer, Mr. Fleischer and the other founders
recruited a president, choosing Mr. Blakeman, who served as a deputy assistant
to the president in charge of scheduling and appointments. In 2000, Mr.
Blakeman led the Bush-Cheney campaign’s public relations effort during
the 36 days of the deadlocked election. He left the White House in January
2004.
Mr. Blakeman and Mr. Fleischer said they intended
to turn Freedom’s Watch into a permanent fixture among Washington advocacy
groups, waging a “never-ending campaign” on an array of foreign policy
and domestic issues. They also hope to build an active, grass-roots support
network.
But Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org,
which was founded in 1998 by two Silicon Valley venture capitalists, said
he doubted the group’s ability to meet that goal.
“This is the fourth or the fifth group that intends
to be the right-wing MoveOn,” Mr. Pariser said, naming other fledgling
groups like TheVanguard.org and Grassfire.org. “So far, it’s not clear
that this group is anything other than a big neoconservative slush fund.
They are a White House front group with a few consultants who are trying
to make a very unpopular position on the war appear more palpable.”
Like Freedom’s Watch, MoveOn had its origins in
an attempt by wealthy political donors, including George Soros, to shape
the debate in Washington. MoveOn began shortly after the Starr report was
delivered to Congress in September 1998, detailing accusations of perjury
and obstruction of justice against President Bill Clinton.
Already, Freedom’s Watch and MoveOn have clashed
through competing advertisements over Gen. David H. Petraeus’s war progress
report to Congress earlier this month.
In one Freedom’s Watch ad, Sgt. John Kriesel,
a National Guardsman from Stillwater, Minn., who lost his legs in a bomb
attack near Falluja, pleads with Congress and the American people not to
“surrender” in Iraq. As the screen shows a still photograph of the second
hijacked plane bearing down on the burning World Trade Center, Sergeant
Kriesel adds, “They attacked us, and they will again. They won’t stop in
Iraq.”
Several of the group’s spots suggested that Iraq,
rather than Al Qaeda, was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, even though the
independent Sept. 11 commission investigation and other inquiries found
no evidence of Iraq’s involvement. But in August, when the organization
rolled out the advertisement with Sergeant Kriesel to two focus groups
in Pennsylvania, its upbeat, patriotic message was well received, even
causing a few viewers to weep, Mr. Blakeman said.
“The focus groups couldn’t tell whether it was
a Republican ad or a Democratic ad,” he said. “It was the voice of a soldier,
and that’s the message we want to deliver to Americans: listen to the opinions
of real people.”
The campaign was seen as a way to head off any
momentum in Congress toward halting the financing for the Iraq war. The
group’s advertisements, placed in nearly 60 Congressional districts in
23 states, targeted wavering moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Freedom’s Watch also pounced on MoveOn.org’s full-page
“General Betray Us” advertisement published Sept. 10 in The New York Times.
Mr. Bush called the advertisement “disgusting.” Both chambers of Congress
passed resolutions condemning the advertisement. The New York Times was
also embroiled in the debate after giving MoveOn a discounted price for
the advertisement, which the newspaper later acknowledged was a mistake.
MoveOn has since agreed to pay the difference.
That advertisement, Mr. Blakeman said, “was an
unexpected gift,” allowing Freedom’s Watch to “take the high road” and
demonstrate that it is a “conservative voice that is not divisive.”
Mr. Pariser, of MoveOn, said his group’s grass-roots
membership — it claims 3.3 million members — was the envy of Freedom’s
Watch. “I think people see that Freedom’s Watch is a few billionaires,
and not a large, mainstream constituency,” he said.
Mr. Blakeman denied the accusation that Freedom’s
Watch is a White House front group. “I don’t need their help,” he said
of his former colleagues at the White House. “I don’t seek their help.
And they don’t offer it.” Mr. Blakeman is a long-time friend of Ed Gillespie,
the new counselor to Mr. Bush who succeeded Dan Bartlett. Mr. Blakeman
said that he speaks with Mr. Gillespie, but that they are careful not to
discuss the activities of Freedom’s Watch.
Mr. Fleischer said Freedom’s Watch was not coordinating
with the White House and had an agenda beyond the Bush administration.
“On Jan. 21, 2009, what will these critics say when we are still here,
doing the same thing?” he said. “We will still be here after George Bush
is gone.”
07.09.24 Ahmadinejad unsavory,
Bush even worse
Protests were directed against Columbia University for allowing President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to speak there, even though the tradition of
free speech is sacred, and even though the university’s president, Lee
C Bollinger, attacked Ahmadinejad and his positions in what appears to
be an unprecendented introduction. Some say such a wicked man should not
be allowed to speak. But who has perpetrated more wickedness, who has subverted
democracy more than George Bush, who commands the airwaves and can speak
almost anywhere in this nation.
07.09.17b America's Neo-colonialism
In case any reader still thinks our invasion of Iraq had anything
to do with WMD or (later) establishiung democracy, Alan Greenspan has now
spilled the beans, as if they were not already clearly in evidence:
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient
to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
Gee, that inconvenient truth will be a great comfort
to those soldiering, getting maimed, and families of the dead, to know
they really are fighting so the US can control the oil in Iraq. And the
Hunt Oil Company of Dallas TEXAS DON'T YOU KNOW, has made a killing with
its contract with the Kurds, defeating the national Oil Law Bush says he
wants passed but conveniently excuses the Iraqi government's failure because
it is so hard to do.
"My view of the second Gulf War was that getting
Saddam out of there was very important, but had nothing to do with weapons
of mass destruction, it had to do with oil. My view of Saddam over the
20 years … was that he was very critically moving towards control of the
Strait of Hormuz and as a consequence of that, control of the oil market.
His purpose would be very much similar to [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez’s
actions and I think it would be very dangerous for us. So getting him out,
to me, seemed a very important priority."
Americans deceive themselves by patriotic rhetoric
that reframes our exploitation of others' wealth by violence, by war. Thanks,
Alan, for revealing the wickedness of American imperialism. Reminds me
of what James Baker said to explain the First Gulf War: "It's about jobs."
The neo-colonialism is masked by the rhetoric
of the neo-cons who abdicate American interests in favor of their distorted
view of another nation's security to which their allegience makes America
a servant.
07.09.17 Microsoft's Conviction
A European Court confirmed Microsoft's 2004 conviction. Those
MS lawyers are good -- they cheated Kansas school children out of millions
of dollars and put the money in the lawyers' pockets. But just as they
were found guilty of anti-competitive practices in the US, Europe has similarly
understood the situation.
It is amazing that Bill Gates gets such good press when he has produced
such a shoddy product and bullied competitors. Not only were his actions
illegal; they were immoral. His Foundation is doing what the PR guys advised
Carnegie to do -- give money away to salvage his image.
Those opposed to high government taxes at least have representation
in the corrupt Congress. But even with court decisions against him, he
has been able to extract tens of billions of dollars from consumers who
don't understand they are being taxed without representation.
07.08.22 Fred Thompson, Demogogue
According to the paper, former Senator Fred Thompson speaking
here in KC at the VFW National Convention as he prepares to launch his
official bid for the Presidency, said:
"Some people in this country apparently
think if we can pull out of Iraq our problems are going to be over. You
and I know better than that."
Fred, can you name one person, just one, who thinks that by pulling out
of Iraq our problems will be over? Name one, just one.
And are you saying that if we stay in Iraq, our problems will be over?
As Lewis Diuguid says, also in today's paper, "The challenge for whoever
emerges as the winner [in the Presidential election] will be to repair
the damage that President Bush has done; end the wars; restore America's
image of greatness; reunite the country that Bush divided; create
jobs, opportunity and real equality; and renew a sense of hope."
07.08.19 Tom Friedman on Iraqi
Soccer
. . . trying to unify Iraq feels like doing carpentry
on a burning house.
I’ve been thinking about Iraq’s multi-religious soccer team, which just
won the Asian Cup. The team was assembled from Iraqis who play for other
pro teams outside Iraq. In fact, it was reported that the Iraqi soccer
team hadn’t played a home game in 17 years because of violence or U.N.
sanctions. In short, it’s a real team with a virtual country. That’s what
I fear the surge is trying to protect: a unified Iraq that exists only
in the imagination and on foreign soccer fields.
also dated 07.08.18 -- and see subsequent entries
below
the first
07.08.17 Friday -- Bank of America
I don't use this space for personal reasons often,
so I beg your pardon this time.
To today's account
I will append subsequent adventures.
Perhaps 8 or 10 years ago -- I don't recall when exactly --
I rented a safe-deposit box at Bank of America, just two blocks from my
home. After several years, arrangements were made for automatic deduction
for the annual rental from a small joint savings account with my son at
the bank. The bank has my address and both my home and cell phone numbers
on file and in its computers.
Maybe a couple years ago I received a letter announcing that the bank
would be remodeled and the procedure for accessing the vault improved.
The letter instructed me to go to the bank and make arrangements. At the
date announced in the letter, I went to the bank and was told that there
had been a delay in construction and I would be notified when to return.
I heard nothing further. In applying for Social Security when I turned
65, I was told I needed to submit my birth certificate. So on Aug
1 before noon I went to the bank and was informed that the construction
had taken place, that I should have received a letter, and that the contents
of my box had been sent to California. I was told they would UPS
the contents back to the bank. This would take a week. I did not like the
idea of my papers subject to theft in transit, and no answer was provided
when I asked why the papers had been removed and sent to California without
my being notified. I reminded the bank personnel that they had on file
my address and both phone numbers. I live two blocks from the bank and
would have responded immediately to a notice. Had I been in management,
I would have sent a registered letter or lifted up the phone to say, "Hi,
we need you to come into the bank." I have no recollection of receiving
a letter, registered or otherwise, other than the one I mentioned above.
I visited the bank Aug 10, I think it was, and was told the material
had not yet arrived. I called the bank Aug 13, I think it was, and was
told they have had problems and would obtain rush delivery which should
arrive by the end of the week.
So when I received a call this morning that the matter had arrived,
I was very pleased and said I would be in the bank in the afternoon.
When I arrived, after a short wait, the material was produced in a plastic
bag. I also produced the key to my safe deposit box and was ready to identify
myself with my Passport. I inspected it quickly, found my birth certificate
among the many documents and other materials, and affirmed these items
were mine. I was pleased that I could continue my Social Security application.
But I was required to sign a statement, which the bank officer seemed
in a hurry for me to sign, to the effect that I had received all of the
materials that had been in my safe deposit box. Since I did not have an
inventory and was unprepared to sign such a statement, I dated the document
and signed my name with the addition of a phrase such as "upon preliminary
inspection" or "so far as I am immediately able to determine" or "to the
best of my recollection." The bank official insisted that no addition to
the statement was permitted. I then asked to withdraw my birth certificate
and I offered to sign a statement noting I had done so, in order that I
could proceed with my Social Security application while I had time to consider
signing a statement I was then (and remain thus far) unable to sign.
The bank official said that I could not withdraw any of my materials,
even if I signed I statement noting I had done so. I asked for an appeal,
and she called someone, I presume a corporate attorney, and from hearing
her end of the conversation, it was clear she was hoping for an answer
affirming her determination.
I left the bank empty-handed.
I do not recall signing any statement when I rented the box that I would
have to sign a statement that everything was in the collection before I
could take anything out of it. On the contrary, the representations when
I rented the box was that I would have unimpeded access during normal bank
hours to inspect, add or remove whatever I might wish without intervention
of the bank. I have not received any notice of change of these terms.
Since the papers and other materials are mine, and the bank acknowledges
the same, I do not understand why I may not possess them. They have affirmed
I owe no money and the only thing preventing my possessing my materials
is my failure to sign their unaltered form. Since they violated my trust
by removing my materials to California without my consent or knowledge,
I can understand why they would want to be released from liability. But
forcing me to sign a statement before I can possess my materials is like
holding a gun to my head until I sign the statement they want.
I want what is lawfully mine without condition. If I determine that
everything that I placed in the box is now in the collection,
I will sign their statement. But this should not be a condition for me
to possess my own birth certificate and other important papers -- especially
since the bank has acted so irresponsibly in failing to notify me about
the reconfiguration of the vault into which my papers were entrusted.
07.08.20 Monday morning
With a friend as my witness, I went to the bank this morning
about 10:45 and spoke first with the woman who had offered to make a copy
of my birth certificate. I told her I had decided to accept her offer.
She asked me to take a seat and she notified the assistant manager, on
duty.
He obtained the packet of materials from my safe deposit box and we
went into his office. My friend watched. I told him I had decided to accept
Friday's offer to have a copy of my birth certificate made, and he called
her in and she made a copy.
I then asked to make an inventory of the contents. I had brought a legal
pad with me to do so. He consented. It took less than 10 minutes.
I then said I had one more request for the morning, and that was to
sign a letter I had prepared so I could send it to the Social Security
Administration. He looked it over and after a little thought, signed it
and attached his business card to it. Here is the text:
2007 August 20
To the Social Security Administration:
Because Vern Barnet (who says his SS number is 506 52 0952, DOB May
25, 1942) to date refuses to sign a statement that the contents we removed
from his safe deposit box in the process of our bank remodeling are complete,
we are unable to release those contents to him, including the original
of his birth certificate.
He informed me that unless I signed the form in dispute, the materials
would be sent back to California. I asked why and he said that was the
procedure.
I said, No doubt you are a wonderful person; and although I may not
seem so, I am, too. The problem is the corporate policy. I believe you
are creative enough to work with your lawyers to find a compromise statement
that will resolve this matter. I cannot make an ontological statement that
what you have produced is complete because it has been years since I visited
the safe deposit box and I had no inventory of its contents. I would be
very happy to say that everything seems to be in order; that on the basis
of my best recollection, the contents in the current packet are the complete
contents of the safe deposit box. I do not understand why I am being compelled
to make a statement that I cannot in conscience make.
He said he would see what he could work out.
07.08.20 Monday afternoon
The manager greeted me as I came in. I explained that I would
appreciate a copy of the form I have been requested to sign. He said that
might not be possible if it were an internal banking document, in which
case it could be obtained by subpoena. He said I should talk to the assistant
manager and pointed me to him behind one of the windows with customers.
I waited. The manager visited with the assistant and they disappeared.
The manager returned with the form and made a copy. I see that the copy
machine cut off parts of words. I think the text reads as follows:
In consideration of the return to me of all the articles
listed on the above inventory, I hereby: (a) acknowledge receipt
in good condition of all said articles; (b) acknowledge that all said articles
constitute the en[tire] contents left by me in the above described safe
deposit box; (c) consent to, ratify and approve all acts of said Bank,
its officers and employees with respect to said articles and safe deposit
box; and (d) rele[ease] Bank, its officers and employees from any and all
claims, rights, and causes of action, which I now have or shall hereafter
have relating to or arising out of said acts of said Bank, its officers
or employees.
I'd be so happy to sign this with the addition of a phrase like "to the
best of my knowledge and memory."
I also asked for the agreement between the bank and me made when I rented
the box. He tried to find it and consulted with an employee but said
it was too old and may not be on the premises. He wondered what use it
might be. I did not say this, but if I signed an agreement that gave them
power to insist that I say that nothing was lost or taken when they sent
items to California before I could have my own possessions, I was a fool.
07.08.21 Tuesday Up against the Bank of America
I prepared the following letter and took it to the bank shortly after
nine, in good spirits, thinking I had found a solution to the problem:
Friends at
BANK OF AMERICA
331 Westport Road
Kansas City, MO 64111
Dear [Name of Manger] and [Name of Assistant Manger]—
Perhaps there is a win-win solution to the problem
we are dealing with. I asked myself (a) what the Bank wants and (b) what
I want.
(a) I think the Bank wants to be protected against
any claims that I might make that items are missing from my safe deposit
box.
(b) What I want is not to make a statement that
all items I placed in the box are now in the packet you hold because I
cannot say for certain this is true, though I think it is.
Therefore, I propose that with my signature on
your form I add “with the provisions set forth elsewhere on this document.”
And that elsewhere on the document (there is plenty of space on the side
of Part IV where we could draw a box for this purpose) I write, “To the
best of my knowledge and recollection I affirm items (a) and (b) of the
receipt below [see red paragraph below].
Without reservation I affirm items (c) and (d) below. Even if in the future
I should determine items missing, I will hold the Bank harmless.”
In point of fact, [Manager's name] and [Assistant
Manager's Name], as I explained, since I have no inventory from before
the box was drilled, and I cannot conceive of any way of proving something
was missing even if it were, I just cannot imagine why the Bank would feel
vulnerable.
The only other request I have is that if my joint
savings account was debited for drilling or other related fees — since
I have no recollection of being notified though you have on file my address,
my home phone number, and my cell phone number, unless you have evidence
that you did notify me — I would like those fees refunded. If no charges
were assessed against me for the drilling, etc, then this is not an issue.
Please check with your supervisors to determine
whether the Bank can agree to this or a similar proposal. I will stop by
Wednesday for the answer. Please acknowledge receipt of this letter below.
Thank you.
Very truly yours,
Vern Barnet
THIS LETTER RECEIVED
ON 2007 AUGUST 21 BY
____________________
BANK'S RECEIPT FORM
"In consideration of the return to me of all
the articles listed on the above inventory, I hereby: (a) acknowledge
receipt in good condition of all said articles; (b) acknowledge that all
said articles constitute the entire contents left by me in the above described
safe deposit box; (c) consent to, ratify and approve all acts of said Bank,
its officers and employees with respect to said articles and safe deposit
box; and (d) release Bank, its officers and employees from any and all
claims, rights, and causes of action, which I now have or shall hereafter
have relating to or arising out of said acts of said Bank, its officers
or employees."
What a shock it was that neither would even sign receipt for the letter.
And after consulting with their bosses, they were instructed not to sign
anything. I told the manager I hope the assistant doesn't get in trouble
for signing the letter I requested to the Social Security
Administration.
The manager said that his previous conversations indicated that the
only way the bank would release my material to me would be to sign the
form without any additions. I pointed out that the Bank would be fully
protected with the wording I proposed, but he reiterated that the only
way the Bank would be protected and release my material to me would be
to sign the unchanged form.
He said, after checking again and calling me politely this afternoon,
that the lawyers required the exactly language they specified. I pointed
out that I imagine other banks had different wording, and I regretted that
reason and flexibility seems impossible.
What I'd like to know, since the materials are mine, who gave Bully
of America the right to dictate what I must sign in order to possess what
is, without dispute, mine?
UPDATE 07.08.23 Thursday
To the person identfied as their superior by the Westport
manager and assistant manager, I posted the following letter by certified
mail:
2007 August 23
816.979.6677
Laura Jones
BANK OF AMERICA
2001 NE 46th Street
Kansas City, MO 64116
Dear Ms Jones:
As you may be aware, I am perplexed by the Bank’s
refusal to release materials that are without dispute mine. As a citizen,
I think it is very important to be truthful, and therefore I cannot sign
a statement that I cannot say is so. In this case I can say something is
so to the best of my knowledge and recollection, but that addition
to your form seems to be unacceptable.
I have suggested a way by which (a) the Bank would
be fully protected and
indemnified from any action concerning the contents of my safe deposit
box while (b) I am able
to maintain the integrity of my conscience. But so far that path has been,
it seems to me, your customer, bureaucratically dismissed. If you do not
have a copy of my proposal and would consider it before I move to other
actions, I would be pleased to make sure you receive a copy.
COMMENDATION
In the midst of all this uproar, I want you to
know that Mike Panesi, your Westport Center manager, and Shaun Middaugh,
assistant manager, have been unfailingly professional. I appreciate that.
Their jobs are not made easy in dealing with me,
as almost every day it must seem they confront
a new wrinkle in this difficulty.
They, on the other hand, are polite with me even
while they present the Bank’s position. This is not an
easy thing for someone to do. I suspect they would rather see this problem
resolved rather than growing larger and larger.
For their professionalism and courtesy in this
situation, they deserve commendation.
Very truly yours,
/Vern Barnet/
UPDATE 07.08.25 Saturday
Today I received the certified mail receipt signed by
someone presumably authorized to receive mail at Bank of America. The receipt
is dated 2007 August 24.
UPDATE 07.09.07 Friday
It now being two weeks since my letter was received by Bank
of America, I thought it proper to check in with the Westport branch to
see if there was any news. A little after 2 pm, I spoke briefly with
the assistant manager. He said he had no news. I presented him a copy of
my letter of August 23 and a copy of the certified mail receipt of August
24. I said I was surprised that I had not been sent at least an acknowledgement
of my letter. He said he would check with the manager who would be back
at the bank in about half an hour and they would seek to verify that the
letter was actually seen by Laura Jones. I thanked him. The exchange was
polite and professional on both ends.
UPDATE 07.09.13 Thursday
Nearly a week has passed and I had received no call from either
the manager or the assistant manager. So I went to the bank and saw the
manager. He said he had no news. When I politely told him that the assistant
manager said that he, the manager, would call Laura Jones to verify that
she had seen the letter I sent three weeks ago and for which I had a certified
receipt dated August 24, he said he had assumed that the assistant manager
was following up as he had been too busy staffing the branch to attend
to my concern. I asked him for contact information for Ken Lewis, BOA president
and CEO, and he said that Lewis would not want to deal with this issue
since he was only concerned about board matters, and he declined to give
me contact information. I asked him if he would please call Laura Jones
and he agreed to do that, amidst all his other duties, because, I said,
surely none of us want this to drag on and on. It is now nearly two months
since I went to the bank to get my birth certificate and it still has not
been released to me. I was disappointed that I am now being treated as
a nuisance instead of as a customer, but maybe the manager is just having
a bad day, so I won't add this to my complaints since he has appeared to
be so cooperative. I did express surprise that since my letter to Laura
had commended him, he had not received a pat on the back, as I would expect
in a normal business operation when an employee is commended by a customer's
certified letter.
I did explore the BOA web site and found a corporate address, to which
I've added the name of the president:
Kenneth D. Lewis, Chairman and CEO
Bank of America Corporate Affairs
100 North Tryon Street
Mail Code NC1-007-18-01
Charlotte, NC 28255
If I do not hear from the branch manager by next Monday, I will take
the next step.
UPDATE 07.09.14 Friday
I went to the bank again today. I really want to get this resolved.
I saw the assistant manager at his desk through the outside window, so
when I entered the bank I asked for him by name. After waiting about 15
minutes, he walked through the bank and sort of waved to me across the
lobby.
Another 25 minutes passed. I left after writing and copying this note
which I left with a young man at one of the open desks:
S--[assistant manager's name]--
I stopped by yesterday (Thursday) to see if there was any news. [Manager's
name] said No.
I asked about verifying that my letter to your supervisor had been seen
by her. He seemed to say he thought you were checking on that, though
he said he had talked with her several times about other matters. He said
he would call her about my situation.
I'm trying to work within your system.
But it has been two months since this nightmare started.
I have waited 40 minutes for your today after you were informed
that I was here to see you to learn what is happening. I can wait no longer.
Please call me.
Thank you.
Vern Barnet
816 753 1633
When I returned home and checked the calendar and these notes, I discovered
was wrong to say it has been two months -- it has only been a bit more
than six weeks, but it sure seems like a long time.
As of the end of the day, I had received no call.
UPDATE 07.09.15 Saturday
The bank did not call. I'll go into the bank Monday.
UPDATE 07.09.17 Monday 11:50 am
I saw the bank manager. He said he had sent Laura an
email. I said, "May I ask when?" He responded, "When did you come in --
Friday?" I said Yes. He said he sent it Friday. Of course I had come
in Thursday and spoke with him Thursday. Although I did come in Friday,
I was unable to speak with either him or the assistant manager, even though
I waited 40 minutes. I was pleased that at least he was making an effort,
almost a month after I sent my letter, to follow through. He volunteered,
"I have your number," so I presume I'll hear from him shortly.
UPDATE 07.10.01 Monday
On Sep 20 Thursday, Laura Jones, 816 979 7016, the area
banking centers supervisor, called me; my assistant answered the phone.
I could not take the call at that time, but returned it about five minutes
later. She was unavailable so I left a message.
On Sep 21 Friday, I called twice and left messages. I also called Dan
H, her assistant, 979 6623, and he said that Laura might be at the Westport
bank. (I don't understand why Mike or Shuan did not call me to come in
for a personal visit since I live just two blocks away and they might have
found my schedule enabled me to do this.) Dan called to find out if she
was still there, and called me back to tell met she had left and gone to
the Brookside facility and it was now nearly five so I could not get there.
He offered to send her a text message to call me.
On Sep 24 Monday she called me and we had a most agreeable conversation
with good humor. She said she would check with her supervisor Tuesday as
she was going to fly early the next day to Texas for a meeting.
Our conversation reviewed the situation, which
she was able to review in her own words. I did add that my safe deposit
box was drilled without my being notified though the bank had my address,
my land line phone number and my cell phone number. (One attorney has told
me the Bank violated my privacy.) I reiterated that I would open my veins
and sign with my blood a statement that I would bring no action against
Bank of America, but I could not say that everything that was in my box
was in the packet the Bank has since produced for my inspection (while
declining to let me possess my own possessions) since I do not trust my
memory and I had no inventory against which to check, but I would happily
include with my blood the statement that the contents seem complete to
the best of m y knowledge and recollection. She laughed and said she did
not want to witness my bloody signature and that she understood about not
having an inventory since she also has no list of what is in her safe deposit
box. I thought it was a friendly and helpful conversation as she said she
would explore the possibility of an exception to the standard form wording
I have been asked to sign. I reiterated that there was no way I could make
a claim against the Bank for the loss of any items because I have no contemporaneous
list from which to compare the current contents and no witnesses as to
the contents prior to their extraction.
On Sep 26 Wednesday I expected a call but none came. Busy with preparations
for my own trip, I decided to wait until I returned before bugging her
again.
I have checked messaages on both my land line and cell phone,
but there is none from Bank of America.
I left a message at 1 o'clock on Laura's phone recorder noting it has
been a week since we talked and two months since I went to the Bank to
retrieve my birth certificate.
UPDATE 07.10.02 Tuesday
Today I left messages both for Laura and for Dan. For Dan,
it was an extended message, reinterating the fact that two months have
elapsed since this process began, my complete willingness to indemnify
the bank, my disappointment in not yet hearing about any progress, and
requesting his help.
UPDATE 07.10.03 Wednesday
Again today I left messages in some detail with both Laura's
and Dan's voicemail.
UPDATE 07.10.04 Thursday morning
Again I left a message on Laura's voicemail expressing my earnest
desire to hear the outcome of her Texas tal about my situation.
UPDATE 07.10.04 Thursday 3:15pm
Laura Jones finally called me, more than a week after she said
she would. She said that it had been determined that it was necessary for
me to sign the document exactly as printed, without any changes. She did
not offer any futher suggestions for proceeding. I pressed her on where
next to go in the company structure and she gave me the name of the person
she talked who who made the determination that the document's wording would
not be modified. That person is
Ellen Jansen, 816.979.5786.
I was surprised the number was in the 816 area
code because I thought that my situation was being discussed in Texas where
Laura said she was going for a meeting last week, but said nothing about
this. Laura did say that Ellen was out today but would be in tomorrow.
UPDATE 07.10.05 Friday 7 am
Since I have meetings this morning, I called Ellen Jansen's
number to leave a message so she might be prepared for my call later in
the day. I reviewed the situation in general and expressed surprise that
her recorded message gave Dan H. as her administrative assistant, the same
person I had talked to weeks ago, and who is the same person who is Laura's
administrative assistant. This made me more curious as to why it was necessary
for Laura to go to Texas to discuss my situation when Laura and Ellen seem
to be office companions. I also wonder if Ellen is the person the bank
clerk called two months ago to find out of I could amend the standard statement
the bank was asking me to sign. I wonder why Laura just didn't put me in
touch with Ellen after mny August 23 letter.
So I asked why, after two months, I am still in area code 816. Specifically,
I said I would call back later today with two questions:
1. What the legal theory Bank of America is using to retain my property
against my will and requiring me to sign a statement I cannot in conscience
sign?
2. What is the next step in the organization chart to which I may direct
an appeal?
I expressed concern that the strategy was to wear me down since my issue
is still within the 816 area code. I assured her I would not tire and asked
if I should take this matter directly to Ken Lewis.
UPDATE 07.10.05 Friday 11:45
I called Ellen -- and heard her message so I called her assistant
Dan H. He said he knew my situation and they were in a meeting ten feet
from him and he would ask her to call me as soon as thet were done.
UPDATE 07.10.06 Saturday 3:15
Despite Dan's assurance, I received no call either Friday or
Saturday morning.
UPDATE 07.10.08 Monday 7:45 am
I left the following message on the voicemail for Ellen
Jansen, 816.979.5786.
This is Vern Barnet. I left you an extended message Friday
morning at 7 am. I called again about 11:45 and received your message service,
so I called your assistant, Dan. He told me he would ask you to call me
as soon as the meeting you were in, ten feet away, was over. I did not
get a call or nor was there a message from me Friday or Saturday morning.
As I said earlier, I am concerned that after two months I am still dealing
with folks in area code 816, after numerous trips to the bank, certified
mail, and an endless number of phone calls. I assume you, or someone in
your office, was called by the officer at the Westport Bank on Aug 17 when
I asked for higher management to review the requirement that I sign a document
against my conscience. I have also been surprised that Laura could not
talk with you about this matter, or refer me to you, until after her Sep
25 trip to Texas when you share the same administrative assistant, even
though your office received my certified letter on Aug 24. I had assumed
from talking with her that she was taking the matter to a higher supervisory
level in Texas.
As I am still in area code 816 and given the lapse of so much time and
no evidence that the folks I have thus communicated with are trying to
solve my problem, my faith in your corporate structure is weakening. Therefore,
unless I hear from you by the end of this week, Friday, 2007 October 12,
I will feel free to share the 5,288-word diary of my encounters concerning
this matter, including names, with anyone in and outside Bank of America.
To avoid this, I would like to hear from you or Laura or Dan, informing
me you are actually trying to solve my problem and the steps you are taking,
or that you answer my two questions:
1. What is the legal theory you are using
to retain my possessions against my will when I have proposed a solution
that would entirely protect Bank of America? (Actually I don't understand
why I should have to sign anything at all to have what is mine.)
2. If you are incapable of finding a solution
to my problem, who in your chain of command might assist me, or do you
suggest I go directly to Ken Lewis?
I have spoken with several interested attorneys and I am quite skilled
in alerting the media as well. This situation is patently absurd. It would
be hard to explain why I cannot possess my own birth certificate. I have
also spoken to others who have been aggrieved by the fact that their possessions
were sent to California without their notification and consent who signed
your required statement under duress.
You have my land line and cell phone numbers and my address in your
records as well as in the certified letter I sent in August which included
my email address. But here it is: 816.753.1633, email vern@cres.org. I
hope to hear from you soon.
UPDATE 07.10.09 Tuesday
As yesterday was a holiday, today I mailed a copy of the text
of the message above certified mail to Ellen. I also went to the bank and
handed Shaun a copy of the letter.
When I returned from an evening engagement, I listened to a message
from Ellen recorded about 8 pm saying she would try to reach me the next
day and that she thought we could resolve this question locally.
I phoned back and left a message saying I would be available from 6
to 10 Wednesday morning.
UPDATE 07.10.10 Wednesday 7:30 am
Ellen called. After a brief discussion, in which she said she
saw no reason why this matter could not be settled in 24 or 48 hours, she
suggested I sign the document the way I want to sign it as a draft and
she would run it by the legal department. We arranged for me to go to the
bank at 9 this morning. She is sending an email to Mike, the manager.
9:30 am
Mike greeted me at 9 am and said Shaun would handle my problem. Shaun
said he received the email from Ellen and produced the form for me to sign,
which I did with the additions indicated by the document I had prepared
(the text of which appears below in color; the red is the Bank's wording)
and which was attached, along with a copy of my Aug 21 letter which proposed
a similar wording, to the form which Shaun faxed, and he gave me a copy
of the receipt dated and timed curiously "OCT-10-2007 07:54AM WED."
I do not find a phone number, but the "name/number" is given as 916173102627.
Shaun said I would hear from Ellen or him as to the results of the review
by the legal staff.
DRAFT AGREEMENT WITH BANK OF AMERICA
[My additions appear in blue italics]
To the best of my knowledge and recollection
I affirm item (b) below; without reservation, I affirm items (a), (c),
and (d).
In consideration of the return to me of all
the articles listed on the above inventory, I hereby:
(a) acknowledge receipt in good condition
of all said articles;
(b) acknowledge that all said articles constitute
the entire contents left by me in the above described safe deposit box;
(c) consent to, ratify and approve all acts of
said Bank, its officers and employees with respect to said articles and
safe deposit box; and
(d) release Bank, its officers and employees from
any and all claims, rights, and causes of action, which I now have or shall
hereafter have relating to or arising out of said acts of said Bank, its
officers or employees.
(e) Further, I make the irrevocable promise
not to bring any action whatsoever against the Bank concerning this matter.
UPDATE 07.10.11 Thursday 11 am
No call yet.
My receipt for the certified letter came. The letter was mailed Oct
9 and received Oct 10 by Bankl of America. The name of the person who signed
for it is illegible but appears to be the same person who signed for my
August 23 letter. Although the receipt asks the receiver to print the name
under the signature, this was done in neither case. Bank of America is
trying to require me to say something exactly as they want, but in this
case fails to follow common courtesy and Post Office requirements.
UPDATE 07.10.13 Saturday 11:50 am
I went to the bank and made visual contact with Shaun but he
was busy and many were ahead of me in line, so, with the bank closing shortly,
I left.
UPDATE 07.10.15 Monday 8:15 am
This is Vern Barnet. I called last Tuesday and left a message.
When we spoke last Wednesday (Oct 10), you said you didn't see why we couldn't
resolve the problem in 24 or 48 hours. I did go to the bank at 9 am Wednesday
morning and Shaun had your email and we followed the process you suggested.
I have heard nothing. I would appreciate being kept apprised of the progress
in moving toward resolution. Who is working on this now, in what office,
and when will we have a decision? Or will we need to move up to the next
level?
about 10:30 am
Mike saw me as I entered the bank and in moving past the waiting area
complimented me on my tie. He said Shaun would be with me shortly. It seems
Mike, the manager, has delegated my problem to Shaun. I asked Shaun if
he had any news. He said No, he thought Ellyn was fllowing this. I told
him I had not heard from her since Wednesday last week. He said he would
call her, but that sometimes he had as much trouble reaching her as I did.
I said I understood but I am going to move ahead outside of the bank structure
if I cannot see my problem is being dealt with.
UPDATE 07.10.17 Wednesday 9:30 am
I called Shaun, 816.753.0380, and the receptionist said he
was with a customer. I asked her to please ask Shaun to call me.
She wanted to know what this was about. I told her Shaun knew me, that
I had talked with Mike and Shaun and Laura and Ellyn, and that I wanted
my birth certificate. I said I was in the bank Monday morning and Shaun
said he would check with Ellyn to see if any progress is underway, but
I had not heard back from him.
TO MYSELF: I think I will start asking them if they are simply stalling,
trying to wear me out.
UPDATE 07.10.17 Wednesday about noon
Dan H called to say the matter was in the hands of a corporate
attorney and he hoped to have word for me yet today or tomorrow.
UPDATE 07.10.17 Wednesday about 4 pm
Dan called with the word that my draft statement was accepted
and I could go to the bank and get my "stuff."
4:10 pm
I saw both Mike and Shaun. They reiterated that the matter involved
a decision they could not make and were polite and professsional and cooperative.
I joked that I thought I would have to open my veins and sign with my blood
in order to retrieve what belonged to me. They did not laugh. Since they
did not offer any compensation for my time and effort,such as a free year's
rent in the new boxes, I have decided I will likely place my papers elsewhere,
even though the bank is just two blocks from where I live and work. I am
also likely to close the saving account my son and I jointly have had with
Bank of America, even though it wqas conveient to have a nearby place to
cash checks.
4:20 pm to my long-suffering friends I sent the following email:
Dear Friends:
I won.
It took ten weeks to get my safe deposit box contents
from Bank of America, but they finally released what is mine to me (what
good was my birth certificate to them?) -- after I finally resorted
-- to threats shaped by lawyers who kindly advised me,
-- a mention that I knew something about the media,
-- talking with a friend in Clair McCaskill's office,
-- identifying others who felt coerced into signing their
form when they also discovered their boxes had been drilled without their
knowledge with contents sent to California, and
-- complaining that all the people I was talking to in
the banking structure were in area code 816.
This whole thing was a stupid farce. When I was first
presented with the papers they wanted me to sign, the damn thing
was to be notarized. When I got a call twenty minutes ago after the matter
apparently went way up the chain of command, as Joe had predicted, I went
to the bank, got my "stuff," and they didn't even ask for a notary to witness
my initials on the document whose wording I drafted. They are not really
interested in the law. They had no legal basis whatsoever in retaining
what is mine. They just wanna scare people not to cause trouble.
This exercise could be regarded as a waste of time, but
our forbears went to the stake because they would not violate their conscience
by saying something they could not affirm. My situation is a minuscule
matter; but if I did not protest, it would only encourage the expansion
of power that demean the individual. End of sermon.
Especially if it seemed to you I was chasing down a rabbit
hole, thanks for your friendship and understanding.
Vern
UPDATE 07.10.18 Thursday
I've decided to wait one week to see if the Bank sends me a letter of
aplogy for my time, trouble, and expense in pursuing what was unquestionably
my materials. And although I promised not to bring any legal action against
BoA, it may be my duty as a citizen to inform the federal banking officials
and the public about the Bully of America.
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