Posted on 03/16/2007 7:52:16 AM PDT by meg88
So former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has officially entered the presidential race. Upon hearing his name, many think of "America's Mayor" in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Others may conjure up memories of the reduced crime rate, or of blatant First Amendment violations. But there is one insidious phrase which is most commonly used of Giuliani's time in office, and it is that aspect I wish to discuss here.
The catchphrase is "clean up." "Oh, he really cleaned up the city," people rave. Let us parse that innocuous little term a bit. To clean something up is to rid it of filth, dirt and other such undesirables. What disgusting scourge did Giuliani oust from New York City? Homeless people. At first blush, this may seem desirable. But Giuliani did not rid us of the plagues of homelessness, hopelessness and abject poverty. Instead, he rid us of having to see the people suffering from such afflictions. He encouraged the arrests and relocation of the homeless on petty charges, while simultaneously and dramatically cutting funding and staffing for programs intended to ameliorate their condition.
By 2000, it ought to be noted - after seven years of Giuliani's tender care - the homelessness rate in New York was higher than it had been since the economic recession in 1989. Though the homeless had largely disappeared from sight due to street sweeps, their number had steadily increased due to Giuliani's policies. According to the Village Voice, he consistently "cut or stymied funding for homeless services, welfare, food stamps, food pantries, hospitals, health care and prescription-drug programs, AIDS services, low-income housing, day care, neighborhood parks, after-school and recreation programs, seniors' programs, small museums, small cultural and arts programs, libraries and legal services for the poor." He reduced capital spending on affordable housing by over 40 percent, cut creation of apartments for homeless families by 75 percent, downsized the staff of the Department of Homeless Services by half and transferred the vast majority of public homeless shelters into private hands.
So how did Giuliani deal with the problem that he was exacerbating? He chose to do so by essentially criminalizing homelessness. He reinterpreted a sanitation department regulation banning the abandoning of cars and the like on city streets to apply to people living in cardboard boxes - other laws, such as those prohibiting camping in parks without a permit, were applied towards the same goal. Giuliani charged street patrols with paying "special attention" to such terrors as "prostitution, homeless people, noise complaints, panhandling, public drinking, squeegee men and graffiti" - and ordered the arrest of any homeless person who refused to be placed in a shelter on such specious charges as disorderly conduct, trespassing or impeding the flow of pedestrian traffic. He even attempted to pass legislation that would put children in foster care if their parents did not fulfill certain "workfare" requirements.
Giuliani clearly never stopped to consider why someone would refuse to be "helped" by being put into a shelter - for it is not simple recalcitrance. Homeless shelters are often dirty, crowded and dangerous. Those who seek a haven there face the prospect of battery, robbery, rape and infection within their walls; shelters also teem with the mentally ill, due to the dismantling of social and medical services meant to help them. Little wonder, then, that many prefer the dubious safety of the streets to such an atmosphere. Giuliani underscores his utter lack of comprehension and empathy by public remarks like this one, reported in the New York Times, "Streets do not exist in civilized societies for the purpose of people sleeping there … Bedrooms are for sleeping." The right to sleep on the street, he declares, "doesn't exist anywhere. The founding fathers never put that in the Constitution." The workings of his mind are simply unfathomable. Does he honestly believe that anyone wants to sleep on the streets in sub-zero weather, at the mercy of the elements, without such basic amenities as a toilet or washbasin, their desperation and humiliation exposed to every passerby? The question is not of the "right to sleep on the street" but rather of the responsibility of the government to provide a safety net, a viable alternative to that last resort - a duty at which the Giuliani administration has patently and deliberately failed.
Giuliani did not care about the misery of the homeless - only the distaste of the affluent. As a city official explained to the New York Times, "I think most citizens of the city, if they are walking in the park and they see some unknown figure sleeping in a cardboard box, they don't feel very secure." Well-to-do people, Giuliani's actions boldly declare, should not have to deal with unsolicited people trying to wash their windshields or sell them wilted roses at traffic lights. They should not have to step over the bodies of their less fortunate brethren sprawled sleeping in stations or huddled shivering on metal subway grates. They should not have to be panhandled daily and forced to look into the scruffy face of the Other. It's simply uncivilized.
I'm not trying to be sanctimonious here. It is uncomfortable. It makes me feel awkward and guilty and conflicted and helpless. But the solution is not arresting people for loitering who literally have nowhere to go, or prodding them awake with batons and demanding that they "move along." Silly as metaphorical battles with abstractions sound, surely a "War on Homelessness" is better than a "War on Homeless People."
Now, homelessness may not be "your cause." But even if you are not passionate about this issue for its own sake, some vital insights into Giuliani's character can be gleaned by the examination of his behavior. Presented with a social problem, he responded by valiantly protecting the sensibilities of the privileged by persecuting and prosecuting the powerless. He kicked people who were down and then arrested them for having the gall to lie there winded - and all this in the name of "quality-of-life improvements." I shudder to think of what he would do if we voters allow him the opportunity to "clean up" America.
I would be interested in an example or two of Unconstitutional and or Illegal instances of his abuse of mayoral power. Alternately, you can cite his performance as a Prosecutor.
Thank you
Gotta love the "staunch conservatives" on this thread lining up to agree with the Maxzists.
Marxists, that is.
Thank you for pointing that out. I hear that bunk from liberals all the time and I am constantly telling them that it was the ACLU and the liberal judges who booted the mentally ill into the streets.
I used to write for the Yale Daily News. Our basic assignment was always: see what you can see, talk to people who know the subject, and then write it up factually in pyramid style, with the most important facts in the lede. And when you edit to fit the column inches allowed, be sure you've answered the basic questions: who, what, where, when, why and how?
Any competent reporter for any competent news outlet should be following the same rules. But then, I wrote for that newspaper a long time ago, back when ice covered the Earth. Apparently, times have changed in journalism.
John / Billybob
Just a rich Ivy League twit, regurgitating the socialist garbage that her Communist professors have been spoon-feeding her. She's probably never been anywhere NEAR a NY street lunatic, much less been mugged/groped/raped by one.
Exactly!
Yeah they fear him like a briar patch.
What they fear is that McCain will not survive the primary season with his reputation intact. Giuliani's almost as destroyable in the general election, and they would be content to run their candidate against Rudy G.
Now if, instead, they saw Fred Thompson coming at them like a locomotive, that would genuinely soil their drawers.
I repeat; “What has he done to violate the constitution as either Mayor or Prosecutor?” Advocating is easy. So he pushed for Gun Control. If a “LAW” is passed within the framework of the constitution, then it does not violate the constitution.
Look, I have some issues with Rudy, but I tend to try to strike a balance with all of the candidates. I rate and weigh all of the Pros and Cons with each person and arrive at a decision. I don’t think that it helps the dialog to make spurious accusations about an imagined Constitutional affront.
This from a guy who, on an previous thread, wanted to drop a nuke on Teheran, a city with a population of 10 million people?
gun control laws ARE unconstitutional....I dont want to hear the slime lawyer crap about "If a “LAW” is passed within the framework of the constitution"...
get back to me when our enemys are protected by the U.S. Constituion as citizens....then we can talk.
thank God you weren't in charge during WWII.
Your ire is apparent. For a gun control Law to take effect, it is apparent that the constitution no longer needs being amended. I cite as an example the First Amendment violations of the McCain Feingold bill. It clearly restricts political speech, yet the Supreme Court upheld it. There are many instances where there are unconstitutional laws are on the books. Every regulation by the EPA for an example is in violation of the Constitution.
You passion is duly noted. Your rational judgment though is also duly noted.
PS: I am not a “slime lawyer” I received my English Under Graduate degree in 1980 and have been making a comfortable living in dealing with Computers and people since 1973.
I wish you a happy St. Patty’s day!
The essence of your argument is, the Iranians are not covered by the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, therefore it's okay to incinerate over 10 million people, many of whom are hardcorp opponents of the Ayatollahs, and the Iranian mullahcracy.
I suppose if I was arguing that point, I'd be a bit sensitive as well.
This is pure BS.
He protected the sensibilities of the working class, NOT the privileged. The privileged were already protected in their secure high rises with private guards. And escorted via limousine anywhere their privileged little hearts desired by their private chauffeurs.
And that, I might add, is why there are so many rich liberals. i.e. Limousine Liberals.
You have absolutely no understanding of OUR constitution!
It was not uncommon to be walking in Manhattan and get to watch homeless people pull down their pants to defecate on the sidewalk and then walk away from their steaming pile with their pants around their ankles. People were living on heating grates and sleeping outside during rainstorms. Schizophrenics would menace people with knives or their fists since without supervision they wouldn't take their meds. The shelters themselves were dangerous because there was no distinction between homeless people--some people had lost their apartments but the vast majority of the homeless were recently released convicts, drug and alcohol addicts, and the mentally ill. Letting them live on the streets endangered other people and many a homeless person was found dead in a park or on a bench during the winter. Several homeless people were severely injured on train tracks (legs amputations, etc) since small communities of mole people were living in underground tunnels of the subway system.
If cleaning them up--sending them indoors and requiring that they eat and bathe and sleep under a roof--seems mean to you I guess it is true what they say--it takes all kinds.
During Guiliani's tenure he asked for Churches to help pick up the slack since the city system was rampant with corruption and mismanagement. I personally volunteered in my local church men's shelter and served dinner on a routine basis. Almost every church in NYC now participates with soup kitchens and sleeping accomodations.
The private sector volunteer community is vast and does it with more efficiency and love than any government run shelter. My friend was a social worker with the 3rd Street Men's Shelter in the Bowery for years. The clients often complained about guards selling drugs or stealing from them. Government run often means poorly run IMHO.
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