Racketeering or Certification 6: Defamation Is The Only Product BAN Sells

The 2019 Certification or Racketeering series of blogs began about Total Reclaim of Seattle.  Craig Lorch and Jeff Zirkle were sentenced last week on their fraud case.  I offered to fly in to testify, and sent them a letter for the judge, to make the case (as in the blog) that the executives at Total Reclaim had been told by BAN that 80% of recyclers were shipping 80% of goods overseas, where 100% percent were smashed by hands in primitive conditions. As I testified at Brundage's sentencing hearing in Chicago, those were false claims.

• BAN begins by defaming the Tech Sector overseas, with wild hallucinatory descriptions of thousands of orphans in rice paddies beating electronics with hammers. 
• BAN creates a lie about the Basel Convention having been "amended" to criminalize legal exports (reuse, repair and recycling are ALL legal under the actual Basel Convention, not just "tested working")
• BAN then defames those who (like yours truly) question or rebut the initial defamation, or correct information they give about the Basel treaty.
• BAN defames the companies who don't pay tribute through E-Stewards certification, and defames the alternative certifications.
• If the companies like Intercon or Total Reclaim threaten to withdraw from BAN, or defend themselves (Total Reclaim exported far less than 10% of the material they received), BAN's enforcement is to defame them.

Essentially, defamation and slander are BAN's only product. And at its root, the initial domino of defamation - of people in faraway geographies beating LCDs and CRTs with hammers - is a fake statistic. BAN is the most ruthless in attacking anyone who questions their credentials.

What percentage of what Total Reclaim exported became "waste"? Was that the source of the corporate profits? Or were those profits, and the repeated purchse of flat screens from Asians, evidence that the exports were likely NOT WASTED?  How does the Department of Justice conflate fraud, profit, and mercury to poison our minds with racist assumptions about Asia's Tech Sector when there is no evidence that the goods were dumped?  The crime Total Reclaim execs pled guilty to was lying about the export, not knowing the goods were dumped or that the buyers were poisoned.

It's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Certification and Racketeering: Part 2 The Guardian Deceit

Definition:   RACKETEERS OFFER A DECEITFUL SERVICE TO FIX A PROBLEM THAT OTHERWISE WOULDN'T EXIST.

"We don't want to have to go after you." - JP to yours truly during California Compromise negotiations in 2010.

"I'm not hiding anything, and don't think much of your threats" - My response.

Basel Action Network "goes after" people through the press. This week, The Guardian's environmental desk proves just how easy that is.  Sandra Laville's headline "UK worst offender in Europe for electronic waste exports - report" diligently puts out the hit, failing to interview a single African or Asian technician or importer.

Free Joe "Hurricane" Benson, much?

Mistaking Africa's Tech Sector (importers) for Africa's Scrap Sector (city wheelbarrow scrap collectors) is like mistaking a surgeon for a janitor because he's black.  The only proof BAN provides is a photo of a janitor.  

There are several other really really simple things to find on the internet which should have given The Guardian's editors pause. I'll tick them off briefly, but stick to the point. BAN has created a problem that wouldn't otherwise exist (false reporting, sabotaged equipment, fake statistics) for the purpose of generating millions of dollars from BAN E-Stewards. BAN not only threatens companies that don't pay them, but makes examples out of those of us who defend the Geeks of Color. It is the valedictorians in the Tech Sector who suffer the worst consequences of BAN's sabotage.

BAN doesn't just sabotage their equipment. It sabotages their reputation, and the reputation of anyone with the courage to trade with them, rather than boycott them. (In Part III, we'll look at who finances this sabotage).