Discover Michissippi’s (Michigan's) Corporate Bosses: The Elites Who Now Run Snyder & the GOP Super Majority Legislature

These Business Leaders for Michigan Run and ran/created Snyder and put him over on an unwitting public. BLM pulls the strings on their sock puppets in the GOP Super Majority Legislature. Get to know who they are: they are openly listed on p. 46 the Business Leaders for Michigan pdf which can be found online in the Michigan Business 'Turnaround Plan'. The LIST is BELOW.


It's been THE BUSINESS LEADERS' TURNAROUND PLAN FOR MICHIGAN that has been the punch card/script for the unprecedented, dramatic, and entirely dangerous 2011 Legislation that has driven Rick Snyder and the largely inexperienced and incompetent TeaPublican Super Majorities in the Michigan House and Senate into dangerous malicious "mischief"

The BLM are betting heavily, thinking they know best and can dictate nearly everything for Michigan's 99%ers: wages, contracts, health coverage, working conditions. They believe the divine economic right right to "pickpocket" the poor, the kids, the retired at-will. As they say: "Money talks, everything else walks." Or as Mitt Romney has alluded to the old saying: "If you owe the bank a thousand dollars, the bank owns you; if you owe the bank a million dollars, you own the bank."

Keep a highlighter in hand when you scroll down the list of nearly 80 BLM Board Members and underscore those among the BLM leadership who are or are closely aligned/allied/family to the list of Michigan OnePercenter honor roll (via Forbes Magazine). Six of Michigan's OnePercenters are there. No surprise!


List of 1% in the Business Leaders for Michigan:

DAVID W. JOOS
CMS Energy Corporation

JOSÉ MARIA ALAPONT   
Federal Mogul Corporation

G. MARK ALYEA
Alro Steel Corporation

THOMAS A. AMATO   
Metaldyne Corporation

GERARD M. ANDERSON   
DTE Energy Company

JON E. BARFIELD   
The Bartech Group, Inc.

ALBERT M. BERRIZ   
McKinley, Inc.  

MARK J. BISSELL
BISSELL Inc.

DAVID P. BOYLE     
PNC Financial Services Group

KIETH COCKRELL 
Bank of America  

MARY SUE COLEMAN 
University of Michigan

ROBERT S. CUBBIN
Meadowbrook Insurance Group, Inc

KURT L. DARROW
La-Z-Boy Incorporated

DAVID C. DAUCH   
American Axle & Manufacturing

DOUGLAS L. DeVOS
Amway

J. PATRICK DOYLE
Domino’s Pizza, Inc.

JAMES E. DUNLAP
Huntington

ANTHONY F. EARLEY, JR
DTE Energy Company

JEFF M. FETTIG
Whirlpool Corporation

WILLIAM CLAY FORD, JR
Ford Motor Company 

YOUSIF B. GHAFARI
Ghafari Associates, LLC

DAN GILBERT
Quicken Loans

ALFRED R. GLANCY III  
Unico Investment Compa

STEPHEN E. GORMAN
Delta Air Lines, Inc

JAMES P. HACKETT
Steelcase Inc.

RONALD E. HALL     
Bridgewater Interiors, LL

RICHARD G. HAWORTH
Haworth

CHRISTOPHER ILITCH   
Ilitch Holdings, Inc.  

MICHAEL J. JANDERNOA
Perrigo Company

MILES E. JONES
Dawn Food Products, Inc

HANS-WERNER KAAS   
McKinsey & Company

JOHN C. KENNEDY
Autocam

BLAKE W. KRUEGER
Wolverine World Wide, Inc.

TIMOTHY D. LEULIETTE   
Dura Automotive Systems, Inc. 

ANDREW N. LIVERIS
The Dow Chemical Company

DANIEL J. LOEPP     
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

STEPHEN P. MacMILLAN
Stryker Corp.

BEN C. MAIBACH III   
Barton Malow Company

RICHARD A. MANOOGIAN   
Masco Corporation  

FLORINE MARK   
The WW Group  

SARAH L. McCLELLAND   
Chase  

CHARLES G. McCLURE   
ArvinMeritor, Inc.  

HANK MEIJER
Meijer, Inc.

MICHAEL MILLER
Google, Inc.

JOHN T. MONTFORD
General Motors Company

MARK D. MORELLI   
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.

MARK A. MURRAY
Meijer, Inc.

ATHLEEN H. NASH
Citizens Bank

JAMES B. NICHOLSON   
PVS Chemicals, Inc.

JERRY JAY NOREN  
Wayne State University

THOMAS D. OGDEN  
Comerica, Inc.

JAMES O’LEARY   
Kaydon Corporation  

WILLIAM U. PARFET
MPI Research

CYNTHIA J. PASKY  
Strategic Staffing Solutions

ROGER S. PENSKE  
Penske Corporation  

WILLIAM F. PICKARD
Global Automotive Alliance

SANDRA E. PIERCE  
Charter One  

GERRY PODESTA
BASF Corporation

CHARLES H. PODOWSKI
The Auto Club Group  

STEPHEN R. POLK  
R. L. Polk & Co.  

JOHN RAKOLTA, JR.    
Walbridge   

CARL D. ROEHLING   
SmithGroup

ROBERT E. ROSSITER
Lear Corporation

DOUG ROTHWELL  
Business Leaders for Michigan

RICHARD F. RUSSELL 
Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company

GARY D. RUSSI  
Oakland University  

ALAN E. SCHWARTZ 
HONIGMAN

J. DONALD SHEETS
Dow Corning Corporation

BRAD SIMMONS
Ford Motor Company

LOU ANNA K. SIMON, Ph.D.  
Michigan State University

DONALD J. STEBBINS   
Visteon Corporation 

ROBERT S. TAUBMAN
The Taubman Company
   
SAMUEL VALENTI III   
TriMas Corporation   

STEPHEN A. VAN ANDEL
Amway

MICHELLE L. VAN DYKE
Fifth Third Bank  

TIMOTHY WADHAMS   
Masco Corporation  

BRIAN C. WALKER
Herman Miller, Inc.

WILLIAM H. WEIDEMAN
The Dow Chemical Company

EDWARD E. WHITACRE, JR.
General Motors Company

WILLIAM C. YOUNG   
Plastipak Holdings, Inc.



Original.

Michissippi (Michigan) 2011 in Review: Political & Commercial Oppression Inverts Local Control

Michissippian TeaPublican Super Majorities have struck a death blow to the heart of Local Control/the sovereignty of Local Option-freedom whereby local political jurisdictions, typically counties or municipalities, can decide by popular vote...and govern concerning issues within their borders. C. G Bateman, in Nicaea and Sovereignty:

"For centuries past, the idea that a state could be sovereign was always connected to its ability to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens." .

Thus, if a state could not act in the best interests of its own citizens, it could not be thought of as a "sovereign" state." Michigan is no longer a sovereign state (by this standard: "the best interests of its own citizens"). State government that acts in the best interests of its citizens honors and respects local control at the community level.

Michissippi has backslid downward into a state run by, for, and in control of the demands of big business (Business Leaders for Michigan & The Michigan Chamber of Commerce), rich One Percenter elites, and heartless inexperienced and under-qualified political hacks.

Heed the warning of Ayn Rand in this regard:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
-- Ayn Rand

TeaPublicans have established Lansing Central Planning and Dictatorial Control in this terrible year of reckless and extravagant partisan/corporate legislative advantage. The rights of Michissippi's minority have been trampled into oblivion- popular sovereignty has been legislated away.

In our republic government is under the control of the people, or some significant portion of them, the citizens retain sovereignty over the government not vice versa.

Michissippi has in one tragic year reached what Ayn Rand would call a state of "inversion." All is not well as we enter the new year and more radical right mischief and corporate merrymaking at working people's expense.

Original.

A Very Merry Christmas

The McGuffey Gazette's Christmas card has this essay reproduced, torn from Michigan View's Henry Payne's favorite magazine, Reason. It's penned by A. Barton Hinkle, a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, placed/nestled inside with a arty card featuring a luminous winter shot of the majestic Detroit skyline at Christmas-as seen from the peaceful Windsor shore-as a cover:

"These are the folks who write earnest monographs on how everybody has the wrong idea about Ebeneezer Scrooge, who was really a thrifty capitalist hero. Their idea of a neat Christmas present is something like a "Who Is John Galt?" doormat-except there isn't one, because John Galt was nobody's doormat...so instead you get a book on Basel bank-capital requirements and a bookmark in the shape of Ludwig von Mises."

"Which is not to say that either group is wrong, mind you-merely that, like the madman in Chesterton's "Orthodoxy," they are "trapped in the well-lit prison of one idea...sharpened to one painful point." You want to say to them, look: If British and German soldiers could sing carols together at Ypres in WWI, then the rest of us are entitled to give politics a break for one lousy day. Here, have some peppermint bark."

"After all, giving people a break is what the holiday is all about. The story of Christmas is the story of a wrathful, smiting God who had a change of heart. A God who said: "You know what? All those horrible, awful, things you've done? Forgiven. We're going to wipe the slate clean and start over. Yet get a second chance."

"That is, at bottom, what makes Christmas such a poignantly joyous holiday. There are not many of us who have not at some time felt lost, broken, inadequate, consumed with guilt. To be forgiven is a great relief. But it is also a great relief to forgive someone else: to let go of grudges and resentments, to give them a reprieve and accept them as they are. And this is something even those of us who cannot swallow the New Testament whole can take part in. You don't have to make peace with the story of Jesus to make peace with your neighbor."

Source: A. Barton Hinkle in Reason Magazine "On Christmas, Escaping the Well-Lit Prison: Give the gift of forgiveness this holiday season." December 23, 2011

And So, Merry Christmas & to all a good night...

Original.

Silent Night: From the Forbes 400 Counting House to Yours: Michigan’s One Percenters

Michigan's One Percent: The Mega-Wealthy or Ultra High Net-Worth Michiganders

The Michigan 1% Given Listed by Forbes: Rank, Name, Age, Michigan Residence, Company/Industry

1. #60,   Richard (Rich) DeVos Sr., $5 B, Age 85, Holland, Amway
2. #60,   Frederik Meijer (deceased at 91), $5 B, Grand Rapids, Supermarkets
3. #159, Alfred Taubman, $2.5 B, Age 87, Bloomfield Hills, Real Estate
4. #171, Ronda Stryker, $2.3 B, Age 57, Portage, Medical Technology
5. #212, Michael & Marian Ilitch, $2 B, Bingham Farms, Pizza
6. # 293, Daniel Gilbert, $1.5 B, Age 49, Franklin, Quicken Loans
7. # 293, Manuel Moroun, $1.5 B, Age 84, Grosse Pt Shores, Transportation
8. # 375, William Ford, $1.1 B, Grosse Pt Shores, Ford Motor Co.
9. # 375, Jon Stryker, $1.1 B, Age 53, Kalamazoo, Medical Technology

Sort them out. Ideological and Political Billionaire Bullies or Grand Noblesse Oblige Benefactors/Genuine Contributors to the Greater Good??


Original.

If Only Michissippian TeaPartisans Would Stand Up to the Bullies at the Michigan Chamber...

Those like The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and the Koch Bros.’ Michigan Chapter of the Americans for Prosperity’s Ranting Rabble

If only Alexander Hamilton could have foreseen the ravishes and rashness of vengeful TeaPartisans in the ruinous TeaPublican led extension of the musty and dank Engler Revolution (the 2011 Legislative Session), bitter partisanship now headed up by a myopic and weak Nerd Beancounter who thinks he owns the right to dictate to citizens of this state following his evisceration of many state programs and budget responsibilities.

But alas!

"We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority."

-- Alexander Hamilton-The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 85

Who can save us from a radicalized TeaPublican state legislature reeking havoc on all its enemies, a bully-boy super majority, out of control and disrespectfulof all minority rights?


Original.

Prof. Gary Wolfram of the Michigan View Let’s His Little Light Shine On Greed

Response to Gary Wolfram in "The Gift of Liberty"  re-posted in the Michigan View on Christmas Day, first appeared on December 23, 2011.

Thank You, Thank You, Professor Gary - Just Don't tell Scrooge or Father Bob Sirico about the truism you just penned - this statement which you planted in your Greed-minded Christmas essay. And you think you have a right to expand insight on the Christian Christmas Message!

Wolfram writes:

"Christmas is a time to be grateful and to make every effort to help the family of mankind. This means private charity, giving of our own time, treasure, and talent to others. It does not mean asking our government to engage in what Frederic Bastiat called 'legalized plunder'...."

That is so revealing and true. "LEGALIZED PLUNDER" via bill writing and legislation in Lansing. Taking from some people to give to others - perfectly describes this TERRIBLE YEAR plundered by the Teapartisan "LEGISLATION OF THIEVES".

Whew, Prof. You surly hit the THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: 'LEGALIZED PLUNDER" that's a most accurate and also tradgic, so fitting, a descriptor; identifying the DESTRUCTIVE WORK of the  Class of 2011 Lansing Teapublicans - SO WILLFULLY BLIND, SO SELF-DELUDED, SO AGGRESSIVELY DESTRUCTIVE!

Prof. Gary must have hurriedly put on his hair shirt, inside out and backwards.

What a revelation: "LEGALIZED PLUNDER." What an apt term for the rapid disintegration of civic core values and precedents gutting established state laws and citizen privileges during this "blitz" of TeaPublican aggression. It is our common purpose and unity as citizens that has bound our great state into a unified society for all its history! It was that spirit, that willingness to be craftsmen and labors, working mothers, and sacrificial businesses that salvaged America from the Nazis.

Wofram:

"It's a time to recognize our good fortune in living in a system based on market capitalism and limited government. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out nine decades ago: this is the only system that can produce WEALTH FOR ALL."

How clever an academic device! Just put Ludwig in the manger at Bethlehem,encourage the idea that von Mises is to become the object of our Christmas adoration!

Freedom to Deny Freedom
When Rad Right advocates, Prof. Gary among them, cry for more "freedom." Think of what such "freedom" may actually involve: They want freedom to use government for their own ends unhindered and they want government out of their ideological projects.

Keep firmly in mind the fact that:

"[T]he individual freedoms destroyed by the increase in national authority have been in the main freedom to deny black Americans their elementary rights as citizens, the freedom to work little children in the mills...the starvation wages...the freedom to pollute the environment--all freedoms that, one supposes, a civilized society can really do without."
--Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in "The Cycles of American History"

Wolfram's "The Gift of Liberty" is right up there with Marvin Olasky's tortuous babble:

"Olasky's most famous book is The Tragedy of American Compassion, which in 1992 Newt Gingrich distributed to incoming Republican representatives of the104th Congress. The book, an overview of poverty-fighting in America from colonial times to the 1990s, argues that private individuals and organizations, particularly Christian churches, have a responsibility to care for the poor, and contends that challenging personal and spiritual help, common until the 1930s, was more effective than the government welfare programs of recent decades. Olasky argues that GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS ARE INEFFECTIVE because they are disconnected from the poor, while private charity has the power to change lives because it allows for a personal connection between giver and recipient."

"The book eventually helped to define "compassionate conservatism" in relation to welfare and social policy. In 1995, Olasky became an occasional advisor toTexas gubernatorial candidate George W. Bush. Bush made faith-based programs a major component of his 2000 presidential campaign, and Olasky's academic work helped form the basis for Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

Source: Marvin Olasky entry in Wikipedia

Being so Greedy to the core - how long before Prof. Gary swears off the church; accosting it for coercing its members-with the threat of eternal punishment-should they fail-to contribute their tithes and personal assets so the Chruch can provide for all the immense needs roiling up in Michigan due to the evacuation of disposable income via billions in CORPORATE AND BUSINESS WELFARE, economic activity/turnaround money needed to operate thriving businesses and good government here in Michigan.

Wolfram Echoes Ayn Rand's rants: The Virtue of Selfishness. Altruism /Generosity is a Randian "sin." Only pure self-interest is redemptive/commercially worthy of the "marketplace." Or as Milton Friedman so often proclaimed: "GREED IS GOOD."

Prof. Gary's "Freedoms": Wolfram's Freedoms to pursue things that are not in the best interest of mankind, they fester toward the death of community. Prof. Gary's ruminations are loosely akin to the elements in King Herod's slaughter of the innocents, the darkside of the Christmas story.

Prof. Gary: Turning out collegiate minds in whom the milk of human kindness is "freeze dried" holds no benefit for those who are in need or out of work. Such graduates have been trained to be unfit for community service. Wolfram's army of Hayekian Stormtroopers hold no promise for a better tomorrow. Just follow the carnage inflicted on mankind by just one of his most infamous protege the Bloody-handed mercenary, Erik Prince.

Original Response to Original essay by Gary Wolfram.

The Last ‘Normal’ Michigan Christmas Before Michissippi’s Inevitable Economic Collapse/Consumer Demand Implosion

Misanthropic Bean-Counter Herr Snyder & His Marauding Michissippian Münchausen Cronies - corporate shills and hatchet men - have done-this-state-in for a moldy bowl of Corporate welfare and unfair advantage ranging into the BILLIONS of taxpayer monies siphoned off to themselves.

The natural and moral birthright of hardworking men and women has been devoured by the A.L.E.C./Mackinac Center's HIGHROLLER HOGS; pursuing unjust profits and corrupt advantage. A pox on their achievements! Michigan holds the sad infamy of being "driven to the poor house" with its own GOP/TeaPublican Know Nothings having a heavy foot on the accelerator!

Many of us wondered why that humongous pink HOG was left to wallow at the Capitol Grounds for weeks last year. Now we know. It was a prophetic and chilling PR symbol that the HOGS with the BIG BUCKS had come to Lansing to devoir the assets and living-wage jobs of Michigan's Middle Class, and trample under cloven huff the poor, the veteran, and disadvantaged-whom they blame as "self-depriving" and "undeserving."

The BIG LIE as told by Nerd Rick Snyder is that he was compelled to re-invent our GREAT STATE.
The Nunce Snyder and henchmen were/and are not entitled to control of such an enormous task. This State is not the TeaPublicans to, reconnoiter, dismantle, and re-make. They have no authority to such power over our lives and quality of living; legislatively plundering our property rights and sacred freedoms in any manner that superbly pleases Herr Snyder and his ruthless handlers-a very cleverly, behind-the-scenes imperial cabal led by his very own transition team leader, Doug Rothwell, President & CEO, BUSINESS LEADERS FOR MICHIGAN.

Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville: The Warning & the Democratic Citizens' Pledge: 

"Never invest any number of my fellow creatures with UNLIMITED AUTHORITY"

"If it be admitted that a man, possessing ABSOLUTE POWER, may misuse that that power by wronging his adversaries, why should A MAJORITY not be liable to the same reproach?"

"Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that UNLIMITED AUTHORITY which I should refuse to any one of them." 

-- Sage advice from Alexis de Tocqueville

THE LAST WORD: Herr Snyder has become trapped in Machiavellianism: Politics that is amoral and that acts by any means, however unscrupulous. Such acts Snyder et. al. believes can justifiably be used in achieving political/corporate power/anti-majoritian power and in the enactment of unjust laws over and against their rivals, adversaries, and opponents to achieve Snyder and company's own goals and objectives.

Now, Christmas 2011 soon becomes a faint "Christmas Past" for Michissippi: A state enslaved to untoward TeaPublican power and rampant corporate/business GREED. God help us all!


Original.

Confessions of A Well-Known One Percenter Scion of a Robber Baron

"For more than a century ideological extremist at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents...to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure-one world, if you will.

If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

-- David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs' 2002, p. 405

Original.

Princetonian Henry Payne: The Paupers Hank Abjures & The Marauding Business Welfare TeaPublican Benefactors Hank Adores

Hank Takes His OnePercenter Cartoons & Cartoonish Opinions on Parade

Hank Payne made a pilgrimage from Detroit to Naples, Florida (12.9.11) the very day following the appearance of Doug DeVos' OnePercenter presentation to the Detroit Economic Club (12.8.11). Hank was apparently an invited guest/fill-in presenter to the One Percenters in South Florida.

Just think, our own Hank Payne is a featured speaker at the Forum Club of Southwest Florida Inc. thanks to a long-time buddy in charge. The Forum's mission: to be Florida's premier non-partisan political and public affairs organization.

What a heady thrill for Hank to be a last-minute speaker; sandwiched in between appearances of such notables as:

William M. Isaac, Chairman, Fifth Third Bancorp, Former Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, John H. Noseworthy, M.D., President & CEO, Mayo Clinic, and General Michael V. Hayden, Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency. Into the winter and spring the following notables will be on the dais: Steve Moore, Economist, Wall Street Journal, Lord Charles Powell, Diplomat, Politician & International Businessman, E. Gordon Gee, J.D., Ed.D., President, The Ohio State University, Tom DeFrank, Washington Bureau Chief, New York Daily News, Robert Gagosian, Ph.D., President & CEO, Consortium for Ocean Leadership, and Gregory R. Page, Chairman & CEO, Cargill.

The Forum's historic accolades and achievements include:

"Over the past twenty-one years, the Club has attracted many outstanding guests, including three Supreme Court Justices; Harry Blackmun, Byron White and Clarence Thomas. The Club also prides itself on identifying and presenting speakers before they become household names. A good example would be General Norman Schwarzkopf, who gave a program about the Middle East to the Club on February 2, 1990 - some six months before he took command of the Desert Storm operation in the Persian Gulf."

There's Hank, at the podium (actual AUDIO), the very same graced by U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Holy Smokes!

So it would appear that Hank was chosen prior to the time when he will "become (one of our national) household names." That leads one to wonder: Just what it is that Hank brings to such a wealthy, all-powerful fraternity, mavens of "household name" presenters and grand poopahs?

So what did Hank regale the grand poopahs with: According to the local newspaper, The Naples Daily News, 12/9/11, Hank trumpeted a twisted Paynesian view of the growing impoverishment in Snyder's "reinvented" New Michissippi:

"(Governor) Rick Snyder turned a $2 billion deficit into a balanced budget in less than half a year," said Henry Payne, cartoonist for the Detroit News. "So it can be done. All's you have to do is concentrate on the fundamentals." More honestly and completely accurate is this set of facts, Nerd Snyder stole from the poor, the disadvantaged, the retired, the cautious price-checking customers deprived of honest individual item pricing, the school children and their mentors to gift his business cronies with monies that belonged to honest, hard working, superannuated citizens. Cutting off the needy, defrauding the social contract with public employees rights and remuneration without their involvement, consent, or even open and above-board opportunity to collaborate: Is that what Payne lauds as "all's you have to do" --begin "concentrating on fundamentals?"

Source: Article by Pete Bishop "Cartoonist draws on experience, current events at Forum Club talk" December 9, 2011.

Are these kinds of "fundamentals", as per Snyder's Michigan Miracle, worth their beggarly bragging rights?

When Hank was being introduced, his lead-in/presenter said that Hank has the strange idea that Michigan can be "fixed" which brought on a hearty belly laugh from the Naples OnePercenters in the audience. Is that telling, or what?

Ebenezer Scourge be Praised !
One Michigander took a cue from Hank's roadshow; decided a trip to Naples/Ft. Meyers should go a long way to inform readers of The Michigan View as to what is the current wave of thought is at Naples; that bastion of gated communities and One Percenters, as presented by the local 99 Percenters.

Hank brought to Naples his conclusions: His hit-&-Run, on-site & personal observations of Detroit's Occupy movement are well known in Detroit. On the local streets, Hank took hurried snapshots/snippets of Occupy Detroit -- part of a national/international movement that scares the bee jeeus out of Rupert Murdock's spinmeister, Frank Luntz.

Perhaps Payne could bring the Naples One Percenters up to speed on the benefits for high-powered legal firms, "Too BIG to Fail" banks, and insurance/realty management & investment corporations, stemming from the establishment of Rick Snyder's greatly enhanced Emergency Managers (EM) and how there is great profit and opportunity in the deconstruction of public investment and the takedowns of unions and contracts under the new and much stronger dictatorial and anti-public powers of Michigan's Snyder boosted EM's. Inquiring minds need to know. Such EM powers are appealing to corporations and legal firms across the nation.

Payne thinks he's in the catbird's seat.
Perhaps Payne briefed the august Naples Forum members on the status of Occupy Detroit and the full impact of Michael Moore, whom he mocks in his presentation. Payne has formed a personal opinion and make his own unique estimate of the impact and danger he sees in Occupy. From what we are told, Hank's content included a bifurcated assessment of Detroit:

"Despite Payne's optimism concerning Michigan's future*, HE PAINTED A BLEAK PICTURE OF THE STATE'S RECENT PAST AND PRESENT. Detroit in particular has suffered from the disappearance of a middle class and the destruction of traditional family structure..."
--The Naples Daily News

* Note: Based hypothetically on his belief that Snyders' summary removal of well-over $2 billion in normal economic activity from 2012 and billions more in subsequent years, which will obviate consumer buying power and greatly lower commercial demand.

This is exactly why Payne announced he is giving up his cynical cartooning and bloviating about low-class living and the happy-hollow laziness of welfare recipients and is going to join the Salvation Army organization in search of the true Spirit of Jesus and economic & social recovery for his beloved Detroit. NOT!

In fact, Payne was skillfully devious in failing to report (as a highly paid Gannett Newspaperman) that subsequent to Gov. Snyders' sweeping grab of monies from vital Michigan civic functions; children, elderly, retirees, and welfare safety nets; American Axle completely ignored Snyder's "Michigan Miracle" with its new business goodies and announced it's closing down an important Michigan operation by which over 500 high-paying jobs will be lost-with a negative multiplier in the economy; That number may rise to 3,000 or 6,000 additional jobs lost across Michigan's depression economy! This negative footprint will increase Michigan unemployment rolls now at over 800,000. With his shabby approval record- dropping like a millstone (currently at 19%), the Nerd governor Snyder isn't any kind of big hero here in Michigan; only perhaps in Hank's ideological universe of "hard" conservative luminaries does the Nerd achieve "star" billing.

Travels to Naples to Follow-Up Payne's Visit to This OnePercenters' Enclave
One Michigander's report back to Detroit from Naples/Ft. Meyers -- via The Michigan View -- what Occupy Ft. Meyers/Naples has in its organization, activity roster, and on its agenda(s); giving feedback to News readers about current thinking around Naples/Ft.Myers-paradise of the One Percenters.

A Local Opinion:

"The public seems to understand very clearly what we are talking about," said Naples' Karanja Gacuca, former bank analyst who took up with Occupy Wall Street. "It's quite simply about economic injustice and control of corporations on government and all our systems." Gacuca worked until recently on Wall Street.

Hank could have told the Forum how corporate and Michigan Chamber of Commerce control of Michigan's 2011 Legislative session allowed a corporate-created and empowered TeaPartisan supermajority (with the backing of One Percenters like Amway and Walmart, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) promoted and funded by the Koch Brothers, et al) to have undue, direct influence on bill introduction and passage.

Occupy Southwest Florida's Bill Coughlan, adjunct professor of ethics and philosophy, Edison State College, explained:

"I think it's an issue of human rights. It's a catch all in the 99 percent: basic human rights, opportunity to earn a living, opportunity to share in the profits, opportunities for women and minorities. It's all the same issues we've been fighting for, like in the 60's."

One outstanding sign carried in rallies there stated:

"Show me what Democracy looks like!"
"This is what Democracy looks like!"

Individuals interviewed locally:

1. Dave Ebert was raised as a Quaker and is anti-war, but also sees himself as "staunchly middle class" His intent is to "stop corporation's undue influence on politicians. His sign read: "Revoke Corporate Personhood."

2. Alex Flynt is a retired teacher and fireman. He reports that he is financially well off, but laments: "I'm not sure what kind of future we'll have for our kids." He expanded: "The thing they can learn (from earlier protest movements), especially the young people, is they have to prepare themselves to take over some of the positions they've been criticizing...I don't know if the younger people in this movement have a vision," for themselves personally, as well as the movement in general. "Many are just trying to cope with life."

3. Ellen Hemrick, 42, is a Naples single mother. Her occupation is as a Speech Language Pathologist, but she is "stifled from running her own business, like she used to do, because (of high) health care costs for herself and her 2 year old son." Her statement; "I'm not against capitalism per se-I used to own a business-but there are certain thing capitalism isn't good at. It's not good at justice. It's not good at health and education. You really don't want the people in charge of your health care trying to figure out how much money they can make off your being sick-it just doesn't make sense. And with education, the same thing. We want to educate our children not run them through the mill and meet productivity standards. I think (Occupy) is going to be a long-term movement because it has to be. It's not going to any of its goals in a short period of time. Getting money out of politics and corruption out of government and returning the country is an extremely long and difficult process."

So there you have it Hank, a smattering of insight you missed on your brief sojourn to Naples -- One-Percenter-Land.

As one 99 Percenter's poster carrier down here in Naples poked back at Newt Gingrich:

"HEY NEWT, I SHOWER & HAVE A JOB. ANYTHING ELSE?"

Sources: The synopsis of the situation there in the Naples area (as drawn from real people) uses excerpted quotes from the local paper, Florida Weekly in "Occupy: The 99% Movement Will Not Remain Silent", and from person to person contacts.

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Betsy DeVos & The Amway Clan’s Abject Failure to Reach High Moral Ground via “Corporate Social Responsibility”

Elizabeth Prince DeVos has gone the long distance to rip apart Michigan's public schools, as such, Betsy has shown her moral poverty and disregard for community. She knows noting of "permaculture" the need to protect and promote heart and soul of American Ideals and Institutions.

Perhaps Betsy could be forgiven her narrow minded anti-public bigotry; given her early life; isolated and steeped in a strong ethnic background skeptical of the validity of science and the rest of the religious world-but that was then; her early schooling and her matriculation from hypercalvinist Calvin College - Grand Rapids - and now forgiveness is not an option.

Betsy's religious tradition struggled long, hard, and tragically in holding on to its connections to South Africa's racial Apartheid. At an early-less mature time of muted, yet dangerous ideological commitment; Betsy and her husband, Dick Jr.,  stunningly defeated in his personally financed $34 million bid for Michigan's governorship - were supporting individual "scholarships" for children of color.

With immense deep pockets they could finance hundreds of children lifted by them out poverty and deprivation to attend Cranbrook or wherever they could find elite schools of their personal choice to accept their minority "scholars." Who would object if Dick & Betsy want to help or promote the academic achievement of needy students via their own or organized scholarship charity? But, no, that was not enough!

Betsy took on Michigan's historic institution of public education in a mean-spirited and aggressive manner - An enduring hissy fit.

Betsy's goal: secure taxpayer provided voucher monies for her own Dutch Reformed Christian Schools and parochiaid for any and all religions. Moving through a number of morphed organizations and political efforts with names such as the American Federation for Children she has run a rough and rude campaign to grind to dust any or all opposition - Care not they be Republican or Democrat!

Violations of the campaign finance laws and multimillion dollar fines thereto have not slowed her efforts. Joining with other aggressive elites with agendas intended to rob the public of its public school monies and support, Betsy presses ahead. She has great support from the anti-community/local business prosperity Waltons of Wal-Mart, and the mega-billions Cato creators and A.L.E.C. corporate bullies: Charles and David Koch.

Betsy's The Mega Rich Poster Girl for the Antithesis of CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR) defined on Wikipedia as:

"CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY  is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms.

"The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: people, planet, profit."

Note: "CSR" also called corporate conscience, citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business.


The upshot of Betsy's vicious war on the public schools is the denigration and destruction of Michigan's once premiere Public Education Program run and fostered by its premiere/world class public universities. What happened in the Michigan TeaPublican 2011 Legislative session, that insulted, undercut, (Michigan's public schools were legislatively swindled of $1.2 billion due them) and soiled the profession of teaching(dishonest, partisan/ideological attacks on tenure), could NEVER have happened had Betsy disapproved. The blame is Betsy's to bear.

Keen observer and new political straight-shooter, reporter Chris Savage details the situation in Michigan under the dominance and dictates of Betsy DeVos:

"In Benton Harbor, the teachers union, the MEA, delivered a truckload of schools supplies to teachers who didn't even have pencils and paper for their students. School systems across the state face bankruptcy and the prospect of an Emergency Manager. This is blamed on corrupt administrators, greedy, parasitic teachers and budget-breaking unionized workers. It is never blamed on the fact that we are increasingly starving our public schools of the resources they need to exist and flourish.

"When someone tries to tell you that charter schools are the answer to our educational system's problems and that outsourcing the education of our children is going to help bring our most poverty-stricken public schools to the same level as the school systems in wealthy districts, ask them this. Ask them how they expect public school systems to compete after they took one billion dollars away from them during an economic recession."

"Ask them that."

Source: Chris Savage (aka Eclectablog) in "The Republican hypocrisy in Michigan’s charter school debate"  posted December 15, 2011 and also found on BloggingforMichigan.


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