Commentary On Politics - Written by Emil Scheller

A Journey Through Four Score Years

2018-08-06T18:26:00.000-04:00

A Journey Through Four Score Years

A Birdseye View of the World from the Nazis' Annexation of Austria to the Vicissitudes of American Corporate Life and the Tragedies and Struggles of Family and Friends

I have not posted to this blog since 2015, because I was discouraged by the lack of responsiveness by my subscribers.

Much water has passed under the bridge since then, not least the emergence of Donald Trump. But that is not the purview of this posting.

I have led an extremely interesting life, beginning in poverty, surviving the Nazis, and going on to a successful and adventurous life.

Wanting to share this story with as many as possible, I have taken the time to write and publish my memoirs under the title shown above.

A short synopsis follows:

A Journey Through Four Score Years isn’t just about the author’s family, or even about the author’s encounter with the Nazis. It examines his whole life, including the way he met his wife, and their unusual courtship.

The book covers McCarthyism, the anti-Semitism the author faced, and his struggles for recognition in his work.

At least as interesting are some of the stories of the people he crossed paths with along the way, including the wealthy and prominent family he met through his wife and their fabulous homes and parties.

The author’s experiences in Japan when he visited his employer’s distributor there is a fascinating tale, as is a plane trip to Tikal in Guatemala.

But there are dark parts too. His cousin’s bipolar disorder and her subsequent death.

The author’s brother’s sad life, the outrageous behavior of his wife’s parents and relatives, particularly a prominent sibling.

His brother’s disastrous tour of duty in the army and how political connections may have saved his life.

His uncle’s struggles with his sick son and their attempted suicide.

A summation could go on and on, but there is no substitute for the reading the book, which is enriched with footnotes and endnotes.

The print edition is fine, but the electronic one makes it easier to access footnotes and particularly URLs. It is also cheaper.

The book is available in a print edition from Barnes and Noble for $21.03 and from Amazon in a Kindle Electronic Edition for $9.50 and a print edition for $21.03.

Comments from readers will be much appreciated.

Planned Parenthood

2015-07-21T11:35:00.000-04:00

It continues to be my intention to stop blogging and turn my attention to other things, but when I have a sense of outrage I have to speak out. The continued outrageous and unjustified attacks on Planned Parenthood fits into that category.

There is only one way to respond:

Support Planned Parenthood by giving as much as you can.

You can do so by going to their site and giving monthly, which is best, or giving just once, or both.

As for me I have been giving to Planned Parenthood on an annual basis since 2002 and on a monthly basis since October 2013. In addition to my continuing monthly contribution I just gave an additional amount as a way of expressing my outrage on the latest attack. You need to do so also.

You need to do more. Circulate this post to all your friends and acquaintances.

Why should men care? If they know a women they care about, be it a daughter, a wife, a sister or a female friend, they should care. Besides, men are effected by unplanned for children as much as women are.

The enemies of Planned Parenthood want us to believe that it is all about abortion services, and yes, it is in part. Yes, it is about the right to chose. But what its enemies don’t want us to know is that abortion services is a very small portion of what Planned Parenthood does. It represents 3% of its total expenditures. See here and here.

70% of its expenditures go for sexually transmitted diseases/infections testing and treatment and contraceptive services. But its enemies are as much against contraception as they are against abortion.

But it does so much more!!! It gives pre-natal care so that we can have healthier babies. It does cancer screening.

If we did not have Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by Margaret Sanger and Ethel Byrne in 1916, we would have to invent it.

What is the latest contretemps about? It is about providing body parts from the remains of dead fetuses that support lifesaving scientific research. I find nothing shocking about that!!!!! I, long ago, made out the necessary forms so that upon my death my body parts should be harvested and used to save other people’s lives. The US Department of Health & Human Services devotes a website to the subject.

Selling body parts is illegal, but recouping expenses, which is what Planned Parenthood asks for, is permissible and necessary.

According to the Department of Health & Human Services, 122,720 people are waiting for an organ, 22 people will die each day waiting for an organ, One organ donor can save up to eight lives.

The scandal to me is that the burden is on people to opt in, and not enough opt in. It ought to be the rule that organs can be used, with the right to opt out. If you haven’t opted in please do so! To find out how go here on the web.

As for Organ and Tissue Donation for Research you can find out more about it here.

The attacks on Planned Parenthood and the entrapment and distortions and misrepresentations are reprehensible - not what Planned Parenthood does.

Please don’t delay! Give to Planned Parenthood today!!!

Get your friends and acquaintances to do the same.

Hillary Clinton

On a slightly different, but related note, I want to share a statement made today by Hillary Clinton. I quote:

When Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, and 97 other brave women and men signed their names to the Declaration of Sentiments in Seneca Falls 167 years ago today, they sparked a movement that altered the course of history.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” they wrote, “that all men and women are created equal.” All men and women -- incredible how just two words could change millions of lives.

We cannot forget the heroes who went to jail and even died to give women the right to vote, earn and keep wages, own property, serve in the military, and hold elected office. We owe it to our daughters and granddaughters to continue the march of progress in America and around the world.

I've been fighting for these ideals for my entire career -- and I want to take that fight all the way to the White House. Will you stand with me?

We must keep fighting for equal pay, especially for women of color, who often lose out the most. We must fight for equal access to good jobs, good health care, and good child care, for the rights of women to make our own reproductive health decisions, and to make sure that every little girl in America can be anything she wants when she grows up -- even President of the United States.

The full participation of women and girls in our society is more than an issue of fairness; it’s also a smart way to grow our economy. When women aren’t paid fairly, families lose out on thousands of dollars every year that could go toward paying for groceries or rent, saving for retirement, or sending a child to college. When we fight for equality, we fight for a better future for all of our children.

Sign your name here: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/declaration-of-equality/ to declare your support for equality and pledge to redouble our efforts to finish the work that began in Seneca Falls.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

The Clown joins the Circus

2015-06-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

In my last post “Intolerance over the Ages” I said: “It is time for me to take a sabbatical again as the preparation and timing of these posts take an inordinate amount of time away from other projects that interest me” but much as I plan to stop posting events occur that make me feel compelled to speak out.

This has now occurred with the announcement of the candidacy for President of Donald Trump and a Letter to the Editor that appeared in the North Jersey newspaper, The Record, which raised my hackles and prompted me to respond. I reproduce the letter below:

Since it is undoubtedly difficult to read the text on the reproduction, I set forth the text hereafter, though the text of the letter can be found on the web here.

Donald Trump worth a try

Regarding "Trump enters GOP race in style" (Page A-6, June 17):Until now, I've been without much opinion about politics. In the last few administrations, I've realized what Donald Trump is talking about with our country being laughed at and taken advantage of.

If he succeeds at even half of what he's proposing, we'll be much better off economically. He is a businessman, after all. He says he loves the United States, and I believe him. He's a baby boomer like me, and he has seen the downward spiral of morals, the economy and our credibility, at the expense of political extortion, outsourcing, "big brother" policies and "political correctness."

Trump is a showman, but that's his nature. It should not sway Americans from the belief he is serious. He's got nothing to lose and plans to finance his own campaign. He would use his own residence and transportation instead of us footing the bill. This is leadership by example, not "do as I say, not as I do."

I think it's time the country wakes up from its brainwashing and its nap before it's too late. Trump's worth a try. What have we got to lose?

Joe Zangara

My response, which appeared in the Record of June 24, is reproduced below, though it can be found on the web here, and the text is set forth hereafter:

Regarding "Donald Trump worth a try" (Your Views, June 19):

The writer shows an abysmal ignorance about how our government, or any capitalist government, works.

In a socialist government, the means of production are owned by the government, and its resources come from the profits generated by those enterprises. In a capitalist system, the means of production are in private hands, and the government gets the resources with which to provide the services that its business enterprises and its consumers need from taxation.

Thus, it would make sense to have a businessman head the government in a socialist society, where the object of government is to maximize profit for itself. But this is not the rule in capitalism. In a democratic capitalist society, the president must be skillful in dealing with Congress and other government entities.

When Trump says, "I am really rich," does that mean we could simply pick the richest man in the United States and make him our president? That would be Bill Gates, but he has the good sense to know that he is not qualified to be president. This cannot be said about the egomaniacal clown Donald Trump.

Emil Scheller

Fort Lee, June 22

I also cannot resist sharing with my readers two articles on Trump that I think are well worth reading.

The first appeared in the Right Wing magazine, The National Review, that was founded by that reputed intellectual, William F. Buckley, Jr. Its viciousness toward one of its own is quite remarkable.

It is set forth below:

Witless Ape Rides Escalator

Donald Trump is in the race.

Donald Trump may be the man America needs. Having been through four bankruptcies, the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula is uniquely positioned to lead the most indebted organization in the history of the human race.

The Trump conglomerate is the Argentina of limited-liability companies, having been in bankruptcy as recently as 2009. To be sure, a lot of companies went bankrupt around then. The Trump gang went bankrupt in 2004, too, and in 2001. Before that, Trump was in bankruptcy court back in 1991 when his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City — the nation’s first casino-cum-strip-club, an aesthetic crime against humanity that is tacky by the standards of Atlantic City — turned out to be such a loser that Trump could not make his debt payments.

The closing of that casino has been announced at least twice — it was supposed to shut its doors in December, but it limps on.

Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, announced his candidacy at Trump Plaza, making a weird grand entrance via escalator — going down, of course, the symbolism of which is lost on that witless ape. But who could witness that scene — the self-made man who started with nothing but a modest portfolio of 27,000 New York City properties acquired by his millionaire slumlord father, barely out of his latest bankruptcy and possibly headed for another one as the casino/jiggle-joint bearing his name sinks into the filthy mire of the one U.S. city that makes Las Vegas look respectable, a reality-television grotesque with his plastic-surgery-disaster wife, grunting like a baboon about our country’s “brand” and his own vast wealth — and not see the peerless sign of our times?

On the substance, Trump is — how to put it gently? Oh, why bother! — an ass.

Not just an ass, but an ass of exceptionally intense asininity. China? “China’s leaders are like Tom Brady, and the U.S. is like a high-school football team,” Trump says. And so, we should do what? “ . . . ” Trump’s is a fill-in-the-blanks agenda: He claims to have a plan for defeating ISIS, but he cannot say what it is for reasons of operational security for the mission that exists only in his mind. He assures us the plan is “foolproof,” but whoever coined that word had never met a fool like Donald Trump. Immigration? Build a wall and force the Mexicans to pay for it.

How to do that?

“ . . . ”

The one thing worse than Trump’s vague horsepucky is his specific horsepucky, i.e., his 1999 plan to impose a one-time tax — everybody knows how good Washington is about “one time” uses of power — on the wealth of all high-net-worth individuals and institutions. A 14.25 percent tax, he calculated, would retire the national debt. And what about institutions that don’t have 14.25 percent of their net worth in ready cash — to take a totally random example, let’s say a poorly run real-estate concern with a lot of illiquid assets and unmanageable debt payments eating up all its ready cash?

“ . . . ”

Trump says that he cannot discuss the details of his agenda because of — his word — “enemies.” Who are these enemies?

“ . . . ”

Perspective? Trump predicted that we may be heading toward a stock-market crash worse than the one in 1929, but: “I remain extremely optimistic about Atlantic City.”

We’ve been to this corner of Crazytown before. If we’re going to have a billionaire dope running for the presidency, I prefer Ross Perot and his cracked tales of Vietnamese hit squads dispatched to take him out while Lee Atwater plotted to crash his daughter’s wedding with phonied-up lesbian sex pictures.

I have a theory about Trump and his delusions, based, I’ll admit, on pure superstition. There’s an ancient belief, one that persists into our own time, that our names exert occult influence on our lives. And Trump’s name, while potentially comical — “Don-John” — doesn’t offer much in the way of scrying. But his father’s middle name was — true fact — Christ. Fred Christ. Obama’s arrival was announced by a man called Emanuel, but The Donald was brought into this world by Christ himself — Fred Christ. How could a man like that not have a messiah complex?

Of course, when Trump sings “How Great Thou Art,” he sings it in a mirror.

The problem with messiah complexes is that there’s no way to know whether you are going to rise on the third day unless somebody crucifies you. Trump has announced, and I say we get started on that. —

Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent.

The other is an article that sets forth some interesting facts about “the great man”. It appeared on the web here. I reproduce it without comment.

In March 2011 Forbes estimated Donald Trump's net worth to be $2.7 billion, with a $60 million salary. Many praise and analyze his “success” as if it were self-made, and they fail to attribute the proper credit to others in society where it is deserved. Despite what Trump may espouse, his success would have been in no way possible without his father, the general public, and the US government. Unfortunately, Trump decided to forget or selectively ignore these truths while forming his political philosophy, a sentiment made particularly clear during his brief bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Trump was born in New York City in 1946, the son of real estate tycoon Fred Trump. Fred Trump’s business success not only provided Donald Trump with a posh youth of private schools and economic security but eventually blessed him with an inheritance worth an estimated $40 million to $200 million. It is critical to note, however, that his father’s success, which granted Donald Trump such a great advantage, was enabled and buffered by governmental financing programs. In 1934, while struggling during the Great Depression, financing from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) allowed Fred Trump to revive his business and begin building a multitude of homes in Brooklyn, selling at $6,000 apiece. Furthermore, throughout World War II, Fred Trump constructed FHA-backed housing for US naval personnel near major shipyards along the East Coast.

In 1974 Donald Trump became president of his father’s organization. During the 15 years following his ascension, he expanded and innovated the corporation, buying and branding buildings, golf courses, hotels, casinos, and other recreational facilities. In 1980 he established The Trump Organization to oversee all of his real estate operations.

Trump eventually found himself in serious financial trouble. In 1990, due to excessive leveraging, The Trump Organization revealed that it was $5 billion in debt ($8.8 billion by some estimates), with $1 billion personally guaranteed by Trump himself. The survival of the company was made possible only by a bailout pact agreed upon in August of that same year by some 70 banks, allowing Trump to defer on nearly $1 billion in debt, as well as to take out second and third mortgages on almost all of his properties. If it were not for the collective effort of all banks and parties involved in that 1990 deal, Trump’s business would have gone bankrupt and failed.

In 1995 Trump took Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. public and received a substantial financial boost from society and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations that enable the market to function. He initially sold 10 million shares at $14 per share and then in 1996 sold 13.25 million shares at $32.50 a share. This initial public offering granted Trump’s company a stability and legitimacy that would have been impossible without millions of people around the world trusting his organization and investing with the hope of shared success.

Despite the clear societal and governmental assistance described above, Trump continues to be outspoken in his criticism of government. In his book The America We Deserve, Trump explains that “the greatest threat to the American Dream is the idea that dreamers need close government scrutiny and control. Job one for us is to make sure the public sector does a limited job, and no more.” This quote proves to be particularly ironic when considering Trump’s feelings about eminent domain laws. He was quoted as saying, “I happen to agree with it 100 percent” when speaking of the 2005 Supreme Court decision on Kolo v. New London, which affirmed the government’s ability to transfer land from one private owner to another for the purpose of economic development in the area. In fact, Trump attempted to take advantage of eminent domain laws on multiple occasions, once even demanding that an elderly widow give up her home so that he could build a limousine parking lot.

Perhaps more disturbing than his hypocritical condemnation of the government is his failure to acknowledge anyone’s contributions, save his own, in the creation of his success. At the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump made clear his feelings on the creation of his wealth: “Over the years I’ve participated in many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single time. I’ve beaten many people and companies, and I’ve won many wars. I have fairly but intelligently earned many billions of dollars, which in a sense was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities.”

Furthermore, Trump apparently sees no benefit in supporting taxes to maintain institutions such as the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market, in which he publicly trades his company, or the court system, which actively protects his property rights: “We are the highest taxed nation—I would tax foreign countries that are ripping off the US and lower taxes for Americans.”

From the moment of his birth, Trump was set up for success. The large inheritance left to him by his father, coupled with the contributions and the protections of society and the US government made his ascension to the Forbes 400 list almost inevitable. Nevertheless, Trump fails to recognize this phenomenon and continues to express his belief that he did it alone.

Copyright © 2012 with permission from Berrett Koehler Publishers.

Intolerance over the Ages

2015-06-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

It is time for me to take a sabbatical again as the preparation and timing of these posts take an inordinate amount of time away from other projects that interest me.

But before I do so, I feel I need to do at least one more post on the subject, which forms the title of this post.

What particularly prompts me to focus on this subject now, is that I watched, for at least the second time, the movie “Gentlemen’s Agreement”. For those who are not privy to the movie, or have long since forgotten it, it was released in 1947, or some 67 years ago. At the time it was considered a groundbreaker, for it dealt with a taboo subject – Anti-Semitism. Those who are much younger than I will not be aware just how rampant it was, and those who are old enough, may no longer remember. But for example, Representative John Rankin (Dem–Miss.) on June 5, 1941 rose on the floor of the House of Representatives and declared “Wall Street bankers and international Jews” were dragging the country into war.

Long after the film was released, five years later to be exact, as late as 1952, Rankin said on the House floor:

“They whine about discrimination. Do you know who is being discriminated against? The white Christian people of America, the ones who created this nation… I am talking about the white Christian people of the North as well as the South.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar - only now it is African-Americans. And it is no longer the Democratic Party; Now it is the Republican Party. After all these years, Jews still have very little prominence in the Republican Party.

Strangely, the producer of the film Darryl Zanuck, who was not Jewish, was prompted to produce the film after being refused membership in the Los Angeles Country Club, because it was assumed incorrectly that he was Jewish. Equally interesting “Before filming commenced, Samuel Goldwyn and other Jewish film executives approached Darryl Zanuck and asked him not to make the film, fearing it would "stir up trouble".

But the above is merely background material for my reaction to the film, for from my vantage point, almost 70 years later, what I noted was its inherent prejudices.

One couldn’t miss its sexism, as when, for example, the female lead, after having accepted a marriage proposal exclaims: “I want to feel how it sounds to be Mrs. Phillip Green”. Now looking at the movie from a vantage point more than 60 years later, when so many women, including my daughter, decline to take their husbands' last names, it seems almost incredible that a women would so completely give up her identity as to surrender, not only her last name, but her first name as well.

But much more striking is the total absence in the movie of a face of color. When I say absence I mean we don’t even see a face of color in the role of a maid. They simply don’t exist. There is also the element of class, for we look in vain for even a small glimpse of people who are not part of “polite society”.

But possibly what comes across to me most of all is the change of the face of the parties. Rankin, was a Democrat, as were the many Southern segregationists of the time. Governor Wallace the outspoken segregationist from Alabama, who later ran for President, was a Democrat. Strom Thurmond, the racist Senator from South Carolina, who also later ran for President was a Democrat.

We don’t find people like that in the Democratic Party any more. The first African-American to occupy the White House is a Democrat.

The first women to occupy the White House is also, more likely than not, to be a Democrat.

To be sure we have one prominent African-American Republican as a Presidential candidate, Ben Carson. But it is interesting to note the make-up of the Congressional delegations of the two parties when it comes to Jews, African Americans and women.

Here is the scorecard:

There are a total of 10 (ten) Jews in the US Senate. They are all Democrats. See here.

There are a total of 19 (nineteen) Jews in the House of Representatives. One (1) is a Republican; 18 (eighteen) are Democrats.

There is only one Jewish Governor in the US. He is a Democrat.

There are 9 (nine) Jewish mayors of major cities in the USA. None are Republican. Eight (8) of them are Democrats and one is an Independent.

---------------------------

There are a total of 43 (forty-three) African-Americans in the House of Representatives. 43 are Democrats and none are Republicans.

There are two African-Americansin the US Senate. They are Tim Scott of South Carolina and Cory Booker of New Jersey. One is a Republican and one a Democrat.

There is only one African-American Governor in the US. He is Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. He is a Democrat.

The hoopla about Carson is window-dressing.

--------------------------------

There are 20 women in the US Senate. 14 are Democrats; 6 are Republican.

There are 84 women in the House of Representatives. 62 are Democrats; 22 are Republican.

--------------------------------

There are Twenty-Nine (29) Latino-Americans in the House of Representatives. Seven (7) are Republican; 22 are Democrats.

How many of these Hispanic House member are Cuban it is not possible to tell. This is crucially important because there is a vast ethnic and political difference between the “Hispanics” from South of the border and from Puerto Rico, and Spanish speaking peoples who hailed from Cuba or from Spain.

There are three (3) Hispanics in the Senate. Two are Republican; One is a Democrat. All are of Cuban descent.

All the so called Republican “Hispanics” vying for the Republican Presidential nomination are of Cuban descent. The media distorts and misrepresents when they put such disparate groups into the same definition on the basis of a common language.

I think that these statistics tell us a great deal.

Neither Jews, nor African-Americans, nor women, have a home in the Republican party of today. It is for good reason that the Republican Party of today has been described as the party of old, Christian, White men.

------------------------------

Even though it is unrelated, I have to share with my readers a letter I wrote to the New York Times, which I have no doubt will not be published.

To the Editor:

As a long time reader and subscriber to the NY Times I am appalled at the discriminatory coverage by the Times of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Clinton launched her Presidential campaign yesterday, on June 13, 2015, in New York, on Roosevelt Island.

The TV networks and web outlets gave it prominent and instant coverage. The NJ Newspaper, the Record, covered it on its front page in its Sunday edition.

The Washington Post gave it gave it front page coverage with the headline: Democracy not ‘just for billionaires,’ Hillary Clinton tells crowd in N.Y. Even the Times of Israel ran the headline: “At first major rally, Clinton touts foreign policy chops”

But the New York newspaper, The NY Times relegates it to page 14 of its Sunday edition.

What does that tell us about the paper?

The Right Wing Media (Discussion continued)

2015-06-11T11:00:00.000-04:00

In my last post dated June 8^th 2015 entitled "The Right Wing Media (Discussion)" I said: “My response to the one from Albert Nekimken ended up being rather long and so I will save that for my next post." As promised it is set forth below:

Nekimken wrote:

This was an excellent commentary for multiple reasons. You've highlighted a kind of "thrust, counter-thrust" parry of political knives that exposes the underbelly of both political correctness and political incorrectness.

In the end, it reminds me of Shakespeare, "The man doth protest too much." The more that Republicans lionize Ben Carson, the more he alienates himself from the majority of American blacks--which is unfortunate.

On the other hand, he does serve to warn Democrats not to take the black vote for granted in exchange for pallid slogans: Most blacks want Sanders-style restructuring of the economic order in order to level the playing field.

And here is the lengthy response, referred to in my previous post:

Thank you for your complimentary response. It is indeed an example of thrust and counter-thrust. But that is not what I was trying to illustrate in posting the two articles.

Most people will read an article, whether from Left or Right, and take it at face value. I wanted to illustrate that this is a mistake. I looked for the article by Cynthia Tucker to which the Newsmax article referred, and upon finding that it didn’t say any of the things that the Newsmax article claimed, set it forth to show how extensive the misrepresentation was.

However, I now find that I found the wrong article by Tucker, and so I must make amends, by setting forth below the correct one, which did use the language claimed in the Newsmax article: I set it forth below:

Ben Carson Is in Danger of Losing All Respect

May 07, 2015

Over decades of a brilliant career as a brain surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson attracted legions of admirers -- black, white and brown; liberal, moderate and conservative; fundamentalist Christian and agnostic. His story is the stuff of legend, the awe-inspiring tale of a poor black boy in Detroit who overcame daunting obstacles and vaulted to the very top of his profession.

Given that his profession was pediatric neurosurgery, black Americans were particularly proud. Carson, who was the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins attached at the head, stood as stark repudiation of invidious stereotypes about black intellectual capacity. His memoir, "Gifted Hands," has been passed through countless black households.

But the good doctor's foray into Republican presidential politics threatens to become his epitaph, to overshadow -- perhaps even to overwhelm -- his academic and surgical accomplishments. He will likely be remembered as the GOP's latest black mascot, a court jester, a minstrel show. He'll be the Herman Cain of 2016.

Clearly, Carson's chances of winning the Republican nomination for president stand at less than zero. No matter how many cheers he attracts at conservative gab-fests, no matter how many of his bumper stickers appear on the vehicles of true believers, no matter how many Fox News pundits suggest he's a viable candidate, he won't come close to becoming the GOP standard-bearer.

Nor should he. He is dangerously unqualified for the presidency -- a political novice who is happily ignorant of policy, both foreign and domestic, and contemptuous of religious pluralism and personal liberties.

Carson catapulted to stardom in the ultraconservative firmament in 2013, when he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast with a speech in which he lashed out at the Affordable Care Act as President Obama sat nearby. Though the breakfast has a long history of nonpartisanship, Carson chose to criticize many of the policies that the president supports, including progressive taxation.

That was enough to cause conservatives to swoon. Since Obama's election, Republicans have been sensitive to charges that their small tent of aging voters has become a bastion of white resentment, a cauldron of bigotry, nativism and fear of the other. They want to show that their fierce resistance to all things Obama has nothing to do with race.

That promotes a special affection for black conservatives who are willing to viciously criticize the president. As with Cain before him, Carson garners the most enthusiastic cheers from conservative audiences when he's excoriating Obama, the most rapturous applause when he seems to absolve them of charges of bigotry. Why would Carson trade on his reputation to become their token?

I've little doubt that his conservative impulses are genuine. He grew up Seventh-day Adventist, a conservative religious tradition. Moreover, he has adopted a view popular among white conservatives: that black Democrats give short shrift to traditional values such as thrift, hard work and sacrifice. (Hasn't Carson ever heard any of Obama's riffs excoriating deadbeat dads and promoting discipline, scholarship and parental involvement in their children's lives?)

But Carson hardly represents the long and honorable tradition of black conservatism in America. Starting with the father of that movement, Booker T. Washington, its adherents have had a healthy appreciation for the reality of racism in America. Carson, however, thinks Obamacare "really (is) the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And ... it is slavery in a way." Washington and his peers, who knew better, would never have countenanced such nonsense.

Moreover, black conservatism has promoted self-reliance, but it hasn't been a font of right-wing intolerance and know-nothingism. Carson, for his part, has dismissed evolution (giving his former colleagues at Johns Hopkins heartburn); he has compared homosexuality to bestiality; and he has spurned the First Amendment's separation of church and state.

Given the ultraconservative politics of GOP primary voters, those extreme positions may help Carson in the early campaign season. But those views also guarantee that mainstream Republican leaders and their donors will flock elsewhere, seeking to find an experienced, broadly appealing and electable candidate.

Carson can only lose in this campaign -- and more than just the Republican primary. He also stands to lose his place as one of the nation's most admired men.

Thus it turns out that the claim by Newsmax that Tucker said of Carson:

"He will likely be remembered as the GOP's latest black mascot, a court jester, a minstrel show. He'll be the Herman Cain of 2016,” is accurate.

The fury by any African-American at one who betrays his people’s aspirations is understandable - such people used to be called "Uncle Toms”, but that term has gone out of favor. A careful reading of what Tucker is saying reveals that she is not so much denouncing Carson for his views, as she would a white politician with similar views, but describing the attitude within the Republican party toward blacks who are prepared to front for them. The racism within the Right is established beyond dispute, and when they embrace one in black skin, who has nothing but contempt for his own race, they embrace him, to try to show to White moderates that their bigotry does not really exist. But one black face on the platform does not erase the missing black faces in the audience, which invariably shows a sea of White. Thus, when Tucker talks of minstrel shows, she is not saying that she thinks he is that, but rather that to the Republican party he represents “their minstrel show”. She points out that Carson has no chance at the nomination, but if he did somehow get it, he would not get the bulk of the African-American vote, which votes on issues, not on identity politics. Backs voted in no greater numbers for Obama than they did for Clinton, and they have been a reliable Democratic constituency since Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights legislation.

As for the constant reference to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as Hispanic candidates that is a misnomer that is not challenged nearly often enough. Both of these politicians are of Cuban descent and as such have nothing in common with the Hispanic population that hails from south of the border, other than a common language. They are not traitors to their brethren because they do not hail from the same ethnic background. The media is not doing anyone a favor in putting all who have a common language (Spanish) into one ethnic basket. In fact, the true White colonial Spaniards who owned all the land in the Americas, south of the border, were the privileged oppressors of the indigenous people who represent what is today called Hispanic.

Your comment that "blacks want Sanders-style restructuring of the economic order in order to level the playing field” expresses your views, rather than that of most blacks. I predict that in the Democratic primaries Clinton will draw far more black voters than Sanders, who is considered a fringe candidate by most of the electorate, and that includes blacks.

But returning to the racism of the Right, it reveals itself once again in its concluding paragraph:

After all, it’s easier to attack Carson that admit to the fact that in Baltimore city schools 84 percent of eighth graders score below grade level in reading and 87 percent below grade level in math. That’s not Carson’s fault!

The implication is that there is something inherently wrong with blacks who have not, like Carson, been able to overcome the obstacles that our racist society puts in their path by putting their fathers in jail and giving them inferior schools. From the moment they start out they are born with obstacles that Carson, Oprah Winfrey, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou have managed to overcome, but that most find insurmountable. Except for Carson, the others are not crowing that if they can do it anybody can. They try to help those who are left behind by supporting policies that will help the aspirations of their brethren.

I am afraid that brevity is not my strong suit.

The Right Wing Media (Discussion)

2015-06-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

On June 4, 2015 I posted my commentary entitled "The Right Wing Media."

Almost imediately I received three commnets on the post. My reponse to the one from Albert Nekinken ended up being rather long and so I will save that for my next post.

The other two, however, are set forth below:

From Mike Cerrato, Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, came this generous compliment:

As usual, very educational. I fear, however, that many of the people who SHOULD be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between. Thanks for the ammunition, though, I will certainly use it appropriately.

To which I was forced to reply:

As you will see from one of my future posts, I made a mistake, and while one should always " be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between” I ended up quoting the wrong article from Cynthia Tucker. Mea culpa.

Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY wrote:

This is why I *don't* read "conservative" (i.e., reactionary) news sites or watch their television. I know I should, if for no better reason than "know your enemy." The combination of hypocrisy and imbecility enrages me, which adds nothing to my day. I'd much rather watch MSNBC and John Stewart skewer these evil trolls, even if it doesn't have much affect. Luckily the Foxpublican Party is going to die out, as ignorant white men become a smaller and smaller percentage of the electorate. The Koch Brothers can spend a billion dollars per election cycle and try to suppress minority voting, but their base (and I do mean BASE) electorate is slowly but surely going six feet under.

To which my response was:

Thanks for your comment.

I can understand your reluctance to read Right Wing commentary. It can be infuriating. But as you say one should read it, "if for no better reason than "know your enemy.”

But actually, I think there is an even better reason. How can one be sure ones views are sound unless they are constantly tested against different views. If one choses to live in an echo chamber, and unfortunately, recent surveys have shown that this is exactly what most people are doing, how can one ever be sure that ones views are sound. I feel I have to expose myself to a variety of views to get stimulation for my own, though I have to admit that this is easier for one who is retired, then for one who has to earn ones daily bread.

My post “Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things," is an example of the extent to which the Right Wing media will go, telling outright lies about the Clintons. Yet we have to recognize that the smears of the Clinton’s are definitely having an effect, as the polls on Hillary’s popularity have shown. In November of 2012 her favorability rating was 58.6% favorable v. 33.1% unfavorable. As of June 1 it was favorable 46% v. 48.4% unfavorable, and in a discussion with a very liberal friend (supporter of Bernie Sanders) today, she expressed concern about Clinton's ethics on the basis of foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

In the hubbub over foreign contributions to the foundation, what is overlooked is that it is a charitable foundation, from which the Clintons do not profit. One might even argue that turning down donations, which benefit people in need throughout the world, is something no one has the right to do, since the money refused is money that is not available for the recipients of the foundations work. But the media has always enjoyed lots of good copy by playing up accusations that eventually, more often than not, have turned out to have no basis in fact. Whitewater never proved to be Clinton corruption despite the best efforts of Keneth Starr, and in the end all they could get on Bill or Hillary was that he lied about an extra-marital affair, as just about anyone would lie about something like that, and as e.g. Martin Luther King (of sainted memory) did.

But the so-called liberal media is a myth concocted by the media echo chamber, and the New York Times, despite its liberal editorial page, has spread more than its share of Right Wing lies.

And then added:

After I sent the below set forth message I started thinking about the things that do bother me. For instance I think it was wrong to indict former speaker Hastert for paying blackmail. But I am much more bothered by the amount of money he reportedly made as a lobbyist after leaving Congress. Influence peddling is a big deal in Washington and the Clintons never indulged in this form of payola.

On the other hand they have made huge amounts in speaking fees, which I find abhorrent. But this is so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to fault them. See ABC News for an article about how much Sarah Palin has been making. But that article has an even more important item. I quote from the article. "President Reagan once got $2 million from a Japanese manufacturing company for two 20-minute speeches… And George W. Bush told reporters he expected to make a "ridiculous" amount of money on the speaker's circuit when he left office.”

Our system also effectively makes it impossible for anyone to run for public office unless they have one or more rich angels, and that includes Sanders.

We cannot hold people to a standard that is completely out of line from that which is ingrained. More important is whether they want to change the system.

In the end we will always have to choose between realistic, and I emphasize realistic, choices, unless we want to simply opt out of the process and leave it to the very worst elements.

Sorry! I do get carried away.

Which only prompted a further repsonse from Malchman as follows:

Well, a couple of things. One, if Hillary is elected and one or more of the SCOTUS Republicans leave the bench, Citizens United will get overturned. My fantasy is that the Court say corporations are not people for purposes of constitutional protection. Corporations are creature of state (and sometimes federal) law, and could be banned outright (caveat: I haven't thought about the implication of the Contracts Clause here), and therefore could be regulated to restrict speech. The Constitution protects people, not legal fictions or business constructs. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that ruling.

As for Hastert, he was not indicted for paying blackmail, he was indicted for structuring cash bank withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements and then lying to the FBI about it. Those are real crimes. At a moral level, I have no doubt he's serial a child molester, and anything bad that happens to him is karmicly (if that's a word) deserved.

Ending that exhange with my concluding reply quoted below:

I am afraid that this is indeed a fantasy. The more likely scenario, even if Clinton is elected, which is not a given, is that Ginsburg will retire and her replacement will face a filibuster leaving eight on the court and we get 5-3 Right Wing decisions. Eventually one of the Right wing judges retires and we get a deal of one on the right and one on the left, continuing the 5-4 split of today. Maybe in a Clinton second term we get control of the court, but that is a long way off.

Sorry, I wish I could buy into your fantasy.

And then concluded with:

As for Hastert, I know they got him on a law that might stick, but that is just the handle. I don’t believe in prosecuting people on a legal fiction, on the theory that you, or they think, but can’t prove, that he's a serial child molester.

The sale of influence is of much greater concern to me.

Next time I will share with my readers my exhange with Nekimken, where I confessed a serious error in having set forth in my original post the wrong article from Cynthia Tucker. But that will have to wait for my next post.

The Right Wing Media

2015-06-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

Most people read only the articles and the media that they expect will reflect their own political predilections. I think that is a mistake that I try to avoid making. We can learn as much, if not more, from reading the media that does not reflect our philosophical bent.

I regularly read such Right Wing publications as the National Review and Newsmax which frequently link me to articles in the Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post.

Thus in the article that I posted on my blog on April 30, entitled: “Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things,” I set forth an article that first appeared in the NY Post, and then was reprised by the National Review, which contained, not just distortions, but out and out lies about the Clintons and their foundations. I urge the reader to reread that post.

I refer back to that because I have now come across another article that appeared in Newsmax that distorts and is racist to boot. The article under the heading: “Blacks Attack Carson for Being Conservative” and is reproduced below:

Blacks Attack Carson for Being Conservative

By Clarence V. McKee

Pulitzer Prize-winning black columnist Cynthia Tucker is one of the first black liberals to attempt to politically lynch Dr. Ben Carson because his political views are out of tune with the black liberal Democratic chorus.

In a recent column, forced to admit the truth about Carson’s “brilliant” career as a pediatric neurosurgeon and his “awe-inspiring tale of a poor black boy in Detroit who overcame daunting obstacles,” she proceeded to mercilessly plunge the dagger of political correctness into his back.

“But the good doctor's foray into Republican presidential politics threatens to become his epitaph, to overshadow — perhaps even to overwhelm — his academic and surgical accomplishments. He will likely be remembered as the GOP's latest black mascot, a court jester, a minstrel show.”

Black “mascot,” “court jester,” “minstrel show”? What a disgusting, despicable, hateful choice of words as she figuratively hoisted Carson up the tree of political correctness with a rope of intolerance. His crime — daring to stray from the Democratic liberal plantation, think for himself and not mimic the liberal Democratic script as blacks are supposed to do.

Tucker is like other “overseers” — black and white — of that plantation. They drive the nails and tighten the rope to crucify and lynch any black conservative who dares challenge the orthodoxy of liberal establishment policies. They judge blacks like Carson not by the content of their character, accomplishments, and deeds but rather by their racist perspective of how they think blacks should think.

As Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., has said, “one of the most threatening places to be in politics is a black conservative.”

Overseers like Tucker don't dare denigrate Jewish or Hispanic conservative politicians with such language — that's reserved for blacks like Carson — so he had better get ready for more.

Talk-show host and author Tavis Smiley told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that Carson was "a black bull in a Republican china shop," and that “if he's not careful, he is going to do himself irreparable damage."

He went on to say that if he were close to Carson he would “call for intervention to stop him, what he is doing to himself and his reputation."

How patronizing.

Unlike other ethnic groups, blacks like Tucker enjoy the “political blood sport” of tearing down other blacks just because they have different political philosophies and solutions to our country’s social and urban problems.

Other groups — at least in public — respect their own. For example, Hispanic journalists and Democrats, to the best of my knowledge, haven’t demeaned Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., or Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, just because they seek the GOP nomination and have a conservative message.

They understand the wisdom of not putting all of their Hispanic political eggs into one Democratic Party basket.

Unfortunately, most of the black liberal democratic establishment appear to have kinder words and empathy for blacks who burned down black and minority-owned businesses in Ferguson and Baltimore than they do for blacks who dare express different political viewpoints and solutions to the very problems creating frustration in places like Baltimore and other cities.

How dare Tucker stoop so low and defame this great man of accomplishment and vision who has given so much back to society including his Carson Scholarship Fund, which has awarded nearly 7,000 scholarships to youth for academic excellence? She should be ashamed.

If she cares so much about blacks, especially youth, she has a heck of a way of showing it by using her pen to politically deride such a great role model. They will notice how he is being treated by Tucker and most likely her cohorts in the black media and liberal democratic establishments and they'll think, “If they do that to him after all he has done, why should I not finish school and take the easy way out — sell drugs, make quick money, and produce babies?"

Tucker’s message to them is: “No matter how much you accomplish, just don’t think for yourself and stray from the Democratic plantation or we will get you.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, or the National Urban League, or most black and white liberal journalists and pundits to condemn such racist and vicious attacks. So the question is, Who will?

After all, it’s easier to attack Carson that admit to the fact that in Baltimore city schools 84 percent of eighth graders score below grade level in reading and 87 percent below grade level in math. That’s not Carson’s fault!

© 2015 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

But even among those who might read such attacks, how many will actually read the article that is the subject of the venom, which was written by Cynthia Tucker who used to be the “editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper for 17 years, and more recently, …was that newspaper’s Washington-based political columnist. She maintains a syndicated column, which is published in dozens of newspapers around the country.” See here.

So here it is. It appears under the heading "Ben Carson,admirable man with a mistaken philosophy":

Ben Carson, admirable man with a mistaken philosophyBy Cynthia Tucker, Special to CNN

Updated 8:44 AM ET, Tue March 26, 2013

Like giddy teenagers, Republican activists have fallen for another charming, personable and accomplished black conservative. Dr. Ben Carson is the newest object of their crush, which was born of a desperate need to attract more black men and women as high-profile standard-bearers.

You can't blame Republican loyalists for swooning over the doc, a renowned surgeon who rose from poverty to head pediatric neurosurgery at Baltimore's famed Johns Hopkins Hospital. If wooing voters of color were simply a matter of finding an attractive black face with an inspiring personal story and an impressive resume, Carson would be hard to beat.

But black voters tend to be more discerning than that. They have shown an unerring instinct for rejecting condescension and dismissing tokenism. There are many black Americans who admire Carson for his professional accomplishments (I'm one of them), but that admiration is unlikely to translate into votes.

One of the reasons is that Carson doesn't seem to know black Americans' political values very well. In his most recent book -- a political tract called "America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" -- he writes: "Many African-Americans voted for Obama simply because he was a black man and not because they resonated philosophically with his policies." In fact, black voters have been increasingly allied with the Democratic Party since the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson pushed through significant civil rights legislation. Al Gore received about 95% of the black vote in 2000, John Kerry about 93% in 2004.

Moreover, Carson seems to have adopted the view, popular among so many ultra-conservatives, that the Democratic Party appeals to voters who shun the work ethic.

Talking to The New York Times recently about his conservative views, Carson described himself as a "flaming liberal" in college who later became disaffected with the Democratic Party. "One thing I always believed strongly in was personal responsibility and hard work," he said. "I found the Democrat Party leaving me behind on that particular issue."

That notion -- fallacious though it is -- is at least as popular among black conservatives as among white ones. I've been hearing it from black Republicans for at least two decades. Several years ago, I interviewed a black conservative running a doomed campaign for a suburban Atlanta congressional district. She had no prior political experience, no policies to advance, no program to sell. Her platform consisted of her belief in hard work, which she contrasted, at least implicitly, with black Democrats' supposed preference for sloth.

That view is as puzzling as it is infuriating. It may charm those white conservatives who hold stereotypical views of black Americans, but it bears little resemblance to the realities that inform their choices at the ballot box.

In his memoir, "Gifted Hands," and in his motivational speeches, Carson talks about his impoverished childhood and his remarkable semiliterate mother. Married at 13 only to later divorce her philandering husband, she enforced high academic standards for Carson and his brother while working two or three jobs as a maid or nanny -- and battling debilitating depression.

Carson eventually got into Yale and became, at 33, the youngest person to head a department at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is famous for separating conjoined twins.

That's a compelling and powerful tale. But it differs from those of other hardworking black people I know only in the degree of success that Carson attained as a result, not in the measures of ambition, industriousness, discipline and self-respect his mother instilled in her children.

Yet black Americans know better than to believe those traits are enough to guarantee success. History taught us better. Just look back over the last decade and a half. In 2000, according to the U.S. census, less than a quarter of black Americans -- 22.5% -- lived in poverty. By 2010, that number had risen to 27.4%. Was there a sudden outbreak of indolence among black folk over that period? Or were there outside forces that conspired to knock them back down the economic ladder?

As long as the Republican Party refuses to acknowledge that, it will have little to offer workers of color -- and declining appeal to younger whites. They, too, understand the limits of self-reliance.

To be helpful to the GOP, Carson would have to remind them of the caprice of capitalism and the generational reach of racism's barriers. Instead, he sounds like the standard-issue Ayn Rand acolyte, no different from Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. He opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and supports a flat tax. For good measure, he's also a religious conservative who disputes evolution.

It's no wonder that conservatives have started to trumpet him as their Great Black Hope. Psychologists believe that romantic interest increases when people mirror each other's gestures. Carson perfectly reflects the beliefs of his suitors.

Still, this romance is unlikely to blossom into a long-lasting love affair. There are too many misunderstandings, too many unspoken expectations, too many half-baked assumptions. And some of those half-based assumptions are Carson's.

I share this with my readers without comment and hope that they will supply it. But in any case I will have some comment in my next post.

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2) - Further Comments

2015-06-01T11:38:00.000-04:00

In my last post entitled "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2)" I wrote in response to Albert Nekimken’s arguments:

“But before I truly launch into your “presentation”, I have to express my shock at your response earlier to my sending you an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, entitled: "Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty.” It seems to me that nothing can be more damming to a Nation founded on the basis that Holocaust survivors need a refuge, if it can’t even take care of this dwindling group. Where is its moral compass?”

and referring to Albert Nekimken's comments I wrote further:

“Your response was:

The situation of poverty and neglect among Holocaust survivors is a simple scandal that must be remedied, and should have been remedied many years ago. Who exactly is to blame, I couldn't say.

To which I replied:

“But who is to blame, - is it not enough to agree that Israel or its government, which is the same thing, is to blame. You suggested "Netanyahu’s tenure as finance minister is to blame when he turned the Israeli economy toward the free market” or at least that the newspaper Haaretz makes that claim. But isn't it obvious that there is money for the settler movement; there is money for the Haredim; but there is no money for Holocaust survivors. What an indictment of the values of the people who govern Israel.

“And there are many decent Israelis who would not agree with you or the policies of its government. Unfortunately, they appear to be in a minority.”

At this point I just want to share with my readers the article from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz upon which my commnets about Holocaust survivors were based:

Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty, fighting for recognition

Seventy years after the end of WWII, some 20,000 aging Holocaust survivors receive little or no support from Israel, and 45,000 live under poverty line.

Luta “Lusha” Brachfeld was 3.5 years old when Nazi Germany invaded her native Poland in September 1939. Her memories of World War II are few and fragmentary, but no less horrifying. She remembers “buildings collapsing as if they were made of matchsticks” during the three-week terror bombing of Warsaw by the Luftwaffe, which still gives her panic attacks every time an air-raid siren sounds – not an unheard-of event in Israel.

She remembers the color and texture of her paternal grandfather’s trousers, as he often bounced her on his knees. And she remembers seeing those same legs dangling in the air when she found that he had hanged himself in desperation.

She remembers the hunger and crush of people in the early days of the Warsaw Ghetto, where her family lived on Mila Street – a few steps from number 18, soon to become the headquarters of the 1943 revolt against the Nazis.

She also remembers being carried by her mother on a desperate flight in the snow toward the Soviet Union, where she and her family survived as refugees.

It is partly because of the way in which she escaped death that, today, this 79-year-old widow and grandmother of three is forced to fight an uphill battle in the Israeli courts to receive the same state support given to other Holocaust survivors.

On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel on Thursday, and 70 years after the end of World War II, survivors and groups that represent them say the complexities of Israeli law have created inequalities in the benefits given to Holocaust victims.

Despite a new law passed last year that increased the funds and services granted to Holocaust survivors, they say that 1 in 4 survivors in Israel live in poverty, and some 20,000 are unrecognized or only partially supported by the state.

According to a report published on Monday by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, there are some 189,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel, two-thirds of them female. On average, 14,200 die each year – nearly 40 per day. Some 45,000 have an income of less than 3,000 shekels ($760) per month, putting them below the poverty line, the report says. That marks a slight improvement from the 50,000 impoverished survivors that were counted last year.

According to the Claims Conference, worldwide there are some 500,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive today, mostly in Israel and the United States. The figure includes those who fled due to Nazi persecution or suffered from various restrictions on liberty. About 20 percent were in camps, ghettos or in hiding under Nazi occupation.

Until recently, only survivors who had immigrated to Israel before 1953 automatically received a monthly pension, regardless of their individual experiences during the Holocaust. Those who arrived later were not entitled to benefits.

This situation was partially amended last year, when a law spearheaded by then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid allocated an additional one billion shekels ($254 million) per year to survivors and granted them other benefits, including a total exemption on all medical costs and subsidized psychological treatment.

The law also granted equal treatment to survivors who had immigrated to Israel after 1953 – but only if they had been in concentration camps or ghettos.Brachfeld, who emigrated to Israel after 1953, has gone to court to have her rights recognized. She must now prove to a judge that she lived in the Warsaw Ghetto after it was officially established in October 1940. That is difficult, because her mother never revealed to her when and how she managed to flee the city, and “they didn’t exactly give you a certificate when you escaped from the Ghetto,” as Brachfeld tells Haaretz.

All Brachfeld remembers is crossing into Soviet-occupied eastern Poland sometime before Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

“We were in a field completely covered in snow and there were three Russian soldiers who were gesturing with their rifles, telling us to go back,” she recalls. “I went up to one of them and said, ‘But sir, my hands are so cold.’ And that saved us – they let us pass.”

Brachfeld spent the rest of the war mostly in the Urals, where her father, who had fled at the start of the war, worked in a tank factory. They returned to Poland after the war, but, disgusted with the persistent anti-Semitism there, moved to Israel in 1956, where the 20-year-old Brachfeld built her family and worked as an X-Ray technician.

Lapid’s new law has helped many people, but by restricting benefits for post-1953 immigrants to survivors of camps and ghettos, it has largely left out an estimated 20,000 survivors who went through different, but no less painful, experiences, says Colette Avital, chair of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel.

These include Polish Jews like Brachfeld, who were forced to flee to the Soviet Union – as well as thousands of Romanian Jews who were not deported to camps but went through pogroms and were pressed into forced labor, Avital tells Haaretz. There are also thousands of Sephardi Jews who were persecuted in North Africa and the Middle East by Germany’s allies and pro-Nazi regimes.

Painful disparity

Under the new Israeli law, some of these survivors qualify for an annual pension of 3,600 shekels. This is much less than what the state allocates for most survivors – a monthly stipend that starts from 2,200 shekels and increases according to degree of disability. This disparity occurs even with members of the same family who lived through the same circumstances but arrived in Israel at different times.

Dita Greenberg, a 75-year-old survivor from northern Romania, was scheduled to be deported to Trasnistria shortly after her birth. But with the help of a neighbor, she and some of her family members escaped and spent the rest of the war hiding out at the home of relatives in the city of Botosani.

“We were on the deportation lists, so we lived in fear of being denounced by anyone, even a Jewish neighbor,” Greenberg recalls. “We never left the house. Even when I was sick with dysentery and a lung infection, they were too afraid to call a doctor for me.”

Her cousin Chaim, who was in hiding with them, came to Israel in 1951 and receives a monthly pension. But Greenberg does not qualify for the same benefits because she stayed on in Romania to care for her ailing father and was only able to leave the country in 1988.

“We have the same biography, and when I went to court, the judge told me that he recognizes my suffering but said in Latin, ‘Dura lex, sed lex’ – the law is harsh, but it is the law.”

Avital notes that this disparity is particularly painful because it concerns people who are more in need of the state’s support, mainly recent immigrants from former Communist regimes. “Many came as elderly people, who didn’t bring with them pension rights and who couldn’t work anymore,” explains Avital. “People who lived behind the Iron Curtain were punished twice: first in the war; and then because they were stuck living in Communist countries.”

A former diplomat and Labor MK, Avital says she has written to the heads of all major parties asking them to amend the law. She hopes the new government will take steps to give all survivors the same benefits.

“There is very little time left, their numbers are decreasing but their needs are increasing,” she notes. “Many cannot fend for themselves, they need home care, suffer from trauma, dementia, Alzheimer’s.”

In a written response, the Finance Ministry did not address the disparity of treatment between victims. However, it stressed that, thanks to Lapid’s law, it had “independently reached out to 145,000 survivors who are eligible for stipends or benefits” and “significantly reduced the bureaucracy that was a burden for many survivors.”

Brachfeld, the Warsaw Ghetto escapee, now lives in a small apartment in a retirement home in Tel Aviv. She says she is “not looking for pity” but just wants equal treatment for all survivors.

“My childhood was taken away from me and no one can give it back to me,” she says. “I don’t compare myself to someone who was in Auschwitz, but we are all survivors, and there shouldn’t be any discrimination between us.”

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2)

2015-05-26T11:00:00.000-04:00

On May 14, 2015 I posted a commentary based on an exchange of letters to the Editor of the North Jersey newspaper, The Record. I urge you to re-read it. It appeared under the title "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me!" On May 19, I posted comments which I had received from two of my readers. You can find those under the heading "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me! (Discussion)."

The first supported my view and did not call for a rebuttal but the second, from Albert Nekimken did. You may want to particularly re-read Nekimken observations.

Below you will find that rebuttal:

I find my self at a loss as to how to respond to constantly unsourced and unsupported allegations.

I particularly point to your holding onto the totally discredited and debunked claim that there are no Palestinians. We wave a magic wand, people disappear, and so there is no problem.

You write:

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

I don’t know whether this is a quote and if so from whom and why it is set out here.

I don’t know what your views were (are) about all the Israeli terrorists who were instrumental in creating the State of Israel, and who eventually formed the Herut party, the predecessor of Likud. But I guess they were "good terrorists”, not to speak of the Irish Republican army, which so many Americans actively supported. But what is a little inconsistency between friends?

But before I truly launch into your “presentation”, I have to express my shock at your response earlier to my sending you an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, entitled: "Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty.” It seems to me that nothing can be more damming to a Nation founded on the basis that Holocaust survivors need a refuge, if it can’t even take care of this dwindling group. Where is its moral compass?

Your response was:

The situation of poverty and neglect among Holocaust survivors is a simple scandal that must be remedied, and should have been remedied many years ago. Who exactly is to blame, I couldn't say.

But who is to blame, - is it not enough to agree that Israel or its government, which is the same thing, is to blame. You suggested "Netanyahu’s tenure as finance minister is to blame when he turned the Israeli economy toward the free market” or at least that the newspaper Haaretz makes that claim. But isn't it obvious that there is money for the settler movement; there is money for the Haredim; but there is no money for Holocaust survivors. What an indictment of the values of the people who govern Israel.

And there are many decent Israeli’s who would not agree with you or the policies of its government. Unfortunately, they appear to be in a minority.

I am responding further to your message by interlineating my comments into your text in red.

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

Earlier in the day, Carter, 90, visited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and laid a wreath on the grave of former leader Yasser Arafat.

The writer asks: (This refers to the Letter to the Editor to which I responded) "Has he [Carter] ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza have gone?"

I am now quoting Nekimken with all my comments appearing in Red.

You (this refers to me) wrote “Just about a month ago, on April 13, the Jerusalem Post had this headline: ‘International donors fail to deliver promised aid to Gaza.’ And besides, the Israeli blockade makes it all but impossible for building materials to be delivered.”

Your reply ignores several cogent points, including:

Israel has intercepted bags of cash provided by Iran entering the Gaza Strip to pay Hamas employees Source please!, without which support for Hamas would likely collapse. and if Hamas collapsed, would Israel then re-occupy or would they turn it over to the hated P.L.O.?

2. Europe and the EU have supplied the PA with billions of dollars over recent decades. Source please!

It is entirely the fault of Hamas (why? how?) that whatever is left of this money after the huge amounts siphoned off by corrupt Fatah officials Source please has not been transferred to the Gaza Strip.

3. Israel has, in fact, permitted the import of some building materials, Source please but must attempt to prevent them from being diverted How? (as they had been in the past) to building tunnels that Hamas used to attack Israel. I thought Israel was attacked with rockets! Israel’s blockade under International Law is the continuance of war. Why does it have to be asymmetrical? Israel wages war - good war! Hamas fights back - bad terror!!! Has Israel tried to negotiate peace with Hamas. NO!!! It is terrorist organization. Resistance bad – terror! Weren’t resistance fighters against the Nazis terrorists?

You (Emil Scheller) wrote:

Why should an oppressed people give recognition to their oppressors? The PLO has recognized Israel's right to exist and what has it gotten in return?

The answer:

"Because after multiple wars intended to obliterate Israel, the Palestinians have lost. Now it is time to reconcile and build for the future." Their "oppression" could have been ended long ago if not for the cynical manipulation of Palestinians by their own leaders and for their own enrichment. The PLO's "acceptance" of Israel is/was meaningless so long as the PA, which is the titular Palestinian government refuses to acknowledge Israel's status as a Jewish state

This is a new requirement intended to keep raising the bar.

or, more properly, a state for the Jewish people. To avoid doing so reflects their continuing desire to transform the Jewish state into an Arab Palestinian state, which exposes "acceptance" as a mere tactic for foreign consumption.

(It implies that if Palestinians should become a majority, they would be denied their rights as citizens, and at the least makes them less than citizens. This was never a requirement in all the years since the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Why now? What would be your reaction to a proposal that the US should be declared a Christian nation?

More to the point, so long as suicide bombers infiltrate from the West Bank (thwarted only by the security wall) and rockets fly from Gaza, "acceptance" remains a hollow joke. What did "acceptance" get the PLO? Nothing, because there was no real acceptance and because the only thing they can hope to get is peace, which is the most precious element for people who love life.

Peace under occupation is not peace!!!! Did the French, the Dutch, the Poles, etc. have peace under the Nazis? Or even the people in the colonies of Britain or of the Dutch, etc. They demanded statehood and until they got it there could be no peace.

AS for Israel's democracy and a vote for Palestinians, Caroline Glick believes that, after Israel annexes the West Bank, all Arabs who wish to become full Israeli citizens should be offered a path to citizenship. She offers compelling evidence that the risk is worth taking for both sides. Unfortunately, this solution has not attracted much interest anywhere so far as I can tell. The alternative is a demilitarized Palestinian "state" with limited scope of action.

You and I and the whole world knows that this is still more of the creation of a Vichy style government.

Now, you will ask "Why does Israel (the oppressor) have the right to dictate terms to the Palestinians (as the oppressed)?" The answer is obvious: because Israel is determined to safeguard its people and its national existence based on residence in its own territory and, as noted previously, its "rights" have been paid for in blood through several wars-if not millennia.

I guess what you are saying that since Jews have suffered through millennia, they are not bound by any moral compass that might apply to others.

Mere residence in a territory does not automatically create a "right" to political sovereignty. (Ask the Kurds who have lived in place for a thousand years without independent sovereignty.)

Indeed, and I would, as I trust you would, support their aspirations for their independence. All the colonial peoples, from India to Algeria, to Indonesia, have won their sovereignty. Were you opposed to their aspirations?

And, as noted in prior comments, because the population of Jordan is at least 60% Palestinian, it is the de facto Palestinian state, whether anyone wants to recognize it as such, or not.

As for whether or not Israel is a democracy, let the kettle not call the pot black. Every democracy in the world, including the U.S., is a work in progress. Israel has made admirable progress in a few short decades, even if there is more to be done.

Unfortunately, Israel has not made progress, it is going backwards.

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me! (Discussion)

2015-05-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion)

On May 14 I posted my commentary “Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me!” I suggest you re-read it so as to be able to fully follow the discussion that follows: See here.

Roger Berkley of Woodcliff Lake, NJ responded thereto with this observation:

The American Jewish community has been brainwashed by the AIPAC propaganda machine. AIPAC always supports the incumbent government of Israel, that's its job. Israel right or wrong. As American Jews, it is our responsibility to step back and take an analytical view of Israel. I find that J Street and Peace Now are more properly targeted than Likud and its new ultra right wing coalition partners who virtually all oppose any peace treaty with the Palestinians.

In a very different vein, Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia wrote:

I suppose you won't be surprised to learn that I rather liked David Molk's letter, and I wasn't surprised to read your response. It serves as a microcosm of the much longer text you wrote earlier.

And then added the following extensive discourse:

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

Earlier in the day, Carter, 90, visited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and laid a wreath on the grave of former leader Yasser Arafat.

The writer asks: "Has he [Carter] ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza have gone?"

You wrote:

"Just about a month ago, on April 13, the Jerusalem Post had this headline: "International donors fail to deliver promised aid to Gaza." And besides, the Israeli blockade makes it all but impossible for building materials to be delivered."

Your reply ignores several cogent points, including:

Israel has intercepted bags of cash provided by Iran entering the Gaza Strip to pay Hamas employees, without which support for Hamas would likely collapse.

Europe and the EU have supplied the PA with billions of dollars over recent decades. It is entirely the fault of Hamas that whatever is left of this money after the huge amounts siphoned off by corrupt Fatah officials has not been transferred to the Gaza Strip.

Israel has, in fact, permitted the import of some building materials, but must attempt to prevent them from being diverted (as they had been in the past) to building tunnels that Hamas used to attack Israel.

You wrote:

"Why should an oppressed people give recognition to their oppressors? The PLO has recognized Israel's right to exist and what has it gotten in return?"

The answer: "Because after multiple wars intended to obliterate Israel, the Palestinians have lost. Now it is time to reconcile and build for the future." Their "oppression" could have been ended long ago if not for the cynical manipulation of Palestinians by their own leaders and for their own enrichment. The PLO's "acceptance" of Israel is/was meaningless so long as the PA, which is the titular Palestinian government refuses to acknowledge Israel's status as a Jewish state or, more properly, a state for the Jewish people. To avoid doing so reflects their continuing desire to transform the Jewish state into an Arab Palestinian state, which exposes "acceptance" as a mere tactic for foreign consumption.

More to the point, so long as suicide bombers infiltrate from the West Bank (thwarted only by the security wall) and rockets fly from Gaza, "acceptance" remains a hollow joke.

What did "acceptance" get the PLO? Nothing, because there was no real acceptance and because the only thing they can hope to get is peace, which is the most precious element for people who love life.

As for Israel's democracy and a vote for Palestinians, Caroline Glick believes that, after Israel annexes the West Bank, all Arabs who wish to become full Israeli citizens should be offered a path to citizenship. She offers compelling evidence that the risk is worth taking for both sides. Unfortunately, this solution has not attracted much interest anywhere so far as I can tell. The alternative is a demilitarized Palestinian "state" with limited scope of action.

Now, you will ask "Why does Israel (the oppressor) have the right to dictate terms to the Palestinians (as the oppressed)?" The answer is obvious: because Israel is determined to safeguard its people and its national existence based on residence in its own territory and, as noted previously, its "rights" have been paid for in blood through several wars-if not millennia.

Mere residence in a territory does not automatically create a "right" to political sovereignty. (Ask the Kurds who have lived in place for a thousand years without independent sovereignty.) And, as noted in prior comments, because the population of Jordan is at least 60% Palestinian, it is the de facto Palestinian state, whether anyone wants to recognize it as such, or not.

As for whether or not Israel is a democracy, let the kettle not call the pot black. Every democracy in the world, including the U.S., is a work in progress. Israel has made admirable progress in a few short decades, even if there is more to be done.

I responded with passion, if not with anger. I will share that response with you, in my next post.

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me!

2015-05-14T18:34:00.001-04:00

On Sunday, May 3^rd an article appeared in my local newspaper, The Record, entitled "Carter calls life in Gaza 'intolerable'."

I reproduce the article below:

Since the clipping is difficult to read I reproduce the text below:

Carter calls life in Gaza 'intolerable'

Former US president Jimmy Carter said Saturday that eight months after a bloody war in the Gaza Strip the situation there remains “intolerable”.

Carter and his delegation were supposed to visit the isolated territory but earlier this week called it off, citing unspecified security concerns.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Carter said he was still determined to work for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

“What we have seen and heard only strengthens our determination to work for peace,” he said. “The situation in Gaza is intolerable. Eight months after a devastating war, not one destroyed house has been rebuilt and people cannot live with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the 50-day summer war between Israeli forces and Hamas militants who fired rockets into Israel.

Earlier in the day, Carter, 90, visited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and laid a wreath on the grave of former leader Yasser Arafat.

Although he brokered the first Israeli-Arab peace treaty during his presidency, Carter outraged many Israelis with his 2006 book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." He's also repeatedly reached out to Gaza's Islamic Hamas leaders, considered terrorists by much of the West.

Carter met with a group of Israelis living in towns bordering Gaza and heard about life under the threat of rocket attacks and militant infiltrations from Gaza.

He said that he had no interest in meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has ignored him in the past.

"This time we decided it was a waste of time to ask," Carter said. "As long as he is in charge, there will be no two-state solution and therefore no Palestinian state."

On May 5^th the inevitable outrage of anything that is critical of Israel appeared in the Record as a Letter to the Editor. I reproduce it below:

Once again the clipping is hard to read and so I transcribe it below:

Carter’s views show ignorance

Regarding "Carter calls life in Gaza 'Intolerable' (PageA-l6, May 3)":

So, former President Jimmy Carter asserts not one destroyed house has been rebuilt" In Gaza. Has he ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza or the West Bank have gone or are going?

The apologist for terrorists will not visit Gaza, citing "unspecified security concerns." From the terrorists he has championed? When has Carter condemned the suicide bombings of innocent civilians or the sheltering of rocket launchers at hospitals and schools ?

And when has he denounced Hamas' refusal to accept the state of Israel? Yet he castigates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there will be no two-state solution "as long as he is in charge." The Israeli people put him in charge. So Carter would have him removed? Marginalized?

Carter is an embarrassment to the office of president of the United States. And yet, again, what is more shameful, our foreign policy leaders, including the current president, Secretary of State John Kerry and members of Congress, do not condemn him for aiding and comforting terrorists and eviscerating the hopes and dreams of people for peace in the Middle East.

David Molk

This letter produced an immediate reaction on my part prompting me to take pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, and caused this reply to appear in the Record on May 10, 2015.

Once again its transcription follows:

Carter's work has aided Israel security

Regarding "Carter's views show ignorance" (Your Views, May 5):

The writer accuses former President Jimmy Carter of showing ignorance, but instead it is the ignorance of the writer that comes through.

The writer asks: "Has he [Carter] ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza have gone?"

Just about a month ago, on April 13, the Jerusalem Post had this headline: "International donors fail to deliver promised aid to Gaza." And besides, the Israeli blockade makes it all but impossible for building materials to be delivered.

The writer repeats the propaganda of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee by asking if Carter has denounced Hamas' refusal to accept the state of Israel.

But acceptance is a two-way street. The writer ought to ask when will Israel agree to recognize a Palestinian state or its right to exist? Why should an oppressed people give recognition to their oppressors? The PLO has recognized Israel's right to exist and what has it gotten in return?

Carter probably has done more for the security of Israel than any other person by brokering peace between Egypt and Israel. In return he gets only hatred, because he rightly criticizes Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

The Israeli people chose Benjamin Netanyahu as their prime minister in the recent election. But in a democracy the people are sovereign. but not necessarily wise, and with Palestinians in the occupied territories unable to vote in Israeli elections, it puts into question whether Israel is, in fact, a democracy.

Emil Scheller

Fort Lee, May 8

Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things

2015-04-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

In my last posting to my blog "People Can’t Seem To Get Their Facts Right! (Comments)," I shared with my readers the reaction to my posting of two Letters to the Editor, the first of which set forth certain erroneous “facts,” and the second was my responding letter setting the record straight.

Not long after another letter appeared in The Record again setting forth facts, which I found to be erroneous. A transcript of the letter follows:

Obama hurting U.S. prestige

What is apparent to me regarding the progress of the negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which are to be "fully" spelled out by June 30, is that the United States' status and perception as a superpower worldwide has been vastly diminished. Iran's quest for regional hegemony has been greatly enhanced.

There is little doubt that American military and economic strength was unable to secure significant concessions from a low-grade military power and economically stressed nation.

On this president's watch we have witnessed political chaos in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Tunisia. Need I point out how the president has bowed to the will of Vladimir Putin in his aggressive goals toward Ukraine?

Jerrold Terdiman

Woodcliff Lake, April 8

It did not take me long to respond, as set forth below:

The Letter to the Editor “Obama hurting U.S. prestige" (Record April 11) is way off the mark.

It ignores history. Did the US do better under past Administrations in dealing with an even lower grade power, North Korea, which continues to be a greater threat then Iran is, or will ever be.

Also focusing on the President in office as the culprit when things go wrong is naïve.

As Shakespeare said: “What’s past is prologue”.

Iran is the power that it is as a direct result of our ill-advised invasion of Iraq. Before that invasion Iraq was a counterweight to Iran and fought a long and bitter war against that country. Now it is an ally.

Iran used to be a democratic state, until the Eisenhower Administration overthrew the government, and installed the hated Shah, which led to his overthrow by the present regime.

Reagan strengthened the Ayatollah in the infamous Iran/Contra scandal.

Russian aggression was encouraged when the G.W. Bush Administration did nothing in response to the invasion by Russia of Georgia in 2008.

And of even greater importance are the slanders and the lies that are now directed at Hillary Clinton, and particularly the Clinton family’s great achievements in dealing with a variety of problems both Domestic and International through the Clinton Foundation.

Thus the Right Wing publication The National Review published a smear of the foundation under the heading "The Clinton Foundation Is Not a Charity" and then among its many unsupported and false allegations there appears this:

Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits, recently refused to rate the Clinton Foundation because its “atypical business model . . . doesn’t meet our criteria.”

Charity Navigator put the foundation on its “watch list,” which warns potential donors about investing in problematic charities.

Wow! That’s pretty damning, if that reputable organization had said that, but here is what they in fact did say:

Why isn't this organization rated?

…this charity's atypical business model can not be accurately captured in our current rating methodology. Our removal of The Clinton Foundation from our site is neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity.

What does it mean that this organization isn’t rated?

A lack of a rating does not indicate a positive or negative assessment by Charity Navigator.

Charity Navigator then goes on the explain:

Bill Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is on Charity Navigator's Watchlist. Here's why:

On February 18, 2015, The Washington Post reported that, "the foundation has won accolades from philanthropy experts and has drawn bipartisan support, with members of the George W. Bush administration often participating in its programs."

The article also states that:

...in posting its donor data, the foundation goes beyond legal requirements, and experts say its transparency level exceeds that of most philanthropies.

(The link attached to the quote from the National Review about Charity Navigator simply takes you to the National Review website, if you want to see the actual Charity Navigator comments I suggest this link.

What an incredible difference between what the National Review claimed and the truth.

Finally, the reader might ask where did the National Review get this story? it was taken verbatim from an article in the Murdoch-owned New York Post (I assume with permission) but none of it is true, as a quick check with the Navigator site reveals.

And what do we find out about the Clinton foundation. Let us look at Wikipedia.

It has some negative things to say in quoting from the Right Wing lawyers association The Federalist, but it then goes on to say:

The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems in the developing world and expanding access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Organizations such as the Clinton Foundation continue to supply anti-malarial drugs to Africa and other affected areas; according to director Inder Singh, in 2011 more than 12 million individuals will be supplied with subsidized anti-malarial drugs. As of January 1, 2010, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, became a separate nonprofit organization called the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).

CHAI strives to make treatment for HIV/AIDS more affordable and to implement large-scale integrated care, treatment, and prevention programs. Since its inception, CHAI has helped bring AIDS care and treatment to over 750,000 people living with HIV/Aids around the world. Its activities have included AIDS care and treatment in Africa, including the brokering of drug distribution agreements. During President Clinton's 2006 trip to Africa, CHAI signed agreements with several new countries. Over the course of the past year, CHAI has expanded its partner countries and members of the Procurement Consortium to over 70 including 22 governments, who are now able to purchase AIDS medicines and diagnostic equipment at CHAI's reduced prices.

CHAI launched the Pediatric and Rural Initiatives in 2005 to focus on bringing AIDS care and treatment to those most often marginalized— children and those living in rural areas. CHAI also negotiated agreements that reduce the prices of second-line drugs and rapid diagnostic tests. In May 2007, CHAI and UNITAID announced agreements that help middle-income and low-income countries save money on second-line drugs. The partnership also reduced the price of a once-daily first-line treatment to less than $1 per day.

In addition to drug access programs, CHAI also focuses on country operations, with programs that help governments with pediatric care and treatment, improving rural health care and human resources for health and the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT). In 2008, approximately 185,000 children benefited from increased access to infant diagnosis aided by the training of 8,500 health care workers who offered pediatric antiretroviral treatment (ART). 2008 also saw six PMTCT country programs launched which ensured that every HIV pregnant woman in the program catchment area was provided with prevention, care and treatment services including counseling, testing and feeding recommendations.

In the Summer of 2008, CHAI's Executive Vice President, Inder Singh, announced the closing of cost-reduction agreements with several suppliers of malaria medication, which will be extended to CHAI partners as part of its care and treatment program.

Does that sound like an organization that should be criticized and condemned ? Its legitimacy questioned? Why is the media, looking for points of criticism?

Would anyone criticize and condemn it, if it were not associated with the Clintons?

But as is often said: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

One of the leading contributors to this foundation, which is one of many foundations the Clintons support, is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

People Can’t Seem To Get Their Facts Right! (Comments)

2015-04-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

On April 6th, 2015 I posted a commentary on my blog entitled "People Can’t Seem To Get Their Facts Right!" where I re- published a letter that had appeared in the North Jersey newspaper the Record and which, as is so often the case these days, had set forth totally erroneous facts.

I took the letter writer to task and published the incontrovertible facts.

Both letters were re--produced in my post together with transcriptions of their contents. I urge the reader to read, or re-read my post, that can be found here.

After the post was distributed Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia posted a comment directly to my blog and the comment can be found there but to save the reader to trouble of accessing the earlier blog entry I transcribe his comments here:

To describe Mr. Scheller as a "stickler for details" is likely an understatement. Yet, he probably omitted a few additional instances when American presidents lost patience with Israel's refusal to bend to U.S. leadership. ...And then there are the series of incidents involving Israeli spying on the U.S., most recently its alleged spying on the U.S.-Iran negotiations. Just as spying among friends reflects business as usual, Obama and Netanyahu appear to have a realistic assessment of each other, their respective political situations and their views on the Middle Eastern neighborhood. Both Obama and Netanyahu have been faulted mercilessly by critics over their public disagreement with how to proceed with Iran negotiations, but this is highly unlikely to undermine the fundamental working relationship between the two countries.

It's worth noting that the U.S. spent the past month upgrading and testing its arsenal of bunker-buster conventional bombs that, in the present geopolitical context, have only one identifiable target.

I also received a comment from Stephen Baird, MD of Solana Beach, California who made the following observation.

You do have your facts straight. As a note added in proof, I attended a series of lectures two weeks ago by Dr. Jacob Goldberg, currently a Professor in Israel, who was also an adviser to Ehud Barak when he was Prime Minister of Israel. Goldberg gives a series of lectures on the Middle East every year at the San Diego Jewish Community Center. This year he concentrated on the negotiations with Iran over the possible development of a nuclear weapon and on the Israeli elections. One of the "facts" he noted was that the last five years have represented the best ever in US-Israeli cooperation on matters of security. The idea that President Obama hates Israel is just mythology. True, he doesn't like Prime Minister Netanyahu but lots of Israelis don't either. What Bibi did just before the polls closed by putting out a TV ad noting that Arabs were voting in droves was just despicable. Perhaps President Obama's antipathy to Bibi is entirely justified.

Additional comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

People Can’t Seem To Get Their Facts Right!

2015-04-06T11:00:00.000-04:00

Not long ago a Letter to the Editor appeared in the North Jersey Record. I reproduce it below:

Since it may be difficult to read, as reproduced from the newspaper I set forth the text below:

U.S. needs all the friends it can get

Two things really trouble me.

One is that the United States always stood by the mantra of “We do not negotiate with terrorists."

Iran is a main player in terrorism. Our sanctions are really doing the job. We should stay the course and make them come to us for a deal.

Also, Israel and the United States shared a great friendship under the leadership of every past president, except President Obama, who seems determined to change that relationship.

These are very dangerous times with terrorist groups popping up everywhere. We need to keep every friend we have if we are going to win this battle.

Sam Levine

Oakland, March 25

Since the facts set forth in this letter were flagrantly erroneous, and since I am a stickler for factual accuracy I dispatched a Letter to the Editor of the Record a reproduction of which appears below.

As I indicated above, the reproduction may be difficult to read and so I reproduce the text below:

U.S.- Iran Negotiations

Regarding "U.S. needs all the friends it can get":

The letter writer shows ignorance of the relevant facts.

He writes "Israel and the United States shared a great friendship under the leadership of every past president..."

That isn't true.

In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower threatened to cut off private donations to Israel, along with other measures, including ending military assistance. In 1975, President Gerald Ford ordered arms deliveries to Israel frozen and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered Israel to be put "at the bottom of the list." President Ronald Reagan in 1985 told reporters "the bloodshed must stop," adding, "I lost patience a long time ago." One year earlier, the United States voted to condemn Israel at the Security Council and temporarily blocked the sale of four F-16s to Jerusalem. And in 1991, President George H.W. Bush didn't want to guarantee loans unless the Israelis promised not to build housing over the so-called Green Line.

The non-partisan Foreign Policy magazine  headlined an article two years ago with "Obama has been great for Israel - anyone who tells you otherwise is distorting reality."

As for Iran, the writer says, "We should ... make them come to us for a deal."That is exactly what has happened. They have come to us for a deal. Now we need to consummate it, rather than lose the opportunity. Are there any realistic alternatives?

Emil Scheller

Fort Lee, March 30

As usual, comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – Part IX and Conclusion

2015-03-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is the tenth part in this series, if you count the Discussion post. I recommend that you read or re-read the earlier posts.

Part I is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, the Discussion is here, Part IV is here, Part V is here, Part VI is here, Part VII is here and Part VIII is here:

In Part VIII, I concluded by setting forth the Review of Gerald Walpin’s book by RUTHEE as it appears on the Amazon website.

I now set forth my response as it also appears on that website:

It has been fourteen months since I wrote my negative review of “The Supreme Court vs. The Constitution”, which sparked a lively debate with the author, though now that I return to the Amazon page for this book, I see that all the reviews but mine, have not only been positive, but have been on the rave side.

I wonder why this is? I suggest that that in our hyper-partisan age, it is unlikely that anyone with a view that would not agree with the premise of the book is unlikely to read it. I am the exception.

RUTHEE, whoever that is, since he/she/it does not care to use her real name, came to the book with an obvious pre-disposition to agree with it, and I must say that there are things in the book, that I too, agree with.

But before I get to that I want to comment on RUTHEE’s review.

Ruthee starts out by complaining that while the Constitution is “America's most important document…few have read it” and then demonstrates an ignorance of the Constitution that clearly shows that RUTHEE hasn’t read it either.

How else can one explain the absurd comment that “the primary function of government…is to render security to its subjects? And any mischief menacing that security demands a remedy commensurate with the evil.”

I hope that isn’t a quote from Walpin’s book for it would not reflect well on Walpin’s knowledge of the Constitution.

First of all it is only in a monarchy or a dictatorship that the relationship of the people to their government is that of “subjects”. In a Democracy the people are citizens, not subjects.

Secondly, where did he get the idea that the primary function of government “is to render security to its subjects”? Certainly not from the Constitution, for the Constitution in its preamble states that:

...in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…

Now if Ruthee, and possibly Walpin, had actually read the Constitution, they would have found that the founders did not consider the primary task of government to be “security to its subjects” but rather to “establish Justice” and it should be noted that the founders even chose to capitalize “Justice”. To do Justice, the founders tell us, is the first function.

Now I find no reason why Walpin (if he in fact wrote what RUTHEE claims he did) or RUTHEE, cannot disagree with the founders; they were not Gods. But to claim that this is what the Constitution provides is either ignorance, or deliberate misrepresentation.

RUTHEE then goes on to select as the most outrageous decision of the Supreme Court, Miranda v. Arizona Supreme Court. Now, I happen to agree that this decision was misplaced in interpreting the 5^th amendment, but wouldn’t it be nice if RUTHEE had bothered to quote the relevant portion of the Constitution in criticizing the courts interpretation of it. Or is the language of the Constitution of no consequence in RUTHEE’s mind, and only the result is what counts. Has RUTHEE really ever read the Constitution?

The relevant portion of the Fifth Amendment reads:

…nor shall (any person) be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, …

This is a very short and concise statement. It, like most provisions of the Constitution, is subject to different interpretations.

We could, for instance, make a case that it means only that torture may not be used to coerce confessions, or other forms of evidence that might be harmful to the defendant, but that, a refusal to testify may be used by a jury as evidence of guilt.

But on this point the Supreme Court as early as 1893, in Wilson v. U S, 149 U.S. 60 said: “… clearly recognize their constitutional privilege, … their neglect or refusal to testify shall not create any presumption against them.”

Now if there is a constitutional right to be silent, is it such a huge step to insist that a defendant in police custody must be told of this right. Certainly, we can disagree with this conclusion, as at least three judges did, but is it such a clear deviation from the Constitution as to provoke outrage.

Now RUTHEE goes on to say: “Failure to adhere to this (giving the Miranda warning) will result in dismissal of the case even against hardened and dangerous criminals.” But this is patently untrue! Failure to give the Miranda warnings will, under the Supreme Court decision, make the confession inadmissible, not lead to dismissal of the case.

RUTHEE then goes on to quote Justice O’Connor: “The failure of police to administer Miranda warnings does not mean that the statements received have actually been coerced…” No, but neither does it proof that they have not been coerced, and when a person’s liberty is at stake, shouldn’t the proof have to be that they were not coerced?

Justice O’Connor is also quoted as saying, ”when the admission is not coerced… (it is) highly probative evidence”. Did Justice O’Connor base this on evidence? Was there a record before the court to support this assertion? Isn’t that what courts, and particular Supreme Court Justices, are supposed to do? Base their opinions on evidence?

So let us look at the evidence! The non-partisan Innocence Project uses DNA evidence to determine a person’s guilt. On this basis they have proven to the satisfaction of American Courts that 324 people were wrongfully convicted, and that in 27% of those cases “False confessions and incriminating statements lead to wrongful convictions”. What does that say about O’Connor’s comment about confessions being “highly probative”, or for that matter about RUTHEE’s or Walpin’s approving quote of O’Connor. See here.

One of the foundations of American jurisprudence, as most lawyers know, is Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s. In it he puts forth the principle: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer". Apparently, Walpin, RUTHEE, and O’Connor have lost sight of this principle, which finds its genesis even in the bible:

“Abraham drew near, and said, "Will you consume the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous within the city? Will you consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous who are in it? ... What if ten are found there?" He [The Lord] said, "I will not destroy it for the ten's sake." (Genesis 18:23-32)

Aside from the damning statistics of the Innocence project, has RUTHEE paid any attention to the tragic story of the Central Park 5? The newspapers trumpeted the glory of their convictions on the basis of their confessions, supposedly freely given and with the Miranda warnings. But the confessions were false. Clearly, the Miranda warnings don’t go far enough!!! I urge anyone who cares, to read the story in New York Magazine, “Central Park Revisited.”

There is something wrong with a society that incarcerates more people per capita than any other Democratic state, by far.

I urge the reader to look at this graph.

Sadly, this graph doesn’t tell the whole story. According to Wikipedia’s “List of countries by incarceration rate" the US has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world except for Seychelles, and North Korea. It, by far, exceeds China, Cuba and Russia.

Yes, maybe we can all agree that the Supreme Court has become too powerful and that rulings that drastically limit or overrule previous decisions, or lower court decisions, may not be made by a bare majority of 5-4.

But allow me to point out that in the Miranda decision the majority five were not all appointed by Presidents of one party. Two, Warren and Brennan, were appointed by Eisenhower, Republican, and among the dissenters one, White was appointed by Kennedy (Democrat). Contrast that with today’s decisions where the Supreme Court Justices break consistently along the lines of whether they were appointed by Republican or Democratic Presidents. In other words the Court has become completely politicized.

Just how politicized can be garnered best by the completely partisan decision of Bush v. Gore. The Justices in the majority were Rehnquist, Kennedy, O'Connor and Scalia, appointed by Reagan, Thomas, appointed by Bush, G. H.W. Republican Presidents appointed all of them.

Dissenting were Souter appointed by Bush, G. H.W, Stevens appointed by Ford, and Breyer and Ginsburg appointed by Clinton. Thus this majority of Justices that came to their posts through Republican Presidents, chose the next President of the US to be, guess what, a Republican.

They did this in a decision that they declared would have no precedential effect and went against all precedents (stare decisis) in substituting its interpretation of Florida laws for that of the highest state court. For an in depth discussion of the decision see Alan Dershowitz's “Supreme Injustice” and other books on the subject.

Ever since we have seen this partisan divide on the court, only worse, and when that divide is consistently 5 to 4 along party lines, we have good reason to put an end to such 5 to 4 decisions, which take the court out of evenhanded justice and into political partisanship.

That this is not good for the nation is something we should be able to agree upon.

And so I once again I ride into the night. For the foreseeable future there will be no new posts, while I devote my time to writing my memoirs.

However, if there should be any:

Comments, questions, or corrections they are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – Part VIII

2015-02-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is the ninth part in this series, if you count the Discussion post. I recommend that you read or re-read the earlier posts.

Part I is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, the Discussion is here, Part IV is here, Part V is here, Part VI is here and Part VII is here.

In Part VII, I focused on the excessive prison population, resulting from ever-longer sentences, the huge number of people, particularly of color, caught up in the drug wars, and both the human and financial costs resulting therefrom.

In earlier posts, I spent a great deal of my focus, on the denial of the right to trial by jury, a proper defense and the criminal behavior of many prosecuting offices in withholding exculpatory evidence. I spent relatively little time on the Supreme Court as a major miscreant in denying the accused a fair trial and in allowing proper remedies against the abuse of the criminal justice system.

I did mention the Supreme Court decision in CONNICK, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ET AL. v. THOMPSON where the innocent defendant was convicted of murder and spent 14 years on death row as a result of the DA’s office withholding a crime lab report that exonerated him. A jury awarded one million dollars to the defendant (I million for each year served) but SCOTUS by the usual 5-4 vote decided that the 14 years wrongfully incarcerated entitled the victim to zilch. -0- Nothing.

And that is where the problem begins but doesn't end. There is good reason why the founders wrote in the 5^th amendment:

…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...

so as to prevent coerced confessions. But the amendment has been distorted to keep miscreants (particularly white collar affluent ones) from having to answer questions in court or even before investigative bodies. To be sure the danger of being held in contempt is, in a sense, a means to force an accused into answering questions under threat of contempt of court. But is that what the founders had in mind? Or did they try to prevent the use of the 3^rd degree, whether physical or mental, to extract confessions. I suggest the latter. But it is the latter that is so frequently used to extract confessions, and it is the latter that the courts have allowed, even though it has been shown again and again that such confessions are unreliable.

Thus the Innocence Project has found:

...in about 30% of DNA exoneration cases, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pled guilty.

These cases show that confessions are not always prompted by internal knowledge or actual guilt, but are sometimes motivated by external influences.

Since DNA evidence is more often than not available to prove the innocence of the convicted, it may be assumed that the number of innocent in our jails or on death row is much higher than 30%.

It is for that reason that the SCOTUS instituted the Miranda rule, which I suggest is entirely inadequate to prevent the large number of cases that result in convictions of the innocent from false confessions.

Thus what prompted me to address this issue came through a rather circuitous route. I refer the reader to my blog posts of October and November of 2013 entitled "The Supreme Court vs. the Constitution," "The Supreme Court vs. the Constitution (Discussion),"

and "The Supreme Court vs. the Constitution(Addendum)," where I reproduced a discussion of a book by that name by one Gerald Walpin, which resulted from my negative review of Walpin’s book, his response, and my reply, all of which can be found on the Amazon website (See here).

Fourteen months later, out of curiosity, I returned to the Amazon website to see what other reviews had been posted and found one written under the pseudonym RUTHEE, which among other things attacked the Supreme Court, not for the Gore decision, or the United decision, or the many other recent decisions of the court that ignored precedent and made decisions for blatantly political reasons, but for instituting the Miranda rule in 1966. See Miranda v. Arizona.

Allow me to share RUTHEE’s review with you here, and I will share my response, as it appears on the Amazon website, in my next post.

Both liberals and conservatives promote their ideologies by evoking America's most important document. (sic) the Constitution, but very few have read it, understand its intent and its impact on American civil life.

Gerald Walpin comes to the rescue with this indispensable book. In “The Supreme Court vs. The Constitution,” in elegant prose coupled with meticulous research, he demonstrates how justices have based critical decisions on politics and a desire to implement a particular agenda. In his own words: “You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand how Supreme court Justices have substituted their own elitist vision for constitutional guarantees that protect the average American’s security and values.”

One particular egregious example is the passage of the Miranda law. How many times have we seen a movie or a column on a criminal being told his “Miranda rights?” Have you wondered why violent criminals have these rights which exclude confessions from admissible evidence?

Gerald Walpin reminds us “…the primary function of government…is to render security to its subjects. And any mischief menacing that security demands a remedy commensurate with the evil.”

Until the Miranda Law, the Supreme Court held that a confession obtained while the defendant was in custody was admissible, without any specific required procedures, as long as evidence showed that it was freely given and not induced by fear or threats.

Nonetheless, in 1966 five justices, outvoted four colleagues, and in Miranda v. Arizona Supreme Court, ruled that persons in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed they have the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says will be used against that person in court. Failure to adhere to this will result in dismissal of the case even against hardened and dangerous criminals.

Gerald Walpin demonstrates how the law and its practice violates the intent of the Constitution and quotes Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, dissenting almost two decades later in 1985: “The failure of police to administer Miranda warnings does not mean that the statements received have actually been coerced’ and ”when the admission is not coerced, little justification exists for permitting the highly probative evidence of a voluntary confession to be irretrievable lost to the fact finder.”

This is one of the many gems in this book. There are many, many more.

Mr. Walpin has written many excellent columns on the debates in our judicial system- on Race and the Law and the Supreme Court, the misuse of the 14th Amendment to foster illegal immigration, New York's "stop and frisk" decision, NSA surveillance, to name a few.

The Supreme Court vs,(sic) The Constitution makes the debate about original intent and practice intelligible for non lawyers. It is highly recommended.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – Part VII

2015-02-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is the eighth post in this series, if you count the Discussion post. I recommend that you read or re-read the earlier posts.

Part I is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, the Discussion is here, Part IV is here, Part V is here and Part VI is here.

In the third part of this series I wrote:

I will come back to this in another context, but for now allow me to express my disappointment that our President, in his sixth State of the Union address did not speak about this subject. It is one of the few areas where he might be able to find common ground with Republicans.

I urge the reader to return to Part III and read the relevant portion.

I cannot resist noting that in raising this issue, I did so well before the New York Times picked it up. But since they finally did, allow me to refer my readers to the Times article entitled “Unlikely Cause Unites the Left and the Right: Justice Reform” and their editorial entitled “A Judge’s Idea for Grand Jury Reform.”

Even the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which has been the frequent target of liberal ire has joined in calling for reform.

I quote from their website:

The United States currently incarcerates 1 in nearly 100 American adults. America’s incarceration addiction grew during the late 1980s and early 1990s as state and local governments passed “tough-on-crime” legislation. For example, California’s “three strikes” law called for mandatory sentencing of repeat offenders, and New York adopted the “Broken Windows” strategy that called for the arrest and prosecution of all crimes large and small.

I do need to interject at this point that the “Broken Windows” strategy, which is a cornerstone of the NYC policing strategy of Police Commissioner William Bratton, is one that I support, even though that was a factor in the untimely death of Eric Garner, but a minor violation should not bring about an arrest. A citation, like a traffic ticket, is the proper approach, and certainly, even in the absence of proper identification, the violence by the police can never be justified, particularly in dealing with what should be no more than a misdemeanor.

ALEC sets forth as its solution:

Research and practice over the past two decades by stakeholders across various jurisdictions shows that there are better ways to protect our communities than mass incarceration. States still need to be tough on crime, but in ways that emphasize personal responsibility, promote rehabilitation and treatment, and allow for the provision of victim restitution where applicable. Community supervision programs and strategies that serve as alternatives to incarceration can effectively hold offenders accountable while providing them with an opportunity to get back on their feet. These policies are proven to reduce the rate at which offenders return behind bars, in turn cutting the crime rate, protecting our communities, and achieving the best public safety return per taxpayer dollar.

ALEC members have approved model policies that help maintain public safety and reduce criminal justice spending:

▪ Recidivism Reduction Act

▪ Swift and Certain Sanctions Act

▪ Community Corrections Performance Incentive Act

▪ Community Corrections Performance Measurement Act

▪ Earned Compliance Credit Act

▪ Justice Safety Valve

We tend to assume that overcrowding and abuse of inmates in our prisons is likely to be most prevalent in jurisdictions that are illiberal. But, regretfully that is not the case.

The Bloomberg Administration managed to get a consistently favorable press. But now that it has been replaced, its atrocities are coming to light. The New York Times reports that at Riker’s Island under the Bloomberg Administration:

...brutality spiked … An influx of inmates with mental illnesses, a breakdown in discipline and a lack of interest by top officials in the Bloomberg administration all culminated in the crisis facing Rikers today. The rise in brutality by guards has been particularly stark. During Mr. Bloomberg’s last term in office, use of force by officers against inmates jumped by 90 percent.

ALEC reports that:

California’s prison population is one of the largest in the country.

leading to:

...a three-judge court rul(ing) that California must reduce its prison population by approximately 40,000 in two years

and at a cost of $9.3 billion and a cost per inmate: of $45,006

According to the Huffington Post:

Since 1980, higher education spending has decreased by 13 percent in inflation adjusted dollars, whereas spending on California's prisons and associated correctional programs has skyrocketed by 436 percent. The state now shells out more money from its general fund for the prison system than the higher education system...

Fifty-five percent of the growth of corrections spending is the result of the state simply putting more people in jail. Over the past three decades, the number of inmates in California facilities has increased eight times faster than the size of the overall population.

The report notes that, while the average salaries for employees of the state's world-renowned higher education system have stagnated or even dropped with regard to inflation, prison guards have seen sustained salary increases. Correctional officers in California typically make somewhere between 50 and 90 percent more than comparable jobs in the rest of the country.

In Colorado:

Twelve of Colorado’s 21 facilities had inmate population above design capacity in 2011.

In Massachusetts:

The total custody overcrowding rate for DOC facilities as of June 25, 2012 was 146%. The overcrowding rate for medium security facilities was 155%.

In my home state of New Jersey the Dept. of Corrections has an:

Annual budget: $1,000,000,000.

Average annual cost per inmate: $34,600

And this is while our bridges are falling down and our roads are crumbling.

But the human costs are even greater, not only for the incarcerated but for their families and particularly their children. According to the Urban Institute:

More than half of the 1.4 million adults incarcerated in state and federal prisons are parents of minor children. The vast majority of incarcerated parents are male (93%) and are held in state prisons (89%). Among the men held in state prison, 55 percent report having minor children. Among the women, who account for 6 percent of the state prison population, 65 percent report having minor children. Over half (58%) of the minor children of incarcerated parents are less than 10 years old.

Great distances typically separate children from their incarcerated parents. Women are housed in prisons an average of 160 miles from their children, while men are an average distance of 100 miles away. These distances serve as a barrier to prison visits by family members. More than half of incarcerated parents report never receiving a personal visit from their children Contact in the form of phone calls and letters often proves problematic as well. The number of calls or letters per prisoner is typically limited by corrections policy. The high cost of collect phone calls, reflecting surcharges imposed by telephone companies or the departments themselves, can make this form of contact quite expensive. Despite these barriers, nearly 60 percent of mothers and  40 percent of fathers report having weekly contact with their children while incarcerated.

See here.

For which credit goes to the inmates and their families, not to our policies.

As pointed out above, keeping in touch by phone is made almost impossible. The New York Times reports:

For most people, talking on the phone is cheap. But for many families with a loved one behind bars, astronomical phone bills mean they have to choose between covering their living expenses and staying in touch.

The problem is that prisons and jails give companies like the industry leader, Global Tel Link, monopoly contracts in exchange for a share of the proceeds...

Global Tel Link, for example, charges $9.50 to make a $50 deposit, and $5 to issue a refund when someone is released from prison or jail. It’s hard to understand why Global Tel Link’s fees are so high, given that the company has 57 percent of the state prison market and its smaller competitors charge far lower fees.

The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has new rules that will cap the cost of interstate calls at 21 to 25 cents a minute starting on Feb. 11. The F.C.C. also proposed to limit the account fees, but a federal court suspended that proposal after the phone companies sued.

So we can see that there is money to be made from the families of those incarcerated. Of course they want more in prisons.

But even beyond that we have had a trend toward privatizing prisons. The ACLU reports:

Private prison companies, however, essentially admit that their business model depends on locking up more and more people... ” As incarceration rates skyrocket, the private prison industry expands at exponential rates, holding ever more people in its prisons and jails, and generating massive profits.

And while supporters of private prisons tout the idea that governments can save money through privatization, the evidence that private prisons save taxpayer money is mixed at best – in fact, private prisons may in some instances cost more than governmental ones. Private prisons have also been linked to numerous cases of violence and atrocious conditions.

Isn't it time we did something about it? And what better time than when the Right is for reform.

Why are we not seeing action at least on this front?

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – VI

2015-02-16T10:51:00.000-05:00

This is the seventh in this series, if you count the Discussion post. I recommend that you read or re-read the earlier posts.

Part I is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, the Discussion is here, Part IV is here and Part V is here.

I have not had the time to prepare continuation of this series since I published Part V on February 9^th.

Rather then allow this series to remain fallow I thought I would share with you some articles on the subject that I have come across. I reproduce them without comment.

From Amnesty International:

In the early morning of November 2, 1983, Darrell Cannon was taken from his home by a battery of now notorious white Chicago police detectives to a remote area on the far southside of Chicago where he was interrogated about the murder of a drug dealer… When Cannon persisted in denials, the detectives forced him into the back seat of their car, pulled down his pants, and repeatedly shocked him on his genitals with an electric cattle prod.

The physical and mental scars that the victims like Darrell Cannon carry will never be healed, but with this reparations ordinance, at least they will finally begin the path to closure. Instead, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and several other Chicago Alderpeople will not support the reparations efforts.

Again from Amnesty International:

Between 1972 and 1991, Chicago police under the direction of former Commander Jon Burge systematically tortured more than 100 people of color on Chicago’s South Side. During Burge’s reign of terror, over 110 African American and Latino men and women were subjected to electrical shocks on their genitalia or other body parts with a handmade shock box or cattle prod, suffocation with plastic bags, beatings with rubber objects or telephone books, and mock executions. The vast majority of the torture survivors were also subjected to verbal abuse where they were repeatedly called racist slurs and epithets throughout their interrogations.

These heinous acts of torture were committed in order to extract confessions; confessions that were used to wrongfully convict scores of people. Eleven survivors of Chicago police torture were sent to Illinois’ infamous death row. This history of brutality is why Chicago has been dubbed by some as the Abu-Ghraib of the Midwest.

Today, many of Burge’s torture survivors and their families continue to suffer from the psychological effects of the torture they endured. They have never received adequate compensation or assistance. Because of the statute of limitations, survivors have no legal recourse to obtain any redress, whatsoever. Moreover, there are approximately 19 survivors of torture under Jon Burge who continue to languish behind bars. They have never received evidentiary hearings to present evidence that substantiates their claims that they were tortured into confessing.

From the ACLU Civil Liberties Reporter:

When I was 14, my grandfather sat me down for “the talk” – not the birds and the bees, but “the billy clubs and the bullets.” I brushed him off. I thought that in my majority-black hometown of Newark, racism would not reach me. Little did I realize that a healthy fear of the police would become a survival skill for a young black man.

My wake-up call came at 16.

As I noticed former friends slipping into the traps of my South Ward neighborhood, I was determined to be different. I joined debate club and the law academy, and played on the baseball team at University High School, and I never had run-ins with the police.

But walking home one evening down Hawthorne Avenue my junior year, I spotted a Crown Victoria with tinted windows creeping up behind me. Unsettled, I sped up, hoping to reach the safety of my house. Instead, my quickened pace prompted the car to cut in front of me. Two Newark Police Department officers emerged. One was black. The other was not. He had his gun drawn.

“Get on the wall,” one yelled.

Terrified, with my arms up against the metal grate of Bragman’s deli, I asked, “What have I done, sir?”

“Where are you coming from?” an officer growled.

“Baseball practice,” I answered as an officer looked through my book bag.

One officer chastised me for presenting a school ID instead of an “authentic” one, which I didn’t have at 16. Finally, the cops told me to take a seat on the curb while they ran a check on my ID. For what seemed like an eternity, drivers passed and stared until the police finally let me go. Those slow moments were some of the most embarrassing, humiliating, and terrifying of my life.

Even with my grandparents’ lessons in the unwritten rules of conduct awaiting me because of my inherited blackness, I was shocked to be subjected to unprovoked harassment by minority police officers. I now felt unsafe in my neighborhood, and not because of the killings, carjackings and crime festering in my part of Newark. I felt scared because, for the first time in my life, I knew police abuse could happen to me and I realized that I was lucky my encounter with police only robbed me of my dignity.

It’s one thing to be scared of criminals. It’s another thing entirely to be scared of the people who are supposed to protect you. My appearance branded me a menace, even though I hadn’t done anything illegal. After being treated like a second-class citizen by the police, you start to believe you are one.

While I didn’t have strong feelings about the police before I was wrongly stopped and frisked, being abused the way I was made me want to avoid any contact with cops. Why would a Newarker who suspects illegal activity go to the police when he lives in fear of those same officers every day? A community that doesn’t trust the police is one where criminals can run amok, safe in knowing that the citizenry and police are at odds.

Abusive stop-and-frisk policies have no place in a democracy. As a kid, I faithfully believed that routine racial profiling would not happen to me the way it had to my grandfather. Now, seeing “the talk” through the lens of personal experience, I know better. I hope that one day, if I tell my own grandchildren about the dangers of interacting with police, they will be able to brush off my warnings because police abuse will have truly become a thing of the past.
My story is not an anomaly. The more of us who come forward to share what we’ve been through, the closer we’ll get to having a powerful voice in shaping the Newark Police into a department that respects everyone’s human rights, no matter what they look like.

Michael Hobbs is a lifelong Newarker who works at the Brick City Development Corporation. He shared his story at the launch of Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP) on Sept. 25, 2014.

I share these stories with you without comment at this time.

When I find the time I will continue with the analysis of the American Justice System. I regret to say that the more research I do, the more disturbed I get. Please keep reading, and if you can find the time let me have your comments.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – V

2015-02-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

This post is the sixth in this series, if you count the Discussion post. I recommend that you read or re-read the earlier posts.

Part I is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, the Discussion is here and Part IV is here.

In my post entitled "Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – Discussion" I posted comments from two of my readers and my responses, but in looking back I see that I failed to quote one comment that I should not have overlooked, because it was very complimentary.

That comment came from Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia and it read:

These are very hard-hitting, well-written blog posts. The malfunctioning of the grand jury system disturbs me the most.

Nekimken made this comment after my second post. He could not know that there are even worse things in our criminal justice system, than the failure of the “grand jury system.”

In my last post I discussed how prosecutors, instead of seeking justice as they are supposed to do, seek convictions regardless of guilt, and treat each conviction as though it were “another notch in their gunbelt." I pointed out that many innocent people are convicted, even though the prosecuting attorney has evidence in his possession highly probative of innocence, if not absolute proof thereof.

The stories of innocent people facing the nightmare of conviction and incarceration should chill the blood. The average reader will say ‘that couldn’t happen to me’. But it could! The numbers are astounding. But since numbers never seem to reach the conscience adequately, (they are cold statistics) I urge the reader to acquire and view the CNN documentary: “An Unreal Dream – The Michael Morton Story”. For information on that documentary, see here. This was a dramatic story, but it is not so different from so many others. I quote from CBS News:

Morton's nightmare began in 1986, when his wife Christine was bludgeoned to death in their home in Austin, Texas. Despite no direct evidence linking him to the crime, he quickly became the prime suspect. At his trial, Williamson County District attorney Ken Anderson painted a picture of him as a violent, sexually depraved murderer who showed no remorse for his crime…

They literally pulled my son out of my arms, 'cause he was screaming for me. And, you know, the little hand is out. And ... he's being pulled away. And that was one of the worst parts…

For a short video on the case click here.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court in the usual 5-4 decisions, actually reversed a decision granting another innocent man, who had served 14 years in prison an award of $14 million, $1 million for each year served. The Supreme Court held that he is entitled to - NOTHING.

But the injustices of our criminal justice system don’t stop there. In theory, one is innocent until proven guilty. But in practice that is hardly true. Pleading not guilty can be dangerous. There is an enormous penalty for insisting on a fair trial.

It is known as plea-bargaining and it is the method that prosecuting attorneys use to extort guilty pleas.

In a research paper on the subject entitled: “Plea and Charge Bargaining” the author finds:

In plea bargaining, a defendant is faced with a charge at arraignment. Typically this is the maximum charge or punishment that the defendant will be held to if he or she goes to trial. The prosecutors will present the defendant with an opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser charge or to the original charge with less than the maximum sentence.

What this means in practice is that defendants who plead guilty to the lesser charge, will get a lighter sentence, but if they chose to go to trial and are convicted, they will face the full penalty of “the maximum charge or punishment”.

This is a difficult choice to make. Going to trial is always a throw of the dice. It is impossible to predict with any kind of certainty, or even probability, what the outcome of a trial will be. It is “a throw of the dice”.

This is particularly true for the indigent or poor defendant who does not have access to highly competent counsel. It is even truer for those who cannot raise bail, and are incarcerated pending trial or other disposition. They might end up spending a year in jail pending trial, while if the charged offense is not that serious, a guilty plea might get them free in less time. The pressure to get out of jail, and/or to avoid the risk of long jail time is too great to make going to trial a plausible alternative.

Not surprisingly, the research paper cited above estimates that “about 90 to 95 percent of both federal and state court cases are resolved through this process” and that is confirmed by the website of a DA’s office in Texas where it is stated: "At least 90-plus percent of all criminal cases are disposed of by plea bargain agreements."

Not surprisingly the paper finds: “The majority of research on race and sentencing outcomes shows that blacks are less likely than whites to receive reduced pleas.”

The paper makes no attempt to explain this discrepancy, but I would suggest while in some cases racial prejudice may be a factor. More likely it is a question of economic status. It is logical to assume that those who have no difficulty raising bail and of hiring the best defense counsel are in a better bargaining position than the poor defendant, who the DA knows cannot put up a good defense at trial, and therefore there is less need to offer inducements for a guilty plea. As is well documented, Blacks are generally in a lower economic status than whites.

But where the injustice becomes even clearer is where accomplices get disparate sentences where one of them “cops a deal”, sometimes “called accomplice testimony. It's when a person involved in a crime agrees to testify against the other participants in exchange for a reduced plea.” See here.

In effect this means that if one of the people charged agrees to give testimony in accordance with the prosecutors wishes, he gets a lighter sentence, which is quite an inducement to give such testimony, whether true or not. The DA gets his conviction, and one who may be guilty gets off with a light sentence, or even with probation.

It should be obvious that such testimony is highly dubious, and accordingly “New York law says that testimony of an accomplice, standing alone, is insufficient proof against the defendant. There must be some form of corroboration that connects the defendant to the crime on top of the co-defendant testimony.” See here. But this is not true in other jurisdictions. Under “federal law… accomplice testimony is enough," (Ibid) and it varies from state to state.

According to the Cornell Law Review, Vol72:800 @p.802 (The link for this doesn’t work – For those who might want to go to the source, Google Cornell Law Review, Vol. 72:800 and then chose: "Accomplice Testimony Under Contingent Plea Agreements")

Accomplice plea agreements tend to produce unreliable testimony because they create an incentive for the accomplice to shift blame to the defendant or other co-conspirators. Further, an accomplice may wish to please the prosecutor to ensure lenient prosecution in his own case. Nevertheless, courts held that the testimony of accomplices who receive lenient treatment is not per se unreliable. Federal courts have allowed convictions based on uncorroborated testimony of accomplices to stand where the testimony is not “incredible or unsubstantiated on its face.” Convictions have been sustained even when the accomplice is an admitted perjurer.

How much this stacks the deck against the accused can bee seen from the fact that if counsel for the defense where to offer an inducement to a witness to testify on the defendants behalf, not nearly as beneficial as a lower sentence, or even probation, the attorney could be disbarred and prosecuted for subornation of perjury.

The deck is stacked against the accused in every way, and if the accused is indigent or poor, the likelihood of his being able to put up a proper defense, (with all the required investigations and the expenses involved therein) are dim indeed.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – IV

2015-02-02T17:56:00.000-05:00

This is the fifth in this series if you count the Discussion post. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I here, Part II here, Part III here and the discussion here.

While killings by police have been prominent in the news lately, it is but the tip of the iceberg. Brutality, and even simply disrespect, are equally unacceptable, and under the last mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, respect for the law hit a low ebb.

This took many forms. The Civilian Review Board, set up as a body independent of the police to take complaints about the police, investigate them and then send them to the Commissioner, was frequently ignored.

According to the New York City ACLU:

Of the cases referred to an administrative trial during this period, consistent with the CCRB’s recommendation, 64 percent resulted in no disciplinary action. (Emphasis added)

But I think that what has happened is that there has been far too much emphasis on police officers as being the main problem.

Law enforcement policy is made at the top and the outrageous policy of "Stop and Frisk" in NYC came right from the top, the mayor and the police commissioner. It was denounced for its racial profiling, but that was not all that was wrong with it. It was an outrageous violation of our Constitutional protections, and had it not targeted men of color, I suspect it would have been challenged much sooner and much more vigorously.

Amendment IV of the Constitution provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I cannot think of a more egregious violation of that portion of the Bill of Rights then for a person to be stopped on the street without cause, entirely at random, and to be forced to submit to a body search.

This was not done by rogue police officers, but on the orders of the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly.

But the media, and even civil rights and civil liberties groups, have spent far too much time on the misconduct of the police. There are far more egregious parts of our Law enforcement apparatus.

Among these are the offices of the District Attorneys. As I set forth in my post "Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – II," When a DA wants an indictment he gets one, but DAs, who by the nature of their work need the cooperation of the police, rarely want to indict a police officer, and so we see the charade of a presentation to a Grand Jury, which in accordance with the DAs wishes, fails to indict. The Abner Louima case was an exception, but that was so egregious that it could not be ignored, but nevertheless was to the credit of the Brooklyn DA, whose office handled it, and the prosecuting attorney, Loretta Lynch, who represented the people in court, and who has now been nominated for Attorney General of the US.

But it may be that this case was so egregious that it could not be ignored.

But District Attorney offices are a very large part of what is wrong with our Criminal Justice System, not just for their failure to prosecute police officers who commit crimes, but worse their putting the winning of convictions, over seeking justice. Thus under our system of law, a defense attorney only has the responsibility to present his clients case, while the DA’s office is charged with seeking justice.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, with DAs seeking convictions, rather than justice, and failing to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense, as they are required to do by law. It is but the tip of the iceberg that is revealed in cases where convictions have been overturned, e.g. for every case overturned there are many false convictions that are not. I quote from the Innocence Project:

In 1985, John Thompson, a 22-year-old father of two, was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to death row at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. While facing his seventh execution date, a private investigator hired by his appellate attorneys discovered scientific evidence of Thompson’s innocence that had been concealed for 15 years by the New Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.

Thompson was released and exonerated in 2003 after 18 years in prison, 14 of them isolated on death row. The state of Louisiana gave him $10 and a bus ticket upon his release. He sued the District Attorney’s Office. A jury awarded him $14 million, one for each year on death row. When Louisiana appealed, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. This spring, Justice Clarence Thomas issued the majority 5-4 decision in Connick v. Thompson that the prosecutor’s office could not be held liable.

The requirement that prosecutors must turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense was settled by the Supreme Court in 1963 (Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83), which held that:

… prosecutors (must) disclose materially exculpatory evidence in the government's possession to the defense. "Brady material" or evidence the prosecutor is required to disclose under this rule includes any evidence favorable to the accused-- evidence that goes towards negating a defendant's guilt, that would reduce a defendant's potential sentence, or evidence going to the credibility of a witness.

If the prosecution does not disclose material exculpatory evidence under this rule, and prejudice has ensued, the evidence will be suppressed. The evidence will be suppressed regardless of whether the prosecutor knew the evidence was in his or her possession, or whether or not the prosecutor intentionally or inadvertently withheld the evidence from the defense.

But this requirement is observed more in the breach than in its observance. The Innocence Project has found and I quote:

Such violations have led to an incalculable number of wrongful convictions. Because of the often covert nature of prosecutorial misconduct, it is impossible to estimate how many innocent people have been affected. Furthermore, the vast majority of felony cases are resolved through plea bargaining and never go to trial. Prosecutors may have engaged in misconduct in those cases as well.

In at least 63 of the wrongful convictions later overturned through DNA testing, innocent defendants alleged prosecutorial misconduct in their appeals or civil trials. Examples of misconduct include eliciting perjured testimony; destroying, concealing or fabricating evidence; making improper and inflammatory statements and more.

Recent studies of these and other cases have shown that prosecutors are rarely found at fault, and even when they are, they are very rarely disciplined for it. A USA Today investigation found that only one federal prosecutor has been disbarred, even temporarily, for misconduct in the past 12 years despite 201 documented cases of violated laws or ethics rules. The federal prosecutor in that one case was suspended from practicing law for just one year. A study conducted by the Northern California Innocence Project supports these findings. In that study, over 700 California prosecutors engaged in misconduct from 1997 to 2009 and only seven of them were disciplined.

With no penalties for deliberately seeking wrongful convictions is it any wonder that prosecuting attorneys build careers around getting as many convictions as possible, without regard to guilt or innocence.

Most of the cases where exonerations have been obtained have been through DNA evidence. How many innocent people may be incarcerated, though innocent, where DNA evidence cannot prove their innocence, is impossible to tell.

According to the Innocence Project:

There have been 325 post-conviction DNA exonerations in United States history. These stories are becoming more familiar as more innocent people gain their freedom through post conviction testing. They are not proof, however, that our system is righting itself.

The common themes that run through these cases — from global problems like poverty and racial issues to criminal justice issues like eyewitness misidentification, invalid or improper forensic science, overzealous police and prosecutors and inept defense counsel — cannot be ignored and continue to plague our criminal justice system.

•     Twenty people had been sentenced to death before DNA proved their innocence and led to their release.
•     The average sentence served by DNA exonerees has been 13.6 years.
•     About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are people of color.
•     In almost 50 percent of DNA exoneration cases, the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing.
•    Exonerations have been won in 38 states and Washington, D.C.

For those who still think that justice is colorblind I call attention to the fact that with “people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned” and 70% of those wrongfully convicted. (See above)

But what makes it even worse is that Parole Boards expect prisoners to express remorse for their crimes, which is rather difficult for the innocent to do. This dilemma is dramatically illustrated in an Iowa Law Review article at pages 524 & 527, where the prisoner, being innocent, could not express remorse for something he did not do, but as the case unfolded, and again I quote:

Goodman had always maintained his innocence and continued to do so in the aftermath of his conviction. Still, more than a decade later, when appearing before the Utah State Board of Pardons and Parole in 2000, Goodman “admitted his culpability for the murder in order to curry favor with parole officials.

But much later:

… in discussing the case … in the weeks following the disclosure of the DNA test, lawyers from the Utah State Attorney General’s Office noted Goodman’s admission of guilt at his 2000 parole hearing as one reason for their hesitancy to declare his innocence.

Thus the convicted innocent found himself damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t, a common occurrence in our crazy quilt system of “justice”.

How Kafkaesque such situations are! But we take pride in our pretense of evenhanded justice.

We have long claimed to believe that:

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", and this is enshrined by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s, which we claim to adhere to.

But as I have set forth above, in practice it is far from true. In future posts I will illustrate just how we have come to practice the opposite.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – Discussion

2015-01-29T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is the fourth in this series. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here.

I have received two comments on the first two posts and I want to share those with you, together with my responses:

Michael Cerratto Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, wrote:

Good, something I don't feel so intimidated commenting on!

The closing incident reminds me of a comment I once heard about the "cops vs. bad guys dynamic" being nothing more than our young delinquents vs. THEIR young delinquents. In any event, there are just too many dead bodies littering the streets lately, and the fact that we are only just now beginning to ask the questions which will, I pray, lead to some explanation of what is going on does not speak well of us. But then, again, I wonder if we really want the answers? Time will tell.

To which I replied:

You ask: "But then, again, I wonder if we really want the answers?"

According to CNN we do not.

I quote from my blog: "Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture - I”:

How many people are shot by police every year? Nobody seems to know the exact number (something that is itself disturbing -- no official government agency tracks the full data for the entire country)

… nobody wanted to fund it and the (police) departments didn't want it. They were concerned with their image and liability. They don't want to bother with it.''

If you have any observation on my later post, I welcome it.

And Bob Russo of Montclair, and its former mayor, chimed in with:

I loved your 20 year old letter to the Editor... and the reference to the Ham sandwich being indicted...the more things change, the more they STAY the same, I think is the correct version. Anyway, I think you are absolutely right on all counts. I just have a hard time as former Mayor and Deputy Mayor demonstrating against my police department as I have been asked to do by protestors of police brutality, which I believe really does exist, but should probably be referred to as overzealous excessive use of force. I just don't know what the solution to mistrust of police based on legitimate fears and negative past experiences is...while we still need the security provided by adequate community policing and foot patrols. I think we should be putting more police on the streets and devoting more resources to public safety and security at this time of increased violence and potential terrorism.....but the nation does not seem to care.....We should devote energy to securing our communities, especially urban areas and cities, rather than spending billions on foreign adventures that seem to only fan the flames of more hatred toward us....and we should fix our bridges and infrastructure which are crumbling due to neglect. We really need another TR and FDR with a public works agenda to make things right again......sorry to write so late......I was just catching up and that is my commentary on yours tonight!

Which prompted this response from me:

Sorry about not getting the idiom correct. I usually check things on the web, rather than relying on my memory, but in this case, apparently, I felt so comfortable with the form I used, (incorrectly) that I never thought of checking it.

On the substance, neither a TR nor an FDR, nor an LBJ, would make any difference. They all had collaborative Congresses, and overwhelming majorities in those Congresses. Congress does make a difference. And it used to be that politics ended at the water’s edge. All that is gone.

The Supreme Court is no longer a judicial body, but a purely political one, with power greater then that of either the President or that of Congress. The Congress can be vetoed by the President, and the President can be overridden by 2/3rd in both houses, but SCOTUS can only be overridden but 2/3 of both houses and 3/4th of the legislatures of the states. That is awesome power, and when it is abused, e.g. Bush v. Gore, or the United case, which effectively legalized bribery and extortion, it does harm far beyond what people realize. Had Gore been allowed his victory, as was in fact the intent of the voters, the Supreme Court would have a totally different composition, would be handing down entirely different decisions, and even elections might be run differently, if a different court where to strike down the outrageous suppression of voters and the gerrymandering.

I have become convinced that SCOTUS must be weakened. I think 5-4 decisions should be treated as a tie and of no force and effect. I am aware that this might means that the upcoming 5-4 decision on gay marriage would be of no effect, but that would still leave most of the US with legal gay marriage. I assume that in any case giving effect to the Constitution’s, Full Faith and Credit clause (Article VI -Section 1) so that each state has to recognize a legal marriage in another state, is unavoidable even for the Right wing nuts on the Court. The language in the Constitution is too plain.

As for the police, I don’t think that we have inadequate forces. That may have been true once - I don’t think it is true any longer. But the police must be held accountable. If they are not, we are in deep trouble. But it goes way beyond the police. It is our whole criminal justice system, as I will elaborate in future posts.

As for "securing our communities, especially urban areas and cities” the best way to secure them in the long run is to deal with their economic and social problems. The outrageous under-financing of their schools, which should not be financed by local property taxes, which by their very nature finance poor neighborhood schools poorly, and wealthy ones extremely generously. But, schools are not enough, unless we attack the underlying poverty and the social and cultural problems that have arisen from years, indeed generations of persecution, under-employment, and neglect.

As for "foreign adventures” I believe we must guard against isolationism (that has never served us well), while guarding against foolish involvement. Examples of sound involvement were the actions taken by Clinton in Bosnia and by George H.W. Bush in stopping the invasion of Kuwait, while Iraq, and of course, Vietnam were major errors. I think we are doing the right thing in punishing an expansionist Russia, but as I have indicated, we are wrong to allow an expansionist Israel.

Well, that’s a lot of area to cover in a nutshell, but on the criminal justice system, stay tuned.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – III

2015-01-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is the third in this series. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I, which you can find here as well as Part II, which you can find here.

In both Parts I and II I outlined misbehavior by police in my own experience, as well in the news. I don’t want the reader to come away as a result with the impression that I think the police, as a whole, is corrupt or anxious to kill. It is the usual situations of a few bad apples.

But there are many important reasons why there is often incompetence and/or corruption in the police. Most important is that the police in the US are unionized. I happen to favor unions in the private sector, where the bargaining power of the individual worker is none existent, and where the demise of unions is a major factor in the wage stagnation that we are now experiencing.

But the police are different. The police are in many ways a quasi-military force, who like the military, often have to put their lives on the line, and have the power of life or death over those they confront. It is vital that they obey orders from their superiors, and not put the interest of themselves, or of their comrades, over that of the public. Insubordination ought to no more be tolerated in the police, than it would be in the military.

Can anyone image a members of our military turning their back in disrespect on the President of the United States, or large numbers staging a slow-down because they are displeased with the policies instituted by their superiors, as the police recently did relative to the mayor in NYC. A quick court marshal would follow. We need the same discipline for our police forces throughout the US.

All this occurred in New York because the mayor, who has a son of color, expressed empathy for the demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights to peacefully demonstrate, and put into words what every father of an African-American knows (but which is probably good advise for all races) be very polite and non-confrontational with the police. Or maybe it occurred because the police were angry because they liked the freedom to stop and frisk at random in neighborhoods of color, which the new mayor and new police commissioner ended.

But what finally triggered the expression of their pent-up anger, was the assassination of two of their comrades by a deranged man, who had indicated that much of his anger against the police was triggered by the demonstrations. Of course, his anger wasn’t just directed against the NYC police, for before undertaking that wanton act, he shot his girlfriend, and thereafter shot himself, something he had considered doing in the first place.

So what are we to make of this wanton killing by a deranged man. The head of the police union immediately pointed the finger at the mayor.

I rather think that there is a clearer connection, for it falls into line with the many killings by deranged men at schools, recently at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut. See here, but less unusual then most think. CNN reports:

After Tuesday's shooting at an Oregon high school, many media outlets, including CNN, reported that there have been 74 school shootings in the past 18 months.

That's the time period since the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were shot to death.

It prompted me to publish a letter in the North Jersey Record, which I reproduce below:

As I did in my previous blog posts, I set forth below the transcript of the letter for those who may have difficulty reading the clipping.

The tragic death of New York Police officer Rafael Ramos makes him another victim of a deranged man with a gun, though it has been presented as being the result of demonstrations against the killing of unarmed African-American men, and even as a result of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s action in ending the racially charged and racially profiled policy of stop and frisk.

It is no such thing!

It is no different from the many tragic death around the country, highlighted most recently by the murders at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. These are murders by deranged persons, who should have been in treatment, and who have easy access to guns.

How much longer must this country live with an atmosphere where the joy of owning a gun and the feeling of power that it gives its owners, not to speak of the all the money to be made by manufacturers and dealers, trumps the right to life of innocent people, whether they are school children or police officers.

It is difficult to understand why the right to own and drive an automobile can be licensed, but the right to own and shoot a gun cannot.

The second amendment has been completely distorted and given a meaning, which it does not have, and was never meant to have by its authors and did not have for most of this countries history.

Emil Scheller
Fort Lee, December 27

As I write this blog post I am reminded of the reaction of the President of the NRA, the lobbying arm of the gun manufacturers, after the Sandy Hook shooting. He said:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Well, the two cops had guns. It didn’t stop their killer. Does the NRA care? Do they care about anything but the profits of the gun manufacturers for whom the solution will always be “we want to sell more guns – we want more profits!!!

But let us not be deceived. We have many more problems with our criminal justice system.

I will go into greater detail in future posts. But for now allow me to just set out a graph that speaks volumes.

What is there about the US that would make us have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world?

I will come back to this in another context, but for now allow me to express my disappointment that our President, in his sixth State of the Union address, did not speak about this subject. It is one of the few areas where he might be able to find common ground with Republicans.

The Washington Post reports:

But on issues of sentencing reform and prison recidivism, Republicans — especially several governors in Southern states — have been the leaders, earning praise from prison reform groups on both sides of the aisle for efforts to save money by implementing rehabilitation programs and curbing skyrocketing prison costs.

A nonpartisan study issued last year about how one of the bluest states in the union, Massachusetts, could cut prison costs credited Republicans states for how they have tackled prison reform…

‘This is our chance to show we can provide solutions to affect significant problems,’ said Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

The renewed focus on costsaving reforms marks a dramatic, decade-long shift by Republican governors, many of whom previously won election by stumping on tough-on-crime platforms.

But, as many of those governors have noted, one way to cut state costs is to decrease the number of people being locked up for nonviolent offenses and rid the law books of mandatory minimum sentences for such offenses.

In addition to Perry, prominent Republicans who once trumpeted tough-on-crime stances and now call for sentencing changes and rehabilitation programs for drug and other nonviolent offenders include former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a tea party hero, has made reform of mandatory minimum sentences a major focus in recent months.

“We’re not a soft-on-crime state, you know what I’m saying? . . . We’re tough on crime,” Perry said. “But I hope we are also seen as a smart-on-crime state.”

That is quite a change from the tough on crime of Republicans in years and decades past, when, e.g. George H.W. Bush used the famous, or infamous, Willie Horton ad (See here) in his campaign against Michael Dukakis.

But whatever the past, this is an issue that now appears to have Republican support, and if the President and the Democratic Party don’t seize the opportunity, the chance for reform may well be wasted.

I will have more to say in the area of the American Justice system next time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

While I have decided not to dwell on the Israeli issue any further, I cannot ignore the outrage of the Boehner/Netanyahu axis. They are both a disgrace in meddling in the domestic affairs of the other’s country. Netanyahu will face elections in Israel on March 17 according to Fox News, but instead of campaigning in Israel, he will campaign by addressing the US Congress on March 3, two weeks before the Israeli election. This is a blatant and transparent attempt on the part of both the Speaker and the Prime Minister to meddle in the affairs of the other country. Even while this is likely to aid Netanyahu in Israel, it is at the same time an attempt to embarrass the President of the US, by Netanyahu coming here, once again, in his ongoing and endless attempt to influence the US not to negotiate with Iran and instead go to war. He has said the US has no right to tell Israel not to attack Iran, which the US has never done, while trying to ensnare the US into war with Iran.

Netanyahu’s crude attempt to meddle in American domestic affairs has a long and infamous history. He is the proverbial child always crying wolf and has been doing so since more than two years. On September 12, 2012 I published an article entitled: “I am an American”, from which I quote:

But Netanyahu has gone out of his way to violate every rule of diplomatic behavior. In my view he has been a disaster for Israel. Since any Letter to the Editor has to be short I commend readers to "Peter Beinart on Netanyahu’s Bullying Act" from The Daily Beast.

That article relates in some detail Netanyahu’s long history of meddling in American politics, so much so that the Republican Secretary of State James Baker briefly had him banned from the State Department. But beyond that, and I quote from the article, “Netanyahu has been brazenly intervening in American politics—often with an eye to screwing Democratic presidents.”…

But now he has the gall to come to the US and use our airwaves to try to dictate American foreign policy. Appearing on US Television, Netanyahu declared: “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” I agree with the Prime Minster that no one has a right to place a “Red Light” before Israel. But, in fact no one has!!!...

The attempt by any country to dictate American policy, particularly on issues of war and peace must be rejected by all Americans.

What did the Prime Minister show to the US to demonstrate the imminent danger? Look here.

That was two years ago. Is Iran now in the final stage? Not even the man who keeps crying wolf claims that is the case. The negotiations, whether they finally succeed, or not, have delayed the Iranian progress. If the danger ever was anywhere near as imminent as the fear monger claimed, the Iranian’s would have the bomb today.

And what is the alternative to the present course? To go to war? Netanyahu is ready to hold the coat of the US. Israel is not about to commit that folly, nor would its military and intelligence agencies allow it. Should there be more sanctions by the US, which would end the negotiations, and worse, end the unity of the allies in imposing multi-lateral sanctions?

But quite aside from that, does his diagram look like an atomic bomb?

Here is a terrific YouTube video on that subject.

I urge the reader to watch it. If nothing else, it is funny and it does a good job of relating the history of the “the boy who cried wolf”. He points out that the cry that Iran is about to get “the bomb” goes back to 1992.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – II

2015-01-22T10:51:00.000-05:00

This is the second in this series. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I, which you can find here.

When we look at the killing of Eric Garner in New York resulting from a chokehold, and of Michael Brown of a gun shot in Missouri, what I find disturbing is that most have an opinion, often broken down by race, but no one seems to actually know what happened. Both cases were presented to Grand Juries, and in neither case was there an indictment.

In both cases the prosecutors told the public that they should respect the verdict of the Grand Jury. What they did not tell the public, and neither did the media, is that Grand Juries are rubber stamps for whatever the D.A. wants, or as is explained by the website of the law firm of Solomon L. Wisenberg:

As a practical matter, a federal grand jury will almost always return an indictment presented to it by a prosecutor. This is the basis for Judge Sol Wachtler's famous saying that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to 'indict a ham sandwich.'

While this quote refers to federal grand juries, it is equally true, if not more so, when it comes to local grand juries. The Grand Jury is not supposed to determine guilt or innocence of the accused; it is only supposed to determine if there is probable cause for the charge. It is for a “petty jury” to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused.

Thus when the Grand Juries failed to indict in either of these cases, it meant only on thing, I.e. that the prosecutor did not want an indictment. The presentation to a Grand Jury was for show only. The prosecutor had already decided that he not want a jury trial. Thus this farce simply prevented the public from ever hearing all the evidence both against the officers and in their defense.

___________________________________________________________

In my last post on this subject I concluded:

“This was not the last time I discovered that police officers are not always paragons of virtue. More next time!”

I learned much more about how our law enforcement agencies often function much later, and it was summed up in an exchange of Letters to the Editor that I had while living in Montclair, NJ, in 1997. A letter from one, Frank Trico appeared in the local Newspaper, The Montclair Times, and I reproduce it below:

For those who may have difficulty reading the clipping I set forth a transcript of the letter here:

3/6/97

Montclair Police Deserve Support

Editor, The Times

I have owned and operated a small business in Montclair for the last 20 years. Recently, I have had the pleasure of working with the very fine people of the Montclair Police Department on several projects.

What has impressed me the most is their total attitude of professionalism and commitment to community. From the top man down to the newest recruit, these are people who greet you with courtesy, respect and a smile and never forget to say ‘thank you”. These are people who know how to work with people.

It is easy to forget that police officers are just plain folk, who sometimes wake up with head colds or back problems or that their cars didn’t start or they just might be having a bad day. Police officers put their lives on the line each day. Imagine what it must be like to walk up to a car and not now how the driver of that car is going to react.

I think if we all tried to understand the difficult situations our police face on a daily basis, we might all benefit. Start by saying “Good morning” to a local beat cop or calling him or her by name. Or you might try being polite next time you’re stopped for going a little too fast on Upper Mountain Avenue. Get to know them; they really are here to help you.

Some time ago I read a letter to the editor by a woman who claimed to be more afraid of the Montclair police than she would be of a group of young men.

My grandmother would always say, “You never have anything to fear from the police, that is unless you are doing something wrong!”

FRANK TIRICO

Montclair

My response tells of my experiences and I reproduce it below:

For those who may have difficulty reading the clipping I set forth a transcript of the letter here:

4/10/97

Innocent At Risk

Editor, The Times:

The “Montclair Police Deserve Support” letter, which appeared in your March 6 issue, demands response. While I agree with the positive comments about the Montclair police, the last paragraph, “You never have anything to fear unless you have done something wrong “ is a naïve and dangerous fiction.

Unfortunately, many law enforcement officers do not believe it to be their function to enforce the law. They often decide on guilt and manufacture evidence to insure conviction or administer their own “justice”.

Some 40 years ago, the assistant US attorney, whose office I was assigned to, obtained an indictment on the basis of an officer’s testimony that he had seen a drug transaction under a street corner lamp, and saw another through the window of a bar. Before the trial, we visited the scene and found no street light on the corner and the bar window had a curtain. We dismissed the indictment.

Such outrages were not then general knowledge, but since the Rodney King incident, since the recent killing through a stranglehold by a New York City police officer, angered because a football had accidently hit his car; since officers admitted to the Mollen Commission that they perjure themselves to assure convictions, and commit other criminal acts; since one police officer after being convicted of brutality, theft, drug dealing and perjury, explained he did not feel he had anything to fear from the law because, after all, he was the law; since those cases have surfaced, the belief that the innocent need have no fear from law enforcement officers leaves the innocent at risk.

EMIL SCHELLER

Montclair

I can’t add very much. My letter tells the story.

But for those who might say that was almost 20 years ago, I can only set forth the oft repeated saying: “The more things change, the more they are the same.”

See the New York Times on January 15, 2015 from which I quote:

In researching the case, a lawyer for Mr. Herring, Debora Silberman of Brooklyn Defender Services, found others that mirrored it, involving the same group of police officers. In the other cases, defendants also said the guns were planted, with the police saying that officers saw the suspects storing the guns in plastic bags or handkerchiefs.

After the arrests, more similarities arose: The use of confidential informers was suddenly mentioned months into the proceedings, and the informers were never produced in court even after judges’ and lawyers’ requests. Judges had called some of the police version of events “incredible,” and the accounts “extremely evasive.”

Or the New York Times of December 11, 2014:

There were other similarities: Each gun was found in a plastic bag or a handkerchief, with no traces of the suspect’s fingerprints. Prosecutors and the police did not mention a confidential informer until months after the arrests. None of the informers have come forward, even when defense lawyers and judges have requested they appear in court.

Taken individually, the cases seem to be routine examples of differences between the police account of an arrest and that of the person arrested. But taken together, the cases — along with other gun arrests made in the precinct by these officers — suggest a pattern of questionable police conduct and tactics…

Mr. Hooper spent a year in jail awaiting trial, eventually pleading guilty and agreeing to a sentence of time served after the judge in his case called the police version of events “incredible…

In that case, a federal judge said she believed that the “officers perjured themselves.”

More next time!

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture - I

2015-01-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

It is time to take a break from the discussion of Israel and to turn to other pressing issues. I intend to return to the subject of Israel, if for no other reason, to give Albert Nekimken an opportunity to complete his rebuttals. But now onto other issues!

There have been many unfortunate deaths in the United States lately.

“Each year, nearly 900,000 Americans die prematurely from the five leading causes of death – yet 20% to 40 % of the deaths from each cause could be prevented according to the CDC. Allow me to stress that these are pre-mature deaths, and at least 20% of those, or 20,000, and possibly as many as 40%, or 40,000, of those are preventable. More than 39,000 people died by suicide in the United States in 2011, more than twice as many who died as a result of homicide, (17,000). See here. How many die at the hands of police officers is difficult to determine.

As these figures show, homicide is far down on the scale among the causes of death. Yet our fear of homicide and our fascination with it is insatiable. Murder mysteries are a genre that has, always had, and continues to have endless fascination for us.

It apparently matters how and why we die.

The idea that we could be in danger from the police, the very people we depend on to protect us, is unacceptable and horrendous. Is it something we need to worry about? Do African Americans need to fear the police more than other races?

These questions have been forcefully brought into our consciousness by the police killings of Eric Garner in New York resulting from a chokehold, and of Michael Brown in Missouri, by the use of a gun that has led to demonstrations, which have become an increasing source of friction, and to some extent a political football.

Fox News ran a clip, widely viewed on YouTube, where the demonstrators appeared to chant: “we won't stop, we can't stop, so kill a cop", when they actually chanted: "we won't stop, we can't stop, 'til killer cops, are in cell blocks,"

This was quickly picked up by many in the press, particularly on the Right, and even a faux apology by Fox (See here) that it was all a mistake, when in fact the recording had been doctored, (See here) did not catch up even with the so-called liberal media. Thus Nicholas Kristof writing in the New York Times, after Fox had already disavowed the video, stated: “Some extremist protesters turned to the slogan ‘arms up, shoot back,’ or to chants of ‘What do we want? Dead cops.’ That was inexcusable”, showing how even well intentioned media get taken in.

But in all this heat has anybody checked the facts?

CNN had a very interesting analysis from which I quote:

Syndicated columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote this week that young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than young white men. Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly had a much different take on his show Monday night, offering that more whites are killed by police than blacks.

In 2012, 123 African-Americans were shot dead by police. There are currently more than 43 million blacks living in the U.S.A.," O'Reilly said on his program.

"Same year, 326 whites were killed by police bullets. Those are the latest stats available.

Two dramatically different statistics -- and they could both be right.

But CNN didn’t bother to do the arithmetic. I did!

I focused on the O’Reilly figures. He gives the number of “blacks” in the total population but doesn’t give us a figure for the number of “Whites” in the total population. According to the Census Bureau the figures are about 198 million “Whites” in the US to about 42 million “Blacks”. That is a ratio of about 4.74 or about 5 times as many “Whites” as “Blacks”. The killed by police ratio according to O’Reilly is 2.65 as many Whites as Blacks, so that using O’Reilly’s own figures, Blacks are killed by police as a ratio of their presence in the population at a far higher rate than Whites.

Of course, O’Reilly could have argued that this is because Blacks are more crime prone, or more given to resisting arrest, but he didn’t. His own figures seem to show that police are much more likely to kill a Black person than a White person by far.

CNN goes into a lengthy discussion as to why Kristof and O’Reilly came up with such different figures, but they miss the point. O’Reilly’s own figures show a huge discrepancy between the rate at which police kill between the races.

Does that mean that the police like killing Blacks or that Blacks are more violent and more crime prone? That there is more crime in Black communities than in White ones, there can be no doubt.

But I think the problem may lie more in police perception, than in any reality.

The North Jersey media published an interesting article entitled "Something good coming out of Ferguson" from which I quote:

Several months ago, I was struck by another incident, this one in Columbia, S.C. A young black man was pulled over by a white officer. In complying, the young man pulled into a gas station and got out of his car. He learned he was stopped for a "possible seat belt infraction."

The officer asks for the driver’s license and car registration. The driver opens the car door and reaches in to get his wallet from the front seat. As he does that, the officer starts screaming at him to get out of the car, to put his hands up, to get down on the ground. And while yelling, in an almost hysterical tone, he starts shooting at the man.

The young man was shocked. He yelled, "You told me to get my wallet. I was just getting my wallet. Why are you shooting at me?"

Then a touch of humanity entered the conversation. The officer said, quietly and with some concern, "Were you hit?" The young man said, also quietly, "Yes, I think I feel blood running down my leg," or something to that effect.

The officer kept his gun aimed at the man, but called for help.

It’s easy to brand this cop as a violent man, intent on creating a situation in which it would be reasonable to shoot a young black man.

However, what became clear to me in watching the video was that the cop was terrified. You could hear it in his voice. You could see it in the way he moved, the way he held the gun, the way he shouted at the man.

Returning to the CNN article, CNN reports

That reality, (unreliable statistics) in part a result of weak local reporting and national data gathering efforts on police homicides, has long frustrated researchers and analysts who say they need to know more about those shootings…

The problem, experts say, is that the United States doesn't collect accurate statistics and verify nearly enough information to show definitive trends in police shootings.

There isn't a mandatory reporting. It is a self-reporting. Almost on the honor system," Sunny Hostin, a CNN legal analyst, said on CNN's "The Situation Room" on Tuesday.

Although the FBI does have some statistics, most people know that those statistics can't even be counted upon, because they are self-reported," Hostin said. "So my suggestion has been all along that we need mandatory reporting from our law enforcement agencies around the country and I think that the number of officer shootings involving young black males is actually much higher than is even self-reported. That's something that needs to be part of the conversation.

"We've been trying for years, but nobody wanted to fund it and the (police) departments didn't want it. They were concerned with their image and liability. They don't want to bother with it.''

But it may be that we have become too obsessed by the race issue. It is real, and much of what is happening in this country is dictated by race, but there is an even more fundamental problem.

CNN has an interesting commentary on the broader aspect. Again allow me to quote from its web site.

The difference in the number of killings in the U.S. and the rest of the world is startling. While police in other major countries typically kill a few people every year, the numbers here are enormous….
How many people are shot by police every year? Nobody seems to know the exact number (something that is itself disturbing -- no official government agency tracks the full data for the entire country)
On average, at least one person is killed by a cop every day in the U.S. In contrast, not a single one was killed in Britain last year, where police fired their guns a grand total of three times, according to The Economist. In 2011, when the FBI reported 404 justifiable law enforcement homicides in the U.S., police killed six people in Australia, two in England, six in Germany.

Whether one is of white, black, brown, or of yellow complexion, these are very disturbing facts and figures.

I have long been disturbed by the behavior of some who wear the police uniform and a badge and carry a gun. I am of white or rather pink complexion, but I have had my own experiences.

I will always remember when as a teen, (or maybe it was in my early twenties) I was in the resort town of Greenwoodlake, NY, a summer vacation community straddling New York and NJ, but with the town itself in NY. I had gone into town to buy something and had parked my car legally. When I came back I found that my car was wedged between two cars so that there was very little maneuvering space for me to get out. Backing up to the maximum possible, I touched the bumper of the car behind me, and then started to move out of the space, when a police officer accosted me and accused me of trying to leave the scene of an accident. I tried to explain that I had barely touched the bumper of the car behind me and that there was no damage, where upon the officer, who appeared to also be in his early twenties, suggested that I should put up my fists, and we would duke it out. I declined, and the officer relented. But it left a lasting impression on me, that, particularly in small towns, the kids that get a uniform, a badge and a gun, may be no different from the local hoodlum, without one.

This was not the last time I discovered that police officers are not always paragons of virtue.

More next time!

I AM A JEW (PART XXVIII - Discussion 4)

2015-01-15T11:10:00.000-05:00

As the title shows this is the 28th part (actually the 29^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

At this point I depart from my debate with Albert Nekimken to give other voices space.

Joel Wiener, of Falls Church, Virginia, reacted with this, after reading "I AM A JEW (PART XXV - Discussion)":

I am a bit overwhelmed by your essays and of course, I admire your search for the facts. I'd like to comment on one of your replies:

"While I am very critical of Israel’s blatantly racist policies, I have always, and continue to support the concept of a Jewish state. Without, at this point, going into great detail, I think that the Nazi era, once and for all, showed that the world needs one state where Jews will always be welcome."

But does modern Israel fulfill that promise, or does it rather create an opportunity for the world to see what it is like when Jews are in charge of such a state, and to conclude that they are fundamentally a racist and bullying people, and are therefore to be despised? This troubles me, and the recent resurgence in overt anti-Semitism seems, in my mind, to correlate with the rise in power of the Israeli government and the rise in the use of military might by the Israelis against the Palestinians.

It seems to me that Jews have, for thousands of years, lived as a nomadic people who remain physically apart, but are bound together by their cultures and ethnicities, and yet many choose, to a certain extent, to assimilate. In Israel, there seems to be less incentive to assimilate, so there has been a more dramatic rise in sects and polarization. I suppose that Israel has not been in existence long enough, or I have not read enough to correct or adjust my perceptions, but you have and I'd like to hear your views about whether Israeli actions foment anti-Semitism.

To which I responded:

The short answer to “whether Israeli actions foment anti-Semitism” is yes, yet your questions raise some interesting and disturbing question that should not be disposed of so simplistically.

Much of what you say is true. But like all, or at least most things in life, there is a balancing act.

Let me break your questions into their component parts.

But does modern Israel fulfill that promise?

When it comes to the primary purpose for which it was formed, i.e. to be a haven for Jews fleeing oppression, the answer is a resounding, yes!

While it has attracted many American Jews, who were not fleeing persecution, “Aliyah”, particularly religious ones, it has been a haven for far more who were fleeing persecution, e.g. from the Arab states, though perversely, to a large extent their need to emigrate was caused by the creation of the State of Israel, since that creation made the Jews of the Arab/Muslim world, pariahs.

Even before Israel became a Nation, and despite attempts to prevent their entry into Palestine, many Jewish refugees succeeded in finding a haven there.

Many Jews who had come out of Nazi concentration camps, and who felt they could no longer live in the nations that were the hosts of their persecution, and who like the persecuted Jews before them, had no other place to go, found a haven in Israel.

The Russian Jews, persecuted by Stalin and his successors, too found a haven in Israel.

So the primary purpose for the founding of Israel was accomplished, and even more important if such persecutions arise again, e.g. in the US, Israel would be an essential haven.

or does it rather create an opportunity for the world to see what it is like when Jews are in charge of such a state, and to conclude that they are fundamentally a racist and bullying people, and are therefore to be despised?

That is not a fair way to phrase the question! The Jewish State is in many ways better than innumerable states throughout the world, for they are legion. Many of them are Arab and/or Muslim.

But the standard for the Jewish state is different. From my point of view, I expect that state to live up to my ideals, because as a Jew I have a special connection to it, and as an American I don’t want my country to spend untold billions to support policies that I find abhorrent.

A charge has been made that because the world holds Israel to a higher standard than other countries with far worse policies, that this reflects the inherent historic and ingrained anti-Semitism of the world. In one sense the demand that a Jewish should have higher standards is a compliment rather than hostility.

But more important, what is infuriating much of the world, is that while other countries are criticized, ostracized, sanctioned for their behavior, e.g. Russia, Myanmar, South Africa, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Iran, to mention a few, Israel is given a free pass, and is the recipient, by far, of more American aid then any other country. I believe that it is resentment for this free pass that has started the BDS movement.

Furthermore, Israeli and their apologists’ propaganda has tried to demonize all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, and when it comes from Jews, as “Self Hating Jews” It is because of the latter that I headed my series as “I AM A JEW” and led into my presentation by demonstrating that I am a proud Jew. I think that demonization has backfired, and the world has accepted the notion that criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism go hand in hand, but instead of deterring criticism of Israel, the world has accepted the Israeli concept that Israel and Jews are one and the same. Of course if Israel and Jews are one and the same, then anger at Israel will lead, inevitably to anti-Semitism.

There are times when it appears that Israel welcomes anti-Semitism, because it wants all Jews to emigrate to Israel, and what better way to drive them to it, than anti-Semitism. It is interesting to note that Israel’s reaction to the attack on the Jewish supermarket in Paris, is to urge France’s Jews to emigrate to Israel

I don’t accept your premise that Jews are fundamentally a racist and bullying people, and I don’t think the world actually sees them that way, because as I have said, Israeli policies are not really worse than most countries, the difference being that unlike other countries Israel has consistently been given a free pass.

I now invite any comments, questions, or corrections from readers. However, in the coming posts I plan to take a break from my focus on Israel, and to address other issues that are at least as important.

I will, in due course, return to the subject of Israel and give Albert Nekimken a full opportunity to air his disagreement, together, of course, with my rebuttals, always interspersed.