War on the Poor

WHEN Marvin Gempler, manager of the Washington Growers League in Washington State, wrote to the Legal Services Corporation in Washington, D.C., to complain about the onslaught of cases against farmers by Evergreen Legal Services, he received with his reply a copy of an article: “The Quest for Justice: Why Does It Have Enemies?”

For too long, the LSC has been identified with the quest for justice for the poor in civil cases. In fact, the programs funded by the LSC—which was established by Congress to provide federal funds to and loosely “monitor” more than three hundred programs across the country—are designed to implement the philosophy of an elite corps of Sixties-style radicals (Green Berets of the Left, as one critic termed them) who use the poor as tools, and then leave them behind as victims.

About the Author

Rael Jean Isaac

Rael Jean Isaac is a co-author, with Virginia Armat, of Madness in the Streets: How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill.

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WHEN Marvin Gempler, manager of the Washington Growers League in Washington State, wrote to the Legal Services Corporation in Washington, D.C., to complain about the onslaught of cases against farmers by Evergreen Legal Services, he received with his reply a copy of an article: “The Quest for Justice: Why Does It Have Enemies?”

For too long, the LSC has been identified with the quest for justice for the poor in civil cases. In fact, the programs funded by the LSC—which was established by Congress to provide federal funds to and loosely “monitor” more than three hundred programs across the country—are designed to implement the philosophy of an elite corps of Sixties-style radicals (Green Berets of the Left, as one critic termed them) who use the poor as tools, and then leave them behind as victims.