- Search Results
“A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others and as a result doesn’t make the mistakes others make.”
The fool…well…he gets married again.
This is a cautionary tale on marriage and the inevitable divorce. In the United States there are some states which still have Lifetime Alimony.
Florida is one of those states..( New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, North Carolina, West Virginia, Florida, Oregon, also in California: if the marriage was 10 years or longer, the Ex can ask for permanent Alimony although it isn’t granted as frequently as it was in the past)In other countries a man can pay alimony even for a live in girlfriend such as Canada or Australia….
@#@#$%^&*()_
from: https://www.wral.com/divorce-from-hell-isnt-over-yet-and-may-be-getting-worse/18262770/
@#@#$%^&*()_‘Divorce from hell’ isn’t over yet and may be getting worse
Posted 3:00 a.m. todayBy LEONORA LAPETER ANTON, Tampa Bay Times of St. Petersburg
CLEARWATER, FLA. — The peace lasted about five years. But Murielle Fournier and Terry Power, whose split was the subject of a 2013 story in the Tampa Bay Times titled “The divorce from hell, the battle for alimony and emptied pockets” are at it once again.
Their epic divorce, first filed in 2008, took five years, four judges, six lawyers and $400,000 in attorneys’ fees and court costs.
This time, their fighting escalated quickly. In January, a judge found Power in contempt and ordered police to pick him up and put him in jail.
But Power was long gone. He’d fled the state.
___
ADVERTISING
This is about a marriage that won’t die, a former wife who says she deserves more and an ex-husband who feels Florida’s divorce laws are antiquated and unfair.
They’d had a traditional marriage. Power worked as a retirement planner, making $250,000 a year, and Fournier stayed home, raising their two children, Meghan and Christopher. She cooked French meals and took her daughter around the world to compete as an ice skater. They lived lavishly, vacationing in Switzerland, Tahiti, France.
When the divorce finally ended in 2012, the final judgment noted that during the 18-year marriage, she sacrificed a chance for a professional life to care for the kids and advance her husband’s career.
The judge ordered Power to pay Fournier $1,500 a month in alimony. That was far less than the $5,400 a month and $50,000 cash he had offered her at the outset of the divorce, which she had refused.
Power felt like he’d won.
Fournier even had to give him $500 a month for child support. Power still owed her $87,000 for alimony he hadn’t paid while they battled in court, but the judge had not outlined a payment plan given the destruction of Power’s finances.
Then in November 2017, Power announced he was running for the Florida House of Representatives. He’d become a key player in the alimony reform movement, based on his grueling experience in Pinellas County. He believed divorce attorney fees should be capped and alimony needed to be a formula like child support.
But Power thinks the election, which he lost last year, triggered the reopening of his divorce case.
___
Fournier says she reached out to a lawyer after she noticed Power was spending a lot of money on his campaign. She had returned to the area in 2017 and gotten a job at a spa earning $1,222 a month. She moved into a 9-by-10-foot room in a friend’s house in Clearwater, because she couldn’t afford her own place. She wanted the $87,000 Power still owed her.
On June 4, two days after Power officially filed to run for the House of Representatives, Fournier’s lawyer, Andrew Reder, filed to reopen the divorce. The new filing observed that in a five-month period in the beginning of 2018, Power had donated $79,500 for his campaign. That seemed excessive, considering he still owed Fournier and he’d reported his income on a public disclosure form as $37,500. And he was telling everyone on the campaign trail that he would donate his salary to charity if elected.
Power believes his opponent, Florida House Rep. James Grant, was behind Fournier’s court action. Grant had hired an opposition research firm that spent $500 to copy Power’s entire divorce file. Power produced Facebook posts that showed Reder had campaigned for Grant as far back as 2010.
Grant acknowledged Reder was a friend, but he said he works for a well-known family law firm.
“Mr. Power’s actions are the only reason his divorce was reopened,” Grant said. “He chose to represent to the court that he was incapable of paying a judgment while representing to the state that the funds he put into his campaign were his alone.” Anyone “with an ounce of common sense and integrity” would recognize that as fraud, Grant said.
In court documents, Power said his campaign donations had come from a one-time bonus of $75,000 for work in 2018 related to a specific client.
Nonetheless, he offered his ex-wife $100,000 to pay off what he owed and settle the case, he said. Then $150,000.
Fournier, through her new attorney, said no. She wanted what she was owed, plus interest, and she also wanted $2,906 a month in lifetime alimony. The final judgment in the divorce had identified that amount as her “need” but had set Power’s “ability to pay” at $1,500.
The reason the former couple’s divorce can rise like a phoenix six years later is because Florida law allows a spouse to ask for a change in alimony, time-sharing or child support if there is a change in circumstances. It works both ways, so if someone’s finances plummet, he or she can ask to reduce alimony payments.
But as the requests for documents arrived, one after another, Power grew enraged.
Fournier and her lawyer wanted all records since 2014 from accounts Power owned individually and jointly with his girlfriend, Delores Trott. The list included monthly statements, cancelled checks, check registers, deposit slips, cashier checks, travelers’ checks, savings bonds and money orders, all receipts related to his living expenses paid by his girlfriend, all cash transfers between him and his girlfriend, all records of his ownership or stock options in the company he’d sold to his girlfriend during the divorce for $1, the past five years of federal income tax returns, lists of business furniture, fixtures and equipment, club memberships, his House campaign account reports and all records related to the loans to his campaign.
As months passed, 157 separate filings were made by both sides.
In October, a mediation failed, and Power stopped paying Fournier alimony.
Fournier’s lawyer asked the judge to hold Power in contempt and put him in jail for 364 days.
Power didn’t even go to that hearing on Jan. 24.
He posted on his Facebook page in February that he refused to comply with extortion. “So now I am in contempt of court, and I will remain in contempt.”
By then, he had already crossed the Florida border.
___
Pinellas County Circuit Judge Christopher LaBruzzo’s order of contempt is a civil procedure, but it allows police to pick up and incarcerate Power. The “writ of bodily attachment” has a picture of a smiling Power in a blue golf shirt standing in front of a row of dollar bills hanging from the rafters at Frankie’s Patriot BBQ. In the original image, taken from Power’s Twitter feed, he was standing next to Florida Sen. Jeff Brandes.
The judge had ordered Power to pay Fournier $6,000 in alimony and almost $5,000 in attorneys’ fees caused by his refusal to respond to the requests for documents. If he didn’t, he was subject to a $75-a-day fine.
Power ranted on Twitter:
“When will her attorney cue her in that he’s used her to get to me and that she’s not getting (asterisk)any(asterisk) more money? Asking for a friend #untouchable #divorce #alimony.”
In February, Power filed a response with the court. He said he hadn’t earned more than $40,000 a year since the divorce, and he had federal tax returns to prove it.
“If the Former Wife’s Contingency Fee Divorce Attorney knows of someone who is willing to hire an unlicensed 61-year-old financial planner who has a bankruptcy filing on his record and whose reputation has been destroyed by the relentless and vindictive actions online by former wife and her allies…I am open to an interview.”
___
On Feb. 2, about 90 people gathered for a Florida Alimony Reform Political Action Committee meeting at the Holiday Inn in Celebration, just outside Walt Disney World. They were there to discuss a new alimony reform bill. Most were alimony payers, each with his or her own list of divorce court grievances.
Power had started the group in 2017.
Now he appeared via Skype on a jumbo screen in a red University of Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt.
“I guess you’re all wondering why I’m not there,” he said.
He explained that he faced arrest for the contempt order and said he would not be coming back to Florida until it was resolved. “I don’t look good in orange,” he said.
In the audience, Elvina and Lee Kallett nodded their heads. They had married long after Lee and his first wife divorced, but they say his ex-wife’s attorneys came after Elvina’s assets once Lee lost his job.
They say they had to divorce to protect her money, and Lee moved to Ohio.
A settlement was reached last year, and Lee and Elvina recently remarried.
“We’re 100 percent free of her,” Elvina said.
The reform bill would eliminate permanent alimony and allow alimony awards for only one half the length of the marriage. Alimony payments would stop at retirement, no matter what.
Such reforms have passed both the House and the Senate twice before in Florida, but former Gov. Rick Scott had vetoed them each time. Once because he didn’t like a child time-sharing provision in the bill and another time because it would have been retroactive to old divorces.
Now the group was scrambling for a sponsor for the 2019 legislative session. Sen. Kelli Stargel, a Republican from Lakeland who twice sponsored the bill, still supported the measure but was busy chairing the education subcommittee. Tom Lee, the Republican senator from Brandon, was willing to support it in the Senate but wanted to see others behind it, too.
Family lawyers oppose the legislation, as do many women who point out how some first wives even end up homeless.
As Power spoke to the group, two Osceola County deputies arrived at the hotel. They had heard Power might be at the conference.
Trott, Power’s girlfriend, explained that he was just on the screen. Did they want to come see?
The deputies left.
___
Trott recently packed up boxes at the couple’s home in Oldsmar. She and Power were about to list it for sale. She sat down at the dining room table and set up her tablet to talk to Power via Skype.
The couple has been together for 11 years. They met through a Craigslist ad after Power left Fournier, they say.
Power’s face popped up on the screen. He’d grown a beard.
The latest request from Fournier’s attorney was for $5,906 a month, he said, including the alimony he owed. Fournier’s lawyers wanted him to pay $20,000 in legal fees through January.
He shook his head.
“This is 10 years after I filed for divorce and they come back and want to redo the whole thing all over again.”
“Pathetic,” Trott replied.
Power was in Georgia at Trott’s sister’s house. He was leaving for Texas in a few days. She would join him later.
The couple had chosen Texas because of its alimony laws. They had notified the Pinellas clerk of the court of the new address.
Texas has never had permanent alimony. It has something called spousal maintenance, which is awarded only in rare instances as a rehabilitative measure when there are not enough assets. And once the couple is divorced, it’s over. You can’t come back and request spousal support.
That doesn’t mean that Power’s case switches over because he moved to Texas, said Sherri Evans, a member of the State Bar of Texas Family Law Section’s Legislative Committee. The order of the Florida judge would still be enforceable in Texas.
But David Anton, a family lawyer in Tampa for 32 years, said it’s very difficult to get other states to enforce those orders. Who is going to pay to put handcuffs around Power’s wrists and fly him back to Florida?
___
On the fourth floor of the Pinellas County Courthouse, Fournier, 56, sat with her lawyer, Reder, on a wooden bench discussing the divorce hearing that was about to begin. It was a Monday morning in March.
A parade of Fournier’s and Power’s former divorce lawyers happened by them in the busy courthouse, curious.
“Is this still going on?” asked Ty Zdravko, a Palm Harbor attorney who had represented Power during a portion of the original divorce.
“Yes,” she replied. “He fled to Texas.”
Inside the courtroom, Judge LaBruzzo noted Power’s absence, then picked up a phone to call the now-wanted man. Power happened to be driving back from the driver’s license office in Dallas when the judge called. LaBruzzo cheerfully got the hearing underway, allowing Power, who had fired his latest lawyer, to represent himself by phone.
During the nearly three-hour hearing, Reder went through his client’s requests one by one. Fournier sought to garnish Power’s paycheck for alimony. Reder also wanted to depose his girlfriend. And Fournier wanted him to pay her attorneys’ fees and court costs, estimated at more than $40,000.
“A lot of these fees were incurred due to Mr. Power’s refusal to comply with discovery obligations,” Reder said.
Fournier testified that her checking account held a total of $352.
“I’m living on $10 an hour,” she said.
Reder asked her how this differed from her marriage.
“During our marriage, we lived in a 5,400-square-foot house,” she said. “We went on vacations. My kids went to private school. They had private tutors. My job was to be a stay-at-home mom. I always made gourmet meals for my family. … I picked them up from school, I volunteered in the library at school.”
She said she hired an attorney because she was told that was the only way to get the money she was owed.
“I really thought today was going to be the end of it,” she continued, “and it keeps going on and on.”
Then Power questioned his ex-wife.
Had she posted on Twitter a picture of his head superimposed on the body of a prisoner with handcuffs?
“Somebody posted that, yes,” she responded.
Had she posted a photo with Power’s head superimposed on Fred Flintstone with the words Grand Puba?”
“Somebody posted a picture of Mr. Power’s head on a puba, yes,” she responded.
After Fournier testified, the judge asked Power what evidence he’d like to present.
“This is nothing but a giant fishing expedition,” Power said, his voice on speaker phone.
He said he’d like to settle the divorce. LaBruzzo told him to talk to Reder. Then he ruled that Power’s pay could be garnished for the back alimony, and he had to pay Fournier $20,000 for Fournier’s legal fees.
Days later, the Florida Alimony Reform Political Action Committee secured sponsors to file the reform bill again. Power had called looking for sponsors.
And, Power retired from the pension company he started 19 years ago.
“There’s a good chance I’ll never come back,” Power said. “I’m not optimistic that this will be resolved.”
An avid pilot, he thought about flying relief missions in a single-engine airplane. He liked helping out during Hurricane Irma. And if they come for him in Texas, well, there is always Costa Rica.
Anyone who ever happened to disagree with Gravel Pit was subjected to things like these.
Read this and shudder.
If this is the “NEW standard of MGTOW” than I gladly drop the label.
This is straight from “Ghettoburg”
And she was also f~~~ing with Phoenix, who is a very long term respected member here and has made 1000’s of valuable posts.
Gravel Pit THINKS she can decide who has the right to be here and who MUST leave.
I told her that I will not bow down to the likes of her.
BTW, this came as a first attack, Phoenix and me were only participating in a thread about reddit…
Our simple presence was enough for her to go off like that… (click on the links to see the original tread)
talking crap about other men
They are just “Meow” to me.
Phoenix and Gargamal, why are you two f~~~~~s still even here?!
Phoenix, you f~~~ing took a big dump all over KM and many fellow men here, swearing off the place, so now you’re back? No apology or nothing, just posting again like nothing happened. F~~~ YOU BITCH!
And you Gargamel, god damn retarded ass SPERG f~~~ up, posting THOUSANDS of mother f~~~ing cat pictures and s~~~. GO SHOVE A DILDO UP YOUR ASS.
F~~~ YOU BOTH, you’re both worse than actual women posting here.
Im not putting the nice foot forward any more, trying to be the better man and act nice to people around here. BOTH OF YOU ARE F~~~ING ASSHOLES WHO START S~~~ WITH GOOD PEOPLE HERE
GO TO HELL C~~~ SUCKERS
Either make amends with the fellow men here, OR GET THE F~~~ OUT.
Gargamel, YOU SAID YOU”D BE GONE WHEN THE CREDIT CARD CHARGES STOPPED. WELL!? I HAVENT BEEN BILLED THIS MONTH, ITS TWO WEEKS LATE. BILLING HAS CEASED. SO WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? IM WAITING FOR AN APOLOGY YOU RETARDED F~~~. GET THE F~~~ OUT.
Dont act like this website is any better. Its unmanned and full of assholes like Gargamel and Phoenix. They actively hurt other men here and dont show a shred of humility or brotherhood.
The entire MGTOW started going to s~~~ 3 years ago when pussy beggars and PUAs redefined what going your own way meant. Now we have ass hats here that make it a daily chore to s~~~ all over this website, which used to be a great thing a fewe years ago.
F~~~ers….. no humility, no gratitude, no amends to your brothers, nothing. YOURE WORSE THAN WOMEN.
WHERE IS THE APOLOGY???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????The funny part is that I can come here for 5 minutes and set you off on a 5 hour resentment. You literally wont sleep or eat for hours, as you post cats all over. Mean while, Im out enjoying my life, riding a bicycle dozens of miles. Seeing the city. Making sales. Attending social functions…. you’re still couped up in some cave resenting everyone with cats on the brain. LMAO. You’re too easy.
The severity of your mental illness is alarming. I would feel sorry for you except that Im pretty sure YOU ARE A WOMAN, the only other explanation is ASPERGERS and substance addiction. Either way, you’ve a waste of air
have a nice cat dayIn July of 2018, this honey pot forum was sold out to an unidentified NPC sock puppet and troll organization. Most independent thinkers and writers migrated to other MGTOW forums as a result of the never-ending infighting and deliberate trouble starting caused by members who were given "carte blanche" by the admin to do whatever they want. Before my departure, I only left a few thousand cat pics here to comfort and ridicule the feminist owners who now run this place. Their background agenda is to make MGTOW look like a club of losers the public eye. And during the course of 2019, they actually managed to destroy almost all other MGTOW venues as well. Here is the truth about "theindependentman.org" aka "TIM" which was created as an extended workbench to further divide the community. When you register, they install a spyware Zombie cookie on your browser that does all kinds of things the user does not know of: http://www.filedropper.com/essay-on-the-removal-of-malware-cookies-used-by-tim (.pdf file)
Well some women can have tattoos and still be attractive.
Yes, and NAWALT.
Good luck.
I’m not saying they are not NAWALT, I am just saying that you can be a woman, but still look goddamn hot. Maria Brink has a bit of the MILF look to her
Just look at her, the eyes, the smile, beautiful maybe, scary 100 per cent.
That women face says “I will murder you, eat you flesh and make a soup with your bones”
Im sorry bro but I see no beauty there, just a snake with bright colors.
To those following me, be careful, I just farted. Men those beans are killers.
I will have a video up on how it is talking to these people. Talked to the guy, and he was the one that really helped me out.
But OH DEAR. THEN I got to talk to women later. AND THAT is when it ALL went down hill.
I am going to post redacted copies of my order on here and keep you updated, but you should hear some of these responses. Including a hang up.
I thought this was MY bank? Well. No. .. Found that out the hard way.
There is one more thing to note. If your bank is in multiple states, even though YOUR STATE may have a protection or something, they will not follow the laws in your state. IE, they will go through another state in order to take advantage of their laws in order to circumvent any protection that you have where you reside.
What else I found, will blow your mind. It concerns your private financial information.
All it takes to garnish any paycheck and send it to anyone is just a letter. I wish I was kidding, but the letter does not even need to be verified. That should scare you.
Now here’s another thing. Safe deposit boxes are also not safe. They order goes out and says ANY PROPERTY that you have. That means Houseboat, car, papers, anything.
If you have anything of value in your safe deposit box, it is now to be sent to the state.
Legally? That’s a slippery slope. But what it looks like on the surface is that “PAY ME ALL THE MONEY OWED”.
Not they do this weird thing where all your deposits AFTER the fact they have taken out the initial amount, all go to the amount requested, even though they can not do this after the initial amount withheld is done.
There is also a law that says that they can not charge garnishment fees. But they did.
Now, what they do is not freeze your account, they keep it open to accept deposits, but then when you get one, you don’t see it electronically on you online bank. I noticed one day I had no savings. The other day, I had 0 in savings. So it seems someone is daily screwing around with your account.
Now here is what you can do about this
1. Contact the FTC, and make a complaint there. Won’t do you much good, but if the bank is breaking a law, then they can help if you get someone there to contact the bank and tell them of their error. The FTC really does not really work for the little guy. Most of these large organizations don’t really deal with the little guy. But the more complaints they have go into a log.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/Information#crnt&panel1-1
2. The Federal reserve can also chime in on this as well, and has a form to fill out. They don’t again do much in the form of helping you out directly, but they can confirm things for you, and may even be able to get a letter to you on their letterhead so that you can forward this to your attorney, (that you can’t afford) or bank.
https://forms.federalreserveconsumerhelp.gov/
3. Here is the list of Bank regulators by state.
You can also file a complaint on the main site as well.https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-do-i-find-my-states-bank-regulator-en-1637/
I have copied all of them here just in case, but the hot links bellow, you are going to have to get yourself on the site.
AlabamaRegulator: Alabama State Banking Department
Address: P.O. Box 4600 Montgomery AL 36103
Phone: (334) 242-3452
Fax: (334) 353-5961
Website: http://www.bank.state.al.us/
Complaint InstructionsAlaska
Regulator: Alaska Division of Banking and Securities
Address: P.O. Box 110807 Juneau AK 99811
Phone: (888) 925-2521
Fax: 907-269-8146 (Anchorage); 907-465-1231 (Juneau)
Website: http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/bsc/
Complaint InstructionsArizona
Regulator: Arizona Department of Financial Institutions
Address: Financial Enterprises Division, 2910 N. 44th Street, Suite 310 Phoenix AZ 85018
Phone: (800) 544-0708
Fax: (602) 381-1225
Website: http://azdfi.gov/
Complaint InstructionsArkansas
Regulator: Arkansas Attorney General
Address: Office of the Attorney General
323 Center Street, Suite 200
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201
Phone: (501) 682 2007
Website: http://www.ag.arkansas.gov/
Complaint InstructionsCalifornia
Regulator: California Department of Corporations
Address: Financial Services Division, 1515 K Street, Suite 200 Sacramento CA 95814
Phone: (866) 275-2677
Website: http://www.corp.ca.gov/
Complaint InstructionsColorado
Regulator: Colorado Office of the Attorney General
Address: Uniform Consumer Credit Code, 1525 Sherman St., 5th Fl. Denver CO 80203
Phone: (303) 866-4494
Fax: (303) 866-5691
Website: http://www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov/
Complaint InstructionsConnecticut
Regulator: Connecticut Department of Banking
Address: 260 Constitution Plaza Hartford CT 06103
Phone: (860) 240-8299
Fax: (860) 240-8167
Website: http://www.ct.gov/dob/site/default.asp
Complaint InstructionsDelaware
Regulator: Delaware Office of the State Bank Commissioner
Address: 555 E. Loockerman Street Suite 210 Dover DE 19901
Phone: (302) 739-4235
Fax: (302) 739-3609
Website: http://banking.delaware.gov/
Complaint InstructionsDistrict of Columbia
Regulator: D. C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking
Address: 810 First Street, NE Suite 701 Washington DC 20002
Phone: (202) 727-8000
Fax: 202-535-1194
Website: http://disb.dc.gov/
Complaint InstructionsFlorida
Regulator: Florida Office of Financial Regulation
Address: Division of Securities and Finance, 200 E. Gaines Street Tallahassee FL 32399
Phone: (850) 410-9805
Fax: (850) 410-9748
Website: http://www.flofr.com/
Complaint InstructionsGeorgia
Regulator: Georgia Office of the Commissioner of Insurance
Address: Industrial Loan Division, Two Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive West Tower, Suite 704 Atlanta GA 30334
Phone: (404) 656-2070
Fax: (404) 657-8542
Website: http://www.gainsurance.org/
Complaint InstructionsHawaii
Regulator: Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs
Address: Consumer Resource Center, 235 S. Beretania Street, Rm 801 Honolulu HI 96813
Phone: (808) 587-3222
Fax: (808) 586-2640
Website: http://cca.hawaii.gov/
Complaint InstructionsIdaho
Regulator: Idaho Department of Finance
Address: Consumer Finance Bureau, 800 Park Blvd., Suite 200, Boise ID 83712
Phone: (208) 332-8000
Fax: (208) 332-8096
Website: http://finance.idaho.gov
Complaint InstructionsIllinois
Regulator: Illinois Division of Financial Institutions
Address: Consumer Credit Section, 320 W. Washington Springfield IL 62701
Phone: (888) 298-8089
Website: http://www.idfpr.com/DFIdefault.asp
Complaint InstructionsIndiana
Regulator: Indiana Department of Financial Institutions
Address: 30 South Meridian Street, Suite 300 Indianapolis IN 46204
Phone: (800) 382-4880
Website: http://www.in.gov/dfi/
Complaint InstructionsIowa
Regulator: Iowa Division of Banking
Address: 200 East Grand Avenue, Suite 300 Des Moines IA 50309
Phone: (515) 281-4014
Fax: (515) 281-4862
Website: http://www.idob.state.ia.us/
Complaint InstructionsKansas
Regulator: Office of the State Bank Commissioner
Address: 700 SW Jackson, Suite 300 Topeka KS 66603
Phone: (785) 296-2266
Fax: (785) 296-0168
Website: http://www.osbckansas.org/
Complaint InstructionsKentucky
Regulator: Kentucky Office of Financial Institutions
Address: 1025 Capital Center Drive, Suite 200 Frankfort KY 40601
Phone: (800) 223-2579
Fax: (502) 573-8787
Website: http://www.kfi.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx
Complaint InstructionsLouisiana
Regulator: Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions
Address: P.O. Box 94095 Baton Rouge LA 70804
Phone: (225) 925-4660
Fax: (225) 925-4548
Website: http://www.ofi.state.la.us/
Complaint InstructionsMaine
Regulator: Maine Office of Consumer Credit Regulation
Address: Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, 35 State House Station Augusta ME 04333
Phone: (207) 624-8527
Fax: (207) 582-7699
Website: http://www.maine.gov/pfr/consumercredit/index.shtml
Complaint InstructionsMaryland
Regulator: Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation
Address: 500 North Calvert Street Suite 402 Baltimore MD 21202
Phone: (410) 230-6100
Fax: (410) 333-3866
Website: http://www.dllr.state.md.us/finance/
Complaint InstructionsMassachusetts
Regulator: Massachusetts Division of Banks
Address: One South Station Boston MA 02110
Phone: (617) 956-1500
Fax: (617) 956-1599
Website: http://www.state.ma.us/dob
Complaint InstructionsMichigan
Regulator: Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation
Address: P.O. Box 30220 Lansing MI 48909
Phone: (877) 999-6442
Fax: (517) 335-4978
Website: http://www.michigan.gov/difs
Complaint InstructionsMinnesota
Regulator: Minnesota Department of Commerce
Address: Division of Financial Examinations, 85 7th Place East, Suite 500 St. Paul MN 55101
Phone: (651) 296-2135
Fax: (651) 296-8591
Website: http://mn.gov/commerce/
Complaint InstructionsMississippi
Regulator: Mississippi Department of Banking and Consumer Finance
Address: 4780 I-55 North 5th Floor Jackson MS 39201
Phone: (601) 321-6901
Fax: (601) 321-6933
Website: http://www.dbcf.ms.gov/
Complaint InstructionsMissouri
Regulator: Missouri Division of Finance
Address: Consumer Credit Section, P. O. Box 716 301 W. High Street Jefferson City MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-3242
Fax: (573) 751-9192
Website: http://finance.mo.gov/
Complaint Instructions.Montana
Regulator: Division of Banking and Financial Institutions
Address: 301 South Park, Suite 316, Helena, MT 59601
Phone: (406) 248-2742
Website: http://www.banking.mt.gov/default.mcpx
Complaint InstructionsNebraska
Regulator: Nebraska Department of Banking & Finance
Address: Financial Institutions, 1230 ‘O’ Street, Suite 400 P.O. Box 95006 Lincoln NE 68509
Phone: (402) 471-2171
Website: http://www.ndbf.ne.gov/index.shtml
Complaint InstructionsNevada
Regulator: Nevada Financial Institutions Division
Address: 2785 E. Desert Inn Rd., Suite 180 Las Vegas NV 89121
Phone: (702) 486-4120
Fax: (702) 486-4563
Website: http://www.fid.state.nv.us/
Complaint InstructionsNew Hampshire
Regulator: New Hampshire State Banking Department
Address: 64B Old Suncook Road Concord NH 03301
Phone: (603) 271-3561
Fax: (603) 271-0750
Website: http://www.nh.gov/banking/
Complaint InstructionsNew Jersey
Regulator: New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance
Address: 20 West State St. Trenton NJ 08625
Phone: (609) 292-5360
Fax: (609) 292-5461
Website: http://www.state.nj.us/dobi/index.html
Complaint InstructionsNew Mexico
Regulator: New Mexico Financial Institutions Division
Address: 2550 Cerrillos Road, 3rd Floor P. O. Box 25101 Santa Fe NM 87505
Phone: (505)476-4885
Fax: (505) 476-4670
Website: http://www.rld.state.nm.us/financialinstitutions/
Complaint InstructionsNew York
Regulator: New York State Banking Department
Address: One State Street New York NY 10004
Phone: 1-877-BANK-NYS
Website: http://www.dfs.ny.gov/
Complaint InstructionsNorth Carolina
Regulator: North Carolina Attorney General (See also Commissioner of Banks)
Address: NC Attorney General’s Office 9001 Mail Service Center Raleigh NC 27699-9001
Phone: (919) 716-6400
Website: http://www.ncdoj.com
Complaint InstructionsNorth Dakota
Regulator: North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions
Address: 2000 Schafer Street, Suite G Bismarck ND 58501
Phone: (701) 328-9933
Fax: (701) 328-0290
Website: http://www.nd.gov/dfi/
Complaint InstructionsOhio
Regulator: Ohio Division of Financial Institutions
Address: 77 South High Street, 21st Floor Columbus OH 43215
Phone: (614) 728-8400
Website: http://www.com.ohio.gov/fiin/
Complaint InstructionsOklahoma
Regulator: Oklahoma Department of Consumer Credit
Address: 4545 North Lincoln Boulevard, Suite 104 Oklahoma City OK 73105
Phone: (405) 521-3653
Fax: (405) 521-6740
Website: http://www.ok.gov/okdocc/
Complaint InstructionsOregon
Regulator: Oregon Department of Consumer & Business Services
Address: Division of Financial Regulation, 350 Winter St. NE, Rm. 410 Salem OR 97301
Phone: (503) 378-4140
Fax: (503) 947-7862
Website: http://dfr.oregon.govComplaint Instructions
Pennsylvania
Regulator: Pennsylvania Department of Banking
Address: Market Square Plaza, 17 N. Second Street Harrisburg PA 17101
Phone: (717) 214-8343
Fax: (717) 787-8773
Website: http://www.banking.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/banking_home/14319
Complaint InstructionsRhode Island
Regulator: Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation
Address: Division of Banking, 233 Richmond Street, Suite 231 Providence RI 02903
Phone: (401) 222-2405
Fax: (401) 222-5628
Website: http://www.dbr.state.ri.us/
Complaint InstructionsSouth Carolina
Regulator: South Carolina State Board of Financial Institutions
Address: Consumer Finance Division, P.O. Box 11905 Columbia SC 29211
Phone: (803) 734-2020
Fax: (803) 734-2025
Website:http://www.consumer.sc.gov
Complaint InstructionsSouth Dakota
Regulator: South Dakota Division of Banking
Address: 217 1/2 West Missouri Avenue Pierre SD 57501
Phone: (605) 773-3421
Fax: (605) 773-5367
Website: http://www.state.sd.us/drr2/reg/bank/BANK-HOM.htm
Complaint InstructionsTennessee
Regulator: Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions
Address: 511 Union Street, Suite 400 Nashville TN 37219
Phone: (615) 741-2236
Fax: (615) 532-1018
Website: http://www.tennessee.gov/tdfi/
Complaint InstructionsTexas
Regulator: Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner
Address: 2601 N. Lamar Blvd. Austin TX 78705
Phone: (512) 936-7600
Fax: (512) 936-7610
Website:http://www.occc.state.tx.us/
Complaint InstructionsUtah
Regulator: Utah Department of Financial Institutions
Address: 324 South State Street, Suite 201 Salt Lake City UT 84111
Phone: (801) 538-8830
Fax: (801) 538-8894
Website: http://www.dfi.utah.gov/
Complaint InstructionsVermont
Regulator: Vermont Banking Division
Address: Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities & Health Care Administration, 89 Main St Drawer 20 Montpelier VT 05620
Phone: (802) 828-3307
Fax: (802) 828-3306
Website: http://www.dfr.vermont.gov/banking/banking-division“>
Complaint InstructionsVirginia
Regulator: Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions
Address: State Corporation Commission, 1300 East Main Street, Suite 800 Post Office Box 640 Richmond VA 23218
Phone: (804) 371-9657
Fax: (804) 371-9416
Website: http://www.scc.virginia.gov/bfi/index.aspx
Complaint InstructionsWashington
Regulator: Washington Department of Financial Institutions
Address: Division of Consumer Services, PO Box 41200 Olympia WA 98504
Phone: (360) 902-8700 (360) 902-8700
Fax: (360) 725-7827
Website: http://www.dfi.wa.gov/
Complaint InstructionsWest Virginia
Regulator: Office of West Virginia Attorney General (see also Consumer Protection Division)
Address: Consumer Protection Division 812 Quarrier St., 4th Floor
Charleston WV 25301
Phone: (800) 368-8808
Fax: (304) 558-0184
Website: http://www.wv.gov/residents/Pages/ConsumerProtection.aspx
Complaint InstructionsWisconsin
Regulator: Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions
Address: Wisconsin Consumer Act Section, P.O. Box 8041 Madison WI 53708
Phone: (608) 261-9555
Website: http://www.wdfi.org/
Complaint InstructionsWyoming
Regulator: Wyoming Division of Banking
Address: Uniform Consumer Credit Code, 122 West 25th Street Cheyenne WY 82002
Phone: (307) 777-7797
Fax: (307) 777-3555
Website:http://audit.state.wy.us/banking/
Complaint Instructions4. Again, the site above actually has letters and notices that you can send out. This is real handy when you are doing your own lawyer work. It also seems like this is the organizations that seems to get their hands dirty.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/policy-compliance/enforcement/
One more thing of note. THEY ACTUALLY PAY OUT MONEY TO HARMED CONSUMERS!
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/payments-harmed-consumers/This was taken from the web site, and WOULDENT YOU KNOW IT. ANOTHER LISA! Dear lord, are they all clones?
“These changes . . . threaten effective enforcement of civil rights laws, and increase the likelihood that people will continue to face discriminatory access and pricing as they navigate their economic lives,” Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform said in the statement.
5. Oregon has a specific site that deals with this that is a bit less helpful, but
http://dfr.oregon.gov/Pages/index.aspx
6. Oregon has another office that does the same thing
http://www.oregon.gov/dcbs/Pages/index.aspx
7. Another great Veterans resource. ( I am going to have to mirror him on my page)
Oregon Department of veterans affairs.
You are all alone. If you have been falsely accused of RAPE, DV, PLEASE let all men know about the people who did this. http://register-her.net/web/guest/home
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
AnonymousAgree with Phoenix 100%.
But I have also conducted a very interesting personal experiment. During a normal or personal conversation when a woman starts veering towards “sex” and they are always the first to start talking about it……. I have asked MANY (dozens) women on occasion if they have ever been “raped”…. out of the blue, when they were not expecting such a direct question.
Every single one of them looked for a way to demonize a man.
• “Well I once had a creepy uncle who used to smile at me funny”.
• “A teacher brushed himself up against me once”.
• “I once sat on Santa’s lap and I’m sure he had a boner”.
• “This guy bumped into me in the streetcar, I think he wanted to cop a feel”.…. but NONE of them plainly said “no”. Even when they were not raped – which was EVERY ONE OF THEM when I asked enough questions. They simply refuse to say “no” as the first answer.
“So you weren’t ever raped. But instead of just saying “no”, you had to THINK UP AND FABRICATE an example of where some uncle “smiled at you funny”, and you call that an answer?”
“Well why are you asking?”
“To prove my own point. Thank you for making it.”
My personal conclusion is that their preoccupation and obsession with “rape” ( even when they are so hideous to the bone that they couldn’t even PAY a man enough ) is for a variety of reasons.
• To keep everyone talking about it – and them.
• To perpetuate “rape culture” and if they can’t, they will import and fabricate “rapists” if they have to.
• To falsely heighten their desirability to a level where any man would risk the worst imaginable consequences for access to her vagina. It’s truly unbelievable.
• For attention and sympathy
• To be able to play victim.
• To keep themselves in a state of fear and control, which also explains their obsession with horror films where anyone who has sex is always slaughtered.
The list goes on….
If you keep doing what you've always done... you're gonna keep getting what you always got.The Case for North Korea – A Rebuttal Against the US Deep State
There is so much aggregate hysteria against North Korea and everybody has jumped on the bandwagon. This is not to absolve any individual or regime – but to remove the lies and subterfuge in the story of this divided nation.
I here present a case against the Deep State and hope that common sense and reason emerge from the facts presented here.
Thank you for reading. You mind must be your own.
The Korea Problem
This is What Democracy Looks Like
Keith Harmon Snow / March 22nd, 2017
http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/03/the-korea-problem/
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017 at 12:02am
- Keith Harmon Snow is a war correspondent, photographer and independent investigator, and a four-time (2003, 2006, 2007, 2010) Project Censored award winner.
- He is also the 2009 Regent’s Lecturer in Law & Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, recognized for over a decade of work, outside of academia, contesting official narratives on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide while also working as a genocide investigator for the United Nations and other bodies.
- The first UCSB Regent’s Lecturer, in 1960, was Aldous Huxley; other recipients include Margaret Mead, Peter Matthiessen and Meredith Monk.
Preamble
The United States and its allies have embarked on a dangerous path of aggression against the government of North Korea and its allies China and Russia.
As usual, the western propaganda system presents a near unified front showing how horrible and atrocious the North Korean government is purported to be, and how murderous and ruthless and amoral their intentions are purported to be, and how their military objectives and missile programs — now allegedly targeting the “free” world–are out to dominate the rest of the world, starting with their deadly missiles being launched against the United States and our ally Japan.
So goes the propaganda.
Let’s look again
The people of South Korea — a country occupied by the US military since 1950 with between 326,000 US soldiers (during the Korean War) and 28,500 US soldiers (today) — have seen massive human rights violations, repression and state terrorism.
Since the first military dictator was installed in South Korea by the United States military in 1953, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has perpetrated massive atrocities against its own citizens and against citizens in other countries. This is a so-called “member of the international community.”
- South Korea — Seoul, 10 May 1990: Student pro-democracy and anti-US imperialism demonstrations rocked Seoul for two days on 9 May and 10 May 1990. (Keith Harmon Snow)
The Central Intelligence Agency under Allen Dulles launched covert operations in South Korea by 1950 — utilizing South Korean police and other secret agents to serve the imperial “pro-democracy” agenda.
The ever touted claim that North Korea launched a very clear war of aggression by crossing the 38th parallel — an arbitrary line of demarcation between Soviet Russian and US/allied forces after WW-2 — and invading South Korea is not born out by the facts that existed on the ground in the Korean peninsula in June of 1950.
Not only are there credible reports of death squads crossing into the northern territory and committing atrocities, but the diplomatic record shows a pattern of belligerence and war-mongering that has become de rigeur for the United States all over the world since then.
The Un-Pretty History of the Korean Peninsula
Massive post-WW-2 repression and murder (extrajudicial summary executions) by South Korean troops, with US military oversight, occurred against their own people in the south, including such horrible massacres as occurred on Je Ju island 1948-1949 and were white-washed by the western propaganda and intelligence apparatus (see, e.g., the documentary film The Ghosts of Je Ju).
The somewhat more well-known Koch’ang incident in February 1951 involved some 600 men and women, young and old, that were reportedly herded into a narrow valley in South Korea and mowed down with machine guns by a South Korean army unit on the loosely applied claim that they were “suspected of aiding guerrillas” — these being Korean people who resisted the overt terrorism that the Korean people (north and south) were subjected to by the southern forces and US troops.
- South Korea – One photo of just one of the many Je Ju Island massacres that occurred in South Korea and were committed by US-backed South Korean forces in 1948 and 1949. (Photo credit unknown)
“The Governor of Je Ju at the time admitted that the repression of the Island’s 300,000 residents led to the murder of as many as 60,000 Islanders,” wrote S. Brian Willson, “with another 40,000 desperately fleeing in boats to Japan. Thus, one-third of its residents were either murdered or fled during the “extermination” campaign. Nearly 40,000 homes were destroyed and 270 of 400 villages were leveled.”
US troops fired on crowds, conducted mass arrests, combed the hills for suspects, and organized posses of Korean rightists, constabulary and police for mass raids (reported at the time by correspondent Mark Gwyn for the Chicago Sun: see in William Blum Killing Hope).
Said one British scholar Jon Halliday at the time: “After all, if civilians could be mowed down in the South on suspicion of aiding (not even being guerrillas) — what about the North, where millions could reasonably be assumed to be Communists, or political militants?” (See: Killing Hope p. 51).
The US military’s carpet bombing and chemical napalm bombing against the northern Koreans during the Korean War was murderous and unprecedented (though rivaled by the bombing of Dresden) and set the stage for the horrors that we perpetrated on the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Entire villages were wiped off the map and off the Korean peninsula. Some three million Koreans north of the 38th parallel were killed, with one million Korean people killed in the south and over one million Chinese deaths.
Note that United Nations forces were involved in the war: UN troops were commanded by general Douglas McArthur and committed egregious atrocities all over the place — and these atrocities were always blamed on the “North” Korean forces — a particularly poignant tactic (blaming the victims) ever exercised by the pro democracy forces of the New World Order in the process of exercising our military freedoms and exorcising anyone deemed to be undemocratic (meaning: opposed to predatory capitalism, the IMF and the World Bank, multinational corporate destruction, and the feeding, housing, clothing, educating and taking care of the people).
Under then US-installed puppet dictator Syngman Rhee the allied (US/UN/south Korean) troops confiscated massive tracts of land and other “spoils of war” (confiscated property of the former brutal Japanese occupiers) and doled them out, for example, to ultra-right wing former sympathizers and collaborators with the former Japanese occupation, the most wealthy, and other conservative elements. This further set the stage for widespread resentment amongst the Korean population — whose ancestors saw and who did not forget the first massacres in Korea at the hands of invading US forces in 1871.
The arbitrary and illegal line of demarcation drawn at the 38th parallel became the de facto border separating the Korean people due to US/UN/NATO/South Korean military aggression and refusal to compromise with the northern power structure (the northerners made many overtures and granted many concessions toward reunification).
Domestic and Foreign Terrorism
Subsequent to the war, the Republic of Korea military under its US tutelage did not limit the atrocities against innocent civilians to the domestic arena. Some 300,000 South Korean troops joined the NATO war in Indochina, and committed serious atrocities there: at least several major massacres are well documented. Examples include:
- Bình Hòa massacre
Binh Tai massacre
Hà My massacre
Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre— all being located in South Vietnam and all being massacres of hundreds of unarmed non-combatant children, pregnant women, and the elderly.
The South Korean troops committed brutal atrocities — such as cutting the breasts off women and bayonetting pregnant women in the bellies and bulldozing shallow graves for summary burials to cover up the evidence.
Some of the villages and people so targeted were known to be very sympathetic and supportive of the US military, but after these atrocities many survivors joined the Viet Kong.
- South Korea – May 1990: The northern region of South Korea a few miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the Korean people at the 28th parallel (Keith Harmon Snow)
There is no doubt the South Korean forces were trained in brutal euphemistically named “counter-insurgency” techniques now well-documented to include the most horrible crimes that people have ever committed against people and hardly ever having anything “counter” about their insurgents — all under the watchful binoculars and logistical coordination of the United States and our intelligence apparatus (e.g. the Phoenix Program — a campaign of absolute terror and egregious crimes against humanity and war crimes conducted in Indochina during the US wars there).
For example: at Binh Hoa village (December 1966) in South Vietnam the South Korean “Blue Dragon Brigade” slaughtered over 400 mostly children, women and elderly; ROK troops then burned the village to the ground and slaughtered the people’s buffaloes.
Over the past 60 years the people of South Korea have been subject to egregious curtailment of freedoms under certain “National Security” directives (laws) including: the (repeated) jailing of thousands of “dissidents” who have, in one form or another, protested imperialist US involvement and occupation in South Korea; people who have organized against US imperialism; students and other civilians that have maintained contacts with people in North Korea; civil society groups and individuals that have contacted foreign organizations seeking help against repression; the censoring and destruction of truth in education and educational materials.
There have been suspicious deaths of student activists, and attempts to get outside help to demand proper investigations of such deaths have led to further repression of the petitioners (seeking help).
On 9 May 1990, some 100,000 Koreans marched and demonstrated against the then latest US/UK/EU-backed dictatorship of president Roh Tae-Woo (1988-1993); over 40,000 South Korean storm troopers (riot police) were mobilized and over 1900 people detained. Some of the perceived organizers were jailed for several years. Torture has been selectively used on political prisoners, but was routinely deployed against certain segments of the population during particular periods since the 1950’s, such as the run-up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
In 1975, the self-declared president-for-life dictator Park Chung-hee issued a special directive to police and government officials to round up and remove ‘vagrants’ from South Korean city streets. Some 8600 people were initially detained and imprisoned at 36 nationwide facilities, including so-called panhandlers, small-time street merchants, the disabled, lost or unattended children, and dissidents (such as college students that were holding anti-government leaflets).
One of these detention centers was a ‘welfare facility’ called ‘Brothers Home’, where thousands of small children were subject to years of brutality and many suffered routine and repeated rape and fatal beatings.
The internment program continued under Chung-hee’s successors presidents Choi Kyu-hah (1979-1980) and Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1988) and eventually led to the imprisonment of more than 16,000 people by 1986.
The dictatorships of President Chun Doo-hwan and Roo Tae-woo (1988-1993) suppressed any investigation into these massive human rights violations, and the true scale and magnitude of the atrocities, numbers of victims and names of perpetrators did not more fully emerge until 2016. Few of the survivors have spoken out publicly, and the government has never apologized for nor compensated any of them.
Dictator Park Chung-hee ruled for 18 years, supporting Washington’s militarization and warfare in the Far East and Indochina. Park’s daughter Park Geun-hee became the 11th president of South Korea in 2013, and was known as the “Strongman’s Daughter” (appearing under that headline on the front cover of Time magazine in 2013) and she was impeached for influence-peddling and other corruption in December 2016.
Throughout her tenure the ROK government naturally blocked all attempts by the citizenry to further expose and gain accountability for the ‘Brothers Home’ and related atrocities orchestrated by her father and his successors. For her pro-war pro-US imperialist policies and posturing, and for her other intransigences, duplicity and state-orchestrated repression, the people of South Korea nicknamed president Park Geun-hee their ‘Lady Hitler‘.
Corporate Goon Squads and Hired Thugs
South Korean labor unions and struggles have in the past been infiltrated and co-opted by gangs of thugs hired by / for multinational corporations like Daewoo, Samsung and Hyundai. The bribery, influence peddling, hired thuggery, and other forms of corruption by the chaelbol — giant family run multinational conglomerates — rival those of the Japanese Sogo Shosha (trading houses) and the Japanese mafia (Yakuza) and their western corporate criminal counterparts (CIA/FBI/NSA/DIA/USAID and the 1 percent) — where anything and everything can be bought and sold with reckless abandon and near zero accountability, and where the corruption and criminals are shielded by the judiciary.
The corporate goon squads have often used various forms of torture, including beatings and kidnappings, and the thuggery by corporate gangs has in many cases been supported by state security and police — who have furthered the extrajudicial punishments and torture against labor organizers and employees of the large corporations targeted, for example, for exercising their freedom of expression. Public and private school teachers have also suffered retaliation and repression for their involvement in activities that the “state” deemed a threat to “national security” — such as labor and pro-democracy organizing.
South Korean people lived under more than 30 years of military dictatorship from 1960s-1993 but given the corruption and absence of freedoms the situation under “democratically elected” presidents has not been particularly encouraging, to say to least, for the average South Korean — repressive laws instituted under military dictatorship continued to serve a repressive state security apparatus, including arbitrary arrests and detentions — and so democracy has been an absolute farce.
As S. Brian Willson discusses, the current inhabitants of Je Ju Island have been opposed to the construction of a deep water port that would serve US/ROK military objectives enabling guided missile equipped AEGIS class destroyers access to port facilities at the village of Gangjeong.
The ROK’s CIA-like Korean National Intelligence Service has spied on and raided citizens and organizations that are opposed to the deep water port that would be built by the criminal Samsung Corporation. Samsung has a history of more than 50 years of environmental pollution, trade union repression, corruption, tax flight and tax evasion.
South Korean civilians have also been persecuted from the 1950s to the present day, including arrests, kidnappings, beatings and torture, for advocating reunification with North Korea. Millions of Koreans were separated from family members by the illegal US-enforced bifurcation of the Koreas before and after the Korean War (1950-1953) and, as we can imagine, reunification is blocked by powerful political interests whose motivations (power, control, private profit) do not serve the greater common interest of the Korean people (north and south) or the rest of us.
South Korea is effectively run by an organized crime syndicate with deep ties to the United States power structure (see, for example, notes on The Cohen Group below). Beyond a repressive security apparatus and pro-imperialist international foreign policy, South Korea suffers very high and epidemic numbers of suicide, alcoholism, and sexual and domestic violence.
South Korean corporations have also run roughshod over the environment domestically and abroad and slavery conditions have historically prevailed for their labor forces while sweatshop conditions still do.
While the South Korean government has offered an “aggressive” public face to the issue of “calling for reunification”, this is mere lip service as they have simultaneously increased military spending, maintained a compulsory draft (with severe penalties for any conscientious objector), and moved to the front of the line as a leading arms exporter. In recent years South Korea has purchased scores of billions of dollars worth of warplanes, anti-missile systems and other weapons (of mass destruction), and the ROK has annual defense budgets of over $30 billion.
Meanwhile, South Korea and its western allies (including Japan) have escalated aggressive military posturing and rhetoric targeting North Korea, including deployments of troops and weaponry (e.g. battleships) in “joint military exercises” within striking distance of North Korea. The escalation of tensions and probability of war — on the Korean peninsula — are due to the duplicitous sociopathic criminal hegemony and aggression by the United States “government” and its closest allies and their “leaders”.
- South Korea – Seoul 10 May 1990: Riot police search shops and restaurants for demonstartors. (Keith Harmon Snow)
South Korea sealed its biggest-ever — until then — arms purchase in September 2015 with a U.S. $7.04 billion deal for 40 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets. South Korea has also been stocking up on spy satellites and drones — courtesy of US weapons manufacturers like Northrup Grumman. South Korea also sports a large number of Apache attack helicopters, and it has more than “capable” air force and navy.
In the summer of 2016 the United States and ROK militaries announced their decision to deploy an advanced missile defense system — Terminal High Area Missile Defense (THAAD) — that has previously been deployed in both Hawaii and Guam as a supposed “counter-measure” against North Korea’s nuclear missile capabilities. The THAAD system is designed, built and integrated by Lockheed Martin Space Systems (prime contractor) with subcontractors Raytheon, Boeing, Aerojet, Rocketdyne, Honeywell, BAE Systems, Oshkosh Defense, MiltonCAT and the Oliver Capital Consortium
Said differently, this is a lot of cheese!
South Korea’s militarization has benefited US, UK, Canadian, EU and Israeli corporations — further wagging the dog of war and serving the powerful interests that will never move toward a peaceful equitable reunification serving the interests the Korean people (north and south) and peace in the Far East. Permanent war is the desired state of foreign affairs.
On 16 March 2017 a THAAD radar system arrived in South Korea. The deployment of the THAAD system has critically heightened tensions between China, North Korea, South Korea and the United States primarily because China is adamantly opposed to the deployment in South Korea. US taxpayers began paying for the development of the THAAD system circa 2005; annual expenditures on THAAD / THAAD AN/TPY-2 radars are: $985.7 / $593.6 million in 2012; $684.2 / $623.2 million in 2013; $824.8 / $328.9 million in 2014; $725.1 / $334.2 million projected for 2015; $718.3 / $300.7 million projected in 2016.
Said differently, that is a lot of cheese for these US and British corporations!
The ROK is cost-sharing the THAAD system with United States taxpayers, who spend billions annually maintaining the United States Forces Korea (USFK) under a 50% cost-share with the ROK government. South Korean defense officials requested at least two THAAD batteries be deployed to “help thwart the North’s missile attacks.” Operating a single THAAD unit is estimated to cost about $1.6 billion. One unit consists of six truck-mounted launchers, 49 interceptors, a fire control and communications unit, and an AN/TPY-2 radar. The USFK is apparently paying for one of the THAAD batteries and the ROK for the other.
Estimates of the costs to US taxpayers of annually stationing around 30,000 US forces in Korea — the rough number of US troops that have annually been in occupation there for decades — were around $2.9 billion in 2014, with the ROK paying $866 million or approximately 30% of the total costs ($3.75 billion/year).
- South Korea – Seoul 13 July 2016: Thousands of residents in the town of Seongiu hold up banners in a demonstration in opposing the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system there. (Photo credit: Yonhap News Agency)
Who benefits from all this war making?
Who are the directors of Lockheed Martin? Northrup Grumman?
Don’t miss the revolving doors between these corporations and the United States military.
For example, one Lockheed Martin director is a retired US Air Force General and former director of the profoundly secretive National Reconnaissance Office on Lockheed’s board. The NRO plans, builds and operates North America’s spy satellites, and they specialize in intelligence-gathering and information warfare — and the NRO coordinates the analysis of aerial surveillance and satellite imagery from several intelligence and military agencies, including the Defense Investigative Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Oh, and, don’t miss that retired US Admiral and Commander of the US Strategic Command, also on Lockheed’s board, who is also a director of the highly dishonest and destructive Institute for Nuclear Power (INPO).
Oh, and don’t miss the revolving door of former admirals and generals and CIA directors now working for Northrup Grumman.
Oh, and don’t miss the Lockheed directors that are also directors of The Cohen Group — founded and run by former U.S. Secretary of War (1997-2001) and bona fide war criminal William S. Cohen.
According to his own The Cohen Group web site: “Under his leadership, the US military conducted the largest air warfare campaign since World War II, in Serbia and Kosovo, and conducted other military operations on every continent” — including the U.S. proxy wars in Congo and Sudan — and “The Cohen Group principals have decades of experience working with The Republic of Korea (ROK) government and military and with ROK industry.”
I bet they do.
Now, let’s talk about North Korea.
Imagine, a country like North Korea, which, in fact, there is no other country like, that does not have the stellar record of committing war crimes and/or crimes against humanity and/or genocide that Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Japan, Rwanda, Uganda or the United States do, but one that has the audacity (please note the irony and sarcasm) to develop a missile (capability) of their own..…to defend themselves against the world’s leading military aggressor(s), one(s) with long and un-pretty records of massacres, tortures, double-dealing and back-stabbing, amounting to a lot more than massive war crimes, crimes against humanity and mass murder in one country after the next and year after year.
According to the western propaganda system, the Korean People’s Army (North Korea) has some 5,889,000 paramilitary personnel, making it “the largest paramilitary organization on earth.” This includes the local militia, the Worker Peasant Red Guards, which mobilizes at the local village level. The entire military budget of the paramilitary KPA is considered to be approximately $8-10 billion annually; in contrast, the budget of the US Department of War in 2015 was $597 billion and far overshadows the KPA in superior weaponry, capabilities and technology.
While the western propaganda system ever decries the supposed horrible human rights atrocities committed in North Korea, there is little or no attention to several more poignant issues:
1. the human rights atrocities and war crimes committed in South Korea by the ROK are far more substantial and
2. there is substantial internal meddling in North Korea by U.S. intelligence and state department agencies and front groups.The problem — North Korea’s problem — of meddling and foreign intervention in North Korean affairs is even less advertised or exposed by the western propaganda system than the problem of South Korean (the ROK’s) own abrogation, denial and trampling of human rights and commission of atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Beyond the obvious and little known covert operations against North Korea that are hidden in classified black programs and shrouded in the secrecy of U.S. intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and all the other secretive Pentagon operations, are the many other stealthy subversive and clandestine U.S. government organizations that are more openly meddling and intervening in North Korea’s domestic affairs.
These include the North Korea programs of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a ‘soft-power’ front organization that has more openly pursued many of the former objectives of the covert intelligence apparatus and does so under an open source cover that hides their true agenda and duplicitous activities. NED’s war against Korea is euphemistically defined as a campaign of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ building, of ‘support’ for ‘civil society’ and ‘democratic elections’ and ‘press’ and ‘speech’ and other ‘freedoms’ — but which really amount to ultra-right wing fascistic programs peddling the ruthless predatory capitalism and corporatism of unregulated private enterprise and ‘free market’ ideas of the ‘American dream’ variety.
In 2015 alone the NED dispensed some $2,017,290 to individuals, organizations and initiatives designed to leverage, factionalize, divide and destabilize North Korea; in 2014 it was $2,062,913.
Meanwhile, NED has also dispersed obscene sums of money to destabilize and mold China into the ‘American’ image: in 2015 alone, for example, NED spent $8,497,642 on China. NED operations in Mongolia — another country where western meddling, intervention and plunder is completely whited out by the western press — and Russia (need I say more?) are also very substantial, and each of these countries has some stake in regional alliances and allegiances to North Korea. Of course, NED also dispenses sizable funds for programs in South Korea, but, curiously, the statistics and lists of programs and grantees are not readily discernible from their web sites and annual reports.
Further, the sums noted above do not include the additional very sizable disbursements of US taxpayers dollars to “regional” think tanks, ‘training’ institutes or so-called ‘non-government’ organizations like the neoliberal Solidarity Center, The Asia Society, Brookings Institute, Center for International Private Enterprise, and the East Asia Institute.
The National Endowment for Democracy is not the only U.S. front organization meddling in North Korean and regional foreign affairs. The International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute and others are also deeply involved in pushing the U.S. private enterprise and new world order agenda of power, control, and private profit by any means necessary. And, the United States is not the only country with covert and overt intervention programs assaulting the government of North Korea.
Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) and Israeli intelligence services (Aman, Mossad) — and other NATO allied intelligence and defense agencies — are certainly complicit and directly involved. There is also the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and Special Operations Command Korea (SOCOR).
How exactly is a country like North Korea (or Cuba) expected to deal with foreign meddling, interventions and destabilizing operations? They aren’t. According to the pundits of the New World Order they are supposed to get down on their hands and knees and beg. However, given such examples as Iraq or Libya, we know that even doing that would not protect these countries from what the ‘leaders’ of the ‘free world’ have in store for them.
The Arrogance of Freedom
The ROK Armed Forces is one of the largest standing armed forces in the world, with a reported personnel strength of 3,725,000 in 2016 (625,000 active duty soldiers and 3,100,000 reserves). The further militarization of the peninsula serves powerful interests: whether the North Korean missile tests were actually encouraged or discouraged, applauded or reviled by the west doesn’t at all matter: either way the U.S. and our allies benefit from weapons sales and radar installations and missile and troop deployments.
It’s obvious that the escalation of tensions that initially provoked the North Koreans to increase their defensive military capabilities was prompted by the growing USFK and ROK and allied military presence/profile — through our military operations and maneuvers or deployments of weapon systems in and around North Korea — and this in turn led to North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missile systems, which in turn allows Washington and Seoul and Tokyo to justify the deployment of sophisticated radar and missile warning and missile defense systems. No matter how you look at it, the United States wins.
And such is the mindset of the western war-maker. No matter how they look at it, they think, the United States wins. Profits. Deployments. Power. The Korean peninsula is far away. And this is the true deeper problem: arrogance. It is also the hubris of the bully who thinks he can never get a black eye. But people are playing around with the lives of all humanity, and in their hubris and sociopathy they don’t have the capability to understand their foolishness.
Will the real war criminals please stand up?Postnotes by Y
Now consider what the U.S. media don’t tell you about Korea:
BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) — China proposed “double suspension” to defuse the looming crisis on the Korean Peninsula, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Wednesday.
- “As a first step, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) may suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for the suspension of large-scale U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK) military exercises,” Wang told a press conference on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress.
Wang said the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is mainly between the DPRK and the United States, but China, as a next-door neighbor with a lips-and-teeth relationship with the Peninsula, is indispensable to the resolution of the issue.
FM Wang, ‘the lips’, undoubtedly transmitted an authorised message from North Korea: “The offer is (still) on the table and China supports it.
North Korea has made the very same offer in January 2015. The Obama administration rejected it. [5]
North Korea repeated the offer in April 2016 and the Obama administration rejected it again. [6]
This March 2017 the Chinese government conveyed and supported the long-standing North Korean offer. The U.S. government, now under the Trump administration, immediately rejected it again [7].
The offer, made and rejected three years in a row, is sensible. Its rejection only led to a bigger nuclear arsenal and to more missiles with longer reach that will eventually be able to reach the United States.
North Korea is understandably nervous each and every time the U.S. and South Korea launch their very large yearly maneuvers and openly train for invading North Korea and for killing its government and people. The maneuvers have large negative impacts on North Korea’s economy.
North Korea justifies its nuclear program as the economically optimal way to respond to these maneuvers.
Each time the U.S. and South Korea launch their very large maneuvers, the North Korean conscription army (1.2 million strong) has to go into a high state of defense readiness. Large maneuvers are a classic starting point for military attacks. The U.S.-South Korean maneuvers are (intentionally) held during the planting (April/May) or harvesting (August) season for rice when North Korea needs each and every hand in its few arable areas. Only 17% of the northern landmass is usable for agriculture and the climate in not favorable. The cropping season is short. Seeding and harvesting days require peak labor.
The southern maneuvers directly threaten the nutritional self-sufficiency of North Korea. In the later 1990s they were one of the reasons behind a severe famine. (Lack of hydrocarbons and fertilizer due to sanctions as well as a too rigid economic system were other main reasons.)
Its nuclear deterrent allows North Korea to reduce its conventional military readiness especially during the all important agricultural seasons. Labor withheld from the fields and elsewhere out of military necessity can go back to work. This is now the official North Korean policy known as ‘byungjin’. (Byungjin started informally in the mid 2000nds after U.S. President Bush tuned up his hostile policy towards North Korea – Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy – [3]).
A guaranteed end of the yearly U.S. maneuvers would allow North Korea to lower its conventional defenses without relying on nukes. The link between the U.S. maneuvers and the nuclear deterrent North Korea is making in its repeated offer is a direct and logical connection.
The North Korean head of state Kim Jong-un has officially announced a no-first-use policy [4]for its nuclear capabilities:
“As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes,” Kim told the Workers’ Party of Korea congress in Pyongyang. Kim added that the North “will faithfully fulfill its obligation for non-proliferation and strive for the global denuclearization.”
During the congress, as elsewhere, Kim Jong Un also emphasized (transcript, pdf, v. slow) the above described connection between nuclear armament and economic development. Summarized:
After decades of emphasizing military strength under his father, Korea is moving toward Kim’s “byongjin” — a two-pronged approach aimed at enhancing nuclear might while improving living conditions.
To understand why North Korea fears U.S. aggressiveness read the utter devastation caused mostly by the U.S. during the Korea War
We rest our case – Y.
Citation
1. http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/03/the-korea-problem/
2. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/08/c_136112435.htm
3. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron
4. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/05/08/north-korea-wont-use-nukes-first-kim-jong-un/84107470/
5. https://sputniknews.com/asia/201501101016750491/
6. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36127011
7. http://zeenews.india.com/world/us-rejects-chinese-proposal-to-reduce-tension-with-north-korea_1984772.html
Anonymous
Anonymous
925069
924988
922113
921526
921524
919244
916783
915526
915524
915354
915129
914037
909862
908811
908810
908500
908465
908464
908300
907963
907895
907477
902002
901301
901106
901105
901104
901024
901017
900393
900392
900391
900390
899038
898980
896844
896798
896797
895983
895850
895848
893740
893036
891671
891670
891336
891017
890865
889894
889741
889058
888157
887960
887768
886321
886306
885519
884948
883951
881340
881339
880491
878671
878351
877678
