Your report confirms something I've been saying for a
long time: We have the finest government money can buy. And it's not just
on the state level either. The worst part is that the public is duped into
believing that their vote is important. Politicians are not in office to
do the bidding of the voting public. They are there to serve corporations
and special interests who pay for their campaigns, vacations, hunting
trips and anything else they want.
Lobbyists will stop at nothing to engineer the legislation their clients
desire, even abandoning their own principals for the almighty buck.
Perhaps we should be voting for lobbyists instead of politicians. At least
we would stand a chance of reaching our so-called leaders.
...BobD, St Petersburg, 3/15/04
letter to editor St Pete Times
Privatization is an insidious ruse in which your tax
dollars are redirected to the coffers of the politically connected.
Apparently, you have to be a Republican to understand that in order to
save $40 million, you first must spend $280 million (this helps explain
the ballooning national deficit). The same faulty Republican logic can be
applied to the recent school voucher scandal, where hundreds of thousands
of our tax dollars were given away to well-connected political cronies
under the pretense of "helping" our children.
The Convergys debacle is stunning in its scope and magnitude, but typical
of many Republican "bust out" privatization schemes (Halliburton anyone?).
What other sweetheart deals have been made that we don't know about?
The citizens of Florida will have to deal with the financial wreckage left
by Gov. Bush and his merry band of corporate raiders. Our true plight will
become known only after they have fled the scene of the crime.
DAVE GALLOWAY
Chattahoochee
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Accenture...do you know about Accenture? Well, do you
know about Governor Bush's attempts to wipe out government workers? I'm
sure you've heard the statements he's made:
"There would be no greater tribute to our maturity as a society than if we
can make these [government] buildings around us empty of workers."
At the time, Governor Jeb was standing on the steps of
the Old Capitol, surrounded on all sides by state buildings containing
thousands of offices for employees from dozens of Florida agencies, all
the bureaucrats who make up the day to day activities of the state. Those
empty buildings, according to the governor, would become:
"Silent monuments to the time when government played a larger role than it
deserved or could adequately fill."
"Why this dramatic change in perspective and agenda, and
why now at the beginning of the new term?"
It's as if the Republican gloves of kindness, the rational, sensitive side
of Republicanism is officially over, now that there is no future election
to worry about.
http://www.usvisanews.com/memo1987.html
Allegedly, Jeb (acronym for John Ellis Bush) wants to rid anyone who
monitors him or his administration. He wants to rid anybody or anything
that wants safe air, safe water and wants to make government workers a bad
name. He wants to give his buddies huge contracts, so his friends earn
gigantic salaries while the rest of us struggle to pay utility bills or
"put food" on our tables.
Take Accenture, for example. Gov. JE BuSh hired this
company (who took its offices out of the U.S. so U.S. laws don't apply to
them and they don't have to pay U.S. taxes) to produce a computer and
communications' service.
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=index.xml
The consulting firm that broke away from the crumbling
Andersen Worldwide empire in 2000 is paring its payroll in Houston (Arthur
Anderson who reportedly destroyed documents in the Enron scandal).
Accenture, which lists Bermuda as the company's corporate home, broke away
from parent company Andersen Worldwide in 2000. Accenture's job is to
privatize government and outsource the jobs to private companies (aka BuSh
pals). The company has had serious problems in OH, NY and Ontario.
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/corp_profiles/public_service_gats_pdfs/Accenture.pdf
.
Allegedly, Accenture was paid 90 million for the Business &
Professional Regulation contract, gets paid $10,000. for each government
worker the company can rid and will be the only company that could
maintain and keep this program running!
IT GETS BETTER:
Offshore Company Captures Online Military Vote 7/16/03 EcoTalk: "Last
year, while President Bush marshaled U.S. forces for the invasion of Iraq,
the patriots at the Department of Defense awarded the contract for a new
online voting system for the military... to an offshore company. It gets
worse. Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) is the
system and Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting of Enron bankruptcy
fame) is the company. And although Accenture has not been officially
implicated in the Enron scandal, they have created a reputation of their
own that is already raising eyebrows."
http://www.blackvoternetwork.com/votefraud.htm
The Canada-based Polaris Institute published a scathing
report on Accenture, saying, "Accenture's efforts in government
outsourcing have often been very expensive and/or of poor quality. There
is good reason to question Accenture's track record in outsourcing of
government services."
Accenture is the leading offshore beneficiary of
government contracts whose main business is the privatization of
government services, according to Lee Drutman of Citizen Works, a
non-profit founded by Ralph Nader. Accenture has a troubling track record,
a close business relationship with Dick Cheney's Halliburton, and 2500
partners - more than half are not U.S. citizens.
In March 13, 2000 Andersen Consulting (now Accenture)
and Microsoft signed a "$1 Billion Pact To Form Joint Venture and Expand
Global Alliance." What's the alliance? To control voting systems around
the world?
July 2000 David Lesar succeeded Dick Cheney as Chairman and CEO of
Halliburton Company. Before joining Halliburton, Lesar was employed by the
Arthur Andersen, Accenture's former parent company. Polaris says, "…while
defending Halliburton's accounting practices, David Lesar publicly
acknowledged that Cheney knew about the firm's accounting practices..."
In an October 2001 press release, Halliburton and
Accenture announced a major expansion of their longstanding relationship
with the signing of an alliance between Accenture and Landmark Graphics
Corporation, a wholly owned business unit of Halliburton. Can anyone at
the Pentagon spell "national security"?
.... DonnaQuixote, 2/15/04
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This proposal gives Gov. Bush what he wants, which is to
have the Secretary of State’s spacious Capitol offices as well as his own
(apparently while others need to tighten their belts, he needs to loosen
his). It also gives almost everyone else what they want, which is for the
State Library, Archives, Records, and Museum of Florida History to stay
where they have been, with full services and staffing. It meets the
greatest-good-for-the-greatest-number test, and it saves money.
Give Glenda Hood to Nova Southeastern University.
1. The transfer expenses will be considerably (millions of dollars) less,
especially if she’ll fly coach.
2. State government will be more decentralized, while telephone and fax
technology will make distance from Tallahassee irrelevant.
3. There will be greater public access to the Secretary because, as Lt.
Gov. Brogan and Interim Secretary of State Ken Detzner have observed,
there are more people in south Florida.
4. Because Nova’s library is open 100 hours per week while the State
Library is open 51 hours per week, the Secretary can be available twice as
much for the same salary.
5. Because the 325,000-square-foot library has so much empty space, the
Secretary can have even more spacious offices.
6. An accreditation committee is more likely to be favorably impressed by
Nova’s having a Secretary of State in residence than by a lot of books
intended for State government officials.
7. Nova might find it has less need to pay 8 lobbyists.
8. This could become a model for public-private partnerships.
John Fraser 1/22/04
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I found 'em. They're everywhere. Just look around.
You'll see them too.
They bump into each other like bumbling idiots. In the process they kill
thousands of
people and maim millions more every year. The carcasses of small animals
they leave in their wake is heartbreaking.
How many trees have been axed, how much arable land has been rendered
useless except for their fleeting rights of passage?
They leak toxic substances onto roads and parking lots which accounts for
70%
of our water pollution from runoff. They poison our air so badly that by
the afternoon
whole skylines magically disappear. They create wars for oil.
But we love them, so we're told anyway.
They throw daggers of fear into our hearts if our children get anywhere
near one that's
moving. They pile up in junkyards by the billions--what to do with all
that waste? When
they get stuck, the operators get so angry they shoot other operators.
I hope that one day we Americans will learn from the more advanced
(certainly
more forward-thinking) people like the Europeans that non-polluting,
efficient, and safe
means of mass public transportation is what we need to work toward for a
sustainable
future for our children and their children.
We certainly won't need weapons inspectors wasting millions of dollars
hunting for
things that don't exist.
I for one will continue to walk, rollerblade, bike, and bus it around. I
hope you'll think
about it too.
Frank Gubasta, Fort Myers, FL
-- 1/19/04
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The Florida Department of Health (DOH) regularly
disregards its own disciplinary and grievance regulations, policies, and
procedures, using these processes as manipulative tools to manage
dedicated employees who come forward and speak up in an attempt to improve
the agency. This fact is clearly presented in these articles on Dr. Omar
Shafey:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=4691 ;
http://www.getipm.com/government/shafley.htm ;
http://www.cssa-inc.org/_unify/malathion.htm ;
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/infoservices/pesticidesandyou/Spring%2000/Around%20the%20Country.pdf
;
http://gainesvillesunarchives.colony1.net/sunarchives/public_html/opinion/edits/04-07-00edit1.shtml
;
http://www.oalj.dol.gov/public/WBLOWER/decsn/00caa19a.htm ; and the
fact that DOH settled his lawsuit all but confirms the truth of his
allegations.
Apparently, the fact that articles about Dr. Shafey's case were circulated
globally, informing people around the world of DOH's questionable
personnel practices, state officials were not at all fazed. Back home it
was business as usual. Check out the story of Cindy Moore, a Nursing
Supervisor at Duval County Health Department. Ms. Moore was targeted and
fired after reporting serious irregularities in clinic operation. Find her
story at:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/082003/met_13319817.shtml
,
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/082103/met_13329236.shtml
,
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/091003/met_13493202.shtml
,
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102503/met_13874467.shtml
.
According to these articles, Ms. Moore won her whistle-blower lawsuit, but
will apparently ultimately lose her job because she falsified her
application for employment by leaving off two jobs that might have
impacted negatively on her chances to be hired. Most of us have one or two
of those we would like to forget. The fact that Ms. Moore chose to leave
these off her application does not change the fact that the problems she
reported were real, or that she won her lawsuit because DOH acted
illegally. It is unfortunate that, by doing so, she gave DOH ammunition to
take further action against her.
DOH settled with Dr. Shafey for an "undisclosed amount", and Ms. Moore won
an award of attorney's fees amounting to somewhere around $100,000. I
believe it is a "matter of public concern" that DOH can carry on in this
way with impunity, silencing employees out of fear of retribution, and
costing taxpayers huge amounts of money to defend itself when a courageous
few stick to their principles and openly express their concerns.
I experienced similar treatment at DOH, and was ultimately fired on a
pretext. Please print my name and e-mail address. I want to hear from
others who share these same concerns or who believe they have experienced
the same treatment at the Florida Department of Health, in hopes of making
improvements. Thanks.
Barbara Taylor,
BarbaraSTaylor@cs.com
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It is
appalling to me that we spend millions of
dollars abroad, and neglect the needs of home.
This week I went to the VA Clinic in Stuart,
Fl., Martin County, and will have to return as
they had no urine specimen bottles, no 24 hr.
urine bottles, no fecal blood envelopes and the
X-ray machine is down. In addition, they have
had no physician for the last eight months. And,
this is what I know, however, the list may be
much longer. To me this is unexcusable, and to
say the least it is difficult for the staff to
work without the necessary equipment. Certainly
this situation can be rectified.
....Thomas D, 11/23/03
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