They're at it again: GOP wants to privatize Social Security

In an article in the Nation, it was stated,

Privatization of Social Security, a longtime GOP priority, was the first focus of former President Bush and the Republican Congressional majorities the last time they won an election cycle—in 2004. And, with they scheme to lock in Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, the only way Republicans will avoid creating the largest deficits in American history is by ending the nation's commitment to its seniors and to its most vulnerable citizens—by gutting Social Security and functional Medicare and Medicaid programs.
More http://bit.ly/dnMQHP

In my opinion, the first thing we need to do to protect Social Security is to immediately force the entire Congress to fully participate in it. To claim Congress has a moral right to meddle with Social Security at the same time their own golden pension plans are sacrosanct is appalling and indicative of their own closed-door corruption. What kind of corruption, of sweetheart deals do they have? Post info about congressional corruption on Wikileaks.org

Distracted Driving?

Oprah has attempted to address the problem of distracted driving by inviting people to sign the no cell phone pledge. Certainly, any distraction should be minimized when driving, including eating burgers with shredded lettuce (it always falls out) or disciplining screaming children in the back seat.

But what if a significant portion of distracted diving is actually due to other factors, such as one's staggering efforts to get back on track after continually being thrown under the bus by bullies?

It is my belief that we must accurately describe all of the contributors to a problem before we impose global solutions.

For my own experiences and thoughts about the effects of bullying on my own ability to be an alert citizen, please visit my blog, Bully Fatigue (www.bullyfatigue.wordpress.com)

Finding joy as a respite from bullying

This morning, I longingly looked out the window at my poor garden, overgrown with five-foot tall weeds. The weeds are so pervasive, it is difficult to see the pink and white stargazer lilies, blue balloon flowers, and purple coneflowers that have somehow hidden themselves from the voracious deer’s nightly feeding frenzies. And then, I saw it. An emerald glimmer of beauty darting from one orange lily to another. A tiny hummingbird, and then a florescent yellow goldfinch, visiting my garden which only moments before seemed hopelessly, irretrievably choked off from anything resembling its former self as a source of joy.

I remember how this garden evolved. When my sons were small, I would tend this garden after work as my boys played in the front yard and sidewalk. This garden was always known as "Mom's garden" and it grew like my sons: starting out as dreams hatched while poring over January's blitz of garden catalogs, then planting the tiny bulbs, seeds, and plants, full of promise of what they would become. Despite my organic battles with slugs, rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels, despite my battles with the school district to provide appropriate educations for my sons, despite my desperate entreaties to prevent my husband from compulsively borrowing yet more money to buy his custom-made shirts while continuing to pay off a corrupt contractor bent on cheating us with an addition that would never be completed, my garden and my sons grew into sources of great joy. I allowed myself to feel pride as my neighbors would compliment me on my garden, bursting with color and surprise pockets of flowers that enticed Monarchs, hummingbirds, and goldfinches. I allowed myself pride as my growing sons achieved in school, sports, and Boy Scouts. Ashamed of my inability to have a home life like my neighbors, I hid my efforts to single-handedly rebuild the kitchen, to patch kicked in doors, to save money while he went off on "guys only" scuba trips to Bonaire, and to fend off the verbal detritus of never being "good-enough."

And so, the festering winter of family dysfunction and divorce that had gradually sneaked into my life took over like dandelions in a yard during vacation. Shoved out, locked out, starved out, and cut off from adequate funds to defend myself in court and to pay my obligations, my garden and my relationships with my sons lay fallow. Occasional fleeting pockets of past joy would peek out as perennial flowers or furtive get-togethers with my sons tried to push their way through the choking weeds of dysfunction to sparkle in the sun before being stomped down by a neighbor's dog-do or a nasty Narcissistic communication from the Ex.

How can it still be such a Siberian winter when it is ninety degrees outside? Even though my ex took essentially everything, the Courts still seem bent on perpetuating, bent on enabling the continued denial of equal treatment, denying due process to those who, like me, do not have funds to fend off scorched earth divorce tactics. Friends ask how this could happen, aren't there laws to protect women in 26 year marriages? Aren’t there domestic abuse laws? Aren’t there laws preventing him from taking essentially all of the assets and retirement funds? What about the contributions I made to the marriage? How can the Court allow the father of my children to get away with taking everything, to get away with continued coercion, to get away with enforcing an unconscionable agreement forced upon me after continually denying me time and funds to hire adequate representation to protect my rights in court?

I only know that our legal system has become so inaccessible to those who don't have deep pockets to fend off abusive legal maneuvers that innocent people, coerced into confessions by the John Burges of the world, sit on death row awaiting vindication. I only know that the Goldman Sachs of the country can avoid admitting guilt as they pay a fine that is a mere pittance of the funds they stole. I only know that students with diverse learning needs only get an adequate education if their parents can afford private tutoring. I only know that women who are abused are only protected if they have their own deep pockets, their own funds to hire top-notch legal teams complete with public relations savvy.

I have come to believe that protective laws without adequate enforcement are worse than no laws at all. Reasonable people believe that, because there are protective laws, if a spouse is denied an equal share of the marital estate or a suspect is convicted of a crime, then it must be due to clear-cut fault or guilt. Claims of coercion are ignored and lives are forever ruined. Only if reasonable people, such as the Innocence Project at Northwestern, persevere to challenge the John Burges of the world, are convictions overturned, but many lives are forever ruined because of our two-tiered system of justice. Most of those who are cheated out of justice in divorce courts are told their only choice is to walk away and start over. Corrupt divorce lawyers, pockets bulging with family assets seized through churning cases, are never reported and move on to the next case.

Unfortunately, my ex is apparently not done with me yet. It seems he will not be satisfied until he has kept his promise to make me destitute and not satisfied unless I am homeless. He continues to use his attorneys to prevent me from reclaiming what belonged to me, to refuse to uphold his end of the unconscionable agreement, and continue his legalized harassment.

However, I also know that in the middle of this July day, this ninety degree winter of domestic abuse, I found a fleeting pocket of joy today. As I longingly looked out the window at my poor garden, overgrown with five-foot tall weeds, I saw that fleeting pocket of joy. The weeds are so pervasive, it is difficult to see the pink and white stargazer lilies, blue balloon flowers, and purple coneflowers that have somehow hidden themselves from the voracious deer’s nightly feeding frenzies. Right there, I saw it. An emerald glimmer of beauty darting from one orange lily to another. A tiny hummingbird, and then a florescent yellow goldfinch, visiting my garden which only moments before seemed hopelessly, irretrievably choked off from anything resembling its former self as a source of joy.

I must remind myself to nurture my garden, to hold onto those fleeting pockets of joy in relationships, and realize that, despite my current life of destitution, I AM capable of new ways to nurture healthy relationships with my sons, of creating things of beauty, and giving to others to make this world a better place.

Stop the bullying: Arizona school principal's letter tells parents their children are lazy or stupid

Today, I read an Associated Press article posted on Education Week website where a principal put in writing what parents report they have heard in meetings and via telephone...

An Arizona school principal who penned a sarcastic letter that chided parents for children who were either "too lazy or too stupid" to complete their assignments in class was suspended after the missive was mistakenly sent home.

"The math we do is really easy," said the letter from Litchfield Elementary School principal Ron Sterr. "If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress."

Ron Sterr has called each parent individually to apologize and take responsibility, the Litchfield school district said.
More http://tinyurl.com/ycx2vcf

As a parent, I have been the recipient of such language from a teacher at our local high school. When I reported these hostile comments to the administration, nothing was done despite my multiple requests.

Often, we chastise parents for failing to teach their children the morals to prevent bullying. It is my opinion that many school administrations' anti-bullying curricula is primarily "do as I say and not as I do."

Do you need help in determining what your child needs to learn and help advocating for appropriate educational support and curricula in school? visit my website at http://www.techpsychologist.com

Victory via the secret ballot: "No way!" to New Trier Referendum

For those who said you can't prevail against powerful bullies, I quote Margaret Meade:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Because individual community members from New Trier township dared to join with others to demand transparency by the administration and school board in the secretive process, dared to speak up about the hidden costs of the referendum, and dared to expose the facade that our community members are unaffected by the current economic realities, this referendum was soundly defeated (by over 62%) in the private voting booth.
Some of my remaining questions are these:

1. How many taxpayer dollars were spent on developing, promoting, and other expenses associated with this boondoggle? Did the school board approve of these expenses during an open board meeting?
2. How many taxpayer dollars were spent on political advertising for support of the referendum? Is this an allowable expense?
3. Were taxpayer dollars spent for attorney fees for this referendum? If so, did the board approve this expense?
4. When the school asked former school board presidents to come out in favor of this referendum, were there violations of the Illinois Open Meetings Act?
5. Were there other violations of the Open Meetings Act in promoting this referendum?
6. Do the current administrators for New Trier live within the New Trier district, and if not, why not?
7. Who made the decision to place this referendum on the ballot despite the community survey that indicated that more than half of the community was against this building project? Did the school board approve this referendum with full knowledge that the school's own survey indicated the community was against it?
8. How much do the current administrators pay for property taxes at their own residences?

I hope that we can harness some of the vibrant community energy into building community involvement in improving the quality of the education itself for every one of our students (not just those destined to Princeton) in OUR schools. A "successful" huge empire-building project doesn't matter one iota if we leave behind even one student (who may be a diverse learner), segregated in a team-taught class with others "of his own kind." After all, the administrators don't own the schools, the community owns the schools. The school board is supposed to represent all the members of the community, not the administration's personal desires.

Vote No against the New Trier referendum

The latest bullies on the block seem to be the administration of New Trier High School. Despite a survey conducted by New Trier (and only released when threatened by a FOI request) indicating that more than half of the New Trier residents were against such a costly renovation of the high school, the administration is spending oodles of tax dollars to promote a fiscally unsound project on the backs of New Trier residents whose property values have plunged so significantly that they cannot sell their homes to escape the exorbitant property taxes.

Here is a link to the survey commissioned by New Trier with results about community sentiment regarding this plan: http://www.newtrierchoices.org/NewTrierChoices/Survey_Summary.html


It is a frightening thing to speak up against well-funded and/or well-connected bullies. Character assassinations of those who dare to speak out about injustices in our communities seem to be the status quo for those in power.

Growing up, my family valued public education so much that we always voted in favor of EVERY school referendum. The harm that New Trier is causing by promoting an irresponsible empire-building referendum is great: it is my belief that a substantial portion of voters may, like me, consider voting against future referenda because of a loss of trust in the school administrators due to this particular referendum request.

Families who still have children at New Trier have expressed concern that the administration will find ways to retaliate against their children if they dare to speak out against the referendum. I have to admit that I may not have dared to have such a public face in speaking out, if my own three sons had not already graduated from New Trier. Our communities are full of families who are afraid to speak out, afraid of of the threats if they dare to vote against this fiscally irresponsible construction plan.

Can you afford to speak up? You can not afford to not speak up.

Martin Niemoeller stated

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

If you care about your community and neighborhood but you don't speak up now, you may not have any caring neighbors remaining when they come after you, your neighborhood, or your home because you can no longer afford to fund their taxpayer-funded boondoggle.

Contact the folks at http://www.NewTrierChoices.org for more information. If the entire community stands together to force the administration to go back to the drawing board and conduct a study of present and future needs of the entire high school district, within the constraints of current economic realities, community desires, and with full input from the community, we can prevail in taking back community control of our school. After all, it IS our school, not the administrators'.

Stop the bullying by those who seek to deny women their rights to medical privacy

Preventing women from making private medical decisions is destabilizing our communities and severely impacting the productivity of our nation's citizens.

Men are allowed to make private medical decisions every day without government interference and/or religious zealots interfering. Don't let the bullies prevent women from making their own private medical decisions.

Prochoice America has delivered over over 97,000 signatures to Senator Reid on this important issue.

Tell your Senators: Stop the Abortion-Coverage Ban!
If the Stupak-Pitts amendment passed by the House of Representatives becomes law, women will be denied the right to use their own personal, private funds to opurchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system.
It's effectively an abortion-coverage ban, and we must ensure the Senate does not include it in its bill. But anti-choice senators are trying to insert the Stupak-Pitts abortion-coverage ban language in the Senate bill, and Rep. Stupak from Michigan is backing them up: "We are in contact with senators to make sure our language holds. The other side is playing with fire."
Tell your senators to stand firm against a ban on abortion coverage for women in the new health system. For more information, please go to https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4011

Palin: Wrong woman, wrong message

Today I found an article that most closely voices my grave concerns about Palin as a vice president or [shudder], president of the United States

Opinion

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem

September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
More: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,5990544,print.story or http://tinyurl.com/695owy

Imagine if men were forced to live under the same rules they try to force onto women: Sorry, no condoms, vasectomies, or hand jobs allowed, because they allow "potential babies" to die. Sorry, you have no right to sue if your employer discriminates against you because you didn't find out that he was cheating you. Sorry, you must justify why you should be allowed to sue the person who assaulted you at the ATM machine because having your wallet out was highly provocative, you should have known better than to behave in such a tempting fashion.

By the way, since when is an anti-abortion person "pro-life?" These same people believe it is acceptable to use capital punishment for convicted felons, even in cases where there is significant and reasonable doubt that the person was even guilty. These same "Pro-life" people believe it is okay to use guns to kill people who are possibly threatening their home. These same "pro-life" people believe it should be illegal for women to have physicians remove growing cells from their bodies, cells which are incapable of surviving outside of that body, yet these "pro-lifers" believe it is acceptable to maim and murder wolves from helicopters. If all life is "sacred" (a religious term), then shouldn't these people be pacifist vegans? Well, they're not. Their mission is actually all about hypocrisy, privilege, and entitlement.

The right for any woman, for any family, to choose whether and when to bring a child into this world is the TRUE "pro-life" stance, the true "pro-family" set of morals. I was brought up to believe that religious tolerance is not optional, is an essential core belief of our country, which means that if a woman, if a family's religion does not allow birth control, does not allow women to make private medical decisions with their physicians, does not allow abortion, then that woman or family has the right to practice that religious belief. It does NOT mean that they are allowed to force their religion on others who do not share those beliefs.

Vote to put "religious freedom" back into the practice of this great country of ours. Vote against the bullies, against those who want laws and constitutional amendments to force their religion, to bully those who do not hold power.

More on Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages...

I've been reading the book entitled Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages by Dr. Susan Weitzman. See information about the book here: Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages or http://tinyurl.com/4yfpw4.

The more I discuss this book with friends and colleagues, the more women I find who are, or have been, held hostage in abusive, upscale marriages. If you live in the Chicago area, you may be interested in a meeting regarding the formation of a confidential study/support group for those in or recovering from abusive upscale marriages. Call Dr. Beckman at 847-446-1251 to find out more or email her at webmaster@jeannebeckman.com.

To find out more about Dr. Beckman, visit her website at http://www.jeannebeckman.com

Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages

This is a cross post with another blog, Bully Fatigue (http://bullyfatigue.wordpress.com)

Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages

Welcome to my blog where I share thoughts about the impact of bullying on the lives of both adults and children.

There are many types of bullies. For my first quick post, I will share the latest book I will be reading entitled Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages by Susan Weitzman. Here’s what www.nottopeoplelikeus.com said about this book

Not to People like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages is the groundbreaking book written by Dr. Susan Weitzman after many years of research on upscale violence. The first book of its kind to lift the veil of silence on abuse in upper educated and upper income families. Founder and Director of The Weitzman Center and practicing in Chicago, Dr. Weitzman has been featured on Oprah (called the “national expert on abusive relationships”), 20/20, National Public Radio, Fox news and in People magazine, The New York Post, Self Magazine, and The Chicago Tribune, offering her expertise on the dynamics and dangers of abusive relationships.

Please come back (to bullyfatigue) to visit as I share what I learn in this book.

Will they stop at nothing? Seizure of property without due process

No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

---Fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States

…No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

---Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States

In communities across America, families are discovering that political bullies are seizing private land through various stealth maneuvers, including eminent domain, for corporate profit, for political buddies, to keep out less desirable neighbors, and/or "just because." In many communities, growing families who have worked hard with careful investment and sweat equity to improve their homes find out that, without any notice, rules have been changed that either prevent them from expanding their homes to fit their growing families, prevent older families from recouping their investments when selling to fund their retirement or health care needs, or seize their home outright through eminent domain.

Do you think this is only about stopping teardowns? Think again. One family in Winnetka that had lived in a cozy (tiny in real estate terminology) old home on a quiet family street (of 50 foot wide lots) for two generations found their request for rebuilding an old decrepit detached garage on the same rear corner spot it had stood on for the life of the home was denied by village officials who stated that the garage should be moved away from the side property line into the children's narrow play space of their back yard. This family sadly gave up their multi-generation family treasure and moved to a larger, newer home with a usable garage. Their neighbors were crushed to lose this family. Other families of older homes were shocked to discover their right to expand their old homes (with updated kitchens, a fourth bedroom, or a second bathroom) had been secretly taken away with zoning changes purportedly designed to "prevent teardowns." A young family moved into a cozy home in a family neighborhood in Winnetka with the explicit expectation that the plain, century old home could be expanded as their family grew. They found out too late that they could not add on enough to their home to make it the permanent home of their family, so they sold it within two years and moved across town to a reasonably-sized new home on the site of a teardown. Some of these old homes have crumbling brick foundations without footings, basements with ceiling clearances below 7 feet, buckling structural elements, bedrooms smaller than 9X9, and powder rooms so tiny that people have to sit sideways on the commode. Some have inefficient radiator boilers built more than a century ago that are covered with asbestos and were converted from coal (and are currently burning oil delivered to a tank in the basement). Do these old homes have character? You bet! They are quite the characters!

One former village official privately stated that he believed these selectively applied rules amounted to a "I have mine, you can't have yours" philosophy. Those who wish to suppress building homes to accommodate the needs of families in the 21st century use the bullying, pejorative term of "McMansions" for homes with similar styles and square footage as older homes that belong to the privileged few. So much for a sense of community...

According to the Chicago Tribune, Kenilworth just approved an ordinance to have the entire community gain historical landmark status

Over the objection of some residents, Kenilworth's Village Board voted 4-1 Tuesday night to ask that the entire town be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

More than 200 residents signed a petition last week demanding a November referendum be held on the proposal, with many fearing the honorary designation could lead to unprecedented restrictions on what they can do to their homes.

"The problem is people don't recognize where you are on a slippery slope until it's too late," said resident Kelli Kobor, who led the petition drive. More

The preservation zealots and bullies, who seem to be busy minding everyone else's business, make expansive improvements to their own homes and take property tax freezes (see http://whoa60093.com, an evolving site run by volunteers trying to stop Winnetka's bullying tactics), yet wish to prevent anyone else from making similar improvements, are now using "historical preservation" to take away individual property rights of those who lack the political clout of those chosen few. The typical tactics seem to include complete distortion of caucus "statistics" which they claim represent voter sentiment, stealth changes to zoning codes and other community documents, flagrant and subtle violations of open meeting act laws, hiding of conflicts of interest of voting officials, and complete ignoring of the legal rights and voiced complaints of the very community of people they were elected to represent. How can they do it? In addition to the above strategies, their other tactic is to silence those who wish to speak up by threats or actual "swiftboating" those who dare to challenge the bullying. Additionally, no matter how many legal challenges the unfortunate community members manage to make, the legal pockets of the bullies are always deeper, because the taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab.

Can you afford to speak up? You can not afford to not speak up.

Martin Niemoeller stated

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

If you care about your community and neighborhood but you don't speak up now, you may not have any caring neighbors remaining when they come after your street and your home.

Response from DOJ regarding antitrust complaint against Amazon

I received this email response today from the department of justice regarding my complaint that Amazon is violating antitrust laws in their move to force POD publishers to use Amazon's inferior Booksurge printer.

Dear. Dr. Beckman

Thank you for contacting the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Citizen Complaint Center has reviewed your complaint, and we have forwarded it to the appropriate legal staff for further review. We have your information on file and should the legal staff need further information, they may contact you in the future.

We appreciate your interest in the enforcement of federal antitrust laws.

Sincerely,

Citizen Complaint Center
Antitrust Division
Department of Justice

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Jeanne Beckman [mailto:bullies@jeannebeckman.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 5:31 PM
To: ATR-OPS Citizen Complaint Center
Subject: Amazon.com

To whom it may concern:
Please investigate Amazon for antitrust and restraint of trade over its print on demand (POD) requirements that authors and publishers will not be able to list and sell their books on the Amazon website unless they use Amazon's Booksurge.

I have great concern about actions currently being taken by Amazon.com. Amazon has traditionally made its platform open to independent authors using publish-on-demand (POD) services provided by numerous companies. Now, Amazon is moving to exclude any author who does not use Amazon's own POD service, Booksurge. Many, many authors have had problems with Booksurge, including not getting paid. In addition, authors who do make the transition will be forced to charge more in order to cover the costs of using Amazon's printing services in addition to the fees Amazon charges for selling products on its web site. To force all independent authors to use a single, inferior service, a service owned by the same company providing the marketplace, that will also result in higher prices for consumers, seems to be a good fit for the following, as described in the Sherman Antritrust Act:

An unlawful monopoly exists when only one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct.

Amazon controls such a large portion of the print-on-demand book market that by forcing authors to use its print-on-demand service, it is reducing the number of POD options to one. The harm to consumers comes in the form of products of poorer quality (as evidenced by the large number of complaints about the Booksurge service) and higher prices. I respectfully ask that you take a serious look at this new practice by Amazon.com and make a fair judgement about whether or not the company is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Sincerely,
Dr. Jeanne Beckman

Have you contacted the attorney general in Washington or the U.S. department of justice (DOJ) yet?

jb

Update on Amazon Strong-arm tactics

Wondering why you should care about Amazon's bullying? Please read a previous post: Why readers should care what Amazon is doing

Here's an article by Angela Hoy about the Amazon Bullying

Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 3:15 PM
Subject: Amazon Tightens Grip on Long Tail; Info Requested

Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to staff@authorsguild.org.

Feel free to post or forward this message in its entirety.

Copyright 2008, The Authors Guild. The Authors Guild (http://www.authorsguild.org) is the nation's largest society of published book authors.

If you're interested in signing a petition with a complaint to the attorney general in Washington, Helen Gallagher has a link on her blog at http://releaseyourwriting.blogspot.com/2008/03/amazongolliath-takes-on-little-guys.html

jb

Martin Luther King died but was not silenced

April 4, 2008
Forty years ago today, racist bullies thought they would silence the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Since that time, there have certainly been gains in the civil rights movement, but there has also been stagnation.

Today, we still have classrooms that are segregated, by "ability" although those "slow learning" classrooms in many cities are predominantly students of color. These students are denied full access to a curriculum that competently teaches basic reading and math skills as well as critical thinking. If the school fails to provide a curriculum from which a student can derive reasonable benefit, the student is punished by being held back to suffer through the same failed curriculum a second time. Almost half of all students EVER held back will never graduate from high school.

• To read a blog about the difference between resource and segregated classrooms, please see http://www.dimsapproach.com/2007/08/self-contained-versus-resource-classes.html or http://tinyurl.com/4nhczm

Without having been taught these basic and critical thinking skills, students grow up and cannot read the diverse information and opinions available on the Internet that would help them to fully participate in the political process. We still have voter intimidation and caging (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkSc6xUs92I&feature=related to silence the voices of those who would dare question the policies of current political officeholders.

Stand against the bullies, Dare to ask why, Dare to ask why not.
JB

Why should readers care what Amazon is doing?

With the great accessibility to purchasing almost any book online that Amazon seems to be providing, why should the buying public care whether a small POD publisher or a monolithic Amazon provides the book?

I am a citizen who tries to advocate for doing "the right thing;" I am a parent who has to advocate for my children when we face convoluted bureaucratic decisions that affect my children's ability to benefit from their public education; I am a psychologist/technology expert who advocates for disabled students on a daily basis; and I am an author who chose to use a small POD publisher (VirtualBookWorm.com) so that I could quickly get my message to families about how to find and utilize the necessary technology to learn and be productive in school.

If I think of the hours I spent writing and editing my book, I will probably never see a a profitable return on those unbilled hours, yet the profit I have already seen is in the thank yous from the families who were able to use information in my book to advocate for their technology.

My book is not the type of book that big book publishers would probably ever pick up, because I don't have a big name and it is not a riveting read for a diverse audience like best sellers tend to be. Instead, I wrote it to be a tool, a sharing of information, a voice from a fellow parent to help families through the bureaucratic mazes.

Without POD publishers, my kind of book would never be available for families. If Amazon succeeds in their monopolistic takeover of POD publishing, every little person who had a belief that his or her book might make a difference in the world would be shut out.

So, even if you are not part of the publishing world except as a reader, please speak up to stand united against this latest bully in town.

What can you do? Find out the name of the publisher of the book you want to buy, and go to the publisher's website to purchase it directly from the publisher. The author benefits, the publisher benefits, and you've supported a process that has given regular citizens a voice. If you're thinking about ordering something from Amazon, consider whether there are other ways to find the book you want. Local independent bookstores are a great place to find passionate readers who love to share their favorite books, and they will also gladly order almost any book still in print.

For an update on the Amazon situation (because it's not over yet), please read (including the comments) http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-amazon-does-damage-control-on-its-print-on-demand-demands/

jb