merrily
merrily's JournalDavid Brock: Mr. Right, Mr. Right Now, or Boogie Man?
[CENTER][SIZE=4]David Brock: Mr. Right, Mr. Right Now, or Boogie Man?[/SIZE]
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Reading between the lines of the wikipedia article about David Brock, excerpted below, raises Oh! so many questions--and red flags (no pun intended). For example, the article dubs someone so connected to the Clintons as the most influential operative in the entire Democratic Party, rather than only as one of the many tools in the Clintons' shed. Also remarkable is describing Brock or any of the entities that he runs as "progressive" or "liberal" or "left wing," when his professional life has for years been devoted primarily to the Clintons, who, in turn, have spent much of their political careers taking the Democratic Party rightward.
[QUOTE]David Brock (born November 2, 1962) is an American political operative, author, and commentator who founded the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America.[1] He has been described by Time magazine as "one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic Party" [2] He had been a journalist during the 1990s[3] who wrote the book The Real Anita Hill and the Troopergate story, which led to Paula Jones filing a lawsuit against Bill Clinton.
Brock began his career as a right-wing investigative reporter, but in the late 1990s switched sides, aligning himself with the Democratic Party, and in particular with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2004, he founded Media Matters for America, a non-profit organization that describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."[4] He has since also founded super PACs called American Bridge 21st Century and Correct the Record, has become a board member of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, and has been elected chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The Nation has described Brock as a "conservative journalistic assassin turned progressive empire-builder;"[6] National Review has called him a "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin";[7] and Politico has profiled him as a "former right-wing journalist-turned-pro-Clinton crusader."[/QUOTE]
From the excerpt, we also gather as well that Brock is more political than principled: He smeared law professor and attorney, Anita Hill, who claimed to have endured sexual harassment from her employer, now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but championed Paula Jones, a clerk for the state of Arkansas whose lawsuit made a sexual harassment claim against former Governor of Arkansas and then President Bill Clinton. During a relatively recent interview, Brock, now working on behalf of a candidate whose most loyal demographic is older women, rather conveniently expressed regret about having done a hit piece on Hill. If asked, I think he would have said he also regrets having written Troopergate , but media doesn't seem to ask revealing questions of establishment figures. How media merits its First Amendment protection these day is beyond me, but I digress....
Not long after writing Troopergate, Brock accepted an advance of $1 million to write a book about then First Lady Hillary Clinton.
[QUOTE] The expectation was that it would be a takedown in the style of his writings on Anita Hill and Bill Clinton. The project, however, took a different turn, and the resulting book, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, proved to be largely sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton. Having received a $1 million advance and a tight one-year deadline from Simon & Schuster's then-conservative-focused Free Press subsidiary, Brock was under tremendous pressure to produce another bestseller. However, the book contained no major scoops. In Blinded by the Right (2002), Brock said that he had reached a turning point: He had thoroughly examined charges against the Clintons, could not find any evidence of wrongdoing and did not want to make any more misleading claims. Brock further said that his former friends in right-wing politics shunned him because Seduction did not adequately attack the Clintons. The National Review proposed another theory: since “no liberal source in the world would talk to Brock,” he could not collect the kind of information he was after. NR also maintained that while writing the book, Brock had been “seduced” by Sidney Blumenthal, a prominent champion and friend of the Clinton circle.[12] A political enemy had alleged Brock "decided he liked the style and corrupt politics of the Clintons."[/QUOTE]
Of course, Clinton email and Foundation scandals have recently placed Blumenthal's name in the news, but, again, I digress....
Brock claims to have been politically liberal until college. I have met people who were Republicans, but who went left politically in college, but I have never met anyone who claims to have entered college a liberal and gone to the political right while in college--and Brock went to Berkeley, no less. However, in order to have this post move on (no pun intended), let's say his conversion version is gospel. Brock's boomeranging back to the left seems to have begun somewhere between Troopergate and turning a wannabe hit piece about Hillary into a 1996 "nothingburger" (his term for the email scandal and F.B.I. investigations). Seriously? Dear reader, does that seem at all plausible to you? How many rightists do you know, or know of, or are able to imagine, who would have been turned left(ish) by either of the Clintons circa 1996?
Of course, the Paula Jones affair (no pun intended) led to the Monica Lewinsky matter (no pun intended), which, in turn, led to to the Clinton impeachment, aka possibly the worst nightmare of a middle school or high school history teacher. I have heard of Democrats who went right because of those things, but not of a Republican, especially a prominent, "investigative" Republican, who was driven left by them. (Riddle me this: What is better than getting a million bucks to write a hit piece about a Clinton? I'm guessing millions of dollars every year in salaries from various Clinton-serving entities, plus indulgent expense accounts and other perqs?) And now, we have the Koch brothers hinting that Hillary may be a better choice for President than Trump? After Donald Trump claimed that Bill Clinton encouraged him to run for President? Seriously? But, again, I digress....
I don't blame necessarily fault Brock for a primary campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination that has been tarnished "tinged" with racial and religious anti-Semitic bigotry. We saw appeals to racial and religious bigotry during the 2008 Hillary primary campaign in which, as far as I know, Brock did not have a leading role. Even the 2016 mainstream media and social media blitzkriegs on "Bernie bros" had their precursors in 2008 attacks on the racially- and misandrically-tinged, "Obama boys." Those themes in the 2016 campaign are therefore "merely" déjà vu vu (sic), albeit on steroids. However, the 2016 false flag tactics make Rove seem unimaginative and timid, including hiring "Hillary supporters" on message boards and social media, Hillary supporters, real and/or hired, pretending to support U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders online, in social media and in mainstream media (and possibly IRL), etc.
I will not claim that Brock "outAtwaters" Lee Atwater, who has been understudied and/or studied by Karl Rove all other political operatives. (Atwater famously or infamously claimed a different kind of conversion as his life was ending, when he apologized for, among other things, the "naked cruelty" of his tactics against then-Democratic Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.) However, the distastefulness of Hillary's 2016 primary campaign goes well beyond even her 2008 primary campaign, both in quantity and in absence of quality: It is redolent with eau de Brock.
While this is unlikely to cost the Clintons and/or Brock as much as I believe it should, it is very likely costing the Democratic Party, the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (now facing the first primary challenge of her Congressional career from Professor Tim Canova). And, after all, wasn't hurting the left the goal of the Kochs and other "big spenders" when they helped Hillary and Bill Clinton, Al From and Will Marshall found the Democratic Leadership Council? And wasn't that also Brock's goal from at least his college days until he began championing the Clintons? Perne in a gyre!
Sources:
Yeats, William Butler, Sailing to Byzantium [url]https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sailing-byzantium[/url]
Facebook post of New Hampshire State Representative Timothy Smith, datelined September 23, 2015 at 8:13 a.m. (Democratic politicians under pressure to support "another candidate," rather than Senator Sanders)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brock[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater[/url]
[url]www.salon.com/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/[/url]
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?5447-Bernie-Supporters-are-the-worst-human-beings-in-the-USA-if-not-the-world-STOP-IT[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?3326-IGNORANT-Bernie-Bros-must-END-their-name-calling!!![/url]
[url]http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic-parties/[/url]
[url]http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Democratic_Leadership_Council[/url]
[url]http://www.democrats.com/node/7789[/url]
[url]http://americablog.com/2010/08/koch-industries-gave-funding-to-the-dlc-and-served-on-its-executive-council.html[/url]
[url]http://www.inquisitr.com/2010037/hillary-clinton-buying-twitter-followers-audit-says-yes-and-facebook-fans-too/[/url] (twitter and facebook)
[url]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207emo445569691773&set=a.1644207439415.84086.1663748386&type=3&theater[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?6730-Two-videos-you-must-see-Possible-infiltration-of-Sanders-campaign&highlight=sourcewatch[/url]
[url]http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/21/1518537/-Clinton-SuperPac-Admits-to-Paying-Internet-Trolls[/url]
[url]http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/bill-clinton-denies-calling-donald-trump-2016-run-stephen-colbert-214499[/url]
[url]https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/12/03/behind-the-clinton-campaign-dark-money-allies/[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?2795-Just-realized-that-David-Brock-owns-Blue-Nation-Review[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?3459-Bubba-was-not-impeached-for-a-bj[/url]
David Brock: Mr. Right, Mr. Right Now, or Boogie Man?
[CENTER][SIZE=4]David Brock: Mr. Right, Mr. Right Now, or Boogie Man?[/SIZE]
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Reading between the lines of the wikipedia article about David Brock, excerpted below, raises Oh! so many questions--and red flags (no pun intended). For example, the article dubs someone so connected to the Clintons as the most influential operative in the entire Democratic Party, rather than only as one of the many tools in the Clintons' shed. Also remarkable is describing Brock or any of the entities that he runs as "progressive" or "liberal" or "left wing," when his professional life has for years been devoted primarily to the Clintons, who, in turn, have spent much of their political careers taking the Democratic Party rightward.
[QUOTE]David Brock (born November 2, 1962) is an American political operative, author, and commentator who founded the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America.[1] He has been described by Time magazine as "one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic Party" [2] He had been a journalist during the 1990s[3] who wrote the book The Real Anita Hill and the Troopergate story, which led to Paula Jones filing a lawsuit against Bill Clinton.
Brock began his career as a right-wing investigative reporter, but in the late 1990s switched sides, aligning himself with the Democratic Party, and in particular with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2004, he founded Media Matters for America, a non-profit organization that describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."[4] He has since also founded super PACs called American Bridge 21st Century and Correct the Record, has become a board member of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, and has been elected chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The Nation has described Brock as a "conservative journalistic assassin turned progressive empire-builder;"[6] National Review has called him a "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin";[7] and Politico has profiled him as a "former right-wing journalist-turned-pro-Clinton crusader."[/QUOTE]
From the excerpt, we also gather as well that Brock is more political than principled: He smeared law professor and attorney, Anita Hill, who claimed to have endured sexual harassment from her employer, now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but championed Paula Jones, a clerk for the state of Arkansas whose lawsuit made a sexual harassment claim against former Governor of Arkansas and then President Bill Clinton. During a relatively recent interview, Brock, now working on behalf of a candidate whose most loyal demographic is older women, rather conveniently expressed regret about having done a hit piece on Hill. If asked, I think he would have said he also regrets having written Troopergate , but media doesn't seem to ask revealing questions of establishment figures. How media merits its First Amendment protection these day is beyond me, but I digress....
Not long after writing Troopergate, Brock accepted an advance of $1 million to write a book about then First Lady Hillary Clinton.
[QUOTE] The expectation was that it would be a takedown in the style of his writings on Anita Hill and Bill Clinton. The project, however, took a different turn, and the resulting book, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, proved to be largely sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton. Having received a $1 million advance and a tight one-year deadline from Simon & Schuster's then-conservative-focused Free Press subsidiary, Brock was under tremendous pressure to produce another bestseller. However, the book contained no major scoops. In Blinded by the Right (2002), Brock said that he had reached a turning point: He had thoroughly examined charges against the Clintons, could not find any evidence of wrongdoing and did not want to make any more misleading claims. Brock further said that his former friends in right-wing politics shunned him because Seduction did not adequately attack the Clintons. The National Review proposed another theory: since “no liberal source in the world would talk to Brock,” he could not collect the kind of information he was after. NR also maintained that while writing the book, Brock had been “seduced” by Sidney Blumenthal, a prominent champion and friend of the Clinton circle.[12] A political enemy had alleged Brock "decided he liked the style and corrupt politics of the Clintons."[/QUOTE]
Of course, Clinton email and Foundation scandals have recently placed Blumenthal's name in the news, but, again, I digress....
Brock claims to have been politically liberal until college. I have met people who were Republicans, but who went left politically in college, but I have never met anyone who claims to have entered college a liberal and gone to the political right while in college--and Brock went to Berkeley, no less. However, in order to have this post move on (no pun intended), let's say his conversion version is gospel. Brock's boomeranging back to the left seems to have begun somewhere between Troopergate and turning a wannabe hit piece about Hillary into a 1996 "nothingburger" (his term for the email scandal and F.B.I. investigations). Seriously? Dear reader, does that seem at all plausible to you? How many rightists do you know, or know of, or are able to imagine, who would have been turned left(ish) by either of the Clintons circa 1996?
Of course, the Paula Jones affair (no pun intended) led to the Monica Lewinsky matter (no pun intended), which, in turn, led to to the Clinton impeachment, aka possibly the worst nightmare of a middle school or high school history teacher. I have heard of Democrats who went right because of those things, but not of a Republican, especially a prominent, "investigative" Republican, who was driven left by them. (Riddle me this: What is better than getting a million bucks to write a hit piece about a Clinton? I'm guessing millions of dollars every year in salaries from various Clinton-serving entities, plus indulgent expense accounts and other perqs?) And now, we have the Koch brothers hinting that Hillary may be a better choice for President than Trump? After Donald Trump claimed that Bill Clinton encouraged him to run for President? Seriously? But, again, I digress....
I don't blame necessarily fault Brock for a primary campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination that has been tarnished "tinged" with racial and religious anti-Semitic bigotry. We saw appeals to racial and religious bigotry during the 2008 Hillary primary campaign in which, as far as I know, Brock did not have a leading role. Even the 2016 mainstream media and social media blitzkriegs on "Bernie bros" had their precursors in 2008 attacks on the racially- and misandrically-tinged, "Obama boys." Those themes in the 2016 campaign are therefore "merely" déjà vu vu (sic), albeit on steroids. However, the 2016 false flag tactics make Rove seem unimaginative and timid, including hiring "Hillary supporters" on message boards and social media, Hillary supporters, real and/or hired, pretending to support U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders online, in social media and in mainstream media (and possibly IRL), etc.
I will not claim that Brock "outAtwaters" Lee Atwater, who has been understudied and/or studied by Karl Rove all other political operatives. (Atwater famously or infamously claimed a different kind of conversion as his life was ending, when he apologized for, among other things, the "naked cruelty" of his tactics against then-Democratic Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.) However, the distastefulness of Hillary's 2016 primary campaign goes well beyond even her 2008 primary campaign, both in quantity and in absence of quality: It is redolent with eau de Brock.
While this is unlikely to cost the Clintons and/or Brock as much as I believe it should, it is very likely costing the Democratic Party, the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (now facing the first primary challenge of her Congressional career from Professor Tim Canova). And, after all, wasn't hurting the left the goal of the Kochs and other "big spenders" when they helped Hillary and Bill Clinton, Al From and Will Marshall found the Democratic Leadership Council? And wasn't that also Brock's goal from at least his college days until he began championing the Clintons? Perne in a gyre!
Sources:
Yeats, William Butler, Sailing to Byzantium [url]https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sailing-byzantium[/url]
Facebook post of New Hampshire State Representative Timothy Smith, datelined September 23, 2015 at 8:13 a.m. (Democratic politicians under pressure to support "another candidate," rather than Senator Sanders)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brock[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater[/url]
[url]www.salon.com/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/[/url]
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?5447-Bernie-Supporters-are-the-worst-human-beings-in-the-USA-if-not-the-world-STOP-IT[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?3326-IGNORANT-Bernie-Bros-must-END-their-name-calling!!![/url]
[url]http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic-parties/[/url]
[url]http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Democratic_Leadership_Council[/url]
[url]http://www.democrats.com/node/7789[/url]
[url]http://americablog.com/2010/08/koch-industries-gave-funding-to-the-dlc-and-served-on-its-executive-council.html[/url]
[url]http://www.inquisitr.com/2010037/hillary-clinton-buying-twitter-followers-audit-says-yes-and-facebook-fans-too/[/url] (twitter and facebook)
[url]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207emo445569691773&set=a.1644207439415.84086.1663748386&type=3&theater[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?6730-Two-videos-you-must-see-Possible-infiltration-of-Sanders-campaign&highlight=sourcewatch[/url]
[url]http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/21/1518537/-Clinton-SuperPac-Admits-to-Paying-Internet-Trolls[/url]
[url]http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/bill-clinton-denies-calling-donald-trump-2016-run-stephen-colbert-214499[/url]
[url]https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/12/03/behind-the-clinton-campaign-dark-money-allies/[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?2795-Just-realized-that-David-Brock-owns-Blue-Nation-Review[/url]
[url]http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?3459-Bubba-was-not-impeached-for-a-bj[/url]
Let's see. After Nixon were Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama.
I don't know how liberal Ford was, but Nixon was no liberal. Eisenhower and Nixon were part of the Republican shell shock resulting from having Democrats win five consecutive Presidential elections, with one man winning four of them something that was, and probably always will be, a one of a kind event in US history. It wasn't that Eisenhower and Nixon were liberal. Clearly, they were not. It was that they both wanted to be re-elected, they both wanted their stinking Hoover Party to have a shot at the White House after they left it, and they both had Democratic Congresses, courtesy of the very long and long-lived coattails of FDR.
Look into Nixon's history before he was Ike's VP. He was far from a liberal.
LIke the Congress we had in 2006 and 2008 that never passed a public option, EFCA,
election reform, stiffer penalties for election fraud, etc."
A Democratic President was supposedly off the hook for anything and everything because a massively Democratic Congress wouldn't do the correct things and a Democratic President supposedly has no power over members of the Party he heads; and Democratic Congress was supposedly off the hook because conservative Democrats. Yet, that is the only kind the DCCC and the DSCC recruits.
So I guess we really need a Democratic President, a Democratic majority in the House and a Senate of 100 Democrats before we can before we can hope to hold any Democrat in Congress or the Oval Office accountable? Good luck with that!
The Haymarket Affair - 130 Years Ago Today
[CENTER][SIZE=4]The Haymarket Affair, or Why Most of the World celebrates International Workers' Day on May 1 and You Don't[/SIZE]
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May 1 is International Workers' Day, a commemoration in over eighty nations, but not the U.S.A., of the Haymarket Affair, whose themes persist today. The Haymarket Affair was the aftermath of an orderly, peaceful nationwide strike for safer working conditions on May 1, 1886. If you don't know about the Haymarket Affair, that is no accident: "No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance....."
Actually, the story of the Haymarket Affair began shortly after the Civil War, when industrial production began growing rapidly. American laborers worked for very low wages, ten to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, often in dangerous conditions, causing avoidable deaths and injuries. Hence, a labor movement for safer working conditions, including an eight-hour work day, began in the 1860s. After the Depression of 1873–79, industrial growth accelerated. During the economic slowdown between 1882 and 1886, socialist and anarchist organizations became active, including within the labor movement, much to the consternation of the establishment. In Chicago, tens of thousands of German and Bohemian immigrants were working for about $1.50 a day, making Chicago a hub of labor activism. Employers responded with union-busting measures, such as firing and blacklisting union members, lockouts, hiring non-union workers to replace strikers ("scabs"
, exacerbating ethnic tensions in order to divide the workers from each other and hiring spies, thugs, and private security forces (notably Pinkerton). (Divide et Impera is older than dirt, yet we still fall for it.) Mainstream newspapers supported business interests, as does mainstream media now, while activist, often immigrant, press supported workers and unions.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in both the United States and Canada set May 1, 1886 as a deadline for passing laws to limit a work day to eight-hours. Labor organizations prepared for a general strike on that date, as did police and militias. The strike was very well-planned. On Saturday, May 1, 1886 (then a work day), 300,000 to 500,000 workers across the United States struck, rallied, demonstrated and marched peacefully, with the cry, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay," with perhaps twice their number joining them on the streets. Chicago saw by far the largest group of strikers (40,000 to 90,000) of any city. August Spies, who ran Arbeiter-Zeitung ("Worker's Newspaper" , a German-language activist newspaper, led strikers in a parade up Michigan Avenue.
On Monday, May 3, the next workday, over 65,000 rallied in Chicago, some near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. McCormick's union molders had been locked out since early February. A garrison of four hundred police officers were protecting the scabs McCormick had hired to work in place of union members. (During a strike the year before, Pinkerton guards had attacked the predominantly Irish-American work force.) About half the scabs had defected to the general strike on May 1. McCormick's union workers were heckling the scabs who were still crossing picket lines to work at the plant. A few miles from McCormick's, Spies was addressing members of the the Lumber Shovers' Union. After some of his audience broke away to join the workers outside McCormick's, Spies heard shots. He and some of his listeners went to McCormick's, where Spies spoke, urging union solidarity. When the end-of-the-workday bell sounded, a group of workers surged to the gates to confront the scabs. Although Spies appealed for calm, police fired, killing either two or six McCormick union employees, depending upon the account. Spies later testified, "I was very indignant. I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement."
That evening, several anarchist leaders met and called for a meeting/rally the next evening (May 4) to protest police violence at McCormick's. Meanwhile, Spies had gone to the offices of Arbeiter-Zeitung to write about the day's events. His report, which would appear in Arbeiter-Zeitung on May 4, the day of the Haymarket rally, claimed that two hundred police had fired on fleeing workmen and women. "They pretend subsequently that they shot over their heads. But be that as it may, a few of the strikers had little snappers of revolvers, and with these returned the fire. In the meantime other detachments had arrived, and the whole band of murderers (police) now opened fire on the little company - 20,000, as estimated by the police organ, The Herald, while the whole assembly (of strikers and their allies) scarcely numbered 8,000." Spies' report also stated that Cyrus McCormick, owner of the Reaper Works, had commented, "August Spies made a speech to a few thousand anarchists. It occurred to one of these 'brilliant heads' to frighten our men away. He put himself at the head of a crowd, which then made an attack upon our Works. Our workmen fled; and, in the meantime, the police came and sent a lot of anarchists away with bleeding heads," referring to police beating workers' heads with billy clubs. Spies entitled his report Workingmen to Arms!, which was published the next day under his title, Blood, and distributed as a broadside. However, without Spies' knowledge, the typesetter added the additional title, "REVENGE!"
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At the Haymarket rally on the evening of May 4, 1886, Spies was the first speaker. The second was Albert Parsons, whom Spies had recruited to speak at the last minute. Parsons addressed the crowd for nearly an hour, then left. The third and last speaker was Samuel Fielden, who spoke only ten minutes. By this time, most of the crowd had left. At about 10:30 p.m., as Fielden was finishing, police marched in formation toward him and ordered the rally to disperse. Fielden protested that the meeting was peaceful. Police Inspector John Bonfield responded, "I command you (Fielden) in the name of the law to desist and you (the crowd) to disperse." Someone threw a bomb in the path of the police. A mêlée, in which police and demonstrators shot at each other, ensued. A total of ten policemen and at least four workers died, with scores injured.
Eight anarchists were tried for murder: Fielden, Parson and Spies (the three speakers at the rally), George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab. Of the eight, Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and Schwab had been born in Germany; Fielden had been born in England; Neebe had been born in the U.S.of German descent; and Parsons had been born in the U.S. of British descent. Despite weak evidence and questionable practices, all eight were convicted. All but Neebe were sentenced to death, with Neebe being sentenced to fifteen years in prison. After appeals (with the Supreme Court of the United States denying certiorari), executions were scheduled for November 11, 1887. The day before, Governor Richard James Oglesby commuted the sentences of Fielden and Schwab to life in prison and Lingg committed suicide by using his teeth to detonate an explosive cap, dying after an agonizing six hours. The next day, Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies were hooded, robed and taken to the gallows, where they sang the Marseillaise, then the anthem of the international revolutionary movement, before they were hung. (They strangled to death slowly.) In 1893, Governor Peter A. Altgeld pardoned Fielden, Schwab and Neebe, an act that may have cost him his political career. In the above image, Spies is in the center, Fielden at the top, then, clockwise, Lingg, Fischer, Engel (bottom), Schwab and Parsons.
The incident was the first great “red scare” in American history. Although many in the labor movement view the men who had been convicted as martyrs, the Haymarket Affair was then viewed as a--wait for it--setback for organized labor in the U.S.A. (not for the First Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights, not for the judicial system, not for law enforcement, not for mainstream newspapers and not for worker-exploiting, union busting employers!). The Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor lobbied for a national holiday. Enter President Grover Cleveland (who happened to love him some strike-breaking). Cleveland feared that Labor Day would become an opportunity to commemorate the Haymarket Affair. Thus, in 1887, he established Labor Day as an official holiday to honor the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country--but he scheduled Labor Day for the first Monday in September, not May 1. Nonetheless, for years, U.S. workers continued May 1 observances and commemorations of workers and labor leaders who had died as a result of the fateful events of May 3 and 4, 1886.
In 1970, the AFL-CIO declared April 28 “Workers' Memorial Day,” to honor those killed, injured, disabled or otherwise made unwell because of their actual jobs and that is wonderful. However, I believe strongly that we in the U.S.A. should join in solidarity with most of the rest of the world in honoring, on every May 1, the martyrs of the Haymarket Affair and all others who fought, before and after 1886, for a right to unionize and for safe, humane working conditions, including the eight-hour work day.
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May 1, 1909 Labor Parade, Manhattan
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[/IMG]
May 1, 1913 Labor Strike, Union Square, Manhattan[/CENTER]
[CENTER][video=youtube;pCnEAH5wCzo]
Sources:
[url]http://www.democraticunderground.com/11177664[/url] (Evolution of Labor Day, a great thread in Omaha Steve's Labor Group, by Omaha Steve, aka JPR's Wizard of Os, himself.)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers'_Day[/url]
[url]https://blogs.shu.edu/history/2015/10/17/does-wikipedia-tell-the-truth/[/url]
[url]http://www.history.com/topics/haymarket-riot[/url]
[url]http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day[/url] (The entire article is well worth reading.)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeiter-Zeitung_%28Chicago%29[/url]
[url]http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/haymarket/history4.html[/url]
[url]http://www.massaflcio.org/1886-general-strike-8-hour-day[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Memorial_Day[/url]
[url]http://aattp.org/read-the-real-bloody-and-amazing-story-of-labor-day/[/url]
[url]http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haymarket/haymarketdefendants.html#engel[/url]
The Haymarket Affair -130 Years Ago Today
[CENTER][SIZE=4]The Haymarket Affair, or Why Most of the World celebrates International Workers' Day on May 1 and You Don't[/SIZE]
[IMG][/IMG][/CENTER]
May 1 is International Workers' Day, a commemoration in over eighty nations, but not the U.S.A., of the Haymarket Affair, whose themes persist today. The Haymarket Affair was the aftermath of an orderly, peaceful nationwide strike for safer working conditions on May 1, 1886. If you don't know about the Haymarket Affair, that is no accident: "No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance....."
Actually, the story of the Haymarket Affair began shortly after the Civil War, when industrial production began growing rapidly. American laborers worked for very low wages, ten to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, often in dangerous conditions, causing avoidable deaths and injuries. Hence, a labor movement for safer working conditions, including an eight-hour work day, began in the 1860s. After the Depression of 1873–79, industrial growth accelerated. During the economic slowdown between 1882 and 1886, socialist and anarchist organizations became active, including within the labor movement, much to the consternation of the establishment. In Chicago, tens of thousands of German and Bohemian immigrants were working for about $1.50 a day, making Chicago a hub of labor activism. Employers responded with union-busting measures, such as firing and blacklisting union members, lockouts, hiring non-union workers to replace strikers ("scabs" , exacerbating ethnic tensions in order to divide the workers from each other and hiring spies, thugs, and private security forces (notably Pinkerton). (Divide et Impera is older than dirt, yet we still fall for it.) Mainstream newspapers supported business interests, as does mainstream media now, while activist, often immigrant, press supported workers and unions.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in both the United States and Canada set May 1, 1886 as a deadline for passing laws to limit a work day to eight-hours. Labor organizations prepared for a general strike on that date, as did police and militias. The strike was very well-planned. On Saturday, May 1, 1886 (then a work day), 300,000 to 500,000 workers across the United States struck, rallied, demonstrated and marched peacefully, with the cry, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay," with perhaps twice their number joining them on the streets. Chicago saw by far the largest group of strikers (40,000 to 90,000) of any city. August Spies, who ran Arbeiter-Zeitung ("Worker's Newspaper" , a German-language activist newspaper, led strikers in a parade up Michigan Avenue.
On Monday, May 3, the next workday, over 65,000 rallied in Chicago, some near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. McCormick's union molders had been locked out since early February. A garrison of four hundred police officers were protecting the scabs McCormick had hired to work in place of union members. (During a strike the year before, Pinkerton guards had attacked the predominantly Irish-American work force.) About half the scabs had defected to the general strike on May 1. McCormick's union workers were heckling the scabs who were still crossing picket lines to work at the plant. A few miles from McCormick's, Spies was addressing members of the the Lumber Shovers' Union. After some of his audience broke away to join the workers outside McCormick's, Spies heard shots. He and some of his listeners went to McCormick's, where Spies spoke, urging union solidarity. When the end-of-the-workday bell sounded, a group of workers surged to the gates to confront the scabs. Although Spies appealed for calm, police fired, killing either two or six McCormick union employees, depending upon the account. Spies later testified, "I was very indignant. I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement."
That evening, several anarchist leaders met and called for a meeting/rally the next evening (May 4) to protest police violence at McCormick's. Meanwhile, Spies had gone to the offices of Arbeiter-Zeitung to write about the day's events. His report, which would appear in Arbeiter-Zeitung on May 4, the day of the Haymarket rally, claimed that two hundred police had fired on fleeing workmen and women. "They pretend subsequently that they shot over their heads. But be that as it may, a few of the strikers had little snappers of revolvers, and with these returned the fire. In the meantime other detachments had arrived, and the whole band of murderers (police) now opened fire on the little company - 20,000, as estimated by the police organ, The Herald, while the whole assembly (of strikers and their allies) scarcely numbered 8,000." Spies' report also stated that Cyrus McCormick, owner of the Reaper Works, had commented, "August Spies made a speech to a few thousand anarchists. It occurred to one of these 'brilliant heads' to frighten our men away. He put himself at the head of a crowd, which then made an attack upon our Works. Our workmen fled; and, in the meantime, the police came and sent a lot of anarchists away with bleeding heads," referring to police beating workers' heads with billy clubs. Spies entitled his report Workingmen to Arms!, which was published the next day under his title, Blood, and distributed as a broadside. However, without Spies' knowledge, the typesetter added the additional title, "REVENGE!"
[CENTER] [IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG][/CENTER]
At the Haymarket rally on the evening of May 4, 1886, Spies was the first speaker. The second was Albert Parsons, whom Spies had recruited to speak at the last minute. Parsons addressed the crowd for nearly an hour, then left. The third and last speaker was Samuel Fielden, who spoke only ten minutes. By this time, most of the crowd had left. At about 10:30 p.m., as Fielden was finishing, police marched in formation toward him and ordered the rally to disperse. Fielden protested that the meeting was peaceful. Police Inspector John Bonfield responded, "I command you (Fielden) in the name of the law to desist and you (the crowd) to disperse." Someone threw a bomb in the path of the police. A mêlée, in which police and demonstrators shot at each other, ensued. A total of ten policemen and at least four workers died, with scores injured.
Eight anarchists were tried for murder: Fielden, Parson and Spies (the three speakers at the rally), George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab. Of the eight, Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and Schwab had been born in Germany; Fielden had been born in England; Neebe had been born in the U.S.of German descent; and Parsons had been born in the U.S. of British descent. Despite weak evidence and questionable practices, all eight were convicted. All but Neebe were sentenced to death, with Neebe being sentenced to fifteen years in prison. After appeals (with the Supreme Court of the United States denying certiorari), executions were scheduled for November 11, 1887. The day before, Governor Richard James Oglesby commuted the sentences of Fielden and Schwab to life in prison and Lingg committed suicide by using his teeth to detonate an explosive cap, dying after an agonizing six hours. The next day, Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies were hooded, robed and taken to the gallows, where they sang the Marseillaise, then the anthem of the international revolutionary movement, before they were hung. (They strangled to death slowly.) In 1893, Governor Peter A. Altgeld pardoned Fielden, Schwab and Neebe, an act that may have cost him his political career. In the above image, Spies is in the center, Fielden at the top, then, clockwise, Lingg, Fischer, Engel (bottom), Schwab and Parsons.
The incident was the first great “red scare” in American history. Although many in the labor movement view the men who had been convicted as martyrs, the Haymarket Affair was then viewed as a--wait for it--setback for organized labor in the U.S.A. (not for the First Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights, not for the judicial system, not for law enforcement, not for mainstream newspapers and not for worker-exploiting, union busting employers!). The Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor lobbied for a national holiday. Enter President Grover Cleveland (who happened to love him some strike-breaking). Cleveland feared that Labor Day would become an opportunity to commemorate the Haymarket Affair. Thus, in 1887, he established Labor Day as an official holiday to honor the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country--but he scheduled Labor Day for the first Monday in September, not May 1. Nonetheless, for years, U.S. workers continued May 1 observances and commemorations of workers and labor leaders who had died as a result of the fateful events of May 3 and 4, 1886.
In 1970, the AFL-CIO declared April 28 “Workers' Memorial Day,” to honor those killed, injured, disabled or otherwise made unwell because of their actual jobs and that is wonderful. However, I believe strongly that we in the U.S.A. should join in solidarity with most of the rest of the world in honoring, on every May 1, the martyrs of the Haymarket Affair and all others who fought, before and after 1886, for a right to unionize and for safe, humane working conditions, including the eight-hour work day.
[CENTER][IMG][/IMG]
May 1, 1909 Labor Parade, Manhattan
[IMG][/IMG]
May 1, 1913 Labor Strike, Union Square, Manhattan[/CENTER]
[CENTER][video=youtube;pCnEAH5wCzo]
Sources:
[url]http://www.democraticunderground.com/11177664[/url] (Evolution of Labor Day, a great thread in Omaha Steve's Labor Group, by Omaha Steve, aka JPR's Wizard of Os, himself.)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers'_Day[/url]
[url]https://blogs.shu.edu/history/2015/10/17/does-wikipedia-tell-the-truth/[/url]
[url]http://www.history.com/topics/haymarket-riot[/url]
[url]http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day[/url] (The entire article is well worth reading.)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeiter-Zeitung_%28Chicago%29[/url]
[url]http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/haymarket/history4.html[/url]
[url]http://www.massaflcio.org/1886-general-strike-8-hour-day[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Memorial_Day[/url]
[url]http://aattp.org/read-the-real-bloody-and-amazing-story-of-labor-day/[/url]
[url]http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haymarket/haymarketdefendants.html#engel[/url]
The Haymarket Affair - 130 Years Ago Today
[CENTER][SIZE=4]The Haymarket Affair, or Why Most of the World celebrates International Workers' Day on May 1 and You Don't[/SIZE]
[IMG][/IMG][/CENTER]
May 1 is International Workers' Day, a commemoration in over eighty nations, but not the U.S.A., of the Haymarket Affair, whose themes persist today. The Haymarket Affair was the aftermath of an orderly, peaceful nationwide strike for safer working conditions on May 1, 1886. If you don't know about the Haymarket Affair, that is no accident: "No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance....."
Actually, the story of the Haymarket Affair began shortly after the Civil War, when industrial production began growing rapidly. American laborers worked for very low wages, ten to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, often in dangerous conditions, causing avoidable deaths and injuries. Hence, a labor movement for safer working conditions, including an eight-hour work day, began in the 1860s. After the Depression of 1873–79, industrial growth accelerated. During the economic slowdown between 1882 and 1886, socialist and anarchist organizations became active, including within the labor movement, much to the consternation of the establishment. In Chicago, tens of thousands of German and Bohemian immigrants were working for about $1.50 a day, making Chicago a hub of labor activism. Employers responded with union-busting measures, such as firing and blacklisting union members, lockouts, hiring non-union workers to replace strikers ("scabs" , exacerbating ethnic tensions in order to divide the workers from each other and hiring spies, thugs, and private security forces (notably Pinkerton). (Divide et Impera is older than dirt, yet we still fall for it.) Mainstream newspapers supported business interests, as does mainstream media now, while activist, often immigrant, press supported workers and unions.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in both the United States and Canada set May 1, 1886 as a deadline for passing laws to limit a work day to eight-hours. Labor organizations prepared for a general strike on that date, as did police and militias. The strike was very well-planned. On Saturday, May 1, 1886 (then a work day), 300,000 to 500,000 workers across the United States struck, rallied, demonstrated and marched peacefully, with the cry, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay," with perhaps twice their number joining them on the streets. Chicago saw by far the largest group of strikers (40,000 to 90,000) of any city. August Spies, who ran Arbeiter-Zeitung ("Worker's Newspaper" , a German-language activist newspaper, led strikers in a parade up Michigan Avenue.
On Monday, May 3, the next workday, over 65,000 rallied in Chicago, some near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. McCormick's union molders had been locked out since early February. A garrison of four hundred police officers were protecting the scabs McCormick had hired to work in place of union members. (During a strike the year before, Pinkerton guards had attacked the predominantly Irish-American work force.) About half the scabs had defected to the general strike on May 1. McCormick's union workers were heckling the scabs who were still crossing picket lines to work at the plant. A few miles from McCormick's, Spies was addressing members of the the Lumber Shovers' Union. After some of his audience broke away to join the workers outside McCormick's, Spies heard shots. He and some of his listeners went to McCormick's, where Spies spoke, urging union solidarity. When the end-of-the-workday bell sounded, a group of workers surged to the gates to confront the scabs. Although Spies appealed for calm, police fired, killing either two or six McCormick union employees, depending upon the account. Spies later testified, "I was very indignant. I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement."
That evening, several anarchist leaders met and called for a meeting/rally the next evening (May 4) to protest police violence at McCormick's. Meanwhile, Spies had gone to the offices of Arbeiter-Zeitung to write about the day's events. His report, which would appear in Arbeiter-Zeitung on May 4, the day of the Haymarket rally, claimed that two hundred police had fired on fleeing workmen and women. "They pretend subsequently that they shot over their heads. But be that as it may, a few of the strikers had little snappers of revolvers, and with these returned the fire. In the meantime other detachments had arrived, and the whole band of murderers (police) now opened fire on the little company - 20,000, as estimated by the police organ, The Herald, while the whole assembly (of strikers and their allies) scarcely numbered 8,000." Spies' report also stated that Cyrus McCormick, owner of the Reaper Works, had commented, "August Spies made a speech to a few thousand anarchists. It occurred to one of these 'brilliant heads' to frighten our men away. He put himself at the head of a crowd, which then made an attack upon our Works. Our workmen fled; and, in the meantime, the police came and sent a lot of anarchists away with bleeding heads," referring to police beating workers' heads with billy clubs. Spies entitled his report Workingmen to Arms!, which was published the next day under his title, Blood, and distributed as a broadside. However, without Spies' knowledge, the typesetter added the additional title, "REVENGE!"
[CENTER] [IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG][/CENTER]
At the Haymarket rally on the evening of May 4, 1886, Spies was the first speaker. The second was Albert Parsons, whom Spies had recruited to speak at the last minute. Parsons addressed the crowd for nearly an hour, then left. The third and last speaker was Samuel Fielden, who spoke only ten minutes. By this time, most of the crowd had left. At about 10:30 p.m., as Fielden was finishing, police marched in formation toward him and ordered the rally to disperse. Fielden protested that the meeting was peaceful. Police Inspector John Bonfield responded, "I command you (Fielden) in the name of the law to desist and you (the crowd) to disperse." Someone threw a bomb in the path of the police. A mêlée, in which police and demonstrators shot at each other, ensued. A total of ten policemen and at least four workers died, with scores injured.
Eight anarchists were tried for murder: Fielden, Parson and Spies (the three speakers at the rally), George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab. Of the eight, Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and Schwab had been born in Germany; Fielden had been born in England; Neebe had been born in the U.S.of German descent; and Parsons had been born in the U.S. of British descent. Despite weak evidence and questionable practices, all eight were convicted. All but Neebe were sentenced to death, with Neebe being sentenced to fifteen years in prison. After appeals (with the Supreme Court of the United States denying certiorari), executions were scheduled for November 11, 1887. The day before, Governor Richard James Oglesby commuted the sentences of Fielden and Schwab to life in prison and Lingg committed suicide by using his teeth to detonate an explosive cap, dying after an agonizing six hours. The next day, Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies were hooded, robed and taken to the gallows, where they sang the Marseillaise, then the anthem of the international revolutionary movement, before they were hung. (They strangled to death slowly.) In 1893, Governor Peter A. Altgeld pardoned Fielden, Schwab and Neebe, an act that may have cost him his political career. In the above image, Spies is in the center, Fielden at the top, then, clockwise, Lingg, Fischer, Engel (bottom), Schwab and Parsons.
The incident was the first great “red scare” in American history. Although many in the labor movement view the men who had been convicted as martyrs, the Haymarket Affair was then viewed as a--wait for it--setback for organized labor in the U.S.A. (not for the First Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights, not for the judicial system, not for law enforcement, not for mainstream newspapers and not for worker-exploiting, union busting employers!). The Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor lobbied for a national holiday. Enter President Grover Cleveland (who happened to love him some strike-breaking). Cleveland feared that Labor Day would become an opportunity to commemorate the Haymarket Affair. Thus, in 1887, he established Labor Day as an official holiday to honor the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country--but he scheduled Labor Day for the first Monday in September, not May 1. Nonetheless, for years, U.S. workers continued May 1 observances and commemorations of workers and labor leaders who had died as a result of the fateful events of May 3 and 4, 1886.
In 1970, the AFL-CIO declared April 28 “Workers' Memorial Day,” to honor those killed, injured, disabled or otherwise made unwell because of their actual jobs and that is wonderful. However, I believe strongly that we in the U.S.A. should join in solidarity with most of the rest of the world in honoring, on every May 1, the martyrs of the Haymarket Affair and all others who fought, before and after 1886, for a right to unionize and for safe, humane working conditions, including the eight-hour work day.
[CENTER][IMG][/IMG]
May 1, 1909 Labor Parade, Manhattan
[IMG][/IMG]
May 1, 1913 Labor Strike, Union Square, Manhattan[/CENTER]
[CENTER][video=youtube;pCnEAH5wCzo]
Sources:
[url]http://www.democraticunderground.com/11177664[/url] (Evolution of Labor Day, a great thread in Omaha Steve's Labor Group, by Omaha Steve, aka JPR's Wizard of Os, himself.)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers'_Day[/url]
[url]https://blogs.shu.edu/history/2015/10/17/does-wikipedia-tell-the-truth/[/url]
[url]http://www.history.com/topics/haymarket-riot[/url]
[url]http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day[/url] (The entire article is well worth reading.)
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeiter-Zeitung_%28Chicago%29[/url]
[url]http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/haymarket/history4.html[/url]
[url]http://www.massaflcio.org/1886-general-strike-8-hour-day[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Memorial_Day[/url]
[url]http://aattp.org/read-the-real-bloody-and-amazing-story-of-labor-day/[/url]
[url]http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haymarket/haymarketdefendants.html#engel[/url]
The Sanders lawsuit against the DNC over the alleged data breach. DON'T FALL FOR ALL THE LIES!
First, let's remember that the employee most responsible for the breach was one the DNC had recommended to the Sanders' campaign.
Second, on first learning of the breach, the Sanders' campaign reported it to the DNC and asked the DNC to take steps to secure data, which the DNC did not do.
Months ago, the Sanders campaign fired the four employees it believed to be responsible for the breach, apologized for the breach and asked for a complete investigation, agreeing to pay a share of the costs of the investigation. I don't know what more anyone could have reasonably expected from the Sanders campaign?
A DNC investigation, the results of which were also released Friday (meaning April 29), concluded that the wrongdoing did not go beyond the four Sanders staffers who accessed the database and were fired soon after the incident came to light.Sanders campaign drops lawsuit against DNC over voter database breach
The DNC immediately deprived the Sanders campaign of access to the Sanders' campaign own data. Sanders sued for access. After some shilly shallying, the DNC gave Sanders access. Withdrawing the suit after the DNC gave the campaign access (months ago) and the investigation was completed (very recently) does not show the suit had no merit to begin with. Just the opposite. It shows only that the things the campaign sued for in the first place had been completed.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/29/politics/bernie-sanders-dnc-lawsuit-voter-database/
Bernie Sanders Withdraws Lawsuit Against DNC After Being Proven Correct About Data Breach
By Jason Easley on Fri, Apr 29th, 2016 at 4:38 pm
After an independent investigation into the data breach before the Iowa caucuses concluded that the Sanders campaign told the truth, Bernie Sanders has withdrawn his lawsuit against the DNC.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/04/29/bernie-sanders-withdraws-lawsuit-dnc-proven-correct-data-breach.html
Statement from the Sanders's campaign:
press Release
Independent Investigation Confirms Sanders Campaign Told the Truth
April 29, 2016
Twitter Facebook Email Link
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Four months ago, in an impulsive overreaction and at a critical point in the campaign just weeks before the closest Iowa caucus results in history, the DNC shut down the Sanders campaign’s access to its own voter file data, only restoring access after the campaign filed a lawsuit in Federal court.
Now, four months later, an independent investigation of the firewall failures in the DNC’s shared voter file database has definitively confirmed that the original claims by the DNC and the Clinton campaign were wholly inaccurate – the Sanders campaign never “stole” any voter file data; the Sanders campaign never “exported” any unauthorized voter file data; and the Sanders campaign certainly never had access to the Clinton campaign’s “strategic road map.”
In fact, the independent investigation has confirmed what the Sanders campaign said from the start:
the DNC’s security failures allowed four Sanders campaign staffers – three junior-level staffers led by a manager who had been hired at the recommendation of the DNC and who was immediately terminated after the incident – to have extremely short-lived access for one hour to Hillary for America’s scoring models, but not to any of Hillary for America’s proprietary voter data.
No one else in the Sanders campaign, outside these four staffers, accessed the Hillary for America’s scoring models or had knowledge that the activity was taking place until well after the incident was over.
With one exception, all unauthorized access took place within the DNC’s own system. While there is evidence that the terminated staffer may have exported a summary data table, the independent investigation of Sanders campaign computers could not locate that file and no one in the Sanders campaign has ever seen that file.
With the investigation behind us, the campaign has withdrawn its lawsuit against the DNC today but continues to implore the DNC to address the systemic instability that remains in its voter file system. It is imperative that the DNC make it a top priority to prevent future data security failures in the voter file system, failures that only serve as unnecessary distractions to the democratic process.
Bernie Sanders Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver said “We are gratified by the results of this independent investigation.”
Yes, but she cut a deal with him, although she is now denying that. "It was in all the papers"
in 2008 as a deal to help her fundraise to pay off her campaign debts, but I did never bought that as anything but a red herring.
I had been a steady donor to Obama, both primary and general. I got exactly one email from him or his campaign asking me to donate to Hillary and IIRC, he did exactly one fundraiser for her. Staying in the campaign, incurring more debt, in order to cut that deal makes no sense. However, he did nominate her for Secretary of State (after she, her husband and her surrogates had run a rather low down primary campaign against him); she and her husband did stump for him; she did not challenge him in 2012; she's been declared inevitable since 2012; Bernie was her only serious 2016 challenger; and Obama is being fairly helpful to her in her run, while claiming neutrality.
This group is for DUers who support Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
If you have given up on Bernie Sanders, you should stop posting in this group. JMO.
You're demoralizing the rest of us and discouraging us from donating and volunteering for Bernie.
Other places on this board may be suitable for that stuff, but it is inconsistent with the purposes of this group.
Before you post, think whether you post inspires people to phone bank for Bernie, to canvass for Bernie, to leaflet for Bernie, to donate to Bernie, to stand on line to vote for Bernie and the like until primary season ends, or whether it may do the opposite. If the latter, please don't post it here. JMO
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