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Crime Surge in Giuliani's Police State?
by Robert Lederman
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.netHe's world famous for eliminating crime in NYC.
Is Rudy Giuliani's reputation in any way justified?
Try asking the victims of the latest rash of shootings, stabbings, bias attacks and sexual assaults on NYC's supposedly safer streets. Despite a decade long nationwide trend of falling crime statistics murder, rape and bias crimes are up in NYC like nowhere else.
This past Sunday 6/11/2000 alone, at least two men were killed in shootings, one man was stabbed to death and another 28 people were wounded in 18 separate incidents that took place in such economically, racially and ethnically disparate locations as Brighton Beach, Atlantic AvAvenue and Harlem. On the same day at least four women were stripped naked and sexually attacked by a gang of youths in broad daylight on Central Park South, possibly the most elite and protected block in all of NYC. From Friday night through Sunday, the NYPD recorded at least 40 separate attacks in which 59 people were shot or stabbed. So far, six victims have died.
Where was the Mayor's world famous army of 40,000 "highly-trained"cops armed with 9mm guns and hollowpoint bullets during all the mayhem? Perhaps they were busy racking up the kind of fake crime statistics Giuliani has used to create his reputation-hundreds of thousands of arrests for marijuana possession, fare-beating, homelessness, vending and protesting against his repressive policies.
It's not that the police aren't out there. There's not a subway station in the City without its crack team of anywhere from two to twenty undercover police officers staking out the turnstiles for low-income New Yorkers trying to beat the administration out of $1.50.
Hardly a day goes by when I don't come across an immigrant vendor in handcuffs while a team of plainclothes cops on overtime confiscate and bag up their merchandise. As if those arrests weren't useless enough, Giuliani has now decided that smoking cigarettes and standing over the yellow line in subway stations are additional crimes deserving his special attention. As we all know smoking cigarettes, like smoking marijuana, leads to more serious crimes.
While murder is up in NYC, the Mayor's focus is as always on the lowest level misdemeanors. He's promoting a devilishly clever plan whereby three misdemeanor convictions automatically become the equivalent of a felony conviction. Three felony convictions make one eligible for a life sentence in prison.
Will the Mayor's plan take any real criminals off the streets? That no one can predict but one thing is certain-the average homeless person or street vendor living under Giuliani's beneficent dictatorship manages to acquire enough misdemeanor arrests in a year to end up doing life under the Giuliani plan. As someone Jailiani has had arrested 41 times on misdemeanor charges I'd be qualified for at least four concurrent life sentences. Luckily for me, I've never pled guilty or been convicted, otherwise my address would already begin with a prisoner ID number.
It's not the City's police officers that are to blame for this stupidity. They are on the street each day busily writing parking tickets, handcuffing hookers and their tricks and searching for any squeegee guys trying to make a comeback.
As two undercover cops on stakeout that I approached the other day in a Brooklyn subway station pointed out, it's the Mayor who sets the priorities that they are ordered to enforce. Commenting on Giuliani's proposal to have people arrested for standing over the yellow line on subway platforms, the officers laughingly said, "We'd have to arrest half the population of New York".
Give him time. With 18 months left in office, Giuliani may still manage to have every person in NYC arrested before he leaves office. Say hello if we end up in the same holding cell.
Just in case you didn't believe my past essays claiming that the CIA-sponsored Manhattan Institute was exerting a huge and insidious influence on policy decisions both in New York City and across the nation the NY Times has just come out with an article that sums it all up in one unambiguous sentence.
NY Times 6/12/2000
Bush Culls Campaign Theme From Conservative Thinkers
"Gov. George W. Bush has said his political views have been shaped by the work of Myron Magnet of the Manhattan Institute."
The article goes on to mention a number of other "thinkers"who are on GW's list of the "best minds"that he has promised to surround himself with if appointed, I mean elected, President by Corporate America. The article doesn't bother to mention the fact at least three of them, James Wilson author of Fixing Broken Windows-the book responsible for Giuliani's phony quality of life arrest policy-Stephen Goldsmith (Bush's chief policy advisor) and John J. DiIulio, Jr., are also closely associated with the Manhattan Institute. Magnet, Goldsmith and DiIulio are listed on the MI webpage as among their resident scholars.
Now that Giuliani, the Manhattan Institute's poster-boy for the coming Police State, has disgraced himself by dumping his wife and has alienated the entire Republican party by his fake Senate campaign, the Institute is putting all its Fourth Reich eggs in the Bush basket.
When you read about or watch on television the carefully orchestrated efforts to depict dimwitted, cocaine snorting party animal GW Bush as compassionate, don't forget that the Manhattan Institute was founded by William Casey, who became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency immediately afterwards. For its entire history the CIA's main job has been to use propaganda to create the illusion that Fascists, ex-Nazis, drug dealers and genocidal far right dictators are actually patriotic freedom fighters, compassionately struggling to make the world a kinder, gentler place.
The alleged religious convictions of these men are often highlighted as Bush's are in the NY Times article and as Giuliani's have often been, despite the fact that the Mayor has not attended a single church service other than for political reasons during his administration. If arresting innocent people and presiding over executions makes one compassionate and religious, then these two are truly the spiritual heart of a new America. Come to think of it, during the Inquisition, arresting people and executing them was the proof of religious conviction.
As a perfect example of how propaganda is used to deceive people into supporting things that are diametrically opposed to their own best interests-like the five decade-long CIA inspired Cold War-just examine the entire DNA issue that Bush is suddenly the leading proponent of. While I fully support the idea that any person accused of a crime should be allowed to use DNA technology to prove innocence or appeal their convictions, let's not imagine that Bush or the other political leaders behind this "movement"have the publics' interests at heart.
Once routine DNA testing for those accused of crimes becomes the standard, it will be no time at all before DNA sampling for everyone is required by law, something Giuliani has already publicly advocated [see:N.Y. Times 12/17/98 "Giuliani Backs DNA Testing of Newborns for Identification"]. Under the guise of exonerating innocent people who stand accused of crimes we will all soon become part of a nationwide DNA database.
Such a database will lead to widespread genetic profiling affecting our jobs, educational opportunities, access to health care and parental rights. Ultimately it will lead to people becoming suspects, receiving harsh sentences and even being convicted of crimes based on their DNA showing a propensity for criminal activity.
Sound far fetched? Among the Manhattan Institute's most cherished ideas is that crime has a genetic basis, an idea that's fundamental to the racist Eugenics theories espoused by many of the Manhattan Institute's past and present thinkers. On their website http://www.manhattan-institute.org/ you'll find a number of essays extolling the virtues of DNA testing. Under the guise of fighting crime Bush, Giuliani and the Manhattan Institute are helping usher in a technologically advanced Eugenics-inspired Police State that will rob us of our most basic rights while pretending to give us quality of life.
The coming election may be a first. We'll get to chose between two Hitler admirers (GW Bush's family were among Hitler's biggest American accomplices during WWII operating banks and shipping concerns that helped finance the Third Reich; Buchanan has publicly admired Hitler), and Gore, a corporate stooge working for the same U.S. companies whose support put Hitler in the position to almost accomplish world domination. The media keeps emphasizing skinheads as a threat while never mentioning the Bush family history, yet another example of propaganda meant to divert attention from the real Nazi threat in the White House, the U.S. Congress and from "think tanks"like the Manhattan Institute.
Daily News 6/7/2000
Subway Safety Plan-
City eyes gates, cameras, cops"I think we should do more to try to figure out ... is there a better way to handle crowds and handle people that are waiting for the subway train," Mayor Giuliani said yesterday as he discussed measures under consideration...Giuliani said anyone who stepped across the warning line before the train pulls in could face a fine."[Note: this article fails to mention that the present NYPD policy as ordered by the Mayor is not to issue desk appearance tickets but instead to put everyone arrested through the Central Booking system, a stay that takes a minimum of 24 hours].
N.Y. Times 12/17/98
"Giuliani Backs DNA Testing
of Newborns for Identification""Giuliani, who backs the police plan, broadened the debate in a speech and news conference Wednesday by endorsing the use of DNA tests in intensified city efforts to identify "deadbeat"fathers and force them to support their offspring financially. Children in single-parent homes are eight times more likely to commit crimes than those in intact families, he said. When asked whether all children should have DNA tests at birth, the Mayor said: "...I would have no problem with that, or fingerprinting all children...There is absolutely no reason why people should be afraid of being identified...It's not invasive," the Mayor said. "It doesn't invade any right of privacy. You don't have a right not to be identified. I don't remember a constitutional amendment that gives you the right not to be identified."
"I don't know any bioethicist of any stature that would condone the taking of blood samples from children at birth for purposes like what the Mayor is talking about," said Barry Scheck, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University and a member of state and Federal panels on DNA issues. "It would be a step towards a total-surveillance society."Police Commissioner Howard Safir yesterday proposed that DNA samples be collected from every suspect arrested in order to build a data bank of biological evidence like the fingerprint system. "I think this is the future in terms of additional crime reduction," Safir said."-Daily News 12/2/98
NY Post 6/12/2000
CITY HAS BLOODY WEEKEND
It was a bloody Sunday in the Big Apple yesterday, with at least two men killed in shootings, one man stabbed to death and 28 other people wounded in 18 incidents.
Daily News 6/12/2000
Central Park Terror Gang of 15
strips, sexually abuses 4 womenA rroving gang of hooligans stripped four young women naked and sexually assaulted them in and around Central Park yesterday in a brazen, daylight rampage through the heart of the city, police said. Without warning, the pack of about 15 men swarmed the women — in the park and along Central Park South — first drenching them with water, then ripping off all their clothes and groping them during a 35-minute spree...One woman, a French tourist, was sexually assaulted in the park as her husband, who was restrained by several of the thugs, watched in helpless horror. Three of the victims also were robbed, cops said...Central Park South was bustling with sun-soaked evening strollers at 6:15 p.m. when the group of 15 men began their assaults on Central Park South, turning the posh strip into a gauntlet of terror. his body.
NY Times 6/12/2000 3 More Are Killed as Spate of Crimes Continues Through the Weekend "An outbreak of violence that began Friday night continued unabated yesterday as three people were killed and 28 others were stabbed or shot in attacks throughout the city, the police said...Those crimes and others pushed the weekend's toll of violence to unusually high levels. In all, from Friday night through yesterday, the police recorded 40 attacks in which 59 people were shot or stabbed. Six of the victims died."
NY Times 6/11/2000 Lawyers Complain as Police Arrest Smokers in the Subways By DAVID ROHDE "Some police officers enforcing the Giuliani administration's continuing crackdown on quality-of-life crimes are focusing their efforts on a new public menace, according to defense lawyers and prosecutors. This spring, a dozen people have been arrested and jailed for a night for smoking cigarettes on Manhattan subway platforms. The formal charge is disorderly conduct. The arrests come as defense lawyers say that the city's quality-of-life crackdown, which has long taken aim at turnstile jumpers and marijuana smokers, is continuing apace and broadening. While city officials credit that approach with driving down crime, defense lawyers assail it as overkill that singles out minorities. Police officers, they contend, are arresting growing numbers of people for increasingly petty offenses. Mundane offenses that resulted in a summons or a warning in the past, defense lawyers said, now result in a night in jail."
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Important Note:
Mr. Lederman has explained that his articles posted here are not to be taken as official statements by the No-Spray Coalition of which he is a member or of the "No-Spray" lawsuit in which he is a plaintiff.Blue Collar Pundit Essays
Searching for the Breach in
Alice’s Looking Glass WorldMy America
Oh Say, Can You See?
FREEDOM!
War isn't Hell!
God is Starting to Scare Me!
It's All Part of the Plan!
Turning the World Wide Web Into
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