I'm Out with the Out Crowd

For most of my professional career as a lawyer serving the least among us, I've been appalled by the cynical self-serving actions of those who pretend to be guardians of a free and just society. Way, way too many corrupt frauds in public office, or more generally, in public service. Long ago, I spoke out about a very powerful judge who had many allies in the system. Particularly, he/she had many allies in the county prosecutor's office and in law enforcement. They were The In Crowd in Cuyahoga County government and politics.

As a result, I wound up on a "No Deals" list inside the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. A No Deals list is exactly what it sounds like: Your clients are screwed because they have you as a lawyer. Unless you can convince a jury. And I convinced a number of juries in those days that the prosecution was, as esteemed jurist Louis Brandeis often posited, "total bullshit."

How I dealt with that crippling blow to my career is worthy of a screenplay. Perhaps, there's one in the can already. Suffice it to say, I took the long view that federal investigations would, one day, right the Poseidon once again. In the meantime, I'd do my best Hackman with a law degree, leading lost souls to the top masquerading as the bottom, while The In Crowd lead others to their doom by heading to the bottom masquerading as the top.

And now, Cuyahoga County is deep into a federal takeover, with investigations at every level of public service. Judges are going to jail. Prosecutors are cutting deals to rat out their supervisors. Cops, too. The most powerful people in Clevelandia have been forced to look back on their own lives and find themselves despicable. Suddenly, that corrupt In Crowd is now The Out Crowd.

And, me, Out with The In Crowd for so long, now find myself Out with The Out Crowd.

Do you know what that makes me, now? When you're Out with the Out Crowd, you are, by definition, The In Crowd.



Welcome to the Bloomsday Manifesto.

Me, Standing LIke Rod Serling in Black & White

Let's all agree on this: We are in the midst of a poverty crisis of biblical proportions, created over the last fifty years when it could have been avoided. Better judgement, more moral judgment in America would have changed things, lifted up the poor in some stirring Kennedy-esque motif. But once motifs get assassinated, its time to roll up your sleeves to help the poor. Whether it's your brother or your mother or your neighbor or your cousin or a stranger, member of your clan or congregation, or not.

I beg for justice and mercy in the poverty capital of America, where my father did before me, before he died of a liquor-soaked, broken heart. I have street credibility.

I stand next to thousands of people a year, who publicly declare that they are poor, and, therefore, require effective assistance of counsel as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendmint to the Constitution appointed at government's expense. I am an assistant public defender in the Crooked River swamps.

But, I also have a message. Lots of them, in fact. One primary message holds sway over me the most. It's not one of my own invention. It has lasted thousands of years. But it has, also, been largely obscured. It is this: you judge a society by how it treats the least among its citizens. Period. And our society is in epic failure on this point.

 But all is not doom and gloom, my friends. Because I have solutions. Plenty of them. Here, in my own little internet pseudo-autonomy zone I call The Bloomsday Manifesto.

[Cue the bongos, and flautist.]

Terrible/Parable

I'm Sorry, You Must Have Your Narrative Confused With My Narrative

Tip of an interesting iceberg discussion with a colleague. Did he not throw down Foucault?