A critical response to Ralph Cipriano's critique of Philadelphia's progressive district attorney, published on Sunday in Glenn Greenwald's Outside Voices.
A serious suggestion please: It's very good and refreshing to have genuine debate and an opportunity to hear differing points of view on important subjects.
It's a major drag to have have those arguments laced with the same bullshit insults ("Bad faith," "dishonest," "hit job") that I can get on CNN or anywhere else. Could you please insist that submitting authors presume good faith as a precondition to debating on your platform? Because otherwise, it's just noise.
Or to put it another way, let's have some fucking civility around here, goddammit!!!
Spielberg writes, "He presents no actual evidence tying the gun violence spike in Philadelphia since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to Krasner’s policies because there isn’t any."
But then Spielberg presents his own thesis, equally devoid of actual evidence that the spike has been caused by "generations of systemic racial discrimination and inequities in health care, housing, education, and other factors." I see the potential for claims of correlation, but causality? That's as far of a stretch as the one he claims Cipriano is making.
In my opinion, this piece reads as Spielberg stumping Krasner- picking and choosing the points of Cipriano's article with which he wants to debate, but completely ignoring the most important part of the original article - THE IMPACT ON THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME IN PHILADELPHIA. Spielberg should redirect his energy spent empathizing with Krasner towards these victims who have been tossed to the side in this shallow piece of propaganda.
I'll second SimulationCommander in liking this format, however, would like to add that when two sides of a story are presented I tend to favor the story that reality tests well. The disproportionate soaring rate of violent crime in Philadelphia would lend favor to Cipriano's version of events. Also, the astonishing lack of response from Spielberg to the victims of these crimes, if even in the process of defending ones self against them, diminishes his opposition greatly in my opinion.
IMHO any decent working class party would demand that the workers get to live in neighborhoods that are as safe as any upper middle class neighborhood, which means at a minimum, fair and decent policing, a culture of respect for each other and the hard work and sacrifices people make to earn a living, and opposition to gangs and criminals who prey on ordinary, law-abiding people. I do not see violent criminals and drug gang members as working class heroes or civil rights activists. The interests of drug pushers, pimps, and violent offenders are not the interests of the working class.
Upper middle class “leftists” who day trip literally and figuratively through working class neighborhoods have no business lecturing permanent residents on morality or sympathy for violent offenders. It is upper middle class wokism that is infecting the left with its emphasis on emotion driven outrage rather than clear-headed policies based on the facts of the situation.
Anyone who has lived in a big city through the crime spike in the 1970s through the early 1990s knows with absolute certainty who pays the price for liberalism’s policy failures. The liberals, who now call themselves progressives, are setting the stage for a return of higher crime rates, and the inevitable return of right wing politics, and this author has responsibility for paving the way for these results.
Virtue signal your “progressive” credentials by voting for a DA who doesn’t protect the community but who in fact harms it—Or—-someone who will enforce the law. I know what you all will choose. Congrats Mr. Krasner, in advance .
This format is great to see -- especially in an era where "both sides" has become a slur.
Ultimately this debate comes down to philosophical differences. What is a crime? Is it a choice that an individual makes that tears someone else's life apart? Is it something an individual is driven to by social and economic circumstances?
How you answer this question will determine how you view Krasner and his tenure. And, truly, reasonable people can disagree.
Ben Spielberg co-founded and blogs at 34justice.com. He formerly worked in policy research, writing, and advocacy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and has been published by The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other outlets.
If I then go to his Huffpost bio it says and I quote:
Ben Spielberg co-founded and blogs on 34justice about civil rights, economic justice, and a variety of other political issues. He is currently Campaign Manager for Marc Elrich, who is running for Montgomery County Executive in Maryland, and is an alum of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the San Jose Teachers Association, and Teach For America. All views expressed on The Huffington Post and 34justice are his own.
His high school elected Dennis Kucinich as the Democratic nominee for President in a landslide in 2004 and he ran Marc Elrich‘s winning Democratic primary campaign for Montgomery County Executive in 2018, so he knows progressive candidates can win elections if they message effectively.
If I look up his political donations in 2020, I can see 17 donations to the DNC, ACTBLUE and Bernie Sanders and it lists his occupation as Public Engagement Officer for San Jose unified school district, the same San Jose teachers group mentioned on Huffpost.
Here is his LinkedIn.
Can someone explain to me why a San Jose teachers union public engagement officer from Maryland is commenting on the Philadelphia DA's election and being given the podium on your site as a result of this? Because I don't fucking get it.
Being anti ICE pretty much puts one in the "open border" category plus ignores the violence by the illegal immigrants against the legal immigrants and citizens. Plus it's a slap on the faces of legal immigrants like me who went through the proper process, worked hard for it, follow the law and so on. But whatever, I will ignore this for now.
Larry Krasner's anti-war on drugs message seems contradicting with his support for him supporting Biden's UNCONSTITUTIONAL attacks on the Second Amendment for legally law abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves - ironically against the very violent illegal gun obtaining criminals whom Larry Krasner lets out for free.
Here's Larry Krasner supporting Biden's Anti-Gun message:
Larry Krasner seems to be okay with illegals, with drug dealers and criminals running around with guns but he wants to disarm the law abiding citizens.
And I should also mention Mr. Biden, author of the mass incarceration bill has as of this month also banned menthol cigarettes and flavoured cigars. Menthol cigarettes is preferred by 86% of blacks and 46% of hispanics. How's that not "war on drugs"? Oh probably because laws don't apply to establishment cronies. Biden is banning this while his son is a literal crack addict who also lied on federal gun background checks about his drug usage to obtain a gun illegally and then disposed that illegal gun in the dumpster which secret service went out to clean up after.
Larry Krasner, just like Biden only applies the laws to push their agenda, always contradicting themselves. And the victims are innocent law abiding citizens.
"White intervened and says he told Schellenger “there’s really no reason to act like a tough guy” because Schellenger “looked like he was intent on hurting someone.” White says Schellenger then approached White with balled fists, “gritting his teeth and [saying] he was going to beat the Black off [me],” at which point White pulled out a knife (which he carried for protection) to try to scare Schellenger away"
Quoting White's uncorroborated account to make your case? Anyone with minimal training in jurisprudence would know that these words are perfectly crafted to defend the narrative of self defense agains the manslaughter charge. How could White possibly be in an epistemic position to make the evaluative judgement that Schellenger was "intent" on hurting somebody? Was he brandishing a weapon? Was he doing anything besides yelling at somebody? The inference that White actually was justified in drawing is that the probability is high, that if you intervene in an argument--as an uninvolved bystander-- with a surly, noticeably intoxicated man, that he will, in response to your intervention, verbally accost you. If you respond in turn by pulling out a deadly weapon and then threatening this large intoxicated person with that weapon then you have clearly engaged in behavior that is wanton and reckless by pointlessly increasing the probability of a deadly encounter. That he received two months of probation is an injustice and an example of the type of inverted class warfare that clowns like Krasner play on to keep themselves in power.
I support criminal justice reform, reduced sentencing for drug offenders, and opening doors for convicts who have taken steps to rehabilitate; what I do not support is partisan charlatanism, whereby justice is overlooked so as to advance a tribal agenda.
It's awesome to be able to read completely opposing points of view side by side. However, this article is so full of ad-hominem attacks that it really blows a hole in it's credibility. I'm very interested to see details facts and which put another spin on the behaviour of the prosecutor, however I am much less interested in hearing endlessly about the inferred moral turpitude of Mr. Cipriano and being told what I "should" think.
Glen Greenwald (whom I love), Ben Spielberg and Ralph Cipriano, all missed the boat. We found that punishment, jail time, no bail, no punishment, early release, etc. were all fruitless. Even BF Skinner, the celebrated Psychologist, said punishment in the real world does not work because you can’t do it consistently enough – they commit a hundred crimes until the cops get lucky – and they know that. So they plan so they won’t make the same mistakes next time – but eventually they get unlucky again after another 1,000 crimes. Yes, arrest them, but then put them into every day training of life skills, in or out of prison, and give them hope, a future that is realistic for them. Teach them persistence skills. Teach them how to plan, budget their life for that first job at McBurgers which is just a stepping stone where they earn the rep they need to get the job they realistically want - they could become well paid mechanics and a host of other good, not CEO jobs, but good jobs. Teach them to do a budget. Teach them what to say in a job interview, that they want to make money for their employer, not whine they need a job - which is obvious. Get them going to night or prison school to get the labor skills they need for the job they realistically want. Teach them REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy – by Dr. Albert Ellis, voted most influential living psychiatrist by the APA - it works in a short time, not decades on the couch). Teach them that they can succeed at life despite all the times they have lost and all the people who have called them losers, washed their hands.
But the final hurdle, after acquiring all the skills (I only listed a few) and adjusting their attitudes, is not being able to get a job because there are none due to the FED crushing the labor force or just because they are convicts. Now I don't advocate getting jobs for anyone who has not been trained - it might work, but the odds are 2 to 1 against it. Even without guaranteed jobs, 2/3rds of our graduates succeeded. If they all got a decent job, I believe it would be closer to 90%. But our society, corporations run on fear, fear imposed by the FED when it raises interest rates to destroy jobs and companies. Companies are dictatorships that want employees to fear being fired, being unemployed, not to be able to jump to a better employment situation when their boss is an ass. Clearly, corporations run on fear and greed. But the convicts know that about the real world at a primal level. So if someone commits a crime, I would not give bail unless conditioned on participating, full time, in a training program like ours was. If they have a job, then they must participate and pass our type night school. If they pass, I would have a job waiting for them. But when the victims cry "Justice", just a euphemism for revenge, and the state goes hard core, long sentences to punish them, that never works, costs a lot more in the long run than our type program and stops the perpetual revolving door of the prisons.
“ Cipriano also bizarrely implies that stimulus checks going to people who deal drugs is the only COVID-19-related reason for the nationwide increase in gun violence between 2019 and 2021, dismissing the much more obvious explanation that, as summarized by Everytown Gun Safety, “the pandemic aggravated the very factors driving city gun violence, [which include] generations of systemic racial discrimination and inequities in health care, housing, education, and other factors.”
Is it just me or are both of these claims suspect?
A serious suggestion please: It's very good and refreshing to have genuine debate and an opportunity to hear differing points of view on important subjects.
It's a major drag to have have those arguments laced with the same bullshit insults ("Bad faith," "dishonest," "hit job") that I can get on CNN or anywhere else. Could you please insist that submitting authors presume good faith as a precondition to debating on your platform? Because otherwise, it's just noise.
Or to put it another way, let's have some fucking civility around here, goddammit!!!
Spielberg writes, "He presents no actual evidence tying the gun violence spike in Philadelphia since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to Krasner’s policies because there isn’t any."
But then Spielberg presents his own thesis, equally devoid of actual evidence that the spike has been caused by "generations of systemic racial discrimination and inequities in health care, housing, education, and other factors." I see the potential for claims of correlation, but causality? That's as far of a stretch as the one he claims Cipriano is making.
In my opinion, this piece reads as Spielberg stumping Krasner- picking and choosing the points of Cipriano's article with which he wants to debate, but completely ignoring the most important part of the original article - THE IMPACT ON THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME IN PHILADELPHIA. Spielberg should redirect his energy spent empathizing with Krasner towards these victims who have been tossed to the side in this shallow piece of propaganda.
I'll second SimulationCommander in liking this format, however, would like to add that when two sides of a story are presented I tend to favor the story that reality tests well. The disproportionate soaring rate of violent crime in Philadelphia would lend favor to Cipriano's version of events. Also, the astonishing lack of response from Spielberg to the victims of these crimes, if even in the process of defending ones self against them, diminishes his opposition greatly in my opinion.
I am a fan of this format. Article/Rebuttal/Closing statements is the way debate is done!
IMHO any decent working class party would demand that the workers get to live in neighborhoods that are as safe as any upper middle class neighborhood, which means at a minimum, fair and decent policing, a culture of respect for each other and the hard work and sacrifices people make to earn a living, and opposition to gangs and criminals who prey on ordinary, law-abiding people. I do not see violent criminals and drug gang members as working class heroes or civil rights activists. The interests of drug pushers, pimps, and violent offenders are not the interests of the working class.
Upper middle class “leftists” who day trip literally and figuratively through working class neighborhoods have no business lecturing permanent residents on morality or sympathy for violent offenders. It is upper middle class wokism that is infecting the left with its emphasis on emotion driven outrage rather than clear-headed policies based on the facts of the situation.
Anyone who has lived in a big city through the crime spike in the 1970s through the early 1990s knows with absolute certainty who pays the price for liberalism’s policy failures. The liberals, who now call themselves progressives, are setting the stage for a return of higher crime rates, and the inevitable return of right wing politics, and this author has responsibility for paving the way for these results.
Seems you leftists have a choice.
Virtue signal your “progressive” credentials by voting for a DA who doesn’t protect the community but who in fact harms it—Or—-someone who will enforce the law. I know what you all will choose. Congrats Mr. Krasner, in advance .
I love this back and forth. It's like going into a time machine pre social media. I think Cipriano prevailed in this debate.
This format is great to see -- especially in an era where "both sides" has become a slur.
Ultimately this debate comes down to philosophical differences. What is a crime? Is it a choice that an individual makes that tears someone else's life apart? Is it something an individual is driven to by social and economic circumstances?
How you answer this question will determine how you view Krasner and his tenure. And, truly, reasonable people can disagree.
This is very confusing.
You have an article by a Ben Spielberg here. If I click his name on the article it says and I quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Spielberg co-founded and blogs at 34justice.com. He formerly worked in policy research, writing, and advocacy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and has been published by The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other outlets.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I then go to his Huffpost bio it says and I quote:
Ben Spielberg co-founded and blogs on 34justice about civil rights, economic justice, and a variety of other political issues. He is currently Campaign Manager for Marc Elrich, who is running for Montgomery County Executive in Maryland, and is an alum of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the San Jose Teachers Association, and Teach For America. All views expressed on The Huffington Post and 34justice are his own.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go 34Justice and it says:
His high school elected Dennis Kucinich as the Democratic nominee for President in a landslide in 2004 and he ran Marc Elrich‘s winning Democratic primary campaign for Montgomery County Executive in 2018, so he knows progressive candidates can win elections if they message effectively.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I look up his political donations in 2020, I can see 17 donations to the DNC, ACTBLUE and Bernie Sanders and it lists his occupation as Public Engagement Officer for San Jose unified school district, the same San Jose teachers group mentioned on Huffpost.
Here is his LinkedIn.
Can someone explain to me why a San Jose teachers union public engagement officer from Maryland is commenting on the Philadelphia DA's election and being given the podium on your site as a result of this? Because I don't fucking get it.
Lets see. Spielberg tweeted his support for when Larry Krasner won the DA in 2017 hailing him as the anti-ICE and anti-war on drugs:
https://twitter.com/BenSpielberg/status/864663760597864449
Being anti ICE pretty much puts one in the "open border" category plus ignores the violence by the illegal immigrants against the legal immigrants and citizens. Plus it's a slap on the faces of legal immigrants like me who went through the proper process, worked hard for it, follow the law and so on. But whatever, I will ignore this for now.
Larry Krasner's anti-war on drugs message seems contradicting with his support for him supporting Biden's UNCONSTITUTIONAL attacks on the Second Amendment for legally law abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves - ironically against the very violent illegal gun obtaining criminals whom Larry Krasner lets out for free.
Here's Larry Krasner supporting Biden's Anti-Gun message:
https://www.davisvanguard.org/2021/04/philly-district-attorney-supports-biden-admin-new-action-plan-to-reduce-gun-violence/
Larry Krasner seems to be okay with illegals, with drug dealers and criminals running around with guns but he wants to disarm the law abiding citizens.
And I should also mention Mr. Biden, author of the mass incarceration bill has as of this month also banned menthol cigarettes and flavoured cigars. Menthol cigarettes is preferred by 86% of blacks and 46% of hispanics. How's that not "war on drugs"? Oh probably because laws don't apply to establishment cronies. Biden is banning this while his son is a literal crack addict who also lied on federal gun background checks about his drug usage to obtain a gun illegally and then disposed that illegal gun in the dumpster which secret service went out to clean up after.
Larry Krasner, just like Biden only applies the laws to push their agenda, always contradicting themselves. And the victims are innocent law abiding citizens.
"White intervened and says he told Schellenger “there’s really no reason to act like a tough guy” because Schellenger “looked like he was intent on hurting someone.” White says Schellenger then approached White with balled fists, “gritting his teeth and [saying] he was going to beat the Black off [me],” at which point White pulled out a knife (which he carried for protection) to try to scare Schellenger away"
Quoting White's uncorroborated account to make your case? Anyone with minimal training in jurisprudence would know that these words are perfectly crafted to defend the narrative of self defense agains the manslaughter charge. How could White possibly be in an epistemic position to make the evaluative judgement that Schellenger was "intent" on hurting somebody? Was he brandishing a weapon? Was he doing anything besides yelling at somebody? The inference that White actually was justified in drawing is that the probability is high, that if you intervene in an argument--as an uninvolved bystander-- with a surly, noticeably intoxicated man, that he will, in response to your intervention, verbally accost you. If you respond in turn by pulling out a deadly weapon and then threatening this large intoxicated person with that weapon then you have clearly engaged in behavior that is wanton and reckless by pointlessly increasing the probability of a deadly encounter. That he received two months of probation is an injustice and an example of the type of inverted class warfare that clowns like Krasner play on to keep themselves in power.
I support criminal justice reform, reduced sentencing for drug offenders, and opening doors for convicts who have taken steps to rehabilitate; what I do not support is partisan charlatanism, whereby justice is overlooked so as to advance a tribal agenda.
It's awesome to be able to read completely opposing points of view side by side. However, this article is so full of ad-hominem attacks that it really blows a hole in it's credibility. I'm very interested to see details facts and which put another spin on the behaviour of the prosecutor, however I am much less interested in hearing endlessly about the inferred moral turpitude of Mr. Cipriano and being told what I "should" think.
Glen Greenwald (whom I love), Ben Spielberg and Ralph Cipriano, all missed the boat. We found that punishment, jail time, no bail, no punishment, early release, etc. were all fruitless. Even BF Skinner, the celebrated Psychologist, said punishment in the real world does not work because you can’t do it consistently enough – they commit a hundred crimes until the cops get lucky – and they know that. So they plan so they won’t make the same mistakes next time – but eventually they get unlucky again after another 1,000 crimes. Yes, arrest them, but then put them into every day training of life skills, in or out of prison, and give them hope, a future that is realistic for them. Teach them persistence skills. Teach them how to plan, budget their life for that first job at McBurgers which is just a stepping stone where they earn the rep they need to get the job they realistically want - they could become well paid mechanics and a host of other good, not CEO jobs, but good jobs. Teach them to do a budget. Teach them what to say in a job interview, that they want to make money for their employer, not whine they need a job - which is obvious. Get them going to night or prison school to get the labor skills they need for the job they realistically want. Teach them REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy – by Dr. Albert Ellis, voted most influential living psychiatrist by the APA - it works in a short time, not decades on the couch). Teach them that they can succeed at life despite all the times they have lost and all the people who have called them losers, washed their hands.
But the final hurdle, after acquiring all the skills (I only listed a few) and adjusting their attitudes, is not being able to get a job because there are none due to the FED crushing the labor force or just because they are convicts. Now I don't advocate getting jobs for anyone who has not been trained - it might work, but the odds are 2 to 1 against it. Even without guaranteed jobs, 2/3rds of our graduates succeeded. If they all got a decent job, I believe it would be closer to 90%. But our society, corporations run on fear, fear imposed by the FED when it raises interest rates to destroy jobs and companies. Companies are dictatorships that want employees to fear being fired, being unemployed, not to be able to jump to a better employment situation when their boss is an ass. Clearly, corporations run on fear and greed. But the convicts know that about the real world at a primal level. So if someone commits a crime, I would not give bail unless conditioned on participating, full time, in a training program like ours was. If they have a job, then they must participate and pass our type night school. If they pass, I would have a job waiting for them. But when the victims cry "Justice", just a euphemism for revenge, and the state goes hard core, long sentences to punish them, that never works, costs a lot more in the long run than our type program and stops the perpetual revolving door of the prisons.
“ Cipriano also bizarrely implies that stimulus checks going to people who deal drugs is the only COVID-19-related reason for the nationwide increase in gun violence between 2019 and 2021, dismissing the much more obvious explanation that, as summarized by Everytown Gun Safety, “the pandemic aggravated the very factors driving city gun violence, [which include] generations of systemic racial discrimination and inequities in health care, housing, education, and other factors.”
Is it just me or are both of these claims suspect?
This back and forth is highly entertaining.
Dude lost me at uniformly getting rid of cash bail. It’s a shame when you don’t understand history. Sure be fair but don’t be stupid.