#G256* - A PRESCIENT WARNING FOR BRITAIN OR AN AUSTRIAN SPOOF?

#G256* - A PRESCIENT WARNING FOR BRITAIN OR AN AUSTRIAN SPOOF?

Subject: 1938 Austria

The author of this article lives in South Dakota and appears to be very active in attempting to maintain our freedom. I encourage everybody to read this article and pass it along. I see so many parallels in this country– are we going to sit by and watch it happen? Spread the word; also contact your congressional reps; vote them out if they don't do what they should. If you don't want to be bothered, then you're part of the problem! Google Kitty Werthmann and you will see articles and videos.

America truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away

by Kitty Werthmann

What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people - about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz , and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

We looked to our neighbour on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

Hitler Targets Education - Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles," and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun - no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Equal Rights Hits Home:

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child-care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

"Mercy Killing" Redefined:

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening.Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

The Final Steps - Gun Laws:

Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech.

Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.

After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, pre-teen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians.

I understand this to be an eye witness account.


"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs:
CLICK HERE

For More Information & Facts visit:
WEB SITES:
SilentMajority/
WelshAssembly
CatterpillarsAndButterflies
Greg's WordPress Blog

‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

~ for more Quotes & Facts:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/

############-\\\///-########### #
############= ~ = ############
###########(`~0~0~') ###########
--------oooO--------(_)-------Oooo---------
############Regards############
##########M r C H A D###########

Until we gain our liberty, restore our sovereignty, repatriate our democracy and reinstate our Justice system and our borders - defended by our Police and Military armed with sustainable and obtainable weaponry:
Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
Make your vote count
Write on YOUR ballot Paper
LEAVE THE EU

#G255* - NO BLACKS IN HAITI - AN ALL WHITE EVENT!!

#G255* - NO BLACKS IN HAITI - AN ALL WHITE EVENT!!

Haiti and the blacks!

by Loose Canon

24.01.2010 4:23:39 P

I hope black people will learn a lesson from the earthquake that hit Haiti.

If they don’t learn anything from it, then I throw up my hands in despair and give up.

Let’s start with a few basic facts.

Until the earthquake, I never knew there was a place called Haiti. I was taught geography at school but I cannot remember a time when the mistress told us about Haiti. It must have been one of those insignificant countries that we had no reason to know about.

I was fairly good at geography because I knew which country was on which continent. I also knew many capital cities. But as for Haiti I was clueless.

Now the whole world, including myself, knows about Haiti. I heard news of the earthquake on the radio. I wondered where Haiti was and what sort of people lived there.

Finally, when I switched on the television, I was informed that Haiti is an island out in the Caribbean. Television pictures revealed a place populated by black people.

From the non-stop television coverage of the earthquake, I got to learn about the history of Haiti. It was not a good history lesson. It would seem throughout its existence Haiti has suffered a series of natural calamities. In the process it has sunk even deeper into poverty and deprivation.

Like all places populated by black people, Haiti is poor. As I watched the television images, I felt very sorry for that forsaken place. Then I was hit by a thunderbolt.

I wondered what if there were no white people. You see, when the earthquake hit Haiti somebody had to come to its assistance. There had to be a rescue effort. The Haitians who survived of course did their fair bit by digging out their families from the collapsed ramshackle buildings.

But such was the scale of the devastation and the loss of human life that a bigger effort was needed. For that sort of work, you need heavy lifting gear and other sophisticated rescue equipment. I have been following the story of the earthquake keenly. I can attest to the fact that the first people to arrive with sniffer dogs were white crews from all over the world.

The aero planes that set off carrying water and food were from white countries. Not only that, the teams of volunteer doctors that I saw on television comprised white people from across the world. As the sniffer dogs went into action, the organized rescue teams that carried the stretchers were made up of white people.

It was announced that a mobile hospital was on the way. It was coming from a white country. For all intents and purposes in the aftermath of the earthquake, Haiti was literally swarming with white people. They had all arrived to save the poor blacks. And the locals were so happy to see them. Granted there were teams from the Orient such as the Chinese and Japanese. They too had quickly left their homes and families to go and assist the stricken people of Haiti.

It is obvious to everyone that this was a devastating earthquake and the work to repair Haiti and return it to a modicum of normalcy will take many years. Somebody had to commit funds to this effort. Most of the countries that have committed funds to aid the recovery are white. In fact, it would seem the whites are running the show in Haiti.

What is my point?

My point is that ever since Haiti was hit by the earthquake I have not seen any of my folks from Africa. Unless the television cameras deliberately ignored them, I never saw a rescue team from my motherland. Nor did I see any sniffer dogs from down here.

Heck, I never saw a single traditional doctor busy divining where to find people buried under the rubble.

Haiti is a land of black people. I would have expected the place to be swarming with black people helping their own. They were nowhere to be seen. I never saw any ships from black countries pulling into the harbour.

As the air traffic circled above the small airport, none of the planes was reported as coming from Africa. The blacks were nowhere to be found. They issued tepid statements of condolence to the people of Haiti and a few of the African countries donated small amounts of cash.

Granted that was better than nothing. But I must say I was disappointed. I was sad because the blacks did not behave as I had expected. You see, for far too long black countries have been insolent to the point of being abusive. They have a tendency of insulting the white man and telling him to keep out of their countries. In Fact, black people have the temerity to tell white people they can perfectly survive on their own.

So I had expected the black countries to be consistent and behave true to form. Why didn’t black countries tell white countries to stay away from Haiti because we were quite capable of leading the rescue effort? We should have insulted them as we often do at international forums.

There, our countries insult white countries and accuse them of imperialism and neo colonialism. I was extremely disappointed when our countries failed to accuse white people of practicing imperialism and neo colonialism by coming to rescue the blacks of Haiti.

We should have told them we have better sniffer dogs that have been taught only to rescue black people. We should have told their ships to stay away and their planes not to overfly Haiti because we were up to the job with our own ships and aeroplanes.

We should have brought in our traditional food instead of the strange rations the Haitians are not accustomed to.

I am so disappointed by the black leaders that I hope never to hear them again bleating about how bad white people are. The earthquake in Haiti was the most opportune time to show the whites, once and for all, that we don’t need them.

From now onwards, I want black leaders to shut up and never accuse ever white people of being bad. I am sick and tired of big words such as imperialism and neo colonialism which are unable to rescue victims of the earthquake.

I hope this is not the last earthquake that hits a black country. I want the next one to specifically hit the residence of Old Man in Harare. Then we will see if he will abuse the white crew coming to rescue him and Pretty Face!

To view the original article CLICK HERE

You May find Loose Canon's other articles in The Botswana Sunday Standard take a pragmatic if different stance such as his article 'Sorry Haiti' which you can read if you CLICK HERE
"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs:
CLICK HERE

For More Information & Facts visit:
WEB SITES:
SilentMajority/
WelshAssembly
CatterpillarsAndButterflies
Greg's WordPress Blog

‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

~ for more Quotes & Facts:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/

############-\\\///-########### #
############= ~ = ############
###########(`~0~0~') ###########
--------oooO--------(_)-------Oooo---------
############Regards############
##########M r C H A D###########

Until we gain our liberty, restore our sovereignty, repatriate our democracy and reinstate our Justice system and our borders - defended by our Police and Military armed with sustainable and obtainable weaponry:
Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
Make your vote count
Write on YOUR ballot Paper
LEAVE THE EU

#G254* -Margaret Thatcher: ' within the context of 20th Century Industrial Strife'.

#G254* -Margaret Thatcher: ' within the context of 20th Century Industrial Strife'.

 Thatcher:

'within the context of

20th Century Industrial Strife'.

By: Geoffrey Collier

To evaluate the significance of Thatcher in the matter of Industrial strife, it is necessary to understand the

situations from which it arose early in the 20th Century.

Every age is able to invoke an image of itself in our collective consciousness. The pre-1914 years, evoke images of long hot summers; boating on the river, blazers and boaters, a gentleness, each knowing their place within a social order founded on the rule of law, gentlemanly conduct, and the ubiquitous standards of cricket in all human affairs. All this was to end in the mud of Flanders, and an Old World was to be lost forever. Such imagery shouldn't be encouraged because it offends against that which we know to be true.

There was social disorder, violence, and industrial discord not equalled in any year since 1945. Let us look at the facts. In 1893, 30.4 million days were lost by strikes. Several subsequent years recorded 9-plus million 15.2 million in 1899, (the year the Boer War commenced) 1n 1912, 40.8. million strike days were recorded. The 30.4 mil, and the 40.8, million were never reached in any year over the past 65 years. The latter figure has not been anywhere approached in the post-1945 period. Many of those strikes, certainly not all, were protests against 'lockouts' by the employers to impose lower wages. 

Many of those strikers gravitated to the infant Labour Party. They had two MP' elected in 1900, 30, in 1906, 42, in 1910, 151, in 1924, and formed their first government in that year. Many, however, were solid Liberal supporters committed to laissez-faire. They argued that as the factors of manufacture included labour, capiltal, commodities and fixed assets (rent), it was wrong that market forces should be permitted to decide three of them, but not labour. The State should not employ their power against one group, while remaining aloof from the other three. It was seen as an arbitrary violation of laissez -faire.

Not only was there much industrail unrest, but women who were not seeking the vote, for they had been granted that subject to property qualifications in the 19c. What they now wanted was the right to exercise that vote in parliamentary elections: changing the basis to vote to residential qualifications was an appendage, but that would apply equally to men if granted. The government viewed with concern middleclass, educated women, seeking to advance their political aims by violence. Trade unionists, in the main, were against giving women the vote. They had a grievance with women already swelling the labour force at reduced wages. The Suffragettes already had too close a relationship with the Temperance Movement for many trade unionists: reducing the pay and closing the pubs was not likely to endear them to industrial male workers. Conservatives feared that granting them the vote would accelerate the rise of the Labour Party. Liberals, obviously, saw them as an immediate threat because the industial areas were their territory. Elements in the two major parties, who were concerned with the Empire, believed that governing the Moslem parts of that Empire would be made more difficult. Progressives like Joseph Chamberlain, were quite reactionary when it involved 'votes for women'.

What united different social classes was not always an economic interest, but a desire to be deemed respectable. That was the 'buzz word' of the time. Looking respectable, acting respectably, dressing respectably. Every home, however modest, tried to keep at least one room looking respectable. Millions of respectable people, each begging to be respected, were constantly under your feet. Thrift and sobriety were expressions of the same thing. What was undoubted was 'respectability' in sexual conduct. In the fifty years prior to WW1. the illegitimacy rate fell from 6 to 3%. To reinforce that evidence, births within nine months of marriage dropped by the same amount.

The serious social problems in those early years of the 20c were undeniable. The levels of health and literacy standards of those who volunteered for the Boer War was a matter of concern. Immediately after 1902 there was a range of social measures which was undertaken by the governments of that time. What would happen, they rhetorically asked, if we had to fight a major industrail European power? I wonder who they had in mind? Governments do little out of love; out of fear they will move mountains.

If you haven't already read it. 'The Strange Death of Liberal England' written by George Dangerfield; a young Oxford post-graduate, is well worth reading.

Hopefully that has given you a flavour of early 20thC. Britain. I trust that at least something was interesting, and will help to form a basis for understanding the subsequent years.

I wish to complete this posting when I have obtained some statistics which I need. I don't intend to spend much time on the inter-war years. While it is true that Industrial relations following 1945, never reached the level of violence; days lost due to strikes, and a dependency on the military to control and end strikes in the vital industries, as was deemed normal in the pre-1914 period; strikes,post-1945, nevertheless, were frequent, but their drama arranged for political opera, were less important. I believe, than is often presumed to be the case. How important or significant was Thatchers confrontation with the miners? I will give a couple of opinions in the next day or two. In 1954/55, 850 coal mines were operational in the UK. Even by the time Thatcher became Prime Minister, three quarters of them had ceased production. Her confrontation, I argue, was very much a final battle with a defunct Industry already in its death throes. That is not to deny that less than a decade earlier the mining industry had assumed a power of its earlier years. Under Heath, the role of mining in the vital economic survival of the country re-appeared over-night. Why did that happen, and why was it to continue its decline to virtual oblivion under Thatcher? It would be a mistake to attribute to mining the same economic importance in 1984, as existed in the early 1970's. Let us leave that for the time being.

( While it is true that strike number after 1945, nerver reached those of pre-1914. the highest strike numbers ever recorded were 1921. with 85.7. mil. and 1926, with 162.2. mil. The latter figure included the General Strike of that year. Germany was exporting coal free of charge, to fulfil her Reparations obligations demanded at Versailles. (1919).

The previous year 1925, Britain has returned to the Gold Standard at too high a rate, which caused further problems. This immediately affected the miners and that industry was in dire straits. Baldwin subsidised coal but that was too little to deal with the total problem. The Triple Alliance; coal, railways and dockers, held strikes, objecting to 'lock-outs' to force miners to accept a wage cut and agree to work longer hours. 'Not a penny off the pay, not a second on day', became the rallying cry. Eventually it resulted in a nine-day General Strike. Those economic problems were further exacerbated following the 1929, Wall Street,Crash. While a very interesting period of history for those who enjoy studying these things; it cannot be seen within post 1945 situation.)

I would now like to comment on the actual role of Thatcher in her alleged role as a deciisive factor in defeating militant trades unions. Possiblly the best starting place would be the election of Edward Heath in June 1970. until March 1974. He was not my favourite P.M. but even his worst enemy would have to admit that few post-war P.M's. were served a 'worse-hand' on being elected. Little existed which was in his favour, and he complicated the matter further by joining the Commn Market. We must remember that Heath was not alone; all his Cabinet were in agreement and that included Thatcher. Having borne the cost of decimalisation in 1971; prices like fuel and steel, for example had to be 'brought into line' with Europe. Fishing and farming quotas had to be agreed. In isolation these would have been a gigantic tasks but they had to co-exist with many other very serious problems involving the whole world.

Undeniably coal was to be significant in the premierships of both Heath and Thatcher, albeit for quite different reasons. What were the issues which produced those situations?

Historically, the NUM hadf been dominated by left-wing and often avowed communists, but why did that assume importance in the early 1970s' the when for the past quarter of a century, the story had been one of contraction in production (221.6 (1954) to 1 70 million tons (1968). the labour force from 695 000, to 391.9. over the same period, and collieries, likewise, from 850 to to 376. That process commenced after 1945 and continued until we have virtually no coal industry left. The political composition of the NEC Executive had been virtually irrelevant until 1971. What happened to change that situation?

In one word the answer was OIL. From the creation of GATT (General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade) in 1947 until 1967, world oil prices had been very stable, and the commodity itself remained plentiful despite numerous global political upheavels. In the late 1950s' it was trading at less than 90 cents a barrel. Furthermore, the cost was very predictable, increasing by only some 2% annually. It could be said that no other commodity was increasing by less, while having the same vital importance. Following the 1967 Six Day War, the Arabs decided that all would change. Those Western countries which had supported Israel, or Egypt would suffer a reduction in their oil quotas. This was to favour the Asian markets, Japan in particular: oil was to be, if not war, at least diplomacy by other means. By the time Heath came to power, the post war-world was operating under new rules. In 1971, the USA left the Gold Exchange Standard, which effectively ended the 1944, Bretton Woods Agreement on which the western world had been founded.

Not to be outdone by external problems, Britain was able to make a few of her own. Confident that oil would always be 'on hand', not only had we reduced the coal industry, but also our coal reserves. In 1970, we had just 14 weeks supply at the 'pit heads; with an estimated 2-300, years reserves below ground, and the largest anthracite outside of Pennsylvania, during a very serious crisis just 14 weeks supply was the best that we could manage. To add to our excitement, there was a Cold War going on at the time, and the Military Chiefs told Heath that half of what we had, could not be used, because that was a Strategic Reserve to which they laid claim. That situation dictated not only the miners would win; they could demand what they liked and the government had to make full concessions. The power that the NUM had, had been handed to them by courtesy of H.M. Government. The miners were operating in a monopoly position, and all their Aces had been handed to them by every previous prime minsters since 1954. No sense can be made of that situation under Heath without identifying the global oil crisis, which produced it, and the absence of coal stocks which handed the power to the miners.

Immeditaely two things happened; the lesson was learned and the fuel stocks were raised over the following years to provide for a two-year crisis. In the short term all the blame was heaped onto the hard-left. This was foolish because it made them seem more important than they really were. The hard-left had not able to prevent anything happening to the coal industry over the previous decades, which had been the will of the existing governemnt. Under Heath, although he shouldn't take sole blame, the hard-left could hardly believe their luck. It was like a burglar being handed the keys to Fort Knox.

In 1974, Heath called a G.E. the only second time in the 20c that two GE's happened in the same year: 1910 being the previous one. Not before, however, he had handed us all over to the 'EU' for their safe keeping.

In 1979, Thatcher became the first woman PM. We were now a consumer and not a prodcer nation. It was the service industries, and not the manufacturing ones, which were producing employment. The Industrial trade unions which came into prominance in the last couple of decades of the 19c were either on the wane, or merging to ensure

some kind of survival. The new unions are white-collar and, largely, female dominated: managers, technical staff, banks, NALGO. teachers, etc etc. In 1984, the NUM came out of retirement for their final fight. Thatcher announced further pit closure and another 20,000 miners to be made redundant. Arthur Scargill, despite cautionary advice, rose to the challenge. His former union colleague Brother Gormley, was now safely in the House of Lords: former card-carrying members of the Communist Party had frequently ended their days in the Other Place. Watching those individuals, reluctantly accepting their peerages on behalf of the working-class, without a flicker of a smile, was bemusing but reassuring that this was still England. If only the Tsar could have bought-over Lenin so cheaply, history would have been so different.

With an indefinite stock of coal, and more if needed from Poland and Germany, the NUM responded to their final encore. Seeing them as the sole representaive of all those 19c union would be a more accurate description: this was the old world being replaced by the new one. Any of the existing industrial unions could have played the part; but the NUM had won the audition; justice had to be done. The long strike started to end in November 1984. The courts sequestered all the NUM funds and a receiver appointed to take control of them. All this was done by December; just in time for the genuine pantomime season. Not only was coal now in abundance, oil was plentiful also. The de-indutrialisation of the west, plus alternative sources of energy, had radically changed the situation. North Sea oil which had commenced producing significant amounts in the middle 1970's was now producing it in abundance; exporting oil was virtually keeping us afloat. To ilustrate the change statistically, Saudi Arabia which reported an oil account of $133.2 billion in 1981, was down to $20.billion by 1986. Similar falls were record in other oil producing States.

Thatcher came to power, despite many problems, in far better circumstances than Heath. She was the first PM to benefit from oil revenues. She also decided to lower the P.S.B.R. (Public Sector Borrowing Requirement) by selling-off the public utilities and other state assets which had taken 150, years to acquire. Irrespective of how better they could have been operated, they were a permanent collateral for the National Debt. Many have since privatisation been bought by foreign companies, which themselves are their respective governments' subsidaries. Most unwise in my opinion. What net benefit to the nation actually remains?

Thatchers confrontation with moribund unions will not be her permanent legacy. The lasting effect for which Thatcher will be remembered, I predict, will be the Falklands War. That was the her only policy which had beneficial substance. Previous governments, and even Thatcher's when first elected, had no real policy for those Islands. The Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service were reading the 'papers' and following events like the rest of us. Thatcher played it by instinct, and those instincts were right. The USA would have been quite happy to have seen the Argentinians win. Governed from Buenos Aires they would have acted as collateral for an ever increasing, and as it transpired, unsupportable American loans. Those barren islands are known to have gigantic oil reserves; in addition there are fish in abundance. Having given vitually all our fish to the EU, and oil is in danger of being designated an EU Common Resource. Supporting the Falklands makes eminent sense for the United Kingdom.

I'm sure that few will agree with all of this; but much, I believe, is substantially correct.

Geoffrey Collier.

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs:
CLICK HERE

For More Information & Facts visit:
WEB SITES:
SilentMajority/
WelshAssembly
CatterpillarsAndButterflies
Greg's WordPress Blog

‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

~ for more Quotes & Facts:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/

############-\\\///-########### #
############= ~ = ############
###########(`~0~0~') ###########
--------oooO--------(_)-------Oooo---------
############Regards############
##########M r C H A D###########

Until we gain our liberty, restore our sovereignty, repatriate our democracy and reinstate our Justice system and our borders - defended by our Police and Military armed with sustainable and obtainable weaponry:
Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
Make your vote count
Write on YOUR ballot Paper
LEAVE THE EU

#G253* - The GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

#G253* - The GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

Hi,

Make of this what you will:




"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs:
CLICK HERE

For More Information & Facts visit:
WEB SITES:
SilentMajority/
WelshAssembly
CatterpillarsAndButterflies
Greg's WordPress Blog

‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

~ for more Quotes & Facts:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/

############-\\\///-########### #
############= ~ = ############
###########(`~0~0~') ###########
--------oooO--------(_)-------Oooo---------
############Regards############
##########M r C H A D###########

Until we gain our liberty, restore our sovereignty, repatriate our democracy and reinstate our Justice system and our borders - defended by our Police and Military armed with sustainable and obtainable weaponry:
Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
Make your vote count
Write on YOUR ballot Paper
LEAVE THE EU

#G252* - THERMODYNAMIC VARIANTS OF NIRVANNA & HADES

#G252* - THERMODYNAMIC VARIANTS OF NIRVANNA & HADES

I understand that Professor Robinson, at a certain Mid West University, gave his entire Physics class a
mid-term Bonus Question:

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat)
or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we
need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate
at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a
soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different
Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state
that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.
Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not
belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of
Souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because
Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell
to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately
as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until
all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes
over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Professor Robinson's during my Freshman
year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you!"

It is wise to remember that for the whole of the Freshman year I was sleeping with their daughter and it was only last night that I slept with her Mother, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Mrs. Robinson kept shouting
"Oh my God."

That provenance was clearly demonstrated I did not get an 'A' grade - whether this is a provenance that there is in fact no God or that God is not just is more difficult to ascertain but it is clear that minor interferrences like a professor with a shot gun can be an insurmountable barrier to truth!

I understand Anne Bancroft is still auditioning on behalf of her husband and as for her daughter she is in later years 'taking' adult classes.

Further I understand that for some background of the origins of this completely untrue exposition Snopes can assist if you CLICK HERE

I understand a Northern Irish political variant is well under way!

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs:
CLICK HERE

For More Information & Facts visit:
WEB SITES:
SilentMajority/
WelshAssembly
CatterpillarsAndButterflies
Greg's WordPress Blog

‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

~ for more Quotes & Facts:
http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/

############-\\\///-########### #
############= ~ = ############
###########(`~0~0~') ###########
--------oooO--------(_)-------Oooo---------
############Regards############
##########M r C H A D###########

Until we gain our liberty, restore our sovereignty, repatriate our democracy and reinstate our Justice system and our borders - defended by our Police and Military armed with sustainable and obtainable weaponry:
Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
Make your vote count
Write on YOUR ballot Paper
LEAVE THE EU

#G251* - Get Bill Collectors Off Your Back. Just Sues Them!

#G251* - Get Bill Collectors Off Your Back. Just Sues Them!

Better Off Deadbeat: Craig Cunningham Has a Simple Solution for Getting Bill Collectors Off His Back. He Sues Them!

By Kimberly Thorpe

Published on January 20, 2010 at 1:08pm – Dallas Observer

Craig Cunningham says no one offered hurting small-time investors like him a government bailout when he landed deep in debt. That made him mad, so he decided to get even.

Steven Katz, author of a book on fighting bill collectors, says the idea that consumers have a moral obligation to pay their creditors is a myth created by lenders.

Unlike his neighbors' homes, Craig Cunningham's house in Northeast Dallas looks abandoned. The grass is dried out. The concrete slab under the front door is lopsided and cracked. The green exterior has faded to a toxic-looking shade. Yellow Pages pile up near the front door, and the black mailbox is stuffed full. Maybe the home has been foreclosed on. That wouldn't be a surprise in this economy.

But no, that's not the case. Inside, the 29-year-old Cunningham hunkers his 6-foot-2-inch frame on a dumpy couch. His heavy arms extend from his sides, palms up, so two Chihuahuas, Angel and Chuay, can curl under them. Although it's 10 a.m. on a weekday, he's wearing slippers.

He leans forward to lift some paperwork out of a plastic tub on the coffee table. The phone rings, and he answers with a soft voice. It's just a friend, and soon he hangs up. He's waiting for a particular type of phone call—one from a representative of a debt collection agency or a credit card company, whom he'll try to ensnare like a Venus fly trap. It's not unlikely that Cunningham's next call will be from a bill collector, since he's between jobs—except for being in the Army Reserve—and owes $100,000 in debts.

While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector's call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham's favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it's a profitable side job.

Call it ironic, but the only house on the block that appears to be the foreclosed end to some sad financial story is in fact the home of one of the debt collection industry's emerging and persistent threats. Cunningham calls himself a private attorney general—someone who files private lawsuits in the public interest. Debt collectors call him a credit terrorist.

Patrick Lunsford, who edits InsideARM, a trade magazine for the debt collection industry, knows the term. "There is a sub-group out there that does actually advise people on how to bait [collectors]," he says. "That's something that really gets under the skin of, well, obviously, collectors."

Cunningham beats the debt collectors at their own game. He turns their money-making practice into a financial liability. He is a regular guy who has become a radical enemy of the banking system.

In 2005, two foreclosures pushed Cunningham near financial ruin. Like many Americans, he fell enchanted by the siren's song of easy credit and borrowed more than $100,000 to bet on risky,

high-yielding investments, such as stock in the now vilified sub-prime mortgage industry. Then, while stationed with the Army in El Paso, he attempted to become an absentee landlord and got zero-percent-down sub-prime mortgages to buy low-income four-plexes in Houston and Dallas. With the interest earned on his high-yielding stocks he was paying back his low-interest credit card debt; now, he was using the mortgages to borrow even more.

Then, the bottom fell out. Investors like Cunningham fell the fastest. He sold his Houston homes, but his Dallas properties were foreclosed on. The collection calls started. He was running scared.

Desperation took him online in a search of anything that could save him from his own $100,000 in bad choices. One afternoon while sitting on his couch in his El Paso home, he found a way to fight back. He stumbled across hundreds of other distraught consumers like himself on credit message boards, each with some different version of the same story of bad choices and greed. And, he found a new way to deal with his debt: He could hide behind the law.

His new online friends pointed him to a number of federal and state statutes protecting consumers like him against overly aggressive and abusive debt collectors and a credit system stacked against the little guy. If you knew your rights, he learned on the message boards, you were very likely to catch a collector violating them. Then you could sue.

Cunningham armed himself with this knowledge, and the next time a debt collector called, the trap was set.

It didn't take long. Cunningham had canceled a home alarm service with ADT Security after two months, and the company had billed him a $450 early termination fee, which he disputed. ADT sent his account to Equinox Financial Management Solutions, a third-party debt collector. The collection agency sent him a letter asking that he call back immediately. He dialed, armed with a voice recorder.

"Can you garnish my wages if I don't pay?" he asked.

"Yes," the voice on the other end of the line said.

"Can you put a lien on my house?"

"Yes."

Wrong answers. Turns out, Texas consumer rights laws are some of the most consumer-friendly in the country. And according to a federal consumer protection law, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), debt collectors are prohibited from threatening legal action that would violate state laws. In this case, garnishing wages or putting a lien on Cunningham's house would violate the Texas Debt Collection Act.

Cunningham knew he had a good enough case to file a lawsuit against the debt collection agency, and for his first lawsuit, he decided to enlist the help of a lawyer. Two months later, he had a check in his hand for $1,000.

“It’s their system. I didn’t make the rules. I’m just learning what the rules are.”

"It's like discovering fire," says Cunningham, thumbing through the stack of lawsuit papers on his table.

He immediately started devouring as much information as he could about the three chief federal laws that protect consumers from collectors: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). In the next four years, Cunningham accused debt collectors of misrepresenting the amount he owed (an FDCPA violation that entitles a consumer to collect up to $1,000).

He sued over prerecorded and auto-dialed calls to his cellular phone (a TCPA violation worth up to $1,500 per call). He also filed complaints that agencies failed to investigate his claims that his credit file contains inaccurate information, a breach of the Fair Credit Reporting Act worth up to $1,000 per violation. All told, he filed 15 other lawsuits in federal court without the help of a lawyer, earning himself settlements totaling more than $20,000.

"Most people hear about the abuses that debt collectors do, but you just didn't hear about the second part of it, where people sue the collectors," he says.

Cunningham is one of thousands of hounded debtors who are trading in their paralyzing fears and learning to stand up for themselves. Americans as a whole owe some $2.5 trillion in consumer debt, according to the Federal Reserve, a figure that doesn't include home mortgages. Nearly four in five Americans have credit cards and half carry a balance, according to the Obama administration.

In 2008, the Federal Trade Commission, the nation's consumer protection agency, received more than 78,000 complaints against third-party debt collectors, 8,000 more than in 2007, and early numbers for 2009 indicate the growth will double. While the FTC gets the bulk of consumer complaints, today more consumers are fighting back with their own lawsuits than ever before. In 2009, nearly 10,000 cases under FDCPA, FCRA or TCPA statutes were filed around the country, mostly in federal courts. That's a 50 percent increase from 2008, and an 83 percent growth from 2007.

A cottage industry has sprung up to counter the flood of cases. Two new companies now offer the credit and collection industries databases of repeat plaintiffs filing under the FDCPA. The companies, FDCPA Case Listing Service LLC and WebRecon, offer something akin to a background check for collection agencies. For example, if an agency received a delinquent account belonging to Cunningham, it could run his name through a database and learn he's a repeat litigant; then the agency could either close his account or sue him first.

Back in his dim living room, Cunningham returns to the pile of paperwork on the table. His soft voice gets bolder when he recounts his war stories with the collection industry. His 15 lawsuits include one filed in federal court against Alliance One, a third-party agency collecting on behalf of Verizon.

Alliance One added a $50 collection fee and misrepresented the debt he owed Verizon, he says, which is an unfair practice under FDCPA. Another lawsuit was over the collection of an outstanding bill from Time Warner. The collection agency, Advantage Cable Services, failed to post a surety bond required by the state of Texas in order to collect debts here. Plus, after telling them to stop calling his cellular phone with automated calls, they continued, so he sued and won around $3,500, the industry standard for many consumer rights violations. (Collection agencies frequently settle such lawsuits because that's cheaper than taking them to trial.)

His debt with Time Warner hasn't gone away, and he's in the middle of his biggest FDCPA violation lawsuit ever, demanding upward of $200,000 from the current collection agency.

Debtors, either because they feel morally obligated or because they don't know their options, get backed into a corner by their creditors and believe they have to repay their debts, he says. Not so with Cunningham. "I don't have to do anything but stay black and die," he says, a small, smug smile on his lips.

Cunningham wasn't always such a stickler.

As a kid growing up in Detroit, family time meant gathering around the living room table to play stock market board games. His mother was a registered nurse, and his father worked for 25 years as a computer engineer for Ford. When he was 15, Cunningham met his "first millionaire," as he tells it, still wide-eyed. This high school teacher grew wealthy off the then-booming real estate market of the mid-'90s. "He accomplished it through business and not sports," he says. "For me, that was where the light first went on."

Cunningham, a high school athlete, dreamed of making millions playing pro football, but he was accepted to U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where a degree would give him a more grounded back-up plan. The economics major also sought out an additional perk unique to West Point: stipends and absurdly low-interest loans. In his junior year, in 2002, Cunningham took out the maximum amount for a loan and dumped the $25,000 into the booming stock market.

"Everybody was making easy money," he recalls, and the young cadet wanted a shot at making even more. He spent hours on his dial-up Internet connection learning money-making strategies that capitalized on the cheap and easy credit of the times. By Googling "credit help" or "increase credit score," he landed on message boards on which posters shared how-to tips to boost his credit score and dupe major banks and credit card companies into giving him cards with credit limits around $10,000 and $20,000 at low interest rates.

He'd borrow from the cards, invest the money in stocks with payouts higher than his interest rate and pay back the debt with the profits.

Cunningham learned on these boards that the credit card companies, banks and the credit bureaus worked together to determine not only your credit score but how much credit to extend you and at what interest rate.

Cunningham had no problem spending all the money anyone would loan him, but he needed to pay off some of the accrued debt to maintain his credit score. He knew his military loan did not get reported to any of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. So, by paying off his credit card debt with money from that loan, he artificially maintained his credit score and continued to be approved for high credit. Sounds fishy, but Cunningham didn't feel that he was taking advantage of the system, at least not anymore than the next guy or the brokers and bankers at the time.

"It's their system," says Cunningham. "I didn't make the rules. I'm just learning what the rules are."

Cunningham now had more than $100,000 in credit card debt, but he had a lot of money coming in as well. He was a big-time shareholder in one sub-prime lending company, Nova Star Financial, and for three years in a row he saw dividends as high as 20 percent for his investment.

Any money he was making went right back into the system. Those good times, of course, wouldn't last.

Not wanting to miss out on the easy money in real estate buying and selling, he bought two low-income four-plexes in Dallas in 2005, using a mortgage company for the loan. He put no money down, but the interest rate was high.

Then he got burned. The four-plex's seller wasn't completely honest about the occupancy of the properties. Cunningham's scheme disintegrated within six months. He was scrambling to make the mortgage payments at the high interest rate without any tenants. He knew it wouldn't be long until he couldn't make the payments and he would be foreclosed on. Somehow, he didn't despair.

"I remember one day I just got pissed," Cunningham says. "I'm running around trying to keep the ship afloat, and the banks don't care."

Cunningham had called the bank as well as the FBI to report the mortgage fraud committed by the seller, but nobody pursued his case.

"The regulators, the FBI, they don't care. So, why should I care?" he says.

The Dallas properties were foreclosed, and his obsessively maintained credit score seemed wrecked. Cunningham returned to the online credit board for help. This time, however, he wasn't looking to add an artificial shine to his credit score, he was looking for a way out of the ashes. Cunningham discovered a whole other world of consumer-generated knowledge. This was a rogue group of disgruntled consumers who were trying to save themselves and their credit by filing lawsuits when the collection industry screwed up the mechanics of debt reporting and collection. What he found was an instrument not of repair or reconciliation, but of vengeance.

"All the conventional wisdom, all the right people say, 'Pay your bills on time and work with your creditors,'" Cunningham says, recalling his thoughts at the time. Yet he had discovered a new set of people who posted their credit reports on line and their successful lawsuits, showing how much money they won in settlements that simultaneously removed a bad debt from their credit report.

"I said, 'Maybe there's another way.' Again, just revolution. I never even thought about it."

The knowledge on these boards originated from consumers testing the boundaries of the credit system through their own experiences. The nature of this information, from the beginning, was a mixture of anarchistic tendencies, vengeance and greed. Now the wisdom of the boards has been distilled into an e-book published in January. Debtsmanship was written by Steven Katz, a former New York debt collector turned consumer advocate, who now lives in Phoenix. In 2005, Katz founded a message board called "Debtorboards," with the slogan "Sue your creditor and win!"

Katz doesn't believe that people are morally obligated to pay back their debts. That notion was invented by debt collectors as a way to beat people into submission, he says. "Bill collectors would love for you to send them a check and then explain to your kids because you have the moral obligation to pay your debt they're not eating this week," he says. "But they don't see the moral obligation to feed your children or yourself.

"People are brainwashed to think that paying a credit card is more important than paying for the necessities of life," Katz says. "If you're in a position where you have to make a choice, my argument is food, clothing and shelter come first... Nobody ever went to hell for not paying a debt."

"Fight back" is the take-away message from a visit to Debtorboards, which is intended to help consumers who wish to file lawsuits without the help of lawyers. Debtorboards outlines steps consumers can take to deal with bothersome debt collectors. For example, if a debt collector is only bothering you, you could send them a letter or sue them. However, if you're so far in debt that you see no way out but bankruptcy, then you can check out the board's "frustrating the skip tracer" technique. There, you'll find tips on how to run and hide from a collector.

Another Debtorboards user is 29-year-old Daniel Smith, who lives with his fiancé outside of Seattle, Washington. Early in 2009, he tried to obtain financing for a home, but was turned down by Bank of America. He soon discovered that an old girlfriend had put his name on her bank account before she fell into massive debt. He wrote angry letters to the bank, but nothing changed.

He sat down at his computer and typed in "Bank of America" and "Fair Debt Collection Act" and soon landed on Debtorboards. "I spent hours upon hours upon hours on there," Smith says.

"The big epiphany is I'm a little guy but I've got a voice and I'm going to use it."

Like Cunningham, Smith now armed himself with voice recorders and began keeping meticulous financial files. His file cabinet grew quickly.

"I mean there's nothing I don't document now and that's probably the best thing a consumer can do."

Smith is an Army vet, an EMT, and a project manager for a construction company. He doesn't advocate stiffing the original creditor on the bill. In fact, Smith will often pay the original creditor, but still go after the violating collection agency.

"The standard line from collection agencies is always, 'Oh, gosh, no, we never violate.'...For the most part, the reality of it is you can sit down and find violation in almost every collection attempt made in America."

Cunningham insists that the court system ignores lawsuits over frivolous violations. His cases, he claims, are built on true screw-ups. Cunningham won his first lawsuit, after all, after a collection company threatened to garnish his wages and put a lien on his house, both violations of Texas law.

Although that first lawsuit was filed with the help of a consumer rights lawyer, Cunningham has been filing on his own since then. Once he saw that the entire amount of the original settlement was upward of $3,500, and he only got $1,000, while his lawyer pocketed the rest as payment, Cunningham was motivated to go pro se.

"I remember seeing the $3,500 and thinking shoot that's a lot of money, and I'm only getting a grand, so maybe I can do a little better than that if there is a next time."

Cunningham made sure there'd be a next time. A company was trying to collect on an outstanding utility bill. They threatened to send this debt to the credit bureaus and wreck his credit score. He ended up paying the utility company the money he owed, but sued the collection company because of how they threatened and harassed him for the debt. The case earned him close to $3,500.

He was fast becoming one of the most hated debtors in Dallas, and part of an especially loathed minority of debtors in the country.

Cunningham returned to Texas from a year of active duty with the Army in late 2007, and moved to Dallas. He continued filing lawsuits against debt collection agencies, and he became ever more active on the message boards, holding long conversations about the state of the country with his online pals. In the meantime, he noticed that Debtorboards founder Steven Katz had created a new thread titled "The list you want to be on."

Here, Katz reported that a new company had appeared that was dedicated to aiding collection companies scrub their database against repeat FDCPA litigants, like Cunningham.

Cunningham toyed with the idea of suing them. After all, he thought, if they were working with the collection industry and the credit bureaus (FDCPA Case Listing Service partnered with TransUnion in 2009), then the companies sounded like credit reporting agencies to Cunningham, which would mean they would have to abide by certain credit reporting laws. Cunningham wrote to FDCPA Case Listing Service asking for a copy of his credit report (by law, a credit reporting agency must provide a consumer report if asked for one).

Instead of a report, however, Cunningham found a lawsuit against him in his mailbox filed in May 2008 in Atlanta federal court.

It alleged: "The defendant subscribes to and makes postings to a Web site in which consumers share information and promote litigation against the collection industry...The defendant has now conspired with others on the internet to incite civil litigation against plaintiff for the exclusive purpose of extorting money from the plaintiff."

FDCPA Case Listing Service asked the court to declare that they are not a consumer reporting agency and not subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. To Cunningham, this was a clear attempt to silence him. Cunningham filed a motion to dismiss the case. For one thing, filing the suit in Atlanta was improper venue, Cunningham wrote. They should have sued him in Texas. Furthermore, since Cunningham hadn't actually sued the company, the company had no valid reason to sue him. The court sided with Cunningham.

WebRecon offers a similar but expanded service to FDCPA Case Listing Service. Rather than only track FDCPA cases, WebRecon makes an effort to track FCRA, TCPA, and state and local cases, as well. WebRecon is headed by Jack Gordon out of Michigan. Gordon ran his own third-party collection agency for years until a spate of FDCPA lawsuits in 2008 forced him out of business. He is familiar with Cunningham's type.

"This is definitely, if I can use a really strong word, a cesspool," Gordon says. "The overwhelming majority of these suits are not pro se. Now when you're focusing exclusively on pro se, I think you're getting into a little bit of a different area. I've spent time personally on some of the Web sites that a lot of pro se litigants frequent...I would have to say they are far more radicalized element of society, and there's certainly I think reason for concern.

"You're dealing with somebody who's looking for an opportunity. They revel in either getting opportunities or making opportunities to try out everything they're learning online. That's hardly an exaggeration," he says, laughing. "It's really an experience spending time there!"

Gordon may have a personal vendetta against Cunningham types, but so do others who represent the collection industry.

ACA International is the largest trade group representing third-party debt collection agencies. Tom Morgan is the Texas executive director for ACA International and he believes that FDCPA lawsuits will continue to rise as more and more people in this economy can't pay their debts. He views the agencies as a kind of indirect victim in the rising tide of consumer fury and desperation.

"While our members do get filed on from time to time, the FDCPA is so highly technical there are quote, technical, violations that can occur," Morgan says. "You know, somebody makes a mistake. But there's no intent, OK, to defraud people or to violate the law.

"Usually it's settled because the agency says, Uh, we didn't intend to do that. Our collector said the wrong thing and we fess up and say, 'I didn't mean to do it but I did it...

"And this is where some of our members feel aggrieved in that because there's a hyper-technical opportunity for a plaintiff's attorney to come in, it is cheaper to settle than to fight it. And sometimes they'd really like to fight it because they don't believe they are guilty, but it's so costly, so they settle it."

Thomas Stockton is on the executive committee of ACA International and also the founder and chief executive of a local collection agency, CMI. (Cunningham is in the midst of an ongoing legal dispute with CMI, which picked up his outstanding Time Warner debt.)

"In my opinion there are two reasons why there are more suits being filed today," Stockton says. "You've got the Internet sites...And, it's easy to file suit. You can do it on your own. You don't have to have an attorney."

Stockton says, however, that the better question is how many of the suits are successful.

The answer depends on how you define success. Debt collectors point to all the settlements they are forced to make because it's cheaper than fighting a frivolous suit. To Cunningham and other pro se litigants, any payment is a victory.

"Does if make sense to spend $10,000 to win this suit or pay the litigant $500 to settle?" says Stockton. "Depending on the situation, it becomes a business decision at some point."

Cunningham filed his lawsuit against Credit Management, L.P. (CMI) in August 2009, claiming violations in the amount of around $200,000—by far his gutsiest lawsuit yet. The original bill for Time Warner was for $79.84 back while he was living in El Paso. Cunningham admits he may have missed the last payment for the Time Warner bill. Time Warner, rather than validate the bill, sent his account to a collection agency. That was ACS, which Cunningham sued for violating his Texas rights, as well as federal law. ACS closed his account, but the debt wasn't forgiven. Instead, CMI picked it up.

CMI started calling Cunningham's cell phone with an auto-dialer, leaving prerecorded messages to please call them immediately regarding an outstanding bill. Cunningham told them to stop calling his cell phone on the auto-dialer, but they continued, each call a violation of TCPA. As Cunningham disputed the bill, CMI by law is also expected to cease collection efforts. So every call was another violation of FDCPA. Plus, to this day, CMI has not provided Cunningham with anything from Time Warner, he says, either a bill or a letter, verifying that he in fact owes anything, another violation of the law. "I don't really know if I owe it," Cunningham says. "If I do, send me a bill. If they don't want to send me a bill, I don't think I need to pay 'em."

CMI has countersued Cunningham, and even asked the court for a protective order from Cunningham: "Plaintiff Craig Cunningham (herein "Plaintiff") has filed suit against a business, Credit Management, LP (herein "CMI"), and twenty-seven (27) of its employees in their individual capacities," reads the motion for a protective order filed in Northern District of Texas in December 2009. "Defendants move for a protective order to protect Defendants from the annoyance, oppression, undue burden and expense of objecting and responding to improper, repetitive and irrelevant discovery requests."

In December, Cunningham was called in for a six-hour deposition, the longest he's ever sat through, at which the lawyers printed out pages of his online comments to accuse him of acting like a lawyer.

Plus, CMI insists that they didn't violate any laws and that Cunningham is acting in bad faith. Although the company already offered Cunningham money to settle the case, Cunningham refused, asking for much more than the "industry standard," as Cunningham calls it, of $3,500.

"If they don't pay a bunch of money, if they don't feel pain, they will not change," he says.

A big win in his case against CMI could go a long way toward clearing Cunningham's debts—if he ever chose to pay them, that is.

"I took outsize risks, and I got burned," he says. "When myself and some other fellow small investors were losing their assets, nobody cared."

Up until now, everything was about making easy money for Cunningham. Now, it's about justice—or at least what he sees as justice.

"When you or I make a mistake, they say, 'Hey, tough nuts, be smarter next time, you know, bad luck, didn't work out for ya," he says. "When the fat cats on Wall Street make a mistake, they say, 'Oh, national emergency! We've got to bail these guys out."

Since nobody has showed up to bail Cunningham out, he's decided some of the $100,000 debt he once amassed will never get paid back.

"I already paid them off," he says. "The government took my money without asking me and gave it to the banks. And since I owe the banks money, but they already got my money from the government, I say we're even."

To view the original of this article CLICK HERE

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

Regards,
Greg L-W.

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‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

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Until we gain our liberty, restore our sovereignty, repatriate our democracy and reinstate our Justice system and our borders - defended by our Police and Military armed with sustainable and obtainable weaponry:
Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
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