tagged w/ ABA
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Case in Point:
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or A Cautionary Tale of Two Girls & Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography & Death by Richard Perez
RE: News Release Item
New York Times Author Considers a Two Million Dollar Law Suit Against the ABA ... For Censorship
Former New York Times contributor and novelist, Richard Perez, author of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, has decided to strike back against censorship. "This would be on behalf of all independent authors everywhere," he has said, currently assembling his case with legal council.
The target of his fight is the ABA (American Bookseller's Association), currently representing 1,100 independent bookstores, who almost one year ago refused to carry or permit any advertising for his above mentioned novel, on the basis of content.
The result of this very deliberate act of censorship has resulted in less than 5% of independent bookstores nationwide actually carrying the title, and to this day the novel, which has received generally favorable reviews otherwise, remains virtually unobtainable and unknown to a wider reading public outside of Amazon.com.
"When it comes to the arts and politics, we live in an environment completely owned and operated by the corporate media, and the publishing industry especially personifies this," Mr. Perez was quoted as saying. "Promotional agencies like the ABA come into play because by choosing which books are granted exposure and which are not, they are in effect setting the agenda, laying out the choices and possibilities that a reading public might otherwise consider."
In the past, the ABA has been an agency that has publicly touted its anti-censorship advocacy. That "pro-indie" and anti-bias rhetoric is loudly proclaimed on its website: http://www.bookweb.org/advocacy
Yet when it comes to truly independent books, books about true dissension in America, representing alternative views into subcultures and non-mainstream sexuality, be it with lesbianism, sexploitation, or bdsm, as in the case of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, that stance obviously doesn't apply
"As the axiom goes," said Mr. Perez. "'Don't listen to what people say, watch what they do.' "
Asked if the ABA was exposing their corporate ownership with their gesture of forbidding any advertising of his book, the author replied, hardly able to contain his sarcasm: "You tell me. It's not like corporate titles are their bread and butter, right? Any title, like mine, that might potentially 'denigrate' their relationship with so-called 'indie' bookstores and their exposure of corporate product needs to be brought into question."
Asked how he arrived at the figure of two million dollars bandied in his suit, Mr. Perez expounded, "Easy. Subsidiary rights need to be considered, not just straight book sales, and this includes foreign translation rights, film rights." According to Mr. Perez: "All this has been affected by the ABA in its deliberate attempt to cut off or sabotage the chances of this particular literary property, obviously on the basis of content."
Richard Perez's last novel, THE LOSERS' CLUB, an independently published romantic comedy set in the East Village of the 1990s, sold widely and was translated into several languages, including Turkish, Korean, and Italian, with the novel optioned and broadly considered for the basis of several films, including a mini-series.
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Me again: So with all the talk of cutting off funding to NPR, thus cutting off the voice of dissension, comes another question:
By denying exposure to those asking the difficult questions are we tipping the game in favor of the non-dissenters? Those pro-conservative, pro-traditional, pro-mainstream (and therefore corporate) agencies charged with supporting and maintaining the status quo?
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By Karen O'Conner:
Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110318212307AAjz1JNCase in Point:
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or A Cautionary Tale of Two Girls & Their... more
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The book Loose Balls by Terry Pluto is featured on Bruce’s Book Club with Bruce McToose The Celebrity Traveler and Explorer.The book Loose Balls by Terry Pluto is featured on Bruce’s Book Club with Bruce... more
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Republicans are taking an unpopular stand with Wall Street. Dems need to have the guts to stand up against them both.
March 19, 2010 |
If you had any doubt about the bank lobby's vice-grip on public policy, look no further than the meeting of the American Bankers Association currently taking place in Washington. In a shameless effort to curry favor with the deep-pocketed financial industry, House Minority Leader John Boenher, R-Ohio, urged lobbyists to fight hard against financial reform. And astonishingly, the nation's top bank cop, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, actually agreed with him.
The ABA is the top lobby group for the nation's financiers, and has been fighting hard to prevent meaningful regulation of the industry that drove the global economy off a cliff in 2008. Their current conference is focused on "government relations," known to the rest of the world as "shameless vote-buying."
At Thursday's meeting, Rep. Boehner made an impassioned plea for the bank lobby to keep up the fight, according to a report by Dow Jones NewsWires:
"Don't let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves," Boehner said. "All of us are hearing from our friends and constituents on lack of credit, you can't get a loan, the more your government takes and taxes, the more regulations you have to comply with the more cost you have there and less amount you are going to have available to loan to customers."
Right now, the only demographic in the U.S. that is less popular than Wall Street bankers are the lobbyists who work for Wall Street bankers. What's shocking about Boehner's statement isn't the sentiment -- anybody paying close attention to the financial reform debate knows that every Republican has been in the bank lobby's camp since well before the crisis broke. Boehner has to know that siding with the same banks that screwed the public on their houses, their credit cards and their retirement is not a good idea. But Boehner believes the bank lobby is so powerful he's willing to publicly encourage the group to work with Republicans to fight against popular reforms.
Tragically, Boehner appears to be right. The bank lobby spent over $463 million lobbying Congress in 2009 according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Yet even after the worst financial crisis in history, the Senate didn't even start considering a reform bill until this week. Along the way, President Obama and Democrats in both the House and the Senate made a string of pointless concessions to the bank lobby, effectively gutting several key reforms. Republicans, meanwhile, have won electoral contests in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
But the comments from Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, the nation's top bank regulator, were just as outrageous as Boehner's public oath of fealty to the ABA. Dugan, whose agency completely failed to protect consumers from predatory lending both before and after he took over as its head, actually argued that we have too much consumer protection in the U.S. regulatory system.
"In every case consumer protection has the edge and will trump safety and soundness, and I think that is backwards," Dugan said, according to a Business Week report.
"Safety and soundness" roughly translates to bank profitability. Dugan couldn't have the relationship between profits and consumer protection any more wrong. In 2009, credit card companies had jacked interest rates through the roof, banks scored almost $40 billion in overdraft fees, and a whopping 2.8 million homes were in foreclosure at year-end. That overdraft fee number is about triple the banking industry's combined profit for the year. The main line of business in American banking is consumer predation. The nation's largest banks, by contrast, scored epic bailouts and paid out epic bonuses.
Dugan doesn't even see a pressing need for action on overdrafts. He told reporters yesterday that he thinks "the jury is still out" on whether banks should be held accountable for overdraft fees.
These are the views of the top bank regulator in the United States today. But given Dugan's background, we shouldn't be surprised he is so sympathetic to the ABA. Before President George W. Bush nominated him as Comptroller, Dugan worked as a lobbyist for the group, helping secure passage of major deregulatory legislation, including the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999.
Salon's Andrew Leonard highlights Dugan's comments and makes a thoughtful suggestion: "Dugan's term ends in August. Why not ignore him now, and replace him with Elizabeth Warren?"
For a long time, most observers have seen Warren as the ideal person to serve as the first head of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. And the idea makes sense -- Warren was the first person to propose creating a regulator that answers only to citizens, not bank balance sheets.Republicans are taking an unpopular stand with Wall Street. Dems need to have the guts... more
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Washington lobbyists have been enjoying a multi-million-dollar sugar rush from the food industry.
Soft drink makers, supermarket companies, agriculture and the fast-food business have poured millions into campaigning against what they fear could be a burgeoning national movement to raise money for health care reform by taxing sweetened beverages.
During the first nine months of 2009, the industry groups stepped up their lobbying in Congress. They have spent more than $24 million on the issue of a national excise tax on sweetened beverages and on other legislative and regulatory issues, according to an examination of lobbying reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. The review shows that 21 companies and organizations reported that they lobbied specifically on the proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages - which among other things would include sodas, juice drinks and chocolate milk.
About $5 million of the money was spent on a national advertising campaign aimed at Capitol Hill lawmakers and promoting a newly formed coalition called Americans Against Food Taxes . The group bills itself on its website as a coalition of "responsible individuals, financially-strapped families, [and] small and large businesses" but its 400-plus membership list is dominated by industry heavyweights such as Burger King Corporation, Coca Cola, Pepsico and Domino's Pizza.
Many health officials and advocacy groups have argued for years that sugary drinks, particularly those with high-fructose corn syrup, have been key contributors to a rise in obesity rates in the United States, especially among children. Some argue that the time is right for a soda tax, which they say could not only cut consumption but also generate revenue to close state budget gaps and pay for new health care programs.
A proposal for a national excise tax on soft drinks surfaced in a May funding policy options paper during the Senate Finance Committee's deliberations on health care reform. Food lobbyists attacked then and continued their efforts in July when President Obama raised the possibility of a soda tax in an interview with Men's Health magazine. The proposal has not emerged in any of the health care reform bills still in play on Capitol Hill.
But the issue may be gaining traction in some key states. This week, California lawmakers are holding a high-profile hearing in Los Angeles to examine the link between childhood obesity and sugary drinks. In New York, Gov. David Paterson has revived the idea of a sugared beverage tax after a previous proposal was shot down by the legislature earlier this year in the face of industry opposition.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/soda-tax-mobilizes-food-l_n_345840.htmlWashington lobbyists have been enjoying a multi-million-dollar sugar rush from the... more
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Via National People's Action, here is some footage from the protesters at the ABA conference. From the footage, it's clear there are some strong emotions from the protesters.
At one point a protester grabs a megaphone and says:
"The American Bankers Association has helped loosen the rules that protect us, allowing the unfettered greed that has brought us to the brink of a recession. And for those bankers who are members and support the ABA's war against the working and middle class, shame on you!"
The crowd soon begins chanting "Shame On You!" in unison.
Via Progress Illinois' Twitter feed, here's more video of Sen. Durbin's speech. In this section, he calls for a "showdown" with Wall Street.
According to the Twitter feeds of National People's Action and the SEIU, the protesters are headed to the ABA's "Roaring '20s"-themed cocktail party. (Perhaps the ABA is not aware of the irony of having such an event.)
Sen. Dick Durbin spoke in front of the protesters earlier today. Here's a clip from the video, in which Durbin tells the story of homeowner who was struggling to stay in her home -- and was apparently talked into agreeing to a seemingly atrocious mortgage. The woman's mortgage was riddled with hidden fees and by, "the types of things even a Wall Street lawyer couldn't explain to anyone," Durbin said.
The American Bankers Association's annual convention in Chicago has become the scene for a series of major protests, which are set to continue through Tuesday. Dubbed "the Showdown in Chicago." (http://www.showdowninchicago.org/index.html) (Check back here frequently for updates on the protests.)
Groups like the National People's Action, the Service Employees International Union, Americans For Financial Reform and the AFL-CIO are expected to turn out with thousands of protesters. Sen. Richard Durbin (D - Illinois) is scheduled to address the protesters Sunday evening. Conference speakers include Newt Gingrich, conservative columnist George Will and FDIC chairman Sheila Bair.
Check out these photographs of the "Showdown in Chicago," taken by organizers of the protest.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/25/showdown-in-chicago-prote_n_333245.htmlVia National People's Action, here is some footage from the protesters at the ABA... more
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Who was the better slam dunker in 70’s ? Julius “Doctor J” Erving, or Connie Hawkins ? Some Highlights from the mythical Aba slam dunk contest in 1976 say Erving, but Hawkins wasn’t there. That year the competitors were Julius Erving, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, Larry Kenon and David Thompson. Who was the better slam dunker in 70’s ? Julius “Doctor J” Erving,... more
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An all-female Buffalo law firm is getting a mix of cheers and boos for a series of ads that tout its woman power. “Ever Argue with a Woman?” reads the headline of one of the ads for Schroder Joseph & Associates LLP.
“Labor Pains? Talk to us. (We’re women . . . We get it),” states another in the series of ads for the firm that specializes in corporate labor and employment law.
In recent weeks, the marketing strategy has been the subject of Internet debate on the American Bar Association’s Web site, as well as adrants.com, a site with an advertising industry following.
The main criticisms of the ads, which play up the firm’s feminine strengths, is that they perpetuate sexual stereotyping.
“Great, next they’ll sell us on female surgeons because they sew better,” reads a post on adrants.com.
A comment on the ABA Web site said the ads open the door to male lawyers touting masculine virtues and suggests some not-so-politically-correct tag lines.
“Men Work Harder and Don’t Take Time Off For Childbirth” or “How Many Women Play Pro Football . . . Women Are Weak,” are two of the proposed male-centric ads.
“Sexism is sexism and humor is just a veil to excuse it,” the ABA site comment concludes.
The ads were created by Jennifer Dowdell, an account executive at Business First, who tapped her background in graphic arts. Dowdell’s goal was to come up with marketing materials that captured the firm’s personality while promoting its skill set.
In addition to the “labor pains” and “argue with a woman,” the campaign also taps themes tied to sexual harassment and maternal instincts.An all-female Buffalo law firm is getting a mix of cheers and boos for a series of ads... more
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