The Great Welfare Empire Conspiracy - Page 07

Welfare Game Not Politically Correct and Therefore Not Entitled to First Amendment Protection

Both the district court and the appeals court ruled against us, saying essentially that our game is not entitled to First Amendment protection because the views espoused therein do not harmonize with those of the welfare authorities, and that it is not the welfare empire which demeans people, but our game. Not the welfare system, but a parody of it! Judge Pollack wrote: "The Brezenoff letter was not censorship. It was an appeal to conscience and decency." Judge Pollack relegated the problem of Brezenoff's communication with APWA to a footnote: "Nor does the subsequent mailing of a copy of the letter to Edward T. Weaver, executive director of the American Public Welfare Association demonstrate any impropriety. The suggestion of a conspiracy between Brezenoff and Weaver strains credulity and is not credited." What, in truth, strains credulity, is the idea that APWA, desirous of removing the game from the national retail market, would not engage in detailed communication with welfare officials located at the hub of America's retail trade-New York City.

Judges Love the Welfare Empire

Judge Pollack also put forth an astounding "censorship as opportunity" opinion: "Significantly," he wrote, "if the letter had any impact, it was to increase the opportunities of plaintiffs to express their views in the media." We would not have even known about the letter had it not been for an investigative reporter's diligence. Using Judge Pollack's logic, the court could sensibly regard an innocent citizen who had been brutally thrashed by a mugger not so much as a victim, but more as an individual with an "opportunity" to draw public attention to crime.

Judge Kaufman, writing for the Second Circuit, flirted briefly with his sworn Constitutional duty to mete out impartial justice when, after outlining the opposing views of welfare in the case, wrote, "Our task, of course, is not to evaluate these competing perspectives." Then he jumped right back into the fog of liberal-minded totalitarian prejudice, writing, "In sum, the game mocks the entire system of public assistance this country has worked so hard to perfect." Kaufman and the two other judges sitting on the tribunal agreed with Pollack that Brezenoff's letter was an "appeal to conscience and decency." They remained mute in response to our protestations of Brezenoff's perjury, and also relegated Brezenoff's relation to the APWA to a footnote: "Appellants suggest that Brezenoff somehow engaged in 'follow-up action' when he mailed a copy of the challenged letter to Edward Weaver, executive director of the American Public Welfare Association. The contention that merely writing to a private party constituted a government conspiracy to censor the controversial game is as spurious as it appears." Judge Kaufman also wrote: "Appellants invoke the specter of government censorship. The record before us, however, shows this claim to be little more than a figment of appellants' collective imagination."

We petitioned the U. S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but they would not, and so the case against Mr. Brezenoff ended. But by then we realized that we had been attacking a fat tentacle of the welfare octopus in New York instead of its head in Washington.

Game Marketing Network Falls Apart

By 1983, the welfare empire plan to "remove the game from the marketplace" had become very effective. Our marketing network was falling apart, undermined by forces we could not see or measure, but which our taxes were financing. The marketplace of ideas was not free in so far as our product was concerned. Out of economic necessity, Ron moved out of state where he had been offered an excellent job in the publishing field.

Bob Goes After Head of Welfare Octopus

But at least now we understood the nature of the conspiracy and who many of the chief actors were. Using more evidence obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, I filed suit in Baltimore Federal District Court against the APWA, NAACP, NOW, a welfare activist named Carl Snowden and two Maryland Welfare officials who helped implement the APWA plan, for conspiracy to violate our civil rights. The case was assigned to Judge John R. Hargrove who, unbeknownst to us, had been at one time a leader of the Baltimore NAACP. This judge did not acknowledge any kind of prejudicial attitude and feel it necessary to disqualify himself, and he allowed the defendants to suppress evidence of their joint efforts to ban the game based on counterfeit legal theories.

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