The core principle of the Republican Right is to get rid of the trial lawyers. One must ask why is this so important to Republicans. Are Republican’s immune from Medical Malpractice? Are Republican’s immune from car wrecks? Do sleepy truck drivers only run over Democrats?
Of course not. The reality is that the Republicans are the party of Big Business and the Democrats are the party of consumers. Class is the real issue in all politics but especially American politics. What is unusual I suppose about American politics is that the rhetoric used by the Republicans attracts so many naturally conservative poor people. They are somehow convinced that they are freer with corporate welfare than with social programs. They are somehow convinced, despite the overwhelming evidence, that health care would be cheaper and better if doctors didn’t have to be accountable to juries for their screw ups.
Medical malpractice cases are not about frivolous lawsuits. In no area of law are there fewer frivolous claims than in medical malpractice. In order for a trial lawyer like myself to sue a doctor, has to commit at least $100,000 of the lawyer’s own money. With the attitudes of juries about medical malpractice, no sane lawyer would ever sue a doctor unless the conduct complained of was outrageously bad and the result catastrophic. The words “frivolous lawsuit” and “medical malpractice” do not belong in the same sentence. Just do the math. We lawyers are supposed to be so calculating. Would we risk $100,000 on something laughable?
What does that have to do with 9/11? Well the Republican’s are the ones who also think that every problem in our world requires the intervention of the American military. I have two confessions for my readers. One, I grew up liberal Democrat at the time we were drafting American boys do die in Vietnam. I was one of those at risk of being drafted. I struggled with what to do about that, whether to become an illegal immigrant to Canada, go to jail or serve in a conflict I knew was morally reprehensible. The first step in that decision was to file for conscientious objector status which I did before I graduated from high school. I didn’t get drafted because my draft lottery number was 252.
My second confession is that I listen to NPR, usually On Point with Tom Ashbrook. http://www.onpointradio.org/ I listen to On Point and I contrast this shows in depth treatment of the issues of our time against the experiences of my life. I reached adulthood knowing that war was wrong. I reached adulthood also having read all of the books of James Michener, particularly Caravans, a book about Afghanistan. I reached 9/11 very concerned about the ongoing domestic war in Israel, a war that seemed as if it would never end.
On 9/16/2001 I sat in the pew of my church, contemplating what had happened, contrasted against who I was, how I became that person and what I knew about history. What I concluded as the pastor was concluding his remarks was that regardless of how “war like” the attacks of 9/11 had been, we could not fight a war to prevent it.
I got up and said: “You can’t start a war to catch a criminal.” What we got instead was a War on Terror. That war has worked about as successfully as our War on Drugs. That war makes about as much sense as the Depression Era American government declaring war on Indiana to find John Dillinger.
While I am morally opposed to modern war, I do understand war’s necessity. World War II was necessary despite all of the horrible atrocities committed by all sides in its prosecution. But to have a war, you have to have an opposing government or force against whom to direct a legitimate military campaign. We had that in World War II of course. We even had it in Korea and Vietnam. But who did we declare war against in Afghanistan? Osama Bin Laden?
One of the lessons we should have learned in Vietnam is that it is very hard to win a war against an opponent you can’t find. When that opponent is a criminal, not a government, it is virtually impossible. Criminals know how to hide. That is one of the things they do best. They are not the German army or a Japanese aircraft carrier. They commit the crime and then they disappear.
If you occupy the country you are invading, they either hide better or move across the border. Certainly, if you don’t catch them by surprise, you will never catch them. It is much easier for an individual to escape than it is for a whole army to pursue them. While there might be certain ways to use military forces covertly to catch such a criminal, an invading force of 100,000 men isn’t it.
You cannot avoid events like 9/11 by invading a country. 9/11 was not launched from Afghanistan. It was an operation where the training by its perpetrators was done in Florida. If the Taliban had not provided safe haven for Bin Laden, he would have hid somewhere else, like Florida or Hamburg. There are no preemptive military strikes against criminals. As helpless as we may feel, the only defense against criminals is detective work. And like the crime itself, detective work is best done with stealth, not invasions.
When the detectives are done with their work, then it is time for the lawyers to prove the case. It is what a nation of laws does. It is our laws and our lawyers that have made America different.
As we look towards the serious issues our government must decide, we must remember that our legal system is what preserves our special place in the world, not our corporate wealth. We American’s must choose to return to a government of laws for the people, by the people, not a government controlled by corporate greed and the preeminence of our Military Industrial complex.
Bush versus the Trial Lawyers
It is 9/11 today and a good time to reflect on the direction our country has taken this decade and the role trial lawyers can play in our safety and future. In his address on health care reform to the Joint Session of Congress on September 9, 2009, President Barack Obama gave a game changing speech about the overwhelming need for health care reform in the U.S. Yet two incidents from that speech standout in the media and public perception of what he said. Those two incidents were the “you lie” comment from Congressman Joe Who and the Republican enthusiasm for Barack’s discussion of medical malpractice reform. In coming blogs, we will address the high points of what he said about health care reform, but on 9/11, I think it is important to defend the role of American Civil Justice lawyers, in contrast to the havoc that the Republican’s have left us over the last decade.
The Republicans want to blame it all on the trial lawyers. We liberal Democrats want to blame the Republicans for destroying American legitimacy in the world in their endless pursuit of Corporations first and their politics of being tough on national security. Keith Olberman on his show Countdown before the President’s speech said the major issue in the domestic politics of the last 100 years was whether our government was on the side of the Corporations or the people. The competing interests are clear, but it is not just domestic politics which illustrate the danger of choosing Corporate interests over people. In our so called “War on Terror” we chose Corporate warfare (or was that Welfare) versus lawyers.
Two detours on my career otherwise devoted to brain injury advocacy over the last two decades arose out of the events of September 11, 2001. The first, I became an outspoken critic of our first War on Terror and the invasion of Afghanistan. The second, I became part of the first lawsuit filed against the Airlines for 9/11. Those two footnotes to my career do illustrate why we need a lot more Civil Justice and a lot less Corporate first government.
My first public statement about the War in Afghanistan was spoken before my church congregation the Sunday after 9/11. I stood up, without an invitation, and reminded my fellow parishioners of our church’s commitment to peace during a Vietnam, a commitment that had shaped my thinking as a teen, had a major influence on who I became as an adult. I told them that you do not start a war to catch a criminal. Punishing a criminal is a job for laws and lawyers, not armies of crusaders.
I wrote these words about Afghanistan on October 30, 2001:
What does this story have to do with Medical Malpractice reform and the Republican commitment to Corporate World? I will discuss further my actions as a lawyer in 2001 in my coming blogs, and the reader can decide whether the trial lawyers or the Republicans chart the course our country should follow. Know this though, our mess in Afghanistan is getting deeper and the liberal Democratic president of whom I am so proud is at a crossroads decision point to send another 30,000 troops their to pacify the country. If he listens to the politicians and generals and not the historians, our attempted occupation of the unoccupiable country, may be remembered in infamy as long as Genghis Kahn.
Next. You don’t start a war to catch a criminal. That is what the laws, lawyers and the Courts are for.
The Republicans want to blame it all on the trial lawyers. We liberal Democrats want to blame the Republicans for destroying American legitimacy in the world in their endless pursuit of Corporations first and their politics of being tough on national security. Keith Olberman on his show Countdown before the President’s speech said the major issue in the domestic politics of the last 100 years was whether our government was on the side of the Corporations or the people. The competing interests are clear, but it is not just domestic politics which illustrate the danger of choosing Corporate interests over people. In our so called “War on Terror” we chose Corporate warfare (or was that Welfare) versus lawyers.
Two detours on my career otherwise devoted to brain injury advocacy over the last two decades arose out of the events of September 11, 2001. The first, I became an outspoken critic of our first War on Terror and the invasion of Afghanistan. The second, I became part of the first lawsuit filed against the Airlines for 9/11. Those two footnotes to my career do illustrate why we need a lot more Civil Justice and a lot less Corporate first government.
My first public statement about the War in Afghanistan was spoken before my church congregation the Sunday after 9/11. I stood up, without an invitation, and reminded my fellow parishioners of our church’s commitment to peace during a Vietnam, a commitment that had shaped my thinking as a teen, had a major influence on who I became as an adult. I told them that you do not start a war to catch a criminal. Punishing a criminal is a job for laws and lawyers, not armies of crusaders.
I wrote these words about Afghanistan on October 30, 2001:
As the political consensus which propelled American into war starts to fade, the Republican’s and their talk show hosts, remind us of the promise of Bush and Rumsfeld that this would be a long war, that American’s will have to be patient.
I remember an amused arrogance when the Russians invaded Afghanistan circa 1979, somehow clearly remembering James Michener’s portrayal of the country. I am rereading Caravan’s (a James Michener novel copyright of 1963). It is quite prophetic. A passage worth reading with care:
“In Afghanistan, almost every building bears jagged testimony to some outrage. Scars still remained of Alexander the Great or Genghis Kahn or Tamerlane or Nadir Shah of Persia. Was there ever a a land so overrun by terror and devastation as Afghanistan.”
Then later, his character, the Afghanie engineer with the runaway American wife, tells the narrator, an American diplomat, this story of the ancient oasis where they are spending a night.
“Genghis Kahn destroyed Afghanistan. In one assault on the City he killed nearly a million people. That’s not a poetic figure. It’s fact. In Kandahar the slaughter was enormous. Some refugees fled to this caravanserai… this room. They were sure the Mongols wouldn’t find them here, but they did.
“First Genghis erected a pole right through the roof. Then the Mongols took their prisoners and tied their hands. Laid the first batch on he floor over there and lashed their feet to the pole. All around. That’s why the pillar is twelve feet across.
“They just kept on laying the prisoners down, one layer on top of the other until they reached the roof. They didn’t kill a single person that day, the Mongols, but they kept soldiers stationed with sticks to push back the tongues when they protruded. And while the pillar of people was still living – those that hadn’t been pressed to death – they called in masons to plaster over the whole affair. If you’d scrape away the plaster you’d find skulls. But the government takes a dim view of scraping. Its a kind of national monument. The Caravanserai of the Tongues.”
“I tell you these things only to explain the terrible burdens under which Afghanistan has labored. Our major cities have been destroyed so many times. Do you know what I expect … seriously. When a thousand men like me have rebuilt Kabul and made it as great as The City once was, either the Russians or the Americans will come with their airplanes and bomb it to rubble. “
I wonder, does George W. Bush believe that we American’s can win a war of patience against such a people? Perhaps we can declare victory when we have evened the score by killing 5,001 Afghanies. If not, Osama bin Laden’s goal of an Islamic uprising, deposing all western leaning Arab monarchies, will be built upon a foundation of silenced but never forgotten Afghanie tongue.
What does this story have to do with Medical Malpractice reform and the Republican commitment to Corporate World? I will discuss further my actions as a lawyer in 2001 in my coming blogs, and the reader can decide whether the trial lawyers or the Republicans chart the course our country should follow. Know this though, our mess in Afghanistan is getting deeper and the liberal Democratic president of whom I am so proud is at a crossroads decision point to send another 30,000 troops their to pacify the country. If he listens to the politicians and generals and not the historians, our attempted occupation of the unoccupiable country, may be remembered in infamy as long as Genghis Kahn.
Next. You don’t start a war to catch a criminal. That is what the laws, lawyers and the Courts are for.
