There Can Be No Compromise on Gadsden Flag Flap in New Rochelle with Tail-Gunner Noam

I am not familiar with Michael Cammer but based on a Letter to the Editor he sent to the Journal News he is apparently a New Rochelle resident who imagines that the solution to a recently filed Federal lawsuit over the Gadsden Flag being removed from the flagpole at the New Rochelle Armory is a compromise in which the City would allow the Gadsden Flag to fly if members of the plaintiff in the case, the United Veterans Memorial & Patriotic Society of New Rochelle, would agree to maintain the public roads around the area.

With all due respect to Mr. Cammer, he is remarkably uninformed for someone who took the time to write a letter to the editor about the Gadsden Flag lawsuit. I would suggest he familiarize himself with the events that took place last spring and the actual lawsuit filed two weeks ago.

I know quite a bit about it as I have covered and reported on every aspect of this matter from day one. All of the video and photos you see on TV and in the paper of the flag being removed are from Talk of the Sound, we have been sharing them with other media outlets including NBC, CBS, News12, Fox News, New York Times, and many others.

What he will learn is that this entire issue arose out of a cynical political maneuver by Mayor Noam Bramson to win support among Democratic leaders throughout Westchester County in the weeks leading up to the Democratic Convention at which Bramson was nominated to run for County Executive. Specifically, Bramson, was seeking to win the affection of many Ken Jenkins supporters, many of whom are African-American, by creating a phony issue of alleged racism involving the Tea Party and linking that to his opponents in New Rochelle politics, in particular, military veterans.

Having gotten the nomination, Bramson would like the issue to go away.

For this reason, he has dispatched Council Member Jared Rice, who is African-American, to make peace with the veterans. Fat chance. Rice, who is playing the role of Bramson’s wing-man within Westchester’s black community, proposed as a compromise that the flag would remain down and the United Veterans would not go forward with their lawsuit. This is a good example of Bramson’s idea of negotiations — I get what I want and you get nothing!

Since he announced his campaign for CE, Bramson has invoked the Tea Party often in much the same way Joe McCarthy invoked the Communist Party in the 1950’s — as an unfounded allegation of un-American activity intend to smear his opponents and critics.

Mayor Noam Bramson and most of his fellow Democrats on City Council have taken the position that the flag is “offensive” because it is a symbol of the Tea Party and the Tea Party is “offensive” to many people living in New Rochelle. This code for their view that the Tea Party, and thus the flag, is a racist symbol and anyone who would fly the Gadsden Flag is a racist. This is precisely why one Council Member referenced the Confederate Flag the night of the City Council vote on the flag issue. In other words, Mayor Noam Bramson used the issue to tar Westchester veterans as racists.

Having staked out this position, that the flag was so “offensive” that Bramson would direct City Manager Charles Strome to take down the Gadsden flag from the New Rochelle Armory flag pole, on what basis could Bramson now “compromise”?

And what in Bramson’s history suggests he is either interested in or capable of compromise. With Noam it has always been “my way or the highway”. Noam backed himself into a corner. But is it a corner he could extricate himself from even if he wished to? The Mayor’s politicization of the Gadsden Flag, the smearing of his political opponents with “dog whistle” accusations of racism?

On what basis does Mr. Cammer or anyone else imagine their is some basis for a compromise with Mayor McCarthy Bramson?

The United Veterans want the flag back up. Noam Bramson wants it down.

This situation is precisely why we have courts — to resolve disputes that two parties cannot resolve themselves. Perhaps along the way Noam Bramson will get an education on the way playing racial politics can backfire on a candidate and maybe even learn a little about Free Speech and the First Amendment along the way.