I found the interview Occupy Boston Live- Housing Crisis Working Group on the New Shows from Occupy Boston TV web page.

In the show Cherie K. mentions her blog I Am Homeless Girl.

With apologies to my friends and relatives who still live in Texas, but Sharon, my wife, and ex-native Texan, insisted that I post this. You know I wouldn’t have posted this if she hadn’t insisted.

The podcast mentioned in the previous post Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory is now available online. Click on the link in the previous sentence to get to the 62 minute podcast.  I wanted to make this new post to bring your attention to the update in case you read the previous article before the podcast was available.

I now realize that this and another previous post are related.  They tell a story from two different perspectives.

The previous post The Suffering Began When Mitt Romney Came To Town tells the story of what happens in America when jobs get outsourced to other countries.  Amazingly, the story is told by a Super PAC connected to Newt Gingrich.

The previous post Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory tells the story of what happens in China when those outsourced jobs get there.

March 17, 2012.

You might want to follow up by reading, Artist admits to shortcuts in show about Apple.

Apparently this this is how Newt Gingrich is going to strike back at Mitt Romney.

Winning Our Future | King of Bain “When Mitt Romney Came To Town” [Trailer]

For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town.

The message of this Gingrich film is exactly what progressives like me have been trying to get across,

Capitalism made America great … the building blocks of the American dream, but in the wrong hands some of those dreams can turn into nightmares. … Wall Street’s corporate raiders getting rich at the expense of American workers.

How wonderful it is for the Republicans to amplify the message from MoveOn, Mitt Romney: Job Creator?

If the Republicans sink Mitt Romney with this campaign, how will the eventual Republican nominee avoid the blowback?

I first learned about this video from an article in The San Francisco Chronicle, Romney Bain Leadership Attacked as Exploiting Companies for Cash.

For months, Mitt Romney has seldom been challenged on his claim that his leadership at Bain Capital LLC offers evidence that he knows how to create jobs. That has ended as his Republican rivals are accusing him of exploiting companies and firing workers in a quest to make millions.
.
.
.
A Bloomberg News review of several Bain deals during Romney’s tenure found that not all Bain’s investments were beneficial for workers. Several companies ran into trouble, laying off hundreds of workers, filing for bankruptcy, facing federal fines, or lawsuits from shareholders who said they were misled by management. One example was Dade Behring Inc., a Deerfield, Illinois-based medical-testing company, where Bain cut least 1,600 jobs after taking over the company.

I post this video for the only reason that it is harder to hate people when you can see them as human beings.

Thanks to Hassan Moradi for posting the link to this travelogue on his Google+ page.

I used my previous post How America And The Mainstream Media Got Breitbarted On NDAA as a defense of Obama against some of the comments in The Raw Story article Obama pledges to exempt Americans from indefinite detention law.

I received quite a bit of pushback from my post.  One of the comments begins:

Have we been Breitbarted?  NO.  THE NDAA IS DANGEROUS TO EVERYONE-

To borrow from a fellow blogger’s comments from politicususa.com:

“…simply wrong. It does, absolutely, apply to U.S. citizens. I’ve read it, here’s a breakdown of the logical structure of it:  …

Rather than this commenter quoting another commenter explaining it to me and then me explaining it to you, why don’t I give you a link to the document and let you read it yourself. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012.

The bill is 926 pages long, so I will ease your burden a bit by extracting the relevant sections indicating the pages in the document.  You are free to read the original document for more context than what I have extracted here.

p 1

112TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION S. 1867
AN ACT

To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2012 for military
activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department
of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths
for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.

p 426

15 Subtitle D—Detainee Matters
16 SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED
17 FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN
18 COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AU-
19 THORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
20 (a) IN GENERAL.—Congress affirms that the author-
21 ity of the President to use all necessary and appropriate
22 force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military
23 Force (Public Law 107–40) includes the authority for the
24 Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered per-

p 427 

 1 sons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition
 2 under the law of war.
 3 (b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under
 4 this section is any person as follows:
 5 (1) A person who planned, authorized, com-
 6 mitted, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred
 7 on September 11, 2001, or harbored those respon-
 8 sible for those attacks.
 9 (2) A person who was a part of or substantially
10 supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces
11 that are engaged in hostilities against the United
12 States or its coalition partners, including any person
13 who has committed a belligerent act or has directly
14 supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy
15 forces.
16 (c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—The dis-
17 position of a person under the law of war as described
18 in subsection (a) may include the following:
19 (1) Detention under the law of war without
20 trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the
21 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
22 (2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United
23 States Code (as amended by the Military Commis-
24 sions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111–
25 84)).

p 428

 1 (3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or
 2 competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.
 3 (4) Transfer to the custody or control of the
 4 person’s country of origin, any other foreign coun-
 5 try, or any other foreign entity.
 6 (d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section is in-
 7 tended to limit or expand the authority of the President
 8 or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military
 9 Force.
10 (e) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be
11 construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to
12 the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident
13 aliens of the United States or any other persons who are
14 captured or arrested in the United States.
15 (f) REQUIREMENT FOR BRIEFINGS OF CONGRESS.—
16 The Secretary of Defense shall regularly brief Congress
17 regarding the application of the authority described in this
18 section, including the organizations, entities, and individ-
19 uals considered to be ‘‘covered persons’’ for purposes of
20 subsection (b)(2).
21 SEC. 1032. REQUIREMENT FOR MILITARY CUSTODY.
22 (a) CUSTODY PENDING DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF
23 WAR.—
24 (1) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in para-
25 graph (4), the Armed Forces of the United States

p 429 

 1 shall hold a person described in paragraph (2) who
 2 is captured in the course of hostilities authorized by
 3 the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public
 4 Law 107–40) in military custody pending disposition
 5 under the law of war.
 6 (2) COVERED PERSONS.—The requirement in
 7 paragraph (1) shall apply to any person whose de-
 8 tention is authorized under section 1031 who is de-
 9 termined—
10 (A) to be a member of, or part of, al-
11 Qaeda or an associated force that acts in co-
12 ordination with or pursuant to the direction of
13 al-Qaeda; and
14 (B) to have participated in the course of
15 planning or carrying out an attack or attempted
16 attack against the United States or its coalition
17 partners.
18 (3) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—For
19 purposes of this subsection, the disposition of a per-
20 son under the law of war has the meaning given in
21 section 1031(c), except that no transfer otherwise
22 described in paragraph (4) of that section shall be
23 made unless consistent with the requirements of sec-
24 tion 1033.

p 430 

 1 (4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY.—The
 2 Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the
 3 Secretary of State and the Director of National In-
 4 telligence, waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if
 5 the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in
 6 writing that such a waiver is in the national security
 7 interests of the United States.
 8 (b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS
 9 AND LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—
10 (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The require-
11 ment to detain a person in military custody under
12 this section does not extend to citizens of the United
13 States.
14 (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—The require-
15 ment to detain a person in military custody under
16 this section does not extend to a lawful resident
17 alien of the United States on the basis of conduct
18 taking place within the United States, except to the
19 extent permitted by the Constitution of the United
20 States.

Before I can understand this language myself, I think I am going to have to go back and put in hypertext links on references to other sections so that I can figure out exactly what words qualify what sections. Any lawyers in the audience care to write a concordance?

Now these just may be the types of political ads that gets some people’s attention. Maybe this will disabuse some working class Republicans of the idea that President Obama is the one killing jobs and the Republicans are the ones to create them.

Does Mitt Romney Care About Jobs or Just Making Money?

Mitt Romney: Job Creator?

Thanks to Bill MacDonald for posting these on his Facebook page.

I heard only part of the broadcast of Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory while in the car today. I am hoping the full MP3 will appear in the archive soon. (Jan 9, 2012 – I see that there is now a PLAY button that will play the full hour of the radio show. I have now heard all that I had previously missed.)

I have had conversations with friends from India and Viet Nam about the very question that comes up at the end of this broadcast. Melding in my original feelings and what I think I have learned from them is the following reaction as to what to do about the problem.

It is not up to us to tell the workers in these countries what conditions are good for them. I think the ultimate solution is to make sure the workers themselves have a voice about their own working conditions. We should promote the freedom of the workers to form unions. The United States and the US labor unions should do everything they can do to encourage the rights of workers to form unions (and this encouragement applies to our own country as well). We citizens should exercise whatever influence we have over the companies and our government to see that union rights and union organizers’ rights are protected.

March 17, 2012.

You might want to follow up by reading, Artist admits to shortcuts in show about Apple.

Surely you can stand a little humor as you browse through the internet.

Since the people in this video have strong Irish brogues and use pronunciation a little different from what you normally hear in the U.S., you may be able to just avoid translating certain words that you might otherwise find offensive.

I love this video by Elizabeth Warren, but

I am a little frustrated that she is not quite running the campaign the way she speaks in this video.

In her description of how she created the successful campaign to get the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau into the financial reform bill passed by Congress, she mentioned getting the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AARP, and Consumers Union to rally their members to the fight. (She also talked about a pyramiding conference call series.)

With regard to getting things done as a Senator, she tells the audience that they have to keep fighting for the action they want long after the election is over.

Then, seemingly forgetting how she described the fight for the CFPB, she tells the audience they have to talk to neighbors and people in the grocery line about what needs to be done. Yes, eventually it gets down to having individuals talk to other individuals, but if almost every individual in the country favors one particular policy, what good does that do if the people in Congress aren’t aware and moreover aren’t aware of how strongly people feel? We already know that in some cases a poll may show that 80% of the people favor a policy and the Congress still votes for the 20% side of the issue.

It is easy for the Congress to look at a poll and dismiss the import of what it says by simply telling themselves that people don’t feel strongly enough about the issue to do anything if Congress votes the way Congress wants and against the majority’s wishes. By and large, Congress’s dismissal has been correct.

It takes organizations like the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AARP, Consumers Union, (and the Occupy Movement) to get enough of a mass protest to shake the politicians’ attachment to the lobbyists working for the wealthy interests.

I’d like to see Elizabeth Warren demonstrate this organizing skill during the campaign. It has to be more than just Elizabeth Warren fighting for these things.

True, she has something like 85,000 people who have clicked on the “like” button on her Facebook page. That compares to something like 500 likes for some of her Democratic competitors. I am not sure Facebook “likes” would sway any other Senators.

What kind of movement changed the entire conversation in this country in a month or two and caused it to turn away from the 40 years of propaganda by the wealthy as embodied in the Republican Party, Faux Noise, almost all radio talk shows, etc.? The Occupy movement did that. As soon as Elizabeth Warren caught some flack for saying some encouraging words about the Occupy movement, she backed away.

In the election, you cannot back away from one of the major tools you are going to need after the election, and then expect to use that tool effectively later.

On Nancy Weinberg’s Facebook page, she featured an article from Forbes Magazine, The Rumors About Bill Clinton Are True.

The reporter was discussing a conversation with Bill Clinton at a book signing.

I asked, “What do you think about the Occupy Wall Street movement, personally, and what do you think it says about America?”

“I think what they’re doing is great,” he said. “Occupy Wall Street has done more in the short time they’ve been out there than I’ve been able to do in more than the last eleven years trying to draw attention to some of the same problems we have to address,” he said.

Without once looking around, but completely engaging me, the statesman continued. “There are a lot of young people out there, I see a lot of unemployed students and they are upset, he said. They don’t know where the jobs and opportunities are for them, and they are worried about how they’re going to pay off their student loans without going broke.”

But I learned instantly that Bill Clinton doesn’t just acknowledge problems he has solutions at the ready. He went on to say that student loan reforms were absolutely necessary and that limiting annual loan payments to small percentages of income made sense to not impoverish students as they struggle up the ladder in pursuit of the American Dream.

I asked if the Occupy Wall Street movement should have a platform. I was getting into another area he is passionate about, delivering messages on point. “Yes,” he said, “But it doesn’t have to be a platform; it doesn’t have to be twenty pages. They should start with three or four points to generate a political movement to get heard more clearly.”

There was more, but as he touched quickly on two other points as to how we got here, he said, “That’s in the book.” I wasn’t being sold on the book; I just had my copy signed. I was being steered to the address of important issues in the book and Mr. Clinton’s suggestions for getting back on track to fixing them.

Compare those remarks with Elizabeth Warren’s backing away from the Occupy movement.