By now everybody heard the story of a Jewish woman from Monsey who was arrested during the sweep on welfare fraud in the Rockland county, and who was mistreated during booking by the Ramapo PD officer - they forced her to remove her wig and she was forcefully fingerprinted by a male officer; the first part being excruciatingly humiliating (especially given the fact that she probably shaves her head), and the second one is a major no-no both halachically (some but not me would argue yeherog ve'al yaavor) and socially, since any cross-gender body contact with strangers is a big taboo and under the circumstances probably caused a severe psychological trauma. Christopher St. Lawrence proceeded to apologize to the community and promised to look into the actions of the PD; the apology itself cause an outroar about the usual "special treatment" for "those people", the selfless professionalism of Ramapo police and how "they" bought everything and St. Lawrence is just a puppet.
Some in the blogosphere jumped on the subject and predictably tried and convicted her on all charges. The usual lectures about how rampantly corrupt "they" are and how dare "they" steal and more so , to the extent where "they" should be licking the ground of the goldene medine and be following every comma and apostrophe of every code of law ever written by man.
What was left completely unattended, both in the media and by the bloggers, are the relevant facts. First of all, some minimum wage journalist upgraded her charges to "welfare fraud in the 1-st degree" and others, not bothering to verify, propagated the word. 1st degree fraud, of course, had to exceed $1 million. This made an excellent cover story for anyone willing to bring an example of "them" bilking the system out of millions. Not to mention all those self-conscious moralizers preaching about how all criminals are criminals and should be shot on the spot or something to that tune. And the usual juicy stories about "them" picking up dope/hookers/weapons/you name it.
In reality, of course, this 24 year old woman was arrested along with her husband (9 years older then her) probably for having her signature on some forms they submitted to get Medicaid or welfare or who knows what. The amount involved ? USD $8,485.79. Staggering. Do you or the people convicting her even know what constitutes welfare fraud ? I strongly doubt that. Because the fact is that pretty much anybody applying for welfare probably can be charged with fraud, for the pettiest things on their application. Just like most homeowners can be convicted for mortgage fraud, as for past 10 years it was next to impossible to get a mortgage without fudging the numbers somewhat. This couple just got in the way and got railroaded. Out of 43 arrested, only three couples are identifiably frum and all three are charged with welfare fraud in rather modest amounts, all under $12,000. For comparison, others on the list allegedly took the State for anything from $100k and less.
So while this woman's crime is rather ephemeral and charges will probably be dismissed or reduced greatly, she and her family did undergo a very real, very harsh and long lasting punishment. She was physically assaulted, harassed, publicly humiliated and slandered for life with allegations of a crime she or her husband never committed and were never charged with - allegations that will remain with her forever, thank Google.
Was this cop doing his job ? I am sure he was. They always do. Even Eppolito and Caracappa were doing their jobs, and were excellent police officers. That's the idea actually - members of the law enforcement can do with you pretty much as they please, and if they are experienced enough they can get away with almost anything. They live in the system, have a vested interest in it and know every hook and nook of it, including every possible way of going after someone they simply don't like. It is unfortunate, but such is the way of it. I guess it's the lesser evil, and I'm sure that most of the time most of the cops are doing great things for which they should be very respected. But when they don't - it takes a real uproar to get anything looked at.
The keywords here are the same as elsewhere in this country : Selective Enforcement.
But getting back to the subject, consider how all these people, many of whom pretend to be observant Jews, treated this. They showed more eagerness to convict and stomp into earth, more vigor in accepting and embellishing every negativity there was then a police department and all the prosecutors combined. What follows is the old, often repeated, yet very hard to accept, truth : the last person you want to be judged by is such a yidele. You have more chances at getting justice with Al Sharpton and Muhammed Ali amongst your jurors, than you do with a panel of 12 mentchelech with shiny leather yarmulkes. Most convictors-in-absentia identify themselves as "MO", for what it's worth. And nobody ever, ever even considers anything remotely resembling "limud zechus". It probably is the most downtrodden mitzva ever ...
What follows is that other, farther away and more abstract, truth : given the current mindsets of American Judentum - all of them - the worst possible nightmare would be letting them anywhere near self-governance, under almost any circumstances. If that was to happen, the place would look like a cross between Buzescu, New Utrecht on a Sunday night and Pyongyang. "Developers" would fill every square inch with carton anthill housing, homeowners would "improve" their homes with five floors of recycled cement accented with faux-Louis XVII furniture and Thermador bidets; and "Chassidish With It" shomrim along with modern orthodox attorneys would form Mobile Justice Squadrons (a/k/a troykas) to go around, arrest and convict every breathing being for tax fraud. Evidence - they breathe, and that requires some ...
Bear that in mind next time you pick a jury ...
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Abwehr Mole in the US Command
This piece of sh!t never saw the frontlines or the inside of a tank. He wormed his way up the ranks of the US Army, and was right there to reap the victorial laures. His soldiers hated his pompousness and high pitches whine. And he paid them back with vicious hatred, disregard for privates' concern and outright harassment.
Select accounts from his biographers and his own speeches betray the man's inner animal and his utmost sympathies with the Nazional Socialism ideology and the very people he pretended to fight.
"According to witnesses, General Patton was visiting patients at a military hospital in Sicily, and came upon a 24-year old soldier who was weeping. Patton asked "What's the matter with you?" and the soldier replied, "It's my nerves, I guess. I can't stand shelling." Patton "thereupon burst into a rage" and "employing much profanity, he called the soldier a 'coward'" and ordered him back to the front. As a crowd gathered, including the hospital's commanding officer, the doctor who had admitted the soldier, and a nurse, Patton then "struck the youth in the rear of the head with the back of his hand". Reportedly, the nurse "made a dive toward Patton, but was pulled back by a doctor" and the commander intervened. Patton went to other patients, then returned and berated the soldier again."
"This happened to be the feast of Yom Kippur, so they were all collected in a large, wooden building, which they called a synagogue. It behooved General Eisenhower to make a speech to them. We entered the synagogue, which was packed with the greatest stinking bunch of humanity I have ever seen. When we got about halfway up, the head rabbi, who was dressed in a fur hat similar to that worn by Henry VIII of England and in a surplice heavily embroidered and very filthy, came down and met the General . . . The smell was so terrible that I almost fainted and actually about three hours later lost my lunch as the result of remembering it"
"[others may believe]... that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals"
"The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks"
Doesn't take much assumption to see that wherever and whenever this man was or would've been allowed a shred of discretion, he would act by the narrative of his ideology.
Looking closer at the pattern of his military decisions, which turned out to be some of the more spectacular failures on the record of US Army, there emerges a plausible explanation to all of it.
General Patton was a mole of Abwehr, highest ranking mole ever in the US Defense.
It's also not completely unreasonable to argue that he was liquidated as an Ally counter-intelligence measure - either by "friendly hands", US very own counter-intelligence units, or by MGB. Remember, he died as a result of a freak car accident.
"On December 9, 1945, in Germany a day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident. He and his chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, were on a daytrip to hunt pheasants in the country outside Mannheim. Their 1939 Cadillac Model 75 was driven by PFC Horace Woodring (1926 - 2003). Patton sat in the back seat, on the right with General Gay on his left, as per custom. At 11:45 near Neckarstadt, (Käfertal), a 2½ ton truck driven by Technical Sergeant Robert L. Thompson hit the car containing the general head on, Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. General Patton was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. Gay and Woodring were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism on December 21, 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present."
It's also not completely unreasonable to argue that he was liquidated as an Ally counter-intelligence measure - either by "friendly hands", US very own counter-intelligence units, or by MGB. Remember, he died as a result of a freak car accident.
"On December 9, 1945, in Germany a day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident. He and his chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, were on a daytrip to hunt pheasants in the country outside Mannheim. Their 1939 Cadillac Model 75 was driven by PFC Horace Woodring (1926 - 2003). Patton sat in the back seat, on the right with General Gay on his left, as per custom. At 11:45 near Neckarstadt, (Käfertal), a 2½ ton truck driven by Technical Sergeant Robert L. Thompson hit the car containing the general head on, Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. General Patton was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. Gay and Woodring were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism on December 21, 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present."
Back in 1945, it would've been simply an unacceptable embarrassment to have a purple-hearted and silver-starred decorated General of the US Army exposed as a Nazi Germany mole in the US Command. The magnitude of damage from such exposure would've eclipsed Aldridge Ames, Robert Hansen and all the other known moles as mere functionaries.
Someone did him in, and someone did him right.
Abstract of the week
Quoted verbatim from here.
"It is not that we now believe in the tenants of Conservative Judaism per say or that we are even observant to the level of true Conservative Jews who follow a halachic tradition."
The level of pathos is remarkable. All things said, this is an illustration of how a fact of people leaving "the fold" can inherently be a good thing.
"It is not that we now believe in the tenants of Conservative Judaism per say or that we are even observant to the level of true Conservative Jews who follow a halachic tradition."
The level of pathos is remarkable. All things said, this is an illustration of how a fact of people leaving "the fold" can inherently be a good thing.
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