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re: NY Post Editorial 3/20/99
THE GIULIANI PILE-ON
The Post is absolutely correct when it says protesters at One Police Plaza
including myself and members of A.R.T.I.S.T. are marching against Mayor Giuliani.
The Mayor is directly responsible for the problems of police brutality, racial
profiling, selective enforcement, false arrest and the systemic violations of
First Amendment freedom that distinguish his administration. It’s Giuliani and
his corporate backers who are the authors and direct beneficiaries of the racist
police state he’s been creating. Whatever problems of racial bias may have existed
within the NYPD before Giuliani became Mayor were institutionalized as policies
during his regime. Yes, we are comparing Giuliani to Hitler and demanding his
arrest as we would have done of the real Hitler had we been alive in 1933 Germany.
Arresting the four cops who, in a moment of incredibly bad police work, shot
an unarmed man 41 times, will do little to stop the institutionalized racism
of the Giuliani administration. The blame deserves to go where the “credit”
has gone; directly to the man on the balcony taking all the bows, Adolf Giuliani.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
255 13th Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215
(718) 369-2111
e mail ARTISTpres@aol.com
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
NY Post Editorial 3/20/99
THE GIULIANI PILE-ON
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City Comptroller Alan Hevesi showed class - and considerable courage - the
other day: He refused to jump on the Al Sharpton-led bandwagon that's trying
to cripple Mayor Giuliani's political career.
On Thursday, Hevesi made what is becoming an obligatory trip by New York Democrats
to Washington for a private audience with Hillary Rodham Clinton on the U.S.
Senate race. Mrs. Clinton, obviously eager for ammunition to use against Giuliani,
the likely Republican candidate, asked Hevesi about the Amadou Diallo case.
To his credit, Hevesi refused to take the bait. He pointedly declined to criticize
the mayor's handling of the situation, noting that Giuliani had offered to meet
with the Diallo family and pay their funeral expenses, and had attended the
slain man's memorial service. Indeed, Hevesi said, ''I think substantially in
this case the mayor has acted appropriately.'' This, he said, despite the fact
that Giuliani has become ''a lightning rod'' for protests.
That defines the situation exactly. As we've noted before, the ongoing protest
marches and celebrity ''civil disobedience'' have less to do with the shooting
of Amadou Diallo and more to do with Rudy Giuliani.
That, of course, is why Sharpton & Co. are marching against the mayor and don't
even mention Bronx DA Robert Johnson, who is in charge of the investigation
and whosegrand jury is hearing the evidence. That's why the signs carried by
those same demonstrators don't refer to Diallo but instead outrageously compare
the mayor to Adolf Hitler and call for his arrest.
But Sharpton and his cohorts are not alone in the use of over-the-top and disingenuous
rhetoric in this case. Public Advocate Mark Green's call for Police Commissioner
Howard Safir's resignation is among the more ridiculous suggestions.
Indeed, talk of ''the proven failure of this Police Department under Commissioner
Safir'' makes us wonder what city Mark Green lives in. It certainly isn't today's
New York.
In a similar vein is Thursday's statement by American Jewish Committee leaders
at City Hall that they ''stand with those people who are afraid to walk the
city's streets.''
Huh? Few, if any, New Yorkers are afraid to walk the streets these days. And
that fact is the achievement of this mayor and his police commissioners, including
Howard Safir. The unprecedented drop in crime is felt in all neighborhoods -
including the one in which Amadou Diallo was killed.
Giuliani's opponents - save for Alan Hevesi - see a golden opportunity to make
political capital, at the expense of the city's greater good.
But few will answer the mayor's pointed request to a caller on his radio show:
''Tell me what you would do if you were me that's different from what I'm doing.''
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