Dec. 12, 2005
 
THUMBS LII: More Kelo Chickens Come Home to Roost in the Sunshine State; What Took Them So Long? International Red Cross Comes Up with Religion-Neutral Symbol to Allow 75-Year-Old MDA to Join
 
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
 
Hinton, WV (HNN) –This is the 52nd installment of a column expressing approval or disapproval of recent news events, commentaries, etc. Thumbs Up for approval; Thumbs Down for disapproval. This is your column as much as mine; I welcome contributions, which will be credited in the item. The contributions can come from within the HNN family or from our readers – I welcome them all. Contact me at davidkinchen@hotmail.com.
 
THUMBS UP – To radio and TV talk show host Sean Hannity and Los Angeles Times writer John-Thor Dahlburg for reporting about the latest eminent domain atrocity now going on at Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, where the integrated city wants to take the houses of about 6,000 residents, tear them down and build a yacht club and luxury condos.
 
THUMBS DOWN to the blue-collar city’s administration, including Mayor Michael Brown for this land-grab that amounts to “Negro Removal” with the city’s working class white minority (the city is about 70 percent black and 30 percent white) accorded the status of “Honorary Negroes.” Brown himself is a black man, which makes the proposed land grab even more cynical. A continued THUMBS DOWN to the five members of the U.S. Supreme Court – not including Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O’Connor and the late Chief Justice of the U.S. William Rehnquist – who labored mightily and brought forth last June Kelo vs. City of New London – one of the worst high court decisions since Plessy vs Ferguson – that greatly expands the power of eminent domain. I’d like to believe that Rehnquist saw the damage eminent domain did to stable, if a little run-down ethnic neighborhoods in his home town of Milwaukee, when he voted on the right side of this issue.
 
Mayor Brown wouldn’t talk to the L.A. Times reporter, but on “Hannity and Colmes” he had this exchange with Hannity:
 
“Is that the America we want to live in where you take a person’s home?” Hannity asked Mayor Brown.
 
“The America we want to live in is one that talks about personal sacrifices that you and that your colleagues talk about every night,” Brown said.
 
“Sounds like the Soviet Union,” responded Hannity.
 
“This is a redevelopment plan which includes restaurants and condos,” said Brown. “The overall plan is designed to train people, get them better jobs so they can have a living wage and not a minimum wage so we can increase our tax base so that we can pay for fire, police, so we can provide basic services.”
 
We’re talking about a prime location just across the Intracoastal Waterway from virtually all-white Palm Beach, one of the richest – and most segregated communities – in the world. Palm Beach is essentially what author James W. Loewen (“Sundown Towns,” “Lies My Teacher Told Me”) calls a “Sundown Town,” where blacks aren’t allowed after dark. The city is notoriously anti-Semitic, too.
 
The L. A. Times story says the city of 32,000 wants to “move about 6,000 residents, tear down their homes and use the emptied 400-acre site to build a waterfront yachting and residential complex for the well-to-do. The goal, Mayor Brown said in September, is to ‘forever change the landscape’ in this municipality …. The $1 billion development scheme, local leaders have said, should generate jobs and haul Riviera Beach's economy out of the doldrums. Opponents, however, call the plan a government-sanctioned land grab that benefits private developers and the wealthy.”
 
Exactly! It reminds me of my days covering real estate development at the L.A. Times, when I was up in San Francisco interviewing the developer of a condo/retail development at the construction site on Fillmore Avenue just down the street from the legendary Fillmore Auditorium. The Fillmore, in City-By-The-Bay lingo, was a predominantly black part of town. (Neighborhoods in S.F. are often called “The Castro,” “The Haight,” etc.) After the expensive condos went up, few if any blacks in the area could afford to move in. The condos were designed for empty-nesters and gay couples. I call that “Negro Removal.”
 
The L.A. Times guy in Florida got this response from Martha Babson, a 60-year-old house painter: “What they mean is that the view I have is too good for me and should go to some millionaire.”
 
"This is a reverse Robin Hood," said state Rep. Ronald Greenstein, meaning the poor in Riviera Beach would be robbed to benefit the rich. Again, Exactly. I’m going to send a token contribution to the fellow who wants to “redevelop” the home of Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter -- who voted for Kelo – and turn it into a New Hampshire resort hotel.
 
For those of you out there with short attention spans, listen up, this could happen to you: In a controversial 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court this past summer OK’d the plan of New London, Conn., to force homeowners to sell their waterfront properties for a private development that was supposed to generate more jobs and tax revenue. The ruling has led to moves in Congress and at least 35 states, including Florida, to restrict eminent domain seizures of private property.
 
Waterfront is the key word in both Kelo and the latest Florida land grab attempt. Why should poor and middle-class people be allowed to live on the water? Take their property and ship them off to the Everglades or Ocala or – anywhere – but “get these poor people off my land.” That seems to be the rallying cry for Brown and his buddies in Riviera Beach.
 
Babson, who lives in a one-story, concrete-block home painted aqua that she shares with parrots and a dog – for those of you who’ve never been to Florida, this sounds pretty typical to me – says the city’s official study of the proposed redevelopment area is full of errors. She photographed houses in the area on her own and found that one of the so-called “dilapidated” houses was built in 1997. Another was 2 years old.
 
I don’t hold out much hope for the folks in Riviera Beach, in the light of more than 35 years covering real estate: I fear that the hard-working people of Riviera Beach will be forced out by the city and developer Viking Inlet Harbor Properties. The proposed luxury project would displace businesses in addition to the homes – and they ARE homes, not just “houses.”
 
One businessman whose property would be displaced for an aquarium (just what Florida needs, another aquarium!) is Bill Mars, who, according to The Times, “For 25 years, Mars has sold and serviced sport-fishing boats in Riviera Beach. He said he hasn't been told whether a place in the redevelopment zone has been kept for him. Under the plan, his sales and service center is supposed to make way for an aquarium.” Fish can live by the water in Riviera Beach, but not people! Is that the message you want to send, Mayor Brown?
 
"If you look at our business, we're one of the shining stars of Riviera Beach," Mars told The L.A. Times. "Yet no one has come to us to say, `We're going to take care of you and relocate you.'" That despite the plan's incorporation of a "working waterfront," including boat sales and repair.
 
Keep watching this site; this disgusting land grab will be covered thoroughly.
 
THUMBS UP – To the Swiss government and others of good will for working out an arrangement to allow the Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service organization and the equivalent of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, to be finally admitted into the International Red Cross. The MDA, which uses a red Star (or Shield) of David as its symbol, was founded in Palestine 75 years ago and operates all over the world.
 
The Dec. 7, 2005 vote came nearly 60 years after an IRC vote barred the Israeli group from entrance into the recognized international body, a similar ballot of the 192 signatory countries to the Geneva Convention voted to adopt a new “neutral” symbol, a red crystal, alongside the red cross and crescent.
 
Even the New York Times, which has been hostile toward Israel in much of its news coverage, praised the move, calling it “long overdue. For decades, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has had member organizations from almost every country but Israel, an exclusion that did much to diminish the organization's moral standing. The stated excuse was that the Israeli society, Magen David Adom, used the Red Shield of David as its emblem, but the currently used emblems approved by the Geneva Conventions are only the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.”
 
In its editorial The New York Times describes the compromise process, not exactly rocket science: ”The first step was to revise the Geneva Conventions to add a new symbol, a diamond-shaped object called the Red Crystal, to its list of recognized symbols for medical and relief workers. Individual nations could add a cross, a crescent or a six-pointed star within that shape. The Islamic states failed to block the change this time, thankfully. It is now up to the international federation's individual members to amend their own statutes accordingly. There is now no conceivable reason, other than intolerance, for them to fail to do that.”
 
The decision, which follows last week’s recognition agreement between MDA and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, finally allows Israel to become a full member of the IRC, despite continuing opposition from some Arab and Muslim countries.
 
MDA was previously prevented from joining because its symbol, the Star of David, is not recognized under the Geneva Convention, which, surprisingly, recognizes the religious symbols of Christians – the Red Cross – and Muslims – the Red Crescent. Is this anti-Semitism or what? I think so!
 
It was initially thought that the decision to introduce the crystal would be passed unanimously, but Syria – home of the murderers of a prominent Lebanese politician – said it would oppose the move unless Israel gave Syrian Red Crescent ambulances access to the Golan Heights. This forced the decision to go to a vote which was passed 98 to 27. My advice to Syria about the Golan Heights: Forget about it! Only an idiot would give the land back so Syrians could rain rockets down on the Galilee plain in Israel.
 
Of 144 countries present, an overwhelming majority, that exceeded the required two thirds, voted for adoption.
 
The 27 that voted against were – what can you expect? – mostly Arab States with support from Cuba and Mali opposed and 10 abstained. The latter included Bahrein and Jordan. All the opponents and abstainers are bastions of democracy (yeah, sure!).
 
The move, made at the IRC headquarters in Geneva, was widely welcomed – not least by the Israeli government which has been campaigning for MDA admission into the IRC for many years.
 
Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters of his happiness at the new situation. “During the past three years I have pushed hard to end the historic discrimination which prevented MDA from joining the ICRC. Now, due to Israel's active efforts, the way has finally been paved for MDA to be accepted into the International Red Cross."
 
Shalom said that the ballot of members illustrated a shift in perception of Israel amongst the Geneva convention signatories.
 
The IRC vote was also welcomed by the World Jewish Congress, the international Jewish representative organization which was founded in Geneva in 1936
 
Rabbi Israel Singer, Chairman of the WJC’s Governing Board, said on the compromise reached in Geneva last night: “The settlement of this question has been long overdue. We are happy that the exclusion of the Israeli Magen David Adom from being a full member of the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement will soon be over.”
 
Singer praised the Swiss government for playing the decisive role in reaching the compromise and overcoming objections by some states. Switzerland is the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions and called the diplomatic conference.
 
The WJC Chairman also thanked the US government and the American Red Cross for their support in favor of full international recognition of Magen David Adom.
 
Arab countries – no surprise, given their Nazi-like anti-Semitism -- have previously resisted any attempt to accommodate the Israelis within the international movement.
 
But last week's recognition by Israel of the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the improved situation in the occupied territories has led to a softening of their stance.
 
"Switzerland in its capacity as the depositary of the Geneva Conventions has done its best – and will continue to do so – in order to facilitate a harmonious and consensus-based solution to the emblem question," foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel told swissinfo.
 
In 2000, the American Red Cross stopped its contributions to the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in protest at the continued isolation of MDA. This amounts to $35 million in lost revenue for the IFRC.
 
Devorah Goldberg, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said the organization was unlikely to review its position until MDA had been granted membership.
 
Why should Jews – or Buddhists or Hindus or Sikhs – be forced to use a religious symbol not of their religion? As The Times notes: “Clearly, Israel wasn't going to adopt a cross or a crescent as an emblem, as they are often viewed as heavy with religious connotations. But this really should have been an easy problem to fix - it certainly was not beyond all those brains in Geneva to figure out how to add another emblem to the mix. After all, they managed to add the crescent to satisfy the Islamic states, which then blocked any attempt to add the shield, most recently in 2000.”
 
So THUMBS UP to both the American Red Cross and the Bush Administration, which news coverage notes has been pressing the case for the MDA’s admission to the IRC since it took office.