the Eyewear Industry Is an Incredible Ripoff, But There Are Alternatives

Wow -- the Eyewear Industry Is an Incredible Ripoff, But There Are Alternatives

By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet
Posted on August 31, 2010, Printed on August 31, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/148024/

Those of us who need prescription eyewear need prescription eyewear. Are you wearing yours to read this? Imagine if you weren't. Imagine life without your glasses for a year, a week, an hour. Yet many health insurance plans, especially for the unemployed or self-employed, don't cover them.

Mine doesn't.

Last year, I went shopping for no-line progressive bifocals in small oval metal frames. Name brands mean nothing to me. Price does. My high astigmatism and need for bifocals disqualify me from those buy-one-get-one-free deals, which almost always involve only single-vision specs.

In store after store, megachains and optical boutiques alike, small oval metal frames fitted with lenses matching my prescription started at $300. One popular shop quoted me $582 for the lenses alone.

I bought a pair of no-line progressive bifocals in small oval metal frames for $44 online. I'm wearing them right now.

Perhaps because prescription glasses are where medicine meets fashion, they're among the world's most overpriced merchandise. Imperfect eyesight isn't your fault: You can't make yourself nearsighted by eating too much fudge. Yet if your health plan excludes vision care, you've spent years at the mercy of a $64 billion industry characterized by 500-percent markups.

This has begun to change over the last few years. A knowledge-is-power, power-to-the-people, Web-driven DIY wave is rocking the optical industry's very foundations. Dozens of companies now sell prescription glasses online, frames and lenses included, for as little as $7.95.

It works like this: Google "cheap glasses" to find a frame you like at a price you like at a site you like. (Among the most popular are 39DollarGlasses, ZenniOptical — where I bought mine — and Goggles4U.) Use the virtual fitting mechanism to "try it on." Type in your prescription (obtained from an actual eye doctor), pupillary distance (aka PD, derived by measuring the space between your pupils with a ruler), address and payment information. Send.

It's a virtual myopian/hyperopian/presbyopian Tea Party, led largely by Minnesota software engineer Ira Mitchell, who launched his revolutionary GlassyEyes blog (its motto is "Saving the World from Overpriced Glasses!") in 2006. Packed with forums, product reviews, discount deals, and tips for buying specs online, it's the vision-impaired version of Yelp.

"There is no appreciable functional or material difference" between prescription eyewear bought online and bought in brick-and-mortar stores, Mitchell tells me, but in stores "the cost to the consumer is anywhere from four to ten times more. It turns out that they’re making ridiculous margins on the frames, the lenses and the coatings."

Complete with antiscratch coatings and other pluses, his own glasses cost between $30 and $60 per pair online. Over the last three years, he’s bought around 40 pair — because, at that price, he can.

Mitchell was appalled when he first began researching wholesale prices for optical merchandise and realized that opticians acquire lenses for as little as $3 each. "I've easily paid twenty times that when I didn't know any better," he says.

Granted, these glass, plastic, polycarbonate or polymer blanks must be ground to fit frames and prescriptions, and this takes work, but it's not rocket science. Typically, lens grinding is done by optical laboratory technicians. According to PayScale.com, OLTs in the United States earn between $9.73 and $14.40 per hour. Most learn on the job, and have only a high-school diploma or a GED. No specific certification is required.

The fleecing, Mitchell says, is just as bad on frames.

"A consumer-level frame costs significantly less than $10 to manufacture. The rest is operations, licensing and profit. Think about that the next time you pick up an average $150 frame. These aren't markedly different or superior to the $30 glasses available from reputable online dealers — and those include lenses, probably the same ones you were just about to pay $200 for in the store."

A key to the industry-standard overpricing is the fact that a single corporation — Luxottica, the world's largest eyewear firm — owns many retail eyewear chains and many popular eyewear brands. Based in Milan, Italy, Luxottica owns and operates LensCrafters, Sears Optical, Target Optical, Pearle Vision, Sunglass Hut, Ilori, and other chains in the United States, along with yet more chains throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, India, the Antipodes and the Middle East.

Luxottica owns Ray-Ban, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, Vogue, and other brands, and makes glasses under license for over a dozen designer labels including Versace, Prada, Bulgari, DKNY, Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, Tiffany, and more. As if that isn't enough, Luxottica is also the parent company of a vision-care benefits program, EyeMed.

Eyewear prices in brick-and-mortar stores stay artificially high, Mitchell says, due to "the lack of real competition, inasmuch as Luxottica owns massive manufacturing, licensing, retailing and insurance interests" — albeit EyeMed is "not so much insurance as a marketing ploy to get people to buy from their stores at a discount and to force the remaining independent stores to buy Luxottica controlled frames. But, again, most people are unaware of this."

Because one company holds a near-monopoly on brick-and-mortar eyewear stores, "pricing models are somewhat static across the lot of them. They also have a knack for using the mattress sale model ... constantly running sales that seem too good to pass up when in reality they're still making enormous profits."

"Semi-Annual 50% Off Sales Event," reads a current LensCrafters ad. But the frames in question range from around $100 to around $300, and that's without lenses.

"People pay what the brick-and-mortars are asking, primarily because the vast majority don't know there are better, cheaper options," Mitchell says.

As with any purchase — in fact more than with most purchases, as this involves eyesight — it pays to research each company's delivery and return policies, Better Business Bureau status, and accessibility. Does its Web site list a phone number? If not, why not? If so, call it. Can you reach live people? Are they knowledgeable about your prescription? Does the company have its own in-house optometrists? It should. If you care about brand names, can you ascertain that the logo-bearing frames sold by any given company aren't counterfeits? Factories churn out fakes.

While many online outfits sell real and bogus designer frames, the least expensive frames available online are unapologetically nameless generics: current and classic styles, sans logo. As is true with most consumer products, they're not necessarily worse than their name-brand counterparts. After a year-plus of daily use, my $44 generics still look new. (That being said, I should have paid a few dollars more for higher-quality polycarbonate lenses and I should have sought bifocals with a wider middle-vision band, but these errors were my own, not the company's.)

"Very high-priced frames may have somewhat better materials," Mitchell says, "but from my experience, the no-names have been very well made." Having owned dozens of generic pairs, he's experienced "no more issues with them than with the name brands from LensCrafters. I think they're pretty much on par."

These days, he notes, "there are a lot more online retailers now than at the end of 2006. There aren't a whole lot more reputable ones, however. I've shopped at over a dozen, and narrowed things down to about three or four that I feel comfortable recommending to others. As this is a fully custom market, mistakes can enter the process anywhere from the initial customer entering prescription information to the production process. I've found that a few of the sites do a better job than others at fixing mistakes. Some do better at this than the traditional stores.

"Prices haven't dropped at all in the traditional brick-and-mortars, but downward price pressure from Wal-Mart will undoubtedly start to make an impact in certain parts of the country. I saw a sign in a
Wal-Mart recently for $38 glasses. The selection was tiny, but we're starting to see a price intersection."

The first online eyeglasses company was Houston-based FramesDirect. In 1992, optometrists Dhavid Cooper and Guy Hodgson closed their several Texas brick-and-mortar shops, then pondered their future.

"We knew that we wanted to sell eyewear in all fifty states 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," Hodgson says. "We had no idea how to do this." Renting a small office, they installed computers.

"When you talked about the Internet in those days, no one knew what you meant. Search engines were in their absolute infancy. We thought a 56k modem was blisteringly fast."

Cooper had won a Surgeon General’s Commendation Award in his native South Africa for creating a program providing the poor with recycled glasses for free. Hodgson specialized in treating the nearly blind. Barely fluent in email, the pair created a basic Web site, offering designer glasses at low prices because, unlike brick-and-mortar opticians, they needed to pay neither storefront rent nor employees' salaries, nor did they need to keep large quantities of merchandise in stock.

"Everyone around us thought we were completely mad: Eye doctors, giving up their lucrative practices to go into this weird thing," Hodgson laughs. But once orders started pouring in, "The whole optical industry completely shunned us. They said we were ruining them."

At eyewear conventions, he and Cooper wore their nametags backward to avoid verbal abuse. Since then, dozens of imitators have emerged, many based overseas and most able to offer even lower prices because they sell generics. Buying prescription eyewear is like buying prescription drugs: It's cheaper online. It's cheaper when it comes from outside the U.S. GlassesUnlimited, for instance, can afford to sell hundreds of different stylish frames fitted with prescription lenses for only $9.99 because its entire operation is based in Thailand.

"We don't have big margins here. That's how we are serving our clientele. That's why we're getting hundreds of orders on a daily basis, 70 percent of which come from the U.S. and Canada," GU manager Sam Davis tells me. "We have virtually no expenses. We have our own home brand and do our own production. We don't outsource anything."

Based in the U.S., FramesDirect still undercuts retail-store prices for guaranteed designer goods.

"What we sell and what the brick-and-mortar stores sell are the exact same products," Guy Hodgson says. "How can they afford to charge the prices they charge?"

Anneli Rufus is the author of several books, most recently The Scavenger's Manifesto (Tarcher Press, 2009). Read more of Anneli's writings on scavenging at scavenging.wordpress.com.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/148024/

What Was Hillary Clinton Thinking?

Editorial of The New York Sun | August 29, 2010

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/what-was-mrs-clinton-thinking/87062/

This newspaper has been, and is, as pro-immigration as any newspaper we’ve ever encountered. We’re for the free movement of capital, the free movement of trade in goods and services, and the free movement of labor. We see efforts to curb immigration and to oust those who are already here as a form of protectionism. We have opposed nativism and xenophobia at every turn, and we’re not above, when we see it from time to time, calling racism by its correct name. But even we, who feel America is an under-populated nation needing all the people we can get, are shocked at the decision of Secretary of State Clinton to take the matter of Arizona’s immigration law to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

What in the world was Mrs. Clinton thinking? It was bad enough that the Obama administration decided to jettison the hard line in favor of human rights that the Bush administration had maintained in refusing to deal with the United Nations Human Rights Council, which numbers among its members such states as Communist Cuba and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. But for Mrs. Clinton, who is positioning herself for another run for the presidency, to send, as she did, a report to the Council that boasts, even in vague language and in passing, of the Obama administration's immigration lawsuit against Arizona is appalling. Governor Brewer was right as rain to call the secretary on her blunder. Mrs. Brewer did not put it too strongly when she called Mrs. Clinton’s report “downright offensive.”

“The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a State of the United States to ‘review’ by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional,” Mrs. Brewer said in a letter to Mrs. Clinton. She asserted that human rights — “as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions” — are “expressly protected” in Arizona’s law and “defended vigorously” her own administration in Arizona. We have our doubts about the Arizona law. But we have even graver doubts about the United States Congress, which defaulted when it had a chance, under President Bush, to act. What we have no doubts whatsoever about is the fact that our own courts and legislatures are superior to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

* * *

Governor Brewer’s letter presents a serious question to the administration at a time when the president is off balance and, even among many liberals, seen as increasingly out of touch with the American people. It also represents an opportunity. There is a growing sense that the president has done far too much bowing and scraping abroad and far too little standing up for his own country. The right move for Mr. Obama now is to have Mrs. Clinton revise her report and remove the part about Arizona and, for that matter, any other talk about the situation here at home. These columns would never say that the United States or any one of the states is perfect. But the fact is that there is no body or unit of the United Nations that is fit to review the actions of even the most dysfunctional legislature in the land, not even Albany.

Manhattan Turnstile Jumper Charged in Bronx Rape - NYTimes.com

Held for Evading a Fare, Then Charged in a Rape
By AL BAKER

An arrest in an East Harlem subway station on Friday led, through an unusual set of circumstances, to the suspect being charged a day later with the rape and beating last month of a 79-year-old woman in the elevator of her Bronx apartment building, the police said.

By the time all the detectives’ reports were filled out and filed, the suspect, Shon Holland, who has a lengthy arrest record, had been charged with three crimes in two boroughs.

The sequence of events began about 10 a.m. Friday when a captain and an officer on the Police Department’s Transit Anti-Terrorism Task Force noticed a man ducking under a turnstile at the No. 6 subway station at 116th Street and Lexington Avenue.

The officers apprehended the man, Mr. Holland, 40, of West 126th Street in Manhattan. A check turned up an open warrant for Mr. Holland over an arrest in the Bronx’s 45th Precinct in June for violating an order of protection against a former companion.

The transit officers charged Mr. Holland with theft of services and took him up to the 45th Precinct’s station house on Barkley Avenue to face additional criminal contempt charges.

“As all this was going on, Bronx Special Victims gets a DNA match from the rape in July,” said a law enforcement official, who requested anonymity because the case remained unresolved. “They call the 45 to say, ‘We got a DNA hit,’ and the guys there say, ‘He’s right here.’ ”

DNA recovered after the July 19 attack on the 79-year-old was linked with a biological profile of Mr. Holland that was on file in the state DNA database because of his previous legal troubles.

Mr. Holland has been arrested 14 times since 1990 on a variety of charges, including robbery and weapons possession, the police say, but they could not immediately say how those cases were resolved.

In the July rape case, the police said, a man dressed in dark clothing and a black cap followed the woman onto an elevator at 1:52 a.m., punched her in the face and knocked her to the floor before sexually assaulting her and fleeing, the police said. The police recovered surveillance video images of the attacker, and they said that when he left the building he was apparently wearing a different shirt than when he arrived.

On Friday, the police took Mr. Holland to the Bronx Special Victims Squad on Simpson Street, where on Saturday he was charged with rape and assault.

Manhattan Turnstile Jumper Charged in Bronx Rape - NYTimes.com.

Televangelist Can Sue ABC for Defamation

Televangelist Can Sue ABC for Defamation By ELIZABETH BANICKI  ShareThis      (CN) - Televangelist Dr. Frederick Price can pursue defamation claims against ABC and "20/20" correspondent John Stossel for broadcasting a clip of Price talking about wealth out of context, the 9th Circuit ruled.      On March 23, 2007, ABC broadcast a program entitled "Enough" on "20/20."      Part of the program was a report on wealthy preachers who were investigated by the non-profit watchdog group Ministry Watch, which is dedicated to improving the transparency and accountability of Christian ministries.      The network broadcast a clip of a sermon delivered by Price where he says, "I live in a 25-room mansion. I have my own $6 million yacht. I have my own private jet, and I have my own helicopter, and I have seven luxury automobiles."      Price says he was not boasting about his own wealth as the clip suggested. He says he was speaking from the perspective of a hypothetical person who, although wealthy, was spiritually unfulfilled, according to the ruling.      ABC broadcast a retraction acknowledging the mistake, but Price filed a defamation suit against the network.      The trial court dismissed his claims, concluding that Price could not prove that the network's broadcast of the clip was false within the meaning of defamation law, because Price had elsewhere made similar statements about his own wealth.      On appeal, a three-judge panel based in Pasadena disagreed and ruled that Price could proceed with his defamation claims because the district court erred by comparing the statements in the clip with Price's actual wealth and possessions, and agreeing with the network that the clip was "substantially true" based on that comparison.      "Under controlling Supreme Court precedent on when journalists' misquotations of statements made by public figures are false for purposes of establishing actual malice, there is a substantial likelihood that Price can establish that the publication of the clip was false," Judge Mary Schroeder wrote.      Price owns a $4.6 million, 8,000-square-foot house, travels around the world in a private Gulfstream jet owned by the church, owns a Rolls Royce, wears an $8,500 watch, and serves as chief executive officer of the church's $40 million budget, the ruling says.

Home

Courthouse News Service

Police and Hospital Assault Figures Seem to Differ - NYTimes.com

Assault Statistics of Hospitals and City Police Seem to Differ
By RAY RIVERA

Felony assaults, along with all other major crimes in the city, have sharply decreased over the last decade, according to the New York Police Department.

But during much of that period, the number of assault victims taken to emergency rooms nearly doubled, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Comparing the figures is difficult. It is unknown, for example, how many of the hospital assault reports were felonies and how many were misdemeanors, which the Police Department does not regularly report to the public.

But two criminologists say the difference provides more evidence of a Police Department culture that puts so much emphasis on annual crime reductions that some police supervisors and precinct commanders may be manipulating crime statistics.

“Emergency room visits are not going to happen just because somebody needs a Band-Aid,” said John A. Eterno, one of the researchers and a retired police captain. “Somebody is going to go there because they’ve been seriously assaulted.”

Mr. Eterno and his fellow researcher, Eli B. Silverman, presented their latest findings on Friday at a crime data conference at John Jay College.

The news media were not allowed to attend the conference, but the researchers provided reporters with a copy of the presentation.

Much of the presentation focused on a survey of retired captains and higher-ranking officers that The New York Times reported on in February. In the survey, many retired officers said pressure to reduce crime led some managers to alter crime data to show annual decreases in the seven major felony categories measured in the department’s CompStat program.

Police officials questioned the methodology of the survey at the time and pointed to other reviews of CompStat that supported its accuracy.

Police officials said Friday they could not comment specifically on the assault data until they examined the numbers.

Hospitals reported 47,779 assault victims in 2006, the latest figures available, a 90 percent increase from 1999. By comparison, the Police Department reported 19,173 felony assaults in 2006, a 33 percent decrease from 1998. (Numbers from 1999 were not immediately available.) The hospital numbers also show that assaults in which a firearm or cutting instrument was used, almost always constituting a felony offense, also grew, to 5,502 from 3,468, Mr. Eterno said.

Health officials said the disparity was not new and should be interpreted with caution. Part of the rise in hospital assault reports may stem from improved reporting and outreach, they said.

“As our injury epidemiologists explain it, emergency departments count apples, and police departments count oranges,” said Geoffrey Cowley, associate commissioner of the health department. “They’re tracking different phenomena, and we don’t yet have the tools to reconcile the two.”

Police and Hospital Assault Figures Seem to Differ - NYTimes.com.

Mom

At the age of 4: Mom knows everything!

 At 8:Mom knows a lot!

At 12:Mom doesn’t really know everything.

 At 14: Mom doesn’t know anything.

 At 16:Mom doesn’t exist.

 At 18: She’s old fashioned.

 At 25: Maybe Mom does know about this!

 At 35: Before we decide, let’s ask Mom.

 At 45: I wonder... what Mom thinks about this?

 At... 75: I wish I could ask my Mom about this.

 Post this if you have or had the best Mom

On Religion - Long, Slow Return for Black Churches in New Orleans - NYTimes.com

In New Orleans, Black Churches Face a Long, Slow Return
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

NEW ORLEANS — Five minutes past 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday this month, which is to say five minutes past the time the worship service was supposed to start, Shantell Henley pushed open the front door of her pastor’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward. She entered the living room to find a gospel song playing on the stereo, two ceiling fans stirring the sticky air and 25 folding chairs for the congregants waiting empty.

“Am I late?” she asked the pastor, the Rev. Charles W. Duplessis.

“No,” he replied, smiling. “We’re Baptists.”

His joke, though, could not dispel the truth. The problem at Mount Nebo Bible Baptist Church had nothing to do with any Baptist indifference to punctuality and everything to do with Hurricane Katrina, even as its fifth anniversary on Aug. 29 approached.

Having lost his house and his church to the broken levees in the Lower Ninth, Mr. Duplessis had managed by grit and will and fathomless faith to reopen in early 2009, using his rebuilt home to replace the sanctuary he couldn’t afford to replace, the sanctuary that had stood in some grim coincidence on Flood Street.

He installed an electric piano and a computer with a projector. He collected several dozen copies of the Baptist Hymnal. He put out weekly editions of the church bulletin; he put up a lawn sign declaring, “Our Church Is Back!”

What was not back was the bulk of his congregation. Of the 120 members before Hurricane Katrina, only 40 had returned. The rest were still strewn across the map — Alabama, California, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas. And Mr. Duplessis could not in-gather the exiles, as the Bible commands, because most of the Lower Ninth remained a ruin of buckled roads, cracked foundations and swamp grass six feet high.

“It’s church — it’s serving the Lord,” Mr. Duplessis, 59, said in an interview in his house. “If I linger on what I don’t have, I can’t see what I do have.” He paused. “But I know this isn’t where God wants us to be.”

On Religion - Long, Slow Return for Black Churches in New Orleans - NYTimes.com.

Middle School Segregates Class Elections by Race

Thinking about running for eighth grade class president at Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, Mississippi? Well... are you white? Because only white kids are allowed to run for president. Black kids can be vice-president, though! But only black kids.

A few days ago, according to blogger Suzy Richardson, Nettleton Middle School students brought home the following memo, which spells out the requirements for students who want to run for class office:

Okay, so obtain 10 signatures from classmates... check. Maintain a B average... check. Have "good disciplinary status and moral character"... okay, I haven't sexted anyone recently, check. White... ch... what? They must mean, like... wears white clothing? Right? Or like... the color... of their lockers? Right? Uh, well, not really.

When one Nettleton mother approached the school board, wondering—among other things, obviously—which "category" her mixed-race kids (Italian and Native American) fell under, she was told the following:

They told me that they "Go by the mother's race b/c with minorities the father isn't generally in the home." They also told me that " a city court order is the reason why it is this way."

Ah. Richardson, who first reported this story on her website MixedandHappy.com, later called the school vice principal, and confirmed that the policy is in place. The Smoking Gun independently received a copy of the same memo but were unable to reach school officials.

It's still unclear what the reasoning behind the rules is—some kind of utterly misguided attempt at affirmative action, so that the student government won't end up entirely white (the school is around 72 percent white, according to The Smoking Gun)? Plain old racism? Hilarious satire? Update: Some Mississippians have asked me to point out that two of the four administrators listed on the school website are black, which... could mean a lot of things.

The school has since put up a "media statement" on its website, which reads:

"Student elections have not yet been held at Nettleton Middle School for the 2010-2011 school term. The processes and procedures for student elections are under review. We are reviewing the origin of these processes, historical applications, compliance issues, as well as current implications and ramifications. A statement will be released when review of these processes is complete."

Thank You

Superintendent
Russell Taylor

[Mixed and Happy; The Smoking Gun; tip via oh no i di'n't]

Martin Luther King Jr’s daughter Alveda King attending Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally

26 Aug

Martin Luther King Jr’s daughter Alveda King attending Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally. Read the story here:

http://aareports.com/2010/08/martin-luther-kings-daughter-alveda.html

 

Black man mistaken for Muslim confronted at Ground Zero Mosque Rally

24 Aug

Black man confronted at Ground Zero Mosque Rally

A group of ignorant protestors confronted a bearded black man walking through a crowd because they thought he was Muslim. Why because he was wearing a white Under Armour skull cap They thought he was wearing some type of Muslim headgear. Watch the video here:
http://aareports.com/2010/08/black-man-confronted-at-anti-ground.html

NYPD Tapes 5: The Corroboration - Page 1 - News - New York - Village Voice

 

NYPD Tapes: The Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

At the same time NYPD whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft was secretly recording his supervisors in a Brooklyn precinct, an officer named Adil Polanco was doing the same thing a borough away in the Bronx.

NYPD Tapes 5: The Corroboration - Page 1 - News - New York - Village Voice.

Go play on the freeway: Parks and ballfields owned by the city are locked up tight

BY Kate Nocera, Trevor Kapp and Erin Einhorn
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Monday, August 23rd 2010, 4:00 AM

 

Lanzilote for News

Many parks owned by the city are controlled by Little Leagues and other sports clubs such as Spring Street Field (above) in the Bronx. Permits may take up to a month to get.

Lanzilote for News

The groups often lock the fields or restrict public access to the parks.

Lanzilote for News

Locals try to grab field time around hectic league schedules.

Not all city parks are available to all city kids.

At least 19 city-owned ballfields are locked up under the largely exclusive control of Little Leagues, youth groups and sports clubs, a Daily News survey shows.

"It's pretty harsh because if we want to play baseball, it's locked," said Sheck Mulbah, 12, who says the Shea Friendship field in Marcus Garvey Park is the only diamond near his East Harlem home.

"Some people aren't great at baseball, like me, and want to get better but can't because the field's locked," he said, adding that his poor skills would make him embarrassed to join the Harlem Little League, which uses the field.

The Harlem Little League is one of 24 groups around the city that have the right to lock their fields in exchange for doing basic cleaning and maintenance. The groups remove graffiti, mow the grass, paint and buy insurance.

In exchange, they keep the proceeds from their concessions and lock the gates when they're not playing ball.

The News visited all 24 fields - including baseball diamonds, soccer fields and a roller hockey rink - and found 19 locked or closed to the public.

The five others are open but used by the groups during peak hours - including one that's leased to a tony suburb. The Town of Pelham has dibs on a soccer and baseball field near the Bronx border with Westchester County.

"It's a public park, and it's not really fair for only one group to be able to use it," said Cheryl Huber of New Yorkers for Parks.

In a city strapped for playing space, teams are supposed to post signs telling community members how to access the fields, but The News saw signs at just four of the 19 locked fields.

The News also made numerous attempts to get permits for fields but met with great difficulties. Messages left in permit offices went unreturned. Online permit applications fared no better.

A woman who answered the phone in the Queens sports permit office told a reporter posing as someone trying to book a field it generally takes 30 days to get a permit, and permits are granted only for competitive play. "It has to be an official game," she said.

In the Bronx, meanwhile, when a reporter asked about a field controlled by a Little League group, she was told the "field is under a management agreement" and could not get a permit.

First Deputy Parks Commissioner Liam Kavanagh said the groups save the city money and routinely make the fields available to schools and community organizations.

"These are neighborhood organizations that are serving kids from those communities," he said. "They help us maintain facilities at a pretty high standard."

Some community members applaud the arrangement.

"It's good they keep it locked - otherwise the younger kids could find broken glass and drug paraphernalia," said Peter DeCarlo, 47, who was throwing a ball with his son near the locked Frank Schnurr ballfield in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, last week.

The Bronx field leased to the Pelham Little League was unused until the suburban town inquired about it in 2003, Kavanagh said.

Fred Fiorito, head of facilities for the Town of Pelham, said his crews transformed a rodent-infested swamp covered with trash and toxic waste into a local asset.

"We took a field that was unplayable and an eyesore and turned it into something nice," he said. "We put hundreds of thousands of dollars into it."

With Jake Pearson, Joe Jackson,

Matthew Lysiak and Henrick Karoliszyn

eeinhorn@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/23/2010-08-23_fields_under_lock__key_play_ball_okay_but_not_here__city_diamonds_are_privately_.html#ixzz0xZ3NAhqj

Rangel on the Hot Seat in Debate

By MICHAEL BARBARO

It was a gentle but unmistakable nudge President Obama gave Representative Charles B. Rangel recently, suggesting in an interview three weeks ago that Mr. Rangel, 80, should retire to “end his career with dignity.”

At a tense and sometimes fiery candidates’ forum Monday night, Mr. Rangel shot back that it was not his dignity the president should be worried about.

“Frankly, he has not been around long enough to determine what my dignity is,” Mr. Rangel said of the 49-year-old Mr. Obama. “For the next two years, I will be more likely to protect his dignity.”

The unexpected eruption seemed to reflect the increasingly bitter relations between the embattled 20-term Democrat from Harlem and a president who is trying to protect his party’s prospects in a difficult midterm election season.

And it came during an uncomfortable evening for Mr. Rangel, who made a rare appearance with his five challengers and found himself facing harsh public attacks in front of his constituents at a Baptist church in the heart of his Harlem district.

Long accustomed to being showered with praise and accolades, and surrounded by friendly crowds who treated him like a folk hero, Mr. Rangel could not escape the controversy that has shaped his re-election bid: the 13 charges of ethical violations issued against him by a House panel last month, including hoarding below-market apartments and improper fund-raising.

The best known of his Democratic challengers, Adam Clayton Powell IV, accused Mr. Rangel of “years and years of corruption.”

“Four rent-controlled apartments. Four!” he yelled.

“It’s a slap in the face to his community!” Mr. Powell thundered.

Mr. Rangel, sitting a few feet away, fidgeted in his chair and fingered some papers, his eyes occasionally darting around the room.

But Mr. Powell did not let up, likening Mr. Rangel’s ethics troubles to a rotting tree: “To have good fruit, you must have a healthy tree. We no longer have a healthy tree, and we will no longer have good fruit.”

The candidates spoke in the sanctuary of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in western Harlem. Organizers, including some tenants from Mr. Rangel’s apartment complex, appeared determined to tilt the evening in Mr. Rangel’s favor.

They announced unusual rules, just minutes before the forum began, barring photography and videotaping of the forum, ensuring that any heated moments or slip-ups by Mr. Rangel would not turn up later in a rival’s political ads.

The format for the forum, laid out days ago, had originally called for all the candidates to stand on stage at once, putting them on equal footing. But at the last minute, the organizers e-mailed each campaign with a “slight change”: Mr. Rangel would appear on his own, instead of sharing the podium with his challengers.

His rivals cried foul — Mr. Powell called it “the Democratic machine playing tricks” — but they relented.

The crowd that gathered was pro-Rangel, too. At one point, Jonathan Tasini, a candidate and a labor activist, explained matter-of-factly that Mr. Rangel had accepted large sums of money from political action committees. The crowd erupted in boos and jeers. A woman in a straw hat stood up and wagged her finger at Mr. Tasini.

But Mr. Rangel’s problems kept intruding.

Mr. Tasini told the crowd that, despite Mr. Rangel’s best intentions, he had fallen victim to a culture in Washington that was awash with corporate money and lobbyists.

“The corruption that Congressman Rangel is a part of is being in Congress for 40 years,” Mr. Tasini said.

Mr. Rangel’s foes took pains to honor his 40-year career in Congress. But they made clear they thought it was time for a change. “Yes, he has done some good. He has a legacy,” Mr. Powell said.

“But he is no longer the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He is no longer perceived as somebody that people in Congress want to work with.”

Mr. Rangel infused his own remarks with his typical sarcasm and combativeness, taking a jab at those who had called on him to step aside, especially Mr. Powell.

“Adam, is he here?” Mr. Rangel said, quickly surveying the room. “He truly believes that I should resign, so that somebody else should take my place.”

The crowd interrupted: “No!”

“He is the only one to say this,” Mr. Rangel continued. “I think it’s creative.

“But if it’s O.K. with my doctor, I am going to serve the next two years.”

Mr. Rangel also railed against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying American soldiers would not be there if not for the country’s voracious appetite for oil, and mocked Republicans in Congress for trying to block the president’s agenda.

And while some Democrats have said that he is creating an embarrassment for his party by refusing to step down, Mr. Rangel declared, “I won’t step aside when the people of my district believe this is what I should be doing.”

While Mr. Powell, whose father once held the seat, was aggressive, the other candidates challenging Mr. Rangel were more subtle, though they echoed his essential message: Mr. Rangel’s era was over.

“Everyone has their time,” said Joyce S. Johnson, a former field director in New York for Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. “There is a need for a new perspective, out-of-the-box thinking.”

The other participants were Vince Morgan, a banker, and Craig Schley, a community activist; all are running as Democrats, except for Mr. Schley, who is campaigning as an independent.

In a brief interview after the forum, Mr. Rangel elaborated on his remarks about Mr. Obama, making clear he did not believe anyone so junior to him had any place weighing in on his long career and stature.

“My dignity is 80 years old,” he said. “How can somebody so much younger tell me how to leave with dignity?”

Asked how it felt to be publicly attacked in his district by his rivals, he laughed, smiled and said, “It’s all part of the campaign.”

After the last candidate spoke, the crowd swarmed around the pinstripe-suited Mr. Rangel, who marched up the aisle, reaching out to shake hands, and offer kisses to women gathered in the pews.

He stopped briefly at the doors of the church to greet former Mayor David N. Dinkins, who has been an especially visible defender of Mr. Rangel, giving a middle finger to a protester at Mr. Rangel’s birthday party this month.

Feds looking for experts who speak Ebonics: report - NYPOST.com

Feds looking for experts who speak Ebonics: report

Last Updated: 11:31 AM, August 23, 2010

Posted: 11:27 AM, August 23, 2010

ATLANTA -- The feds are looking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of drug dealers, according to federal records.

A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help authorities decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media,” thesmokinggun.com reported today on its website.

The DEA’s need for linguists specializing in Ebonics is outlined in documents related to the agency’s request for proposal issued in May, the site reported.

Ebonics has been described as a variant of English spoken by African-Americans. John Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English."

The DEA’s Atlanta office also requires linguists for eight other languages, including Spanish Vietnamese and Korean.

With AP

Feds looking for experts who speak Ebonics: report - NYPOST.com.

Police Move Against Party-Fueled Violence

• By SEAN GARDINER

After the Wall Street workday ends, increasing numbers of partygoers have been flocking to Lower Manhattan bars, clubs, booze cruises and loft bashes this summer. But it hasn't been all good times.

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Timothy Fadek for The Wall Street Journal

A police cruiser drives past Greenhouse, the site of the First Precinct's only homicide this year. Club officials said the fight wasn't related to the club.

A 71% spike in felony assaults between July 12 and Aug. 8 that included three separate shooting incidents in which one man was killed and four were wounded "can be directly attributed to nightlife in the First Precinct," according to an internal police memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The precinct's only homicide this year occurred outside Greenhouse, which bills itself as the city's only eco-friendly club, in the predawn hours of July 18. After being denied entry into the Varick Street club, a 32-year-old emergency-medical technician got into a fight with men outside the nightspot and was shot and killed. Club officials did not respond to calls for comment, but said in the past that the fight was not related to their club.

In response to the recent spike in violence, Capt. Edward Winski, commanding officer of the First Precinct, which encompasses the area south of the Brooklyn Bridge and a wedge west of Broadway up to Houston Street, issued a memo to his officers Aug. 9 detailing a new "Late Tour Violence Reduction Plan."

At the center of the plan is the creation of a new Cabaret/Conditions Unit. A sergeant and five officers working from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. will be "responsible for monitoring all nightlife locations and addressing any associated crime, quality of life and traffic conditions," the memo states.

More operations targeting underage drinking will be conducted, and the precinct's field-intelligence officer has been ordered to concentrate on gathering information and warning precinct supervisors about any upcoming special events at bars and clubs.

The violence-reduction plan also has pushed back by two hours the precinct Anti-Crime Unit's Friday and Saturday night shifts so that those officers will be on duty past 4 a.m. Other steps include more coordination and participation by vice, narcotics, traffic and civil-enforcement units that will "commence Nuisance Abatement proceedings against problematic bars/clubs" in an attempt to shut them down. Mr. Winski wasn't available to comment on his plan, but police officials confirmed its substance.

"I think it's a fantastic idea provided that the Cabaret Unit is educated about the nuances and attributes of nightlife," said Paul Seres, president of the New York Nightlife Association, whose website says it represents more than 150 bars, clubs and lounges in the city.

Mr. Seres said that a now-disbanded citywide NYPD Cabaret Unit was very effective because its officers got to know the operators at various nightspots and understood which clubs and bars were acting responsibly—and which weren't.

Derrick Parker, a retired NYPD detective who now operates GB & DP Security, which provides nightclub security, said closer police scrutiny has made it increasingly more difficult for some party promoters to throw their soirees at the clubs in Chelsea and Midtown. So they've been forced to seek out venues elsewhere, he said.

"Between 29th and 54th streets, the police have been coming down hard on these clubs," Mr. Parker said. "So people have been moving, and they moved to the lower part of Manhattan. There are a lot of promoters looking for venues in that area and parties have been popping up all over the place."

Including, he said, outside Manhattan. Mr. Parker said big-money parties featuring big-name acts that once took place exclusively in Manhattan have been held in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx this summer. One party at a strip club in Woodside in recent weeks cleared more than $50,000 in door fees and bar profits, he said.

However, Mr. Parker said he sees potential problems with what he jokingly referred to as the "great club flight" out of the city. Because the clubs in Chelsea and Midtown are under constant police scrutiny, most of them follow the law and hire only licensed bouncers, he said. But that may not be the case in the boroughs outside Manhattan, he said.

Also, most of the clubs in Manhattan are situated in nonresidential neighborhoods. So if some clubgoer gets into a fight or gets ejected, it usually takes a long time to go home, grab a gun or other weapon and return seeking revenge, he said.

Cooler heads usually prevail, Mr. Parker said. But that might not be the case at some of these parties in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.

"Sooner or later there's going to be a drive-by" shooting, he said. "It's gonna happen, believe me."

Write to Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com

Paladino: House welfare recipients in prisons

 

Paladino: House welfare recipients in prisons

The Associated Press AuburnPub.com | Posted: Saturday, August 21, 2010 10:49 am 

• 

Mary Altaffer New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino nominates himself during the New York State Republican Convention, Wednesday, June 2, 2010, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

NEW YORK -- Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino has a plan for welfare reform: He wants to turn prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients so they can get state-sponsored jobs, employment training and lessons in "personal hygiene."

Paladino is a wealthy Buffalo real estate developer popular with many Tea Party activists. He's competing for the Republican nomination with former Rep. Rick Lazio; the primary is Sept. 14.

Paladino said the dormitory living would be voluntary, not mandatory, and would give welfare recipients an opportunity to take public state-sponsored jobs far from home.

He also defended his remarks about the hygiene of welfare recipients, saying he had trained troops from inner city communities during his years in the Army and was familiar with their needs.

For more on this story, see Sunday's edition of The Citizen.

Copyright 2010 AuburnPub.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

‘48 Hours’ correspondent Harold Dow dies at 62

‘48 Hours’ correspondent Harold Dow dies at 62

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In Arts, Culture & Leisure posted by TD Staff

The Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent helped shape the documentary program by covering stories from the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst to the Sept. 11 attacks.

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Dow had been a correspondent for 48 Hours since 1990. His nearly 40 years with the network also included reporting for CBS Evening News with Dan Ratherand CBS News Sunday Morning.

A 48 Hours report on runaways earned him a George Foster Peabody Award. He also won five Emmys, for work including coverage of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and of American troops’ movement into Bosnia in 1996.

“Insatiably curious, he was happiest when he was on the road deep into a story,” Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of 48 Hours Mystery, said in a statement. “It was his humanity, which was felt by everyone he encountered, even in his toughest interviews, that truly defined the greatness of his work. He was the most selfless man I have known.”

Op-Ed Columnist - Too Long Ignored - NYTimes.com

Too Long Ignored
By BOB HERBERT

A tragic crisis of enormous magnitude is facing black boys and men in America.

Parental neglect, racial discrimination and an orgy of self-destructive behavior have left an extraordinary portion of the black male population in an ever-deepening pit of social and economic degradation.

The Schott Foundation for Public Education tells us in a new report that the on-time high school graduation rate for black males in 2008 was an abysmal 47 percent, and even worse in several major urban areas — for example, 28 percent in New York City.

The astronomical jobless rates for black men in inner-city neighborhoods are both mind-boggling and heartbreaking. There are many areas where virtually no one has a legitimate job.

More than 70 percent of black children are born to unwed mothers. And I’ve been hearing more and more lately from community leaders in poor areas that moms are absent for one reason or another and the children are being raised by a grandparent or some other relative — or they end up in foster care.

That the black community has not been mobilized en masse to turn this crisis around is a screaming shame. Black men, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, have nearly a one-third chance of being incarcerated at some point in their lives. By the time they hit their mid-30s, a solid majority of black men without a high school diploma have spent time in prison.

Homicide is the leading cause of death for young black men, with the murderous wounds in most cases inflicted by other young black men.

This is a cancer that has been allowed to metastasize for decades. Not only is it not being treated, most people don’t even want to talk about it. In virtually every facet of life in the United States, black people — and especially black boys and men — are coming up short. White families are typically five times as wealthy as black families. More than a third of all black children are growing up in poverty. In Ohio, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty, the percentage is more than half.

There are myriad reasons for this awful state of affairs. As with so many other problems in American society, a lack of gainful employment has been a huge contributor to the problems faced by blacks. Chronic unemployment is hardly a plus-factor for marriage and family stability. And the absence of strong family units with mature parental guidance is at the very root of the chaotic environment that so many black youngsters grow up in.

The abominable incarceration rates among blacks are the result of two overwhelming factors: the persistence of criminal behavior by a significant percentage of the black population, and a criminal justice system that in many respects is racially discriminatory and out of control. Both of these factors need to be engaged head-on, and both will require a staggeringly heavy lift.

Education in the broadest sense is the key to stopping this socioeconomic slide that is taking such a horrific toll in the black community. People have to understand what is happening to them before they can really do much about it. Young blacks who have taken a wrong road, or are at risk of taking a wrong road, have to be shown a feasible legitimate alternative.

The aspect of this crisis that is probably the most important and simultaneously the most difficult to recognize is that the heroic efforts needed to alleviate it will not come from the government or the wider American society. This is a job that will require a campaign on the scale of the civil rights movement, and it will have to be initiated by the black community.

Whether this is fair or not is irrelevant. There is very little sentiment in the wider population for tackling the extensive problems faced by poor and poorly educated black Americans. What is needed is a dramatic mobilization of the black community to demand justice on a wide front — think employment, education and the criminal justice system — while establishing a new set of norms, higher standards, for struggling blacks to live by.

For many, this is a fight for survival. And it is an awesomely difficult fight. But the alternative is to continue the terrible devastation that has befallen so many families and communities: the premature and often violent deaths, the inadequate preparation for an increasingly competitive workplace, the widespread failure to exercise one’s intellectual capacity, the insecurity that becomes ingrained from being so long at the bottom of the heap.

Terrible injustices have been visited on black people in the United States, but there is never a good reason to collaborate in one’s own destruction. Blacks in America have a long and proud history of overcoming hardship and injustice. It’s time to do it again.

Op-Ed Columnist - Too Long Ignored - NYTimes.com.

[blackpowermovement] WILLIE LYNCH IS A LIE !!!!!

Black people its time to move beyond the Willie Lynch mythology.

 

Many African Americans are familiar with the story of the Willie Lynch narratives. For they that are not familiar with this story: it is the story about a British slave owner from the West Indies who in 1712 came to the United States and taught America ’s slave owners in Virginia of a full proof method for controlling their slaves. It tells the story of a psychological conditioning program of where in which the African slaves were actually conditioned to be loyal to their masters, while hating themselves and doubting their intellectual abilities.

 Once these feelings were indoctrinated into the minds of the African slave this process is suppose to regenerate it self continuing for hundreds of years. Several renowned African American psychologists, educators, and historians share the consensus that much of the disparities afflicting African Americans today as stemming from this historic mortifying indoctrination process. The belief is that these mortifying feelings remain subconsciously embedded within the Black psyche and is still being regenerated today.

 

While I do not endorse the premise of the Willie lynch narratives it is however connected to a known historical truth. The forefather’s of African Americans were victims of a brutal racially mortifying slave indoctrination process. A process of where of which they were conditioned to believe in white superiority and their own racial inferiority. However, this true indoctrination  process was actually referred to by slave owners as “seasoning”. When ever a slave was being sold between one master to another, the purchaser would ask the seller: “Is your slave well seasoned? And the seller would reply “yes” and to prove it he would strike the slave in the face. The slave’s ability to restrain himself from retaliating demonstrated that he was well seasoned. The ways of which female slaves were required to show that they were well seasoned was often much more sexually vulgar.

To give it some legitimacy the Willie Lynch narrative has been connected to this mortifying indoctrination process used on our slave ancestors. It is this connection that makes the Willie Lynch narratives so effective. However  the story of Willie Lynch himself is untrue. The Willie lynch narrative ridiculously paints the picture that blacks are now hopelessly programmed to act as self hating crabs in a bucket.  If this were true how was it possible that so many African Americans were able to come together in such an unprecedented manner and confront white racism during the 1960’s. Black unity was the most significant factor in the success of the 1960's civil right movement. The remarkable degree of unity among African Americans then was made evident by the brilliant organization and mobilizations of mass bus boycotts, marches, freedom riders, and sit ins that were peacefully conducted through the unified protest of civil disobedience.  These methods of civil disobedience gave the world images of African Americans being violently attacked by Whites and not violently responding to them in return.  These images touched the hearts and consciences of others, gaining national and global support eventually leading to America ’s abandonment of blatant and legalized forms of Jim Crow racism.  While all ethnic groups possess the ability to bring about real change within the United States , only African Americans have produced such change. During the 1960’s African Americans confronted white racism on every front through militant means, non violent civil disobedience strategies, and legal arguments within America’s highest courts. These strategies resulted in the enactment of many civil right laws that improved the lives of all minorities. The degree of unity and organization demonstrated among African Americans then was extraordinary and arguably remains unrivaled by any other group in the history of America . If the Willie Lynch narratives were true how was it possible that so many African Americans were able to come together in such an unprecedented manner?

The Willie Lynch narratives also claims that Blacks are now program to never support each other. If this were true how did President Obama acquire 95% of the Black vote? Millions of African Americans stood in line for several hours to vote for him. Moreover, if the Willie Lynch story is true how is it that million of Black men showed up –at their own expenses –in Washington D.C. to support and participate in the Million Man March?  Furthermore, how likely is it that a British slave owner from the West Indies that had no formal training in psychology could develop a full proof program that could capture the minds of millions of Black people for hundreds of years? This is totally B.S.!  

 The Willie Lynch narrative is merely a propaganda literature used to psychologically demoralize African Americans. It does so by convincing African Americans to take the position that their core problem lies totally with themselves. It turns their collective attentions away from seeing the still present threat of white racism and instead turns them in ward against themselves. It also causes many African Americans to believe that their condition is hopeless and gives them a legitimate reason why they shouldn’t trust each other.

This method of using propaganda to turn a targeted population against itself is a very common practice of the CIA and FBI. In fact a common saying among these governmental agents is that” if you want to defeat a population you must first turn them against themselves”…”you accomplish this by convincing them that their problem is an internalized one”. These offices used this same technique against the original Black panthers during the 1960’s thru 70’s.  It is practice commonly used by the U.S. Governments intelligent offices.   

 

Surely these white manipulations experts are elated when ever they see or hear  Black leader sharing the story of the Willie lynch narratives to a large Black audience. This pleases them because this story meets their goals of taking blacks attentions away from them [whites] and turning it against each other. This actually then meets the goals of the fictional Willie lynch story because it now gives Blacks a legitimate reason why they shouldn’t trust each other. Once inundated by the U.S. media’s deplorable negative depictions of them this then confirms it within the minds of many African Americans that the Willie Lynch narratives  is true. Black people’s own negative interactions with other Blacks also confirmed it within their hearts and minds that the story is true. It is however not.  

 

Black people wake up! Our liberation from despair is dependent upon it. The Willie Lynch story is a part of a massive covert government deplored mass manipulation scheme. A psychological manipulation scheme deliberately designed to convince African American that their problem lies totally with themselves. This is a classic text book mass manipulation program. It is deliberately designed to demoralize African Americans and turn them away from realizing the present danger of white racism and instead turns their focus in ward against themselves.  Black people wake up! Our liberation from despair is dependent upon it. The white elites are defending their position of white dominance and control by turning Black people against each other.

THE BLACK MATRIX IS REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

To learn more please visit www.divineBlacktruth.org 

 

 

The US government’s intelligence divisions have developed advances in the studies of behavioral psychology that have given them much more control over its population. It initially used these advancements to develop psychological warfare programs used to manipulate foreign populations, but it was eventually decided that this same method of psychological warfare could be used domestically as a tool to manipulate public opinion.
Today to control and produce uniformity among the masses, the U.S. government disseminates propaganda domestically among its own citizens. The main sources that it uses to spread its propaganda are the Press, the Cinema, Education and the Radio. These four sources abilities to manipulate and control the masses are over-whelming. The great majority of people derive their ideas and perceptions, from these sources.  Most of the things that we believe we do so because we have heard them affirm through these sources; We do not remember how or why they were affirmed, and are therefore unable to be critical even when the affirmation was not backed by any evidence whatsoever. This situation gives those who control the media, the inherent ability to define, manipulate and control targeted groups as they see fit. The U.S. Government has an extensive history of conducting planned campaigns of extensive strategic psychological operations through the national media to domestically direct the perceptions and climate of the nation towards its governmental objectives. Information given through the media can greatly influence every facet of our lives. When these propaganda programs are directed at particular targeted groups they can be effectively used as psychological manipulation tools.  Through the noted media sources propaganda may be used to adversely manipulate and shapes the minds and collective perceptions of targeted groups. By inundating targeted groups with deliberately  misinformation about themselves these programs can produces, within the targeted group, the sort of character and beliefs that the controllers of the program wants them to believe. Upon their so formed personalities, docility will be imposed on the targeted group. Strategies against their oppressors will be discouraged in these groups of people, and insubordination will be psychologically purged out of them. This system can even make any serious criticism of the powers that be psychologically impossible. Even if all within the targeted groups are miserable, all will believe themselves at fault for their miseries, because these systems will be used to tell them that they are so.
To domestically defend its position of white dominance that was lessened by civil rights gains made by the unprecedented civil rights strategies of African Americans, the U.S. Government secretly employed this well proven mass manipulation programs against its entire Black population.
Although the U.S. Government publicly professes equality for all of its citizens, it secretly holds an unyielding commitment towards the preservation of its White dominance and control. Given that the nineteen sixties were a period of massive black rebellion that increasingly challenged its position of white dominance, this quite logically necessitated that the U.S. Government employ this same proven method of mass manipulation programs to domestically defend its position of white dominance against its Black population.
The present despairing state of Black America, as depicted through out America ’s national media outlets, is neither a baffling phenomenon, nor the result of some innate racial deficiency among Blacks, but rather instead the result of a governmentally deplored mass manipulation program.
The United States media’s distorted portrayal of Black America that amplifies the negative to the point that it distorts reality is more than just biased media reports. They function as media manipulation/ psychosocial programs. Its unrelenting daily assault on the Black psyche is deliberately designed to adversely manipulate and shape the minds, and collective perceptions of African Americans.
From their established positions of power, prominent white governmental elites monopolizes all given information deliberately disseminating only those that implies their white superiority over its Black population.  Its constant deplorable depiction of African Americans is being done to perpetuate and frames the myth of Whites’ racial, moral, intellectual and ethical superiority. This psychosocial program subjects African Americans to seeing only the fraudulent worst in themselves-- while implying that they admire, respect, and trust only Whites. It is designed to break down African Americans’ sense of racial unity and allegiance, mold the character of self-hatred, self-doubt, self-loath, and distrust among their group. This program conditions Black people to accept white dominance over their lives by misleading them to believe that they are now themselves their own worst enemies. Through totally white controlled media outlets African Americans are seeing themselves through lenses that have been deliberately assigned to them by white mass media manipulation experts. It is a covert and sophisticated method of control that ensures the continuance of America ’s White racial hierarchy by manipulating and shaping the minds and collective perceptions of its Black population. This insidious, yet very sophisticated mass manipulation program works by using the science of psychology. It prevails by affecting the unconscious mind through deception. Its weapon is the message that it carries and the way that it adversely affects the targeted recipient group in terms of their behavior. To the detriment of many African Americans this applied psychological conditioning program has been extremely effective. It has engendered within the psyche of many African Americans profound feelings of internalized self contempt that pulverizes Black unity and halts Black upward mobility.  It also totally detaches African Americans’ from their sense of power and reality.
And while many African Americans have successfully navigated through this psychologically mortifying mine field and have gone on to lead successful, productive lives, for far too many this immense devaluation can seem inescapable and tragically, over time, many begin to accept subconsciously and painfully the negative portrayals of themselves. Many also become discouraged by the acceptance that their society is also preconditioned to see the worst in them and that, therefore, if they were ever to gain acceptance, if it is to be won at all, that success would be hard won. This in turn manifests negative internalized psychological pain and distress within many African Americans that can take many forms. In fact, this mortifying psychosocial program is so fundamentally detrimental to the Black human condition and psyche that it may even affect the extent to which many African Americans realize their full human potential.
All African Americans have experienced the burden of this system of applied psychological conditioning, some more severely than others have.  This mass manipulation program is at the root of both the profound division and self hatred now afflicting so many Black Americans and is at the heart of internalized feelings of superiority that many whites possess.

WHEN AND HOW THIS BLACK MATRIX WAS IMPLEMENTED

It is surmised that this massive manipulation program was implemented in 1968, in the face of widespread violence that ensued after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   Dr. King’s brutal assassination amplified Black angry demonstrations and riots within the United States .  Such incidents were reported in more than 100 cities across the nation immediately following the assassination.  America ’s racially motivated brutality toward African Americans appeared to have reached its boiling point, creating much unrest and discord; and it increasingly challenged the stability of America ’s white statuesque.  These factors led U.S. Government agents to quickly reform their techniques of institutionalized racism.
The noted problems resulted in President Lyndon B Johnson ordering the formation of the Kerner Commission.  Its mission was to investigate and prescribe a cure or recommendations for the problem.  The Commission concluded that blatant White racism was the single aggravating factor for the collective problems. The Kerner report’s findings required that the U.S. Government abandon its open, blatant forms of racist systems used to defend its position of White dominance.  This abandonment of outdated tactics necessitated an implementation of an improved method for ensuring the continuance of white dominance and control.  Clearly its proven method of mass media psychological manipulation through media propaganda meets this need.

 

This new covert method of maintaining white dominance was a logical progressive choice because it provides America ’s white elites with a more socially acceptable means of ensuring the continuance of its White racial hierarchy. Unlike the blatantly brutal forms of racism used in the past, which Blacks were able to identify easily and therefore unify and form counter strategies, this modern system is more covertly deplored.
Not only does this psychosocial program manipulates the self perceptions of African Americans, it also creates a national climate that is insensitive to their plight —thus fostering a consensual national setting of where in which Blacks are more easily mistreated and suppressed. This psychosocial program meets this additional objective by changing the root problem of racism in America to be due to Black’s behavior rather than White’s proclivity for racism. This deliberately done to create a shift of victimization—in favor of whites-- that makes the nation and the entire world insensitive to the plight of African Americans, tranquilizes efforts on their behalf, lessens pressure for social change on their behalf and makes any serious criticism of White racism almost impossible today.
This program also produces false justifications for the legal system’s mistreatment of African Americans. Wherein they are disproportionately incarcerated, given stiffer sentences, and are more likely than other racial groups to be treated brutally, beaten, and fired upon by police officers while they are unarmed. These injustices now goes ignored because the perception has become that it’s all now justified.
When contempt of Blacks is made to appear to be justifiable, it is the most fiercest and effective type of racism because its witnesses, bystanders, and even world audiences will sit by idly allowing African Americans to be brutally mistreated disproportionately incarcerated under the belief that it is justified.] It also affects attitudes that when enacted through governmental policies, laws, and other legislation actions, serve to ensure that African Americans will not advance. Its effects are manifested in ideas, education, governmental policies, economic stratification, social segregation, housing markets, hiring and promotion practices, psychological issues, and minority access to a variety of social services and opportunity.
The objective of the United States government has always been to maintain its White dominance over its Black population, and clearly, this mass media psychological manipulation campaign meets this need—because it covertly manipulates the self perceptions of African Americans and creates a national climate that allows the government to consensually suppress the advancement of its African American population-thus maintaining its White racial dominance and control. In order for those who have been misled to begin to see “correctly”, they must have a clear, analytical understanding of the origin, strategies, mechanics, purpose and methods of the device that has blinded them in the first place. Therefore it is imperative that this email is forwarded –Please do!
“When the truth comes along and you know in your bones that it’s the truth yet you still refuse to accept and defend it you then really begin to die.” By Franklin Jones
 "I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action."  -- Malcolm X          Learn more at www.divineblacktruth.org

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