Far from the belief supported by massive amounts of propaganda that the United States is a Democracy serving the interests of the people with the consent of the people, our government rarely ever supports political positions with a high amount of support from the majority or shown to be effective by good research; instead it routinely serves the interests of campaign contributors and their fiscal ideology! Recently in Educational Prevention Of Shootings Is Better Than Militaization I explained that there's an enormous amount of good research showing how to reduce all forms of violence, not just mass shootings, and since, as many good researchers claim, all violence is interrelated, this will also make mass shootings much less likely. The vast majority of good research is available in libraries, academic journals, or alternative media; however it's virtually absent from mainstream media, and politicians rarely take good research into consideration when making policies, even when many of these good academics testify before them to give good advice. Fortunately, even though the media doesn't do a good job educating the general public, polls show a large percentage of the public support policies that will reduce violence anyway, but politicians still do the opposite.
In The "Big Lie" Used As An Excuse To Censor An Even Bigger Lie!, which focuses primarily on how they rig elections by only covering candidates that are supported by Wall Street oligarchs, but it also shows how the majority of the public are on one side of about twenty issues, which have financial implications, according to polls that say between 57% and 90% of the public support them; but almost all Wall Street campaign donors are on the other side, and almost all politicians take the side of their campaign donors, not voters, especially the most powerful politicians, including leadership in Congress, and virtually all, if not all "viable" candidates for President or Governor, even in small states. These polls include 90% for universal child care, and as I pointed out in the previous article, there are numerous studies showing increased spending on child care actually saves much more money than it costs, since it helps reduce many other social problems that cost much more. And since poverty, income inequality, inadequate education, massive unemployment or suppressed wages, often caused by outsourcing and other contributing factors are almost always connected to many of the other poll issues that want to solve these problems, most if not all of these issues supported by the public, will also help reduce all kinds of violence, including mass shootings.
The vast majority of research on any given subject or policies favored by large majorities of the public are rarely discussed during campaigns, and they don't even do a good job hiding this fact, assuming you don't limit yourself to the mainstream media that repeats the same talking points over and over, often treating it like a horse-race, without addressing issues. Sometimes they admit to the way they rig elections, although they try to spin it, including the fact that they often discuss campaign donations as part of deciding who's viable, and who the media should cover, which Wikipedia calls "The Money primary" aka “The Invisible Primary." Even Wikipedia admits that the political parties give an enormous amount of preferential treatment to certain candidates, and that it's partly based on money they collect from wealthy donors. What they don't discuss is the obvious fact that the media could create a fair alternative if they wanted to by simply providing a reasonable amount of coverage to all honest candidates, enabling them to get name recognition, and explain their positions on many issues. But of course they spend very little time discussing issues, and when they do they do a poor job at it, and this is no accident.
Since this has been going on for decades, and the final results of media propaganda campaigns can't be hidden, since it's being presented to the public, those who know what to look for have known about this for years, if not decades, but those who don't think things through and take what the media tells them at face value could easily miss this, and if they get emotionally attached to some candidates or media pundits, they might be reluctant to admit they're doing it, even when it's spelt out to them.
Another major problem where the evidence has been staring people in the face for decades is the fact that traditional media is a for profit organization and they make a fortune selling deceptive political ads which flood the airwaves during elections season driving up the demand and price of ads. Traditional media gives obsession coverage to candidates who can be expected to buy a large number of ads with money they collect from corporations who want preferential treatment, but they provide little or no media coverage for candidates that support issues popular with the public, on the rare occasion, when they do mention them, they refer to them as fring candidates who are "not viable" and often claim they're "stealing votes" from candidates supporting the two traditional parties, who answer to corporations, not voters. Why aren't these grassroots candidates "viable" as the media claims? because they refuse to cover them, of course. And, every four years, before the presidential campaign reaches its peak they give an enormous amount of coverage to several billionaires, who they claim are considering running for president, often even if they never run. Why? Could it be that if these candidates do run they know that, even if they're not well liked, they'll spend an enormous amount of money on ads driving up profits for corporations, while annoying the public that's sick of these deceptive ads.
If anyone in power wanted to think up a campaign process that serves the best interests of the public they would try to acknowledge these conflicts of interests, and try to ensure that the public can hear from all candidates running for office, perhaps with some screening process controlled by the public, or people looking out for the interests of the public, to eliminate candidates with major financial conflicts of interests, which include those taking money from corporations and serving their interests, once in office, and ensuring those that do support popular issues, like Medicare for All, Environmental protection, an end of wars based on lies, outsourcing to drive down wages, and many more issues, including those listed in polls in my previous articles, which is the opposite of what they do. But, of course, this isn't even discussed in traditional media, which isn't trying to find the real problems with our elections, since they profit from them, instead trying to scapegoat trivial problems that have little or no impact on our elections, like the Russia conspiracy theories they keep talking about.
Amazingly traditional media occassionally gives us one of their so-called experts like Yael Eisenstat who they claim is trying to warn us about the real threats to democracy by telling us I worked on political ads at Facebook. They profit by manipulating us, 11/04/2019 which I don't completely doubt, but why wouldn't she also tell us about how the entire political establishment, including traditional media, is also trying to profit by "manipulating us," which would also be true? Why doesn't she discuss ways to ensure candidates that support issues popular with the majority of the public get fair media coverage? Why isn't she questioning the fact that a fraction of 1% of the public controls well over 90% of the media, which gives them a massive propaganda advantage, and is incompatible with the democratic process?
The answer may be obvious if you take a look at the Wikipedia article for Yael Eisenstat and see that she was a CIA agent for close to if not much more than ten years; and, of course, it's widely believed that there's no such thing as an ex-CIA agent, and they often take different covers, with the possible exception of some whistle-blowers, although even some of them might still be working with the CIA. This is even more obvious for people familiar with good CIA research which is virtually never covered in traditional media. The CIA has an incredibly long history of manipulating the media, a small fraction of which is described in Wikipedia's article on Operation Mockingbird which downplays the evidence by refering to it as "an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes." Referring to it as an "alleged" attempt to manipulate the media implies that the evidence might be inconclusive, which is far from the case. They cite both the Church Committee and Ramparts Magazine for this claim, without going into all the details showing how credible these sources are and that they alone provided enough evidence to show that it's not just an allegation, the CIA really did manipulate the media, and dozens of ex-CIA agents or many more CIA researchers have shown much stronger evidence than these two sources showing there's no doubt the CIA has been manipulating the media all along.
William Colby even admitted under oath that they manipulated the media; William Colby argued for the record that he should be allowed to manipulate the media, which can justifiably can be interpreted as an admission; and James Woolsey admitted that the CIA has intervened in many elections throughout the world. Furthermore, with or without admissions from high level agents, or even low level agents there are many more good researchers with exceptional sources that disclose much more including "Killing Hope" by William Blum (Free book PDF) which reports on dozens of interventions done by the CIA, including many coups and wars, which often created death squads killing thousands if not millions and overruling the will of the people in poor countries all over the world, especially South of the border in Central and South America and the Caribbean, and there are dozens more good researchers like him, although they get little or no promotions from traditional media.
Not surprisingly Yael Eisenstat has done nothing to criticize, or excuse the CIA's past meddling in the media and attempts to overthrow democracies, instead she never discusses it, as far as I know, anymore than traditional media ever discusses it anymore, and hopes the public forgot about this history and doesn't check alternative media. Traditional media doen't mention the best alternative media has to offer, which is often critical of traditional media and does good reseearch, instead they often cover alternative media which is incompetent, racists and has other serious credibility problems that also makes claims about traditional media being corrupt or deceptive. This way traditional media may look like the lesser evil to some that only check a minimal amount of good alternative media, or they may even seem credible to those that don't check any alternative media, may not be familiar with history, and have limited critical thinking skills.
Yael Eisenstat may be partially right about Facebook, although it may be for the wrong reasons, but she ignores much bigger problems from traditional media and the CIA, instead focusing on problems that lead to increased demand for censorship of traditional media, which is often used against those exposing establishment or CIA fraud or atrocities, and there's little or no reason to believe other CIA agents will do better, but according to Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook's Content Policy 07/12/2022 there are a large number of CIA agents joining Facebook, and perhaps other social media companies, possibly to control the censorship of critics of the CIA, although they obviously can't come out and phrase it that way. Some people who aren't familiar with the CIA's history might be skeptical of these claims, especially if they only get their information from mainstream media, however, I suspect the more they learn about the CIA, traditional media, and propaganda from alternative media outlets that do a better job covering these subjects and showing how to fact check the less they'll trust both the CIA and mainstream media.
However, there are many stories released and forgotten throughout the decades, although most of them aren't as thorough as the Wikileaks Emails from 2016, showing traditional politicians are more concerned with manipulating voters than serving their interests. One of these stories which ignores issues and focuses on dirty tricks is about how Claire McCaskill, and others promoted extreme Republican candidates in primaries in the hope that they could easily beat them in the General election, even though they don't address issues popular with the voters, as explained in Democrats are bankrolling ads promoting fringe Republican candidates. Here's why. 06/27/2022 This article describes how Claire McCaskill promoted Todd Akin in ads during the primary based on the hopes that she could easily beat him, which she did. This was considered a success, not because it advanced the best interests of the majority of the public, or enabled her to push progressive issues, but because she won, even though she didn't support progressive issues like the ones cited in polls above, popular with the public. Claire McCaskill is actually much more like moderate Republicans than progressives, serving the same Wall Street interests. Then the article says to "Fast forward a decade" and describes how the Democrats are using this strategy again on numerous races, as if it hadn't been tried in campaigns in between, including Claire McCaskill's 2018 campaign where she lost to extremist Josh Hawley, or when Hillary Clinton also tried this tactic in the 2016 campaign on the assumption that she could easily beat an extremist candidate like Trump, so she didn't have to try to serve the interests of the public, which, of course, partly enabled him to win.
This was reported in one of the Podesta Email leaks in 2016 [AGENDA & MEMO] Friday Strategy Call at 8:00 AM ET 04/23/2015 (Released in Oct. 2016) where an attachment said the following:
Operationalizing the Strategy
Pied Piper Candidates
There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012. The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:
• Ted Cruz
• Donald Trump
• Ben Carson
We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.
This attachment is also printed in "What Happened to Bernie Sanders" Jared H. Beck 2018 which explains how the primary was rigged against Bernie Sanders, even though he was on the right side of all the issues from polls mentioned above and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were on the opposite side, opposing many popular issues their alleged voters supported. As I've said repeatedly, the evidence that they only cover candidates that serve Wall Street interests has been obvious for decades, to those that know what to look for, but the Email leaks from 2016 made this even more obvious, especially since they made little or no effort to deny they were legitimate, and even acknowledge they were in many cases, but acted as their efforts to give preferential treatment to Wall Street candidates were justifiable, and the only problem was someone leaked the details about how they were rigging, which they explained as a Russian Conspiracy, with limited evidence.
Even if you accept this theory, then what the Russians did was show us how our political leaders were rigging the system, and instead of blaming them, we should thank them, or if we want to blame them for something, it should be for not releasing the Emails sooner, which could have prevented the rigging of the 2016 primary and enabled Bernie to win. Amazingly many establishment people, including Morgan Freeman who starred in an absurd ad, claimed that the leaking of Emails exposing how elections were rigged were an "attack" on Democracy by Russia, and they acted as if the people rigging the nomination were victims, and when Donna Bazille was exposed for leaking questions for a debate and fired, instead of admitting that she was way out of line for helping to rig the nomination, she literally said "I'm a victim," repeatedly during the time! I tried to find this exact quote through Google, but couldn't, although I clearly remember her using those exact words since she said it so often, but I did find numerous sources where she used similar words, which are listed below. Can you imagine what would happen if a shoplifter claimed he or she was a victim because someone saw what they were doing and reported it? Any cop, judge or lawyer would reject that easily, even if they could stop themselves from laughing at the absurdity of it, yet Donna Brazile and the Democrats are claiming to be victims because their efforts to rig the primary were exposed to the public!
I have no doubt that the people on social media that sorted through many of these Emails will never forget the fact that there's overwhelming evidence showing that the E-mails add to evidence many people already knew about preferential treatment given to Wall Street candidates, even though they will inevitably forget some of the details, but a large percentage of the public may not have paid as much attention, and they have been inundated with propaganda from traditional media claiming that the problems was a Russian hack, not the fact that they exposed legitimate Emails exposing obvious election rigging on behalf of the DNC, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and even the vast majority of traditional media. If anyone doesn't remember them that well they're welcome to search the E-mails themselves, or, if it helps I posted at least a dozen pages highlighting what I thought were the most important ones at that time here is The DNC email database; The Podesta Emails; and The Hillary Clinton Email Archive; or if that's too much to sort through I posted four Blog posts with highlights for DNC emails (1, 2, 3, and 4); and I posted another eight Blog posts about The Podesta Emails (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8). And in addition to highlighting Emails I also documented epidemic levels of evidence showing fraud in the primaries for both 2016 and 2020 in Can Hillary Clinton win without cheating? and Epidemic 2020 Election Fraud Again, plus another article Bernie Sanders Is More Democratic Than Fake "Democrats!" which included the first version of polls mentioned above, but slightly shorter, as well as numerous efforts to give preferential treatment to corporate Democrats in Congress trying to make it difficult if not impossible for progressive candidates that support popular issues from winning primaries for the Senate or the House. Numerous members of the Democratic leadership, including Nancy Polosi, Steny Hoyer, Cheri Bustos, Chuck Schumer, Catherine Cortez Masto, were exposed trying to rig primaries for Wall Street puppets, and often made incredibly lame excuses, including when Nancy Pelosi said "I don't see anything wrong with it," as if they had the right to rig nominations and once again the only problem was that they got caught.
Then, of course, once the political parties rig the nomination of both parties, including the Republicans who don't even do as good a job pretending to serve the interests of the public, they guarantee that no matter who wins they will serve Wall Street interests on one fiscal issue after another, even though the vast majority of the public opposes these positions. Even though we have research showing Medicare for All will save billions of dollars and thousands of lives every year they oppose it in favor of insurance donors; a large majority of the public want a Green New Deal which will also save an enormous amount of money and lives, but campaign donors profit by destroying the environment; a large majority of the public support an increase in the minimum wage and opposes outsources, both of which have been proven to reduce crime, but campaign donors oppose it so politicians oppose it; a large majority of the public wants increase funding for child care or education, which also reduce crime and solve many other social problems, but campaign donors oppose it, so instead of funding these things we fund corporate subsidies, tax cuts for the rich and the military so we can fight wars based on lies; and the same for many more issues! On one issue after another both political parties betray us despite evidence showing these positions are damaging to society and polls that show the majority of the public are on the opposite side of the issues. And on top of that, when the rich steal from the poor, whether it's white collar crime, or some other method, including many scams that are allowed by the law, they do little or nothing, on the rare occasion when they bring a case, the rich usually get a slap on the wrist; while the poor are prosecuted for incredibly petty crimes to the full extent of the law and often locked up in large numbers.
One of many examples is how they treat Wage theft as a civil issue, not a criminal issue, assuming they do anything at all, yet shoplifting is treated as a criminal issue, even when it's a miniscule fraction of the theft as explained in Shoplifting Is Big News; Stealing Millions From Workers Is Not 07/19/2021 That article explains how much more attention one brazen shoplifting event where perhaps a few hundred dollars of merchandise were stolen than coverage of $4.5 million in Wage Theft from Walgreen, and points out that there's an estimated $15 billion in wage theft per year from many other large corporations based on a study in Is Your Employer Stealing From You? 11/08/2019 In all fairness, this shoplifting incident is more brazen than most, but there are thousands of other shoplifting incidents every year, including dozens that are as brazen as this. Another thing traditional media fails to report on is the fact that self-checkout and store design is making this a much bigger problem, and that taxpayers often have to foot the bill, whether it's high priced theft or in many cases petty theft where there should be no doubt that taxpayers often pay at least three or four times as much as the cost of the items allegedly stolen, if not ten or more times as much; although credible estimates aren't reported by the media, some of these cases make it obvious.
Even though the media or police don't provide estimates of how much more they spend of taxpayer money they spend than merchandise is worth a review of many of these cases makes it clear that they must be much higher for the prettiest examples, including some against employees who are having their wages suppressed by a rigged economic system and perhaps understandably takes small things like oreos as reported in a story which went viral on the internet almost ten years ago, Walmart Oreo Theft: Felony Charge Pressed Against Employee Who Ate 'Multiple Cookies' 02/21/2013 They went to the trouble to search through who knows how many video tapes to find out who ate the oreos and if they paid for them and found an employee that had been with them seven years eating a package of cookies. They weren't satisfied to give her a warning or fire her, instead calling the police to investigate a sixty-three year old woman. How often do they search through hours of video tape when they find empty wrappers? How many times are they paid for? Apparently after being interrogated by police she admitted taking a couple snacks per week, for years which they claim adds up, but it's only a fraction of one percent of her wages, which are being suppressed, and Walmart is still making a massive profit off her. But there should be no doubt taxpayers paid more for the investigation and court costs than she took, and Walmart increases their profits by intimidating all workers despite their practices of union breaking or wage theft, which doesn't get nearly as much media coverage.
There was another incident shortly after that where an employee intended to buy a power drink, but a cashier was busy and told him she would get it later, but he was also charged. He may have been found not guilty, but this is only one of hundreds if not thousands of false accusations by employers, including Walmart. After an enormous amount of outrage on Social media, and in some cases protests and boycotts Walmart may have cut back on prosecutions of petty theft, but there are still many more examples. In two more recent cases asset protection and police reviewed hours of videos to find out taht two employees at sepearate stores took items on thirteen occassions one occassion in Ohio where about $368 worth of merchandise was allegedly taken in those thirteen incidencees and another in NY where $121.83 worth of items were allegedly stolen over thirteen times. There should be no doubt that these cases costed the taxpayers more to investigate and prosecute than they would have cost Walmart, and that Walmart is still making a massive profit by underpaying employees, and when they get caught doing things illegal it's treated as a civil matter, and they get their wrists slapped.
There are also many cases where large corporations are lobbying to get petty theft turned into felonies, while also lobbying to limit damages to themselves when they're found at fault. In most cases they try to argue that petty theft should be a felony when it's a repeat offender, and there have been dozens if not hundreds of examples of this and it's resulted in laws in many states; however, as reported in the FAIR article mentioned above, Shoplifting Is Big News; Stealing Millions From Workers Is Not 07/19/2021 "California voters approved Proposition 47" which "reclassified several nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors rather than felonies. This included any instances of shoplifting at or below $950." This is a rare case where voters overruled lawmakers that work for campaign donors. But in Kentucky they took it to an extreme, even when it's not a repeat offender for petty theft according to Is 5-10 years fair for shoplifting $80 from a Walmart self-checkout? Kentucky AG says yes 06/13/2022 which explains that a jury sentenced a suspect to 5-10 years, but a judge overturned it, and the AG is going to try to get it reinstated. The justification for this high punishment is that "she was tapping unlawfully into the sophisticated computer system connected to them," however the article also points out that Walmart is inviting her and millions of other customers to use their computers, so they can increase profits, and discouraging these customers from using cashiers or seeking help. This case is still unresolved, but the police and court costs must have already cost the state hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and if they win the higher sentence, it will presumably cost the state tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep her in prison and intimidate many of other Walmart shoppers so they can help increase profits.
Another case where Walmart or prosecuters acting on Walmart's behalf went to bizarre extremes to prosecute for petty theft at the self-checkout was explained in an article Blind N.H. Walmart shopper blames inacessible self-checkout for shoplifting, is found guilty anyway 12/03/2019 This case went through at least one appeal and one jury trial, which must have cost taxpayers thousands of dollars, and in the end they let him off without jail time a suspended fine and a requirement to pay restitution for $240.76 to Walmart, which is presumably what he allegedly took. Walmart won't pay cashiers to help customers and reduce these alleged thefts, some of which may be accidents, but taxpayers routinely get stuck with large bills to ensure they can increase profits by cutting services, and virtually entrapping many people. But when the legal findings are reversed, the courts often bend over backwards to minimize damage to Walmart including a case A 16-year former Wisc. Walmart employee with Down syndrome was awarded $300,000 after being fired. Now, Walmart is seeking a new trial. 04/21/2022 and Walmart doesn't even want to pay that, even though it's trivial compared to their profits. The original jury actually found that Walmart should pay $125 million partly as a result of punitive damages to discouraging them from doing this again, which is actually routine for Walmart. The reason this was reduced is because corporations have been lobbying for decades to cap damages so there can be few punitive damages, and when they lose all they pay is a small amount which is a cost of doing business, since they often save much more by violating laws than by paying fines. By appealing this Walmart is essentially demanding to be above the law, while lobbying for poor people to face increased punitive damages for much more minor crimes, some that Walmart is responsible for.
Walmart has even been trying to profit from accusations of shoplifting when the government refuses to prosecute, possibly even because there's no evidence of guilt as reported in numerous articles including Could the Self-Checkout Ruin Your Reputation? 07/13/2022 This relatively short article explains that self-checkouts have lead to a large increase in shopliftings and false shoplifting accusations, and that on at least two occasions when new technology creates this problem, instead of rehiring cashiers to take care of customers, they try more new technology which only leads to more new problems. There are many more of these problems than that article points out; but at the end it cites a recent case where Walmart lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay $2.1 million to the victim, and they report that "Walmart made hundreds of millions of dollars this way over two-year period," which should be considered obvious extortion, yet some states like Alabama allow it, and there appears to be little or no accountability for them. And, as Walmart often does, they're even trying to overturn that as well according to Walmart asks court to throw out $2.1m verdict in shoplifting arrest case 01/03/2022 Not only are they not being criminally prosecuted for extortion, false detainment or kidnapping, but they're demanding the right to keep on doing it.
Another article from the New York Times, They’re Falsely Accused of Shoplifting, but Retailers Demand Penalties, 08/17/2018, goes into more detail, although they're not reporting how large a scale it was being done on, whether they knew at that time or not. They do report that one law firm set a goal of collecting about $6 million and that there may be many others. Setting quotas like that can be very dangerous and encourage false accusations, which are illegal when the police do it, and obviously should be illegal when Walmart and their lawyers do it, yet if they try to hold them accountable, it's only through civil action without any criminal charges. Criminal charges are often only filed against the poor when they steal from the rich, not when the rich steal from the poor. The NYT also reports that many of these people falsely accused weren't refunded money they paid under false pretenses, except in some cases, where lawsuits were filed, and most states continue passing laws allowing this and are reluctant to stop it. In one case Marlyland passed a law requiring them to report how many letters demanding payment to avoid civil action but still allow it, and companies don't even abide by it; they also reported that Illinois tried to pass a law to solve this problem, but was warned by lobbyists not to, which shows that corporations, not voters are controlling the legal process. The NYT also reported that many other retailers, including Home Depot are using this tactic, but most of them weren't named. I searched for more news on this subject by Googling false arrests and various other stores, and found many more stories listed below, and there's even a short book on the subject, Shopping While Black: Consumer Racial Profiling in America (Criminology and Justice Studies) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition by Shaun L. Gabbidon (Author), George E. Higgins (Author), which looks reasonably good, but it's way over-priced at least $32.70 for a Kindle or $35 plus shipping for the least expensive paperback with no more than 120 pages of text, counting notes and index it's not much if any more than 150 pages, but some excerpts are available from Amazon or Google.
One example, which I have first hand knowledge of happened decades ago when Former Cumberland Farms Workers Charge Chain Falsely Accused Them of Theft 07/28/1990 I found many stories about this; but they don't tell the full story. All the articles I found talk about how some people got new trials based on false accusations or that they sued them claiming they were falsely charged; but none of the stories I found claimed that they won, which they did, and Cumberland Farms had to pay restitution, although I don't think it was much. Within a year or so after this they went bankrupt and emerged from bankruptcy no more than about a year later. I knew one of the victims, who wasn't terribly concerned about it, but was contacted as part of the class action lawsuit. She told me that she was confronted with an accusation and given a choice, to pay restitution, and continue working for Cumberland Farms, face criminal charges, or resign. She knew she was not guilty, and was confident of it so she just resigned, collecting her pay without paying restitution for the false accusations, and eventually got a small payment when the class action was settled. None of the stories about their bankruptcy mentioned a connection to these lawsuits or the damage they did to their reputation, or if bankruptcy court prevented payments for further lawsuits, although the courts often put the interests of the wealthy ahead of the working class. There are certainly many cases where corporations went bankrupt and paid wealthy investors without paying pensions for working people.
And there are many more examples where one set of laws apply to the rich and another to the poor, including a growing number of lawsuits against the poor for ridiculous amounts they can't possibly pay, that are clearly designed to keep them destitute for life like Wikipedia: BMG v. Joel Tenenbaum where a jury found in favor of a record company and awarded them $675,000 for songs that were downloaded without permission, which was of course way more than they would have costs, but apparently absurdly high punitive damages for working class people as a deterrent from stealing from the rich is acceptable for the courts, but not when it's the rich stealing from the working class. An appeals court recognized how absurd this was and cut the award by 90%, which would still have been way too high, but then another appeals court reinstated the higher amount. And this assumes you accept the legitimacy of copyright laws, which are written by rich people enabling them to gouge consumers with excessive prices. I previously wrote several articles showing that it now costs much more to suppress educational material to protect copyrights than it does to distribute it, so the obvious conclusion is that they should consider new ways to finance good authors, especially for educational purposes.
Many other good authors including David Sirota author "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back" 2006 explain much more about how the wealthy are rigging the economy in their favor and applying laws to benefit themselves, but the best researchers get virtually no media promotion, so most people never hear about good research. And other examples include arresting non-violent environmentalists for protesting, or in some cases destruction of property that slows down destruction of the environment, while letting oil company executives profit off the destruction of the environment which is already killing entire species, and thousands if not millions of people every year, according to many studies, mostly poor people in third world countries or our own abandoned inner cities, as explained in As Big Oil Execs Roam Free, Climate Activist Gets 8 Years in Prison 07/05/2021 which explains how Jessica Reznicek was sentenced to eight years in jail, but those responsible for lying about environmental destruction for decades and causing thousands if not millions of people are free and their income and wealth is protected by a rigged judicial system enabling them to profit off of negligent mass homicide.
Before I started checking alternative media or reading good non-fiction books about twenty years ago I thought I was reasonably well informed because I kept up with the traditional news and even read a few of the books they recommended. It wasn't until I found some of the books they never promote, and checked alternative media, often enabling me to find many other non-fiction books which expose how the economy is rigged and a fraction of one percent of the public controls the media and publishing companies, that refuse to promote books that expose their own fraud, including authors like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and many more on any given subject, that are much better than the books or news reported by traditional media, including books about control of the media, wars based on lies, the worst environmental destruction, the most effective ways to reduce violence and much more. It wasn't until recently that I found there was a significant amount of academic work reporting on the history of the criminal justice system, and that it is controlled by the wealthy who rig it in their own favor including "Controlling the Dangerous Classes" by Randall Sheldon and "The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Prison" by Reiman and Leighton.
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Both these books and more provide an enormous amount of evidence about how the rule of law is created by one class of people and used against other classes pretending to be fair, but in practice, the Rule of Law has always been far from fair, as many people targeted by it, especially the poor and minorities know from first hand experience, but most of them aren't aware about good research proving what they already know, and making it almost undeniable, except for those so biased they refuse to accept evidence. "Controlling the Dangerous Classes" by Randall Sheldon explains some of this in the following excerpts:
However, the most severe treatment is usually reserved for those at the bottom of the social order, as a cursory look at the inhabitants of the nation's jails and prisons reveals. The more privileged segments of society who break the law can afford to hire attorneys who argue for more lenient treatment--particularly evident with corporate and white-collar crime (Friedrichs, 2010).
....
... Put succinctly, the entire legal system has been and continues to be controlled and dominated by those in power at any given historical period and thus favors those with the most resources at their disposal. Those receiving the brunt of the full enforcement of the law have been predominantly those who make up the dangerous classes.
... The ideal government "of the people, by the people and for the people" should not exclude large numbers of people. In addition, the ideal references being governed by the rule of law, which is presumed to be unbiased.
... Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated on a daily basis--sometimes for all to see--than in our system of justice. Because those who create laws and those who interpret laws are drawn largely from the wealthiest class, it comes as no surprise that those brought into the criminal justice system will be those drawn largely from the lowest social classes. On any given day, in courtrooms all over the country, we have essentially one class passing judgment on another class. Our system is fundamentally a system influenced by class (and race). p.17-9
....
In most cases, the result has been unmistakable--those who have been arrested and processed through the criminal justice system have consistently been drawn from the lower rungs of the social class structure.
Let's return to laws about homicide. ... The current law against homicide is not as clearly defined as one might expect. Typically, such laws refer to acts such as the willful taking of another person's life (premeditated murder), the accidental yet negligent taking of another life (as in a fight), or killing someone while committing another crime (as in a robbery). Missing from the law of homicide are such cases as (1) the production of goods that can cause harm or even death to consumers (e.g., Takata airbags exploding and killing the driver), (2) various working conditions that cause death (e.g., black lung disease among miners), and (3) the perpetuation of conditions that cause sickness and death (e.g., presence of lead in impoverished areas).
Gustavus Myers wrote about the accumulation of wealth by landlords such as the Astors at the expense of the poor.
Is it not murder when, compelled by want, people are forced to fester in squalid, germ-filled tenements, where the sunlight never enters and where disease finds a prolific breeding-place? Untold thousands went to their deaths in these unspeakable places. Yet, so far as the Law was concerned, the rents collected by the Astors, as well as by other landlords, were honestly made. The whole institution of Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of the growing propertied classes. And if here and there a law was passed (which did not often happen) contrary to the expressed opposition of property, it was either so emasculated as to be harmless or it was not enforced. History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I: Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times 1908 by Gustavus Myers
The real-life circumstances of an offense rarely correspond to the abstract specifications of the law. The interpretation of homicide varies tremendously depending on the context. The police can shoot fleeing felons, soldiers in war are ordered to kill, and the state carries out executions. States may also engage in mass murder and genocide. ...
... Crimes committed by the wealthy are frequently not perceived as dangerous (Chomsky, 1989). Yet collectively these offenses cost more than 100,000 lives and trillions of dollars each year. Wealthy white males are rarely imprisoned; racial minorities (and the poorer in general) are overwhelmingly subjected to the actions of the criminal justice system and fill our jails and prisons. p.52-3
......
As an institution, law enforcement serves the interests of the dominant groups (Bacon, 1939). Quite often, as we will see, a police system has developed as a response to organized threats against the dominance of a small ruling class. p.59-60
....
Alan Silver (1967) has offered another explanation behind the passage of the Metropolitan Police Act, namely, that it would shield the rulers from the masses.
If the power structure itself armed itself and fought a riot or a rebellious people, this created more trouble and tension than the original problem . But , if one can have an independent police which fights the mob , then antagonism is directed toward the police, not the power structure. A paid professional police force seems to separate "constitutional" authority from social and economic dominance. (p.11-2)
Hence, there was a shift from control of policing on the community level (as it was with the constable form of policing) to control by the state. To address crime and disorder, elites endorsed expanded police powers rather than the elimination of economic inequality (Lynch & Michalowski, 2006).
... They could now serve more direct class control functions by patrolling impoverished communities. The unintended consequence of this change was that the police would eventually become the scapegoats for increased crime rates. If cities experienced crime, it was not because the social order had created a class of impovershed communities.; it was because the police failed to prevent crime (Lynch & Michalowski, 2006). Similarly, the creation of urban police also shifted the focus to the individual who committed the crime. Bad persons--not economic and social conditions--caused crime. p.65
This is just one of dozens of good research books into the history of policing, or how the law is overwhelmingly controlled by the wealthy at the expense of the majority, especially the poor, although some of it doesn't seem quite as extreme as it used to be, and the propaganda making it seem like "we're all equal in the eyes of the law," even though this is still far from the truth. Throughout history the ruling elites have almost always used the rule of law to create an official or unofficial state of slavery, with few exceptions, and even when there were exceptions the ruling elite or wealthy class always created laws to overwhelmingly benefit themselves. Officially slavery was abolished over a hundred and fifty years ago, except in prisons, but in practice they continued to impose a virtual state of slavery one way or another, whether it was by arresting large numbers of people and using that as an excuse to enslave them, through share copping, which kept people poor and desperate, or forcing people to buy from company stores, which accomplished similar results.
Many of these practices are over, and there are few if any examples where the police, national guard, or private security participates in massacres like the Ludlow massacre, or at least not in the United States; however, the police are still always on the side of the wealthy when there's a class conflict and they're the only union that is determined to help bust all other unions for the working class. When ever there's a protest because the political class refuses to support policies supported by good research and a large majority of the public, including Medicare For All, a Green New Deal or better protection of the environment for all, not just where wealthy people live, the most effective solutions to crime, including better education, child care, economic opportunities and fair wages, stopping wars based on lies, or many other issues, the police have been trained to blindly follow orders from the wealthy classes, even though they have no respect for the will of the people or the best interests of the country.
If you look up good books on environmental destruction, which traditional media doesn't promote, any more than they promote books about criminal inequality, it confirms that there are plenty of people dying from lead poisoning, and there's little or no accountability for those profiting from it, as well as many other forms of environmental destruction, killing many more people, yet our legal system doesn't consider it negligent mass homicide. In "A Terrible Thing To Waste" 2019, Harriet Washington reports that the DuPonts knew that lead poisoning was killing people over a hundred years ago, yet publically they continued denying this and at times may even have claimed there might be "health benefits" from this so they could increase profits, yet there's no consideration of charging them with murder, and only a fraction of the victims are filing civil suits, often losing them or getting minimal awards, a small fraction of the billions the lead industry made by knowingly polluting people. Other authors, including Robert Bullard, and many more report on much more environmental destruction including premature deaths from smog or carbon dioxide, many cancer alleys or cancer clusters. In most cases the political and legal system requires overwhelming evidence to prove pollution causes cancer or other diseases that are often fatal, and often even when that is available they still deny it and minimize damages, if they allow any at all. On one subject after another, the fiscal ideology of the wealthy routinely overrules the best research, including environmentalism, criminal activities, and the most effective ways of reducing crime and violence.
Some of this research is well over a hundred years old, and shows that even though it's not as good as modern research, it's much better than the fiscal ideology of the wealthy being used to make important decisions, including Charles Loring Brace The dangerous classes of New York, and twenty years' work among them. 1872/1880 p.i which says the following at the opening of this book:
The great pioneer in the United States, in the labors of penal Reform and the prevention of crime,—Edward Livingston,—said as long ago as 1833, in his famous “Introductory Report to the Code of Reform and Prison Discipline”: “As prevention in the diseases of the body is less painful, less expensive, and more eflicacious than the most skillful cure, so in the moral maladies of society, to arrest the vicious before the profligacy assumes the shape of crime; to take away from the poor the cause or pretense of relieving themselves by fraud or theft; to reform them by education and make their own industry contribute to their support, although difllcult and expensive, will be found more effectual in the suppression of offenses and more economical than the best organized system of punishment.”—(p. 322.)
My great object in the present work is to prove to society the practical truth of Mr. Livingston’s theoretical statement: that the cheapest and most efficacious way of dealing with the “Dangerous Classes” of large cities, is not to punish them, but to prevent their growth; to so throw the influences of education and discipline and religion about the abandoned and destitute youth of our large towns; to so change their material circumstances, and draw them under the influence of the moral and fortunate classes, that they shall gnow up as useful producers and members of society, able and inclined to aid it in its progress.
This shows that many good academics understood that poverty, lack of education or economic opportunities, among other things were major contributing causes of crime and violence, so reducing income inequality and protecting workers rights would no doubt, help reduce violence and crime, but the political establishment did the opposite and more often that not, they continue to do the opposite, although there might be some exceptions at the local level, and these exceptions were more common when unions were strong, before outsourcing sent almost all manufacturing jobs overseas or south of the border. In all fairness, though, Brace may have been mistaken when he refered to "the moral and fortunate classes," implying that wealthy people may have had higher moral values, which is highly doubtful. Sheldon cites this book in "Controlling the Dangerous Classes," and even though it has some good points, Sheldon points out some additional flaws later in the book. Another good research report that taught about prevention of crime, which I cited in a recent article, Educational Prevention Of Shootings Is Better Than Militaization was Richard Louis Dugdale, "The Jukes, a study in crime, pauperism, diseases, and heredity," 1877/1910, which also shows that some good academics from well over a hundred years ago knew some of the most important causes of crime and violence, although the political class declined to act on their good research as much then as they do now, even though current research is much better, and more conclusive. Yet there are still many people in denial now and in the sixties, when another good researcher, Karl Menninger wrote a book, and the few excerpts I've read from it implies that it's good and consistent with more recent and better research on preventing violence, yet those in power, and some academics serving their interests disagree.
Gail Heriot a college professor smears Menninger and takes a few of his quotes out of context while ignoring the most important research he provided, as well as additional research that came long before him and after him showing a more effective way to reduce crime in her article. Karl Menninger's The Crime of Punishment 11/21/2018 She begins by writing "To read Menninger today is itself punishment," which is misleading. She then says that those who are concerned for the victims are "melodramatic" and "childish" and appealing only to the "unthinking," without putting this in its proper context or telling people he quickly followed up by saying "Of course no victim should be neglected." His book goes on to discuss helping all victims by finding the most effective ways to reduce crime and violence, not just seeking vengeance or a public spectacle, and using vengeance for entertainment, even though it's not the most effective way to prevent crime, while ignoring the root causes of violence; and more recent research shows he's far closer to the most effective way of reducing violence than she is or other people that focus only on punishment as a deterrent, and only for poor people, often minorities or African Americans.
The vast majority of her readers are unlikely to seek out the page citations, which are in the report she links to, not in the article, and read the book, which they would have to buy, unless they know where to look for a free online copy, Karl Menninger "The Crime of Punishment" 1966 which provides more context than her article in the following excerpts, including the page numbers she obtained her quotes from, or you can read the whole book and use your own judgment:
And there is one crime we all keep committing, over and over. I accuse the reader of this–and myself, too–and all the nonreaders. We commit the crime of damning some of our fellow citizens with the label 'criminal.' And having done this, we force them through an experience that is soul-searing and dehumanizing. In this way we exculpate ourselves from guilt we feel and tell ourselves that we do it to “correct” the “criminal” and make us all safer from crime. We commit this crime every day that we retain our present stupid, futile, abominable practices against detected offenders.
Let us deal here with the unpleasant rhetorical ploy which some radio and television speakers have passed around for use in public attacks on the Supreme Court because of its recent definitions of the limitations of police authority. “Doesn’t anyone care about the victims?” cry some demagogues, with melodramatic flourishes. “Why should all this attention be given to the criminals and none to those they have beaten or robbed?”
This childish outcry has an appeal for the unthinking. Of course no victim should be neglected. But the individual victim has no more right to be protected than those of us who may become victims. We all want to be better protected. And we are not being protected by a system that attacks “criminals” as if they were the embodiment of all evil. That is what this book is about. p.9
I suspect that all the crimes committed by all the jailed criminals do not equal in total social damage that of the crimes committed against them. In our vengeful ferocity toward this miserable minority of offenders, we overlook the major contributors to crime who openly, successfully, and undeterred. We are busy pursuing and persecuting thousands of failures and blunderers in order to capture, confine, or execute a few conspicuous monsters who set the pace for a code that has to do mainly with petty thieves, bungling burglars, pill peddlers, and mugs. We neglect intelligent, scientific methods of effective law enforcement that would protect us from them and from the much larger group of professionals.
A scientific adviser employed by President Lyndon Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice was recently quoted as saying in substance that our system of crime control is an unplanned product of history, and shows this fact plainly.1 Year after year the nation’s police forces and criminal courts have steamed ahead, never knowing whether the measures they take against crime are effective and meaningful or a total waste of time, or worse. Said the executive director of the commission, James Vorenberg, “We lack even the most essential knowledge about crime. … We know very little–much less than most people think and newspaper stories would suggest–about the volume, kinds, and effect of crime and who the perpetrators and the victims are.” p.28-9
One study of a municipal police force in the United States concluded that “the illegal use of violence by the police is a consequence of their occupational experience and that the policeman’s colleague group sanctions such usage.” Policemen see this use of violence as morally acceptable and legitimate in terms of the ends sought. They use ends “as constituting a legitimation for violence which is equal or superior to legitimation derived from the law.” Violence becomes a personal property to be used at the policeman’s discretion. This is a distortion of the policeman’s task; his job is to enforce the law, not to punish or oppress the citizenry. p33-4
Does the public need crime?
The inescapable conclusion is that society secretly wants crime, needs crime, and gains definite satisfactions from the present mishandling of it! We condemn crime; we punish offenders for it; but we need it. The crime and punishment ritual is a part of our lives. We need crimes to wonder at, to enjoy vicariously, to discuss and speculate about, and to publicly deplore. We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy, and to stoutly punish. Criminals represent our alter egos—our 'bad' selves—rejected and projected. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to do and, like scapegoats of old, they bear the burdens of our displaced guilt and punishment—”the iniquities of us all."
Them we can punish! At them we can all cry “stone her” or “crucify him.” We can throw mud at the fellow in the stocks; he has been caught; he has been identified; he has been labeled, and he has been proven guilty of the dreadful thing. Now he is eligible for punishment and will be getting what he deserves. p.153-4
He goes into more detail in the rest of his book, which I haven't completely read at this point, but I have read enough to know that Gail Heriot's taking things out of context, and she's also ignoring the best research on the most effective ways of reducing violence, whether this research was done before Menninger's book, in his book, or after he wrote his book, but before she wrote her article. She claims crime rates are down partly due to our high rates of incarceration, which is the highest in the world and much, much higher than the rest of the world, and most of the few countries with more than half our incarceration rate are countries where our government has intervened in often either overthrowing Democratic leaders, or at least trying to, which contributed to their high rates of violence and incarceration. She ignores the fact that most European contries, except for a handful of former Soviet Republics, have two thirds lower incarceration rates and more than fifty percent, if not sixty or seventy percent lower murder rates. Surely they must be doing something right; and good researchers has shown how we can improve, which often means doing things that Europe has been doing for decades, like provide better edcuation, child care, health care, reducing child abuse, poverty, income inequality, homelessness and drug abuse. Furthermore, if there are people that want crime to exist, either consciously or unconsciously, as Menninger speculates about, she clearly indicates she may be one of them.
Menninger seems to focus mostly on abuse by the courts or police that escalate violence, instead of preventing it, although he does ackowledge most people in the criminal courts are from poorer families with fewer economic opportunties, and many of them get extreme sentences for incredibly minor offenses, like petty theft, and by putting them in the criminal system this actually makes them worse not better. Many other more recent researchers ahve shown he was right; and they also show that abuse from their own families is also a contributing factor that has to be adressed. After looking at her academic record, it doesn't appear to be researching the leading causes of crime or how to prevent it, instead she appears to be a political appointee that serves the ideology of the wealthy. In 2010 Media Matters reported that the commission was stacked with right wing political appointees in Meet the conservative U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 07/09/2010 then in 2016 Zoe Lofgren said “I think you’re a bigot, lady, I think you’re an ignorant bigot,” as reported in Congresswoman Slams Anti-Trans Activist During Hearing: “You’re a Bigot, Lady!” 05/27/2016 clearly indicating that she thought Gail Heriot was transphobic, and this lead to a call to Remove Gail Heriot from the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
These political appointees are apparently trying to pave the way to roll back protection of civil rights instead of defending them. In Gail Heriot's comments about Affirmative Action she ignores one of the most obvious flaws for the way it's been implemented from the beginning, by giving minorities more opportunities to go to college or get fair opportunities in employment, without repairing the unequal opportunities at education, starting with child care, and K-12 educational opportunities. She also wrote in a report about "Police Use of Force," without expressing any concern for police use of force, even though there's an incredibly long record of excessive force by police, especially against minorities. She quotes high rates of crime in African American communities without mentioning that the political establishment has been cutting edcuational and economic opportunties and other services for decades, if not since they were officially released from slavery. Nor does she consider, as Stacy Patton points out in "Spare The Kids" that slaves before the Civil War were taught to use violence against each other to control their own children so they would be obedient to their white masters including the use of corporal punishment, which has proven to teach violence, and they passed this down from generation to generation since then, with the vast majority of the African American community forgetting this practice was forced on them by white slave owners. A bigger problem than her bigotry against LGBT might be her bigotry against African Americans, while pretending to defend their civil right, ironically arguing in defense of mass incarceration of them.
These political appointees are often relied on to advise the political establishment, even though many of them aren't familiar with the best research on any given subject, and, by pretending to be academic scholars they provide political cover for politicians that ignore the research of the best academics that provide peer reviewed research that holds up much better than the political claims of these appointees, who are often covered without criticism by traditional media; or on some occasions, like the conflict between Gail Heriot and Zoe Lofgren, it's portrayed as a "smack-down" or something like that. Obviously I partly agree with Zoe Lofgren but I would have prefered a better dialog covering the flaws in Gail Heriot's political beliefs disguised as academic research, instead of an argument that many people might find entertaining, but not informative, even if they agree with one side or another.
We literally have a class of people that study how to manipulate the majority of the public and create the illusion of democracy even though the government doesn't respond to the will of the people, although they obviously don't phrase things that way, often calling these professional lawyers, public relations professionals, advertisers, consultants, politicians, media consultants, or a variety of other names that are misrepresented, and some people in these trades aren't actually trying to manipulate the public, although this doesn't include those with the most political power, and highest paid people in these trades.
Obviously we need to shift control of powerful institutions so that they're accountable to the public, not just the oligarchs. Partial solutions might include Ranked Choice Voting, much more diverse media, not just six oligarchs controlled by wealthy multi-millionaires or billionaires, access for all honest candidates to the media, forcing candidates to answer questions controlled by the public, including telling us whether they support fiscal issues, like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and other subjects mentioned in polls cited above, increased use of ballot initiatives, including some on those same fiscal issues. There also need to be better access to education for all people, not just the wealthy; but like other institutions, they're controlled by the wealthy and they've been gouging people going to college, and making it much worse with student debt, which is treated much more harshly than debt to corporations, and wealthy people or corporations have major advantages if they blow their funds and go into bankruptcy, while working class people or students can't use this as an excuse to avoid debt even though it's rigged as a part of price gouging for college expenses, including books, and excessive interests rates. One of the things they do to drive up the cost of education is implementing extreme copyright laws effectively making knowledge the intellectual property of the wealthy one way or another.
Price gouging for education and copyright laws should be one of the issues we should make candidates answer, put it on the ballot, or both. If a job applicant refuses to fill out an application at Walmart or McDonald's they would never get hired; we should hold political candidates to the same standards, among other things!
The following are some additional sources or related articles:
Behavior: The Kansas Moralist 08/06/1973 Karl Augustus Menninger, M.D., celebrated his 80th birthday at a monstrous bash last week.
Democrats Revive Failed ‘Pied Piper’ Strategy for 2018 10/10/2017
Why the Washington Post’s New Ties to the CIA Are So Ominous 01/18/2014
Follow the Money: Why Financial Crimes Often Go Unpunished After 2012 In 2012, HSBC, the fifth biggest bank in the world, was found to have laundered money for Mexican drug cartels, violated international sanctions against rogue states, and facilitated al-Qaeda-linked accounts in transferring money to the United States. Investigations by the Senate discovered the bank to not only be severely negligent, but consciously responsible for these crimes. For punishment, the bank was fined just four weeks of profit. The bank’s CEO, Stuart Gulliver, apologized and promised to not do it again. No one was jailed. .... The modern corporation is designed to limit individual liability and that naturally limits the ability to effectively prosecute those at fault. And while corporations have many of the same rights as people, they can’t be physically jailed. So prosecutors often seek fines—fines which aren’t paid by the perpetrators, but by the company, and therefore ultimately by the stockholders.
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They’re Falsely Accused of Shoplifting, but Retailers Demand Penalties 08/17/2018 In many states, retailers do not have to return the money they collect if the cases are ultimately dismissed or the people are cleared. Walmart and other companies have created well-oiled operations, hiring law firms to send tens of thousands of letters a year. Walmart set a collection goal of about $6 million in 2016 for one of its go-to firms, Palmer Reifler & Associates, according to a court paper filed as part of a lawsuit Ms. Thompson brought against the retailer. The firm also pointed out to Walmart that minors tended to pay off more frequently, the filing said. ... In Illinois, a 2015 proposal to reduce the penalties that retailers can demand from shoplifting suspects died in the legislature. One of the bill’s sponsors said an industry lobbyist had warned him that the issue was a “third rail” among retailers with deep political influence in the state.
Carey Law Office Maryland: False Accusations of Shoplifting Are More Common Than You Think
Former Cumberland Farms Workers Charge Chain Falsely Accused Them of Theft 07/28/1990
STORE CASHIER WILL GET NEW TRIAL FORMER CUMBERLAND FARMS EMPLOYEES TELL OF COERCED CONFESSIONS 03/27/1993
FORMER WORKERS SUE FRANCHISE CUMBERLAND FARMS ACCUSED OF FORCING THEFT CONFESSIONS 05/29/1991
SCHILLACI v. Cumberland Farms, Defendant-Respondent. 05/20/1998
WEISTER v. CUMBERLAND FARMS OF N.J. INC. 12/07/1989
Shoplifting False Arrest – How Retailers Reduce Liability for Bad Stops? 05/18/2018
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail (1999-09-01) by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools 1991
The shame of the nation: the restoration of apartheid schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol 2005 https://archive.org/details/shameofnation00jona/page/20/mode/2up
Rachel and Her Children by Jonathan Kozol 1987
Death at an early age : the destruction of the hearts and minds of Negro children in the Boston public schools by Jonathan Kozol 1967
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Spending on U.S. digital political ads to top $1 billion for first time 02/12/2020
I worked on political ads at Facebook. They profit by manipulating us. 11/04/2019
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Why political campaigns are flooding Facebook with ad dollars 10/08/2020
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Another billionaire throws major cash into the race for Illinois governor 06/1/2022 Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker Net worth: 3.6 billion; billionaires Ken Griffin and Richard Uihlein trying to unseat him.
All of America’s 607 Billionaires Must Run for President 11/10/2019
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Dear billionaires: Don’t run for president 03/04/2020 Mike Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Cuban, Ross Perot, Tom Steyer, and Howard Schultz all made their fortunes by steering businesses and hedge funds to enormous commercial success, and it’s easy for them to conclude that they could do the same for the country.
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Wikipedia: Edward Bernard Peter Buck Buck was sentenced to 30 years in prison at the age of 67.
Jimmy Dore: Hunter Biden “Should Be In Prison!” Says Joe Biden 07/12/2022
Blow by Blow: 10 Politicians Linked to Cocaine 11/22/2013
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Cocaine, cannabis and opium: Which British politicians have used drugs and what did they take? 06/11/2019
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#BlackRock, Vanguard and StateStreet manages $15T in assets combined, more than China’s GDP. In 4 years, it’ll be more than the USA's GDP. They control media, have discretionary funds to pick #stocks + vote shares at annual company board meetings. TNU season finale, 8pm ET tonight! 10/10/2021
Having sat up all night with my former co-admin for weeks reading all of the DNC/Podesta emails, it is astonishing to me that these people still have jobs. There is an enormous difference between reporting on an election and trying to steer the audience to a particular candidate, as any first year journalism student (or any astute viewer) would know. It's madness these people remain in their comfy six figure positions while Julian Assange is being persecuted for actual journalism. 06/14/2021 Update on 2016 cheating
Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A. 12/26/1077
Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda
Joseph Goebbels: On the “Big Lie” “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The CIA used to infiltrate the media. Now the CIA is the media. 04/28/2021
CIA Admits to Congress the Agency Uses Mainstream Media to Distribute Disinformation: 1975 Video 03/06/2018
Abby Martin interviews Richard Grove on "Breaking the Set" (RT Russia Today) 03/28/2013 allegedly Otis Pike and William Colby
Forbes deleted a deeply misinformed op-ed arguing Amazon should replace libraries 07/23/2018
Original article: Amazon Should Replace Local Libraries to Save Taxpayers Money Forbes Panos Mourdoukoutas, contributor 07/21/2018 Original photo:
Amazon Should Replace Local Libraries to Save Taxpayers Money via @forbes https://forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/07/21/amazon-should-replace-local-libraries-to-save-taxpayers-money/#6f2d319960a8 07/21/2018
Donna Brazile Says She Has No Regrets Over Her Contact With The Clinton Team 11/07/2016 "The Democratic Party was a victim of a cyber-crime," Brazile noted. "It's sad. It's sickening to see so many people, especially those on my right, utilize these emails to try to smear people."
CNN parts way with Donna Brazile after email leak about debate question 10/31/2016 Donald Trump is seizing on the ongoing flap over Hillary Clinton's private email server. He says that she "is not the victim, the American people are the victims." (Donald Trump is, of course, not the most credible source for any claim, however, this is one of the rare occassions where he's right.)
Guccifer 2.0 strikes again: DNC chair blames 'Russian agents' 09/14/2016 "The DNC is the victim of a crime — an illegal cyberattack by Russian state-sponsored agents who seek to harm the Democratic Party and progressive groups in an effort to influence the presidential election," interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile said in a statement Tuesday. "We have been anticipating that an additional batch of documents stolen by Russian agents would be released. Our legal team is now in the process of reviewing these private documents, and attempting to confirm their authenticity, as it is common for Russian hackers to forge documents." (The Democratic leadership clearly did not support many of the Progressive issues which were supported by Bernie Sanders, and they were caught red-handed rigging the primaries against real progressives, therefore they're obviously not progressives or victims, but pupretrators.)
Donna Brazile Admits She Lied, But Insists SHE'S the Victim—Not Bernie 03/25/2017
Donna Brazile Calls Hillary A 'Victim', Blames Media For Reporting DNC Leaks 03/30/2017
A Victory Against Wage Theft and For Class Actions in Braun v. Walmart - Public Justice 12/16/2014
Democrats spend millions on Republican primaries 07/15/2022
Democrats boosted a MAGA longshot in the Pa. gov’s race. Now he’s got a real shot at winning. 07/19/2022
Senate Democrats’ Machine Spent $15 Million to Destroy Progressive Candidates in Primaries 07/15/2020
The day Philadelphia bombed its own people 08/15/2019 As the smoke rose from 6221 Osage Avenue, Philadelphia residents watched through their windows or television screens in a state of stunned disbelief. Their city had just bombed its own people. 11 killed including 5 children. .... Andrea Walls, writer and resident of the neighborhood: The building is on fire, with firemen on the scene, and everyone agrees not to fight the fire and to allow 60 homes to burn. How can this happen? How could no one say, wait, hold up, something’s not right. Y’all are serving misdemeanor warrants and this is where we end up at the end of the day? What does it mean? For years, I’ve been trying to understand. And I came to the conclusion that we have been absorbing all of this anti-black rhetoric, all of this anti-black imagery, our entire lives. We’re just all absorbing this expectation that black life and black bodies have very little value. .... Ramona Africa, lone adult survivor of bombing: We immediately tried to get our children, our animals, ourselves out of the burning building. We were hollering, “We’re coming out!” [The cops] immediately started shooting, trying to prevent anybody from coming out of that house. We were forced back in at least twice.
Judge bars Macy's from detaining and fining alleged shoplifters 07/01/2016
Macy's Imprisons Minority Customers and Extorts Them for Bogus Fines: Suit 12/03/2015
NYPD Officer Says Macy's Racially Profiled Her in Black Friday Arrest 11/18/2013 Mendez, who lives in the Bronx, was acquitted of the shoplifting charges in September. During the two-day bench trial, a store detective took the stand and admitted her supervisors told her to fudge paperwork.
Lawsuit Says Macy's Traps Minorities In Shoplifting Cells & Makes Them Pay Bogus Fines 12/03/2015
Black Woman On Macy’s Clerk Wrongly Accusing Her Of Shoplifting: ‘I Feel So Humiliated’ 05/16/2018
Home Depot Accused of Shaking Down Shoplifters 09/11/2013
Home Depot Sued Over Alleged Shoplifter Shakedowns 09/12/2013
Woman falsely accused of shoplifting to sue after Mich. Target 'walk of shame' 06/05/2018
Mich. Target Fires Employee Who Falsely Accused Black Woman of Theft 06/05/2018
Girls falsely accused of shoplifting by Ill. Target employees in social media post 12/21/2016
Target Employees in California Block Black Teenagers Who Were Falsely Accused of Theft, Company Issues Apology 01/29/2021
Accused “Taco Seasoning Bandit” Sues Target Over Self-Checkout Theft Arrest 10/28/2019
Woman says she was fired from Kansas Lowe's after calling police on shoplifter 12/21/2016
Mom says she was racially profiled, accused of shoplifting at San Leandro Ca. Kohl's 07/24/2019
Apologies Given after Video Shows Mom Wrongly Accused of Shoplifting at Ca. Kohl’s 07/24/2019
Stephen Bilkis & Associates Law Firm: New York Shoplifting from Kohl's
I received a letter in mail accusing me of shoplifting at Kohl's "tags in the changing room, my word against theirs, little or no further evidence."
Hilf & Hilf, Law Firm: Arrested for Shoplifting from Kohls 03/27/2017
The new eight-part Vice TV docuseries “Betraying the Badge” highlights some of the most infamous stories of police corruption in recent history. 07/19/2021
Cops: the violent legacy of a TV show that sculpted America's view of police 06/11/2020 The tactics the show’s producers use to get this footage are also questionable at best, and disturbing at worst. We were told that they never air a segment without a signed consent form from the suspect in question. In the course of our reporting, we spoke to 11 suspects who had appeared on the show. All but one said that they had not given their consent, or they were too inebriated at the time to legally give consent. Others told us they were confused by the relationship between the show’s producers and the law enforcement agents with whom they were working side-by-side. We even found a case in Gwinnett county, Georgia, where a young woman was denied a bail bond until she signed the form giving Cops permission to air her arrest for possession of cocaine. Subsequent testing showed that the substance was not cocaine at all, though this was never aired on the show. Instead, the producers aired her arrest, and continued to air it in reruns. Perhaps the most insidious takeaway we had from watching hundreds of hours of the show was not quantitative, but qualitative. Over and over, Cops shows officers acting in violent, abusive, racist and potentially unconstitutional ways. This can include anything from repeatedly tasing suspects who are in custody, to prying open a suspect’s mouth with a flashlight in search of drugs. Rather than critiquing this sort of behavior, or even presenting it neutrally, Cops portrays it as good policing.
How 70 years of cop shows taught us to valorize the police 04/12/2021
Racist cop shows and biased news fuel public fears of crime and love for the police 06/30/2020
Media Co Media Coverage of Law Enfor age of Law Enforcement and E cement and Effects of the Image ects of the Image Created May 2019
The Influence of Police Related Media, Victimization, and Satisfaction on African American College Students' Perceptions of Police 09/10/2019
More dogs in the neighborhood often means less crime 07/05/2022
The role of the police is protecting capitalism | SocialistWorker.org 12/07/2014
How Police Unions Enable and Conceal Abuses of Power | The New Yorker 06/18/2020
How police unions became so powerful — and how they can be tamed 06/24/2020
The Infuriating History of Why Police Unions Have So Much Power September/October 2020 Issue
The Blurred Blue Line 09/01/2016 When police officers take off-duty jobs, do they work for the people, or are they guns for hire?
