I can’t believe I missed this one. Although the following happened back in 2010, given how captured our entire society remains by the “too big to fail and jail” banks, it’s worth putting this in front of readers. Here’s the disturbing encounter. From ABC News:
Back in 2010, an ABC News investigation found that a Texas-based company Bank of America had contracted to make debt collection calls were using racist and obscene language to try to coax debts from customers.
“What’s up, you f—ing n—-r?” said one of the collection agents in a message to 32-year-old Allen Jones of Dallas, who at the time owed $81 on his Bank of America credit card.
“This is your f—ing wake up call, man,” the debt collector said in a message left at Jones’ home at 6:30 a.m. Then another call: “You little, lazy ass bitch, get your mother f—ing ass up and go pick some mother f—ing cotton fields, bitch.”
Two days following the 2010 ABC News report, Bank of America fired the debt collection agency, though the bank said the decision was not related to the television report.
Oh right, I’m sure the company’s use of racist debt collectors airing on national television had nothing to do with the firing. The bank’s peerless internal vetting system was clearly already on the case. They waited until the report aired because…
I came across the above, when reading the story of a Florida couple that recently received $1 million from Bank of America for a relentless barrage of harassing phone calls. From the same ABC News article:
Bank of America is being forced to hand over more than $1 million to a Florida couple after the bank flooded them with hundreds of loan collection calls for years – the latest example of alleged behavior that has cost the bank tens of millions.
In a complaint filed in July, attorneys for Nelson and Joyce Coniglio said that the couple had been on the receiving end of “patterns of outrageous, abusive and harassing conduct” by a subsidiary of Bank of America that included 700 calls in four years, after the bank said the couple fell behind on mortgage loan payments in 2009. The Coniglios also received “threatening collection letters asserting false and misleading information,” the complaint said.
The couple sent multiple letters from legal representation asking the bank to stop, but the calls — sometimes up to five a day — continued. The complaint describes automated calls leaving repeated pre-recorded messages.
“If I did what Bank of America did, I’d probably be behind bars,” Joyce Coniglio told CBS News’ Tampa affiliate WTSP.
Yes indeed. Plebs get jail, banks get bailouts.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
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Ah yes stirring the race bait pot again huh? Nice. Real nice. Agree it is wrong but with all the crap going on right now you just had to dig this up huh?
How much do you whine when they say “What’s Up, You F—ing Cracker” or “whitebread , Honkey” or how about Whitey do you write or report any stories about these?? Huh?
Either you are not a regular reader of the site, or are just incredibly stupid.
I’d suggest both.
The vast majority of my articles criticizing police behavior have white victims:
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/05/13/rebellion-in-the-usa-protesters-take-over-albuquerque-city-council-and-attempt-to-arrest-police-chief/
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/11/06/how-a-routine-traffic-stop-in-new-mexico-turned-into-a-nightmare-of-torture-for-david-eckert/
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/04/22/the-war-on-street-artists-puppeteer-unlawfully-arrested-and-harassed-in-nyc-subway/
Go back to sleep.
Hello. I’ve been a fan of your blog for a while. I was disappointed – thought not terribly surprised – to see your anti-Catholic comments in a recent tweet. I would like to have a discussion with you regarding your misconceptions about the Catholic Church (yes, even in the middle ages). Email me via my site if you’re man enough. (I’d mail you directly if I could find a way to do so – I wasn’t able to.)
Since you claim to be a big fan of the blog and seem sincere in your comment, I will take the time to respond.
First, you are entirely entitled to disagree with anything I write, say or tweet and tell me about it. However, someone who is really a fan of my blog knows where I am coming from, so I found categorizing my tweet as “anti-Catholic” crosses the line.
I am not “anti-Catholic” or anti any religion. I believe freedom of choice in spiritual matters, economic matters and speech (1st Amendment) matters to be cornerstones of any free, happy and prosperous society or civilization. I don’t think better or worse of anyone based on what religion they claim a part of. “By their fruit you will recognize them.” I’m sure you are familiar with that, and that is how I come to conclusions about individuals, not by their proclaimed tribal associations, whether those be religious, national or racial.
Second, the point I was making in the tweet, is that in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church dominated the spiritual realm of Europe to the point that it also wielded enormous political power. In modernity, Central banks so dominate the economic realm, that they also wield enormous political power. Back then people worshiped God. Today, they worship money.
The dominance by any centralized and politically powerful entity in the realms of spirituality or economics is extraordinarily limiting, dangerous and leads to poor political outcomes.
That was my point, and should you care to debate it further, there’s no reason we can’t do it here.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your prompt and sincere reply. I had really wanted to post a response sooner but have been incredibly busy.
Regarding me being a fan of the blog, of course that was sincere. I thank you for your exposes of the evils of the modern state, based as it is on atheism.
You assert that because you believe in “freedom of choice in spiritual matters” you are not anti-Catholic. I would just like to point out that one does not follow from the other; it is possible to believe in “freedom of choice in spiritual matters” yet have strong feelings (rational or irrational) regarding some particular teaching, ecclesiastic group, etc. Believing that people should be allowed to believe or worship as they please does not preclude calling certain beliefs wrong, does it? (Of course, moral relativism (all the rage now) does indeed assert, more or less, that no one has the “right” to call *anything* wrong, yet few are completely consistent in that regard. Is the child sacrifice practiced by some pagan religions wrong? Only those poor souls entirely disassociated from their God-given sense of decency refuse to say so.)
Semantically – and I don’t mean to be pedantic – almost by definition the statement I referenced is “anti-Catholic”: you’re criticizing the Catholic Church, and rather harshly at that (given your expressed opinions regarding central banking, which I agree with by the way). Of course I do see your point: You don’t mind Catholic people (I never asserted or even thought anything different) and perhaps have no issues with the Catholic Church *now*. My point is merely that your statement is still anti-Catholic in a sense on the face of it.
But let’s move on to what you say is your point: “*The dominance by any centralized and politically powerful entity in the realms of spirituality* or economics is extraordinarily limiting, dangerous and leads to poor political outcomes” (emphasis mine).
Now we come to our root disagreement – which is also your root disagreement with Catholicism. Your statement carries the implication that either there is no such thing as absolute truth or that it is unknowable by man, but Catholicism asserts exactly the opposite. You propose (as if this were obvious, it would seem) that for any entity to “dominate” the realm of spirituality is bad because it is “limiting” and “dangerous”, yet Christ established His Church on Earth for exactly that purpose: To save souls via its teaching and its sacraments. That Christ did establish the Catholic Church is historical fact; allow me a couple of links:
http://www.acatholicthinker.net/th-source-of-catholic-authorit/
http://www.acatholicthinker.net/peter-the-papacy/
Your statement above does intermingle the realms of faith and “politics” to an extent that makes some aspects difficult to decipher, but clearly you are asserting that a plethora of religious opinions is best, if not essential. Excuse if I must as an orthodox Catholic take issue with that.
The Catholic Church is fundamentally different than any other organization on Earth because it has both a human *and* a divine element. As Christ declared, the gates of Hell shall never prevail against it; it is granted a divine teaching authority and is divinely protected from error when binding its faithful to a matter of faith or morals. Again, that is what the Catholic Church says of herself, attested to quite thoroughly by Scripture and history as well.
Now, before you dismiss all of this out-of-hand, let me acknowledge that it is true that the human element of the Church is entirely fallible, as are all men, and capable of evil.
However, it is really more relevant in this age to point out how anti-Catholic myth has completely distorted the Church’s actual role in society in the age you referenced in your original comment as well as other times. A book I might recommend is entitled “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”, and, while it actually it a little bit over-the-top in a couple aspects, it’s truly a great read for both the modern secularist and the modern Protestant who generally has no idea of the most pertinent facts here.
It was the Church in those times that civilized a pagan world. It was the Church that taught people the intrinsic value of human life and put to an end numerous practices of barbarism. It was the Church that *created* science in the West by establishing the position that the universe was created by a rational God with rational laws that could be modeled and understood. It was the Church that created the university as we know it today. It was the Church that pioneered the hospital system. And on and on.
Regarding temporal power, in certain times & places the Church has indeed possessed it, mainly at the prerogative of the secular rulers themselves who recognized the rightful role of the Church as guardian of public morality.
I realize that much of this sounds like nonsense to the average modern man, who is so conditioned with “religious liberty” that the very idea of their being a *true* religion is both distasteful and preposterous. Yet a true religion there is indeed and this is knowable.
Anyway, again, I do enjoy your exposes of the modern state, which is a secular, liberal state, including abuses of power by law enforcement and our completely corrupt financial system (we live in a de-facto oligarchy, of course). These things have absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church, then or now.
If you respond further (as I suspect you will) I will not likely be able to produce another reply. I just can’t spare the time at the moment. If you are open to these things please take a look at the materials referenced.
Right off the bat, I want to reiterate that I am not anti-Catholic. Sorry you took it that way. I am just anti someone trying to convince me that their particular choice of organized religion is the end all be all. You’re just barking up the wrong tree here. Now a few thoughts.
First, you seem all hung up on this idea of calling “other beliefs wrong,” yet you only discuss a violent action against another human being (child sacrifice). Obviously, I think this action is wrong, and our society, as flawed as it is, has laws to deal with things of that nature. We don’t need religion to know that violence against another is wrong. We are both adults here, and I assume you knew what I meant. Which is that as long as you, or anyone else, doesn’t do harm to another, I don’t care how you worship your deity. You can pray to a cross or to a golden cow. Makes absolutely no difference to me. Don’t do any harm and who fucking cares if it makes you a better person or more fulfilled. Furthermore, as far as calling certain things “wrong” clearly I don’t have a problem with doing so. That’s what I do on this site all the time, so I don’t know where that was coming from.
Second, we simply will never see eye to eye on this, which is fine, but it also means this conversation should end here. I just spent 3 weeks in Asia, and was quite exposed Buddhism while there, an older religion than yours, which was spawned from Hinduism, which is older still.
While I agree with your assessment that there may be one truth with regard to spiritual matters, I believe all the world’s religions are attempting to express that truth within their distinct practices including Catholicism (cults). I doubt any one of them has the “truth” figured out. From what I have seen, Catholicism (my mother was raised Catholic) holds no more truth than any other major religion to which I have been exposed.
To conclude, I think you are a good person who really believes what they do. I don’t agree with your religious beliefs and with 99% certainty never will, but let’s move on to the more important work of making the world a better place.
Apparently Bank of America wants us to think that there are more important reasons for firing such an agency than egregiously offensive racial slurs used in their debt collection process. Are they implying that they would have otherwise overlooked such tactics?
Bizarre response.
Saludos,
Kim G
Boston, MA
Where we are outraged by the passage of the budget bill with all the egregious crap dumped into it at the last minute, especially that bit about monitoring so-called “private” communications.