Business & Professional
Pursuing Justice
Former Detroiter Jeffrey Sachs sees the damage we've done, but hope, too.
over the past 30 years:'
Citing the issues of health, transpor-
tation, finance and infrastructure as
particular problems, he believes we put
t likely wasn't coincidental that
ourselves on the path to today's prob-
the biblical injunction from
lems when we "decided to stop taking
Deuteronomy "Justice, justice
care of each other, or even think of tak-
shall thou pursue" — was in the Torah
ing care of each other:'
portion read at the recent bat mitzvah
Quoting President Ronald Reagan's
of the daughter of Dr. Jeffrey Sachs.
first
inaugural address in which he calls
After all, Sachs, director of the Earth
government
the
Institute at Columbia University and a
problem
and
not
world leader in the fight against pov-
the
solution,
Sachs
erty, has devoted his life to making the
said, "We turned
concept of justice a reality for people
our back on our
around the globe.
most important
Sachs gave the first of four "Legacy
collective instru-
Lectures" celebrating 50 years of the
ment to take care of
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
in Michigan. His late father, Ted Sachs, a each other:'
Spreading the
prominent Detroit labor lawyer, was an
blame
to the politi-
ACLU of Michigan founder.
cal
parties
as well
"As Moses learned, it's not enough to
as
the
American
just state the laws and principles; you
people, who have
have to defend the law every day:' Sachs
said in tribute to the ACLU and his father. demanded easy and
painless answers,
Though Sachs has moved far beyond
Sachs said that
his Oak Park roots to be a champion of
since 1991 there
Africans, South Americans and others
has not been one
devastated by economic and ecological
major social initia- Dr. Jeffrey Sachs
disasters, his talk to 150 celebrants on
tive — except for
Sept. 10 at Adat Shalom Synagogue in
President Bill Clinton's welfare reform,
Farmington Hills made it clear that the
which he called "a backward one."
challenges facing our country, our state
"We've been mean:' he said.
and Detroit are close to his heart.
Comparing our government revenues
"We have been brought disastrously
to those of Europe, Sachs says it's clear
closed to a cliff;' Sachs said, express-
why we don't have the money to provide
ing disappointment across the political
for our citizens. For example, during
spectrum. "It's not just a crisis of errors
and misjudgment and greed, but a crisis the past 28 years, the U.S. government
spent only 18 percent of our gross
of governance and a crisis of how we
national product (GNP) for societal
treat each other. There was no inevita-
needs while states have averaged 12 per-
bility to the crisis we are facing — [it
is] because of specific decisions or deci- cent; European countries averaged 40
sions we've failed to take in this country percent of GNP, with the most successful
Don Cohen
Special to the Jewish News
I
—
Sachs Sees State's Strengths
While cognizant of the serious prob-
lems Michigan and the city of Detroit
face, Jeffrey Sachs shared his excite-
ment about the developments he
observed the previous day while
touring the General Motors plant that
will produce the Chevy Volt, a plug-in
hybrid electric vehicle expected out
next fall that will get 240 miles per
gallon. Sachs was briefed by top GM
officials and engineers.
"I really liked what I saw and I
heard," he said. "General Motors is one
of the world's most important value
companies, and they have wonderful
engineering talent and world-class
capacity.
"We have the potential for techno-
logical leadership and I believe that
this region can help lead the world.
We can make a measurable and crucial
step for our whole planet as well as for
ourselves."
countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
Finland) averaging close to 50 percent.
"This is just common sense:' Sachs
claimed. "We decided not to do this.
We decided we didn't like each other
enough to actually carry forward a
society of justice. Societies don't run by
themselves:' He says we must raise rev-
enue for civility, for decency, for justice
and for economic sufficiency.
While an
ardent admirer of
President Obama,
he says his pledge
not to raise taxes
except on those
making more than
$250,000 a year
will not allow us
to get out of the
crisis we are in. In
addition to new
taxes on top earn-
ers, Sachs called
for a levy on Wall
Street and getting
back tens of bil-
lions of dollars in
bonuses as well
as a higher pay-
roll tax. He also
advocates that the U.S. stop "spending
and wasting $100 billion or more in
Afghanistan:' which he sees as futile.
Rather than fighting Islamism and
ideology by military means, he advocates
addressing the ecology and poverty to
make the world safer and more humane.
"When I look for funding for these
things, I'm told the money is not there:'
he said, insisting it can and must be
there. Based on GNP, he says Europe
spends five times more on development
assistance than the United States does.
But Sachs' frank and devastating anal-
ysis was not without hope. He believes
we can address these growing problems
if we have the will to do so.
He is encouraged by the American
people's dissatisfaction with the status
quo and belief in the need for change.
And, as America increasingly becomes a
country of color, he said, "We look more
like the world and we will want to take
care of each other more.
"I'm optimistic," Sachs said. "It's com-
plicated but there is absolutely nothing
that cannot be solved. We need to show
decency to each other, a sense of justice
and wisdom."
Jules Olsman, an attorney from
Huntington Woods, was impressed that
Sachs "explained such complicated
things in such an easy-to-understand
way. He has a way of distilling ideas to
get to the essence:'
"The idea of having a society where
people actually care is not complex:' said
Mary Ellen Gurewitz of Detroit, a labor
lawyer with Sachs Waldman, where Ted
Sachs was her partner. "It's such a funda-
mental idea, but to the extent we've had it
in the past, we've lost it.
"We need to tax ourselves to pay for
the things we need to provide for our
society and it needs to be said over and
over and over again:' I 1
In fact, the ecological crises Sachs
sees on the horizon will highlight the
importance of Michigan in other ways,
too.
"In a world of climate change, this
is going to be a favored area," Sachs
said, noting that Michigan will not suf-
fer intense hurricanes, rising oceans
that will cover coastal land or lack of
water like many parts of our country
and world will.
"We've got a lot of building to do,
but we've got a lot of reasons for
hope," he said. Michigan will perse-
vere because of "the people, the skills
and the great capacity we have, and
because it is a beautiful place to live."
"He does his father proud," said
Kathleen Straus of Detroit, who is
president of the Michigan State Board
of Education. "We get so bogged down
with all the bad news, it important to
remember that we have great resourc-
es and assets in Michigan and Detroit."
Three more Legacy Lectures are
scheduled in 2010 as part of the
50th anniversary celebration of
the Michigan ACLU. The lectures
will deal with diversity, health care
and education equity. For more
information: (313) 578-6800 or
www.aclumich.org .
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