As Published in the Brussels Journal

First Offensive - The Gaia Wars: God, Allah, Freedom of Speech and the Law

Few argue, even in the Islamic community among the more mentally stable, that Islamic Way has largely come to define itself in the worldwide public eye as hardly benevolent or socially proactive.

If anything, quite the opposite could be said about current humanity's application of the Koran to daily life. Some elements of the Islamic faith have deteriorated into a multi-national self-pity hysteria that constantly casts about looking for something, if anything, that they find offensive in the first person and worthy of abusive, hostile and violent conduct in return - all the better to quench an insatiable thirst for attention.

Within the United States, the Islamic community always co-existed nicely with just about any other denomination under the Sun. Theology is theology, your theology may be different than mine, but the ultimate goal of all theology is practical, daily application of social benevolence.

Unfortunately, in the hand of misguided local clergy, the overarching tenets of any faith can be warped on practical application.

The recent foibles of the Roman Catholic Church in America is but one example. Largely a 'gay' oriented community run rampant without restraint or fear of redress, the American Roman Catholic Church deteriorated throughout the 20th Century into a procedural organization that molested both male and female children. The Camden Diocese in New Jersey and the Philadelphia Archdiocese in Pennsylvania are two, quite sad examples of what transpired - dozens, if not hundreds, of children were sexually molested or assaulted, verbally and physically, in a variety of formats. Paul VI High School in Haddonfield, New Jersey, is one finite example - the male staff routinely propositioned and then harassed male students during the 1970s, often labeling those who failed to comply as 'gay' as a means of social intimidation and retribution.

These kind of incidents were so glaring and generic within the Roman Catholic Church, as Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham duly noted in a 2005 report on the culture, that it is difficult to not say that the Roman Catholic Church was officially sanctioning the conduct - hence becoming, arguably, an abusive homosexual-oriented organization from a Church structure point of view.

The observation of abusiveness is not without merit. But one should proceed cautiously because the abusiveness 'template' that underlay the American Roman Catholic Church's fixation with sexual assaults has little to do with sexual assault or the Roman Catholic Church.

Simply travel to the southern United States and sit-in on a fundamentalist 'Christian' organizational meeting. Roman Catholics are oft portrayed in manner that is truly cartoonish, filled with every sort of fault and flaw - precisely what fault and flaw no one can really seem to define - that you would expect any practicing Roman Catholic to have a serpent's tail and a forked tongue, carrying devilishly pronged scepters. And there is active solicitation by fundamentalist Church elders to indoctrinate their youth into generically viewing any Roman Catholic in such a manner. Flawed. Unworthy, except of going straight to hell of course.

What's really afoot is something more Sociopathic, a "you are not like me therefore I socially marginalize and exclude you" psychology. Experiences based upon skin color, regardless of the color, are predicated on the same discriminatory exclusion conduct. "I exclude you from the business world because you are black." The theme underpinned much of American business life prior to the 1965 Civil Rights Act and that discriminatory legacy continues to fundamentally shape the American business and legal landscapes to this day.

At this point, one must be attentive to the fact that elaborate 'rationales' are developed to legitimize the exclusion processes. You are not excluded based on skin color - a sleight of hand substitution takes place - you are now excluded because you are lazy, not very bright, have low morals and a poor work ethic, your skin color just becomes a convenient catch-all. Any casual reading of the Pro-Slavery argument of the 1700s and 1800s is apt in verifying the argument, including Thomas Jefferson’s writings.

But, as hard as anyone may argue that the basic conduct was 'racist', it really had not much to do with skin color - it had everything to do with those in financial power excluding a dilution of that power. "Less money for you means more money for me" so the theme more realistically transpired.

You can actively see the same theme today, just as robust as in Thomas Jefferson's day, in excluding Social Security and Veteran's disability recipients from American Society - the Department of Labor does not count them in their employment statistics even if they no longer receive any benefits yet remain unemployed. Why? That's a fascinating question that can largely be answered thus: as a gratuity to American businesses, the federal and varying state Department of Labor structure their regulations so that disabled Veterans and injured workers need not ever be rehired in the American workforce, hence saving health care costs and bolstering insurance industry profits. A financial double-bang for American industry in return for a very small price in loss of human life.

In short, the disabled and previously injured are expendable. And labor statistics are fudged to conceal the matter gambling that America's media will be too lazy to inspect further. Generally, the gamble works.

So, we have a seamless transition - a portability of a behavioral template from religious grounds, to racial, to socio-economic. In all examples, the conduct is remarkably identical: 1. A desire to exclude and 2. Development of elaborate rationalizations to validate the lack of social benevolence.

It should shock no one that the same rationalizations used to validate slavery are oft used to validate exclusion of the previously injured from the workforce: they are, supposedly, really just lazy, of poor moral fiber and work ethic, and not very bright because - afterall - federal law bars discrimination against the disabled, hence the real core of the matter lies in some personal defect. To the letter, these tenets were the moral arguments in favor of Slavery.

So, how does any of this relate to the cartoonish characterizations of Muhammad?

Simply take the portable abusiveness template and slide it down the political ellipse. Is there any fundamental difference between how the American Roman Catholic Church handled its predatory homosexual, sexual, and pedophile issues and the modern radical Islamic communities approach to just about anything?

Instead of adopting a human benevolence point of view, the radical Islamic community adopts a "We do things because we can" modality of thought and act. Much like the Roman Catholic Church did with its dysfunctional sexual issues as Lynne Abraham so eloquently noted.

Which, from a social benevolence point of view, begs a question: when, and what, is fair commentary on anti-social conduct?

A picture of Muhammad with a bomb posing as his turban? Well, if the Islamic community finds the depiction unfortunate, it is certainly arguing against itself - the calmer, rational, socially benevolent segment versus the radical 'rationale manipulating' destructive segment that is out for 'revenge' in a series of self-fabricated insults?

Well, that is a dilemma. A quite intellectual one. Using the favored logic of the radical Islamic community, would the cartoon have ever appeared had not the radical Islamic community not favored destructive conducts?

And the media around the world do no service in limiting the debate. Perhaps the Islamic community is embarrassed by its more radical peers. Perhaps it should be. Much of the American Roman Catholic Church is embarrassed by their peers, if not their clergy, yet you do not see the lay community blowing up rectories and cutting off people's heads.

Why the difference? The American Roman Catholic Church, the lay community, reached a maturity long ago in deciphering that the procedural structures of any given institution are far different from any theological/philosophic tenet. And one should not casually be transposed or assigned to the other.

Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi is an embarrassment to the Roman Catholic Church, the Camden Diocese, and the lay community because he refused to investigate the long history of abusive, quite illegal, conduct within the Roman Catholic Church in Camden County. Yet no one bombed the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

The Islamic community, and any ardent proselytizing community, must realize that being 'ardent' and 'proselytizing' can translate into unrestricted, heavily rationalized 'abusiveness towards all, if not just anyone who is convenient, in a manner that is hardly 'socially benevolent'.

Jesus Christ, in one form or another, has been lampooned. So have conservative Rabbis.

Perhaps, in the pursuit of social benevolence, lampooning is not such a bad thing if it brings healthy perspective?

Whether all things community, Danish, American, or Islamic, the more intellectual elements of all three would answer that question in a decided affirmative.

And few would agree that anyone should exert 'law' into this debate to define its boundaries or scope, to impose restraint. Freedom of Speech exposes, it seldom conceals.

- Qi


The Political Ellipse footnote:

The political/theological/philosophical spectrum is more accurately represented - not as a straight line - but as an elongated ellipse. Hence, socially benevolent theological faiths can comfortably sit side by side even though taking divergent directions on 'procedural' issues. Essentially, two entities are tied to the same wooden post, facing opposite directions, but occupying the same fundamental ground.

One can comfortably tether conservative extremists with liberal extremists. Hence, odd pairings like Pat Robertson and Louis Farrakhan easily cross paths - either procedurally or substantively - in espousing their philosophies or how to implement them. Being 'pro' one segment of humanity often entails be 'anti' some other segment as anyone familiar with the American racial landscape can attest - skin color is no barrier to prejudice in any direction. The matter is no less so in theology. Or politics in general.

Pulling the Plug on Camden, New Jersey: The Racist Capital of the World?

"Uncle Tom!" The epitaph pierced one's ears, a scream, not shouted. Welcome to "revitalization", welcome to Camden, New Jersey.

Voted the worst crime-ridden ghetto in the United States, I moved to 3rd and Cooper Streets in Camden as one of the news media's crowned "New Pioneers" in 2004. In January 2006, I pulled the plug on Camden, abandoning it to its racism and affluent suburban predators.

In the 1990s, Camden provided free bus tours of Camden neighborhoods to showcase property for real estate development. People from as far away as New York City were recruited. What Camden received in return was not New York City development wealth - but a Buena, New Jersey, slumlord.

Ted Laguna, a former minor league baseball player in the 1950s Milwaukee Braves organization, owns the Castle Apartments at the corner of Third and Cooper - a premier, by Camden standards, real estate rental property. The apartment building is located directly across the street from the Rutgers University campus, less than two blocks from the Rutgers-Camden Law School.

Laguna gleefully advertises that he "played with Hank Aaron on the Atlanta Braves" as part of his sales tactic. The gambit is the first of many frauds. In fact, Laguna never played with the Braves on the major league level according to the Atlanta Braves website. He did play for the Atlanta "Crackers" a minor league team of interesting racial epitaph that will become relevant shortly. He also played for minor league teams in Nebraska and Toledo, batting .194 in 46 games as a catcher in Nebraska.

From the outset, Laguna falsifies. That sociopathic tendency carries over into the legal realm as well. Laguna falsifies leases, enticing tenants to sign arguably illegal boilerplate documents and inspection reports that are deliberately crafted to be altered after they have been signed. In fact, Ted Laguna does alter those documents. And he will falsify any document or statement that he finds apt.

In return, the residents of the Castle Apartments get dubious quality. In one incident, Laguna allowed a broken sewer pipe to flood raw sewage onto his tenants for the better part of three months. Instead of paying to have the plumbing inspected, Laguna advised his maintenance staff to harass anyone taking a shower for being careless in spilling water on the floor.

In another incident, Laguna left a broken window - freely viewable from a common area balcony - unrepaired for nearly 15 months. Despite 10 degree temperatures, Laguna refused to fix the window.

Plumbing fixtures are so old and deteriorated that paint peels off bathtubs in large chunks. Urine stains floors. Holes in walls allow bugs and rodents free access - including flea infestations from the dog owned by Laguna's superintendent. Lice also exist.

And the matter is hardly within the control of the tenants. Laguna refuses to pay for anything more than once per week trash removal of an apartment building holding more than 20 units. And he provides only one trash dumpster. In 2004, and much of 2005, the dumpster overflowed an average of 27 days out of any given month - with trash and discarded food littering almost 50 feet in any direction.

Camden, for all its bus ride euphoria, inherited a slumlord.

Much can be speculated as to why any human being would act like Ted Laguna. Greed and racism would appear to be sensible theories.

Laguna refers to his Black male employees as "My Man" - much akin to the pre-Civil Rights nomenclature referring to Black slaves and menial employees.

And, in return for some of the most pathetic living conditions imaginable, one pays $600 per month for an efficiency apartment. In September 2005, Laguna more than likely failed a State of New Jersey Health Inspection - on the date of the inspection, all the conditions listed above were in existence, including the broken windows and trash overflowing onto the street. (The State of New Jersey refuses to publish the inspection report. Despite being a public record. In New Jersey, one of the most corrupt governmental organizations in modern times, anything can be directly or indirectly bought under the guise of 'law'. Including silence. And ignorance.)

Just two blocks away, the Victor Building has garnered the exclusive Camden residential revitalization attention, showcasing Dranoff Properties as a beacon in Camden's revival. The media overlooks that the Victor Building project is quite secluded on the fringe of Camden's waterfront. And that it is hardly exemplary of the type of investors that Camden is attracting. Ted Laguna - a financial predator by any reasonable conclusion - may be more normative.

And it would be within keeping with Camden being the crime capital of the United States - a multi-faceted slum whose economy is largely predicated, directly or indirectly, to a cocaine black market economy that utilizes Camden residents, particularly the Black community, as entertainment pawns.

Gone are the days of fiddle playing servants and token sports stars. In the 21st Century, and throughout much of the closing decades of the 20th Century, Camden remains a gateway to both the past and the future. And like a proverbial gateway, Camden can neither go forward or move backward - it is stuck in "cocaine" idle.

The predominate economy in Camden is feeding the drug habits of its wealthier, almost exclusively Caucasian, suburban neighbors.

All too glaring testimony of that fact occurred in the mid-1990s when the law journal of the Rutgers-Camden Law School would hold cocaine parties in a federal courthouse parking lot located at the corner of Fifth and Penn Streets - in broad daylight, less than one block from the Rutgers Police Department door.

And there is no shortage of ability to generically place the blame: when I went to vote in the November 2004 election, Camden's Black poll workers made it quite clear that neither the vote or presence of any member of the White community in Camden is appreciated. That resentment is palpable, the disgust self-evident.

The "Uncle Tom!" screaming incident noted above occured within one week of my arrival in Camden.

By default, unable to solve the voracious cocaine appetites of America suburbia, and unable to salve a deep-seeded racial antipathy by the Black community against America's White community for intentionally creating the cocaine economy - and relegating the Black community to any real estate unwanted by the White community, Camden continues to spiral out of control.

As everyone so glaringly witnessed, the historical tradition of real estate racial "red-lining" is alive and well: a change in century has not matured the White community's insatiable thirst for get-rich-quick financial scams, including those predicated along racial lines. The Camden County Democratic Party's championing of one such racial profiling real estate scam by the name of Cherokee won no friends among minorities in Camden. It was perceived by the minority community in Camden - along with many in the suburban White community - for what it was: unabashed financial-racial bigotry designed to uproot impoverished minorities in favor of a more affluent White community. And, notably, with White members of the Camden County Democratic Party reaping much fianncial benefit and first crack consideration for the newly "freed" real estate.

The local media has been relatively timid in addressing racial profiling and real estate corruption in nexus with the Camden County Democratic Party and the de facto New Jersey legal community that is, invariably, strewn throughout such scams around the state. Eloquent argument can be mounted that, on a de facto basis, the New Jersey Bar is an organized crime operation - all good efforts by honest members notwithstanding.

The advent of the contemporary Camden County Democratic Party and its efforts to "revitalize" the City of Camden are an apt point in the argument.

What the future holds is anyone's guess. But one suspects the City of Camden will see more Ted Lagunas and fundamentally bigoted real estate development plans like Cherokee before Camden ever sees the light of a positive future.

On January 5, 2006, I abandoned Camden. Or was Camden abandoned long ago into a racial, exploitive abyss? It is, at very least, an interesting question.

I, Journalista: Fashionistas by Any Other Name?

Conformity in the journalistic dormitories is at a premium in the age of media consolidation - the only tell-tale sign of hope for a substantive Fourth Estate in 21st Century America is the advent of the Internet.

Come hither or nigh, public scrutiny is greater than ever. So is the dissemination of knowledge. No longer is ‘mass’ America dependent on ‘mass media’ as a solitary source of current event information.

Disgruntled workers to societal victims, free reign is now at hand to publish. While on first take, the ability to publish may seem indiscriminate - the Internet does contain as much error as accuracy - the sheer volume of Internet publication provides an automatic ‘check and balance’. In short, more than at any time in human history, the common people have access to a higher quality of information about their societies and about their governments.

All one need do is drop by a public library, or a tolerant university, and login to the Internet free of charge.

The fact has not gone unnoticed. Some attempt to cash in on the Internet phenomena is being made by newspapers like the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer. Whether rightly, or harmlessly, an attempt to guide readers into ‘pre-approved’ line of thought is becoming apparent in the online offerings of these news organizations.

The tendency is more glaring at the Philadelphia Inquirer, a smaller newspaper that is more cash-strapped than its wealthier cousin The New York Times. Money buys influence. Money can also free one from influence to a greater degree, and with more agility, than if impoverished. It is the latter phenomena that becomes noticeable with the smaller newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer.

While arguments can be mounted that any news organization slants its coverage of world events, some economic realities do apply.

When the Philadelphia Inquirer saw the Internet - that Gutenberg in every home - beginning to provide news content without the need for the Inquirer, it did the obvious thing. It started a website. And it started to contribute to that online news content. But, interestingly, it also started to guide readers to pre-approved webpages that more or less camouflaged “authors” employed directly by the Inquirer. Only in afterthought does the Inquirer mention, if it does at all, that the content on these webpages are written by Inquirer employees.

One thinks one is getting a broad expansion of the news found in the Inquirer - when all that you get is a manicured illusion reproducing the same philosophical news content, content that may or may not be balanced at any given moment.

While harmless in these early days of the Internet, the clear desire to garner a larger share of Internet information - to control what is being read - is apparent. Small, insignificant in the overall for the moment, the trend shows potential to grow.

Particularly disturbing is the promotion of ‘blogs’ - supposedly autonomously written web pages that are in fact in-house productions by the Philadelphia Inquirer. One is reading individual commentary, but with a Metropolis/1984 twist, one is really reading the corporate Inquirer. It is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the two.

The phenomena has a bizarre, but all too real, parallel. Joseph Stalin infiltrated virtually every civic and military organization with ‘party spokesmen’ - for all intent and purpose, a civic official or military officer that looked like anyone else. Yet their sole purpose was to use that illusionary sleight of hand to infuse the Communist Party line into every aspect of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. People would think that it was a government official making decisions in the best interests of the local people. In fact, he was a pre-approved Moscow party line bullhorn whose only loyalty was to Moscow. And he or she would recommend what was in Moscow’s best interest, not the local people.

It is difficult to envision the news industry become anything like the Orwellian ‘Communist Party’ of the Stalin and post-Stalin eras. However, noticeable similarities do exist.

One of the more interesting is the employment of former lawyers as ‘experts’ on news or as news commentarians. While American society is desperately in need of apt legal commentary, all too often, what one gets is a Catherine Crier and Greta Van Susteren - stereotype driven, self-centered, and poorly educated, the Crier-Van Susteren ‘module’ of news reporting is disturbing. And ultimately hollow.

Catherine Crier has been known to conduct national broadcasts on social issues that she knows nothing about and clearly had done little research in an effort to do so. Such an incident took place concerning the federal John’s Law/Drunk Driving legislation in which friends can be held liable for the acts of an intoxicated person. Greta Van Susteren, and Nancy Grace, both fall into a slightly different ‘module’ of the news industry - not only do they know little about the topics discussed on their shows, as a guest on such shows, it becomes painfully clear that neither was much interested from the inception.

As an experiment, when watching all three of these news commentarians, focus on their word selection. A profound invocation of “I” is strewn throughout their language - as if they have personally experienced every topic discussed, whether it is poverty, rape, or auto accidents resulting in murder charges. Ms. Van Susteren is prone to invoking “I’ve been around the block a few times” - in appropriate dismissing tone - to squirm her way out of difficult on-air discussions, usually when she realizes she knows too little about the topic at hand to fend for herself among the guests.

On several national and regional network television appearances, the in-residence network legal ‘expert’ turned to me just before going on camera and asked what he was supposed to be talking about. “All I know is that involved an accident.” Oh.

One ‘expert’ criminal lawyer on CN8 - whom, fascinatingly, no one in his local county courthouse in New Jersey can remember him ever trying a criminal case in his career - asked what he “should say” just seconds before air time. “I don’t want to make a fool of myself.” During a commercial break, the ‘expert’ repeated the gambit. “You will let me know if I get off line, won’t you?” (As not an entirely unrelated aside, it should be known that the supposed expert is known to be intimately involved with female staff members at local television stations.)

Experts beg for knowledge? The oxymoron would appear inherent.

Anything goes in the 21st Century media exploits - anything to compete with the free flow of information via the Internet.

Which is precisely why so many news organizations are banding together to kill Google’s news search engine. Grafted from free news organization websites around the world, Google’s webpage actually outperforms the Associated Press and The New York Times in breaking stories - at times. As the recent unfortunate mine tragedy in West Virginia noted well, Google outperformed much smaller news outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer’s webpage hands down. The Inquirer was left standing in the informational dust with a hard-copy newspaper that blared a joyous headline that 12 miners had survived. In fact, all 12 were dead.

What the future holds is anyone’s guess, but it is clear that the traditional gatekeepers of information are mourning their loss of control over Americans - and licking their financial wounds as well. The Philadelphia Inquirer - and many of its brethren in the Knight-Ridder organization - are up for sale.

Look for increasingly desperate attempts by these news organizations to impinge on free access to information on the Internet in the pell-mell pursuit of profits.

Media Mania - Killer Lightning, the Internet and the Law

As the 21st Century deepens hits hold on the American philosophical landscape, public knowledge about that landscape is broadening on an exponential basis.

Mainstream television and newspaper news organizations are increasingly finding themselves on the fringes of the traditional Fourth Estate - as profits of the New York Times and other news organizations dwindle. What is shoving them aside is a new mechanism for disseminating hard ‘news’. The Internet.

Anyone can ‘publish’ in light of 21st Century technology, all too often they do. A Gutenberg in every home.

The media’s inability to compete with the ‘new printing press’ - and its inability to escape manipulation by the very news ‘sources’ that it covers - is becoming increasingly glaring.

While profits have plummeted at the New York Times, wealth and inertia as one of America’s pre-eminent news outlets have allowed it to keep a journalistic edge, breaking news stories like the abuse of the Foreign Surveillance Act by President George W. Bush and the plights of Camden, New Jersey, the worst crime capital in the United States.

Other news organizations haven’t been so lucky. The erosion was first notable with the tendency of television stations to disaster-fy weather reports: simple thunderstorms morphed, seemingly overnight, into life threatening phenomena. Killer lightning and ‘dangerous’ storms are now a common clarion call.

More pragmatically, the erosion of news quality has expanded. Investigative reporting has largely disappeared. In fact, in-depth longterm reporting of key social issues has evaporated from most major city daily newspapers, entities traditionally entrusted with guarding the pubic welfare.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is a prime example, although it is hardly alone.

What one sees in reading the Inquirer is a growing phenomena nationwide: newspaper reporters are no longer 'reading' their own newspapers. More glaringly, they do not appear to be reading their individualistic news articles over a prolonged period of time. Hence, the news coverage is becoming increasingly disjointed and scattershot on overarching social issues.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s inability to penetrate the Veterans Administration and Social Security Administration is an eloquent point - while dutifully documenting that thousands of veterans' widows are not collecting entitled payments, the Inquirer completely missed the much larger issue of how the Veterans Administration disseminates - or, more aptly, withholds - information from potential beneficiaries. It is a phenomena the that the General Accounting Office has commented upon in assessing the kindred Social Security Administration. And it is a widespread operational phenomena in the private financial sector. It is called “DK’ing”. Financial entities from insurance companies to stock brokerage firms ‘Do not Know’ any given client when it becomes apparent that the client is owed money. In much the same fashion, the Veterans Administration and Social Security Administration fail to publish or enforce their own programs to enhance salary budgets in a twisted stroke of financial nepotism.

While it may seem inconsequential, in the long term, the growing trend of reporters to not 'read' leads a news organization to have a decided inability to make connections. The political rise of George E. Norcross III as party chieftain of the Democratic Party in the southern portions of New Jersey is just one example.

While the New York Times has reported on the overall philosophical elements of political corruption in New Jersey, the Philadelphia Inquirer has largely remained quiet. Instead of focusing on large scale social issues involved with the Norcross empire, the Philadelphia Inquirer focuses on whatever attendant circumstances that happen to stumble into public view. And one should note the words ‘stumble into view’ well. Increasingly, the modern newspaper industry conducts no research. Instead, it takes a reactionary approach as the Inquirer’s forays with the Veterans Administration note.

When the Democratic Party in southern New Jersey decided to return to its 20th Century roots of racial discrimination by reverse redlining a large section of North Camden for redevelopment - by tossing out the current residents in favor of newer, more affluent ones - the Inquirer did report the procedural relocation. Yet it entirely missed the ‘redlining issue’ - a well-known financial ploy that is historically tied to real estate development schemes in urban areas. And tied to unabashed racism. And closely tied to political corruption as well. At the trickle down economic end of ‘red-lining’ one will usually find a smiling affiliate of the local political party - whether banker, lawyer, real estate mogul or insurance company.

The late 1800s/early 1900s creation of Harlem in New York City is but one example of the racial/financial/political exploitation of human beings based on race.

What is fascinating is that, concurrent with the North Camden redevelopment articles, the Inquirer was simultaneously reporting on the exploits of Mr. Norcross and his employer, Commerce Bank. Despite federal indictments, and subsequent convictions of Commerce executives on fraud charges, The Philadelphia Inquirer remained largely quiet on reporting any political corruption in southern New Jersey - even though Mr. Norcross heads the Democratic Party and even though Commerce Bank is headquartered in New Jersey.

While the New York Times documented payola scams involving lawyers and political officials in the Democratic Party of Middlesex County, virtually nothing has appeared of the same caliber in the Inquirer. Despite the death of a young woman after her evening commute home on a Delaware River Port Authority train - an organization dominated by the southern New Jersey Democratic Party - it took nearly four years for the Inquirer to question how the DRPA was spending ticket, tax and federal revenues.

Procedurally, the Inquirer has reported on the DRPA’s expenditures. Yet, virtually nowhere does any overall assessment of that spending appear. It was not until the waning days of 2005 - several years after Christine Eberle was dragged from the train station parking lot and strangled - did an apt-minded reporter by the name of Elisa Ung brave what has become all too uncommon in modern media reporting - she postulated a theory.

In quoting the Longshoremen’s Union, Ms. Ung hit common sense: perhaps the DRPA and the southern New Jersey Democratic Party are embezzling money in artful ways - instead of providing funding to dredge the ‘port’, what was the DRPA planning to do with that same $40 million dollars?

It was a philosophical question the Philadelphia Inquirer failed to ask concerning the death of Christine Eberle. What, precisely, did the DRPA and the Democratic Party under George E. Norcross III do with revenues instead of providing police protection at the train stations?

When three children suffocated to death in Camden, right in front of television cameras as police failed to examine a locked car trunk, the Philadelphia Inquirer again failed to examine the substantive chain of events. It did report the lack of proper police tactics. It did report that the police failed to properly examine the car. But it failed to ask what happened to the money to properly train the City of Camden’s police officers. And it failed to ask why Camden County, in supervisory control of the Camden Police via the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, did not correct the lack of training.

In short, once again, where was tax money going? Afterall, millions of dollars had been set aside by the State of New Jersey to revitalize Camden. And to support Camden County via the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office - some of that funding in the form of federal grants. On these issues, the Inquirer remained philosophically silent.

To date, even in light of the murder of one of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s own employees due to the political spending decisions in southern New Jersey, the Inquirer has arguably turned its back on informing the public. (An Inquirer truck driver was murdered in the same parking lot from which Ms. Eberle was kidnapped yet, fascinatingly, no DRPA security existed thereafter at the location.)

As the recent payola scandals involving the media point out, it is fairly easy to “buy” news coverage. Whether favorable articles about the federal “No Child Left Behind Program” or news reporting in Iraq, the media has a seedy, on-going history of being on the take. Though profitable in a number of capacities, organized crime flourished in the late 1800s through the 1980s largely on the steam of media manipulations. No serious reporting on the social phenomena took place until the 1970s. And even then, despite open gunslinging, it took a lot of provocation to get newspapers like the Inquirer to tackle the matter seriously. (Al Capone's obituary in the New York Times is an eloquent point.)

When the duty to report the Mafia phenomena became undeniable, the news industry did report the philosophical elements rather well...in the long run. But one cannot forget, from a historical point of view, that it took nearly 100 years for the newspaper industry to do so.

The New York Times, in closing out 2005, printed a fascinating article detailing the New Jersey Bar’s de facto involvement in corruption in Monmouth County. And the de facto nexus of the New Jersey Bar with political corruption around the state. To date, in covering Mr. Norcross, the Philadelphia Inquirer has demurred on drawing similar connections in Camden County. It remains a provocative mystery in light of the deaths, more so in light of the Longshoremen’s Union commentary - a union that itself is no stranger to financial/political scandals. It would appear the union would have a wealth of historical expertise behind it's observations of Camden County, it's motivations via the DRPA, and the nexus with a Democratic Party largely dominated by members of the New Jersey Bar.

The lack of “substantive’ coverage is not going unnoticed among Camden County residents. What the future holds is anyone’s guess. But the rise of the Internet has engendered a broader definition of the Fourth Estate. Access to information is larger and more expansive than ever. And increasingly, old dog newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer are finding themselves marginalized and enslaved to revenue, marketing and advertisement realities.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, and many of its large city kindred, are now up for potential sale.

At some point a critical decision arises: When is reporting ‘news’ reporting nothing at all? When are reporters hired to facilitate an expensive, quite polished, delivery mechanism for ads?

Perhaps it is a question answerable by reflecting upon the newspaper industry’s television counterparts and their weather story phenomena: When is ‘killer lightning’ just a thunderstorm?

Gestalt: Understanding the ‘Manipulation of Law’ Cycle and Its Impact

As America’s great experiment with Democracy proceeds past toddlerhood, growing pains are inevitable. It is incumbent upon all participants in a Democratic society to understand the ‘overall’ as opposed to any singular social issue - failing to do so will yield predictable, quite vivid, results.

In Camden County, New Jersey, the failure of that county’s residents to understand the overall impact of their governmental representatives has led to the deaths of four people - three of them children - and the rapes of three women. Seven lives sacrificed to the gods of political corruption and government largesse. (See note at the conclusion.)

Democracy, in this vulgar case, morphed into a spectacular failure that remains ongoing.

But, philosophically, the affair is predictable. It can happen anywhere. And it will happen again if the ‘gestalt’ of Democracy is not understood by society.

Lawyers, as you shall see, are not often the best people entrusted with educating the public. The interests of any given ‘client’ may not be the best interest of ‘society’. Although poorly understood even by the legal profession, law is nothing more than a careful balancing act. One maximizes the freedom and creativity of the individual while, at the same time, protecting society from the harms that freedom and creativity might create. And the converse is true. One maximizes the freedom and creativity of society while, at the same time, protecting the individual from the harms that freedom and creativity might create.

President George W. Bush’s frolic with the Foreign Surveillance Act Court is a succinct example. At a singular pen stroke, the individual was negated in favor of society.

It is an ultimate chicken and egg dilemma, one entity can be momentarily expendable in favor of the other. When and how one becomes expendable is an arbitrary ‘moment to moment’ thing left up, at any given moment, for individuals or society to decide - as President Bush’s foibles with the Foreign Surveillance Act play out. But singular pen strokes operate both ways - individuals can do much the same as President Bush (effectiveness is merely a haggling argument): The ability to sue.

But what happens when the froth and elation of ‘accomplishment’ and ‘success’ of these pen strokes wear off?

Unfortunately, the curse of any Democracy is that law becomes prone to manipulation. The Foreign Surveillance Act was designed to protect individuals from the excesses and harm of a government momentarily blinded by zealousness. The point should not be understated: Any law is prone to manipulation. Avarice, greed, even good intention, can morph into harmful impact - either to society or the individual, sometimes both as the racial Civil Rights struggle in America aptly demonstrates. The ‘Civil War’ began in 1861, and as many attuned citizens in America will tell you, some 145 years later the closing skirmishes are still very much being fought. Equal access to employment, despite skin color, is one such battleground. A recent case lost by the Philadelphia School Board illustrates that racial equality has nothing to do with any given skin color - four Caucasian purchasing agents successfully invoked the same exact equal opportunity laws traditionally used by minorities.

Not exactly a surprise, lawyers for the Philadelphia School Board referred to those employees as "crackers" in a public courthouse elevator after the verdict. So much for entrusting lawyers, at any given moment, to look out for the larger interests of society.

One must be careful to remember: the Civil War racial issue is not unique to America. The basic conflict is generic to Democracy as a whole and it has nothing to do with race. Adopting a ‘law’ is one thing. Enforcing it, squeezing social justice out of it in any pragmatic way, is quite another thing - usually attained long after the law initially was adopted as the cumulative Civil Rights Acts, spanning more than 100 years from the 1860s to the 1960s, eloquently suggests. Adopting law is easy - making socially benevolent use of it is quite another tumultuous thing, hence the Philadelphia School Board case. And the behavior of its legal counsel.

Two wonderfully contemporary examples are the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act - more than 3 decades after the former, and fifteen years after the latter, neither act substantively means anything if you are injured and looking for employment. Sadly, the United States Constitution does not guarantee any ‘right to work’ although, curiously, much of federal legislation, regulation - and even the two above Acts - are predicated on a ‘required’ duty to work. The ‘duty’ vs. ‘right’ to work sleight of hand is still not addressed in America - much to major financial impact and chagrin. If you are an injured veteran in America, one lives dangerously - if one lives at all. Homelessness is normative.

What happened to the intent of these laws? The same thing that happened after the initial Civil Rights Acts in the 1860s. Laws are illustrious goals of society. Once passed, and past, they often become illustrious templates for financial exploitation. Incentive shifts from achieving ‘social benevolence’ to ‘how can I make or save money off of this law’ - it is a basic tendency of human nature in any free market society. And lawyers tend to represent the wishes of their clients in their pursuit of money as long as no law bars the cause. Impact on ‘non-clients’ is not relevant. Hence, the lowest common denominators - which maximize the highest profits - are rabidly pursued under a basic human tendency towards ‘economy of effort’. Economy of effort is a innate biological phenomena, or foible, as social scientiest are learning and it plays itself out quite often in Democracies and free economies. Hence, law should - and often does - anticipate this weakness.

But, just as often, law does not.

Hence, fifteen years after the American’s with Disabilities Act passage, virtually nothing has changed for injured American workers. Eloquent arguments, statistically verifiable, can be mounted that previous injured American workers are more ‘pariahs’ in society today then they were when the ADA was passed in 1990 - exclusion from employment is massive with up to 85 percent never working again, swelling the demand on social services, and creating a tax demand cycle that defies lunacy.

Lost tax revenue from the previously injured is most likely in the billions annually. On just one individual in the State of New Jersey, the federal government has lost an excess of $250,000 in tax revenue - more balanced assessments place the figure closer to $500,000 since the federal government declared that individual ‘disabled’ in 1989.

Yet, virtually every attempt by that individual to work continues to be thwarted by the Federal government. The Treasury Department, on one hand, loses revenue while the Social Security Administration, on the other, quietly publishes that person’s medical history to any potential employer - and it does so to every former Social Security and Veteran’s Disability recipient. So much for ‘privacy’ or ‘privacy law’. The resulting non-employment is hardly a surprise in light of insurance realities.

So you can see the dilemma - that ‘philosophical’ balancing act inherent in any Democracy is a very real thing that plays itself out in very individualistic ways. In daily life, one often is blinded to the overall. In a Democracy, momentary blindness can have major impact.

The solution for any good individual living in a Democracy is to constantly remember ‘gestalt’ - the sum of the unique parts often creates a unified reality that looks nothing like the parts. A series of ‘beautiful’ paintings can be arranged imperfectly in a garish display that is the ultimate epitomy of ‘ugly’. And the reverse is quite true as a gentle browsing of Jackson Pollock’s artistry will atest. Simply remembering to pay attention in an on-going way, once the painting/law is finished, yields an on-going achievement of the original intent: Beauty/social benevolence. Which is exactly what Mr. Pollock did in painting - he paid attention to the foibles of his own process in an on-going way to create beauty - the end product was far greater than the messy parts.

Fail to pay attention in an on-going way and one achieves, generally, an ugly mess. Whether painting or Democracy, that reality is simple.

As always to the Citizens of Philadelphia, where Democracy in America was born, the presence and life of Robert Gorbi at the corner of 4th and Chestnut streets is an all too human example. Procedurally ‘disabled’ but substantively no less able to contribute to America, economically or otherwise, than any one else, Mr. Gorbi is homeless and unemployed.

Mr. Gorbi lives in the heart of America. And he is the very heart of Democracy... and the very heart of what happens when participants in Democracy fail to pay attention to law once it is adopted, to make sure ‘larger socially benevolent desire’ is applied on an individual basis. To protect the individual from the harms of society, to strike an ongoing balance. It is, afterall, the very heart and soul of what good law ‘is’.

Mr. Gorbi ‘is’. He lives less than 100 yards from Carpenters Hall where Democracy in America was first contemplated. Eloquently, he also is just one block away from where America decided to do so something about that contemplation. Life. Liberty. The Pursuit of Happiness. For all.

- Qi




Note: A young woman was kidnapped and murdered on PATCO property owned, in part, by agencies operated by Camden County and its political parties. Instead of providing funding for security, the money went elsewhere. In 2005, three children suffocated to death in a car while police officers, under supervision of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, stood around outside the car in which the children were trapped. No one bothered to look in the trunk. Money to properly train the police officers was spent elsewhere. And three women were raped on or adjacent to Rutgers University property in Camden when both Rutgers Police and Camden County officials knew that the 911 system covering Rutgers University did not operate properly - the system tranferred calls to Philadelphia and Delaware County in Pennsylvania, and often provoked a 25 to 45 minute lag times in response. The ineffectiveness of the 911 system was so well known that street criminals were more than likely aware of its shortcomings, hence, broad daylight rapes in the heart of Camden City's business district.

It Is Clear: Nothing Less Than A Disability Constitutional Amendment Will Do

In light of Congressman John Murtha's eloquent detailing of how the United States government treats its war veterans, nothing short of a Constitutional Amendment will break the back of such inhumanity.

All the more so, no difference exists between the Veteran's Disability system and the Social Security Disability program. Both debauch human life in pell-mell pursuit of finances while satiating private employers who fear health insurance costs and their attendant circumstance insurance companies.

Human beings - regardless of civic service - are being sent home without support, without social services, without the requisite laws to protect themselves, and without the ability to participate in the national economy in meaningful ways in order to support themselves independently. If you are a transexual, the Rutgers Small Business Development Center will help you. But if you are disabled or collected Social Security Disability, the lights are out, you need not apply.

One might as well dump all our returning injured veterans, as well as all Americans injured during their employment years, on the corner of 4th and Chestnut streets in Philadelphia. At least there, they can keep a homeless man by the name of Mr. Robert Gorbi - a Vietnam Veteran who lives on that street corner - good company.

What the federal government, as well as varying states like the State of New Jersey, do to America's injured is nauseating and pathetic. And there is no civilization, now or at any other time in humanity's history, that would disagree.

Every single disability/employment law in America is legal sleight of hand that leaves America's injured homeless, impoverished, or in such tattered condition that life is hardly worthwhile.

Until the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act are codified into an United States Constitutional Amendment, this country can not stand beyond reproach...nor can it stand in full dignity of 'Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness' let alone 'We the People'.

If this country can not care for its war veterans in a proper, dignified matter that fulfills life rather than detracting from it, then perhaps it has no business entertaining global responsibility for the well-being of humanity. If you can not do it at home, you have no reasonable expectation of others acting with humanity elsewhere.

*******

The text of Rep. John Murtha as published by the New York Times and the Federal News Service:

REP. MURTHA: I just spoke to the Democratic Caucus and told them my feelings about the war. And I started out by saying the war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress.

The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq. But it's time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region.

General Casey said, in a September 2005 hearing, the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency. General Abizaid said, on the same date, reducing the size of visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is a part of our counterinsurgency strategy.

For two and a half years, I've been concerned about U.S. policy and the plan in Iraq. I've addressed my concerns with the administration and the Pentagon, and I've spoken out in public about my concerns. The main reason for going to war has been discredited.

A few days before the start of the war, I was in Kuwait.

The military drew a line -- a red line around Baghdad, and they said when U.S. forces cross that line, they will be attacked by the Iraqis with weapons of mass destruction. And I believed it, and they believed it. But the U.S. forces -- the commander said, they were prepared. They said they had well-trained forces with the appropriate protective gear.

Now, let me tell you we've spent more money on intelligence than any -- than all the countries in the world put together and more on intelligence than most countries' GDP. And when they said it's a world intelligence failure, it's a U.S. intelligence failure. It's a U.S. failure, and it's a failure in the way the intelligence was used.

I've been visiting our wounded troops at Bethesda and Walter Reed, as some of you know, almost every week since the beginning of the war. And what demoralizes them is not the criticism; what demoralizes them is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace. The devastation caused by IEDs is what they're concerned about, being deployed to Iraq when their homes have been ravaged by hurricanes -- and you've seen these stories about some of the people's whose homes were destroyed, and they were deployed to Iraq after it -- being on their second or third deployment, leaving their families behind without a network of support.

The threat by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must prepare to face all these threats. The future of our military is at risk. Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say the Army's broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military's lowered its standards. They expect to take 20 percent Category 4, which is the lowest category, which they said they'd never take, but they've been forced to do that, to try to meet a reduced quota. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made, and we cannot allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away.

We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls in our bases at home. I've been to three bases in the United States, and each one of them were short of things they need to train the people going to Iraq. Much of our ground equipment is worn out. And I've told the COs -- (inaudible) -- you better get in the business of rehabilitating equipment because we're not going to be able to buy any new equipment because the money's not going to be there.

George Washington said to be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. We don't want somebody to miscalculate down the road. It takes us 18 years to put a weapon system in the arsenal. And I don't know what the threat is, nobody knows what the threat is, but we better make sure we have what's necessary to preserve our peace. We must rebuild our Army.

Our deficit is growing out of control. The director of the Congressional Budget Office recently admitted to being terrified about the deficit in the coming decades. In other words, where's the money going to come from for defense?

I voted against every tax cut -- every tax cut I voted against. My wife says, "You shouldn't say that." I believe that when we voted for these tax cuts, you can't have a war, you can't have a tragedy like we had, the hurricanes, and then not have a huge deficit, which is going to increase interest rates and could cause real problems. This is the first prolonged war we've ever fought with three years of tax cuts without full mobilization of American industry and without a draft. On the college campuses they always ask me about a draft: You're for a draft. I say yeah, there's only two of us voted for it, so you don't have to worry too much about it.

The burden of this war has not been shared equally. The military and their families are shouldering the burden. Our military has been fighting this war in Iraq for over two and a half years. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty.

Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. Deaths and injuries are growing, and over 2,079 in confirmed American deaths, over 15,500 have been seriously injured -- half of them returned to duty, and it's estimated over 50,000 will suffer from what I call battle fatigue. And there have been reports that at least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.

I just recently visited Anbar province in Iraq in order to assess the conditions on the ground. And last May -- last May -- we put in the emergency supplemental spending bill -- Moran amendment -- which was accepted in conference, which required the secretary of Defense to submit a quarterly report about the -- and accurately measure the stability and security in Iraq. Now -- we've now received two reports. So I've just come back from Iraq, and I looked at the next report. I'm disturbed by the findings in the key indicator areas.

Oil production and energy production are below prewar level. You remember they said that was going to pay for the war, and it's proved to (be) below prewar level. Our reconstruction efforts have been crippled by security situations. Only $9 billion of $18 billion appropriated for reconstruction has been spent. And I said on the floor of the House, when they passed the $87 billion, the $18 billion was the most important part of it because you got to get people back to work, you got to get electricity, you got to get water! Unemployment is 60 percent. Now, they tell you in the United States it's less than that, so it may be 40 percent. But in Iraq, they told me it's 60 percent when I was there. Clean water is scarce, and they only spent $500 million of the $2.2 billion appropriated for water projects.

And most importantly -- this is the most important point -- incidents have increased from 150 to a week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going down over a time when addition of more troops -- when we had addition of more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the revelation of Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled. You look at the timeline. You'll see one per day average before Abu Ghraib. After Abu Ghraib, you'll see two a day -- two killed per day because of the dramatic impact that Abu Ghraib had on what we were doing in -- and the department -- the State Department reported in 2004, right before they quit putting the reports out, that -- they indicated a sharp increase in global terrorism.

I said over a year ago now, the military and the administration agrees now that Iraq cannot be won militarily.

I said two years ago, the key to progress in Iraq is Iraqitize, internationalize and energize.

Now, we have a packet for you where I sent a letter to the president in September, and I got an answer back from assistant secretary of Defense five months later. I believe the same today. They don't want input. They only want to criticize. They -- Bush One was the opposite; Bush One might not like the criticism and constructive suggestions, but he listened to what we had to say.

I believe that and I have concluded the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is impeding this progress. Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, the Saddamists and the foreign jihadists. And let me tell you, they haven't captured any in this latest activity, so this idea that they're coming in from outside, we still think there's only 7 percent.

I believe with the U.S. troop redeployment the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted -- this is a British poll reported in The Washington Times -- over 80 percent of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition forces, and about 45 percent of Iraqi population believe attacks against American troops are justified. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis. I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid-December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice. The United States will immediately redeploy -- immediately redeploy. No schedule which can be changed, nothing that's controlled by the Iraqis, this is an immediate redeployment of our American forces because they have become the target.

All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free -- free from a United States occupation, and I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process. My experience in a guerrilla war says that until you find out where they are, until the public is willing to tell you where the insurgent is, you're not going to win this war, and Vietnam was the same way. If you have an operation -- a military operation and you tell the Sunnis because the families are in jeopardy, they -- or you tell the Iraqis, then they are going to tell the insurgents, because they're worried about their families.

My plan calls for immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces, to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.

Now let me personalize this thing for you. I go out to the hospitals every week. One of my first visits, two young women. One was 22 or 23, had two children, lost her husband. One was 19. And they both went out to the hospitals to tell the people out there how happy they were -- or how happy they should be to be alive. In other words, they were reaching out because they felt their husbands had done their duty, but they wanted to tell them that they were so fortunate, even though they were wounded, to be alive.

I have a young fellow in my district who was blinded and he lost his foot. They did everything they could for him at Walter Reed, then they sent him home. His father was in jail. He had nobody at home. Imagine this. A young kid that age, 22, 23 years old, goes home to nobody. VA did everything they could do to help him. He was reaching out.

So they sent him -- to make sure that he was a blind, they sent him to Johns Hopkins. Johns Hopkins started sending bills. Then the collection agency started sending bills. Well, when I found out about it, you could imagine they stopped the collection agency and Walter Reed finally paid the bill. But imagine, a young person being blinded, without a foot, and he's getting bills from a collection agency.

I saw a young soldier who lost two legs and an arm, and his dad was pushing him around.

I go to the mental ward; you know what they say to me? They got battle fatigue. You know what they say? "We don't get nothing. We get nothing. We're just as bruised, just as injured as everybody else, but we don't even get a Purple Heart. We get nothing. We get shunted aside. We get looked at as if there's something wrong with us."

Saw a young woman from Notre Dame. Basketball player, right- handed, lost her right hand. You know what she's worried about? She's worried about her husband because he lost weight worrying about her. These are great people. These soldiers and people who are serving, they're marvelous people.

I saw a Seabee lying there with three children. His mother and his wife were there. He was paralyzed from the neck down. There were 18 of them killed in this one mortar attack. And they were all crying because they knew what it would be like in the future.

I saw a Marine rubbing his boy's hand. He was a Marine in Vietnam, and his son had just come back from Iraq. And he said he wanted his brother to come home. That's what the father said, because the kid couldn't speak. He was in a coma.

He kept rubbing his hand.

He didn't want to come home. I told him the Marine Corps would get him home.

I had one other kid, lost both his hands. Blinded. I was praising him, saying how proud we were of him and how much we appreciate his service to the country. "Anything I can do for you?" His mother said get me a -- "Get him a Purple Heart." I said, "What do you mean, get him a Purple Heart?"

He had been wounded in taking care of bomblets, these bomblets that they drop that they have to dismantle. He had been wounded and lost both his hands. The kid behind him was killed.

His mother said, "Because they're friendly bomblets, they wouldn't give him a Purple Heart."

I met with the commandant. I said, "If you don't give him a Purple Heart, I'll give him one of mine." And they gave him a Purple Heart.

Let me tell you something. We're charged -- Congress is charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, and it's our responsibility, our obligation to speak out for them. That's why I'm speaking out.

Our military's done everything that has been asked of them. U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily; it's time to bring the troops home.

Yes, ma'am?

Q Congressman, Republicans say that Democrats are calling for withdrawal, are advocating a cut-and-run strategy. What do you say to that criticism?

REP. MURTHA: It's time to bring them home. They've done everything they can do. The military's done everything they can do. This war has been so mishandled from the very start. Not only was the intelligence bad, the way they disbanded the troops, there's all kinds of mistakes that have been made. They don't deserve to continue to suffer. They're the targets. They have become the enemy! Eighty percent of the Iraqis want us out of there. The public wants us out of there.

Yes, ma'am?

Q Democrats have called for an exit strategy in the past, but Republicans have said that it's a non-starter. Is there anything -- do you think that the climate has changed in Congress that would give your legislation a chance?

REP. MURTHA: I don't know whether the climate's changed or not. But I know one thing: It's the right thing to do. And setting an exit strategy with some kind of event-driven plan doesn't work because they always find an excuse not to get them out. There's times you just got to -- you got to change your mind about this thing, you got to change your direction.

There's times when you just got to say what's the right thing to do? The right thing to do -- our troops are the enemy, they're the targets. When I went to Anbar province, General Huck said to me, you know, the thing that's so discouraging, we got all this armor and everything, and the snipers are shooting right below the helmets. They're blowing the turrets off tanks, no matter how much armor that we put out there. We're the targets. We're uniting the enemy against us! And there's terrorism all over the world that there wasn't before we went into Iraq.

Yes, sir?

Q Mr. Murtha, you say -- your first point about bringing them home consistent with the safety of U.S. forces. You know about these matters; what is your sense as to how long that would be?

REP. MURTHA: Well, I think they can get them out of there in six months. I think that we could do it -- you know, you have to do it in a very consistent way. But I think six months would be a reasonable time to get them out of there.

Q And could you tell us also --

REP. MURTHA: See, one of the -- let me add something else. Let's say you wanted to go the other way, you wanted to put 500,000 troops over there. Now, we can't even meet the goals of 512,000; we're going to be 10,000 short in recruitment right now. Unless you have a draft, there's no way that you can have more troops. And where are most of the attacks coming? On the roads, on the roads to logistics. General Huck said every convoy is attacked. I had a young Marine that -- I went to a young group that just came back, and he said he'd been hit five times. Now, he wasn't wounded five times, but his vehicle was hit five times, and people all around him were killed.

And -- but what was the question?

Q My other question. What do you mean exactly by a Quick Reaction Force in the region?

REP. MURTHA: Yeah. Well, the Marines in Okinawa -- you remember in Somalia, we came back from Somalia and then we went back in. It only took us a couple of days to take care of the Iraqi army, and now we're not talking about an army. What I'm talking about is a terrorist camp that may affect our national security or the security in the region, we could go back in. But not a civil war or something like that, I mean, you know, that's up to the Iraqis to settle that. So I think the Marine force could be in there momentarily, within a couple of days, within 48 hours they could be in there. And if the Kuwaitis would agree and they wanted to put a force in Kuwait, that would be a good place to have them. They could go right down the road.

Yes, ma'am?

Q Mr. Murtha, what about the goal of having an oasis of democracy in the Middle East and the idea that leaving now would leave a breeding ground for terrorists right in the middle of the least stable parts of the --

REP. MURTHA: Let's talk about terrorism. What the State Department said; there's more terrorism now than there ever was, and it's because of what? Is it because of our policy? I would say it's a big part. We have become the enemy there. We have united them against us. So when they say that they want democracy, what was the first goal? The first goal was to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. The second goal was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Well, they did that. And the third was to -- well, I guess the third was destroy the enemy and then get rid of Saddam Hussein. We've done our job militarily. It's time for us to get out.

Q You said that you had spoken with the caucus earlier today. What was their reaction, and are they willing to stand with you on this, specifically the leader?

REP. MURTHA: Well, you'll have to -- you'll have to talk to them about that. I got a standing ovation. But you'll have to talk to them. (Laughter.)

Q The president and the vice president are both saying it is now irresponsible for Democrats to criticize the war and to criticize the intelligence going into the war because everybody was looking at the same intelligence.

REP. MURTHA: I like guys who've never been there to criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there, and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what need(s) to be done. I resent the fact on Veterans Day he criticized Democrats for criticizing them.

This is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion! The American public knows it. And lashing out at critics doesn't help a bit. You got to change the policy. That's what's going to help with the American people. We need to change direction. The troops -- what hurts the troops are the things that I listed before.

Yes, ma'am?

Q How did you come to this decision now? Obviously it's something you've been thinking a lot about, but could you just talk us through a little bit --

REP. MURTHA: Yeah.

Q -- how you got here?

REP. MURTHA: I'll tell you, I supported -- I led the fight to go to war in '91. I was one of the few people that believed that Bush -- Bush One was absolutely right about not going into Iraq. You know why he didn't go into Iraq? He said I don't want to rebuild it, and I don't want to occupy it. That's why he didn't go to Iraq -- into Iraq after the '91 war.

I supported Reagan all through the Central American thing.

This was a decision that came because the troops and the target -- they become the target, and the lack of progress that I see. When I go over there I see commanders that are discouraged; even though they say what they're supposed to say, you can tell the difference.

And when I come back here and look at what's called the criteria for success -- and the incidents have increased, even though we've increased the number of troops -- when the unemployment is 60 percent, and we're the target, and our kids are being killed because of that, it's time to redeploy them from Iraq.

Q Mr. Murtha, based on your meeting this morning, I assume you have Ms. Pelosi's endorsement of this --

REP. MURTHA: You have to talk to her. You know, I was very careful not to say this was a caucus position. I -- a lot of people suggested it should be, but I was very careful about this. This is my own position, my own conclusion that I've reached.

My long years in the Marine Corps, my long years in defense, in reading -- I'm frustrated because in the first war President Bush -- we made some suggestions to him. What did he do? He collected $60 billion -- and I was chairman of the committee at the time -- $60 billion from all the world in order to fight the war. We paid about $60 billion. There were coalition troops, a legitimate coalition.

And I remember calling General Scowcroft, saying, "Get these things moving! Get this war over with! There's 250,000 troops out there." He said, "We will not move until we got whatever Schwarzkopf wants."

And that's what they did. And they followed the U.N. resolution to a T. He didn't want a resolution, you remember. This was a very controversial thing, the '91 thing. People forget how controversial it was. And it only passed the Senate by two votes. And -- but he listened to us. He had a meeting every week and listened to what we had to say. And sometimes he took the advice. Sometimes he didn't.

This outfit doesn't want to hear any suggestions. It's frustrating, and the troops are paying the price for it. Yes, ma'am?

Q Sir, so you're effectively saying that this war should end, beginning as soon as possible, and that all these troops can be brought home within six months. So that's your hope.

REP. MURTHA: It's what -- I say they could be brought back. I'm saying within the safety of the troops -- but I project it could be six months.

Q Six months to start or six months to have them all back?

REP. MURTHA: I think in six months you could have them all back.

Q Also, on a related subject, what's your plan for the Defense conference coming and the anti-torture and --

REP. MURTHA: Well, we thought it was going to be today, but it doesn't look like it.

Q But do you intend to fight to keep the anti-torture language that the Senate passed in the bill?

REP. MURTHA: Absolutely.

Q (Off mike) --

REP. MURTHA: I think you'll see a big vote. Republicans -- many Republicans come to me -- nobody's for torture, you know. And for us to send the signal to the world that we're for torture -- I mean, this is what caused a major part of the change in minds in Iraq and the United States, is Abu Ghraib. And some of those are my constituents that were at Abu Ghraib.

One young fellow, who was the ringleader, at least they said he was a ringleader, this guy was under a court order not to be allowed to see his family because he abused his family. He couldn't carry a gun in the United States, yet they put him in charge of this group that got out of hand. He told them, and they still -- they were so short-handed. No supervision. No training.

You need strict -- Captain Fishback came to see me five, six months ago. He said, "We don't know what to do. We don't know what the guidelines are. I'd ask a lawyer and he'd say one thing; I'd ask the commanding officer, he'd say something else. Were you guys complicit in this? Were you guys in Congress part of this? Did you wink and say, Yeah, go ahead and torture these people.`?" He said, "They're not following the Geneva Convention."

We need to clarify exactly what the standards are. We need to make sure that the world knows we do not treat prisoners inhumanely or detainees inhumanely. We can't -- Fishback said, I'd rather die than lower the moral standards of the United States. He said that in the letter to John McCain. And I believe that. I believe this is the thing that we have going for us in this country.

Q Do you believe that any House Republicans support your position on the torture amendment?

REP. MURTHA: I do.

Q (Off mike) -- keep it in?

REP. MURTHA: I do. He's not going to veto that bill over torture, I'll tell you that, not a defense bill, when we got troops in the war.

Q Mr. Murtha, could you respond directly to what Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld say, that saying that we're going to get out in six months is giving the insurgents exactly what they want in Iraq; they just can outlast us?

REP. MURTHA: I can only tell you this: Incidents have increased, and there's no economic progress. And we have become the enemy. And 80 percent of the Iraqis want us out of there. Saying it -- you know, the president said it's tough to win a war. You know, it's tough to wage a war. That's where the fallacy's been. To WAGE this war is where the problem's been.

Yes, ma'am?

Q Do you have any co-sponsors or congressmen --

REP. MURTHA: I didn't ask for any. I'm not sure that -- I think I'll just sponsor it myself. I feel very strongly about this thing, and I'm not sure whether I'll ask for co-sponsors.

Yes, ma'am?

Q What's your political strategy, though, going forward? Because you would have to convince some Republicans to get on your side, and there doesn't seem to be any that are wiling to go out on a limb on this and buck the leadership. Do you have private conversations with any Republicans who have conveyed to you quietly, "I'm behind this"?

REP. MURTHA: I have not yet, because obviously, anything I said before this time would have leaked out.

You folks are so hard-working, so dedicated, so -- have such an ability to get words out of people that I knew better than to say anything.

Q Do you have a political strategy now moving forward to try to get more support on this? REP. MURTHA: Well, I'm just -- I'm just starting to think about that.

Q Will you introduce your bill today?

REP. MURTHA: Yeah.

STAFF: Okay, folks, one more question.

Q Have you had any discussions with anyone in the administration prior to coming out with this, the idea that you were coming all the way around to having troops come back immediately? Have you had any discussions prior to coming out --

REP. MURTHA: My experience goes back to the letter I sent to them as the former chairman, as the ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee. Five months later, I get a letter from the assistant secretary. So I didn't have much chance to speak to the administration about it. And I don't -- I don't know -- I know it wouldn't have made any difference. I mean, what they're saying is rhetoric. It's easy to sit in these air-conditioned offices and talk about what the troops are doing, send the troops to war.

Let me tell you, these young folks are under intense activity over there, I mean much more intense than Vietnam. You never know when it's going to happen.

One young commanding officer -- I just met with him the other day, went out to the hospital to see him; he's from Johnstown. He actually was a commanding officer unit in Johnstown. Three days before he's supposed to go home, he walked up to this IED and it blew up and blew him apart. Luckily, he had the glasses on that we have provided for them and it didn't blind him, or he'd have been blinded.

And I remember one young fellow -- and this is the last story I'll tell -- is -- he had pock marks all over his face, shrapnel all in his face, all over his body, arms, everyplace. But he wasn't blinded. And I was so pleased because he had glasses on that we had made sure he'd got, and I patted him on the hand and the vibration was so severe, he almost screamed. And he turned his arm over and it was split the whole way up and his nerves were showing.

It's -- it's -- we've got to address -- and these are long-term problems. This is not something you just put them out of the hospital. You've got long-term problems with these guys and the intensity that they have been through.

Thank you very -- Q Senators Warner and Stevens just talked with reporters on the other side of the Capitol, and they said that they had yet to meet a single soldier in Iraq or at the hospitals here who thought it was time to pull out of Iraq --

REP. MURTHA: Is that right?

Q -- and that --

REP. MURTHA: What do you think they're going to tell you? We're here to talk for them. We're here to measure the success. The soldiers aren't going to tell you that. I told you what the soldiers say. They're proud of their service. They're looking at their friends.

You folks are so hard-working, so dedicated, so -- have such an ability to get words out of people that I knew better than to say anything.

Q Do you have a political strategy now moving forward to try to get more support on this?

REP. MURTHA: Well, I'm just -- I'm just starting to think about that.

Q Will you introduce your bill today?

REP. MURTHA: Yeah.

STAFF: Okay, folks, one more question.

Q Have you had any discussions with anyone in the administration prior to coming out with this, the idea that you were coming all the way around to having troops come back immediately? Have you had any discussions prior to coming out --

REP. MURTHA: My experience goes back to the letter I sent to them as the former chairman, as the ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee. Five months later, I get a letter from the assistant secretary. So I didn't have much chance to speak to the administration about it. And I don't -- I don't know -- I know it wouldn't have made any difference. I mean, what they're saying is rhetoric. It's easy to sit in these air-conditioned offices and talk about what the troops are doing, send the troops to war.

Let me tell you, these young folks are under intense activity over there, I mean much more intense than Vietnam. You never know when it's going to happen.

One young commanding officer -- I just met with him the other day, went out to the hospital to see him; he's from Johnstown. He actually was a commanding officer unit in Johnstown. Three days before he's supposed to go home, he walked up to this IED and it blew up and blew him apart. Luckily, he had the glasses on that we have provided for them and it didn't blind him, or he'd have been blinded.

And I remember one young fellow -- and this is the last story I'll tell -- is -- he had pock marks all over his face, shrapnel all in his face, all over his body, arms, everyplace. But he wasn't blinded. And I was so pleased because he had glasses on that we had made sure he'd got, and I patted him on the hand and the vibration was so severe, he almost screamed. And he turned his arm over and it was split the whole way up and his nerves were showing.

It's -- it's -- we've got to address -- and these are long-term problems. This is not something you just put them out of the hospital. You've got long-term problems with these guys and the intensity that they have been through.

Thank you very --

Q Senators Warner and Stevens just talked with reporters on the other side of the Capitol, and they said that they had yet to meet a single soldier in Iraq or at the hospitals here who thought it was time to pull out of Iraq --

REP. MURTHA: Is that right?

Q -- and that --

REP. MURTHA: What do you think they're going to tell you? We're here to talk for them. We're here to measure the success. The soldiers aren't going to tell you that. I told you what the soldiers say. They're proud of their service. They're looking at their friends. We are here -- we have an obligation to speak for them.

Thank you very much.

.... END

The Money Prince and The Moral Pauper: Why Congressman Robert Andrews Wants Jon Corzine's Senate Seat

"We've gone from a being a beacon of opportunity to being a symbol of arrogance," says Congressman Robert Andrews.

Of course, Mr. Andrews would know best in his Congressional stewardship over southern New Jersey - a quiet natural disaster if there ever was one.

While Mr. Andrews' comments were quite correctly directed at President Bush’s ineptitude and fortitude for dishonesty, no less can be said of Congressman Andrews: what does southern New Jersey get for its federal tax dollars?

One of the best ways to measure Mr. Andrews is the local rail service, PATCO, in the Congressman’s district and the Delaware River Port Authority that manages that train service.

PATCO is a multi-faceted abyss of financial dishonesty that has killed at least one life - Christine Eberle - and arguably swindled millions of dollars. New Jersey residents faithfully pay to ride the train but they do not get much in return. For over 40 years, the service has been left to deteriorate to such an extent that - even in light of recent improvements - PATCO is unarguably one of the shabbiest train services of its kind.

Elderly women are left stranded on platforms by the trains that do not stop at the ‘Board Here’ locations. Elderly men have train doors slammed on them even though the train operator is standing less than 20 feet away watching the man attempting to board.

The disabled routinely must 'run' down the platforms in what can only be described as a macabre scene as the trains routinely fail to stop properly...or anywhere near the passenger seating areas on the platform.

In Camden, overdosed drug addicts from a methadone clinic are left comatose on the City Hall station platform. When informed of the medical emergency, PATCO train operators do nothing. They simply close the doors and pull away.

DRPA police harass individuals who complain about these antics. In a September incident, a DRPA police officer chased a man down Market Street in Camden - with his hand on his gun - for doing nothing more than criticizing the police officer for filing a knowingly false police report. A week earlier, the same individual had been hit by a PATCO train while attempting to board it in Philadelphia. In order to cover up the incident, and protect his employer, the DRPA police officer falsified the victim’s statement on the police report in order to render the incident impossible to investigate. (The technique is a notorious tactic within the railroad industry.)

Brand new escalators do not work a substantial amount of time. Most of the stations are not handicap accessible decades after federal law mandated such accessibility. And where elevators do exist, they are poorly sized to accommodate wheelchairs, neglected in routine cleaning, and in fetid condition. Puddles of human urine are not uncommon.

While improvements have been made, they are woefully minor and cosmetic. Which describes the bulk of Robert Andrews tenure in the United States Congress. Has he done any good? Well, of course. It’s hard not to when you are a Congressman. But is any of that work socially beneficial to his overall constituency? Hardly.

When asked to investigate disability discrimination in employment within his own district, Mr. Andrews would not return telephone calls or electronic mail. It is a common response from the Congressman’s staff. But that is not entirely surprising. In 2001, members of Congressman Andrews' staff attempted to embroil a disabled Camden County resident in an embezzlement scam that involved - fascinatingly - both the Legislative Aide for Mr. Andrews and the DRPA.

The disabled person was asked to participate in an office kiting real estate scheme at 527 Cooper Street in Camden. The scam involved renting the same office over and over to unsuspecting lawyers. Notably, the office was rented to Pennsylvania attorneys wishing to establish bona fide offices in New Jersey - an office that they really had no need for other than to comply with New Jersey rules of court. Essentially, it was an empty room. Except the same empty room was rented repetitively. The empty law office that could. Until a mysterious employee of the Delaware River Port Authority stumbled along.

That employee was a lawyer. Just like Congressman Robert Andrews.

While working for DRPA/PATCO, the lawyer set up shop at 527 Cooper Street. In actuality, he was practicing law while working down the street at the official DRPA headquarters - except he was no lawyer for the DRPA. He was a patronage employee with close ties to Mr. Andrews’ Legislative Aide, David Mayer. And the lawyer did - in his own words - “nothing” from 9 to 5 while on the taxpayer clock. “I don’t know what my job title is,” the lawyer said about his DRPA employ. “I don’t have one.” A brief self-conscious pause ensued followed by “I guess.”

So, to whittle away the hours, the DRPA employee ran his law practice instead on the taxpayer dime. To comply with Ethics laws, the lawyer could not use the DRPA offices as his address. So he created an office at 527 Cooper Street - the same office rented to numerous unsuspecting individuals, all unaware of each other, all at the same time.

When the disabled individual caught wind of the scam, Congressman Andrews' staff did an interesting thing. “David Mayer wants to see your resume. He’s the Legislative Aide for Rob Andrews.” Oh. Mr. Mayer did not want to see the resume before the scam had been exposed, only after the disabled individual refused to participate.

It was unclear at the time whether Mr. Mayer was actively the Legislative Aide for Congressman Andrews - the House.gov website for Congressman Andrews did list Mr. Mayer as the Legislative Aide even after the 2001 office rental scam. However, other websites are less clear as to whether Mr. Mayer was both Clerk of Camden County and Congressman Andrews' Legislative Aide when the office scam was foisted. Either way, there is no dispute that Mr. Mayer is an Assemblyman in the State of New Jersey Legislature.

What remains interesting about the resume request is that it was delivered by the same DRPA employee who substantively did nothing from 9 to 5 at the DRPA. Just days after the request for the resume, a warning followed once the resume had been forwarded. And it concerned not exposing the office rental scam. “I wouldn’t make too much out of this if I were you,” the DRPA employee said, not once, but over and over.

In short, the DRPA employee was strong-arming the disabled individual with promises from Congressman Andrews' staff - current or former - for employment while simultaneously demanding that the disabled individual participate in the office renting scam at 527 Cooper Street in Camden. The disabled individual had thought his refusal was final, only to have the matter resurrected after forwarding the resume.

When the disabled individual picked up the phone and called David Mayer at the Camden County Clerk's Office, Mr. Mayer refused to accept the telephone calls or return them. Which is odd. A county government official refuses to return telephone calls from a Camden County resident - especially when the Camden County resident had never called before? Nor indicated what the matter was about? Nor did any member of Congressman Andrew’s staff return the call?

No. And they would never do so again. Such is the retribution for not participating in Congressional antics.

Apparently, Mr. Mayer did not want to confirm his involvement in the 527 Cooper Street scam. Mr. Mayer certainly did not want to deny his involvement - the disabled Camden County resident did offer that opportunity. Afterall, that is precisely why the telephone calls were placed.

The DRPA is a federally funded agency operating in Congressman Robert Andrews' district. PATCO is a train service that garners a high volume of cash, virtually all of it within Congressman Andrews' district. Some of that money appears to disappear willy-nilly into the private pockets of patronage benefactors for the Camden County Democratic Party. Afterall, the DRPA bought a boat - now rotting in the Delaware River - that was supposed to be turned into an educational facility. Unfortunately, the funds went elsewhere. Where, exactly, no one seems to be asking. But it is safe to say that the pockets were personal benefactors of the Democratic Party and its membership. At the very least, the DRPA employee who foisted the office rental scam is a personal benefactor of the Democratic Party - and, viola, David Mayer’s political career. The DRPA employee has donated to Mr. Mayer’s campaigns.

Sadly, the matter is no different than federally funded employers during World War II when they refused to hire Jewish workers. Or Black workers. But, under certain circumstances, they would exploit them. The matter was so distended in an indentical manner to the Andrews/Mayer/office rental scam that even Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel, lampooned the practice in editorial cartoons proclaiming "No Negros Need Apply" and "No Jews Need Apply" to war production factories.

While being disabled, or a former Veterans/Social Security disability recipient, is not exactly like being Black or Jewish in 1930s America (more aptly, the South), it certainly is not far from the mark. And one need not live anywhere other than Camden County, New Jersey, to feel the sting.

By elegant analogy, the DRPA illustrates how Congressman Robert Andrews and his emeritus staff choose to operate. Can we expect any different in the Senate?

Probably not. As you can see, Congressman Robert Andrews wants to enlarge his territory. But is that to represent or to swindle?

- Qi