A DEADLY RITE OF PASSAGE

On a beautiful spring afternoon I was in the local DMV office waiting to re-register my car. I was sitting on a hard green plastic chair clutching my papers: the insurance card [FS-20], the Connecticut Title Certificate [MVCWA-348], the New York State registration application form [MV-82], the current Connecticut Registration Certificate [F1307A], the New York State Sales Tax Exemption form [DTF-803], my paid Out of State Sales Tax form [DTF-804], my Manufacturer’s Certificate of Origin [MCO], my driver’s license and other pieces of paper dear to bureaucratic hearts. I was waiting for my number to come up so I could see the next available attendant in this state sponsored insane asylum.

          Sitting next to me was an overweight housewife bulging out of her purple tube top and green slacks sporting pink flip flops, accompanied by her daughter, likewise color challenged. The girl was clutching a pair of sneakers while wearing another variation of her mother’s flip flops. I overheard their conversation.

          The gist of it was that the daughter had not prepared or practiced for the test. The mother assured her daughter that the test what a “no brainer”, that she really didn’t have to practice, that anybody, I mean anybody can pass the test. By the way, wear sneakers when taking the test. The cavalier attitude to this rite of passage startled me. 

          Their appointed time came and off they went to the parking lot to take the driver’s test. I watched through the window. Some twenty or so teenagers of all shapes and sizes were standing by these huge SUV’s, pick ups and just plain cars, ready to pass the test and hit the road.

As I drove home I passed the campus of the local high school. Dusk was falling but the kids were still out there practicing. The soccer moms were all sitting in their SUV’s or sitting in the bleachers. On the field the kids were practicing, and practicing, and practicing.

          Parents encourage their kids to spend hundred of hours practicing passes for that fleeting minute of football fame and the love a of a pretty cheerleader. Life goes on and they graduate from high school and all those hours are out the window, wasted.

Now back to that driver’s test. New York State requires you to take but a five hour course before taking the driving test. Connecticut mandates an eight hour course. For teenagers, the requirements are greater but not at all commensurate to the task.

We are lulled into a false sense of security. Cars are safer they tell us. You even have air bags in your doors. Your rear view mirror is now a TV. Traffic fatalities are down.

But the facts are horrifying. In 2009 there were 32,788 deaths on our roads as a result of motor vehicle accidents. Compare that figure to the 4,454 deaths in Iraq since March, 2003, an 8 year long war, with people shooting at you and trying to blow you up. There were 5,587,000 reported traffic accidents that year. Statistically 1 out of 50 Americans was involved in a reported motor vehicle accident that year.

So we send out our youngsters unschooled, unprepared and unpracticed to wreak havoc out on the open road. What a deadly rite of passage for these kids, including the girl with the flip flops.  

 

P. S. TO JUSTICE UNDONE, IT'S MURDER THEY SAID

from the new york times 

“all the news fit to print"

benjamin b. ferencz

14 bayberry lane

rew rochelle, new york 10804-3402

914 632 3717

e mail: benferen@aol.com

site: www.benferencz.org

May 3, 2011

To the Editor,

The New York Times

New York, New York

          Jubilation over the death of the most hunted mass murderer is understandable, but was it really justifiable self-defense, or was it premeditated illegal assassination?

          The Nurenberg trials earned worldwide respect by giving Hitler[‘s] henchmen a fair trial so that truth could be revealed under law would prevail. Secret or non judicial decisions based on political or military considerations undermine democracy. The public is entitled to know the complete truth.

                                                                   /s/ Benjamin B. Ferencz

the writer was a prosecutor at the nuremberg trials

 

 

JUSTICE UNDONE, IT'S MURDER THEY SAID

          “Justice was done” was Barack Obama’s take on the assassination of Osama bin Laden. It wasn’t. Justice was not done, it was undone. Obama, of all people, a graduate of Harvard Law School, a former law professor and a lawyer, should know better. Justice requires that laws be honored and not discarded for political expediency.

          Assassination is the extrajudicial intentional killing by a government of a person for a political purpose. Perhaps Attorney General Eric Holder should remind him that assassinations, or “targeted killings”, sanctioned by a sate are illegal. As early as February 18, 1976, President Ford signed Executive Order 1190, a finding and directive having the force of law, banning political assassinations [“Prohibition of Assassination. No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”] President Carter followed suit with Executive Order 12036 which banned even indirect U.S. involvement in assassinations. President Reagan finally signed the still in effect Executive Order 12333 on December 1, 1981 which provides:

executive order 12333-- united states intelligence activities  46 fr 59941, 3 cfr 1981 

2.11 Prohibition on Assassination. No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.

2.12 Indirect Participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order.

          Sadly Obama is following the lead of two morally deficient Presidents. Bill Clinton, a Yale Law School graduate, recently and publicly admitted to secretly approving bin Laden as target for assassination [after the U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar as Salaam in 1998], and George Bush who publicly called for his murder, “his head on a plate”, after 9/11. Fortunately for them, and for us, his murder/assassination did not occur on their watch.    

          Justices Roberts, Thomas and Scalia, and those other dolts now sitting on the Supreme Court, can not be counted on to give the President sage advice. President Truman heeded Justice Robert Jackson’s principled call preventing the summary execution, the “assassination” “murder”, of Nazi leaders after the Second World War: “The only course [we have] is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused [in the present case bin Laden] after a hearing [in a court of law] as dispassionate as the times will permit and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear.” The result was the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, an imperfect meting out of a victor’s justice, but justice nonetheless.

Martin Borman, Herman Göring, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Joachim von Ribbentrop, among others, stood accused, tried, convicted and sentenced. The sentences, including the death penalty, were carried out.  Now these men were responsible for the deaths counting in the millions, not the mere thousands that can be ascribed to bin Laden. You can not equate bin Laden’s crimes, as dastardly and cowardly as they may be, with those committed by the perpetrators of the holocaust. As chilling and gruesome as the collapse of the World Trade Center was, with people jumping to their death, it can not compared to the millions gassed and cremated in Auschwitz,  Treblinka, Sobibor and Buchenwald. Think of the heaps of black and white striped pajama clad human remains confronting the liberating United States Army. Remember Schindler’s List. Think of the cities and countries laid to waste, to rubble. These men were truly evil, evil in a way that defies rational description. These men were Major League players while bin Laden was, at best, in the littlest of the Little Leagues.

But then, in 1945, justice was done. The rule of law, as imperfect and flawed as a victor’s tribunal may have been, was followed: indictment, trial, conviction and sentence. Yes, sentence, even the death sentence, if deemed appropriate.

          Bill Clinton, notwithstanding his secret authorization for bin Laden’s assassination, publicly, at least, adhered to the constraints of the rule of law. On November 5, 1998 his Justice Department filed an indictment with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York accusing bin Laden of a host of crimes, some carrying the death penalty. But once that indictment was filed, and it is still on file and operative, the constraints of law came into play. The next step was arrest and trial, not assassination, not murder, unless that killing was the unfortunate result of resistance to lawful apprehension.

          The circumstances of bin Laden’s killing remain murky. Will they ever be fully disclosed? I don’t know.

So far we have been denied the photographic evidence of his demise on national security grounds. The photos are too grisly for us to view, they tell us. Yet Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill I & II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other grisly images too numerous to name flick daily across our video [no longer just TV] screens. Why does our government seek to shield our sensibilities now?

Is it because, as some senior Pakistani officials claim, the “people inside the house were unarmed”? Is it because “there was no resistance”? Is it because “it was cold-blooded [murder]”? Is it because bin Laden was shot in the back of the head”, execution style? Is it because “……………”? Is it because “…………”? Is it because “……………”? You fill in the blanks.

Now many have voiced opinions pro and con. But voices of temperance and reason are starting to be heard. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Reverend Dr. Rowan Wiliams, having just married Bill and Kate, said:

“I think the killing of an unarmed man …[just] doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done. … [W]hen we are faced with someone who ws manifestly a war criminal in terms of atrocities inflicted it is important that justice is seen to be served.”   

             

          Bin Laden’s demise is not to be celebrated. It is to be mourned not as the death of a hero or martyr, nor as the victory of good over evil. His death, assassination, murder, whatever, should be mourned as the death of justice, as we know it and want it to be.

THE CURSE OF BLACK ELECTRIC SPAGHETTI

 

My kitchen counter is covered by an unsightly tangle of black electrical cords each terminating in a distinctly different charger head meant to be plugged into an electronic device: an IPhone, a Blackberry, a cell phone, an IPad, a Kindle, whatever. You grope, untangle and then blindly try one after another before finally finding the right one. Comes the weekend when your children visit, the tangle grows exponentially. What a mess, what a waste.

          Way back when, at the dawn of the electronic age, manufacturers conspired, probably in violation of present day anti trust laws, to standardize products. All radios used the same electric plug to access electrical power. You could only buy record players [remember them, those things with turntables?] that rotated at 33 1/3, 45 or 78 revolutions per minute. You could not go out get a record player that revolved at, let’s say 53 revs, no way. You had to go with the flow, the accepted universal way of doing things.

          So what is it with all these electronic geniuses, the MIT, CalTech and RPI graduates, the guys at Intel, Toshiba, Soni, Apple? Can’t they get their act together and agree that power for all of their gadgets will be accessed through a universal power plug that all devices could use interchangeably? Is simplicity, sanity and savings too much to ask?

          Some forwarding thinking electrical engineering students from, of all places, Belgrade, Serbia have just devised a “Strawberry Tree”, a free standing kiosk that harnesses solar energy and makes it available for free to passerby’s  whose electronic device are about to expire and need that an immediate jolt of electricity to keep on going like the Energizer Bunny. But in order to make it function the device has sixteen, count them, sixteen different electric chargers to accommodate the most frequently used devices.

          The “Strawberry Tree” will be installed in front of the European Parliament Building in Brussels and featured at European Commission’s “Week of Sustainable Energy Development”. But does it really take sixteen almost identical charger heads to make the idea work for most of us walking down the street? Do I really want a great big tangle of black wire spaghettini or capellini littering my kitchen counter? I think not. So to you electrical engineers out there: “Come on guys, get your act together!”

   

REQUIEM FOR A DON

    

          The “Don”, the Mafia boss, immediately brings to mind The Godfather’s Don Vito Corleone, John “Dapper Don” Gotti, Salvatore “Sammy, The Bull” Gravano, Robert “Bobby Ha-Ha” Attanasio, Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, Sam “Momo” Giancanna and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno. All Italian-American gangsters. But this stereotype has it wrong. Think of Otto “Abbadabba” Berman [German American who coined “Nothing personal. It’s just business”], Alex “Allie Boy” Rudaj [Albanian], Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein [Jewish American], Nick “Nicky Nails” Dedaj [Albanian], Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer [German American], Jack “Legs” Diamond [100% American] and Irving “Waxey Gordon” Wexler [Jewish Russian American]. In reality “Dons” come in all shapes and sizes, ethnic origins and religious and non religious persuasions.

          Which bring us to Bosko “The Yugo” Radonjich who died at age 68 in Belgrade, Serbia last month. Now as I write this piece, this Requiem in Pace plea to the Almighty to go easy on old Bosko, to grant him a pass. Oh Lord, show him compassion and mercy for surely he has sinned. But after all, he was a friend; he saved my life and kept me out of harm’s way. The very least I can do is to humbly seek intercession on his behalf.

          Now the question is how does the life path of a fancy Madison Avenue lawyer intersect with that of a rather rough brawler from New York’s Hell’s Kitchen? It’s all a matter of chance, a roll of the dice, and easy, real easy, believes you me.

          The Serbian-American immigrant community in New York in the 60’s was small, no more that an a thousand souls. I was a rising star, a lawyer. You all met on important holidays in church, exchanged greetings, and had a drink or two in the social club next door. When I waltzed in with my two young daughters for the very first time Bosko and others welcomed their arrival with small gold coins, as was the custom.

          Bosko’s father, a Royalist Mihailovich Chetnik, had been executed by Tito’s communist Partisans. Never straying from his political heritage he fled Yugoslavia smuggled on a bus carrying a soccer team to Austria. He washed up in Hell’s Kitchen where he ran parking lots and garages, and dabbled in crime.

          From there he would send me the occasional referral, an assault here and alleged rape there, even the defense of a young man accused of murder. But the referrals were common garden variety miscreants, no organized crime, no Mafia. He could well have referred those potential clients my way, easy money, and God knows I needed it. He did not; he kept that potential danger well away from me.

          Then in November, 1978, the shit the fan. Bosko, Nikola Kavaja [to get the whole story, Google the names] and four others were arrested for conspiracy to bomb Communist Yugoslav consulates. On a Sunday night there I was representing them at arraignment in Federal court, and soon to be trying the case in Chicago.

          Now this is a blog and needs to be short and to the point. Again, if you want the whole story, google away. The trial was a disaster. Kavaja, sorely disappointed by the verdict, decided to hijack an American Airlines plane, together with all the passengers and crew on board. That’s where I came in. By then I was representing Kavaja and I swapped myself for the passengers, becoming a hostage.

          Now I truly believe that Bosko didn’t graduate from high school, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t smart. During a crucial point in the hijacking he persuaded the FBI snipers not to shoot, saving my life.

          That event and the prison sentence he served in Allenwood, that country club of a federal prison, changed his life. There he roomed with Gerald Bull, the inventor of Operation Babylon “super gun” and consorted with the Mafia elite also serving time. He went in a brash, street smart thug and came out a polished man of the world. He went in driving a loud white Cadillac convertible and drove out in a dark blue Mercedes sedan, wearing a Brooks Brother suit.

          He was now in business, including the cement business. See The Mystery of the Rolls Royce Convertible Revealed, The Litchfield County Times http://www.countytimes.com/articles/2010/04/15/opinion/op-ed/doc4bc746e47ab89424814136.txt. Along with Bull he brokered arms deals with China and Cuba until Bull was assassinated by Israel’s Mossad in Brussels. His home base in Hell’s Kitchen put him in place to take over the Westies, the nefarious Irish gang that ran the West Side of Manhattan. His John Gotti, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano and Gambino family connections allowed him forge a profitable partnership exploiting the dirty world of New York’s trade unions.

          He always eschewed violence. His shtick was the art of gentle menacing persuasion and the occasional necessary bribe, the white envelope in the right pocket. Throughout, even though I was with him on at least a weekly basis, he kept me at arm’s length, away from his other life. To tempt me he never would allow.

          He had to leave the United States in a hurried manner, something to do with an indictment and alleged jury tampering. Finding refuge in a Yugoslavia was that soon to be no more, he lent his resources, his contacts and his talents to the cause that he believed in, that of the Serbs and Serbia. You may not approve of his views and political persuasion, just as some disapprove of Zionists and Israel, but to his own heart he remained true.

          When I agreed to represent clients before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, a UN institution sitting at The Hague, The Netherlands, it was he who lent support, who had his contacts locate witnesses, documents, and recordings in support of the defense. The beleaguered poorly funded and outmanned defense was given at least a chance to properly perform its function.

          I thoroughly enjoyed sitting with him in his Lotus Club on Zmaj Jovina Street in Belgrade and the Godfather Casino in Zlatibor. I am thankful for my life, for his saving it, and for the times I spent with him. I am thankful for the care that he took to keep me, his friend away from harm’s way. I just wish there were more of those days. But in retrospect, Bosko, “The Yugo”, “The “Don”, lived a full life, a life well spent.

         

           

           

THE LIBYAN WAR: THE RIGHT WAY OR NO WAY

                                                       deyan ranko brashich & nikola kostich

          Our Constitution has been criticized for being vague and subject to interpretation with changing morals and times. Scholars and judges have wrestled with the meanings of “establishment of religion”, “freedom of speech”, “right of the people to keep and bear arms”, “cruel and unusual punishment”, “unreasonable search”. However, the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, makes it crystal clear that Congress, and only Congress, shall have Power  

“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;”

          The Civil War, America’s first modern war with weapons of mass destruction and casualties in the hundreds of thousands, was presided over by Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps it is apt to consider his take on the War Powers Clause when he sat in Congress and debated the beginning of the Mexican-American War in 1846:

“The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.”

          President Obama is not a “king”. He and his Adninistration’s  [Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Generals and Admirals constituting the Joint Chiefs of Staff] violation of the War Powers Clause by unilateral military action in Lybia should be condemned and not condonned.

          Now don’t confuse me with euphemisms like “no fly” zones. That is pure unadulterated Orwellian double speak. It’s a war, that’s what it is, pure and simple. Secretary of Defense, or should it be Secretary of War, rightfully said “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A “no-fly” zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses.” We are now bombing not only their air defenses but we are destroying tanks, military installations and their “beans and bullets” as one of our generals aptly put it. If that ain’t war, what is? You can’t hide a war by calling it a “limited military engagement aimed to protect civilians”. You can’t deny engaging in regime change when you target a regime’s leader with your smart bombs and missiles.

          Americans and their elected Representatives sitting in Congress have for too long allowed Presidents to abuse their power. Starting with Harry Truman and his “Police Action” rightfully called the Korean War with some 50,000 dead American soldiers. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all wallowed through the Vietnam War. Reagan had his Granada moment, and Bush I had Panama and the Gulf War. Bush II got us into the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan.

          We all expected more from Obama. Yet he sorely disappoints us. First he reneged on Afghanistan and Guantanamo. He authorized military action in Pakistan, our ally, and one that we support yearly with billions of dollars. But Libya is were Congress and we the people should draw the line, the line in the sands of Libya.

          The reason for Congress’ inaction is dodging the blame game should something go disastrously wrong. “It’s the other guy’s fault” sydrome of modern politics, the Alfred E. Newman “Who, me?” moment. In fairness the Presidents have sported Congressional fig leafs of War Power Resolutions and Congressional funding of their wars. It is time for Congress to fully shoulder its constitutionally mandated responsibility in declaring war, if war is what the people want.

          Now don’t give us that the exigency of the situation required Obama to act without Congressional approval. That’s bull. Obama and his administration dithered for days before raming through the United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing a “no fly” regimes, with five nations abstaining. Do we have to remind you the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941 and that Congress declared war on December 8? You have a simple resolution and you vote for or against it. War or no War. That the right and honest way of doing it.

          It’s time that we jerk the President’s leash and bring him to heel. Remind him, and future Presidents, that the prerogative of war is not his to make. Force Congress to reassume its Constitutional power to represent us in deciding if war is want we want, what we are willing to pay for, and ultimately to die for.

          The world is peopled with bad actors, despots and dictators. Muammar el-Qaddafi is a prime example and as crazy as a “Mad Hatter” to boot. That said, there is a right way and a wrong way to invoke the War Powers Clause. We must insist on the right way or no way. 

           

               

TAX GOD: A BUDGET HAIL MARY PASS

          A “Hail Mary Pass”, as everyone knows, is a very long forward pass made in sheer desperation with only a small chance of success, usually thrown at the end of a football game. Faced with catastrophic and huge budget deficits, American politicians at the state and city level should seriously consider lobbing their own Hail Mary Pass: Tax God, Tax Religion.

          New York State is slashing payrolls and threatening to fire and furlough teachers. Connecticut is nor far behind. Wisconsin has just passed a law abrogating collective bargaining rights for state employees and mandating an 8% pay cut concession. New Jersey is closing psychiatric institutions and limiting state aid to education, the arts, cities and municipalities. California, Nevada, Rhode Island are but a few of the states considering taxing the sale of marijuana to solve the deficit. Adding insult to injury, the Town of West Hartford is considering extending parking meter hours, noting that for every extra taxable parking hour the Town will reap a benefit of $67,000 a year. 

          All of these proposals and measures seem to fall "disproportionately on the backs of the middle class, the poor, the elderly, schoolchildren, college students and inner-city residents, while leaving largely unscathed the wealthy and most businesses". OK, so why not tax dumb, fat, happy and rich tax targets, God and Religion?         

          But before taxing God, religion’s historic context should be considered. After twelve years of debate, our Constitution was finally adopted in 1787. The Bill of Rights was added in 1794. These two documents delineate the powers of government. Supposedly a secular nation, they prohibit “the making of no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Nada, niente, rien, niśta and nothing more.

           Religion is and was a major political player. Seizing on Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy”, religion promoted itself to a position of privilege. Religion secured advantageous tax treatments, on both the federal and local levels, relieving it of any burden of contributing to the general welfare. Religion assured that its secular wealth would be protected, and not taxed, allowing it to pursue its own agenda.

          Religion flourished and continues to flourish.  It built temples, cathedrals and churches; magnificent, opulent and expensive places of worship; and some not so grand; but all to be found in every nook and cranny of our country. It played and continues to play a major role in education. Religion gave its leaders a bully pulpit to preach and to advocate. Religion is the very embodiment of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, assembly and the right to petition the government for redress. A truly commendable achievement. But it did so on the cheap, for free.

          On the other hand, religion today has a negative impact on our society. It has become embroiled and mired in politics. This not to say that such political advocacy and involvement is in any way improper. It is to be encouraged since it is constitutionally protected. But one asks, at what price? Not on the taxpayer's dime, says I.

           There is no rational reason why religion is relieved from the burden of paying taxes. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York's magnificent gothic marble edifice, enjoys the protection of the police and the fire department. It benefits from mass transit that ensures attendance by worshippers. All aspects of today’s infrastructure and today’s federal, state and local government services benefit lay institutions and religious institutions alike. Yet the lay institutions are taxed, as they should be, while the religious ones are not, which they should be.

          The first step would be to tax religious real estate, now exempt. This would fairly spread the tax burden and surely help the budget deficit. Cities such as New Haven and Hartford have long raised the issue that purely secular institutions, such as colleges and universities, share in the cost of municipal services. Why not religious institutions?

          The second step would be to tax religious income on an equitable basis with other secular entities. Income, after all, is income no matter who makes it. We tax the National Football League and Major League Baseball, why not the Roman Catholic Church? After all, they both entertain the masses. This would free religion to advocate and become politically active without government interference. Of course, the level and efficacy of such activity would be constrained by the availability of after tax dollars. To put it rather vulgarly, religion should pay its fair share for state provided services and put its money where its mouth is, for the privilege of exercising its First Amendment rights. The budget crisis may well be solved.