NYC Mayoral Candidate Bill de Blasio helped to close NYC Fire Department facilities when he was an aide to Mayor Dinkins in the early 1990's

                I am writing this letter in response to the numerous inquires I have received regarding my opinion of NYC Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio. The only reason I am asked this question is because of my status as a NYC Police Officer.

                In 1992, de Blasio was a thirty-something staffer for Mayor Dinkins’ Deputy Mayor William Lynch. All politically appointed Mayoral and City Council staffers obtain their employment through political connections. This practice has been the norm since the founding of NYC. As the public is aware, many of the Mayor’s and City Council staff are related to either other elected officials, wealthy political donors or shady union or party bosses. It appears that de Blasio may owe his career to his cousin John Wilhelm, the ex-union President of the powerful UNITE Union. I don’t think de Blasio would have been able to obtain employment, but for the influence of his cousin.

                 In 1993, while in college, I watched in shock when Rudy Guiliani won the Mayor’s race, and, thereby, shifting NYC government further to the right. NYC should be a beacon of hope for the world. The City Charter which codifies the way the city is to be governed gives tremendous amount of governing authority to the Mayor in contrast to other cities. The Mayor of NYC can get more done in a day, then the entire NYC Council can get done in a year. That is why it was so painful when Guiliani and then Bloomberg took over NYC government.

                 In my opinion, de Blasio is just like President Obama. When Obama won the Presidency in 2008, he promised that things would change for the better. He made liberal promises of higher wages, better working conditions and better economic and educational opportunities. However, the opposite has occurred: Obama has done nothing to help the working people in this country. He made liberal promises that the masses craved, but he did not deliver. It is therefore not a surprise that Obama won the marketing campaign of the year for 2008. President Obama is basically Predient Bush with an African-American face. When Obama was first running for the White House he knew that half of all black men in NYC were unemployed. After Obama won the White House twice, half of a working-age-black men are still unemployed in NYC. De Blasio will also never solve black, white or any unemployment issues in NYC because like Obama, de Blasio is a tool of the corporations and the wealthy interests that control this city. Like Obama, de Blasio has a cleverly crafted liberal image. The working class masses in this country hunger for a CHE GUEVARA since the downfall of the American economy. So de Blasio is playing to the needs of the working class voters by claiming to be a Sandinista. Nothing can be further from the truth.

                     De Blasio’s history demonstrates that he is an instrument of the corporate elite and not a champion of the working class that he claims to be. The most glaring example is as follows: As mentioned above, in 1992, de Blasio was just another City Hall disposable hack. During that era, the economy took a vicious downturn and City Hall was looking to make some major budget cuts. As usual, these cuts came at the expense of the working people in this City. Dinkins, his Deputy Mayors, and their assistants, including de Blasio worked as a team to slash the budget and their main target was NYC Fire Department facilities. This is ironic given the wave of arsons and fires killing poor children across NYC in the late 80’s and early 90’s. At the time, NYC residents resisted these savage cuts to any fire or police facilities in their neighborhoods. When Engine 41 was closed in the South Bronx, the “Give Back Engine 41” committee was formed by angered activists (see copy of letter below). This was a real community outcry, not like the contrived corporate created tea party of today.

                    On February 11, 1992, the Borough President of Manhattan at the time, Ruth Messinger, mailed a letter to the First Deputy Mayor Norman Steisel, protesting the closing of Engine 26 in Manhattan (See copy below). With the community pressuring the Borough President to stop these firehouse closings, she wrote another letter to the Deputy Mayor on February 28, 1992. This letter was protesting the Mayor’s closing of the Manhattan Office of the Bureau of Fire Investigation (see below copy). This office was charged with investigating arson in Manhattan. As the letter warned, “in 1991, more children died in arson fires in New York City than were killed by stray bullets.” Bill de Blasio was the good soldier of the Mayor’s firehouse closing team and was assigned to justify the closures and respond to these letters protesting the closing of the fire department commands. The response letter coldly stated that the fire department facility closings will save “over $2.4 million over five years” in the city’s budget. This approximate $400,000 a year in savings was a small price to pay given the amount of children who died each year as a result of arson. When de Blasio was assigned to respond to these firehouse closures, he did not react like a Sandinista. De Blasio obediently followed orders (see internal assignment order memo below). A Sandinista would have resigned in protest, however, de Blasio just followed authority.

                       By 2003, City Council candidate de Balsio would hone his Sandinista image by protesting the firehouse closure of Engine 204 in Brooklyn. The reaction was a stark reversal of de Blasio’s 1992 position and it appears he was exploiting September 11 for political gain. For after 9-11, the NYC Police Department and Fire Department were worshipped for their heroism during the terrorist attacks. (Many of my co-workers in the Police Department still suffer from the physical and psychological effects of working at ground zero.) In 2003, de Blasio would go so far as to get arrested during a protest of this closure which was executed by the Bloomberg administration. This historical analysis, exposes de Blasio as an opportunist. When he was given orders to support the firehouse closures, he did what he was told. In contrast, when he was running for office he opposed the fire command closings.

                        As I stated earlier, working families in this country crave a CHE GUEVERA type to challenge the corporate controlled federal, state and local governments. However, de Blasio is not the Sandinista that he portrays to be. The greatest leaders in recent history like Martin Luther King, Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky were largely either ridiculed or ignored by the nation’s corporate media monopoly. These leaders placed their lives on the line and truly lived with the revolutionary Sandinista spirit. Abraham Lincoln recognized how political authority can change an individual. Lincoln said, "if you want to see a person’s true character, give him some power." Bloomberg, Obama and de Blasio have no character.

Justice For Sale: The US Supreme Court, class, race, and the future of the NYC Pension System

                 In April of last year, a little noticed legal motion, with deep systemic roots, was made in a Brooklyn court.  The motion was made by a disbarred attorney named Lung-Fong Chen who was convicted in 2001 of Bank Fraud.  As a result of the conviction, Chen lost his law license, however, the recent motion was a request by Chen to be reinstated as a New York Attorney. The court referred the matter to the Committee on Character and Fitness to investigate and report on Chen's "current fitness to be an attorney."
               The fact that Chen was disbarred is not the most important aspect of this legal saga. The most important part of this story is who Chen's 2001 co-defendants were: Joseph Liu and Schuman Tu.
               Joseph Liu, who was also convicted of Bank Fraud, is the father of New York City Comptroller John Liu.  The Comptroller is the fiscal officer of the City of New York and responsible for the health of over $120 billion in city employee pension funds.The elder Liu, along with his co-defendant Chen and Tu, was convicted of the misapplication of over one million dollars of bank funds and making false statements on Bank records after a federal jury trial in 2001. Father Liu, as a convicted corporate criminal, joined the ranks of Bernard Madoff, Marc Dreier, and Enron's Ken Lay.
               However, with a mountain of cash behind them, which enabled them to retain the best corporate criminal defense attorneys, the NYC Comptroller's father, Chen and Tu, waged an appellate legal battle with the U.S. Government that would reach all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
              The argument could be made that Liu's father waged this expensive battle in order to clear the Liu name for the future NYC Mayoral race which would occur after the end of the Bloomberg era. Clearing the Liu name would ensure that Liu's son would have a better chance at becoming Mayor. Unfortunately, being the son of a corporate gangster has not prevented Joseph Liu's son from being elected comptroller and taking charge of NYC's $100 billion pension fund. Notwithstanding that two of the Comptroller's fundraisers have been federally indicted for illegally funneling money to Liu's campaign.
             Liu and his co-defendant's first appeal was to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  This federal appellate court is arguably the most important federal circuit court in the country. Its decisions influence sister federal circuit courts and state courts. More importantly, many of its unique cases are appealed to and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. The Second Circuit is also one of the most expensive courts to re-argue cases before since it is located in the heart of lower Manhattan. Furthermore, many of the attorneys that argue cases before the Second Circuit are some of the highest paid attorneys in the world.  In 2003, the lawyers for father Liu argued before this appellate court that the jury instructions by his trial judge on the intent necessary to support a conviction for the misapplication of bank funds was unconstitutional. Liu and Chen also claimed that the introduction of co-defendant Tu's statements during trial violated their right to confront witnesses against them. They also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and Tu argued that the trial court failed to instruct the jury in accordance with his theory of the defense.
            The Second Circuit appellate court rejected all of Liu's arguments and affirmed all of the convictions. These exotic defenses were expensive, and, unfortunately, unavailable to the vast majority of criminal defendants in this country, who, unlike these corporate criminals, happen to be poor.  History demonstrates that the United States legal justice system favors the wealthy.
           In 1987, a shocking European documentary entitled 14 Days in May was produced and showed just how the poor in this country can become a victim of the legal system. 14 Days recorded the last two weeks of a defendant before he was executed after he was convicted of the attempted rape of a woman and the killing of a police officer in Mississippi. The defendant died in the gas chamber even as his lawyer scrambled for last minute appeals. It was later determined that subsequent exculpatory evidence was known to exist by police officers prior to his trial.
           During the defendant's last 14 days on earth he was visited by the women in his family for the final time. The movie has a late eighties Roger and Me documentary feel. However, in this visitation scene, these indomitable, beautiful, strong young women sang in gospel style chorus, the 1987 hit "Always" by the R & B band Atlantic Starr.  This clip of reality strikes to the core as this dehumanizing Mississippi prison of steel bars and concrete could not destroy the love and bravery of these women. If only this defendant had the same economic resources as Mr. Liu, he might still be alive.
           As Barack Obama was elected on a platform of diversity as the first black president, John Liu exploited the fact that he was the first Asian American elected to the NYC Council and the first Asian American elected to a NYC-wide office. The argument can be made that, as Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, that he is just George Bush with a different face. Similarly, John Liu is the modern day corrupt Tammany Hall politician for the latest wave of immigrants to NYC.
          Just as corporate America used the ethnic diversity of the sports and entertainment world to sell soda and clothing, corporate lobbyists are using ethnic diversity to sell candidates that will get elected, but then serve their financial agenda.  Many liberal movie directors have reflected in their work that there are good and bad people of all ethnic backgrounds. In Paul Verhoven's 1987 movie Robocop, the director demonstrated a multi-ethnic murderous gang that was wrecking havoc on the streets of Detroit. Today in NYC, we also have a multi-ethnic set of elected officials, like Liu, Mayor Bloomberg, and Speaker Christine Quinn that have joined forces and have declared war on the middle class.
         Any wise police officer with patrol experience in a multi-ethnic city, will attest that there are good and bad people in all ethnic communities. No one ethnic background has a monopoly on crime. Ethnicity in not an indication of one's character.  This salient point was explained in Spike Lee's recent 2012 movie Red Hook Summer. The movie, set in present day gentrified Brooklyn, shows the alienating affects of the iPad and the agony of a jobless, depressing economy. During the climax of the film, one of the main characters explains that African-Americans thought that all of their problems would disappear once Obama was elected. In short, although Obama is black, he did nothing to help African-Americans or any other working class people upon being elected.
          David Cronenberg's 2012 movie Cosmopolis, like Red Hook Summer, takes on the insanity of the global economic state minus the element of ethnicity. The movie centers around a young billionaire who slowly travels through Manhattan in a modern, computer-equipped chauffeured driven limousine. As the titan receives his up-to-the-minute stock market info on his limo's computer, he can view the occupy wall street protesters rioting in the street outside his vehicle. There is one disturbing scene where, on live television, the director of the International Monetary Fund is stabbed while being interviewed on a talk show. This televised assignation, reminiscent of the Jack Ruby shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald was the invasion of reality within the unreality of choreographed television.
            As the above cited movies explore the issues of wealth inequality, the bi-product of wealth stratification becomes more apparent: the more money you have, the more political power you  have.
            Since Wall Street has destroyed the global economy with sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps, the media has declared war on public employee pensions.  Once again the corporate media has divide the working class by labeling police, firefighter, and teacher pensions as "too generous." The media has been successful in trying to paint the public employee pensions as the economic problem burdening the nation's economy.  Prior to the economic downturn, President Bush expressed his desire to see the Social Security system placed in the stock market. If Bush had his way, the Social Security pension system would have been placed in the hands of corporate criminals like Madoff and Lay. On the NYC level, the entire public pension system has been placed in the hands of the son of a corprate criminal.

During the summer of 2005, as the Mayoral election approached, the co-defendants of the 

Comptroller's father would appeal their cases to the United States Supreme Court:

            In the Fall of 2005, according to the above court records, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of Robert Chen and Schuman Tu, thereby foreclosing Jospeh Liu's chances of having his conviction overturned before the NYC Comptroller's next electoral bid.  The shock is that there is no shock that the NYC Comptroller's father is a convicted corporate criminal, since John Liu has won three elections since his father, with the electorate's knowledge, was tried and convicted of bank fraud. 

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