· As someone who’s been critical of the Chabad/Lubavitcher Movement and some of the Rabbis who came out of it, as well as someone who’s criticized Orthodox Jews who’ve rioted or engaged in bias crimes and the politicians who’ve defended them, I hope I can avoid charges of pro-Hasidic bias when talking about the Crown Heights riots.
I understand the black community of Crown Heights was harboring a real sense of grievance about perceived disparate treatment, and that that perception was not entirely one which could be dismissed as incredible.
Or am I being too subtle?
Further, I think there are legitimate questions about how the Police and others handled the auto accident which killed a young boy named Gavin Cato.
None of which excuses the riot that followed, in which innocent people were attacked because they were white and/or Jewish and in which one innocent young man named Yankel Rosenbaum died and others were injured.
I would never argue that the death of Yankel Rosenbaum justified Jewish attacks against innocent black people.
The only heroes of the riot happened to be black people–people like reporter Phil Noel who voluntarily put his life on the line to protect innocents from the mobs, and the dozens of people with Caribbean accents heard on 911 calls pleading with the Police to please protect their Jewish neighbors during a riot in which Police often seemed to be sitting on their hands instead of stopping the violence against people they were sworn to protect.
But, as an unrelenting, nasty, mean, vicious and intense critic of former NYC Mayor Rudolph (AKA “Nasty Man”) Giuliani, and a person who was hired by the Dinkins administration over a year after the riots precisely because I understood the grievances of white Brooklyn, I think that calling Crown Heights a "pogrom" misses the point.
A pogrom is usually thought to require official sanction.
To say the riots happened with official sanction underestimates the Mayor's empathy, but overestimates his initiative.
Dinkins went to Crown Heights, and told black audiences that the death a child in an accident was not the moral equivalent of the death a young man by murder.
Dinkins called the killing of Yankel Rosenbaum "a lynching."
The problem was he didn't do anything.
· Yankel Rosenbaum died before anyone knew there was a problem. Dinkins should not be blamed for his death.
· But, once City Hall knew what was going on, they rigidly accepted what was handed to them by the bureaucratic chain of command, as if it was the Civil Service rather than the electeds who were running the City.
It TThe same passivity in the face of the "experts" was on display when the Mayor pushed forward on a plan to build a resource recovery plant in Williamsburg he had pledged to kill during his campaign.
It iIt was on display during the City's technicality-based malingering on the enforcement of an injunction regulating the demonstrations against a Korean grocer in Flatbush.
Voters do not expect their electeds to bow to the bureaucracy and defer to its expertise.
· Voters expect their electeds to kick the bureaucracy’s ass, and make it do what it is necessary.
Dinkins’ failure to intervene in a timely manner during the Crown Heights riots was less pogrommatic than programmatic. Telling It Like It Wasn’t | The Jewish Week www.thejewishweek.com
Incredibly ignorant Post editorial; it wasn't Groucho’s Captain Jeffrey Spaulding who proposed paying musicians more not to show up; It was Chico Marx's Signor Emanuel Ravelli.
For shame. MIA Councilmembers www.nypost.com
Dead on Daily News editorial about how bicyclists respond to criticism. Cyclists up on their high horse about criticism of misuse of the Manhattan Bridge pedestrian path www.nydailynews.com
The definitive article about blogging. Autofellatio: The contorted history. www.slate.com
I promised the other day not to comment on Rock’s pieces in my remaining time here and I intend to keep that promise.
The one exception I made was that I would correct errors of fact (not opinion) about me personally.
This is a personal matter, and without making any insulting remarks about Rock, I feel it is my right to set the record straight concerning any incorrect factual assertions (at least some of them clearly made without malice), made about me personally.
Here is a list of my clarifications concerning Rock’s latest column’s assertions about me.
1) “He also promised to take some of the writers from Room Eight with him, in hopes that this site will die on the vines.”
No, I promised to ask some people, not all of them current Room 8 bloggers, to join me, in the hopes that they might like to post in a place with a different atmosphere and set of standards. I did not express the hope that Room 8 would die; I expressed an opinion that it would die. I also expressed it opinion that this would not be an unmerited result, but I am not hoping that Room 8 dies; I am apathetic about whether Room 8 dies.
2) “In an interview recently, Gary Tilzer -the erstwhile political consultant- described Gatemouth as someone who is deranged. Tilzer has been subjected to similar attacks for years. Gatemouth has publicly ridiculed Tilzer for reasons as frivolous as anything imaginable. These two one (sic) worked together politically in many a collaborative venture.”
Although sometimes I have ridiculed Tilzer for frivolous reasons, like the way he spells and the way he smells, mostly I have also attacked him for lying, failures of disclosure, ethical breaches, hypocrisy, lying, distorting the truth, and giving aid and conform to right wingers while propounding the myth that he is a “progressive reformer.”
I also do not believe it is accurate to say that Tilzer and I worked together politically in many a collaborative venture. I recall only once: an effort to knock a slate of candidates (including Rock) off the ballot in 2000. If there were any others, I do not recall them.
It is however true that Gary once asked me to become his business partner in political consulting. I demurred, saying that I thought I lacked the necessary skills in certain areas. He replied that those areas would be his department, and that what he need from me were my “people skills.”
I would submit that anyone whose people skills are inferior to mine is probably a candidate for civil commitment.
3) “Presently, Gatemouth has started attacking Vincent Nunes -another member of the Room Eight colony of writers. In his warped mind there is always a justification for these ad hominem attacks.”
I’m sorry, but any “writer’s colony” containing Mr. Nunes is more appropriately deemed a leper colony. I will note that I am not alone in my opinion that Mr. Nunes is a conspiracy nut who has a Jew problem. It is shared by Mole333, a respected local blogger who I believe Rock also holds in fairly high regard. Mole is, if anything, harsher than I am (read the two threads I linked) on the matter of Mr. Nunes.
On opinion and belief, I think Ben Smith and Gur Tsabar also agree with my assessment, as Mr. Nunes’ columns all appear to have been deleted from Room 8’s front page (and it is their First Amendment right to do this).
4) “With his warped fingers he could always pen an explanation. You can go back to his feuds with Michael Bouldin from the Daily Gotham blog: same thing.”
I think Mr. Bouldin’s disagreements with me were primarily political, which, given our similar views, was mostly about the narcissism of small differences. Bouldin was the first NYC political blogger to join my family for a Seder. I cannot say when exactly the personal remarks suddenly morphed from jokes to attacks, or who committed the first offense, and I’m not sure anyone on Daily Gotham (a group of writers whose views, except on the matter of Marty Connor, were almost always closer to Bouldin’s than mine), regarded our fights as anything but a love affair (albeit platonic) gone wrong, and that few would ascribe blame either way. Mole, Millstone and Jacoby are invited to jump in here. I could say more, but I think the parties involved are entitled to their privacy.
5) “I could go even further back and recall Gatemouth attacking Maurice Gumbs and his political writings.”
I do plead guilty to a couple of attacks on Mr. Gumbs very early on in our blogging relationship that way too far. One of those, in a Gumbs thread, has been deleted. But, shortly thereafter, Gumbs and I adopted a posture of sometimes harsh, but mutually respectful, disagreement. Some of his words of praise for me are excerpted on my old un-updated homepage here, and I am very proud of them.
I will also note that (thanks mostly to Rock, who I never adequately thanked for the wonderful experience) I once spent several hours in a lovely dinner/discussion with Mr. Gumbs at a Greek restaurant in Delray Beach Florida. Here is what I wrote about Maurice when he left Room 8:
As one of the few Room 8 bloggers who has seen fit to butt heads in print with Mo Gumbs (the other one was Rock; lol!), let me join those who wish it were not so, even though Mo’s absence will almost surely help keep my blood from boiling, and severely decrease my incentive to say things which get people enraged.
Mo forced one to take him seriously and engage in brain-work; Mo forced one to get the facts right; Mo one forced one to re-examine one’s conclusions; and on at least one occasion, Mo forced one to change his mind.
Mo’s standard of justice is unyielding. Mo rarely tempered his justice with mercy, but Mo would always give the devil the due to which he thought the devil was entitled. “Joe Hynes” his headline once complained, “sometimes a bully, but never a racist”, in a piece which was as passionate a defense of a political adversary as has ever been written. I’ve seen Mo show more compassion to Jeff Feldman than was shown by many a Feldman “friend”. And I’ve seen him time and again savage me in terms running from half affectionate sarcastic endearments to blistering condemnation; that being said, Maurice Gumbs was never shy in bestowing praise upon an adversary who he believed had earned it. Some of the bouquets he’s tossed in my direction have been amongst the kindest remarks about my writing I’ve ever encountered, and are amongst my most prized possessions. I’ve enshrined at least three of them on my homepage.
Mo would not dissemble and did not tolerate it from others. Many times Mo got facts wrong, but never (at least in his writing) distorted the truth as he saw it (but boy could he get it wrong!). His work in political blogging began before the beginning, as I’ve said before; in a way he is father to us all. Mo, please have someone put your old pieces onto a website; I’m sure there are no shortage of volunteers to do the grunt-work.
Even those of us who disagreed frequently with Mo could not help but be impressed with his passion and compassion; he truly was committed to a vision of a better world (or maybe just a better Brooklyn). Most impressive was his commitment to social justice, especially as it involved our children.
My favorite story related to Mo involves Justice Michael Garson. Long before the family’s trouble, and shortly after their good fortune, Mo had written (or uncovered) a version of Tom Paxton’s satirical “I’m Changing My Name To Chrysler” (about the corporation’s bailout) and printed it in “Foonotes”, the lyrics went something like:
“I’m changing my name to Garson
So County will think I’m a mensch
I’m giving my money to Carl and Clarence
And buying a seat on the bench”
Anyway, the story goes that Justice Michael heard about the song, thought it was hilarious and was troubling all his friends to get him a copy of the lyrics, which he clearly had enjoyed just a little too much. It reminded me of the scene in Jimmy Breslin’s novel, “Forsaking All Others”, where a District Leader, called out by a rival at a Party meeting for demanding a judgeship for a family member when he already had six relatives on the payroll responds to the slander by correcting the record to reflect that he actually had seven relatives on the payroll; some folks just can’t be shamed, and Mo brought out this higher truth.
Don’t call me over-sentimental; I still disagree with Mo on matters large and small, including his silly crusade against the Lawyers Torah Club, a group open to anyone, which meets four times a year for lunch so that a bunch of old men can get together to talk about their prostates over deli. But reading Mo has always been one been one of my guilty pleasures, even when I was drowning in so much pretty prose as to be able to save myself only by skipping every other paragraph (lol), a trick I learned the first time I read “All The Kings Men” by Robert Penn Warren.
6) “Look how he keeps repeating that he lent me money to go to Denver for the convention (not the actual truth). He knows that I was contemplating not going since I wasn’t working and couldn’t afford all the pertinent expenses. He offered to help; and now he uses this as an attack piece. Some “nice-guy” he is!”
I only repeated this anecdote because I think it casts doubt on the proposition that I have been on an uninterrupted six year vendetta against Mr. Hackshaw. However, I don’t think I ever said I lent Rock money to go to Denver (which is surely not the case), and we only know that I offered to do so because Rock told us. There’s more to be said, but frankly I don’t think any other details about these matters are appropriate
7) “And when we got to Denver, this multi-personality jackass tried to treat me like shit. He even taunted me publicly about not producing many columns. He knew full well I had limited computer-access. He knew full well that my lap top was busted even before I got on the plane. Anyone interested in finding the truth need to go back through the archives of August 2008 (both daily Gotham and Room Eight blogs archives).”
My treatment of Rock at the Convention is a matter on which we disagree; I think we had different interests and wanted to do different things at different times and places. I will, however, admit I was rude when I was greeted after a long day of travel and party with a 2:00 AM phone call.
As to the allegations about what was said about Rock not posting from the convention, I was not the one who started or even suborned such posts. They arrived on Room 8 as posts on my threads from people like Rwallnermy (an insipid idiot that Rock, Bouldin and I all sparred with regularly), and I was rather annoyed by them. It got so annoying that I felt I had to respond. Rather than argue this, or anything else about the convention. I am just going to link all the columns by myself and Rock in question and their threads: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
I doubt anyone will find any truth about what transpired on “Daily Gotham,” as by the time of the 2008 convention, I had already been banned there.
7) “I wasn’t the one who refused to be a team player.”
Vito Lopez has made the same complaint of me.
I don’t recall being asked by the owners of this blog to be a team player, and I certainly did not make such a promise. If I was a team player, I wouldn’t be blogging. And frankly, I don’t want to reading blogging by “team players.”
8) “This is the same man who accused me of writing columns for $2600 a pop.”
I do not think this is an accurate description of what I actually said.
There were some other assertions made about me which I consider unfair, but whether I am, as Rock puts it in a comments on Vincent Nunes’ new (and non-front paged) column [which I refuse to link—good luck finding it] “a brilliant political mind [with]…mental issues” is ultimately a matter of opinion, (Domestic Partner is with Rock on that one), and I promised I would not argue such things. However, it does seem a funny way of showing, as Rock claims in the same post “that as far as I am concerned my feud with Hatemouth is over.”
But, as I regularly point out to my friends on the Zionist right, a cold and hostile peace is still peace.
Go in peace, bro.