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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