Monthly Archives: April 2012

The American Economy

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The American Economy

Our immense resources a problem?

One fundamental problem with the U.S. economy is one we have had for at least the last fifty years: We have the capacity to produce more than we need. This fundamental fact becomes clearer when one thinks about supply of the basic material needs of food, shelter and clothing. Notwithstanding periodic crop failures, America has more than enough farmland to produce food for our entire population, if necessary. We do not face a realistic possibility of famine—barring some appalling ecological disaster, an explosion or fissure or airborne menace that destroys the honeybee population or irrevocably contaminates our land and water supply.

honeybees

The same goes for shelter and clothing. The U.S. has more than enough construction capability to build houses for our entire population, again barring ecological disaster on a life-threatening scale. We have more than enough resources and manufacturing to clothe our entire population, even if to do so would mean resuscitating underused or abandoned industries. The fundamental fact that we can produce more than we need is one of the causes of our chronic unemployment and underemployment. It is one of the causes of our widespread health problems, obesity being the most obvious example. Ironically it is one of the causes of our ongoing trade deficit. Anyone who genuinely wants to ameliorate unemployment and underemployment in the U.S. has to face the fact that we can produce more, far more, than we need to buy, both of what is essential to survival and of nonessential extras.

 

Other countries do it, too

This fundamental fact served the United States well in World War II. The nation went into high gear as a patriotic war machine, and immediately began production on a scale not seen before. Some kinds of commerce, construction, production and imports may have been curtailed—not counting the importation of human capital like Albert Einstein, fortunately driven from Nazi Germany by German ignorance, envy and hysterical beliefs about ‘race’. But domestic production ramped up to fill most essential needs, at least within the parameters of knowledge at the time, and there was less hunger in the United States during a horrific world war than there had been shortly before it.

World War II poster

Post-World War II, the same fundamental production capability and natural resources and well-qualified labor force created economic expansion for over twenty-five years, again on a scale not seen before. Public highways, public schools and the private use of birth control all contributed to the development of an immense, self-confident middle class with a reasonable confidence in achieving shelter, education and personal advancement, among other things. The conformity may have been food for satire, the natural environment somewhat strained by missteps and miscalculations, the health of individuals plagued by toxic products from tobacco to thalidomide, but the material benefits of national development became so obvious as to highlight shameful poverty among the elderly and in Appalachia and in historically excluded groups. They also ineluctably exposed ‘separate but equal’ as transparent sham.

In 2012, the same fundamental is working differently, as we know from the massive slump that has resulted from the mortgage derivatives debacle. When we can readily produce more than we need, some people inevitably end up—or start out–doing things that no one wants to pay them to do. And that’s without factoring in imports. I don’t want to go into dispiriting detail here. Most thinking people have already noticed that we have millions of over-qualified Americans laid off, or trying to enter the job market, or underemployed, underpaid or working in lower-skill occupations than they trained for.

Needless to say, the GOP is blaming all the disappointment on President Obama. Hence the election-year rhetoric about ‘jobs’ and ‘putting people to work’. Predictably, Republican campaigns are funded by entities like Big Oil and the airlines, which have no more standing than does the Chamber of Commerce to yell about ‘jobs’, but more on that later.

For now, there are generally three levels of response to the situation outlined above. That it, there are broadly three kinds of response—boiling this down—once the fundamental fact of our immense resources and production capability is acknowledged:

1)      Bogus. The first is what might be termed the horrible, or George F. Will, response. This is the pseudo-erudite argument that high production capability inevitably means unemployment. This is the way it is, and it’s hopeless. Nothing to see here, folks; move along. People like Will himself, overcompensated for the reverse of beneficial service to humankind, generally use fancier language to make this unsubstantiated claim, but this is what it boils down to.*

2)      Short-term. The second response is the focused, material approach: Let’s expand our overseas markets. A reasonable response–if we recognize that we can, and do, produce more than we need, then it’s logical to look for markets elsewhere. If we can’t consume all our production domestically, and we want markets to sell in, then we should be trying to export. A nice idea as far as it goes, but mostly a) not attempted; and b) problematic when it is attempted. Whatever the problem, dumping tobacco products in emerging markets is not a long-term solution. Unfortunately, for at least the last thirty years we have been exporting ideas and importing products, rather than the other way around.

3)      If we can do these things, why don’t we? In the interest of full disclosure, I should state right up front that this would be my response.  A partial explanation is that the perspective of ‘the law of supply and demand’ tends to treat wealth of resources as a problem.

 

More later.

 

*For right now, Will is with the Boehner-Mitchell crowd in blaming unemployment on the president, but that’s for election year. It’s not his usual or level-of-rest kind of statement.

Side note: If Will weren’t already a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post, he would soon be taken on. Anti-labor are the Post’s cup of tea, where commentary is concerned. They’re popular on ABC News programs, too.

Trayvon Martin and the myth of ‘the first punch’

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The Trayvon Martin shooting and  the myth of ‘the first punch’

 

The Zimmerman family’s attempts to use the mass media may or may not work to George Zimmerman’s advantage, but regardless of legal outcome, the news media have an obligation not to purvey misunderstanding or misstatements of fact.

 

Zimmerman

The phrase ‘the first punch’ has been heard too often lately. It has also been accompanied too often by overstatement bemoaning how little we know about the shooting of seventeen-year-old, unarmed Trayvon Martin—about which we actually know quite a lot. ‘The first punch’ has also been too often part of fatuous assertions that ‘we may never know’ what happened. Actually, the justice system has an excellent chance of arriving at the truth about those very few minutes not directly recorded in the 911 calls to police. Forensics help.

In the meantime, however, when well-placed personnel in the news media toss around phrases like ‘the first punch’, with too much assertion and too little definition, it can get scary. The concept of self-defense is essential in everyday life as it is in the justice system. Given what we know about Zimmerman’s actions about 7:00 p.m. on Feb. 26, 2012, it is essential to remember that Trayvon Martin had a right to defend himself.

 

Trayvon Martin

Let’s start with ‘first punch’ in its literal sense. As anyone knows who has spent time sitting in courtrooms during domestic violence proceedings, not all fighting or close-hand violence takes the form of punching. In fact, you might be surprised how many husbands or domestic partners are credibly charged with dragging their female partners by the hair, throwing something at them, grabbing them roughly either by the throat or elsewhere, kicking them, or shoving them–into walls, or not; etc. It’s almost as though the aggressor in these cases was foreseeing a legal defense of sorts: “Your honor, I never hit her.” Then there’s the whole separate but related topic of threats of physical violence, along with the actual acts.

In such a case, the question ‘who threw the first punch’ is not the most important question. It might not even arise. Who in his right mind exonerates physical spousal abuse, child abuse or, for that matter, an attack on a stranger, just because it cautiously excludes punching? Conversely, if someone being attacked threw a punch against the aggressor, do you really illuminate the situation by summing it up, “Well, Martha threw the first punch”?

‘First punch’ in its figurative or broader sense, after all, means acting as the aggressor. The question ‘who threw the first punch’ is metonymy for the question, who started the fight? Who was behaving as the aggressor?

For the sake of simplicity, let’s leave ‘fighting words’ out of the equation—use of language that has been held to justify use of force. Let’s just take physical actions.

Give yourself a little quiz at home, in between working the crossword puzzle and Sudoku. In which of these situations would you not want the right to throw a punch?

  • When cornered by your friendly neighborhood rapist, escape not possible
  • When blitzed by a mugger
  • When being chased by someone bigger than you, and you’re running out of breath and/or can’t reach the nearest shelter ahead of the pursuer

Be it noted that in any of these situations, while you have a right to throw a punch, you also have latitude to use your best judgment about whether to do so. These situations do not usually conduce to best judgment on the victim’s part, of course. That’s the nature of aggression, that it trumps judgment as it trumps ethics. But in any case, you can always try to run away, to escape. According to George Zimmerman’s 911 call to police, that is exactly what Trayvon Martin did, and Zimmerman’s account is corroborated by that of the sixteen-year-old girl talking with Trayvon Martin on his cell phone, who has told police she urged him to run.

Anyone wondering whether George Zimmerman was using his best judgment, or trying to do so, can check out Zimmerman’s calls to the Seminole County sheriff’s office, linked here. There is ample indication that Zimmerman had already talked himself into perceiving any black teenager as a threat, and as someone just about to get away with something. Interestingly, Zimmerman had used that “I don’t know what his deal is” line in regard to one of the African-American garbagemen in his complex, before the fateful 911 call about Trayvon Martin.

The Orlando Sentinel previously reported that it was Zimmerman himself who initiated the presentation in his community by Neighborhood Watch. The Florida press did a good job generally reporting on the series of 911 calls.

Regrettably, on January 29 of this year the Tampa Tribune ran a front-page article titled “Use your phone to fight crime.” A GPS device is called “high-tech neighborhood watch.”

If the question is which man was the aggressor, not to give away the ending here, but my money’s on Mr. Zimmerman. He was the man with the 9mm handgun; he was the man in the vehicle calling the police on Trayvon Martin, who had a right to be there; he left the vehicle to go after the seventeen-year-old, after saying “okay” when advised by police not to do so. That Zimmerman is recorded on the 911 tape as saying, “Shit, he’s running,” and that Zimmerman’s brother, Robert Zimmerman, Jr., described Zimmerman as out of breath from running make it sound as though Zimmerman was running after Trayvon Martin. Close police investigation of the few-minutes timeline between Zimmerman’s 911 call and the death of Trayvon Martin, correlating the timeline with the distances between Zimmerman’s vehicle and Martin’s body, between the body and the sidewalk, etc., should clear up any residual doubt. Furthermore, Zimmerman was the man who walked away alive afterward, while an unarmed teenager was fatally shot. As has been reported, the Sanford Police Department initial reports of the shooting categorize it as “homicide–negligent manslaughter—unnecessary killing to prevent unlawful act.” Zimmerman’s gun was confiscated, and Zimmerman was searched, cuffed and taken into custody.

Witness testimony, the forensic examinations, detailed analysis of the short timeline, and a thorough analysis of the recorded screams—which sound like a young guy’s voice–all have yet to come. But in the meantime, nothing in the picture so far yields “Who threw the first punch?” as the intelligent question to ask.

How did that obfuscatory and self-serving misdirection become the meme of the week in discussions of the Florida case?

Trayvon Martin, question 4: Where was the iced tea can?

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Trayvon Martin, question 4: Where was the iced tea can, when police arrived at the scene?

George Zimmerman’s prominent defenders are not looking more credible on a closer look, with the passage of time. Florida State Attorney Norman (Norm) Wolfinger has popped up in news a few times, before his recent decision to negative arresting shooter George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

 

George Zimmerman

On May 3, 2008, the St. Petersburg Times noted that Wolfinger was among the state’s top-level double dippers:

“Two of the state’s top prosecutors, Lawson Lamar of Orange County and Norm Wolfinger of Brevard County, qualified to seek re-election. Wolfinger is unopposed and Lamar drew a little-known criminal defense lawyer as an opponent.

Lamar and Wolfinger are among the state’s top double dippers.

Lamar “retired” in 2005 without leaving office. He collected $514,927 in lump sum benefits, plus a $115,752 a year pension, plus an annual salary of $153,140.

Wolfinger followed suit in 2007. He collected $447,834 in lump sum benefits, plus an $83,484 a year pension, plus an annual salary of $153,140.

Circuit judges are paid $145,080.”

Titled “SHHH! Judges Keep Seats,” the article reported that a little-noticed amendment inserted quietly into state law by the Florida legislature allowed judges and some other public servants to be re-elected almost without notice—and without opposition—by moving the filing deadline for some officials to a different season than for others.

An Oct. 10, 2008, Florida Today piece referenced Wolfinger as stating publicly that ACORN was being investigated in connection with ‘voter fraud’. This article, published during a period of intense voter registration drives in Florida, was swiftly disseminated as a PR release by the Republican National Committee.

After 2008, the GOP-dominated Florida legislature stepped on voter registration so firmly that even the League of Women Voters, unhappily, no longer conducts registration drives in the state. At the time, however, the investigation of ACORN was so ‘controversial’—read, despised—that Wolfinger handed it off like a political hot potato within a week of the previous report.

Calls placed to Wolfinger’s State Attorney office are directed to the offices of Angela Corey, the special prosecutor in the case. Emailed questions to Communications Director Jacklyn Barnard in that office have not yet been answered.

On Nov. 6, 2009, Norm Wolfinger was in the news again. The AP, reporting the release of a Florida inmate, finally freed after spending 27 years wrongfully in prison for a crime he did not commit, includes this item pertaining to Wolfinger:

“Eric Ferrero, a spokesman in the Innocence Project’s national office, said 27 states currently have compensation laws on the books. Of those states, Florida is the only one where a roadblock occurs if the former inmate already had a felony conviction on his record.

Norman Wolfinger, the state attorney in Brevard County, said in a letter to the Legislature that while there isn’t enough evidence to convict Dillon again, lawmakers should consider that his innocence isn’t proven, either.”

It might charitably be argued that after that gaffe, Wolfinger became gun-shy about prosecuting. Something seems to have given him a strong motive for causing George Zimmerman not to be arrested in the shooting, even for manslaughter. Wolfinger, as has been reported, showed up at the Sanford police station in person that night.

Norman Wolfinger

Accuracy is always good news. Recent days have brought out the full 911 call by George Zimmerman, which makes clear that Zimmerman said not only “he looks black” about Trayvon Martin, but also that he said Martin looked suspicious, etc. Zimmerman’s loose statement in the call, accusing Martin of being on something, helps explain why the Sanford police tested the body of Trayvon Martin for drugs and alcohol although the initial police report has negatives for ‘drug related’ and ‘alcohol related’. Too bad NBC edited that 911 call wrong, for which the network has apologized.

The new, cleaned up and sharper images in the police video of George Zimmerman help, too. The newly released video clearly shows a cut or scrape on the back top of Zimmerman’s head. The injury is clearly not extensive.

So, a question: Could the cut on the head have been done with an aluminum beverage can? If George Zimmerman grabbed Trayvon Martin—macho-style, clutching the hoodie at the throat—it would have been natural for the seventeen-year-old to swing at him with whatever he had in his hands. The Skittles bag wouldn’t be much help, but the can would have some clout. So, along with the bloody nose from being punched, in this reconstruction, if Zimmerman grappled with the young man, Trayvon Martin might have swung at his head. If Martin did so, theoretically Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law would protect him—unless it turns out that the law applies only to white people.

 

Trayvon Martin

A call placed to Zimmerman’s attorney Hal Uhrig has not yet been returned.

Rightwing web sites have publicized widely the item that George Zimmerman registered to vote as a Democrat. They are less eager to notice that the weather that evening was hoodie weather.

Were George Zimmerman’s bloodied nose—assuming it was bloodied—and head examined for a match to the iced tea can?

Was the iced tea can bagged as evidence? One of the worrisome aspects of the police video is that it shows police casually tossing George Zimmerman’s jacket into the trunk of the police vehicle, unbagged. But in any case, was the iced tea can examined for George Zimmerman’s DNA as well as for Trayvon Martin’s? Were any fingerprints on it besides Martin’s?

One of the clearer pieces of evidence the public has in this case is the recorded 911 call with screaming the background. I find that call painful to listen to but have listened to it carefully. The voice crying out in the background sounds like a young person, a high schooler, not like a man in his late twenties.

Another of the clearer items in evidence is George Zimmerman’s initial 911 call. Setting aside exactly what language Zimmerman used—something I have not been able to hear clearly—after the expletive, the rest of the exchange is clear. Zimmerman told police, in answer to their question, that he was following Trayvon Martin. The police then told Zimmerman, “Okay, we don’t need you to do that.” Zimmerman then answered, “Okay.”

Why? Why did George Zimmerman say “Okay” when police tried to get him to stay away from Martin? Was he so convinced that Martin would “get away,” as he put it—[they] “always get away”–that he simply resolved to stay close to him even though the rest of the call makes clear that police were on their way to meet up with Zimmerman?

“Shit, he’s running.”

As noted previously, none of the public statements in George Zimmerman’s defense have come from Zimmerman himself. They have been conveyed secondhand, if that, by Joe Oliver—who will no longer serve as the family’s media consultant—or by Zimmerman’s father and brother. Neither of the latter has made a credible statement to the media.

Now, the family has new representation and will put up a web site to aid in the defense and fund-raising. Attorney Hal Uhrig made the following statement:

“We pray for both the Martin and Zimmerman families for what this incident has caused in suffering,” said Uhrig. “We are confident that George Zimmerman, after being vindicated and exonerated, will continue to feel remorse, not for his justified actions but for the unintended consequences.”

What are the unintended consequences? Is this meant to suggest that the death was unintentional?

That brings to mind another question: If George Zimmerman was shooting only to defend himself against an unarmed man, why didn’t he shoot the person in the leg, or in the foot, or in the arm?

The 2012 GOP primaries and the politics of neglect

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2012 GOP primaries–Santorum wins most Wisconsin counties but loses Wisconsin

More primary results, mostly predictable, in the GOP primary season, and another reminder of the importance of being able to do math and to reason. Case in point, Wisconsin, carried by Mitt Romney along with Maryland and D.C.

Romney in Wisconsin

As previously written, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell pointed out that Rick Santorum has a track record in 2012 of almost winning the large industrial states—Ohio, Michigan. Santorum maintained the same pattern in Wisconsin on April 3. Once again in Wisconsin, Santorum won among non-suburbanites and non-urbanites, but not with enough to carry the state.

 

Santorum in Wisconsin

Wisconsin has 72 counties, of which Santorum carried 46—yet another state where wide swaths of rural land area went mostly for Santorum. This is a point touted by Santorum himself, on the campaign trail.

 

The pattern in Michigan

The Santorum campaign seems not to have picked up on the difference between counties and congressional districts. In the GOP primary process, Wisconsin’s delegates are awarded on the basis of congressional districts won, not counties won. Those wide tracts of low population density amount to maybe six or nine Wisconsin delegates awarded to Santorum.

Let’s skip the least interesting and enlightening aspects of current reporting, namely the suspense over whether, or how, Santorum will be pressured to ‘step aside’ from the GOP primary contests to benefit Mitt Romney.

Romney with friends

More significance lies in how candidates like Santorum score in our ‘country’ areas in the first place—lack of information—and how we as a nation treat our ‘country’—with neglect. Santorum has not been shy about using the politics of resentment. His entire campaign has boiled down essentially to two claims:

1) I’m one of you, and

2) We’re under attack

That these claims are false has not deterred the campaign. The grain of truth lies in the second—not in Santorum’s ridiculous and near-blasphemous pretense that he is being criticized for his ‘faith’, but in the fact that any disadvantaged region is vulnerable, and world history teaches us that vulnerable means a possibility of being preyed upon.  In other words, relatively easy picking for Rick Santorum and his ilk.

Our country areas need broadband; they need good schools; they need safe potable water, clean air and viable soil. They need access to health care and medical attention, to responsible media and good communications, to safe air travel and to useful freight and passenger rail. They do not need maximum-security prison complexes, nuclear waste dumps, mountain-top open mines, toxic waste dumps and the so-called ‘oil pipeline’ from Canada, a ground conduit for toxic waste.

But the latter are what they get.

And—of course–candidates like Santorum who facilitate this set-up, which is also broadly facilitated by the GOP. Does anyone believe that that stuff about “burdensome regulations” is actually about ‘creating jobs’?

Back to the South, to the ‘country’, and to our country. There is a difference between quote-country and real country, just as there is a difference between quote-religion and genuine faith, between quote-jobs and a genuinely viable economy, between quote-debt and real deficit reduction. On all these topics, people with the least access to information get jawboned by exactly the officeholders and candidates most devoted to taking advantage of their audiences. Nice work if you can get it.

Our rightwing media personalities provide some blatant examples. Glenn Beck is out there hysterically pitching gold—at a time when gold prices are sky-high. Rush Limbaugh himself reads an advertising pitch for some company that supposedly deals with the IRS for you.

There is a broad question of why, exactly, this nation so neglects some of its most valuable resources. We are used to raising this question, at least sometimes, in regard to our land and water, but the question applies to ‘country’ people as well. Why is it a given that our rural population in the U.S. is to be handed over like meat on the hoof to some of the sleaziest and most venal practitioners of either politics or communications seen since David Duke?

 

Back to the GOP primaries

At least there has been some improved clarity in the national political press, now able to look at GOP primary voters in terms of greater population density versus less. As previously written, Santorum has taken most of the less populous counties, and he has taken states where rural and small-town counties and congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas and suburbs–Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi. In this metric, as said, Santorum has been facing a divided field of Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul dividing the more populated areas. It will be mildly interesting to see how many more delegates Santorum picks up, as more people get hip to the demographic pattern. So far, the metric has held up (green highlighting below)—except for Wisconsin (red).

 

*Run-down of remaining contests by metro-versus-rural metric, re-posted

  • Missouri March 17 Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18 Romney, 23 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20 Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24 Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates Proportional
  • DC April 3 Romney, 19 delegates Winner-take-all statewide [Santorum not on ballot]
  • Maryland April 3 Romney, 37 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3 Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24 Romney, 28 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24 Romney, 17 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24 Romney, 95 delegates Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24 Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24 Romney, 19 delegates Proportional
  • Indiana May 8 Santorum, 46 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8 Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8 Santorum, 31 delegates Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15 Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22 Santorum, 36 delegates Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22 Santorum, 45 delegates Proportional
  • Texas May 29 Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates Proportional
  • California June 5 Romney, 172 delegates Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5 Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5 Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5 Romney, 23 delegates Proportional
  • South Dakota June 5 Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26 Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

Trayvon Martin, question 3: When Trayvon Martin was cleared to enter the gated community, did anyone notify Neighborhood Watch?

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Trayvon Martin, question 3: When Trayvon Martin was cleared to enter the gated community, did anyone notify Neighborhood Watch?

 

Retreat at Twin Lakes

Like many gated communities, The Retreat at Twin Lakes, where Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman lived and shot Trayvon Martin,  has a homeowners association. As with any electronically controlled gate access, there is a protocol for being buzzed in.

According to Ryan Julison, assistant to Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump, Twin Lakes is actually not entirely gated. There is also no guard at the gate, there are no high fences. The community is just modest condos, Julison says, not protected with the electronic equivalent of a castle moat. So the Gate Access Form provided by The Retreat at Twin Lakes Homeowners Association could be considered somewhat misleading. (See instructions below.)

 

Trayvon Martin in family photograph

Still, getting inside the community through the gate requires punching in, either providing the code or dialing the phone number of the person you’re visiting, and being buzzed in. A useful route map and backtracking guide are provided here.  Sanford Police Officer Timothy Smith, who also provided the exculpatory comment that George Zimmerman had grass stains on his back and a nose bleed, reported that Trayvon Martin’s body was found “laying in the grass between the residences of 1231 Twin Trees Ln. and 2821 Retreat View Cir.” Other writers have suggested that Trayvon Martin came back from the convenience store through another spot in the complex grounds.

Memorials at Twin Lakes

Either way, my question is simple: After Trayvon Martin received access, did anyone get in touch with ‘Neighborhood Watch’ to let patrollers know that he had been cleared for entry?

The short answer is no. No one ‘cleared’ anything with George Zimmerman, because no one had a duty to do so. George Zimmerman—unlike his father, Robert Zimmerman–was not an official. He had no authority to act. This is a tragically inept set-up: Zimmerman had a concealed-weapon permit, he carried a gun on his hip sometimes, he was a Neighborhood Watch volunteer who watched the community. But he was not bound by any protocols—except the law, theoretically—and no one had any obligation to report anything to him.

George Zimmerman

Thus no one would have thought to notify Zimmerman, or the Neighborhood Watch, at any time, when a visitor was cleared for entry or buzzed in at The Retreat.

There was no ‘safe list’, so no one was safe from vigilantism

At times when George Zimmerman was the only watch volunteer, or the main watch volunteer—unofficially the ‘captain’ of Neighborhood Watch there—did anyone get in touch with him, to let him know that such-and-such person was okay? No.

Did the Homeowners Association, or Leland Management—which provided the gate access protocol—or anyone else, get in touch with George Zimmerman/whoever was patrolling, to let him know when a visitor had been cleared? No.

Unlike with real police, and real security guards, on real duty, there was nothing in the set-up, no protocol in place, to safeguard exit as well as entry. There was nothing to inform George Zimmerman of the difference between suspicious characters, on one hand, and neighbors and their guests on the other.

Zimmerman’s father and brother have said in interviews that George Zimmerman was returning from somewhere—i.e. presumably not patrolling—at the time he called 911 upon seeing Trayvon Martin. However, it may be noted that Robert J. Zimmerman, a retired magistrate judge from Virginia, also said in an open letter to the Orlando Sentinel that his son did not get out of his vehicle.

In subsequent interviews Zimmerman, like his son Robert Zimmerman, Jr., has contradicted his Sentinel statement, stating repeatedly that George Zimmerman was outside fighting on the ground with Trayvon Martin, even having his head beaten on the sidewalk.

Zimmerman’s lawyer, Craig Sonner, is currently not available for comment.

Presumably the authorities are supposed to infer that Zimmerman did not recognize Trayvon Martin as someone staying at the community. Zimmerman’s 911 call to police suggests that he did not know or recognize Martin. The Sanford Police Department letter to the community residents the day after the Feb. 26 shooting identifies Trayvon Martin, not by name, as “another resident of the community.” George Zimmerman is said by other residents to have patrolled regularly. But there is nothing to indicate that visitors at the gated community were safeguarded from vigilantism—except by staying indoors, as one of the residents said in the news report linked here. “There was not any sort of organized system,” Julison says.

On some other questions—as to whether George Zimmerman has a passport, has dual citizenship, or is currently in the United States—Julison is not able to provide answers.

 

Excerpted from Gate Access Form:

“RETREAT AT TWIN LAKES HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC.

. . .

gates@lelandmanagement.com

GATE ACCESS FORM

 

“Visitors should use the directory at the gate to call your telephone for access. Press “9” on your telephone keypad to open the gate for your visitor. The system will not accept long distance telephone numbers; they must be local (407) or (321) numbers. We do not recommend the use of cellular phone numbers as not all are compatible with the gate access system.

 

“The gate system for your community uses a remote transponder. To register and activate your device, please provide the5 digit # for each. The 5 digit # for the remote can be found on the back of the unit, farthest to the right under the wordPIN.

Device #1

5 Digit Pin #

. . .

 

____ ____ ____ ____ ____ If you would like to purchase an additional remote transponder they are available in our office for a cost of $50.00 each. Please send or deliver a check/money order payable to: Retreat at Twin Lakes at the address above. A pre-activated remote will be mailed to the property address listed above. We ask that you allow 3 to 4 business days for the mail delivery.

Need Keypad Code?

Your community also allows personal access codes to be used to gain access from the key pad. If you would like to request a Personal Entry Code, supply the 4 digits of your choice. We ask that you please not select obvious codes such as 1234 and four identical digits. If you choose to share your code with your guests or vendors, you will be held responsible for any individual using your code.

Code:

____ ____ ____ ____ (4 numeric digits)”

 

The fullest compilation of timeline with background information on the shooting of Trayvon Martin is that provided by wikipedia.

Public records in the case are posted at CNN.com.