To: WSFAlist at WSFA.org Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 01:08:05 -0400 Subject: [WSFA] Re: Warning to writers (redux) From: ronkean at juno.com Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org> On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:38:35 -0400 "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net> writes: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <ronkean at juno.com> > [...] > > Ruby Ridge, Waco, the 'Move' assault in Philadelphia, the Montana > > Militia, the California landowner killed in a raid when the > government > > wanted the land, the Elian Gonzales raid - the list of (pre 9-11) > > disturbing events goes on and on - and most of them happened > > under Democratic administrations, not Republican. > > Are you sure about that? Not completely sure, not without checking. > Can you supply the dates for each of > those > events? (I had this vague memory that the Philadelphia thing > happened > during Nixon.) Having checked, there were two MOVE! raids. The first, in August 1978 under Mayor Frank Rizzo (Democrat at the time, but later Republican) resulted in one police officer dead and nine MOVE! members imprisoned, and the Mayor had the house (which was owned by a member) demolished. Remaining MOVE! members moved to another house owned by a relative. That Osage Avenue house was the focus of the second, more famous raid in May 1985 resulting in 62 houses being burned to the ground. Six adults and five children in the MOVE! house died. That was under the new Mayor Wilson Goode, Philadelphia's first black mayor. Ruby Ridge happened in 1992, under the Bush administration, but the scandal was perceived to involve far more than just the original deadly raid which killed Randy Weaver's wife and son. It was the subsequent persecution of Randy Weaver, and the failure to deal with the problems in federal law enforcement, which may be laid at the door of the Clinton administration. It's not just right wing nuts who think there was miscarriage of justice - the jury at Weaver's trial in 1993 acquitted him of all serious charges, convicting only on a minor charge of failure to appear, and it seems that even that was an unjust charge, because he hadn't been notified to appear. In 1995, the Senate held hearings about Ruby Ridge, and the report criticized the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. Weaver was ultimately paid some $3 million in compensation. I think that the California landowner raid and the Montana Militia were during the Clinton Administration, but I'm too lazy to continue checking the history. And I really don't think the Elian Gonzales raid > fits with > those other events -- no one was hurt or killed that time, and I > believe > Janet Reno did the right thing. > Fortunately, the Elian Gonzales raid was well executed in the sense that the boy was retrieved and no one was hurt, but that's not the same thing as it having been the right thing to do to conduct the raid in that way at that time. And that in turn is a separate question from the matter of whether the Gonzales court decision and the administration's position were morally correct. When you say 'Janet Reno did the right thing', it's not quite clear to me whether you mean legally, morally, practically, or tactically, some combination of the above, or 'right' in some other way. Because there were numerous Cuban-Americans surrounding the house where Elian was staying, 'protecting' Elian, the raid could have resulted in a bloodbath to go along with Waco and MOVE!. Fortunately, everything went smoothly, that time. My thought in listing the raids was to lament a governmental tendency to resort to armed raids in response to what are often minor or routine matters - a gun barrel a bit too short (Ruby Ridge), a $200 tax unpaid (Waco), obnoxious neighbors (MOVE!), a child custody dispute (Elian), eminent domain, marijuana in the house, checking certain books out of a library (if the original story was true), etc., etc. In my neighborhood a few years back there was an armed raid on a house by the Park Police - looking for - graffiti paraphernalia, e.g. Magic Markers, spray paint, and such. Ron Kean . ________________________________________________________________ Only $14.95/ month - visit http://www.juno.com/surf to sign up today!