Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Environmental Destruction in Cambridge starts with the “progressives.”
2. Chronicle letter.
3. Follow Up.
4. Links.
5. Chronicle Publication.
1. Environmental Destruction in Cambridge starts with the “progressives.”
The Cambridge City Manager and his ilk have been very aggressive neutralizing Cambridge residents who want to do good.
What they do is set up organizations dominated by the bad guys or by well meaning people who are duped, but they sound so good.
There are many, many, many such incidents. One very recent such incident was the creation of a group which calls itself the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association. This was openly created by friends of the Cambridge City Manager at the request of the Cambridge City Manager.
They organized about the pending sale and development of property owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, the Blessed Sacrament Church and School in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge.
A year or two later, after a lot of yelling about the project being too large, they announced a “victory” for the neighborhood.
These people who had organized about a project they called too large SUCCEEDED IN MAKING THE PROJECT LARGER, and they bragged about it without using those words.
The group has a spinoff which they call "Greenport." In a neighborhood directly under attack by an environmentally reprehensible city and state government, this group calls itself after its neighborhood and is HOSTILE to discussing environmental attacks on the neighborhood. It concentrates on saving the world.
The technical name for such groups is "company union."
With a very long record in mind, of which this is only a tiny part, an oped piece in the Cambridge Chronicle caught my eye.
It was first on line and then in the hard copy edition. I just tried to find it on line to provide a link, but it no longer seems to be on line.
The article was part of a series by the city’s Republican activists.
The author had been checking out schools and was shocked by what he saw as training in “Social Justice." He was concerned that kids were being indoctrinated in the ways of the left.
My concern, knowing reality in Cambridge, is that environmental or civil rights destructiveness could be sold as the opposite of what it is.
Of particular concern to me is anything which would give the false opinion of the nine very destructive Cambridge City Councilors. These destructive people, as usual, would be advertised as being on the side they claim to be on.
I have submitted the following letter to the Cambridge Chronicle.
2. Chronicle letter.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciated the oped piece on Social Justice. My concern about such training is that kids will be taught that Cambridge is a good example of Social Justice.
An excellent analysis of social justice in Cambridge was the jury’s decision in Malvina Monteiro v. Cambridge. The Monteiro jury found that the City Manager destroyed the life of a Black Cape Verdean woman who was a department head in Cambridge because she filed a civil rights complaint. The jury ordered Cambridge to pay her $1.1 million in real damages and $3.5 million in penalties.
The judge is deciding what to do with this verdict. I would not be surprised to see the judge order the City Manager fired and stripped of his pension. She would be making law, but press reports indicate an excellent case for making law.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has twice found probable cause of discrimination because the city council is trying to keep a handicapped woman from using her guide dog. The victim says, in addition, that a group of rogue cops have abused her guide dog in the lobby of the police station and have not been punished.
"Environmentalism" from the City is best known for heartless animal abuse: the deliberate starvation and destruction of habitat targeted at the valuable and popular Charles River White Geese.
This is part of an effort in which Magazine Beach is being walled off from the Charles River by bizarre introduced vegetation. Green maintenance is being destroyed at Magazine Beach and replaced with chemical maintenance, poisoning feeding birds.
The state’s BU Bridge repairs would extend the needless, heartless destruction.
Or Fresh Pond? Perhaps thousands of trees plus animal habitat are being destroyed to put in a thousand saplings.
Or the imminent destruction of the Alewife Reservation? This is proposed for flood storage that should be put under a parking lot 500 feet to the south, a parking lot which is about to be built upon.
And too many open space projects start with needless destruction of trees.
I am concerned about training in social justice in Cambridge schools because I think the behavior of the City and its friends will be communicated to kids as something to respect.
In civil rights and the environment, Cambridge is worthy of the contempt expressed by the Monteiro jury. Kids should not have Cambridge shown to them as some sort of good example.
3. Follow Up.
I tried to include the abuse of the guide dog by a roomful of rogue cops as succinctly as possible.
The lobby of the Cambridge Police Station has a camera trained on it to provide evidence usable by the police.
To no surprise whatsoever, they “forgot” to put in a tape that day.
I had the victim and her dog on our cable show, The Cambridge Environment, the next day.
The dog is ordinarily very effusive. The dog was very visibly still shaken by the experience.
4. Links.
The following is my article below going into detailed analysis of the matters pending in the Monteiro case:
http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-judge-in-monteiro-case-doing.html
The Boston Globe had a good write up on the case. It may be found at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/28/ex_cambridge_city_worker_is_awarded_45m_in_suit/?page=2.
5. Chronicle Publication.
The above letter was posted by the Cambridge Chronicle on line at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x1060496916/Letter-Social-justice-dissected, at 7:02 am, January 6, 2009.
It was printed in the January 8, 2009 edition in a very prominent place on the first letters page continuing on the second letters page. A related op ed piece was printed on the third op ed page. Strikingly good coverage.
