Damian M. Schloming ideas and information

Naomi Wolf on rape: "...ours is increasingly an age of geopolitics by blackmail."

This website is to allow me to present intelligibly my thoughts and insights on various social, political, historical and even scientific issues I've been studying in the past two years. 

Some of which I have background knowledge of due to having been involved with and interested in various political movements many years ago. 

My political viewpoint leans towards libertarian, except that I am not completely happy with the way some of them think. Libertarians want limited government and civil liberties. As a matter of principle, that is excellent. But then libertarians seem to suffer from this ingrained bias of Western Culture that you can somehow intellectually decide that government "should be" a certain way and then the perfect society can then be achieved by some legislative body sitting down and crafting some written rule decreeing that that is how society is to be from now on.

 

Actually, I think government and the larger society it is embedded in is more like some kind of living beast that you can train or that can morph in one direction or another, but it can't be so easily manipulated or changed as we think. Written rules don't have the exact effect they literally intend, but instead enforcement of the rules and all sorts of other considerations regarding government bureaucracies results in all sorts of ripple effects or unintended consequences. As a result, the most free society does not necessarily result from the one with the nicest and most free sounding written constitution or constitutional rights guaranteeing liberty. A very good example of this issue is the liberal Warren Court expanding all sorts of fifth amendment procedural and technical criminal protections for defendants. Liberals saying they want to do this might be arguing this is to help the poor. The opposite is the truth. This is to help defense attorneys, and why is that a bad thing? Because criminal procedures and technicalities of the liberal Warren Court only resulted in defendants having protection IF they could hire an expensive enough attorney to do a good enough job PRESSING them. Public defenders are part of the corrupt court system, they deliberately do a bad job so as to make sure well heeled defendants find it worth their while to pay extra. Huge sentences ALSO give well heeled defendants more incentive to pay extra. Thus, defense attorneys representing rich criminal defendants have a vested interest in maintaining the strict sentencing policies responsible for Mass Incarceration. Furthermore, there was a law school bubble which burst, and now law schools are doing poorly because lawyers are not finding it worth their while to spend so much money on a law degree. Fact of the matter is, those liberal Warren Court protections indirectly increased legal fees for defense attorneys, thereby contributing to the upward pressure on college tuition and law school tuition, simply because the amount of money attorneys could make from a law degree made it more worthwhile. 

It also is true that the regulatory state increased in many other ways, increasing demand for attorneys in other spheres besides the criminal justice system. But I am going to talk about the criminal justice system here for now to use it as an example.

This is just one example showing how a policy that, examined in the most superficial way you think it's designed to help criminal defendants overall in the long run has the exact opposite effect. Because these protections are ones that only can be accessed by those with the money to pay for top dollar attorneys. And, it isn't always necessarily related to the facts of the case. The attorney usually has an incestuous relationship with everyone else in the court system, so much so that basically if you pay the right attorney enough money, you will get off because he is friends with all the judges and prosecutors, and parole officers, etc.

And for me to say that could lead to others thinking it is rather awful to have a court system so incestuously corrupt. Except, these are all nice people who know each other and court systems have ALWAYS been like this, more or less. And they always will be this way. Government is incapable of being perfect. Understanding its inherent imperfections such as this are necessary when it comes to avoiding passing laws which interact with such a culture in a way to produce very bad outcomes.

 

After all, we have always had government and, for some reason, it would appear if we always have had it, that is because we need it. The inner workings of government are so awful, you discover after you observe it, it can easily lead many to think we should just abolish it. But, given that that is impossible, the best alternative is to understand it as inherently flawed, and realistically think of how to make things "the least bad."

This is what I have thought for a long time, yet only recently have I stumbled across some law professors who subscribe to a movement called "legal realism." It turns out they think exactly the way I do, and see the same flaws in our society (or in the thinking of popular culture which leads to wrong-headed policies in our legal system) that I see.

Oddly enough, they seem to describe themselves as leftists yet they are not the kind of ordinary mainstream leftist most people would understand to be "of the left." Which is strange because I never would have thought of myself as a liberal -- but not a conservative either. But maybe this is because of certain strands of liberalism I have been exposed to which are quite awful. 

In any case, why categorize oneself? As I study and learn more about society, I like to share various insights and not limit myself to any one "box" or "category" that I pigeonhole myself into.

august 24, 2015 quick summary of Old West Church involvement

August 24, 2015  /  Damian Schloming

remembered more about what happened at old west church. 

very scandalous and criminal. 

i need to dig up some of the contemporaneous documents i have, but basically let me explain that, first of all it was obvious around that time that not only did i suffer from learned helplessness but also from a kind of obedience conditioning or fear of saying no. when laurel was there, the previous minister, they could call me up and ask me to play and even if i didn't want to or was tired, i couldn't say no. I ended up over extending myself and Yuko Hayashi ended up intervening and made an arrangement where the minister could not call me up and ask me directly to play without me calling her. And, literally, the minister would ask me to play, and I'd say I need to ask Yuko if it is ok. I'd call Yuko and tell her and then she'd ask me did I want to play, and if I didn't I'd say no I don't I'm tired and need rest, and then she'd say I was forbidden from playing. THAT was what they had to do to accommodate me because of my inability to say no. Which, btw, showed itself up in other situations as well.

Enter the new minister, first the wife, then a year later her husband becomes minister. She decided to arrange things so organists now started getting paid I think maybe $50 a service only. And, of course, when it was free, I had been doing most of the services. For free. Around the time she did this, however, Jacob starts creating all sorts of trouble for me. Not giving me the hymns on time, withholding a wedding check several days I was relying on and my bank account went negative because of it. Then around this time oddly enough I get stopped for speeding three times in a row and get a very high speeding ticket. Or maybe it was one speeding ticket which I was desperate to pay off which was $300. So I ask the minister if I can play extra in order to raise the money to pay it off. I later found out I was accused of trying to use the church for money, from Yuko. According to Yuko, Jacob was the one who said that. This was also when I had my job and was just starting to get personal training sessions at the gym, and wanted a bit extra money to help pay for them too. Anyway, the way it all worked out, Jacob goes and first withholds the hymns so on one day I didn't have them until the very morning of the service i played and had to sight read them, then I have another problem with him but the straw that broke the camel's back was when a check I needed kept being delayed, and I thought I would get it earlier and spent money on personal training sessions, I believe. They delayed delayed delayed, wouldn't answer calls, and then my bank account goes negative and I rack up tons of late fees, $100 worth of late fees, so I called the church and got upset and said I need the money right away. 

This appears to have been provocation they wanted, so then the minister could retaliate against me and start being very rude and negative afterwards. She told me i was limited to playing once a month (e.g., I can't be allowed to use the church for money) and it was around this time I was banned from parking my car there at the behest of the daycare center where they also harassed me. what was interesting was the reason i started parking the car there occasionally was because my co workers at Berkshire hathaway had treated me so badly and stressed me out so badly that i started wanting to spend the weekends in rockport, where it's by the ocean and very calming and helped me rejuvenate from the stress of work, in my parents' house, and it was one mile away from the commuter rail and i needed the car to get there. in any case, what this ended up meaning was i was suddenly limited to one service a month, and then had to pay $100 a month for parking all of a sudden. And I had just started personal training sessions and really wanted to continue doing them and get back in shape.

i was pretty squeezed financially and what i should also mention was I lived in the North End then and there was this coffee shop where a lot of very italian looking mafia looking guys went, and the manager was this guy named Kenny who liked me a lot and was always very friendly to me and would often give me free pastries and stuff. And I felt so bad I went to the coffee shop and went to confide in him -- and there was this pimp there, with a female prostitute. It just all worked out, perfect timing, where all the rotten problems they were giving me at Old West Church, the money problems, etc., were timed so (I have to better remember the sequence of events), I walk out of the church office feeling terrible, go right over to the coffee shop and there I meet Kenny and, for the first time, that pimp. 

So they told me all about rent boy, and how you can also put up escort ads on craigslist. And, oddly enough, I was hoping to meet the pimp a second time in hopes he would help me, since I preferred not to do it myself, but Kenny got fired the day afterwards and that was the last time I ever saw him again. I was also never able to track him down and based on what people told me, he was for awhile working elsewhere but having terrible problems, and then at some point he apparently disappeared and nobody knew where he was. I think he may have been killed. I do remember him telling me shortly before then he was having some bad problems including some building or house he owned was going to be foreclosed upon. 

So I ended up doing rent boy and craigslist, not very seriously, just occasionally just to raise a little extra money so I could keep doing personal training sessions and pay for the parking. But I was really resentful at Old West Church, largely because I felt I had really been exploited before under the old minister, had done so much free playing, and then when I start needing money, right around the time the new minister starts having organists get paid, they suddenly make sure it's SOMEONE ELSE who gets to be paid twice a week rather than me. And then I have to go do prostitution to make ends meet -- and this is a Church and they knew I was in a financially uncomfortable situation and they knew all the other organists who played weren't financially uncomfortable. And, on top of it, the minister went out of her way to be extremely nasty about it as well. So I really felt hurt about it, and I suspect they knew that's how I would feel and wanted me to feel that way. If I had felt less hurt, emotionally, I'd have been less likely to take up prostitution, and I am now thinking that must have been something they were hell bent on manipulating me into doing.

I was so resentful, and when I did eventually get fired from Berkshire Hathaway, under very bizarre circumstances, I quit playing at Old West Church and sent Yuko Hayashi some emails regarding the minister, something along the lines of "how could she do this to me?" I am starting to realize or suspect, now that I have more insight into the closely coordinated manner in which people were operating with me at that time, that all of this was a deliberate set up and I am presuming that something about the occasional prostitution I did must have somehow been used against me in some way. Or somehow used to discredit me maybe so as to help them get away with certain things? I am not sure and will have to think about it. But, yeah, that's what those two ministers at Old West Church did. And I think it's no accident that this melodrama occurred right after the two police reports I filed regarding the whole child molestation thing I had heard about which I speak of in the below post. 

In any case, I do know Yuko Hayashi warning me over and over again it's best to stay away from the minister and if I try to talk to them "it will not be good." She was also the one who told me (you can read it in this email where I quote her anonymously) that "they are trying to be good" but not exactly having an easy time of it. She is Japanese so when she says something like "they are trying to be good," it would be more accurate to say this is the face saving Japanese way of saying "they are being bad." I do remember how, after I sent a bunch of emails out (with tons of supporting documents) to a bunch of people, including a lot of town officials in areas where I had problems with the police, where I informed everyone about what they did to me at Old West Church, as well as what tons of police did in cities and towns all over New England, I was a little afraid of calling Yuko for awhile because I was afraid she'd be made that I had disclosed things that would sully the church's name. When I finally did call her I told her what I'd done and asked if she was angry, and she said no she wasn't bothered at all, and said "you are free of them now." Or something like that. (E.g., they deserved it.) 

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