Allan C. Brownfeld

Allan C. Brownfeld is the author of five books, the latest of which is The Revolution Lobby (Council for Inter-American Security). He has been a staff aide to a U.S. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. He is associate editor of The Lincoln Review, and a contributing editor to Human Events, The St. Croix Review, and The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

"Flash Mobs" in the Summer of 2011: An Example of Family Breakdown

The summer of 2011 saw a proliferation of a phenomenon that has come to be known as "flash mobs." Organized largely through text messages and via Facebook and Twitter, the gangs of unruly youths, usually members of minority communities, have beaten and robbed citizens in Philadelphia, disrupted a fireworks display outside Cleveland, attacked fairgoers in Wisconsin, and looted a 7-Eleven in Germantown, Maryland.

Riots in London during the summer mirror some of the worst uprisings in modern U.S. history. Hundreds of stores across London, Manchester, Birmingham, and other British cities were torched or ransacked in four nights of mayhem after the police killing of a north Londoner named Mark Duggan, whose death was quickly overshadowed by the wave of recreational violence. "This is criminality, pure and simple," said Prime Minister David Cameron.

The looting was more than simply a race riot. While Duggan was black, and there are strong correlations between race and class in Britain, some of the worst violence happened in majority-white neighborhoods like Croydon. "This is much broader than race," says Caryl Phillips, a British writer with Afro-Caribbean roots. "This is about a whole group - black, white, and brown - who live just outside the law."

In the U.S., notes Jerry Ratcliffe, chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University, and a former London police officer:

This is an old crime being organized with new tools. There's nothing new about groups of people assaulting people and robbing, but what's new is the technology. There's a fascination with the speed by which this can now take place. You can go from nothing happening to something happening in a matter of moments. Flash mobs take advantage of opportunities. Those opportunities are that the victims are outnumbered by the group and that there is an absence of law enforcement.

In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael A. Nutter, who is black, told marauding black youths, "You have damaged your own race." After imposing a strict curfew, Nutter told young people: "Take those God-darn hoodies down, especially in the summer. Pull your pants up and use a belt 'cause no one wants to see your underwear. . . ."

Mayor Nutter moved up the weekend curfew for minors to 9 p.m. and told parents that they would face increased fines for each time their child is caught violating the curfew.

The head of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, J. Whyatt Mondesire, said it "took courage" for Mr. Nutter to deliver the message. "These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it."

In the past two years, Philadelphia has been the scene of a number of flash mobs in which youths meet at planned locations by texting one another and then commit assorted mayhem. In one episode, teens knocked down passersby on a Center City street and entered an upscale department store where they assaulted shoppers. In another incident, about 20 to 30 youths descended on Center City after dark, then punched, beat, and robbed bystanders. One man was kicked so savagely that he was hospitalized with a fractured skull. Police arrested four people, including an 11-year-old.

Speaking from the pulpit of his Baptist Church, Mr. Nutter delivered a 30-minute sermon about black families taking responsibility for the behavior. He said:

The Immaculate Conception of our Lord Jesus Christ took place a long time ago, and it didn't happen in Philadelphia. So every one of these kids has two parents who were around and participating at the time. They need to be around now.

The Mayor told parents:

If you're just hanging out out there, maybe you're sending them a check or bringing some cash by. That's not being a father. You're just a human ATM. . . . And if you're not providing the guidance and you're not sending any money, you're just a sperm donor.

Columnist Gregory Kane, who is black, writes:

What is particularly instructive in this instance is where the 11-year old (arrested in Philadelphia) ended up: in the custody of his grandmother. We don't know what the boy's mother and father are doing right about now, but we know what they aren't doing: parenting their son. . . . Excuses for the flash mobbers, many of whom are black, with some attacking whites at random . . . have been coming fast and furious. They need jobs, the excuse makers tell us. They need recreational facilities. What they need are parents who don't hesitate to put a foot squarely in their derrieres when a foot in that spot is needed.

In Mayor Nutter's view, the collapse of the black family is a key element in the problems we face.

Let me speak plainer: That's part of the problem in the black community. . . . We have too many men making too many babies they don't want to take care of, and then we end up dealing with your children.

In the U.S. at the present time, out-of-wedlock births are now at 41 percent of overall births, but there is a tremendous variation in illegitimate births by race. Such births are the norm in both the black (72 percent) and Hispanic (53 percent) communities, but less than a third of white births (29 percent) are illegitimate.

It is clear that there has been a racial component in the flash mob events this past summer. Columnist Gregory Kane states:

I don't know what else to call it when mobs of blacks single out whites to attack. But there still exists this notion that blacks can't be racists. Racism requires power, the thinking goes. Since blacks have no power, they can't be racists. Such nonsense is bad enough when left-wing loonies and black nationalist types parrot it. But the Rev. Jesse Jackson is a prominent black leader. He, at least, should know better. Alas, he does not. This, he declares, "Is nonsense."

The respected economist Thomas Sowell disputes the idea that the violence of flash mobs can be explained by disparities in income. In his view:

Today's politically correct intelligentsia will tell you that the reason for this alienation and lashing out is that there are great disparities and inequities that need to be addressed. But such barbarism was not nearly as widespread two generations ago, in the middle of the 20th century. Were there no disparities or inequities then? Actually there were more. What is different today is that there has been - for decades - a steady drumbeat of media and political hype about differences in income, education and other outcomes, blaming these differences on oppression against those with fewer achievements or lesser prosperity.

The fact that so many black voices are now being heard about the decline of the black family and the manner in which that decline has led to such events as the flash mobs of this past summer is a hopeful sign. No problem can be resolved unless it is properly understood. Hopefully, that understanding will grow and the real problems we face can then be addressed.

Crony Capitalism: A Growing Threat to Economic Freedom

Crony capitalism - the close alliance of big business with government - leads not to free enterprise but its opposite, in which government, not the market, chooses winners and losers through subsidies and other forms of government largesse. Adam Smith, the great philosopher of capitalism, understood that businessmen want to maximize profits, and how it is done is of secondary interest. Indeed, he once said that when two businessmen get together, the subject of discussion is how to keep the third out of the market. Adam Smith - and more recent philosophers of the free market such as Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman - believed deeply in capitalism. Many businessmen, and many on Wall Street, do not.

Consider some of the recent manifestations of this phenomenon.

The U.S. Government guaranteed a $535 million loan for Solyndra, LLC, the now bankrupt California company that was the centerpiece of President Obama's "clean energy" future. There are a least 16 more such loan guarantees worth in excess of $10 billion.

From e-mails made public in mid-September by the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, it is clear that key Solyndra loan decisions were guided primarily by political considerations.

President Obama was not in the White House when the proposal to back the company initially appeared in Washington, but two weeks before President George W. Bush left office, an Energy Department review panel unanimously recommended against making the loan. Even after Obama decided to support the proposal, career employees at the Office of Management and Budget cautioned against doing so. One predicted that Solyndra would run out of money and file for bankruptcy by September 2011. A Government Accountability Office report said that the Energy Department had circumvented its own rules at least five times to make the loan. The leading investors in Solyndra were two investment funds with ties to George B. Kaiser, a major fundraising "bundler" for Obama.

Both Republicans and Democrats supported the loan-guarantee program, which was approved by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2005. The loan guarantee program for alternative energy companies was created as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who has been a leader in the congressional probe of Solyndra's ties to the Obama administration.

Similarly, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said in the Senate that the Solyndra case exposed the "unintended results when our government tries to pick winners and losers." This, of course, is quite true. Yet DeMint himself had been a supporter of the loan-guarantee legislation in 2005.

The fact is that solar companies are not the only energy companies getting federal loan guarantees. The power giant Southern Co. won a $3.4 billion loan guarantee from the Energy Department last summer. Yet, even some Republican critics of big government have supported this huge expenditure. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) declared that it was wrong to compare Southern to Solyndra because "Southern Co. owns Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, among others, and employs literally thousands of people."

Washington Examiner columnist Timothy Careny notes that:

The implication was clear: Federal subsidies to big, established companies are fine. It's the handouts to these upstarts that are objectionable. So Gingrey is embracing the heart of Obamanomics - the proposition that government ought to be an active partner in shaping the economy and helping business. . . . If Republicans were willing to broaden their attack beyond criticizing this one (Solyndra) deal, they could indict the whole practice of government-business collusion.

Or consider the Export-Import Bank, supported by both Republicans and Democrats, which is a government agency that subsidizes U.S. exporters. Recently, it broke its record for the most subsidy dollars provided in a single year, primarily to Boeing.

Members of both parties have voted to bail out failed banks, auto companies, and other enterprises considered "too big to fail." Now, business interests are lining up to influence the work of the new congressional "supercommittee" that will help decide whether to impose massive cuts in spending for defense, health-care, and other areas. Nearly 100 registered lobbyists for big corporations used to work for members of the committee and will be able to lobby their former employers to limit the effect of any reductions. They are representing defense companies, health-care conglomerates, Wall Street banks, and others with a vested interest in the outcome of the panel's work. Three Democrats and three Republicans on the panel also employ former lobbyists on their staff.

The 12-member committee is tasked with identifying $1.5 trillion in spending reductions over a decade. "When the committee sits down to do its work, it's not like they're in an idealized platonic debating committee," said Bill Allison, editorial director of the Sunlight Foundation, which is tracking ties between lobbyists and the panel. "They're going to have in mind the interests of those they are most familiar with, including their big donors and former advisers."

General Electric, for example, has been awarded nearly $32 billion in federal contracts over the past decade, with much of that business going to lucrative defense and health-care subsidiaries. General Electric's chief executive, Jeffrey Imelt, also heads President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. At least eight GE lobbyists used to work for members of the supercommittee.

Top donors to the deficit committee members include AT&T, $562,045; BlueCross/Blue Shield; $460,02; General Electric, $452,999; American Bankers Association, $421,883; Citigroup, $443,006; and National Association of Realtors, $418,000. Needless to say, they contribute to both parties.

A study last year from the London School of Economics found 1,113 lobbyists who had formerly worked in the personal offices of lawmakers. At least nine members of the 12-member supercommittee have scheduled fundraisers this fall, putting them in a position to take money from industry donors at the same time they are helping to decide what to cut from government spending. The most active fundraiser on the panel appears to be Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) who has a least five donor events scheduled before the panel's Thanksgiving deadline. According to the Sunlight Foundation, contributions given during the time the supercommittee is meeting will not be disclosed to the Federal Election Committee until January - well after the final decision is made.

Sadly, free markets are genuinely embraced more often by intellectuals than businessmen. All too often, businessmen seek government subsidy, bailout, and intervention to keep competitors out of the market. When Congress acted to eliminate the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Interstate Commerce Commission and open up the airline and trucking industries to real competition, it was the industries themselves that opposed deregulation, for they had found a way to control the government agencies involved in their own behalf.

The old warning by the economist Friedrich Hayek that socialism in its radical form is not nearly as dangerous as socialism in its conservative form is worthy of serious reconsideration. When the advocates of state power and the advocates of corporate bigness become allies, government involvement in the economy - a form of socialism - is inevitable. The result is the crony capitalism we now face. *