-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of
Smith, Brad
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:55 PM
To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: RE: Fulani and Tax Financed Campaigns
It seems to me that people have totally missed any point of
my article if they think I was suggesting that Lenora Fulani
should be disqualified from federal funds for her
anti-Semitic remarks (Michael Richardson's comments aside, I
don't know how else one would describe them), or that it at
all matters if she made these comments in the context of
running for president or not.
Fulani met the legal requirements for funds, and should get
them. There is no point at which the government should
discriminate in tax funding campaigns on the basis of the
candidate's views, articulated or not. Given that this leads
to funding for many candidates that Americans think ought not
be funded by government (and given many other problems with
tax funding, including the view of many that it doesn't
seriously address either the equality or the corruption
problem, especially as the latter is defined in Austin and
McConnell), the question is whether or not tax funding of
campaigns is good policy and a good use of tax dollars. My
guess is that most academics think yes; polling data
indicates that most Americans think no.
Bradley A. Smith
Professor of Law
Capital University
Columbus, OH
________________________________
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of
Bryan Mercurio
Sent: Tue 4/18/2006 3:37 PM
To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: RE: Brad Smith column is inaccurate
Hear Hear.
Getting back to the initial point though, my question would
be what if the person may have made such statement in the
past and later disavowed themselves of that position (for
instance, KKK, Neo-Nazi, bigot, etc)? The point being, I
suppose, is where do you draw the line when prohibited
certain persons from receiving federal funds. Seems like a
fine line, and one which can be manipulated or abused.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of
Volokh, Eugene
Sent: Tue 4/18/2006 2:05 PM
To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: RE: Brad Smith column is inaccurate
Well, when a country that is the most democratic in
the Middle East, and that provides some of the strongest
(albeit imperfect) protections for ethnic minorities of any
country in the Middle East, is singled out for accusation as
"mass murderers" -- when none of the neighboring countries
that have engaged in comparable or greater killing or
oppression of minority group members are -- one wonders
whether the objection is just because of the country's
alleged sins, or because the sinners are Jews rather than Arabs.
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Bryan
Mercurio
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 7:22 AM
To: Michael Richardson; election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: RE: Brad Smith column is inaccurate
Michael, the comments are still offensive and not becoming a
politician or any upstanding member of society. I think you fail to
understand the close association between Israel and the
Jewish faith.
Fulani went far beyond merely expressing 'distaste' for the Israeli
military and any post-comment rationalisation does not change the
meaning of the words/statement.
This still does not answer your first question, which I do think is
interesting.
Bryan Mercurio
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of Michael
Richardson
Sent: Tue 4/18/2006 9:17 AM
To: VOLOKH@law.ucla.edu; election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: RE: Brad Smith column is inaccurate
Greetings!
My appreciation to Eugene Volokh for his sleuthing on the
context of
the sentence fragment that hangs like a cloud over the electoral
efforts of Lenora Fulani. Professor Hasen will probably
have to pull
the plug on this discussion thread as the "near urban myth
status" of
the fragment makes this a never-ending story. However, I will take
one last bite at the apple and risk getting tarred with the
brush used
on Fulani.
1) No one has responded to my observation that the disputed
commentary was outside the scope of a political campaign
and outside a
federally funded election contest which is where the immediate
discussion began.
2) Now that we know the context for the sentence fragment
was a play
review, by Fulani, of a play about Zionism written and
produced by her
Jewish mentor Fred Newman I believe the anti-semitic charge fails.
3) The "sell their souls" comment, in the context of a play
review is
not an extreme statement but represents the poetic license
often found
in performance reviews by many reviewers.
4) The "to function as mass murders of people of color" comment is
not directed at people of Jewish faith, as the sentence fragment so
often quoted would lead one to believe. Rather, if you examine the
construction of the full sentence, it is a commentary on
the actions
of a country, Israel. In other words, political commentary on a
nation-state.
One may not agree with Fulani's distaste for Israeli militarism but
the charge of "anti-semitism" is overreaching.
Michael Richardson
________________________________
From: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH@law.ucla.edu>
To: <election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Subject: RE: Brad Smith column is inaccurate
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 15:10:10 -0700
I'm a big believer in trying to slay urban myths, but
shouldn't the labeling as an "urban myth" or as a "near urban myth"
follow discovery of the context, rather than preceding it?
Here is the best source I could find, based on a quick
google search, though I'd love to see more, of course. It's
a column
by Ed Koch, and it purports to quote a response he got from Lenora
Fulani on this very point; unless Koch is misquoting Fulani's
response, the response does not seem particularly exculpatory.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/4/19/162942.shtml
Lenora Fulani is once again in the news. Last year,
Abe Foxman,
national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote a letter
published in The New York Times. Mr. Foxman wrote, "Ms. Fulani has
stated that Jews 'had to sell their souls to acquire Israel and are
required to do the dirtiest work of capitalism - to
function as mass
murderers of people of color - in order to keep it.'"
I was shocked at Ms. Fulani's clearly anti-Semitic
statement and wrote to the chair of the Independence Party,
stating in
part:
"A Daily News article of December 7 written by Lisa Colangelo
states, 'Party representatives have said the quotes were
taken out of
context.' I would appreciate knowing the proper context of Dr.
Fulani's remarks referred to by 'party representatives.' I cannot
conceive of any context in which Ms. Fulani's comments could be
perceived as other than anti-Semitic, but perhaps there was
a unique
context which gave the remarks a benign rather than a malignant
meaning."
On December 16, 2004, Dr. Fulani wrote, "The
context of
the remark quoted by Mr. Foxman in his April 20, 2004 letter to the
New York Times is a theatre review I wrote in 1989. The
play, No Room
for Zion, was written by Fred Newman and was produced that
year at the
Castillo Theatre. The play was part memoir, part political
critique of
the Jewish experience in the post-war period. My review dealt
specifically with the issue of nationalism and its dangers. In this
case I was remarking on how black America should learn from the
tragedies experienced by Jewish people. I wrote:
'As I sat and listened I saw more deeply in Fred's
teaching the historical pitfalls of nationalism. After all,
according
to nationalistic ideology, the Jewish people have gotten
the ultimate
- land, in the form of a nation state. The fact is,
however, that they
had to sell their souls to acquire Israel and are required
to do the
dirtiest work of capitalism - to function as mass murderers
of people
of color - in order to keep it.'
"Because my comment was about the play and, more
importantly, because the production was an expression of Newman's
views which have significantly shaped my own, I asked him
to write to
you to provide the larger historical and intellectual 'context' in
which both the play and my review were written. I have enclosed his
letter, which I hope will shed further light on the issue at hand."
Newman's letter stated: "'The dirtiest work of
capitalism - to which Dr. Fulani referred in her article - 'to
function as mass murders of people of color' is to act as
its garrison
state in an increasingly hostile and unstable Arab and
Muslim world.
The language is harsh. The reality, as we now see, is even more
harsh."
Mr. Newman closed with "Perhaps this brings us to a
bottom line. It may be that my views - the views of a leftist - are
distasteful to you and that you would choose to criticize
me for them.
That, of course, is your prerogative." ...
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