Weekly Update – Seth Grossman barred from speaking at Stockton College because he opposed $750 million ballot question

LIBERTYandPROSPERITY.org Update

1. ? ? ? ? ?Regular Breakfast Discussion this Saturday, November 3, 2012 from 9:30AM to 10:30AM at the Shore Diner. Tilton and Fire Roads in Egg Harbor Township.? by Parkway Exit 36.

2.? Regular live, two way talk radio on 92.1 FM (Vineland) heard in most of South Jersey, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, Saturday from 8AM to 9AM. ??Thanks to Paul Porreca for guest hosting? while Seth Grossman was away on October 13.

3.? Election Day is Tuesday, November 6.? Do more than vote! ?Do everything you can to make sure every person you know goes out to vote?or votes by early or absentee voting if they will be out of town on Election Day.

4.?? Stockton College cancels Seth Grossman?s appearance at Stockton College just 23 hours before he was scheduled to speak at the Campus Center Theater last Thursday.??? The student leaders of the ?College Democratic Club? were warned by ?state officials? and ?college officials? that it ?was not in their organization?s best interests? to allow Seth Grossman to speak at one of their events, since ?Grossman opposed the $750 million ballot question?.?? Details below.

5.? Stockton College is using taxpayer funded resources to promote a ?YES? vote on the state ballot question to borrow $750 million for more expensive, union-contractor construction.??? It sent more than 8,000 emails telling all of its students to vote yes.??? It is promoting a ?YES? vote in its official web sites, its ?Political Engagement Project?, and in letters published in local newspapers.???? If you think New Jersey government is already has too much debt, write your own letters to the editor in your own local papers.?? Feel free to use any information posted in our http://libertyandprosperity.org web site.?? Also, Seth Grossman has about 50 lawn signs that say ?Stop NJ Debt?Vote No on Ballot Question One?.?? They were supplied by Steve Lonegan?s campaign against Corzine?s efforts to borrow $450 million in 2007.???? You can pick up a sign by contacting sethgrossman49@gmail.com or pick up a sign behind Seth Grossman?s law office at 453 Shore Road, in Somers Point.??? Why is it that Democrat Governor Corzine supported borrowing $450 million, but Republican Christie wants to borrow $750 million?

6.? Shae Dailyda is the only LibertyAndProsperity.org member that qualified for a ballot position for any elective office this November.?? She is running for Egg Harbor Township Board of Education.?? Her web site is http://www.shae4eht.org/.??? Until she ran for office, she had no idea how much hardball ?pay to play? politics goes on every day in our public schools.?? Some of her opponents are ?educators? (i.e. N.J.E.A. members who work in public schools in other towns).??? It should be a conflict for members of a union to get elected to a board where they get to approve contracts for their own union.??? But it?s not.??? You don?t have to live in EHT to reach out to her and help her.

7.? The following remarks on ?Hurricance? Sandy? are the personal thoughts of our executive Director, Seth Grossman.?? Because of the mandatory evacuations, he had to rush through this week?s update, and was? unable to review the contents of this week?s newsletter with other Liberty and Prosperity members before sending it our.

8.?How bad is the Hurrican Sandy?? As I write this message, I am told that this is barely a Category One Hurricane under the Saffir-Simpson Scale established in 1971.?? Below is an official description of part of that scale.

9.?? Republican Governor Christie shut down all Atlantic City Casinos for at least two days.???? Almost all public schools, state, county, and local offices are closed Monday and Tuesday.?? That means all these government employees get paid time off, while those who work get double holiday pay.??? In many areas, roads are closed to all traffic even though conditions are not nearly as bad as they are during many bad storms.? Is this justified for a storm that is not likely to reach Category One levels after it passes hundreds of miles of cool water to reach New Jersey?

9.? Many of us grew up at the Jersey Shore and lived through many bad storms.?? There was the Hurricane of 1944, which destroyed the Heinz Pier and much of the Boardwalk.? But there was no city-wide evacuation, and little if any loss of life.??? There was the March Storm of 1962?again with little warning, no evacuation, and little, if any loss of life in this area.??? People were left free to make their own decisions as to when to go and when to stay.??? The biggest losses from those storms were boats that were not removed from the water, and cars that were carelessly left in low-lying areas.???? For those storms, the big hotels and Convention Hall were the safest places to be in these storms!

10.? We were not ignorant or reckless back then.?? As children, we were warned of the dangers of killer storms, like the 1900 Hurricane (Isaac?s Storm) that killed 20,000 people in Galveston, Texas.?? That Hurricane had 120 mile an hour winds and a 20 foot storm surge that brought ocean waves to the third floors of most houses in that seaside resort.??? But nobody is claiming that this storm is a killer storm like that.?? And everybody is admitting that this storm is much LESS destructive than the Hurricane of 1944 and the March, 1962 Storm?even allowing for full moon tides.

11.???How did we survive without all those Federal Emergency Management Officials???? Ordinary citizens knew what was dangerous and what was not.?? And our local mayors, police chiefs and fire chiefs were far more familiar with local conditions that the Federal Emergency Management Administration ?experts?.

12.? The explosion of Federal Emergency Management Officials is a Perfect Storm?.?? During the Cold War, the Federal Government had a Civilian Defense Agency that spent lots of money telling us to build nuclear fall-out shelters, and stocking fall out shelters in every public building with emergency food supplies.?? When? President Reagan and Russian Communist Leader Gorbachev ended the Cold War, there was talk of dismantling the Civilian Defense Agency.??? But when the Cold War ended, this obsolete agency reinvented itself and got even more employees, and a bigger budget as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

13.? How much of all this government activity is really needed to protect the public??? ???How much is about justifying lots of big salaries and big budgets???? How much is about scaring people that most things in life are too complicated for ordinary people to understand, and that government ?experts? are needed??? Fifty years ago, storms like this were called ?heavy gales?? or ?northeasters?.??? They were life threatening to fishermen like those on the Andrea Gail during the “Perfect Storm” during Halloween, 1991, and people on other ships at sea (like the Edmund Fitzgerald “when the gales of November came early”).??? But they were not life threatening to people on shore.? I recall taking my kids trick-or-treating in Chelsea Heights during that Halloween, even though water from the bay was flooding the streets that night.

14.? How much of this is about covering up for a Board of Public Utilities (BPU) that is more interested in doubling and tripling electric rates to pay for ?green energy? than in making sure electric companies have enough men and equipment in this area to promptly repair broken power? lines???? Is it easier government officials to blame power failures bad storms,? rather than bad government?

15.Would there really be any harm if casinos were allowed to have ?Sandy Parties? and stay open, make money, and give people work and salaries during the storm???? Since all state, county, and local government employees have two days off with pay, there would be plenty of good customers for the casinos?? As it is, only those government employees will get paid for not working.??? The rest of us will have to work extra hard or cut back on something else to pay the same taxes with less income.

16.?? Did you notice how news reports are reporting that this storm will be worse than ?Hurricane Irene? of? last year.???? First, ?Hurricane Irene? was not even a Category One Hurricane when it passed directly over Brigantine last year.?? Yes, it was a bad rain storm, and it did lots of rain damage.? But all of that damage took place more than a hundred miles INLAND from the Jersey shore.?? The Weather Channel, the Emergency Management People, and anyone with a TV knew that ?Irene was no longer a threat to New Jersey when it was still two days and more than a thousand miles away.??? And yet government officials ordered a total evacuation of the Jersey Shore, closed the casinos, cut the summer season short two weeks early, and costs millions of dollars of lost wages and lost business to tens of thousands of people who have to earn a year?s income in 12 weeks.?? And then they gave out millions of dollars in cash vouchers to anyone who said they lost food in their refrigerators because of the forced evacuation?with no proof of loss whatsoever!? Why weren?t there any investigations??? Why know consequences to these government officials who caused so much financial loss and hardship to so many people?

17.?? These government officials are the same political people who did the Wall Street bailouts.?? And the defense of the U.S. Ambassador in Libya.??? Why do we trust them with so much power and money?

18.? Wall Street Journal News Item?Saturday, October 27:?? ?A new peril for older parents?Student Loans they co-signed.?? Cybndee Marcoux already was stretched thin, thanks to the $80,000 in student loans she raqcked up afgter getting divorced and going back to school a decade ago.? Her breaking point came in 2010, when her daughter defaulted on student-loan payments of her own.? Thyat?s because Ms. Marcoux, a 53 year old library administrator in Seekonk, Massachusetts co-signed about $55,000 of her daughter?s student loans.?? When her daughter was unable to keep making payments, Ms. Marcoux was on the hook. . . ?

19.? Now, as the high cost of college is bringing two generations of Americans to financial ruin, both Republicans and Democrats in New Jersey want the state to borrow $750 million more to build even bigger buildings on college campuses and raise taxes and tuitions even more.

20.?????????? Bring a friend or family member to the next Breakfast.?? Liberty and Prosperity will pick up the check for one of the three Liberty specials for the first time any South Jersey high school or college student attends one of our breakfasts.?? We don?t expect you to attend every breakfast meeting, but you should attend one meeting every month or two to learn the news that never makes the TV networks or daily newspapers.? Forward this email to friends and family and ask them to sign up for our email updates athttp://www.libertyandprosperity.org.

21.? Become a full voting member of LibertyAndProsperity.org! Dues are $60 per year, attend 3 business meetings each year, and work on at least one volunteer project each year. Or be a non-voting supporting member for just $30 per year, with no other commitment.??? Forward this email to friends and family, and ask them to sign up for our weekly update at?http://www.libertyandprosperity.org.

22.? Please review Seth Grossman?s draft column discussing this issue, and let him know your suggestions, corrections, and comments for improvement.?? His email is sethgrossman49@gmail.com.?? Also, please use this information to send in your own letters to the editor, and to call your local radio talk shows.?? Thanks.

?Gleich-schaltung? describes a program created by Hitler?s National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1933–soon after Hitler was appointed to lead the German government.?? It combines the German words ??gleich? (?alike?) with ?schaltung? (?switch? as in an electrical switch).?? Gleich-schaltung is usually translated as ?forced coordination”, “making the same”, or “bringing into line”.

British historian Edgar Feuchtwanger,? described ?Gleich-shaltung? as ?the process by which all organizations existing in society were nazified.?? All previous notions of freedom, civil rights, and self government were disregarded.? It was acceptable for any organization to? brutally remove any colleague who had become politically or racially inconvenient. . . ?

When I left college, I forgot about ?Gleich-schaltung?.? But I remembered that word several years ago when I attended the first few meetings of the? ?Political Engagement Project? at Stockton College.

This was promoted as ?a non-partisan project aimed at encouraging political discourse among students, peers, faculty, and administration as well as civil action in all forms?.?? Community groups like mine were encouraged to participate.
At those meetings, Stockton professors and administrators talked of getting Stockton politically active for? ?progressive? causes like ?green? energy projects that would dramatically increase the cost of gasoline and electricity and hurt the economy. ??Their plan was for professors to ?co-ordinate? class-room instruction in non-political subjects like science, economics, history, literature, and even sports, with political events sponsored by the Hughes Center of Public Policy.

I and other conservatives suggested exposing students to different opinions those issues, and on sponsoring programs on individual liberty and limited, Constitutional government.?? After a while,? we were no longer invited to the meetings.
In 2011, Stockton promoted ?civility? after? ?Tea Party? conservatives loudly criticized Democrats?and beat them in the 2010 election.?? But in 2012, when ?Occupy Wall Street? and other leftists viciously attacked Republicans, ?civility? was forgotten.? Stockton instead invited the? ACLU to talk about ?Civil Liberties in a Post 9/11 World?.

I was pleasantly surprised last month when the Stockton College Democrats invited me to speak at their ?Political Week?.

I submitted my resume and outline for a one hour program entitled? ?The History of Your Vote?.??? That history included how even freed black slaves were qualified to vote in New Jersey?s 1776 Constitution?if they owned property.???? But how only whites?even without property– could vote under the 1844 State Constitution?until the 15^th Amendment to the? U.S. Constitution was adopted after the Civil War.??? At the request of the students, I also agreed to discuss the Electoral College and voting rights for women.

The students liked my program and put posters all over campus promoting my appearance?and ?free food?.? They expected a large turnout, and reserved the Campus Center Theater.??? The event was to be held at 6:30 P.M. on Thursday, October 25.?? I was told that the public was invited, and was encouraged to promote the event.

But at 9PM of October 24, the night before the event, the student President of the College Democrats sent me an e-mail saying? ?I am sorry to say that tomorrow?s event had to be cancelled.?? I am sorry if we inconvenienced you.???? But the student did not explain why, and he did not leave a phone number.??? Many of us thought this was some sort of prank to trick me into not showing up.

But the next day?just hours before the event was to begin, Leonard Farber, Stockton?s Director of Student Development sent me an email confirming that the event was cancelled.? It also reminded me that ?Article 2 Paragraph 2.1 of the Guest Speaker Agreement I had signed gave the College ?the right to terminate this contract at any time, with or without cause prior to the engagement?.? ???At no time did Mr. Farber call me or explain who had cancelled the event or why.
Later, one of the students in the Democratic Club told me what happened.? He said the leaders of the Democratic Club had gotten calls from ?state government? and ?the college?.? They were told ?the college? was supporting a ?yes? vote on the ballot question to borrow $750 million, and that I supported a ?no? vote.??? They were told it was ?not in their organization?s best interests? to invite me to Stockton.

Stockton College may teach about the Holocaust in its classrooms.?? But in telling young people it is in their ?best interests? not to question authority or tolerate different opinions, it is teaching ?Gleich-shaltung?–un-American values that made the Holocaust possible.