Buckley Dialectic

2012-01-21T13:56:00.000-08:00

Watching Mitt Romney in the South Carolina debate say he wouldn't apologize for being successful reminded me of the Willy Sutton's famous answer, "Mister Sutton, why do you rob banks?" "Well that's where the money is."

Willy thought it was an silly question with an obvious answer. He didn't assume any deeper meaning. He didn't think it was wrong to rob banks. Just as Mitt doesn't see anything wrong with forcing businesses into bankruptcy and putting hundreds of workers out of jobs as long as he and his fellow investors made a lot of money.

From a progressive perspective - nay from an American perspective - Willy is the less evil. He at least distinguished between a person's money and the banks money and didn't steal from individuals. In fact Willy probably would have agreed with Mitt about government regulators. Without so many police he could have robbed more banks more safely.

2012-01-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

THREE CHEERS FOR THE MONTANA SUPREME COURT Story in AlterNet.org.

Party of The 99 Platform

2011-11-20T14:20:00.001-08:00

What might be the platform of a new Party of The 99?

2) Promote US manufacturing and infrastructure construction - not speculation and gambling.

3) Tax speculative transactions on Wall Street to make rapid computer-generated speculation unprofitable.

4) Fund education and medical services for all.

5) End all wars of aggression and start by ending assassinations especially by drones.

6) Rationalize immigration policy

7) Revoke U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that decreed corporations had constitutional rights

Transparency should be required of the government (with few exceptions which would also soon be made public), all lobbyists and publicly held corporations.

Voting out most of the current Democrats and Republicans who serve corporate interests and replacing them with representatives of The 99 should be a peaceful and lawful goal. The 1% won't just give up, however. We should be prepared to see an increased police/military response using increasingly violent tactics.

2011-11-19T11:22:00.001-08:00

Occupy Congress? What a great idea. And DC is warmer than Wall Street. In fact let's take over Congress. We can start with a platform-developing convention and start to create a new party of The 99.

2011-09-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

9/26/11

I gave the Obama campaign $50 for 2012 - reluctantly. I guess I think it's worth $50 to support Obama in his last year even though I am very disappointed in his leadership. We are still at war and turning into a police state.

After the campaign thanked me I replied to Rufus as copied below, since I doubt that Rufus will ever read it or that I will ever hear from him.

Rufus,I wish Obama would stand up to the corporate gangsters and their political sycophants. Right now I'm saving my money and real organizing efforts for a program much more progressive than the Obama administration. If no more progressive group arises and Obama continues to be weak, I guess I'd better save my money for the coming hard times.Good luck,Jim Buckley

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Rufus Gifford wrote:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your generous donation of 50.00.

This movement has always measured our strength not just in dollars but in the number of people who step up to own a piece of this campaign.

Will you take the next step and recruit five friends to join you today?

It’s quick and easy on our grassroots fundraising pages, and you’ll be playing a key role in bringing new people into the fold for 2012. Get started here:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Grassroots-Fundraising

Whether you bring in one new donor or 10, you’re building the foundation of this campaign -- and I think you’ll be surprised at how much you can do in a short time.

This movement would not be possible without supporters like you.

Thank you again for your generosity,

Rufus

Rufus Gifford National Finance Director Obama for America

Are There Any Good Corporations?

2010-11-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

Chris Hedges, in his article in TruthDig at http://www.truthdig.com/report/page3/power_and_the_tiny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122/ and in his new book, “Death of the Liberal Class” describes the increasing corporate control of American society and our spiral into fascism.

His writing is lucid and well reasoned. I agree with him almost completely. He speaks the truth.

But it is pretty dreary. Hedges ends the article with "I do not know if we can win this battle" but he urges us to keep on "resisting".

Hedges details how corporate America keeps us divided between meaningless dichotomies and cites Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who he says was blacklisted by the corporate media and locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn:

That got me to wondering if we can't also play divide and conquer. Is Corporate America so monolithic? Are there no good corporations? Seem to me that lots of (mostly small) corporations are ethical, operate within the law and support American democracy. How about Apple and Southwest Airlines and Google? Most of the companies I know in the masonry industry are family-owned. For many the image of John Gault seems to be a goal.

Or is it the corporate hierarchical structure that makes corporate America inherently and necessarily at odds with and in contradiction with American ideas about democracy and freedom? As I quoted the New Yorker, writing about Wikileaks back in June: Considering that many corporations are as big and powerful as whole countries, it's instructive to note that in a corporation there is no right to vote, all power emanates from a central committee, there is no balance of power, no fourth estate, no judicial review and no freedom of speech. The economy is centrally planned, there is pervasive surveillance, no right of association and no opposition.

Google seems like a nice corporation. But as they get larger, richer and more powerful and have all this information about everyone, are they destined to become tyrannical?

I wonder if, like Democrats and Republicans, corporations can be categorized or divided and identified by their internal structure, motives or the good intentions of their owners and officers. Or is it all about and only about money?

Even if it is only about money, democracy and the creation of a forum where dissenting ideas can be discussed was thought by 18th century political theorists and by the American Founding Fathers to be a rational way to make decisions for governments. Why not for corporations? If you wanted to make a lot of money and make good decisions in a more of less sustainable way wouldn't democracy and freedom work within a corporation as well as for a government?

Some corporations have and even encourage unions or are collectively owned by their employees. Some may have board meetings and internal policies that reward innovation or even dissent. On the other hand the corporations that seem to be mostly in the news these days appear to be greedy, arrogant and willing to pollute, screw their employees and the public alike and break laws if can't outright make laws favorable to themselves and nobody else. Can we begin to list these corporate features and distinguish between the "good" corporations with democratic and rationalizing structures and "bad" corporations which operate more like North Korea or the Mafia?

Maybe corporate America isn't as monolithic as Hedges supposes and the way to "resist" is to understand these corporate differences and work the contradictions.

Fourth Amendment

2010-11-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The main legal gripe we have against the Border Patrol's highway, bus and ferry check points is, we say they are violating the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. We know the Supreme  Court has made an exception to this right at our borders but the 100 mile extension of our borders that effectively abridges the Fourth Amendment for two thirds of the American population seems overreaching.

Law abiding Americans seem to have trouble understanding any need for the Fourth Amendment. "I'm an American, I'm not breaking any laws, the search only takes a few minutes and maybe it helps protect us from terrorists. What's wrong with these random searches?" Well it certainly irritates and scares a lot of minority Americans who think they are being racially or ethnically profiled when they are pulled over and searched thoroughly while white Americans are waved through. Actually to some white Americans it is reminiscent of police state tactics in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

But let's look a little deeper. What is the history and the purpose of the Fourth Amendment? Who is it supposed to protect? What's wrong with police state tactics if we are all law-abiding citizens?

Interestingly the protection against unreasonable search and seizure dates back at least to 1603 in England. ''Every man's house is his castle'' was a maxim much celebrated in England when in the 18th century the courts restrained the King's officers from raiding homes looking for John Wilkes' polemical pamphlets without due process.  So maybe John Wilkes was exercising his right of free speech but in 17th century England the King thought he was guilty of "seditious libel".

In the American colonies, smuggling rather than seditious libel afforded the leading examples of the necessity for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

So the Fourth Amendment really protects those who criticize the government, evade taxes, smuggle or maybe are guilty of other illegal or unpopular activity. We are back to "What's wrong with these searches if I am not breaking any laws?"

Are you sure you are not breaking any laws? Do you pay all your taxes - even on stuff purchased on the Internet? You wouldn't mind those nice Boarder Patrol officers - or maybe the police or IRS agents coming into your house to check your records would you? And, if you were suspected of not paying a tax on the book you just bought from Amazon or couldn't prove your innocence you wouldn't mind being incarcerated in that private prison in Tacoma with the concertina wire on the fence, would you?

Of course I'm exaggerating. It could never come to that. But there is that flap over the 1099s that the government wants to require to close an estimated $300 billion gap between taxes paid versus what is owed. There was that court case in which the state of North Carolina wanted Amazon to divulge all their customers so that NC could go after them for state sales taxes not paid.

Maybe it's more about draconian and disproportional enforcement. We don't mind so much getting a speeding ticket. And there is always the right to appeal in court if you really are not guilty. But being locked up in a prison for not paying a few dollars in state tax? It'll never happen. Yet a Mexican teenager in Forks who has been in this country nearly all of his life and doesn't even speak Spanish or a Guatemalan woman who has lost her Green Card or let it lapse can be imprisoned, charged with a felony and deported with no recourse short of paying many thousands of dollars in legal fees.

First they came for the Mexicans but I wasn't a Mexican ...

1099 Forms to Catch Tax Dodgers?

2010-11-06T14:38:00.001-07:00

A little-noticed provision of the health care overhaul law will require small businesses to file a 1099 form with the Internal Revenue Service if they buy supplies or services worth more than $600 from any vendor - even corporations. The controversy has been over the administrative burden of keeping records and filing 1099s for things like gasoline, office supplies, lunches, etc.

But the interesting question is why anyone ever thought this was a good idea.

"The intent behind the change" according to one insider (www.ithinkbigger.com) "is to close an estimated $300 billion gap between taxes paid versus what is owed. Because a copy of each 1099 is filed with the IRS, the change seeks to close this gap ... by making it more difficult for companies to underreport revenue ..."

What?! Corporations don't report all their income and don't pay all their taxes? Gee I thought only unlicensed contractors, itinerant painters, undocumented immigrants, landscapers and handymen who give discounts for cash made up the under ground, under the table, cash only please economy. I wonder how much of that $300 billion gap is the drug and insurance companies as opposed to the little guys not reporting all the cash they take in.

I'm trying to make a point here that a lot of Americans and maybe especially corporations cheat on taxes and aren't that different from the Colonial gun runners and tax evaders the Fourth Amendment was intended to protect.

But as a passing aside maybe doing all the work it would require my company to file a few hundred more 1099s would be worth it if it forced Shell Oil, Apple and Pfizer to pay their taxes.

Take Money off the Table

2010-07-18T20:33:00.000-07:00

John Dayton sent me a video by Daniel Pink about motivation, See http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/06/whiteboard-magic. I thought it was interesting and cute.

Then I read "Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic" because I was so impressed with how well the Mayo Clinic is run. Mayo has institutionalized Minnesota "nice" by creating a purposeful organization - just what Pink was talking about.

If people work because they want to be creative, cooperate, be productive, and give back to the community - rather than work for money - what does that say about the moral foundations of our society?

WikiLeaks

2010-06-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

After reading the article in the 6/7/10 issue of the New Yorker about WikiLeaks and it's founder, Julian Assange, I was prompted to take a look at the WikiLeaks website. I love this take on corporations and why it's important to civilize them.

Corporate corruption comes in many forms. The number of employees and turnover of some corporations exceeds the population and GDP of some nation states. When comparing countries, after observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations. Such comparisons can also be illuminating in the case of corporations.

Considering the largest corporations as analogous to a nation state reveals the following properties:

1) The right to vote does not exist except for share holders (analogous to land owners) and even there voting power is in proportion to ownership.

2) All power issues from a central committee.

3) There is no balancing division of power. There is no fourth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.

4) Failure to submit to any order may result in instant exile.

5) There is no freedom of speech.

6) There is no right of association. Even romance between men and women is often forbidden without approval.

7) The economy is centrally planned.

8) There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.

9) The society is heavily regulated, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can go to the toilet.

10) There is little transparency and something like the Freedom of Information Act is unimaginable.

11) Internal opposition groups, such as unions, are blackbanned, surveilled and/or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.

While having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand, many of these multi-national corporations have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms and protections. This is even more striking when the regional civic laws the company operates under are weak (such as in West Papua, many African states or even South Korea); there, the character of these corporate tyrannies is unobscured by their civilizing surroundings.

Through governmental corruption, political influence, or manipulation of the judicial system, abusive corporations are able to gain control over the defining element of government — the sole right to deploy coercive force.

WikiLeaks endeavors to civilize corporations by exposing uncivil plans and behavior. Just like a country, a corrupt or unethical corporation is a menace to all inside and outside it.

http://www.wikileaks.net/wiki/WikiLeaks:About

Episcopal Church in Tucson

2010-05-09T18:23:00.001-07:00

Waking Up From the American Dream

2010-05-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday MoveOn sponsored a forum in Port Townsend entitled "Waking Up From the American Dream". It was on target. 200 people attended and told moving stories about health care and the food we eat being controlled to their detriment by big corporations. It was a good rally.

Unfortunately, however, MoveOn has yet to come up with a realistic way to support candidates who are not in the corporations' pocket - they all are - or find a way to fund an effort by the People to take back our government by taxing the corporations and publicly funding elections.

So let me repeat a proposed solution I made earlier:

Since our elected officials can't or won't do it, we the people should mount a referendum - here in Washington and across the nation - proposing a simple progressive income tax on both corporations and individuals - something like 30% on all income above $200,000, 50% on that above $500,000 and 75% above that - no loopholes. Make it expensive to be "too big to fail". Give the local hardware store a chance to compete with Home Depo. End insurance and drug company control of the health care system. Promote competition, favor American enterprise. Put a dent in corruption and corporate control of our government at all levels.

And pay for it, $10 at a time, by clicking on our cell phones - like we were able to help with the relief effort in Haiti a couple of months ago. We the people have the votes and the power to control our own lives, even if the corporations and political parties they own don't like it.

2010-02-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

Representative Anthony Weiner, D, NY, says it pretty well, "Republicans are a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry". See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#35573472

I'd like to find out what his support is and how he gets elected. And his friend, Pete DeFazio of Oregon, too.

Tax the Corporations

2010-01-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

The Democrats say,"for less than ten percent of Exxon's 2008 profits, it could spend $10 million on every congressional race in America. I say tax the corporations with a really simple progressive tax to make it expensive to be "too big to fail".

And publicly fund elections so politicians will represent the people - not corporations.

Health care and corporations

2010-01-26T20:01:00.000-08:00

I participated in a MoveOn sponsored rally for health care today in Port Angeles, WA. This, of course, just after the Democrats lost Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts and the Supreme Court ruled that corporations need no limits in exercising their free speech rights as "individuals".

I thought the rally was a little disappointing. Only about twenty people showed up at Congressman Norm Dick's office to urge the Democrats to "have a backbone" and stick with the program. Dicks wasn't even there. Nice people begging for help and fairness but we had no plan that I could see to seize power and accomplish anything.

Here's what I would do and it takes considering the following, seemingly disparate, elements:

1) Tim Eiman has scared the bejesus out of Washington politicians by his referendums.

2) This week there is a referendum in Oregon to tax the rich and tax corporations.

3) The news is full of outrage about the size of corporate salaries and benefits.

4) I just donated $10 to Haiti simply by texting a few numbers into my iPhone.

5) Americans, from the Tea Party radicals to those who wish the Obama Administration would stick to the program of ending the wars, reforming health care and regulating the banks, insurance, drug and auto companies are "mad as hell'.

Okay, that's enough. All the above are tied together and I have a solution ....

Mount a referendum - or many state-level referendums - proposing a simple progressive income tax on both corporations and individuals - something like 30% on all income above $200,000, 50% on that above $500,000 and 75% above that - no loopholes. Make it expensive to be "too big to fail". Give the local hardware store a chance to compete with Home Depo. End insurance and drug company control of the health care system. Promote competition, favor American enterprise. Put a dent in corruption and corporate control of our government at all levels.

And pay for it, $10 at a time, by clicking on our cell phones. We the people have the votes and the power to control our own lives, even if the corporations and political parties they own don't like it.

So, are we getting anywhere?

2009-12-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech was okay for a practical, pacifist Christian war president - straight out of Reinhold Niebuhr. Find a way out, Mr. Obama. You can't have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq "keeping the peace". As Niebuhr says, "Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted".

And the health care bill passed last night: No single payer, no public option, no downward extension of Medicare. All it seems to do is close some gaps for those who are uninsurable due to pre-existing health problems - much needed, by the way, but paid for by taxpayers. Taxpayers will also foot the bill for subsidies for low income people who will be required to buy health insurance and pay out of pocket $6,000 to $12,000. So, as I understand it, it's a boondoggle for the insurance and drug companies at tax-payer expense. Wouldn't we get a better deal if the government just ran the program?

And the auto companies and banks are back with their executives making obscene salaries and benefits.

I guess I can't expect even Obama to get the insurance companies, drug companies, banks and auto companies all to play fair and obey the law at the same time in just a few months. Of course it isn't all Obama's fault. Congress - both houses and both parties - appear to be unduly influenced by big corporations.

Maybe Obama has a plan I don't see yet and is biding his time for the right moment as his other hero, Lincoln, was so good at doing. I hope so. If it were up to me I would re-instate the draft, publicly fund and limit campaign financing and revise the income tax laws to make it expensive to be "too big to fail".

At least I didn't see it coming

2009-12-21T23:14:00.000-08:00

6/4/09

I hadn't seen the grey whale everyone has been talking about so I rowed out to Rat Island this morning - and hit it! I thought you'd be interested in the details.

I was rowing around the south end of Rat Island about 100 yards past the turn inside the green buoy. At very low tide I know it's about 20 or 30 feet deep there since I can sometimes see the eel grass. Anyway my right blade hit something and immediately thereafter the whale blew briefly right under my port rigger - and then dived, brushing the bottom of my boat with its back or tail.

I'm pretty sure the whale was as surprised as I was which answers the question I have had since a grey whale breached about ten feet away along side the Salish Star we were rowing about five years ago just off Chetzemoka Park: Did the whale see us? That one was about 40 feet long and could have easily overturned the Salish Star. No, I decided today. Greys don't look where they are going.

So, after our encounter this morning the whale took off toward the Navy dock, and then circled back to swim parallel to my path and blew a couple of more times. It never did breach and I never really saw it but I would guess it was at least 25 feet long and made quite a wake just below the surface as it swam away from me.

Hope & Transparency

2009-12-21T23:07:00.000-08:00

President Obama!
1/20/09

Obama has started a new website at www.change.gov in order to communicate directly with the American people and offer a way to communicate back. If it works (and I hope it will) it will be a great leap toward a more transparent and democratic government. Here is my first comment on the www.change.gov blog:

11/9/08
When I read The Audacity of Hope, I can't tell you how much I related to Barack. When I heard Michelle say it was the first time that she could feel proud of her country it resonated.

I was an organizer for peace and civil rights in the 1960's. I was also born in Indonesia and traveled much of the world by the time I was 20. I also was lucky and went to a good school, in my case Cornell.

There are issues I feel strongly about - universal health care, ending the wars, renouncing torture coupled with a reestablishment of habeas corpus and return to the rule of law, a rational immigration policy and control of Homeland Security, a progressive income tax, and control of the banks and international corporations.

But for now, all I want to say is WE DID IT! Thanks so much for making it possible to believe in America again.

Comment

The transition is over and www.change.gov has become http://www.whitehouse.gov - 6/09

Homeland Secuity

2009-12-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Postville, IA and
The Border Patrol in Port Townsend, WA
11/7/08

On May 12, 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted what at the time was hailed as the largest single site immigration raid in U.S. history at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. After a nearly one-year investigation into Agriprocessors, approximately 500 ICE agents moved on Postville at 10:00 a.m. outfitted with machine guns and in full combat gear. Helicopters circled overhead while ICE agents entered the meatpacking plant with warrants for 607 undocumented workers.

On the Olympic Peninsula the Border Patrol has increased the number of officers from four to 24 and plans to add more officers. They've staked out the Catholic Church, set up traffic checkpoints, have attempted to buy off local police and sheriffs, detain people suspected of the misdemeanor of being "undocumented" in a secure private barbed wire enclosed detention facility in Tacoma - and apparently don't see any reason to abide by the Fourth Amendment.

Socialism & Democracy

2009-12-21T22:55:00.001-08:00

11/6/08

Obama is not a socialist in spite of what the swift boaters implied. In context you might have guessed Joe the Plumber was charging him with being for a progressive income tax - but not socialism. Why, however, does the word "socialism" have such negative power?
"Socialism" means the collective or public ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Socialism is not about how decisions are made.

Democracy is the most rational way to make decisions. At least our Founding Fathers thought so, steeped as they were in the 18th century ideas expressed by Locke, Hume and Bentham - empiricists who argued that democracy, a system by which decisions are made after deliberation in arenas where all opinions and facts could be considered, is the most rational way to determine the will of the people.

The Founding Fathers certainly were not in favor of universal suffrage. And they certainly didn't question private ownership of their farms and businesses. They never imagined that decisions about their management of the means of production should be subject to democratic decision-making.

It was almost 100 years later that the idea of socialism introduced a problem or contradiction. Socialism, arising out of industrialization in Europe dating from about 1830 was the basis of many 19th century utopian ideas. If democracy was such a rational way to make political decisions, why not extend it to economic decisions too?

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital and creates an unequal society. Socialists generally advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly.

Thank God the Founding Fathers had built the protection of minorities (white men with property) into the Constitution as a protection against mob rule. With the rise of socialism, the owners of farms, businesses and factories had no doubt that they would not be in charge if democracy were to be extended to economic decisions as well as political decisions. The masses would just vote them out and take over ownership of the means of production - socialism.

That's pretty much what Marx advocated except that he didn't trust the people any more than the Founding Fathers did so he envisioned a transition during which there would be a "dictatorship of the proletariate" before the state would wither away into utopia. That and the fact that most real Communist countries ended up with some pretty awful dictatorships, gave socialism a bad name making it easy for the capitalists to oppose, at least during the Cold War against Communism.

But wait. Socialism is not about how decisions are made. Do we trust the American people to make important decisions? How about people without property? How about women? Blacks and Hispanics? If we do trust the American people to make important decisions, aren't we back to that 19th century contradiction that if we believe democracy is the best way to make political decisions, why not economic decisions?

I wouldn't mind a vote in how the banks, the oil industry, the insurance and drug companies, are run. I guess that's called governmental regulation, if not socialism. Maybe a little regulation now would forestall nationalization or revolutionary takeover of the means of production down the road.

First American Bailout Bank

2008-10-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

Probably Barack Obama had to do the expedient thing to support the banks. He probably needs their support - or at least not their animosity. But I think he could show some leadership on the order of his speech on race and religion and talk to the people. Assure us that the bailout bill isn't just a big reward for being greedy, irresponsible or improvident.

Call it an investment by the American people and tie it to some regulation, tell us how the banks will pay it back.

To me it looks like the both the Senate (and finally) the House approved the same old free-money-to the-greedy-bailout with another 100 billion in pork bribes handed out to buy votes. So now the bailout will cost Americans 800 billion. And where does that come from? Future taxes? More national debt? Free make-believe money? One big Subprime Loan to fix the problems caused by Subprime Loans.

800 billion divided by 300 million Americans is almost $3,000 each. I might like to hold $3,000 worth of stock in the First American Bailout Bank established to buy all those bad mortgages and see if they might not be worth something in ten years.

McAfee and Yahoo Unethical - Above the Law Too?.

2008-07-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

McAfee and Yahoo, in an effort to compete with Google, have for several months now attempted to identify and censure websites that they say are sources of "unsolicited emails" or spam.

Sounds good. We all hate spam. Problem is the McAfee SiteAdvisor software isn't always accurate. They make mistakes. "Shane Keats, research analyst for McAfee, admitted as much last May to blogger Stephanie Hoffman when he said, "Occasionally it's our fault. We absolutely do have false positives."*

Personally, I know that McAfee makes errors. Our website, www.rumford.com, which is all about fireplaces - not spam - was falsely targeted by McAfee as a source of "unsolicited emails".

All this might be understandable and forgivable since the McAfee SiteAdvisor program is in beta which should mean that all the bugs have not been worked out. But McAfee and Yahoo have been difficult to contact, evasive, arrogant, unwilling to accept any responsibility and ultimately untruthful - and not just with me.** Here's a comment from Spartanicus on the Google webmaster help blog:

SiteAdvisor has trashed many good sites and then revised their ratings  after being called on it. In the past their "methodology" could be  summed up as "shoot first, revise later"

In our case it took a whole month to get to anyone at McAfee with a name. In frustration I filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and with the Washington State Attorney General and started reading and contributing to several blogs** about Yahoo and McAfee. I also tried to reach someone at Yahoo but was told they took no responsibility for the "warring" posted prominently on their search engine next to our website.

I know that McAfee made a mistake. They said right on the warning that they had posted an email address on our website that resulted in the unsolicited spammy email messages they said they received. They could not have posted an email address on our website. I manage the webiste myself, manually. Could I have a worm? Could I be wrong? I'm not the most sophisticated website manager, so I asked the owner of our server who said,

"The claim on McAfee Site Advisor "After entering our e-mail address on this site, we received 3.8 e-mails per week. They were very spammy." demonstrates no credible evidence that you are the source of that spam. This is sloppy analysis and sloppy disclosure.

McAfee has the power to damage organizations but does not exercise the corresponding responsibility. I would recommend that you ask them for the detailed evidence they gathered to make their assertions. You might use our certified mail in your correspondence with them in case they do not acknowledge your mail."

Yet I never got McAfee to even admit that they may have made a mistake. All they would say is that I should fix "our problem", let them know and they would re-test the site in about eight weeks to see if we still deserved the "redX" warning.

I persisted. I thought they had not read or understood my questions: Since we have no forms to fill out nor any other way to automatically post email addresses,
1) How did your crawler post an email in the first place?
2) How will it now retest by posting another email address?

I was referred to another Executive Services Team Specialist - and another, and another and another. The last Specialist, Kimberly Smith, after several email exchanges, I'm sure did understand my questions but still wrote back, refusing to answer my direct questions, with:

"McAfee's position has been expressed clearly to you, I'm sorry that you find this unsatisfactory. I'm unsure how else to say that your site was tested and received a rating based on that result. When the site is retested if no forms are found and your site warrants an adjustment, the rating will be changed."

This is doublespeak right out of George Orwell's "1984". Kimberly even referred me to the McAfee legal department, which I understood to mean that they would support the company line that Kimberly espoused that McAfee would admit no error,l would not reveal their methods or evidence (that's proprietary) and that the rating was somehow my fault. I stand falsely accused, my website publicly defamed, and unable to confront my accusers or know the evidence they used to make their accusations.

Two months after it all started I must have made enough of a fuss that McAfee changed our rating from a "red X" to a "green check" and about a week later Yahoo followed suit. I know they did not re-test. They just corrected the problem and said, for the record covering up their mistake, that they re-tested.

Stefanie Hoffman quoted Priyank Garg, director of product management for Yahoo Search, that "there was an escalation process to evaluate false positives that could take days to a matter of weeks, depending on the nature of the detected security threat".

That "escalation process" appears to have only been used when Yahoo had listed Google as a site that distributed malware, according to a May 11 Techcrunch report--an error that was remedied within a few hours of discovery.

Stephaie Hoffman also quoted Shane Keats on her blog.

"We're very proud of our ability to respond quickly and fairly to those concerns, and when we make a mistake, we admit it and correct it and do our best not to do it again,"

But that's not the response I was getting. By now I had been lied to by Yahoo and McAfee repeatedly making a mockery of the comments made by Shane Keats and Priyank Garg.

Even though McAfee finally corrected their error, I was feeling violated and angry and had hired a lawyer who only told me it would take at least $200,000 to sue McAfee - although he would love to take the case.

If McAfee had demolished my car legally parked out in front of my house I would expect them or their insurance company to pay for the damage. Even if they denied any wrong-doing and I had to take them to court, I wouldn't expect it to cost $200,000.

What's wrong with our system that allows a big international Internet corporation to run over my little website and damage my business with impunity?

Based on McAfee's statements both the BBB and the Attorney General's office consider the case resolved. But I don't. It's as if McAfee claimed they weren't responsible for damaging my car because it was my fault for parking it in the street but that if, when they raced by next month, if they didn't hit my car again, they'd consider the issue resolved.

I wish the BBB and the Attorney General would hold McAfee and Yahoo - and all other businesses - to some commonly accepted ethical standards which should include being available, responsive and honest. In the particular case where McAfee and Yahoo are "rating" or "evaluating" other websites, using a method known to be faulty and being fully aware that their ratings could damage the reputation or business represented by the websites they rate, McAfee and Yahoo should at least be required to:

1) Notify the person managing the webiste before publishing the rating to verify it's accuracy and to allow for an explanation or solution to the problem, if any, before the damage is done.

2) Be available, responsive and honest in trying to fix any mistake McAfee or Yahoo may have made.

I think the Attorney General or the Small Business Administration or the Better Business Bureau should set up some sort of mediation hearing process where the rules of legal procedure apply such as the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty and the right to be confronted by an accuser with evidence supporting the accusation. And, if that fails, help in filing a lawsuit.

This should be a lot more like traffic court or small claims court and big corporations should be held at least as responsible as common thieves or drunk drivers are. Our damages are small compared with the projected $200,000 cost of taking the issue to court. I lost about 100 hours of time and a few hundred dollars in legal fees. I can't tell for sure if it hurt our business at all since most of our customers (fortunately) use Google instead of Yahoo. Our page hits are actually up. But what assurances do I have that McAfee and Yahoo - or worse yet Google - won't damage us with a false rating next week?

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* From http://www.crn.com/security/208401061

** See the blogs and comments at:
http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/07/yahoo-marks-dangerous-search-results/
http://www.hamburg-english.de/http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=hamburg-english.de&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8
http://www.snowwowl.com/flashyahoomacafeetargetsnowwowlcom.html
http://goodle.crmreports.com/2008/05/yahoo-search-adds-searchscan-malware.html
http://www.straightupsearch.com/archives/2008/05/yahoo_turns_on.html