Shrugging All the Way

THE latest excitement in Hudson County — news that quite a few politicians are "double dipping," pulling in multiple salaries and pensions — has met with the usual reaction from taxpayers.  No, not gnashing of teeth or pulling of hair.  There’s no protest at City Hall or public rally demanding change.

The reaction instead is a collective shrug of the shoulders.  The fact that double dipping is not illegal — at least not yet — makes the shrug even bigger.  More than a million shoulders, all shrugging at once, make a terrific sound, if your ears are sharp enough to pick it up.

Having grown up in Hudson County, I have my ears finely tuned.  Though I now live out of state, I can still hear that shrug, still hear what people are saying miles away:  It’s no big deal.  After all, double dipping means only that you have two (or more) public office positions and two (or more) pensions.  I mean, there are guys taking bribes in musty back rooms, in well-lighted city offices, out in the open on construction sites even as we speak.  A little double or triple dipping is nothing.  At least these guys are working — working hard, I might add.  Nothing to raise your voice about.

After I wrote "Five-Finger Discount," a book documenting decades of Hudson County corruption and abuse, there was much more of an uproar.  Maybe it was a case of killing the messenger, but people from Hudson County protested — even some of my own relatives complained.  How dare I badmouth Hudson County!  How dare I say crooks have not only lived in but ruled the place for decades!

There were letters, to me and to the local papers, calling for my head; people showing up at local book readings to argue with me over my description of Jersey City, citizens saying that those were the old days, that Hudson County didn’t operate like that anymore.

I shrugged.

Within months, Hudson was embroiled in one of its biggest scandals ever, the indictment of County Executive Robert Janiszewski for extortion and tax evasion.  Bobby J., hiding out as a government informant at a ski resort, had worn a wiretap and brought an avalanche of other Hudson crooks down with him.

One of them was the publisher of the first newspaper I ever worked for, The Hudson Reporter.  He was a local developer named Joe Barry.  When I read his name in the papers, tied to bribery charges, my stomach lurched; it’s the way most Hudson denizens react when they read a friend or relative has been fingered.

He’s a good guy, I thought.  When you do business in Hudson County, you have to grease the skids.  There’s no way around it.  It’s been going on for a century, since the crooked days of Mayor Frank Hague, a local folk hero.  This is a place where SWAG (Stolen Without a Gun) is a way of life; where SWAG feeds you, clothes you and keeps you entertained.  You take as much as your arms will hold, and you run very fast.

My father, after all, fed us with the steak and lobster that fell off the truck at his job at the Union Terminal Cold Storage.  It was socially acceptable.  I mean, who didn’t have a cousin with a no-show job in the public works department?  But it’s no big deal, right?

My former boss went to prison.  But I thought, and still think from time to time, that what he did was no big deal.  Not by Hudson County standards.  He was a prince among frogs.  The crimes trickle down, or up, depending on how you look at it.  And we shrug our collective shrug and forget about it until the next scandal.

Which, of course, is the problem.  It’s not the illegal — or unethical — actions themselves that are such a shame in Hudson County, but the lack of reaction by the citizens who ultimately pay the price for them.

There’s the rotting infrastructure, the soaring taxes, the lingering toxic waste, the dirty streets, the clean politicians who suffer from guilt by association simply because they’re from Hudson County.  All because some jerk is putting money in his pocket when it’s supposed to go someplace else.  It all trickles away, dollar by dollar, money meant to make the county a little prettier, a little more respectable — but instead going to pay for ski resorts and extra pensions.

Prosecutors can put away dozens, no, hundreds more Hudson County criminals.  Legislators can vote to make double dipping illegal.  But it won’t matter.  Because until we stop shrugging and throw the bums out — the ones who refuse to tell right from wrong — the Bobby J.’s and envelope padders and takers will continue to conduct business as usual.

When the culture changes, when all our shoulders are used to carry the burden of Hudson’s reputation, without shrugging, when people start yelling at council meetings and writing letters and demanding change, Hudson County might just struggle out of the muck of its antiquated, corrupt system of back scratching and patronage and SWAG.  Until then, it’s double dipping all around.

Send mail to email@gaypasg.org with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1998 - 2008 Gay & Lesbian Political Action & Support Groups
Last modified: June 20, 2008 by Outstanding Web Stuff