The Socialism Council of Alabama

I’ve already gotten some comments on my last post.  Which can be summarized as lay off the Sheriffs because what they’re doing is legal. 

OK I admit that it’s legal, but Alabama Law, especially the sales tax on food is unjust and out of step with the rest of the nation.  We are cutting healthcare benefits to seniors and cutting off life support to sick children the second they turn 19 while this kind of waste goes on and Montogmery has to tax groceries and reappraise our homes for tax purposes each year to subsidize it.  People who need food stamps or job training can’t get it.  Poor people who need legal aid can’t get access.  They used to have people who helped you study for your GED, but now they just tell you to watch Public TV or go to the Internet.  That’s difficult when you don’t have a TV or a computer.  The people who need the help the most are forced to get into trouble so they can go to prison which is their only option to get some healthcare and job training, but that only works for the young members of the criminal class, because the State has decided to start releasing the older inmates who have serious health problems to save their pot of money.  The criminal justice czars talk about the goal of rehabilitation in state prisons, but now that’s reserved only for those who are likely to leave prison with strong enough backs to supply wage slavery to Corporate Alabama.  Now the prisons have started discriminating against the sick.  Have cancer, heart disease or kidney failure, etc. and they’ll place you under house arrest so they don’t have to pay your medical bills.

I seriously doubt that the Governor of Alabama makes this kind of money and I’m certain that our Chief Law Enforcement Officer, Attorney General Troy King isn’t making as much money as some county sheriffs.

I don’t want to get into citing case law, but about 20% of the major US Supreme Court cases on Civil Rights and the application of the Bill of Rights to the states managed to arise in Alabama and its sister states in the 11th Circuit, Georgia and Florida.  That’s a disproportionate amount of cases for three small Southern States.  Racial discrimination used to be legal in Alabama and the ultimate expression of discrimination, The Holocaust was legal in Germany.  Legal does not equal just.

Look for the common rationale behind all these policies and it’s to make money for State Government and the powerful corporations who lobby the Legislature.  The United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t provide universal healthcare to its citizens.  It jails its people at a rate exceeding any other nation and among the 50 States, Alabama is one of the worst offenders of human rights.

The Court of the Star Chamber has returned.  The PATRIOT Act has taken away our right to Habeus Corpus.  The police increasingly search our cars and homes without search warrants and we watch while our friends and neighbors go to jail on charges that are supported by improperly obtained evidence to fund sweetheart deals for the county sheriff who is all to eager to sell our homes at auction when we can’t pay our bills because our government refuses to grant us a living wage, provide us with healthcare and institute price controls on gasoline.  Yes, my fellow Americans they are holding all the cards and the deck is stacked against you.  You can’t win unless they decide to suspend the rules for you and they’ll only grant you an exemption if they think you can make them some money today.

I’m really tired of the continuing oppression and I think the Founding Fathers fought a Revolution over these concerns.  Our government is using illegal immigration like King George used the Indian tribes to make war on us.  The 100% tax on alcohol in Alabama is the new Tea Tax.  The outrageous cost of access to our court system is the new Stamp Act. 

When will things begin to change?  Alabama and the larger United States is still headed in the wrong direction.  We need peaceful change in order to prevent a violent Revolution, but one thing is certain a Revolution is coming.  Our leaders will choose whether or not that Revolution will be peaceful or violent.  Be careful who you vote for this November.  Choose peaceful change and contact your representatives every session to make sure they are keeping their campaign promises. 

Late Etowah County Sheriff James Hayes did not pay sales tax on food purchases for the Etowah County Correctional Facility and he enriched himself with the savings on top of a state allotment of $1.75 per day per prisoner. I used to work in a grocery store folks. When they came in to buy food for the jail, it was tax free.

You may ask, “Well, it costs more than $1.75 to feed a prisoner each day doesn’t it?”  Yes, it probably does, but the majority of Etowah County inmates are there on federal charges (about 381 per day).  They are either charged with ICE violations (immigration cases) or federal drug crimes. When an inmate is detained on federal charges, Uncle Sam kicks in with an extra $3.00 per day for a grand total of $4.75 per federal detainee.

It also helps when you and your relatives own an interest in the farms and grocery stores that supply the food and you use inmate labor and your taxpayer funded kitchen to prepare and serve the meals; reducing your costs even more.  Those four factors: 1) no sales tax, 2) free inmate labor, 3) reduced prices from your suppliers, and 4) taxayer funded kitchen allow you to get the average cost down to about three dollars a day per inmate or less.  Then, you are able to pocket the entire $1.75 per inmate that the State of Alabama pays you, because state law allows you to personally keep any leftover funds from the state allowance that you don’t spend on inmate meals.

For tax year 2005, Sheriff Hayes received a 1099 from the Etowah County Commission for $418,000 which represented only the federal funds of $3.00 a day and not the $1.75 that he got from the State of Alabama. Do the math. That’s approximately 381 federal prisoners each day. So, multiply $1.75 times 381 to get $666.75 then multiply that times 365 days in a year to get $243,363.75 profit by pocketing the State’s $1.75 allotment. Stick that money in an L.L.C. and it’s not taxable until you withdraw it for your personal use.

So, you can see that any Etowah County Sheriff stands to make a handsome profit each year, if he budgets his money correctly. That’s enough money to provide a nice pay raise or retirement fund match for each Deputy Sheriff. If I were you guys, I’d be pissed and would ask my boss for a pay raise. Maybe you guys would like to join the Industrial Workers of the World and stand up to capitalism gone crazy at your Sheriff’s Department. That way you could get back to arresting people for real crimes like murder, assault, rape and theft of property instead of oppressing illegal immigrants and recreational drug users.

I don’t want to hear any more crap from certain State Employees about law students having financial problems paying their student loans back when there’s waste like this going on.  That money could put ten law school graduates into assistant prosecutor or police investigator jobs and reduce the number of violent criminals going free because District Attorney cases were not properly prepared or warrants were not proplerly obtained and I personally see a lot of that shoddy work going on in Etowah County every day. I’m going to laugh everytime you guys lose an immigration or drug case and each time a deported alien walks back across the border a week later. Yes, Marshall County may have a crystal meth problem, but Etowah County has the most underpaid Sheriff’s Deputies in Alabama.  Enjoy your overpaid Sheriff and your broken system of justice.

The capitalists claim that increased demand for fuel ethanol is causing the price of ethanol and its precursor material, corn, and therefore food prices to go up, but nothing could be further from the truth.  First of all, due to the health food craze, people are eating less and less corn based products.  Secondly, the price of fuel ethanol is GOING DOWN!  Yes, as gasoline prices continue to skyrocket, the price of a gallon of fuel ethanol is going down as more ethanol refining capacity comes online.  Guess what? That growing refining capacity is using other source materials such as sugar cane and switch grass.  Ethanol is already providing for the energy needs of Brazil and it can provide for America’s energy needs too.

Just look at these prices for ethanol and ask yourself why we are continuing to buy gasoline:

June 26, 2008 Today Yesterday Change
Alabama 3.4289 3.4705 -0.0416
Arkansas 2.9600 2.9600 0.0000
Colorado 3.0443 3.0443 0.0000
Florida 3.4095 3.4720 -0.0625
Georgia 3.2944 3.3319 -0.0375
Iowa 2.8398 2.8331 0.0067
Illinois 2.9487 2.9457 0.0030
Indiana 3.0297 3.0383 -0.0086
Kansas 2.8907 2.8820 0.0087
Louisiana 3.4388 3.5013 -0.0625
Michigan 3.0500 3.0500 0.0000
Minnesota 2.7319 2.7274 0.0045
Missouri 2.9498 2.9417 0.0081
Montana 2.7720 2.7720 0.0000
North Dakota 2.6994 2.6964 0.0030
Nebraska 2.8294 2.8147 0.0147
North Carolina 3.2576 3.2956 -0.0380
Ohio 2.8400 2.8400 0.0000
Oklahoma 2.9902 2.9704 0.0198
Oregon 2.9305 2.9305 0.0000
South Carolina 3.2800 3.3300 -0.0500
South Dakota 2.7161 2.7039 0.0122
Washington 2.9700 2.9700 0.0000
Wisconsin 2.9088 2.9105 -0.0017
Wyoming 2.6730 2.6730 0.0000
Average 2.9953 3.0042 -0.0089

So, go buy yourself a new flex fuel vehicle, so you can burn ethanol and tell the big oil companies that you are tired of paying too much for gasoline.

USA Ethanol 1 is a new energy company whose focus will be ethanol production.  Visit the company website at http://usaethanol1.com

For too long the big oil comapnies have exploited consumers at the pump and we hope to change that by providing small and mid size farmers around the world with the capability to produce 1500-2500 gallons or one 18 wheeler tanker or rail car full of fuel ethanol every week.

Hill says, “USA Ethanol 1’s right-sized ethanol plants are like the AK-47 of the fuel ethanol industry.  Every middle class farmer in the United States and every communal farm in the third world will be able to afford one with USA Ethanol 1’s financing options.  The world will no longer be dependant upon the increasingly limited supplies of fossil fuels to power their automobiles.  A certain major oil company has boasted that in 30 years fossil fuels will still be the number one source of fuel for automobiles.  I respectfully disagree with that assumption and agree with Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford that Ethanol is the automotive fuel of the future.  The Revolution of the New Left will not be fought by guerillas with AK-47s, it will be secured by independent farmers wielding right-sized ethanol refining plants.”

The views and opinions of Robby Scott Hill and the Socialism Council of Alabama are not necessarily those of USA Ethanol 1.

Revolution 

Now it’s $4.46 in California.  That’s a 305% increase in only seven years.  It’s also the largest price increase in history.

Is it the law of supply & demand or a failure to regulate speculators on Wall Street? You be the judge.