They spoke about Liptak’s American Exception series. The United States, with less than five percent of the world’s population, has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. That’s 2.3 million Americans. China has four times as many people as we do but comes in a distant second with 1.6 million people imprisoned.
Among the things that make us unique, the bail bondsman:
Mr. LIPTAK: What a bail bondsman does is, a private businessman is given the opportunity to get you out of jail in exchange for a nonrefundable fee, typically 10 percent of the amount the judge said. And that sounds great. So, you know, you don’t have the thousand dollars, but for $100 he’ll come up with bail for you and you’ll get out, pending trial.
But think about that for a second. You have someone who is presumed innocent, has not been convicted of anything, and we’re going to hold him unless he pays a nonrefundable fee to a private business. And we outsource to this private businessman both the question of should someone presumed innocent get out or not, and then allow him to make a profit on that person’s freedom. And many, many people, although initially charged, are ultimately not convicted. So we not only have someone presumed innocent but someone adjudicated innocent, and nonetheless we’ve made that person pay a fee in order to retain their freedom.
DAVIES: And the reason the court system does it is that it appears to assure people are more likely to come back for trial. I mean, does it?
Mr. LIPTAK: The numbers suggest it, although it’s a little hard to control for it. Yes, it is true that bail bondsmen have an economic incentive to make sure that people show up for trial. They also have an economic incentive to choose only those people who are likely to show up for trial to begin with, so it’s not as though we live in a world of bounty hunters. Ninety-nine percent of people would show up regardless. But it is also true that the 1 percent who goes on the lam, bail bondsmen, because they’re on the hook for the whole amount, will aggressively try to get those people, probably more aggressively than systems in which the government handles this whole business.
DAVIES: And that’s where it gets weird. We’ve empowered private citizens to arm themselves and go after criminals and lock them up. I mean, what powers to they have? Can they handcuff somebody to a hotel bed and transport them across state lines, things like that?
Mr. LIPTAK: It’s extraordinary. They can cross state lines. They can bust down the door of a private house. They can imprison that person. The theory behind it is that if you enter into this bail bond relationship with somebody and you sign a contract, you are their prisoners and they can on a whim revoke your bail at any time, snatch you up and take you back. This truly is a sort of frontier, Wild West legacy of Americana that is retained in almost every state still.
DAVIES: Well, OK, so how do other countries handle this, and are they less likely to get defendants back for court appearances?
Mr. LIPTAK: They handle it in lots of ways. Some countries don’t let you out. They lock you up pre-trial. Some countries let you out, but they make it a crime for you not to come back. So they’ll prosecute you for that second crime. Some countries will take a deposit from you and give it back to you if you show up. Some countries will write down a number on a piece of paper, and if you don’t show up they’ll make you liable for it and they’ll try to collect it from you later. So there are lots and lots of different ways to do it; but except for the Philippines, the US is the only one that turns it into a commercial business.
May 8th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Various news reports say there are over 200,000 dead in the cyclone and tsunami that hit Burma… now five days ago.
Other reports say over 500,000 will be dead if the thousands of bodies floating in water and lying in mud are not burnt or buried, and the injured given help, and the vulnerable given clean water.
This is after the government originally said there might be a total of 10,000 dead. Maybe not even that many, they said.
This from The Sun, U.K., by Nick Parker, Chief Foreign Correspondent at Mae Sot on the Burmese border
and James Clench
The UK has so far pledged more aid than anyone, announcing a £5million package to be channelled through the UN.
Charities Save the Children, Oxfam and the British Red Cross have also swung into action.
But most of the aid is yet to be distributed because of the secretive Burmese junta, led by ruthless General Than Shwe.
His isolationist regime is paranoid an influx of foreigners might have a political impact on a national referendum due tomorrow, set to strengthen the army’s grip still further.
Three days ago, the dictatorship’s Health Minister went on TV, in what was called a rare appearance, and he said aid was on its way to the Burmese people. Right away.
It’s not. Aid is not on its way. Five days later, world aid is not present in Burma.
General Than Schwe, dictator of Burma, has 400,000 soldiers at his behest.
And as I wrote at TMV earlier, hopefully Than Schwe would stand out of the way and allow the experienced international teams of aid workers to bring equipment and supplies, and the means to both unload it and distribute it.
It didn’t happen.
Ships from many nations are still fully loaded all over the world waiting orders to turn the wheel and steam toward Burma. Cargo planes are loaded and waiting. They are filled with medical supplies At various airports outside Burma, aid workers are sitting on their packed duffels and backpacks ready to go: parameds, post trauma specialists, doctors, engineers, health care workers, and heavy equipment, such as back hoes, trailers. All waiting.
And waiting
And waiting
Than Schwe, hugely well fed dictator of the ancient Burmese people, he who has suffered no personal loss from this disaster for he is ensconced more than 200 miles away from where the tsunami/ cyclone hit… and it is Than Schwe, who wanted to be king of everything and who wanted to control everything, it is he who has publicly failed the world soul, failed the world heart that cries out for a humane response…
Than Schwe has failed publicly and utterly by keeping aid workers out of Burma, by putting no real teeth behind his health minister’s claim that help was coming, big help was coming, right away, huge help was coming.
Than Schwe is merely keeping all aid workers on strings… without cutting the red tape.
The dictatorship’s excuse? Than Schwe and his merelings continues to parrot that they “cannot let aid workers into the country out of concern for the workers own safety.”
Than Schwe,NEWS ALERT: to aid workers, a disaster site wouldn’t be a disaster site if it weren’t unsafe.
Than Scwe’s huge lie will not hold water, not even a drop left behind by the tsunami.
Because of the Kentucky Derby collapse and death of filly Eight Belles, the horse racing world is about to find out what PETA’s spurs feel like.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has called for the suspension and investigation of Eight Belles jockey Gabriel Saez, and also has started an online petition to change the rules of thoroughbred racing.
Flatly ignoring PETA’s suggestions could be risky for a sport where interest has steadily waned, and which is under siege after a succession of high-profile horses dying on the track.
PETA flexed considerable muscle in the sports world last year, raising the outrage about the Michael Vick dogfighting charges that sent the Atlanta Falcons quarterback to prison.
PETA’s four demands are:
1) No racing or training for a thoroughbred until it turns 3 years old. The organization contends the animals’ legs aren’t fully developed until then.
2) No more racing on dirt tracks. The group says the synthetic surfaces now used at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., and at California tracks are far safer and result in fewer equine breakdowns and fatalities.
3) Cap the number of times a horse races each year.
4) Ban whipping. PETA says that when jockeys flail horses with a riding crop the animals can be forced beyond their physical limits.
_______
see also A Lost Story About Why Horses Came to Earth, by Dr. E, here. Also see Shaun Mullen’s piece at Kiko’s House, “Why It’s Long Past Time To Clean Up U.S. Thoroughbred Racing” here
James Woodard spent 27 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit. He was released last week as a result of DNA evidence gathered through an unprecedented cooperative effort between Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, a Democrat and the first black DA in the history of Texas, and the Texas Innocence Project.
Together they re-examined hundreds of cases and have freed 17 Texas inmates so far — their effort still has 250 more cases to review. Last year NPR’s Morning Edition profiled DA Watkins. Last night 60 Minutes did a segment on the DA and the Innocence Project that featured the story of James Woodard. Convicted in the 1981 murder of his girlfriend, Woodard served 27 years and four months, the longest of any inmate in the nation to be cleared with the help of DNA.
Woodard had always maintained his innocence, he says, including every one of the 12 times he came up for parole:
“They always told me, as long as you deny your guilt its saying something about you, you know you are not willing to own up to your deed. And we gonna deny you,” Woodard says.
But Woodard refused to admit guilt. “I wasn’t guilty,” he says.
“You chose truth over freedom,” Pelley remarks.
“I mean, a man has to stand for something,” Woodard says.
Jeralyn at Talk Left called it “one of the most moving segments ‘60 Minutes’ has ever done” and points to a summit on the wrongfully convicted in the Texas Senate on May 8.
A Georgia resident, I am reminded of the case of convicted “cop killer” Troy Anthony Davis who sits on death row here despite the recantations of seven witnesses who testified against him, despite the fact that no murder weapon was ever found and no physical evidence linked him to the crime, and despite the fact that he has maintained his innocence throughout.
RELATED: 60 Minutes was at the top of its game last night. Crooks & Liars and Think Progress both applaud the What Really Happened to Pat Tillman? segment. Said Pat’s mother Mary Tillman, “this isn’t about us. It’s about what they’ve done to the public. This was a public deception.”
If one wanted to know the difference between being an American and being a European, this article from France’s Le Figaro newspaper would be a very good place to start.
From Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to client number nine Eliot Spitzer and ‘Kristan,’ Europeans have looked at the effect that sex has on American politics with a collective shake of the head. Read the rest of this entry »
A year after the massacre at Virginia Tech by the troubled Cho Seung-Hui, what has been done to address the root causes of that event - the worst at any American educational institution? Dietmar Ostermann writes for Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau, “The debate over gun control erupts loudly and often, yet it’s a discussion without consequences. The way people with psychological problems are handled, however, is a silent scandal. Even after Blacksburg, American society is so uncomfortable with the topic that it was quickly suppressed.”
Ostermann goes on, “Even more than the U.S. mania for weapons, this bloody killing spree represents the often tragic consequences of a system in which mental suffering is not only ignored - it is criminalized.” Read the rest of this entry »
April 18th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Programming others to do one’s will, or else…
When I first trained in my field, veterans from Korea and those coming back from Nam who’d been POWs, had often suffered extensive efforts by the enemy… to rearrange their impulses, instincts and attitudes. At that time too, deprogramming had become a watchword, and thus we studied deeply the psychological effects of vulnerable human beings being ‘programmed’ by others
…Actual brain changes appeared to take place, deleterious ones that undercut the victim’s confidence and certainty about selfhood… and psychological changes, such as, feelings of helplessness, inability to think for oneself clearly and quickly. These and more, appeared to issue from experiencing untoward pressures and torments meant to destroy the core person.
Thus, whether crude or sophisticated the enemy attempted to cover over and subvert the soldiers’ true selves, by:
–using punishments erratically,
–withholding of food and other subsistances,
–restricting movement, and access to the outer world, to like-kind colleagues who shared a desire to be free
–and to also, reward via pathetic means, erratically also… as one soldier I worked with had been given a rat’s leg, raw, as a reward for agreeing to be beaten by the enemy in order to save a badly battered fellow soldier from being beaten to death.
That kind of ‘reward’ of ‘poisonous love’ can seem a moment of light… but only to those entirely degraded, those whose core self has been stolen away.
The good news is that the core self can, with care and time, be restored. And the work to do so is noble and worthy.
Yet… though we can notice that some aspects of a deleterious cult are also held by highly disciplined groups and service groups….
we can also note the difference between a group that is straight arrow, and one that is destructive … in the latter, the creative spirit is not free, and the person is
–not free to leave,
–not free to learn beyond the leader’s knowings,
–not free to change,
–not free to question or to create,
–not free to be compensated,
–not free to create sub-groups,
and that the ‘contact’ or agreement to become part of the cult was made without fair reasoning
–by virtue of being born into the cult as a baby,
–or being seduced into it during a time of travail,
–or being drawn in by insecurity, ill health, lostness, a seeking of intense meaning and dense ‘unusual’ experiences,
–or wanting very deeply to belong and be loved but without adequate fore-discernment,
–and other kinds of tender vulnerabilities that are found particularly in the young, the naïve, the unworldly,
the hopeful, the weary, the good hearted, those who feel called to serve…
…including some who
–hope for a free ride, who are themselves exploitative,
–those who have been in some hurtful way disenfranchised by their parents or a great love,
–those who have been already denuded of the core self by some previous person or association,
– those who want to attain importance/protection by being attached to someone or something their see as very shiny,
– those who are passive-dependent as personalities (want to be taken care of and told what to do and not have to think/feel anxiety),
– those in the manic swing of bi-polar disorder who will be thrilled, fawning and radiant acolytes …for as long as their mania lasts
–those caught in an over-idealizing complex as either part of a garden variety neurosis, or as a feature of borderline personality disorder….
Vulnerability to joining up and defending a destructive cult is not a matter of intelligence. IQ is not a factor for pledging. Vulnerability to ‘hyper-belong’ is often caused by absence of experience, lack of discernment, and a good deal of disappointment and/or distrust of/with the world ‘out there.’
Here is a shortlist of how to go about it, were one to try to ‘build’ a negative cult… keeping in mind that the destructiveness of such comes from de-personalizing human beings, by stripping them of freedom to choose to follow one’s own pathway without being exiled, to force, to threaten shunning and exile, to keep a soul from learning deeply and broadly in the world as well as within the community, to shame and humiliate, and to even strike or deprive of necessities, in order to garner ‘perfect’ obedience. In a phrase: Absolute CONTROL over others’ thoughts, feelings, bodies, development, social, spiritual, and economic functions.
–Set oneself up as inspired by God or the equivalent
–Claim Revelation
–Take on one’s own version of being the wise old man (omniscient father,) or the great mother (endless maternalism)
–Remove all finances from devotees or require huge amounts of money from them in order to remain part of the group
–Isolate the group on a parcel of land, set far away or difficult to access by car or on foot.
–Change the diet to an eccentric one, healthy or not
–Regiment living quarters, reduce decoration, games and toys and material goods to bare bones or nothing
–Deprive sleep, despite the fact that different people have different Read the rest of this entry »
April 18th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Over 400 children were recently transported by bus away from the isolated Texas commune built by Warren Jeffs (currently in prison for forcing a child to marry an older man) and his brother (currently in charge of all the wives and children back at the ranch)…the brotherly duo being self-acclaimed polygamists and self-anointed heads of their own renegade LDS (Church of the Latter Day Saints– Mormon) temple.
The State of Texas will seek to show, provided one or more of the seeming spellbound and vapid acting women from the renegade group, will testify that the commune is dedicated to bringing children into the world yes, but it appears part of the motive of the commune’s hyper fecundity, is to supply young girls to pedophilic adults, and to supply the Jeffs’ construction companies with free labor of their young boys so the Jeffs can continue to lowball contracts, including contracts with the government.
There may also be misuse of Federal Food Stamp program by the commune to support the high percentage of the commune who appear to live under the poverty line… even though the self-appointed male leaders live in jaw-dropping luxury.
There may be a basis for racketeering charges as well if the Jeffs’ construction company is suspected of kiting and defrauding others in a discernable pattern.
The Two Sides of the Legal Argument Pro and Con, Are Likely to Go Something Like This:
Are Iraqis beginning to feel better about the the U.S.-led occupation and the state of their nation? In our continuing effort to help answer that question, WORLDMEETS.US has translated this article from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper. Fateh Abdusalam writes in part, “In the sixth year of the new dispensation and still looking for excuses to justify its policies, Iraq’s war-mongering government is isolated from Iraqis. … Iraq remains an ever-shifting Read the rest of this entry »
Is there a hidden hand behind the anti-China protesting of recent weeks, other than of course the much maligned ‘Dalai Clique?’ Indeed there is, according to Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry. According to a statement, in part published in Venezuela’s El Universal, “The manipulation of the media in regard to the protest of violent groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ingredient of a formula from the psychological warfare laboratories of the United States, that is applied to permanently destabilize countries that refuse to meekly submit to the mandates of imperial rule.”
Translated by Miguel Guttierez
April 8, 2008
Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)
Caracas: Today, the National Government has denounced a campaign of “infamies” launched from the United States against China over the Tibet incident and said that it anticipates the success of the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Venezuela will give its absolute support to realizing the event in Beijing, and will be sending its largest delegation ever to an Olympic Games.
“Consistent with the principle of brotherhood among peoples in their battle against all forms of imperialism, the government expresses its full and unreserved solidarity with the government and people of the People’s Republic of China as they confront the relentless and systematic campaign of infamies they have been victimized by during the past few weeks through the major mass media companies,” it said.
The “manipulation of the media in regard to the protest of violent groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ingredient of a formula from the psychological warfare laboratories of the United States that is applied to permanently destabilize countries that refuse to meekly submit to the mandates of imperial rule,” it added.
April 9th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
In Eldorado, Texas, there’s been a gathering up of women and children taken into protective custody from a commune that practices polygamy, one that claims LDS (Mormon) status, (Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints: FLDS) but long ago was exiled from the Mormon Church… Facts presented in affidavits brings again into the spotlight, evil toward children justified by wrapping it in robes of religion.
Lawyers for the commune are arguing that this was ‘an unlawful raid,’ “matching anything in Russia or Germany,” rather than a taking into protective custody 401 some children and girls, most under 18 years of age and more than a few either pregnant or with children of their own. Proponents of polygamy are outraged.
The alleged phone call that was the catalyst for this protective custody came from a girl who said she was 15, had been married off to a 48 year old man who raped her, abused her and that she had a child by him already and was currently pregnant again… She said other women in the community would hold her child, while her (their) husband beat her.
Where this girl-woman is among the 401 taken to shelter by protective services of Texas, is not clear. (Also accompanied by 130 grown women who volunteered to leave the commune, I think to be with the children.) It appears that the young caller’s husband, an LDS progenitor of babies, is also a registered sex offender, according to records, showing he was charged with trying to solicit a minor, and put on probation for three years.
It’s a long night, and it’s cold here in the Rockies tonight. Maybe that’s disturbed my outlook.
It’s not about polygamy between adults. It’s a set of different issues regarding children.
Remember all the arguments, for/pro, years ago about the usefulness and the ethnic roots that ought not be disturbed in female genital mutilation “rituals?” It was “religious,” they said. Therefore, somehow, supposed to be ok.
This ‘ritual’ is wherein a girl child between ages of birth to eight years old is held down and with an old knife or rusty razor to her tender parts has her clitoris sliced off and sometimes her outer labia also lacerated off, with the inner labia sewn shut except for…. good God Almighty, what are people thinking? Or not.
If you’re a man reading this, the equivalent is not taking the foreskin… which personally despite all mohels’ teachings and any physician averring “it doesn’t hurt” or that boys will grow up to be too stupid to learn to wash themselves properly, so “this must be done.” (what are people thinking? Or not.) … as a mother who labored to bring life into this world, who knitted up bones from my bones, blood from my blood, I am never, ever going to accept grown mens’ claims …in the clear face of seeing many a newborn boychild at hospital screaming bloody murder red-faced and sobbing themselves to sleep after ‘circumcisions’ that ‘don’t hurt.’
I wrote last week about the Houston Chronicle’s incomplete description of an at-large suspect. I’m still troubled by the implications there, but there have been further developments in the story itself.
April 2nd, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
A few days ago, I wrote a post on what I termed “quiet injustices” — things that pretty clearly implicate questions of ethics and morality in our society, but yet rarely seem to bother us. My main example was D.C. disenfranchisement. Another is felon disenfranchisement (after their sentences have been served). Neither, I think, is in any remote way justifiable, and neither are particularly salient political issues.
But the more I think about it, the more I question whether even disenfranchising felons while they’re in prison is justifiable. So, I’ve decided to spend some time exploring that issue.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the perceived wrongful exercise of the death penalty in the United States is a burning issue around the world. A few days ago, the 1982 death sentence of a former broadcaster and member of the Black Panther Party, Mumia Abu-Jamal, was overturned by a Philadelphia court panel, as evidence has emerged showing that black jurors were improperly excluded from the trial. Both here and abroad, the decision has given new hope to opponents of the death penalty. Pierre Laurent writes for France’s L’Humanite, “Enough can never be done to expand this struggle. But now one thing is certain: To all of those who question our opposition to fatalism and resignation, Mumia’s stunning struggle brings a scathing denial. Our humanity warrants all the battles.”
Editorial by Pierre Laurent
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
March 28, 2008
France - l’Humanite - Original Article (French)
At 4:15pm yesterday, the AFP dispatch appeared on our screens. We didn’t dare believe it: Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence has been overturned by Philadelphia’s Federal Appeals court! What a victory! The Black American activist, who has proclaimed his innocence since his conviction for the murder of a police officer in 1982, will no longer haunt the corridors of death row as he has for more than 25 years, Read the rest of this entry »
Mumia Abu-Jamal is the worst reason imaginable to oppose the death penalty, which I nevertheless do until the unlikely event that it can be meted out fairly and impartially.
Abu-Jamal, who was caught pumping round after round from a handgun into Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner way back in 1981, was convicted at a less-than-fair trial and has been appealing his death sentence for years, all the while refusing to testify on his own behalf or produce his only alleged alibi witness to testify.
As perverse as it seems, Abu-Jamal may understand that the fame he has attained in prison would have eluded him on the street.
In any event, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today refused to reinstate his death sentence but left intact his murder conviction. The panel also ruled that Abu-Jamal must be sentenced to life in prison or get a chance with a new Philadelphia jury, which would decide only whether he should be sentenced to death or get life in prison. Again.
March 22nd, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The hubris of 1970s crimes continues following former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson, the onetime member of the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.
Olsen then went into hiding for nearly a quarter of a century, until she was caught in 1999. She was freed on Monday — and has now been re-arrested and put back in prison again.
Sara Jane Olson, the former SLA member and Minnesota housewife who was released from prison Thursday, is back in prison today after the Department of Correction said it made a mistake calculating her sentence.
Olson, 61, was arrested at her family’s home in Palmdale Friday night and placed in custody. She will return to the Central Women’s Facility in Chowchilla for another year, officials said Saturday.
“The department is sensitive to the effects this has had. The department sincerely regrets the mistake,” said Alberto Roldan, chief deputy general counsel for the Department of Corrections.
Just as American politics today seems mired in polarization stemming from the 1960s-1970s Vietnam War years era, Olson’s fate remains intertwined with what she did in another time and another era — and one thing she did left a hole in a family’s life. The issues: punishment, rehabilitation, and suitable time spent give the gravity of her crime.
It all came to a boiling point Monday when she was released, sparking howls of protest from police officials and the family of the woman whose life she helped end. She had served 6 years of a 12-year California prison sentence for in 1975 being involved in helping plant nail-crammed bombs in police patrol cars.
In 1975 Olson, then known as Kathleen Soliah, was all over the front pages at a time when the SLA — a group started in 1973 by some white college students led by a black ex-convict — had been pitchforked into the headlines due to a series of dramatic events: the murder of Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster and the Feb. 1974 kidnapping 19-year-old newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from her Berkeley, Calif. apartment.
Within four months, Hearst, now using the street name “Tania,” was photographed holding a rifle as the group robbed a bank. Newspapers ran speculative stories about her being brainwashed. It was an era when newspapers still ruled the info-roost in America. And Hearst was literally a princess of the news media. The Patty Hearst story was all over the news casts and generated SCREECHING HEADLINES! in newspapers across the country.
But the most dramatic event was yet to come: on May 17, 1974 SLA leader Donald DeFreeze and six other members died in a hail of police gunshots and flames engulfing their hideout in Los Angeles. Bill and Emily Harris and Hearst weren’t there since they had a slight detour: they had been stopped in a store for shoplifting.
The group then planted bombs under police squad cars as payback for the deaths of their members. But, even then, in the context of the times, the SLA still seemed a kind of wannabe revolutionary/quasi-terrorist group. In 2001 the real thing would come along…
Crimes against humanity come large now–wars, holocausts, ethnic cleansing–but sometimes a small horror rises from the past and pierces the heart. Such is the case of a man convicted last week of grave robbing–harvesting and selling body parts, including those of the most civilized man I ever knew.
For several generations of Americans, Alistair Cooke was the Englishman who loved America, writing about life here for the Manchester Guardian, doing “Letter From America” radio broadcasts that were heard around the world and finally sitting in an armchair in front of Public TV cameras as the cultivated host of “Masterpiece Theater.”
The name of Eliot Ness, that iconic crime fighter if the early 20th century - has reverberated down through history as the definition of justice and incorruptibility. In writing about his namesake Eliot Spitzer, Serge Truffaut of Canada’s French-language Le Devior writes in part, ‘You cannot make this up. … The first name of Governor Spitzer of New York is Eliot. The same as that other Eliot - Eliot Ness - the patron saint of the incorruptible who hunt down criminals, both white collar and blue … This image - fashioned with his [Spitzer’s] own bare hands on a canvas of moral rectitude - evaporated instantly at the end of an act of contrition … the spectacle was appalling.’
By Serge Truffaut
Translated By Kate Davis
March 12, 2008
Canada - Le Devior - Original Article (French)
You cannot make this up. The first name of Governor Spitzer of New York is Eliot. The same as that other Eliot - Eliot Ness - the patron saint of the incorruptible who hunt down criminals, both white collar and blue. It is in making life harder for fashionable crooks in neck-ties on the floor of the stock exchange that he built a reputation for himself as a “new incorruptible,” or even a “tireless crusader,” to borrow nicknames that the media gave him during scandals at WorldCom, Tyco, Enron and others we have forgotten. He proclaimed himself the “Sheriff of Wall Street.”
This image - fashioned with his own bare hands on a canvas of moral rectitude - evaporated instantly at the end of an act of contrition by the former New York Attorney General WATCH . This sheriff acknowledged paying a heavy price for his history of peccadilloes. He spent more than $4,000 to enjoy the favors of strumpets in chic hotels of the capital city. QED [It has been demonstrated - quod erat demonstrandum]: This prostitution network procured the services of the so-called call girls especially for high-flying politicians.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Aside from any moral judgment, this affair is particularly distressing since it seriously cripples the work of the current attorney general and his staff - notably the investigations initiated while Spitzer was still the boss of the patrons of justice. One this is certain; when the news hit the presses, traders on Wall Street… Applauded!
Because this man, when he was hunting down crooked millionaires, had opted at all times and in his words - for a strategy of “aggressiveness.” He was at times so hard and his methods so brutal that even people in his camp now say that they considered Spitzer reckless or irresponsible. This inclination, or rather his certainty that he was always right - led him to demolish without proof, individuals who appeared on his prosecutor’s radar screen. An example? He started a rumor that the secretary of New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso had been Grasso’s mistress. In short, he brandished a little poison, even if only an allegation, to reduce the reputation of another to a briny bouillon.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with many other translated foreign-press reactions to Spitzer’s downfall.
Was there something beyond Eliot Spitzer’s ungoverned libido behind his breathtaking downfall? Andrei Fedyashin writes for Russia’s Novosti news service, ‘Spitzer had his career and family life taken down by the forces of political retribution … Only the naive can doubt that this was a pre-arranged “sex scandal.”‘ Pointing out that most of his Wall Street enemies were Republican, Fedyashin asks, ‘Who better to bring down, if not a Democrat and personal friend of Hillary Clinton, who had formally pledged to support her at the upcoming Democratic convention? As a governor, Spitzer is among one of about 800 so-called super-delegates, who may well decide which candidate will lead the party’s fight for the White House - Clinton or Barack Obama … Perhaps the explanation is that Hillary frightens Republicans far more than her party-comrade, Barack Obama?’
By Political Columnist Andrei Fedyashin
Translated By Igor Medvedev
March 14, 2008
Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)
MOSCOW: Less than a week after a “sex scandal” erupted around the Governor of the State of New York on March 13, Democrat Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation on March 17.
Unofficially, on the day that The New York Times published the spicy details of his phone order for a “short brunette,” it was clear that Spitzer, who two years ago was thought to have a promising future as a likely Democratic candidate for the White House - had destroyed his political career and probably his family. She [the brunette] was “delivered” to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where the 48-year-old Spitzer spent the night before testifying to Congress. How badly everything turned out! Bad from a purely moral point of view and doubly bad in a U.S. presidential election year.
It later transpired that Spitzer had used the services of this brunette and other call girls through a certain company called the Emperor’s Club VIP, and over the last ten years had paid it over $80,000. And considering that he allegedly paid $1,000 for this one brunette, one concludes that he must have had 80 of them during this time. This is quite a propensity for variety - even in ten years.
In a nutshell, this is the tale of the downfall of the now-former governor of America’s third-largest state. And now, apart from having to completely quit politics, he stands accused of the “illegal promotion of prostitution,” since the call girl was dispatched from New York to Metropolitan Washington D.C. According to the laws of the United States, transporting someone across state lines to procure sex is an even greater offense than prostitution itself. Moreover, he may also be deprived of his right to practice law. Simply put, when it rains it pours.
If you are unfamiliar with Spitzer’s record and fail to take account of his backround, you might get the impression that these charges of “illegal sex” came like a bolt from the blue. Sex scandals in America, of course, are nothing new: Almost every second U.S. President has committed adultery, with John F. Kennedy - given his record of such transgressions - mastering his White House rivals. That’s to say nothing of Senators, House members and other governors.
But these scandals do differ. Some are more moderate while others hit like a thunder-clap. The Spitzer story is of the latter category. Since this is a presidential year it couldn’t have been otherwise. It’s embarrassing again to speak here of political hypocrisy in the United States. It’s so unfortunate to devalue this meaningful notion through such frequent repetition.
What is it about Eliot Spitzer’s downfall that has attracted the attention of people around the world? Is it the power, the sex, the hypocrisy? According to the editorial board of Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper, the tale of Eliot Spitzer follows a pattern that never really goes out of style. According to Nachrichten, ‘American politics without sex scandals is almost unthinkable. The fallen sinners are almost equally divided between the two major parties. … Elmer Gantry, the amoral preacher of morality depicted by Sinclair Lewis, is the pattern of a story that never really gets old.’
EDITORIAL
Translated By James Jacobson
March 11, 2008
Switzerland - Nachrichten - Home Page (German)
The rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer is an American success story of a very particular kind. The Democratic governor of New York State was a fierce dog, who as a public prosecutor walked on the dead to expose all kinds of corruption, organized crime and prostitution. He destroyed the reputations of many well-known and lesser-known business and political opponents in a way that left behind many enemies.
The fact that he now had to admit to being involved in a prostitution ring is not in itself unusual for an American politician. American politics without sex scandals is almost unthinkable. The fallen sinners are almost equally divided between the two major parties.
Older students recall the case Wilbur Mills, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who in 1974 was brought down due to his involvement with a stripper named Fanne Foxe. When a policeman stopped the politician’s car, this beautiful woman in the dead of night jumped into the freezing water of the Washington Tidal Basin, next to the Jefferson Memorial, thereby setting his fall in motion. Before that, these things only went on under the table, the escapades of President John F. Kennedy being the most well-known example.
Now those attracted by the Mills story have something even bigger. Since then a lot has happened, and many politicians have fallen from their pedestals. But the way Spitzer of all people has fallen into the clutches of law enforcement authorities has almost a literary quality. Elmer Gantry , the amoral preacher of morality depicted by Sinclair Lewis, is the pattern of a story that never really gets old.
