From ms@m... Wed Nov 06 07:48:56 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: ms@m... X-Apparently-To: minciu_sodas_en@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 6 Nov 2002 15:48:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 67177 invoked from network); 6 Nov 2002 15:48:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m11.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 Nov 2002 15:48:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO tisch.mail.mindspring.net) (207.69.200.157) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 Nov 2002 15:48:48 -0000 Received: from 1cust5.tnt81.chi5.da.uu.net ([67.195.63.5] helo=ms.lt) by tisch.mail.mindspring.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 189SQ9-00061b-00 for minciu_sodas_en@yahoogroups.com; Wed, 06 Nov 2002 10:48:45 -0500 Message-ID: <3DC939C1.1020406@m...> Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 09:48:17 -0600 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020314 Netscape6/6.2.2 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: minciu_sodas_en@yahoogroups.com Subject: How to constructively respond to injustice? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Andrius Kulikauskas X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=9237306 X-Yahoo-Profile: minciusodas We've had several members and participants who are suffering injustices. Most recently, Saulius Sakalas' wife in Lithuania is being hounded by the regional authorities. Yesterday I had a troubling experience attempting to vote. I've sent out the letter below to Amnesty International. I'd like to consider the bigger picture, What is the way to constructively respond to injustice? How can we help each other? Andrius, ms@m... ************************************************ Dear Amnesty International, Are you doing anything to support free and fair elections in Chicago? I went to vote Tuesday, around 3:00 pm, at the 23rd Ward 11th Precinct polling place 5559 S Narragansett Ave. The polling place is at a fire station with a long driveway. At the corner of the driveway, a man was passing out cards "The following candidates are endorsed by The 23rd Ward Democratic Organization Alderman Michael R. Zalewski..." I asked him for his name and he gave me his business card "773 742-4188 Roy Chuskas, Leo Chuskas, Democratic Precinct Co-captains Precinct 17-23 ward, William O. Lipinski, committeeman, ward headquarters 5838 Archer Avenue, 773 582-7323". I asked him, who did he work for, and he said Congressman Lipinski. I asked if he should be there, because he was within 100 feet from the door to the polling place, and he said that he could. Then he turned around to talk to a gentleman in a car with license plate 2835414 that had pulled up onto the driveway. I asked the man in the car what he was doing there, and I saw that he had a sheet with rectangles and names that he then hid from me. He stepped out of the car with his partner and asked what I was doing here, and showed badges and claimed he was a police officer. The car was unmarked, and they were not in uniform. I asked if he was going to do anything about the man passing out the cards and he simply repeatedly stated "we're here because there's been a lot of trouble here" and asked what I was doing there and demanded identification and to tell him what I was doing there. He was very intimidating. I showed my California driver's license and I said I was there to vote. I asked him if he had any right to ask me such things. He demanded identification with a local address and I showed him my voter's notification that I had received in the mail. He looked at it for a long time. He then asked me if I wanted it back, holding it away from me. I made no effort, and then he gave it to me. I went inside to vote and saw a face I recognized (I think he is a precinct captain) and asked if he was a judge. He said no, he was a poll inspector, so I asked if he would come out and see the man passing out flyers. He saw, but did nothing, except walk back to the election table and whispered something to a lady with orange hair. I asked him if he was going to do anything regarding the man, and it appeared not. So I decided I wouldn't vote in an election if it wasn't fair and free, and went home. At home I tried to call the Board of Elections, but the phone was busy. I called 311 and they transferred me to the Board of Elections. They said they would send an investigator, and that I could call the Cook's County State's Attorney. I said that I had been harassed by somebody claiming to be a police officer, and what should I do? They said that they could not advise me, they could send out a police sergeant to talk with me. I didn't think that the Cook's County State's Attorney would be independent, and I didn't think I should be talking to a local sergeant. So then I called 911, Who could I speak to regarding police corruption? and they transferred me to the Office of Professional Standards. I spoke with a lady who told me that I was using words like "harrassed" and "violated" that were legal words and therefore I should be going somewhere else. She finally told me "You have to learn that there's very few things in life that are fair." I repeated her statement to her several times and she told me that's not what she had meant to say. Finally, she said that she could send out police officers to talk with me, and I agreed (I assumed she wouldn't be sending local officers). Officers did come, but only after a good hour. They seemed sympathetic, and I explained that I had spent a night in jail two years ago because of such problems (I can write about this separately). They said they worked locally, and mentioned that people are allowed to pass flyers across the street. I asked if they could escort me so that I could vote, and they said they had some business to take care of and would meet me there. I walked there, and they were already there, on the corner. With them was a gentleman who had been there earlier, and looked like a brother of the gentleman who had been passing out cards. I told the police officers that people had been passing out cards there and they said it was not a problem, it was more than 100 feet away from the door. I said, I will count it out, and started placing foot after foot, and on the seventh foot one of them said, No you can't do that and physically restrained me, holding me by the upper arm for about five seconds as I leaned forward trying to walk but unable. Finally, he let go and I counted out the steps. As I walked, I heard somebody behind me say "Lock him up again!" I measured 77 feet by the size of my shoe. I told them that it was 77 and they said that according to the judges it was more than 100. I then pointed to signs on the grass nearby, about 50 feet away from the door. They said that they were more than 100 feet away. I then pointed to a sign on a telephone post right next to me, about 25 feet away from the door. Would they take it down? No. Could I take it down? No, I had better not, it's private property. An officer told me, Nobody is keeping you from voting, he yelled at me and pointed Go vote! I asked, are you making me vote, and he yelled and pointed Go vote! I looked at them and said this isn't different than the Soviet Union, and the other officer said, No, it's very different, in the Soviet Union they would tell you who to vote for. Another officer came by, and I pointed to her the sign on the telephone, and asked if that was appropriate, if that was 100 feet away from the door. She looked carefully at the sign, and at the door, and then finally said it was not a problem. I asked who she was and she said that she was a sergeant. I said that this was not free or fair, and it was going to end, and walked away. They yelled at me to come back, that nobody was keeping me from voting. Then I decided to get their names so I walked back and asked them. They were officers Lamb and Gaffet and sergeant Woods. Officer Lamb was the one who had held me, and who I had spoken most with. I asked them if they had a pen, because I didn't have one, and he told me that if I didn't have one, they couldn't give me one. I walked away and then I heard behind me repeatedly "Sir, sir, come back!" and I decided to keep walking straight. But the man kept running and finally ran up to me and it was Officer Lamb and again he held me by my upper arm so that I would stop. I tried to keep walking, but finally I stopped. He looked at me and said "We forgot to get your name". I asked, why do you need it? And he said, because we came to your house, we need to know who you are. So I gave him my business card. This seemed to be the general mindset of the people I meet in Chicago - if nobody tells you who to vote for, then the election is fair. There's no deeper understanding of what is "free and fair", for example, that rules against electioneering be enforced. Is that a product of 50 years of one-party rule? Congressman Lipinski ran unopposed, and other congressmen in Chicago won with more than 80% of the vote. There were no poll watchers from the opposing party. I'm disappointed with the general population, that there evidently is no concept of civic responsibility, there is an inbred acceptance of the political machine. I'm impressed by the pervasity of the civic immaturity, so that there is nowhere to turn to, neither the police, nor the poll watchers, nor the election judges, nor the State's Attorney, nor the Board of Elections, nor even the Office of Professional Standards, as I know from this and previous voting experiences. I believe that fairness anywhere depends on fairness everywhere. If a party has an unfair advantage in one locality, then this puts its opponents at a disadvantage on the whole. In other words, a corrupt ward makes a city corrupt, and a corrupt congressional district makes a country corrupt. If the city was healthy, it would fight against a corrupt ward. If a country was healthy, it would fight against corruption everywhere within it. If we look at the results of the 2000 United States presidential election, the vote in Cook County was 68.63% for Gore, 28.65% for Bush, a difference of 740,000 votes. This is quite large compared to the 550,000 vote margin by which Gore won the popular vote in the national election. It's amazing that, with all the scrutiny over chads in Florida, virtually no attention was given to Chicago, where true reform is warranted. In a mature democracy, it is not any single election that matters, because politicians are always looking ahead to the next election. The political course is ultimately determined not by who wins, but by the margin of victory, the "mandate". The margin of victory is what signals to the politicians how aggressively they can pursue their own agenda, and how much they have to cater to opposing views. If we only knew who won, but not by how much, the election would be uninformative. This is what makes democracy work, so that each vote is indeed worth exactly one vote, increasing or decreasing the margin of victory. Instead, the media continuously stresses that an election might hinge on any single vote, when in fact this is actually false - any vote that close is a random decision anyways. The media's argument actually diminishes the significance of voting in the vast majority of elections, especially those which are lopsided or corrupt. Voting in Chicago should be a matter of concern to every citizen of the United States of America. If Chicago was a country, would it be admitted into NATO, based on the standards expected of Bulgaria and Romania? It's amazing that amongst the election reporting, no concern is made over the fairness of the election. It's simply not an issue in a city where 49 of 50 wards are controlled by one party, and the same mayor has ruled for many years, just like his father. Machine politics favors the status quo. The nice citizens of nice neighborhoods are complicit in an imbalance that presumably adds to the misfortunes of some of the worst neighborhoods in the country. It is hypocritical of the national "Democratic" party that it tolerates such an apparatus and, in fact, relies on it to get the vote out in state and national elections. There's never any talk of expelling the local party from the national party. Frankly, there's no talk of the United States expelling Chicago, which is what a healthy country would do to save itself from the corruption of an incurable region. I haven't suffered any personal hurt. I'm amazed that I was physically restrained twice by a police officer who came there to help me vote. But it would be extremely wrong to punish officer Lamb or any sheep. I personally feel that the shepherd to target is congressman William O. Lipinski, who should be taken to task for his ethics by the House of Representatives. I feel that there is no point in appealing to the local authorities, or even the national authorities. I ask Amnesty International to campaign for international observers to monitor elections in Chicago. I hope that you might document my experience and make it available that those who wish might act. I feel that I've hereby done my part, and others in Chicago should do their part. I place my letter in the Public Domain. Thank you! Andrius Andrius Kulikauskas Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt ms@m... Chicago, Illinois