A Puzzle For Those Who Could Lose Their Homes In This Crisis

[anthropositor]

Both Itchychick and myself have been making inquiries of our respective governments, with regard to the international shipment of a cooking herb/green food, Shmooo. 

We each got different and conflicting answers from different officials.  The bottom line is that neither country is at all clear about what may happen with the shipment. 

I am taking the additional precaution of assembling the shipment with my signed statement of the content and that it is a food and known not to be proscribed by either country as contraband.  I will put the package together under the watchful eye of a government agent.  This may, or may not, be enough, depending on the individual officials the package encounters in its' transit to its' destination.

I have also labeled it as a research sample, without an established value, since the product is not being sold at this time.  The purpose is to determine the versatility of the Shmooo, in its' dried form, as a regular constituent of the diet.  In other words, it should be duty free to the recipient.  We shall see.

[itchychick]

Indeed we shall!

I will be needing some recipes, anthro!

[anthropositor]

Okay, I'll talk about this over in the Nutrition subsecrion on the Maca and Shmooo thread.

[anthropositor]

With regard to the fight over the home we have been purchasing for over eight years, it is far from over just because I was able to stop the ten day eviction order from being carried out. 

The sellers have lost a big part of their element of surprise.  I too have lost some of my surprise.  The sellers have now found out that I was a little more equipped to defend myself than they expected.  But it would be a dangerous dream to think that this will be the end of it. 

Whatever move they make next, it will take months rather than days for their actions to carry force.  I must be prepared to neutralize what I presume will be their next strong move, finding a reason to call our contract due and payable in sixty days due to what they hold to be breach of contract, even if it has no merit at law.  That will necessitate a court battle which my opponents will probably be better able to afford than I.

What should I be doing to prepare?

In chess terms, it is my opponent's move, and I don't yet know what he will do.  That does not mean that I should just sit and wait.  I should try to anticipate the strongest, most dangerous moves that might be made, and fend those moves off, to whatever extent I can.  In chess the moves alternate between the two players.  But if you don't use the time it takes your opponent to move, making constructive anticipations of what may happen, you will very likely loose the game.  All I have done so far has been to parry a surprise attack and begin to position my pieces effectively.

So, to put it in another way, at this point we have two avenues to pursue; What are they most likely to do next?  And what should I be doing to improve my defensive posture, to best negate the threats?

The same sort of thing that is happening to my wife and myself, leaving aside the specific details, is happening to millions of people in the United States alone. 

A great many renters are being evicted from their homes right now, not because they are in arrears on their rent, but because their landlord defaulted on their payments to a bank and the bank foreclosed.  Our convoluted legal system provides these renters with no reliable remedy. 

And meanwhile, although our legislators do a lot of talking about not allowing Golden Parachutes and multibillion dollar bonuses for the executives of failed banks and mortgage institutions and stock brokers, no one is saying anything about retroactivity. 

Our elected leadership was stampeded into enacting the big bailout, and they will continue galloping toward the economic abyss, with the subsidiary bailouts that are lining up in the immediate near future. 

On the good side, a sudden cataclysmic economic meltdown of the sort which occurred during the Great Depression was partially averted, but we don't know for how long.  That initial $700,000,000,000 may have only provided us with a short interlude of imaginary safety, and nothing more.

Will our justice system be up to the task of providing real equity and protection?  I doubt it.

The risks that I and millions of others now face are not just abstract.  They are very real.  There is not only the loss of shelter.  There is also a lowering of  the prospect for real justice and equity from the system which should be protecting us all, rather than the affluent few.

Platitudes and wishful thinking will not change this.  We must fight, as our only option, even when the deck seems to be stacked against us. 

We do not often get to decide when we will fight, or where.  But many of the recently homeless have not felt that they had any chance at all even if they did fight.  Almost all of them were simply forced into the streets. 

It is clear that the courts DO favor the powerful over the plebian.  Not just in the U.S.  Virtually everywhere. 

If we look at the Great Depression, our justice system was corrupted and degraded by organized crime and the fortunes that were amassed by the criminals and their bought-and-paid-for allies in law enforcement and the courts.

Any new ideas?
Great economic upheaval tips the scales of justice to favor the wealthy and influential over those undergoing economic hardships.

[anthropositor]

Nothing new (that I know of) has happened since my response to the sellers.  This is not a time for complacency.  It is a time for ever greater diligence.

I know I am not the only one that this sort of thing is happening to.  Don't let the predators get away with it!  Don't even be surprised or offended that they do it.  I got plenty of indicators that they were up to no good, from the original sale on.

We are in a Depression folks, and not just in the U.S.  What is happening to the worlds economies was due to the actions of a great many bankers, brokers, lobbyists, speculators, legislators, judges and other carpetbaggers.  Tens of thousands of them. 

And most of the CEO's and company officers got clean away with the crime, keeping vast fortunes in bonuses given even as their companies collapsed in ruin.

Within days of the election, a Senator was convicted of seven felonies, totaling about a quarter of a million dollars.  His constituents promptly re-elected him.  If there is any government on Earth not permeated with corruption and intrigue, I would like someone to tell me where it is!

Good Luck Mr. President Elect.

Such injustice foments revolution insidiously by sowing a seething discontent in the disenfranchised public, even as they grow explosively in numbers.

[itchychick]

I'm back tracking about halfway back on this thread to the brief discussion on advertising by drug companies and lawyers.

I asked hubby about the differences between Canadian and American advertising practises (due to the nature of his work, he has significant knowledge of the laws concerning pharmaceuticals).  In Canada, there is legislation which prohibits the advertisement of any specific  drug for a medical condition.   Companies cannot say "Lipitor reduces cholesterol" or "Try Viagra for erectile dysfunction".  All that can be said is "if you suffer from high cholesterol, see your doctor" etc.   Having said that, we do get a lot of American stations here, and so we do see some American advertising.

As for lawyers, they are not permitted to work on contingency, so we don't get any ambulance chasers advertising that they only get paid if they win for you in court.  There is one ad right now for a firm that specializes in tax law, but that's the only ad for a Canadian law firm that come to mind - ever.... 

[anthropositor]

I suspect that I could get very fond of Canada if I were to visit.  But it might be due to noticing the differences that I happened to favor.

It is nice that Canada has some limitations on medical advertising on TV.  What is to prevent a Canadian company from buying commercial time on the American stations, broadcast into Canada from the south?

There is much wrong with contingency fees for lawyers.  Even so, they can play an important role in providing an avenue to legal services for the impoverished and disenfranchised.

In the United States, legal representation is provided for the accused in a crime if they cannot afford a lawyer.  Such Public Defenders are often overburdened with work, tend to plea bargain at any opportunity, or have skills that might better be applied to less demanding work.

In civil matters, the situation is just as bad.  There are "legal aid" agencies, but they are only available after running a complex gauntlet of means testing and making an invasive and comprehensive inventory of all assets.  Many find they have just a little too much income or stuff to qualify for the service, but only after their privacy has been invaded.

Superficial appearances aside, reliable justice is not to be had for the poor in this country, without a large component of luck.

[anthropositor]

A process server came out on the 17th.  My wife was in the process of running him off.  I came running.  Took the papers he had for each of us.  I had already delayed service a few weeks because they had tried to serve me in an odd way, and I needed time to prepare and to extend the statutory time, but it is now in my interests to get this matter scheduled before a judge.

Anyone care to guess why?  You know folks, this same sort of thing could happen to you in virtually any country.  A little practice on how to fight such matters, particularly if you do not have the resources for a legal beagle to hold your hand, could make the difference between success and failure.

What kinds of things might you do to defend yourself against being ripped off for your home?  You must try a variety of things.  Bear in mind, each tactic you employ will not all work.  You have to expect that. 

In essense, what the lawyer did was make a demand for specific amounts of money fpr the seller and threatened to seize our property in two months if we do not pay the amounts she generated by some as yet unknown means.  She also suggested that my experimental gardens constituted a violation of state law. 

The structure of her paperwork showed that her own clients probably had not been entirely forthcoming with her.  If you are going to go up against me, it is a really good idea not to mislead, omit, or lie to your lawyer in any way.  Things are looking a shade less bleak. 

Next, annoying though being served papers may be, don't kill the messenger.  Make him your friend.  I did that with the process server, and he was so surprised at my behavior that I got some excellent information that I wouldn't otherwise have gotten.  But enough hints.  This is an exercise for you guys.  Call it a moot suit.  Like I teach my chess students, practice makes perfect, and actually playing the game does a hell of a lot more for your skills than just lurking while other people play. 

Look at how well Itchychick did.  But she is on a bit of a holiday for a little while to give some of you other people a chance.  Take advantage of it. 

[anthropositor]

In the last week, since Christmas day, I have initiated contact with both the patriarch and, separately, his son, the seller of our property.  I told him that with the discharge of his lawyer, we could hammer out a compromise agreeable tp all partoes.  He was cagey and noncommittal.  I suspect he took my offer as a sign of weakness.

In that, he was sorely mistaken.  I may be blind, but I am stronger than I have been in forty years.  I fear only that he has no notion how big a bite he has bitten off.  Having a brand new daughter, I have no taste for the battle, but once we engage, there shall be no quarter.  The expenses involved will cost me, in my estimation, an additional year of blindness.

Even with the good old boy network and their lawyer, they are no match for me.  I have made my offer for peace.  I will even repeat it one more time.  Then will come the counter attack.  Sounds like bravado doesn't it.  They do not know how annoyed I will be to lose another year of sight because they are so foolish to continue.

No more suggestion for folks to speculate about next moves.  The situation has become critical.  School is out.  Now I shall report each stage after it happens.  No overconfidence here.  I can easily lose the next round.  I am playing a powerful tag team.  But I won't be knocked out.  There will be an appeal of this round should go to them, by hook or crokk.  And they will know they have been in a fight.  I'll give them a few more days to decide.

[anthropositor]

Having given the patriarch father and the son an opportunity to bargain independantly with me and having waited a week or morw for the answer, and they having remained mute. O have retained a counsel of impecable credentials and capability from several counties away.  I did this, of course, because I heard from so many sources of the good old boy network in this area.

In the intervening weeks, I have laso heard a great many more spontaneous horror stories of instances of abused of their manyrenters.  I have heard of no other buyers like me so far, but certainly the potential profits for them if they prevail are many, many multiples of what they can get from any renters.

My lawyer has a considerably different style of waging battle than I do, but our fighting styles seem to me to be complimentary rather than contradictory. 

In other words, it turns out, we are totally sympatico.  Who would have guessed?  And all the idiot, scoundrel and good old boy lawyers I oreviously spoke to in this neighborhood were not a waste of time.  I now know who never to use for any purpose.  That can save me a lot of time in any future emergency.  Although, come to think of it, I now know who I will want to represent me in any future difficulty.  While nothing is for sure in southern courts, having an Atticus Finch at your side certainly doesn't hurt.

One might say, my recent spate of good fortune has just been blindingly excellent.  In thanks for this to the Spirit of Benevolence in the Univers, anyone who is up against it, out of work, hungry, or otherwise in a world of hurt, who finds a way to send me some postage and a penny per Shmooo seed will get some Shmooo seed with which to feed themselves and others.  Please though, grow the seeds and eat the plants.  And let some of the plants grow to maturity and go to seed, and spread the seeds to your friends.  Don't just eat the seeds I send you. 

Soon, I may not be writing for a while until I get at least one of my eyes fixed.  But even while I am unsighted, I will have people to help me with the sending out the seeds.  See the nutrition thread for more information.  No gardening experience required.  Simple instructions will come with the seeds. 

From whatever country in the world, no need to convert your money.  Just send whatever kind it is.  I'll honor it.  If your country is undergoing famine or other crisis, tell me.  Let's see what we can do.  As soon as you grow more than you need, feed the needy around you.  That will be nutrition for your soul.  I'm posting this now, wguke U still can, but it will not expire until I do.  And later, if you would let me know your experiences with Shmooo, that will make me very happy.

May peace be upon us all.
Anthropositor

                               

[anthropositor]

Now that I am represented by an attorney iseem to have somewhat less to do.  That is not entirely comfortable.  Currently it is the opponent's move.  All previous deadlines having been met, it appears we will wait until they make some new move.

This is not time to be wasted though.  I shall continue to brainstorm, to look at worst possible scenarios and sort out the best responses.  Many chess tactics and strategies have their counterparts at law.  Both chess and trials are adversarial by nature.

In this case, if it were to come to trial, it would be decided by a judge, not a jury.  There are things to consider about that.  The opponent has some advantage in deciding what court to file in.  Unless...

[Uncle Matt]

you take him to trial first?

[anthropositor]

Maybe.  A good speculation Matt.  That employs an offensive action pre-emptively for defensive purposes.  Any others?  Even future steps which can't yet be played are fair and useful to speculate on for the purposes of proper preparation.  Just like chess.

And as in chess, there are four major components of the battle:
TIME, FORCE, SPACE, STRUCTURE
To some extent, each of these elements can affect or even convert into one of the others.

But above and beyond all this is the spectrum of goals.  What do I want to do?  Why do I want to do it?  How badly do I feel injured or betrayed?  And exactly what part should that play in my decisions about what to do?  Are there lawful tactics which could be brought to bear which would encourage more ethical behavior on the part of my adversaries?  Or which would otherwise close avenues of harrassment.  This current battle might be won without closing off the possibilities for future abuses.

That's about it.  Got to go teach my Sunday afternoon Group chess class.

[anthropositor]

LG, you have made some excellent and valid points.  Of course. one of the initial steps I had to take care of was to determine with certainty that the title holders were one and the same as thpse tp whom I was making the property payments.  I determined that years ago, but that does not preclude them from making a clandestine transfer, and it might be rather complex and expensive to prove fraud complete with intent.  And that is not of interest to me anyway.  I simply want to assure that they can't steal the property back, along with the down payment and the nearly nine years of accumulated equity, something on the order of 40% of the contract price.  It may be the equivalent of Grand Theft, but as I understand it, the law as written could allow it.

Just in the past few weeks, I once again checked on the title holders.  No change. 

The issue now is that they have surely encumbered the property and I have no idea who the lenders are,  Nor am I likely to be able to force them to divulge the information without a court battle.  Whatever the merits of my position, and I think they are strongly in my favor, from an expense standpoint, my opponents have what would appear to be a considerable advantage from a purely financial perspective.  They can bury me with costs and drive me under, getting the property back by default if I can't continue to make my payments,  In other words, they don't even need to win in court to win.  They have the deep pockets.

Not only that, even if I am not driven under by expenses, even though they ccurrently have many multiples of my resources, that might not last.  Depressions are hard on people in the furniture business too.  That is why it is worth while for me to be active in seeking a lender to pay off the loan.  That is probably the only way to be safe from these people, sad tp say.

I haven't really done any brainstorming with my lawyer, other than the first discussion over lunch and a short phone call.  Other than the outline of what I hope to accomplish other than just the immediate goal of hanging on to our home for now.  We need to secure it against future predations of the sort we have been experiencing.

For me, the central reason to have a lawyer is that he is much more familiar with all the traps and trappings of the legal system and the courts.  In other words, if you get a lawyer, let him carry the ball.  See what he does.  Don't mocromanage.  See what kind of gameplan evolves.  Don't become a bumbling runaway client.  Any other strategies and tactics not involving the courts still need to be fully discussed with your advocate.  I have two such avenues in mind, but for now, I will just watch and wait, playing purely defensively.  I must admit though, my offers to sit down to settle this matter without lawyers, made twice between Christmas and New Years bot being accepted or even responded to, does give me a strong indicator of their continuing intentions.

At the moment, the ball is in their court and they are letting the clock run.  A time for waiting, watching, planning.  Just like chess.

[LIGA girl]

I had read some pf your recent posts on this thread Anthro and was going to make a post but was not sure of the details. You must be referring to my much earlier post re garding encumbering the property etc. I am curious about what your lawyers tactics are as you dont say. I think you are wise to get a legal rep who, as you say, knows the courts and the time frames involved and can use them tactically. A really clever lawyer can also come up with an innovative legal argument but I am not sure of the issues you are going to court over here. Maybe I just havent read it closely enough .....

[anthropositor]

Framkly, I am guarding against micromanaging.  This proves difficult for me.

Of course, being almost blind is helpful.  It keeps me out of the law books, which are all fine print.  Even on the computer, with larger copy, reading is now very slow and I need to stack monocles to read at all.  But I did get the extra two years of usable sight out of my monocle experiments.  They were certainly worth it, in spite of the fact that the ophthalmological world has not the slightest interest in any innovation which does not come from within.

If they didn't have me by the (eye) balls I would be inclined to avoid their services, just based on attitude and virtually complete innaccessibility and an apparent refusal to discuss any alternate ideas at all.

Can't blame the physicians entirely though.  It is partly the public letting them get away with it, and the way the system has evolved legally and the entanglements with the insurance system and the government morrass of regulation.  But I am crossthreading.

Back to the property.  The big reason for me to use a lawyer is to get innovative ideas that I might have missed myself.  Also, avoiding spending my time sorting the irregularities built into the legal system, and focus on the other tactics which can also have a bearing on my opponent's willingness to continue the battle in wnich even a win could cost them far more than they anticipated.

But such thoughts are worst possible scenario, in which all parties lose.  I doubt that they even know how many ways they have already lost in terms of their business and general good will.  When people bahave with such evil and avarice, it can come back to haunt them.

If they have not yet recognized how formidable I can be, and wish to continue this battle, they will learn the hard way after I get one of the eyes fixed.  That is my only real handicap at the moment.

My opponents have three handicaps which are less easy to reverse.  Greed, stupidity and overconfidence.  Who knows? maybe their lawyer will give them some idea what they might be in for, if she is bright enough.  I see no indicators of that so far.   

[anthropositor]

Even under ordinary circumstances I have a bit of a tendency to cross thread my comments. I had a recent additional incident of skullduggery which I know I mentioned somewhere, but I don't know where.  It is a pretty serious issue though, and this is where it belongs.  Now I am too blind to see what I type.  I just set for bold copy, so I may be able to read it after I post it.  Unfortunantely, it does no good while I'm typing.  The bold doesn't really show up until after posting.

Over the weekend, when I was away teaching a group chess class, one of my last two dogs, Sox, had his leather collar cut and was missing.  He did not return as he would have if he could have.  He has either been killed or stolen.  If it was another move to discourage me from living here any more, it is another indicator of the lengths the sellers will go to to get the property back.  I have carefully walked the close surrounding acres, where the carcass would have been found if this was an act of terrorism.  Although it has been very cold, my nose is very good and I have not gotten a whiff of deadness.  I am really anxious to know for sure.  Sox was the best of his litter.  I will walk the ground again in a few more days.  On Monday, I talked to the Police Chief.  He says they will be keeping a closer eye on the place, but as crimes go around here, the stealing or murder of a dog probably doesn't amount to a big deal.  I really hope he was stolen.

I think the sellers may have gotten some word from their lawyer that it is going to be an uphill battle to wrestle my property away from me, and that perhaps the should not set their sights on winning.  I have a call into my lawyer to tell him of this new development, and to tell him of the new battle with St. Mary's regional Medical Center which they just launched.  I expect I'll say more about that over on the ongoing Anthropositor Hires A Surgeon Thread.  Unfortunately the Medical Center has been purchased by a huge conglomerate that is apparently eating up hospitals across the country, so it is not just a matter of confronting the head of the hospital.  Lawyers in a distant state will be making the decision (as to whether they will allow me to have my eye operations  wideo recorded.  I have already heard that this arbitrary decision is based on "risk management."  That does not mean that making the recordings is dangerous to the patient in any way.  The equipment was specifically designed to do this routinely.

No, what their concern is, in a surgical mishap, such a recording could conceivably wind up as evidence in court.  And my guess is that even if I voluntarily agree in writing that any such recording could not be used in an evidenciary manner, the distant anonymous lawyers will not budge.  This sort of legal evil can very easily spread from this medical conglomerate until no clinic or hospital  will allow recording of operations which has been going on routinely for many years.  This is not a matter of law folks.  It is an evil policy forced on the public by a powerful private company.  And it is in part caused by a whole industry of ambulance chasing predatory attorneys bringing frivolous lawsuits, and winning becausethe medical corporations and insurance providers just "settle" based on a seemingly pragmatic assessment of comparative risk.  And that is how our rights as patients just disappear. 

As has become quite obvious in this past five months, the government and corporate ruling systems which govern us are rotten to the core.  And everyone is angry, frustrated and scared out of their wits about what is happening, but nobody is fighting back.  Those who do are just regarded as crackpots.  Those who do fight generally have to go it alone.  And that's how our rights become so eroded as time goes on. 

I am a reasonably careful touch typist but there are probably a few errors above.  I'll probably be able to see them when this gets posted in bold print, but I may have to just leave them that way.  Too bad Ichabod is no longer around to help.   

[anthropositor]

I have now stacked two monocles for a little additional acuity, so no more bold print for the moment.

New news on my missing dog Sox.  Although I talked to the Police Chief last week about it, without filing a crime report, the week went by with no further information about my missing dog.  Now, this weekend, while out hunting for his body in the surrounding area, and asking people about it, I found a witness who watched as a police officer and an animal control person enticed the dog into a cage with bait after a considerable time.  It is difficult to understand why I was not informed about this when I talked to the Police Chief, why he did not check into it further and inform me of the action, and why no notice of the action was posted on my door, so that I could keep my dog from being executed.  I have no sure information at this time that Sox is still alive.  Since it is the weekend, I have not yet been able to talk to the Chief, animal control, or my attorney.  Apparently, the seller of my house and his father, my current next door neighbor, and the central complainant, is as well connected as everyone seems to think he is. 

I made a police report.  An officer came out and took the collar, which had been cut by a sharp instrument, perhaps a hunting knife.  I pointed out to the officer that it certainly wasn't chewed.  And since I had checked the collar before going off to teach chess lessons, I know with certainty that there is no way that Sox could have made those cuts.  There were no puncture marks at all on the collar.  I asked the officer his opinion.  He said, "I'm not going to say."  Southern fried justice?  Maybe a change in venue is in order, or an outside police agency should take a look.  Just a lot of odd things.

[itchychick]

If your neighbour is responsible, that is low indeed...

[anthropositor]

Almost five months since this battle began.  We are still in the house.  No guarantees, but things are looking pretty good.  Still have to fight the ticket for the two puppies not being leashed, but I will use the opportunity to further publicize what has been happening.  I suspect my adversaries are starting to hear some feedback from the public about what they have been doing.  Their lawyer has been quiet as a church mouse for the past few months.

It looks like I will have to take the fight to them.  I am generating some ideas which I hope to implement in a few months.