As the holiday season comes to Chestnut
Hill once again, so come traditions old and new. Festivities
by the Chestnut Hill Business Association begin on Friday,
November 28, with free street car rides on one of the
old PCC trolley cars that ran along Germantown Avenue’s
Route 23 for years. Our old friends Santa Claus and
guitarist/banjo player Andy Maher will join riders on
the streetcar, beginning at 11 a.m. and continuing until
the 4 p.m. Circle of Trees tree-lighting ceremony.
The Circle of Trees event is an old tradition
that is being given new life this season. The event
was started in the 1980s as a time to bring together
students from five elementary schools for a non-commercial
holiday observance. Students made weather-resistant
bird-friendly ornaments to hang on five evergreen trees
on the lawn of the Christ Ascension Lutheran Church.
Santa arrived to light the trees and chat with children
as they sipped cider and munched on cookies.
Over the years, the schools became less
involved. The trees came to resemble those in a Peanuts
Christmas special and community members worried about
religious overtones. Faced with a tight budget, the
Chestnut Hill Community Association had not planned
on funding the event this year. In recent weeks, there
have been second thoughts on canceling the event (families
with young children love it and do not view it as a
religious observance), and the CHCA, together with the
Chestnut Hill Business Association, began making plans.
What is new about Circle of Trees is to
have a workshop on Friday afternoon from 2 to 4 p.m.,
where children over age five can make decorations for
the five evergreen trees. Making it more of a community
event is the assistance of members of Teenagers, Inc.,
who will help children make decorations while their
parents shop. Santa will arrive at 4 p.m. to light the
trees. The Business Association is making arrangements
for refreshments.
It is a terrific community event that will
bring together folks of varying ages and segments of
Chestnut Hill; one that will put the holiday spirit
in residents and visitors to enjoy the holiday house
tour co-sponsored by the CHCA and the Chestnut Hill
Historical Society on December 6; transportation aboard
a Victorian-style trolley from Center City to Chestnut
Hill on Wednesday evenings in December; and other holiday
shopping events. Check our special section, “Holidays
on the Hill,” in this issue for all the details.
Commentary: Election Reflection
by ROBERT FLES
Shall we attribute John Street’s
trouncing of Sam Katz in the race for mayor to the
FBI probe of City Hall? Tempting, but too easy an
answer.
Despite Mt.
Airy’s being Katz’s home neighborhood
and despite the ubiquitous “Katz for Mayor”
and “Democrats for Katz” campaign signs
that sprouted like mushrooms in yards throughout the
region, the Ninth Ward, made up largely of Mt. Airy
and Chestnut Hill, gave the majority of its votes
to Katz, but only barely (by about 500 out of about
6,700 votes). More notably, Street garnered 46 percent
of the Ninth Ward vote this year, compared to 34 percent
in his race four years ago against the same challenger.
A similar shift occurred in the neighborhood next
door, the 21st Ward (Roxborough and Manayunk), and
in neighborhoods in Center City and the Northeast,
all thought of as Katz strongholds.
It defies belief that voters who switched
from Katz in ’99 to Street in ’03 believed
in huge numbers that the federal investigation was
a George Bush - John Ashcroft - Karl Rove concoction
hatched with the 2004 political elections as the underlying
if not overriding consideration. No, the truth is
more that it’s really, really tough to unseat
an incumbent mayor (it hasn’t happened in Philadelphia
in the last half century) who has all kinds of tools
at his disposal, from free publicity to hundreds of
willing worker bees to millions of dollars, easily
obtained and begging to be spent.
Sam Katz was a thoughtful, articulate
candidate but didn’t possess what it took to
blow voters out of their accustomed Democratic water.
He proved unable to convince them either that he could
accomplish things Street couldn’t or that Street
had failed to deliver on what he had promised four
years ago.
John Street, on the other hand, proved
an effective campaigner, becoming affable and visible
throughout the city, touting his “I cleaned
up the neighborhoods” accomplishments, avoiding
complacency, and dodging the FBI bullet adroitly —
in fact, turning it ultimately into a campaign asset
by dancing the old “Me, a suspect? I’m
really the victim!” dance. This was a campaign
asset that in fact does account for the mayor’s
victory as a landslide, but not for his victory itself.
Street ran a better campaign. Katz aimed
to win by cutting deep into Street’s black base
of support. Instead, Street expanded his black base
of support and cut deep into Katz’s white base.
The election also demonstrated how dirty
of a word “Republican” is in Philadelphia
and how very unpopular of a politician George W. Bush
is in Philadelphia. John Street used the dirty word
and unpopular president to transmogrify fears of venality
and criminality within his administration into a Machiavellian
plot to steal the election from him and to deliver
the state to the Bush forces in ’04. It worked,
especially with blue-collar whites (check the results
in the river wards) and fiercely anti-GOP Democrats.
In fact, it worked so well that at a time
when the GOP has caught up with the Democrats in nationwide
registration and in an election in which the GOP made
gains nationwide, the Republicans were slaughtered
in Philadelphia, shocked to lose races for the Supreme
and Superior Courts in Pennsylvania, and dismayed
to see the state’s 21 electoral votes that President
Bush has been wooing for the past three years in anticipation
of next year’s presidential battle suddenly
tilt Democrat-ward.
Ed Rendell’s decisive victory last
year (fueled by the populous suburban counties of
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) and Street’s victory
this year spell serious trouble for Bush and other
GOP aspirants next year — and spell hope for
Democratic aspirants like Joe Hoeffel, who’s
looking to unseat Arlen Specter as a U.S. senator.
Yet one can’t help feel at gloomier
moments that the Democratic stranglehold on Philadelphia
is making the city turn blue in the face and gasp
for air. Too often we seem no more than a reincarnation
of the gray, monolithic Soviet Union at its ossified
worst: “Find a way to get the party blessing,
you’ve got a job.”
Party endorsement and money passing to
the right hands for political services rendered (and
a little to spare here and there) has become equivalent
to election. A century ago the Republicans held the
chokehold; for the last half-century the Democrats
have held it. Not good.
Good: some real competition for complacent
incumbents (of any political stripe), new blood and
new brains, new ways of going after old problems,
startling visions of the future, imagination, risk-taking;
fewer relatives and buddies getting politically based
jobs and contracts; a genuine fear that you’ll
get thrown out of office if you prove to be inept
or a rascal.
Speaking of corruption, money —
the obscene amounts of it necessary to compete, the
obscene necessity of raising it (coaxing, coercing,
making false promises, and even worse, making sincere
promises — whatever it takes to get the loot),
the obscene necessity of giving it if you’d
like a seat at the table where the political and economic
meals are being served, the obscene advantage it gives
to the rich and those with skillful fundraisers, the
obscene TV advertising that it buys (so slick, so
dishonest, so insulting, so often so dirty in its
portrayal of the opposition) — money is corroding
our political system, badly and rapidly. Don’t
let ‘em know in Iraq how democracy really works
here.
Similarly, in an important, highly publicized
election that had a huge turnout and long lines of
intensely interested voters, less than half of the
eligible voters in Philadelphia bothered to vote.
Don’t let ‘em know in Iraq how democracy
really works here.
Finally, this election
did very little to reverse the ways in which Philadelphia
is declining (the dull topics of taxes, economic growth,
attraction and retention of movers and shakers-to-be);
did very little to nudge the city forward into crucial
connections and partnerships with regional movers
and shakers; and did very little to repave the rutty
road between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Yes, Ed
Rendell’s guy and party won the election here,
but will that strengthen the governor’s hand
with the balky legislature? Help reshape state taxation,
educational financing, and economic revitalization?
Help our poor schools and the Convention Center? Doesn’t
look likely.
It really wasn’t a George Bush
- John Ashcroft - Karl Rove concoction with the 2004
elections the underlying if not overriding consideration
— was it?
Opinion: My party right,
wrong, and reactionary
By
JAMES H. FOSTER
Unfortunately I was not able to attend
the discussion held in the Chestnut Hill Library
last week on the subject of the Patriot Act. However,
staff writer for the Local,
Michael J. Mishak, has presented the reader with
an insightful and detailed summary and a conclusion
that underscored a narrow mindset I have long found
to exist in Northwest Philadelphia, particularly
in Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy.
First
to understand political philosophy in this region
one must first recognize that the persuasion ranges
from left, to extreme left, to radical left. Even
the relatively few registered Republicans are left-leaning
for the most part, and the presence of dedicated
Socialists, Communists and other fringe groups with
global leftist goals and ideologies are easy enough
to find in local print commentary and advertised
activist events.
Of course the opportunity to express
one’s opinions is an essential part of a free
society and most of these folks would like to see
themselves as fine upstanding liberals. I contend
that many of them are far from being “liberal”
and are actually leftist reactionaries and the tone
and tenor of the event reported by Mr. Mishak seems
to make that point loud and clear.
It is important to clarify that the
term “liberal” has undergone a major
redefinition since this country was founded by true
“liberals”; ones who carefully considered
all points of view, debated extensively the information
supplied by all those concerned, and attempted to
forge a system that made few fundamental demands
on society, but embraced differing opinions and
encouraged thinking from all with knowledge and
experience.
Both the left and right misuse this
term, with the right often denigrating it, and the
left adopting it as defining their perspective.
Actually a significant portion of today’s
left-leaning Democrats and others are much closer
to utopian Marxist ideologues than they are to open-minded
liberal thinkers. For those folks, many of whom
are probably reading this commentary, some soul-searching
is in order.
Always leading the charge from the activist
left are the proponents of inflammatory language:
often fabrications or half-truths designed to outrage
the audience and lay the groundwork for piling on
propaganda. As reported, Dr. Rudovsky of the ACLU
followed that formula with an initial statement
that the Japanese internment during WWII represented
“the worst stain of the Constitutional fabric
of our country.”
Compared to the “Separate but
Equal” and Plessy decisions on race, it is child’s play. The long-range
effect of the former, on an entire segment of the
population, shamed this country and its legal system
for almost 75 years as law, and its effects are
with us for God knows how much longer. The Japanese
internment, like the Patriot Act, had a expiration
date.
Rudovsky used the term “information-starved
public” and he is correct on that point. However
the information they are lacking is how the executive
and legislative branches of our government made
us vulnerable to 9/11. There is clear evidence how
executive decisions and orders, coupled with neglect
and lobby-driven congressional agendas, rendered
the CIA, FBI and NSA into neutered agencies. At
the same time, the INS was virtually reformed into
a tourist industry with all previous regulations
made secondary to increasing the volume of immigrants
into this country four-fold after 1992.
These policies actually encouraged illegal
immigration until it represented a full one-half
of those who emigrated. Verifiable statistics are
available to those who are actually interested in
the truth of how we became so vulnerable. Our senators
and congressmen who challenged those changes were
shouted down or overridden by executive orders.
This Patriot Act, as undesirable as it is, functions
to help re-rail a train wreck of monumental proportions
where national security is concerned.
The details about these issues are what
concerned individuals on all sides of the political
spectrum should be clamoring for. Closed Senate
and House hearings and stonewalling of the 9/11
Commission from agencies and the White House should
be the rallying point from a concerned citizenry,
not the Patriot Act, which is a result, not a cause.
The massive intelligence failures discussed at the
meeting were not in the months preceding 9/11 as
stated, but in the years since
1992 when whistle-blowing agency operatives, journalists,
and knowledgeable citizens were silenced or ridiculed
as extremists.
The overriding point, possibly not made
at the debate, is that national security for citizens
must take precedence over the rights of visiting
immigrants, legal and illegal. The operative Constitutional
declarations, for those who have forgotten, are
“Provide for the Common Defense” and
“Insure Domestic Tranquility.”
To attempt to make the point that the
Patriot Act represents the agenda of a narrow particular
political group also defies the logic test. The
entire Congress was given the opportunity to review
and vote on the act and they did so with a substantial
majority of both political parties signing on. If
the President wanted to avoid the risk of debate
he could have signed an executive order after 9/11
and accomplished the purpose, leaving the Senate
and House open to debate provisions after the fact,
but the process would take years and only if a majority
was up to the challenge. The fact is our senators
and representatives signed on and knew full well
that the federal government had failed its citizens
and remedial action was needed. How that failure
took place is the subject for expanded debate presently
taking place in several arenas.
Unlike the reported comments of those
in attendance, coordinated, terrorist planned and
activated bombings are still a war, pure and simple — and even worse than war with
uniformed troops, as there are no predictable boundaries
of activity. Are there actually individuals who
do not see the WTC bombings and the massive loss
of life as an act of war?
Maybe the loss was just too minimal
for those who think that “we deserved it”
and that all countries just have to accept the fact
that there will always be the occasional terror
attack as a small price to pay for open borders
and unlimited multicultural exchange. Europe has
lived with these terrorist events for years and
in the Middle East they are de rigueur,
but to most Americans they are totally unacceptable,
and those who would bring them to our shores must
be screened out in the manner we did so successfully
for most of this country’s history.
I can think of no government in world
history that has done the job we have in our short
200-plus-year history of maintaining relatively
open borders and avoiding attacks on our home soil.
Those countries with very leftist governments —
China, North Korea and Cuba — still build
walls to keep the people in and the influence of
freedom out. By the same token, any country has
the right to control who enters: in what numbers,
and for what purpose they want to enter.
Some process for screening those whom
we recklessly admitted is preferable to national
identity cards, branding, and other remedies discussed
by some. Now, there
is an issue for the ACLU to sink its teeth in. We
also have every right to look more closely at those
from countries that advertise, support and finance
terror and anti-American policies. Profiling is
much preferred over Gestapo tactics.
Mr. Mishak’s description of how
the audience blatantly exhibited their bias only
confirms the myopic political perspective so frequently
found in this community, where only one political
party and one philosophy are seen, by even the most
informed and educated, as the only path to governance.
This is classic totalitarian thinking and in direct
opposition to the liberal views of our founders.
Joe Stalin and the Duranty-inspired New York Times
would be proud.
In his opening paragraph, Mr. Mishak
rightly points out the reactionary attitude of local
voters as evidenced during the mayoral election.
Apparently the benefit of the doubt only extends
to persons of a certain partisan stripe. No credibility
was given to the fact that a federal investigation
into long-suspected political corruption was independent
of politics, but every consideration was given to
the fact that those being investigated were innocent
and being railroaded.
It seems like Northwest Philadelphia
is intent on keeping this city mired in the politics
of the past. The motto goes like this: “They
many be crooks, but they are our crooks.” A good number of individuals make their living from a corrupt
and continuously criminal system and maybe that
is the intent.
Before the readers jump to the conclusion
that these are the comments of a dyed-in-the wool
Republican, let me make it clear that I have never
been a member of the Republican Party and my choice
for the most effective president of the 20th century
is Harry Truman. This is the man who saved the Democratic
Party from its racist and radical left elements
in the late ‘40s and ‘50s.
I see no Harry or his thinking
on the horizon now.
