View From The Left Coast

The recent police shooting death of Cheri Moore is a whole lot more complicated than it appears. With dozens, maybe hundreds of people in Humboldt County dependent on chemicals to keep them even close to sane, no one wants to see the army of people who at any time can “quit taking their meds� and go completely wacko. Only then do they legally move into the world of 5150 (dangerous to themselves or others). Only then do we decide to do SOMETHING with/to them, right or wrong.

None of this is new to the police or County Social Services people: they deal with Cheri Moores every day. Her diary tells the story of a daily existence basically confined to her home, surrounded by “enemies� (like police and landlords), watching television and taking methamphetamine. This happy, productive existence is only allowed by the anti-psychotic medications she was taking. When she quit taking it, all bets were off. And when a person starts pointing weapons at police, the most you can hope for is that she can be “subdued�, “taken into custody�, and “forcibly medicated.�

See anything wrong with this picture? Now multiply it by several million.

There’s plenty of blame to go around in this story: St. Ronald Reagan for closing the insane asylums in California when he was governor, the courts and the legal system for failing to deal with people who really need constant supervision and care, the police for not having the tools and the expertise to peaceably disarm an apparently violent armed person, her brother and the rest of her family for not taking care or her, and Cheri herself for deciding not to take her medications. And the rest of us for not looking at this problem and dealing with it.

When I had a business in Arcata some years ago, there was an otherwise nice-looking young man from a good local family, who, from time to time, would end up walking down the middle of the street roaring obscenities and violent threats at anyone he saw, until he was picked up by police, taken to Sempervirons, put back on his medications, and released. Within a few days, he would quit taking his meds, and the whole cycle would start again. This went on for years.

I don’t know Cheri’s history, but I’m willing to bet this wasn’t the first time she’d been 5150ed.

If you look at all the things we expect the police to deal with, things that we as a society refuse to deal with ourselves—the poor, the insane, the drunk, the old, the dead—is it any wonder they don’t always make the decisions all of us would like them to make?

So the police had to deal with Cheri again, this time as a coroner’s case. Letters to the editor heap scorn on the police for shooting her, the newspaper for reporting it, Social Services for not intervening to save her. But nobody is talking about how to deal with all the other Cheri’s out there, ticking, ticking. . .and waiting until the police have to deal with them too.

Clearly these people need supervision: as much as we’d like for them to have full, meaningful, independent lives, many of them never will. We could say their families are responsible for them, and make their families civilly and criminally liable for what they do. We could reopen asylums where they could be cared for the rest of their lives. We could provide for mandatory, daily anti-psychotic medication.

Or we could do what we’re doing now—nothing—and let the police pick up the pieces when things fall apart.

Posted by Walt Frazer at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The fact we are tripping merrily down the road to “dictatorship� (Sandra Day O’Connor’s word) isn’t in itself so surprising or even interesting (many others have tried to nudge us down that path) as is the question of HOW we have gotten past the watchdogs, the courts, the press, and pluralism.

Clearly our “elected� officials are no help, when we are assigned opposition candidates like Hilary Clinton, who is happy to take money from Mafiosi in return for clemency, or from good ol’ Jack Abramoff, happily backs the war for oil, Alberto the Torturer, etc, etc. Damn near all of them are on the take. Even the few, like Mike Thompson, who dare to vote against the money, and give back Abramoff’s filthy lucre, are running scared from Cheney’s foxy network of overt and covert (Lincoln Group) “press� outlets. The problem with Congress is not that the Republicans control it: the problem is that both parties are dominated by money. That being the case, corporations are not just persons. . .they are SUPER persons.

I recently got the 2006 Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement for AT&T, which includes a few interesting things. First, there is a statement that the former SBC Communications (now AT&T) has now bought back another of the Baby Bells it was forced to sell after antitrust litigation 22 years ago. I think that makes three out of five it has recaptured. The “busted� trust is unbusting itself.

Second was the statement of compensation for the directors. During the past three years, the CEO was paid between 15 and 20 million dollars. Each year. I think that does not include deferred payments. Not as much as Kenny Lay was making from Enron, but his family won’t be skipping meals.

Finally, there is a proposal that was put forward by the shareholders, opposed by “your directors�, that the company disclose how much shareholders’ money it donates each year to various political entities, and the business rationale for doing so. The shareholders quote the Center for Responsive Politics as reporting SBC donated over $1.4 million in 2001-2 to political causes. “Your Directors,� in opposing the disclosure request, state that “political contributions, where permitted, are an important part of the legislative process.� They go on to say that the decisions about who to contribute over $1,000 to are made by the CEO, with company lawyers making sure it’s legal.

These contributions are more than an “important part�: they’re the whole game. “Your Directors� know that if this really came to light, shareholders, voters, and other annoying untermenschen might put up a fuss. The proposal will go down to defeat, of course: who is counting the votes, after all?

As for that other erstwhile protector of American freedom, the press, we got a good look at why they aren’t much help this past week when the good folks who run St. Joseph’s Hospital showed how corporate “spin control� is done: you hand feed the press with your version of “truth�, and if somebody presumes to tell a different story, like the North Coast Journal did, you destroy the evidence. Hell, it worked for Kenny. In this case, Judy Hodgson once again showed what the press is SUPPOSED to do: find out the real truth for themselves, rather than relying on canned news.
The Times-Standard ran a story about the folks who own the Reporter giving $20,000 to a Georgia candidate with ties to Bush, Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon. There’s Realpolitik for you! Another couple of years and that story won’t run at all.

There ARE a few real Americans out there, trying to stop us from turning into another Nazi Germany, but damn few. So far, too few.

Posted by Walt Frazer at 02:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Amnesty is defined as “an act of justice by which the supreme power in a state restores those who have been found guilty of an offense against it to the position of innocence. It includes more than ‘pardon’ inasmuch as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the offense.� The root is the Greek word for “oblivion�.

Considering its roots, amnesty is particularly apt, since there have been seven immigration amnesties in the last 20 years, and we all seem to forget that every time those in charge always promise there won’t be any others, and that steps will be taken to insure there is no more illegal immigration.
And like political reform, some action is taken that is intentionally useless.
In the current debate, the Cheney Administration has once again wrapped itself in the sheep’s clothing of the downtrodden: while catering to the wishes of the rich for ever cheaper labor, they say they’re doing it for the good of the poor undocumented workers. They also wrapped themselves in the sheep’s clothing of journalists when refusing to admit Cheney gave Valerie Plame’s name to his journalist pals to punish her husband for telling the truth. More recently they had the gall to imply the people in the torture camp at Guantanamo were there for their own protection.
Spin notwithstanding, I have some problems with amnesty and “guest worker� programs.
First, if we need these workers so badly, and they’re already here working, how does the society benefit from making them legal? Second, if they become legal, and demand better wages, won’t their scofflaw employers will fire them and hire more illegals who will work for peanuts?
But the big question is “Who is harmed?� Columnist Clarence Page wrote recently, “There’s hardly any job Americans won’t fill if you offer them decent pay. But why offer more pay when you’re seeking someone to work in your fields, baby-sit your children, tend your garden, work in your factory, bus your restaurant tables, lay your bricks, or put up your drywall when you can hire an illegal worker who will worker who will work longer hours for less money with less complaint?�
“As a result,� Page continues, “millions of undocumented immigrants have gained an economic foothold on the American dream, while millions of the sort of people who used to fill those jobs, particularly undereducated black men, languish on the street.�
And as more and more former employees of Ford, GM and Chrysler are hitting the bricks, and more and more manufacturing jobs are sent to China and Mexico, the people being harmed by these endless amnesties are legal Americans. Other than expecting to make a living wage, what crime have THEY committed?
So who really benefits? Who is really behind this continued temporary suspension of our immigration laws? The people who want cheap labor to get even cheaper. The folks who aren’t afraid of the current and future laws they have broken, are breaking and will continue to break. Those are the ones who pay “our� legislators to pass immigration amnesty laws, again and again. They paid Bush Senior, they paid Bill Clinton, and they’re paying W.
And we pay, too.

Posted by Walt Frazer at 05:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)