donderdag 24 april 2014

De Mainstream Pers 198


The American Dream: In line for a free bowl of soup.


De Russische annexatie van de Krim en de permanente onrust in Oekraïne hebben in het Westen langzamerhand een begin van paniek doen ontstaan. Na de Koude Oorlog heeft wat we toen de Vrije Wereld noemden bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd. In het begin werd dat in dit deel van de wereld als een geweldig voordeel beschouwd. 
H.J.A. Hofland. Provinciaal Europa. 2 april 2014

Most of them come from small towns in the South or the rustbelt of the Midwest or big city ghettoes. Many are following a family heritage of military service that has made veterans of past wars a relatively privileged class, enjoying special access to higher education, jobs, and a nationwide system of socialized medicine. But so many of them are so very young, enticed or strong-armed by smartly uniformed recruiters who work the corridors and classrooms of America's most impoverished and thoroughly militarized high schools. So many are badly educated, knowing nothing of the world and how it operates. So many are immigrants, risking their lives for a fast track to citizenship. So many are poor and short on promise. So many have such a slim chance of another job, another line of work, let alone a decent wage or a promotion. And because the Pentagon lowered standards to fill the ranks of the volunteer army, so many are high school dropouts, or gangbangers (bendeleden. svh), or neo-Nazi white supremacists, or drug addicts, or convinced felons with violent crimes on their record. In just three years following the invasion, the military issued free passes — so called 'moral waivers' — to one of every five recruits, including more than 58.000 convicted drug users and 1,605 with 'serious' felony convictions for offenses including rape, kidnapping, and murder. When the number of free passes rose in the fourth year, the Pentagon changed the label to 'conduct waiver.' […]

In America, the land of the 'self-made man,' a boy couldn't afford to just be. Nor could a girl who longed for a more adventurous life. But living on the downhill slope of what used to be the middle class, kids looking into the dimming future can't see how to make something of themselves. The military extreme makeover promises to do it for them.

American kids, especially boys, dream the dreams of a militarized nation steeped in war, the only 'advanced' nation always looking for a fight. […]

Most of those boys and girls numbered their options on the fingers  of one hand with fingers to spare. The only stories they had to tell me about their lives before they joined the military were painfully circumscribed, and most were a version of the basic scenario I already knew: 'My family was poor. I was poor.' For the poor — immigrants, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, African-Americans, and whites alike — the military often offers what looks like the only way up and out. 
Ann Jones. They Were Soldiers, How the Wounded Return from America's Wars — The Untold Story. 2013


Door de Nederlandse mainstream-pers wordt het bestaan van deze krijgers-kaste uit de westerse onderklasse nooit structureel geanalyseerd. Nooit wordt aan de kaak gesteld hoe de interne spanningen, frustraties, ressentimenten van de eigen slachtoffers van het neoliberale kapitalisme naar buiten worden geprojecteerd om niet alleen de economische belangen van de elite te behartigen, maar tevens om de woede van de bewust gekweekte onderklasse te dirigeren. Een illustrerend voorbeeld van het afleiden van de aandacht gaf de auteur en mainstream-opiniemaker Arnon Grunberg in zijn Voetnoot op de voorpagina van de Volkskrant van donderdag 24 april 2014. Onder de kop 'Offer' beweerde hij ondermeer dat 

deskundigen [concluderen] dat het Russische leger erop vooruit is gegaan sinds de Tsjetsjeense oorlogen in de jaren negentig. Oorlogen waarbij Rusland zich schuldig maakte aan oorlogsmisdaden, waarover in het Westen voornamelijk is gezwegen. Veel vooruitstrevende mensen alhier zijn namelijk alleen geïnteresseerd in Amerikaanse misstappen en oorlogsmisdaden.

Ik weet niet hoeveel zo'n meninkje hem oplevert, maar meningen zijn net als een neusverkoudheid: nogal besmettelijk en na een weekje weer verdwenen. Daarentegen blijven feiten doorgaans bestaan. Ook in dit geval. Allereerst Grunberg's mening dat 'veel vooruitstrevende mensen' lijden aan selectieve verontwaardiging. Dat dit nonsens is blijkt onder andere uit het commentaar 'How Vladimir Putin Became Evil' van 29 maart 2014, geschreven door de gerenommeerde Britse intellectueel Tariq Ali 'a leading figure of the international left since the 60s. He has been writing for the Guardian since the 70s. He is a long-standing editor of the New Left Review and a political commentator published on every continent':

As long as Washington believed that Russian leaders would blindly do its bidding (which Yeltsin did blind drunk) it supported Moscow. Yeltsin's attack on the Russian parliament in 1993 was justified in the western media. The wholesale assaults on Chechnya by Yeltsin and then by Putin were treated as a little local problem with support from George Bush and Tony Blair. 'Chechnya isn't Kosovo,' said Blair after his meeting with Putin in 2000. Tony Wood's book, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, provides chapter and verse of what the horrors that were inflicted on that country. Chechnya had enjoyed de facto independence from 1991-94. Its people had observed the speed with which the Baltic republics had been allowed independence and wanted the same for themselves.

Instead they were bombarded. Grozny, the capital, was virtually reduced to dust as 85 percent of its housing was destroyed. In February 1995 two courageous Russian economists, Andrey Illarionov and Boris Lvin published a text in Moscow News arguing in favour of Chechen independence and the paper (unlike its Western counterparts) also published some excellent critical reports that revealed atrocities on a huge scale, eclipsing the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre in Srebrenica. Rape, torture, homeless refugees and tens of thousands dead was the fate of the Chechens. No problem here for Washington and its EU allies.

In the calculus of western interests there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance. Nonetheless, the contrast between the west's attitude to the Chechen war and Crimea is startling.

Kortom, aangaande Poetin: 'The US and UK condemn him for Crimea but supported him over the war in Chechnya. Why? Because now he refuses to play ball.' 


Ander voorbeeld: donderdag 3 november 2005  publiceerde ik op deze weblog het volgende bericht:




Grozny onder Russische bezetting.

Een bericht in Trouw maakt weer eens duidelijk waarom de officiële spreekbuis van onze handelsnatie, koningin Beatrix, zo lovend was over de wijze waarop Rusland onder aanvoering van president Poetin tegen het terrorisme strijdt: 'Shell-topman Van der Veer heeft persoonlijk bij de Russische president Vladimir Poetin de problemen rond Shells grootste investering in Rusland, Sachalin II, aangekaart. Maar Van der Veer ving bot. Dat stelt het Russische dagblad Kommersant op basis van bronnen uit de Nederlandse zakentop, die dinsdag in Amsterdam met Poetin sprak als deel van het staatsbezoek.'

Over de schendingen van de mensenrechten in de strijd tussen Rusland en Tsjetsjenië zie Amnesty: http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/chechnya/

Het zal niemand verbazen dat de mainstream-media hierover zwegen. Degenen die de moeite hebben genomen om de afgelopen jaren de berichtgeving te lezen over Tsjetsjenië zullen weten dat de werkelijkheid precies het tegenovergestelde is van wat Arnon Grunberg beweert. Maar zelfs al zou hij gelijk hebben, dan nog heeft hij geen argument, want het is volstrekt logisch dat een westerse burger vooral de Amerikaanse economische en politieke elite bekritiseerd, aangezien 'veel vooruitstrevende mensen' er van uit gaan dat zij in een 'democratie' leven en dus invloed kunnen uitoefenen op de eigen politiek verantwoordelijken, en dat het tamelijk vergeefs is om Rusland te bekritiseren, terwijl het Westen zelf op mega-schaal 'oorlogsmisdaden' pleegt. En ook Grunberg's opinie dat over de Russische 'oorlogsmisdaden' is 'gezwegen' door 'Veel vooruitstrevende mensen alhier' is -- eenvoudig aantoonbaar -- onwaar. Het zijn juist de corrupte westerse neoliberale elite en haar mainstream-opiniemakers die daarover zwegen zolang de Russische terreur de geopolitieke en economische belangen van Washington en Brussel diende, of in elk geval niet belemmerde. 

Het gaat Grunberg ook niet om de werkelijkheid, maar om het dienen van de belangen van de neoliberale elite door burgers te criminaliseren die kritisch staan tegenover de westerse terreur. Vandaar ook dat zijn mening elke weekdag weer op de voorpagina van de Volkskrant staat, en niet de feiten van een kritische beschouwer. Soort zoekt soort. Opiniemakers selecteren zichzelf uit, zowel 'alhier' als in Rusland. Daarentegen geldt dat 'Westerse intellectuelen niets [vertegenwoordigen] dan hun eigen idealen,' zoals de journalist/auteur Ian Buruma terecht stelt. Maar omdat Nederland geen intellectueel klimaat kent, kan iemand als Arnon Grunberg onweersproken van alles beweren. De polder is intellectueel dood, en daardoor kan de eerste de beste minor poet 'alhier' voor een groot schrijver doorgaan. In een plat land steekt alles al snel boven het maaiveld uit. 

Alle westerse mainstream-meninkjes leiden af van de ware problemen waarmee de mensheid wordt geconfronteerd. Allereerst zijn dit de ingrijpende gevolgen van de klimaatverandering, de dreigende uitputting van vitale grondstoffen, de meer dan verviervoudiging van de wereldbevolking sinds het jaar 1900, de wereldwijd groeiende kloof tussen arm en rijk, de almaar toenemende macht van de neoliberale ideologie die 85 individuen zo onvoorstelbaar rijk heeft gemaakt dat ze evenveel bezitten als de helft van de mensheid, en  tenslotte de diepe culturele crisis waarin de dominante westerse maatschappij is beland.

In zijn 732 pagina's tellende standaardwerk The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981) beschreef de eminente Britse historicus G.E.M. de Ste. Croix het begrip horige, de onvrije, als volgt: 

Serfdom is defined in the 1956 Convention as 'the tenure of land whereby the tenant is by law, custom or agreement bound to live and labour on land belonging to another person and render some determinate services to such other person, whether for reward or not, and is not free to change his status.' I must add one qualification: 'render some determinate services,' in the conditions of antiquity need not necessarily mean more than the paying of a determinate rent, in money or kind or share of crop. It is necessary to recognize that the serf is a peasant who does not own, or does not fully own, but at least possesses (as the slave and normally the bondsman do not) the means of production of his livelihood, usually on a hereditary basis, and who is responsible for providing his own maintenance (clothing and food) from his own productive efforts (as the slave cannot normally be), but who is not a fully free man: he is to a considerable extent under the control of his lord…' 

Rond 1900 was rond de 40 procent van de bevolking in de VS werkzaam in de landbouw en veeteelt. In Europa was dat rond de 60 procent. Dit percentage is in de VS nu gedaald tot tussen de 1 en 2 procent, kortom 'There are more people locked up in prisons in the U.S. than there are farmers.' In Europa 'Farmers represent 5,4 percent of the EU’s population. They generate a mere 1,6 percent of the Union’s GDP. Yet they receive 47 percent of the EU’s total budget through CAP (Common Agricultural Policy. svh) handouts. Europe’s taxpayers hand over €58 billion in subsidies to this tiny, unproductive minority. In times of economic hardship that just doesn’t make sense.' 

Met andere woorden: slechts een kleine minderheid van de beroepsbevolking is in die sector nog werkzaam, de meeste mensen werken in de dienstensector of in de industrie. Ik vermeld dit om het over hun sociale positie te hebben, die volgens mij in toenemende mate lijkt op die van de 'horige,' zoals kan worden herkend in Ann Jones' beschrijving van Amerikaanse militairen uit de onderkaste, van wie 'So many are badly educated, knowing nothing of the world and how it operates.' Hun enige optie is voetvolk te worden in de strijdkrachten, terwijl de zonen en dochters van de elite een carrière in de burgersamenleving maken door de vitale posten in het systeem te bezetten.  Inmiddels is in de VS de sociale mobiliteit lager dan die in Europa. Welke vrijheid bezit de mens uit de onderklasse? De productiemiddelen bezit hij niet, hij bezit ook geen vermogen, en nu deze maatschappij een structurele werkloosheid kent en de neoliberale elite via deregulering en privatisering de condities bepaalt, bezit hij ook niet de mogelijkheid om werk te kiezen, moet blij zijn als hij werk kan krijgen, en vooral ook: 'he is to a considerable extent under the control of his lord,' die de vrijheid heeft te bepalen wat zijn ondergeschikte wel en niet mag doen in de tijd die hij van de 'onvrije' heeft gekocht. De westerse werknemer 'is not a fully free man,' maar een horige, direct afhankelijk van zijn werkgever.

Tegelijkertijd is de uitbuiting bij de oligarchie en haar woordvoerders als het ware genetisch gecodificeerd en voedt zodoende de angst voor en de haat tegen De Ander. 'This predatory and rapacious ruling class, wasting its substance, misusing power, stands immobilized as an obstacle... It bears no plan, is animated by no ideal, delivers no promise,' aldus de milieuredacteur van Le Monde Hervé Kempf in zijn boek How The Rich Are Destroying The Earth (2008) Hij wees erop dat

after triumphing over Sovietism, capitalism doesn't know how to do anything but celebrate itself. All spheres of power and influence have been swallowed by capitalism's pseudo-realism that asserts that any alternative is impossible and that the only end to pursue in order to soften the inevitability of injustice is to eke out ever more wealth.

This would-be realism is not only ominous; it is blind. Blind to the explosive power of manifest injustice. And blind to the poisoning of the biosphere that the increase in material wealth produces, poisoning that means deterioration in the conditions of human life and the squandering of the chances of generations to come.


Als een kameleon conformeert Hoflands 'politiek-literaire elite' zich moeiteloos aan de totalitaire orde van de schatrijken, die zich niets aantrekken van de 'democratie,' althans van datgene wat er nog van over is:

the global oligarchy wants to get rid of democracy and the civil rights and public liberties that constitute its substance.

The assertion is brutal. Let me formulate it another way: in the face of the turbulence engendered by the global environmental and social crises, and in order to preserve its own privileges, the oligarchy chooses to weaken the spirit and the forms of democracy, that is to say, free discussion of collective choices; respect for the law and its representatives; protections of individual liberties vis-à-vis the encroachments of the state; and other constituted entities...

the oligarchy prefers the progressive bastardization of democracy,

aldus omschreef Kempf het proces dat iedere burger, behalve dan de betaalde opiniemakers en alle andere pluimstrijkers in de mainstream media, dagelijks voor zijn ogen ziet afspelen. De toenemende macht van de oligarchie is de laatste fase van een ontwikkeling die de Franse schrijver Alexis de Tocqueville al in de negentiende eeuw voorzag toen hij in het tweede  deel van Democracy in America schreef:

The kind of oppression that threatens democratic peoples does not in any way resemble what preceded it... I want to imagine what aspect despotism could take on in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of men, similar to one another and equal, who gyrate unceasingly in order to obtain small and vulgar pleasures for themselves with which they fill their souls. Each one of them, isolated at some remove from the others, is like a stranger to the destiny of all the others: his children and his personal friends constitute the entire human species for him: as for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he is right next to them; he exists only within and for himself, and, although he still has a family, one may at the least say he no longer has a country. Above all these men rises an immense tutelary power that alone assures their enjoyment and watches over their fate. It is absolute, elaborate, regular, calculating, and mild. It would be like paternal power, if -- like it -- its goal was to prepare men for virile maturity; but, on the contrary, it seeks only to limit them irrevocably to childhood; it likes its citizens to be happy, as long as they dream of nothing other than being happy.

Dit soort geluk kan natuurlijk nooit een waar geluk zijn, maar een permanente verdoving van een van alles vervreemd individu dat zijn geluk vergeefs probeert te vinden in 'small and vulgar pleasures.'  In zijn boek How The Rich Are Destroying The Earth noteerde Kempf het volgende:

One cannot exclude the possibility that some part of the oligarchy harbors an unconscious desire for catastrophe, pursues an apotheosis of consumption that would be the consumption of the planet Earth itself through exhaustion, through chaos, or through nuclear war. Violence is at the heart of the process on which a consumption society is based, Jean Baudrillard noted: 'Using objects leads only to their slow loss. The value created by their violent loss is much more intense.'

De gewelddadige westerse cultuur lijdt aan een 'lack of substance'  en het individu ontbreekt het aan de vrijheid om zelf keuzes te maken. Ondertussen zijn er voor de snel groeiende onderklasse nog maar twee uitwegen: zogeheten 'zinloos geweld,' of georganiseerd 'massaal geweld.' Het eerste wordt bestraft, het tweede beloond. Hoe dan ook, geweld blijft de basis van het systeem. Zeker wanneer opiniemakers als Henk Hofland en Arnon Grunberg de grootste praatjesmakers blijven. Zolang ze kunnen blijven beweren dat er door Rusland een 'permanente onrust' is ontstaan, en dat de 'defensie' van de 'de Vrije Wereld' is 'verwaarloosd,' is er nog toekomst voor de economische en politieke elite en voor hun pleitbezorgers, hoe hoogbejaard ze ook mogen worden. Dat alles spreekt voor zich. Zonder propagandisten kan geen enkel systeem overleven. Daarom een vraag: wat zou Hofland als antwoord hebben op de vraag hoe zijn bewering dat 'de Vrije Wereld... haar defensie [heeft] verwaarloosd,' zich verhoudt met het feit dat 'Poverty in the US almost as bad as in North Korea' is?

Waarom zou het Westen nog meer bewapenen terwijl de armoede onder de eigen bevolking almaar toeneemt? Wie verdedigen de westerse strijdkrachten nu precies? En hoe is het te verklaren dat meer dan de helft van de Amerikaanse senatoren miljonair is? Waarom hoort men de vorstelijk betaalde opiniemakers daar nooit over? Meer later.


This family live in the car. They have no other place to live.



POVERTY IN THE US ALMOST AS BAD AS IN NORTH KOREA


While there are five million in North Korea that face food shortages, the same number in the US is 45 million.

The rise in the number of homeless and hungry Americans have reached epidemic proportions.
The US continue to point its fingers on nations that do not live up the the standards of the American dream. Simultaneously, the US Government hide the ugly truth that food shortages and poverty is spreading like wild fire in America it self.
The US media correctly reports that five out of 24 million North Korean’s face food shortages. That is roughly 20 per cent of the population, and is surely a crime against humanity.
But what about the 14.7 percent of U.S. households who were “food insecure”in 2009?
The meaning of “food insecure” is that they had difficulty feeding one or more of their members at some point last year due to a lack of financial resources.
That equates to 17.4 million US households, or roughly 45 million people according to a News report from CNN. A Department of Agriculture report exposes that the number of Americans fighting off hunger remain the highest since the federal government began keeping track 15 years ago.
This year’s rate marked a slight increase in percentage from 2008, when 14.6 percent of American households had trouble putting food on the table.
The situation was especially dire for more than one-third of those households — 6.8 million total, equating to 5.7 percent of all U.S. households — that the report’s four authors classified as having “very low food security.”
The typical household in this category struggled with food issues for at least a few days a month over seven months of the year, the report said.
Households headed by single parents were more likely to struggle with food insecurity than those with two parents at home.
Hunger-related issues were more prevalent among African-American and Hispanic households than white ones, the study found.
Source: CNN Money.
The Love on money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Jesus the Messiah is surely right.
Why do more an more Americans end up in poverty?
On the reasons, are that corporate jobs are shifted abroad to the totalitarian communist regime of China, or the highly corrupted and elite supremacy dictatorship of India.
The second reason is the rotten fruit of capitalism.  American’s took fresh credits to cover up loans taken to fund consumer goods and materialistic needs in “abundance” till it overflows. Claimed to be Christians and non believers alike, were told by Charismatic pastors and politicians that the “consumer party” would keep on growing up to the heavens.
Now, we can see the real fruits of such deceptive teachings. The pictures you are about to see tell the true story of the dark side of the American dollar.
The Obama Administrations war on God of the Bible will only make matters worse. Hussein Obama wants to evict Jews from the Mountains in Zion, and give the land back under Islamic oppression and occupation. By doing this Obama place a curse up on his own head, and curses the American nation and population.
Lets take a look at some picture of homeless American, a new class of citizens that live on the street, in cars or in tents in public gardens.

It you can not pay the Bank, you are on the street.
This family is lucky. They have got a new place to live in a public place.

Calefornia dreaming. Homeless in LA.

On a dollar a day, its always possible to get a cup of coffee.

Most of the native Americans live below the poverty line.
The electrical poles are out of range. The new American poor are out in the woods.

The skyline in Sacramento have got new tents, where Arny has his seat of power.

Life seen through a window of a tent in Detroit.

Houses up for sale, to raise fresh funds for the Fedreral Government.

Yesterday General Motors (GM) launched an IPO on Wall Street. These home owners in Detroit were not invited.

No invitation to American tea-parties for these hungry souls on Capitol Hill.


This girl is an "American traveller". She lives on the cargo trains.


April 24, 2014
Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, I'm a Whistleblower: Want Fries with That?
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Thanks so much to those of you who chose to support this site by giving $100 for a personalized, signed copy of Todd Miller’s new book, Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Homeland Security, as per the Tuesday offer at this site.  Any of you who meant to do so, but haven’t yet, check out our donation page for the details.  You only have a couple of days left!  In the meantime, let me bring another book to your attention.  Today,TomDispatch regular and State Department whistleblower Peter Van Buren gives us a unique look at his own unexpected experiences in the minimum wage economy.  That year-long odyssey inspired him to write quite a remarkable “novel,” Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent, about how that minimum-wage economy helped gut the Ohio town he grew up in.  While it’s fiction -- and grippingly written fiction at that -- it’s also a powerful portrait of the new American world of un-, under-, and just plain miserable employment in the Rust Belt (which these days could be just about anywhere). Tom]

Before November 2012, fast-food workers in America had never gone on strike. There was a good reason for that. Many burger-flippers were teenagers in need of a few extra bucks, and thanks to high turnover in the industry, most workers didn't have to stay long in those poverty-wage jobs.

After the economic meltdown of 2007-2008 and the Great Recession, things changed. A disproportionate share of job gains during the “recovery” turned up in the low-wage service sector of the workforce.  The result: a growing contingent of adult fast-food workers who can't find other work. And fast-food wages, which average $8.69 an hour, have dropped by 36 cents an hour since 2010. More than half of the families of fast-food workers are forced to rely on public programs like food stamps and Medicaid to get by.

In November 2012, fed-up workers at franchises like McDonald's, Wendy's, and KFC went on strike for the first time, demanding a $15 minimum wage and the right to join unions without retaliation. In the months that followed, these worker protests spread across the country faster than organizers expected. As Naquasia LeGrand, a KFC employee, told me late last year, she joined the first strike in New York City because workers hadn't seen a dime of the record profits fast food chains are reaping. "We don't get enough respect" was the way she put it.

Low-wage workers face terrible odds. The other NRA, the National Restaurant Association, which lobbies on behalf of the $600 billion industry, has been fighting minimum wage hikes for decades. In recent years, the group, whose members include KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, has more than doubled its lobbying heft on Capitol Hill. Between 2008 and 2013, NRA lobbyists pushing the industry's interests in Washington shot up from 15 to 37. And don’t forget the 127 lobbyists who represented nine of the association's biggest members in 2013, up from 56 in 1998. The NRA alone has spent $2.2 million on lobbying since November 2012, and handed out more than $400,000 in campaign contributions as well.

President Obama can call on Congress to increase the minimum wage till hell freezes over, but don’t expect even the modest hike he backs to happen any time soon given the opposition of congressional Republicans, who just happen to have gotten thelion's share of the NRA's campaign contributions over the years. In the meantime, folks will keep working three jobs to not get by.

State Department whistleblower and TomDispatch regular Peter Van Buren took an unlikely fall into the minimum-wage world when he lost his job in 2012. Today, he gives us a first-hand look at what it's like to subsist in poverty-wage America (as he does in his vivid new novel about the hollowing out of the American workforce, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent). Erika Eichelberger
An Apartheid of Dollars 
Life in the New American Minimum-Wage Economy 
By Peter Van Buren
There are many sides to whistleblowing. The one that most people don't know about is the very personal cost, prison aside, including the high cost of lawyers and the strain on family relations, that follows the decision to risk it all in an act of conscience. Here's a part of my own story I've not talked about much before.
At age 53, everything changed. Following my whistleblowing first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, I was run out of the good job I had held for more than 20 years with the U.S. Department of State. As one of its threats, State also took aim at the pension and benefits I'd earned, even as it forced me into retirement. Would my family and I lose everything I'd worked for as part of the retaliation campaign State was waging? I was worried. That pension was the thing I’d counted on to provide for us and it remained in jeopardy for many months. I was scared.
My skill set was pretty specific to my old job. The market was tough in the Washington, D.C. area for someone with asuspended security clearance. Nobody with a salaried job to offer seemed interested in an old guy, and I needed some money. All the signs pointed one way -- toward the retail economy and a minimum-wage job.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.


Geen opmerkingen:

Peter Flik en Chuck Berry-Promised Land

mijn unieke collega Peter Flik, die de vrijzinnig protestantse radio omroep de VPRO maakte is niet meer. ik koester duizenden herinneringen ...