Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thank You Woodbury
It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the people of Woodbury for the past four years. I will forever be inspired by the determination and dedication of my fellow Town Council members…as well as grateful to the many people I have met and worked with while in office. I am proud of what we accomplished, proud that, during my term, in many ways, we improved the quality of life in Woodbury.
On December 31, 2007 my term ends. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and friends both old and new.
I’m not entirely sure what I'll do after that. However, I do know that I will not fade into the sunset. There is still so much that needs to get done. I like what I saw and heard from the many residents I spoke with before, during and after this election campaign. Their future and the future of Woodbury are worth fighting for and I will always play an active part in that fight.
An old teacher taught me a valuable lesson when he said, “No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”
As one door closes another door opens…but first, before I go, I would like to make a few comments about the recent election just to set the record straight:
As you all may know, I'm a results guy, so, no matter the reason, I admit that my campaign fell short of its goal last November. However, I will always remain humbled by everyone that believed in me enough to give me their time, support and precious vote.
In September, at Woodbury Day, my opponents were having difficulties setting up their Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats tent. I stopped what I was doing to help them. When it was set up we all shook hands, agreeing to run a clean campaign and just stick to the real issues before us.
We did just that until two days before the election.
I was disgusted when I read the flagrant lies contained in a flyer, those same Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats, handed out in Timber Ridge and Brookside in an attempt to unethically influence the outcome of the election. This flyer had three blatant lies specifically aimed at voters who were also home owners that the Committee knew were extremely upset because they felt victimized by questionable re-assessments the former Tax Assessor authorized.
By stating in the flyer that, "I hired the Tax Assessor, I knew of the plan to increase those assessments and I approved the plan to increase those assessments my opponents confused voters with lies while stealing their votes and destroying my record in the process.
Number 1,
I wasn't even on the Town Board when the Assessor was hired.
Number 2,
By State law, the Town Board has absolutely no say in what the Assessor does and is never asked to approve any of the Assessor’s actions.
Number 3,
My family and I suffered too, as my home was re-assessed by the same Assessor’s questionable methods as well.
Long before anyone thought about the election, The Town Board had many discussions about the Assessor’s term, start dates, duties and the fact that once appointed the Assessor operates independently of the Town Board.
John Burke, the Supervisor, who claims to have brought back open government and accountability, while he does the exact opposite, knew all along just what the role of the Assessor was.
Therefore, I was in shock and disbelief when the Times Herald Record reported that John Burke was the one, secretly, feeding these lies to the Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats.
We may never know why John Burke, a retired High School Principal, a person who I trusted and respected chose this unprincipled path of lies and character assassination instead of debating the issues openly and honestly. Perhaps it was because he was allowed to run unopposed.
Carlton Levine and Amidee Haviland lll put their names on the flyer. Even if they somehow didn’t know they were spreading lies, which I find hard to believe, shame on them for not checking the facts first. What a disgraceful and tarnished way for both of them to enter public office.
In fact, The Times Herald Record was so appalled, by the whole sordid episode, that their Editorial of November 13, 2007 called for them all to ”…resign and give Woodbury voters a chance to have an honest election.”
The people of Woodbury deserve much better than this from their elected officials.
History has shown us that candidates and their political committees, who willingly use any devious methods necessary to win, will act in their own best interests first instead of the interests of the people they were elected to serve.
Let their conduct and the conduct of others, just like them, operating in Woodbury, serve as a warning to the people of Woodbury to beware and remain vigilant.
As a life long Martial Artist and Instructor of both adults and children, I have always taught that we should live by the Principles of the Black Belt: Respect, Humility, Perseverance, Honestly and Self-control.
We can only hope when these newly elected officials take office they dig deep down inside themselves and develop some of these principles.
No matter what happens…The fighting spirit of what you and I believe in will live on…The spirit…of doing what is right for Woodbury by putting results for residents first and foremost over any self serving partisanship lie filled agenda.
I shall return…
On December 31, 2007 my term ends. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and friends both old and new.
I’m not entirely sure what I'll do after that. However, I do know that I will not fade into the sunset. There is still so much that needs to get done. I like what I saw and heard from the many residents I spoke with before, during and after this election campaign. Their future and the future of Woodbury are worth fighting for and I will always play an active part in that fight.
An old teacher taught me a valuable lesson when he said, “No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”
As one door closes another door opens…but first, before I go, I would like to make a few comments about the recent election just to set the record straight:
As you all may know, I'm a results guy, so, no matter the reason, I admit that my campaign fell short of its goal last November. However, I will always remain humbled by everyone that believed in me enough to give me their time, support and precious vote.
In September, at Woodbury Day, my opponents were having difficulties setting up their Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats tent. I stopped what I was doing to help them. When it was set up we all shook hands, agreeing to run a clean campaign and just stick to the real issues before us.
We did just that until two days before the election.
I was disgusted when I read the flagrant lies contained in a flyer, those same Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats, handed out in Timber Ridge and Brookside in an attempt to unethically influence the outcome of the election. This flyer had three blatant lies specifically aimed at voters who were also home owners that the Committee knew were extremely upset because they felt victimized by questionable re-assessments the former Tax Assessor authorized.
By stating in the flyer that, "I hired the Tax Assessor, I knew of the plan to increase those assessments and I approved the plan to increase those assessments my opponents confused voters with lies while stealing their votes and destroying my record in the process.
Number 1,
I wasn't even on the Town Board when the Assessor was hired.
Number 2,
By State law, the Town Board has absolutely no say in what the Assessor does and is never asked to approve any of the Assessor’s actions.
Number 3,
My family and I suffered too, as my home was re-assessed by the same Assessor’s questionable methods as well.
Long before anyone thought about the election, The Town Board had many discussions about the Assessor’s term, start dates, duties and the fact that once appointed the Assessor operates independently of the Town Board.
John Burke, the Supervisor, who claims to have brought back open government and accountability, while he does the exact opposite, knew all along just what the role of the Assessor was.
Therefore, I was in shock and disbelief when the Times Herald Record reported that John Burke was the one, secretly, feeding these lies to the Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats.
We may never know why John Burke, a retired High School Principal, a person who I trusted and respected chose this unprincipled path of lies and character assassination instead of debating the issues openly and honestly. Perhaps it was because he was allowed to run unopposed.
Carlton Levine and Amidee Haviland lll put their names on the flyer. Even if they somehow didn’t know they were spreading lies, which I find hard to believe, shame on them for not checking the facts first. What a disgraceful and tarnished way for both of them to enter public office.
In fact, The Times Herald Record was so appalled, by the whole sordid episode, that their Editorial of November 13, 2007 called for them all to ”…resign and give Woodbury voters a chance to have an honest election.”
The people of Woodbury deserve much better than this from their elected officials.
History has shown us that candidates and their political committees, who willingly use any devious methods necessary to win, will act in their own best interests first instead of the interests of the people they were elected to serve.
Let their conduct and the conduct of others, just like them, operating in Woodbury, serve as a warning to the people of Woodbury to beware and remain vigilant.
As a life long Martial Artist and Instructor of both adults and children, I have always taught that we should live by the Principles of the Black Belt: Respect, Humility, Perseverance, Honestly and Self-control.
We can only hope when these newly elected officials take office they dig deep down inside themselves and develop some of these principles.
No matter what happens…The fighting spirit of what you and I believe in will live on…The spirit…of doing what is right for Woodbury by putting results for residents first and foremost over any self serving partisanship lie filled agenda.
I shall return…
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Dishonesty is a word which in common usage may be defined as the act or to act without honesty; a lack of probity, to cheat, lying or being deliberately deceptive; lacking in integrity; to be knavish, perfidious, corrupt or treacherous; charlatanism or quackery.
Dishonesty is the fundamental component of a majority of offences relating to the acquisition, conversion and disposal of property (tangible or intangible) defined in the criminal law.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Why Politicians Have to Lie
Why Politicians Have to Lie
9 December, 2006
This essay explains why politicians have to lie. It also explains the inevitability of war.
Politicians and Used Car Salespersons
There are some occupations whose members we almost expect to be dishonest. For example, politicians and used car salesmen.
Used car salesmen (and saleswomen, but I think most of them are men) tend to be dishonest because car buyers only buy cars very occasionally, and a car is a big ticket item. The salesman has an advantage over the buyer, because he is selling cars all the time, and he can make a career out of learning all the tricks and schemes for ripping his customers off. The large size of each transaction means that it's worth putting significant effort into extracting maximum profit from every sale.
Similar logic applies to other salespeople who sell big ticket items to buyers who buy those items very infrequently.
What's different about politicians, as compared to used car salesmen, is that although they are often "selling" something, their communications are one-to-many, rather than one-to-one. Even when a politician talks one-to-one with a television reporter, really they are talking to the television audience.
With such a large audience, it should be so much harder to tell lies and get away with it. The words and actions of politicians are subject to intense scrutiny by many commentators and observers, all supposedly acting to serve the general public's desire to know what there is to know about their politicians.
And yet, despite all this scrutiny and commentary, and the large audience, politicians lie, and they lie persistently. The car salesperson lies because there is a good chance that the buyer fails to see through some of the lies. But the politician lies and keeps on lying, even though the audience knows that the politicians are lying. Why is this? If we know that politicians are lying, why don't we throw them out and get better ones that don't lie?
Politicians are Lying to us, but they are also Lying for us.
The reason that politicians lie so much is not because they are pathological liars (or at least not just because they are pathological liars), it is because we expect too much of them. In the first instance, we expect them to take political positions. A political position is a position intended to appeal to a particular constituency. But we also expect politicians to take moral positions.
So what's wrong with that? Isn't morality a good thing? (by definition?) Unfortunately, morality and politics are in conflict, because morality and politics must appeal to different portions of your audience. Morality is something that almost everyone agrees on, because the whole point of morality is to lay down the ground rules for a society. It's difficult to put a precise number on it, but I would say that a moral proposition is only really "moral" if at least 90% of people in a society agree with it.
Majority Politics
One would assume that getting 90% of people to agree with you can't be a bad thing, especially if you're a politician who wants as many people to agree with you as possible.
But it doesn't work like that. A political position that appeals to 90% of the population is a failed political position. Politics is never about getting everyone on your side – it's about getting a majority of people on your side.
The competitive nature of politics encourages politicians to appeal to the smallest majority that they need to in order to gain power. In a democracy this usually means that any percentage more than 50%, for example, 51%, is enough, although a smaller percentage can be sufficient if a three-way situation develops (but three-way situations don't last in the long run, because the two losers will always be tempted to join forces if they can). In a non-democracy a politician can make their case to any constituency that has the power and influence required to maintain control over a society – which may or may not need to be more than half the population.
The first reason that a politician appeals to the smallest majority possible is that this maximises the benefits that the politician can promise to that majority. The second reason is that the politician needs to spread the disadvantages of their policies over the largest possible minority of non-supporters. In other words, if you try to appeal to too large a constituency, the size of the minority that you can screw is too small, which limits what you can steal from them, and the benefits passed onto your target constituency will be spread too thinly.
This logic in itself does not require anyone to lie. Every politician can choose a majority of supporters and a minority of non-supporters and openly promise to benefit the majority by screwing the minority.
But, as it happens, we expect our politicians to be morally upright and to express moral positions that are regarded as morally correct, which means they are expected to state moral positions that are agreed with by at least 90% of people in society, because if the number of people in agreement is less than 90% then it isn't a moral position.
Moral Majorities versus Political Majorities
And that's the cause of the conflict: 51% isn't equal to 90%. To get the votes, if you're a politician, you must take a position that clearly benefits the 51%, and to be morally upright you must take a position that is agreeable to 90%, and you must take both of these positions simultaneously.
Luckily for you, although the 51% expect you to take a moral position, they don't mind if you do so dishonestly. Indeed your supporters will assist you to resolve this conflict – by expecting and tolerating political doublespeak. They will expect you to lie about the morality of your political platform, while remaining sensitive to whether or not your platform benefits them. They will expect you to use language which is deceptive and confusing in order to express positions which have the appearance of morality yet have the reality of exploitation and transfer of wealth and power.
So why bother with morality at all, if it's just something that politicians lie about? If morality counted for nothing at all, then politics would be the majority finding a minority to screw without constraint, and that would be it. In other words, politicians would select a target group, seize their property, round them up, send them all to special camps, and leave them to either die or escape as refugees to a neighbouring country. Or maybe just kill all of them.
This is the politics of genocide and civil war. It's ugly, yet it's a logical consequence of the logic of politics.
However, we are not all living in the middle of civil wars. There must be something that constrains the sharp edge of politics. And that something is morality. In other words, morality does count for something, and it's not just a sham.
The Two Faces of Morality
We can consider morality as a philosophical abstraction, or we can consider it from a purely pragmatic point of view.
Suppose for example that you're a politician, and you adopt a political platform of civil war and genocide which offers apparent benefits to an identified majority of supporters. Why might the potential beneficiaries of your platform decline to accept its benefits?
Philosophically, we can state a moral objection in terms of an abstract principle – it is unconscionable to better yourself by exploiting others. Of course morality is somewhat elastic, and it can be hard to determine what counts as "exploitation" and what doesn't, and some people will go further than others in order to serve their own interests. But there are usually limits, and those limits usually prevent the majority from selecting a target minority and killing them all.
Pragmatically, we can point out that if the majority attempts to screw the minority, the minority may fight back. The minority may fight back quite viciously, especially if they have nothing to lose. Even if the majority eventually wins the war, they will be worse off than if the war never happened at all.
Or will they?
The Short Run and the Long Run
If Group A is 60% of the population of a country X, and they fight Group B which is the other 40%, and Group A kills all of Group B, but while they are being killed Group B kills the same number of people from Group A, then in the end there will just be 1/3 of the original Group A left (i.e. 20% of the original total population of country X). Can you be said to win a civil war if more than half your side is dead?
In the short run it seems like a disaster for both sides, but in the long run, Group A has won, because they can use all the resources of country X, and they can recover lost population by breeding, all without having to compete with any members of Group B (who, remember, are all dead).
So if we judge success in the long run, even a brutal war that kills almost everyone on both sides can still have a winner.
However this conclusion, that every civil war has a winner, depends on one assumption: that external forces can be ignored. But of course there is more than one country in the world, and our hypothetical country X will have neighbours. If most of the inhabitants of country X kill each other, and the infrastructure of country X is destroyed, then country Y which is next door to country X may decide to take advantage of country X's weakness and invade it and take all country X's resources for itself. And if the inhabitants of country Y have not themselves been recently fighting a civil war, then they will be internally stronger and they will be better positioned to fight and win an external war (against country X for example).
First Pick Your Minority
There are other difficulties (besides moral considerations) for the politician who wants to gain power by exploiting a vulnerable minority. One is that the minority has to be relatively inelastic in its membership. If the minority is defined in a way that makes it easy to leave or join the group, then a policy based on victimising that minority won't be very successful – because its members will all leave the group.
Another problem is that the minority has to be not too entangled with the majority that is benefiting from the screwing of the minority. For example, a policy of benefiting men at the expense of women is less likely to win political acclaim, because the biggest source of happiness in most people's lives comes from man-to-woman relationships. If you take from the women to give to the men (or vice versa), you're not going to achieve any net benefit for either party, and even if women don't get to vote, their male relatives and partners will disapprove of policies that disrupt relationships between the two sexes (and we must remember that in any give/take relationship, there is usually a net loss such that the amount given is less than the amount taken away).
In practice, the following types of minority can be effectively targeted as victims of a political policy:
Members of a given race
Members of a particular religion
The poorest and weakest members of society
The richest and most powerful members of society
Over time, Western democracies have moved towards using abstract criteria of wealth and power to choose political consitituencies, i.e. the last two items rather than the first two, and this corresponds to the "left"/"right" polarisation that we have all come to know and love as the basis of politics in modern Western democracies.
Policies based on explicit racial, religious or other ethnic fashion have somewhat gone "out of fashion", although in many countries there are major correlations between ethnic group and economic status, sometimes for historical reasons (i.e. one race screwed the other race in the past), which means that the racial aspect of politics never completely disappears, even in those countries where everyone likes to think of themselves as explicitly "anti-racist".
When it comes to the conflict between politics and morality, the left/right polarisation has a corresponding moral polarisation, based mostly on uncertainty about whether those worse off "deserve" their fate. If we could study every person's individual circumstances, we might decide that some do deserve their fate and other's don't. But political policies are necessarily based on averages, and everyone has a different opinion on how much the poorer and the richer in general deserve their current economic status. And most people have opinions that are conveniently consistent with their own personal economic interests (and which therefore determine their voting decisions).
Democracies and Non-Democracies
As I mentioned above, in a democracy a 51% majority is enough to get power. In a non-democracy it is less clear what the required minimum is. In practice there is usually some minimum number of supporters required to maintain power by force. The very clever dictator can arrange things so that everyone else is scared to challenge him, and everyone one is scared not to dob in those who look likely to threaten their leader, but such arrangements can be fragile, and a dictator's position is more robust if there is some substantial group within society who are clear beneficiaries of the dictator's dictatorship.
Which means that even dictators have to play politics, because they have to advertise the benefits of their political policies to their target constituency.
It also means that dictators have to adopt a facade of morality, just like "real" politicians do, and for much the same reasons. If a dictator openly admits the immorality of his rule, then that increases the chances that the people will rise up and depose him.
Hope For World Peace
Many ideas have been put forward for creating everlasting world peace, including:
Solving poverty
Making all countries democratic
All joining the same religion
Getting rid of religion altogether
Racial interbreeding
Forming a world government
The problem with all these schemes is that they ignore the fundamental logic of war and politics, which is that if a majority can screw a minority, then in the longer term, the majority is better off. Even if poverty is solved and all countries are democratic and we all belong to the same religion or to no religion and we all have the same colour skin, people will still be looking for ways to better themselves at the expense of others, and politicians will be looking for ways to identify a majority group which can better itself at the expense of a remaining minority.
As for world government, there's no particular reason to believe that it will be any more effective at preventing war than any other kind of government. The only difference under a world government is that there will no longer be any distinction between "civil" war and "world" war.
And if we think that not having a world government will prevent a world war, then we are also mistaken, because countries inevitably tend to group themselves into friendly alliances, and today's friendly alliance is tomorrow's defensive military alliance, and so on and so on. (And there will always be some "evil" threatening alliance that "needs" to be confronted and dealt with.)
Is There Any Hope At All?
The basic constraint of biology is that winners win the evolutionary race and losers lose and we are living on a finite piece of real estate with finite resources. Maybe one day we will expand into space in different directions, and there will be less requirement to continually exterminate each other just in order to have descendants. But space exploration is expected to remain rather expensive in the short to medium term future, and there seems to be little chance that it will ever change the basic parameters of life for 99.99% of the world's population.
One future change likely to happen soon is the technological singularity (which will probably arrive before major emigration to other worlds becomes feasible). Human competition and co-operation are becoming more and more entwined with self-accelerating technological development. This doesn't necessarily solve the war problem, and indeed when the singularity arises it might just decide to engage in a war of extermination against everyone and everything else. But if we are lucky, somehow most of "us" will be a part of the singularity, for example if it's a combined human-machine amplified-intelligence singularity, in which case things won't be so bad.
9 December, 2006
This essay explains why politicians have to lie. It also explains the inevitability of war.
Politicians and Used Car Salespersons
There are some occupations whose members we almost expect to be dishonest. For example, politicians and used car salesmen.
Used car salesmen (and saleswomen, but I think most of them are men) tend to be dishonest because car buyers only buy cars very occasionally, and a car is a big ticket item. The salesman has an advantage over the buyer, because he is selling cars all the time, and he can make a career out of learning all the tricks and schemes for ripping his customers off. The large size of each transaction means that it's worth putting significant effort into extracting maximum profit from every sale.
Similar logic applies to other salespeople who sell big ticket items to buyers who buy those items very infrequently.
What's different about politicians, as compared to used car salesmen, is that although they are often "selling" something, their communications are one-to-many, rather than one-to-one. Even when a politician talks one-to-one with a television reporter, really they are talking to the television audience.
With such a large audience, it should be so much harder to tell lies and get away with it. The words and actions of politicians are subject to intense scrutiny by many commentators and observers, all supposedly acting to serve the general public's desire to know what there is to know about their politicians.
And yet, despite all this scrutiny and commentary, and the large audience, politicians lie, and they lie persistently. The car salesperson lies because there is a good chance that the buyer fails to see through some of the lies. But the politician lies and keeps on lying, even though the audience knows that the politicians are lying. Why is this? If we know that politicians are lying, why don't we throw them out and get better ones that don't lie?
Politicians are Lying to us, but they are also Lying for us.
The reason that politicians lie so much is not because they are pathological liars (or at least not just because they are pathological liars), it is because we expect too much of them. In the first instance, we expect them to take political positions. A political position is a position intended to appeal to a particular constituency. But we also expect politicians to take moral positions.
So what's wrong with that? Isn't morality a good thing? (by definition?) Unfortunately, morality and politics are in conflict, because morality and politics must appeal to different portions of your audience. Morality is something that almost everyone agrees on, because the whole point of morality is to lay down the ground rules for a society. It's difficult to put a precise number on it, but I would say that a moral proposition is only really "moral" if at least 90% of people in a society agree with it.
Majority Politics
One would assume that getting 90% of people to agree with you can't be a bad thing, especially if you're a politician who wants as many people to agree with you as possible.
But it doesn't work like that. A political position that appeals to 90% of the population is a failed political position. Politics is never about getting everyone on your side – it's about getting a majority of people on your side.
The competitive nature of politics encourages politicians to appeal to the smallest majority that they need to in order to gain power. In a democracy this usually means that any percentage more than 50%, for example, 51%, is enough, although a smaller percentage can be sufficient if a three-way situation develops (but three-way situations don't last in the long run, because the two losers will always be tempted to join forces if they can). In a non-democracy a politician can make their case to any constituency that has the power and influence required to maintain control over a society – which may or may not need to be more than half the population.
The first reason that a politician appeals to the smallest majority possible is that this maximises the benefits that the politician can promise to that majority. The second reason is that the politician needs to spread the disadvantages of their policies over the largest possible minority of non-supporters. In other words, if you try to appeal to too large a constituency, the size of the minority that you can screw is too small, which limits what you can steal from them, and the benefits passed onto your target constituency will be spread too thinly.
This logic in itself does not require anyone to lie. Every politician can choose a majority of supporters and a minority of non-supporters and openly promise to benefit the majority by screwing the minority.
But, as it happens, we expect our politicians to be morally upright and to express moral positions that are regarded as morally correct, which means they are expected to state moral positions that are agreed with by at least 90% of people in society, because if the number of people in agreement is less than 90% then it isn't a moral position.
Moral Majorities versus Political Majorities
And that's the cause of the conflict: 51% isn't equal to 90%. To get the votes, if you're a politician, you must take a position that clearly benefits the 51%, and to be morally upright you must take a position that is agreeable to 90%, and you must take both of these positions simultaneously.
Luckily for you, although the 51% expect you to take a moral position, they don't mind if you do so dishonestly. Indeed your supporters will assist you to resolve this conflict – by expecting and tolerating political doublespeak. They will expect you to lie about the morality of your political platform, while remaining sensitive to whether or not your platform benefits them. They will expect you to use language which is deceptive and confusing in order to express positions which have the appearance of morality yet have the reality of exploitation and transfer of wealth and power.
So why bother with morality at all, if it's just something that politicians lie about? If morality counted for nothing at all, then politics would be the majority finding a minority to screw without constraint, and that would be it. In other words, politicians would select a target group, seize their property, round them up, send them all to special camps, and leave them to either die or escape as refugees to a neighbouring country. Or maybe just kill all of them.
This is the politics of genocide and civil war. It's ugly, yet it's a logical consequence of the logic of politics.
However, we are not all living in the middle of civil wars. There must be something that constrains the sharp edge of politics. And that something is morality. In other words, morality does count for something, and it's not just a sham.
The Two Faces of Morality
We can consider morality as a philosophical abstraction, or we can consider it from a purely pragmatic point of view.
Suppose for example that you're a politician, and you adopt a political platform of civil war and genocide which offers apparent benefits to an identified majority of supporters. Why might the potential beneficiaries of your platform decline to accept its benefits?
Philosophically, we can state a moral objection in terms of an abstract principle – it is unconscionable to better yourself by exploiting others. Of course morality is somewhat elastic, and it can be hard to determine what counts as "exploitation" and what doesn't, and some people will go further than others in order to serve their own interests. But there are usually limits, and those limits usually prevent the majority from selecting a target minority and killing them all.
Pragmatically, we can point out that if the majority attempts to screw the minority, the minority may fight back. The minority may fight back quite viciously, especially if they have nothing to lose. Even if the majority eventually wins the war, they will be worse off than if the war never happened at all.
Or will they?
The Short Run and the Long Run
If Group A is 60% of the population of a country X, and they fight Group B which is the other 40%, and Group A kills all of Group B, but while they are being killed Group B kills the same number of people from Group A, then in the end there will just be 1/3 of the original Group A left (i.e. 20% of the original total population of country X). Can you be said to win a civil war if more than half your side is dead?
In the short run it seems like a disaster for both sides, but in the long run, Group A has won, because they can use all the resources of country X, and they can recover lost population by breeding, all without having to compete with any members of Group B (who, remember, are all dead).
So if we judge success in the long run, even a brutal war that kills almost everyone on both sides can still have a winner.
However this conclusion, that every civil war has a winner, depends on one assumption: that external forces can be ignored. But of course there is more than one country in the world, and our hypothetical country X will have neighbours. If most of the inhabitants of country X kill each other, and the infrastructure of country X is destroyed, then country Y which is next door to country X may decide to take advantage of country X's weakness and invade it and take all country X's resources for itself. And if the inhabitants of country Y have not themselves been recently fighting a civil war, then they will be internally stronger and they will be better positioned to fight and win an external war (against country X for example).
First Pick Your Minority
There are other difficulties (besides moral considerations) for the politician who wants to gain power by exploiting a vulnerable minority. One is that the minority has to be relatively inelastic in its membership. If the minority is defined in a way that makes it easy to leave or join the group, then a policy based on victimising that minority won't be very successful – because its members will all leave the group.
Another problem is that the minority has to be not too entangled with the majority that is benefiting from the screwing of the minority. For example, a policy of benefiting men at the expense of women is less likely to win political acclaim, because the biggest source of happiness in most people's lives comes from man-to-woman relationships. If you take from the women to give to the men (or vice versa), you're not going to achieve any net benefit for either party, and even if women don't get to vote, their male relatives and partners will disapprove of policies that disrupt relationships between the two sexes (and we must remember that in any give/take relationship, there is usually a net loss such that the amount given is less than the amount taken away).
In practice, the following types of minority can be effectively targeted as victims of a political policy:
Members of a given race
Members of a particular religion
The poorest and weakest members of society
The richest and most powerful members of society
Over time, Western democracies have moved towards using abstract criteria of wealth and power to choose political consitituencies, i.e. the last two items rather than the first two, and this corresponds to the "left"/"right" polarisation that we have all come to know and love as the basis of politics in modern Western democracies.
Policies based on explicit racial, religious or other ethnic fashion have somewhat gone "out of fashion", although in many countries there are major correlations between ethnic group and economic status, sometimes for historical reasons (i.e. one race screwed the other race in the past), which means that the racial aspect of politics never completely disappears, even in those countries where everyone likes to think of themselves as explicitly "anti-racist".
When it comes to the conflict between politics and morality, the left/right polarisation has a corresponding moral polarisation, based mostly on uncertainty about whether those worse off "deserve" their fate. If we could study every person's individual circumstances, we might decide that some do deserve their fate and other's don't. But political policies are necessarily based on averages, and everyone has a different opinion on how much the poorer and the richer in general deserve their current economic status. And most people have opinions that are conveniently consistent with their own personal economic interests (and which therefore determine their voting decisions).
Democracies and Non-Democracies
As I mentioned above, in a democracy a 51% majority is enough to get power. In a non-democracy it is less clear what the required minimum is. In practice there is usually some minimum number of supporters required to maintain power by force. The very clever dictator can arrange things so that everyone else is scared to challenge him, and everyone one is scared not to dob in those who look likely to threaten their leader, but such arrangements can be fragile, and a dictator's position is more robust if there is some substantial group within society who are clear beneficiaries of the dictator's dictatorship.
Which means that even dictators have to play politics, because they have to advertise the benefits of their political policies to their target constituency.
It also means that dictators have to adopt a facade of morality, just like "real" politicians do, and for much the same reasons. If a dictator openly admits the immorality of his rule, then that increases the chances that the people will rise up and depose him.
Hope For World Peace
Many ideas have been put forward for creating everlasting world peace, including:
Solving poverty
Making all countries democratic
All joining the same religion
Getting rid of religion altogether
Racial interbreeding
Forming a world government
The problem with all these schemes is that they ignore the fundamental logic of war and politics, which is that if a majority can screw a minority, then in the longer term, the majority is better off. Even if poverty is solved and all countries are democratic and we all belong to the same religion or to no religion and we all have the same colour skin, people will still be looking for ways to better themselves at the expense of others, and politicians will be looking for ways to identify a majority group which can better itself at the expense of a remaining minority.
As for world government, there's no particular reason to believe that it will be any more effective at preventing war than any other kind of government. The only difference under a world government is that there will no longer be any distinction between "civil" war and "world" war.
And if we think that not having a world government will prevent a world war, then we are also mistaken, because countries inevitably tend to group themselves into friendly alliances, and today's friendly alliance is tomorrow's defensive military alliance, and so on and so on. (And there will always be some "evil" threatening alliance that "needs" to be confronted and dealt with.)
Is There Any Hope At All?
The basic constraint of biology is that winners win the evolutionary race and losers lose and we are living on a finite piece of real estate with finite resources. Maybe one day we will expand into space in different directions, and there will be less requirement to continually exterminate each other just in order to have descendants. But space exploration is expected to remain rather expensive in the short to medium term future, and there seems to be little chance that it will ever change the basic parameters of life for 99.99% of the world's population.
One future change likely to happen soon is the technological singularity (which will probably arrive before major emigration to other worlds becomes feasible). Human competition and co-operation are becoming more and more entwined with self-accelerating technological development. This doesn't necessarily solve the war problem, and indeed when the singularity arises it might just decide to engage in a war of extermination against everyone and everything else. But if we are lucky, somehow most of "us" will be a part of the singularity, for example if it's a combined human-machine amplified-intelligence singularity, in which case things won't be so bad.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Thanks
Let me say how grateful I am to all those who supported me and supported the cause for which we have fought over the last four years. I feel a deep gratitude to everyone who I have met and worked with while in office. I am proud of what we have done and enjoyed working with many of you.
As for what I'll do next, I don't know the answer to that one yet. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and old friends. I know I'll spend moré time with my family and then mend some fences, literally and figuratively.
I've seen and spoken to many people in Woodbury in this campaign and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for and that's a fight I'll never stop. I will not fade in sunset but rather go back to sitting in those chairs and holding the new board accountable for their actions, as for the battle that ends December 31st. I will make my comments at the last town board meeting about the election, the lies and why some of this was done. I have known some of the committee members from both parties for more then twenty five years so this was more personal then political. In the end it the truth will all come out and the people can make their own decision about their new elected officials and Republican and Democratic committee members. To be continued ….
As for what I'll do next, I don't know the answer to that one yet. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and old friends. I know I'll spend moré time with my family and then mend some fences, literally and figuratively.
I've seen and spoken to many people in Woodbury in this campaign and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for and that's a fight I'll never stop. I will not fade in sunset but rather go back to sitting in those chairs and holding the new board accountable for their actions, as for the battle that ends December 31st. I will make my comments at the last town board meeting about the election, the lies and why some of this was done. I have known some of the committee members from both parties for more then twenty five years so this was more personal then political. In the end it the truth will all come out and the people can make their own decision about their new elected officials and Republican and Democratic committee members. To be continued ….
Thursday, November 15, 2007
'Sorry' is not enough
Opinion
'Sorry' is not enough
The supervisor in Woodbury has apologized for his role in disseminating disinformation that might have affected the outcome of the recent election.
The apology is nice and welcome. Now, what else will he do and what will those who benefited from the sleazy campaign tactics do as well?
Here's what happened: Fliers went to homes in Timber Ridge, a condominium development where owners are fighting increased assessments. The fliers blamed two Republican incumbents for hiring the assessor and approving the actions.
Here are the problems: The assessor acts independently, the board does not act on the figures, and one of the candidates was not even on the board when it appointed the assessor.
One winning candidate in the close race said the information came from the supervisor. The supervisor says that's true. So Woodbury has elected a Democratic majority based on disinformation. Worse than that, it has at least one board member and a supervisor who seem to know little about how the offices they now hold really work.
If they really regret these actions, the members will resign and give Woodbury voters a chance to have an honest election.
'Sorry' is not enough
The supervisor in Woodbury has apologized for his role in disseminating disinformation that might have affected the outcome of the recent election.
The apology is nice and welcome. Now, what else will he do and what will those who benefited from the sleazy campaign tactics do as well?
Here's what happened: Fliers went to homes in Timber Ridge, a condominium development where owners are fighting increased assessments. The fliers blamed two Republican incumbents for hiring the assessor and approving the actions.
Here are the problems: The assessor acts independently, the board does not act on the figures, and one of the candidates was not even on the board when it appointed the assessor.
One winning candidate in the close race said the information came from the supervisor. The supervisor says that's true. So Woodbury has elected a Democratic majority based on disinformation. Worse than that, it has at least one board member and a supervisor who seem to know little about how the offices they now hold really work.
If they really regret these actions, the members will resign and give Woodbury voters a chance to have an honest election.
Thanks John
GOP incensed over fliers
Says misinformation affected race outcome
By John Sullivan
November 10, 2007
Times Herald-Record
Woodbury — Supporters of the Republicans who were defeated in a close Woodbury election are alleging that misinformation about the candidates in fliers sent by their opponents swayed the vote's outcome.
An unknown number of the fliers blanketed homes in Timber Ridge, a development where residents have been fighting the town over increased assessments. The yellow leaflet states in large black letters that the two Republican incumbents, board members Lorraine McNeil and Michael Aronowitz, hired Town Assessor Roland Tiffany and approved the plan to increase those assessments.
However, assessors act independently of town government, and Aronowitz wasn't serving on the board when it appointed Tiffany.
The flier created a stir among Timber Ridge voters, who are still fuming about seeing their assessments jump by as much as 50 percent or more under Tiffany, said Mickey O'Brien, a McNeil and Aronowitz supporter who also organized the fight against the assessments last year. The controversy resulted in a slight decrease of the assessments, as well as a court proceeding still pending against the town.
It also placed a cloud over Tiffany's career, who declined to apply for reappointment this year. The Town Board recently appointed Laura Breslin, an independent appraiser and former account clerk for the Town of Warwick, to take his place.
O'Brien alleged that many Timber Ridge residents came out to vote against the incumbents after seeing the fliers. Democratic challengers Amidee Haviland and Carton Levine received the most votes of 666 and 618, according to unofficial results.
Their win, along with town Supervisor John Burke's unopposed re-election, gives the Democrats a 3-2 majority on the board.
But Aronowitz's close third, with 608 votes, has many of the incumbents' supporters wondering how much of a role the fliers played in the outcome. O'Brien said the Democratic candidates denied involvement in the fliers when he confronted them about it. However, Levine admitted that the misinformation had been approved by Burke.
"I was informed by John Burke that that was the appropriate language in terms of their (McNeil and Aronowitz) actions on the Town Council prior to the assessment."
Burke said he believed the allegation to be true, because the Town Board before him appointed Tiffany. Burke, however, apologized for including Aronowitz, who was not on the board at the time.
"I will take responsibility for our (the Democratic Committee's) mistake," Burke said.
Says misinformation affected race outcome
By John Sullivan
November 10, 2007
Times Herald-Record
Woodbury — Supporters of the Republicans who were defeated in a close Woodbury election are alleging that misinformation about the candidates in fliers sent by their opponents swayed the vote's outcome.
An unknown number of the fliers blanketed homes in Timber Ridge, a development where residents have been fighting the town over increased assessments. The yellow leaflet states in large black letters that the two Republican incumbents, board members Lorraine McNeil and Michael Aronowitz, hired Town Assessor Roland Tiffany and approved the plan to increase those assessments.
However, assessors act independently of town government, and Aronowitz wasn't serving on the board when it appointed Tiffany.
The flier created a stir among Timber Ridge voters, who are still fuming about seeing their assessments jump by as much as 50 percent or more under Tiffany, said Mickey O'Brien, a McNeil and Aronowitz supporter who also organized the fight against the assessments last year. The controversy resulted in a slight decrease of the assessments, as well as a court proceeding still pending against the town.
It also placed a cloud over Tiffany's career, who declined to apply for reappointment this year. The Town Board recently appointed Laura Breslin, an independent appraiser and former account clerk for the Town of Warwick, to take his place.
O'Brien alleged that many Timber Ridge residents came out to vote against the incumbents after seeing the fliers. Democratic challengers Amidee Haviland and Carton Levine received the most votes of 666 and 618, according to unofficial results.
Their win, along with town Supervisor John Burke's unopposed re-election, gives the Democrats a 3-2 majority on the board.
But Aronowitz's close third, with 608 votes, has many of the incumbents' supporters wondering how much of a role the fliers played in the outcome. O'Brien said the Democratic candidates denied involvement in the fliers when he confronted them about it. However, Levine admitted that the misinformation had been approved by Burke.
"I was informed by John Burke that that was the appropriate language in terms of their (McNeil and Aronowitz) actions on the Town Council prior to the assessment."
Burke said he believed the allegation to be true, because the Town Board before him appointed Tiffany. Burke, however, apologized for including Aronowitz, who was not on the board at the time.
"I will take responsibility for our (the Democratic Committee's) mistake," Burke said.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Last resident leaves Camp LaGuardia
Last resident leaves Camp LaGuardia
Goshen -- Orange County Executive Edward Diana today received confirmation from New York City Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Hess that the last resident had left the Camp LaGuardia Homeless Shelter.
“Today is a historic day for the people of Orange County and especially the residents of Blooming Grove and Chester,” Diana said. “Today, after 72 years of hosting a New York City Homeless shelter we are now free of the burdens associated with this facility and we look forward to a bright future that will benefit the residents of Orange County.”
The Camp LaGuardia facility originally opened in 1918 as a women’s correctional facility called “the Greycourt Farm Colony.” It was turned over to the City of New York Department of Welfare in 1935 for the purpose of providing shelter to single homeless men. The camp had long been a source of contention for area residents in the Chester and Blooming Grove areas.
The county assumed title to the property earlier this year and as part of the agreement the City of New York had agreed to completely vacate the premises by July 1st.
The Big Apple several hundred remaining residents of the facility back to New York over the last few months.
The county will review potential uses for the property, which could include development of office space, establishment of a central county senior meal program kitchen, a storage area for new voting machines and others yet-to-be decided upon.
Goshen -- Orange County Executive Edward Diana today received confirmation from New York City Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Hess that the last resident had left the Camp LaGuardia Homeless Shelter.
“Today is a historic day for the people of Orange County and especially the residents of Blooming Grove and Chester,” Diana said. “Today, after 72 years of hosting a New York City Homeless shelter we are now free of the burdens associated with this facility and we look forward to a bright future that will benefit the residents of Orange County.”
The Camp LaGuardia facility originally opened in 1918 as a women’s correctional facility called “the Greycourt Farm Colony.” It was turned over to the City of New York Department of Welfare in 1935 for the purpose of providing shelter to single homeless men. The camp had long been a source of contention for area residents in the Chester and Blooming Grove areas.
The county assumed title to the property earlier this year and as part of the agreement the City of New York had agreed to completely vacate the premises by July 1st.
The Big Apple several hundred remaining residents of the facility back to New York over the last few months.
The county will review potential uses for the property, which could include development of office space, establishment of a central county senior meal program kitchen, a storage area for new voting machines and others yet-to-be decided upon.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Giuliani soars
Giuliani soars, Obama closes gap in White House race: poll Thu Mar 8, 9:27 AM ET
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has more than doubled his lead in the latest voter poll on the Republican presidential nomination, while Senator Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) is closing in on Senator Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, a new survey showed Thursday.
Giuliani, who led Senator John McCain (news, bio, voting record) by six percentage points in December, leads his closest rival by 14 points, 38 to 24 percent, according to the nation-wide Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who led Republicans in their takeover of Congress in 1994, is a distant third with 10 percent, followed by Massachusetts ex-governor Mitt Romney with eight percent.
In a head-to-head matchup, Giuliani, who was dubbed "America's Mayor" for his leadership role after the September 11, 2001 attacks, takes a 21-point lead over McCain, with Republican voters favoring him 55 to 34 percent.
Ten months before the first party primaries for the 2008 election, Clinton's lead over Obama has shrunk by seven points, going from 37-18 percent in December to 40-28 percent in the new poll.
Ex-senator John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential candidate, is in third place with 15 percent of Democratic support, while New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson trails far behind with five percent.
In a face-off, Clinton leads Obama by eight points, 47-39 percent.
On the war in Iraq, the survey shows continued pessimism among Americans, with 69 percent -- the same as in December -- saying they are less confident about a successful conclusion while 20 percent say they are more confident.
President George W. Bush's decision to send 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq is unpopular, with 55 percent saying they strongly oppose the move. But 41 percent are strongly against Congress restricting funding to limit Bush's ability to deploy the additional troops.
The telephone survey was conducted March 2-5 among 1,007 adults. It has a 3.1-point margin of error.
Party nominees are chosen in a series of state-wide elections that begin in January 2008.
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has more than doubled his lead in the latest voter poll on the Republican presidential nomination, while Senator Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) is closing in on Senator Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, a new survey showed Thursday.
Giuliani, who led Senator John McCain (news, bio, voting record) by six percentage points in December, leads his closest rival by 14 points, 38 to 24 percent, according to the nation-wide Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who led Republicans in their takeover of Congress in 1994, is a distant third with 10 percent, followed by Massachusetts ex-governor Mitt Romney with eight percent.
In a head-to-head matchup, Giuliani, who was dubbed "America's Mayor" for his leadership role after the September 11, 2001 attacks, takes a 21-point lead over McCain, with Republican voters favoring him 55 to 34 percent.
Ten months before the first party primaries for the 2008 election, Clinton's lead over Obama has shrunk by seven points, going from 37-18 percent in December to 40-28 percent in the new poll.
Ex-senator John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential candidate, is in third place with 15 percent of Democratic support, while New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson trails far behind with five percent.
In a face-off, Clinton leads Obama by eight points, 47-39 percent.
On the war in Iraq, the survey shows continued pessimism among Americans, with 69 percent -- the same as in December -- saying they are less confident about a successful conclusion while 20 percent say they are more confident.
President George W. Bush's decision to send 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq is unpopular, with 55 percent saying they strongly oppose the move. But 41 percent are strongly against Congress restricting funding to limit Bush's ability to deploy the additional troops.
The telephone survey was conducted March 2-5 among 1,007 adults. It has a 3.1-point margin of error.
Party nominees are chosen in a series of state-wide elections that begin in January 2008.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Camp
NYC's largest homeless shelter closing
By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press WriterMon Feb 26, 1:57 PM ET
Every day, a bus picks up homeless men off the streets of New York City and takes them 70 miles out into the countryside to a shelter, in a practice that has been going on quietly since the Depression, when homeless people were called Bowery bums and fresh air was the solution to just about all ills.
The 1,001-bed Camp LaGuardia is New York City's biggest homeless shelter — and the only one surrounded by farms and trees — but its very existence is probably a surprise to many lifelong New Yorkers.
Now the city is closing it down.
While 73-year-old Camp LaGuardia was born of good intentions and what was then considered progressive thinking, some activists disapprove of it as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind answer to the city's homeless problem.
City Hall says its decision to shut down the shelter was more practical: It is too far outside New York, and the city wants to move away from temporary shelters to subsidized housing.
The shelter opened in 1934 on the site of a women's prison. It was named for the city's exuberant mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, a year later. The place was expanded greatly in the 1980s with the growth of New York's homeless population.
Old jail cells in the main brick building are still used to house older, frailer men, though most of the men are assigned a cot and a squat locker in dorm-style rooms in other buildings, some of which were built in recent decades. The rooms and halls are careworn, and some of the paint is peeling.
In the camp's early decades, the homeless men could rustle up summer work in the kitchens at the big Catskills-style hotels, grow potatoes on the camp's farm, even relax over beer at the tap room — yes, a tap room — though they were not allowed to get drunk.
Nowadays, some of the men work day jobs at places such as a chicken-plucking plant operated by a community of Hasidic Jews.
Homeless men who seek shelter from the city and are assigned to Camp LaGuardia can refuse, and go back on the streets, or they can seek a transfer. Once they are here, they can come and go from the 300-acre camp, but there are not many places to go. The commercial center of Chester, a town of about 12,000, is more than a mile down the road.
About a third of the men leave on the daily buses to New York City for medical appointments, housing searches or family visits. Some work in the city.
Mohamed Chakdouf, 58, lost his job as a concierge at a big New York City hotel, separated from his wife, became depressed, fell behind in his rent and was evicted. By 2001, the Moroccan immigrant was camping out in a park in Manhattan. Breathing problems made winters tough on the street, and he came here by bus one night in January 2005.
"First day I woke up I'm surrounded by mountains," he recalled. "I say, `OK, I have no problem here, but it's so far away.'"
Isolation is a big complaint among homeless men used to urban hubbub. Richard Berlly said he considered staging a fistfight to get kicked out. Celso Trinidad said the 90-minute bus ride back to the city is tiring, so he stays in his room studying maps of the city, hoping to get another job driving a bus.
"It's not a fun place," he said.
Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York said the big problem with LaGuardia is that it is so far from the city. That makes it difficult for the men to look for jobs and housing or take advantage of other services.
Though LaGuardia was started for the right reason, Markee said city leaders found the shelter especially useful when homelessness soared in the '80s.
"The city expanded Camp Laguardia and made it into the largest homeless shelter in New York in part to sort of keep the homeless out of sight of the general population," Markee said. He commended Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration for "doing the right thing" by closing LaGuardia.
With a homeless population estimated at 35,000, the city wants to spend LaGuardia's $19 million budget on longer-term solutions such as subsidized housing with social services.
Robert Hess, city commissioner of homeless services, said the goal is to reduce the shelter population by at least two-thirds by 2009.
Hess said local opposition to the camp was also a factor in the decision to close the place. For decades, people have complained about LaGuardia men wandering into town, getting drunk, urinating in public and, once, slashing a woman.
Michele Murphy, a mother of two children who lives next to the camp, said: "You're afraid to have them play outside because you're not sure."
Still, some men have turned themselves around at LaGuardia.
Chakdouf has become a full-time liaison between homeless people and caseworkers. Berlly, 60, has come a full-fledged caseworker at LaGuardia.
A year ago, all of Camp LaGuardia's beds were full. The last new arrival came in November, and the camp is now down to about 360 men. The last will leave by May 31.
Orange County is buying the place for $8.5 million, perhaps for a senior-citizen dining center, voting machine storage, an office park or affordable housing for workers in the county, which is undergoing a housing boom.
Remaining staff members like Berlly are looking for other jobs. He is still interested in social work.
"I'm going to miss it," he said. "It's like a family, almost."
___
On the Net:
New York City Department of Homeless Services:
By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press WriterMon Feb 26, 1:57 PM ET
Every day, a bus picks up homeless men off the streets of New York City and takes them 70 miles out into the countryside to a shelter, in a practice that has been going on quietly since the Depression, when homeless people were called Bowery bums and fresh air was the solution to just about all ills.
The 1,001-bed Camp LaGuardia is New York City's biggest homeless shelter — and the only one surrounded by farms and trees — but its very existence is probably a surprise to many lifelong New Yorkers.
Now the city is closing it down.
While 73-year-old Camp LaGuardia was born of good intentions and what was then considered progressive thinking, some activists disapprove of it as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind answer to the city's homeless problem.
City Hall says its decision to shut down the shelter was more practical: It is too far outside New York, and the city wants to move away from temporary shelters to subsidized housing.
The shelter opened in 1934 on the site of a women's prison. It was named for the city's exuberant mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, a year later. The place was expanded greatly in the 1980s with the growth of New York's homeless population.
Old jail cells in the main brick building are still used to house older, frailer men, though most of the men are assigned a cot and a squat locker in dorm-style rooms in other buildings, some of which were built in recent decades. The rooms and halls are careworn, and some of the paint is peeling.
In the camp's early decades, the homeless men could rustle up summer work in the kitchens at the big Catskills-style hotels, grow potatoes on the camp's farm, even relax over beer at the tap room — yes, a tap room — though they were not allowed to get drunk.
Nowadays, some of the men work day jobs at places such as a chicken-plucking plant operated by a community of Hasidic Jews.
Homeless men who seek shelter from the city and are assigned to Camp LaGuardia can refuse, and go back on the streets, or they can seek a transfer. Once they are here, they can come and go from the 300-acre camp, but there are not many places to go. The commercial center of Chester, a town of about 12,000, is more than a mile down the road.
About a third of the men leave on the daily buses to New York City for medical appointments, housing searches or family visits. Some work in the city.
Mohamed Chakdouf, 58, lost his job as a concierge at a big New York City hotel, separated from his wife, became depressed, fell behind in his rent and was evicted. By 2001, the Moroccan immigrant was camping out in a park in Manhattan. Breathing problems made winters tough on the street, and he came here by bus one night in January 2005.
"First day I woke up I'm surrounded by mountains," he recalled. "I say, `OK, I have no problem here, but it's so far away.'"
Isolation is a big complaint among homeless men used to urban hubbub. Richard Berlly said he considered staging a fistfight to get kicked out. Celso Trinidad said the 90-minute bus ride back to the city is tiring, so he stays in his room studying maps of the city, hoping to get another job driving a bus.
"It's not a fun place," he said.
Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York said the big problem with LaGuardia is that it is so far from the city. That makes it difficult for the men to look for jobs and housing or take advantage of other services.
Though LaGuardia was started for the right reason, Markee said city leaders found the shelter especially useful when homelessness soared in the '80s.
"The city expanded Camp Laguardia and made it into the largest homeless shelter in New York in part to sort of keep the homeless out of sight of the general population," Markee said. He commended Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration for "doing the right thing" by closing LaGuardia.
With a homeless population estimated at 35,000, the city wants to spend LaGuardia's $19 million budget on longer-term solutions such as subsidized housing with social services.
Robert Hess, city commissioner of homeless services, said the goal is to reduce the shelter population by at least two-thirds by 2009.
Hess said local opposition to the camp was also a factor in the decision to close the place. For decades, people have complained about LaGuardia men wandering into town, getting drunk, urinating in public and, once, slashing a woman.
Michele Murphy, a mother of two children who lives next to the camp, said: "You're afraid to have them play outside because you're not sure."
Still, some men have turned themselves around at LaGuardia.
Chakdouf has become a full-time liaison between homeless people and caseworkers. Berlly, 60, has come a full-fledged caseworker at LaGuardia.
A year ago, all of Camp LaGuardia's beds were full. The last new arrival came in November, and the camp is now down to about 360 men. The last will leave by May 31.
Orange County is buying the place for $8.5 million, perhaps for a senior-citizen dining center, voting machine storage, an office park or affordable housing for workers in the county, which is undergoing a housing boom.
Remaining staff members like Berlly are looking for other jobs. He is still interested in social work.
"I'm going to miss it," he said. "It's like a family, almost."
___
On the Net:
New York City Department of Homeless Services:
Monday, February 19, 2007
That time of the year again!
As a member of Town Council for the past 4 years, I have worked to transform our visions into reality. I am proud of the progress we have made over these 4 years and ask for the opportunity to contribute further for the next 4 years.Three principles have guided me as a member of Town Council: Open Government where decisions are made in full view of public processes,Honest Government where anyone can speak to me about any decision and get a full and complete answer, andParticipation Government in which all citizens can become a part of decision processes.If you would like to help out in the upcoming 2007 election please email me @ mikeaforwoodbury@yahoo.comMonday, January 15, 2007
Open space funding available in Orange County
Open space funding available in Orange County
Goshen – The first round of Orange County Open Space Fund allocations for 2007 will make $3.5 million available for municipalities, non-governmental organizations and individual property owners.
The application packet is available on the Orange County website at www.OrangeCountyGov.com/planning. The Department of Planning will hold a training session on Tuesday, January 23 at 4 p.m. at the 1887 County Building at 124 Main Street in Goshen.Next week, County Executive Edward Diana will announce the projects proposed for funding from the second round of applications in 2006. The projects represent five municipalities – the towns of Wallkill, Warwick, Crawford, Goshen, and Highlands.
Goshen – The first round of Orange County Open Space Fund allocations for 2007 will make $3.5 million available for municipalities, non-governmental organizations and individual property owners.
The application packet is available on the Orange County website at www.OrangeCountyGov.com/planning. The Department of Planning will hold a training session on Tuesday, January 23 at 4 p.m. at the 1887 County Building at 124 Main Street in Goshen.Next week, County Executive Edward Diana will announce the projects proposed for funding from the second round of applications in 2006. The projects represent five municipalities – the towns of Wallkill, Warwick, Crawford, Goshen, and Highlands.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Sunday, January 07, 2007
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