I’d only planned to write one guest blog this weekend, but this morning on Huffington Post I saw a video from a TED lecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_%28conference%29 The lecture was from Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus who has been studying false memories since the 1970’s. She links what she discovered with one of the failings of our Criminal Justice System, with the false memories reported in court. This is an 18 minute lecture but it is well worth your time and bears directly on the topics we discuss here on the Law Blog. I must note that in it she is critical of certain psychotherapy techniques and I am a psychotherapist. Despite my training and profession I believe her critiques are on point and illustrate one of the problems inherent in some psychotherapies. For any readers that are interested in our legal system and who care about its problems, viewing this will represent time well spent. My technical skills are such that I don’t know how to properly make the video appear in WordPress but if you click on the following link you will be able to see it: Mystery of Memory
We have had a lot of discussions here about the ever growing private prison system in the United States, where our country has become the world leader in imprisoning its citizens. Many blogs have been written discussing our world prison leadership and the fact that it stems from the failed “War on Drugs”, which has tended to focus on people in poverty and/or people of color. The for-profit prison industry has had a growth spurt that can be directly traced to that aspect of the conservative movement that has disparaged government services and at the same time pushed for privatization of government services using the false concept that private industry can do it better and cheaper. It is an ideas that to me seems nonsensical on its face because of the absolute need that private industry turns a profit and in today’s economic scheme that profit has to continually rise as time passes. Business strategy, which by definition, must focus on profit has focused on cutting costs as a means of building profit. Cutting costs then devolves into hiring less skilled workers, cutting down on services provided and in a business like private prisons reducing the quality of care. When ot comes to reduction of services and diminishing of quality of care when it comes to the prison industry, I’m sure that the majority of public opinion would approve of even more draconian measures. After all those convicted of a crime are generally scorned and feared. Muscular fundamentalist philosophy has discarded the Jesus of turn the other cheek into a Jesus of vengeance and so there is even in some circles moral approval of treating prison inmates harshly. There is now a widespread use of solitary confinement as a tool of prison punishment and that confinement has stretched from weeks, too months and too years. We are after all, a society that has a majority of Americans for torture in our post 9/11 era.
In 2008 we saw the opening of a scandal in Pennsylvania where it was discovered that juvenile court judges were sentencing youths to prison for minor offenses because they had received money from sources in the private prison industry. Two judges were convicted in this case and it was seen that many youths were adversely affected and are now suing for unlawful imprisonment. It is this profiting on the imprisonment of youth that I would like to address broadly in this blog. For the most part my reference links will appear at its conclusion. This is a very disturbing problem that I think cuts to the heart of what kind of society we want to live in and I would hope that others find this as disturbing as I do. Continue reading “The Private Prisons Profit on Youth”→
Kennedy family member Michael Skakel has long sought a new trial in the killing of Martha Moxley, a neighbor bludgeoned to death by a golf club in 1975. In a surprise ruling, Judge Thomas Bishop found that Skakel was denied a fair trial due to ineffective counsel. Bishop’s opinion slams Skakel’s original legal counsel, Michael Sherman, as failing basic expectations of a lawyer and suggests, as the family has argued, that he was obsessed or blinded by the media attention in the case.
Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe) Guest Blogger
“Nobody is in charge.”
“Low and middle level bureaucrats have no power to make anything happen. The only way they can have any sense of personal worth and power comes from their ability to obstruct.”
– Dr. Dwight W. Allen, Dean Emeritus, College of Education, University of Mass., Amherst.
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In 1971, I was having lunch with Dr. Dwight Allen. The conversation was wide ranging, but he has strong views on educational institutions, school boards, why irate parents are irate and making institutions more accountable. At that time the Vietnam war was dragging on, and his views on entrenched power structures applied to our difficulty extricating ourselves from that as well. He co-authored American Schools: The $100 Billion Challenge, with one of his former doctoral students, Dr. William H. Cosby. You may have heard of Dr. Cosby.
Some people use the term “bureaucrat” as an epithet. When George Wallace ran for President in 1972, he railed against “bureaucrats,” saying he was going to take all their briefcases and throw them into the Potomac. Wallace conveniently ignored the fact as Governor of Alabama, he was in charge of a huge bureaucracy that had exactly the same problems he said he was going to fix.
Decades ago, Dr. Laurence Peter pointed out that all organizations with a hierarchical management structure are bureaucracies. Dr. Peter analyzed those structures, and reported many of the same issues Dr. Allen shared with me over lunch. He coined the term, “Peter Principle” to describe how otherwise competent people rise through the ranks until they achieve their “level of incompetence.”
Recently, we see those observations applying to people who are caught up in a Kafkaesque drama at city hall and municipal traffic courts. Public officials and offices are not the only culprits. There are countless tales of woe from people trying to deal with big banks, mortgage companies and faceless collection agencies. Those are problems likely to have more direct effect on us personally than global events in Washington, London or Kabul.
Let’s take the case of Capt. Dave. Dave Petrich, of West Seattle, WA mostly navigates boats around the Puget Sound area rather than vehicles with wheels; hence’ his nickname, “Capt. Dave.” The good captain restores old wooden schooners and runs maritime-history tours. As he put it, “I like to put old boats back to work.”
It has always seemed to me that the use of nuclear energy is a bad idea given the current technology. My opinion is perhaps formed because I was in school during the 1950’s and due to the “Cold War” and the bomb tests, there developed in most of us, a deep fear of nuclear annihilation. I can remember watching in fascinated fear, in 1952, as they exploded a Hydrogen Bomb at Eniwetok, one of the Marshall Islands. The blast was covered on TV as I guess a reassurance to the American People of the power and might of our government and to give us a feeling of safety from those “Commies” in the USSR. Being eight years old at the time this demonstration of US power was not comforting in the slightest. We had “duck and cover” exercises in Elementary School, where we would go under our desks and cover our eyes in case of a nuclear attack. Given the actual nuclear explosions I had witnessed on TV, the idea that “duck and cover” would save me cast a skeptical suspicion in my eight year old mind.
As I grew I learned that beyond the immediate effect of a nuclear blast, the subsequent radiation was even more dangerous. Radiation poisoning could maim you and it could kill you in a slow, lingering death. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings did more than just kill many people. Beyond the maiming of the immediate victims who survived, we learned about the rates of cancer which were off the charts, especially in the infants of pregnant women. As the threat of nuclear destruction faded, the idea of radiation poisoning was nevertheless present as the United States began using nuclear power and a large industry sprang up around it. The industry was fostered by the then named Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which was soon in thrall of the industry it was supposed to regulate. As with cigarette smoking the stories of rising cancer rates were downplayed by the AEC and the “nuclear industry. The AEC has now become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) because the AEC had developed the reputation as an industry shill, rather than regulator. This is hardly a surprise because it seems that all government regulation today is in the hands of industry lobbyists and an exchange program where the regulators find jobs with the industry they regulate. The “revolving door”. Continue reading “Nuclear Musings”→
There are two arrests in Florida after the suicide of 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick (left) who was bullied on the Internet, including at least one mocking posting by one of the girls after the suicide. The two girls (aged 14 and 12) have been charged with felonies.
A Malaysian appeals court on Monday showed once again how a religious based legal system is fundamentally at odds with not just freedom of speech but freedom of religion. The court upheld an abusive government ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah.” Other faiths are now barred from using the term after the court upheld a law previously struck down by a lower court.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
We have discussed the thousands who have been killed by guns in this country on several occasions on Professor Turley’s blog and we have seen some of the same responses from both sides of the discussions about reasonable restrictions on gun ownership and use. Some say that any restriction on gun ownership, no matter how small, is a violation of their Second Amendment rights.
Some of those who are in favor of reasonable gun control measures, point to the sheer numbers of women and children and men who die each day due to senseless murders and sorrowful accidents. Emotional arguments and reasons have been offered by both sides of the discussion, but yet not a single worthwhile National gun control measure has become law and the killings and deaths continue unabated.
To my dismay and shock, not even the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, where 20 small school children and 6 staff members lost their lives to an arguably mentally ill shooter, produced any resulting legislation that could be argued offers some relief in the ever larger numbers of gun deaths.
While researching this article I had trouble finding articles written on this subject after April of 2013. There were many articles, including articles on this blog from December of 2012 through April of 2013, but very little since. In light of the dearth of media interest since April of this year, I am curious about what it will take for the United States of America to decide it is time to stop killing itself? Continue reading “When Will We Decide to Stop the Killings by Guns?”→
Last week, I wrote a post titled Looking at the Causes of the Public Pension Problem in America. In it, I provided some reasons why states and municipalities may not be able to meet their pension obligations to retiring workers: the financial meltdown and subsequent loss of billions of dollars in pension fund money, the willful underfunding of public worker pensions by states and municipalities, and the “borrowing” of pension money “to finance other budget needs.”
I did not mean to imply that many public pension plans should not be revisited…that many may not need to be reformed…that some individuals aren’t abusing the system. Still, we have not been getting the whole story about the “public pension crisis” in America from the mainstream media. I hope to provide more information on the subject to readers of this blog as I continue my research to find out what’s really going on with public pension reform in this country.
The Institute for America’s Future recently published a report on the subject of pension reform titled The Plot against Pensions, which was written by David Sirota. In his report, Sirota said that many of the pension reforms being advocated today are akin to “President George W. Bush’s proposal to radically alter Social Security”—in that they would “transform stable public pension funds into individualized accounts.” He adds that these pension reforms “would most often reduce millions of Americans’ guaranteed retirement benefits. In many cases, they would also increase expenses for taxpayers and enrich Wall Street hedge fund managers.”
Last week I wrote two guests blogs that were essentially two sides of the same coin. “How We Are Manipulated #1” and “The Decline of Journalism” were akin in that in the former I was writing about the use of “False Equivalency” that has long been a propaganda tool, especially from the wealthy backers of the conservative movement and the bland acceptance of “False Equivalency” by our mainstream media. I receive “E mails” each week from “Media Matters for America” the organization that examines bias in the media. http://mediamatters.org/ . This organization often provides me with ideas for this blog and I think performs a yeoman service for the people in this country who wish to clear the mental fog of propaganda, supplied by people who want to destroy the democratic process, and that has bombarded us since the Age of Reagan. These people own the major media and/or use their media ownership to ensure that the truth about our country is not only hidden, but subsumed in a planned torrent of propaganda. In this piece I will continue my series by providing various quotations that serve as examples, or admonishment of the prevalence of “False Equivalency” memes in the media. Links will be supplied at the end of this blog. Continue reading “False Equivalency: How We Are Manipulated #2”→
As a Jew who is familiar with “The Gospels” there is something perplexing about some Christians in America who have risen to power in our political process within the last four decades. Much of Jesus message, as detailed in “The Gospels” has been one of sympathy to the poor, enmity to the rich and love for humanity. I can give you the time tested quotes but just about everyone is familiar with them. Indeed through my childhood and formative teen years Christmastime every year would yield endless repetition of “Peace on Earth, Good Will to All Men”. Sometime in the 1970’s people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell gained prominence and political power preaching their version of Christianity. These Christians became Kingmakers as it was assumed and actually true that their millions of followers would vote as a bloc. The Christianity that they preached had little to do with the American Christianity that I grew up with. To be sure their teachings on sexuality differed little from Christian thought for the previous 1,700 years and so abortion was evil, virginity was prized and sexuality was to be performed in subscribed methodology. What was different was that this version of Christian belief was a far more muscular and mach one. War was good when fought for American principles of capitalism and self interest. The wealthy needn’t worry about the “eye of the camel.” Poverty was seen as the result of moral failure. Rendering unto Caesar (the Government) was no longer the moral thing to do.
Now knowing history there were always periods where certain Christian leaders were in favor of warfare, favored the wealthy and sought to kill non-believers. Nevertheless, all through those era’s the same message of peace and love was preached as doctrine, whilst the religious leadership ignored the dichotomy of their own works. However, hypocrisies have always existed in every religious belief. The overriding principles always remained static, even if logic had to be twisted to ignore the obvious dichotomy. This is certainly true of the religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that each give their own interpretation of the “Torah.” The most glaring example of this is the entire Chapter of Genesis, which is literally riddled with dichotomy. Who did Cain, Abel and Seth marry and where did their brides come from? The standard method of dismissing these dichotomies was to ignore them and censor the questioner. Today though, in certain Christian circles these overarching principles derived from the teachings of Jesus have become ignored, to be replaced by a new “Dominionist” view, which would turn Jesus into a warlike, wealthy Republican that hated government and taxes. That is the subject of this guest blog. Continue reading “Ted Cruz, Dominionism and Jesus”→
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev appears to have taken a lesson from Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen: “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” However, Aliyev has modified it to “victory first, votes second.” The authoritarian regime was slightly embarrassed when the state media released the results of the election showing Aliyev winning with 72.76 percent of the vote. The problem is that the polls had not opened yet.
We have been following the extraordinary case of the family terrorized by a gang of bikers in New York city. Alexian Lien, 33, was beaten and slashed in the attack which came after a long chase by the bikers. Previously, Christopher Cruz, 28. Cruz was charged with reckless endangerment, menacing, reckless driving and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17. A second suspect — Allen Edwards, 42, of Queens, was charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and menacing. He is believed to be the man seen on video below striking the Range Rover windows with his fists in the video below. The man with the chrome-colored helmet is reported to be Reginald Chance, 38, of Brooklyn. Another man, Robert Sims, 35, of Brooklyn has also been arrested. As many as five men appear to have beaten Lien, though the criminality would seem to extend to other bikers who trapped and pursued the family. It now appears that at least two off-duty police officers may have been present at the chase and/or beating of the family and did not immediately intervene or come forward.
In the past couple of years, we’ve heard many reports from the mainstream media about how the pension funds of public sector workers are experiencing shortfalls and how they are bankrupting states and municipalities that may be unable to fulfill their pension obligations. All of the blame for this problem has been laid at the feet of public sector workers and their unions. Have the mainstream media presented the public with a true picture of the “pension crisis”—or have they just been repeating the talking points fed to them by certain politicians, organizations, and think tanks? Are “greedy” public sector workers and their unions truly responsible for the “pension crisis”—or are there other causes that are at the root of the problem?
I’d only planned to write one guest blog this weekend, but this morning on Huffington Post I saw a video from a TED lecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_%28conference%29 The lecture was from Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus who has been studying false memories since the 1970’s. She links what she discovered with one of the failings of our Criminal Justice System, with the false memories reported in court. This is an 18 minute lecture but it is well worth your time and bears directly on the topics we discuss here on the Law Blog. I must note that in it she is critical of certain psychotherapy techniques and I am a psychotherapist. Despite my training and profession I believe her critiques are on point and illustrate one of the problems inherent in some psychotherapies. For any readers that are interested in our legal system and who care about its problems, viewing this will represent time well spent. My technical skills are such that I don’t know how to properly make the video appear in WordPress but if you click on the following link you will be able to see it: Mystery of Memory 
