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Sympathy For the Devil: Giuliani Gets Cancer
By Robert Lederman
["4/27/2000 NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani announced on Thursday he had prostate cancer, but it was unclear if
his condition would affect his probable Republican candidacy for the U.S. Senate
against first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton."]
Let me start by saying I sincerely hope Mayor Giuliani recovers from prostate
cancer and does so quickly with as little pain or discomfort as possible. Whatever
his faults and whatever his misdeeds he is my fellow human being and as such
is as deserving of my empathy and forgiveness as anyone else.
That said, let me not jump on the bandwagon of Giuliani critics, reporters
and political commentators who, before even a single day has passed since the
diagnosis was made public, are rushing to praise the Mayor's newfound courage,
openness and compassion.
This is a man who from his earliest days as an attorney earned a well-deserved
reputation for being exceptionally nasty, exceptionally vindictive and heartlessly
cruel. A man who is renowned for suppressing public information on the most
vital matters of public concern, for misusing statistics and for refusing to
answer the most basic questions about his personal life and views. Since being
elected in 1993 the Mayor has consistently and with great enthusiasm abused
his power to persecute the City's poor, its non-white ethnic communities and
especially his critics.
This a man who shut off City Hall to both the public and elected officials
in order to stifle criticism; who ordered police to pry the medallions off cabs
whose drivers dared to engage in a lawful protest; who after his police shot
yet another unarmed innocent Black man while engaging in racial profiling surrounded
the grieving participants in his funeral march with an army of heavily-armed
police in riot gear.
This is a man who has ordered the false arrests of thousands and who has ordered
the illegal stopping and frisking of hundreds of thousands based solely on their
skin color. This is a man who has had hundreds of homeless people falsely arrested
simply for existing in "his" city; maligned them all as mentally disturbed drug
addicts and then ordered his agency heads to take their children from them if
they refused to participate in his forced workfare program-a program riddled,
according to the NYC Comptroller, with corruption and cronyism.
This is a man who ordered bulldozers to tear down community gardens in the
dead of night, who tried to eliminate remedial programs supporting Black and
Latino students in the City universities and who used tanks to evict homeless
squatters from abandoned buildings.
This is the Mayor who ordered the false arrests of more than seven hundred
artists and had tens of thousands of pieces of their original art destroyed
without ever bringing a single artist to trial; the man who in 1997 asked the
U.S. Supreme Court to rule that visual art did not express ideas and was unworthy
of First Amendment protection; the same man who ordered one of the City's oldest
and most respected museums evicted simply because he didn't approve of a painting
they exhibited.
This is a man who wanted to close City hospitals in poor neighborhoods where
they were the sole provider of health care; who attempted to privatize the Emergency
Medical Service (EMS) as a favor to a major campaign contributor resulting in
uninsured patients being driven at great risk to distant hospitals and who has
consistently tried to replace union workers-entitled to guaranteed health benefits
and insurance-with uninsured non-union workers many of whom are the victims
of his corruption-ridden workfare program.
This is a man who threw hundreds of thousands off welfare by questionable and
often illegal means; illegally withheld food stamps from the poor (according
to the Federal government); denied drug addicts treatment and cut the budget
for schools and libraries while giving his wealthiest corporate contributors
more than one billion dollars per year in unjustified tax write-offs.
This is a man who has the taxpayers cars ticketed, towed, seized and sold at
police department auctions by the tens of thousands each month while giving
campaign contributors free parking passes and even entire streets where parking
is reserved for their limousines.
This is a man who illegally unsealed juvenile court records solely in order
to sully the reputation of an innocent man killed by the police; who has consistently
refused to express condolences or regret to the families and survivors of police
brutality under his administration and who has his police arrest children for
being ten minutes late to school. Yet, this is also a man who has the nerve
to call Federal marshals, the U.S. Attorney General and the President of the
United States Storm Troopers when they return a boy to his sole living parent.
While we are sympathetically pondering the frightening specter of dealing with
cancer let us not forget that less than one year ago it was this same man who
ordered his appointees in the Department of Health and the Office of Emergency
Management to repeatedly spray the entire City with an oganophosphate nerve
gas, Malathion. This unprecedented mass aerial spraying was supposedly done
to fight a mosquito-borne virus that the Mayor's own press releases admitted
is rarely fatal and generally leaves those infected with no ill effects whatsoever.
As documents since recovered from the OEM prove, both he and his appointees
fully knew that this chemical was considered by the Federal government, by numerous
scientists and by the legislatures of some states and foreign nations to be
a dangerous human carcinogen; an immediate and potentially fatal risk to those
with asthma; a likely cause of birth defects, miscarriages and deformities;
a major immune system suppresser and a probable cause of long-term DNA mutations
in both humans and animals.
The Mayor appeared on television numerous times specifically in order to disinform
the public about the real nature of the risks he was subjecting us to. Contrary
to the labels on the product used which specifically state it must never be
sprayed on humans and that exposure to vapors, liquid or other forms of the
chemical should be avoided at all costs, the Mayor repeatedly stated that it
was "completely safe" and falsely claimed on a number of occasions that he and
other City officials had been directly sprayed with no ill effects.
The Mayor set up a so-called hotline in order that the public could contact
the Department of Health in the event they had questions or felt any ill effects
from the spraying. The hotline consistently gave out false information to more
than 100,000 callers and told thousands of people who reported suffering symptoms
of chemical illness that it was all in their heads and that the chemicals were
completely safe-a statement that, as NY State Attorney General Spitzer has repeatedly
warned the Mayor, it is illegal to make.
Considering the facts we can say that viewed in the best light possible the
Mayor undertook this mass spraying for political reasons in order to appear
decisive. Seen in the worst light possible it appears to have been a deliberate
attempt to damage the health of millions of unsuspecting citizens as part of
a bio-warfare or Eugenics experiment.
It is inevitable that there will be a public outpouring of sympathy for the
Mayor in light of his getting cancer. That is because most people in this City
and nation are decent and honorable human beings who want to believe that our
leaders are as good as we are. Many if not most of those who are his outspoken
critics will inevitably feel compelled to, at the very least, tone down if not
altogether cut out their criticism.
It may seem cold of me to suggest that the Mayor and his advisors are planning
to exploit his medical condition for maximum political effect and have already
begun to do so. However, it seems impossible to ignore the fact that a man who
has refused for seven years to answer virtually any question about his marriage,
his children, his personal life or the actual workings of his administration
is suddenly offering himself up for interviews and press statements with total
candor about this exceptionally personal and intimate condition.
The timing of this medical emergency could not have been better for the Mayor
from a political perspective. We can now expect countless puff pieces in the
compromised media about how Giuliani is showing a new side of himself, how his
experience has mellowed him and how he has developed a new sense of compassion
for the suffering of others.
Hillary Clinton will not dare to make even the mildest attacks on Giuliani's
character now and will instead be forced by circumstances to wish him a swift
recovery at every opportunity or risk appearing heartless and inhuman.
Every political figure, minister and talking head who has previously attacked
Giuliani as a racist, as a demagogue or as a corrupt panderer to his political
cronies is already lining up for their soundbite wishing the Mayor good health
and a quick recovery. He in turn is publicly embracing, both literally and figuratively,
some of his previously most outspoken critics.
Let us in all sincerity wish this man well but as we do, let us never forget
how he has consistently wished us ill. Cancer is a terrible disease that I literally
wouldn't wish on my worst enemy-and the Mayor is as close to a worst enemy as
I hope to ever have. I truly hope the Mayor will recover-but I for one will
not ignore the past seven years of misery and devisiveness he has deliberately
caused in this City.
Forgive yes; forget, no.
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Thursday April 27
New York Mayor Giuliani Has Prostate Cancer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced on Thursday
he had prostate cancer, but it was unclear if his condition would affect his
probable Republican candidacy for the U.S. Senate against first lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton.
``I was diagnosed yesterday with prostate cancer. It is treatable and at an
early stage,'' the tough, crime-fighting Giuliani told a news conference at
City Hall. ``It is also at a very early stage of determining what to do about
it.''
Giuliani, who turns 56 on May 28, told reporters that aside from the prostate
cancer that was revealed by a biopsy Wednesday, he was ``in very good health,
in great shape.''
The mayor said it was not immediately clear whether the cancer would affect
his expected race against Democrat Clinton in the November election for the
Senate seat opened by the retirement of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
``In fairness to me, the Senate race, the Republican Party and to all the parties
and everybody else you need some time to think about it,'' said Giuliani, who
has not formally declared his intention to run in what has already become one
of the closest-watched political contests for years. ``I really need to know
what the course of treatment is going to be.''
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com (718) 743-3722
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
April 28, 2000
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