We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Democracy and the purchase of Huffington Post by AOL---

This is a general trend of these corporations buying up liberal, progressive and left media.

Even the French Communist Party sold its famous newspaper, L'Humanite, to a grouping of right-wing media corporations!

The intent is not only to turn a profit, but to assure mass confusion and mis-information.

What it all means is that there will be democracy for everyone to the right of Obama and anyone left of Obama will not be allowed to participate in any discussions other than those they create on their own.

Most MSM newspapers have clamped down on their "letters to the editors" and what op/ed pieces they publish.

Even FaceBook has clamped down. As an example: FaceBook has prohibited me from using the "Like" function because they said I inappropriately used this function to post on Republican Tim Pawlenty's FaceBook page--- I challenged his claim that he had helped public education in Minnesota; and, FaceBook prevents me from using its "messenger" because I used it in an "inflammatory manner to spread hate" when I called Norm Brownstein of Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck a "supporter of the Israeli killing machine."

My FaceBook account was also closed because I called Barack Obama a "Dumb Donkey." I had to fight with them including getting an attorney to threaten to sue them after Brian Melendez, a corporate attorney who was the head of the Minnesota DFL complained that my calling Barack Obama a "Dumb Donkey" was a racist comment.

We are in for some very rough times where the greater the resistance to Wall Street's domination is challenged, the more we are going to be excluded with our left wing views, and unless we use the openings provided right now by blogging and FaceBook to network and build organizations in real life we are going to be in for some real tough times.

My blogs have also been closed by Blogger.com for violating the "Terms of Agreement" on numerous occasions.

Yahoo now restricts me to ten e-mails sent at a time and my ISP, Centurylink, restricts me to 500 outgoing e-mails a day.

During the sixties, as we were beginning to pull out of McCarthyism, I was arrested over 60 times for distributing leaflets and newspapers.

Labor organizer Phil Raymond used to tell me about capitalist democracy: "You can pass out anything you want as long as no one reads it." This seems to be applying more and more to modern Internet communications, too.

In fact, the National Labor Relations Board just ruled that employees had the right to use FaceBook and blogging to voice their concerns about management--- but, not mentioned is the fact that legal fees and expenses fighting to get this ruling were over $300,000.00 dollars--- quite a price to pay to exercise your democratic rights in the world's greatest bastion of democracy. But, many employers, in spite of this ruling--- which doesn't apply to over two-million Americans employed in the casinos of the Indian Gaming Industry--- are still being fired by corporations like Wal-mart and Target who intend to put workers "through the ringer" on this one.

For any worker wanting to fight for their right to blog or discuss their working conditions using social networking like FaceBook, attorneys estimate the cost of hearings, etc. will be around $14,000.00.

Right now I am representing two casino workers in Minnesota and one in Michigan who were fired for blogging working conditions; they were not only fired for blogging, both Minnesota and Michigan have denied them unemployment benefits because they were fired for "knowingly violating their terms of employment;" they were forced to sign statements as conditions of their employment that they would "not engage in any kind of union organizing."

We have won dozens of these denial of unemployment claims over the last ten years; but, both management and the states working with these corrupt casino managements continue to "put workers through the ringer. Red Lake Gaming Enterprises has hired three lawfirms plus the detective agency of Altegrity/USIS to fight just ONE unemployment claim!

Democracy in America extends to those who can purchase it; just like any other commodity.

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