Norman Mailer's Thoughts On State Violence

"[T]here are two kinds of violence: individual violence and the violence of the state. The violence of the state is not just wars, it's also concentration camps...There can be violence in total censorship. Anything that cuts off expectations from people, possibilities from people, anything that compresses people by external government force is the violence of the state....Individual violence is very often the natural answer of people to the collective violence of the state." --Norman Mailer, from Mailer: A Biography by Hilary Mills (Empire Books, 1982), Page 36.

It's Time For A Compulsory National Service Program

I have for a long time been a proponent of compulsory national service, especially for those between the ages of 18 and 25. If I had had that option when I was in that age range, I would have welcomed it.

National service would line up with what President John F. Kennedy said in the 1960s,"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Recently I was pleasantly surprised to read in Arnold Rampersad's biography of the African-American author Ralph Ellison that "Ralph called for the formation of a kind of compulsory national service, in which youths could choose either military or civilian involvement."

It wouldn't be a bad idea to extend participation to able-bodied individuals in their 30s and 40s as an alternative to welfare-to-work programs which only line the pockets of for-profit workfare company executives and do little to nothing to improve the economic and employment possibilities for people in need.

Here would be a golden opportunity to offer on-the-job training, coupled with a living wage. The program would not only provide candidates in the program with meaningful work experience instead of low wage, dead-end jobs, it would benefit the country as a whole, especially the many infrastructure projects that need to be done.

I see so many people--young, middle-age, and beyond--who hang out on street corners or building stoops instead of being involved in productive activities.

If the Republicans are truly serious about reducing the welfare rolls as well as crime (and recidivism), they should get behind a national service program. It would be one of the best things that could happen to this country.

Donald Trump Will Not Be The Forgotten Man

On the sidewalk at the northwest corner of Broadway and 110th Street and the sidewalk at the northeast corner of Broadway and 106th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, someone wrote with a blue marker pen this message: "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY 11-07-20." Obviously, it was to commemorate Joe Biden's defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

But despite our elation over Trump's defeat, we shouldn't forget that that doesn't mean he will fade away. It just means he will no longer occupy the White House and that he will no longer be in power.

You can be sure his presence will be felt in other ways via Twitter, rallies, conservative talk radio, etc., criticizing and belittling Biden and the Democrats every chance he gets.

Trump will definitely refuse to go gently off the stage. His enormous ego will not allow it.

Unprofessional, Abusive FDNY Paramedics

Daniel A. Nigro, Fire Commissioner

FDNY

9 Metro Tech Center                                               Re: FDNY Paramedics

Brooklyn, NY 11201

December 21, 2019

Dear Commissioner Nigro:

There's a saying, no good deed goes unpunished. I learned that lesson last night [December 20].

On 116th Street, near 8th Avenue, in front of what used to be a 7-Eleven store, was an elderly black man lying on the icy sidewalk wrapped in a blue blanket on a night when the temperature was in the mid-twenties. One of his shoes was off.

At 11:44 p.m., I called 911 to report a person in a dangerous situation. Two FDNY paramedics (both white; one male, the other female) arrived in less than five minutes in Ambulance 1358. But I should have expected the worst when it took them nearly five minutes to exit the vehicle. Apparently they were reluctant to get out in the cold air.When they did get out, they took out a stretcher and with the help of another man who had also called them, attempted to get the old man on the stretcher. He was becoming belligerent, using profanities and threatening to "bop" the female paramedic. She responded that she would bop him back. He rolled off the stretcher and onto the sidewalk. They had to lift him by his coat back onto the stretcher.

Then the female paramedic got angry that she had to deal with a resistant old man. She said I should mind my business and then said that I should take him to my apartment, that they couldn't make a person go to the hospital. She was completely out of line and not acting like a professional. I'm trying to do a good deed by saving someone from freezing to death and instead of receiving thanks, I get chewed out for calling 911. I told her she should do her job and that she was ignorant.

To me, instead of calling these two paramedics First Responders, they should be called First Responding Idiots. How can anyone be angry with someone for trying to be a good citizen?

When I got home, I called both 911 and 311 and filed a complaint with the FDNY. If the two paramedics can't deal with the public in a dignified and respectful manner, they should find another line of work.

Their attitude will not stop me from calling 911 when I see someone in a life-threatening situation. These two paramedics, especially the female, are in desperate need of sensitivity training.

Sincerely yours,

Charles M. Smith

CC: Bill Perkins, City Council, 9th District
        Jumaane Williams, Public Advocate

                                                                                      

                                                                                                                               

History Repeats Itself

The recent violence against Jewish individuals in the New York metropolitan area is a throwback to an earlier time. In John Strausbaugh's Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers During World War II (Twelve/Grand Central Publishing, 2018), he writes: "Through 1942 and 1943 there would be numerous reports in the press of roving gangs of young men, mostly identified as Irish and affiliated with the [Christian] Front [Catholic priest Charles Coughlin's anti-Semitic organization], beating and sometimes even knifing Jews in neighborhoods such as Flatbush, Washington Heights, and the South Bronx, where Irish and Jewish communities abutted. Many shops, synagogues, and cemeteries were vandalized." (Page 155)

On an earlier page, Strausbaugh points out that "The city's police force, which was nearly two-thirds Irish, turned a blind eye [to any violence against Jews or the distribution of anti-Semitic literature on the streets]; some number of them were Christian Fronters themselves." (Page 152)

But unlike what went on back then, today's mayor and police commissioner have responded with a considerable amount of police presence in heavily Jewish neighborhoods of New York City like Crown Heights, Brooklyn to prevent any further attacks.                                                                                                     

Legalizing The World's Oldest Profession

Dear Editor: 
The legislators can pass all the laws they want, the clergymen can deliver all the sermons they want, and the editorialists can write all the scathing editorials they want. None of this will ever put an end to prostitution. The best solution is to legalize it. In this way, state and local authorities can minimize the number of prostitutes under 18. It also would minimize customer ripoffs, make periodic physical exams mandatory, and eliminate the often brutal pimp. Here's another plus--it would be a good source of tax revenue.

Note: My letter-to-the-editor was originally published in the Voice of the People column of the New York Daily News on July 9, 1979.

Inside The Trump White House

I recently finished reading Bob Woodward's Fear: Trump in the White House (Simon & Schuster). I had a hard time putting it down. Woodward's reporting highlighted the turmoil in the White House since Trump's occupancy: the backstabbing and backbiting among members of his administration; Trump's profanity-laced rants; Trump's flip-flopping on issues; the seemingly endless personnel changes, etc. The reader's impression would be that the Trump administration is something out of a movie written and directed by Mel Brooks.

A Good Idea Is A Good Idea Whether It's From A Liberal Or A Conservative

As soon as a person is identified as a conservative, progressives begin to react negatively as though only people in their political camp have ideas worthy of consideration and implementation.

As a liberal, I'm more open-minded about hearing people out, no matter what their political leanings are. A good idea is a good idea. Liberals or progressives don't have a monopoly on good ideas. The same holds true for people on the right.

Alt-Right Fake News Regarding Alec Baldwin?

Bill Tate, a white, 67-year-old, very conservative pro-Trump co-worker at a national opinion research firm here in New York, sent me the following text message (sent @8:38 pm, 10/15/2018):

"Secret service agents took alec Baldwin [sic] into custody @3pm today; he publically [sic] advocated the overthrow of U.S.A.=SEDITION!"

This sounds like alt-right fake news and wishful thinking. And if true, is a Gestapo reaction of the Secret Service.

Here's what Alec Baldwin actually said per The Hill.com, a political website, and time.com:

"The way we implement change in America is through elections.We change governments here at home in an orderly and formal way. In that orderly and formal way and lawful way, we need to overthrow the government of the United States under Donald Trump."

Baldwin did not advocate a violent overthrow of the government. He was talking about the use of the ballot box to change the government.

Is Trump's Space Force Proposal A Farce?

I don't know if any newspapers or magazines plan to publish comments from a dozen or so science-fiction writers like Samuel Delany on President Trump's proposed Space Force, but if they haven't, it would be something worth doing.

By offering their perspectives, pro and con, on establishing this new branch of the military, the general public would be informed in a thought-provoking and non-technical way on the government's national space security policies or the lack of same.

In Ben Carson's Mind, African Slaves Were Immigrants

Ben Carson, the new secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration, may need to bone up on American history, especially that part dealing with slavery.

Carson told a roomful of federal employees, presumably all of them employed at HUD, that "There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they, too, had a dream that one day their" descendants "might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land."

A Washington Post report, published in the daily free paper amNew York (March 7, 2017) noted that his comments provoked "an uproar on social media."

It seems that Carson is unaware that an immigrant is someone who chooses to leave one country to settle somewhere else.The African slaves who were brought to America didn't have that option. Therefore they were not immigrants.