tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52633442039980456222024-03-19T03:24:32.684-06:00mid coast viewsCommentary on issues concerning Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the nation. <br>(and sometimes wine & restaurant recommendations)Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.comBlogger808125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-12665290909530251912019-01-02T11:03:00.000-06:002019-01-12T12:23:31.906-06:00Adele and Miriam, a story of seeking asylum in the United States<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The thousands of Latino refugees seeking asylum in the United </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">States reminded me of the story of an earlier generation of </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">refugees who also experienced family separation and extreme </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">hardship after being </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">denied entry into the United States. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">They were children, 10 and 9, from Zamosc, Poland when the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Germans invaded. Adele and Miriam hoped to escape Nazi </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">persecution and reunite with their parents who had immigrated to</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the United States earlier, But they, and their three older siblings</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, were denied entry by strict immigration rules.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Germans immediately began rounding up all the Jewish men</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">including Adele and Miriam’s teenage brothers. They were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">stripped naked, ordered to dig their own graves, shot and </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">dumped in those graves.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Every few weeks there was another roundup. Trucks were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">waiting, Jews were loaded and driven to the nearest forest. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Graves were ready and the killing commenced. Miriam recalled,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">” It is impossible to describe our lives….”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Adele, Miriam, Anna, their sister, and Anna’s child were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">rounded-up along with hundreds of others. They were ordered </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">to take off their clothes. Hoping to avoid certain death, they ran, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">eventually seeking refuge in a deserted building. Adele and </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Miriam climbed a ladder to safety. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">It was very quiet. Suddenly, the stillness was broken by Anna’s </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">voice pleading for her baby. Two shots rang out. They would </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">never see Anna or her child again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Adele and Miriam waited. It was silent again. Thinking it was safe </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">they climbed down. But a collaborator must have heard them. He </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">entered the building. Aiming his rifle at the two frightened girls, he </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">ordered them out of the building where German soldiers were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Waiting. One of the soldiers looked at his watch, and said, “Let </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">them go. "Enough for today.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">A Christian family the girls had befriended hid them. Providing </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">them with one set of false identification papers, they urged them </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">to flee to Russia.“ Tomorrow is Sunday. Lots of people will be on </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the road. Start walking and don’t look back.” </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In the Ukraine Adele </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">and Miriam found safety living and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">working under assumed </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Christian identities even after the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Germans invaded.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Following the German defeat at Stalingrad In the winter 1943, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Adele and Miriam were separated and shipped out of Russia as </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">slave laborers.Miriam was sent to Italy where she worked as a </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">cleaning woman and later</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in a hospital helping comfort the gravely wounded. The irony of a </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Jewish girl comforting Nazi soldiers was not lost on her. Before </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">she was deported she had given Adele her address.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Adele was eventually sent to Germany were she worked as a slave </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Laborer in factories, offices and shops. The sisters wrote to each </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">other weekley. But only one of Adele’s postcards with a return </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">address in Stuttgart got through. By then Miriam was working in a </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">hospital in Germany near Kaufbeuren. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Despite the Germans defeat, Miriam and the Russian women she </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">was with were treated like a slave by the German doctors and </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">nurses. They were given little food and three were forced to sleep </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in a five by ten foot room. Miriam Complained. With the assistance </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">of a Jewish survivor working for the Americans was moved to a </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">better room in a convent.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Desperate to reunite with her sister, Miriam walked and hitched </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">hiked the 110 miles to Stuttgart joining tens of thousands of </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">refugees who crowded the roads much like the thousands of </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Latin American refugees seeking refuge in the US.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Once in Stuttgard Miriam walked the streets searching for her </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Sister. When she noticed a handwritten menu with Adele’s </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">distinctive handwriting on a tavern door,. Miriam asked for </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">her”cousin” by her Christian name. The barmaid yelled </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">upstairs and in a few minutes the two sisters were hugging </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in a tearful reunion. A few days later they returned to Miram’s </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">room in Kaufbeuren</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Needing work, Adele went to the U.S. base where she met an </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">American GI, Robert Hillibrand. He recalled the meeting.” She </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">appeared...fearful as a mouse, tentatively looking in, wondering </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">whether she could advance another inch without being swatted </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">or crushed. She was like a line drawing of a person, an </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">amorphous being… She stood silently. She had learned that </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">you don’t speak without first being spoken to….That was a </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">ardinal principle of survival…””</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Hilliard helped Adele secure a job on the base. Eventually Adele </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">introduced Hilliard to Miriam, “a slim young woman with </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">sparking dark eyes and a small round mouth, her face framed </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">by shining brown hair.” They told Hilliard that they were Jewish </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and asked his help in reuniting with their parents in the United </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">States. It wasn’t easy, but eventually Hilliard reunited the two </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">girls with their parents in New York.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Adele married another survivor, Bernard Green. They settled in </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Brooklyn and had one son, Howie. Miriam married my mother’s </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">youngest brother, Arnold. They had two daughters, Sylvia and </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Karen. Adele and Miriam became Americans and lived quiet, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">productive, lives of dignity. They rarely spoke of the terror they </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">had experienced.Nor did they harbor any resentment against </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the country that had rejected them. But they never forgot.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Miriam died of cancer in 2004. Adele,92, died, two weeks ago </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">surrounded by her son and Miriam’s children. Their legacy </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">lives in every refugee who seeks safety and a better life; in </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">those who walked thousands of miles through Latin America </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">seeking safety and a better life in the United States; in the </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">children at the border who are have been cruelly separated </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">from their parents.Never forget. No Retreat. No Surrender. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-89333512954983749332018-05-04T10:30:00.000-06:002018-05-08T13:08:53.267-06:00Miriam's Story<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I was born in the city of Zamosc. I was a school girl and the </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">youngest </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">of seven children. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland I was eleven years old. My father was a grain merchant. At home both Yiddish and Polish were spoken. My family was orthodox and the Sabbath and all the holidays were observed. I remember with fondness my mother baking every Friday morning and the wonderful smell of the special breads and cakes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The marketplace in Zamosc </i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">There was a great deal of anti-semitism. Jewish students were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">not always accepted to schools of higher education. Bands of </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">anti-Semites would attack small businesses that were owned by</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Jews. Also at universities here was a well- organized </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">organization that would often beat up Jewish youth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">I heard about the German invasion over the radio. Two days into</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the war our city was bombed. Many of our neighbors were killed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In addition to dropping bombs on heavily populated residential </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">areas, the planes were also strafing the civilians as we were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">running from the burning houses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">My family was greatly affected and our lives changed forever. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Just before the war, in January 1939, my parents were able to</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">leave Poland to join my two older brothers who were in the</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">United States. Because of strict immigration quotas the rest</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">of us had to wait until December to migrate to the U.S. The war</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">started in September, 1939 and all communication was broken. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">My sister Adele and I were minors and lived with my sister Anna</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and her husband. Their little girl Esther was born in 1940. Our</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">family was able to move east to the Ukraine to escape the</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">German occupation. We lived in the Soviet Union for two years</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">before the Germans invaded.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">As soon as the German army occupied our area they rounded up</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">all the Jewish men and had them dig graves. With the help of </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">civilian collaborators the Jews were ordered to strip naked and be</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">shot. My two brothers, eighteen and nineteen years old, were in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the first roundup and killed. Whoever survived were ordered to</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">move into one area designated by the Germans. This became</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the <a href="http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/zamosc.html">Jewish ghetto</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"><i>The Jewish Ghetto, Zomasc</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Able and healthy Jews worked doing tailoring, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">shoemaking and road work. Every few weeks there would be a </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">surprised roundup. Trucks were waiting, Jews were loaded and </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">taken to the nearest forest. Graves were ready and the killing </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">would go on. It is impossible to describe our lives. Although the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">roundups were usually by day, there were often rumors there </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">would be a roundup that night. Food was very scarce. Everyone</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">was hungry. We had few possessions that we were able to barter </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">with a nearby farmer and his wife and they befriended us. So we </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">were able to get some flour or bread or milk. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In the fall of 1942 an order came to vacate the ghetto. My sister </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Anna and her child were rounded up and so were I and Adele </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">along with hundreds of others. We were ordered to take off our </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">clothes. My family started running looking for a place to hide. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Miriam and Adele in Germany</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adele who is one year older than me, and I ran together. Adele </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">saw an open door to a house with no police around. We </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">stepped inside. The house was deserted and had a strange odor. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">We realized that it was a tannery. There was a ladder leading to </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">a loft and we climbed up and dragged the ladder up behind us. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">After some time it became very quiet. Suddenly we heard our </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">sister Anna’s voice. The police had found her. She was </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">pleading for them not to kill her baby. Then we heard two shots. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">We waited a little longer. Then I started coughing and needed </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">some water. Because of the quiet we were sure the killing was </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">over so I jumped down and Adele also jumped down. A </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">collaborator must have heard us and came into the house with </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">his rifle up. He ordered us out of the house. As we went out a </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">German soldier appeared, looked at his watch, and said, “Let </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">them go. Enough for today.” So suddenly, at ages 14 and 15, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Adele and I became adults. A few highly skilled Jews were still </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">alive. We stayed with them overnight.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The following day Adele and I made our way to the nearby farmer </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">who had befriended us. They gave us something to eat. They </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">said they had one baptismal certificate they could give us to use </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">as a birth identity to pass as Christians. They also gave us a </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">small medallion of a saint. The farmer’s wife gave us each a </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">half loaf of bread and we got a bottle of water. She said,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">” Tomorrow is Sunday. Lots of people will be on the road. Start </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">walking and don’t look back.” And so we did.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">We headed east, hoping to find a safe place where the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Germans </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">hadn’t reached yet. We hitch-hiked but had to </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">split up in order to </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">get rides. In order to get food I needed </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">a job and food ration card. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I registered in the government </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">employment center and showed </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">my </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">baptismal certificate </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">as an ID. The official was suspicious and said </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">he would </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">inquire from my parish priest. Just as he was writing </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">down the information from my document, a German </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">officer appeared </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and said,” This girl will do.” I was told to </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">report the next morning to be </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">taken with other Russian </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">women to work for the German army. This is </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> how I </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">became a slave laborer for the Germans.</span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="goog_1293752886"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1293752887"></span><img src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=417a43af47&view=fimg&th=16322756512a559b&attid=0.1&disp=emb&realattid=ii_jgpihjy02_16322749fe72d525&attbid=ANGjdJ9OgXQcTAOioiPB7m1hUThf1WpusZREt6Z1prhsSmMbY5rJSRbn5KF5JBVegrGHFftdig4Dn5PxBssucO3ThP0-ET844oj04zvkBSsJxk7hnOQJY0bWjoT3V5M&sz=w662-h914&ats=1525291555952&rm=16322756512a559b&zw&atsh=1" /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Miriam's German/Nazi ID card. Her name was Maria Skarschinska, a Polish</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>office worker. Not a Jew. </i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">During the following years I worked as kitchen help in army </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">hospitals </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">traveling in Italy and eventually Germany. I was </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">liberated by the </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">American army in April 1945. I was able to </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">find my sister who had also </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">been a slave laborer in Germany. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was able to get a job working in an </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">army px. For the first </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">time in years I found kindness and help from </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">American GIs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the American soldiers found out that we had </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">parents </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">living in New York City some of them wrote to relatives in New </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">York. Knowing we came from Zamosc one of them contacted </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">a Zamosc </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">“landsmannschaft”, a fraternal order of immigrants </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">from the same place. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">They recognized the names and our </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">parents contacted us through the </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">army post office. In 1946 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">we came to the United States and were </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">reunited with our </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">parents.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I believe the lessons your generation (and mine) must be taught </span></div>
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Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-45913350218379833082018-04-08T14:40:00.000-06:002018-04-25T09:30:17.994-06:00The Berman/Barosin's & the birth of Berman's Motor Express<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Isaac Berman (Barosin) married Sarah Schmuelowtsch in 1910. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Two years later they boarded a boat in Liverpool and sailed to </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Isaac was the son of Pinches Barosin, a teacher in the small </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Latvian town of Varaklani (Warkland). At the time of Isaac’s </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">birth, it was the most Jewish of Latvian villages. 1,337 Jews, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">75% of the town’s population, called it home in 1897. On August</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">August 4, 1941 the Nazi troops entered the village and </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">executed Varaklani’s 952 Jewish residents. Today only one</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Jewish person lives in the village. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Sara was from Vilna, Lithuania. Vilna was known as the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Jerusalem of the North because it was “without peer as a</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">center of Jewish culture, learning, and political activity.” It was</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the crown jewel of Jewish culture. In the eighteenth century it was</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">hub of Jewish scholarship. In the nineteenth the focal point</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">of the Jewish enlightenment movement. By the beginning of the </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">twentieth century it was home to 76,000 Jews, half the city's</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">100 synagogues and the bund, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">a pan-European, socialist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">organization o</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">rganized to promote </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the Yiddish language, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the rights of Jewish workers, and Jewish </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">national autonomy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bund members were active in the 1905 revolution. Following the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">defeat of the revolution, pogroms broke out across Russia. In </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">response Socialists organized self-defense units. The authorities</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Issac who was orphaned by the age of twelve was attracted</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">to the 1905 revolution and became a Bolshevik sympathizer.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">He once told his children he helped barricade the streets</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in 1905. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Issac</span> <span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre;">believed</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> the 1917 revolution was the </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">salvation </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">of the Jews. He </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">maintained his </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">commitment to </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">socialist </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">ideas throughout his life even as he became </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">successful </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">capitalist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Issac migrated from </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Varaklani to Copenhagen, Denmark, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">home of his younger siblings, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">shortly after the revolution’s </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">defeat. Once settled, he sent for Sara </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> whom he had met </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">on a visit to Vilna. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The first two Berman children, Ida and Benjamin (Pinches), were </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Shortly after Ben was born, the young couple migrated to the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">United States. Their port of entry was Boston. U.S. immigration </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">law, while not as restrictive as it would become in the early 1920s, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">required a family sponsor. Sarah’s sisters who lived in </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Binghamton, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">New York where their husbands were in business</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Isaac had apprenticed as a shoe cobbler or a printer in Varaklani. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The facts are unclear. But it is certain he wanted </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">to make it on </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">his own. One of his first ventures was a candy store </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">One day Sarah heard Ben crying. She entered his room to </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">discover that a mouse had climbed into his crib and bitten him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Sarah was horrified. She put her foot down, insisting the family </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Hymie was a junk-man. He eventually opened an automobile </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Another os Sara’s sisters, Rose, also lived in Binghamton. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Isaac was strong-willed with an independent streak. He was not </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">then during WWl at Endicott Johnson shoe factories in Johnson </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">During the war, shoe-making provided enough overtime that </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Isaac </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">could support his growing family of Ida, Jack, Ben,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Charlotte, and </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Fran. But when the war ended so did the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">overtime. Shoe factory </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">wages were simply not enough to </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">support the growing Berman </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">family of seven.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Simon proposed that he and Isaac go into the business together </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">relying on Simon's butchering skills. The plan was simple- they </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">would buy cows from nearby farmers, Simon could butcher them, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and they would sell the meat. All they needed was a truck to </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">transport the cows. Together, they secured a bank loan and </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Simon and Isaac drove out of town to visit a farmer they had </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">befriended. Since Isaac knew nothing about farms or animals, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">he left Simon in charge while he explored the farm. When Isaac</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">returned, Simon had successfully purchased a cow. To Isaac’s </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">surprise and dismay, however, the animal was dead. Isaac </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">asked Simon why he had purchased a dead animal. “That is why</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">we got such a good deal,” Simon replied. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Isaac knew little about the meat business. But he knew enough to </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">not want any part of a dead, presumably diseased, animal. He </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">told </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Simon, “You take the cow, I’ll make a living with the truck.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">And that </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">was the beginning of Berman’s Motor Express. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Mary, the fourth daughter of Isaac and Sarah and sixth of their </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">children, was born in Binghamton. At some point the family </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">moved to Marathon, N.Y. where Arnold and Sammy, the two </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Isaac was aggressive, </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre;">ambitious</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> and gregarious. He traveled</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the countryside </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">befriending the area’s farmers, many of whom</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">were Slavic </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">immigrants and, like Isaac, socialist. Their ideological </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">compatibility </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">helped Isaac convince the farmers to let him deliver </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">their eggs to </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">New York City. To secure their business Isaac </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">guaranteed them </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the price of their eggs. His competitors, the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">railroads forced the </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">farmers to eat any fall in prices. To ensure </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the round trip to New </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">York City was profitable, Isaac began </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">hauling </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> sugar on the return </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">to Binghamton. Ben and Jack, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the oldest </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Berman boys, went </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">on trips to NYC even before </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">graduating </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">from high school. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">When the economy collapsed in 1929, the price of eggs would </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">plummet in the day it took to deliver them to the city. Isaac</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">was losing money and could no longer justify making the trip. He</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">decided to expand into hauling freight. Fortuitously a trucking </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">company called B & B with a Binghamton to Boston route went </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">bankrupt. Isaac purchased the route in 1933. Ben and Jack who </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">had graduated high school were his drivers. Ida, the oldest </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Berman child who had completed her work at NYU, but never </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">graduated, took customer calls during the day and worked as </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the company’s bookkeeper. Berman’s was truly a family affair. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The railroads were regulated in the latter part of the nineteenth </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">century with the establishment of the Interstate Commerce </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Commission. By 1934, their monopoly on interstate transport was</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> threatened by the emerging trucking industry. The railroads </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">successfully </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">lobbied the federal government to regulate trucking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">As a result, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">in 1934 trucking was federally regulated. Ida read </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the ICC </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">regulations and completed the paperwork to ensure that </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Berman routes were secured. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">As BME expanded, it secured another route to Pittsburgh </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">becoming a regional trucking business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The company was unionized by the Teamsters during the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">great union drives of the 1930’s and 40’s. Isaac’s children, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">recognizing the contradiction between his commitment to </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">socialism and his success as a capitalist, would tease him</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">about supporting the worker’s right to organize. His response</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">was that the steel workers and the auto workers were</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">proletarians, but the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">teamsters were a bunch of bums. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">When the Red Army marched into Peking, Isaac threw a party</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">at his Brookline home to celebrate. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Following WWII Sammy, a bombardier during WWII who was </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">awarded </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the Distinguished Flying </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Cross and the Air Medal seven </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">times, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">joined the business after a short stint in Madison, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Wisconsin. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Isaac unexpectedly died in 1952. Ben, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Jack and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Sammy took over </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the business. Ben and Sammy </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">ran the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Boston terminal. Jack ran </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">the Binghamton operation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Sarah died in 1971.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Berman's Motor Express flourished until it was sold in the middle </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">1980’s </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">after the trucking industry was deregulated by the Carter </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">administration. It was a wise move as deregulation </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">destabilized the industry. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">All that remains is a terminal in Medford </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">and the memories. </span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-78561569854616532772017-10-01T16:06:00.000-06:002017-10-01T19:13:00.444-06:00R.I.P. Robert Reddic<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Former MATC employee </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bob (Robbie) Reddic died on September 14th after a three-year
battle with cancer.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8HolADecDIwND8MKxaCYTKp9fxpEF5M53UvdFDflfPagEFKMedxPg6i6zLow6DsmDDh80H4gm3mfBTwMlzoS6iOaDbgo61RQLDdaYlB89PowHHLuXf7gm7NeHBsDXCOKNqxdqnoeNT6U/s1600/reddic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8HolADecDIwND8MKxaCYTKp9fxpEF5M53UvdFDflfPagEFKMedxPg6i6zLow6DsmDDh80H4gm3mfBTwMlzoS6iOaDbgo61RQLDdaYlB89PowHHLuXf7gm7NeHBsDXCOKNqxdqnoeNT6U/s320/reddic.JPG" width="180" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rob was a
big man with an even bigger heart. Through his work at MATC and with the Neighborhood
Children’s Sports League (NCSL) he helped change the lives of thousands of
young people in Milwaukee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Robbie was
raised in the Hillside projects just a few blocks north of MATC. He enrolled in
former AFT Local 212 President Ernie Schnook’s Foundry Arts program. According to Robbie, he was less than a committed
student as a young man. But when he didn’t show up in class, Schnook would come
to his house, bang on his door and literally drag him to class. At Schnook’s memorial
service, Bob Reddic said, “The man saved my life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After
graduating from the foundry program, Bob took over the foundry, running it for
more than two decades while mentoring students from many programs, some of them
his former players. It was a safe haven for MATC students while providing our
students with the skills, knowledge and castings they needed to master their
crafts. Bob also produced beautiful works of metal art in that shop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bob Reddic never forgot where he came
from nor Ernie Schnook’s faith and commitment to him. He was dedicated to
paying it forward by devoting his life to providing opportunity and structure
to the young people of his community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to Earl Ingram, the
President of the NCSL, Bob Reddic was “the architect of the largest youth
football program in the state, the NCSL. He devoted his time and treasure to
those children and their families for over 26 years, leaving a legacy of
turning boys into men.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Make no mistake,” Ingram wrote on
Facebook, “it was Bob Reddic’s vision that put us on the map. Hundreds if not
thousands, of young men have gone on to play college and professional football
because of him </span>including current Green Bay
Packets player Marwin Evans<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">Robbie Reddic devoted his life to making his community a better place -- inside MATC and outside its walls as Carol Meekins described in this eulogy in Positively Milwaukee. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xXfwK6x1bUs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xXfwK6x1bUs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Robert Reddic leaves behind a wife,
children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and more than a thousand young men
and women whose lives he helped shape.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Milwaukee’s heroes don’t fly through
the sky. They don’t wear capes. They are the people like Robbie, hard working men
and women who devote their lives to making their community a better place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Robert Reddic, “wasn't on the local
awards list as many others are for lesser accomplishments,” wrote Ingram, “although
he should have been. But make no mistake about it, he was a HERO to thousands
of young boys and their families.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Robert Reddic was a mensch, an
example to us all. May he Rest in Peace. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-86825064774875655392016-07-04T07:46:00.001-06:002016-07-04T07:46:39.323-06:00The Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump and America's promise<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On July 4, 1776 members of the Second Continental Congress,
meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the final draft of the Declaration of
Independence, one of the most stirring, democratic and egalitarian statements
of the modern era.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Donald Trump, the presumptive republican candidate for president,
who has elevated xenophobia and immigrant baiting to an anti-American art form,
would benefit from a careful reading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Declaration was a revolutionary document. Not only did it
declare the thirteen colonies independence from the British Monarchy, but it
challenged the accepted structures of inequality that had previously governed
the affairs of mankind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For centuries human beings had lived in highly structured,
hierarchical societies. Economic and political power was the inherited
birthright of a privileged few. Most people were subjects, slaves, indentured
servants, and peasants, destined to serve their superiors, the lord, the
monarch, and the priest. As Aristotle wrote, “Some men are born to rule and
some to be ruled.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The Declaration of
Independence challenged the idea that all men were created unequally by
asserting the opposite: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This document turned man’s understanding of the world upside down
and laid the basis for an expansive and inclusive democracy even if its
principle author was the slave owner,
Thomas Jefferson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The defeat of the British led to the establishment of a new
government that restricted citizenship to white male property owners. But the
Declaration inspired labor republicans, country democrats, abolitionists,
suffragettes, freemen, immigrants, civil rights and LGBT activists who used the
words to extend the rights of citizenship more broadly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Declaration lists a series of grievances against King George,
the British monarch who ruled the thirteen colonies. While it is well known
that the patriots opposed taxation without representation, being forced to
house and feed the occupying British troops, and the British monopoly control of
commerce, it is rarely mentioned that restrictive immigration policies were
another important grievance. Yet the document condemns King George for
preventing immigration to the colonies, “obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migrations hither….”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The nation the Declaration inspired had no laws restricting
immigration until the racist Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882. As the
Statue of Liberty proclaimed, we were a nation that welcomed the world’s hungry
and poor yearning to breathe free. Only after WWI were discriminatory quotas
imposed on immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the Twenty-First Century, undocumented workers who do our
nation's hardest, most dangerous and dirtiest work and their children have
picked up where the Patriots left off, asserting that they are human beings
with rights denied. Their dream is the same as earlier generations of refugees
and immigrants from England, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Italy, Russia and
elsewhere to work hard, provide for their families and contribute to America’s
great experiment in democratic governance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Donald Trump’s threat to deport elven million immigrants who live
and work in the United States and his plan to build a wall between the United
States and Mexico are contrary to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence
and its vision of a new, free self-governing nation.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So as we celebrate this weekend, take a moment to remember that
two hundred and thirty-seven years ago thirteen sparsely populated Atlantic
outposts of farmers, servants, slaves and merchants declared that all men were
created equal with inalienable rights. Since that day freedom loving people
from Selma to Tienanmen Square, from France to Arizona have been inspired by
the patriots’ struggle to create a nation of free and equal citizens.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is no better way to celebrate July 4</span><sup style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">than to work for the defeat of Donald
Trump. A resounding repudiation of his anti- American views will </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">pressure Congress to pass comprehensive immigration
reform with a path to citizenship for our nation’s latest wave of immigrants. That
would give all of us who love this country’s promise something to celebrate.</span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-82633619664065584472016-05-30T06:25:00.000-06:002016-05-30T07:52:57.402-06:00Sam Berman, U.S. Army Air Force, returns to Corsica<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 13pt;">My mother's ninety-two year old brother,Sam Berman, served </span><span style="line-height: 13pt;">in the United States Army Air Force during World War II. He participated in seventy bombing missions from a base in in Corsica. Forty-five years later he returned to Corsica. This is his story. </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 13pt;">Vivian (my wife) and I have friends in France whom we have known for years and with whom we have made many trips. Roger Blachon, a cartoonist, had been a rugby player. Rugby players remain good friends. We met many of these wonderful, funny guys in many places throughout France. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 13pt;">One of them, François Grimaldi, was actually Corsican. I told him that I always wanted to go back to Corsica where I had been stationed during WWII. So he and his wife, Eliane, invited us to be their guests in May, 1989. Their house turned out to be in the mountains overlooking an area that had once been a U.S. airfield where I had been stationed. It turned out to be a very nostalgic trip.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Corsica was important to me because In December, 1942 I volunteered for the Army Air Force hoping to become a pilot. I volunteered because I knew if I were drafted I would be in the infantry, but if I volunteered I could choose the Air Force.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZuFT2SxYvQSLd854Ptbj0aMNMjuhRLhLBkLjasYZ6IGzgvTSMZ2SsAorcG1a_2sSDAf74J8ckexh3bo6wAEjqZ60MRNX4LGESaBIAVJOjC0gqR7gwteEEOL7jBWN7OD4C87q5zHwg2DfX/s1600/SambermanPlane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZuFT2SxYvQSLd854Ptbj0aMNMjuhRLhLBkLjasYZ6IGzgvTSMZ2SsAorcG1a_2sSDAf74J8ckexh3bo6wAEjqZ60MRNX4LGESaBIAVJOjC0gqR7gwteEEOL7jBWN7OD4C87q5zHwg2DfX/s320/SambermanPlane.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately I did not pass the eye exam to become a pilot. So I was sent to radio and gunnery school instead. In July, 1944 I was sent overseas and eventually to Corsica where I flew in combat missions in B25 bombers over southern France and northern Italy. My unit was in the 12<sup>th</sup> Air Force and the 321<sup>st</sup> bombardment group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The Army Air Force was segregated. We had Hispanic kids, but no black kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">On the first mission I flew we had 10 planes in formation. When we spotted an enemy plane, German, all of us began firing because everyone wanted to kill. Because we were in formation, many of us were shooting though our own formation. We were more likely to hit our own planes than the enemy, particularly because the German plane was to far away. I don’t know if any of us hit US planes, but that happened frequently during the war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Another incident: The first time I went up and saw the anti-aircraft I thought, “Gee they really want to kill me.” We had gone up and I saw a military base below. I grabbed my machine gun and aimed it at the base. Then I called the pilot through the intercom. I asked.” should I strafe the base?” He said, “For Christ sakes no. That’s where we live. It’s our home base. “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">In September, 1944 a shortage of bombardiers developed. Since the B25 air crew required that the bombardier also be trained as a navigator I was given quick training as bombardier and navigator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">On November 10, 1944 I was assigned to a crew that was flying to knock out a railroad station in Ostiglia, Italy in the Po Valley. We were attacked by a heavy barrage of anti-aircraft weapons. Our plane was severely damaged. We lost one of our two engines and several of our crew members were injured. We dropped our bombs. Our plane was diving toward the ground. I decided it was time to get out. I went to the hatch with a parachute about to jump when I realized that no one else was bailing out. I looked at the pilot’s compartment and saw that both pilots were slumped over. A fragment of an anti-aircraft bomb had shattered their Plexiglas window. They were both stunned. Their faces had so many cuts it almost seemed that they had been skinned. I shook the co-pilot and pointed showing him that we were diving toward the ground. He smiled, tested the controls and the plane responded. He shook the pilot. He also appeared uninjured except for the many cuts on his face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I was asked to fix a course out of Italy that avoided further anti-aircraft weapons. I looked at my charts which showed known anti-aircraft installations and picked a course that I hoped was ok. Luckily it was good enough to get us back over the coast and headed to Corsica. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Shortly after we returned safely, a formation was called. We all turned out. The General was there. He went down the line. When he got to me he awarded me the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving the men on my plane. The General asked me, “how old are you son?” I suppose because I looked very young. At the time I didn’t realize that this was a major award. I don’t remember talking about it with the other guys either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I ended up flying 70 missions. The maximum was supposed to be 50. But they were short of replacement men so they asked us if we would agree to continue flying. I agreed because I had volunteered because I believed the war was a fight to save the Jews in Europe and defeat Hitler. I remember a Woody Guthrie song from that period: “Round and round Hitler’s grave, round and round we go. Gonna lay that poor man down, won’t get up no more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">In 1989 Corsica was much the same as I remembered it. But there was no sign of our airfields that had been restored to farmland. We asked a farmer if he knew exactly where our airfield had been. He pointed out the location that had been the airfield.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">He said that he was a young child at the time of the war; that he and others counted our planes going and coming back to be assured that we all survived each flight. I was moved by that because we thought the locals were indifferent and only tolerated our presence there. After all, they didn’t need us to liberate them; they had driven the German’s out before we got there. Even now I relive the time there when I write about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 13pt;">Other members of the family who served were my brother Jack who was in the Merchant Marines, Arnold in the infantry who was wounded in Okinawa, Sam Rosen in the Navy and Irwin Corey who was in the Entertainment Division of the army but got kicked out, section 8. The only one wounded was my younger brother, Arnold.</span><br />
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Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com105tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-65442156576866109462016-05-23T07:46:00.000-06:002016-05-23T07:48:38.755-06:00R.I.P. Pinius Bergmann (1925-2016)<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Five years ago I traveled to Copenhagen to meet my
mother’s cousin, Pinius Bergmann, his wife, their children, and my Danish relatives. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Late one afternoon Pinius said, “Come with me, “I have
something I want to show you.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Glorie and I got in his car. He drove us to the picturesque, fishing
village of <span style="color: #3b3b3b;">Gilleleje where h</span>omes with
thatched roofs sat juxtaposed to more contemporary abodes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We pulled up to the village’s museum, a small, modern
building. Behind it was an old, worn-out fishing boat, the sea and a 20 foot
high statue of Gideon blowing his horn, a gift thanking the people of Gilleleje for their WWII heroism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #3b3b3b; line-height: 115%;">I</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">t was nearing twilight and so quiet you could hear the waves lapping the shore. “See
that boat,” Pinius began. “I have a story I want to share with you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">“During the war the Nazis </span><span style="line-height: 18.4px;">occupied</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Denmark. But,
we were a neutral country so we (jewish people) were not being arrested as we were in other European countries. Every day the Danish King would ride his horse through Copenhagen to assure us that we were safe.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All of that changed in early October, 1943, when the Germans began rounding up
Denmark’s Jews for deportation to concentration camps and certain death. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pinius continued, “One night my father (Hirsch Barosin) came to me and said,’
it’s time to leave.’ He told me go to
the harbor where his friend, a fisherman, had a boat. He didn’t say why. But I
did as I was told. I put on my best
clothes because you get dressed up to travel. Little did I know what lay store
for me.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“When I got to the harbor, I was told me to get in the
boat, a vessel just like the one you are looking at. He motioned to a hole. It was covered by a
hatch, leading into the boat’s hull. The boat was filled with fish guts. We climbed down into the fish guts which rose around our necks. The hatch closed behind us.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“It smelled so bad”, Pinius said tapping his nose. “I can still smell it today.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pinius’ father hoped that the rancid smell of fish guts would
deter the German soldiers from searching for the hideaways. And the German soldiers came. But when they
opened the hatch the smell was so bad, so putrid, they slammed it down, gagging.
assuming no human being could possibly stand the stench. . . <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The little boat with its lights turned off crossed the
channel carrying Pinius and three others to freedom. “I took three baths a day for
a year to get rid of that smell,” he told us.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Six percent of Danish Jews were captured. But with the assistance of Denmark’s
citizens, 7,200 Jews, including my uncle Pinius and his future wife Gyda, made
it safely to Sweden along with 700 non-Jewish relatives. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gilleleje’s five hundred households cared for hundreds of refugees,
hiding them in a local church attic before ferrying them across to <span style="color: #3b3b3b;">Höganäs, Sweden. Pinius
reunited with his family in Sweden. Following the war he returned to Copenhagen.
Later he married Gyda with whom he had three daughters. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pinius died last month in Copenhagen,
Denmark, his adopted city, the city whose people had embraced and saved him and
thousands of its Jewish residents during the Holocaust. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<o:p></o:p>Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-58888901915413864952016-01-20T08:12:00.001-06:002016-01-20T08:12:43.796-06:00Trumbo,the red scare and one family's story <div class="MsoNormal">
The movie Trumbo is a powerful reminder that democratic values
and practices are easy prey in periods of fear and political hysteria. During the Red Scare in the late '40's and '50's, careers were ruined, decent,
law-abiding citizens were jailed, families and friendships destroyed and
lives lost. This is my family’s story during that era-where in my father’s
words, “our lives were turned upside down for quite a while."<br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: center;">Sam Rosen, the third
and last child of Louis (Laib Razumm) and Belle ( Baila Kurtz) Rosen, Jewish refugees from near Odessa, attended the University of Wisconsin Madison where he studied with </span><span style="text-align: center;">the noted labor economist, Selig Perlman.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> After graduating in 1941, he joined the Navy, participating in the invasions of Anzio and Northern Africa. Following the war, the GI Bill enabled him to pursue a graduate degree in economics at
Harvard.</span><br />
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It was an exciting time filled with possibilities. Hitler
and fascism had been defeated. CIO organizing had succeeded in bringing millions
of additional workers of all races into the ranks of labor, racial segregation was being challenged, the world's first consumer-based, middle class economy was emerging, and an independence movement
was freeing many of the world’s colonized peoples. <br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Harvard economics
department was home to many prominent economists. One was the “American Keynes,’ Alvin Hansen
who helped create the Council of Economic Advisers and the Social Security System.
Another, Joseph Schumpeter, best known for coining the phrase “creative destruction
of capital" and developing the theory of innovation, had mentored doctoral student Paul Sweezy. Later as colleagues, their debates on the "Laws of Capitalism" became legendary among my father's generation of Harvard students. Sweezy eventually left Harvard to found the Monthly Review. <span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #252525;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Several of my father’s classmates were international
students. Andreas Papandreou became the Prime Minister of Greece. Another, Pu Shan, was from China. After graduation, he returned to his country, served as Chou En Lai’s secretary and in the 1980s helped
reform the Chinese economy. He renewed his friendship with my parents in the
1990s when he returned to the United States as a visiting professor at Carleton
College. <br />
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Among my father's American born classmates was Robert
Solomon who became the chief international economist for the Federal Reserve Bank.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Solomon was an upperclassman who taught an economics class at the progressive Sam Adams School in
Boston. Upon his graduation and departure from Harvard, Solomon prevailed upon my father to assume his teaching responsibilities at Sam Adams.<br />
<br />
1952, the Rosen family had settled in Delaware where my
father was employed as an assistant professor of economics at the state university. He liked his department chair,
Charles Lanier, a labor economist, and Lanier apparently felt the same about
him. Annual raises, summer grants and committee assignments followed.</div>
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By 1954, with the aid of a low- interest GI loan, my parents purchased their first home in Brookside, Delaware. During the move, our lives were in my father’s
words “turned upside down” when he and my four-year old sister, Laurie, were
confronted at our old house by two FBI agents. The formally dressed men flashed their badges, demanding to interrogate my father. He was, of course, surprised. But he was not unaware of the nation's anti-communist hysteria. His sister, Gertrude, had been forced to resign her teaching position in the Baltimore Public Schools after she joined her American Federation of Teacher colleagues in refusing to sign a loyalty oath. A few years later, Gert's husband, Jimmy Ginsburg, was threatened with deportation.
The FBI accused Jimmy, brought to the states as an infant by his
immigrant parents, of being a foreign spy. This in spite of the fact that
this sporting man, know as "Captain Shmetena (sour cream)" because of his basketball prowess and his father's occupation as a "butter and egg man," held the national record for points scored in a basketball
game in the 1920’s.</div>
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My father, with daughter in tow, informed the FBI that he was too busy to talk. He suggested they meet later, a suggestion he came to
regret. When the FBI called a few weeks later, they agreed to meet at our
new home. The doorbell rang. Two FBI agents were at the door. My mother took my
sister and me to the back of the house. The agents began to interrogate my
father. It quickly became clear that they were confused, perhaps mistaking my father
for his brother-in law Sammy, a decorated WWII veteran, coauthor of the hit song "Charlie and the MTA," who was active in
the Progressive Party, the Boston Folk Society and the Creative Arts Workshop. Or perhaps they confused him with someone else. When they asked my father to provide them with the names of alleged subversives, he informed them that they were no longer welcome in his home. Before departing the agents threatened that
if he did not comply with their request they would make life difficult for him. Several days later two agents confronted my father, ordering him into their vehicle.He refused.</div>
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Shortly after these incidents, Lanier informed my dad that
he had been accused of being a red. “That’s ridiculous isn’t it Sam,” he asked
incredulously of his Keynesian colleague.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But the damage was done. No longer was my father asked to
serve on university committees. Lanier subsequently informed him that his
contract would not be renewed. My father's close friend and colleague, Abe Shuchman, a professor of marketing at the University of Delaware, was fired. Ironically
Shuchman went on to a career as a highly renowned professor of marketing at Columbia
University. His contributions are still recognized through an award given annually in his name to a graduating student in the MBA or Executive MBA program. <o:p></o:p></div>
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With his career at the University of Delaware ruined, my father re-entered the job market. He was hired by the University of New
Hampshire (UNH) to which he devoted his professional life. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Shortly after these events, dad visited Robert Solomon in
Washington DC. In the course of their discussion,
Solomon acknowledged that he had informed the FBI about my father's participation in the Sam Adams School, the very position Solomon
had recruited him to. This was
shattering news. Solomon offered
excuses. They never spoke again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sam Rosen taught at the University of New Hampshire until he retired in 1978. He led the effort to establish the University's Ph.D. program in economics ('71), helped organize the Whittemore School of Business and Economics ('62), and was a founding member of the university's chapter of the AAUP. He died in October 2004. The University of New
Hampshire awards its outstanding graduate student in economics a scholarship in his name. </div>
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Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-14472148732060552792015-04-20T07:39:00.001-06:002015-04-20T07:43:40.542-06:00NY Times wants help for students of predatory schools<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The New York Times ran a very strong editorial </span>criticizing<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> for-profit schools for their predatory </span>practices<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> and supporting debt relief for the students who have been </span>victimized<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> by what the editors called :crooked schools."</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> It is </span>reprinted<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> below in its entirety:</span></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">State attorneys general have long served on the front lines of the struggle to control and discipline predatory for-profit colleges that saddle students with crippling debt while granting them useless degrees, or no degrees at all. On April 9, nine of them who know firsthand how people can be deceived and bled dry </span><a href="http://www.mass.gov/ago/news-and-updates/press-releases/2015/2015-04-09-for-profit-school-loans.html" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #326891;">sent a letter</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> to the Department of Education, asking it to provide restitution — and help fix the problem — by forgiving the federal student loans of people harmed by crooked schools. The letter makes a strong case for prompt action.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The problem of for-profit schools received national exposure last year when Corinthian Colleges, one of the nation’s largest operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools, collapsed in the midst of a federal investigation. The company agreed to shut down or sell about 100 campuses. <a href="http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-fines-corinthian-colleges-30-million-misrepresentation"><span style="color: #326891;">Earlier this week</span></a>, the Department of Education fined Corinthian $30 million for misrepresenting job placement rates in one of the chains it owns, saying that the company had “violated students’ and taxpayers’ trust.”</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Corinthian was already facing a lawsuit brought by the California attorney general, Kamala Harris, who accused the company of a host of wrongs, including lying to students and investors about job placement programs. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau subsequently sued Corinthian on grounds that it had “lured tens of thousands of students to take out private loans to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and career services.”</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The idea of forgiving these loans altogether gained traction when a group of former Corinthian students refused to repay their loans, which they claimed were often the product of a predatory private lending scheme. The group, part of an organization called the Debt Collective, noted that the Department of Education had broad authority to forgive debt in cases where schools had committed wrongdoing. The department could then force the offending schools to reimburse the government.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>In December, 13 Senate Democrats urged the department to immediately forgive loans for Corinthian borrowers covered by lawsuits filed at the federal or state levels. In the April 9 letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, state attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington lent their voices to the forgiveness campaign, urging the department to “immediately relieve borrowers of the obligation to repay federal student loans that were incurred as a result of violations of state law by Corinthian Colleges, Inc.”</i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The letter said: “These cases against Corinthian have unmasked a school that relentlessly pursued potential students — including veterans, single parents, and first-time higher education seekers — promising jobs and high earnings, and preying on their hopes in an effort to secure federal funds.”<o:p></o:p></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The complaint from the attorneys general went beyond Corinthian to a systemwide problem: “Our greatest concern comes from certain large, predatory for-profit schools that are actively undermining our federal loan programs, depriving students of the education they promise and that the students deserve. These institutions seem to exist largely to capture federal loan dollars and aggressively market their programs to veterans and low-income Americans.”<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The attorneys general promised to help the federal government recoup loan balances from schools that violated state laws or benefited from unlawful deception.<o:p></o:p></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Over the last 20 years, the Department of Education has received only a handful of requests from borrowers seeking to escape repayment on grounds of wrongdoing by schools. Evaluating many such requests will be difficult. But the evidence shows that such a system is needed and that relief is long overdue.<o:p></o:p></i></span>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-29332693398253060722015-04-15T07:46:00.000-06:002015-04-15T07:46:19.125-06:00New Study: unionization pays off for community college instructors<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 20pt;">A recently released study found that "being represented by a
union pays big financial dividends for full-time instructors at
community colleges." </span></div>
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<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter Schmidt writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education reports:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Depending on the size,
location, and public-financing sources of their institution, unionized
full-time instructors earn from about 5 to 50 percent more in pay and benefits
than do their nonunionized peers at similar community colleges, says a paper
summarizing the study’s results.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>"The differences are
stunning," says Stephen G. Katsinas, a professor of higher education at
the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa who is one of the study’s three
co-authors.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Among the forces
influencing how much community colleges pay their instructors, "collective
bargaining, in itself, matters," says Mr. Katsinas, who plans to present
the study’s findings in New York on Sunday, at an annual conference held by the
National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and
the Professions.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Other research on the
impact of collective bargaining on faculty pay has struggled to quantify how
much differences in instructors’ earnings were attributable to unionization
versus other contributing factors, such as differences in institutional size or
in the regions that colleges served.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Mr. Katsinas and other
scholars reached conclusions similar to the new study’s in a 2006 analysis of
community-college data, but that effort was hampered by a reliance on outdated
data on where unions existed. It also failed to take into account 113
institutions — among them, large community-college districts such as Miami-Dade
— that could not be factored into an analysis of community colleges under the
classification scheme used by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The new analysis uses a
modified classification scheme to factor in the previously excluded
institutions, which include community colleges that either offer four-year
degrees or are offshoots of four-year public institutions, as well as public
baccalaureate colleges that primarily offer associate degrees. It uses federal
data on faculty earnings from the 2010-11 academic year, the last for which the
Education Department collected information on benefits.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>"There are amazing
differences in monetary compensation of full-time faculty across the landscape
of community colleges when geography, collective bargaining, and local
appropriations are all accounted for," the new study concludes.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>On average, it found,
unionized full-time faculty members annually received pay and benefits
amounting to about $95,000 at community colleges that received a significant
share of their funds from local governments and about $77,000 at community
colleges that lacked such a local source of financial support. Nonunionized
faculty members received less than $68,000 in pay and benefits, on average,
regardless of where their community college derived its tax revenue.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The size of the community
college where a faculty member worked and the type of community it served also
made a big difference.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>At the top of the pile,
full-time faculty members at suburban, multicampus, locally financed community
colleges annually earned an average of nearly $106,000 in pay and benefits. At
the bottom, such faculty members at small, rural, locally financed community
colleges earned total compensations averaging just over $61,000.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; margin-bottom: 16.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>The other authors of the
new study were Nathaniel J. Bray, an associate professor of higher-education
administration at the University of Alabama, and Barry R. Mayhall, a doctoral
student in higher education at Alabama and a mathematics instructor at Snead
State Community College, in Boaz, Ala. The paper on their findings will be
released after next week’s conference.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt;">
<span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: "Heuristica Italic"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter Schmidt writes
about affirmative action, academic labor, and issues related to academic
freedom. Contact him at <a href="mailto:peter.schmidt@chronicle.com"><span style="color: #3e5266; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">peter.schmidt@chronicle.com.</span></a></span><span style="color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Heuristica; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-78776579141954628772015-04-04T09:14:00.000-06:002015-04-04T09:14:34.351-06:00Bobby Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Dr. KingDr Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated today, April 4th, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee.<br />
<br />
Dr. King went to Memphis to support the right of public employees', Memphis' sanitation workers', right to engage in collective bargaining, the same right that Governor Walker and the Republican legislation eliminated in Wisconsin!<br />
<br />
Robert Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General, was in Indianapolis about to give a speech in an inner city neighborhood when King's murder occurred. Here is his announcement. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated 68 days later. <br />
<br />
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<br />Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-55087602047878185522015-04-03T16:46:00.000-06:002015-04-03T16:49:06.042-06:00Dr. King: "I've been to the mountain top"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Forty-seven years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. returned to Memphis to stand with sanitation workers striking for union recognition, the very same rights Governor Walker and the Wisconsin Republican legislature eliminated in 2010. That evening, April 3rd, Dr. King delivered his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in a church packed with union members and their supporters. The following day he was murdered!</div>
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<br />Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-21751830429613900202015-01-26T12:28:00.000-06:002015-01-26T12:28:14.953-06:00The strike of Milwaukee's packinghouse workers that changed Milwaukee <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZuoMoSP1GsbocHRHkEbV9k1p-nsplapp_J1CmzeUWtAx-qQ3nxuk3rdQHoSNgvdVF_jYoC_INLEjl_k_v0Cms8XhnxbwpaWa_LNman51xZVjYeXoxtl9Y8Zf0_CCbuQ_78zZKB3VuSlDN/s1600/meat+cutters+strike+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZuoMoSP1GsbocHRHkEbV9k1p-nsplapp_J1CmzeUWtAx-qQ3nxuk3rdQHoSNgvdVF_jYoC_INLEjl_k_v0Cms8XhnxbwpaWa_LNman51xZVjYeXoxtl9Y8Zf0_CCbuQ_78zZKB3VuSlDN/s1600/meat+cutters+strike+2.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Forty
years ago the owners of Milwaukee’s meat packing plants launched a war on
unions. Milwaukee’s working class is still suffering from losing that war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">On
January 25, 1975, over 700 members of Local 248, Meat and Allied Foodworkers
Union, struck Milwaukee area meatpacking plants </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">in response to a proposal
that would cut their wages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">For
generations, Milwaukee boasted of a large, unionized, blue-collar middle class.
It was a place to put down roots and raise a family. Neighborhood culture was
often defined by industrial bowling leagues and neighborhood taverns owned by
former factory workers seeking to be “their own boss” and escape assembly line
drudgery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">While
highly segregated, economic inequality was at historic lows. Milwaukeeans
enjoyed the nation’s second highest median household income in 1969. The black
poverty rate was 22% lower than the U.S. average in 1970, and African American
median family income was 19% higher than the U.S. African American </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">median.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">As
the 70’s began the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>
dubbed the city the “Star of the Snowbelt.” In large part, this reflected the
high rates of unionization among workers laboring in Milwaukee’s foundries,
tanneries, meatpacking plants, and at manufacturing firms like A.O. Smith and
Allis Chalmers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Skilled
tradesmen and foundrymen, teachers, retail clerks, unskilled and semi-skilled
workers were represented by unions at the bargaining table, on the job and in
elections. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Because of union wages and benefits, they could buy their
own homes and maybe a cabin up north or a fishing boat. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">While neither management
nor workers sought strikes, they were tolerated as a legitimate, although
undesirable, part of contract negotiations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">In
the late 60s and early 70s, Milwaukee unions participated in a national strike
wave as workers sought salary increases in response to war-induced inflation.
In 1969 Schlitz workers and MATC’s faculty union struck. In 1973 workers from
A.O. Smith, Briggs and Stratton and Harley Davidson, three of Milwaukee’s
manufacturing elite, struck at the same time</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">. These strikes were
eventually resolved, new contracts signed, and none of these companies
attempted to bust the unions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">All
of this changed in 1975 with the Meatcutters’ strike. The very day the strike
began, the eight companies represented by the Milwaukee Independent Meatpackers
Association began hiring replacement workers, some recruited from as far away
as Nebraska and Texas. <s><o:p></o:p></s></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">In
response to this first attempt by Milwaukee employers to bust a union since
World War II, the Menominee Valley filled with angry picketers, black, Latino
and white, rallying to protect their jobs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNI9beiUUZtmTxaqmCBbwuCSIALCPnCKs_2cDfEJg0hMd-JouSNUiWWFyGC55PzcU4MRJi1swLXBbIfaHq7wa4h4KP88hwsMK2n1cvLR7xmqB9Rm3mV8d0QuSsxG5tilxGAvE6tlW1qza/s1600/meat+cutters+strike+1975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNI9beiUUZtmTxaqmCBbwuCSIALCPnCKs_2cDfEJg0hMd-JouSNUiWWFyGC55PzcU4MRJi1swLXBbIfaHq7wa4h4KP88hwsMK2n1cvLR7xmqB9Rm3mV8d0QuSsxG5tilxGAvE6tlW1qza/s1600/meat+cutters+strike+1975.jpg" height="320" width="314" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">After
15 months the employers association had their victory and decertified the
union. Hundreds of hard-working union men lost their jobs. Full-time permanent
employees were replaced by low-wage workers frequently hired through temp
agencies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">The
strike legitimized replacement workers, beginning waves of attacks on unions
and the city’s working class. When UAW workers struck Master Lock in 1979,
Milwaukee police officers escorted replacement workers across the picket line. Two</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">
years later A.O. Smith </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">built a non-union plant in Tennessee, the first nail in the coffin
of its Milwaukee Automotive Works, which had dominated the city’s north side
since the early 1920s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Briggs
and Stratton experienced another strike in 1983 after its local unions refused demands
for concessions in wages, benefits and work rules. Following the 13 week
strike, the company asserting that it would never be held hostage again began to relocate work to the low-wage, non-union south. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDEX0g48wOA3_NvSEAxIWtBCC8DD9pzoqpoQH1AJ3OroFyX1S8LAQXOrx3muTJAqZzWe2dUrWO-Cr4_HSto9IUGYbK5Adap2e4kDPjRwBFN5MAyW5ZeyQ_ZOV-dWR_T6lrElait_zCh1p/s1600/briggsandstrattonstike1983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDEX0g48wOA3_NvSEAxIWtBCC8DD9pzoqpoQH1AJ3OroFyX1S8LAQXOrx3muTJAqZzWe2dUrWO-Cr4_HSto9IUGYbK5Adap2e4kDPjRwBFN5MAyW5ZeyQ_ZOV-dWR_T6lrElait_zCh1p/s1600/briggsandstrattonstike1983.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">While
many associate the war against labor with President Reagan’s firing of the
nation’s striking air traffic controllers in 1981, it actually began much
earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">In
1971, Lewis F. Powell Jr., a Republican corporate lawyer, called the business
community to arms with his memorandum to the National Chamber of Commerce. He
wrote: “The American system is under attack. Business must learn ... that
political power must be assiduously cultivated…and used aggressively and with
determination -- without embarrassment.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Powell
urged “American business” to demand “equal time” on college campuses and the
nation’s airwaves. His memorandum inspired the founding of conservative think
tanks like the Heritage Foundation, Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation, and the
Cato Institute. Wealthy businessmen like the Koch Brothers poured tens of
millions of dollars into right-wing initiatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Business
Week put it bluntly when it declared in its October 12, 1974 issue: “Some
people will obviously have to do with less….it will be a bitter pill for many
Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have
more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Milwaukee’s
meatcutters had the misfortune of being Milwaukee’s first victims in this war
to redistribute income. Subsequently, replacement workers were used at Master
Lock and to break the union at Patrick Cudahy in 1987. After these bitter
defeats Milwaukee area union membership plummeted, and so did real hourly
wages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Bernie
Peck, the owner of the largest meatpacker, Peck Meat Packing, bought up most of
the smaller meatpacking companies during the strike. He eventually sold them to
Emmber Foods and became a celebrated philanthropist. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">While
the community enjoys the buildings named after him, Milwaukee’s working class paid
such a very heavy price that many cannot
afford to buy a home much less a cabin up north. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">The
corporate class war against Milwaukee’s workers that began with Local 248’s
defeat is one of the principle reasons Milwaukee has declined from a relatively
prosperous, blue-collar, middle class town to one of the nation’s poorest
cities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Since
1979 private sector union membership has plummeted while Milwaukee’s median household income has fallen
by a staggering 25.4 percent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Milwaukee's
African American poverty rate is now 49% higher than the African American national
average, and </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">median income is 30% lower. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Local
248 was one of many industrial unions organized by the Greatest Generation that
turned low-paying jobs into stable, middle class employment. Today, many of
Milwaukee’s large unionized, manufacturing plants are gone, replaced by
low-paying big box retail and service sector jobs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">If
Milwaukee is to enjoy a broadly shared renaissance, the current generation of
underpaid workers will need to learn from history and create 21st century
unions that turn low-paying employment into middle class jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-9591183963853237962014-12-08T08:04:00.000-06:002014-12-08T08:04:37.687-06:00Debt-Collecting Agency Will Buy For-Profit Corinthian College Chain<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">By Diane Ravitch </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One of the nation’s largest for-profit
providers of college degrees has been sold,</span><span style="color: #516064; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/21/guaranty-agency-buys-most-crumbling-profit-corinthian-colleges-us" style="outline: 0px;">according to Inside Higher Ed,</a> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">to a
debt-collection agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">The ECMC Group, a nonprofit organization that runs
one of the largest student-loan guaranty agencies, announced Thursday that it
will purchase 56 campuses from Corinthian Colleges, a crumbling, controversial
for-profit chain.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">ECMC will create a nonprofit subsidiary, called the
Zenith Education Group, to run the campuses, which enroll more than 39,000
students. The sale price is $24 million, according to a corporate filing from
Corinthian. After having absorbed more than half of Corinthian’s enrollment and
assets, Zenith will operate the nation’s largest chain of nonprofit
career-oriented campuses.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Corinthian’s Everest, Heald and Wyotech chains
include 107 campuses, which in July enrolled 72,000 students and employed
12,000. The company has been attempting to sell 85 U.S. and 10 Canadian
locations, while gradually closing 12 campuses.</span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The sale announced Thursday
includes 53 Everest College and three WyoTech campuses. </span></em><br />
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<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Corinthian had been teetering even before a 21-day
freeze on federal aid payments pushed it over the edge earlier this year. The
company, which is one of the sector’s largest, had been hit hard by slumping
enrollment and revenue, as well as investigations, lawsuits and bad publicity.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The for-profit higher education industry has
long been<span style="color: blue;"> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/education/harkin-report-condemns-for-profit-colleges.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22%7D&_r=0" style="outline: 0px;">under
investigation for defrauding students</a>,</span> but it survives nonetheless
because it hires the top lobbyists in both parties to protect it against
regulation. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa (who just retired) issued a scathing
report on the industry in 2012 that unfortunately went nowhere. This story
appeared in the <em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">New York Times</span></em>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">“According to the [Harkin] report, which was posted
online in advance, taxpayers spent $32 billion in the most recent year on
companies that operate for-profit colleges, but the majority of students they
enroll leave without a degree, half of those within four months.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">“In this report, you will find overwhelming
documentation of exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal
student outcomes, taxpayer dollars spent on marketing and pocketed as profit,
and regulatory evasion and manipulation,” Mr. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is
chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in
a statement on Sunday. “These practices are not the exception — they are the
norm. They are systemic throughout the industry, with very few individual exceptions….</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Over the last 15 years, enrollment and profits have
skyrocketed in the industry. Until the 1990s, the sector was made up of small
independent schools offering training in fields like air-conditioning repair
and cosmetology. But from 1998 to 2008, enrollment more than tripled, to about
2.4 million students. Three-quarters are at colleges owned by huge publicly
traded companies — and, more recently, private equity firms — offering a wide
variety of programs.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Enrolling students, and getting their federal
financial aid, is the heart of the business, and in 2010, the report found, the
colleges studied had a total of 32,496 recruiters, compared with 3,512
career-services staff members.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Among the 30 companies, an average of 22.4 percent
of revenue went to marketing and recruiting, 19.4 percent to profits and 17.7
percent to instruction.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Their chief executive officers were paid an average
of $7.3 million, although Robert S. Silberman, the chief executive of Strayer
Education, made $41 million in 2009, including stock options.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">With the Department of Education seeking new
regulations to ensure that for-profit programs provide training for “gainful
employment,” the companies examined spent $8 million on lobbying in 2010, and
another $8 million in the first nine months of 2011.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">The bulk of the for-profit colleges’ revenue, more
than 80 percent in most cases, comes from taxpayers. The report found that many
for-profit colleges are working desperately to find new strategies to comply
with the federal regulation that at least 10 percent of revenue must come from
sources other than the Department of Education. Because veterans’ benefits
count toward that 10 percent even though they come from the federal government,
aggressive recruiting of students from the military has become the norm.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">The amount of available federal student aid is
large and growing. The Apollo Group, which operates the University of Phoenix,
the largest for-profit college, got $1.2 billion in Pell grants in 2010-11, up
from $24 million a decade earlier. Apollo got $210 million more in benefits
under the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill. And yet two-thirds of Apollo’s associate-degree
students leave before earning their degree….</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">On average, the Harkin report found,
associate-degree and certificate programs at for-profit colleges cost about
four times as much as those at community colleges and public universities.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">And tuition decisions seem to be driven more by
profit-seeking than instructional costs. An internal memo from the finance
director of a Kaplan nursing program in Sacramento, for example, recommended an
8 percent increase in fees, saying that “with the new pricing, we can lose two
students and still make the same profit.” Similarly, the chief financial
officer at National American University wrote in an e-mail to executives that
the university had not met its profit expectation for the summer quarter, so
“as a result” it would need a midyear tuition increase.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Advocates for the for-profit higher education
industry complained that their institutions were under attack solely for
partisan reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Given this background, one might expect that
the U.S. Department of Education would vigorously oppose these for-profit
institutions that cost so much and deliver so little to students. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But, no, when
Corinthian Colleges teetered close to bankruptcy, the U.S. DOE gave it a bridge
loan to help the chain stay in business until a buyer for the distressed
corporation emerged. <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/21/guaranty-agency-buys-most-crumbling-profit-corinthian-colleges-us" style="outline: 0px;">More than
half of the Corinthian chain of for-profit</a>colleges</span> has been
purchased at a bargain basement price of $24 million by a debt-collection
agency called ECMC (the Educational Credit Management Corporation). Corinthian
was once valued at $3.4 billion. The negotiations were handled by
Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell, who previously was <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/177675/ted-mitchell-education-dept-nominee-has-strong-ties-pearson-privatization-movement" style="outline: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">CEO of
NewSchools Venture Fund (which funds charter schools, charter chains, and
education technology startups)</span></a>. Consumer advocates were upset that
ECMC was taking over a chain of colleges, in light of the fact that it has no
experience running educational institutions:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">“A chorus of consumer and student advocacy groups
said they had serious concerns about the sale. They expressed concern that the
campuses would be run by an organization that has not previously managed
academic institutions.</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">“ECMC has no experience running a college, let
alone one of this scale, and is instead known for ruthless and abusive student
loan operations,” the Institute for College Access and Success, known as TICAS,
said in a statement. “With so many other colleges offering lower price, higher
quality career education programs, it’s unclear why this agreement is in the
interests of either students or taxpayers.”</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
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<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Higher Ed Not Debt, a coalition of progressive
organizations and unions that focuses on student loan issues, similarly took
issue with ECMC’s “storied history of harshly preventing the discharge of students’
loans in bankruptcy.”</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
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<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">“While bailing out 56 schools, the sale treats the
more than 30,000 students like financial assets,” Maggie Thompson, the group’s
campaign manager, said in a statement. “All students should have the
opportunity to opt-out of the sale and receive full refunds including full loan
discharges of both federal and private loans.”</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />
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<em style="outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Durbin, the top-ranking Democratic Senator, has
relentlessly criticized Corinthian in recent months. He did not directly praise
or criticize Thursday’s agreement, saying only that the sale of the campuses
“should focus on sparing the students who have been victimized and the
taxpayers who continue to be on the hook.” </span></em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This was an opportunity for the U.S.
Department of Education to close down some of the lowest-performing colleges in
the nation. This was an opportunity to take a stand against the entire
for-profit sector. But the Department of Education structured a deal to save
what should have been closed. A lost opportunity. But it does refute those critics
from the for-profit sector who claim that their online institutions are
unfairly targeted by Democrats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-78983651239567464722014-10-29T10:46:00.000-06:002014-10-29T10:46:00.026-06:00Civil rights orgs seek strong gainful employment rule A coalition of eight civil rights organizations released <a href="http://bit.ly/GainfulEmployment" style="color: #666666; cursor: pointer; outline: none;">a policy brief</a> today urging the U.S. Department of Education to release a strong gainful employment regulation to protect students, particularly African-American and Latino students, from substandard career education programs.<br />
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The brief, “Gainful Employment: A Civil Rights Perspective,” documents the adverse outcomes that African-American and Latino students experience as a result of policies and practices implemented at for-profit colleges. Students at for-profit colleges are much less likely to graduate, more likely to default, and more likely to incur debt than students at public and non-profit schools. The brief details how a strong gainful employment rule will provide much needed protections to both students and taxpayers. <br />
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In Milwaukee, for-profit colleges have targeted low-income and minority students with promises of job placement and a career, but delivered little more than huge debts. Yesterday, the Wisconsin Attorney General sued Everest College for its fraudulent practices, including a job placement rate of 5%. But others like Globe University, ITT, Kaplan and the Art Institute continue to game the federal financial aid system, a source of 90% of for-profit college revenues, and enroll unsuspecting students.<br />
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“Stronger oversight is desperately needed to tackle the problems of poor outcomes and high debt within career education programs,” the brief urges. “Currently, even when better and lower cost options are available, African-American and Latino students are disproportionately enrolled in schools where they are both likely to borrow and unlikely to succeed, and there are few incentives for schools to improve poorly performing programs.”
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<a href="http://bit.ly/GainfulEmployment" style="color: #666666; cursor: pointer; outline: none;">Click here to download the brief.</a>
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The brief was released by the Center for Responsible Lending, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, MALDEF, the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the National Council of La Raza.Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-79899486500959983462014-10-15T06:56:00.003-06:002014-10-15T07:52:00.236-06:0014 Attorney Generals endorse legislation regulating for-profit schools<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;">More
than six months after a</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://consumerist.com/2014/04/10/proposed-for-profit-college-watchdog-group-would-call-out-which-problem-schools-to-avoid/"><span style="background: white; color: #b62e26; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none;"> bill that would
improve coordination and oversight of the for-profit college industry was
introduced in the Senate and House,</span></a></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"> a number of state attorney generals have
signed on in support.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fourteen attorneys
general sent a letter [<a href="http://ag.ky.gov/pdf_news/s2204-letter.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b62e26; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">PDF</span></a>] of support to senators Dick Durbin, of Illinois and Tom
Harkin, of Iowa, as well as representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland for
their efforts in introducing the Proprietary Education Oversight Coordination
Improvement Act in the Senate and House back in April.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The AGs are from a
diverse group of states- Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky,
Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon,
Pennsylvania and Tennessee<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wisconsin’s AG, J.B. Van
Hollen, is absent from this list despite the fact that thousands of students
from Wisconsin have accumulated huge debts attending for-profit colleges and many
of these schools have abysmal job placement and graduation rates. The Wisconsin’s Education
Approval Board attempted to pass state standards for these schools in 2011, but their efforts
were undermined by intense industry opposition and Governor Walker’s decision
to dismiss three members of the governing Board.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The issue emerged in
Wisconsin’s Attorney General race last week during a debate. When asked what they would change
if elected, Jefferson County DA and Democratic candidate for AG, Susan Happ,
said she would aggressively prosecute for-profit colleges that engaged in
fraudulent activity while Brad Schimel, the Waukesha County DA and Republican
candidate, said he would not. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Ag’s letter
released Tuesday, October 7<sup>th</sup> said the that the proposed Act “is
both timely and necessary as each of our offices have encountered far too many
former and current for-profit school students who have been harmed by the
dishonest and unethical practices of some for-profit institutions.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The group says passage
of the Act, which would create an interagency oversight committee to improve
enforcement of federal laws and regulations as they pertain to the industry,
will provide a mechanism to hold for-profit schools accountable for accepting
billions of dollars in taxpayer money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There are some
schools within the for-profit college industry that are more interested in
getting their hands on federal student loan dollars than in educating
students,” <a href="http://kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-Stream.aspx?viewMode=ViewDetailInNewPage&eventID=%7bC949164F-E5BB-45E8-8ACD-9B803D052F6B%7d&activityType=PressRelease" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b62e26; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway says in a news release</span></a>.
“The for-profit college industry lacks real oversight and accountability at the
federal level, and this legislation will help prevent future abuses of the
student loan system and keep for-profit schools honest.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The proposed
Proprietary Education Oversight Coordination Committee would consist of
representatives from the Dept. of Education, Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, the Dept. of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Dept. of
Defense, Dept. of Veteran Affairs, Federal Trade Commission, Dept. of Labor,
and Internal Revenue Service.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The committee would
work with attorneys general at the state level to coordinate federal and state
activities related to the for-profit college industry. Currently, several
states, including Kentucky and California, are party to lawsuits against
proprietary colleges for misleading students about job placement rates.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The group applauded
the proposed bill’s proactive stance by warning prospective students about
specific, allegedly predatory schools.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Each year the
committee established under the bill would publish a warning list of schools
that have engaged in illegal activities, had programs withdrawn or suspended
and or have been proven to engage in abuse, unethical, fraudulent or predatory
practices. The measure would arm students with information that could prevent
them from falling into the debt-trap that has become the for-profit college
industry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“State Attorneys
General across the country hear complaints from students who have attended
for-profit schools,” the letter of support states. “The students are drowning
in debt because they have huge student loan liabilities and no job to show for
those huge debts.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There have been
several high-profile events and reports regarding the for-profit industry since
the bills introduction several months ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In early summer, the
Department of Education <a href="http://consumerist.com/2014/06/23/for-profit-corinthian-colleges-to-sell-off-campuses-phase-out-programs/"><span style="color: #b62e26; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">cut off the
funnel of federal dollars received by Corinthian Colleges Inc</span></a>, the
operator of for-profit schools Everest University, Heald College and WyoTech.
As a result, <a href="http://consumerist.com/?s=corinthian+colleges"><span style="color: #b62e26; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">CCI agreed to
sell or close the vast majority of its campuses</span></a> across the
country.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back in September, <a href="http://consumerist.com/2014/09/16/feds-sue-corinthian-colleges-for-allegedly-predatory-loan-scheme/"><span style="color: #b62e26; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau announced it was suing CCI</span></a> for
allegedly duping tens of thousands of student into taking out costly predatory,
and often financially devastating student loans. The suit seeks to halt CCI’s
practices and provide relief to students who have collectively taken out $569
million in school issued private student loans.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also in September, <a href="http://consumerist.com/2014/09/19/itt-educational-services-under-increased-scrutiny-from-sec-department-of-education/"><span style="color: #b62e26; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ITT Education
Services announced it was under increased scrutiny</span></a> from
Securities & Exchange Commission and the Department of Education for
failure to provide financial statements.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Proprietary
Education Oversight Coordination Improvement Act currently awaits the
consideration from Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee in the Senate
and consideration from the Higher Education and Workforce Training committee in
the House.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-20541169617119578892014-10-07T18:47:00.001-06:002014-10-07T18:48:17.545-06:00Happ announces plan to crack down on for-profit scams<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jefferson —
Attorney General candidate Susan Happ will crack down on the growing number of
for-profit colleges that prey on Wisconsin students and veterans, she said
Friday.<br />
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“Unscrupulous for-profit colleges are luring
students with promises they can’t keep, leaving many of them with no degrees of
little value or no degrees at all, but mountains of debt,” Happ said. “As
Attorney General, I will investigate, prosecute and seek hefty penalties for
deceptive practices, and work to see that students are made whole,” she
said. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.susanhappforwisconsin.com/education_scammers">In a policy
paper</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>issued Friday, Happ
said veterans are a special target of the for-profit schools because of a
provision in federal law that works to the schools’ advantage if they receive
veterans’ benefits. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many for-profit colleges across the nation and
in our state play by the rules and provide Wisconsin students with a solid
education.” Happ said. “These by-the-book colleges, however, have to compete
with an increasing number of schools utilizing high pressure sales techniques
that misrepresent the costs and benefits of the programs they offer, their
graduation placement rate, their accreditation status and whether credits will
transfer to another institution.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Their high-pressure tactics and deceptive
marketing violate state consumer protection laws,” Happ said. “We will seek
hefty penalties, sending a message that Wisconsin will not permit them to
profit from peddling a subpar education to our veterans and low-income students
who need it the most.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happ’s plan also calls for partnering with other
state Attorneys General and federal agencies to adopt best practices from other
states, supporting legislation and regulation to help curb the deceptive
practices, and collaborating with the state Dept. of Veterans Affairs, the
federal Veterans Administration, and other agencies serving Wisconsin veterans
to educate veterans about the perils of dealing with some in the industry, and
warning them about what to watch for when choosing a college. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are currently 162 post-secondary
for-profit institutions servicing Wisconsin students. While most have a
presence in the state, many are located out of state but service Wisconsin
students. The Wisconsin Educational Approval Board estimates 26,000 Wisconsin
students attend for-profit online colleges annually, paying nearly $155 million
in tuition to mostly out-of-state companies.<o:p></o:p>
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Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-34688739127316694412014-09-17T07:51:00.003-06:002014-09-17T07:54:50.437-06:00Federal Government sues Corinthian College<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes</span>t<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">erday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued for-profit college chain
Corinthian Colleges, Inc. for its illegal predatory lending scheme. The Bureau
alleges that Corinthian lured tens of thousands of students to take out private
loans to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and
career services. Corinthian then used illegal debt collection tactics to
strong-arm students into paying back those loans while still in school. To
protect current and past students of the Corinthian schools, the Bureau is
seeking to halt these practices and is requesting the court to grant relief to
the students who collectively have taken out more than $500 million in private
student loans.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“For too many students, Corinthian has turned the American dream of
higher education into an ongoing nightmare of debt and despair,” said CFPB
Director Richard Corday. “We believe Corinthian lured consumers into predatory
loans by lying about their future job prospects, and then used illegal debt
collection tactics to strong-arm students at school. We want to put an end to
these predatory practices and get relief for the students who are bearing the
weight of more than half a billion dollars in Corinthian’s private student
loans.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The complaint against Corinthian can be found at: <a href="http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201409_cfpb_complaint_corinthian.pdf">http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201409_cfpb_complaint_corinthian.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corinthian Colleges, Inc. is one of the largest for-profit, post-secondary
education companies in the United States. The publicly<span style="color: #1f497d;">
</span>traded company has more than 100 school campuses across the country. The
company operates schools under the names Everest, Heald, and WyoTech. As of
last March, the company had approximately 74,000 students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corinthian opened an Everest College campus in Milwaukee in 2011 with the support of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce's President Tim Sheehy and the Commissioner of the Department of City Development Rocky Marcoux. Controversial from the start because of lawsuits alleging fraudulent practices in other states, Corinthian closed its Milwaukee Everest campus less than two years after it opened. At the time it closed, Everest had a drop-out rate of more than 50% and a job placement rate of less than 6%. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">In
June, the U.S. Department of Education delayed Corinthian’s access to federal
student aid dollars because of reports of malfeasance. Since then, Corinthian
has been scaling down its operations as part of an agreement with the
Department of Education. However, Corinthian continues to enroll new students. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today’s CFPB lawsuit alleges a pervasive culture across the Everest,
Heald, and WyoTech schools that allowed employees to routinely deceive and
illegally harass private student loan borrowers. Under the Dodd-Frank Wall
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFPB has the authority to take
action against institutions engaging in unfair, deceptive, or abusive
practices. Based on its investigation, the CFPB alleges that the schools made
deceptive representations about career opportunities that induced prospective
students to take out private student loans, and then used illegal tactics to
collect on those loans. Today’s lawsuit covers the period from July 21, 2011 to
the present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Lured Into Loans By Lies</u></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most students who attend Everest, Heald, and WyoTech schools come from
economically disadvantaged backgrounds and many are the first in their families
to seek an education beyond a high school diploma. According to internal
Corinthian documents, most students lived in households with very low income.
Today’s lawsuit alleges that the schools owned by Corinthian Colleges, Inc.
advertised their education as a gateway to good jobs and better careers. It
alleges that throughout the Corinthian schools, consumers were lured into loans
by lies, including: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Sham
job placement rates: </b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The
CFPB alleges that<b> </b>Corinthian’s school representatives led students to
think that when they graduated they were likely to land good jobs and
sufficient salaries to repay their private student loans. But the CFPB believes
that Corinthian inflated the job placement rates at its schools. Based on its
investigation, the CFPB alleges that this included creating fictitious
employers and reporting students as being placed at those fake employers.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">One-day
long “career”:</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
According to the CFPB’s investigation, Corinthian schools told students they
would have promising career options with an Everest, Heald, or WyoTech degree.
But Corinthian counted a “career” as a job that merely lasted one day, with the
promise of a second day.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Pay
for placement:</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> The
CFPB also alleges that the Corinthian schools further inflated advertised job
placement rates by paying employers to temporarily hire graduates. The schools
did not inform students about these payments or that these jobs were temporary.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Craigslist
career counseling:</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
According to the CFPB’s investigation, the Corinthian schools promised students
extensive and lasting career services that were not delivered. Students often
had trouble contacting anyone in the career services office or getting any
meaningful support. The limited career services included distributing generally
available job postings from websites like Craigslist.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Predatory Loans<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuition and fees for some Corinthian programs were more than five times
the cost of similar programs at public colleges. In 2013, the Corinthian
tuition and fees for an associate’s degree was $33,000 to $43,000. The tuition
and fees for a bachelor’s degree at Corinthian cost $60,000 to $75,000.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The CFPB believes the Corinthian colleges deliberately inflated tuition
prices to be higher than federal loan limits so that most students were forced
to rely on additional sources of funding. The Corinthian schools then relied on
deceptive statements regarding its education program to induce students into
taking out its high-cost private student loans, known as “Genesis loans.”
Today’s lawsuit alleges that under the Genesis loan program:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Interest
rates were more than twice as expensive:</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Corinthian sold its students predatory loans that
typically had substantially higher interest rates than federal loans. In July
2011, the Genesis loan interest rate was about 15 percent with an origination
fee of 6 percent. Meanwhile, the interest rate for federal student loans during
that time was about 3 percent to 7 percent, with low or no origination fees.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Loans
were likely to fail: </b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Corinthian
expected that most of its students would ultimately default on their Genesis
loans. In fact, more than 60 percent of Corinthian school students defaulted on
their loans within three years. The Everest, Heald, and WyoTech schools did not
tell students about these high default rates.<b> </b>Defaulting on private
student loans can have grave consequences for consumers, including affecting a
borrower’s job prospects and making it difficult to get any kind of loan for
years. </span></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Strong-Armed by Illegal Debt Collection Tactics </u></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Under the Genesis loan program, nearly all student borrowers were
required to make monthly loan payments while attending school. This is unusual;
federal loans and almost all other sources of private student loans do not
require repayment until after graduation. This put pressure on Everest, Heald,
and WyoTech students to come up with funding while attending school. Today’s
lawsuit alleges that Corinthian took advantage of this position of power to
engage in aggressive debt collection tactics. The CFPB alleges that<b> </b>Corinthian’s
campus staff members received bonuses based in part on their success in
collecting payments from students. The debt collection tactics included:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Pulling students out of class:</span></b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> The CFPB’s
investigation revealed that Corinthian’s efforts to collect payments included
shaming students by pulling them out of class. Financial aid officers would
inform instructors and other staff that students were past due on their Genesis
loans. Corinthian schools also required students to meet with campus presidents
to discuss the seriousness of the overdue loans. At one Corinthian campus,
students and employees referred to one financial aid staff member as the “Grim
Reaper” because the staff member so frequently pulled students out of class to
collect debts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Putting education in jeopardy:</span></b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> According to the
CFPB’s investigation, the Corinthian colleges jeopardized students’ academic
experience by denying them education until they paid up. They blocked students’
access to school computer terminals and other academic resources. The
Corinthian schools also prevented students from attending and registering for
class, and from receiving their books for their next classes. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Withholding diplomas: </span></b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">According to the
CFPB investigation,<b> </b>Corinthian schools informed students that they could
not<b> </b>participate in the graduation ceremony or would have their
certificate withheld if they were not current on their Genesis loan in-school
payments. In many cases, financial aid staff threatened that if students did
not become current on their loans, they could not graduate or start their
externships. Some former students stated that Corinthian schools continue to
withhold their certificates because they are unable to make payments on their
Genesis loans.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Halting Illegal Conduct and Obtaining Relief for Private Student
Loan Borrowers<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Today’s
lawsuit seeks, among other things, compensation for the tens of thousands of
students who took out Genesis loans. The CFPB estimates that from July 2011
through March 2014, students took out approximately 130,000 private student
loans to pay tuition and fees at Everest, Heald, or WyoTech colleges. Some of
these loans have been paid back in part or in full; the total outstanding
balance of these loans is in excess of $569 million. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
CFPB is seeking redress for all the private student loans made since July 21,
2011, including those that have been paid off. In its lawsuit, the CFPB is also
seeking to keep Corinthian from continuing the illegal conduct described above,
and to prevent new students from being harmed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Today
the CFPB is also publishing a special notice for current and former Corinthian
students to help them navigate their options in this time of uncertainty,
including information on loan discharge options. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
CFPB Notice for Current and Former Corinthian Students can be found at: <a href="http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201409_cfpb_notice-for-current-and-former-corinthian-students.pdf">http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201409_cfpb_notice-for-current-and-former-corinthian-students.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
CFPB estimates that there is approximately $1.2 trillion in outstanding student
loan debt, with more than 7 million Americans in default on more than $100
billion in balances. Students and their families can find help on how to tackle
their student debt on the <a href="http://www.consumerfinance.gov/students/">CFPB's
website</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
Bureau’s complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendant has actually
violated the law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-32436397129364161722014-09-11T11:04:00.000-06:002014-09-11T11:04:46.133-06:00Walker wrong for raising taxes on working families<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NylJy0Vl0Fg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-31643715647921262692014-09-01T08:13:00.001-06:002014-09-01T08:13:31.024-06:00Labor Day: America needs a full employment agenda<h4 style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Editorial reprinted from the NYTimes</span></h4>
<div class="story-body-text" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In the
months before Labor Day last year, job growth was so slow that economists said
it would take until 2021 to replace the jobs that were lost or never created in
the recession and its aftermath.</span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="278" data-total-count="477" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The pace has picked up since then; at the
current rate, missing jobs will be recovered by 2018. Still, five years into an
economic recovery that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity/ar/pr" title="Harvard Business Review, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">has been
notable for</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>resurging<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/business/economy/corporate-profits-soar-as-worker-income-limps.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" title="The New York Times, 2013"><span style="color: #326891;">corporate profits</span></a>,
the number and quality of jobs are still lagging badly, as are wages and
salaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="423" data-total-count="900" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">In 2013, after-tax corporate profits as a
share of the economy tied with their highest level on record (in 1965), while
labor compensation as a share of the economy hit its lowest point since 1948.
Wage growth since 1979 has not kept pace with productivity growth, resulting in
falling or flat wages for most workers and big gains for corporate coffers,
shareholders, executives and others at the top of the income ladder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="137" data-total-count="1037" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Worse, the
recent upturn in growth, even if sustained, will not necessarily lead to
markedly improved living standards for most workers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="213" data-total-count="1250" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><b>That’s because the economy’s lopsidedness
is not mainly the result of market forces, but of the lack of policies to
ensure broader prosperity. The imbalance will not change without labor and
economic reforms.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="333" data-total-count="1583" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">For instance, new<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/why-americas-workers-need-faster-wage-growth/" title="Economic Policy Institute, August 27, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">research
from the Economic Policy Institute</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>shows
that from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014, hourly wages,
adjusted for inflation, fell for nearly everyone. An exception was a small gain
for the bottom 10 percent of wage earners, which was because of minimum-wage
increases in 13 states this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="367" data-total-count="1950" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">That’s clear evidence that raising the
federal minimum wage, while only a first step toward better pay, would have a
powerful effect. A lift from the current $7.25 an hour to the modest $10.10
called for by President Obama and Democrats in Congress would put an estimated
additional $35 billion in the pockets of affected workers over a three-year
phase-in period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="186" data-total-count="2136" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Unionization
is also associated with higher wages and benefits, especially for low-wage
workers, which argues for greater legal enforcement of the right to organize
without retaliation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="395" data-total-count="2531" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Similarly,
stronger enforcement of both labor laws and antitrust laws is needed to ensure
against wage theft. Once assumed to be mainly an issue of unpaid overtime or
other wage violations, wage theft became a white-collar issue this year, when
it<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/business/in-silicon-valley-thriller-a-settlement-may-preclude-the-finale.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias&" title="The New York Times, April 20, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">was
revealed</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that collusion
among the biggest companies in Silicon Valley had suppressed the pay of
software engineers by an estimated $3 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="428" data-total-count="2959" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The pay of middle-income workers has also
been diminished. Decades of outsourcing government jobs to the private sector
has undercut public employment, once a mainstay of middle-class life, even as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://pogoarchives.org/m/co/igf/bad-business-report-only-2011.pdf" title="Project on Government Oversight, 2011"><span style="color: #326891;">evidence</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>has mounted that outsourcing often
does not save money or improve services. What’s needed is a systematic review
of government contracts with the private sector and a willingness to end those
that are counterproductive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="482" data-total-count="3441" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Another threat to middle-class wages is
rampant misclassification — of employees as independent contractors and of
workers as supervisors — a tactic that employers use to deny pay and benefits
that would otherwise be due. In a promising<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bryanschwartzlaw.blogspot.com/" title="Bryan Schwartz Law, blogpost, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">development</span></a>,
a federal appellate court recently ruled that drivers for FedEx in California
are employees, not independent contractors, an example of the courts stepping
in when the other branches of government have let an injustice persist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="339" data-total-count="3780" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">There has been progress since last Labor
Day. Mr. Obama has signed executive orders to improve the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/us/politics/obama-raises-minimum-wage-for-contract-workers.html" title="The New York Times, February 13, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">pay</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/business/us-contractors-to-face-new-rule-on-labor-practices.html" title="The New York Times, July 30, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">working
conditions</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of
employees of federal contractors. The Labor Department is revising<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/us/politics/obama-orders-rule-changes-to-expand-overtime-pay.html" title="The New York Times, March 13, 2014"><span style="color: #326891;">rules on
overtime pay</span></a>; simply updating them for inflation would make millions
of additional workers eligible for time-and-a-half for overtime.</span></div>
<div class="story-body-text" data-para-count="339" data-total-count="3780" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; max-width: 540px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.4375rem;">What is still lacking, however, is a
full-employment agenda that regards labor, not corporations, as the center of
the economy — a change that would be a reversal of the priorities of the last
35 years.</span></div>
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-22422097051113690262014-08-25T10:35:00.000-06:002014-08-25T10:35:05.433-06:00Study: for-profit college degrees have no value in labor marketA recent study conducted by the <a href="http://www.caldercenter.org/publications/upload/WP-116.pdf" style="color: #3399cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research</strong></a> found that students who graduated from for-profit colleges with thousands of dollars in student loan debt have the same chances of getting called back for an interview as a peer who has no college experience at all and zero student loan debt.<br />
<br />
According to a report released in 2012, the average cost for a two-year associate’s degree at a for-profit college is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/for-profit-higher-educati_n_1761369.html" style="background-color: transparent; color: #3399cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong>$35,000 </strong></a>compared to $8,300 for a similar degree at a community college. The same study also shows that roughly<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/for-profit-higher-educati_n_1761369.html" style="background-color: transparent; color: #3399cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong> 60%</strong></a>of for-profit college students take out a student loan versus just 13% of community college students. <br />
<br />
Researchers of the<strong> <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/08/19/3472835/for-profit-college-job-interview/" style="color: #3399cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">study</a></strong> sent nearly 9,000 fake résumés to job openings in six different career categories and compared those responses to the responses of applicants that had community college experience or no college experience at all.
font-family:<br />
<br />
Hopefully, studies like these will have scholars thinking twice before they fall for the next for-profit college commercial seen on television.
Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-7723025754380000652014-08-23T16:01:00.000-06:002014-08-23T16:01:11.492-06:00R.I.P. James Shea Stear Swinford: MATC responds to his life and death <iframe src="https://docs.google.com/a/matc.edu/file/d/0Bx_KM6R7gUnCWFdhWWU2U2E0WmM/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-7256329022662428782014-08-02T15:44:00.000-06:002014-08-02T15:44:00.247-06:00Why is Walker attacking a company that employees 1000 workers in Wisconsin?<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/iAoq7ldS8i0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-81056137897323682572014-07-29T06:13:00.000-06:002014-07-30T07:35:57.318-06:00Governor Walker praises predatory for profit college<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 12px; padding: 0px;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In 2010, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker slashed technical college
funding by 30%, reducing state funding to levels last seen in the 1980's.
Walker also cut the University of Wisconsin system's funding by $250 million. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">These cuts lead
to increased tuition and reduced sections and services to
students. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yesterday, Walker toured and praised a predatory for-profit
college, ITT Tech, that is currently under investigation for fraud by the federal
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 9pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">MATC instructors are well aware of ITT
because so many of our students are former ITT students who are saddled with huge debts and worthless ITT Tech credits. Joriah Siemann was one such
student. When Milwaukee Magazine interviewed Joriah in 2012, t</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">he 39-year-old still owed $20,000 to ITT Tech in Greenfield, the very
college Walker praised. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Joriah earned an associate degree from ITT in computer networking in 2004 after learning
about the program online. After an entry exam, Siemann told Milwaukee Magazine,
he felt pressured by his admissions representative to enroll on the spot. He
acquiesced, not realizing he’d also taken out $35,000 in loans to pay for his
tuition. To top it off, he says the school’s job-placement efforts were subpar.
“They didn’t help me find a job at all,” Siemann says. “I’m kicking myself for
going to ITT.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The United States Senate report (see below) on for profit colleges
suggests that ITT’s priorities are not educating or helping place students in
jobs. It found that nationwide in 2010, ITT employed one recruiter for every 34
students, but one career counselor for every 204 and one student services
employee for every 807. </span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Siemann was working two jobs – as a systems administrator and a
restaurant server – and was enrolled at MATC while paying off his ITT degree
when he was interviewed by Milwaukee Magazine in 2012.</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Walker claims that ITT Tech in Greenfield has a good record. But the experience of students like Joriah contradict the Governor's talking points.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Saul
Newton, an Afghanistan army veteran and a UW Waukesha student wrote the
following op ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in response to Walker's visit to ITT:</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <i>Governor
Scott Walker expressed his support for a for-profit college under investigation
in multiple states and by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
claiming their track record has been positive.</i></span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>The Governor’s
comments came during an official tour at the ITT Technical Institute Center for
Career Development in Greenfield on Monday afternoon. Walker toured the
facility and spoke with students and faculty. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>“The track
record they’ve had in the Milwaukee area, at least, has been a positive one,”
said Walker.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>ITT Technical
Institute is a for-profit technical college operating 144 campuses in 35
states. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ITT’s tuition
costs are among the highest in the nation. <a href="http://eab.state.wi.us/search/viewschool.asp?schoolid=653&display=programs)."><span style="color: black;">In Wisconsin</span></a>, an Associate’s degree program can
cost up to $44,000, and a Bachelor’s degree program can cost over $89,000.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>In 2012 the
Educational Approval Board, the state agency charged with overseeing for-profit
and independent colleges, <a href="http://eab.state.wi.us/resources/outcomesreport.pdf"><span style="color: black;">found</span></a>that 51% of ITT students in Wisconsin drop
out before completion of their program. Only two other institutions had a
higher drop out rate. One Wisconsin based ITT program saw 93% of students drop
out. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>ITT Tech relies
heavily on veterans to pad its revenues. <a href="http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/for_profit_report/PartII/ITT.pdf"><span style="color: black;">According a scathing repor</span></a>t by the U.S. Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Sen. Tom Harken (D-IA)
found that ITT focused specifically on recruiting military veterans and service
members. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>ITT Technical
Institute collected $178 million in veterans benefits from 2009-2011. ITT was
the second highest recipient of revenue from military educational benefits
among institutions the HELP Committee examined. The report alleged highly
deceptive and fraudulent recruiting practices toward veterans and active duty
military members.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>When asked
about ITT’s recruiting practices toward the military, Governor Walker defended
the college.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>“That may be
the experience they’ve had in other places, but the experience we’ve seen with
folks working in this state has been pretty positive. We actually have a
stronger GI Bill in the state of Wisconsin than they do nationally.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>In February,
the <a href="http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201402_cfpb_complaint_ITT.pdf"><span style="color: black;">CFPB filed a lawsuit</span></a> in federal court
alleging ITT Technical Institute pushed students into predatory high-interest
student loans and mislead them about job prospects and salaries upon
graduation.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>"ITT
marketed itself as improving consumers' lives but it was really just improving
its bottom line," said CFPB Director Richard Corday. "We believe ITT
used high-pressure tactics to push many consumers into expensive loans destined
to default.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>ITT is also
under investigation by thirteen state Attorneys General for predatory and
fraudulent recruiting practices. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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26,000 students attend for-profit colleges in Wisconsin, paying $155 million
every year in tuition to mostly out of state companies.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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following the unexpected closure of several campuses in the Milwaukee area, a
state committee was established to set performance standards at for-profit
schools like ITT. After meeting just one time, Walker replaced three members of
the seven members serving on the committee. It was dissolved shortly
thereafter.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>The for-profit
college industry has been a significant factor in the explosion of student loan
debt across the country. ITT collected $586 million in federal student loans.
The HELP Committee report concluded more than 1 in 5 students who attended a
for-profit college but did not graduate defaulted on their student loans within
three years, more than three times the rate of student attending other types of
institutions. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>Student loan
debt is a serious drag on our state's economy. Research from One Wisconsin
Institute, a liberal advocacy organization in Madison, showed that those with a
student loan are twice as likely to rent or live with others than owning their
own home and they are twice as likely to own a used, rather than new car. New
cars are the driving force for the American auto industry. One Wisconsin's
research shows we lose over $200 million every year in Wisconsin in new car
purchasing power directly attributable to student loan debt.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></i></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><i>For-profit
colleges like ITT Technical Institute continue to operate in Wisconsin with no
standards for student achievement. Given the Governor’s comments, that trend is
likely to continue.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/268967251.html">Here is the link to Newton's op ed.</a></span></div>
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Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5263344203998045622.post-47650638887362703712014-07-17T13:24:00.000-06:002014-07-17T16:57:45.647-06:00R.I.P. James Shay Stear Swinford<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQkHa-W4auYlONsH1Dqp1Y63Ob7rZfkLOrMrS6eawjGgyKwObpex6MVGvTPgrktfPxMek0NSRzOUHYfnYLG5uC1uI4Sm-uOPxUWgdgeUFzNq96zvgOqdCG8PSPY5tk71UXCAtMUsKAH4oj/s1600/10525815_10152515447286530_1170164131663236304_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQkHa-W4auYlONsH1Dqp1Y63Ob7rZfkLOrMrS6eawjGgyKwObpex6MVGvTPgrktfPxMek0NSRzOUHYfnYLG5uC1uI4Sm-uOPxUWgdgeUFzNq96zvgOqdCG8PSPY5tk71UXCAtMUsKAH4oj/s1600/10525815_10152515447286530_1170164131663236304_n.jpg" height="292" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shay was a 2</span><sup style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nd</sup><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> year
culinary arts student at MATC, a victim of the mindless gun violence that is too prevalent in our country. He was shot on July 8th. He died on July 12, 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His death like that of any young person is a
parent’s worst nightmare. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is reminder that for many
of our students, like Shay, we are their only hope for a better future. They
place their trust, fears and dreams in our hands. We and they don’t always succeed. Tragically,
Shay did not. But we and they do more often than not. And all of us need to
redouble our efforts in Shay’s name to help Milwaukee’s young people fulfill
their potential and dreams. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shay is the son of Amy Stear who helped lead the successful paid sick days campaign that was eventually vetoed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is
what she wrote about her son’s death:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="usercontent">On Tuesday, July 8th my son Shay was shot in Milwaukee. He struggled to survive while being cared for
at Froedtert Hospital for three days but finally succumbed to a massive stroke
on Friday. His father and I accepted we
had to remove life support on Saturday and let him go. It was the hardest thing
I have ever done in my life and I will live the rest of my life unafraid of
anything because noth</span><span class="textexposedshow">ing can ever hurt me
beyond what I can bear after experiencing this.</span><br />
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<span class="textexposedshow">Shay wanted what most kids his age wanted - to have
a path to a better future. He was
starting his second year at MATC in the culinary arts program. He had wanted to be a chef since he was in
grade school so this program fit his interests, his creativity and his desire
to find work doing something he enjoyed.
He took school seriously and regularly called me to go over his
assignments, he wanted to do well.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">But he also wanted to have fun, hang out with his
friends and enjoy being young. We all
know that feeling, we've all been there.
Sadly, in his case in Milwaukee that came with a real risk that was
ultimately realized last Tuesday night.</span><br />
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<span class="textexposedshow">I have lost my only son. I will never get over this. And I don't want anyone else to ever face
this but I know that's not how the world works.
So we change the world. That is
on all of us, whatever way we can.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I have been asked about memorials for Shay and my
suggestion is that anyone who is interested in honoring Shay and reaching other
kids like him make donations of either volunteer time or financial support to
Campaign Against Violence Milwaukee or Urban Underground. Both organizations are committed to kids like
Shay and their contact information can be found online. Please remember my child and please think of
all the other children who need to find </span><span class="textexposedshow">a way into a peaceful, happy life.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="textexposedshow"><a href="http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/jsonline/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=171742151">Here is Shea's obituary </a>that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT7TJUf0PzQYJOAknewQbBuUSL1oRrtUf7Oyrcf_XHKX01wJGidtsAcdJOlGSeI3NzfZ5KJ_uKVgCLAx6vQFVHjGi0kF9KEho5OmIyg5S1TctQAgKgjmgRueEBsXysjAd6-mJ2jixRsyVI/s1600/10525815_10152515447286530_1170164131663236304_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT7TJUf0PzQYJOAknewQbBuUSL1oRrtUf7Oyrcf_XHKX01wJGidtsAcdJOlGSeI3NzfZ5KJ_uKVgCLAx6vQFVHjGi0kF9KEho5OmIyg5S1TctQAgKgjmgRueEBsXysjAd6-mJ2jixRsyVI/s1600/10525815_10152515447286530_1170164131663236304_n.jpg" height="292" width="320" /></a></div>
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Michael Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00350109037494237071noreply@blogger.com7