Disobedience: Civil and Personal

A founding member of Menopausal Stoners down in Austin, Texas sent me this clip. I'm not sure what I think about Ann, Rockerchic4God, but the video she posted on youtube got results for her.



She got some press on Huffpo
Debtor's Revolt: Woman Refuses To Pay Off Bank Of America Credit Card (VIDEO)

And she got a response from some VP over at Bank of America, too. She's got a blog, too, but it looks like she has more fun with the youtube thing since she's got her own little channel. Menopausal Stoners isn't ready to endorse Debtors Revolt Now since I just found out about it twenty minutes ago and haven't done any research. Her blog includes a statement warning off teabaggers, but she uses exclamation points. I have an issue with exclamation points especially since Sarah Palin seems to favor them - but I'm not going to let something like punctuation stand in the way of effective civil disobedience. She apparently is more of the Ron Paul Libertarian school of thought - which can lead to Tea Parties. Frankly the 4God part of her name worries me, but she often drops it which suggests she knows plenty of us out here have a problem with anything those damn "Christians" are doing.

Even if Ann is just another crazy broad in the blogosphere, her efforts deserve a bit of support. We crazy blogging broads need to stick together, you know.

My credit was ruined years ago as a result of Buzz Kill's and my marital dysfunction, ergo there can be no credit card revolts over here at Menopausal Stoners. AmX, Discover and Master Card revoked my rights and privileges more than 10 years ago, and the only debt I carry is the mortgage and my student loan. I'll pay them both religiously since I may need a mortgage when we sell HQ. I'm over a barrel that way like many, many Americans.

I remain intrigued by Ann Minch, however, because many of us often remark that despite growing frustration with our government, all we do is watch and do nothing. Ann did something.

There are many ways to demand accountability, however, any assholes from whom to demand it. While Corporate and Congressional assholes require attention, each of us occasionally find ourselves in situations where we need to hold an individual personally accountable. Last night, Gigi and I were talking about disappointments in love, and she was of the opinion that sometimes you have to accept that you'll never understand why some people have done what they did and move on. I agree that you can't let other people's baggage interfere with achieving your personal goals.

But what if holding an asshole in your personal life accountable for his/her behavior facilitates achieving your personal goals? Maybe it's a long, convoluted project that doesn't make sense to other people, but that doesn't make the project any less valuable to the individuals involved.

If all Politics is Personal - so that we buy local produce because we refuse to support corporate farming interests and genetically modified foods any more than we have to, for example - the converse should be equally as true which means The Personal becomes The Political. If we permit the individuals in our lives to operate as if they are unaccountable, in the interest of "moving on," then can we as a society ever hope to evolve?

Holding assholes accountable takes stamina since it means beating your head against brick walls and dead horses - and often, despite your best efforts, you still get screwed in the end like poor Stuart Y. Silverstein who spent years suing Penguin Books for cutting and pasting material he wrote in a compilation of Dorothy Parker's poems into one of their publications (Dorothy Parker Copyright Trial).

Losing in the courts doesn't necessarily mean there's been no karmic equalization. Although I never met Stu Silverstein, I've been interested in his story since I first heard it. I'm sure his friends called him Obsessive and told him to Move On. Maybe he should have - what do I know? But I can relate to longing for justice and fighting to be heard and acknowledged as he held a big asshole accountable.

As it happens, my own parents had a legal run in with an individual bully as a result of a business partnership between The Asshole and my father. Part of this convoluted tale involves me, Buzz Kill, and the Rebbe Mohammed McCrory being paid a very small sum to sit on the board of Manhattan Life Insurance Company for about a year. My mother is convinced that fact alone needs to be brought to the attention of the attorney general of the state of New York since I was a pawn in a rotten CEO's ongoing efforts to make an obscene amount of money off his insurance company. Mr. David H (boss of an insurance conglomerate that includes Manhattan Life) made so much money he had to pay his ex-wife something like $45,000 per month in alimony and child support. She was a long suffering woman, and probably could have gotten more if she weren't so exhausted from taking care of their four children and putting up with his shit at the same time.

That was when Mr. H was a young, handsome Scientology enthusiast and borrowed money from my parents to open Harris Gallery in Houston, although somebody else owns it now. Like many budding Scientologists, he believed one day he would be able to levitate, but his own parents had him institutionalized for doing too much LSD while at college, and my folks cut him some slack at the time when it came to delusions and hallucinations. I may have some details wrong since I was only a kid at the time and nobody told me the whole story.

Eventually, Mr. H ripped off my dad for more than $250,000. Perhaps I need to say "allegedly" except my parents won their lawsuit against Sin United or which ever one of Mr. H's companies they had to sue. Sadly, the insurance company lawyer - Mr. Magillacutty or McGettigan or Michael Finnigan or something - looked my dad in the eye and said that he may have won, but he'd better settle now or they'd tie him up in appeals so long he'd never see a penny because the insurance companies own the courts in Texas. Honestly, he said out loud and with pride that Insurance Companies own the Courts in Texas. Under the advice of his own lawyer, who caved during the mediation, Dad settled, violating my mother's rights as a community property holder so thoroughly that she filed a complaint with the judge. Maybe something will come of it one day, but only if somebody pays the lawyers more money. My folks got some thousands, but the lawyers got the bulk of the cash.

When a guy rips off an old man with dentures who helped launch him into the business world just because it suits his vanity, imagine what he will do as an insurance company executive to people he doesn't know. Mr. H still operates with impunity, making friends in the GOP and money off of suckers like you and me.

Maybe the Courts and Congress will never hold corporate assholes accountable because of the way money goes around in our world. We as individuals must continue to seek justice if for no other reason than to equalize the karma. Maybe somebody from Andrew Cuomo's office will be surfing the internet one day during lunch hour and stumble across these sad allegations. My real name is in an official State of New York Insurance Department Report on Manhattan Life Insurance Company from 2001, so I can say what I want. Who cares if the statute of limitations has run out? Maybe that means I can't be prosecuted either.

This story has personal significance because of my family, and more general significance because it involves an insurance industry executive. My current personal dilemma revolves around a financial journalist who worked for that notorious blow-hard Jim Cramer at SmartMoney. I have a feeling that his own refusal to accept accountability in his personal life is also tied to more general societal issues. I just don't know what to do about it yet.

As for the Banks: Check out the Move Your Money Project to find a community bank. Ditch the "too big to fail" crowd.