In a classroom, are there limits to free speech?

Too controversial?    After teaching my class about the history of slavery, about how pervasive it has been, about why anyone would want to enslave someone else, I received a note from one of my white students, a former Marine who sits at a desk in the front row of the small auditorium that serves as my classroom. His message ended with what could be considered a warning: “I feel very offended and am thinking about taking action with the administration.”     

Although it’s not uncommon for him to make wry remarks spontaneously, his quips usually don’t attract responses. Because I encourage free speech, I seldom rein in anyone unless the class becomes disorderly. I stop everything then. “Raise your hand if you’d like to speak,” I say then, sternly.

And they do. Just as they did this past Friday. Two of my black students were having a mini debate about our topic. One, a man in his late thirties, also one to make spontaneous comments, spoke sincerely about slavery as it related to him, to his generation. “It’s in the past,” he said, “we don’t need to dwell on it. We’re all equal now.”

In answer to him, an older female who is one of my more serious students, remarked that the pain of slavery still hasn’t been adequately addressed. “There are wounds that must be dealt with,” she said, then mentioned various groups and organizations she had worked with and created.

To varying degrees, all of my students were attentive, even the one who thinks she is fooling me about the cell phone she never turns off. Just after I described a segment of the movie Amistad that I was about to show the class, she announced that she didn’t want to see the film, that it made her think bad thoughts, thoughts similar to the ones she had when she watched Roots. “I’m not going to watch it,” she said, then returned to her I-Tunes.

For the rest, I prepared them by detailing how global slavery was, how central Portugal and the Islamic countries were to the slave trade, how the trade in slaves was so divisive to the United States and its leaders. I touched on England’s role, its colaborators and Bentham and Wilberforce, a few of its opponents of slavery.

Amistad began. Ms. I-Tunes walked out. No one else did. I skipped through the movie to get to scenes about the drama in the courtroom, to let my class see the nature of those who opposed slavery, those who didn’t believe in slavery as well as more ardent Abolitionists.

At one point, I stopped the movie to read from George Washington Carver’s book, Up From Slavery. Chatter stopped. Carver’s remarkable words held their attention. Emancipated when he was six, he saw clearly the disturbing aspects of slavery, the terrifying challenges of freedom, and the undeniable connections slaves had made with their white (and black!) owners.

Then I returned to the movie, muted it to comment on the nobility of the captured Africans, how they had to struggle to communicate, how they had to relate as strangers in a very strange land.

We watched a little longer until I paused again to read “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea” by Nikki Giovanni. Many seemed moved by its bold lines.

Minutes later the class ended. Although I knew it would continue after our Thanksgiving break, I felt that my students had much to consider before then. Most left the room quietly. My ex-Marine handed me his paper.

As I read it after class, I noticed how carefully written it was. Compared to his work from the first part of the semester, there were very few errors. It was clear, and well thought out even though he was upset.

Another student, a white woman in her late twenties, e-mailed me a day later. Although she suggested other ways to deal with the lingering effects of slavery, she was sympathetic. However, when it came to the woman who left our class, she wrote:

The only other thing that stood out to me that I particularly disagreed with was when the lady mentioned that "Independence Day was not really an independence day for the black people," I find this untrue. Independence Day is not about black people or white people. It is about Americans. We may be able to divide ourselves when it comes to race, but we cannot deny the fact that we are all Americans.

Chances are that I’ll ask her to read those few sentences to our next class. I may do the same regarding the ex-Marine’s note. Fireworks may be unavoidable that day in my Controversial Issues class.

That’s why I may invite a guest to join us, a man I admire, the Vice-President of our community college. Before I begin what I’m sure will be an interesting debate, I will ask for any thoughts about blacks who owned slaves, then will lecture about that. In case you’re interested, please visit this site:

Black Slave Owners Civil War Article by Robert M Grooms

Large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large.

americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

Of course, please consider this an invitation to join us for our next class when controversy comes on Friday morning. 

                                 

                                                               B. Koplen  11/20/11

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Calling all Jewish grandmothers...

Not such old news    “Come, I’ll show you.”

Not that I was much of a wine drinker, but I was curious enough to connect my father’s interest in growing grapes to his mother’s ability to make wine that I followed her into her basement. For the first time, I saw that sizable space and its wooden racks, built for storage, I suppose, but empty of all but a small corner where Grandma Bessie allowed her wine to ferment.

“You want a taste?” she asked, although I recall that her “want” sounded more like “vant.”

She examined a few bottles until she found one that seemed to have the right amount of sediment and dissolved sugar. We went upstairs, opened the bottle, and I drank a thimbleful.

We talked about the “old country” where she learned to make wine, but we didn’t talk much. Her limited command of English resulted in conversations that were one or two simple sentences long. Although she had so much more to say, I didn’t know how to access it.

On my short list of regrets, that’s near the top. There is one other that I would have enlisted Grandma Bessie’s help in accomplishing. I say that because I remember how feisty she was. On her tiptoes, she was 4’11”. But to me, she always seemed much larger.

In elementary school, when I mistook the cafteria’s cooked cabbage for her delicious sourkraut, my stomach wretched thanks to my mistake. She came to rescue me, then provided an antidote. Chances are it was Pepto Bismal and that I was playing softball that afternoon.

Even more likely was that I enjoyed at least one of Grandma’s kosher garlic dill pickles for supper. Although she didn’t say much, Grandma spoke with her good deeds. Did yours? I’m sure, if you had a Jewish Grandma from the old country, that she did.

I have two reasons for asking. One is that I want the world to know more about what makes us Jews what and who we are. What may have been learned from Fiddler on the Roof isn’t enough. Second is that, when it came to getting things done, my tiny Grandma was a dynamo, a giant who didn’t comprehend the meaning of no.

For a very good reason, I want to channel the power of all Jewish grandmothers. “Vell,” she might have said, “if it makes for a good cause...” That would have been her signal to get out of her way, that she was about to change.

Perhaps her magic is something I can tap into; I must ask that you do the same. There is a wrong that Grandma Bessie would say, “must be turned right.” In fact, she’d agree, I’m sure, that it’s way way past time for that.  

And it has to do with a famous Jewish prisoner who hasn’t had kosher hand made potato latkes in more than 26 years. He’s in an American prison near Fayetteville, NC, in a town known as Butner, close to Oxford. Smart as a Rabbi trained in a yeshiva, he cleans toilets and, generally, eats traif. He doesn’t curse or drink or smoke or gamble or make trouble. Indeed, he’s like my Grandma wanted me to be.

His name is Jonathan Pollard. What did he do? Had she studied his case, my Grandma would have summed up the answer in one word: bubkes. That translates roughly as nothing, not much, very little, in a word, in retrospect, zilch. He spied against the United States.

But not really. What he discovered, while working for Naval Intelligence, was that America had reneged on its promise to give Israel vital security information about Iraq. Rebuked for trying to correct the situation, he gave the information himself to Israeli intelligence. Then, once caught, he plead guilty in exchange for a prison term of eight years. Or less, for good behavior. He’s been incarcerated for 26.

My grandmother would be shocked to know that, would be enraged enough to start a matzog ball brigade in his support. I know she would want to march up to our President and demand clemency. I know it. Your grandmother would too.

Especially if she’s anything like mine was. Or Jonathan’s Hadassah power house of a grandmother, Yette Klein. Neither of those women are still with us. But, if they were, we’d have a genuine Grandmother’s Revolt to cure this injustice.

Since we don’t, I’m writing to appeal to the next generation of Grandmas. Arise! Speak out! Help set Jonathan free. Please let me know that your Grandma will join Bessie’s Grandmas’ March to release Jonathan Pollard.

Grandma Bessie might insist that such good work will bring many blessings.

                                                           B. Koplen 11/17/11

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Exclusive Interview with Jonathan Pollard

Veterans' Day: unfinished business

Three men on 11/11/11 As a child, I didn’t ask why my Uncle Herman’s index finger didn’t bend. Nonetheless, it bothered me although it didn’t seem to matter much to him.  Then I was unfamiliar with the human cost of war. That would come later during the Vietnam conflict, about the time I learned that my Uncle had suffered his injury while working under cover in the Army intelligence corp in France during WW II.

Gradually, I developed a functional understanding about enemies of good people, about a desire to control others that was unacceptable. Indeed, I was only able to justify the use of force by peace loving people when I saw that, all too often, preserving peace was impossible without meeting an enemy that way. Along with that, I realized that appeasing our most ardent enemies was impossible.

That’s why, this Veterans’ Day, I showed my class Grapes of Wrath, the 1940 movie, starring Henry Fonda, based on Steinbeck’s novel. I wanted my students to gain a perspective about our country and what it stands for, especially in adverse times.

Before they viewed the movie, I had them write about their worst days, their hardest, most demanding time. Then I started the DVD. It began with Fonda coming home after serving four years in prison. What he found was a Shakespearian scene, the family home abandoned, the community’s minister a vagrant who had lost his faith. 

People who would have seen the movie when it was first aired might have been vaguely aware of the war Hitler had started in 1939. Like my students, there were probably many who watched the premier of Grapes of Wrath who had not known war; in my class, I had only one veteran, a former Marine who was absent that day.

“Earlier this semester,” I said at the beginning of class, “we discussed three men we would watch this semester. Two were soldiers. One, Gilad Shalit, had been kidnapped by Hamas and was held captive for five years. Recently, he was freed in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners.”

I told my students about one of the released Palestinians, a women who had failed to carry out her mission as a suicide bomber. Once free, she had said she would try again, would try four times if that were possible. Her preferred target? An Israeli hospital like the one that had treated her after she’d been captured.

Many in the class grimaced. I reminded them that she was typical of those Islamic warriors who believed that the Koran instructed them to kill infidels to serve allah. “If they were killed in that effort,” I reminded them, “according to Sura 9:111, they are told they will go directly to paradise.”

We’d discussed that insidious behavior earlier in the semester when I introduced them to First Lt. Michael Behenna. On the screen in front of the class, I projected a picture of the message I’d received from Michael’s parents that morning from their website DefendMichael.com. 

“He’s another man we’ve been following this semester. He’s about to appeal to a civilian court to end his imprisonment. He’s served two years of a fifteen year sentence for killing  an Islamic militant who had killed two men in his platoon.”

Behenna had lost an earlier appeal to a military court. After attending that hearing, I had spoken to Michael’s parents, had told them that the dead terrorist had wanted to be killed, had told them why.  They were shocked, surprised they had missed that connection. Indeed, it seemed to them that the terrorist had wanted to provoke Behenna, had intended to be killed while doing it.

I read from the parents’ message. “They ask for your your prayers, for Michael,” I said. “Barring an unlikely Presidential pardon, this is his final appeal.”

That seemed a fitting way to engage my students on Veterans’ Day. Although I also mentioned Jonathan Pollard and our President’s deaf ear to numerous pleas for his release after Pollard has served more than 26 years for a crime that usually carries no more than four, I didn’t dwell on that. Instead, I pressed play on Grapes of Wrath.

As we watched parts of that Depression era story, I wondered how many displaced Americans in the 1930’s had become soldiers in World War II to escape impoverishment. Joining the war was preferable to starvation, but also was necessary to stop the evil enemy of millions of good people.

With his permanently pointed finger, my uncle probably would have indicated he emphatically agreed.

                                       B. Koplen 11/12/11

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a love poem

                    a special delivery

It’s time for a love poem

that works.

Not one that waits like a resting saw

or a card unsent.

It’s time to scuff love’s 

new shoes, to rough up that patina, to bruise

its bark, then make mends.

This poem can do that, can pucker its lines

in anticipation, 

slip into a back pocket

like a paper hand.

This poem can’t be stopped; the mark it makes

cures longing as sunrise

that dark night when questions came

whether this poem

would ever ever 

be written.

           B. Koplen 11/10/11

There's time for this...

Time     Catching Jerry at his store in Bedford isn’t easy. Since retirement as a naval officer, he works when he’s not traveling. And he loves to travel. When he’s not there, the sign on the door doesn’t say CLOSED; at least it didn’t the last time I went to see him. Stuck to the window was a catchy sticker with a one word clue: BEACH. Charleston, SC came to mind. Jerry’s children and grandchildren were there.

Not so long ago, one of his friends, a woman I’d met last New Year’s Day, had minded his store when he left. I remembered her as being a smart and antique savvy 60 something lady who loved to smoke. Last May, she was diagnosed with untreatable cancer; she died almost a month later.

Now the store is closed when Jerry leaves. Visitors to his antique shop, despite Jerry’s cryptic messages, may think he won’t be gone long. Outside, alongside his front windows, is an antique plow caught in a border of potted plants and flowers. I noticed one variety that was still blooming.“That one’s been in the family since 1865. We take slips and grow them,” he said, pointing at one them that was loaded with hanging flowers, tiny as pink flies.

“Looks like a shamrock,” I said. Admiring its apparent durability, I mentioned that I’d love a slip of it if he ever stuck another piece in a pot. He snatched one from his display instead, fist sized, that had been sheltered in the adjacent shadow of a four foot tall Norfolk pine in a five gallon container.

“Thanks, Jerry,” I said, touched by his generosity. As friends do, we shook hands, hugged each other like brothers. “I’ll take care of it,” I promised.

As soon as I returned home, I set it in its place, on a second storey window sill that overlooks the Dan River. Already it feels like part of my family, an heirloom of sorts.

At the end of the next day, when I left to see the movie, In Time, it seemed to wave slightly as I passed.

“7:45, closer to 8:00 p.m.,” the ticket seller told me. Despite the fact that the movie wouldn’t start for almost forty minutes, I bought a ticket. That allowed me time to visit Food Lion to buy a box of Non Pareils. 

“Tony!” I exclaimed, as I was greeted at the checkout lane by a man I hadn’t seen in fifteen years. His medium blue T-shirt was dirty and wrinkled; it seemed he hadn’t shaved in at least a week. But his eyes were clear, and his manner was as kind as I remembered it had been when he worked as a waiter at my friend’s Chinese restaurant. When the restaurant was sold, Tony left, found a job in Greensboro.

“I was there more than twelve years,” he told me, “married with a child and a step son, making almost $100,000 a year.” He fabricated special parts for an auto industry supplier. “My wife left me. Then, five months later, the company let me go. I lost everything, was unemployed for a year and a half. Depressed the whole time.” 

Now he works as a janitor making a fraction of what he once did. “But it’s a job,” he told me, shaking his head. “I still don’t understand.”

“It’s similar to the Great Depression,” I suggested. “It’s hit me, too,” I admitted.

We talked about bygone days when he worked at the restaurant.

“Life was simple then,” Tony said. “So little stress.”

“And time to play basketball,” I added.

“That, too,” said Tony.

We were outside. His car was parked to our right. Mine was two rows away, on the left. We shook hands, said goodbye, promised to get together. Because it was time to get to the cinema to see In Time, I hurried to my car. On the way, I thought about the film I planned to show my class this Friday, Grapes of Wrath, starring Henry Fonda, released in 1940.

It’s the story of hard times in America, during the Great Depression, more than 70 years ago. My hope is that the film will provide a perspective for my students regarding their current struggles. They’ll know that things could be worse, that there’s much to be thankful for. Simple things like a flower sitting on my window sill.

Or a friendship with a man who’s found a way to stop everything when it’s time to leave everything behind and go to the beach. He’s confident his store will still be there when he returns.

He’s taught me that I might catch him then.

                                       B. Koplen 11/9/11

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another way

Concerning a just equality      “You must take her to see this specialist for a diagnosis. Your daughter may be developmentally delayed.” Whatever else I was told about my daughter’s condition, I didn’t hear. At 18 months, she wasn’t talking, at least not more than a few words. “Here’s the address and phone number,” I remember being told.  

A month later, after our appointment with a nurse in Henrico County, I knew how far behind the norm my daughter was. “She should have an CAT scan,” the specialist advised. 

“Here’s the problem,” the pediatric neurosurgeon told us, pointing at a sizable X-ray sheet. “It’s cerebral palsy. She has an inoperable cyst in her right temporal lobe.”

That also explained the cluster of other problems, partial deafness and amblyopia, a weak lazy eye, we would discover later. As I reviewed her maladies, I berated myself for not noticing them earlier. As a best guess, I was told that my daughter had suffered a pre-natal insult to her brain. Outraged, bewildered, and tearful, I held my daughter close to me, vowed to find ways to help her attain a normal life so that she could be a fully functional and happy child.

Although I never lost sight of that purpose, I never forgot what determined the intensity of my commitment to enable her to eventually be an independent adult. For almost twenty years, she and I waged a war against naysayers and unfavorable odds.

Eventually, with help from family, friends, and godparents, and by using hard-earned skills, she won. She is my child no longer; she is a woman equal to any of her friends, a joyous and trustworthy companion for her husband.

What I learned from her taught me that there were many children who could, with appropriate encouragement and guidance, radically and positively alter their lives. Putting that knowledge to use when I was President of our Optimist Club, I initiated a campaign to sponsor a willing individual to study with Dr. Glenn Doman, near Philadelphia, at his Institute For The Achievement Of Human Potential. Although it would cost thousands of dollars, I convinced our club to foot the bill.

My plan was to level the field, to bring about an equality of opportunity to children of families housed in the projects. By teaching a dedicated volunteer how to apply Doman’s techniques, I knew we could train parents of infant children to be able to foster intellectual gains so as to grow their offspring to be academic superstars. Doing that, I figured, would enable that generation of children to compete so effectively in the work force that they would be able to lift their entire family out of poverty’s cyclical grip.

Conversations with Dr. Doman and his lieutenants were encouraging; they were willing to do the training. Prior to beginning my search for a suitable volunteer, someone who would fervently commit their time and energy, I thought to ask the one question that was absolutely pivotal. As soon as I heard the answer, I was heartbroken.

“It’ll take four years,” the Institute representative told me, then repeated, “about four years.”

Unfortunately, I had only persuaded our small Optimist Club to fund the project for four months. Paying for four years of study and living expenses was impossible for our club. Finding someone to spend four years as an unpaid intern, even for this most worthy cause, was even more unlikely.

My vision of sewing seeds for a society that would become absolutely equal and equally competitive went the way of so many narratives that sought to impose their perfection on the messy free world and its inherent imperfections. Despite Montessori based methods that had worked so well for my brain damaged daughter, methods that would have produced, I believed, similarly significant results if applied to less advantaged communities, I knew that my idea was more a dream than a reality.

That’s why, since then (after I ended my Presidency), instead of gearing up for profound social changes, I have, much like teacher Jane Elliott (please see A Class Divided, ISBN 978-0-300-04048-7), aimed at success one classroom at a time. 

As for my daughter and her younger sibling, my younger daughter, I taught them to prepare for life, to be aware of its many options. I taught them compassion along with the need to love themselves if they were to have love for others. I taught them the importance of literacy and flexibility, to cherish life rather than expectations. With the help of friends and family, they learned that faith could be empowering.

But I didn’t teach them to choose a lifestyle based solely on material rewards. I didn’t teach them to revere noblesse oblige, nor to think that they were members of a class that made them better or  more attractive than anyone else. They learned to work to attain what they wanted; they learned the joy of working hard and the achievement it brought. They learned to take care of themselves, that no job was so menial as to be beneath them.

What has that yielded? My older daughter is a much sought after caregiver by families with very young children. She has a part time job as an editor of a small magazine; one day soon she will begin her study to be a nurse. 

My younger daughter works for Hillel as she completes her collegiate degree. She’s an inspirational and most caring motivator; she’ll probably be Phi Beta Kappa due to her diligence, her commitment to hard work. As a career, she’s considering being a Rabbi.

Neither of my children have joined the Occupy movements. They don’t want what’s not theirs. They’ve learned that their worth and the value of life has nothing to do with other people’s money. It has little to do with wealth; if that is to be, that will come.

But both of my girls, young women now, are leaders who’ve learned to use their precious minds, who’ve learned to follow their hearts. As formulas go, in my humble opinion, there’s none better for gaining the success of a joyful life.

They lead by conveying their clarity, present a kind of wisdom that others can grasp and understand. 

I wonder where are such people among those who populate the various Occupy movements? What essential clarity do they possess? I sense deficiencies in that regard, expectations that have been manipulated in ways that are self-confining rather than expansionary.

Have they been taught that benefits spring from sound foundations, from sparks of creativity, from hard work willingly done, that they seldom come pre-packaged as gifts? Based on what they are asking for, I have reason to wonder.

                                                     B. Koplen 11/3/11

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Occupy this...

Both sides now    “You must watch it, have to,” she told me. “I usually disregard most documentaries because their producers can skew facts. But this one related to what’s happening on Wall Street. It helped me understand the Occupy movement.  By the time it was over, I was fuming.”

We were in line at Office Max at the copy counter.

“Please come to my class,” I said to her, a willowy 5’ 6” blond, “tell my students your thoughts about the Occupation. We study controversial issues.”

“No thanks,” she said, “I just want you to see Inside Job. You’ll see that more people need to be concerned, need to get involved.”

Hearing that, I repeated my request that she come as a guest lecturer. Again she refused. She paid for promotional materials she’d ordered for a media event being promoted by her employer, a TV station with an office in Danville. 

When I found that Inside Job won the 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, I wanted to watch it, wanted to see what, in the opinion of its director, Charles H. Ferguson, had produced the financial crash that had caused many national economies to teeter or topple, that had ruined, as the woman from the TV station had said, so many investors who are America’s “little people”.

“People like me and you,” she had said, “people who are the ones who are having to pay for the bailout.”

She was upset that none of the culprits had gone to jail, that many of them had actually made huge profits despite the staggering losses they had caused. “That’s controversial!” she had insisted.

Our conversation ended before I could discuss the merits of capitalism versus communism or socialism. From what I’d seen and heard from the protestors near Wall Street, many were clamoring for more than cleaning up the system. Some were leading anti-Semitic rants. Others used the gathering to promote Islam, its opposition to usury, the mistreatment of Muslims, the need for more people to pay attention to Muhammad, and especially, what passes as his final sermon.

Among the other voices I heard was that of my youngest nephew, a high school senior. In a pertinent essay, he had written, “...investment bankers on Wall Street began buying enormous amounts of mortgages...and selling them to private investors. Because housing prices were always going up, there appeared to be no risk involved. If a homeowner defaulted, the bank would be left with a house with a value greater than the mortgage, a house that would sell quickly. Lenders started believing they had beaten the system, and began providing mortgages that were almost sure to default.”

My astute teenaged nephew concluded, “For our prosperity as a nation to be safe, we need more regulations on the market. Of course, it’s easy to say this now, but, in times of plenty, we need strong, knowledgable leadership to take a stand against ‘free money’ for the good of everyone.”

Before deciding to present my nephew’s views to my class so that we might explore the dynamics of the “knowledgable leadership” he envisions, I read  Congressman Allen West’s Weekly Wrapup of 10/31/11.

Fortunately, he, too, shared thoughts about the protests against capitalism. In the best of all worlds, I would prefer to see him debate Charles H. Ferguson in my classroom while my nephew and the woman from the TV station were in attendance. I wonder how they would respond to Congressman West. Might Mr. Ferguson produce a sequel to Inside Job, a documentary about remedies and responsible leadership?

That thought excited me as I read West’s remarks:

The thought on the top of my mind as I am writing this is the “Occupy” movement and the liberal progressive mentality towards capitalism in America. The problem in America is not capitalism but rather “crony capitalism” whereby our federal government selects winners and losers by way of subsidies. 

As well, we have a federal government which now considers itself as the preeminent “venture capitalist fund” in our country. There can be no doubt that we now see the federal government using taxpayer dollars to fund companies aligned with a certain ideological agenda. 

The hypocrisy is therefore obvious.

When I think of capitalism -- production, manufacturing, investment, innovation, ingenuity, craftsmanship -- I got a firsthand vision of it this past weekend.

The Annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is second only to that held in Monaco, and we are working hard to make it second to none. Everyone should know that Fort Lauderdale (with the greater South Florida area) is the marine industry capital of the world. 

With all that stated, it was rather odd to have the “Occupy” protestors marching out in front of the boat show. I would have preferred them taking the time to go inside. If they had, they would have seen American craftsmanship and ingenuity at its best. They would have seen the time-honored American tradition of ship building. Yes, America is still a maritime nation!

My question to the protesters is simple, “What would you prefer? We create nothing in our nation and everyone just finds subsistence from the bureaucratic nanny-state?”

As I walked along the floating docks and spent time speaking to vendors and yacht builders, it was easy to get a sense of pride in America. The Boat Show vendors are often family-owned businesses that have existed for years and will be handed down to another generation- that is unless tax policies such as “Estate Taxes” continue to ruin the American dream of building a business and passing it down to their children.

I had the pleasure of touring several of these American-made yachts, truly vessels of impeccable beauty and grace, filled with American components and artistry.

We conducted a Congressional summit on board one of these yachts and I was the only Member of Congress to attend. However, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart did send a staffer. 

At the Summit we discussed the concerns of the marine industry. The greatest concerns emanated from the “war” on producers and consumers. Liberals call these producers “ the rich,” and demand they pay their “fair share.” The other concerns discussed at the summit were linked with the over-regulatory environment affecting the industry.

The fear from the marine industry is this war against the private sector and the emphasis on growing bigger government. Government does not create wealth nor jobs.

We must have fiscal, monetary, tax, trade, and regulatory policies, which set the conditions to incentivize and revitalize our free market/free enterprise private sector in America.

                                            B. Koplen 11/1/11

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