Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Remember the scene in Heavy Metal when Harry Canyon tries to get the NYPD to investigate a murder & they tell him how much it'll cost him up front?


Walter Russell Mead on the larger implications of NYPD ticket fixing scandal.

New Yorkers are getting an uncomfortable look at the ugly realities behind what we like to think of as the country’s bluest, most European and most enlightened city. A series of trials now underway in the Bronx reveal the harsh truth of embedded corruption and contempt for the public at the heart (if that is the right word) of the New York City police union. . .

Together with a string of other recent cases, the Bronx case suggests that a culture of corruption and entitlement has spread through the ranks of the thin blue line. Worse, it is clear that police union officials are the mainstay of the illegal ticket fixing enterprise, so much so that prosecutors considered indicting the union as a corrupt organization under racketeering laws. The police demonstration in the Bronx was apparently orchestrated by the union, which sent text messages to officers urging that they show up to support colleagues involved in ticket fixing. “It’s a courtesy, not a crime,” was the slogan.

This of course is what everybody thinks of special privileges. That’s what doctors and lawyers think when they cover up professional wrongdoings by their guild brethren. It’s what investment bankers think when they pass on inside information to favored clients — a courtesy not a crime. It’s what politicians think when they do favors in exchange for money and it’s what Don Corleone and Tony Soprano think when they do favors for their friends. The essence of privilege (private law, etymologically speaking) is exactly that: exemption from the laws that govern other people. The police union in New York believes that based on longtime practice it possesses certain unique rights to circumvent the written law.

Meanwhile, the Times was deeply shocked and troubled by what it saw. Policemen booing and cursing prosecutors and officers of the court? Open solidarity with lawbreakers? But it was even worse. Across the street from the courthouse is a “benefits center.” When the crowd lined up to collect welfare payments started chanting “Fix our tickets!” at the protesting cops, the cops responded with derisory chants of “EBT! EBT” (electric benefits transfer, a popular method of making social support payments here in the blue paradise of the northeast). . .

The police rally against law enforcement was one of those rare moments that illuminate the life of a great city in crisis. Between the good government, pro-minority Times reporters, the angry crowd of police rallying to protect their privileges and perks against the background of a city facing financial cutbacks, and the crowd of poor benefit seekers waiting in the street, resentful of the privileged police, we see can see the political and social crisis of New York in a single space. . .

What that Bronx courtyard shows us is a political culture in decline and a development model on the brink. New York’s dependence on Wall Street and the federal government is becoming more acute by the year. Post bubble and post stimulus, neither source of revenue can be expected to grow at an adequate rate, and it is not unlikely that both will be shrinking for years. The pieces of the coalition are venting their rage and hostility, and new supplies of money are nowhere in view.

9 comments:

Aaron said...

I live in lower New York State (not NYC) and occasionally I see a somewhat expensive SUV (probably cost 25-30k new) with the following vanity plate:
20ANDDUN - typical civil servant attitude.

Earlier this year, I took a long walk in Manhattan, and saw a vehicle make a blatantly illegal turn on left. The guy parked in the middle of the street (gridded median strip, but still not a legit parking spot), and walked over to a Mercedes SUV bearing the name and number of his HVAC repair business. In no hurry whatsoever, he shed his street clothes and put on a blue button-down shirt that had a NYPD or NYFD patch on it. What a guy! How nice that taxpayers are footing the bill for his health plan, thereby sparing his business from paying for it!

Anonymous said...

Here's a quarter , thanks for nothin"

Anonymous said...

It is difficult to see what the NYPD extortionists hope to accomplish by simultaneously antagonizing welfare beneficiaries and the District Attorney.

When doing a beat-down on peepulz in da 'hood, you want to be in good standing with the "Only Ones" so as to avoid being indicted for police brutality.

If you cannot disguise your hatred for EBT recipients, make sure to flatter the Boss because you don't want to poke holes in a hornet's nest without having a clear line of retreat.

MALTHUS

Anonymous said...

It's going to be very "interesting" in The Big Apple when the NYC welfare teat runs dry.

T said...

Who knew the Heavy Metal movie had such relevance to today's problems?

Sean said...

When empires are collapsing, you will find its' citizens are the ones knocking out the supports.

Anonymous said...

Looking at the broader picture, this is a win-win. If the corrupt LEOs have to contend with the wrath of the FSA and vice-versa, the rest of us can watch from the sidelines. I know there are alot of thoughtful patriots out there who are worried about the 0300 knock-at-the-door by the jackboots. But think about it. The thugs in blue, whether federal, state, or local will be overwhelmed by the gang element, the FSA, and their "duty" to protect the Bloombergs, Clintons and the other collectivist elites who have created this situation in the first place. Stay prepped. Get ready to bug out if you have to. Stay aware.

Anonymous said...

And if you have to "exit stage right", better know where you plan to go, make sure it can hold you and yours, and have Plans C, D & E in place.

Should the SHTF, it's probably going to be on a work/school day in May/June, probably starting on the East Coast and working its way west. And it will be about as "spontaneous" as a demonstration at a political convention.

@Anonymous 8:32AM

I expect NYC to lose at least 5 congressional seats worth of people should things go south. The Only Ones have alienated too many potential suporters and the elites have disarmed too many people north and east of the Potomac, so there will be a very large price to pay.

Gunner

Bad Cyborg said...

Anonymous @ 6:16 AM wrote:
"It's going to be very "interesting" in The Big Apple when the NYC welfare teat runs dry."

Nah. They'll just get their dhimmicrat budies in congress to spread the pain out to taxpayers in the other 49 states.

No welfare teat is going to run dry until Mordor on the Potomak runs completely out of our money. In 140 B.C. Roman politicians devised a plan to win the votes of the citizens: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses". Today they got EBT. SOS DD.

Robert Heinlein put it best, IMS. Heinlein wrote "Once the monkeys learn they can vote themselves bananas, they'll never climb another tree." The man knew whereof he spoke.