I’m currently reading a book called So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government by Robert G. Kaiser. Besides the fact that the book starts with following the rise of lobbying in government and the career path of one Gerald Cassidy. It is also notable in the begining for talking about the condition of farm workers in Immokalee, Florida. Cassidy worked in Immokalee with others trying to help the farm workers before he became this big lobbyist.

I’ll save lobbying and Cassidy for another time. Yet, it was clear even back then that farm workers faced horrible living and working conditions. In the areas where they worked the citizenry treated them like pariahs and could not wait to get them out (when the off-season arrived). The children of these farm workers weren’t welcome at the local schools either. Fast forward to recent times and you have people like John Bowe and his book Nobodies where he talks about the still deplorable environment for farm workers. It should also be mentioned that Bowe did also highlight the much needed efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers who have accomplished herculean achievements in organizing and fighting for the farm workers in Immoakalee.

This leads me to today when I received this email from the group American Rights at Work on asking Florida Governor Crist to end worker abuse in Florida.

For decades, Florida’s farm workers have faced terrible abuses and brutal exploitation. Workers earn sub-poverty wages, work 60-70 hours per week, and are denied the basic right to form a union to negotiate for better wages and working conditions.

Some have even been chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay.

Yet for decades, Florida’s governors have turned a blind eye to this abuse. Take a stand for Florida’s farm workers: demand that Governor Crist end worker abuse in the Sunshine State.

The form letter that is available to send to Governor Crist talks about a recently concluded case of farm labor slavery in Florida. You would think that after all these years there would be better laws on the books to end the abuses of farm laborers, but there isn’t. So far, politically we’ve seen some historic changes happen in our country. I’d like to think that we can see the end of these types of abuses as well.

I’ve heard about this a while back but I think it’s an important tactic if you need to use it.

It’s called the “produce the note” strategy, and amounts to the consumer demanding that the lender furnish the original paperwork — the actual promissory note — that serves as the official legal record of the loan.

It is a document that contains the homeowner’s signature and proves that the lender threatening foreclosure is in fact the owner of the mortgage.

The technique is proving effective because so many mortgages written during the latest housing boom were sold, resold, sliced, diced, aggregated, and securitized to the point that the original loan documents might have been lost or even destroyed.

If the consumer demands the note and the lender can’t produce it, the foreclosure process could be stalled or, in some cases, stopped altogether. The Associated Press reports that a Cleveland judge threw out 14 foreclosures in 2007 because plaintiff Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. was unable to “produce the notes.”

If they can’t produce the note do they really own it? Who owns it? Most likely if this strategy catches on you’ll see a phalanx of lobbyists hitting the Hill trying to get this law changed. Since lobbyists and the corporations they work for control a lot of Washington use this tactic while you can.

I happened to see this on Twitter today.

The University of Michigan announced on Monday that it was ending its apparel licensing agreement with the Russell Corporation, becoming the 12th university to do so in response to the company’s decision to close a unionized factory in Honduras.

University of Michigan officials said an agreement under which Russell made T-shirts, sweatshirts and fleeces with university logos would end as of March 31 because Russell had violated the university’s code of conduct calling on licensees to guarantee the basic rights of workers.

Just think like Wal-Mart, the Russell Corporation would rather close one of their locations because a union was formed.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

This is hands down the best thing around which explains how we got into the economic mess we’re in now. I don’t know why I waited this long to blog about it.

These guys talk a good game on looking “beyond petroleum” but they have serious issues.

The EPA revealed that BP Products North America will pay nearly $180 million to settle charges that it has failed to comply with a 2001 consent decree under which it was supposed to implement strict controls on benzene and benzene-tainted waste generated by the company’s vast oil refining complex in Texas City, Texas, located south of Houston. Since the 1920s, benzene has been known to cause cancer.

Among BP’s self-proclaimed corporate values is to be “environmentally responsible with the aspiration of ‘no damage to the environment’” and to ensure that “no one is subject to unnecessary risk while working for the group.” Somehow, that message did not seem to make its way to BP’s operation in Texas City, which has a dismal performance record.

They have a long way to go.

Marco and Cherese from invisible people on Vimeo.

As a society it comes down to this: what do we do for those who fall through the cracks? Marco and Cherese are not invisible. I for one see them all the time here in Washington DC. I have a Conservative friend who says people are poor because they want to be poor. Obviously, he hasn’t met people like Marco and Cherese.  Cherese has worked at jobs in the past and Marco tries to find work whenever he can. They both live in an RV right now.

Meet Marco & Cherese. They are living in a small RV and their primary income is panhandling. Cherese was the victim of a hit-and-run on an exit ramp, suffering a broken collar bone and a broken arm. Since she doesn’t have health insurance, the hospital just let her go, assuring her that the breaks will heal on their own.

Marco & Cherese are just like you and me. They’ve made a few mistakes in life (who hasn’t?), they’re extremely faithful, and they are good people just trying to survive the nightmare of homelessness.

Cherese was also a drug addict which obviously contributes to the predicament she finds herself in. She got counseling and was clean for a long time as she mentions in the video. She is human after all and humans make all sorts of bad choices. We’re bailing out Wall Street bankers like John Thain at Merrill Lynch for their failures, but we can’t help others? They talk about more and more people hitching trailers onto their trucks because homelessness is growing. This economy may very well send more to those ranks. So how do we as a society deal with this?

Many people would rather ignore it all. We simply cannot ignore it. Whenever a society becomes so polarized with its economic classes there are repercussions. Those gated communities and security guards cannot protect you forever. There has to be a balance. While we all can’t be millionaires (actually from what I understand its more like billionaires now) we all should be at a certain economic equilibrium. Talking about the middle-class can at sometimes seem cliche to me, but I think this is where we should strive to get everyone who isn’t already there to. We also have to support the middle-class and not let it shrink. I think the Middle Class Taskforce is very important in this regard. Can we also have a Poverty Taskforce too?

What big ag is doing to school lunch is criminal.

Who decides what our children are eating?

To a large degree, it is the Federal Government. Congress and the Department of Agriculture approve what foods can (and can’t) be served to over 30 million American school children who get daily meals from the National School Lunch Program.

The government gets a ton of pressure from a food and beverage industry frantic to keep kids hooked on a diet of sodas, snacks and hot dogs. The competition, for a piece of this $10 billion market, is particularly fierce right now because this year, the School Lunch Program is being reviewed and revised.

Despite the enormous nutritional and financial stakes at play, ANP was the only media to cover a recent panel set up to discuss the school menu. While nutritionists outnumbered the press, corporate lobbyists outnumbered everyone.

Coincidentally, this article was released in the New York Times today.

This is a fight that must be taken on. I’m glad that ANP and others are rising to the task.

Riki Ott, I think, really summed it up nicely. She should know Exxon Mobil destroyed Cordova, Alaska and its people.

For instance, if you’re a meatpacker and there are questions of OSHA violations, or if you’re a corporate player in an industry that is plagued with unlawful air or water pollutants and the EPA wants to take a closer look, [government inspectors] can’t just barge in. They actually have to have a warrant now, and let the corporation know that they’re coming, as though the corporation were a person. How many corporate criminals are you going to catch if you warn them that you’re coming?

We, the people, need to say, “This has gone too far.” And we must drive in what I propose as the 28th Amendment, to strip corporations of this false “personhood.”

For too long, we have allowed our laws, this concept of “corporate rights,” to trump human rights. We don’t have disposable people or a disposable planet. Corporations, in an unchecked run to maximize profits, are trashing lifestyles, cultures and ecosystems around this planet and, in the process, they are eroding the human relationships that form the basis for a civil society.?

Where do I sign up to start campaigning for the 28th Amendment?

Who’s Keeping Burger King Workers Below the Poverty Line?

The relationship between Burger King and Goldman Sachs is a troubling example of the current balance between labor and capital. Burger King has been a repeat offender of the Federal Labor Standards Act and has lobbied to stop the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for its poorly paid workers to unionize. The masters of the universe at Goldman Sachs, who lost $53 billion in 2008, are part owners of the franchise. When Goldman received $10 billion from the government’s bank bailout, they set aside $6.5 billion to reward their loss-making employees. Brave New Films asks one hard working Burger King employee what she would do with a bailout bonus.

Burger King was bought by a group of weaselly bankers and stock jobbers like Goldman Sachs.

Take Action: Rehire Simon San German

In response to the workers’ situation, the UFW had filed a complaint with the US Department of Labor, demanding that Tanimura & Antle be barred from the H-2A program for such blatant discrimination against local workers. Simon and several of his co-workers were eventually rehired.

The corporation was basically laying-off local farm workers and hiring foreign guest workers without allowing the laid-off the chance to re apply as required by law. They even fired workers like Simon San German for speaking out against these practices.