Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Re: Whores For President – “A Modest Proposal” To Cure This

May 31, 2006

Re: Whores For President – “A Modest Proposal” To Cure This.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.blogspot.com


Dear Colleagues:

We all know that politicians have long been in it for the money -- for the grafting, the monetary favors, the bribes (which sometimes used to be called campaign contributions but now can be just plain bribes), for the presidencies of large companies that go to highly placed political figures who have little or no business experience (e.g., Rumsfeld (Searles), Cheney (Halliburton)). All this has occurred for centuries. But to become President for the monetary reward? This is sort of new, isn’t it? People became kings because this was (ahem) the royal road to riches. But President?

Becoming President to get rich, or richer, is sort of a new phenomenon, isn’t it? The first time this writer can remember hearing about such a thing was when Reagan was said to have received two million dollars from a Japanese company for giving two speeches during a nine day visit to Japan in 1989. Two million bucks for a couple of speeches. Nice work for a guy whom the conservatives pretend to have been the second coming of the Savior.

Reagan’s good work was followed by that of George H. W. (Facedowninthesoup (in Japan)) Bush. After leaving the presidency Facedowninthesoup began working for the Carlyle Group, a bunch of ex-high-government types -- guys like Frank Carlucci, dontcha know. They would take him to places like Saudi Arabia, where he would gladhand. That was his function for them, to gladhand -- nothing substantive, one gathers. The other Carlyleites would turn Facedowninthesoup’s gladhanding into huge deals -- Carlyle now runs about 25 billion dollars or so. How much Carlyle paid Facedowninthesoup is not known, nor does one know how much they let him invest in their deals or how much money he made doing it. But one does know that the Bushes and the Saudis have long been close, and that it’s a long way from Chichijima. Carlyle must have paid Facedowninthesoup plenty.

Then there’s Bill Clinton. It is reported that between 2001 and 2004 Billy Blowhard made about 22 million dollars for speechifying, that about 16 million of this came from foreign speeches, and that he was once paid $400,000 for a speech. And all this was only through 2004 -- as far as one knows, it hasn’t stopped. Nice work for someone whom the liberal Democrats pretend is the second coming of the Savior.

Let’s face it. What we now have are whores for president. Financial whores, but whores nonetheless. Want more proof? -- read The New York Times’ page one article of May 7th about a company called International Profit Associates. The company’s owner is a disbarred lawyer with a criminal record. The Feds are “pressing a sexual harassment suit against the company on behalf of 113 [yep -- 113] former female employees.” The company is being investigated because of accusations of deceptive marketing practices. Great owner, great company, huh? It must be a great company: Facedowninthesoup received $82,000 from it for speaking at a 1999 company banquet, Billy Blowhard got $125,000 for a 2001 appearance. And then there’s Hillary, who hasn’t yet been but wants to be President. (In the past she was only copresident, sort of like Dick Cheney.) She has “collected more than $150,000 in contributions from executives of International Profit Associates, some as recently as September, and spoke at a company event in 2004. As a group, company officials and their spouses are one of the largest sources of contributions to Mrs. Clinton’s re-election campaign.” (Maybe Katie Couric too should run for President, so we would have two female candidates. Couric certainly has the financial greed to qualify as a candidate. Having signed a $15 million a year contract with CBS, she is holding up the University of Oklahoma for $115,000 to make a commencement speech.)

I say it’s time we put an end to this whoring and made honest men and women of these prostitutes. So saying, I would like, as Jonathan Swift said, to make “A Modest Proposal.” Instead of holding an election for President, we should auction off the Presidency to the highest bidder. In the best University of Chicago tradition of the free-market a outrance, an auction would cause the Presidency to go to whomever would pay the most for it because they figure they can make the most from it. This would mean that the Presidency would be an exercise in pure, honest capitalism, which Reagan taught us all to love, instead of an exercise in whoring.

Do not reject this modest proposal out of hand, as some of you will be tempted to do. Think on it awhile. Think how different the headlines might be, and how much better off we might be. Instead of headlines blaring “40 dead in two car bomb attacks in Baghdad,” we might have headlines reading “President Hillary sells Baghdad to insurgents for fifty million. She pockets ten million of it.” Instead of headlines saying “Ice cap melting because of automobile emissions,” we might have headlines saying, “President McCain founds company to drain ice cap melt, transport it to Arizona desert to ‘refloat’ London Bridge and make desert bloom. His cut; 20 percent.” Instead of headlines saying “John Kerry attacked again by Swiftboat group,” we might have headlines saying, “President Kerry buys swiftboaters, then sells them to Viet Nam for $20 million to populate tiger cages.” Instead of headlines about disputes on whether to drill for oil and gas in or off the coast of Alaska, we might have headlines saying “President Giuliani says Seward’s Folly is; sells it back to Russkies for huge profit over our purchase price; gets 30 million personally.” Instead of headlines about 45 million people not having health insurance, we might have headlines saying, “President Frist announces his family’s hospitals will treat all uninsured citizens everywhere for government payments of 110 percent charged by New York City hospitals.”

There are no end of possibilities under the modest proposal being made here, the purely (and desirably) capitalist proposal being made here. Do not reject it out of hand. Think on it. Think on it.*

*This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress

----- Original Message -----

From: harvey
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

Dear Larry:

I would like to respond to your most recent accusations, but national security precludes me from doing so. However, I am at liberty to aver that the only difference between Mr. Jefferson and his cohorts is that he got caught.

HAL


Dean Lawrence R. Velvel wrote:

May 26, 2006

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.blogspot.com


Dear Colleagues:

We are currently being “treated” to more of the moral rot that infests both political parties and, consequently, to yet another example of why a third party is desperately needed. I speak, of course, of the spectacle of the bitter outrage expressed by Congressional members of both political parties over the FBI’s search of the office of Congressman William Jefferson. (Too bad it wasn’t the office of William Jefferson Clinton, isn’t it?) The search was done on a quiet Saturday night (and all night). That is scheming and bad. But it was also done pursuant to a court authorized warrant, after Jefferson had refused to comply with subpoenas, after he had been caught on tape, says the FBI, accepting a $100,000 bribe, after the FBI found most of the money in a freezer in his home, after Jefferson has become suspected of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars more in bribes, and at a time when, it has become obvious, Congress has become an utter cesspool of corruption, including, of course, the particular corruption of bribery.

The leaders of the cesspool, however, profess themselves outraged -- shocked, shocked -- over the supposed violation of their supposedly inviolable precincts by the FBI. Not just the expectable coterie of partisan Democrats (the usual suspects), but reactionary Republicans who lead Congress rushed to the defense of an African American Democrat from Louisiana who appears to be a major league political criminal. It likely has not escaped these Republican heroes, of course, that if the FBI can search the offices of the Democrat Jefferson, then it can also search the offices of the numerous Republican bribe takers and grafters in the national legislature. That is a possibility the reactionary Republicans would devoutly wish to forestall.

Needless to say, the Democrats and Republicans both wrap their selfish concerns in supposed principle, here the so-called Speech and Debate Clause -- the little-known subject of legalistics over the years -- and separation of powers. But let’s forget the legalistics in favor of discussing what in reality is supposed to be at stake -- of what has historically been said to be at stake in analogous situations involving prosecution of legislators. What is said to be at stake in these kinds of situations are the institutional prerogatives, the institutional interests, of Congress, the very powers of Congress. In plain English, if the Executive can search Congressional offices and/or prosecute legislators, it is said, then it assuredly will have the power to intimidate, cow, and coerce the legislative lions. It will become all-powerful, and Congress, the branch that the founders intended to be preeminent, will (further) shrink in importance.

Well, today that argument is a fine how do you do, isn’t it? We have a Congress that jumped on the Executive’s war-making bandwagon and allowed the Executive to go to war without exercising its own legislative authority by questioning WMD claims that were bushwa. We have a Congress that, as occurred before with Viet Nam, lacks the brains and guts to exercise its own power to stop the war. We have a Congress that has itself done nothing effective -- zippo -- to stop the Executive torture that violates Congress’ own anti-torture statute, that has done nothing to stop rendering for the purpose of torture or to force the closure of secret prisons in awful foreign countries, a Congress that wouldn’t even dream of -- and surely does not want to so much as mention -- exercising its power to curb these illegalities by impeaching and convicting their perpetrators. We have a Congress that has done nothing effective to stop the (impeachable) Executive electronic eavesdropping, in violation of Congress’ own law, that was revealed over a year ago (all we ever got on this subject was more hot air from Arlen Specter), and that equally has done nothing to curb the NSA’s mammoth, recently disclosed electronic domestic data mining of almost everyone’s telephone (including, I imagine, the telephones of people in Congress) (and again all we got is hot air from Specter). We have a Congress that does not prevent the accession to higher benches of judges who, as lawyers, sponsored ideas for massive inroads on the power of Congress. We have a Congress that has done nothing about the Executive’s 700 plus signing statements saying that it does not have to follow the laws being signed. And this Congress, which has allowed so many phenomenal, and phenomenally important, inroads upon its own power, is the same Congress that is complaining that its prerogatives have been invaded and its power threatened, because the FBI searched the office of a guy who apparently is a big time crook? Gimme a break.

That this Congress could rise up to protect a crook, because a Congressional office was involved, and could do so under the completely phony guise of asserting principled institutional interests even though it has allowed those interests to be mercilessly trampled in far more important ways for years on end, is symptomatic of the selfish moral rot in the Congress and in the two political parties that run the country. As well, Congress has previously shown it will not rise up when other people and their offices are subjected to warrantless electronic searches, but God forbid that the Executive, using a properly authorized warrant, should search the office of one of Congress’ own. The Congressional rising-up in this case is inevitably remindful of the prior political gutlessness of the Congress and the two parties in so many other cases. It is still another demonstration of why we desperately need a third political party lest moral rot, political spinelessness, raging hypocrisy, and plain lying take this country right down the tubes.

Addendum: Still More Moral Rot

After this posting was pretty much finished, I learned that, on that very day, George Bush had ordered that the materials seized by the FBI from Jefferson’s office be sealed for 45 days to allow the various contending parties to work things out. The Bushian order is, of course, just another example of his own apparently unlimited moral rot, which has been continuously thrust before us for years in so many ways. The order is also a nearly supreme irony.

What has happened, of course, is that in this case Bush, very quickly, buckled extensively when Congress got really angry over actions of the Executive. Yet Bush has shown no compromise, no buckling, when it comes to war, torture, rendition, secret prisons, electronic spying, electronic data mining, signing statements that say the Executive doesn’t have to follow the law, appointment of reactionary judges, or anything else where the Executive, under his leadership, has invaded, or has nullified, the powers of Congress. Yet in the Jefferson matter, Bush, like most bullies, who are fundamentally yellow, buckled as soon as someone really gave sign of standing up to him, and he buckled though the leaders of Congress, having truckled on everything else, are now standing up not in a good cause, but in a terrible cause. There is irony here, is there not? -- when Congress stands up, in a bad cause, the peerless leader falls down, but most of the time, no matter how good the cause, the Congress won’t stand up.

There also is moral rot here, is there not? Bush has stood up for one horrible action after another taken by him and his administration, from lying us into war, to torturing people, to spying on Americans, to whatnot. But when it comes to enforcing anti-bribery, anti-corruption laws against the morally and legally crooked politicians who are close to ruining our system, Bush does not stand up. He backs down. This is moral rot for sure.

It also is symptomatic of another problem, one that is not often mentioned in plain, unvarnished terms. Bush doesn’t care about law. He is perfectly happy to see the law broken when this suits his purposes, especially if he can get corrupt Executive Branch lawyers -- as he always can -- to write indefensible, morally retrograde legal opinions that give him cover. That is a lesson of torture and rendition, where such legal opinions became public, and, if and when other Executive Branch papers are ever disclosed to the public, perhaps as long as 50 or 75 years from now unfortunately, it is nearly 100 percent certain to be a lesson of a host of other Bushian actions. (Bush himself wouldn’t have the guts to let us see the relevant papers. So, like Nixon, he will claim that national security precludes it.)

Anyway, the point of this addendum is that Bush has now weighed in with his own moral rot, to match the moral rot displayed by Congress.*



----- Original Message -----

From: Frank
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

Excellent piece of work!! Your best so far! Is there any reason to believe a third party would not be as rotten? Again, this is symptomatic of the moral rot of the American people. How do these thugs in Congress get a security clearance?? If you have a felony conviction, you can't get a clearance. How do these guys get it?????

Frank


"Dean Lawrence R. Velvel" wrote:

May 26, 2006

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.blogspot.com


Dear Colleagues:

We are currently being “treated” to more of the moral rot that infests both political parties and, consequently, to yet another example of why a third party is desperately needed. I speak, of course, of the spectacle of the bitter outrage expressed by Congressional members of both political parties over the FBI’s search of the office of Congressman William Jefferson. (Too bad it wasn’t the office of William Jefferson Clinton, isn’t it?) The search was done on a quiet Saturday night (and all night). That is scheming and bad. But it was also done pursuant to a court authorized warrant, after Jefferson had refused to comply with subpoenas, after he had been caught on tape, says the FBI, accepting a $100,000 bribe, after the FBI found most of the money in a freezer in his home, after Jefferson has become suspected of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars more in bribes, and at a time when, it has become obvious, Congress has become an utter cesspool of corruption, including, of course, the particular corruption of bribery.

The leaders of the cesspool , however, profess themselves outraged -- shocked, shocked -- over the supposed violation of their supposedly inviolable precincts by the FBI. Not just the expectable coterie of partisan Democrats (the usual suspects), but reactionary Republicans who lead Congress rushed to the defense of an African American Democrat from Louisiana who appears to be a major league political criminal. It likely has not escaped these Republican heroes, of course, that if the FBI can search the offices of the Democrat Jefferson, then it can also search the offices of the numerous Republican bribe takers and grafters in the national legislature. That is a possibility the reactionary Republicans would devoutly wish to forestall.

Needless to say, the Democrats and Republicans both wrap their selfish concerns in supposed principle, here the so-called Speech and Debate Clause -- the little-known subject of legalistics over the years -- and separation of powers. But let’s forget the legalistics in favor of discussing what in reality is supposed to be at stake -- of what has historically been said to be at stake in analogous situations involving prosecution of legislators. What is said to be at stake in these kinds of situations are the institutional prerogatives, the institutional interests, of Congress, the very powers of Congress. In plain English, if the Executive can search Congressional offices and/or prosecute legislators, it is said, then it assuredly will have the power to intimidate, cow, and coerce the legislative lions. It will become all-powerful, and Congress, the branch that the founders intended to be preeminent, will (further) shrink in importance.

Well, today that argument is a fine how do you do, isn’t it? We have a Congress that jumped on the Executive’s war-making bandwagon and allowed the Executive to go to war without exercising its own legislative authority by questioning WMD claims that were bushwa. We have a Congress that, as occurred before with Viet Nam, lacks the brains and guts to exercise its own power to stop the war. We have a Congress that has itself done nothing effective -- zippo -- to stop the Executive torture that violates Congress’ own anti-torture statute, that has done nothing to stop rendering for the purpose of torture or to force the closure of secret prisons in awful foreign countries, a Congress that wouldn’t even dream of -- and surely does not want to so much as mention -- exercising its power to curb these illegalities by impeaching and convicting their perpetrators. We have a Congress that has done nothing effective to stop the (impeachable) Executive electronic eavesdropping, in violation of Congress’ own law, that was revealed over a year ago (all we ever got on this subject was more hot air from Arlen Specter), and that equally has done nothing to curb the NSA’s mammoth, recently disclosed electronic domestic data mining of almost everyone’s telephone (including, I imagine, the telephones of people in Congress) (and again all we got is hot air from Specter). We have a Congress that does not prevent the accession to higher benches of judges who, as lawyers, sponsored ideas for massive inroads on the power of Congress. We have a Congress that has done nothing about the Executive’s 700 plus signing statements saying that it does not have to follow the laws being signed. And this Congress, which has allowed so many phenomenal, and phenomenally important, inroads upon its own power, is the same Congress that is complaining that its prerogatives have been invaded and its power threatened, because the FBI searched the office of a guy who apparently is a big time crook? Gimme a break.

That this Congress could rise up to protect a crook, because a Congressional office was involved, and could do so under the completely phony guise of asserting principled institutional interests even though it has allowed those interests to be mercilessly trampled in far more important ways for years on end, is symptomatic of the selfish moral rot in the Congress and in the two political parties that run the country. As well, Congress has previously shown it will not rise up when other people and their offices are subjected to warrantless electronic searches, but God forbid that the Executive, using a properly authorized warrant, should search the office of one of Congress’ own. The Congressional rising-up in this case is inevitably remindful of the prior political gutlessness of the Congress and the two parties in so many other cases. It is still another demonstration of why we desperately need a third political party lest moral rot, political spinelessness, raging hypocrisy, and plain lying take this country right down the tubes.

Addendum: Still More Moral Rot

After this posting was pretty much finished, I learned that, on that very day, George Bush had ordered that the materials seized by the FBI from Jefferson’s office be sealed for 45 days to allow the various contending parties to work things out. The Bushian order is, of course, just another example of his own apparently unlimited moral rot, which has been continuously thrust before us for years in so many ways. The order is also a nearly supreme irony.

What has happened, of course, is that in this case Bush, very quickly, buckled extensively when Congress got really angry over actions of the Executive. Yet Bush has shown no compromise, no buckling, when it comes to war, torture, rendition, secret prisons, electronic spying, electronic data mining, signing statements that say the Executive doesn’t have to follow the law, appointment of reactionary judges, or anything else where the Executive, under his leadership, has invaded, or has nullified, the powers of Congress. Yet in the Jefferson matter, Bush, like most bullies, who are fundamentally yellow, buckled as soon as someone really gave sign of standing up to him, and he buckled though the leaders of Congress, having truckled on everything else, are now standing up not in a good cause, but in a terrible cause. There is irony here, is there not? -- when Congress stands up, in a bad cause, the peerless leader falls down, but most of the time, no matter how good the cause, the Congress won’t stand up.

There also is moral rot here, is there not? Bush has stood up for one horrible action after another taken by him and his administration, from lying us into war, to torturing people, to spying on Americans, to whatnot. But when it comes to enforcing anti-bribery, anti-corruption laws against the morally and legally crooked politicians who are close to ruining our system, Bush does not stand up. He backs down. This is moral rot for sure.

It also is symptomatic of another problem, one that is not often mentioned in plain, unvarnished terms. Bush doesn’t care about law. He is perfectly happy to see the law broken when this suits his purposes, especially if he can get corrupt Executive Branch lawyers -- as he always can -- to write indefensible, morally retrograde legal opinions that give him cover. That is a lesson of torture and rendition, where such legal opinions became public, and, if and when other Executive Branch papers are ever disclosed to the public, perhaps as long as 50 or 75 years from now unfortunately, it is nearly 100 percent certain to be a lesson of a host of other Bushian actions. (Bush himself wouldn’t have the guts to let us see the relevant papers. So, like Nixon, he will claim that national security precludes it.)

Anyway, the point of this addendum is that Bush has now weighed in with his own moral rot, to match the moral rot displayed by Congress.*

* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress

----- Original Message -----

From: Armande
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

Thanks. As usual "selective Interests" and in Bush's case, it was the American saying "if you can't beat them, join them".. so he joined, in the Moral rot that is..

take care,

Armande

----- Original Message -----

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 10:55 AM
Subject: More Moral Rot In Congress.

May 26, 2006

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.blogspot.com


Dear Colleagues:

We are currently being “treated” to more of the moral rot that infests both political parties and, consequently, to yet another example of why a third party is desperately needed. I speak, of course, of the spectacle of the bitter outrage expressed by Congressional members of both political parties over the FBI’s search of the office of Congressman William Jefferson. (Too bad it wasn’t the office of William Jefferson Clinton, isn’t it?) The search was done on a quiet Saturday night (and all night). That is scheming and bad. But it was also done pursuant to a court authorized warrant, after Jefferson had refused to comply with subpoenas, after he had been caught on tape, says the FBI, accepting a $100,000 bribe, after the FBI found most of the money in a freezer in his home, after Jefferson has become suspected of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars more in bribes, and at a time when, it has become obvious, Congress has become an utter cesspool of corruption, including, of course, the particular corruption of bribery.

The leaders of the cesspool , however, profess themselves outraged -- shocked, shocked -- over the supposed violation of their supposedly inviolable precincts by the FBI. Not just the expectable coterie of partisan Democrats (the usual suspects), but reactionary Republicans who lead Congress rushed to the defense of an African American Democrat from Louisiana who appears to be a major league political criminal. It likely has not escaped these Republican heroes, of course, that if the FBI can search the offices of the Democrat Jefferson, then it can also search the offices of the numerous Republican bribe takers and grafters in the national legislature. That is a possibility the reactionary Republicans would devoutly wish to forestall.

Needless to say, the Democrats and Republicans both wrap their selfish concerns in supposed principle, here the so-called Speech and Debate Clause -- the little-known subject of legalistics over the years -- and separation of powers. But let’s forget the legalistics in favor of discussing what in reality is supposed to be at stake -- of what has historically been said to be at stake in analogous situations involving prosecution of legislators. What is said to be at stake in these kinds of situations are the institutional prerogatives, the institutional interests, of Congress, the very powers of Congress. In plain English, if the Executive can search Congressional offices and/or prosecute legislators, it is said, then it assuredly will have the power to intimidate, cow, and coerce the legislative lions. It will become all-powerful, and Congress, the branch that the founders intended to be preeminent, will (further) shrink in importance.

Well, today that argument is a fine how do you do, isn’t it? We have a Congress that jumped on the Executive’s war-making bandwagon and allowed the Executive to go to war without exercising its own legislative authority by questioning WMD claims that were bushwa. We have a Congress that, as occurred before with Viet Nam, lacks the brains and guts to exercise its own power to stop the war. We have a Congress that has itself done nothing effective -- zippo -- to stop the Executive torture that violates Congress’ own anti-torture statute, that has done nothing to stop rendering for the purpose of torture or to force the closure of secret prisons in awful foreign countries, a Congress that wouldn’t even dream of -- and surely does not want to so much as mention -- exercising its power to curb these illegalities by impeaching and convicting their perpetrators. We have a Congress that has done nothing effective to stop the (impeachable) Executive electronic eavesdropping, in violation of Congress’ own law, that was revealed over a year ago (all we ever got on this subject was more hot air from Arlen Specter), and that equally has done nothing to curb the NSA’s mammoth, recently disclosed electronic domestic data mining of almost everyone’s telephone (including, I imagine, the telephones of people in Congress) (and again all we got is hot air from Specter). We have a Congress that does not prevent the accession to higher benches of judges who, as lawyers, sponsored ideas for massive inroads on the power of Congress. We have a Congress that has done nothing about the Executive’s 700 plus signing statements saying that it does not have to follow the laws being signed. And this Congress, which has allowed so many phenomenal, and phenomenally important, inroads upon its own power, is the same Congress that is complaining that its prerogatives have been invaded and its power threatened, because the FBI searched the office of a guy who apparently is a big time crook? Gimme a break.

That this Congress could rise up to protect a crook, because a Congressional office was involved, and could do so under the completely phony guise of asserting principled institutional interests even though it has allowed those interests to be mercilessly trampled in far more important ways for years on end, is symptomatic of the selfish moral rot in the Congress and in the two political parties that run the country. As well, Congress has previously shown it will not rise up when other people and their offices are subjected to warrantless electronic searches, but God forbid that the Executive, using a properly authorized warrant, should search the office of one of Congress’ own. The Congressional rising-up in this case is inevitably remindful of the prior political gutlessness of the Congress and the two parties in so many other cases. It is still another demonstration of why we desperately need a third political party lest moral rot, political spinelessness, raging hypocrisy, and plain lying take this country right down the tubes.

Addendum: Still More Moral Rot

After this posting was pretty much finished, I learned that, on that very day, George Bush had ordered that the materials seized by the FBI from Jefferson’s office be sealed for 45 days to allow the various contending parties to work things out. The Bushian order is, of course, just another example of his own apparently unlimited moral rot, which has been continuously thrust before us for years in so many ways. The order is also a nearly supreme irony.

What has happened, of course, is that in this case Bush, very quickly, buckled extensively when Congress got really angry over actions of the Executive. Yet Bush has shown no compromise, no buckling, when it comes to war, torture, rendition, secret prisons, electronic spying, electronic data mining, signing statements that say the Executive doesn’t have to follow the law, appointment of reactionary judges, or anything else where the Executive, under his leadership, has invaded, or has nullified, the powers of Congress. Yet in the Jefferson matter, Bush, like most bullies, who are fundamentally yellow, buckled as soon as someone really gave sign of standing up to him, and he buckled though the leaders of Congress, having truckled on everything else, are now standing up not in a good cause, but in a terrible cause. There is irony here, is there not? -- when Congress stands up, in a bad cause, the peerless leader falls down, but most of the time, no matter how good the cause, the Congress won’t stand up.

There also is moral rot here, is there not? Bush has stood up for one horrible action after another taken by him and his administration, from lying us into war, to torturing people, to spying on Americans, to whatnot. But when it comes to enforcing anti-bribery, anti-corruption laws against the morally and legally crooked politicians who are close to ruining our system, Bush does not stand up. He backs down. This is moral rot for sure.

It also is symptomatic of another problem, one that is not often mentioned in plain, unvarnished terms. Bush doesn’t care about law. He is perfectly happy to see the law broken when this suits his purposes, especially if he can get corrupt Executive Branch lawyers -- as he always can -- to write indefensible, morally retrograde legal opinions that give him cover. That is a lesson of torture and rendition, where such legal opinions became public, and, if and when other Executive Branch papers are ever disclosed to the public, perhaps as long as 50 or 75 years from now unfortunately, it is nearly 100 percent certain to be a lesson of a host of other Bushian actions. (Bush himself wouldn’t have the guts to let us see the relevant papers. So, like Nixon, he will claim that national security precludes it.)

Anyway, the point of this addendum is that Bush has now weighed in with his own moral rot, to match the moral rot displayed by Congress.*

* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress

May 26, 2006

Re: More Moral Rot In Congress.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.blogspot.com


Dear Colleagues:

We are currently being “treated” to more of the moral rot that infests both political parties and, consequently, to yet another example of why a third party is desperately needed. I speak, of course, of the spectacle of the bitter outrage expressed by Congressional members of both political parties over the FBI’s search of the office of Congressman William Jefferson. (Too bad it wasn’t the office of William Jefferson Clinton, isn’t it?) The search was done on a quiet Saturday night (and all night). That is scheming and bad. But it was also done pursuant to a court authorized warrant, after Jefferson had refused to comply with subpoenas, after he had been caught on tape, says the FBI, accepting a $100,000 bribe, after the FBI found most of the money in a freezer in his home, after Jefferson has become suspected of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars more in bribes, and at a time when, it has become obvious, Congress has become an utter cesspool of corruption, including, of course, the particular corruption of bribery.

The leaders of the cesspool, however, profess themselves outraged -- shocked, shocked -- over the supposed violation of their supposedly inviolable precincts by the FBI. Not just the expectable coterie of partisan Democrats (the usual suspects), but reactionary Republicans who lead Congress rushed to the defense of an African American Democrat from Louisiana who appears to be a major league political criminal. It likely has not escaped these Republican heroes, of course, that if the FBI can search the offices of the Democrat Jefferson, then it can also search the offices of the numerous Republican bribe takers and grafters in the national legislature. That is a possibility the reactionary Republicans would devoutly wish to forestall.

Needless to say, the Democrats and Republicans both wrap their selfish concerns in supposed principle, here the so-called Speech and Debate Clause -- the little-known subject of legalistics over the years -- and separation of powers. But let’s forget the legalistics in favor of discussing what in reality is supposed to be at stake -- of what has historically been said to be at stake in analogous situations involving prosecution of legislators. What is said to be at stake in these kinds of situations are the institutional prerogatives, the institutional interests, of Congress, the very powers of Congress. In plain English, if the Executive can search Congressional offices and/or prosecute legislators, it is said, then it assuredly will have the power to intimidate, cow, and coerce the legislative lions. It will become all-powerful, and Congress, the branch that the founders intended to be preeminent, will (further) shrink in importance.

Well, today that argument is a fine how do you do, isn’t it? We have a Congress that jumped on the Executive’s war-making bandwagon and allowed the Executive to go to war without exercising its own legislative authority by questioning WMD claims that were bushwa. We have a Congress that, as occurred before with Viet Nam, lacks the brains and guts to exercise its own power to stop the war. We have a Congress that has itself done nothing effective -- zippo -- to stop the Executive torture that violates Congress’ own anti-torture statute, that has done nothing to stop rendering for the purpose of torture or to force the closure of secret prisons in awful foreign countries, a Congress that wouldn’t even dream of -- and surely does not want to so much as mention -- exercising its power to curb these illegalities by impeaching and convicting their perpetrators. We have a Congress that has done nothing effective to stop the (impeachable) Executive electronic eavesdropping, in violation of Congress’ own law, that was revealed over a year ago (all we ever got on this subject was more hot air from Arlen Specter), and that equally has done nothing to curb the NSA’s mammoth, recently disclosed electronic domestic data mining of almost everyone’s telephone (including, I imagine, the telephones of people in Congress) (and again all we got is hot air from Specter). We have a Congress that does not prevent the accession to higher benches of judges who, as lawyers, sponsored ideas for massive inroads on the power of Congress. We have a Congress that has done nothing about the Executive’s 700 plus signing statements saying that it does not have to follow the laws being signed. And this Congress, which has allowed so many phenomenal, and phenomenally important, inroads upon its own power, is the same Congress that is complaining that its prerogatives have been invaded and its power threatened, because the FBI searched the office of a guy who apparently is a big time crook? Gimme a break.

That this Congress could rise up to protect a crook, because a Congressional office was involved, and could do so under the completely phony guise of asserting principled institutional interests even though it has allowed those interests to be mercilessly trampled in far more important ways for years on end, is symptomatic of the selfish moral rot in the Congress and in the two political parties that run the country. As well, Congress has previously shown it will not rise up when other people and their offices are subjected to warrantless electronic searches, but God forbid that the Executive, using a properly authorized warrant, should search the office of one of Congress’ own. The Congressional rising-up in this case is inevitably remindful of the prior political gutlessness of the Congress and the two parties in so many other cases. It is still another demonstration of why we desperately need a third political party lest moral rot, political spinelessness, raging hypocrisy, and plain lying take this country right down the tubes.

Addendum: Still More Moral Rot

After this posting was pretty much finished, I learned that, on that very day, George Bush had ordered that the materials seized by the FBI from Jefferson’s office be sealed for 45 days to allow the various contending parties to work things out. The Bushian order is, of course, just another example of his own apparently unlimited moral rot, which has been continuously thrust before us for years in so many ways. The order is also a nearly supreme irony.

What has happened, of course, is that in this case Bush, very quickly, buckled extensively when Congress got really angry over actions of the Executive. Yet Bush has shown no compromise, no buckling, when it comes to war, torture, rendition, secret prisons, electronic spying, electronic data mining, signing statements that say the Executive doesn’t have to follow the law, appointment of reactionary judges, or anything else where the Executive, under his leadership, has invaded, or has nullified, the powers of Congress. Yet in the Jefferson matter, Bush, like most bullies, who are fundamentally yellow, buckled as soon as someone really gave sign of standing up to him, and he buckled though the leaders of Congress, having truckled on everything else, are now standing up not in a good cause, but in a terrible cause. There is irony here, is there not? -- when Congress stands up, in a bad cause, the peerless leader falls down, but most of the time, no matter how good the cause, the Congress won’t stand up.

There also is moral rot here, is there not? Bush has stood up for one horrible action after another taken by him and his administration, from lying us into war, to torturing people, to spying on Americans, to whatnot. But when it comes to enforcing anti-bribery, anti-corruption laws against the morally and legally crooked politicians who are close to ruining our system, Bush does not stand up. He backs down. This is moral rot for sure.

It also is symptomatic of another problem, one that is not often mentioned in plain, unvarnished terms. Bush doesn’t care about law. He is perfectly happy to see the law broken when this suits his purposes, especially if he can get corrupt Executive Branch lawyers -- as he always can -- to write indefensible, morally retrograde legal opinions that give him cover. That is a lesson of torture and rendition, where such legal opinions became public, and, if and when other Executive Branch papers are ever disclosed to the public, perhaps as long as 50 or 75 years from now unfortunately, it is nearly 100 percent certain to be a lesson of a host of other Bushian actions. (Bush himself wouldn’t have the guts to let us see the relevant papers. So, like Nixon, he will claim that national security precludes it.)

Anyway, the point of this addendum is that Bush has now weighed in with his own moral rot, to match the moral rot displayed by Congress.*


* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Re: Of Oscar and LeBron

----- Original Message -----

From: IHBerk@aol.com
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: Of Oscar and LeBron

Larry:

Very incisive hoops analysis. from the pistons series, lebron looks every inch the next great player, of the oscar-jordan-isaiah magnitude. and he's just 21. but when oscar was 21, to start his rookie season, 1960-61, he, like lebron, averaged 30.5 points a game, led the league in assists, at 9.7, and averaged 10 rebounds a game. Close to a triple double, which he achieved the next season. And in his very first playoffs, in his second season, he averaged a triple double. For 10 straight seasons, he averaged nearly a triple double. lebron has a long way to go to match that record, but he may do it. jordan, while having great individual stats, also had that stat of stat, the 6 championships. oscar had 1, but that, of course, is hardly the whole story.

the story as bud olsen, a teammate of both rubenstein (at louisville) and oscar with the royals, told me, was that after cincy beat louisville decisively with oscar scoring an easy 25 points, ruby in the locker room following the game, said quietly to olsen, "I don't care what coach says, robertson has to put his jock strap on differently."

keep up the good political stuff!
I'm also going to send you the eulogy i gave at hershey's funeral.

best,

Ira


----- Original Message -----

From: IHBerk@aol.com
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:57 PM
Subject: berkow

Larry: I had a nice chat with Rubenstein at the funeral, among many other former jewish hoop stars, including irv bemoras and harvey babetch.

ira


EULOGY FOR HOWARD (HERSHEY ) CARL

Beth Shalom Synagogue

Northbrook, Illinois

Thursday, October 27, 2005 -- 11 a.m.


I saw Hershey just five days before he died. I went to the Alden nursing home to visit him. I did that whenever I was in town. It happened that he was in the lobby with a nurse who was wheeling him to a van to go for his dialysis. He said, in a voice filled with pain, that he was sorry he couldn’t visit with me. I said, “That’s okay. I was just coming here for the chocolate-chip cookies” – chocolate chip cookies were always in a jar at the receptionist’s table.

Hershey’s eyes brightened. “You have to go up to my room. Gail Luckman made me the greatest mandel bread. You’ll love it. Take some – please.” Those were the last words I ever heard him speak, to share some great mandel bread. I went up his room – Hershey, after all, was a connoisseur of food, especially mandel bread and cheese blintzes – and he was right. Gail Luckman’s mandel bread was great.

My first memory of Hershey Carl was watching people try to guard him on a basketball court. He was so tricky, so quick, so deft, that he had defenders falling all over themselves and him. It was as if they had been drugged. I became one of the druggies, in the schoolyard, in gyms, in a Chicago Public League game at Von Steuben. Hershey was the first genius I ever encountered. I was 15, he was 16, and we played on a pickup team together outdoors at Eugene Field park, half court, four-on-four. At one point in the game, I cut for the basket and he threw a pass that whipped through the eight arms and hands of the defenders, the pass swift enough to get through the defenders but soft enough for me to catch it and high enough for me to just lay the ball in the basket. It was an incredible pass. It was really his basket. I had never experienced anything like that. I remember getting a shiver down my spine at the brilliance and beauty of that seemingly simple play.

Hershey and I became friends, going on 50 years now, and I never minded that, when I called him on the phone, he always recognized the voice and said, “I-rat.” Sweet. I actually looked forward to it: “I-rat.”

His brother, Sam, said to me the other day that Hershey gave him so many thrills, he was so proud of him. Well, he thrilled us all, and we were all proud of him. The short kid from the neighborhood who battled the odds and triumphed. Hershey played basketball the way he lived his life, the way he dealt with friends and family, with love and humility and with all his heart.

When Hershey made the Catholic Digest All-American team as a sophomore at DePaul in 1959, he came home with the plaque honoring the achievement and wanted to hang it on the wall in the bedroom of his apartment in Albany Park. His father, an orthodox Jew, said, Absolutely not. On the plaque, between the words Catholic Digest and All-American team was a crucifix. Hershey pleaded with his dad to let him hang up the plaque, that this was a big honor. So Hershey and his dad reached a compromise. Hershey put the plaque up on the wall, but his father placed a piece of tape over the crucifix.

I remember a game in Philadelphia, when he was with the Chicago Packers. I was in the Army, stationed at Ft. Meade, Md. He had called and said he’d have two tickets for me and a friend if we could get away. We did. And there was one particularly memorable play. He had stolen the ball and was on a one-man fast break on the left side of the free-throw lane. Wilt Chamberlain, all 7-feet-2-inches of him, stood at the free throw line, and about to block Hershey’s lay-up, the way Goliath would swat a fly. Hershey went into the air, and turned with the ball to pass to a teammate near the free-throw line. Chamberlain then moved to intercept the pass. But there was no Carl teammate. Instead, Hershey gathered back the ball – still in mid-air – and laid the ball into the basket. That fake, too, was spine-tingling.

Several months ago, I visited Hershey in his nursing room. He had a book on his nightstand that he had been reading, a book of shorts stories by Joseph Epstein with the title, “Fabulous Small Jews.” Hershey recommended it highly.

I bought the book. I liked it, but I thought of the irony of Hershey suggesting that book to me. And I sent him a note, about something that I’m sure hadn’t crossed his mind. “Hershey,” I wrote, “you know of course that YOU are one of the Fabulous Small Jews.”

But everyone here, his friends and his family, knows that it is true.

Ira Berkow

Friday, May 19, 2006

Subject: Thanks!

----- Original Message -----

From: scott
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:24 PM
Subject: Thanks! and just a little note

Thanks Larry, your article really got me going! It was great fun to read. It should be noted that Auerbach thought a team of West, Robertson, Russell etc. would have beaten the "Dream" team of Bird, Jordan, Magic etc. High praise, huh? that's how great those players were. I'm glad that you bring up Robertson because he was just that spectacular and all without running with the ball. I too, hate to see the players just carry the ball without really having to learn the fine art of DRIBBLING! It drives me crazy, looks like a halfback running around the end. It's agony for me to watch. And Larry, since the NSA is probably monitoring our email maybe we can have them weigh in on who they think is the greatest. Perhaps Olajawon or..

Sincerely,

Scott

Re: Summers

----- Original Message -----

To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: Summers

Dear Dean Velvel:

When I attended high school in South Carolina I wrote a paper arguing that the Vietnam War was a failure even on its own terms. I was too young to know how horrible the war really had been and only remembered the clips from the CBS evening news. This paper earned me the lowest mark I had received in my junior year English class but caught the attention of a history professor at the Citadel who praised it as better than most of his freshman papers. I first started criticising the US simply on the grounds that it came nowhere near its espoused ideals and that many of its supposedly most patriotic leaders did not even adhere to these ideals. Due to having been removed from school politics by a micro-version of recent Florida voting SOP, I started writing for the school paper, finding that even my conservative constitutionalism was too much for the administration. I stumbled onto what was then the Yale CRCL Law Review, Mieklejohn and a whole pile of issues which made me want to be a solicitor or even trial counsel. It took me a while to get disabused of this fantasy. Now I work for chartered accountants, tax advisors and lawyers but primarily by translating writs, contracts and reports. It is probably something to which I am much more suited than the legal profession per se.

The reason I elaborate is that I went to the MSL website and was quite impressed by the mission statement (I wonder if there are medical schools with the same principles.)
What is your success rate in training advocates and not just widening the channel or increasing the throughput of upward mobility? I do not phrase this to be aggressive or condescending. Rather I have just found in all my years of contact with legal counsel (esp. in such basic areas as housing and credit and contract law) that it is enormously difficult to find lawyers who are able to think through their client's problem proactively or to use a word almost contradictory to everything I know about the classical professions (law, medicine, church), empowering their clients to defend the penumbra of rights and not just the narrow issue of the writ. I lived in NYC five years and was appalled at the paucity of counsel in the administrative law and housing law sectors where the agencies' bias in favour of property owners is an open secret. Even admitting that case by case litigation is a terribly inadequate substitute for land reform, the helplessness of people even with counsel and nominally favourable legislative dispensation was disconcerting to say the least. One of the lawyers I knew then and-- although the wife of an old college friend-- was woefully inadequate as tenant counsel (but working in this sector)-- has since been elevated to the bench. I cannot say whether this is just the quid pro quo.

I have worked and still work with many corporate lawyers and this is a species of its own.
Why do I submit this longer comment? I read or interpolated your position as to how the US Supreme Court avoided the constitutionality of the Viet Nam war. The same thing happened here with Yugoslavia. The secret machinations of our foreign office leading to our government's recognition of Croatian independence were instrumental in starting the war in Yugoslavia (almost like the secret treaty which led to the Great War after an assassination in Bosnia). Then a case was brought before the Federal Constitutional Court alleging that the use of German troops violated the law restricting such deployment to defence against territorial invasion and/ or in NATO territory. The Court simply deferred to the foreign office although it could not have been clearer that the deployment of Bundeswehr troops was unlawful. The parliament did not even have to remedy the defect by enabling legislation.

Now our troops are in Afghanistan and the pretender to the Presidency of your United States is campaigning to bring us into what could well be the third world war it was alleged the Soviets would cause.

Much of this is possible because the US still has a very effective propaganda machine and has not yet exhausted all its PR capital in Europe. Even the idea that the denim trousers obsessively worn here might be supplied at such attractive prices by virtue of the US Marines in Haiti, does not dampen the belief that the US fundamentally intends to do good. Almost no advocate seems willing or equipped to challenge and impeach this reputation on the witness stand and under oath. After the war ended here, many of the opponents of the NSDAP regime insisted that the judges and lawyers be given due penalties for not even using the laws available to protect liberty. What will the Bar have to say when and if the war criminals ruling the US are called to account? Will there be counsel courageous enough to take what bit of law remains for the normal citizen and use it in the fight for liberty?

It would be nice to think that MSL also has this spirit and remit-- definitely lacking in the HLS.
Thank you for your indulgence with respect to my digression.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas

Am 10.05.2006 um 19:23 schrieb Dean Lawrence R. Velvel:


Dear Dr. Wilkinson:

Thanks.

Larry Velvel

----- Original Message -----

From: Thomas
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: Summers

Dear Dean Velvel:

Certainly. It is in fact standard since I do have a fair amount of confidential e-mail traffic. But please feel free to use whatever might be an appropriate contribution to the discussion.

Kind regards

Thomas

Am 10.05.2006 um 17:29 schrieb Dean Lawrence R. Velvel:

May 10, 2006

Dear Dr. Wilkinson:

Thanks for the email. Your points are distinctly worth pondering, and are all too often true, I think.

I notice that, in what looks like a standard addendum to the email, you say the email is confidential. Because of the importance of what you say, however, I would very much like permission to post it on my blog. Would it be alright with you if I were to do so?

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Velvel

----- Original Message -----

From: Thomas
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2006 6:29 PM
Subject: Summers

Dear Dean Velvel:

At an earlier age, when I thought Harvard and Yale were the beacons of American intellectual life-- instead of the "Kaderschmieds" for US empire-- I would have been surprised and even worried about the integrity of the President and Fellows and all those would be American "dons".

But a university which gives such privilege to war criminals like Dr Kissinger and does not find something reprehensible in Summers argument that the Third World should be freely polluted because of the low per capita value of such environmental waste disposal and the competitive advantage of such countries as low cost toxic dumps-- made in all seriousness while Mr Summers was in Washington-- gives even a one-time New Englander pause. Prior to Summers invidious remarks about the capability of women, Harvard was scarcely known for its positive social policies (whether it be the attitude toward unionisation or its investment portfolio).
Harvard is and has long been a keystone in the Washington-New York- Cambridge "axis" providing the ideological haven for some of the most tainted of official intellectuals. That has long been its role. It would be nice to think that Mr Summers' opportunity to "do the honourable thing" was an indication of moral uplifting within the premier IV league walls. Most probably this has just been an indication that New England taste (notorious for its hypocrisy) has been offended by the odours of a seriously dyspeptic government. The pressure for Mr Summers' departure is more like swallowing a packet of Rollaids to treat a duodenal ulcer.

Nonetheless you are right that Harvard's action or inaction will have an effect on the academic profession. In the tradition of Massachusetts Bay "scarlet letters" may be issued to all those unfortunate enough not to enjoy enough patronage. This kind of discipline will set an example for lesser institutions about how to deal with embarrassing or undesirable breaches of the already cut-throat publish and/ or perish code.

Maybe the answer lies in abandoning the worship of Harvard and accepting that it is just another business-- like those who fund it-- with no greater virtues or vices than the other great businesses that dominate US American life.

Many people in my country swear that we need "elite universities" like Harvard here to compete for brains and research money. They do not understand what Harvard is (or charitably speaking, what it has become). Aside from the truly pleasant campus and libraries, I would not wish anyone a "Harvard" if they are not already saddled with one.

If the affaire Summers were to be an opportunity for Harvard, it would take a long look at what intellectual responsibility means when a country's government has gone beserk. It would go back to a meaningful tradition: emollit mores nec sinit esse feros-- taming the state's violence with humanist values instead of legitimating it. Then aqua -"Veritas" might mean something again on the banks of the Charles.

Thank you for your most interesting article.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen/ Cordialement/ Cordiali saluti/

Yours sincerely,

Patrick

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Subject: LeBron, Jordan

----- Original Message -----

From: scott denny
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 11:55 AM
Subject: LeBron, Jordan

Dear Lawrence:

Though this is difficult because you seem like a good man but I do have to gently scold you for writing an article about basketball greats and not mentioning....Bill Russell. Or Kareem? Oscar is in the pantheon of greats certainly and it was Kareem himself who felt that Oscar was greatest player ever, which supports your theory. But having played this game from Mexico to Alaska, some coaching and just your general bball nut I would have to go with Magic and Russell as the greatest players ever simply because I think they both got the game on a deeper, more metaphysical level than Oscar. I think it boils down to personalities, not talent. I don't think anyone had more talent than Oscar (Of course, David Thompson was also a transcendental talent but was felled by cocaine).

Russell's will to win and understanding of the talents of his teammates and what served them best was remarkable. Just about everything he did was about sacrificing for his teammates and since he was a defensive genius and master, he allowed them to take incredible chances. Magic, too had the deep ability to pull different players with large egos into a team. Unfortunately, he is not recognized for being a master of the subtle. The way he would lure a player into a trap, reposition a player on the offensive set, or make a steal when switching off his man. But his enthusiasm and involvement with his teammates success is what separates his from Oscar, in my humble opinion. Magic, almost an archetypal mother figure, is involved from beginning to end, small to large. I always felt Oscar a great artist, yet a little distant from his teammates and sometimes even himself. Russell was much more of the father figure, and with his goatee, maybe even a little biblical. He struck fear into the opposing players: blocking, altering their shots, disrupting their flow.

I know Oscar never played with players that had the same caliber of talent that Russell or Magic had. The Cincinnati Royals never really struck fear into anybody's hearts. But a long past his prime Oscar still won a title with Kareem at Milwaukee and one can only guess what he would have accomplished if he had played with great players in his peak years. As for LeBron, he's quite the man and you've got to remember that most players take time to become great outside shooters. LeBron will get better at it, trust me. My gripe against Jordan was that the Bulls never beat a great team, instead waiting for all the great 80's team to get old and worn out. Portland, Utah, and Phoenix do not constitute greatness. They beat a Laker team with a fading Worthy, Kareem retired and Magic worn out. That was the greatest season I ever saw a player have, you would of had to watch the entire season to appreciate it. He was coaching, rebounding, covering every player's ass all the time. I mean seriously, the '91 team he took to the finals looked like a mediocre college team when he went to the bench. Chicago knew it and just flooded him with pressing, fresh younger players like Pippen and Jordan and Ron Harper always coming at him. But I never saw a player expend more energy to make a mediocre team finals caliber.

Anyway Lawrence, you make a great case for Oscar but I feel that if you asked the players from that period who would they choose going into a 7th game, Oscar Robertson or Bill Russell, that they would have chosen Russell. He just had that will, that undefinable strength that knew how to win, understood the structure of it that not even Oscar had. That Wilt didn't have either. As Red Auerbach once said " If it was up me I'd pay a guy's salary by what I saw in his eyes." The greatest, in the end, transcend statistics. But that's just my two cents.

Thanks for the great article, the beauty of course, is that in sports discussions no one is ever right or wrong. The players we're talking about are unbelievable athletes. In fact, I read Oscar actually averaged a triple double over three seasons, if his stats were totaled. Which just seems impossible. Maybe you are right!

Best,

Scott Denny

PS Read where Wilt said Meadowlark Lemon was the greatest player he ever competed against. He said you couldn't stop him from doing whatever he wanted. I guess we all have our favorites.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Re: Of Oscar and LeBron

May 17, 2006


Re: Of Oscar and LeBron

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.blogspot.com


Dear Colleagues:

Let me take time out from weighty matters to discuss something that really counts: a comparison, admittedly superficial, between Oscar Robertson and LeBron James.

Because of obduracy, stupidity or whatnot, I have never been one of those persons who thinks Michael Jordan the best round ball player who ever lived. I have always thought, and continue to think, it was Oscar Robertson. The man averaged a triple double one year in the pros, you know. No one else has ever done that - - not in 60 years of professional basketball leagues. In college he led the nation in scoring and was College Player of the Year during all three years that he was eligible to play (freshmen weren’t eligible then). As a college sophomore at the University of Cincinnati, when New York was still something of a basketball mecca and New Yorkers did not automatically accept that a kid from the sticks -- the Midwest -- was as great as he in fact was, Robertson came to Madison Square Garden and hit fifty-six points. That’s 56, as in five six. No other player, college or pro, had ever scored that many in the Garden. New Yorkers became believers.

Robertson could shoot from inside or outside, could pass, could rebound, could dribble, could play defense (like crazy). Watching him was like watching a man among boys, to use a hackneyed phrase of sportswriting. This was as true in the pros as in college. He was simply phenomenal to see, simply head and shoulders above everyone else.

This was captured in a story told to me by Ira Berkow, the long time New York Times sportswriter. Ira and I lived on the North Side of Chicago during high school, and knew each other slightly because we both played hoops at the same local gym, Green Brier Park. I knew and, as did Ira, played at Green Brier against the local North Side wonder player, a six foot tall kid named Ron Rubinstein. (Ira, who was himself a fine ballplayer, also played against him in the high school interscholastic league.) Rubinstein was so good that, it was my subsequent understanding, in his senior year he was regarded by many as the best high school player in all of Illinois. This was some shakes, especially when one cogitates that another senior that year was an all stater from “downstate” Illinois named John Tidwell, who went on to set the all time Michigan scoring record, which was broken a few years later by a kid from Chicago named Cazzie Russell -- remember him?

Ira, I have to say, didn’t think Rubinstein was even the best player on Chicago’s North Side, however. He reserved that for a guy named Hershey Carl -- formally Howard Carl -- who, even though he was only about five feet eight or five nine, subsequently became an All-American for Ray Meyer at DePaul and even played a year in the pros.

Anyway, Rubinstein went to Louisville, where he started for all three years he was eligible, I think. He was not the terrific hotshot in college that he had been in high school, in my judgment because of the way he shot his jump shot. He would hold the ball way out in front of him at about chest, or chin or nose level, depending, would leap, and would shoot at the top of his jump. It was artistry to see, truly beautiful to see - - and nearly every kid in his orbit experimented with shooting that way. I’ve never seen anyone else shoot like that at the college level or higher -- perhaps the closest might be Shawn Marion, but he holds the ball much closer in to his body and looks awkward, whereas Rubinstein held it out from his body and was the picture of grace. Even though Rubinstein was only six feet, he was so quick and shifty, and leaped so high, that although he held the ball out in front of him and much lower than other jump shooters did and do, in high school he could get off his shot without any problem. But in college, where everyone was a lot bigger and faster than in high school, one couldn’t shoot this way. The ball, held low and out front, was too susceptible to being closely defended, even blocked. So that -- in my estimation anyway -- and maybe I’m all wet of course -- is the reason why, in college, Rubinstein was not what he had been in high school. (I note that Steve Nash holds the ball fairly low on his jump shot, but he shoots it from in close to his body (at roughly his right shoulder), which is completely different from holding it way out in front.)

But I digress. As Ira tells the story, Rubinstein’s Louisville team played Oscar’s Cincinnati team one day, and before the game the long-time Louisville coach, Peck Hickman, gave the usual kind of pep talk, telling his team that Robertson was only human, was not superman, put on his pants one leg at a time like everyone else, etc., etc. Then came the game and an amazing Robertson performance. Afterwards, as the Louisville team was undressing in the locker room, Rubinstein said to his teammates, “I don’t care what Coach says. That guy doesn’t put on his pants the same way the rest of us do.”

That, as far as I am concerned, captures Robertson. Maybe he is also captured by the fact that, if memory serves, the great Jerry West, after playing with Robertson on America’s fantastic 1960 Olympics team, was awestruck by Robertson’s ability.

I never thought to see Robertson’s equal again. Not Magic, not Michael, not Isaiah, not Larry Bird, not any of them, as great as they were, ever seemed to me to be as good as Oscar, which puts me at odds with all the basketball people, who, unlike me, are knowledgeable and, as I gather it, think that Jordan was better than Robertson, Johnson at least Robertson’s equal, and maybe, just maybe, Thomas the best player ever inch for inch. But what I said is how this one time sports fan feels about it. And there is one very knowledgeable guy who, I’m almost certain, agrees with me that Oscar was the best ever. That guy is . . . . . . . . Oscar Robertson. He apparently doesn’t say it outright, but when one reads of interviews with him, it seems pretty clear in context that that’s his own opinion. If memory serves, when asked once how many points Jordan would have scored if he had played in Oscar’s day, Robertson replied about twenty or so a game. Left unsaid by Robertson himself, as I remember it, was that lots of years Robertson averaged in the neighborhood of 30 or more.

As said, I never thought to see Robertson’s equal again. In a perverse sense, this is because, having watched sports on the tube from about 1951 or 1952 until the late ’70s, I simply got tired of it and stopped watching. Also, one has to make a choice: one either reads or one watches the tube. I chose reading. But, less perversely, the view that the likes of Robertson would not be seen again was held because he was so awesomely great. But now, I note, LeBron James and Steve Nash have come along. Nash is fantastic. And one has to consider the possibility that James may turn out to be as good as Oscar was. On one of his good nights, as in the triple double he scored in the first playoff game against the Washington Wizards, he looks to be Oscar’s equal. But so far that’s only on his particularly good nights, in this viewer’s estimation.

It is interesting that in one important and somewhat unusual way, Oscar and LeBron are very similar. They both have very big, wide strong bodies, which they use to get in close to the basket with the ball, when one wouldn’t think it possible. LeBron, of course, even takes hits and smashes as he’s getting to the hoop and he still makes the bucket. LeBron, however, seems to be something of a streak shooter from the outside, sometimes shows awful judgment by continuing to fire them up there from far out three point land when he’s way off (I’ve even seen him throw up air balls), and does not generally seem to shoot mid range jumpers -- today, for a lot of players, I gather, shooting occurs either in close or from three point range. LeBron is sometimes an utterly phenomenal passer, but isn’t generally reckoned to be much on defense yet. Oscar was a streak shooter too -- except that he was one continuous hot streak with no cold spells, is my recollection. He shot a lot of mid range shots. There were no three pointers then, and therefore no point in shooting from downtown, so Oscar didn’t shoot from 23 or 25 feet. (There are those who say he would have learned to do this -- no problem -- if there had been three pointers.) He was an excellent passer, with very high assist ratings, and a great defensive player.

One can compare them in these various ways, and if LeBron, over the years, comes to regularly perform at anything close to the way he performed against the Wizards -- his performance against the Pistons, though sometimes great, has not been its equal -- one ultimately may have to say that we have seen Oscar’s equal (or Michael’s, or Magic’s if your taste runs to either of those two as the all time best).

There is, however, a reason why this former fan, at least, thinks that we will never really know if LeBron (or Jordan) was Robertson’s equal (or better). The reason is a change in the way two rules are enforced. (For all I know, even the wording of the two rules may have been changed. At minimum, their enforcement has been drastically changed.) In Oscar’s day, you were not permitted to carry the ball while dribbling. If you turned your hand over while dribbling it, that was it. Carrying. Whistle. Other team’s ball. Today everybody carries the ball. The hand is always turning over with it. Guys are practically picking it up, for God’s sakes. This is allowed. It means people can “dribble” the ball in ways that were impossible in Oscar’s day. You can pick it up, for example, and throw it from one hand to the other through one’s leg while “dribbling.” You can pick it up and throw it from hand to hand in front of you (a crossover) while “dribbling” and deciding what to do. The kind of “dribbling” permitted today gives the “dribbler” a fantastic advantage over what could be done in the 1950s and 1960s.

The other change in the rules, either de facto or, for all I know, in wording too, is in traveling. It used to be, in Oscar’s day, that the man with the ball was permitted one and a half steps. This was enforced. One and a half steps on lay ups, on hook shots, (remember the hook shot?), you name it. Today guys are just getting started in one and a half steps. Today everyone is allowed two and a half steps. Guys race down the court with the ball (palming it, carrying it) and, at the end, as they approach the basket, get two and a half steps. This is another fantastic advantage for the offensive player over what was allowed in the ’50s and ’60s.

My colleagues and I have been trying to think of any other example in sports where a change in the way the rules are enforced or written causes (or allows) a change in the way a physical act is performed. In baseball the strike zone has changed by rule or practice, the pitcher’s mound has been at various times raised or lowered, spitters have been outlawed, fences have been moved in or out. But these things don’t cause a change in the physical act of throwing or in the physical act of hitting, do they? (Unless, perhaps, a hitter starts taking a “big swing” in order to go for some Greenberg Gardens as it were). In golf new types of club materials are used and the ball apparently changes, but the physical act of swinging the club remains the same, doesn’t it? In tennis, racquet technology changes, but the physical act of a slice or of an overhead smash or of a forehand, etc. remains the same, doesn’t it? (As far as I know, the change from a one-handed to a two-handed backhand was not caused by any change in rules or their enforcement.) Maybe my colleagues and I are all wrong, or are ignorant, about some of this, but the only rule change we could think of that caused a change in the way a particular, specific sports act is performed was the change in the rules of football to allow offensive linesmen to use their hands when blocking on the line of scrimmage. Back in the day a lineman had to keep his hands in close to his body, and couldn’t use them to block. The physical act of blocking on the line has changed, just as in basketball the physical act of dribbling has changed and the physical act of taking the last steps has changed from taking one and a half steps to taking a two and a half step run.

Now, exactly why the rules changed in basketball is not something I know. One has read that it was done to accommodate Jordan. One has read that it was an adjustment at the college and pro level to the way the game is played in the inner city. One has heard it was done because it makes the game more exciting. Whether any or all of this is remotely true is not something this writer knows. But one thing is for sure. Carrying the ball on the dribble, and two and one half steps, were not allowed in Robertson’s day but are de rigueur today.

All of which raises a question. Oscar Robertson was truly great. But how much even greater would he have been if, instead of having to dribble legitimately, he had been allowed to carry the ball on every dribble, and if, instead of being confined to one and a half steps on a drive to the basket, he could have taken two and a half steps? Conversely, would LeBron (or Jordan) be as good as he is if he were not permitted to carry the ball on every dribble, as is de rigueur today, and if on his drives to the basket he were confined to one and a half steps instead of being allowed to run two and one half steps.

And by the way -- and apropos of another rule change that altered the way a physical act (shooting) is performed -- what if Oscar had been allowed to dunk during his entire career, the way players do today (and as LeBron of course does)? (Although I confess that, to me, the question is not the dunk because, when he got in close, Oscar was going to score, dunk or no dunk. To me the question revolves around carrying the ball on the dribble and taking two and a half steps. Of course, on the other side of it, even if the dunk would not have caused Oscar to score more, would the absence of dunking cause today’s players, including LeBron, to score less?)

The bottom line, then, is that because of the way the rules, or at least their enforcement, have changed, it may never really be possible to say whether somebody like LeBron James is the equal of Oscar Robertson as a player. Because he never played under today’s loose rules, we’ll never know how great Robertson might have been under them. Because today’s great players never played under yesterday’s more stringent rules, we’ll never know how much less great they might have been under them. Of course – to introduce a new thought at the very end -- we could know how good today’s players would be under the old rules if once again the rules on dribbling and traveling were enforced as they should be, as they were enforced in the ’50s and ’60s, as they were enforced when the game was played the way it was meant to be played. But nobody is going to hold their breath waiting for this to happen. Old obdurate fuddy duds like me will simply have to go on thinking that the current rules are basketball’s answer -- an answer by de facto or de jure rule changes -- to the use of steroids in baseball. They are a way of juicing the game. They are not, we fuddy duds think, the way the game was meant to be played.*



Myfiles/Blogspot/Blogltr.OfOscarandLebren

* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Re: Thomas Friedman's Call For A Third Party

May 10, 2006

----- Original Message -----

From: Jack
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel


I agree we need to throw the rascals (left and right) out! What about calling the third party the RIGHTEOUS CENTER party? Webster defines righteous as "arising out of an outraged sense of justice or morality". We certainly have enough to be outraged about! Never in our history have our politicians failed us so miserably. As to who could lead such a party, the only person I see that has demonstrated an ability to govern well, to be a leader, to be totally incorruptible, to be intellectually up to the job, to be beholden to neither of the existing national parties is the Mayor of New York (being which may make him totally unelectable). But he could do it.


--- Original Message -----

From:Mina
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 11:34 AM
Subject: Constitutional Party

Agree with the third party idea. The Democrats are "owned" as a party, and the Republicans are, for the most, corrupted individually. The vote doesn't work in the present system.





----- Original Message -----

From: David
To: "Dean Lawrence R. Velvel"
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: Thomas Friedman's Call For A Third Party.


> Dear Larry:
>
> I thought of you immediately when I read Friedman’s
> column in the NY Times. At least someone has broached
> the subject. It will take a groundswell of activism at
> the grassroots level. Clearly, the internet makes
> anything possible these days. Word of mouth of a
> particular site of interest or a particular blog can
> spread like wildfire. However, it needs to be an idea
> whose time has come. I don't know if a "third party"
> is there yet. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
>
> David



----- Original Message -----

From: Armande
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Thomas Friedman's Call For A Third Party.

Thanks. As usual I have to use a translated Proverb: " A dog barking with us is better than a dog barking Against us".. ha!

Take care,

Armande

----- Original Message -----
From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel

Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 8:23 AM
Subject: Thomas Friedman's Call For A Third Party.



May 9, 2006

Re: Thomas Friedman’s Call For A Third Party.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com

Dear Colleagues:

It is somewhat rare for this writer to find himself in agreement with a column by Tom Friedman. But on May 3rd, sounding more serious by far than tongue in cheek, Friedman spoke of a desire for there to be a third party. A third party is something this author has spoken of previously and devoted a lengthy posting to on March 21, 2006. Frankly, I never thought to see a major columnist seriously discussing the idea so soon after March 21st, if ever. But Friedman has done so (even if one wonders whether his column of May 3rd is a one day wonder, so to speak). Beyond this, some of his reasons for a third party, and even the name he would give it, are not so different from what has been said here. This strikes me as a case of parallel invention brought about, as such invention usually is in science and technology, by the emergence of ideas and actions obvious to all who are interested.

It is nonetheless true that Friedman’s “wedge issue,” as it were -- the energy problem -- is a lot narrower than this writer’s broader critique of American politics and society. Friedman, however, does use his wedge issue as a basis of a somewhat broader critique than that of the energy policy alone, but his overall critique nonetheless remains far narrower than mine.

* * * * *

Friedman begins by lambasting Congress for considering laws that could pander to our “addiction to gasoline.” “With a Congress like this,” he pricelessly adds (no pun regarding the price of gasoline intended), “who needs Al Qaeda?” Our addiction to oil, he later says, floats (that is a pun) “bad governments” -- “some of the world’s worst regimes, who are using their oil windfalls to halt the spread of freedom.”

Friedman (rightly) excoriates both the Republican and Democratic parties for their failures with regard to oil: “Seriously, there is something really disturbing about the utterly shameless, utterly over-the-top Republican pandering and Democratic point-scoring that have been masquerading as governing in response to this energy crisis.”. He then quotes the author of a history of foreign policy who said, “‘We used to say the system is broken because it won’t respond until there is a crisis.’” “But now,” says Friedman, “it’s really broken, ‘because the system can’t even respond to a crisis!’” (Emphasis in original.)

Friedman continues: “What to do? I’m hoping for a third party.[!] The situation is ripe for one . . . .[!] . . . [N]either major party will offer a solution . . . . Combine a huge leadership vacuum on a huge issue with an internet that has proved itself as an alternative platform for organizing, financing and energizing a political campaign outside the Washington establishment, and you have the makings of a credible third party.” (Emphasis added.)

Friedman thinks a third party would have to be ‘big, strategic, centrist and forward-looking.” So he would not call it “the ‘Green Party,’” a name which is taken and which “connotes an agenda that is too narrow and liberal.” Rather, he might call it the “‘American Renewal Party’” -- which isn’t too different a name than the name “American Internet and Reform Party” (emphases added) which has been propounded here, is it? He says his chosen name “frames the energy issue as critical . . . .”

Then he goes on to say that energy is the key to American nirvana in several ways, including reducing the trade and fiscal deficits, making us more competitive and respected in particular ways, weakening horrible regimes, and “stimulating more young people to study math and science.” (The reason for this last boon is not explained, but one presumes it is because we will need more scientists who focus on energy, not that people will be using higher mathematics to count the money they’ve saved on fuel.)

In the final part of his column, Friedman quotes an author of a book on third parties as saying “‘There is an opportunity here for someone who will seize it.’” Friedman himself says that person will have to be “someone who will tell the truth” about the energy situation, and he concludes with the following paragraph:

Yes, our system is rigged against third parties. Still, my gut says that some politician, someday soon, just to be different, just for the fun of it, will take a flier on telling Americans the truth. The right candidate with the right message on energy might be able to drive a bus right up the middle of the U.S. political scene today -- lose the far left and the far right -- and still maybe, just maybe, win a three-way election.

* * * * *

Now, frankly speaking, nobody could be more pleased than I to see a major columnist take up the cudgels for a third party, an idea propounded here, but one I did not expect to see taken up by any big foot any time soon. But Friedman’s view is nonetheless somewhat truncated. True, he passingly, and only passingly, extends its ramifications from energy alone to the internet, deficits, democracy, even math and science. Perhaps the merely passing nature of the extension is due to the word limitations on a New York Times column. Or perhaps, it is due more -- his column reads as if it is due more -- to the fact that his real concern is energy. Whichever, this writer thinks, as said in the blog of March 21st, that the need for a third party arises not from the energy problem alone, but from a broad array of failures in American politics and from a broad array of issues that have not been successfully dealt with -- sometimes have not even begun to be dealt with. As indicated on March 21st, American politics and life have seen a gross failure of honesty, competence and concern for others, the structure of the American electoral system is a moral crime and the mentality of the politicians who are in the system is worse, the one party, reactionary South has had vastly disproportionate influence for almost all of the 217 years since 1789 (except for 1861-1876), and we need to find answers to a host of problems (not just the energy problem) including: militarism, medical care, medical research, globalization, loss of jobs, global warming, education, the Federal courts, secrecy, and the use of money in politics.

Beyond this, the idea that “some politician, someday soon,” will “take a flier” on changing things strikes me as a triumph of hope over reality. Just who among our current politicians can one name who, one would think, has the courage, morality, intelligence and far sightedness to do this? Just who among them would be willing to do it at the risk of defeat and possible subsequent political Coventry. Not a one, this writer would guess. Our political life has descended to the point where politicians are invariably people whose major and usually only concern -- the goal to which they devote almost all their energies -- is their political survival and advancement. God forbid, in their minds, that they should take a big chance on losing an election merely to do what should be done in behalf of the country. As has been said here before, at least in part, the people who are in politics today show by that very fact that they shouldn’t be, while the people who should be ineluctably refuse to be.

* * * * *

So . . . . One is delighted that, however incomplete his logic and analysis, a big foot like Tom Friedman has, at least once, taken up the cudgels for a third party (although I seriously wonder whether we shall hear from him again on this subject). But, delighted or not, one has the irresistible feeling that his analysis must be enormously expanded if it is to embrace what must in fact be covered.*


*This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.



----- Original Message -----

From: John
To:
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2006 8:49 AM
Subject: Summers


> Dear Dean Velvel,
>
> This is in response to your very interesting piece on Larry Summers.
>
> One quick reaction: I appreciate your mention of the Schleifer
> affair, some of the details of which I had not heard about
> previously. It would seem that it was that, i.e. the civil judgment
> against Harvard and Summers failing to take appropriate action in
> response that is the real reason for the corporation's action against
> him.
>
> However, what the administration has successfully promoted as the
> primary cause, as you know, was entrenched leftist faculty who were
> resistant to the difficult but necessary changes which Summers was
> effecting at the institution.
>
> The upshot of this is the corporation scored a victory on two fronts:
> they were able to get rid of Summers (who was, as you point out, an
> inept administrator) and also at the same time reinforce the
> widespread impression that leftist faculty have made Harvard and
> other universities ungovernable, thus paving the way for a Summers-
> lite candidate who will implement the same basic agenda but more
> "thoughtfully" after having carefully engineered a consensus for
> "change."
>
> Thanks for your excellent work.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> John Halle




----- Original Message -----

From: Jane
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 7:01 PM
Subject: great column on harvard


Thank you. it was awful when i was there (class of '77). can only imagine the pit it is now.



----- Original Message -----


From: Victor
To:
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 12:40 PM
Subject: BU trumps Harvard: a plagiarism accusation itself containing plagiarism


> re: www.counterpunch.org/velvel05062006.html
>
Dear Prof. Velvel,
>
Not only did Summers ramp up the quotient of Washington-style dishonesty in the Harvard administration, but he pushed crony capitalist model (a fate unintentionally anticipated by the term "Harvard Corporation" I suppose). In case you haven't seen it yet, you may enjoy Immanuel Wallerstein's brief but pointed analysis of the latter trend ("The Future of the University System", http://fbc.binghamton.edu/27en.htm, 1999).

Personifying the confluence of both forms of corruption, Summers was a lightning rod for faculty resistance, and of course you're correct that the struggle at Harvard ain't over! As you rightly also emphasise, the Law School is another bastion of low intellectual-cum-moral standards. A third area to watch is of course biotech, as documented by Prof. James Ennis, a sociologist at Tufts.
>
But as much fun as Harvard bashing may be, one must give proper "credit" to B.U. for outdoing its big brother across the Charles. On the sanctimonious blowhard scale, Summers never attained the lofty heights of John Silber, and Silber's special creature Dean Joachim Mestre made history by plagiarizing the better part of a commencement speech in which he also accused Martin Luther King of plagiarism! You probably remember the kerfuffle, but here are some background links in case you ever decide to expand the Counterpunch piece into a longer essay.
>
> http://people.bu.edu/whitakal/Plagiarism/Maitre's%20Letter%20to%20Silber.ht
> m
>
> http://people.bu.edu/whitakal/Plagiarism/BG%2010%20Sep%201991%20--%20Maitre
> %20Denies%20Plagiarism%20Again.htm
>
> Today, B.U. may have a new president, but Silber's legacy of sychophantic deans and department heads may take another decade to overcome!
>
> Best,
>
> Victor


----- Original Message -----
From: Armande
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 8:17 PM
Subject: Re: Harvard And Its Presidents.

Thank you.

Describing Mr. Summer as the "smartest guy in the room", one must ask who is in the Room? George Bush and Company???
It seems to me that one goes to college among other traits, to learn honesty and character (provided it did not happen when one was little).

The fact that you are writing about it, it means you do care. If one doesn't care, one ignores the issue!!!

Thanks again.

P.S. most of the time I am translating, so maybe my sentences are not the greatest, but you do get the meaning.. I hope!!

Armande


----- Original Message -----

To: "Dean Lawrence R. Velvel"
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 9:11 PM
Subject: Re: We Need People Of Proven Competence On The Private Side In Politics.


> Dear Dean Lawrence R. Velvel:
>
> As always you speak to the issues that most of us think about in our daily lives, but about which we rarely talk as we seem to have so little time to listen to one another.
>
> Ad hoc reply:
>
>
> Perhaps the use of working in public or in private jobs creates a false dichotomy as it seems success and failure in the jobs does also.
>
> It is time that we reward those selfless hardworking people both public and private workers with the recognition that is well deserved and allow them the power to make the decisions at work with fellow workers.
>
> Competence ought to be defined as being effective in achieving our mission with goals and objectives that are defined through democratic means. It seems to me that we are very far away from democratic actions so long as the measurement of our lives are defined in dollars as we continue to trade our precious time for things.
>
> Cordially,
>
>
> L.
>
>
> -------------- Original message ----------------------

> From: "Dean Lawrence R. Velvel"
>>
>>
>> April 24, 2006
>>
>> Re: We Need People Of Proven Competence On The Private Side In
>> Politics.
>>
>> From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
>> VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com
>>
>>
Dear Colleagues:
>>
It is this writer's thought, and I believe the facts support, that today the vast majority of our politicians are professional politicians. That is to say, most of them have spent all or nearly all of their adult lives in politics. Relatively few of them have had decently long careers in the private sector. Still fewer have had what could be called truly significant careers in the private sector -- the kind of career that, for example, Jon Corzine had, or Tom Coburn (to choose both a liberal and an arch conservative). Some have been government prosecutors (usually state rather than federal government prosecutors, one imagines -- i.e., have been a state's attorney as opposed to a U.S. attorney, one imagines). But even if it is harsh to say so, I don't think that really counts. For being a state's attorney is, and even being a U.S. attorney often is, a highly political
>> job. It is not like being on the private side.
>>
It may be perverse to say so, but one can't help wondering whether the fact that so few politicians have significant experience on the private side, and even fewer have been major successes there, is part of the problem with today's politicians. If it is, one equally wonders whether it ought to be one of the factors addressed by the new third party which this blogger believes is the only way this country is likely to overcome the political problems plaguing it.
>>
Politicians who have had no private careers, still less significant ones, have nothing to fall back on if they lose office. The best they usually can hope for, perhaps the only thing they can hope for, is to become highly paid lobbyists -- for a federal politician, this means to become one of the K Street crowd. But politicians don't want to lose elections regardless of the possibility of becoming another of the locusts of K Street or its state-level equivalents. Those who have had no significant private careers, and have nothing to fall back on, are therefore desperate to stay in office.
>>
This must be one of the reasons they are so willing to lie, cheat and steal, so to speak, to remain in office. That is, this must be one of the reasons they talk out of both sides or all four sides of their mouths, why they are dishonest, why they lust after the legalized bribes called campaign contributions, why they do the bidding of the wealthy while screwing over the common man, why they are too cowardly to stand up to evil. When you have nothing to fall back on, after all, your choices are more circumscribed than those of someone who can say, "To hell with you. I'll go back to a satisfying job delivering babies." Or "I'll open my own investment bank." Or, as once (and for decades) was true of major figures in the Executive, "I will go back to being a senior partner in a Wall Street or La Salle Street law firm," or sometimes even a downtown Washington law firm.
>>
There is another factor involved, too. People on the private side, and
even the more so among those who are major successes there, of necessity have the ethos of getting the job done, the ethos of accomplishment. This is worlds apart from the political ethos, which is to talk, talk, talk, not to get the job done, to talk, talk, talk rather than to accomplish great things, to try to offend nobody, or at least as few as possible, rather than to take well thought out positions. The ethos of getting the job done seems to be sadly lacking among professional politicians, who talk, talk, talk and do so in a way that they hope will advance their wish that everyone will like them, or at least that nobody will dislike them.
>>
If I am right in thinking that people with long, significant careers on the private side, those who have been major successes there (unlike George Bush, who was a major failure there), would bring to politics some characteristics that are sorely needed there, then this is plainly something that a new third party should be cognizant of. This is the more true because it is unrealistic to expect the professional pols of our two current parties to encourage their own replacement by a different breed of cat -- even if the new breed of cat is in some respects a throwback to the successful private side types who were so prominent, indeed preeminent, among the founding fathers whose veneration is an American civic religion (albeit one honored in the breach).
>>
But the idea that more of our politicians -- perhaps even most of them -- should be persons with records of success on the private side does raise certain questions and does give rise to certain criticisms. To begin with there is the question of whether successful people will leave their careers to run for and hold office, and will do so despite the savage, often irresponsible nature of the present day media. My personal suspicion is that, despite the good for nothing elements of the media, in a climate which is welcoming apart from such elements, the answer would be yes for a lot of persons. Not all, but a lot.

There used to be a tradition of public service in this country that was illustrated by major private side figures like Root, Stimson, Acheson, Forrestal, Stevenson, Richardson, Dillon and Vance. One suspects that a lot of successful private side people today, too, would be interested in service if we encouraged them to it and respected them for it, and if they felt that they would not be called upon to abase oneself as current politicians do. Nor would they have to serve "time without end." Four years, six years, eight years would be sufficient from the standpoint of the public interest. If they do not fall into the trap of Potomac fever, and do not fall in love with the ego gratifying perquisites of public office (to which they should be less susceptible than professional pols because they, unlike the pols, get similar gratification on the private side), then four or six or eight years might be sufficient from the individual's standpoint in many or most cases as well as from the standpoint of the public interest.
>>
It is also said that individuals who are successful on the private side expect their orders to be followed without question. They are unprepared for the extensive discussion and compromises of public life, it is claimed. If this is true, it is to some extent desirable, not undesirable. For it reflects the ethos of getting things done, which is exactly the ethos needed in public life. But beyond this, the universal accuracy of the criticism is subject to serious question. Lots of private endeavors involve compromise. (If you wish to test the truth of this, try being a private lawyer in a large multi-party, multi-multi-lawyer trial.) As well, the famous figures of bygone years from the private side who were also major governmental servants, illustrate that people from the private side can indulge the necessary give and take, can make the needed compromises. We are, after all, discussing the need for people who have shown they can be successful, not private side hacks like George Bush or, for that matter, Rumsfeld or Cheney, who were nothing but professional pols chosen to head private companies strictly because of their political connectedness and who, especially Cheney, did not necessarily do such a hot job on the private side.
>>
Then there are a couple of possibly twinned criticisms . To seek candidates who are proven successes on the private side may be criticized as elitist and as too likely to unearth many more conservatives than liberals. Well, if it is elitist, so be it. We need competence, and if it is elitist to seek those who have demonstrated it, then call me elitist. Not to mention that competence comes from a host of walks of life, has no racial, religious or gender limits, and will be shown by lots of people who have worked themselves up from nothing. And plenty of people who are competent will be liberals, especially perhaps those who have had to work themselves up from nothing. Competence, after all, is not the exclusive preserve of the conservative. (Nor is incompetence, notwithstanding Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of that inept crowd.)
>>
There is also the fact that proven competence on the private side will not necessarily translate into competence in political matters. Bill Frist perhaps exemplifies. But this does not alter the fact that, given the pass to which we have been brought by our host of professional pols of demonstrated incompetence, it would be wise to try people who in other endeavors have demonstrated competence. Remember, after all, Root, Stimson, Acheson and the others named above.
>>
And, finally, there is the question of whether one considers certain types of jobs to be private side jobs, or equivalent to them even if the jobs are technically governmental ones. One thinks of two professions in particular, academics at state universities and the military. With regard to universities, my own view is that it makes no difference whether they are state or private. They are highly political entities with the same kind of non-accomplishment-oriented talk, talk, talk ethos as government itself.
>>
Yet there are those whose success in higher education bespeaks an attitude of getting the job done and bespeaks competence. So, in this writer's view, it really depends on the person rather than on the fact that one comes from higher (or previous) education. As to the military, one admits to being a little leery because the military of today is so often a highly political institution where, despite often very high levels of innate ability, people have nevertheless adopted and in their pores absorbed don't-rock-the-boat, CYA attitudes that are too much like those of professional pols. In this regard, one's view is not wholly unaffected by the fact that too many generals went along with the disasters of Viet Nam and Iraq, and that, despite his reputation for alleged candor and forthrightness, John McCain, a military hero, not only got himself involved in the Charles Keating affair, but of late seems to have become no better than any other pol in kowtowing to the worst elements in pursuit of his desire to be President. Nor is one's view wholly unaffected by the fact that Colin Powell, in service of their desire to invade Iraq, capitulated to and lied for his deeply incompetent masters, the three stooges, aka George, Dick and Don.*


----- Original Message -----

To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 11:22 AM
Subject: Re:

It's the price of the instability created by the Bush regime. We'll see who ends up paying for it.


-----Original Message-----

From: "Dean Lawrence R. Velvel" Sent: May 2, 2006 7:16 PM
To: Subject:


May 2, 2006



Dear Colleagues:

The appended blog that was sent out yesterday contained the wrong article from The New Times. The corrected article has been appended to the end of the blog.

Sincerely,

Lawrence R. Velvel

May 1, 2006

Re: New York Times Article On The Futures Market For Oil And Gas.

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com

Dear Colleagues:

Nearly a week after an MSL press release explaining that the futures market is responsible for the increasing price of oil and gas, The New York Times wrote an article on this. That article, preceded by an MSL press release concerning it, is appended below.

THE TIMES PUBLISHES AN ARTICLE ON THE EFFECT OF THE OIL AND GASOLINE FUTURES MARKETS

On Saturday, April 29th, not quite a week after MSL sent round a press release detailing the one hour television interview in which Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen said that the future markets were responsible for the rising price of gasoline, The New York Times ran a lengthy, page one article on the matter. That article is appended below.

The Dean of MSL, Lawrence Velvel, who conducted the interview with Slocum, said the following about The Times’ lengthy article:

“In the typical journalistic fashion of obtaining quotes from differing sides as if this represents truth, The Times ran quotes from people of varying views -- including those who claim that the futures market does not raise the price even if it does contribute to volatility. (How the market can contribute to volatility -- which means prices sometimes rise -- without affecting price, is not explained. This is typical of today’s shallow journalism.) However, as was “said by BPs chief executive, Lord Browne,” “‘it is the case that the price of oil has gone up while nothing physically has changed.’” Similarly, a Washington energy consultant is quoted as saying that “‘Gold prices don’t go up just because jewelers need more gold, they go up because gold is an investment. The same has happened to oil.’””

“So it seems pretty clear,” continued Dean Velvel, “that even the stodgy New York Times is now conceding an effect from the futures market even though, like the rest of the media, for years it did not cover this story.”

“But it is also true,” added the Dean, “that The Times’ story totally fails to mention one of the most important aspects of the Slocum interview. It does not mention that the prices of oil and gasoline are almost totally divorced from the costs of drilling, transportation and refining. Although The Times quotes individuals who say that the price supposedly is determined by the fundamentals of supply and demand, it neglects to deal with the fact that one of the most important fundamentals of economics often does not apply in markets where, as in the oil industry, there are huge and powerful companies (e.g., Exxon/Mobil). That is, the story neglects to say that in such industries the price can become totally divorced from costs regardless of the normal operation of supply and demand. This divorce has now occurred with oil and gasoline because of the operation of the futures markets.”

*This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.

April 29, 2006Trading Frenzy Adding to Rise in Price of Oil By JAD MOUAWAD and HEATHER TIMMONS

A global economic boom, sharply higher demand, extraordinarily tight supplies and domestic instability in many of the world's top oil-producing countries — in that environment higher oil prices were inevitable. But crude oil is not merely a physical commodity that fuels the world economy; powers planes, trains and automobiles; heats cities; and provides fuel for electricity. It has also become a valuable financial asset, bought and sold in electronic exchanges by traders around the world. And they, too, have helped push prices higher.In the latest round of furious buying, hedge funds and other investors have helped propel crude oil prices from around $50 a barrel at the end of 2005 to a record of $75.17 on the New York Mercantile Exchange last week. Back in January 2002, oil was at $18 a barrel.With gasoline in the United States now costing more than $3 a gallon, high energy prices may be a political liability for the Bush administration. But for outside investors — hedge funds, investment banks, mutual funds and pension funds and the like — the resurgence in the oil market has been a golden opportunity. "Gold prices don't go up just because jewelers need more gold, they go up because gold is an investment," said Roger Diwan, a partner with PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultant. "The same has happened to oil."Changes in the way oil is traded have contributed their part as well. On Nymex, oil contracts held mostly by hedge funds — essentially private investment vehicles for the wealthy and institutions, run by traders who share the risks and rewards with their partners — rose above one billion barrels this month, twice the amount held five years ago.Beyond that, trading has also increased outside official exchanges, including swaps or over-the-counter trades conducted directly between, say, a bank and an airline. And that comes on top of the normal trading long conducted by oil companies, commercial oil brokers or funds held by investment banks. "Five years ago, our futures exchange was a small group of physical oil players," said Jeffrey Sprecher, the chief executive of Intercontinental Exchange, the Atlanta-based electronic exchange where about half of all oil futures are traded. "Now there are all sorts of new investors in trading commodity futures, much of which is backed by pension fund money."Such trading is a 24-hour business. And more sophisticated electronic technology allows more money to pour into oil, quicker than ever before, from anywhere in the world. In the Canary Wharf business district of London, for example, the trading room of Barclays Capital is filled with mostly young men in identical button-down blue shirts, staring intently at banks of computer screens where the prices of petroleum products — crude oil, gasoline, fuel oil, napthene and more — flicker by. Occasionally a trader breaks from his trance to bark instructions to a floor broker a couple of miles away, delivering the message through a black speaker box. Above them is a television screen, where President Bush this week was telling America to "get off oil."Experienced oil traders are in heavy demand, and average salary and bonus packages are close to $1 million a year, with top traders earning as much as $10 million.The rush of new investors into commodities has meant a rash of new clients for banks like Barclays. Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse have recently beefed up their oil trading teams to compete with market leaders like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley."Clearly the big attraction of commodity markets like oil is that they've been going up," said Marc Stern, the chief investment officer at Bessemer Trust, a New York wealth manager with $45 billion in assets. "Rising prices create interest."This year alone, oil prices have gained 18 percent; they were up 45 percent in 2005 and 28 percent in 2004, a performance far superior to the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, whose gains in these years have been in the single digits. And to some extent, the rising price of oil feeds on itself, by encouraging many investors to bet that it is likely to continue doing so."The hedge funds have come roaring into the commodities market, and they are willing to take risks," said Brad Hintz, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, an investment firm in New York.Energy funds make up 5 percent of the global hedge fund business, with about $60 billion in assets, according to Peter C. Fusaro, principal at the Energy Hedge Fund Center, an online research community. The gains on the oil market have attracted a fresh class of investors: pension funds and mutual funds seeking to diversify their holdings. Their investments have been mostly channeled through a handful of commodity indexes, which have ballooned to $85 billion in a few years, according to Goldman Sachs. Goldman's own index holds more than $55 billion, triple what it was in 2002. Pension funds have been particularly active in the last year, said Frédéric Lasserre, the head of commodity research at Société Générale in Paris. These investors, seeking to diversify their portfolio, have added to the buying pressure on limited commodity markets.While all this new money has contributed to higher prices, by some estimates perhaps as much as 10 percent to 20 percent, the frantic trading ensures that even the biggest players — including the major oil companies — cannot significantly distort the market or tilt it artificially in their favor. It also makes oil markets more liquid, meaning a buyer can always find a seller."The oil market has been driven by speculators, by hedge funds, by pension funds and by commodity indexes, but the fact of the matter is that it's mostly been driven by the fundamentals," said Craig Pennington, the director of the global energy group at Schroders in London. "Prices are supported by the fact that there is no spare capacity."The inability to increase output fast enough to keep up with global demand accounts for most of the oil price rise over the last three years, analysts say. And until more investments are completed in oil production and refining, markets will remain on edge, with the slightest bit of bad news likely to push prices up further."The reality is that the world has no supply cushion left," said Edward L. Morse, an executive adviser at the Hess Energy Trading Company, a New York oil trading firm. Political strife and circumstance played major parts as well. A crippling strike in Venezuela's oil industry in 2002, the invasion of Iraq, civil unrest in Nigeria, and last summer's hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, among other things, have all contributed to pinching supplies."If we didn't have politics," said William Wallace, a trader on the Nymex for Man Financial, "we'd be like corn." According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consulting firm owned by IHS, Iraq is 900,000 barrels a day below its prewar output; Nigeria has shut 530,000 barrels a day; Venezuela is still 400,000 barrels below its prestrike production; and the Gulf of Mexico remains down by 330,000 barrels a day. In all, this amounts to more than two million barrels of disrupted oil, Cambridge Energy estimates.The latest reason for gains on energy markets is the growing fear that the diplomatic standoff between the Western powers and Iran over nuclear technology will get out of hand."All the risk," said Eric Bolling, an independent trader on Nymex, "has been on the upside."One characteristic of today's futures market is the sharp increase in volatility, which industry insiders largely attribute to hedge funds and other speculators looking for a quick profit."It is the case," complained BP's chief executive, Lord Browne, "that the price of oil has gone up while nothing has changed physically."In the end, supply and demand call the tune. "The idea that speculators can systematically push the price up or down is wrong," said Robert J. Weiner, a professor of international business at George Washington University and a fellow at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan think tank. "But they can make it more volatile. They can't raise water levels but they can create waves."Not all bets have turned out to be profitable. Veteran commodity market traders have been stymied by the high prices of oil, which have exceeded their expectations, and many now predict a steep decline in prices is ahead. But they have been wrong so far. "We found the last 18 months difficult," said Russell Newton, director of Global Advisors, a New York and London hedge fund with $400 million in assets under management that had a down year in 2005. In one often cited example, the Citadel Investment Group, a Chicago-based hedge fund, lost tens of millions of dollars after betting oil prices would fall just before Hurricane Katrina struck."Everybody is jumping into commodities, and there is a log of cash chasing oil," said Philip K. Verleger Jr., a consultant and a former senior adviser on energy policy at the Treasury Department. "The question is when does the thing stop. Eventually they will get burned."





----- Original Message -----

To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2006 6:29 PM
Subject: Summers

Dear Dean Velvel:

At an earlier age, when I thought Harvard and Yale were the beacons of American intellectual life-- instead of the "Kaderschmieds" for US empire-- I would have been surprised and even worried about the integrity of the President and Fellows and all those would be American "dons".
But a university which gives such privilege to war criminals like Dr Kissinger and does not find something reprehensible in Summers argument that the Third World should be freely polluted because of the low per capita value of such environmental waste disposal and the competitive advantage of such countries as low cost toxic dumps-- made in all seriousness while Mr Summers was in Washington-- gives even a one-time New Englander pause. Prior to Summers invidious remarks about the capability of women, Harvard was scarcely known for its positive social policies (whether it be the attitude toward unionisation or its investment portfolio).
Harvard is and has long been a keystone in the Washington-New York- Cambridge "axis" providing the ideological haven for some of the most tainted of official intellectuals. That has long been its role. It would be nice to think that Mr Summers' opportunity to "do the honourable thing" was an indication of moral uplifting within the premier IV league walls. Most probably this has just been an indication that New England taste (notorious for its hypocrisy) has been offended by the odours of a seriously dyspeptic government. The pressure for Mr Summers' departure is more like swallowing a packet of Rolaids to treat a duodenal ulcer.

Nonetheless you are right that Harvard's action or inaction will have an effect on the academic profession. In the tradition of Massachusetts Bay "scarlet letters" may be issued to all those unfortunate enough not to enjoy enough patronage. This kind of discipline will set an example for lesser institutions about how to deal with embarrassing or undesirable breaches of the already cut-throat publish and/ or perish code.

Maybe the answer lies in abandoning the worship of Harvard and accepting that it is just another business-- like those who fund it-- with no greater virtues or vices than the other great businesses that dominate US American life.

Many people in my country swear that we need "elite universities" like Harvard here to compete for brains and research money. They do not understand what Harvard is (or charitably speaking, what it has become). Aside from the truly pleasant campus and libraries, I would not wish anyone a "Harvard" if they are not already saddled with one.

If the affaire Summers were to be an opportunity for Harvard, it would take a long look at what intellectual responsibility means when a country's government has gone beserk. It would go back to a meaningful tradition: emollit mores nec sinit esse feros-- taming the state's violence with humanist values instead of legitimating it. Then aqua -"Veritas" might mean something again on the banks of the Charles.

Thank you for your most interesting article.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen/ Cordialement/ Cordiali saluti/ Yours sincerely


Patrick