MARKET BASKET MUTINY: Corporate Greed Take Heed

The Market Basket Mutiny has got to be the most effective workers strike since the historic labor revolts of the 1920s and 30s, and it's swiftly brought a four-billion-dollar, tri-state grocery chain to its knees. So why aren't the national news corporations covering it?

After all, at the heart of this larger-than-life dispute between employees and management lies all the major elements of a bestselling story: A longstanding family feud, a sinister board of directors, a hostile takeover and ousted CEO, and a David versus Goliath struggle that, rightly so, sees the 'little guy' ably winning.

 

Corporate Greed Crime of the Century:

Kudos to the savvy and well organized mutineers -- nearly 20,000 strong -- who have succinctly put a halt to Big Business's typical business-as-usual mindset and bloodletting. They should be proud and, nationwide, their fearless actions emulated.

Yet, just a few short weeks ago, it was the family-owned company's powerful board of directors and their newly-appointed CEO who were slapping themselves on the back. No doubt, wild with anticipation about their own 4-percent raises, and those job layoffs and pay cuts they'd *necessarily* be making soon in order to increase corporate profitability and shareholders' earnings.

Today though, in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire where the super-sized supermarket chain runs over 70 stores in all, it's clear that the board's subversive plan has backfired considerably. 

The shelves of MARKET BASKET are almost empty this week, whilst its warehouse workers and shipping forces join the checkout clerks and baggers in a massive public protest over the firing of their beloved and benevolent former CEO, "Arthur T" Demoulas and the hiring instead of his allegedly wicked, scheming cousin, "Arthur S" Demoulas.

As to the mobs of once-loyal shoppers, they too have picked sides, the majority actively supporting strikers with a crippling boycott, petitions by the score, and storefront rallies that are now drawing in thousands of people at a pop.

Mom and Pop (and Uncle Mike):

Early in the 20th century, newly-landed immigrants Athanasios (Arthur) and Efrosini Demoulas opened a deli in Lowell Massachusetts. Together the Greek couple successfully sold lamb there for decades until retiring in 1954 and handing off their still-small but thriving enterprise to favored sons, George and Mike. 

Fifteen years and 15 stores after that, the two Demoulas brothers were well on their way to snagging the American Dream and creating the multi-billion-dollar grocery business known today as "Market Basket."

Soon thereafter, however -- with one greedy brother dipping into the till while the other one wasn't looking -- this happy tale takes a rather sad but predictable twist. The kind which would make Mom and Pop Demoulas roll in their graves perpetually, and leave their heirs forever fractured and feuding.

So perhaps the current contest pales in comparison with that of thieving Uncle Mike, although his selfish acts at least only served to siphon off some of the family's whopping profits, not strip all their stores bare.

Yes, We Have No Bananas:

Actually, the one thing there's now a glut of at the beleaguered supermarket's many outlets is bananas ... but these fruits don't keep well of course, so they're being given away before they rot. 

Ditto for sliced bread, hotdog rolls, and hamburger buns.

Bread Alone:

Obviously, emptied stores and wasted produce isn't a business model that can be maintained for very long, and, albeit the filthy rich and fighting Demoulas may be used to operating well amidst chronic stress and strife, by week three of the standoff it's becoming perfectly clear this isn't a family quarrel either side will win.

Their business is at a virtual standstill. Their customers are practically nil. Their paid employees are picketing.

All that has to happen now to seal their corporate doom is that the national news agencies catch wind of all this...

E.R.

FORSAKEN: Michelle Knight needs our support

Please welcome back MICHELLE KNIGHT and lend her your support

It takes character and courage to endure the severe abuses that the Cleveland Captives were subjected to each and every day without interruption for a decade.

 

Of those three women, Ms. Knight suffered the longest and received the harshest treatment during her brutal confinement in the heart of Cleveland Ohio, where she wasn't even acknowledged by authorities to be missing.

The Cleveland house of horrors is a sensational story of sadism and survival, but what we know about this disturbing matter at the moment, only days since the victims' liberation, will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg. It is not just a juicy headliner; it is a case of unprecedented perversion and cruelty.

This we must consider too: Knight was not the first young woman the now-52-year-old pedophile and rapist Ariel Castro snatched -- she says there was already at least one other female imprisoned when she arrived at his dungeon at the age of 20, and who shortly thereafter "disappeared" without a word.

 

Investigators say they also found a woman's name written on one of the walls in the captor's basement, together with "Rest in peace."  Considering this phrase's common usage, and what the basement itself was used for, it's pretty easy to guess the meaning. 

 

And at Castro's hands, Michelle was not merely held against her will in bondage and repeatedly raped, either. She was starved and viciously beaten, sometimes punched in the stomach in order to abort a developing fetus.

 

In all, she believes she was impregnated by this demented psychopath five times, and five times she was compelled to abort a baby through this shockingly violent and life-threatening technique of his. Whilst at the same time being required to successfully midwife another captive's pregnancy, on threats of death should that infant have died during childbirth. 

 

Michelle Knight's tormentor additionally and routinely pummeled her head and face, and because of that she is now said to be hearing impaired and possibly even disfigured from the ordeal.

 

But, prior to the nightmare that unfolded once Michelle was abducted and placed in chains, she was also mistreated by police, social workers, her school system, and the courts, in a journey to hell that began at her high school with a rape that the Cleveland police refused to prosecute.

 

Not arresting her rapist, seizing custody of the baby once it was born, failing to investigate her disappearance, not discussing her miraculous reappearance this month, quietly trying to force her out onto the street...

 

The city of Cleveland is mum about Michelle Knight now because they know they owe this forsaken woman, that someday soon they'll be forced to pay up for all the neglect and disdain they've treated her with.

Contempt which was unmatched, by the way, until she had the misfortune of accepting a ride with a *friendly* neighbor in August 2002.

 

So, before you leave this site today, please take a moment to deliver Ms. Knight some much needed words of encouragement, either below as a comment or on the Facebook page which a kindly stranger has set up for that purpose.

 

This heroic but injured woman has no support system such as her younger co-prisoners obviously do, which is no doubt the reason why she promptly returned to the hospital upon being released. She therefore requires our care and compassion, or else she might perish, and in the process allow a sadistic predator a victory he doesn't deserve.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX

 

Steubenville Rape Scandal Broadens as Warrants to Search School are Issued

The Steubenville rape scandal is by no means over just because two convicted star players from Big Red's famed football team have begun serving their sentences.

As promised within only hours of the March verdict being read which pronounced both teens from the self-named "Rape Crew" guilty of sexual asault and other offenses, the Ohio state attorney general has continued his probe into the exact circumstances that led to an under-aged girl's drugging and prolonged attack in the summer of 2012.

 

As part of that ongoing investigation, a grand jury was convened on April 15th this year, immediately followed up by the issuance of search warrants to seize computers and electronic documents from the Steubenville City School district and its various school board members.

 

Boxes of paperwork and other physical proofs were additionally removed from the premises this past Thursday, in an inquery that's bound to extend far beyond merely identifying the students and parents who knew of and/or witnessed the girl's assault and failed to report it, but to those school officials who thereafter may have been involved in an active cover up.

 

The fact that a computer forensics firm was also said to have been served search warrants may imply the degree to which such illegal concealment was actually carried. Spokespersons for that company refused to answer repeated requests by reporters for them to elaborate on what police were looking for at their facility. 

 

In response to inquiries concerning the search of school grounds and offices, Steubenville's Board of Education said that: "Steubenville City Schools was issued a search warrant by the Ohio Attorney General's Office on Thursday, April 25, 2013. We have been from the beginning, and are continuing, to fully cooperate with authorities in this investigation."

 

But only time will tell whether this is a true or false statement.

 

The grand jury is scheduled to begin hearing testimony in the Steubenville rape scandal on April 30th. It is estimated that approximately 40 citizens so far can expect to be summoned to testify and submit to the jury's questioning.

 

For a town with a population of just slightly over 18,000, that's a lot of potential perps per capita. Will Big Red's illustrious coach, Reno Saccoccia, be one of them?  Read my predictions HERE.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX

 

The "Sunil Tripathi is Missing" Hype

When there are so many young men whose suspicious disappearances aren't being investigated, why the costly hunt for a suicidal college-dropout who's made it clear to his wealthy family he doesn't want to be found...?

 

The beguiling 'Find Sunil Tripathi' Facebook campaign that instantly transformed a mundane family melodrama into a major missing-persons saga not only showcases the value of mastering social media, but also the disparity in the way rich and poor are treated by the press and police agencies.

 

To wit: From the start, 22-year-old Sunny Tripathi, the son of a wealthy software CEO, has been shrewdly marketed by his tech-savvy family as a "missing Brown student" who mysteriously vanished one brisk March morning while strolling his college campus.

 

In reality, however, this young man isn't missing, per se, and he's not a student at Brown University either...read more