Knockoffs and retting rackets

The unnerving footage of federal agents in combat gear loaded with accessories associated with cracking heads and securing instant unequivocal submission looked like a newsreel from 1930s Europe.

The stated goal of the raid was legal, but the matter and timing of its execution casts doubts whether the sole purpose was strictly to enforce the law, or if the suspected criminality wasn't just being used as a pretext to convey a different message. 

Was it "overkill"? A good sight with bad optics?  

The "crime scene" has been in plain sight, fully operational all days of every week for at least 40 years. Markets selling counterfeit merchandise on Canal Street have been a mainstay for New York shoppers and a major enticement for tourists. Nothing seedy about it. And a linchpin of local color for Chinatown, Little Italy and some communities in the outer boroughs also.

It's true that the merchandise is almost exclusively knockoffs of every major designer brand whose legitimate products are vastly more expensive, in part because of the lure and prestige of their trademark. Any buyer who believes that they are really being offered a $40,000 Rolex watch for $100 deserves a radically discounted psychiatric intervention. 

Why has so much "contraband," from the sale of fraudulent Juice Couture jeans to live turtles, been tolerated? Politicians sometimes lean on the NYPD to look the other way, as a favor to communities. 

Why punish victimless crimes anyway?

Canal Street is New York's Marrakesh bazaar. Sellers make hefty profits from buyers who semi-consciously consent to being ripped off but still feel they got a good price for a product whose prestige they crave but couldn't otherwise afford. Imitation is the only way that bourgeois folks can simulate the adornment of "class.”

Everybody knows the game, including the NYPD. The hawkers of handbags, sneakers and jerseys are benign swindlers, not terrorists. 

At any time, over many decades,  these open-air markets could have been liquidated without fanfare and bluster. They were allowed to flourish until the feds found religion. 

The feds may have overacted, but they operated within the purview of the law, which the NYPD has historically refused to enforce. Even conservatives, often over-the-top boosters and apologists for law enforcement overreach acknowledge, as noted by Cato Institute, the libertarian think-tank, that  "there's a right to record ICE raids, and there's no blanket immunity for raiders."

The importation of counterfeit merchandise is a violation of what is called "intellectual property rights.” It's an enormous business that has been implicated in some major criminal racketeering. But for the most part, they're destined for flea markets, and tiny alley cubbies owned by people with little means and opportunity to otherwise shadow the "American Dream."

The Feds who busted the counterfeiters should not be condemned for doing their job. It's reasonable to ask why, however, they are acting as though they were employees of private companies. What is the arrangement, who made it and when? 

Can't these high-end, multinational companies police themselves? If the prices of their products reflected their quality, shouldn't they be selling themselves, according to free market principles? 

The majority of street vendors on Canal Street are Asian, with a much smaller representation of Africans. According to reports, the vendors taken into custody were the latter, although the history of ignored counterfeit merchandising hustling predates their arrival by many years.

Nine of the arrested vendors had criminal history records for domestic violence, drug trafficking, forgery, domestic violence and assaulting law enforcement, according to the federal government. Their apprehension would thereby be absolutely appropriate, and it is not fascistic or racist to make this assertion. 

There is no room for temper tantrums or for federal agents to take the law into their own hands, and they would not be defended if they did. 

But when bottles and bricks and incendiary objects are thrown at them, cars backed up in their direction aiming to run them over, and they are surrounded, under siege, call the city police for assistance during a potentially mortal threat, it is an abomination that their plea was explicitly refused by the local commander.

This could not happen in New York, of course, and we can only mitigate normal human responses up to a point. Whether the minimal force consistent with achieving a lawful objective was used, most of us are not qualified to say.  

Let there be impartial investigations of potential evidence of abuse of authority and the findings be freely accessible in the public domain.

But let's stop by the absurd categorization of these officers as "brownshirts" and goons. They're not, and they have not been deployed with the intent that they act as such. As a nation, we've been massively flawed, but this country has neither had concentration camps, a "Gestapo" or committed, countenanced or been complicit in genocide. 

We have been led by egotists, some of the outlandish, but no tyrants compared with innumerable international models.

We've got to live with the law, but sometimes as a prerequisite, we must live with ourselves. 

Denial of medical coverage to people who don't have legal residency status would slow down the depletion of the treasury and preserve assets for everyone else. Our borders should be closed except to folks whose entry is authorized. The concept of "nationhood" is reasonable.

But once here, for better or worse,  no person should be refused medical coverage, though it must be made clear that it is irresponsible to take your kid to the ER for a sniffle. What kind of human devil could advocate for turning away a child with meningitis or any person in agony from illness or injury? 

Some of the resentment against newcomers originates less from economic considerations than a perception of their failure to assimilate. "Americanism" cannot be legislated, though it can be tested, though unreliably.

Every new prospective American citizen should ideally be able to pass a simple history and civics test as currently required. But it should not be mandatory, especially not if in English only. 

Many of the greatest Americans were non-English-speaking and even illiterate when they arrived. However, no driver's license, especially a CDL, should be issued to anyone who can't read signs.

In our Darwinist system, some newcomers have few options to make a buck, and in order to survive, they cut corners. But the aspiring working class has its cheerleaders, even among billionaires who identify as laborers. 

One of them is a rock star from Jersey who affects a raspy voice from inhaling those metal filaments at the steel mill, wears torn jeans with Clorox stains, and charges more for the cheapest tickets to his concerts than a wage slave makes in a week.

At the end of the day, most folks just want to take home some scratch at the end of the day. This yearning sometimes multiplies exponentially into greed for filthy lucre and becomes newsworthy.

The gambling scandal, allegedly implicating some NBA individuals and several families of organized crime, is certainly deplorable. But hearing about such creativity, ingenuity and originality, can be beguiling, nonetheless. It's a common "guilty pleasure." 

The complex technological cunning that was allegedly used no doubt already has Hollywood abuzz. It may have future applications that we can't anticipate yet. 

Inventions can be like "old wine in new bottles.”

If the defendants go to jail, on release they will have paid their debt to society. Hasn't the nation of Cuba paid its debt for the missile crisis of more than 60 years ago and related mischief since? The U.S. has reconciled with many other enemy nations over the years and has doubled down on rapprochement recently. 

Cuba has been devastated by Hurricane Melissa. This is the perfect opportunity for us to provide humanitarian aid and get the ball rolling, without losing face.

Are we big enough?