Here is an interesting letter I received recently,
http://www.bradkingcommunications.com/pdf/WSJReprint.pdf is an old Wall Street Journal article about Eagle Point Golf Club.
An explanation of what is going on here can be found in my lengthy response to the president of one of the most exclusive golf clubs in America.
The following is my response in it’s entirety –
December 1, 2011
Dear Mr. Armfield,
Thank you for the apology. I can forgive you for those acts if you let me get this off my chest, which I thank you for in advance.
People wonder why I get so fervent on the issue of the rhetoric against Jews. I have been asked why I don’t “just let it go” and why I “can’t to stop holding a candle to the issue”.
My best explanation is that growing up Jewish in the generation following just one of many concentrated efforts to exterminate the Jewish race, my elders understandably warned me that people are intolerant of my race by showing me their Nazi branded bar-code identification tattoos. Survivors looked into my young Jewish eyes and genuinely conveyed the importance of defending my race and to scream bloody murder when confronted with the beast of intolerance, regardless of the form. I have lived in five states in our nation and the racial rhetoric in North Carolina is by far the strongest. The form of racial intolerance I witnessed from you was scary, but when I take a deep breath and collect my thoughts, I know you are smart, cool, and genuinely likable, and it is not a foundation of your character.
I forgive that language when an apology is offered (and often when apology is not offered) for I know that I am not perfect and I don’t have enough feet to shove in my mouth. I accept your apology, I too am sorry for any over-reactions on the racial topic.
It is an impressive gesture to owning up that you upset someone. Unfortunately, it was not the “Jewish” slants coming from you and your club that are so offensive. It is some very basic economic truths (misgivings) that had me turning my back on your club in 2006 (2 years before the big economic meltdown), and screaming for help. I literally screamed for help by sending mass e-mails school wide about your club and how corrupt it is and how it is a giant shining example of the economic disparity our nation faces. I took a big risk turning my back on you, your members like Erskine Bowles who is currently on Debt Super-committee, John Mack who is Morgan Stanley, and frequent guests like Senator Richard Burr and George Allen of Virginia, the SCAPS crew, etc, etc.
Hopefully you and your members are slowly realizing that the masses are correct. I think you are realizing that all is not constitutional when examined a little closer. Hopefully you are realizing that we can do way better as a country. I am telling you this because in this vacuum of constitutional reign, your club members are those who have garnered the power. There isn’t a higher authority than you in the physical realm. Somehow, you have garnered the money and power. So let’s start working together to figure out why the masses of people (who many are facing some serious problems at the moment) and I are so offended. Don’t be daunted or burdened, be excited for our Democracy can work, we just need to fix it. If those in power continue their network of greed and have only their own selfish gains in mind and not that of the whole society, we will fall as a nation.
Judging is something I, like Christians, try to stay away from, but patriotic duty calls me. I am not religious, but I felt like God put me in the juxtaposed positions of teaching high school United States civics & economics for the last five years and tending bar at your club for the three years prior. Let me remind you that your club is Supreme here on planet Earth. Having taught public high school civics & economics for the last five years while having worked as bartender at your club puts me in the position to the make this call. The contrast of teaching civics and tending bar at the club was a stark irony which would lead any rational person to fear and civic action. Over my five years teaching public schools, I saw constant pay cuts and my classes swelled from 26 kids in a class to 42 kids in a class, all while trying to instill faith in values & principles of American democracy in the economic, legal, and political standards we up hold as a nation. Experiencing this after what I witnessed at your club as a bartender and locker room boy for three years put me into a severe state of internal conflict.
Patriotic duty to help fix what is wrong with America besides sitting on a street corner holding a sign is what drives my actions. The most effective thing I can think to do to help my country is spread awareness that Eagle Point Golf Club, which you are president of, is one giant shining example of what is wrong with America. It does not require even a bachelor’s degree in American politics, law, or economics to figure this out. I would rather heal as a nation and see productive and fair systems put in place than take a payout to shut up and wistfully stand by as this mess is perpetuated.
If I have to choose bartender/golf club ethics over United States Patriotic Duty, I choose United States Patriotic Duty. I admit it was very rude for me to communicate to you that “for every time I heard anyone blame the current economic/political catastrophes on the Jews, I was going to call you or your club and let you know about it, because I know damn well how much Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, NC is one giant shining example of what is wrong with America”. I am 38 years old and I have not committed such juvenile, borderline criminal/psychopathic activity since I was about my son’s age (6). I was driven to making shopped cartoons of you, John Mack, Richard Burr, and Hitler.
Driven to analyze the American financial crisis situation relentlessly, I am convinced that if we fix simple issues like transparency to you, John Mack (your club founder and former CEO of TARP 8 bailout taker Morgan Stanley), and the many other people I could fling nasty accusations about at your club, then we can fix the problems of the country. Also, I wish you & your club members had a sense of national community, honor in meritocracy, patriotism for your country instead of making efforts to move your factories elsewhere, shore up money tax-free elsewhere, and lobbying for public money even when your community public schools and other basic services deteriorate, etc. John Mack and your gang have perfected the art of socializing risk while privatizing profit. To prove this, all one needs to do is look at the U.S. Census Bureau’s report on Federal Grants in Aid to the States.
Federal Grant in Aid Data – http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/fas.html
EPGC’s banking and congressional cronies have funneled more money away from tax-payer money than many states receive for Roads, Schools, bridges, lights, etc. How did we get to this? How can your founder John Mack and his bank be of more importance than a state in the Union? When states get money from federal government to help with roads and schools, there are tight restrictions on how the money is used and how related policies are implemented. When you get taxpayer money, not only are there no restrictions, it is hidden who actually receives the money. This is called the shadow budget. When you are walking away with taxpayer money, you reinvest some to keep things non-transparent, then fuel a lifestyle that is inappropriate in our national community and times. How many uneducated college dropouts are working your exclusive golf course right now so that four people can golf all day? I bet you have a staff of 20 groundskeepers in morning (whose citizenship legality is certain to be an issue), 4 administrators, a bunch of pro shop guys, two cooks, a server, a locker room guy, two cleaning girls and 2 players all day. I worked there, I know the waste.
More disturbing than intolerant racial comments about Jews, is your club members preaching of their “American Republican” values. You extreme conservative American Republicans (you and your members) have polluted the word socialism. Public school is a socialist undertaking. Because it is socialist, you want to get rid of it. You have proven that you are so greedy that you would even let public schools go to bolster your coffers. Your extreme use of the word socialism by the right to scare off left policy is ridiculous. Every policy in America is neither purely capitalist or purely socialist. Every policy takes a balance of private and public intellect for policy to work. Your extreme attitudes of garnering wealth and manipulating legislation to help garner wealth is socialist and for you to claim conservative, American morals and values is ridiculous. I would like to think we could manage to have a free enterprise system that is so strong we could provide for public education as well.
After 2008, other people began to see the waste and manipulation by you guys, . So I started passing out these fliers to spread awareness that there is money for the nation, it’s just that you and your cronies are running away with it all. I did not fabricate this, you and your cronies have hijacked the Federal Reserve. The Fed. Congrats. Here is one article by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone explaining it better than I can. (there are many similar articles by many publishers)
I put this nice picture from Matt Taibbi’s article on the back of a later edition of protest fliers.
How can I get $250,000,000 business loan with a Japanese Massage Certificate as my qualifications?
There are people in your same community who received good grades in college, have productive ideas, like to serve the public, but can’t because there is not enough money in the budget for teachers and other public service workers. Classes have swelled to 42 kids in a class in the state that already pays near the bottom of the national scale to teachers and other public service workers. Even in the private sector, potentially great innovative businesses are non-existent because they can’t get loans. Entire business entities don’t exist so you can have your four golf clubs, half million dollars of yacht fuel for one trip and bottles of $300 French wine. Great leadership and reinvestment in your local & national community (that’s sarcasm). Wilmington does not even have a recreation center or a pool to teach kids how to swim in a seaside community so they don’t drown. You have invested millions in this course so a few fat old cats can play golf at the beach twice a year. Maybe some of this can help your fraction of the One Percent understand why the rest are so pissed. Also, I put my work ethic up against any of you who think going to a golf course on a weekday for five hours and making agreements that can be done by phone is work. Also, I offer to put my debate skills against any of your political/banking cronies I have seen at the club like Richard Burr, George Allen, Erskine Bowles, John Mack, etc. In fact, I know a few public high school students in tenth grade who could debate American Civics and Economics issues better than you.
Point is sir, it is time for you and your cronies who are in control to relinquish control back to the citizens and let representative democracy do it’s thing with transparency. Since I began writing this letter, it has come to light that despite enormous effort by your club members to keep things quiet, fed documents revealed that $7.7 trillion ($7,700,000,000,000) was secretly given to the tarp 8 banks instead of the aforementioned $660 billion . Eagle Point is a direct recipient channel of TARP money because your founding member is John Mack of Morgan Stanley. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html
As the truth gets revealed more and more, and time passes a little, 20/20 vision starts to kick in. To many people, it is very clear that your club and their members represent a very unpatriotic, criminal way of doing things. I heard these very words at your club, “you are judged by those you hang around with”. You sir, are not only “hanging around” with the largest criminals of United States history (John Mack of Morgan Stanley is just one), you are partners with him, making more money with your private and exclusive golf club known as Eagle Point. Anyone working or belonging to the club should be ashamed and do their patriotic duty to leave the criminal establishment.
Now that we know it was $7.7 trillion instead of $660 billion, my earlier protest point that “Eagle Point Golf Club is taxpayer owned and the public should go ahead and play” is more relevant than before. What else is going to be “uncovered”?
As Martin Luther King Junior once said, “we can live together as brothers and sisters, or we can perish together as fools.”
That is not all I could rant about, but I feel it is a fair dose to get off my chest. Thanks for reading, if you did, and I fully accept your apology.
Genuinely,
Alan Sandrin
Update – 10/24/2012 – Eagle Point Member offs himself while high on cocaine – http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20121023/ARTICLES/121029904/1177?Title=Drowning-victim-under-influence-of-alcohol-and-cocaine&tc=ar
bigaltheterp 