FDNY: “Giuliani is a fascist thug!“ by Robert Lederman robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net Since the tragic events of 9/11 NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has been endlessly lionized as a hero, saint, healer and unifying force in the social fabric. Dubbed, “America’s Mayor”, who would have predicted that the real heroes whose sacrifices he has exploited so successfully to create this false image would become the latest critics to call him a fascist? Now the firemen who spent the past month and a half digging through the World Trade Center disaster site are echoing the exact same charges made by civil rights activists, street artists, ministers and homeless advocates for the past eight years about “Sir Rudy“. Perhaps it’s time for those who keep referring to the “Giuliani legacy” to pay attention. Some will claim that this a dead issue with Giuliani leaving office in a few weeks - but not so fast. Both candidates for NYC Mayor have wrapped themselves in promises to continue Giuliani’s controversial police policies. Soon the Mayor may be appointed to head the rebuilding commission for lower Manhattan or worse, named to be the new head of the CIA and he’s expected to run for Mayor again in four years. Isn’t it time to listen to the chorus of voices who say, Giuliani is a fascist thug who consistently uses false arrest as a tool to silence political opposition? Having been arrested more than 40 times on the same trumped up charges as the firemen who recently protested and never being convicted on a single charge, I know Giulianisimo’s modus operandi firsthand. Here’s a very small sample of quotes from New Yorkers who have denounced the Mayor as a fascist thug. NY TIMES November 5, 2001 THE FIREFIGHTERS Second Union Leader Is Charged With Trespassing in Demonstration at Ground Zero “"This comes right from the top," Capt. Peter L. Gorman, head of the 2,500-member Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said after surrendering — under the threat of forcible arrest, his lawyer said — at a police station in Manhattan to be booked on the misdemeanor charge. Kevin E. Gallagher, president of the 9,000-member Uniformed Firefighters Association, also blamed the mayor after his arrest Saturday night. "The message the city is sending is that if you don't agree with what a union says, you simply arrest its president," Tom Butler, Mr. Gallagher's spokesman, said..."The mayor fails to realize that New York City is not a dictatorship, where if you don't like what a union is doing you can just go and lock up a union's president," the firefighters' union said. "The message being sent from City Hall is that if you don't agree with this administration, we will get you." Captain Gorman, a firefighter for 28 years, called his arrest an outrage. "They're putting me through the system like I'm a thug," he said. He called the mayor a "fascist" and referred to Mr. Kerik and Mr. Von Essen as "Giuliani's goons." NY Post 11/5/2001 KERIK BLASTS BRAVEST IN MELEE “Union lawyer Steven Rabinowitz said Gorman was arrested because he had the courage to publicly attack Giuliani for allowing the other firefighters to be busted. "In the mayor's view, these men are heroes as long as they shut up and do what they're told," Rabinowitz said. City union leaders backed up the firefighters and demand an immediate apology from Giuliani. Brian McLaughlin of the Central Labor Council, said the mayor "treats these people like they're bums - with no respect." Union officials said they may sue the city for false arrest and malicious prosecution.” Daily News 11/5/2001 Nab 2nd Fire Union Chief “Yesterday, the heads of the two fire unions, joined by other labor leaders outside Manhattan Criminal Court, charged that Giuliani was unfairly retaliating against unions. "The families are suffering, the firefighters are suffering, and the mayor refuses to sit down and discuss this with them," said Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers. "Because these folks have the temerity to say, 'We don't agree with you, Mr. Mayor,' they are thrown in jail. That is a violation of anybody's basic right to speak and represent people." Newsday Letters 10/26/2001 “Since the tragedy an Sept. 11, my husband, a New York City Emergency Service Police officer has been working a minimum of 12 hours--per-day (most often, they have been 14-16 hour days). He has had only one day off in al-most three weeks. Despite Mayor Rudy Giuliani's cries of "hero, hero, hero" over the years, he has refused to pay these officers what they deserve. The last contract included a zero percent increase. These devoted men and women are currently working without a contract and have been doing so since last July. This is not how they should be treated. It's time for him to go. He has made the lives of city police officers and their families a living hell for years. Most officers work two jobs and most wives work also, and we still have a difficult time making ends meet. I voted for term limits when I lived in the city and I look forward to the day he leaves. He is so cocky that he thinks only he can take care of the problems at hand.“ - Melinda Camastro, East Meadow "I don't regard associations of my people that support me as fascists as a light matter ....But it's ultimately the results that matter.”Giuliani -NY TIMES 6/24/98 “What brings this tendency into focus this week is an attack on the Mayor by the Rev. Calvin Butts, a prominent Baptist minister from Harlem. Mr. Butts labeled Mr. Giuliani a "racist" and accused him of not liking black people and of instituting policies that have not only devastated minorities but are moving New York "toward a fascist state." NY TIMES Editorial 5/22/98 NY Post 4/8/2001 LENO RIPPED FOR 'FASCIST' JAB AT RUDY “William Fugazy, who heads an anti-bias group, yesterday called on NBC and comedian Jay Leno to apologize for labeling Mayor Giuliani a "fascist" on "The Tonight Show."...Leno went on to compare Giuliani's actions with Adolph Hitler's campaign in the first years of the Third Reich to rid German museums of "degenerate art," much of it created by the world's most respected artists.” Newsday 8/18/89 Holocaust `Reminder' Claimed "A concentration camp survivor who witnessed the murders of his parents and five siblings at Auschwitz claimed that during questioning after his arrest on bribery charges he was placed before a blackboard bearing a Nazi slogan by former U.S. Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani's office as part of an attempt to "break" him...Written on the blackboard was the German phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei." The slogan, "Work Shall Set You Free," adopted by the Nazi party, appeared over the gates at Auschwitz." "I take a different view of someone comparing me to Adolf Hitler than when someone calls me a jerk." Mayor Giuliani, N.Y. Daily News 10/25/1998 “Throughout the rally, protesters waved Haitian flags and signs depicting Giuliani as "the new Hitler." -NY POST 4/21/2000 PROTESTERS WANT RUDY BOOTED AP 1/19/2000 Giuliani Criticized by Koch “NEW YORK (AP) -- Former Mayor Ed Koch criticized Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday for sharing a dais at a Martin Luther King Day event with an Austrian political leader who once praised the policies of Adolf Hitler. ``Is that a place to celebrate Martin Luther King Day, to be on the same dais as the leader of the neo-Nazi Party in Austria?'' Koch said at a news conference. ``Why didn't he denounce Joerg Haider? Why didn't he order Joerg Haider out of the hall?.” NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer N.Y. Post 10/15/98 “...the current mayor thinks he's a dictator and does not have sufficient respect, not only for other branches of government, but also for the citizenry and its opportunities to speak out and be heard.” "If we don't strike a balance between aggressive enforcement and common sense," Savage said, "it becomes a blueprint for a police state and tyranny." Former Policeman’s Benevolent Association (the police union) President, James Savage on Giuliani’s policies, NY Times 4/14/99 Newsday 2/11/95 Not a Loyal Nazi, Miller Quits Police Spokesman Job Saying he wouldn't be "a loyal Nazi," John Miller quit yesterday as Police Commissioner William Bratton's top spokesman, refusing to comply with what he said was Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's edict to purge his staff of loose-lipped cops.“ NY Times 4/8/2000 Demonstrators of Old Spread Their Message in a New Era of Protest “Robert Lederman, 49, a street artist who has protested for years against Mayor Giuliani's policies, often arrives with dozens of placards caricaturing the mayor as Hitler, complete with the Fuhrer's mustache." NY Times AP 4/21/2000 NEW YORK (AP) -- “Chanting and waving signs, some comparing him to Adolf Hitler, more than 2,000 protesters marched from Brooklyn to City Hall demanding Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's resignation over his handling of fatal police shootings of unarmed black men...The protesters voiced anger toward the NYPD as well, but their real focus was Giuliani, and sign after sign depicted the mayor as the devil or as Hitler. The signs were cheered by about hundred onlookers as the marchers came off the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan.” “In satire and protest, the Mayor of the City of New York is again being likened to some of the vilest figures in history. But this time Rudolph W. Giuliani is learning to accept it.... Deputy Mayor Randy M. Mastro goes so far as to detect a touch of flattery in the Giuliani-as-Dictator analogies.” NY TIMES 6/24/98 “Hudson Hitler? Midtown Mussolini? Giuliani Grins and Bears It” New York Newsday 2/25/99 Battle in D.C. / Rep. Meeks confronts Giuliani about police brutality “Last night, Giuliani appeared at a Town Hall meeting at PS 150 in Sunnyside and was heckled during his speech by two people who used the occasion to protest the shooting of Diallo. Robert Lederman, an artist who frequently shows up at Giuliani events, was collared by police and escorted out of the auditorium after he jumped up from his seat and shouted: "Arrest Giuliani. He is responsible for Diallo's death." Fifteen minutes later, an unidentified man seated in the same area held up a sign proclaiming: "Arrest Giuliani." Police took away the sign, but the man then displayed two more. Police took those away and escorted him outside. "If you act stupid and idiotic, then the cameras will pay attention," Giuliani laughingly shouted at the sign carrier. About 300 people attended.” From: -Newsweek 4/5/99 Rudy on the Record Question: “Are you personally stung by those signs at the demonstrations that say 'Adolf Giuliani'?” Mayor Giuliani: “Five years ago I might have cried over it. And now I just feel that this is a crazy exaggeration that we've allowed, and that our media coverage is selective... You cover Susan Sarandon. But [the police and the rest of the city] see the Adolf Hitler signs, the comparisons to the president of Yugoslavia. These [demonstrators] are getting arrested, some knowingly, some unknowingly, under that banner.” “The cabbies were joined near City Hall by a few of Giuliani's most stalwart enemies: a small flock of artists who have likened Giuliani to a dictator ever since he required artists to get permits in order to sell artwork in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Knut Masco, 35, brought along a small two-sided placard with a checker-cab design, which read, "Honk if you can't stand Giuliani." -NY TIMES 5/22/98 “Show of Force Checks Protest by Cabdrivers” “The Big Apple is plagued with killer cops and abusive prison guards Amnesty International says in a report today. Police officers have beaten and shot unresisting suspects; they have misused batons, chemical sprays and electro-shock weapons, the report says. Police said they couldn't comment on the report, which outlines numerous cases in New York where it says unarmed civilians have been assaulted and even killed by cops. The overwhelming majority of victims ... are members of racial or ethnic minorities, the report says. - N.Y. Post 10/6/98 “Amnesty International Chews Up Big Apple” “MIAMI (UPI) -- The third-ranking official of the Justice Department says he is convinced that there is "no political repression" in Haiti. Associate Attorney General Rudolph W. Giuliani, testifying Thursday at a hearing of a class-action lawsuit seeking the release of 2,100 refugees in Government detention camps, said that repression in Haiti "simply does not exist now" and that refugees had nothing to fear from the Government of Jean-Claude Duvalier”. -The New York Times, April 3, 1982, Saturday, Late City Final Edition, Section 1; Page 5, Column 4; Foreign Desk “Mayor Giuliani vows to have cops with hammers and chisels pry the medallions right off the hood of any cab in the demonstration.” NEWS RADIO 88 5/21/98 -NY Times 5/2/2000 Reich-Baiting: Even Mayor Can’t Resist by Clyde Haberman “An interesting twist to this political spat is that it is usually the Mayor who ends up on the receiving end of over-the-top Nazi imagery. Understandably, he has not liked it one bit. Protesters have carried placards caricaturing him with a Hitler moustache. His emergency crisis center downtown has been derided as his bunker. Comparisons between him and the Third Reich are amply suggested in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.” Daily News From: News and Views | City Beat |Sunday, October 03, 1999 Protesters, crowds turn out for exhibit debut But Courts Thwart Hizzoner's Tactics “Lederman is convinced that the city's fight against him — he has been arrested 39 times by city cops but never been found guilty — is aimed less at principle than at the content of his art. "I guess the mayor doesn't like the paintings I do of him as Adolf Hitler," said Lederman, whose mustachioed portayals of the mayor pop up regularly at rallies critical of the city.” “We'll say it simply: Just because people don't like Rudy Giuliani doesn't give them license to compare him to Adolf Hitler. The Hitler analogy is something that seems to amuse many people in this city. Cutesy stories have been written and published in the past week about an art installation on Madison Avenue called No York in which the mayor is depicted with a Hitler moustache. This image was first bandied about by an obnoxious twerp who claims to represent a group called A.R.T.I.S.T. - but which really ought to be called M.O.R.O.N. - who is outraged that the mayor attempted to enforce plainly written statutes regarding sidewalk clutter in front of the Metropolitan Museum. For this, the twerp (whose name we shall never again use because he deserves no more public mention) imagines that Rudy Giuliani deserves comparison with the personification of evil in this century...As the New York Times' gleeful seizure of the "bunker" story indicates, you don't have to be a cabbie, a vendor or a M.O.R.O.N. to issue forth such repulsive opinions. -NY Post Editorial 6/16/98 NY Times 2/2/2000 Giuliani Ventures Into Foreign Policy “Mr. Giuliani admitted shaking hands with Mr. Haider but said that he did not realize who Mr. Haider was and that if he had, he might not have gone to the dinner...News accounts of the dinner, which was sponsored by the Coalition for Racial Equality, reported that the group's national chairman, Roy Innis, introduced Mr. Haider on the dais and referred specifically to his reputation of right-wing notoriety. Mr. Haider, the leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party in Austria, stirred controversy in the 1990's by praising Hitler's "orderly employment policy," and describing veterans of elite Nazi SS troops as "men of character”. For many articles detailing Giuliani’s direct links to fascism see: http://baltech.org/lederman/ http://baltech.org/lederman/