You can do both. They just have to viewed independently because the tactics that work using one strategy won't necessarily work with the other.
You could lobby the NLRB to be considered employees and then use the effective tools a union has.
You can also use the tools you have as an independent contractor.
My point was that if you're classified as an independent contractor, many tools of a union don't work and drivers who attempt to use these tools oftentimes find themselves spinning their wheels and they might not even know why.
For example, the CPTDA has been around for years. I remember covering one of their rallies led by Steve Weidersberg when I first started the Chicago Dispatcher. It was at the Rainbow Restaurant. The press was called. The turnout of drivers was dismal. It was a big dud.
Then I went to another rally led by Steve Weidersberg on Valentine's Day to City Hall. He was bringing former Commissioner Shoenberger an empty box of chocolates that was shaped like a heart. He wanted to show that Commissioner Shoenberger had no heart. It was funny. But nothing came of it except more animosity between the city and cabbies. The press was called. The turnout of drivers was dismal. It was a big dud.
In all my years in this industry, I can't think of a single thing the CPTDA accomplished. I'm sorry to say that but I honestly can't. To this day they will talk about a strike they pulled off about ten years ago. They still live off of that like I live off the 1985 Chicago Bears. But what did that strike accomplish? Anybody?
With the full backing of the CPTDA and its membership of drivers, Steve did nothing more than get his face on camera. He probably did more to hurt drivers than to help them. I hate to say it but it was embarrassing. Does this sound at all familiar?
But Steve Weidersberg left the CPTDA and I stopped hearing from him as much. Why? Steve actually began getting things done rather than trying to be the president of a cabdriver organization. He worked to pass a law that made assaulting cabdrivers a felony. That was huge. Steve did more working independently than he ever did as "The President of the Chicago Professional Taxicab Drivers Association."
I like Steve Weidersberg now. A lot.
The CPTDA was left behind and to this day their leadership does practically nothing more than talk about organizing. After all these years they're still *talking* about organizing. Some of these people brag that they've been doing if for twenty years. Well if they really knew how to organize drivers, don't you think that I would need more than one hand to count their membership?
Oh wait. That's right. I almost forgot that it's my fault drivers aren't organized because I wrote an editorial three months ago that was critical of an outside organization brought in to help them, which by the way, was using the same tactics that Steve Weidersberg had tried and failed at time and time again.
Could I be silent and watch history repeat itself? Would I have been doing justice to cabdrivers by smiling and saying that everything is just great?
There's a saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
As far as unionizing goes, it has been done. Some drivers in California voted to join the Teamsters after lobbying the NLRB and got a ruling that they are employees.
I've spoken with the Teamsters recently. In fact, about a week ago I got an email from them saying, "We are definetely interested in assisting the drivers in any way we can."
For those of you who have been around a while, you may remember that the Teamsters already came in and tried to organize drivers. They say they have some new ideas that may work.
If anyone is interested in talking with the Teamsters, I'm sure I can set up a meeting with them. You can send me an email if that is your interest.
If you like the idea of setting up a credit union to help drivers become owners, you can send me an email about that as well.
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
Subject: Sticky: Re: Fool me once Shame on you, Fool me twice Shame on me, FOllow the Teamsters, Shame On All
Name: Name Withheld
Date Posted: Dec 16, 07 - 12:45 PM
Message: Same on Mr. George Lutbellow. The truckers will get him.
Only a fool would believe that the CPTDA has anything to do with the TEAMSTERS.
George's attempted association between the CPTDA with the Teamsters is pure falsehood.
Wiedersberg was behind that ill-fated marriage, which has nothing to do with the current organization.
He led the drivers into a trap.
You may remember that the Teamsters and Wiedersberg slunk back into the woodwork after busting up the unionization drive.
What is that called, when one makes statements that are "directly contradictory to the facts?"
Oh, yes, it is another LUTF- LIE.
Caught again MR. LUTF-LIAR.
Apparently you take pride in your lies and you r ability to hurting taxicab drivers.
And that is why Wolf called you a TRAITOR.
That is also why others have called you a Nazi and a Fascisti a Brownhsirt and a storm trooper – because you act like all of them:
Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
By Umberto Eco
(Writing in New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15. Excerpted in Utne Reader, November-December 1995, pp. 57-59.)
(The following version follows the text and formatting of the Utne Reader article, and in addition, makes the first sentence of each numbered point a statement in bold type. Italics are in the original.)
(For the full article, consult the New York Review of Books, purchase the full article online; or purchase Eco's new collection of essays: Five Moral Pieces.)
In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
* * *
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.
Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.
4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.
In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.
Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.
Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.
In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.
* * *
Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.
Umberto Eco (c) 1995
Where did I say that the CPTDA had anything to do with the Teamsters?
You need to read what I wrote again. You're trying to change the subject and skirting the issues I raised.
Speaking of blackshirts, you're using the very tactics of which you're accusing others. You keep saying others, including me are lying, without even saying what the lie is.
Your tactic is to try to attach the words, "liar" and "fascist" to people with the hopes that they'll stick and that people will believe it without even questioning what the lie is. Shame on you.
And isn't it ironic that you are calling other people liars without using your own name?
Why don't you address any of the points I made in either posting in this thread? I'd love some intellectual discussion about organizing points.
I find it hard to believe that you nor anybody else in this forum has anything to say about organizing Chicago cabdrivers.
Does anybody have any ideas to contribute?
George Lutfallah
Chicago Dispatcher
George you're right! These drivers are very stupid and they don't even know how to read. I don't even know how they've passed a written exam for a chauffeurs license. Ptropbably the staff at consumer services haven't yet got caught taking bribes under the table. I would like to see consumer services get caught, just so I could see Norma Reyes sit in jail with former Secretary of State and Former Illinois Governor George Ryan.
ut should camera in this guy
01/17/2000
Chicago Sun-Times
Murder spurs march
Cabdrivers are planning a march today in the wake of the murder of driver Hisham Siam, who was found stabbed to death in his cab in the 1800 block of West Nelson on the North Side. Police said Sunday they had no new leads in the slaying. Steve Wiedersberg of the Chicago Professional Taxi Drivers Association said the cabbies are protesting what he says is a lack of support from the Teamsters union to help cabbies unionize for better protection and benefits. The drivers plan to march from the Harold Washington Library to the Pacific Gardens Mission homeless shelter, 646 S. State.
Perhaps Lutfallah is not aware of the facts or he is deliberately re-posting incorrect information for reasons only he can explain.
Lutfallah's FICTION: "... the CPTDA has been around for years."
TRUE FACT: The CPTDA or Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association was incorporated in November 2006 by two former members of the of Weidersberg's CPTCDA or Chicago Professional TAXI CAB DRIVERS Association and several independent activists in the taxi industry, Weiss, Qureshi and Budsynski.
The CPTCDA corporate status went "DISSOLVED in February of 2005 after several years of inactivity and failure to re-register the corporation by it's inactive members' apparent lack of interest and irreconcilable differences beytween Weidersberg and his Board Members.
Lutfallah FICTION: "Steve did more working independently than he ever did as "The President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association."
TRUE FACT: Steve may have done more work, but he was never - repeat never - the President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association. He may have been the President of the Chicago Professional TAXI CAB DRIVERS Association, but he was never the President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association. The President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association is Wolfgang J. Weiss,one of the independent activists who came on board during the organization of the CPTDA as a consultant along with George Kasp and several others.
Lutfallah's FICTION: "The CPTDA ... to this day their leadership does practically nothing more than talk about organizing."
TRUE FACT: TO this day the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association is not and has not been in the organizing business since its incorporation in 2006. Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association Board Members are free to work with and support organizing efforts of legitimate groups and credible individuals, which they do to fulfill one of their stated purposes in the CPTDA Articles of Incorporation.
Is Lutfallah intentionally misleading the public about the CPTDA or is he misleading the public out of ignorance of the facts?
T. Rashman
A suggestion for Wolf Weiss to make things understandable for all:
Wolf, you should change the name of CP-whatever to "WOLF WEISS' WONDERGROUP".
That way, everyone will know exactly who and WHAT??? we are referring to.
After you get some recognition, maybe Raja and Diane can start a "different" group called, "WISE WOLVES' WUNDERGROUP".
In any case, we all wonder what it is you all exactly do and who is doing WHAT???
Exactly, that is.
-Mike Foulks
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Perhaps Lutfallah is not aware of the facts or he is deliberately re-posting incorrect information for reasons only he can explain.
Lutfallah's FICTION: "... the CPTDA has been around for years."
TRUE FACT: The CPTDA or Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association was incorporated in November 2006 by two former members of the of Weidersberg's CPTCDA or Chicago Professional TAXI CAB DRIVERS Association and several independent activists in the taxi industry, Weiss, Qureshi and Budsynski.
The CPTCDA corporate status went "DISSOLVED in February of 2005 after several years of inactivity and failure to re-register the corporation by it's inactive members' apparent lack of interest and irreconcilable differences beytween Weidersberg and his Board Members.
Lutfallah FICTION: "Steve did more working independently than he ever did as "The President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association."
TRUE FACT: Steve may have done more work, but he was never - repeat never - the President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association. He may have been the President of the Chicago Professional TAXI CAB DRIVERS Association, but he was never the President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association. The President of the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association is Wolfgang J. Weiss,one of the independent activists who came on board during the organization of the CPTDA as a consultant along with George Kasp and several others.
Lutfallah's FICTION: "The CPTDA ... to this day their leadership does practically nothing more than talk about organizing."
TRUE FACT: TO this day the Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association is not and has not been in the organizing business since its incorporation in 2006. Chicago Professional TAXICAB DRIVERS' Association Board Members are free to work with and support organizing efforts of legitimate groups and credible individuals, which they do to fulfill one of their stated purposes in the CPTDA Articles of Incorporation.
Is Lutfallah intentionally misleading the public about the CPTDA or is he misleading the public out of ignorance of the facts?
T. Rashman
Perhaps it is best to let Lutfallah speak for himself. Stick to wondering what others are doing.
Lutfallah is quite capable of doing so without help of his pet howler monkey.
The subject of this thread is about Lutfallah's repeated posting of incorrect and misleading information regarding the CPTDA.
The misunderstanding, if any, was created by Lutfallah's repeated post of the same wrong information, not by anyone else.
The serious issue of whether Lutfallah is deliberately misleading the public about the CPTDA or if he lacks the facts is a valid question.
Either way due to his insistence on posting false information, Lutfallah can no longer claim the status of journalist. Nor can he claim he did not know the facts.
He has proven himself to be just another propagandist, a word slinger, perhaps in the hopes to further his own commercial purposes.
Doing so at the expense of others is beneath contempt.
How Peter Enger and Steve Kim are smarter than Wolf Weiss:
When they abandoned Melissa Callahan and the AUPD, they didn't name their new organization the "AUTD".
Somebody explain this to Wolf or find him a helper monkey which can.
Whatever you say, Wolf. The confusion doesn't stem from the fact that both names couldn't be more nearly identical?
I met frauds in jail, Wolf. You behave just like them.
-Mike Foulks
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Perhaps it is best to let Lutfallah speak for himself. Stick to wondering what others are doing.
Lutfallah is quite capable of doing so without help of his pet howler monkey.
The subject of this thread is about Lutfallah's repeated posting of incorrect and misleading information regarding the CPTDA.
The misunderstanding, if any, was created by Lutfallah's repeated post of the same wrong information, not by anyone else.
The serious issue of whether Lutfallah is deliberately misleading the public about the CPTDA or if he lacks the facts is a valid question.
Either way due to his insistence on posting false information, Lutfallah can no longer claim the status of journalist. Nor can he claim he did not know the facts.
He has proven himself to be just another propagandist, a word slinger, perhaps in the hopes to further his own commercial purposes.
Doing so at the expense of others is beneath contempt.
Subject: Fool me once Shame on you, Fool me twice Shame on me, Follow the Teamsters, Shame On All
Name: S. Watts
Date Posted: Dec 15, 07 - 9:08 AM
stringme1@comcast.net
Message:
Introduction:
The following editorial letter first appeared on the Taxi-L website and appeared in Toronto’s Taxi News, [June 2007, Vol. 22, No. 06] with the permission of the author.
Original Editorial Title:
----------------------------------------------------
Chicago cabbies suspicious of City's eagerness to 'help'
The Chicago City Council's offer to help taxicab drivers -- per Alderman Pat O'Conner's resolution calling for fare hike hearings without the usual drivers' petition -- is a milestone and historic first!
Wow, the cabbies are finally getting a break from City Hall. Sun Times reporter Fran Spielman reports that "cabbies were surprised and delighted to learn that aldermen were responding ....”
She didn't report that those of us cabbies who know and remember are and rightfully should be suspicious.
We're surprised and delighted and- suspicious. Better take a good, long, hard and cold second look. Be suspicious. Be very suspicious.
It is highly likely that this seemingly kind offer from City Hall is no more than an attempt to preempt a possible industry-wide outcry and concerted action -- petitions, demonstrations, marches, maybe even targeted strike actions in critical transportation points like O'Hare, Midway, museums, tourist hot spots, hotel cab stands and dispatch service.
It may be no more than a ploy by City Hall to buy time so that the recent changes to rules and regulations that DCS has been working on in secret can be rammed into place. Hmmmm!
City Hall's offer to review a fare increase without the taxicab drivers' petition is a first, but it is not the first time anyone offered help to ease the plight of taxicab drivers -- not just about fare rates, but also the seemingly predatory, deliberate mismanagement and misdirection of the taxicab industry by the City -- for the simple purpose of increasing the flow of taxicab drivers' and owners' cash into the city coffers.
Some of you may recall in the mid-nineties when things got really hot, the Teamsters Union -- the truckers -- showed up and offered to help. We felt the love, we felt the power.
We had rallies, demonstrations, speeches, organizing drives, the whole works. We were going to be saved from the mob-like clutches and iron-fisted control of the City.
We were finally gonna be a union! Fair fares, fair rules, fair regulations, and a level playing field in matters of City law, a kinder and gentler administration of the taxicab industry. A new age was about to dawn. The Teamsters offered to represent us and actually held a few “negation sessions” with the City via Caroline Schoenberger, Commissioner Reyes’ predecessor.
Then they went back to Teamster Hall and the Taxicab/Teamster marriage disolkved just as quickly as it seemed to have materialized. Poof, gone!
All the promises turned to dust. The taxicab organizing intitiative was 100% pre-empted – dead on arrival.
What really happened? Someone (from within City Hall itself, it is said) explained to the seemingly all-powerful Teamsters that if they continued to support the taxicab movement, not a single teamster-driven truck would be allowed to load or unload at McCormick Place or possibly anywhere else in Chicago.
And at that time, truck and container traffic at almost all Chicago entry points was growing in leaps and bounds. Business was booming fro the Teamsters.
The Teamsters, tough and powerful as they may be, ran off like screaming little school girls. I mean no disrespect to school girls! The Teamsters sold us out, thanks to the not-so-kind-and-gentle extortion by City Hall.
And oh yes, at that time the Teamsters were the undisputed number one contributors to the Illinois Democratic Party’s election coffers. Something smells here. Can you guess what it is? Be suspicious. Be very suspicious.
Taxicab drivers were left alone again, left to their own devices. The old rule continued, “Shut up, pay your lease, you have no rights.”
We ended up getting a fare increase, but we paid dearly for that increase – some of the toughest and most stringent rules came with the higher meter rates –to fulfill the City’s Prime Directive – get the money, get the money by hook or get the money by crook.
The notion that the taxicab industry could be organized to determine its own fate – to t ake up responsibility for our own profit or loss; to makesound business decisions based on real-world economic and business conditions, to improve service to our riders, to raise the standards of our work environment by our own effort, to gain that long sought-after “equality” and “equity” that workers in many other industries strive for – was not even given a decent burial.
Hopefully, the taxicab industry in not going into summer reruns this time around.
Respectfully submitted by
Wolfgang J. Weiss
Member, Board of Directors
Chicago Professional Taxicab Drivers Association
----------------------------------------------------
Post Script: How quickly we forget. How quickly those who are willing to pull the same wool over our eyes over and over again take advantage to mislead us down another dead end.
It does not matter if it is out of naivety, stupidity or malevolent design, the result is the same -- another dead end.
Are we going into winter re-runs now?
Bravenet has not banned me. Nor has Lutfallah. This posting may be deleted by him because he pays so dearly for the right to be able to decide who posts on his website.
Lutfallah has deleted many of my postings in the past. But he won't delete any more. It's time to stop with the postings that take time away from activism.
Lutfallah's felon ally has suggested that details of the civil litigation against the City need to be disclosed on the "Dispatcher Forum" and that I have some sort of duty to lay out both progress and our strategy for the City attorneys to read along with the taxi industy. I think not. The reason foulks can to to the public record to satisfy his curiousity is that it is not in the interest of my clients OR the cabdrivers in Chicago to educate the enemy.
ONLY A DUMMY WOULD JUMP INTO THAT TRAP. But foulks is an agent of Richie Rich, and we all know it. He's on the short list to be the next DCS Commissioner even though he's a convicted felon. Da Mare doesn't mind his felony background. Why should he? It wasn't a violent felony. It was only a death threat.
So I'm planning on ignoring foulks' further provocations and his rantings. Let the junkyard dog howl at the moon. Unless there's something really useful to comment on - and it's certainly not going to come from ANYTHING foulks has to say - I think it best to take a pass on saying it.
No doubt most will find this a welcome choice anyway.
Donald Nathan
Wake up, Mr. Nathan. You are subconsciously responding to me with your self-delusions.
I'm glad to hear that neither Bravenet nor Mr. Lutfallah has banned you. Who is this "Jack Spear" who claimed to get an e-mail saying that both you and Mr. Weiss were banned?
Who but an enemy of George Lutfallah would distribute such a lie in an e-mail, or obviously lie here about such an e-mail?
There are many reasons why Mr. Lutfallah has deleted many of your previous postings. All of the ones I know about were with good reason.
I agree with you, Mr. Nathan, that it is indeed time to stop with the non-productive lies, half-truths, insults, and irrelevancies.
You go first.
You already blew it when you refer to me as "Lutfallah's felon ally". I am not an "ally" of Mr. Lutfallah's.
This is a powerful self-delusion which serves no good purpose to those suffering from it. If I can't convince you how untruthful this notion is, perhaps I can suggest that it is a great exagerration to call me, "Lutfallah' felon ally".
It is as disrespectful to Mr. Lutfallah as it is to me.
I simply asked for a more detailed update on the lawsuit you filed against the City of Chicago in Mr. Weiss' interest. I don't see how discussing the public record so far could have any detrimental effect upon the case, but I tend, reluctantly, to defer to your "expertise" at the moment.
However, your credibility about your "reasoning" takes a nose-dive when you proceed to refer to me as an "agent of Richie Rich". If you really believe that the City pays such close attention to this website, I don't see how deriding our Mayor in such a juvenile manner benefits anyone.
You go on to claim that I am a possible candidate to be DCS Comissioner. I am not qualified to be the DCS Commissioner nor would I accept any employment with the City of Chicago. I am a full-time cabdriver and I plan to be so for many years, perhaps until I retire.
I never admitted to making a "death threat" against anyone at anytime. This is part of the public record. I pled guilty only to telephone harassment, and I have made a timely claim regarding this unlawful conviction. The complete adjudication of this case will likely remain out of the public record once a final disposition is reached.
I anticipate being vindicated. It is a continuing criminal investigation involving several members of my extended family and officers of the court. Quite frankly, it is simply none of your business, at least, not at this time.
This is why much of the information about this unfortunate legal situation of mine isn't accessible to you and most other people. None of this affects my chauffeur's license or my political activities.
I think you have been a failure at many things, Mr. Nathan. I think you will fail to "ignore (my) provocations".
Especially because I have had many useful things to say. I will continue to have many useful things to say. I will continue to do many things worth commenting on, whether you are agreeable or not.
None of this is meant to "provoke" you, Mr. Nathan. You think you are far more important to me than the reality: I don't care about what you say or do much at all.
However, I agree again, most of us would prefer that you stick to the issues and stay out of our personal conflicts.
Here's an underhanded softball pitch for you, Mr. Nathan:
What are your legal thoughts about the credit card requirements?
-Mike Foulks
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Replying to:
Bravenet has not banned me. Nor has Lutfallah. This posting may be deleted by him because he pays so dearly for the right to be able to decide who posts on his website.
Lutfallah has deleted many of my postings in the past. But he won't delete any more. It's time to stop with the postings that take time away from activism.
Lutfallah's felon ally has suggested that details of the civil litigation against the City need to be disclosed on the "Dispatcher Forum" and that I have some sort of duty to lay out both progress and our strategy for the City attorneys to read along with the taxi industy. I think not. The reason foulks can to to the public record to satisfy his curiousity is that it is not in the interest of my clients OR the cabdrivers in Chicago to educate the enemy.
ONLY A DUMMY WOULD JUMP INTO THAT TRAP. But foulks is an agent of Richie Rich, and we all know it. He's on the short list to be the next DCS Commissioner even though he's a convicted felon. Da Mare doesn't mind his felony background. Why should he? It wasn't a violent felony. It was only a death threat.
So I'm planning on ignoring foulks' further provocations and his rantings. Let the junkyard dog howl at the moon. Unless there's something really useful to comment on - and it's certainly not going to come from ANYTHING foulks has to say - I think it best to take a pass on saying it.
No doubt most will find this a welcome choice anyway.
Donald Nathan
