The DISH
Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 11 Issue 43…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 26, 2008
Intuit's Vibe
Indig-nation
By Shubhen Bhandare
Country's flags are sold for a penny,
Mouths to feed are more than many,
Economy is on the upswing,
Common man has next to nothing,
Selling of flesh is the best trade,
Unless you like being in the red,
Clothes cover important points,
Leaving scope for whore joints,
Pimps make hay while the moon shines,
Sun hides his face as morality declines,
The country to be ruled this way,
Of the people, no one from the people,
Not for the people,
Not by the people,
Pure anarchy let loose,
Debt narrows the noose,
On the country's neck,
Who is there to check?
Corruption powers on,
Powers carry on,
Nation thrives,
Frustration survives!
Growing
Unequal?
The Paris-based Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently announced the publication
of Growing Unequal?, a report
on the widening gap between the rich and poor and poverty in the world's
wealthiest nations. According to the report, over the past decade, the gap
between rich and poor has grown in a majority of the OECD member countries.
Key findings cited by the report
include the fact that rich households did significantly better than
middle-class and poor households over the period from 1985-2005 covered by the
report. Essentially, wages improved for those people who were already well
paid. According to Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat which recently issued its
annual State of the World's cities report that cited similar concerns regarding
growing income inequality and social unrest, "The trickle down theory
[that wealth starts with the rich] has not delivered." The annual
UN-Habitat report cited race as one of the most important factors determining
levels of inequality in the US and Canada.
Another key finding of Growing Unequal?
is falling employment rates among a growing number of less-educated people.
According to the report, "The largest part of the increase in inequality
comes from changes in labor markets. Low-skilled workers are having
ever-greater problems in finding jobs." The report also cited an
increasing number of single-adult and single-family households as a factor in
the growing inequality and rising poverty rates in OECD member countries.
In urging governments to address
the problems of income inequality and poverty, OECD Secretary-General Angel
Gurría warned, "Growing inequality is divisive. It polarizes societies, it
divides regions within countries, and it carves up the world between rich and
poor. Greater income inequality stifles upward mobility between generations,
making it harder for talented and hard-working people to get the rewards they
deserve. Ignoring increasing inequality is not an option."
To reduce poverty, Growing Unequal? advised governments to
increase employment with in-work benefits that boosts families' incomes and
better education that equips workers with the skills they need in today's labor
market.
For other Growing Unequal? key findings,
including country-specific data, please visit www.oecd.org/els/social/inequality.
Tax Appraisals,
Over-Priced Land and Foreclosures
By John Burl Smith
Home owners in the Atlanta
Metropolitan area are getting shafted on all sides and local governments are
the real culprits. During the height of Allen Greenspan's real estate bubble,
predatory subprime mortgage lenders preyed on Georgians like vultures, and
local politicians licked their bones by aiding the home building boom. Huge
McMansions were constructed all over the area in existing neighborhoods. These
cheaply built overpriced monstrosities were wedged in between older homes that
were half their size. Sticking out like sore thumbs, these oversized and overpriced
poor-man's castles jacked up the appraised value, for tax purposes, of all
homes in the neighborhood.
The reality check came when the housing bubble burst and job losses due to
companies moving overseas mounted. Coupled with exploding exotic variable
interest rates, families caught in predatory subprime lending schemes could not
make mortgage payments. Foreclosures shot up, while home values plummeted. Many
homeowners refinanced their homes to make needed repairs but got stuck with
subprime loans, which added to the skyrocketing foreclosure tide washing over
the
Left in the wake of the subprime
foreclosure tidal wave are neighborhoods filled with for sale and for rent
signs. Now, homeowners in the
A study -- Responding to the Foreclosure Crisis: Analysis of
Home Sales Prices and Appraised Home Values in High Foreclosure Rate
Neighborhoods -- commissioned by Atlanta Neighborhood Development
Partnership (ANDP) and released October 10, 2008 concluded, among other things,
"Homeowners in South DeKalb County, hard-hit by foreclosures, will be
paying millions of dollars in excessive taxes in 2008 because of overvalued
homes in their neighborhoods." Singling out three ZIP codes, 30032, 30038
and 30058, to make their case, researchers estimated that homeowners in these
locations will pay $17.8 million in excessive taxes if
Next, the DeKalb County
Commission pulled out of a $6 million land purchase based on inflated property
values. Commissioner Lee May was on the way to the bank with a sweet land deal
when county residents rose up in alarm at the price being paid for the 92-acre
track in
Lastly, owners of a single family
dwelling in DeKalb County, my wife and I appealed our 2008 tax assessment on
the ground that it was excessive and did not reflect market conditions. Our
home is located in an area filled with foreclosures, for sale and for rent
signs. We have maintained our modest dwelling, built in the 1950s, by
remodeling it over the years. Our appraisal was based not on homes in our
neighborhood but on what the appraiser said were comparable homes in other
neighborhoods. Using this practice, the appraised value of our home was raised
and the land's value was nearly doubled from $14,400 to $27,500. This means our
quarter acre lot will cost more than the land the county refused to purchase
for "green space."
There are two major problems with
our appraisal and assessment. Any prospective buyer of our property will look
at the homes and the neighborhood surrounding our property. They will not drive
to the other neighborhoods to compare homes on which the appraiser used to base
his valuation. Buyers judge property based on its surroundings, home in that
neighborhood where the property is located.
Moreover, examining property
sales from 2003 to 2007, it appears that the county's appraised value of land
on homes sold for personal use following foreclosures and bankruptcies
increased from $16,000 to $30,600. The last appraisal of our 1/4 acre was $14,
400, which is about standard for our neighborhood. Consequently, now an acre of
land in this portion of
Homeowners in the Metropolitan Atlanta area are being robbed to cover tax
revenue shortfalls. Even though the DeKalb Equalization Board admitted it knew
that basing assessments on 2007 appraisals would mean homeowners will pay
excessive and unfair tax assessments, the board denied our appeal. This is not
only unfair, it is unjust taxation, leaving homeowners with an even more
expensive remedy of going to court. With that being the case, I propose DeKalb
homeowners join forces and file a class action lawsuit to halt the collection
of taxes on these excessive property appraisals. According to our assessment
and the ANDP study this could be as much as $562 more than what we should be
paying. Homeowners interested in fighting these exorbitant tax assessments need
to join forces and organize a campaign to reduce property taxes. Contact: The
DISH at 404-244-6023 or email thedish@ga.net.
Communication Professors Speak Out
Campaign Stoking the Fires of Racism
We wish to express our great
concern over unethical communication behavior that threatens to dominate the
closing days of the 2008 Presidential campaign.
Both major campaigns have been criticized by fact-checking organizations for
prevarications. We call on both campaigns to halt blatant misrepresentations of
their opponent's positions.
It would be misleading, however, to imply that since "both sides do
it" there is no qualitative difference worth noting. In recent weeks, the
Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin has engaged in such incendiary
mendacity that we must speak out. The purposeful dissemination of messages that
a communicator knows to be false and inflammatory is unethical. It is that
simple.
Making decisions in a democracy
requires an informed electorate. The health of our democracy and our ability to
make a good decision about who should lead our nation require the very best in
communication practices, not the worst.
Media investigations have debunked the notion that Senator Obama "worked
closely" or "palled around" with "terrorist" Bill
Ayers. Governor Palin cited a New York Times article that actually contradicts
her claim by noting "the two men do not appear to have been close."
Nonetheless, the McCain/Palin ticket continues to repeat the canard, most
recently with so-called "robocalls" in battleground states.
The McCain/Palin ticket now
describes the Obama/Biden tax plan with such terms as "socialist" and
"welfare." Such descriptions are false. Even if they were not, they
would apply equally to the McCain/Palin tax proposals.
The repeated use of "Joe the
Plumber" as a symbol by the McCain/Palin ticket is more deceptive than
truthful. Despite the fact that media reports have revealed that the person is
not a licensed plumber, owes back taxes, and his current personal income tax
would decrease under the Obama tax plan, the McCain/Palin ticket continues to
take Obama's words to Joe out of context to repeat the false claim that Obama
would raise taxes on the middle class and thus hurt the American Dream.
Such discourse is inflammatory as well as deceptive. Behind in the polls, the
McCain/Palin campaign and its surrogates now appear intent on marking Obama as
"other" to elicit racist fears. Senator McCain¹s odd question
"Who is Barack Obama?" is answered by Governor Palin¹s assertion that
Obama "is not a man who sees America as you and I do," along with her
comment "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that
we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real
America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic ... pro-America
areas of this great nation."
We see an effort to color code the election as between an urban,
African-American Obama falsely linked to terms like "terrorist,"
"unpatriotic," and "welfare" versus small town, white,
"patriotic" Americans like the mythical Joe the Plumber.
"Intended" or not, the message is getting through, as reports have
emerged of ugly scenes at some Republican rallies and racists hanging Obama in
effigy in 
to
terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and urged people to "Waterboard Barack
Obama." The October newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women
in
The McCain/Palin campaign and its surrogates, of course, will deny explicit
racism. But their purposeful repetition of inflammatory false statements is
unethical and stokes the fires of racism.
The code of ethical conduct for
the National Communication Association reads in part "We advocate
truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of
communication." We believe the integrity of political communication in our
nation is being seriously threatened and we call on the McCain/Palin campaign
to put a stop to such efforts immediately.
About
Me: This statement was crafted and signed by more than one hundred
American communication professors calling on the McCain/Palin campaign,
primarily, to stop its negative campaigning. For a list of the professors and
more about this statement, see http://politicalcommunication.info/
.
ACORN (1970-2008)
In 1970, Wade Rathke, an
organizer for the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), was sent to
By 1975, the organization had branched out across the state of
On December 13, 1975, sixty leaders from the three ACORN states elected the
first associate Executive Board and the first ACORN president, Steve McDonald,
to deal with matters beyond the scope of the individual city and state boards.
Each year thereafter three or more states joined ACORN, building to a total of
20 states by 1980.
This expansion led to multi-state campaigns beginning with a mass meeting of
1,000 members in
ACORN was active in the 1980
election with its "People's Platform" serving as its standard. The
organization led demonstrations aimed at both major party candidates. During
the Reagan era, ACORN launched squatting campaigns in an attempt to obtain
affordable housing. In June 1982, it sponsored "Reagan Ranches" in
over 35 cities to protest the Reagan administration's emphasis on military as
opposed to social spending. The tent cities' protesters successfully resisted
eviction, marched on the White House and testified before a Congressional
committee about "the housing crisis in
In addition to protesting, ACORN
developed and strengthened its political action committees, encouraged its
members to run for office and developed the Affiliated Media Foundation Movement
(AM/FM), which established radio stations, UHF television and cable television
programming. It also sought and received appointments to the Resolution Trust
Corporation (RTC), which was formed to dissolve the assets of failed Savings
and Loans resulting from the Savings and Loan crisis.
From
1988-1998, ACORN focused on affordable housing, demanding banks provide loan
data on low- and moderate-income communities and their compliance with the 1977
Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In 1991, it fought against efforts to weaken
the CRA, established the ACORN Housing Corporation to service people moving
into homes under the housing campaign, and rehabilitated hundreds of houses
addressed by CRA.
ACORN has fought against predatory lending and bank and insurance company
redlining practices and advocated for health care, public safety,
representation, work and workers' rights and communications. ACORN has worked
to achieve living wages, assisted in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and
pushed for better education based on the ACORN model for schools, which
emphasizes small classes, parent involvement, qualified teachers and
"community oriented curricula".
ACORN lobbied for the "Motor Voter" Act, which President Clinton
signed into law. Since 2004, ACORN has conducted large-scale voter registration
drives. During 2007 and 2008, it registered over 1.3 million new voters in 21
states.
ACORN's registration efforts have been investigated in various cities and
states, in some cases as a result of the ACORN-flagged registration forms.
While ACORN is non-partisan, it most often sides with Democrats. In the current
election cycle, it has come under heavy criticism from Republicans, accusing
the organization of engaging in voter registration fraud. (Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org and www.acorn.org)
On Updating the Chasm!
By Dot
For more than two decades, I have
studied and written extensively about the chasm of inequality, the gap that
exists in the socioeconomic welfare of white and black Americans. Prior to my
research on the economic welfare loss due to recessions and employment, this
gap was empirically inexplicable. Welfare economists, those social scientists
concerned about the human condition, lacked an explanation for this residual
after accounting for all the measurable variables, such as education, that
determine socioeconomic welfare. As a student of economics, I simply called
this gap, chasm or inexplicable residual institutionalized racism.
Nowadays, I realize the chasm is the 3/5 Compromise mandated in Article 1
Section 2 of the US Constitution. Of course, lots of Americans, constitutional
scholars included, will vociferously deny this statement, claiming instead that
this section of the Constitution was repealed with subsequent amendments; after
all, the
Today, there exists a plethora of inequality data to support this statement. There
are all kinds of research studies that show disparities between black and white
Americans. More important from a constitutional standpoint, there exist the
large-small state unequal congressional representation, i.e., the US Senate,
and the Electoral College, which directly resulted from the 3/5 Compromise.
Together, these things demonstrate the 3/5 Compromise is alive and well and
thriving in
On updating this persistent
chasm, I turned to the latest Economic Situation Report, which was released by
the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, October 3, 2008. The overall
unemployment rate for September remained unchanged from August at 6.1%, even
though there were some 159,000 fewer people working. As has been traditionally
the case, the white unemployment rate was lower than the national average, a
mere 5.4%, while the black unemployment rate was 11.4%, maintaining that historic
ratio of more than twice the white unemployment rate.
Because the vast majority of
Americans rely on employment for their income, changes in the unemployment rate
are vital indications of economic welfare. Historically, black Americans are
the last hired and the first fired, regardless of the overall state of the
economy.
Moreover, their unemployment rate
over the booms and busts of the business cycle is more than double the rate of
whites. As a result, the black median family income, relative to whites, has
historically fluctuated along the narrow interval of .5 to .65 -- the 3/5
Compromise. Whenever, the black median family income rises above that relative
value, as blacks close the economic welfare gap, as they began to in the late
1990s, there is invariably unrest among the white electorate, clamoring for
change, a new leader that will uphold "traditional family values,"
"preserve law and order," "end welfare as we know it,"
"appoint judges that strictly construct the Constitution," and other
racist codes that imply maintaining white supremacy by doing less for black
people or keeping blacks in "their place."
We can debate endlessly about it, but there is no denying the historical
record. And, as the most recent Economic Situation Report shows, the inequality
pattern that began with legalized slavery continues unabated.
Disgruntled feels:
Deceptive! When talking about the high unemployment rate at the height of the
Great Depression, 25% is often cited. According to the US Census Bureau, the
total
Disgruntled
says: Hypocrisy knows no bounds when clowns seek elective office.
Ironically, it must be said that hypocrites and liars have enjoyed tremendous
political success in the
Disgruntled
wants to know: With mere days away from another national presidential
election, this question invariably arises. Should the nation abolish the
Electoral College?
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email www.firstcoastnews.com Atlanta (AP) -- The
Georgia Secretary of State's office has begun an investigation into who threw
more than 75,000
Email www.ap.com
...Mortgage Firm Stealth Campaign...By Pete Yost...Freddie Mac secretly paid a
Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have
regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie
Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were
Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck
Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's
campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.
Email www.washingtonpost.com...1 in 4
Working Families Now Low-Wage, Report Finds...By Michael A. Fletcher...The
ranks of low-wage working families increased by 350,000 between 2002 and 2006,
raising their numbers to nearly 9.6 million, or more than one in four of the
nation's working families with children. The report by the Working Poor
Families Project, an advocacy group that analyzed census data, defined low-wage
families as those earning less than double the poverty rate. For a family of
four, that would have been an annual income of $41,228 or less in 2006. The
report's author, Brandon G. Roberts, attributed the increase to the growth in
low-paying jobs, from health-care aides to cashiers, that form an increasing
share of the nation's service-based economy. Many of those families struggle to
pay for basics, such as health care, food and housing, a battle that Roberts
said has grown more acute in the past two years as the economy has stagnated.
The report adds to the growing body of data illustrating that the dynamics of
the modern economy have been unkind to many working Americans.