July 6, 2008 at 7:15 P.M. I seem to be experiencing new difficulties backing up files. I will continue to try to do so overnight and into tomorrow, running scans and updating my system 24 hours per day. See "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House."
July 4, 2008 at 7:02 P.M. viruses and obstructions prevent me from accessing my msn group, again. This usually means that new vandalism is underway. Perhaps this is the revenge of New Jersey's walking turds (OAE)? I will continue to struggle. I am running new scans. I will do my best to correct newly inserted "errors" as quickly as possible. See the forthcoming "Jim Florio and the Mafia in Atlantic City."
July 4, 2008 at 10:41 A.M. "Independence Day!" Have a good one! Let's send Chris Christie a fruit basket from the "Jersey Boys"?
A young lawyer asks whether he can do criminal defense work if he "cares" about criminals' actions. Well, the law school bullshit and the requirements of the ethics rules concerning zealous advocacy demand that defense counsel not be hindered in their representation of even the most heinous criminals by personal moral reactions. Attorneys should not -- in that sense -- "care" about what their clients have done. However, you should care as a human being -- which many lawyers are not -- and offenders certainly should care about their own actions.
Most lawyers stop caring about people a few years into practice. Lawyers never stop caring about money. These are the lawyers who become New Jersey Superior Court judges. After all, "feelings" are not "factual," they say. Feelings are not tested on the bar exam. Cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy are endemic in the Garden State's legal profession -- especially in New Jersey's "ethics" enforcement system. Nothing is worth the loss of your humanity. Right, Jaynee?
Happy holiday to the walking turds at the OAE! July 3, 2008 at 4:58 P.M. These are a few of the calls received today: 12:11 P.M. 831-480-6326; 3:45 P.M. 702-520-1157; 4:07 P.M. 208-463-9543; 4:27 P.M. 000-000-0000 -- maybe they're all marketers calling by mistake. I am still blocking:
http://view.atdmt.com/iview/msnnkhac001728x90WBCBRB00110msn/direct;wi.728;hi.90/01 (NJ)
July 2, 2008 at 4:23 P.M. call received from 000-000-0000. What an unusual number? Police? I wonder what this address blocked on June 24, 2008 could mean?
http://ad.doubleclick.net/N3285.msn_cusa/B2343920.20;dcadv=140759;sz=300x250;ord=8226086956?
(I wonder if this strange number and the above address are "connected"?)
July 1, 2008 at 3:35 P.M. calls from 704-824-1393; July 1, 2008 at 11:03 A.M. calls from "Anonymous": June 30, 2008 at 4:59 P.M. calls from 800-214-3143; June 30, 2008 at 3:32 P.M. calls from 702-520-1131; June 29, 2008 at 1:54 P.M. 720-214-0440. Other calls were received as several essays were altered. I will continue to make corrections. (A new "error" was just inserted and corrected in the foregoing paragraph.)
June 30, 2008 at 10:42 A.M. calls received: On June 29, at 1:54 P.M. from 720-214-0440; June 28, at 11:50 A.M. from 435-294-2516; June 28, 11:50 A.M. 435-294-2316; June 28, 10:02 A.M. from 702-520-1131; June 27, at 6:20 P.M. from 615-886-7224; June 27, 6:40 P.M. 800-214-3143. Attempts to print from my computer left me with a blank page bearing this address:
http://uac.advertising.com/wrapper/aceUAC.htm (criminal violation)
Mission Statement of New Jersey's Judiciary:
"We are an independent branch of government constitutionally entrusted with the fair and just resolution of disputes in order to preserve the rule of law and to protect the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States and this State."
Peter Applebome, "Hoboken, an Economic Success That Can't Pass a Budget," in The New York Times, June 26, 2008, at p. B1.
"... the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs ... anounced on Tuesday that it was moving to place Hoboken under state supervision and take control of its budget process." Other municipalities in Hudson County are drawing the attention of state and federal observers.
This state agency has long been associated with political bosses outside the legal process, like most New Jersey institutions. Hoboken's tainted police force and corrupt municipal government and courts (former mayor Anthony Russo was indicted and did time) may be better than what the state has to offer. This is really about control of the county and several factions currently fighting for that control. By way of comparison, see my forthcoming essay "Jim Florio and the Mafia in Atlantic City" and "Fun and Games in Union City, New Jersey." (A crooked Municipal Judge in that town will be discussed at length.)
Enforcer "Joe V. Doria, Jr., [a.k.a. "JoeyV"] the commissioner said that after almost a year, Hoboken was not close to being able to approve a plan to pay for its own spending -- the last municipality in New Jersey without a budget."
"... 'This is not a cooperative situation, it's an adversarial one,' he said."
"'They're refusing to do what they are required to do.' ..."
"It's not as if anyone should be stunned that a local government in Hudson County, N.J., is something less than a model of efficiency and transparency."
This is the New York Times saying this, not just me. Whatever Joe Doria is "for" probably ain't good. If a town's mayor takes bribes, you can be pretty sure that every other official can be bought, probably through the mayor. At least 40% of New Jersey Judges are on the take, in my opinion, probably more than that. Right, Stuart?
"Hoboken has done its share over the years to live up to the image of Hudson County as something between 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'On the Waterfront.'"
Again: this is The New York Times' description of facts. Hackers taking a letter out of this essay kind of helps to prove my point.
"It was just four years ago that Anthony J. Russo, who was mayor of Hoboken from 1993 to 2001, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to accepting $5,000 in bribes in exchange for his help in securing city contracts."
In the immortal words of Sydney Greenstreet's "fat man" in The Maltese Falcon, former mayor Russo was "a man who liked to talk to a man who likes to talk." What's in it for 'Pappa'? Mayor Russo was, allegedly, contrite enough to say that he "should've asked for ten grand!" A New Jersey police officer mentioned that two previous mayors in his town were indicted, presumably leaving office in handcuffs. That's better than many New Jersey municipalities can claim.
There's a lot of money flowing through Hoboken with all the YUPies moving in to be close to Manhattan. ("Young Urban Professionals" -- that was me a long time ago, in the go-go eighties and nineties). Condos and waterfront views have caused the New Jersey mafia to opt for designer clothes and gold watches to match their corrupt politicians -- politicians who wear what they're told to wear, maybe even a wire for the FBI. The stink near the river is the smell of corruption. The town slogan in Hoboken should be "Let me wet my beak."
No wonder Senator "Bob" a.k.a. "Roberto" a.k.a. "BobbyM" a.k.a. "Pappa" likes to live there with the really cool people. The same goes for Corzine and his former main squeeze, N.J.'s fearsome labor union leader, "Carla." Geez. If you're in Hoboken, try "Helmer's" on Washington Street. It's really good and the prices are outstanding. For a laugh, in the middle of your meal, get up and yell: "FBI!" Then make sure to duck.
"... people are still trying to figure out how a place increasingly full of affluent [former] New York city [residents] where the value of property has increased to $9 BILLION from $3 billion in 2001, is in such fiscal straits. Had the state not stepped in, the city would have needed to pass a mammoth tax increase to pay its bills."
How about theft as an explanation? Maybe the politicians "scooped" the dough? Everything (and everybody) had a price tag in town hall and probably still does. Mob influence is pervasive, although there are some fine lawyers in town. I will not name them because it would not be helpful to them. The lawyers who make out in terms of city money are the ass kissers who kick back to the politicians.
" ...'I talk to a lot of people around town -- barbers, crossing guards,' said Perry Belfiore, a Hoboken native long active in civic affairs. 'And they all say the same thing: How can we have all this development and no money? It's the most closely guarded secret other than where they sequester Dick Chenney.' ..."
New Jersey is not in a position to monitor its own towns as the number one organized crime-controlled jurisdiction in the nation. To seek to "monitor" the center of mob activity that is Hudson County is absurd. The corruption in the Garden State is ingrained, system-wide, deepest among regulators and so-called "ethics officials," who are for sale or under the influence (in every sense) of the mafia, or some other substance or authority. The A.G. and OAE are a sad joke. Supreme Court justices in New Jersey are rumored to be affiliated with one of the 7 families operating in the Garden State. Right, Jaynee? Gambinos? Genovese? (See "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")
The judiciary is ethically discredited and incompetent. Elected officials are opening accounts in foreign banks or depositing "contributions" in their party's "non-federal" accounts. It is a disgrace to the United States of America that New Jersey is part of this country. Federal action is desperately needed, including independent federal prosecutors and grand juries around the clock. Time to end the nightmare for New Jersey's residents. No more slithering, behind-the-back government. Secrecy is the enemy of freedom. N.J.'s crooks must face the music.
How you doing, Diana?
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Prostitution and Mafia Corruption in New Jersey Law.
June 27, 2008 at 11:42 A.M. attempts to post a revised version of an essay at Critique were frustrated and delayed by blocking from my pop-up protection, something which never happened before. I am, again, unable to access my group or post new essays at this time. I will spend the rest of the day trying to do so. Calls were received from 720-214-0440 at 11:34 A.M.; and from 702-520-1404 at 11:37 A.M. I will run scans throughout the day, struggling to return to my group and repair whatever damage has been done to my writings. "Jim Florio, the Mafia in Atlantic City" and "Hoboken's Troubles" are coming up.
June 27, 2008 at 10:13 A.M. My Internet access was blocked until a few moments ago. I will struggle to do some writing today.
June 25, 2008 calls for "security warnings" from 718-422-8818 at 1:52 P.M.; at 6:22 P.M. marketer at 610-915-5214; at 8:25 A.M. June 26, 2008 from 646-660-9989.
June 24, 2008 at 6:30 P.M. As I was reading my e-mail at my MSN hotmail account, I noticed that the address listed at my computer did not coincide with my location.
http://bl139w.6lv139.mail.live.com/mail/InboxLight.aspx?FolderID=00000000-oooo-0000-0000-000000000001&n=358397143
I am blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N5214.MSN/B28859... (NJ, Appellate Division Judge?)
I attempted to print out "Ex-Convict Found Guilty of Rape, Torture of NYC Student," http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25354758 I received a blank page with this address:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn_cusa/B2343920.20;dcadv=1420759;sz=300x250;ord=822608696?
June 24, 2008 at 6:09 P.M. After restarting my computer, my fraud detection feature was blocked. I have restored it. I am running new scans. Some essays may have been damaged, again.
June 23, 2008 at 5:45 P.M. I am unable to access my msn group. This usually means that new "errors" are being inserted in my essays. Other vandalism must be expected. Telephone calls from 802-763-2141 on June 23, at 12:01 P.M.; from 732-649-6123 on June 22, at 6:58 P.M.; and from the "Independence Party" at 212-609-2831, right before a volunteer (Yvonne Lee?) came for my signature on the petition to put the party on the ballot.
June 22, 2008 at 6:10 P.M. A person just came to the door to obtain my signature for a petition to put the Independence Party on the ballot. This was after a call from 212-609-2831. I am happy to help the "Independence Party" to get on the local ballot. I am "for" independence. Did you fellas need my signature? How about a picture?
"3rd Guilty Plea in Prostitution Ring," in The New York Times, June 13, 2008, at p. B4.
Bob Ingle & Sandy McClure, "The Gospel According to the Mob," in The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption (New York: St. Martin's, 2008), pp. 219-249.
"A 62-year-old former tax specialist who ran the high-priced online escort service that was patronized by Eliot Spitzer" -- based in Cliffside Park, N.J. -- "pleaded guilty Thursday to federal prostitution and money laundering charges." (emphasis added)
Criminals in the Garden State have problems with handling lots of cash. They need partners among politicians and lawyers -- as well as judges, of course -- to wash dirty funds. Right, Senator Bob? This defendant is alleged "by many reasonable observers" to have made substantial contributions to New Jersey politicians and "others" in order to build "good will" for his business efforts in the area.
Do you believe for one second that this guy could have engaged in a lucrative international criminal business based in southern Bergen County and north Hudson County, New Jersey, without taking care of the locals? I don't.
"The man, Mark Brenner, became the third of four defendants to plead guilty in connection with the service, the Emperor's Club V.I.P., in the last month. The chief booker of the service, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, pleaded guilty to similar charges in May, and the woman who ran its day-to-day operations, Cecil Suwal, acknowledged her role in the service on June 3."
Many young women engaging in the sale of sexual services, often through a lack of options, fail to appreciate that they are financing a lavish life-style for other people, like Mr. Brenner. The money generated by their efforts should go only to those women providing the service. Women in the sexual services industry -- which might be "synergized" with entertainment and gaming, if prostitution is legalized, as it should be -- could then reap the rewards of their efforts and pay taxes, like anyone else. The enormous wealth to be made from sex for money (estimated in the billions of dollars yearly) belongs to the people creating that wealth who are, usually, in need of protection from the mob and corrupt politicians.
"Mr. Spitzer resigned as governor on March 12, two days after his involvement with the ring was disclosed."
Coincidence? Or were mob guys after Spitzer for his many prosecutorial efforts against them? The feds were doing their job, but who set up Spitzer (besides, Spitzer)? A lot of evidence suggests that Spitzer's arrest was no accident. Accidents only happen on the New Jersey Turnpike to Governor Jon S. Corzine -- only when he is driven by state troopers, of course. The New York area seems to be dangerous for governors who do not get into bed with the mob. I wonder why?
On the other hand, even "Machiavellian" political figures -- like Jim McGreevey -- seem to survive devastating crises, unscathed, while avoiding a stay at Danburry Federal Penitentiary. I wonder why Senator Bob has not (yet) been indicted? Maybe the feds want to see who is going to get together with Bob, after Bob gives them a call, asking for a little help with those pesky prosecutors?
"Mr. Brenner's lawyer, Murray Richman said his client was not cooperating with the continuing federal investigation in the case." (emphasis added)
I wonder whether McGreevey remembers David D'Amiano, described by the former governor as "an old friend?" Mr. D'Amiano is " ... a Carteret recycling operator who produced more than $100,000 for McGreevey's campaigns." (Ingle & McClure, pp. 52-53.) I wonder whether McGreevey and Menendez recall their "association" or continuing "financial support" -- allegedly -- from the International Longshoremen? This labor union is " -- under federal probe for ties to the Genovese family." (Ingle & McClure, pp. 240-241.) By way of comparison, see "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" This union paid for a little trip for McGreevey and family to Puerto Rico, allegedly, to speak at their "convention."
I bet McGreevey is a scintillating speaker. Perhaps McGreevey lectured on the subject of "ethics"? McGreevey teaches ethics at Kean University, Union County, New Jersey. Soon Mr. McGreevey may teach a course in Legal Ethics at Seton Hall University's School of Law. The McGreevey Governorship is still the most corrupt in New Jersey's history. That's a good guy to teach "ethics." Put McGreevey on the "New Jersey State Bar Association's Ethics Committee."
"The invitation [to McGreevey] came from ALBERT CERNADAS, then president of Local 1235 in Newark and executive vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which made him one of the top five honchos in a union that has tens of thousands of members, including 3,000 in New York and New Jersey."
"A Brooklyn, New York, grand jury later described Cernadas as an associate of the Genovese crime family who handled union jobs and contracts for organized crime. His son ALBERT CERNADA, JR. is an assistant prosecutor in Union County." (emphasis added!)
Do you believe that it is a good idea for a family member of a reputed underworld figure -- who may be an honest guy and a good lawyer -- to serve as a county prosecutor in New Jersey? Does this man preside over investigations of organized crime in the area? Is Mr. Cernada, Jr. friendly with Raymond ("Shyster Ray") Lesniak, or others, who may be subjects of "inquiries" at this or some future time? Does this not create the "appearance of impropriety" and tainted or corrupt proceedings? Gee, I wonder why I am experiencing so many computer attacks at the moment? Alterations, vandalism, defacements of my writings? Coincidence? Cyberstalking? Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Conspiracy to violate civil rights by making use of government authority and resources? Why people go to prison for that stuff, don't they? Not in New Jersey.
I am informed by my security system that several threats must be removed "manually" and that my "help" is needed. However, repairs cannot be made. Restarting my computer has not helped, for some reason. I wonder why?
"Under the terms of his plea agreement, Mr. Brenner faces 24 to 30 months in prison. He is to be sentenced on Sept. 16." See ya at the Jersey shore!
June 27, 2008 at 10:13 A.M. My Internet access was blocked until a few moments ago. I will struggle to do some writing today.
June 25, 2008 calls for "security warnings" from 718-422-8818 at 1:52 P.M.; at 6:22 P.M. marketer at 610-915-5214; at 8:25 A.M. June 26, 2008 from 646-660-9989.
June 24, 2008 at 6:30 P.M. As I was reading my e-mail at my MSN hotmail account, I noticed that the address listed at my computer did not coincide with my location.
http://bl139w.6lv139.mail.live.com/mail/InboxLight.aspx?FolderID=00000000-oooo-0000-0000-000000000001&n=358397143
I am blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N5214.MSN/B28859... (NJ, Appellate Division Judge?)
I attempted to print out "Ex-Convict Found Guilty of Rape, Torture of NYC Student," http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25354758 I received a blank page with this address:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn_cusa/B2343920.20;dcadv=1420759;sz=300x250;ord=822608696?
June 24, 2008 at 6:09 P.M. After restarting my computer, my fraud detection feature was blocked. I have restored it. I am running new scans. Some essays may have been damaged, again.
June 23, 2008 at 5:45 P.M. I am unable to access my msn group. This usually means that new "errors" are being inserted in my essays. Other vandalism must be expected. Telephone calls from 802-763-2141 on June 23, at 12:01 P.M.; from 732-649-6123 on June 22, at 6:58 P.M.; and from the "Independence Party" at 212-609-2831, right before a volunteer (Yvonne Lee?) came for my signature on the petition to put the party on the ballot.
June 22, 2008 at 6:10 P.M. A person just came to the door to obtain my signature for a petition to put the Independence Party on the ballot. This was after a call from 212-609-2831. I am happy to help the "Independence Party" to get on the local ballot. I am "for" independence. Did you fellas need my signature? How about a picture?
"3rd Guilty Plea in Prostitution Ring," in The New York Times, June 13, 2008, at p. B4.
Bob Ingle & Sandy McClure, "The Gospel According to the Mob," in The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption (New York: St. Martin's, 2008), pp. 219-249.
"A 62-year-old former tax specialist who ran the high-priced online escort service that was patronized by Eliot Spitzer" -- based in Cliffside Park, N.J. -- "pleaded guilty Thursday to federal prostitution and money laundering charges." (emphasis added)
Criminals in the Garden State have problems with handling lots of cash. They need partners among politicians and lawyers -- as well as judges, of course -- to wash dirty funds. Right, Senator Bob? This defendant is alleged "by many reasonable observers" to have made substantial contributions to New Jersey politicians and "others" in order to build "good will" for his business efforts in the area.
Do you believe for one second that this guy could have engaged in a lucrative international criminal business based in southern Bergen County and north Hudson County, New Jersey, without taking care of the locals? I don't.
"The man, Mark Brenner, became the third of four defendants to plead guilty in connection with the service, the Emperor's Club V.I.P., in the last month. The chief booker of the service, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, pleaded guilty to similar charges in May, and the woman who ran its day-to-day operations, Cecil Suwal, acknowledged her role in the service on June 3."
Many young women engaging in the sale of sexual services, often through a lack of options, fail to appreciate that they are financing a lavish life-style for other people, like Mr. Brenner. The money generated by their efforts should go only to those women providing the service. Women in the sexual services industry -- which might be "synergized" with entertainment and gaming, if prostitution is legalized, as it should be -- could then reap the rewards of their efforts and pay taxes, like anyone else. The enormous wealth to be made from sex for money (estimated in the billions of dollars yearly) belongs to the people creating that wealth who are, usually, in need of protection from the mob and corrupt politicians.
"Mr. Spitzer resigned as governor on March 12, two days after his involvement with the ring was disclosed."
Coincidence? Or were mob guys after Spitzer for his many prosecutorial efforts against them? The feds were doing their job, but who set up Spitzer (besides, Spitzer)? A lot of evidence suggests that Spitzer's arrest was no accident. Accidents only happen on the New Jersey Turnpike to Governor Jon S. Corzine -- only when he is driven by state troopers, of course. The New York area seems to be dangerous for governors who do not get into bed with the mob. I wonder why?
On the other hand, even "Machiavellian" political figures -- like Jim McGreevey -- seem to survive devastating crises, unscathed, while avoiding a stay at Danburry Federal Penitentiary. I wonder why Senator Bob has not (yet) been indicted? Maybe the feds want to see who is going to get together with Bob, after Bob gives them a call, asking for a little help with those pesky prosecutors?
"Mr. Brenner's lawyer, Murray Richman said his client was not cooperating with the continuing federal investigation in the case." (emphasis added)
I wonder whether McGreevey remembers David D'Amiano, described by the former governor as "an old friend?" Mr. D'Amiano is " ... a Carteret recycling operator who produced more than $100,000 for McGreevey's campaigns." (Ingle & McClure, pp. 52-53.) I wonder whether McGreevey and Menendez recall their "association" or continuing "financial support" -- allegedly -- from the International Longshoremen? This labor union is " -- under federal probe for ties to the Genovese family." (Ingle & McClure, pp. 240-241.) By way of comparison, see "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" This union paid for a little trip for McGreevey and family to Puerto Rico, allegedly, to speak at their "convention."
I bet McGreevey is a scintillating speaker. Perhaps McGreevey lectured on the subject of "ethics"? McGreevey teaches ethics at Kean University, Union County, New Jersey. Soon Mr. McGreevey may teach a course in Legal Ethics at Seton Hall University's School of Law. The McGreevey Governorship is still the most corrupt in New Jersey's history. That's a good guy to teach "ethics." Put McGreevey on the "New Jersey State Bar Association's Ethics Committee."
"The invitation [to McGreevey] came from ALBERT CERNADAS, then president of Local 1235 in Newark and executive vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which made him one of the top five honchos in a union that has tens of thousands of members, including 3,000 in New York and New Jersey."
"A Brooklyn, New York, grand jury later described Cernadas as an associate of the Genovese crime family who handled union jobs and contracts for organized crime. His son ALBERT CERNADA, JR. is an assistant prosecutor in Union County." (emphasis added!)
Do you believe that it is a good idea for a family member of a reputed underworld figure -- who may be an honest guy and a good lawyer -- to serve as a county prosecutor in New Jersey? Does this man preside over investigations of organized crime in the area? Is Mr. Cernada, Jr. friendly with Raymond ("Shyster Ray") Lesniak, or others, who may be subjects of "inquiries" at this or some future time? Does this not create the "appearance of impropriety" and tainted or corrupt proceedings? Gee, I wonder why I am experiencing so many computer attacks at the moment? Alterations, vandalism, defacements of my writings? Coincidence? Cyberstalking? Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Conspiracy to violate civil rights by making use of government authority and resources? Why people go to prison for that stuff, don't they? Not in New Jersey.
I am informed by my security system that several threats must be removed "manually" and that my "help" is needed. However, repairs cannot be made. Restarting my computer has not helped, for some reason. I wonder why?
"Under the terms of his plea agreement, Mr. Brenner faces 24 to 30 months in prison. He is to be sentenced on Sept. 16." See ya at the Jersey shore!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Habeas Corpus!
May 21, 2009 at 7:00 P.M. There will be a panel discussion concerning "Torture and the People's Right to Know" at Revolution Books, 26th Street, between 6th & 7th Avenues.
June 21, 2008 at 2:21 P.M. after three scans, I am still warned that risks cannot be removed from my computer. Written work is subject to vandalism. I experience great difficulty in accessing my sites. I am struggling to continue writing. Many essays and images at my msn group have been damaged. (Please see "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "It is Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")
June 20, 2008 at 2:31 P.M. 3 new computer security risks cannot be repaired by my security system. I am instructed to "reboot" and restart my computer. I can never be certain of getting back to these sites after these attacks. I will do my best to continue writing. I cannot say how many essays have been altered or damaged. 13 new risks were found today; 2 were fixed. At 4:56 P.M. 12 new security risks were identified; 2 were fixed. I will try to restart my computer, again.
June 19, 2008 at 10:46 A.M. I am unable to access my MSN group. There have been new obstacles and frustrations in attempting to reach that site today. Essays may have been damaged, again. I will persist in my efforts to write today. At 2:28 P.M., after running a new scan, I received a red notice purporting to come from my security service that "manual assistance is needed to remove new security threats." 12 viruses were detected today, so far. I will run new scans later this afternoon. With or without assistance, new security risks cannot be removed from my system.
I am unable to post new images with these essays or with my profile. At 3:39 P.M. 11 viruses/security risks appear to have been added to my computer. http://adware180.solutions/ appears as a security risk-spyware that cannot be removed, providing reporting information concerning the contents of my computer and web sites visited by myself or members of my family, including a child. Damage to my writings is unknown at this time. I will try to keep writing, several images accompanying essays at Critique have been blocked.
Adam Liptak, "Justices Void Ex-Detainee's Suit Against 2 Officials," in The New York Times, May 19, 2009, at p. A16.
Scott Shane, "Ethics Complaint Is Filed Against Lawyers for Bush Over Torture Policy," in The New York Times, May 19, 2009, at p. A16. (Dismissed?)
Linda Greenhouse, "Justices, 5-4, Back Detainee Appeals For Guantanamo," in The New York Times, June 13, 2008, at p. A1.
"Justices 5, Brutality 4," in The New York Times, June 13, 2008, at p. A28.
Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London & New York: Verso, 2004), pp. 50-100.
Peter Marin, "The New Narcissism," in Harper's, Oct. 1975, pp. 45-47 (Vietnam), in E. Dvorkin, J. Himmelstein, H. Lesnick, eds., Becoming a Lawyer: A Humanistic Perspective on Legal Education and Professionalism (St. Paul: West Pub. 1981), pp. 178-179.
"Habeas corpus" means that government is required to "produce the body," that is, to justify depriving a person of his or her liberty and other fundamental rights, offering the accused or confined person an opportunity to respond to charges in order to win release from confinement.
Last Thursday the Supreme Court of the United States decided that this fundamental legal protection -- a basic right under English law found in the American Constitution -- must apply to Guantanamo detainees. Detaining so-called "terrorists" or "suspected terrorists" outside U.S. geographical boundaries, on the rationale that this places detainees beyond the protections of the law, will not be permitted to preclude application of basic rights and procedural protections.
The Court's majority decision effectively declared Guantanamo, Cuba: "an extention of U.S. territory." This judicial decision may be invoked, someday, to justify an invasion of Cuban sovereign territory -- something Miami-based Right-wing groups yearn for -- but (for now), it has the effect of requiring that all fundamental legal protections must be afforded to "persons" detained "indefinitely" in a hellish legal limbo. Fueled by an obvious and intense dislike for Mr. Bush and his policies, a Times editorial concluded:
"The Court ruled that the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have that cherished right, and that the process for them to challenge their confinement is inadequate. It was a very good day for people who value freedom and abhor Mr. Bush's attempts to turn Guantanamo Bay into a Constitutional-rights-free-zone."
New Jersey is already a "Constitutional-rights-free-zone," where persons are secretly monitored at a distance, where unelected "big shots" (like Mr. Norcross) "influence" public policy, deciding by whom and how that policy will be carried out. In New Jersey, privacy and free speech rights of targeted citizens are violated, routinely, as evidenced by my continuing struggle against censorship and vandalism.
The New York Times has expressed no outrage about N.J.'s appalling reality close to the newspaper's offices, evidently, because it is the work of local Democrats -- some of whom may have "friends" employed by the newspaper. I agree with the Court's decision concerning Guantanamo detainees and with the Times editorial board on this habeas corpus issue:
"The Court ruled that the military tribunals that are hearing the detainees' cases" -- the Administration's proposed alternative to habeas corpus in a federal court -- "are not an adequate substitute. The hearings cut back on basic due process protections, like the right to counsel and the right to present evidence of innocence."
Shockingly, 4 justices dissented from this modest conclusion:
"Chief Justice Roberts thinks the detainees receive such 'generous' protections at their hearings that the majority should not have worried about whether they have habeas rights."
Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion for the majority of the Court concluded with these stirring words:
"We hold that the petitioner may invoke the fundamental procedural protection of habeas corpus. The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law. The Framers [intended] that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, a part of that great law."
The Framers could not have anticipated, however, something which is only made possible with the arrival of new technologies -- like the Internet, electronic monitoring at a distance, secret observation (what I face, every day), hypnosis, drugging and other forensic psychological methods placed, secretly, at the service of the State -- forms of detention that are non-physical. "Hands-off" torture techniques and forms of surreptitious imprisonment -- without specific duration -- where conviction of a criminal offense is unnecessary have become increasingly common, but have not yet been tested before this Supreme Court. "Surveillance and control," according to Foucault, "is the face of power in our time."
Professor Judith Butler speaks of "indefinite detention," analogizing the situation of so-called "terrorists" or detainees, along with others who are deemed "abnormal," to the plight of "gender-criminals." Before you gloat, as a Right-winger and fundamentalist foe of civil liberties, remember that the category of "abnormal" -- like racial categories in the past that we still struggle against today -- will morph and grow, devouring increasing portions of the political and ideational landscape and including more victims every day. Eventually, the only people who will not be deemed "abnormal" will be Dick Cheney and his family members.
The decision to reject a detainee's law suit against former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and the ethics complaints filed against Bush's torture lawyers may indicate a desire to put the torture debacle behind us with some pro forma sanctions and rhetoric about having learned our lessons. This is not sufficient to diminish the monstrous guilt of the American legal system, our continuing hypocrisy and mendacity with regard to human rights issues. New Jersey's festering toilet of evil requires federal action.
The atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as well as the legal abyss created in America's Constitutional understandings will not be alleviated with token gestures, platitudes, or more empty rhetoric. We have become the opposite of a society identified with the rule of law for the global community. Mr. Obama's decision not to release the 2000 pictures of heinous tortures by U.S. service men is the first serious mistake of his presidency. History will not be kind concerning this issue, especially to the first African-American President of the United States. Among the things depicted in those photos is the enslavement and murder of human beings, which are crimes we should be against in America.
"Abnormal" is an amorphous category that, like the blob that came from outer space in a classic fifties' sci-fi movie, keeps getting bigger and bigger. To grant secret power to government is one thing, to get power back from government -- after an "emergency" has disappeared -- is something else, something which is usually much more difficult to achieve. "Abnormal," in fact, becomes an increasingly inclusive and demonized category with a logic of its own. Involuntary confinement of persons without criminal convictions -- persons usually, deliberately, brought to a high state of frustration through "inducement techniques" -- is used to "justify" the permanent torture, both psychological and physical torture, of these unfortunate victims of unchecked government power:
"We have to hesitate at this analogy [between terrorists and abnormals] for the moment, I think, not only because, in a proto-Foucauldian vein, it explicitly models the prison on the mental institution, but also because it sets up an analogy between the suspected terrorist or the captured soldier and the mentally ill. When analogies are offered, they presuppose the separability of the terms that are compared. But any analogy also assumes a common ground for comparability, and in this case the analogy functions to a certain degree by functioning metonymically. The terrorists are like the mentally ill because their mind-set is unfathomable, because they are outside of reason, [witches?] because they are outside of 'civilization,' if we understand that term to be the catchword of a self-defined Western perspective that considers itself bound to certain versions of rationality and the claims that arise from them."
Notice that this is not to discard the idea of "civilization" as contrasted with "terrorism." Rather, it is to insist that in our efforts to combat terrorism, we must remain within the boundaries of an increasingly threatened civilization. "Our" in this last sentence is intended to refer to humanity universally. This point was made eloquently in a televised debate during "Question Time" by David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives in Britain, in opposition to the views of "Labour" [yes, that's how they spell it] Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Much the same has been said by both Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in America's political debate.
At issue in this struggle against terrorism is not a new crusade or a contest between religions, but whether reason and moral concern -- as opposed to indiscriminate violence -- will become the language in which grievances are articulated and resolved. Violence has yet to solve a single dispute. However, violence is really effective in creating new and long-lasting hostilities. From personal experience, I say the same of torture and censorship. The purpose of cruelty is the production of monsters rationalizing or justifying the cruelty used against them and generating more cruelty against others:
"Involuntary hospitalization is like involuntary incarceration, only if we accept the incarcerative function of the mental institution, or ... if we accept that certain suspected criminal activities are themselves signs of mental illness. Indeed, one has to wonder whether it is not simply selected acts undertaken by Islamic extremists that are considered outside the bounds of rationality as established by a civilizational discourse of the West, but rather any and all beliefs and practices pertaining to Islam that depart from the hegemonic norms of Western rationality." (pp. 72-73.)
The ultimate destination to which this "logic of control" leads is totalitarianism. The goal is to restrain millions of us who are not sufficiently "normal" or who think in "strange ways." Potential dangerousness includes every person in the country -- including Justice Kennedy -- as worthy of supervision and monitoring. I am sure that this totalitarian impulse is the greatest and most real threat to our Constitutional Democracy. This threat of totalitarianism originates right here in the USA.
What we must fear and guard against is the National Security State. We must guard against what is happening to us, culturally and politically. We are becoming an angrier, more xenophobic, paranoid and aggressive superpower, trampling upon the civil rights of persons and trashing international law in our pursuit of terrorists. Peter Marin warns in his classic essay on Narcissism:
"The real horror of our present condition is not merely the absence of community or the isolation of the self -- those, after all, have been part of the American condition for a long time. It is the loss of the ability to remember what is missing, the diminishment of our vision of what is humanly possible or desirable. In our new myths we begin to deny once and for all the existence of what we once believed both possible and good. We proclaim our grief-stricken narcissism to be a form of liberation; we define as enlightenment our broken faith with the world. Already forgetful of what it means to be fully human, we sip still again from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, hoping to erase even the memory of pain. Lethe, lethal, lethargy -- all of those words suggest a kind of death, one that in religious usage is sometimes called accidie. It is a condition one can find in many places and in many ages, but only in America, and only recently, have we begun to confuse it with a state of grace. ... "
What follows is intended as a caution and reminder for the next President of the United States. This warning comes from the powerless victims of the National Security State, the billions of funny little brown people in the world and those who are called "unethical" or "retarded" in New Jersey, like me:
"The question of the age, we like to think, is one of survival, and that is true, but not in the way we ordinarily mean it. The survival we ordinarily mean is a narrow and nervous one: simply the continuation in their present forms, of the isolated lives we lead. But there is little doubt that most of us will survive as we are, for we are clearly prepared to accept whatever is necessary to do so: the deaths of millions of others, wars waged in our name, a police state at home. Like the Germans who accepted the Fascists, we, too, will be able to carry on 'business as usual,' just as we do now. Our actual crisis of survival lies elsewhere, in the moral realm we so carefully ignore, for it is there that our lives are at stake ..." (pp. 178-179.) ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")
June 21, 2008 at 2:21 P.M. after three scans, I am still warned that risks cannot be removed from my computer. Written work is subject to vandalism. I experience great difficulty in accessing my sites. I am struggling to continue writing. Many essays and images at my msn group have been damaged. (Please see "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "It is Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")
June 20, 2008 at 2:31 P.M. 3 new computer security risks cannot be repaired by my security system. I am instructed to "reboot" and restart my computer. I can never be certain of getting back to these sites after these attacks. I will do my best to continue writing. I cannot say how many essays have been altered or damaged. 13 new risks were found today; 2 were fixed. At 4:56 P.M. 12 new security risks were identified; 2 were fixed. I will try to restart my computer, again.
June 19, 2008 at 10:46 A.M. I am unable to access my MSN group. There have been new obstacles and frustrations in attempting to reach that site today. Essays may have been damaged, again. I will persist in my efforts to write today. At 2:28 P.M., after running a new scan, I received a red notice purporting to come from my security service that "manual assistance is needed to remove new security threats." 12 viruses were detected today, so far. I will run new scans later this afternoon. With or without assistance, new security risks cannot be removed from my system.
I am unable to post new images with these essays or with my profile. At 3:39 P.M. 11 viruses/security risks appear to have been added to my computer. http://adware180.solutions/ appears as a security risk-spyware that cannot be removed, providing reporting information concerning the contents of my computer and web sites visited by myself or members of my family, including a child. Damage to my writings is unknown at this time. I will try to keep writing, several images accompanying essays at Critique have been blocked.
Adam Liptak, "Justices Void Ex-Detainee's Suit Against 2 Officials," in The New York Times, May 19, 2009, at p. A16.
Scott Shane, "Ethics Complaint Is Filed Against Lawyers for Bush Over Torture Policy," in The New York Times, May 19, 2009, at p. A16. (Dismissed?)
Linda Greenhouse, "Justices, 5-4, Back Detainee Appeals For Guantanamo," in The New York Times, June 13, 2008, at p. A1.
"Justices 5, Brutality 4," in The New York Times, June 13, 2008, at p. A28.
Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London & New York: Verso, 2004), pp. 50-100.
Peter Marin, "The New Narcissism," in Harper's, Oct. 1975, pp. 45-47 (Vietnam), in E. Dvorkin, J. Himmelstein, H. Lesnick, eds., Becoming a Lawyer: A Humanistic Perspective on Legal Education and Professionalism (St. Paul: West Pub. 1981), pp. 178-179.
"Habeas corpus" means that government is required to "produce the body," that is, to justify depriving a person of his or her liberty and other fundamental rights, offering the accused or confined person an opportunity to respond to charges in order to win release from confinement.
Last Thursday the Supreme Court of the United States decided that this fundamental legal protection -- a basic right under English law found in the American Constitution -- must apply to Guantanamo detainees. Detaining so-called "terrorists" or "suspected terrorists" outside U.S. geographical boundaries, on the rationale that this places detainees beyond the protections of the law, will not be permitted to preclude application of basic rights and procedural protections.
The Court's majority decision effectively declared Guantanamo, Cuba: "an extention of U.S. territory." This judicial decision may be invoked, someday, to justify an invasion of Cuban sovereign territory -- something Miami-based Right-wing groups yearn for -- but (for now), it has the effect of requiring that all fundamental legal protections must be afforded to "persons" detained "indefinitely" in a hellish legal limbo. Fueled by an obvious and intense dislike for Mr. Bush and his policies, a Times editorial concluded:
"The Court ruled that the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have that cherished right, and that the process for them to challenge their confinement is inadequate. It was a very good day for people who value freedom and abhor Mr. Bush's attempts to turn Guantanamo Bay into a Constitutional-rights-free-zone."
New Jersey is already a "Constitutional-rights-free-zone," where persons are secretly monitored at a distance, where unelected "big shots" (like Mr. Norcross) "influence" public policy, deciding by whom and how that policy will be carried out. In New Jersey, privacy and free speech rights of targeted citizens are violated, routinely, as evidenced by my continuing struggle against censorship and vandalism.
The New York Times has expressed no outrage about N.J.'s appalling reality close to the newspaper's offices, evidently, because it is the work of local Democrats -- some of whom may have "friends" employed by the newspaper. I agree with the Court's decision concerning Guantanamo detainees and with the Times editorial board on this habeas corpus issue:
"The Court ruled that the military tribunals that are hearing the detainees' cases" -- the Administration's proposed alternative to habeas corpus in a federal court -- "are not an adequate substitute. The hearings cut back on basic due process protections, like the right to counsel and the right to present evidence of innocence."
Shockingly, 4 justices dissented from this modest conclusion:
"Chief Justice Roberts thinks the detainees receive such 'generous' protections at their hearings that the majority should not have worried about whether they have habeas rights."
Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion for the majority of the Court concluded with these stirring words:
"We hold that the petitioner may invoke the fundamental procedural protection of habeas corpus. The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law. The Framers [intended] that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, a part of that great law."
The Framers could not have anticipated, however, something which is only made possible with the arrival of new technologies -- like the Internet, electronic monitoring at a distance, secret observation (what I face, every day), hypnosis, drugging and other forensic psychological methods placed, secretly, at the service of the State -- forms of detention that are non-physical. "Hands-off" torture techniques and forms of surreptitious imprisonment -- without specific duration -- where conviction of a criminal offense is unnecessary have become increasingly common, but have not yet been tested before this Supreme Court. "Surveillance and control," according to Foucault, "is the face of power in our time."
Professor Judith Butler speaks of "indefinite detention," analogizing the situation of so-called "terrorists" or detainees, along with others who are deemed "abnormal," to the plight of "gender-criminals." Before you gloat, as a Right-winger and fundamentalist foe of civil liberties, remember that the category of "abnormal" -- like racial categories in the past that we still struggle against today -- will morph and grow, devouring increasing portions of the political and ideational landscape and including more victims every day. Eventually, the only people who will not be deemed "abnormal" will be Dick Cheney and his family members.
The decision to reject a detainee's law suit against former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and the ethics complaints filed against Bush's torture lawyers may indicate a desire to put the torture debacle behind us with some pro forma sanctions and rhetoric about having learned our lessons. This is not sufficient to diminish the monstrous guilt of the American legal system, our continuing hypocrisy and mendacity with regard to human rights issues. New Jersey's festering toilet of evil requires federal action.
The atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as well as the legal abyss created in America's Constitutional understandings will not be alleviated with token gestures, platitudes, or more empty rhetoric. We have become the opposite of a society identified with the rule of law for the global community. Mr. Obama's decision not to release the 2000 pictures of heinous tortures by U.S. service men is the first serious mistake of his presidency. History will not be kind concerning this issue, especially to the first African-American President of the United States. Among the things depicted in those photos is the enslavement and murder of human beings, which are crimes we should be against in America.
"Abnormal" is an amorphous category that, like the blob that came from outer space in a classic fifties' sci-fi movie, keeps getting bigger and bigger. To grant secret power to government is one thing, to get power back from government -- after an "emergency" has disappeared -- is something else, something which is usually much more difficult to achieve. "Abnormal," in fact, becomes an increasingly inclusive and demonized category with a logic of its own. Involuntary confinement of persons without criminal convictions -- persons usually, deliberately, brought to a high state of frustration through "inducement techniques" -- is used to "justify" the permanent torture, both psychological and physical torture, of these unfortunate victims of unchecked government power:
"We have to hesitate at this analogy [between terrorists and abnormals] for the moment, I think, not only because, in a proto-Foucauldian vein, it explicitly models the prison on the mental institution, but also because it sets up an analogy between the suspected terrorist or the captured soldier and the mentally ill. When analogies are offered, they presuppose the separability of the terms that are compared. But any analogy also assumes a common ground for comparability, and in this case the analogy functions to a certain degree by functioning metonymically. The terrorists are like the mentally ill because their mind-set is unfathomable, because they are outside of reason, [witches?] because they are outside of 'civilization,' if we understand that term to be the catchword of a self-defined Western perspective that considers itself bound to certain versions of rationality and the claims that arise from them."
Notice that this is not to discard the idea of "civilization" as contrasted with "terrorism." Rather, it is to insist that in our efforts to combat terrorism, we must remain within the boundaries of an increasingly threatened civilization. "Our" in this last sentence is intended to refer to humanity universally. This point was made eloquently in a televised debate during "Question Time" by David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives in Britain, in opposition to the views of "Labour" [yes, that's how they spell it] Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Much the same has been said by both Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in America's political debate.
At issue in this struggle against terrorism is not a new crusade or a contest between religions, but whether reason and moral concern -- as opposed to indiscriminate violence -- will become the language in which grievances are articulated and resolved. Violence has yet to solve a single dispute. However, violence is really effective in creating new and long-lasting hostilities. From personal experience, I say the same of torture and censorship. The purpose of cruelty is the production of monsters rationalizing or justifying the cruelty used against them and generating more cruelty against others:
"Involuntary hospitalization is like involuntary incarceration, only if we accept the incarcerative function of the mental institution, or ... if we accept that certain suspected criminal activities are themselves signs of mental illness. Indeed, one has to wonder whether it is not simply selected acts undertaken by Islamic extremists that are considered outside the bounds of rationality as established by a civilizational discourse of the West, but rather any and all beliefs and practices pertaining to Islam that depart from the hegemonic norms of Western rationality." (pp. 72-73.)
The ultimate destination to which this "logic of control" leads is totalitarianism. The goal is to restrain millions of us who are not sufficiently "normal" or who think in "strange ways." Potential dangerousness includes every person in the country -- including Justice Kennedy -- as worthy of supervision and monitoring. I am sure that this totalitarian impulse is the greatest and most real threat to our Constitutional Democracy. This threat of totalitarianism originates right here in the USA.
What we must fear and guard against is the National Security State. We must guard against what is happening to us, culturally and politically. We are becoming an angrier, more xenophobic, paranoid and aggressive superpower, trampling upon the civil rights of persons and trashing international law in our pursuit of terrorists. Peter Marin warns in his classic essay on Narcissism:
"The real horror of our present condition is not merely the absence of community or the isolation of the self -- those, after all, have been part of the American condition for a long time. It is the loss of the ability to remember what is missing, the diminishment of our vision of what is humanly possible or desirable. In our new myths we begin to deny once and for all the existence of what we once believed both possible and good. We proclaim our grief-stricken narcissism to be a form of liberation; we define as enlightenment our broken faith with the world. Already forgetful of what it means to be fully human, we sip still again from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, hoping to erase even the memory of pain. Lethe, lethal, lethargy -- all of those words suggest a kind of death, one that in religious usage is sometimes called accidie. It is a condition one can find in many places and in many ages, but only in America, and only recently, have we begun to confuse it with a state of grace. ... "
What follows is intended as a caution and reminder for the next President of the United States. This warning comes from the powerless victims of the National Security State, the billions of funny little brown people in the world and those who are called "unethical" or "retarded" in New Jersey, like me:
"The question of the age, we like to think, is one of survival, and that is true, but not in the way we ordinarily mean it. The survival we ordinarily mean is a narrow and nervous one: simply the continuation in their present forms, of the isolated lives we lead. But there is little doubt that most of us will survive as we are, for we are clearly prepared to accept whatever is necessary to do so: the deaths of millions of others, wars waged in our name, a police state at home. Like the Germans who accepted the Fascists, we, too, will be able to carry on 'business as usual,' just as we do now. Our actual crisis of survival lies elsewhere, in the moral realm we so carefully ignore, for it is there that our lives are at stake ..." (pp. 178-179.) ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Meditatio ad Malum et Caritas.
Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 3:19 P.M. ("Father's Day") new attacks on my writings have resulted in the insertion of "errors" in a number of essays at my MSN group, once again. At the moment, I am unable to access Critique to make corrections. My cable signal has been blocked several times, written work has been altered or defaced. I will do my best to make necessary corrections. Please see "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?"
I was shocked to discover a new "error" inserted in my essay entitled "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System." I will leave that "error" uncorrected, for today. That "error" will provide necessary inspiration for my continuing efforts against hackers. I will cultivate my rage and sense of outrage at the defacement of my Constitutionally-protected written work by New Jersey's minions.
Anger is the only appropriate emotion in response to such violations. Using that anger to create intellectual and artistic work is better than expressing it in violence. Violence must always be rejected, if we are to avoid becoming the evil that we despise. More essays examining New Jersey's legal corruption and profiles of specific judges are coming up, including "Jim Florio and the Mafia in Atlantic City." June 12, 2008 at 9:09 A.M. I will continue to attempt to run complete scans of my system for the next 24 hours.
John Eligion, "Victim Testifies About Small Talk With Rapist and How She Escaped," in The New York Times, June 10, 2008, at p. B5. (What an unusual name for a Times reporter?)
The encounter with great evil is a life-long ordeal. Trauma, loss, pain -- especially pain resulting from violation or rape -- are things that never entirely abandon their victims. These feelings and constraints, or fetters on our actions and possibilities, are like a great web made of steel that is woven by a sinister spider as we sleep, binding our limbs and thoughts. We awake each morning imprisoned, once again.
Several scans have been obstructed today by hackers. I am unable to write new essays at my sites at this time. I will persist in my efforts. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. For now, my fraud protection feature seems to be disrupted. I have discovered new "errors" in my essay examining John Searle's debate with David Chalmers. I will make a point of revising and reposting that essay.
Torture is the "gift that keeps on giving." Victims of trauma or evil must cut that steel-like web each morning, fighting against paralysis and despair -- despite all odds -- knowing that our chains of suffering will be restored in the night. That sinister spider weaves her webs out of our wounds and losses, from our deepest emotional scars and the horrors in our lives. Torturers are adept at seeking out painful memories and childhood wounds from which to torment victims and bind them forever. The best practioners of this hideous art derive a sexual thrill from their efforts. They are only incidentally concerned with their ostensible goals, like extracting information for the state. Diana, does this sound familiar? It should. (See "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")
"As a man raped her, threw boiling water and bleach in her face and tossed her around like a rag doll, there were many moments when all she could do was scream or beg for mercy."
Begging for mercy is a waste of time and breath. The person committing these offenses -- like people inserting errors in my writings, or making harassing phone calls, responsible for all the tortures described in these essays -- derive a twisted pleasure from inflicting frustrations and pains on victims.
"But during an attack that lasted 19 hours in April 2007" -- I can top that! -- "there was also, improbably, space for calm, the woman explained, when the two made small talk and she parsed her attacker's every word and action, seeking an exit strategy."
The surreal, almost Twilight Zone-like experience of having a person ask you to "explain" Kierkegaard's ideas or Opera, as he or she is committing crimes against you, is beyond my ability to describe. Without genuine recognition, there will be no "exit strategy." Some part of you hopes to understand what will always defy comprehension: Why people who hurt you are also fascinated and obsessed with what you know and can explain. The arts, sciences, philosophies are denigrated as "useless," even as they are desired and feared for their strange power by all would-be fascists and torturers. This paradox baffles rational persons. It will continue to do so. There will never be a moment when crimes make sense. Evil is a kind of abyss. (See John Fowles' "Poor Koko.")
"During the early part of the ordeal, the woman testified, Mr. Williams lay on her bed and forced her to perform oral sex. He seemed to be dozing off, she said, so she tipped her head to the side several times, hoping he would think she was asleep. But each time, she said, Mr. Williams put pressure on her head."
Despite the harms we suffer, something in us pities any person trapped in a prison made of ignorance and brutality. There must be a rational purpose -- however deluded or misguided -- to explain the actions of a criminal. We mistakenly expect to discover that motive or purpose. Crime is often a Zen-like experience for criminals, especially sadists and torturers. Crime just "is." Crime is the ultimate gratuitous act. (Andre Gide) The suffering of victims, like me, seems to provide its own reward for criminals. Unfortunately, Orwell was right: "the purpose of torture is torture." ("The Wanderer and His Shadow" then "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
The utter disregard for this poor woman on the part of her attacker -- a man who merits a life-sentence if convicted -- is revealed by his decision to set both his victim and her apartment on fire when he got through with her. After the destruction of my life, attempts to write a memoir were also frustrated by hackers altering the text after each draft was painfully composed at my computer. The goal was to deny even understanding and creativity to a victim. These persons engaging in such acts speak to me of "ethics." (See "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" then "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State," and "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")
Destroying a person's life and relationships is not enough. For some torturers, it is also necessary to prevent persons from expressing what has been done to them. Language itself is feared and must be destroyed. Intelligence is also demonized. The goal is not only to kill a person's capacity for joy in life, but also to destroy the things in which he believes -- like beauty, truth, meaning and (most importantly) love. "She's a fat pig" -- someone said this of a woman I love, then -- "she's a filthy whore." ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "What is it like to be tortured?")
The rationalization of will to power over others may be called "therapeutic adjustment," control of "undesirable elements," or even "duty to the fatherland." The real reason to torture people is simply that torturers enjoy it. Wouldn't you agree, Diana? Terry? John? How are things at the OAE? It wasn't sex with Marilyn, but getting away with "using her" that attracted you, Diana. Isn't that right? It was not the money taken from my office; rather, it was the opportunity to hurt me (or cause me trouble) that made it desirable to steal my money. Did you share the loot with Tuchin? I hope you weren't too greedy, Diana. Who else got in on the action? Ethics? ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
One foolishly believes that it is possible to detect the humanity of criminals responsible for hurting others. Often, this is not possible. Curiously, however, this is also a negative version of the criminal's or torturer's objective. The person hurting another human being, especially over a long period of time, is locked into a kind of twisted, obsessive fascination with her victim. Would you agree, "gentlemen"? Why do I say that? Will I please "explain" the theory of abnormal motivation by way of the great criminologists to New Jersey's therapists, who will then seek to "instruct" me on these matters?
Well, the torturer wishes to "frustrate" all relational and communicative efforts of victims, to frighten, disgust, or otherwise fill every waking second of that targeted human being's shattered life. The torturer needs his or her victim's "reaction" -- even in agony -- in order not to succumb to a lifeless state, since he or she is "normally" lacking in the capacity to feel. Alex? The worst dread of torturers is that they will be made to see themselves for what they are -- monsters of sadistic cruelty. Frustration and pain imposed on a victim may prevent any suffering person from telling the world what torturers' have done and become. If you silence him, Diana, he may not have time or opportunity to show both the world (and yourself) what you have become -- irrevocably and irredeemably evil. Is that the idea? What do the therapists say?
"We meant well!" I am sure that you did ... or thought you did. A torturer wishes to "affect" his or her victim. An audience is (typically) delighted by the spectacle of pain imposed on victims (Tuchin?), even when audience members claim the status of psychiatric professionals. "We can learn from you." Tuchin likes to watch. Hence, bystanders will, usually, do nothing to stop the infliction of suffering. (I will run another scan later.) The worst thing you can do to torturers is to ignore them, making them irrelevant to your objectives and methods, forcing them into the disgusting cave within themselves. ("Would you have helped Kitty Genovese?")
When victims have qualities that are admired by their tormentors -- usually intellectual ability or talent, as with Salieri in Amadeus -- these qualities must also be destroyed for the victim, who must be persuaded that he is "stupid or worthless." I was told that my writing is "shit" and that I am "shit." Jews in the camps were called "rodents." Think of the n-word. (Only one "error" inserted since this morning, so far.)
Torturers' greatest fear is the exact opposite of what concerns and troubles people like me: I want connections to others through art and self-explorations, analysis, and dialectics. Torturers wish to avoid connections or looking at their actions by focusing on their victims' "inadequacies." The things admired by victims must be denigrated. Whatever the victim is good at will be trivialized and dismissed as worthless. All values are "relative," incoherence and stupidity are celebrated because "everybody's equal," even as admiration of human genius is anathematized as "elitism." ("Is Humanism Still Possible?")
One of my interlocutors at The Philosophy Cafe explained: "You just read a lot of books and write really well." If you say so. This comment was intended as a dismissal. That's the kind of insult that I like. These habits of reading many books and trying to write as well as possible seem "unfair" to simple and brutal men and women. By indulging in these "hobbies" I was "trying to be better than everybody else." It is no good to explain to such people that one is hoping to be better than oneself, not anyone else. As a result, crimes committed against me were permissible. I was deemed an "uppity" minority person. A torture chamber is a "No Exit" dilemma from which the golden key to freedom is always missing. That key is only a respectful concern with the Other and for the product's of another's subjectivity, like art and philosophy:
"The facts of Aushwitz and Hiroshima ... [substitute your torture chamber of choice] may prove to be irreparable. They will have marked, at depths of consciousness and self-consciousness all but inaccessible to repair, both victim and killer, both the torturer and the tortured. In a dialectic analogous to that on Golgotha, the Jew occasioned and released the bestial in other men [and women.] ... The camp guard, the torturer, the killer-gangs in our inner cities, the apologist for racism, [Cubanoids?] and political-religious madness, [a Jew who becomes Mengele,] wherever he operates -- from Guatamala to Siberia, from Rwanda to Belsen -- makes something less than human both of his victims and himself. Thus, it is, I believe, difficult to deny that the twentieth century has lowered the threshold of humanity. Man has, on a pervasive scale, been diminished." (Steiner, Errata, p. 121.)
Shattered relationships cannot be restored by forcing or manipulating encounters with persons for whom one feels only a sense of betrayal and disgust. What is destroyed cannot be repaired without recognition. The idea of recognition offers some hope. Professor Steiner's pessimism must not be accepted without struggle. I recall Pope John-Paul, II's visit to the man who shot and nearly killed him. The Pope entered the man's prison cell as a simple priest attending to a suffering soul, offered forgiveness and recognition, while receiving the same in return -- perhaps for the first time -- from his tormentor and would-be assassin, whose bright eyes sparkled with hatred and rolled around in his head like marbles.
The Pope's embrace of this afflicted man and his invitation to pray together ended with the total pacification of the convicted criminal. Love cannot be defeated by hatred. Torturers always torture themselves and (like the criminal in this newspaper story) are the ones who seek to evade their victims' recognition as well as their own final self-assessments. The criminal in the newspaper account of this horrible incident was unable to enter the courtroom to see the woman he had injured. Pity the criminals and torturers. They are the true victims.
I was shocked to discover a new "error" inserted in my essay entitled "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System." I will leave that "error" uncorrected, for today. That "error" will provide necessary inspiration for my continuing efforts against hackers. I will cultivate my rage and sense of outrage at the defacement of my Constitutionally-protected written work by New Jersey's minions.
Anger is the only appropriate emotion in response to such violations. Using that anger to create intellectual and artistic work is better than expressing it in violence. Violence must always be rejected, if we are to avoid becoming the evil that we despise. More essays examining New Jersey's legal corruption and profiles of specific judges are coming up, including "Jim Florio and the Mafia in Atlantic City." June 12, 2008 at 9:09 A.M. I will continue to attempt to run complete scans of my system for the next 24 hours.
John Eligion, "Victim Testifies About Small Talk With Rapist and How She Escaped," in The New York Times, June 10, 2008, at p. B5. (What an unusual name for a Times reporter?)
The encounter with great evil is a life-long ordeal. Trauma, loss, pain -- especially pain resulting from violation or rape -- are things that never entirely abandon their victims. These feelings and constraints, or fetters on our actions and possibilities, are like a great web made of steel that is woven by a sinister spider as we sleep, binding our limbs and thoughts. We awake each morning imprisoned, once again.
Several scans have been obstructed today by hackers. I am unable to write new essays at my sites at this time. I will persist in my efforts. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. For now, my fraud protection feature seems to be disrupted. I have discovered new "errors" in my essay examining John Searle's debate with David Chalmers. I will make a point of revising and reposting that essay.
Torture is the "gift that keeps on giving." Victims of trauma or evil must cut that steel-like web each morning, fighting against paralysis and despair -- despite all odds -- knowing that our chains of suffering will be restored in the night. That sinister spider weaves her webs out of our wounds and losses, from our deepest emotional scars and the horrors in our lives. Torturers are adept at seeking out painful memories and childhood wounds from which to torment victims and bind them forever. The best practioners of this hideous art derive a sexual thrill from their efforts. They are only incidentally concerned with their ostensible goals, like extracting information for the state. Diana, does this sound familiar? It should. (See "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")
"As a man raped her, threw boiling water and bleach in her face and tossed her around like a rag doll, there were many moments when all she could do was scream or beg for mercy."
Begging for mercy is a waste of time and breath. The person committing these offenses -- like people inserting errors in my writings, or making harassing phone calls, responsible for all the tortures described in these essays -- derive a twisted pleasure from inflicting frustrations and pains on victims.
"But during an attack that lasted 19 hours in April 2007" -- I can top that! -- "there was also, improbably, space for calm, the woman explained, when the two made small talk and she parsed her attacker's every word and action, seeking an exit strategy."
The surreal, almost Twilight Zone-like experience of having a person ask you to "explain" Kierkegaard's ideas or Opera, as he or she is committing crimes against you, is beyond my ability to describe. Without genuine recognition, there will be no "exit strategy." Some part of you hopes to understand what will always defy comprehension: Why people who hurt you are also fascinated and obsessed with what you know and can explain. The arts, sciences, philosophies are denigrated as "useless," even as they are desired and feared for their strange power by all would-be fascists and torturers. This paradox baffles rational persons. It will continue to do so. There will never be a moment when crimes make sense. Evil is a kind of abyss. (See John Fowles' "Poor Koko.")
"During the early part of the ordeal, the woman testified, Mr. Williams lay on her bed and forced her to perform oral sex. He seemed to be dozing off, she said, so she tipped her head to the side several times, hoping he would think she was asleep. But each time, she said, Mr. Williams put pressure on her head."
Despite the harms we suffer, something in us pities any person trapped in a prison made of ignorance and brutality. There must be a rational purpose -- however deluded or misguided -- to explain the actions of a criminal. We mistakenly expect to discover that motive or purpose. Crime is often a Zen-like experience for criminals, especially sadists and torturers. Crime just "is." Crime is the ultimate gratuitous act. (Andre Gide) The suffering of victims, like me, seems to provide its own reward for criminals. Unfortunately, Orwell was right: "the purpose of torture is torture." ("The Wanderer and His Shadow" then "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
The utter disregard for this poor woman on the part of her attacker -- a man who merits a life-sentence if convicted -- is revealed by his decision to set both his victim and her apartment on fire when he got through with her. After the destruction of my life, attempts to write a memoir were also frustrated by hackers altering the text after each draft was painfully composed at my computer. The goal was to deny even understanding and creativity to a victim. These persons engaging in such acts speak to me of "ethics." (See "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" then "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State," and "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")
Destroying a person's life and relationships is not enough. For some torturers, it is also necessary to prevent persons from expressing what has been done to them. Language itself is feared and must be destroyed. Intelligence is also demonized. The goal is not only to kill a person's capacity for joy in life, but also to destroy the things in which he believes -- like beauty, truth, meaning and (most importantly) love. "She's a fat pig" -- someone said this of a woman I love, then -- "she's a filthy whore." ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "What is it like to be tortured?")
The rationalization of will to power over others may be called "therapeutic adjustment," control of "undesirable elements," or even "duty to the fatherland." The real reason to torture people is simply that torturers enjoy it. Wouldn't you agree, Diana? Terry? John? How are things at the OAE? It wasn't sex with Marilyn, but getting away with "using her" that attracted you, Diana. Isn't that right? It was not the money taken from my office; rather, it was the opportunity to hurt me (or cause me trouble) that made it desirable to steal my money. Did you share the loot with Tuchin? I hope you weren't too greedy, Diana. Who else got in on the action? Ethics? ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
One foolishly believes that it is possible to detect the humanity of criminals responsible for hurting others. Often, this is not possible. Curiously, however, this is also a negative version of the criminal's or torturer's objective. The person hurting another human being, especially over a long period of time, is locked into a kind of twisted, obsessive fascination with her victim. Would you agree, "gentlemen"? Why do I say that? Will I please "explain" the theory of abnormal motivation by way of the great criminologists to New Jersey's therapists, who will then seek to "instruct" me on these matters?
Well, the torturer wishes to "frustrate" all relational and communicative efforts of victims, to frighten, disgust, or otherwise fill every waking second of that targeted human being's shattered life. The torturer needs his or her victim's "reaction" -- even in agony -- in order not to succumb to a lifeless state, since he or she is "normally" lacking in the capacity to feel. Alex? The worst dread of torturers is that they will be made to see themselves for what they are -- monsters of sadistic cruelty. Frustration and pain imposed on a victim may prevent any suffering person from telling the world what torturers' have done and become. If you silence him, Diana, he may not have time or opportunity to show both the world (and yourself) what you have become -- irrevocably and irredeemably evil. Is that the idea? What do the therapists say?
"We meant well!" I am sure that you did ... or thought you did. A torturer wishes to "affect" his or her victim. An audience is (typically) delighted by the spectacle of pain imposed on victims (Tuchin?), even when audience members claim the status of psychiatric professionals. "We can learn from you." Tuchin likes to watch. Hence, bystanders will, usually, do nothing to stop the infliction of suffering. (I will run another scan later.) The worst thing you can do to torturers is to ignore them, making them irrelevant to your objectives and methods, forcing them into the disgusting cave within themselves. ("Would you have helped Kitty Genovese?")
When victims have qualities that are admired by their tormentors -- usually intellectual ability or talent, as with Salieri in Amadeus -- these qualities must also be destroyed for the victim, who must be persuaded that he is "stupid or worthless." I was told that my writing is "shit" and that I am "shit." Jews in the camps were called "rodents." Think of the n-word. (Only one "error" inserted since this morning, so far.)
Torturers' greatest fear is the exact opposite of what concerns and troubles people like me: I want connections to others through art and self-explorations, analysis, and dialectics. Torturers wish to avoid connections or looking at their actions by focusing on their victims' "inadequacies." The things admired by victims must be denigrated. Whatever the victim is good at will be trivialized and dismissed as worthless. All values are "relative," incoherence and stupidity are celebrated because "everybody's equal," even as admiration of human genius is anathematized as "elitism." ("Is Humanism Still Possible?")
One of my interlocutors at The Philosophy Cafe explained: "You just read a lot of books and write really well." If you say so. This comment was intended as a dismissal. That's the kind of insult that I like. These habits of reading many books and trying to write as well as possible seem "unfair" to simple and brutal men and women. By indulging in these "hobbies" I was "trying to be better than everybody else." It is no good to explain to such people that one is hoping to be better than oneself, not anyone else. As a result, crimes committed against me were permissible. I was deemed an "uppity" minority person. A torture chamber is a "No Exit" dilemma from which the golden key to freedom is always missing. That key is only a respectful concern with the Other and for the product's of another's subjectivity, like art and philosophy:
"The facts of Aushwitz and Hiroshima ... [substitute your torture chamber of choice] may prove to be irreparable. They will have marked, at depths of consciousness and self-consciousness all but inaccessible to repair, both victim and killer, both the torturer and the tortured. In a dialectic analogous to that on Golgotha, the Jew occasioned and released the bestial in other men [and women.] ... The camp guard, the torturer, the killer-gangs in our inner cities, the apologist for racism, [Cubanoids?] and political-religious madness, [a Jew who becomes Mengele,] wherever he operates -- from Guatamala to Siberia, from Rwanda to Belsen -- makes something less than human both of his victims and himself. Thus, it is, I believe, difficult to deny that the twentieth century has lowered the threshold of humanity. Man has, on a pervasive scale, been diminished." (Steiner, Errata, p. 121.)
Shattered relationships cannot be restored by forcing or manipulating encounters with persons for whom one feels only a sense of betrayal and disgust. What is destroyed cannot be repaired without recognition. The idea of recognition offers some hope. Professor Steiner's pessimism must not be accepted without struggle. I recall Pope John-Paul, II's visit to the man who shot and nearly killed him. The Pope entered the man's prison cell as a simple priest attending to a suffering soul, offered forgiveness and recognition, while receiving the same in return -- perhaps for the first time -- from his tormentor and would-be assassin, whose bright eyes sparkled with hatred and rolled around in his head like marbles.
The Pope's embrace of this afflicted man and his invitation to pray together ended with the total pacification of the convicted criminal. Love cannot be defeated by hatred. Torturers always torture themselves and (like the criminal in this newspaper story) are the ones who seek to evade their victims' recognition as well as their own final self-assessments. The criminal in the newspaper account of this horrible incident was unable to enter the courtroom to see the woman he had injured. Pity the criminals and torturers. They are the true victims.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Is New Jersey an Anything Goes Prison?
June 10, 2008 at 8:18 A.M. For the past hour or so, I have been trying to access my MSN group in order to write essays for today. At this time, I am unable to do so. My cable signal was blocked, briefly, this morning and attempts to print items from my computer left me with a blank page bearing this address:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn_CUSA/B2343920.20sz=300x250;ord=438962351? (Cuban American National Foundation? Appellate Division, NJ, where several judges are probably affiliated with this organization?)
This is the second day this week when I have been unable to write. It is impossible to tell at this time how much damage has been done to essays. I will continue to struggle.
June 9, 2008 at 4:40 P.M. I am running scans, trying to back up files, struggling against the usual harassments. I may be unable to write today. However, I will keep trying until I can do some more work.
June 7, 2008 at 11:20 A.M. My updating feature is blocked again. I will struggle to run scans all day. I will attempt to repair any harm done to essays, here or at Critique. I may be unable to write very much, until these obstacles can be overcome. However, I will spend part of every day trying to write. I wonder whether things are this difficult for writers in Cuba?
June 5, 2008 at 10:46 A.M. My security system's updating feature, which had been briefly restored, was just blocked AGAIN. I am unable to update my security system. This means that there will be new attacks on my writings, defacements, obstructions to further writing efforts. I will keep struggling to write every day. I am blocking:
http://docs.google.com/EmbedSlideshow?docid=d...
http://docs.com/js/1277619420_pres_embed_view.css (JS? NJ Superior Court Judge?)
http://docs.google.com/js/28725/9978_PresentlyInit.js (JS? NJ Superior Court judge?)
http://docs.google.com/js/2683405365_EmbedSlideshow.js (JS?)
http://docs.google.com/presently/images/embed_menu_bg_s.png (Image Blocker?) No images can be posted at my blogs or profile.
June 5, 2008 at 8:51 A.M. "errors" were inserted in a number of posts overnight. I am blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3753.msn/B271049... (Appellate Division Judge, NJ.?)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3753.msn/B271049... (Appellate Division Judge, NJ.?)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
How gratifying to think that New Jersey judges are interested in quantum theory and postmodernist philosophy, fractals, to say nothing of the philosophy of mathematical objects in abstract spaces. (See "'The Prestige': A Movie Review.") At 9:33 A.M. call received from 219-710-8185.
June 4, 2008 at 2:55 P.M. after fighting obstacles to post new work at my msn group, being prevented from doing so, struggling against computer attacks, I will try re-starting my computer. Scans provide little assistance since my system cannot be updated, after alterations by hackers. I will do my best to continue writing somewhere. All of this is familiar to me and to readers of these essays. This tolerance of cybercensorship is both sad and frightening for America. I am blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn-dm/B171... (DM)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn-dm/B171.. (DM)
http://m1.2mdn.net/879366/externalscript... (Allows for altering or defacing texts!)
At 1:23 P.M. call received from 760-526-8117. At 4:48 P.M. My fraud protection is gone. I will try to restore it.
June 4, 2008 at 8:48 A.M. My Internet signal was obstructed this morning. This blockage frustrated efforts to access my blogs. I am unable to update my security system because, I surmise, hackers are also blocking my normal updating feature. I will continue to struggle to write freely.
Access to these blogs was obstructed for hours yesterday, June 2, 2008. At 3:09 P.M. calls were received from 402-727-2510. June 3, 2008 at 8:49 A.M. calls from 616-980-2305. (More harassment and difficulties working at my msn group this morning will make it difficult for me to do any new work.) I was in the middle of reading one of my essays when I was obstructed from my msn group. I will struggle to get back to that site. This usually means that new "errors" are being inserted in my work. I will do my best to make all necessary corrections.
http://view.atdmt.com/iview/msnnkhac001728x90xWBCBR00110msn/direct;wi.728;hi.90/01
Michiko Kakutani, "How Abu Ghraib Became the Anything-Goes Prison," in The New York Times, May 14, 2008, at p. E8. (Book Review)
Errol Morris, "Standard Operating Procedure," film. http://nytimes.com/books
Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell (New York: Berkeley Medallion, 1964), pp. 284-300 ("The Psychology of the SS").
Douglas M. Kelley, M.D., "What Does it Mean to America?," in 22 Cells in Nuremberg (New York: Torch McFadden, 1961), pp. 176-180.
George Steiner, Errata (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 135.
"A hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires dangling from his outspread arms. A pyramid made of human beings, stacked like cordwood, one on top of another. A woman holding what looks like a dog leash attached to a groveling prisoner. A naked prisoner cringing before a snarling police dog. Such heinous pictures have become iconic images of the war in Iraq: gruesome symbols of what went wrong with the war and the occupation."
I am afraid that the reality only partly depicted in those infamous photos is much more troublesome than even this statement suggests. The events depicted in those horrifying photos make it clear that Americans can no longer entertain illusions concerning their "exceptionalism." The American experiment in democracy was once viewed as the "last best hope for humanity." Not too many people are expressing such sentiments today.
The loss of this sense of our unique identity and moral dignity is much sadder (to me) than any terrorist incident could ever be -- despite the tragic nature of such terrorist crimes and their casualties. For the greatest casualty of our so-called "War on Terror" may well be the Constitutional system put in place by our Founding Fathers and Mothers at the birth of the nation.
"... As Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq, notes in his new memoir, 'Wiser in Battle' (Harper), the 2002 presidential memo concerning Geneva 'constituted a watershed event in U.S. military history.' ..."
"Essentially, it set aside all of the legal constraints, training guidelines and rules for interrogation that formed the U.S. Army's foundation for the treatment of prisoners on the battlefield since the Geneva conventions were revised and ratified in 1949,' General Sanchez writes. '... that guidance set America on a path towards torture.' ..."
"Within days of 9/11, Vice President Dick Chenney declared that the administration intended to work 'the dark side,' and in the ensuing months, Mr. Gourevitch writes, 'the vice president's legal counsel, David Addington, presided over the production of a series of secret memorandums, which argued against several centuries of American executive practice and constitutional jurisprudence by asserting that the president enjoyed essentially absolute power in wartime, including the authority to sanction torture." (emphasis added)
This is, of course, a prescription for tyranny and dictatorship. If anything may be described as a breach of legal ethics, then it must be Mr. Addington's use of his skills and training to undermine America's Constitution. No doubt Mr. Addington will be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a future Republican presidential administration. Cognitive dissonance is unavoidable when the issue of legal ethics is raised in my presence. This is one of many days when attacks on my security system and computer will make it very difficult for me to write or revise my work on-line. My updating feature is blocked, again. I will run scans all day to keep going.
There have been American war crimes in "undeclared wars" or military actions -- Mi Lai, for example (yes, there are several spellings of this place name) -- but what is unique and frightening about the nation's current psychic state is the appalling collective indifference and celebration of cruelty and inhumanity as aspects of national foreign policy. There is no outrage among the vast majority of Americans at the tortures for which we are responsible. There is an obvious indifference to the horrors depicted in those Abu Ghraib photos, even to the murder of hundreds of thousands or millions. I say "we" -- as a nation -- bear responsibility for this atrocity, an unrecognized responsibility. (See "What is it like to be tortured?" and the fothcoming "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
It is undisputed that we must now speak of more than a million civilian as well as military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet even the daily killing of American soldiers barely registers on the numbed sensibilities of television viewing Americans. Are those million-plus lives of innocent children, old people, civilians making us safer in the "War on Terror"? I doubt it. Are we not in danger of becoming the "terror" for billions of others throughout the world? Will we not face the rage of survivors of our war effort who are not pleased at the murder of their loved-ones? At what point will we have revenged the killing of several thousand victims on 9/11 with the murder of millions of "little brown people" since that date and deaths of thousands of American military people, every day? (Noise and distractions have suddenly arrived at my window.)
The earthquake in China was a blip on newscasts yesterday where the lead stories concerned the possible winner on America's Next Top Model and a newscaster cursing over the airwaves. This brutalization of America's political and moral culture is not unrelated to the sort of television programs that are popular -- American Gladiators, Survivor, America's Next Top Model, along with many other "shows" seem to depict a nation celebrating ruthlessness in competition and a near total absence of ethical constraints on self-interested conduct. It is usually such brutal persons who speak to us of "ethics." Ethics? (See "Maurice J. Gallipoli and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
New Jersey's mafia-saturated tribunals, for example, have sanctioned grotesque tortures of jail inmates as well as secret violations of citizens' rights, which must have been known to the highest authorities in the state entrusted with preventing such criminality and upholding the Constitution's promise of civil liberties for everyone. No one cares. Less than a century after the events of the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, Pol Pot, Rwanda, and the recent atrocities in the former Yugoslavia evoke only a yawn among young people: "Each day that the cover-up of crimes against humanity continues is a renewal of the tortures." (See "A Letter From the DRB, in New Jersey!" and "Another Letter From the DRB, in New Jersey!")
In coming to understand what makes such horror possible and how it can be that persons, willingly, abandon their humanity in crowds, one is forced into the presence of the mystery of evil just as surely as men and women were forced to face this abyss after the events of the Second World War. We are still baffled and numbed at what is possible for ordinary men and women in dark times. (See "How to be a Politician or a Lawyer in New Jersey" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
"In the nascent American republic," George Steiner writes, "Thoreau found most of his fellow citizens living lives of 'quiet desperation.' Today, these desperations grow raucous and impatient. I have had neither the compulsion nor the courage to enter politics. In Aristotelean terms, such abstention amounts to idiocy. It gives to the thugs, the corrupt, and the mediocre every incentive and opportunity to take over."
In New Jersey -- perhaps as a result of a failure of nerve on the part of judges -- they have taken over. The daily criminalities emanating from police officers and government agencies are clearly beyond the control of the authorities. This means that, within a short time, in the worst jurisdictions -- like the Garden State -- men with guns will wield the real power. Laws and those concerned with their application will be marginalized and indulged, until they become troublesome -- when these statutes and legal functionaries will simply be removed through smears in the media or by means of hypnosis-induced interrogations, or possibly by being confronted with embarassments in their private lives. America has turned into the Weimar Republic.
Men with guns and big muscles (but small brains) tend to dislike subtle arguments and abstract ideas. They are impatient with language and its elusive beauties as well as revelations. More can be accomplished quickly by beating up a person, whether that person is a criminal or not. In fact, a concern with such subtleties and laws -- or even bothering to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt -- may reveal the very "abnormality" that must not be tolerated by the protectors of America's "goodness." Meanwhile, dissent and squeamishness about the "dark side" is a sure sign that persons deserve a beating -- or worse, hesitating to resort to violence may be an indication of male homosexuality. Freedom is not for everyone. Freedom may not be for anyone in such a "carceral continuum." (Michel Foucault) Enslavement and preventive imprisonment, according to Fascists, may be for the victim's "own good."
"The sum of my politics is to try and support whatever social order is capable of reducing, even marginally, the aggregate of hatred and pain in the human circumstance. And which allows privacy and excellence breathing space."
Compassion and solidarity may be seen as evidence of "softness" (male anxieties of the Freudian sort are clear in the use of such a word) in response to crime. One is embarassed to read that:
"The Enlightenment, voices as clairvoyant as Voltaire's and Jefferson's, had proclaimed an end to judicial torture, to the burning of dissenters and of books. [To all Star Chamber-like 'secret proceedings.'] The abolition of slavery was imminent. Nineteenth century positivism and a spectrum of liberal and of socialist messianic programs, Marxism foremost among them, had envisioned mankind on a long, sometimes tortuous, but inherently certain march towards political emancipation, social justice, economic well-being, and peace (whose universality Kant had deemed a realistic concept)." (Steiner)
No one expresses such hopes today. "Hope" on the part of Senator Barak Omaba is enough for Mr. Carville to refer to the Senator from Illinois as "not manly enough." Is that sort of accusation not what Senator Clinton's candidacy was meant to eradicate? I thought so. My sense of despair and sadness is heavy today. At the same time, my commitment to struggle against this drift towards totalitarianism is iron-like and indestructible. Resort to the race card, challenges to the masculinity of "liberals" (what if they're women?), wedge politics, and other disgusting campaign tactics I hoped would be left behind cause me to wonder, again, about what we have become in the aftermath of 9/11:
"It is up to us to determine whether to foster racial hatreds and prejudices. It is up to us whether we learn from the Holocaust of Europe and apply what we learn to our own lives. It is up to us to develop a truly democratic nation where we and our children can live without bickering, without hatreds, emotionally secure because we are" -- or we will finally become -- "an emotionally mature nation." (Kelley)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn_CUSA/B2343920.20sz=300x250;ord=438962351? (Cuban American National Foundation? Appellate Division, NJ, where several judges are probably affiliated with this organization?)
This is the second day this week when I have been unable to write. It is impossible to tell at this time how much damage has been done to essays. I will continue to struggle.
June 9, 2008 at 4:40 P.M. I am running scans, trying to back up files, struggling against the usual harassments. I may be unable to write today. However, I will keep trying until I can do some more work.
June 7, 2008 at 11:20 A.M. My updating feature is blocked again. I will struggle to run scans all day. I will attempt to repair any harm done to essays, here or at Critique. I may be unable to write very much, until these obstacles can be overcome. However, I will spend part of every day trying to write. I wonder whether things are this difficult for writers in Cuba?
June 5, 2008 at 10:46 A.M. My security system's updating feature, which had been briefly restored, was just blocked AGAIN. I am unable to update my security system. This means that there will be new attacks on my writings, defacements, obstructions to further writing efforts. I will keep struggling to write every day. I am blocking:
http://docs.google.com/EmbedSlideshow?docid=d...
http://docs.com/js/1277619420_pres_embed_view.css (JS? NJ Superior Court Judge?)
http://docs.google.com/js/28725/9978_PresentlyInit.js (JS? NJ Superior Court judge?)
http://docs.google.com/js/2683405365_EmbedSlideshow.js (JS?)
http://docs.google.com/presently/images/embed_menu_bg_s.png (Image Blocker?) No images can be posted at my blogs or profile.
June 5, 2008 at 8:51 A.M. "errors" were inserted in a number of posts overnight. I am blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3753.msn/B271049... (Appellate Division Judge, NJ.?)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3753.msn/B271049... (Appellate Division Judge, NJ.?)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;src=1652863;met=... (NJ)
How gratifying to think that New Jersey judges are interested in quantum theory and postmodernist philosophy, fractals, to say nothing of the philosophy of mathematical objects in abstract spaces. (See "'The Prestige': A Movie Review.") At 9:33 A.M. call received from 219-710-8185.
June 4, 2008 at 2:55 P.M. after fighting obstacles to post new work at my msn group, being prevented from doing so, struggling against computer attacks, I will try re-starting my computer. Scans provide little assistance since my system cannot be updated, after alterations by hackers. I will do my best to continue writing somewhere. All of this is familiar to me and to readers of these essays. This tolerance of cybercensorship is both sad and frightening for America. I am blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn-dm/B171... (DM)
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3285.msn-dm/B171.. (DM)
http://m1.2mdn.net/879366/externalscript... (Allows for altering or defacing texts!)
At 1:23 P.M. call received from 760-526-8117. At 4:48 P.M. My fraud protection is gone. I will try to restore it.
June 4, 2008 at 8:48 A.M. My Internet signal was obstructed this morning. This blockage frustrated efforts to access my blogs. I am unable to update my security system because, I surmise, hackers are also blocking my normal updating feature. I will continue to struggle to write freely.
Access to these blogs was obstructed for hours yesterday, June 2, 2008. At 3:09 P.M. calls were received from 402-727-2510. June 3, 2008 at 8:49 A.M. calls from 616-980-2305. (More harassment and difficulties working at my msn group this morning will make it difficult for me to do any new work.) I was in the middle of reading one of my essays when I was obstructed from my msn group. I will struggle to get back to that site. This usually means that new "errors" are being inserted in my work. I will do my best to make all necessary corrections.
http://view.atdmt.com/iview/msnnkhac001728x90xWBCBR00110msn/direct;wi.728;hi.90/01
Michiko Kakutani, "How Abu Ghraib Became the Anything-Goes Prison," in The New York Times, May 14, 2008, at p. E8. (Book Review)
Errol Morris, "Standard Operating Procedure," film. http://nytimes.com/books
Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell (New York: Berkeley Medallion, 1964), pp. 284-300 ("The Psychology of the SS").
Douglas M. Kelley, M.D., "What Does it Mean to America?," in 22 Cells in Nuremberg (New York: Torch McFadden, 1961), pp. 176-180.
George Steiner, Errata (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 135.
"A hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires dangling from his outspread arms. A pyramid made of human beings, stacked like cordwood, one on top of another. A woman holding what looks like a dog leash attached to a groveling prisoner. A naked prisoner cringing before a snarling police dog. Such heinous pictures have become iconic images of the war in Iraq: gruesome symbols of what went wrong with the war and the occupation."
I am afraid that the reality only partly depicted in those infamous photos is much more troublesome than even this statement suggests. The events depicted in those horrifying photos make it clear that Americans can no longer entertain illusions concerning their "exceptionalism." The American experiment in democracy was once viewed as the "last best hope for humanity." Not too many people are expressing such sentiments today.
The loss of this sense of our unique identity and moral dignity is much sadder (to me) than any terrorist incident could ever be -- despite the tragic nature of such terrorist crimes and their casualties. For the greatest casualty of our so-called "War on Terror" may well be the Constitutional system put in place by our Founding Fathers and Mothers at the birth of the nation.
"... As Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq, notes in his new memoir, 'Wiser in Battle' (Harper), the 2002 presidential memo concerning Geneva 'constituted a watershed event in U.S. military history.' ..."
"Essentially, it set aside all of the legal constraints, training guidelines and rules for interrogation that formed the U.S. Army's foundation for the treatment of prisoners on the battlefield since the Geneva conventions were revised and ratified in 1949,' General Sanchez writes. '... that guidance set America on a path towards torture.' ..."
"Within days of 9/11, Vice President Dick Chenney declared that the administration intended to work 'the dark side,' and in the ensuing months, Mr. Gourevitch writes, 'the vice president's legal counsel, David Addington, presided over the production of a series of secret memorandums, which argued against several centuries of American executive practice and constitutional jurisprudence by asserting that the president enjoyed essentially absolute power in wartime, including the authority to sanction torture." (emphasis added)
This is, of course, a prescription for tyranny and dictatorship. If anything may be described as a breach of legal ethics, then it must be Mr. Addington's use of his skills and training to undermine America's Constitution. No doubt Mr. Addington will be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a future Republican presidential administration. Cognitive dissonance is unavoidable when the issue of legal ethics is raised in my presence. This is one of many days when attacks on my security system and computer will make it very difficult for me to write or revise my work on-line. My updating feature is blocked, again. I will run scans all day to keep going.
There have been American war crimes in "undeclared wars" or military actions -- Mi Lai, for example (yes, there are several spellings of this place name) -- but what is unique and frightening about the nation's current psychic state is the appalling collective indifference and celebration of cruelty and inhumanity as aspects of national foreign policy. There is no outrage among the vast majority of Americans at the tortures for which we are responsible. There is an obvious indifference to the horrors depicted in those Abu Ghraib photos, even to the murder of hundreds of thousands or millions. I say "we" -- as a nation -- bear responsibility for this atrocity, an unrecognized responsibility. (See "What is it like to be tortured?" and the fothcoming "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
It is undisputed that we must now speak of more than a million civilian as well as military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet even the daily killing of American soldiers barely registers on the numbed sensibilities of television viewing Americans. Are those million-plus lives of innocent children, old people, civilians making us safer in the "War on Terror"? I doubt it. Are we not in danger of becoming the "terror" for billions of others throughout the world? Will we not face the rage of survivors of our war effort who are not pleased at the murder of their loved-ones? At what point will we have revenged the killing of several thousand victims on 9/11 with the murder of millions of "little brown people" since that date and deaths of thousands of American military people, every day? (Noise and distractions have suddenly arrived at my window.)
The earthquake in China was a blip on newscasts yesterday where the lead stories concerned the possible winner on America's Next Top Model and a newscaster cursing over the airwaves. This brutalization of America's political and moral culture is not unrelated to the sort of television programs that are popular -- American Gladiators, Survivor, America's Next Top Model, along with many other "shows" seem to depict a nation celebrating ruthlessness in competition and a near total absence of ethical constraints on self-interested conduct. It is usually such brutal persons who speak to us of "ethics." Ethics? (See "Maurice J. Gallipoli and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
New Jersey's mafia-saturated tribunals, for example, have sanctioned grotesque tortures of jail inmates as well as secret violations of citizens' rights, which must have been known to the highest authorities in the state entrusted with preventing such criminality and upholding the Constitution's promise of civil liberties for everyone. No one cares. Less than a century after the events of the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, Pol Pot, Rwanda, and the recent atrocities in the former Yugoslavia evoke only a yawn among young people: "Each day that the cover-up of crimes against humanity continues is a renewal of the tortures." (See "A Letter From the DRB, in New Jersey!" and "Another Letter From the DRB, in New Jersey!")
In coming to understand what makes such horror possible and how it can be that persons, willingly, abandon their humanity in crowds, one is forced into the presence of the mystery of evil just as surely as men and women were forced to face this abyss after the events of the Second World War. We are still baffled and numbed at what is possible for ordinary men and women in dark times. (See "How to be a Politician or a Lawyer in New Jersey" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
"In the nascent American republic," George Steiner writes, "Thoreau found most of his fellow citizens living lives of 'quiet desperation.' Today, these desperations grow raucous and impatient. I have had neither the compulsion nor the courage to enter politics. In Aristotelean terms, such abstention amounts to idiocy. It gives to the thugs, the corrupt, and the mediocre every incentive and opportunity to take over."
In New Jersey -- perhaps as a result of a failure of nerve on the part of judges -- they have taken over. The daily criminalities emanating from police officers and government agencies are clearly beyond the control of the authorities. This means that, within a short time, in the worst jurisdictions -- like the Garden State -- men with guns will wield the real power. Laws and those concerned with their application will be marginalized and indulged, until they become troublesome -- when these statutes and legal functionaries will simply be removed through smears in the media or by means of hypnosis-induced interrogations, or possibly by being confronted with embarassments in their private lives. America has turned into the Weimar Republic.
Men with guns and big muscles (but small brains) tend to dislike subtle arguments and abstract ideas. They are impatient with language and its elusive beauties as well as revelations. More can be accomplished quickly by beating up a person, whether that person is a criminal or not. In fact, a concern with such subtleties and laws -- or even bothering to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt -- may reveal the very "abnormality" that must not be tolerated by the protectors of America's "goodness." Meanwhile, dissent and squeamishness about the "dark side" is a sure sign that persons deserve a beating -- or worse, hesitating to resort to violence may be an indication of male homosexuality. Freedom is not for everyone. Freedom may not be for anyone in such a "carceral continuum." (Michel Foucault) Enslavement and preventive imprisonment, according to Fascists, may be for the victim's "own good."
"The sum of my politics is to try and support whatever social order is capable of reducing, even marginally, the aggregate of hatred and pain in the human circumstance. And which allows privacy and excellence breathing space."
Compassion and solidarity may be seen as evidence of "softness" (male anxieties of the Freudian sort are clear in the use of such a word) in response to crime. One is embarassed to read that:
"The Enlightenment, voices as clairvoyant as Voltaire's and Jefferson's, had proclaimed an end to judicial torture, to the burning of dissenters and of books. [To all Star Chamber-like 'secret proceedings.'] The abolition of slavery was imminent. Nineteenth century positivism and a spectrum of liberal and of socialist messianic programs, Marxism foremost among them, had envisioned mankind on a long, sometimes tortuous, but inherently certain march towards political emancipation, social justice, economic well-being, and peace (whose universality Kant had deemed a realistic concept)." (Steiner)
No one expresses such hopes today. "Hope" on the part of Senator Barak Omaba is enough for Mr. Carville to refer to the Senator from Illinois as "not manly enough." Is that sort of accusation not what Senator Clinton's candidacy was meant to eradicate? I thought so. My sense of despair and sadness is heavy today. At the same time, my commitment to struggle against this drift towards totalitarianism is iron-like and indestructible. Resort to the race card, challenges to the masculinity of "liberals" (what if they're women?), wedge politics, and other disgusting campaign tactics I hoped would be left behind cause me to wonder, again, about what we have become in the aftermath of 9/11:
"It is up to us to determine whether to foster racial hatreds and prejudices. It is up to us whether we learn from the Holocaust of Europe and apply what we learn to our own lives. It is up to us to develop a truly democratic nation where we and our children can live without bickering, without hatreds, emotionally secure because we are" -- or we will finally become -- "an emotionally mature nation." (Kelley)
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