Author Archives: Dan Malo

About Dan Malo

Dan graduated from the University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT), where he obtained a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. He completed a Planning & Development Internship with the Connecticut General Assembly in 2010 and in 2013, he was elected to his Town of Canterbury’s Planning & Zoning Commission, after sitting four years on appointment. He blogs for #TheGrid about local planning matters in New England and Eastern Connecticut's ‘Quiet Corner.’

American Fascism pre-WW2

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salute2Exiting the First World War, American businesses were extremely well off, making substantial profits from the demand for steel, weapons, and other commodities.

It was in their interests to pursue policies that would help them to increase their profits, and support of corporatist policies, or fascism, would help them do that.

Along with this there were overtones of anti-Semitism and racism, injected with Biblical moralism and nativist nationalistic attitudes. At the time, fascism was seen as a way to combat communism both in Europe and America.  There was a “Red Scare” and many Americans (mostly big business and the rich) feared the United States would turn to communism after the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia. It was felt that there was a connection between atheism and the Socialist movement, and this was uniformly opposed by a coalition of the wealthy, white Christian upper class.[1]

America would turn to a more pro-business attitude during the 1920s because of the Red Scare and its effect on politics; “free market” ideas gained traction because popular (though, mostly manufactured) opinion was against communism.  There was popular support for fascism in the United States by Publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose newspapers sold the American public on the benefits of a fascist economy.[2]  Henry Ford supported fascism because he was extremely opposed to unions, which were seen as a communist entity.  When the Roaring Twenties would come crashing down, fascism would again be touted as the answer to American economic stagnation.  The Great Depression would serve as a good excuse to push their market ideologies, as American business leaders touted the success of Italian and German fascist policies which allowed those countries to improve their economies. [3] Cheerleaders of fascism, such as American intellectual Lawrence Dennis, felt that “Hitler and Mussolini were rising to meet the economic crisis and that we would have to do much the same thing…I defended them and tried to explain them…I said the United States will have to go fascist in the same way that Germany and Italy have gone.”[4]

Because of the ample press time given by Hearst to the public works projects initiated in Italy, “many Americans viewed Mussolini’s programs as a proven and successful way to deal with the problems of economic depression.”[5]           Prominent American figures, a veritable “who’s who” of rich capitalists like Hearst, Lindbergh, Mellon, Rockefeller, DuPont, and Vanderbilt; were welcomed guests of Hitler and Mussolini, and all touted the success of fascism back home when lobbying their business interests to the United States Government.[6] The fascists would get their way, with the money of taxpayers going to fun New Deal projects.  These were coordinated and managed by the business interests, who made out handsomely by the benefit of taxpayer subsidy and cheap labor.

Bibliography

Price, R.G. “Rise of American Fascism.” Rational Revolution. http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm (14 January 2010).

“The Press: Four on Hearst.” Time, 27 April 1936. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770150-1,00.html (14 January 2010).

Younge, Gary. “The fascist who ‘passed’ for white.”, 4 April 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/04/usa.race (14 January 2010).

[1] Price, R.G. “Rise of American Fascism.” Rational Revolution. http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm (14 January 2010).

[2] “The Press: Four on Hearst.” Time, 27 April 1936. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770150-1,00.html (14 January 2010).

[3] Price, R.G.

[4] Younge, Gary. “The fascist who ‘passed’ for white.”, 4 April 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/04/usa.race (14 January 2010).

[5] Price, R.G.

[6] Ibid.

TESTIMONY: HB 6475, An Act Concerning Mandatory Minimum Sentences

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Good afternoon and thank you; members of the Judiciary Committee, for this audience.  My name is Daniel Malo, and I am a University of Connecticut student, organizer and concerned citizen:

I would like to extend my support to:

HB 6475, AN ACT CONCERNING MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES.

The movement to establish mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses began in the early 1950s and gained momentum in the 1970s. During this time, however, sentencing was mainly at the discretion of individual judges who could consider facts regarding the circumstances of an offense and a defendant’s past record in their final rulings.  As the crack cocaine epidemic exploded in the mid-1980s and the rate of drug-related homicides rocketed, Congress looked to mandatory sentencing for drug-related crimes as a law enforcement weapon.

In 1986, Congress enacted the Anti-Drug Abuse Act federal which outlined mandatory drug sentences. Before the 1986 law, drug offenders received an average prison sentence of 22 months. After the law was implemented, the average sentence jumped to 66 months. Prior to the law the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 11 percent higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 49 percent higher.

 Between 1986 and 1996, the number of women in prison for drug law violations increased by 421 percent. This led U.S. Bureau of Prisons Director Kathleen Hawk-Sawyer to testify before Congress, “The reality is, some 70-some percent of our female population are low-level, nonviolent offenders. The fact that they have to come into prison is a question mark for me. I think it has been an unintended consequence of the sentencing guidelines and the mandatory minimums.”

Although Congress intended mandatory sentences to target “kingpins” and managers in drug distribution, the result has been contrary to the intent.   The law has only been beneficial to prosecutors and police, who use the threat of lengthy prison terms to persuade low-level dealers to testify against drug kingpins.  These individuals, often drug mules or street dealers, often end up serving longer sentences because they have little or no information to provide the government, creating a huge incentive for people to provide false information in order to receive a shorter sentence.

Those crowding cells are, for the most part, non-violent offenders.  Meanwhile, criminals who commit more serious crimes often spend less time in jail. More than 80 percent of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 is due to drug convictions. Drug offenders accounted for 44 percent of the increase in the state prison population from 1986 to 1991. Meanwhile, the number of drug violations increased nearly 50 percent in that time. Meanwhile, State and Federal governments have seen significant increases in the costs of corrections due to longer prison terms and an increasing prison population.

There is no evidence that tougher sentences deter drug crimes.

  • Mandatory sentencing does not eliminate sentencing disparities; instead it shifts decision-making authority from judges to prosecutors.
  • Judges are no longer able to consider other factors such as the offender’s role, motivation, and the likelihood of recidivism in sentencing.
  • Mandatory minimums fail to punish high-level dealers, but do succeed at sending record numbers of women and people of color to prison.
  • More appropriate sentencing options or changes in statute will prove to be less costly and/or more effective than mandatory incarceration.

I urge the committee to consider these factors, in their decision making, and ask that this be voted on positively to the Assembly, and encouraged through until it reaches the Governor’s pen.

Thank you, and sincerely, Daniel Malo

billseal

Political Tension Precipitates Civil War

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N v. S

Civil-War-era-map

Civil wars are the culmination of long standing social, economic, and political differences.  While some might believe that it was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 that set the American Civil War into motion, conflict and change were both long overdue.  Irreconcilable contrasts between the north and the south, many of which predate the country itself, finally came to a head.  These differences finally faced a grand (albeit, bloody) opportunity to face resolution, and transform this country into something new, and in many ways, unlike before the conflict, undivided.

Before there was even an American Constitution, industrial and commercial power in the continent was centered in the north.  The focus in the south was upon agriculture, which required a large, cheap workforce.  Later on, in during the industrial revolution, the northern states also needed cheap workers by the dozen,   but by that time, slave importation had ceased, and most of the slaves were in the south.  The type of labor required in the south was more unskilled than in the northern colonies.  If the barbarism of slavery was to make sense in America, it only made sense on the plantation.  By the start of the Civil War, social norms in the north generally frowned upon slavery, while it was the only profitable means for the south.

During the formation of this country, there was great factionalization between those in power as to the direction and level of control this new government would take.  Some states were more “Federalist,” while most in the south, “Anti-Federalists,” wanted strong state governments.  They figured that they were basically self-independent, and felt that an overarching federal government would micromanage them more towards the good of the Union at the expense of their state.  As the northern atmosphere became more receptive towards abolition, the southern states, for the protection of their own economic standing, would make a last ditch claim and assertion to their state rights by seceding.

The decision to keep slavery itself had never reached unanimity between the northern and southern states.  The Missouri Compromise, in 1820, set boundaries for slavery’s expansion, and the Compromise of 1850 was made to balance the slave and free states.  But as an issue, the moral position on its place in our country was never tackled by a firm written law.  With legislation largely “dancing” around any mutually satisfying commitment, the loopholes in these compromises caused strife around the country, with “border ruffians” from pro-slavery Missouri pouring into “Bleeding Kansas” to help make it a slave state, with both sides carrying on a small war of their own for three years.  Meanwhile, a gag rule in Washington DC, from 1835-1844 prevented anti-slavery petitions from congressional discussion.

Resentment in the slavery issue created three types of abolitionists in the north.  Some wanted to end slavery outright, some others gradually, or those like Lincoln, hoped to stop its spread.  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped to turn the public against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  John Brown, who advocated violence and insurrection to end slavery, raided the government armory at Harpers Ferry with the hope of acquiring enough weapons to spark a slave revolt.  At death, after his conviction for treason, he proclaimed that “the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with blood,” predicting in October of 1859, just over a year in advance, the start of the Civil War.

Finally, all of this builds up to a time where politics were changing.  The current political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats began to separate by region.  The Republicans, spun off of former Whigs as an anti-slavery party in 1854, pushed a progressive agenda that was feared by those in the south. Four major candidates gained electoral votes, but the north, and its booming population took the majority.  People voted along regional lines, with Lincoln winning by clear electoral majority.  The popular votes of all his opponents, if united, would have been overwhelming enough for defeat.

Upon Lincoln’s election, South Carolina would open a convention to discuss secession and decide to leave the Union on December 24th.  Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia would follow suit during the “Secession Winter,” while the incumbent President, Buchanan, posed no challenge. Large portions of the United States Army were parceled out with violent incident.  This country had fallen apart by the time Lincoln sworn in.  Entering office, he faced a split nation, an unsure army, and a moral issue to overcome.

 

Daniel Malo
US History
Dr. Hatzberger
M 630-930
2008

This River Needs A Footbridge

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The Quinebaug River, Danielson, Connecticut.
Related post: Historic Aerials: Main St. Over the Quinebaug, Danielson

The Route 6/Route 12 interchange I hope to...change.

The Route 6/Route 12 interchange I hope to…change.

REVIEW: Whitman’s “Learn’d Astronomer”

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In Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” we are exposed to the tedium of academic study, contrasted with the slowness of casual observation.  The piece is, rather, two.  The clustering of scientific words at the beginning comes across as a chore list when put together with the second idea of the poem, making for a stark juxtaposition.  The two different polar moods balance the writing.  The diction shows sentimentality to the “perfect silence” and “mystical moist night air,” much opposed to the feeling of apprehension given the onslaught of obtuse facts and figures.

Whitman tells this from the first person, possibly for effect.  Strongly shown is his use of the word “I.”  It helps to point out the theme.  This is something that had occurred; or possibly, even, happened to him; and seemingly, important enough to immortalize on paper.  The two ideas have enough separation between them to question the relevance of both.  Ultimately, what the author gets from one, he does not get from the other.  Study and participation provide hard knowledge, versus visual observation providing perspective.  Both of them, balancing the spectrum of experience.

REVIEW: “The Life of a Slave Girl”

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Slavery: A Corrupting, Futile Exercise

Amazon Thrift Edition or Free Text from Project Gutenberg

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In her account of a servants in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs works in great detail to share with the reader the cold realities of institutional slavery, examining the morally corrupting influence it has upon the master and the degradation in the spirit of the slave; both human, but separated by color in a relationship that bears tragic consequences to both parties.

In her life as a possession, Linda, the character of which this story is centered around, grows up, at first, unaware of her role as a slave under white masters.  She is raised early on by her parents who protect her from the harshness of their situation, providing a loving and nurturing relationship.  It is from those early recollections she finds herself as capable as any other, longing for the normalcy of having her own home and family, and it is her persistence in this dream that carries her through the rougher moments of her servitude at the hands of an ill-willed and villainous master, Dr. Flint.  She takes pride in the levels of independence she is able to attain for herself, maintaining her own strong will and protection/control of her body by her knowledge and cunning.  Her hopes for herself become put on hold after motherhood, for the chance that her children will be able to have a piece of freedom, family, and shelter for themselves.  She sacrifices years of her life in hiding so that they will have an easier existence away from the control of Dr. Flint.

“I should never know peace till my children were emancipated.”  Linda

The antagonist of this narrative, Dr. Flint, is a morally bankrupt individual, lacking s any redeeming qualities. He is thoroughly one-dimensional, totally corrupted by the power that the slave system grants him. He sees no reason not to use and abuse his slaves in any way he chooses, and he never shows any signs of sympathy for them or remorse for his crimes. If he expresses kindness, it is invariably a ruse to try to get Linda to sleep with him. It often seems that forcing Linda to submit to him is more important to him than simply sleeping with her. He is infuriated by her defiance, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her will. Rather than simply raping her, he persists in his efforts make her acknowledge his mastery.  Dr. Flint seeks to lock Linda up in an isolated cottage in the woods so he can sleep with her freely.  When Linda escapes, he pursues her relentlessly, putting himself hundreds of dollars in debt to chase her to New York. After his death, his spirit lives on in the form of his son-in-law, Mr. Dodge.

“If I have been harsh with you at times, your willfulness drove me to it,.  You know I exact obedience from my own children, and I consider you as yet a child.”  Dr. Flint

This book shows the futility of such a practice.  It makes both the slave and the master less of a human.  Dr. Flint is cruel, hypocritical, and conniving, and he never experiences a moment of guilt, self-doubt, or sympathy for his victims. He never questions his right to do whatever he pleases to his slaves. Dr. Flint represents the cruelty, callousness, and treachery of the entire slave system.  He symbolizes the defining qualities that the system of slavery prerequisites: a lust for power, moral corruption, and a brutal nature. When Linda defies him, she threatens the legitimacy of slavery itself, and it is this defiance that propels his insistence on “mastering” her.

2008 – American History

A Family Talk: Saving For Retirement

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o-RETIREMENT-SAVINGS-facebook

I had a short conversation with my father and grandmother on how they are saving/saved for retirement. My grandmother retired from 2 companies after 20 years, one being a military contract job. She receives a double pension from both companies. She didn’t put any money into a 401k (she said that it didn’t exist yet), but she and my grandfather invested a little in “stock and all that.”  They also invested in a nice house, the resale of which brought them good returns. More recently, she was a victim of a confidence scheme which took all of her savings. She has applied for social security, and is now living with my father.  I asked her if her she considers her retirement plan successful, and she thinks that despite the current situation, she was able to enjoy a good retirement from years of dedicated work. I mentioned that I believe the double pension to be a relic of the past, and that it would not be an option for very many people in the future, and she agreed. She thinks “it’s all catching up with us.” I mentioned a ‘bubble’, and she said “yes, a bubble.”

My father has never saved for retirement, but does receive a small pension from General Dynamics after a workplace injury. He is often heard saying that he’ll have to “work until he is dead.” He says it’s a good idea to “own stuff,” like vehicles and property, which you can sell in a pinch. He is not hopeful for a retirement in any sense.  Understanding the economic situation our planet is in, I am inclined to agree with my father, but I’m not willing to submit myself to a lifetime of work.  My future appears to be odd jobs, or self-entrepreneurship. In that case, I won’t be signing up for a 401k, or be matched by any company any time soon.  In all seriousness, I find that my only hope is to get rich from my ideas. I told my father that, and he nodded, “Your generation is stuck until you fix it.”  My plan is a hybrid of my fathers: invest in local, tangible things of value; and mine: get rich because you have to. I will never feel comfortable with investments or savings plans held electronically, because I believe that system ready to implode.

image found here:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1249993/thumbs/o-RETIREMENT-SAVINGS-facebook.jpg

TESTIMONY: SB 1230, An Act Concerning Traffic Stop Information

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Good afternoon and thank you; members of the Judiciary Committee, for this audience.  My name is Daniel Malo, and based upon my research and activism on this issue,

I would like to extend my SUPPORT to the following bill:

SB 1230, AN ACT CONCERNING TRAFFIC STOP INFORMATION.

To enhance compliance with data collection and reporting required under the Alvin W. Penn Racial Profiling Prohibition Act.

While participating in the Hartford Community Party, I had the opportunity to learn about the Alvin W. Penn Act in great detail.  Racial Profiling, being a chief concern of the North Hartford community that CP represents, I had the opportunity to work with the City of Hartford and other agencies in an effort to make the municipality compliant with the state statue.  CP, also in their effort to raise awareness of this issue, has also worked with state legislators and state agencies to address the flaws of the Statue.  As my colleagues are here to speak today on behalf of their organizations and communities, I am sure the Committee will be well informed.  While it is unfortunate that I am unable to deliver testimony in person today, I would like to submit supplemental information in the breadth of my studies, as well my observations from our efforts in the City of Hartford.

To summarize:

  • Racial Profiling DOES occur in Connecticut (evidenced in monthly news coverage)
  • Less than a third of Connecticut’s police agencies are compliant WITH THE LAW
  • Data collected since implementation has not been analyzed
  • Data collected exists in multiple formats, prohibiting ease of analysis (AAAC)

 

As s state, we should be beyond this.  Creation of a law ten years ago suggest that we thought we were.  This law serves no one, until a “STANDARDIZED ENCOUNTER FORM” becomes used to keep data analysis costs low (which, if ‘cost’ is claimed, forms are budgeted items).  This law certainly serves no one if those charged with keeping it, do not obey it themselves (look closely, to who it is that opposes this bill).  Please read further and contact me, if need be.

Please accountability and efficiency into the Penn Act.

Thank you, and sincerely, Daniel Malo

 

 

 

 

 

Shortcomings of Racial Profiling Data Collection in Connecticut

a Public Act, which would eventually bear the name of its champion, was enacted in Connecticut on the first day of January in the year 2000. Following a wave of racial profiling legislation throughout the country, the Penn Act, like the laws passed in other states, relies on the collection of data to spot trends in traffic stops. There are items of the Act that are taken for granted; the cooperation of state police agencies to be compliant with the law and the analysis of submitted data to be reported in the manner proscribed. Thus far, the majority of Connecticut police departments are non-compliant and the collected data sits on shelves, in various slips of papers bound by rubber-band, un-analyzed.  There is another serious question about the data collection itself—can offending officers be relied upon to report accurate profiling data when they fill out the form based on their perceptions?  The Penn Act is a start to correcting discriminatory police tactics, but its shortcomings need to be addressed—otherwise the law is a waste of even the half-effort put toward its enforcement—and a failure at ensuring the protected rights of  State residents.

 

The most troubling aspect one finds when researching the Penn Act is the unwillingness of the Connecticut police departments to comply with State Statute.  According to their 2008 Annual Report, the African-American Affairs Commission (AAAC), the agency charged with analyzing the profiling data, “barely twenty-five percent of the required law enforcement agencies…submitted reports” in that year.  You would figure that the State’s police departments—the lawkeepers of the land—would have a compliancy rating of better than 25%, especially on a highly publicized issue.   Telling is the fact that Hartford’s urban police forces are among the departments that do not submit data.  There is quickness to dismiss the fact that racial profiling even occurs at all.  According to many officers, the issue instead is “a myth,” and if discriminatory intent was perceived, then it was the lack respect towards the peace officer, or probability of criminal cause that led to the police encounter.  There are many thousands of individuals who claim otherwise, and “driving while black” continues to remain a popular phrase, due to its prevalence in daily urban life.  Departments need to work within the law.  Only then, will they receive the respect they claim they aren’t given.

 

Another failing of the Act is that it doesn’t designate an “official” form or format for the data collection.    According to the AAAC, the data that had been submitted was “received electronically while others were received in several paper formats.”  I have witnessed this first-hand in meetings with AAAC Executive Director Glen Cassis, who when asked about the way the data is collected, left the room and came back with bundles of scraps of papers…of different size, color, font, etc.  Some of the handwriting was impossible to make out on the forms, which dated back (at least as far as I could see) to 2002.  The cost that the AAAC cites as a hindrance in the analysis of this data comes solely from making sense of this jumbled mess.  Sifting through the piles of bundled papers made me realize the need for a uniform method of data collection—starting with the form.  “Some of them come on slips of paper, some on disc . . . some of it’s coded . . . it comes in various shapes and sizes, and it’s difficult to do any kind of comprehensive report,” says Cassis.  Why is paper even used, considering the amount invested in patrol car computers?  Is the data collection issue something that can be solved by Scantron?  Speaking of bubble forms, can’t the analysis and reporting be completed by college students, as has been suggested by former State Representative Michael Lawlor?  If the State tells an agency to get something done and they don’t provide the money, they should, at the least, supply ideas on making the process cost effective.

 

When discussing the Penn Act with other activists and community members, they are astonished that data is even collected in the first place.  The first question many people have asked is “who collects the data?” When told that is the officer who makes the traffic stop, their immediate concern is whether or not an officer who engages in profiling would self-report their own criminal activity.  A good point is also made that officers aren’t necessarily trained to interpret race.  Oftentimes, the ticket that is received is riddled with errors regarding the officers presumed interpretation of race (or religion in some cases, in the states that track that data)—sometimes even gender is inaccurately recorded.  An immediate question is “who is to say…” that the data the officer reports—unseen by the person being pulled over—has accurately been recorded.  This model of data collection carries many fallacies, which, like probable cause (“what is probable cause?”), leave much to interpretation.  What exactly is “officer’s presumption” and what options, if any, are available to individuals who believe they have been racially profiled?

 

Beyond reporting of the data, there are no ways to spot profiling, accept by anecdote, and then by lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the State Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.  Of these cases, usually only the “surest” go to trial. While they grab attention from the media, they drawn out, and in the course of the wait, a person sometimes suffers from lost employment because of a traffic incident in which they may have been profiled (ex. truck drivers).  There is no immediate recourse available to the victim in this case.  To help overcome this inequity, municipalities in other states such as Oregon and California have requested that the officer’s business card be presented at each traffic stop.  The hope would be to keep the offending officer less likely to engage in profiling, for fear of recrimination by the persons they pull over.  It seems a cheap enough addition to range of alternatives, though there are complaints about the cost of paper.  A less costly method might be to print a line on the bottom of the ticket:  “Do you believe you have been racially profiled?  Tell your story @ www.XYZ.”  The “hotline” webpage could serve as either a un- or low-funded forum simply to broadcast the issue, or as part of a state agency or non-profit organization (hopefully this time, funded).  Academia could well step in, and leave the running of the site to those studying web-design; and the handling of the legal matters to professors, advocates, and those pursuing a law degree.  Fixing the problem of racial profiling doesn’t have to be a slow or expensive process.

 

The issue of racial profiling first needs acknowledgement by the State’s police forces.  The reality is that racial profiling is not the myth that they have made it out to be.  Rather than dismissing the idea of it, or spinning it to be a “lack of officer respect” outlook on the part of the citizen, police agencies should own up to their role in this ordeal.  If they wish to handle the problem of profiling internally, as is the current “strategy,” those efforts must show results—to the satisfaction of the community that they serve. The police must be compliant with the law they are charged with keeping.  There must be championing on this issue, politically and in the community, to pressure this wrong to be righted.  A failed, yet expansive, racial profiling law shows poor leadership thus far in that regard. Rather than continue with the chaos of the current system, the will to accomplish the intention of the Penn Act is within reach, and needs the support of police leadership and elected officials.  Instead of taking an adversarial approach with this issue, the onus is on them to cooperate with the community and move beyond this discriminatory, archaic idea.  Simple steps, some of which are proposed in this document, are low-cost, “low-hanging” approaches that can be implemented to both curb racial profiling and provide a form of recourse to the individual affected by the practice.