Great response letter sent to the GR Press for an editorial written...

[livvy]

Could have used a quick check for a couple of errors, but that's the nagging little teacher in me that has recently been thrust back into action with the return of the little people.



Dear Mr. Broder:

Dick DeVos would be a disaster for Michigan and for the U.S. I've know the Rich DeVos family for many years, serving on the board of control of Grand Valley State University with the Sr. DeVos.

Dick and Betsy spent millions of dollars on a ballot initiative to get state funding for school vouchers for private/religious schools. They lost. Neither of them support public education. Spending over $15 million dollars of the DeVos fortune on tv ads that mislead the public is disgusting. Prior to the first ad by Governor Granholm, DeVos ads were disparaging her supposed ads as being - but think of the impact the false DeVos ads had on potential voters.

Betsy DeVos claimed and was quoted in the G.R. Press that the reason that Michigan was suffering outsourcing was because the "workers" were paid too much!! Of course the fact that she and Dick make millions of dollars each year didn't detract her from blaming average workers for the out sourcing problem. She must have forgotten that CEO's of the largest U.S. coroporations are paid obscene salaries, receive stock options and golden parachutes. Today's best paid CEO's make over 2000% of the annual wage of the average employee.

Neither DeVos has the ability or the desire to "listen" to those from the middle class and underclass in society. Betsy serves on the Focus on the Family Board of Directors. Dick is a member of the "secret" Council for National Policy, that has included and is/was comprised of Jack Abramhoff, Phyllis Schlafly, several members of the Coors family, Bob Jones III, Tim LaHaye, Jesse Helms, Rev. R.J. Rushdoony, Grover Norquist, William Dannemeyer, Rich DeVos, Herbert William Hunt, and many other extreme conservatives.

Both Dick and Betsy support repealing the Estate Tax (do you wonder why?), and eleminating the Small Business Tax. Dick supports doing away with the environmental controls of large corporate agricultural waste management that prevent animal wastes from entering ground water, asaulting the air and ground with putrid waste. Michigan's family farmers are very concerned about this issue. Dick would further erode social services, public education in Michigan.

If DeVos wins, it only proves that our electoral process has failed. It will prove that the oligarchs have taken over. People nation wide doubt our voting machines. Check out the corporations that have contributed the most money to political parties. None of these corporations willingly pays its taxes, and looks to further lowering of tax responsibility, but does pay obscene millions of dollars to assure that members of Congress adopt legislation that will benefit the corporation(s).

We live in an age of "Corporatism". Corporations control this country's governance, determine which individuals will run for office, and in the case of Diebold - I believe control the election outcomes. Today's corporations do not think of the U.S. national interests, but of global markets, and their quaterly reports.

If you think that Dick DeVos is only looking at "serving" Michigan as Governor, please think again. There is no doubt in my mind that he wants to run for President in 2012, and perhaps even sooner. Look at George W. Bush as the example.

Whether as Governor, or God forbid as President, DeVos would continue to serve corporate interests, not national interests. He would not have his pulse on the public. Look at the Amway, Alticor methodologies to get an idea of how DeVos might govern. There are many websites that you could visit that provide ample evidence of absolute mind control.

Years ago, I interviewed Rich DeVos at the Amway H.Q. in Ada. He was very polite. However, when I left the facility, I had to pass by an auditorium that was filled with Amway distributors. They were listening to an oration that raised the hackles on the back of my neck. It was like an extreme religious revival. The speaker was very powerful.

Rich DeVos and several of his friends invested heavily in Gospel.com, Billy Zeoli's company in Muskegon. Zeoli still runs the operations, but this company prostolyzes on the internet and is international. Of course, since Rich is involved, Gospel.com has a huge online market that sells religious DVD's, videos, books, and more. Many of these materials are presented at all Amway distributor meetings, and infact a large percentage of Amway profits comes from sales of these and other materials to distributors.

Merging religion with corporatism is frightening because it mirrrors the tenants of fascism. Amway/Alticor is a closely held and quite secretive organization. Why would a Dick DeVos administration be transparent? The administration of G.W. Bush certainly lacks transparency.

Dick is supported by and a supporter of Right to Life. Though he has in his employ individuals who are gay, he opposes homosexuality - quite the hipocrite, except that the gay people working for him don't have families and are on call 24/7. Betsy promotes "Family Values". Easy for her, since she has always had a nanny. Betsy, as National GOP Committee Woman spent much time in Washington D.C., Lansing, and on the road. She also is President of her own company. She is no Harriet Nelson, and the DeVos family lives in a mansion that costs over $2,000,000. We are talking West Michigan here, not New York, San Francisco, etc. They have always had servants, drivers, etc.

I hope you will investigate DeVos and candidates who are similar in greater depth.

Jennifer Granholm inherited a huge State deficit from former Governer Engler. She has also had to work with a Republican State House and Senate. She has done so with patience, diplomacy, brilliance, and hard work. Recently, the State Legislature voted to eleminate the State Small Business Tax. Granholm had stated that if the legislature could figure out a way to off set the billion dollar plus revenue loss, she too would support it. The legislature doesn't have a clue as to how to replace this future loss. As a result, the Michigan bond rating has already been lowered by Standard and Poors.

Sincerley yours,
XXXXXXXX

[MichiganVote]

1. Good letter. Makes me mad all over again just to read it.

[TahitiNut]

2. Terrible understatement.

You say "Today's best paid CEO's make over 2000% of the annual wage of the average employee."

If that were true, things wouldn't be nearly as atrocious as they are. The pay inequity is actually so bad that it staggers the imagination. It's so bad that the numbers themselves leave the realm of ordinary experience and cannot be portrayed in terms that we're familiar with.

The average CEO in Amerika today 'earns' over 400 times as much as the average worker in their company!

That's over 40000% ... twenty times larger than 2000%.

Stated another way, a CEO is paid in one year what it'd take the average worker twenty lifetimes to earn! Twenty (fucking!) lifetimes!! Lifetimes of labor - too often back-breaking, dirty, stressful, and unhealthy labor. For the enrichment of others.

According to the Net Income per Employee financial figures for the S&P500, the average employee is compensated for only about 1/3rd of the value of their labor ... and those compensation figures include the salaries and wages of executives! On top of this, earned income is taxed at more than double the rates of unearned income!

Executive salaries, and worse, executive compensation, are an absolute abomination.

An economic system that enormously enriches a powerful minority by confiscating the value of the labor of working people is nothing short of "plantation economics" ... the moral equivalent of slavery. Colonialism.



P.S. That would be "the tenets of fascism" not "the tenants (sic) of fascism."
I know... I'm a nitpicker.