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Is Giuliani Getting A Bum Rap?
by Robert Lederman
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net
July 12, 2000Many people feel obliged to defend Rudy Giuliani in light of the scandalous revelations contained in the just published books, Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani by Wayne Barrett and Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City by Andrew Kirtzman. Even the authors of these books seem to feel it is necessary to preface interviews with a recitation of the Giuliani myth that he destroyed the Mafia, dramatically lowered crime and made New York City safe and prosperous for all.
Like most myths there may be a grain of truth to this, but it is indeed a mere grgrain that we are talking about. The Mafia continues to exist in every state. Crime reduction occurred simultaneously in all 50 States and in most Western nations, according to FBI statistics. Reading any NYC newspaper makes it apparent that rapes, assaults, robberies and murders continue to occur daily throughout the City more or less as they always have.
Perception of crime in NYC on the other hand has changed significantly thanks to six and a half years of media reports written from Giuliani press releases filled with false and misleading statistics. A concerted effort by top NYPD officials to under-report, mis-report and non-report crimes also contributed greatly. As a make-believe hero, Giuliani is even more successful at solving crime than Harry Potter.
The stock market, the BIDs and the real estate industry, not Giuliani, are responsible for the City,s economic resurgence and the relative cleanliness of Midtown Manhattan. The rest of the City however remains as filthy, dangerous and rat-infested as ever.
Most of the resurgence of tourism and the real estate expansion that Giuliani has claimed credit for-such as the Times Square and South Street Seaport renewals and the sprucing up of Central Park-are totally attributable to former Mayors Koch and Dinkins and to private institutions like the Central Park Conservancy while the crime reduction policies he pretends to have initiated actually were formulated under Mayor Dinkins.
Despite all the perceived safety, tourists are just as likely to be held up by a stick-up artist like Harold Giuliani as they were during the Depression years of the 1930,s. White collar crime and criminal acts by the officials running the City are if anything at an all time high, especially if one includes crimes against the civil rights of the residents of New York-which have reached astronomical levels under Giuliani.
The Mayor and other notable Italian Americans, including former NY State Governor Mario Cuomo and former Deputy Mayor Randy Maestro, are trying to depict releasing the Giuliani family criminal record and his father,s employment as a mob loan-collector as anti-Italian slurs and irrelevant information about distant relatives. Since when are a father, uncles and cousins, distant relatives? Presumably, the cost of the Mayor,s Catholic school and college education came from the proceeds of the illegal betting and loan-sharking operation his father worked for after being paroled for armed robbery.
The prominent Italians attacking these two books seem to have forgotten that Giuliani himself revels in the Italian-as-mobster identification. He routinely prefaces his fundraising speeches with a third-rate Godfather imitation and forced his entire staff to watch the film on New Years Eve as if it was this administration,s Bible.
In what may have been a veiled tribute to his father, Giuliani actually appeared on Saturday Night Live a few years ago as a baseball bat wielding Mafia enforcer beating to death a Black actor portraying Washington DC Mayor, Marion Barry. Perhaps Rudy was just acting out his anger over the fact that his first wife left him for a Black college professor.
The most significant and relevant thing to come from these two books is not that the Mayor had some criminals in the family closet or incessantly cheated on his wives but that he is a consistent, even pathological liar on subjects personal, political and legal. That his defenders persist in using the terms honest and forthright to describe the Mayor shows just how much they themselves are willing to distort the truth.
The citizens of this City should think carefully about why the Giuliani myth is so important to so many people. Since even his defenders often state that they dislike Giuliani as a person it clearly is not just loyalty that is motivating them.
What is at stake is not only the Mayor,s reputation and future political career but the gung-ho agenda of privatization, militarization of the police, racial-profiling and loss of privacy that he represents. That social-Eugenics agenda never was his own but was adopted directly from the CIA-sponsored and Rockefeller-funded Manhattan Institute.
While the Manhattan Institute has managed to remain just below the average person,s radar, it,s profound right-wing influence on government continues to grow. According to the NY Times GW Bush is surrounded by members of the Manhattan Institute who have become his most influential advisors. These advocates for rolling back affirmative action, privatizing schools and getting every American,s DNA into a police database will likely end up being appointed to top-level posts in a Bush administration.
As privatization, zero-tolerance policing and the whole misguided notion of enhancing quality of life by eliminating civil rights are seen to be expressions of the Giuliani pathology rather than as great and inevitable ideas, the Mayor,s identification with these issues could become the best argument against them. That is why the Giuliani myth must be maintained despite a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Indeed, the chickens will continue to come home to roost. The Mayor has left a wake of disgruntled former governmental associates and victims, many of whom are just waiting for the right moment to drop a dime on Rudy Giuliani.
As we approach the final days of this administration and the Mayor,s ability to intimidate his enemies, silence prosecutors and deny media coverage to government watchdogs diminishes, expect to see criminal indictments for Giuliani and his closest associates. Someday soon, everyone will understand very clearly why I and others have for years called the Mayor, New York City,s biggest criminal.
It is not surprising that Gracie Mansion, the Mayoral residence, is infested with rats. He and the pests that make up his criminal administration continue to be the City,s number one threat to public health and safety.
Daily News Editorial 7/11/2000
Rudy's Record Is Open Book
Not to be forgotten amid the sensationalized revelations about Mayor Giuliani's family history is one simple, unshakable truth: Whoever raised him and taught him created the most effective crimefighter to serve the city and the nation in more than half a century. Giuliani is the greatest racketbuster since Thomas E. Dewey, the most zealous anti-corruption crusader since Fiorello LaGuardia. And, to the benefit of the entire city, this tough-as-nails prosecutor became a clean-up-your-act mayor. He has led New Yorkers in saying no to crime and to criminals — be they Mafia dons or turnstile jumpers — and he has had the courage to be honest about his political positions. In the process, he has transformed the culture of the city. He was, and is, the right man at the right time for New York...After he was elected mayor, Giuliani's NYPD started locking up armies of squeegee pests, fare-beaters, chain snatchers, deadbeat dads and graffiti "artists."Detractors sneered. But crime rates plunged as ne'er-do-wells pulled in for minor crimes turned out to be packing guns or toting drugs or wanted on felony warrants. Just as Giuliani had predicted.
Newsday 7/11/2000
Rudy Cautions Against Mob Labels Say Italian-Americans 'automatically' linked
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has often berated those who claim to be victimized because of ethnicity, complained yesterday that Italian-Americans who commit crimes are "automatically"linked to the Mafia. "If it happens in an Italian-American family, then it immediately becomes, 'There must be some connection to the Mafia,' " Giuliani said
Gerald Padian, an attorney representing trash carters, said the mayor does not give others the benefit of the doubt. Padian said that under regulations Giuliani created, people in the industry can lose their licenses if they have relatives with mob ties
Giuliani created similar legislation covering the Fulton Fish Market and wholesale produce markets. Many of those who lost jobs had clean records, Padian said. "They were denied licenses for connections far more attenuated, far more distant, than what the mayor has," Padian said. "There is a standard for hauling garbage...that the mayor himself could not meet. You would think he would be more understanding."NY Times July 11, 2000
The Mayor Smells a Rat Near Home
Citing frequent encounters with rats on his porch at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced the formation of a new city task force yesterday to examine ways to control the rodent population in New York City
Mr. Giuliani encouraged city residents not to expect too much. "It is unrealistic to think you are not going to have rats," the mayor said, before adding, without hesitation, that "you should not have as many as we have."To a Directory of Mr.Lederman's Essays
Important Note:
Mr. Lederman has explained that his articles posted here are not to be taken as official statements by the No-Spray Coalition of which he is a member or of the "No-Spray" lawsuit in which he is a plaintiff.Blue Collar Pundit Essays
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Alice’s Looking Glass WorldMy America
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God is Starting to Scare Me!
It's All Part of the Plan!
Turning the World Wide Web Into
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