Sue Bank of America - Pay big Bucks

 Corporate "Personhood" Run Amok

 In a twisted saga of how the crazy concept of corporate personhood has been perverted beyond even this jaded commentator's imagination, today's San Francisco Chronicle has the story of a women attorney who was grossly mistreated by the Bank of America, arrested and held chained to a jailhouse wall, without her diabetes medicine, sued the Bank and the Police (our own San Francisco's finest) and ended up not only having her case thrown out of Federal court, but ordered to pay the Bank $50,000 in bloated attorney's fees for stifling the Banks' right to free speech, under California's anti-SLAPP statute (which protects the free speech right of people from a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a type of lawsuit usually brought by a corporation or business for the purpose of chilling free speech in the public arena) according to the Federal judge who first heard the case and 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, in its unpublished ruling.)

Sharon Henry went to deposit her partner's check in the Bank; the Bank, suspicious of the amount of $27,000, looked up the name of the partner, which coincidentally there were two of, and found out she did not have sufficient funds to cover the check.  Never mind that the Bank's own policy is to call the number on the check for verification. They snatched Henry, a San Mateo deputy District Attorney no less, and had her arrested. San Francisco police then chained her to a wall for two hours, without her medication and refused to let her call her partner.

Two hours later, the Bank realized its "mistake" and she was let go.  She sued the Bank for negligence and the police for negligence and false arrest and accused them of arresting her because she was African American. 

Equal Justice Under the Law?

So a gay African American civil servant is mistreated by all parties who fail to follow proper procedure, both in verifying the account and in holding her in medieval conditions (who gets chained to walls these days? Or do they, remind me not to get arrested in San Francisco) and she has to pay the Bank because of a perverted use of the anti-SLAPP statute, extending protection to banks from liability for any statements its employees make while investigating the crime. Her lawsuit was called "frivolous" by the Court.

While I do not have all the facts (why was she in Federal court, for one thing? A civil rights allegation?), it seems to me these are actions not statements that she suffered. And why do Banks have free speech rights in the first place? 

And unstated in the story is whether some of this "mistaken" activity occurred because Henry is gay, as well as African American.

In America? 2013? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Sadly, not.

Debra Saunders – Will be pepper-sprayed for cash

Commenting on the settlement received by the U.C. Davis students who were pepper sprayed during a peaceful sit down demonstration on campus last November, Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders offers to get herself pepper sprayed for the $30,000 settlement each student was awarded by the University. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/UC-Davis-pepper-sprayed-students-settle-3896116.php  (Read the very thoughtful comments too; they are eloquent and make me feel this blog is redundant.) 

I’d like to see that.  

The trouble with this story, as with much of Saunders’ jaundiced and skewed view of the world, is that she twists the truth just enough to weight the story in her favor.  In Debra’s world, because the students sat down in protest of tuition hikes, they were asking to be pepper sprayed, and cannot now cry foul over that treatment. What she doesn’t say is that the Davis students were also protesting police brutality used against peacefully protesting Berkeley students just days before.  http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/20/18700509.php

 

But Debra doesn’t let the facts get in way of good rant.  In some bizarre alternate reality, Debra tells us the students surrounded the cops, refused to leave and got pepper-sprayed for their threatening posture.  Once again, it is clear to me that Debra must phone this column in from outer space.  Her own paper carried the story and the photos showing students seated on the ground, arms linked together  being pepper sprayed. While other students may have protested outside the police circle, the ones who got sprayed were the ones on the ground.   

Civil disobedience is a longstanding tactic of the civil rights movement, but where does it say that when college students engage in it, whether protesting tuition hikes, striking for free speech or showing solidarity for fellow students, those people protesting become willing participants in having their eyes doused in chemicals designed to be used to subdue vicious dogs, riot control or personal self-defense.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray

 

Here are some other fun facts about pepper spray Debra might want to ponder before offering up her eyes:

 “When sprayed directly at the face, the effects of pepper spray can be severely incapacitating, invoking temporary blindness, breathing difficulties, a long-lasting burning sensation and severe coughing, with effects lasting anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. Although pepper spray is deemed a non-lethal agent, studies suggest that high levels of exposure can have serious health effects. A 1999 report on the health effects of pepper spray by researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina states (pdf):

“Depending on brand, an OC spray may contain water, alcohols, or organic solvents as liquid carriers; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or halogenated hydrocarbons (such as Freon, tetrachloroethylene, and methylene chloride) as propellants to discharge the canister contents.(3) Inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.” Pepper spray by Brianna Lee,   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/pepper-spray/12472/

 

So, is pepper spray a proper response to peacefully demonstrating?  Especially the military grade pepper spray used by the Davis police.  There seems to be a trend among the right these days that civil rights were something that happened in the past and are only for African Americans. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/ann-coulter_n_1908958.html  (Also see this blog on that very subject, Ann Coulter on "Civil Rights" - Bring on the Exorcist, http://greendogdemocrat.blogspot.com/2012/09/ann-coulter-on-civil-rights-bring-on.html). 

 

Everyone else, I guess, who speaks out about unfair conditions, deserves pepper spray in the eyes. What next, Debra, dogs attacking striking teachers?  Fire hoses for veterans marching for health benefits? How much would you take for those experiences?

Ann Coulter on "Civil Rights" - Bring on the Exorcist!

Right wing shrieker Ann Coulter's head was spinning in such full Exorcist mode, that she was in danger of screwing herself into the ground, this morning on George Stephanopoulos's This Week.  

By now we know that Coulterism is counter universe stuff, but she outdid herself this morning, first blaming the media for Romney's current troubles; claiming the real video containing his 47% wasn't even shown, to surprised protests of yes it was, by her co-guests, then, when her head stopped its rapid 365 rotation long enough for her mouth to respond to a question of whether she thought immigrants' rights were civil rights she said,  “No. I think civil rights are for blacks ... What have we done to the immigrants? We owe black people something. We have a legacy of slavery. Immigrants haven’t even been in this country.”

"what have we done to immigrants?"  Of course immigrants were just the subject of the moment; she also threw in gays and feminists, those destroyers of America, in making her proclamation that civil rights were only for blacks.  

And didn't say, but I'm sure thought, "And we're done with that, get over it."