Tuesday, May 26, 2009

CRIME IS GOOD

It has been many a moon since I have posted anything on this blog (which I co-founded). Why? Well, it's not because there is little to emote about. Simply, it is because the life of a teacher, writer, and married man can be a complex and time consuming one. But in my few free moments, I have been watching the passing political parade. While there are many fascinating things going on for a slightly right-of-center soul such as yours truly to examine, what has grabbed my attention has been the recent activity in the northeast (most notably in the People's Republic of New York) to turn back the clock on anti-crime measures and welcome criminals back into our neighborhoods. Sadly, many of our politicians really, truly do not see danger coming from the barrels of guns. From gun manufacturers, yes. But from those who illegally own and use those guns (and knives too), no way.

A month or so ago the New York State Legislature (controlled completely by the Democratic Party) voted to repeal the famous (or infamous) Rockefeller Drugs Laws. These laws had always been controversial. Passed in the early 1970s, when it seemed little could stem the tide of drug crime, these laws took power away from judges and gave it to district attorneys. The laws were tough. But the early 1970s were tough times. Crime was rising in New York City before the laws were passed,and continued to rise for many years onward. Thus, it has been said by some fairminded observers that the Rockefeller Laws had only a moderate impact on the drug trade. Nevertheless, over time many drug dealers were put away, and for ever growing sentences. For the left, however, these laws represented all that was bad in the criminal justice world. This was because the laws were predicated on the notion that drug crime was, in fact, crime. Drug use was not simply an illness that was to be treated by detox and counseling. It was illegal and it should be punished. Some of the harsher aspects of the laws were changed a few years ago, but after November 2006, when the Democrats took over the State Senate (the legislative body that protected the bulk of the Rockefeller laws), it was only a matter of time before the laws were ripped from the books. Once the repeal was passed, Governor David Patterson signed the bill, over the objection of most New York State D.A.s, and some of the press. Although The New York Times couldn't wait for the repeal, the Daily News returned from the dead and recommended the repeal be called "the drug dealer protection act."

The same movement can be seen in Connecticut, the Nutmeg State, where both house of the state legislature repealed capital punishment. Now, Connecticut hasn't executed anyone in...well, I truly can't say. But the Democrats who run both house of the legislature decided that even the threat of execution for, say, multiple rape-murderers, child killers, or cop killers, was just too much for them. Thankfully, Connecticut has a moderate Republican governor, Jodi Rell, who was quoted as saying she would veto the repeal as soon as it hit her desk.

Over the last twenty years crime rates have fallen throughout our nation, especially in the northeast and midwest, areas that were thought unsalvagable in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Crime rates went down for many reasons, but one major reason was stronger anti-crime laws, stonger prison sentences, and the presence of greater and greater numbers of smarter, younger, and highly motivated police officers on our streets. The far left has never liked this reality. Oh, the left is against crime. Left wing politicians and activists simply don't want to do anything serious to stop crime. That is because, even after all the bad years, and twenty or so good years, they still see criminals as victims of society. Sounds trite, but it's true. That's not to say that left-leaning office holders have not come up with positive anti-crime measures. Bill Clinton's cime bill of the mid-1990s put more cops on the streets. And David Dinkins second police commissioner, Ray Kelly, (who has been Michael Bloomberg's first and only police commissioner) was instrumental in beefing up police tactics last in the Dinkins Adminstration. But, as New York Magazine journalist Chris Smith writes in the current issue, Dinkins and his crowd never warmed to these aggressive tactics. No surprise there. It took Rudy Giuliani to change things, and Michael Bloomberg to keep the changes in place, and even improve upon them.

With the Republican Party is disarray, with the followers of Dick Cheney writing Colin Powell and his moderate followers out of the party, (and Powell standing up to them and promising to fight for control of the G.O.P.), Republican activists might rally round the anti-crime cause as one that can bring both wings of the party together. It was moderate Republicans like Giuliani, Bloomberg, George Pataki, Tom Kean, William Weld, and, yes, Nelson Rockefeller, who did their best to stand up to the leftist ethos, and were quite successful in turning the tide against crime. Their successes, which allowed the voting public to turn away from the crime issue, have made it possible for the Democrats to rout the G.O.P. in the northeast on issues such as the economy, abortion, and stem cell research. I don't want a new crime wave to be the harbinger of a Republican revival, but I fear that if we are not careful, and new crime wave is what we will get because of the mindset and the resulting legislative actions of Democrats in the northeast. If that occurs then all of us, Republican and Democrat, will be in trouble.

John Attanas

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Ersatz Socialism

Did you hear? There is a new definition of Socialism making the rounds of leftist circles. According to Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher, Jr. writing in the May 25th issue of The Nation socialism is “the human capacity to solve our common problems collectively in an egalitarian participatory and democratic fashion.” We all really have become socialists if this is the current definition. Even my colleague on this blog, John Attanas, who considers himself a moderate Republican, is now actually a socialist! By that definition Ron Paul, Ted Kennedy, John McCain, and Nancy Pelosi are all socialists. Hell, I’ll bet Rush Limbaugh would even fit under a socialist tent that wide!

Excuse me, but I thought socialism was the collective ownership of the means of production and finance; the leveling of the economic divide; the elimination of the influence of money on our deliberative assemblies. We socialists have split again and again over the exact strategies to achieve these objectives, which has contributed to our electoral ineffectiveness, but never have we abandoned them.

Sorry Barbara and Bill. Webster has it right: “so-cial-ism – 1) any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”

Jonathan Fluck

Friday, May 8, 2009

Peace & Nuclear Disarmament

For the past two years I have helped organized the New York Peace Film Festival with a partner (Yumi Tanaka) and through her contacts in Japan a media outlet sent me some questions for an article they're doing. Below are some of the questions and my answers.

1. Describe your objectives in starting the New York Peace Film Festival.

I support the peaceful resolution of conflicts, both on a personal level and in the international arena. Resorting to war in order to resolve conflict is rarely successful and usually creates as many problems as it ‘solves’. It certainly highlights the failure of diplomacy, but often that is because many issues left unattended for a long time fester into a rage that expresses itself in war. On a political level I believe our Department of State must have a much stronger ‘Department of Peace’ orientation—identifying and helping to resolve global problems between nations before they escalate into war.
Since I have no political clout, but do have a background in the arts, one way that I could advance the objective of the peaceful resolution of conflict was to join with Yumi Tanaka to organize the New York Peace Film Festival. By contrasting the horrors of war with the positive good of peacefully resolving conflicts and building person-to-person relationships across conflict zones, I hope to add my voice to a growing chorus of people demanding an end to wars and the wasteful military spending that deprives nations of capital needed to solve social problems.

2. Do you believe that President Obama’s Prague speech raised the awareness of the American public on the nuclear disarmament issue?

There is an old story of a traveler whose mule had stopped in the middle of the road and just wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard the owner tugged on the harness. An old farmer was walking by, and after assessing the problem pulled a cross post from a nearby fence, walked up to the mule and smacked it hard across the head with this heavy piece of wood. The dazed mule raised its head and looked into the eyes of the farmer. The farmer turned to the traveler and said: “first you have to get their attention.”
Today in America people are worried about their jobs, their mortgages, their 401-ks, their kids getting into the right schools, and a hundred other immediate concerns of life. We are finally recognizing the dangers of climate change but only after a decade of constant remonstrations about the seriousness of the situation. One speech by the president on nuclear disarmament, followed by no actions, is off the radar of the American public. Plus, the speech got very little air time here in the States.

3. What did you think of his speech?

I think the speech made good points, but unless it is followed by actions (real negotiable proposals to divest all parties of their nuclear weapons followed by diplomatic initiatives to pursue those proposals AND the accelerated decommissioning of our own overblown nuclear stockpile) it is just “a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” This president is great at making bold statements, but bad at following up with bold actions. We only have to look at the Wall Street serving bailout that followed the terrific rhetoric about ‘not rewarding the people and institutions that got us into this mess’ to see the huge gap between his rhetoric and actions. For those who still don’t want to believe me, just contrast Obama’s talk about a stimulus package that will ‘put America back to work’ and the anemic package that we got.
But the speech endorsed the continued development of nuclear energy in the guise of a way to combat climate change without addressing the nuclear waste problem; and the speech endorsed the Bush administration’s plans to place anti-missile batteries in Poland and the Czech Republic which will only exacerbate tensions with Russia. Both of these are counterproductive to reducing the nuclear threat.

4. After Obama’s speech, did those in America (including you) who are fighting for nuclear abolition change their actions? How did they receive his speech?

Although his speech was welcomed in the peace community, we are all very skeptical that a real turn around is going to happen on this issue. There are no peace advocates on Obama’s security team; he is escalating the war in Afghanistan; he has extended the pull-out of Iraq for the maximum amount of time possible; he is not calling for the closure of even one of the 760 U.S. military bases on foreign soil; and although he touts cutting military programs, spending on the military is actually continuing its upward spiral. I know of no peace or anti-nuclear organization that has altered its plans for advocacy based on this one speech. And they should not. In fact, we must redouble our efforts and put maximum pressure on Obama to follow-up in a timely and realistic manner on the positive proposals he did make for nuclear disarmament.

Jonathan Fluck