JULY 9, 2005
Jessica Bruder must have a puckish sense of humor, for she buried in the ninth paragraph of her hard-hitting analysis of the role of Lenora Fulani and the Independence Party in New York politics (The New York Observer, July 11), a fact that may prove to be the delayed-fuse fertilizer bomb of this year's mayoral race.
"Two week ago," Bruder casually noted, "the All Stars Project--a nonprofit youth organization run by Ms. Fulani that has ties to the Independence Party--was awarded a $215,000 grant from the city's Department of Youth and Community Development to start a new after-school program for high-school kids."
What? Does the mayor know how outrageous this decision is? The time-line suggests he does know, and that he's thumbing his nose at his critics, daring them to call him on this one.
Six weeks ago, the text of the Molly Hardy complaint regarding abuse of kids and all-round bizarro behavior at All Stars was already circulating on the Internet (although it took until last week for State Attorney General and Fulani ally Eliot Spitzer to concede, after being confronted with the timestamp on the electronic complaint form, that his office had indeed received the complaint but had somehow lost it). Also six weeks ago, detailed allegations became available on the Internet about the educational philosophy and practices of the cult (led by Fulani and her "social therapist" guru Fred Newman) which controls both All Stars and the Independence Party. These allegations ranged over the cult's 35-year history of mistreatment of kids in a succession of sleazy programs; its record of support over a 15-year period for a string of notorious child molesters (beginning with the North American Man-Boy Love Association defendants in 1983); and its attempts to recruit kids, parents, and youth-program volunteers into its "friendosexual" collective controlled by secretive Marxist cadre.
Four weeks ago, the Village Voice published a piece on how Fulani was seeking, with the help of lobbyist James Capalino, to obtain taxpayer funds to run programs in the New York public schools, and had met with a wide range of officials from Schools Chancellor Joel Klein on down the food chain.
Three weeks ago, it was widely known around City Hall that several reporters were looking into the Hardy complaint and other allegations about All Stars.
Over two weeks ago, the Hardy complaint was reported on, and Hardy was quoted at length, in the Village Voice, causing the AG's office to concede that she was a "credible" witness.
But there's nothing more arrogant than a billionaire mayor who buys his way into public office and then cruises towards a second term by outspending any possible opponents ten to one. So Michael Bloomberg-- who just can't let go of his alliance with Newman and Fulani even thought he doesn't really need their smoke-and-mirrors Independence Party to win reelection--defied the growing wave of scandal surrounding the All Stars Project and Fulani, and tossed them yet another $215,000 in taxpayer money on top of the $8.7 million bond he granted them in 2002 and the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars he has given them out of his own pocket.
Does this man know what harm he may be doing to the youth of New York City by turning them over to cult recruiters? Does he care? Is he so removed from the lives and values of ordinary New Yorkers that he cannot see that bringing together public-school kids with these NAMBLA-defending "friendosexuals" is really beyond the pale?
And what power does the cult have over our mayor that he has again and again tolerated from them disloyal behavior that would result in instant dismissal for any employee of Bloomberg LP or any member of the mayor's staff? He provides the cult with funding for a youth performance center near Times Square--and the first play they produce at the new facility blames the Crown Heights riots on his fellow Jews. He gives the Independence Party a quarter million dollars from his pocket for party building last year, then appears on the stage with Fulani at the annual All Stars fundraiser at Lincoln Center this April to help her cult squeeze the max from Wall Street donors. Two days later, Fulani repays him by going on NY1 News and reaffirming a statement she made in 1989 describing Jews as "mass murderers of people of color."
The moral weakness of this mayor--and his utter lack of self-respect in dealing with the anti-Semitism of the Newmanites, even though he himself has obviously become a target of Newman's apostatic compulsion to humiliate Jewish men--becomes an issue of urgency in light of the horror in London Thursday morning, when Al Qaeda struck in a coordinated series of bombings, killing at least 50 and wounding over 700.
New York City is still in the cross-hairs of Arab terrorism, just like London. It is therefore intolerable that our mayor should be giving taxpayer support and political legitimacy on the highest level--in the middle of the war on terror--to a cult with a history of indoctrinating kids with pro-terrorist as well as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideological principles. It is intolerable that taxpayer money or even the mayor's own money should be going to a woman who urged Libya's Gadhafi, in a Nov. 1987 speech, to continue to be "not nonviolent" towards America (this only one year before Gadhafi blew up Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people). It is intolerable that our city should now be paying this woman and her cult to run after-school programs in spite of the innumerable incidents in which they've crossed the line (as when they bused kids from their now blessedly defunct Barbara Taylor School--a private elementary school in Manhattan--to Washington DC in the late 1980s to demonstrate in support of Gadhafi).
What sort of message is Bloomberg sending to today's terrorists via his highly visible appeasement of Newman and Fulani, who humiliate him seemingly at will, over and over? One can easily imagine Al Qaeda leaders drawing the conclusion that the citizens of New York are also weak (otherwise why would they have elected such a mayor?) and thus are ripe for another round of intimidation. And even if Al Qaeda never makes this connection, the mayor's alliance with Newman and Fulani has nevertheless become morally indefensible in the light of the London attacks (as if it wasn't already indefensible as of 8:46 AM September 11, 2001).
It will be interesting to see if the political class in New York is capable of taking any meaningful action in response to the Observer's revelation regarding the All Stars grant for after-school programs and the mayor's continued obtuseness.
Will City Council Speaker and Democratic primary mayoral candidate Gifford Miller speak out and demand a halt to the All Stars after-school contract? Miller did make a low-key remark last week (as reported in The Jewish Week, July 8) that he would not favor city aid to the Fulani youth theater project that had received the 2002 bond (which is rather like a sleepy henhouse guard saying he would not favor any more free food for foxes after they've already gobbled up all the hens). But was Miller also asleep at the wheel regarding Fulani's three-year lobbying campaign to win city funding of her after-school programs? Is he willing to wake up, throw some cold water on his face, and really fight the mayor on behalf of the New York kids who otherwise will become victims of the Newman-Fulani cult?
Will Councilman Lew Fidler, head of the Youth Services committee, launch an investigation of the All Stars after-school contract and not just restrict himself to a resolution condemning Fulani's anti-Semitic remarks? (I sent Fidler a registered letter on May 25 asking for an investigation of city support for All Stars--he never bothered to reply.)
Will Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, head of the Education committee, investigate? I sent her a similar letter last month, and received a one sentence reply that she would read the material I enclosed. When I encountered her on the street petitioning, she said she was too busy with the "budget" to take up the issue of possible child abuse in a city funded program. When I pointed out that with every passing month, more kids might be drawn into the Newman cult's web of exploitation, she just snorted and walked away. (This is the same councilwoman who announced "with great sadness" last May that she couldn't accept the IP endorsement this year because of Fulani's remarks on NY1 News, but who couched her statement in buttery phrases that read like advertising copy for the Newmanites, even implying that Newman was the new Norman Thomas.)
Will Abe Foxman of the ADL, whose spokespersons have recently restricted themselves to condemning Fulani as an individual while giving the Independence Party a pass (thus echoing the mayor's aides and essentially running interference for the Bloomberg-IP alliance), finally show he's more than an opportunistic fundraiser by calling on the mayor to sever all ties with the Independence Party, which even the New York Times concedes is dominated by Newman and Fulani? Will Foxman personally speak out strongly and unequivocally against the city after-school program to be run by All Stars--an organization which has already proven over and over that its aim is to indoctrinate minority youth with the politics of hate (and Jewish youth with a philosophy of self-hate)? Will Foxman finally criticize the mayor directly by name (since City Hall will just ignore anything less)?
Will Freddy Ferrer (the heroic Freddy, who recently nixed a plan to support principled IP dissidents in a primary race against Bloomberg and Fulani) demand a halt to the latest city giveaway to All Stars?
Will C. Virginia Fields, the sole politician to speak out about the Hardy complaint, see this as something more than a sound-bite gimmick and reach out to her Baptist base to put a halt to Fulani and Newman's attempt to recruit the best and the brightest in the minority community into the exploitative, abusive, and downright weird cult of polymorphous friendosexualism?
Will Congressman Anthony Weiner, who according to the New York Times has cast himself as the "peerless champion of Israel" in the mayoral race, take on the difficult job of challenging bigots right here in the power structure of New York City--bigots who aim at indoctrinating and corrupting (with the help of taxpayer funds) the kids of Weiner's own constituents?
Will the New York Times do the right thing for our city's vulnerable kids by finally, finally publishing what it has known for months (but suppressed in its ever-so-respectful May 28 profile of "Dr." Newman and "Dr." Fulani) about the sinister nature of the All Stars program?
Will AG Eliot Spitzer atone for his office's failure to report Molly Hardy's abuse complaint to Child Protective Services last January? (His office was mandated to do so under state law, but they have apparently rendered themselves immune to any noncompliance sanctions by concocting a childish story that they "lost" the complaint.) Will Spitzer finally take the problem of All Stars in hand and conduct the thorough probe that his office promised but failed to deliver in 2002 when he was courting the Independence Party? Will his aides sit down and pool information with the federal and California state authorities investigating the St. John's Well Child and Family Center, an All Stars and social therapy linked charity in Los Angeles run by a member of the All Stars board of directors who allegedly transferred money illegally to Newmanite enterprises and therapists in New York? Will the AG's office examine the systematically misleading information provided by All Stars to wealthy donors in order to obtain money under false pretenses? Will it seek the help of the AG in New Jersey, where All Stars has also been bamboozling wealthy donors on a grand scale? Will Spitzer finally renounce the support of the New York State Independence Party in his upcoming gubernatorial race so he can devote himself without any conflict of interest to investigating the All Stars cult racket? Or failing that, will he call for the appointment of a special prosecutor?
Will State Senate Majority leader Joe Bruno stop throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Newmanites, as he did during the Olga Mendez campaign last year?
Will U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, whose own alliance of convenience with the Newmanites is one of the major reason that most Democrats tread cautiously on the issue of Mayor Bloomberg's strange affinity for the cult, finally recognize the consequences of becoming beholden to Newman and Fulani? Will he acknowledge that allowing a major role in the state and city power structure to people who have never apologized for their support of Gadhafi's attacks on Americans (support that continued even after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103), sends absolutely the wrong signal to terrorists overseas? Will Schumer sever his ties with Fulani and Newman's Independence Party lock, stock and barrel--and demand that other elected Democrats do likewise?
Will the City Hall press corp finally develop some backbone and ask Mayor Bloomberg the one question that will totally confound his spin doctors, i.e., why, after calling Fulani's remarks about Jews on NY1 News "phenomenally offensive" and then saying she was only one person with bad ideas in a party of good people, did he turn around and give $215,000 not to the supposed good people but to a charity controlled by the phenomenally offensive one?
This weblog will be watching closely all of the above folks in the weeks ahead, but it's only fair to point out that not everyone has been asleep at the wheel. I close with a quote from a press release issued by the American Jewish Committee on Feb. 25, 2004:
"Mayor Bloomberg should publicly address growing concerns that the All Stars Project is recruiting children from our public schools into the Newman-Fulani cult of anti-Semitism and exploitative 'therapy.'"
It's not too late to heed this advice, Mr. Mayor.
Podhoretz Continues "War of the Worlds" Bashing
JULY 31, 2005
John Podhoretz, he of that most famous of neocon dynasties, just can't get the alleged subversive subtext of Spielberg's "War of the World" out of his mind. Now he's zeroed in (New York Post, July 27) on David Koepp, the co-writer of the screenplay. Podhoretz quotes from an interview on the film that Koepp gave to the Chicago Sun-Times: "Certainly there are a lot of political undertones and overtones. In the '50s, 'War of the Worlds,' was, 'My God, the commies are coming to get us.' Now its about fear of terrorism. In other parts of the world, the new movie will be fear of American invasion. It will be clearly about the Iraq war for them." Podhoretz interprets this statement as saying that the aliens in the Spielberg film "are intended to symbolize the U.S. military."
But the quote from Koepp doesn't say this. It says that different people in different countries will read into the "War of the Worlds" what they want to read into it, as have people in past decades and places. Naturally today's Americans will project fear of terrorism into it on some level. And of course Iraqis (whether anti-U.S. or pro-U.S.) will associate the Martian invasion with the shock and awe show over Baghdad and the ensuing events when they view videos or DVDs obtained from the copyright pirates in China. In an interview with IGN FilmForce, Koepp is crystal clear about this: "I think the movie will be seen as a prism that will reflect whatever people already believe" (emphasis added).
Koepp is silly, however, to say that the film will play overseas to fears of a U.S. invasion. The French love to bash America but I doubt there's a single Sorbonne intellectual who really believes the U.S. military is planning to drop daisy-cutters to take out the Left Bank. Probably the only people with a sincerely held fear of a U.S. invasion post-Iraq by America's depleted army of National Guardsmen are the North Korean crazies--and they are unlikely to let anyone in their country see this or any other Hollywood movie.
Koepp in other interviews not quoted by Podhoretz has admitted that he himself identifies the Martians with the U.S. military. But just because a screenwriter has ultraliberal personal views doesn't mean those views find their way into his or her script (these guys are professionals when all is said and done), or are retained by producers or directors even if they do appear in an early draft. Certainly there is no hidden subversive subtext in "Spider-Man," "Jurassic Park" and "Mission Impossible," all of which Koepp worked on (unless the message "Don't Clone Dinosaurs" is some kind of attack on multinational biotech companies). And does Podhoretz really think Spielberg would have risked the public hue and cry that comparing the U.S. Marines (even in a coded form) to Hitler-style mass-murdering aliens would have triggered?
It is widely known that screenwriters have very little artistic control over their scripts (just read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Pat Hobby" stories). It is the directors and producers who make the final decision, and their decision in this case clearly was to make a summer blockbuster, not a magnet for demonstrations and boycotts. There is nothing of any significance in the final script or in the movie as a totality that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that it is propaganda aimed at the U.S. military or the U.S. government. I mean, the bad guys invade the United States, not Iraq. They destroy the government in Washington, not Baghdad. They have no sympathizers or allies among the American people. And the U.S. military fights back heroically against them.
I also stated in my previous posting on this subject that there is nothing to lead one to believe the Martians are intended by Spielberg to symbolize Islamic terrorism--they are armed with death rays, not box cutters; and their aim is to exterminate the human race, not forcibly convert it. If they bring down tall buildings, well so have dozens of s-f and disaster films going back to "Godzilla"--and no, that famous monster wasn't a symbol of the Soviet Red Army, it was just a lizard.
Well's "War of the Worlds" is one of the great archetypal tales of modern popular literature, working on the preconscious mind and (in Freudian theory, at least) on the unconscious. As such it is a magnet not only for the political obsessions of individuals but for all kinds of projections of their personal "stuff" (the latter often assumes a political form without the person being aware fully or at all about what he or she is really expressing). The same thing can be said of the artistic creator: H.G. Wells the novelist, Orson Welles the radio dramatist, and the successive screenwriters, directors and producers of film versions have all expressed their own personal conflicts as well as society's "group fantasies" in this story. The kind of one-sided ideological interpretations in which political pundits excel tends to miss this forest for the trees (as when Bill O'Reilly seized on a single statement of the hero's teenager son about wanting to kill the aliens and ignored the many previous scenes depicting the boy's rage at his father).
And by the way, if there is any clear reference to contemporary events in "War of the Worlds" it is to the breakup of the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman marriage and the issue of whether the kids will be raised as Scientologists or Catholics. This situation may account for the unusual power and depth of Cruise's acting this time around.
Podhoretz's latest remarks on "War of the Worlds" are contained in a column with the headline "Hollywood Hell: Stars are out to bash U.S." I grant that columnists don't always have control over the dumb headlines that the tabloids attach to their writings, but this particular column appears to predict the worst based on the strange assumption that Hollywood moguls are so ideologically driven that they no longer care about the profits that result from appealing to the broadest possible audience. Although Podhoretz does make some legitimate points about Hollywood individuals who have a history of making foolish remarks, the people in question are mostly not the ones who make the final decisions about important films. However, I fully concur with his concern over how the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre (and Mossad's subsequent tracking down of the terrorists) will be handled in Spielberg's next film, because of the director's past record of naivete about the Palestinian cause.
But Podhoretz, like so many neocons, overstates his case by a galactic parsec. We even get a weird replay of Red Channels type McCarthyism. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, we are informed, is the daughter of Naomi Foner who in turn is the sister of historian Eric Foner (and of course, although Podhoretz doesn't say it, Eric and Naomi's uncle was the labor historian and Communist party member Philip Foner).
What's the point here? Should we do DNA testing on everyone in Hollywood to see who is or isn't related to some dead white male Stalinist or ex-Stalinist? But then, to be fair, we'd also have to test all the conservative pundits in New York and Washington to see who's related to dead or elderly white male ex-Trotskyists....
Political incorrectness on the Sci-Fi Channel? In the most recent episode of "Battlestar Galactica," soldiers from Commander Adama's fugitive human fleet are trapped on a planet where the Cylons have set up missile defenses. The Cylons of course are the robot life-form ("there are many copies...") who almost wiped out humanity in a sneak attack and are now pursuing them through the galaxy. The trapped soldiers have to take out the Cylons missiles so that the shuttle from the Mothership can rescue them. So the surviving officer says to his little band, "Let's go jump some toasters." Toasters? This was a new one on me, although folks tell me the term has been used on this series since the beginning. Maybe the young techno-geeks at MIT and Stanford who're working on real robotics should start a movement to protest this dangerous precedent of hate speech against robots and their kitchen-appliance ancestors.
Credit where credit's due. In my July 6 posting I mentioned that Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" embodies, among other things, a parental rescue fantasy. This concept comes from the ongoing film research of Geraldine Pauling, a member of the International Psychohistorical Association (IPA).
Sunday, July 31, 2005 in Political commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)