ASSASSINATION BY SUICIDE\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nWednesday, 6 February 2002; 12:00 PM EST (Revised Thursday 21 March 2002; 3:20 PM EST)
\r\n\r\nASSASSINATION BY SUICIDE:
\r\nBetrayal of capitalism
\r\nBy Vigdor Schreibman\r\n<\/p>
Introduction<\/b><\/p>\r\n
The scientific and historical precedents for suicide in analogous\r\nsituations are stated first. Then I lay out the capitalist pattern that was, in \r\nmy case, designed to promote or compel this assassination.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
I am committed, irreversibly, to resist laissez fair<\/i> capitalism and support \r\ncyberspace capital as the preferred democratic strategy for\r\nbuilding up civil resources of resistance. The small fund that I have for \r\ncontinuation of my efforts to support CC, is now exhausted leaving me \r\nwithout the necessary popular or private support to sustain this work and meet \r\nmy very modest financial responsibilities. Under these conditions, I am guided \r\nby the wisdom of the early 20th-century American philosopher and polymath, C.S. \r\nPeirce, who in 1902, after being rejected for a grant to prepare his treatise on \r\nlogic found himself at the end of the line. He then observed in a letter to \r\nWilliam James, 12 June 1902, \"(W)hen the moment arrives at which there seems to \r\nbe no rational hope of making my life useful, my duty, as I see it, will be to \r\ntreat my life just as I would an aching tooth that there was no hope of making \r\nuseful, I will have it out.\" [Introduction, Pragmatism as a Principle and \r\nMethod of Right Thinking<\/i>, The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism<\/i>, \r\n5-6 P.A. Turrisi, editor].<\/p>\r\n\r\n
In my own situation not only is reason for continuing dwindling, but there is \r\nnow looming the capitalist strategy to render me a slave of \r\ntheir \r\nKleptocracy. I will not accept this. Like the \r\nJews of Masada, \r\nI take death by suicide as the ultimate weapon of resistance. \"Liberty or \r\ndeath\" remains a vital principle of democratic life.<\/p> \r\n\r\n
I do not for a moment consider the lack of financial support for CC as any \r\nserious measure of the failure of my project. When I was given the opportunity\r\nto present the case for CC at a meeting of the Local Area Board of Pacifica Radio, \r\nFebruary 13, 2002, the small group of 50 or so mostly minority residents of the\r\nAdams Morgan neighborhood, in Washington, DC, expressed great enthusiasm for the \r\nidea. A slide show display on Internet Managed Dialogue produced more than\r\n1000 visitors to the CC web site, during the week of March 11! Moreover, the \r\nexisting situation is marked by \"short-term paralysis of wide spread criticism \r\ninduced by the 'patriotic' response created to act against 'terrorism'\" according to one experienced observer, Brian Jenkins, an \r\nInternet-based journalist from Western Australia, in an email message Jan 12. \r\nJenkins also suggests, \"A lot of normally sceptical colleagues and organisations \r\nseem to have ducked below the trench from fear of being labelled terrorists or \r\nunpatriots and\/or having their incomes threatened (NGOs especially)\"<\/b>. \r\n(accent added) \r\n\r\n<\/p>
These observations of Brian Jenkins are consistent with a summary of the \r\nproblems of market based \"democracy\" and their causes, recently published in, \r\nThe Market System<\/i> 234 (Yale University Press 2001), written by Charles E. \r\nLindblom, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science at Yale \r\nUniversity. Any challenge to elite power, Lindblom observed, \"is curbed by an \r\nassault on the minds of the masses that persuades them to live within the rules \r\nof the market system rather than become 'masters of the situation.'\" Indeed,\r\nfear itself is a corrupting force, explained by the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, \r\n Aung San Suu Kyi. \r\n\r\n<\/p>
GETTING STARTED: 1954-1979<\/b>\r\n\r\n<\/p>
A critical aspect of my own story starts at the beginning of my career, when I\r\nwas a fully indoctrinated capitalist living in Washington, DC. This was in 1954, \r\nwhen I was 24 years of age, I had completed high school with a poor showing, a \r\ncollege drop out, but busy with industrial research and looking for adventure. \r\nIn the spring of 1954, I decided to move to Puerto Rico. At the time \"Operation \r\nBootstrap\" was just getting under way in that Caribbean paradise and I was \r\npersuaded to find my place in that program after a number of inquiries and \r\nexplorations with a few Puerto Rican business men and bankers, and officials of \r\nthe Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico that I had made some months \r\npreviously. These contacts crystallized my Puerto Rican plan when they all came \r\nto Washington, DC, to attend the annual Bankers Convention held at the Shoreham \r\nHotel (now the Omni Shoreham Hotel).<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I went out to Bolling Air Force Base, and within a day or so I was able to \r\nhitch a ride South, on my way to Puerto Rico. I arrived on the Island with\r\nbut a few pennies pocket money and quickly obtained an income by giving swimming\r\nand water skiing lessons at a lovely new Hotel, La Rada, which offered me a \r\nconcession at their lagoon-side pool. From this Hotel concession, I made new \r\ncontacts with bankers and business people. I also met my beautiful, future \r\nPuerto Rican wife there too, who came one day to apply for a job to help out \r\nwith swimming and water skiing lessons.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
In a short time I graduated to the real estate business. I became a consultant and\r\nbroker, teaching myself the arts of finance and development from examples found\r\nin the local \"Bootstrap\" development library and by inquiry with accomplished\r\nprofessionals. I learned quickly. Contact with one aspiring mortgage lender,\r\nTeodoro Fajardo, led to a shopping center project in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, \r\nanother contact with a successful home builder, Juan Jose Otero, led to a fine new \r\nhotel project at the heart of Santurce, Puerto Rico which I arranged under a long \r\nterm lease with \r\nRoger Sonnabend, CEO of the Hotel Corporation of America. HCA was just \r\ngetting started as a major hotel developer in 1956. That hotel was so successful \r\nwhen it opened in 1959, that my former client decided to buy out the lease with \r\nHCA for $500,000.00. (Mr. Otero was no hotel manager, unfortunately, and his \r\nthriving hotel business soon ran into hard times.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I continued on my successful adventure in Puerto Rico. In 1960 I assembled and \r\npurchased for less than half a million dollars, a large ocean front estate, with \r\nan investor group from New York, Connecticut, and Chicago that I organized: 750 \r\nacres with 2.5 kilometers of ocean frontage with a fair market value that had \r\ngrown to some $10,000,000.00 as my development continued. This property was to \r\nbecome my own project as builder-developer; Las Colinas<\/i> (The Hills), it \r\nwas called, and what a wonderful project it was! <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n
My bankers agreed. Banco Popular published an ad in The San \r\nJuan Star, Saturday May 4, 1963, declaring:
\r\nBanco Popular is proud to have taken part in bringing to the Island of Puerto \r\nRico this exciting new development. Conceived and executed by some of the finest\r\nmen in their fields (e.g<\/b>., Master Plan by Hideo Sasaki, Dean of \r\nLandscape Architecture at Harvard University, Robert Trent Jones Golf Course, \r\naward winning architects, etc.), it will stand as a \r\nmonument to imagination, planning and effort, and will make possible a new kind \r\nof living for thousands of people.<\/i>\r\n
\r\n<\/p>
It was about this time that I found out what capitalism was all about. One of \r\nthe bank officers and owners, Jose Luis Carrion (the younger brother in the \r\nfamily that owned control of the bank), evidently became so excited about Las\r\nColinas<\/i> project that he decided to deprive me of my property by repudiating the \r\nBank's revolving line of credit, which had been orally agreed to, and by \r\nprematurely demanding repayment of their loan. This effectively prevented me \r\nfrom completing the project and making repayment as intended. Jose Luis then \r\ninvited me to sell out for a paltry sum, which I rejected with a pledge to \r\nfight back. I taught myself the law and fought the bank in the US Courts. \r\nThe Puerto Rican bankers and their lawyers and their friends in the Puerto Rican \r\nbuilding industry and in US Court in Puerto Rico all laughed my struggle away, \r\n\"that crazy Schreibman<\/b>,\" they called me!<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Nevertheless, the bank's intended thievery was so evident that despite their\r\nfinancial power and arrogance, after an eight year litigation, I won the law suit \r\nin a series of judgments that established a precedent for a layman appearing in \r\ncourt to defend his corporation in person (see e.g<\/b>., Las Colinas, Inc. v. Mason<\/i>, 377 F.2d 99 (1st Cit. 1967),\r\nafter first remand, sub nom<\/b>, In Re Las Colinas, Inc<\/i>., 426 F.2d 1005 (1st Cir. 1970), \r\nafter second remand<\/b>, 453 F.2d. 911 (1971); see also<\/b> In Re Victor \r\nPublishers, Inc<\/i>., 545 F.2d 285, 286, n.* (1st Cir. 1976) (explaining why \r\nVigdor Schreibman was allowed to personally represent his corporations in Federal \r\nCourt, namely, due to the \"extraordinary legal ability\" of the corporation's \r\nnon-lawyer officer). But the critical fact that led to this successful judgment \r\nwas my extraordinary luck in having \r\nJudge Bailey Aldrich, then Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the \r\nFirst Circuit, preside over all of Las Colinas <\/i>appeals in fair and \r\nimpartial proceedings. The First Circuit is where appeals from cases originating \r\nin Puerto Rico are heard. Judge Aldrich, I was to learn during my \r\nexperiences with the Federal Judiciary, is a very rare member of the 3d-branch \r\nof American Government. <\/p>\r\n\r\n
I made the biggest mistake of my life when that law suit was finally decided\r\nin my favor. Several people warned me not to try to continue with my project, \r\nmy investors, and even Judge Hiram Cancio, himself, former Chief Judge of the \r\nUS District Court who had made the deciding ruling in the case after many years \r\nof ruling against me. I was told by Cancio (at a private dinner party\r\nthat we both attended with friends during the Christmas season of 1972) that \r\nBanco Popular would not allow me to continue, but I went ahead anyway, reasoning \r\nthat an honest Judiciary was always available to support lawful developments. \r\nThis reasoning was badly mistaken. The Judiciary, I have learned, is designed \r\nto support elite power not reason and justice. <\/p> \r\n \r\n
I brought in a new lender, Walter Heller & Company<\/i> of Miami, Florida, \r\nto finance reconstruction of Las Colinas<\/i>. However, in a secret deal\r\n(related to me by a bank director after the death, in 1974, of Abner Kalish, a \r\nvery worthy individual and my primary banker at Banco Popular), the Heller loan was \r\nsoon under the control of Banco Popular, repayment of my loan was demanded \r\nprematurely, overriding the 30-day grace period for interest payments and years \r\nbefore the agreed due date, and we were back in Federal Bankruptcy Court, invoked \r\nto protect Las Colinas<\/i> property while the new finance controversy was \r\nlitigated. This time, the bank was prepared with super fire power in opposition \r\nto my corporate representation. They brought in an outside law firm, Carlton, \r\nFields, Ward, Emanuel, Smith, & Cutler, from Tampa, Florida. William Reece Smith \r\nwas President of the American Bar Association. Edward I. Cutler was a member \r\n(1976-80), later Chairman (1980-83) of the ABA Special Committee on the \r\nCoordination of Federal Judicial Improvements. A special appointment was made \r\nfor the trial judge in my case by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in \r\ndirect consultation with Attorney Cutler (a court employee with personal \r\nknowledge of the facts revealed to me); it was none other than \"Mr. Bankruptcy\" \r\nhimself, the late Aza Herzog, also from Tampa, Florida. New panels of judges in \r\nPuerto Rico and Boston were also assigned to hear appeals in the case. [One \r\nshould not be surprised to learn that the current profile published online, of \r\n Edward I Cutler, \r\nmakes an attempt to cover up his atrocious conduct, by omission of all reference \r\nto his association with Las Colinas<\/i> case, his legal practices in San Juan \r\nand Boston, and his leadership position on the ABA Special Committee on the \r\nCoordination of Federal Judicial Improvements.] <\/p>\r\n\r\n
YEARS OF CONTEMPLATION & WRITING: 1980-1990<\/b>\r\n\r\n<\/p>
Quite a party was assembled to deprive me of my property in a series of decisions,\r\nthe critical element of which was the Courts' persistent arbitrary refusal to \r\nfairly consider any of my arguments at trial or on appeal, In re Las Colinas \r\nDevelopment Corporation<\/i>, 12 COLLIER BANKR. CAS. 652 (Banr. D.P.R. 1977), \r\nappeal dismissed<\/b>, 446 F.Supp. 141 (D.P,R. 1978), aff'd<\/b>, 585 F.2d 7 \r\n(1st Cir. 1978). I later reported the whole story in a book that I published, \r\nJudicial Power and Equal Justice<\/i> (Amicas 1987) ISBN 0-942539-01-X, the second \r\nessay in a 5-volume series of Essays on the Impact of the Constitution and Legal\r\nSystem on American Life and Government<\/i> (Amicas 1987-1990) ISBN 0-942539-2. \r\nThe \r\nCritical Legal Studies program placed my books on their recommended list, and \r\nUniversity law libraries around the country as well as two state Supreme Courts \r\n(California and Ohio) purchased copies of the book, which was based on the official \r\nrecord of the case filed with my Petition for Writ of Certiorari<\/i> in the \r\nSupreme Court of the United States, Vigdor Schreibman and Las Colinas \r\nDevelopment Corporation v. Walter E. Heller & Company<\/i>, No. 78-5914 (1978). \r\nWhen I tried to file my petition on behalf of Las Colinas<\/i>, the clerk refused \r\nto receive it claiming I had no legal authority to act for the corporation in court. \r\nWhen I filed a motion asking the Court to decide that matter, the clerk again \r\nrefused to receive my motion. When I then moved to file the motion with the \r\nappropriate Justice, personally, the clerk relented and submitted the motion to \r\nthe Court, which promptly denied the same, 439 US 1063 (1979) (exception noted, \r\n\"Mr. Justice Stewart would grant the motion\"). The exception is interesting. \r\nJustice Stewart was the Court's expert on matters of self-representation. He \r\nwrote the opinion in the landmark case, Faretta v. California<\/i>, 422 US 806 \r\n(1975).<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Las Colinas<\/i> controversy received special attention of the US Courts \r\nbecause members of the legal profession and the Judiciary insist on monopoly \r\ncontrol over corporate representation in the courts, without any public benefit. \r\nThis restriction was applied even when the corporation was in financial distress \r\nunable to obtain the services of a competent attorney at law. This limitation \r\nwas confirmed by two well qualified expert witnesses at the trial, Jaime Fuster, \r\nDean of the University of Puerto Rico Law School, and Rafael Rivera Cruz, former \r\nBankruptcy Judge in the case, and a former Solicitor General in the Department of \r\nJustice of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico . For their efforts to clarify these issues, \r\nboth witnesses were insulted by the trial judge, and their relevant, impartial, \r\ncorroborated, and uncontroverted testimony was completely disregarded by the Courts. \r\nLas Colinas<\/i> was able and willing to defend its own interests, personally, \r\nby the corporation's non-lawyer officer who possessed \"extraordinary legal ability.\" \r\nThe decision to prevent this representation is contrary to common law, antitrust \r\nlaw, and constitutional law, as I argue in my book, but the Courts simply refused \r\nto provide a fair trial of those issues, which were presented for review. The \r\nCourt's repudiation of the right of corporate legal speech and access to the Courts, \r\nis also paradoxical.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The corporate right to political speech in the form of political campaign \r\ndonations, was protected by the Supreme Court, in First National Bank of \r\nBoston v. Bellotti<\/i>, 435 US 765, 777 (1978), with the result that big business \r\ncorporations can use resources amassed in the economic marketplace, under state \r\ncharter, to obtain an advantage in the political marketplace that is both unfair \r\nand debilitating to the sovereign powers of the people in a democracy. Specific\r\ninstances of unfairness have been addressed by the Court but without considering\r\nthe broad impact of the rule amid the collective actions by tens of thousands of \r\nwealthy corporations to defeat the American democratic system of Government, see\r\ne.g<\/b>., Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce<\/i>, 494 US 652, 659 (1990). \r\nAt the same time, the corporate right of legal speech has been restricted when \r\nthe corporation cannot afford to pay a lawyer, as in Las Colinas<\/i> (1979), \r\noverriding the fundamental right of access to the courts protected under the \r\nFirst Amendment, without any public benefit other than protecting the lawyers \r\nmonopoly, with the result that lawyers and their wealthy clients can simply rob \r\ncorporations (and their stockholders and creditors) of their property when they \r\nare in distressed financial condition. These two schemes were hatched out of \r\nRobber Baron minds, the first, in unabashed defiance of the exclusive power of \r\nthe people under the Republican form of Government to elect their legislative \r\nrepresentatives and a President by popular democratic vote rather than by undue \r\ncorporate political influence, and the second, out of the public policy of \r\nunabashed \r\nKleptocracy - The transferring of wealth from commoners to the upper classes. <\/p>\r\n\r\n
Banco Polular and their alies in the legal profession and Judiciary did not \r\nstop with depriving me of Las Colinas<\/i> properties. In the years that \r\nfollowed, I have been pursued with undercover surveilance, intrusions into my \r\nhome and on my phone, and continuing interruptions of my internet communications. \r\nI have been placed under a policy of civil death<\/i> by continuous denial of \r\nmy fundamental right to protections under the First Amendment: my right to \r\nprivacy has been continuously under siege; my right to due process has been \r\ncontinuously violated whenever I must appear and defend myself in court; my \r\nrights to protection under the free speech and free press clauses have been \r\ncrushed; leaving me altogether bereft of a basic foundation for civil existence \r\nin an environment of oceanic capitalist aggression and corruption including a \r\ndeliberate policy to undermine my ability to maintain good physical health.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
BOGUS SECURITY CLEARANCE CAPER: 1990-1994<\/b>\r\n\r\n<\/p>
On February 16, 1990, the US Department of Justice informed Gregory Miller,\r\nDocument Center Manager, Acumenics Research and Technology, Inc., (ART) of his\r\n\"deep appreciation and thanks to you and your staff,\" which explicitly named \r\nVigdor Schreibman, \"for your diligent work and loyalty to the project of \r\nanalyzing data and documents and preparing the evidentiary memorandum to support \r\nthe Government's case in United States Chemical Corp., et al<\/i>. Effective \r\nthe same day, Vigdor Schreibman was terminated from his job by ART for his \r\nrefusal to complete OPM Standard Form 86 (SF86), for purposes of DOJ security clearance. \r\nSF86 was an attempt by the Reagan Administration to subject all Federal Employees \r\nto National Security clearance, building a dossier on everyone in the Government,\r\nwithout regard for whether or not any National Security information was at issue \r\nin their jobs. The form was a blanket violation of the constitutional privacy \r\nrights of hundreds of thousands of Federal Employees, demanding private medical \r\nrecords, financial information, the names of associations that a person belonged \r\nto, and other such information, while also demanding a blanket release for any \r\ndamages for violation of those rights.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
My job involved no National Security issues. The demands of SF86 were \r\nunconstitutional on its face, for an individual not charged with National \r\nSecurity responsibilities, and in 1990, I properly sued ART in Federal District \r\nCourt, and also included personal actions against the heads of related agencies, \r\nthe Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the US Department of Justice (DOJ), \r\nfor compensatory and punitive damages, a Bivens suit<\/i>, following the \r\ndoctrine of Bivens v Six Unknown Named Agents<\/i><\/i><\/i><\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/b><\/i><\/i><\/b><\/i><\/p>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/i><\/i><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/p>
&<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/b><\/big><\/i><\/i><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/i><\/i><\/i><\/i><\/i><\/i><\/i><\/i><\/p>
<\/b><\/big><\/p>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>
&<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/b>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/i><\/i><\/b><\/i><\/p>
<\/p>
<\/i><\/p>
<\/i><\/i><\/b><\/p>
<\/b><\/p>
<\/p>
é<\/i><\/b><\/p>
&
<\/p>