"All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing." - Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879-1944), U.S. author, Modes and Morals
Like 50 million other Americans, I signed up for the nationwide, "Do Not Call List", so I was not at all happy to hear that U.S. District Judge Lee R. West ruled that it was not within the province of the FTC to create such a list. I was even more disturbed to hear, today, that another Judge - U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham - issued an opinion blocking the list based on telemarketers' free speech rights.
Free Speech? Excuse me?
The First Amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Where in the First Amendment does it give anyone the right to invade my home and my right to privacy? Where does it say that anyone with something to sell can use MY telephone, which I bought and pay to maintain in order to keep in touch with friends and family, for thier commerical gain?
The "Do Not Call List" is the electronic equivalent of a "no trespassing" sign or a "no soliciting sign". Sorry telemarketers, your right to Free Speech does not include a right to come into my home to deliver it. Your right to Free Speech ends at my right not to listen to your sales pitch.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against all forms of advertising. You can put commercials on my TV, on my radio or in my newspaper because I'm getting something back for that. It lowers the cost of delivering those media, so you get your 10 or 20 seconds to try and sell me something. I actually check out products I've seen on TV, heard about on the radio or read about in a newspaper or magazine.
I do not buy anything from telemarketers. Telemarketers give nothing back for my time - and my time is valuable. They interrupt whatever I'm doing and force me to get up to answer the phone. And yes, I have an answering machine, but then they leave their messages on the machine clogging up the tape for calls I want.
I don't even listen to telemarketers' spiel. Up until now, I politely say, "I'm not interested" and hang up. Now, I'm considering getting an air horn and giving them a blast in the ear. My name is on the "Do Not Call List" - call me at your own risk. Consider it my "no soliciting" sign and my "Beware of Dog" sign all combined into one.
IN an article on CNN, Robert Wientzen, president and CEO of Direct Marketing Association said, "If they don't want to receive calls, we don't want to call them." Hello - 50 million people have said, "Do NOT call us!" What part of NO don't you understand? Mr Wientzen claims that they have a "Do Not Call List" that they have maintained for 18 years. Well, first of all, that only covers those who belong to his association and there is nothing to prevent them from calling you anyway, except expulsion from the organization. Secondly, I went to their web site and their is a $5.00 charge to sign up on line. They accept credit cards - how convenient. Now they have your name and your credit card number as well. I don't think so.
I saw Mr. Wientzen on the Today show, yesterday, and he seems to think that there are people out there who want to have telemarketers call them. I certainly don't know any of them. Who are these people? Stand up and be counted. I think they should have a list of people who want to be called - they deserve it.
On this, the second anniversary of that terrible day, I will once again share some pictures that I took of the NYC skyline in September of 1992, side by side with those I took in June of 2002. You can find them here.
You can also read my personal reflections on that day here.
Or if you would just like to view some other pictures that I have taken of NYC, you will find those here.
I did some reading over Labor Day weekend as I contemplated the state of the US economy, and my present state of unemployment. One of the articles I read was on the AlterNet web site and written by Doris 'Granny D' Haddock. The title of the article was "A Small Group of Dedicated People Might Actually Do Something" The theme was about how individuals can make a difference in the world, especially if like-minded individuals band together, but the problem she was addressing was globilization of big business and corporate corruption.
She speaks of how the Teddy Roosevelt progressives, and the William Jennings Bryan populists before him handled the robber barons of the "Gilded Age", and how with all the deregulation and "hands off" policies our government has adopted and continues to adopt, they have made a come back.
She writes, "I am not talking about all corporations or all big business. Corporations of reasonable size are but groups of people. Beyond some point, however, the humanity falls away from an organization and all that is left is the will to power and profit. They care not that our seas and atmosphere are rapidly changing in ways that may lead to disaster and famine of unimaginable scale. They care not because they are not human and they have moved beyond human values. They do not need the fresh air or the water or the mountains or the birds. They are a kind of virus or a cancer, all prettied up with a nice logo and television commercials to tell us the most outrageous lies, one after the other. For in reality, they crush us under their boots and they pay off our political leaders with campaign contributions and other bribes. They trample on diversity of all kinds, including human personality, as fewer and fewer kinds of people can prosper in the world they are casting, and more and more of us are marginalized."
This is the part that I found interesting, because it is this falling away of humanity that is causing so much of today's unemployment. We keep hearing that the economy is getting better, but it's getting better because corporations are starting to show a profit. The problem is they have come to the conclusion that they can continue to make a profit with less workers.
Fire some people, dump the extra work on those remaining and threaten them with the loss of their jobs if they complain - that seems to be the general philosophy of big business (and some smaller ones too) today. Look at the want ads (when you can find any). Every business is looking for "chief cooks and bottle washers." The lists of job responsibilities are truly amazing.
E.J Dionne, writing in The Record (north New Jersey) blames supply-side economics and I tend to agree. He writes, "The simple truth is that the standard of living of most Americans depends on getting jobs that pay well. This means that unemployment matters not just for those out of work, but for those whose wages are depressed when too many people are competing for too few jobs."
When I first heard about supply-side economics back in the late '70s or early '80s, it sounded like a viable idea. Feed money in at the top, the corporations will hire more people and everyone benefits. The problem is that these corporations are no longer allowing the money to trickle down. Greed has set in and they are keeping it for themselves. Dionne also writes, "The lesson of the Depression was that if ordinary workers lacked jobs and adequate incomes, the economy would crash because too few people could afford to buy what businesses hoped to sell."
Seems to me that our CEOs, CFOs and our government need a history lesson before it's too late.