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JAMES BOND FOR HIRE: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 11, 2013 at 10:33 pm

A movie critic, reviewing John Wayne’s 1968 gung-ho film, “The Green Berets,” said that Wayne had reduced the complex issues behind the Vietnam war to the simplicity of a barroom brawl.

In the same vein, the American news media displays a genius for ignoring the complexities of a major news story and focusing on just a single, sensationalistic aspect of it.

Take the Paula Deen scandal.  The media have universally focused on Deen’s admitted use of the “N-word”–and utterly ignored far more important aspects of the story.

According to the complaint, employees at the restaurant were routinely subjected to violent behavior, racial and sexual harassment, assault, bettery and sexual discrimination in pay.

Similarly, in covering the odyssey of Edward Snowden, the former NSA worker turned mass secret leaker, the media have followed the same path.

Edward Snowden

In an updated version of “Where’s Waldo?” the media have focused their attention on charting the almost daily whereabouts of Snowden.

Will Snowden receive amnesty in Hong Kong?  In Russia?  In Cuba?  China?  Venezuela?  Nicaragua?

The blunt truth is that Snowden, as an individual, doesn’t matter.

Either he will obtain aslym in a country that hates the United States–or he won’t.

Even if he obtains such asylum, there’s no guarantee it will last.

Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the international terrorist better known as “Carlos the Jackal,” can attest to that.

By 1994, he had spent almost 20 years on the run from the French Intellilgence agents.  They were seeking him for a series of terrorist attacks across France–and for the 1975 murders of two counter-intellilgence agents and their informant.

Carlos “The jackal”

After living in a series of countries that had no extradition treaty with France–such as Syria, Iraq and Jordan–he settled down in the Sudanese city of Khartoum.

He felt utterly safe, since he had been accorded official protection by the Sudanese government.  But he had misjudged his protectors.

French and American Intelligence agencies offered a number of deals to the Sudanese authorities. In 1994, Carlos was scheduled to undergo a minor testicular operation in a Sudanese hospital.

Two days after the operation, Sudanese officials warned him of an assassination plot–and moved him to a villa for protection.  They also provided him with bodyguards.

One night later, the bodyguards entered his room while he slept, tranquilized and tied him up–and slipped him into the custody of his longtime pursuers.

On August 14, 1994, Sudan transferred him to French Intelligence agents, who flew him to Paris for trial.  He is now serving two sentences of life imprisonment.

There is no guarantee that any nation that guarantees the security of Edward Snowden today won’t decide, in the future, to betray him.

So for all the efforts of the news media to treat him like the Flying Dutchman, he is just one man.

And, eventually he will run out of secrets to spill.  That’s assuming that Russian and/or Chinese Intelligence agents haven’t already helped themselves to the secrets on his laptop.

As Mr. Spock once famously said during an episode of “Star Trek”: “Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.”

So where does the significance of the Snowden story lie?

In the fact that Americans have become too lazy or fearful to do most of their own spying.

Yes, that’s right–60 to 70% of America’s Intelligence budget doesn’t go to the CIA or the National Security Agency (NSA) or the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Instead, it goes to private contractors who supply secrets or “soldiers of fortune.”

One such contractor is Booz Allen Hamilton–which employed Snowden and gave him access to the super-secret NSA.

The outsourcing of government intelligence work to private contractors took off after 9/11.

This was especially true after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003–and found its Intelligence and armed services stretched to their furtherest limits.

The DIA estimates that, from the mid-1990s to 2005, the number of private contracts awarded by Intelligence agencies rose by 38%.

During that same period, government spending on “spies/guns for hire” doubled, from about $18 billion in 1995 to about $42 billion in 2005.

Many tasks and services once performed only by government employees are being “outsourced” to civilian contractors:

  • Analyzing Intelligence collected by drones and satellites;
  • Writing reports;
  • Creating and maintaining software programs to manipulate data for tracking terrorist suspects;
  • Staffing overseas CIA stations;
  • Serving as bodyguards to government officials stationed overseas;
  • Providing disguises used by agents working undercover.

More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:

“There are two types of armies that a prince may use to defend his state: armies made up of his own people or mercenaries….

“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends, among enemies they are cowards.

“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”

Machiavelli, on meeting Edward Snowden, would no doubt find his judgment confirmed.

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OBAMA FLUNKS, MACHIAVELLI REIGNS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2013 at 10:00 pm

Barack Obama is one of the most highly educated men to occupy the White House.

In 1988, he entered Harvard Law School, graduating in 1991.  He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year, and president of the journal in his second year.

In 1991, he accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book, Dreams of My Father, published in 1995.

He then taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years—as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.

President Barack Obama

And yet, for all his experience as a scholar, there remains a truth about which he remains woefully ignorant.

It is a truth that Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, understood all too well.

In his pamphlet, The Prince, Machiavelli laid out the qualities that a successful ruler must possess.  There were some to be cultivated, and others to be avoided at all costs.  For example:

He is rendered despicable by being thought changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid and irresolute—which a prince must guard against as a rock of danger…. 

[He] must contrive that his actions show grandeur, spirit, gravity and fortitude.  As to the government of his subjects, let his sentence be irrevocable, and let him adhere to his decisions so that no one may think of deceiving or cozening him.

Niccolo Machiavelli

So how has Obama fared by this standard?

Consider the July 2 press release from the Treasury Department on the signature achievement of his administration, the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare:

“Over the past several months, the Administration has been engaging in a dialogue with businesses – many of which already provide health coverage for their workers – about the new employer and insurer reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively….We have listened to your feedback.  And we are taking action.

“The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin.”

[Boldface in the original document.]

* * * * *

In short: The administration is delaying until 2015 the law’s requirement that medium and large companies provide coverage for their workers or face fines.

Now consider how Obama’s self-declared enemies reacted to this announcement.

Since 2011, right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives have voted 37 times to repeal or defund all or parts of ObamaCare, most recently in May.

They can only be encouraged at this latest show of timidity on Obama’s part.

And thousands of employers bitterly resent having to provide medical coverage for the men and women whom they would prefer to own rather than pay at all.

This can only convince them to dig in their heels and evade or sabotage the law any way they can.

Susan Collins, the U.S. Senator from Maine, recently confessed as much:

“I’ve heard from countless employers…who say that the onerous penalties and provisions in ObamaCare provide perverse and powerful incentives to not hire new workers or to cut back on the hours that their employees are allowed to work.”

This comment points to a self-defeating part of the legislation:

The health care law requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide affordable insurance coverage to workers. For part-time employees, who work fewer than 30 hours, the company isn’t penalized for refusing to provide health insurance.

Thus, greed-fueled employers will move even more employees into part-time positions.  They can dodge the requirement to provide health insurance and avoid paying a fine.

Obama’s enemies have called him a practitioner of hard-knuckled Chicago-style politics.  But, in reality, he is precisely the sort of other-worldly political leader Machiavelli warned against:

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality. 

For how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin rather than his preservation.

Long before he took the Presidential oath, Obama should have committed to memory this famous passage from Machiavelli:

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. 

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….

I conclude, therefore, with regard to being loved and feared, that men love at their own free will, but fear at the will of the prince, and that a wise prince must rely on what is in his power and not on what is in the power of others….

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GREED? THY NAME IS UNION: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Social commentary on July 9, 2013 at 11:30 pm

On April 18, 1946, the railroads’ two key brotherhoods announced that they would withdraw all their men in 30 days.  The nation’s transportation grid would collapse.

The two unions had been longtime allies of the Democratic Party.  And a Democrat–Harry S. Truman–was then sitting in the White House.

Harry S. Truman

Calling them to the White House three days before the strike deadline, Truman offered them generous arbitration awards.  And expected them to accept.

To his surprise–and outrage–they didn’t.

“If you think I’m going to sit here and let you tie up this whole country,” said Truman, “you’re crazy as hell.”

“We’ve got to go through with it, Mr. President,” one of the labor leaders replied.  “Our men are demanding it.”

“All right,” said Truman, rising.  “I’m going to give you the gun.  You’ve got just 48 hours to reach a settlement.  If you don’t, I’m going to take over the railroads in the name of the government.”

Two days passed and, true to his word, Truman acted.

On May 17, 1946, he signed an executive order seizing the railroads.  He gave the unions another five days of reprieve.

And what did he get in return?  A brief note saying, “Your offer is unacceptable.”

Summoning his cabinet, he announced that he would appear before a joint session of Congress on May 18.  He would then ask for authority to draft all railroad men, regardless of age, into the Army.

Tom Clark, Truman’s Attorney General, declared such a move unconstitutional.

“We’ll draft ’em first and think about the law later,” said Truman.

Then he ordered his press secretary to clear all the radio networks for a major fireside address that same night.

He planned to tell Americans that while their military had faced bullets, bombs and disease to win the victory” in World War II, the leaders of the railroad unions had virtually “fired bullets into the backs of our soldiers.”

They were all liars, and he personally attacked John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers of America (the coal miners were on strike, too).

Truman also savaged Philip Murray, president of the United Steel Workers of America: “Mr. Murray and his Communist friends” had intimidated “a week-kneed Congress.”

Finally, Truman meant to rouse the nation to fury against the strikers with these words:

“Let’s give the country back to the people.  Let’s put transportation and production back to work, hang a few traitors, and make our own country safe for democracy.  Come on, boys, let’s do the job!”

What Truman actually said proved less blazing.  But only slightly less.

Truman’s press secretary, Charles G. Ross, warned the President that the “hang a few traitors” line might lead to wholesale lynchings of union leaders.  And Clark Clifford, already an influential Washington attorney and power-broker, agreed.

Together, they persuaded Truman to tone down his address.  Even so, it proved devastating.

“The crisis at Pearl Harbor was the result of action by a foreign enemy,” said Truman.  “The crisis tonight is caused by a group of men within our own country who place their private interests above the welfare of the nation.”

He said that he would call Congress into session the next day, May 19,  if the railroad workers weren’t back on the job by then, he would call in the military.

With union leaders still refusing to budge, Truman carried out his threat.  He entered Congress, mounted the podium, and asked for authority “to draft into the Armed Forces of the United States all workers who are on strike against their own government.”

Five minutes into the President’s speech, the labor leaders capitulated, signing an agreement drawn up by Truman’s negotiator.

Clifford handed Truman–still at the podium–a note: “Mr. President, agreement signed, strike over.”

Departing from his speech, Truman announced: “Gentlemen, the strike has been settled.”

An ovation resounded.  And when Truman asked for authority to draft future strikers who endangered public safety, the House of Representatives passed it at once.

That was the Truman way–and it worked.

Contrast his decisive and public-spirited approach with that of “leaders” of cities and states who lack the spine to stand up to greedy and arrogant labor leaders.

While 2,400 highly-paid train operators, station agents, mechanics, maintenance workers and professional staff refused to work, public transit within the Bay Area came dangerously close to a standstill.

Only the Herculean efforts of other transit agencies such as the San Francisco ferry service and the MUNI bus lines prevented a total collapse.

Not that BART management should escape criticism.  On the contrary, its managers receive far too many paid holidays and far too much severence pay.

And allowing them to save unused vacation and holidays without any limits is a disgraceful practice that should be immediately abolished.

These people–so-called managers and workers–aren’t “public servants.”  They serve only their own selfish interests, and invite only public contempt and outrage.

But this disgraceful situation can change.

“One man with courage,” said Andrew Jackson, “makes a majority.”  And as Harry S. Truman proved during a far more dangerous time.

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GREED? THY NAME IS UNION: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Social commentary on July 8, 2013 at 12:54 pm

On July 1, the two largest unions for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system went on strike after talks with BART management failed to produce a new contract.

The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County.  It’s the fifth-busiest heavy rail transit system in the United States.

BART spokesman Rick Rice said BART had increased its original offer of a four percent pay raise over the next four years to eight percent. The proposed salary increase would come in addition to a one percent raise employees were already scheduled to receive on July 1.

The unions–Service Employees International Union Local 1221 and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555–represent nearly 2,400 train operators, station agents, mechanics, maintenance workers and professional staff.

And they were demanding a five percent annual raise over the next three years.

Five percent might seem a small amount–until you look at the salaries now paid to BART train operators and station agents.

According to an analysis of BART payroll records by the San Jose Mercury News:

  • The average BART worker–including management and non-union employees–made $83,157 in gross pay in 2012, up from $80,588 in 2010
  • An eight percent wage increase–as offered by BART–in addition to a one percent increase already set to kick in on July 1, would push the average BART employee’s gross pay to about $90,600 in 2016.
  • Currently, BART workers don’t pay toward their pensions.
  • They pay only $92 a month toward their medical benefits–no matter how many dependents they have.
  • Including pay and benefits, the average cost for BART for each employee was $116,309 last year, up from $110,017 in 2010.

BART strike: With a day left, labor talks fail again Saturday but pay proposal doubled – San Jose Mercury News

On July 1, while at least 12 million willing-to-work Americans were desperately searching for willing-to-hire employers, and while millions more barely survived at part-time jobs, BART employees walked off their posts.

  • More than 400,000 riders found the nation’s fifth-largest rail system shut down.
  • Commuters who work in San Francisco for its higher wages but live outside it for its lower rents found themselves desperately seeking some alternative way to reach their jobs.
  • Other transit agencies in the region urged commuters to carpool, take buses or ferries, work from home and, if they must drive to work, to leave earlier or later than usual.
  • San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said the city would offer increased transportation options, including at the airport, and increase staff for traffic management. BART said it would allow carpoolers to use parking lots at its 33 stations free of charge.
  • Highways and bridges throughout the Bay Area were crammed with cars.  The San Francisco ferry pressed its 11 boats into service. taking on 7,835 commuters during the morning rush, up from its normal number of 2,500.
  • Finding parking space became a nightmare in downtown San Francisco, especially for those who arrived near the end of the commute. Several lots had “full” signs up by 8 a.m., almost three hours earlier than a regular day.
  • Hundreds of people lined up at the temporary Transbay Terminal in San Francisco hoping to catch a ride back to the East Bay.
  • Within San Francisco, the regular MUNI bus lines were crammed with riders–to the point where, on must bus lines, there was literally standing room only.

After four days of this nightmare, BART and the unions reached a temporary agreement: BART employees would return to work, and the current contract would be extended for 30 days–until August 4.

Of course, after August 4, if the unions don’t get their way, they’ll almost certainly go on strike again.

A July 3 Cal Watchdog editorial brutally sums up the situation: “BART Pay, Benefits So Lavish That Workers Deserve 0% Raise.”

Among its revelations:

  • Former BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger was forced to retire in 2011.
  • Yet she collected more pay than any other BART employee in 2012.
  • When she left, she received a check for $934,000 severance.
  • In 2013, she drew annual salary and benefits worth $420,000.

How did this happen?

  • BART management employees can collect “terminal leave benefits.”
  • When managers are hired, they earn three weeks’ vacation each year.  After 19 years, this increases to six weeks.
  • They also get 13 paid holidays.
  • They’re allowed to save unused vacation and holidays without any limits.  They can also add some unused sick leave days.
  • After they leave BART, they can even use that accrued time to stay on the payroll.
  • This gives them their full salary, incentive pay and health benefits and work credit that increases their pensions.
  • They continue to receive holiday pay and vacation time, which they can use to extend their time on the payroll.

BART pay, benefits so lavish that workers deserve 0% raise | CalWatchDog

Worried commuters have less than a month to count down the days remaining to a longer strike.  As they do so, they might want to recall a time when strikes against public safety were handled in a very different way.

The year was 1946.  And the man who intervened to restore safety was a Democratic President named Harry S. Truman.

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MORE THAN THE “N-WORD”: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Social commentary on July 5, 2013 at 12:07 am

Deserted by most of her major sponsors and branded as a racist by the media, Paula Deen believes she has found the magic solution to her problems:  Hollingsworth v. Perry.

That’s the Supreme Court case which effectively legalized gay marriage in California.

On July 1, Deen’s lawyers cited Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision in a filing submitted to the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Georgia.  To quote Roberts:

“In other words, for a federal court to have authority under the Constitution to settle a dispute, the party before it must seek a remedy for a personal and tangible harm.”

On June 26, the Supreme Court rejected former California State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth’s defense of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage.  The reason: The Justices believed that, as a heterosexual, he could not be tangibly harmed by same-sex marriage.

Applying this to the Deen lawsuit: Lisa Jackson can’t sue Deen and her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers for racial discrimination because she herself is white–and thus could not have been harmed by racial discrimination, even if this had occurred.

While these legal gymnastics may offer Deen some momentary solace, they come too late to prevent the loss of millions of dollars she has suffered in the mass desertion of her sponsors.

Mega-corporations like the Food Network, Wal-Mart and Smithfield Foods aren’t going to renew their ties to Deen anytime soon–if ever.  And, at this point, “if ever” looks more like “never.”

The scandal ensuing from her admitting to use of the “N-word” in her deposition has already cost her far more than any court judgment could.

Moreover, she desperately needs to put this disaster behind her–and as quickly as possible.

Her appearances on TV and the Internet have been filled with self-pitying tears and pleas for forgiveness.  But  they have most likely reminded viewers of the infamous “I Have Sinned” extravaganza put on by televangelist Jimmy Swaggart in 1988.

Paula Deen apology

Outed with a prostitute, Swaggart gave an alternately fiery and tearful speech to his family, TV congregation and God: “I have sinned against You, my Lord, and I would ask that Your Precious Blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God’s forgetfulness, not to be remembered against me anymore.”

Jimmy Swaggart’s confession

Yes, the U.S. District Court might rule in Deen’s favor that, as a white, Jackson could not have been harmed by racial discrimination.

But Jackson’s lawyers can certainly argue that she was harmed by receiving unequal pay and being exposed to a climate of sexual harassment, obscenity, assault, battery and humiliating behavior.

The longer this lawsuit drags on, the more the public wll be exposed to the truth about Deen’s treatment of her employees.  And the less likely they–and, more importantly, her former sponsors–will be to forgive her.

So no matter how clever she thinks her lawyers are, her best bet would be:

  • Settle the lawsuit–quickly;
  • Drop out of the limelight; and
  • Work quietly to regain the trust of the public and as many of her former sponsors as possible.

The media has focused its attention on Deen’s admission to having used the “N-word.”  But clearly she was running a dysfunctional operation–replete with alcoholism, racial prejudice, violence, sexual harassment and theft.

Deen has claimed she knows that the days of Southern racism are past.  But according to the complaint filed against her by her former General Manager, that past remains very much alive at Deen’s restaurants:

  • Requiring black employees to use separate bathrooms and entrances from whites.
  • Holding black employees to “different, more stringent standards” than whites.
  • Allowing her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, to regularly made offensive racial remarks.
  • Allowing Hiers to make inappropriate sexual comments.
  • Allowing Hiers to force female employees to view pornography with him.
  • Allowing Hiers to often violently shake employees.
  • Allowing Hiers to come to work in “an almost constant state of intoxication.”
  • Enabling Hiers’ behavior by ignoring Jackson’s efforts to discuss his behavior.
  • Holding “racist views herself.”

Many of Deen’s supporters have claimed she is the victim of anti-Southern prejudice.

But the truth appears that Deen is far less victim than victimizer–allowing her brother to subject both his black and female employees to obscene, alcoholic, violent and humiliating behavior.

In her deposition, Deen admitted to being warned by MackWorks, a business consulting firm, that sexual/racial discrimination was rife at her brother’s restaurant.

And how did she respond?

“I didn’t read the report,” admitted Deen. “I know my brother.  I know his character.  If I ask him something, he would not lie to me, nor would I to him.  There was nothing to investigate.”

The wonder is not that the chickens have finally come home to roost for Paula Deen.  The wonder is that it took so long for them to do so.

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MORE THAN THE “N-WORD”: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Social commentary on July 4, 2013 at 1:00 am

The media has focused exclusively on Paula Deen’s use of the so-called “N-word”.  In doing so, it has ignored more important aspects of the lawsuit filed against her.

The plaintiff in the case is Lisa Jackson, former General Manager of Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House Restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.

Lisa Jackson

At the center of the complaint filed in the case is Earl “Bubba” Hiers, the brother of Paula Deen.

Among the allegations listed in the complaint:

  • Hiers “frequently visits strip clubs and would bring to the workplace numerous stories…regarding the highlights of his visits.”
  • Hiers “commented to…Jackson regarding a female employee who was married to a significantly younger man, ‘Can you imagine that man going to bed with her?'”
  • “The male General Manager of the Lady & Sons Restaurant is paid substantially more” than Jackson was as General Manager at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House–even though both are run by the Paula Dean Family of Companies.
  • In addition, “there are male managers below the General Manager level at Lady & Sons Restaurant that are compensated more than…Jackson and who received compensation in addition to salary, including bonuses and retirement not allowed to…Jackson.”
  • On July 20, 2010, Jackson told Hiers that a white restaurant employee had made “a sexually harassing comment” to a black kitchen staffer.  “Seething with anger and red in the face….Hiers repeatedly screamed at [the witness] asking what he saw….Unsatisfied with [the witness’s] response…Hiers physically and violently shook him and stated, ‘Fuck your civil rights.  You work for me and my sister Paula Deen,’ saying futher: ‘You’re not going to get me sued over some little bitch.’  Mr. Hiers proceeded to physically and violently shake [the employee].”
  • “The staff of Uncle Bubba’s restaurant was in a constant state of fear awaiting Bubba Hiers’ arrival at the restaurant and any required interaction with him.”
  • “The stress of repeatedly taking on the role of anticipating…Hiers’ violence, moderating it to the extent possible, and playing the go-between role with her staff caused…Jackson enormous stress.”
  • This “caused chest pains and…panic attacks that would often begin when…Hiers’ truck pulled into the parking lot or upon appearance of the white cup–the styrofoam cup poured almost full with whiskey at approximately 10 a.m., whereupon…Hiers began his day of drinking and abusive behavior.  When the truck pulled up or the white cup appeared, staff would scatter, leaving…Jackson to manage…Hiers.”
  • “Jackson’s pleas for relief from the harassment to senior management also took the form of requests…for a transfer anywhere in the company–even if it required a cut in pay.  But she was told…that Paula Deen would never let her leave Uncle Bubba’s restaurant.”
  • When Jackson directly asked Deen for a transfer, Deen “told…Jackson she could never leave Uncle Bubba’s restaurant.”
  • “Corporate counsel James P. Gerard would frequently call…Jackson at home in the evenings and on the weekend to discuss and sympathize with the discriminatory conditions and abusive treatment she confronted.”
  • “For over five years, Ms. Jackson made numerous and frequent complaints of racial and sexual harassment and abusive treatment to the highest levels of corporate management and ownership, including:
  • “Defendants Paula Deen and Bubba Hiers; Paula Deen Enterprises Chief Operation Officer and Director of Operations Theresa Fueger; the Certified Public Accountant…Karl Schumacher; and to the attorney for defendants, James P. Gerard.”
  • “The conduct was universally known and tolerated within the ownership and management levels of the corporate enterprise, and by corporate counsel and no remedy was offered.”

Deen hasn’t helped herself with her response to the firestorm of criticism that has descended upon her.

On June 20, the full, unedited transcript of Deen’s deposition was leaked–proving that she did, in fact, admit to using the dreaded “N-word.”

The media chose to focus on this–and completely ignored the multiple instances of sexual/racial harassment, drunkenness and violence.

On June 22, Deen canceled a scheduled appearance on the Today show to discuss the reports. She released a video apology that went viral. This was quickly taken down and replaced with a second version.

Paula Deen apology video

“Your color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter to me,” Deen told her viewers. “But it’s what in the heart. What’s in the heart.  And my family and I try to live by that.”

Deen then posted a third video, directly apologizing to Today host Matt Lauer for cancelling her scheduled June 22 interview with him.

On June 26, Deen finally appeared on Today, tearfully offering a response that was half-apology, half-defiance:

“If there’s anyone out there that has never said something that they wished they could take back. If you’re out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please. I want to meet you. I is what I is and I’m not changing.”

But none of these appearances have reclaimed one lost sponsor–nor caused the media to back off.

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MORE THAN THE “N-WORD”: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Social commentary on July 3, 2013 at 12:01 am

The media has focused exclusively on Paula Deen’s use of “nigger.” In doing so, it has completely ignored even more important aspects of the lawsuit filed against her.

Consider the allegations listed in the complaint filed by Lisa Jackson, who spent five years (2005 – 2010) as  General Manager for Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, in Savannah, Georgia.  This is owned by Deen’s brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers.

Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House

According to the complaint, employees at the restaurant were routinely subjected to “violent behavior,” which included “racial harassment, assault, battery and other humiliating conduct.”

Among those violations alleged in the complaint:

  • In Jackson’s presence, Hiers told another employee who had just gotten dentures: “I bet your husband is going to like that.”
  • Hiers told a joke to male and female staffers that described why men should have sex with flat-headed women: Because “you can sit your beer on top of her head while she is giving you a blow-job.”
  • Hiers told Jackson that he would like to replace the staff at Uncle Bubba’s with “Hooter’s Girls.”
  • At a weekly managers’ meeting, Hiers brought printouts of an email entitled, “Why Gay marriage Should Be Legal,” replete with pictures of lesbian sex.  Hiers passed the emails around the table for men and women–including Jackson–to see.
  • A meeting was scheduled by Karl Schumacher, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, and attended by James P. Gerard, attorney for the Paula Deen Family of Companies.  Its purpose: to address Hiers’ “frequent and outrageous sexual and racial comments.  In this meeting, in… Gerard’s office, Bubba Hiers discussed his interest in Web site pornography.”  He stated to Gerard: “Don’t tell me you don’t do that at night.”
  • In 2007, Deen placed Jackson in charge of food and serving arrangements for the wedding of her brother, Hiers.  Jackson asked Dean what look the wedding should have.  Deen replied: “I want a true Southern plantation-style wedding.  What I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around.”  Deen laughed and added: “Now that would be a true Southern wedding, wouldn’t it?  But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”
  • At Uncle Bubba’s Oysterr House restaurant, “African-American staff persons are required to use the back entrance for all purposes, including picking up their checks.  They were prohibited from using the front entrance.”
  • “African-American staff…are required to use one restroom that is in the back of the restaurant and is not the customer restroom.  White staff was allowed to use the customer bathroom.”
  • “African-American staff” who are “stationed at the back of [the] restaurant are not allowed to go to the front.”
  • Jackson hired two black hostesses, whose position “required them to be stationed in the front of the restaurant.  Bubba Hiers complained repeatedly about one hostess being out front and she was later fired for allegedly stealing a white customer’s purse.  The police were called and the young woman was searched, but she was not arrested and no charges were brought.  Mr. Hiers demanded that the other [black] hostess be moved to a position in the back…where she could not be seen by customers.”
  • Jackson was meeting with a vendor in her office at the restaurant when Hiers entered “and slammed the door behind him, stating, ‘I wish I could put all those niggers [in the kitchen] on a boat to Africa.'”
  • “Bubba Hiers confronted a [black] male kitchen staff[er] and repeatedly screamed at him, and physically and violently shook him.”
  • In Jackson’s presence, Hiers said to his black security guard and driver: “Don’t you wish you could rub all the black off you and be like me?”  The guard replied, “I’m fine the way I am.”  Hiers then said: “You just look dirty.  I bet you wish you could.”
  • Hiers stated in Jackson’s presence: “They should send President Obama to the oil spill in the Gulf [of Mexico] so he could nigger-rig it.”
  • In the presence of Jackson and  a vendor who traps wildlife, Hiers said: “You also got a bunch of coons in this kitchen you can trap.”
  • Hiers “told jokes using the word ‘nigger’ in front of the coordinator of a fundraising event at the Bethesda Boys Home.  The coordinator…expressed to Ms. Jackson her discomfort with Mr. Hiers and his language.”
  • During a meeting, Hiers “began beating on his chest and challenging anyone and everyone in the kitchen to fight him.  He screamed so loud that spit was coming out of his mouth, as he said: ‘Come get some.  Come on, you want a piece of me?  Meet me on the dock you mother fuckers.'”
  • After this outburst, Jackson “scanned the room in horror and saw her staff, recognizing the look of fear, disbelief and helplessness” on their faces.  “Mr. Hiers then stumbled out the back foor to his truck and he was gone.”

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MORE THAN THE “N-WORD”: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Social commentary on July 2, 2013 at 12:15 am

Here’s a brief chronology of the downfall of celebrity chef Paula Deen:

On May 17, Deen gave a deposition in a $1.2 million discrimination lawsuit filed against herself and her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, by Lisa Jackson, a former General Manager at one of her restaurants.

Earl “Bubba” Hiers and Paula Deen

On June 19, the National Enquirer released details about that deposition.  When asked if she had ever used the word, “nigger,” she replied: “Yes, of course,” as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She claimed she used it when telling her husband about being held at gunpoint by a black bank robber.  When asked if she had used it since, she replied: “I’m sure I have, but it’s been a very long time.”

On June 20, the full unedited transcript of the deposition was leaked.

Since then, Deen has been caught up in a media frenzy–and the loss of most of her high-priced collaborators:

  • The Food Network
  • QVC’s Home Shopping Network
  • Smithfield Foods–a company specializing in pork products
  • Wal-Mart
  • Ceasars Entertainment
  • Novo Nordisk, a diabetes drug company
  • Sears Holdings Corporation, the owner of Sears and K-Mart
  • Walgreens

And although her latest book, Paula Deen’s New Testament: 250 Favorite Recipes All Lightened Up, had risen to Number 1 on Amazon.com, its publisher, Ballantine Books, announced that it had decided to cancel its upcoming publication.

The media has focused exclusively on Deen’s use of “nigger.”  In doing so, it has completely ignored even more important aspects of this lawsuit.

Consider the allegations listed in the complaint filed by Lisa Jackson, who spent five years (2005 – 2010) as General Manager for Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, in Savannah, Georgia.

According to the complaint, managers at the restaurant–owned by Deen’s brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers–often engaged in the following practices:

  • Subjecting Jackson to “violent behavior,” which included “racial harassment, assault, battery and other humiliating conduct.”
  • Upon her promotion to General Manager, Hiers told Jackson: “You’re everything I’ve never wanted but everything I need–a woman to clean my business up.”  He advised Jackson to “take it [his comment] as a compliment.”
  • For Jackson’s money-saving efforts, Karl Schumacher, the Chief Financial Officer for Paula Deen Enterprises, referred to her  as “almost Jewish,” and Hiers called Jackson “my little Jew girl.”
  • Paula Deen Enterprises paid for “Uncle Bubba’s restaurant expense to remedy violations of the Occupational Safety and health Act; as well as …to remedy City Health Code violations in Uncle Bubba’s restaurant kitchen.”
  • Hiers several times told Jackson: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my sister [Paula Deen] if it ever comes down to firing a guy or a girl, you let the girl go because they are a dime a dozen and you can always find a girl to come work for you but it’s hard to find good buys.”
  • Jackson often complained to upper management that “she was not paid a salary equal to [that of] her male counterparts.”
  • When she requested a raise in 2007, Schumacher told Jackson that Hiers would not permit a woman to be paid any more than she was already paid: “Bubba Hiers would have a heart attack if he knew you were being paid this much.”
  • When Jackson expressed concerns over compensation, Deen scheduled a meeting.  Pointing at the women managers there, Deen said: “You all need to work together and become one.”  The male managers at the meeting were never addressed.
  • “The male General Manager of the Lady & Sons Restaurant is paid substantially more than…Jackson despite his general incompetence, his performance of fewer duties than…Jackson, and his oppressive sexual and racial harassment of employees.”
  • Jackson “received a bonus, as other managers did, for approximately six months, but bonus payments were withdrawn and taken away by…Schumacher immediately upon her divorce.  This occurred in the context of numerous remarks by…Schumacher regarding his religious views of marriage and the sin of divorce.”
  • Schumacher stated in Jackson’s presence: “Women are stupid because they think they can work and have babies and get everything done.”
  • Jackson was told by Director of Operations Theresa Fueger: “You know the family dynamics in the company.  Certain people are not going anywhere, and if you don’t like it, you can go find another job.”
  • Hiers, Deen’s brother, “is a frequent customer of pornography Web sites and would download and view such sites at work.  In the small office he shared with Ms. Jackson, it was impossible for her to avoid viewing the pornography.”
  • “Alternately, he visited those Websites on the kitchen computer, often forgetting to log out; whereupon other employees involuntarily shared his pornography adventure.”
  • “On more than one occasion, Bubba Hiers requested that Ms. Jackson bring pictures of herself when she was young for him to view.  He told her, ‘You have nice legs’ and that two other employees are ‘ fat girls.'”
  • Schumacher “on multiple occasions, told jokes or ridiculed the President of the United States, using the word ‘nigger.'”

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A CEO’S TEARS

In Business, Law, Politics, Social commentary on July 1, 2013 at 12:01 am

Break out the handkerchiefs.  A CEO is about to cry.

When the Affordable Care Act takes full effect, Papa John’s Pizza will change in two ways.

First, it will be forced to do something it hasn’t done since its founding in 1984: Offer healthcare coverage to its 16,5000 employees or pay a penalty to the government.

Second, according to the company’s CEO, John Schnatter, the prices of his pizzas will go up.

 John Schnatter

How far up?

By as much as eleven to fourteen cents price increase per pizza, or fifteen to twenty cents per order.

But Schnatter isn’t going to take this lying down.  He’s determined to pass along those costs to his customers.

“If Obamacare is in fact not repealed,” Schnatter told Politico, “we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.”

After all, why should a multi-million-dollar company show any concern for those who make its profits a reality?

Consider:

  • Papa John’s is the third-largest pizza takeout and delivery chain in the United States.
  • Its 2012 revenues were $318.6 million, an 8.5 percent increase from 2011 revenues of $293.5 million.
  • Its 2012 net income was $14.8 million, compared to its 2012 net income of $12.1 million.

Click here: Papa John’s turns in strong domestic and international Q2 | PizzaMarketPlace.com

Nor should anyone expect Schnatter to take a pay cut, just so his employees can obtain medical care when they need it.

Schnatter’s total calculated compensation for 2011 came to $2,745,219.

Click here: John Schnatter: Executive Profile & Biography – Businessweek

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry,” Schnatter–a supporter of Mitt Romney–admitted in an interview with Politico.

To demonstrate his opposition to providing medical insurance for all Americans, Schnatter hosted a fundraising event for Mitt Romney at his own Louisville, Kentucky mansion in May.

The luxurious setting for the fundraiser gave Romney a rush of pure, plutocratic ecstasy.

“What a home this is,” gushed Romney.  “What grounds these are, the pool, the golf course.

“You know, if a Democrat were here he’d look around and say no one should live like this. Republicans come here and say everyone should live like this.”

John Schnatter’s estate

Of course, Romney conveniently ignored a brutally ugly fact:

For the vast majority of Papa John’s minimum-wage-earning employees–many of them working only part-time–the odds of their owning a comparable estate are non-existent.

John Schnatter is not the first pizza magnate to attack proposed changes to federal health care.

In 1993, Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain charged that President Bill Clinton’s proposed health care reform law would cost his company Godfather’s Pizza money and jobs.

“For many many businesses like mine, the cost of your plan is simply a cost that will cause us to eliminate jobs,” Cain told Clinton in a famous exchange.

In a typical demonstration of corporate thinking, Judy Nichols, a Papa John’s franchise owner in Beaumont, Texas, said:

“I have two options, I can stop offering coverage and pay the $2,000 fine, or I could keep my number of staff under 50 so the mandate doesn’t apply,” she told Legal Newsline.

In short: Defy the law, and employee healthcare needs be damned.

Nichols added that the the law might cost her $20,000 to $30,000 in taxes: “Obamacare is making me think about cutting jobs instead,” she said.

Translation: If you force me to behave responsibly, I’ll just have to take it out on willing-to-work Americans.

So how can America cope with behavior that destroys not only lives but the economy as well?

By passing–and vigorously enforcing–a nationwide Employers Responsibility Act.

Among its provisions:

Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.

Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones—solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits.  Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions—and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.

The seeking of “economic incentives” by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.

Such “economic incentives” usually:

  1. allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
  2. allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
  3. allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies; and/or
  4. allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.

Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:

  1. Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for “economic incentives,” or
  2. Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such “economic incentives.”

This would

  • protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions;
  • protect the environment in which these employees live; and
  • protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.

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LIFE LESSONS FROM PAULA DEEN: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Social commentary on June 28, 2013 at 12:14 am

Celebrity Chef Paula Deen, her brother Earl “Bubba” Hiers, her company, and the corporations that operate a pair of restaurants she owns in Savannah, Georgia., are being sued by former employee Lisa Jackson.

A complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in November, 2012, claimed that she was subjected to “violent, sexist, and racist behavior” during her five years’ employment by Deen.

In the deposition she filed in May, 2013, she proved to be her own worst enemy.  Consider the following:

Speaking of her employee, Karl Schumacher, Deen said:

A.  Karl is the most judgmental person I know.  And out of every team member on our team, he is certainly the most prejudice.

Q.  Prejudice against who?

A.  You name it.

Q.  African-Americans?

A.  Gays, you name it. If you drink, you’re a bad person.  If you use four-letter words, you’re a bad person.  If you don’t think like he thinks, you’re a bad person.

Q.  Is he–?

A.  He is a one-man jury.

Stupid Mistake #16:  She admits that she had retained an employee who was openly prejudiced toward a wide range of people: “Gays, you name it.”

Q.  Is he prejudice against African-Americans?

A.  I–no, I don’t–no, I would say the answer to that one would be no.

Stupid Mistake #17:  Having already admitted the Schumacher was “a one-man jury” and “the most prejudice” of her employees, Deen suddenly claims he isn’t prejudiced against blacks. 

MackWorks, a business consulting firm, conducted an investigation of Uncle Bubba’s, which is owned by her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers.

Q.  Okay.  And in order to determine that it was the opinion of these high-priced consultants that Miss Jackson had been the victim of discrimination sufficient to give her cause to file an EEOC [U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] all you would have had to do was read that report, correct?

A.  I didn’t read the report.

Q.  Okay.  And what, if any, investigation have you done to determine if it is your brother who is lying, as opposed to Miss Jackson and Mr. Schumacher and the people at MackWorks?

A.  I know my brother.  I know his character.  If I ask him something, he would not lie to me, nor would I to him.  There was nothing to investigate.

Stupid Mistake #18:  After an independent consulting firm gives her a scathing report about her brother’s restaurant, she doesn’t read it. 

Stupid Mistake #19:  She admits she didn’t read it.

Stupid Mistake #20:  She admits she took no action to discover the truth for herself: “There was nothing to investigate.”

* * * * *

I have not searched through the entire deposition as given by Paula Deen.  But the portion I have reviewed convinces me this was a lawsuit–and a disaster–waiting to happen.

The media has focused its attention on Deen’s admission to having used the “N-word.”  But clearly she was running a dysfunctional operation–replete with alcoholism, racial prejudice, sexual harassment and theft.

Much has been made of Deen’s serving as an ambassador of Southern culture and cooking.  But if only some of the accusations made against her hold up, she must also serve as an ambassador of a South decent Americans want to forget–and forever put behind them.

That was definitely an era when blacks knew their place–which was as slaves in the kitchens or fields of the Southern planter class who owned them.

According to Jackson, those are the days Deen would love to return to.

As proof, she cited an exchange that occurred when she was appointed by Deen to handle the catering and staff for Bubba’s wedding in 2007.

When she asked Deen what the servers should wear, Deen allegedly replied:

“Well what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around.

“Now, that would be a true Southern wedding wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”

Deen has given lip service to knowing that the days of Southern racism are past.  But according to the complaint filed against her by her former employee, Lisa Jackson, that past remains very much alive:

  • Requiring black employees to use separate bathrooms and entrances from whites.
  • Holding black employees to “different, more stringent standards” than whites.
  • Allowing her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, to regularly made offensive racial remarks.
  • Allowing Hiers to make inappropriate sexual comments.
  • Allowing Hiers to force the plaintiff, Lisa Jackson, to look at pornography with him.
  • Allowing Hiers to often violently shake employees.
  • Allowing Hiersto come to work in “an almost constant state of intoxication.”
  • Enabling Hiers’ behavior by ignoring Jackson’s efforts to discuss his behavior.
  • Holding “racist views herself.”

Many of Deen’s supporters have claimed she is the victim of anti-Southern prejudice.

But the truth appears that only in the South could she have run so gigantic and lucrative an empire for so long in such prejucial and dysfunctional fashion.

The wonder is not that the Food Network refused to renew her contract after June, 2013.  The wonder is that she has managed to stay in business this long.