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Stop Moskowitz
Here is an opportunity for California voters to take a stand for justice here at home and help the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East at the same time.
A group of urban gambling businesses aiming to get richer is using racism to promote a ballot measure that could wrest from California Indian tribes the economic self-sufficiency they have achieved –after centuries of degradation -- with Nevada-style gambling. The initiative, which recently qualified for the November ballot, would permit the backers to install slot machines in their urban card clubs and racetracks unless all 53 casino-owning tribes agree to pay 25% of their profits to local agencies pre-selected by the measure's backers. They are calling this 25% – impossible for smaller, out-of-the-way tribal casinos -- the Indians' "fair share." It amounts to cutting into Indian profits, one way or the other.
We believe that term, "fair share" cynically whips up public envy of sovereign Indian tribes' economic achievements. As Jews, we recall how the Nazis whipped up public jealousy of German Jews' success. We are particularly appalled that one of the gambling businesses that would benefit is owned by Irving Moskowitz, a major funder of hardline Israeli settlers. We urge you urge you to click here to sign a statement calling on the initiative backers not to use the term "fair share" in their campaign.
To sign the statement by the Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem please click here.
Clicking will open a new browser window. You can then come back here to send a letter to the governor and your legislators and state senators.
Sent by Jewish Voice for Peace on behalf of The Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: Oppose The Gaming Revenue Act
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
To Irving Moskowitz, owner of the Hawaiian Gardens Casino, and to the owners and principals of the following gambling enterprises: Artichoke Joe's Casino, Bay Meadows, the Bicycle Casino, California Grand Casino, the Commerce Club, Crystal Park Casino, Hollywood Park, Hustler Casino, Los Alamitos Race Course, Lucky Chances, Normandie Casino, Oceans Eleven Casino, Santa Anita Race Track.
We the undersigned call upon the above-named sponsors and backers of the "Fair Share for California" ballot initiative which would authorize urban casino slot machines to immediately remove the references to a purported Indian or tribal "fair share" from every place in their promotional materials where these phrases occur - including the initiative title. We also call on the sponsors and backers of the initiative to publicly renounce the use of any language implying, suggesting or announcing that their ballot measure will extract a "fair share" from Native American gambling enterprises.
The initiative backers should renounce and forswear use of the phrase because it is racist.
Why, after Europeans, ancestors of some of us, stole this continent from the Indians and decimated them many times over, would anything the Indians possess be our fair share?
As Jews, the initiators of this statement find the "fair share" phrase abhorrent for the memories it prompts.
Less than a century after German Jews were "emancipated" -- permitted for the first time to engage in the occupations of their choice - the Nazis were whipping up public jealously of Jews' economic success.
Similarly, less than a decade after tribes achieved economic viability for their sovereignty, those who covet their wealth or want to distract aggrieved taxpayers are mischievously suggesting that Indian gambling profits are ill-gotten.
One of the ballot measure's donors and potential beneficiaries, casino owner Irving Moskowitz, who has been quoted in the press saying that 120 relatives perished in the Holocaust, should certainly know better.
All of the sponsors, however, are responsible for funding a campaign that is whipping up jealously of Indians, fanning racism against them in order to win a ballot measure that will give their casinos and race tracks slot machines and millions in personal profits. The "fair share" phrase is particularly unseemly when invoked by wealthy individuals who bear a minimal tax burden compared to middle-class taxpayers. Such stark self interest makes the need to banish the hateful term all the more urgent.
Sincerely,
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