October 29, 2005
Andrea Bernstein's piece on the Ferrer campaign all but put the final nail in his political coffin See Fresh's blog on the same). This is the thing I hate the most about the American two party system, polls and pundits. It is so easy to sway the public and to convince them that it's not even worth voting. It's really a shame that voters can be persuaded not to go to the polls because the election is over before it even begins.
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elections, mayor, wnyc
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Posted on 10/29/2005
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October 27, 2005
While the right bickers over whether Evangelical Faith or Great Intellect should rule the party, the Democrats have a chance to sit back and take a look at themselves. Here in NYC, we're willing to vote for Bloomberg (ok, so he WAS a democrat once), because we're pretty darn happy with the general flow of things - comfy, safe...). But outside, in the ROC, there is a red-state riff. People aren't all that happy. Consumer confidence is low. Does it mean that the republicans out there will be willing to vote for a Democrat? Maybe if one converted.... The only good thing about Meier's withdrawl is that, at least for a while, there will be a separation of church and state.
But who is next? Will Bush bring back Bork? Or Brownie? Scooter?
Just thinking out loud...
Tags:
bloomberg, democrats, separation of church and state
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Posted on 10/27/2005
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October 25, 2005
Now that the Voice has been purchased by a nation-wide, ad-focused group (okay, so they say they are all “alternative” papers but ….), what does the future hold for NYC’s independently minded?
Perhaps this is just another symptom of the Great Generational Divide and the abyss into which the counter-culture of yesteryear has fallen. The reasons cited for selling off the Voice to a group were all financial – that is, that selling ads was no longer making the money it once did. Specifically, Craigslist.org was named as having a direct and detrimental impact on the Voice. Free vs Free. Poor Craig – he is getting it from all sides now, and all the guy ever wanted to do was set up a community bulletin board.
The Neocons who have always despised the First Amendment and papers such as the Voice (which, Like Rolling Stone Magazine, at one time had a much greater impact on Political thought than it does today) are probably smiling in their leather chairs. It seems like all the independent voices are being glossed and glammed up into gossip rags and ad space for Fendi bags.
Is this a sign that the Left is dead and gone? Have we reached that point where dialogue is decided by paid advertising?
Just thinking out loud….
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Posted on 10/25/2005
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October 23, 2005
At first, Marimar thought this was going to be one of those tongue-in-cheek parties that pop up during election years, like Sister Sadie the Rabbi Lady and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (whom Marimar saw dancing in a chorus line when the Regan-Republican machine landed in Dallas for the convention). But when Marimar read through the website she was shocked to find it not only real but targeting Williamsburgh as a center of apartheid.
Marimar warns others that such inflammatory rhetoric never leads to any good end. While rent is too damn high, the Rent is Too Damn High party is nothing just another fascist party trying to get in the news.
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Posted on 10/23/2005
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October 19, 2005
It is true that Bloomberg was a Democrat until there were just too many of them running for mayor for B. to get a good footing for the race. Plus, there was the Giuliani afterglow. Now, with Ferrer lingering in the polls, it is clear that only Bill Clinton could beat B. in a race for Mayor.
It seems perverse somehow that B. switched parties yet stands for things the right despises, like Choice & Gay Rights, and no one talks about it, not even Pataki, who is so likely to open his gaping maw in an attempt to sound presidential.
Let's see what B. has to say once some big cases get to the Supreme Court. Let's see if he can stay in a party that so clearly desires to curtail civil liberties, create a an ever wider gap between rich and poor, re-package Empire, and put the military in charge of internal defense (all of this predicted by Plato, remember). Yes, the Democracy has run amuck and now it is time for the Just King to rule, because everyone knows that when democracy falls apart, an Authoritarian Regime takes over. Bloomberg switching sides in order to win represents not motivation but disintegration. The Roman Senate was all pwerful until Cesar swept into town with an army and put an end to that. Would we allow that to happen in order to control terrorism? At least the Romans had a great sense of style.
Who shall be the next Cesar?
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Posted on 10/19/2005
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October 14, 2005
It seems that the terror threat here in the city was generated by email sent to “important” people (voir Rich, Powerful, Select) here in the city and then was leaked to the NYPD.
So many questions have to be asked at this point. Who at Homeland Security is leaking such things and why only to the friends of highly placed people? The rest of us can risk getting on the subway & being blown to bits – but not the jelly-bellied who’s who of NYC’s moneyed class? It’s not like they ride the subway anyway – that’s left to the rest of us, the hoi polloi, the huddled masses, the service sector.
It is sickening to think that 99.9 percent of the city’s population would be hung out to dry while the in-crowd scrambles to protect its assets. It’s not surprising, just sickening. Well, at least we now have part of the truth out there.
I doubt Bloomberg will address this in a speech, and it's just way too late for Fernando
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Posted on 10/14/2005
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October 12, 2005
It seems that the City of NY is following in the Federal foot-steps of making the evidence fit the desired outcome.
One is left asking the question, “If this weren’t an election year, would such an announcement have been made?”
Public opinion was swayed just as the Republican spin machine desired: polls show a huge jump in Bloomberg’s rating with the public.
It seems like these continual sound bites and alerts come straight out of the Office of Strategic Influence, complete with foot-notes citing Adam Shulsky and his overt approval of deception in intelligence.
Anyone with an ounce of moral fibre knows that lying in order to reach a desired outcome is just as wrong now as it ever was. No society is free when the apparatus of government lies in order reach a political end.
But then, neo-cons and the guardians of the extreme right intelligencia make no pretence to a free society. Like Plato, Nietzsche, Strauss, Bloom, Karl Schmidt and yes Clarence Thomas they believe that masses are not fit for truth or for liberty.
So, here in NYC, we the masses are now being subjected to these “terror threats” and sent into a panic like rabbits, and then we beseech the powers that be for protection and comfort. It sounds like the backdrop to a bad medieval play. But it is just an election year in the 5 boroughs....
Tags:
bloom, bloomberg, free society, neo cons, strauss
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Posted on 10/12/2005
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October 10, 2005
It seems Mayor Bloomberg has been reading the Weekly Standard to get advice on how to best serve the people. A stronger America indeed - safeguarding the country & city indeed.
We are spending all our time & energy to give the appearance of a safe subway system that can't be penetrated by evil-doers.
I for one feel safe - especially when I see the escalators in Grand Central plastered with fresh graffiti. If there are so many police & troops on the case, how can these hooligans deface the property so easily? Couldn't they just as well have been carrying a weapon other than a can of spraypaint?
Tags:
bloomberg, neo cons, weekly standard
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Posted on 10/10/2005
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October 09, 2005
The recent spate of warnings to hit the people of NYC have had two effects. The first is to make us all wonder about the veracity of the statements. The second is to further numb us to such statements.
The announcements seemed timed to coincide with Ferrer's attack on Bloomberg's administration, the sort of deflector-shield invoked by Republicans on the national level. To every soundbite, spin, spin, spin.... it will not always lead to win, win, win.
Certainly our Monarch, GWB II sits where he does because he and his cronies knew how to feed the public panic. Let us see if Bloomberg has the right stuff to keep this all spinning in conjunction with the programming on the History Channel and other media outlets that continue to show NYC ablaze.
We no longer know what is real and what is not. When is a threat taken seriously? Who makes them? Who makes them up? We may never know.
For those of us who have had our bags checked by the NYPD and who ride alongside armed National Guard Troops, is there a sense of safety? I for one just don't know. Obviously,intelligence has been faulty. Maybe we should all pray about it and see if God tells us who to kill next.
The linking of religion, a police state and absolute rule have a long history - reaching all the way back to the Near East - Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Rome, Byzantium and to modern Germany....
For New Yorkers who are now becoming oblivious to police presence and loaded weapons, will we give over to even more state control?
Tags:
bloomberg, neo cons, nypd, public panic
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Posted on 10/9/2005
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October 06, 2005
The long, cold fingers of Chicago’s conservative school, founded by Bloom and with Ashcroft and Wolfowitz as the current standard bearers, have been slowly strangling the Civil Rights Commission to death.
Voting. Such a simple and pure idea. But for how much longer will every work-a-day citizen be able to effectively vote?
Long ago, in a Fascist country far away, a man named Strauss was honing his verbal sword and creating just the sort of rhetoric that one hears today from the mouths of his followers (the now deceased neo-con Bloom being the martyred intercessory) such as Ashcroft who are quick to curtail Civil Rights under the argument that in a War on Terror there has to be a suspension of Civil Rights from time to time.
Now, with Bush appointees using just such rhetoric to eviscerate the Human Rights Commission, we as a nation must come to grips with what is happening.
Vote now, for you may not always be able to do so.
Commit a crime, lose your vote. Have a name that sounds like a criminal who did commit a crime, lose your vote. Live in a low income neighborhood with faulty or lacking machines, lose your vote. In the past, you could have asked your state to intercede on your behalf. But now all intercessions are granted via those post-Straussian neo-cons who respond to any complaint like the Inquisition responded to pleas for mercy. (Unless you are counted among the Blessed Faithful , in which case you get appointed to a commission or court for which you have no viable skills - except your faith.)
We are witnessing an erosion of the Civil Rights that we are supposedly fighting for, and we can’t even see it.
Today we have the perfect conditions for a proto-totalitarian state to emerge. We can’t see it because there are so many distractions. We don’t want to see it because we don’t think of ourselves as neo-Nazis. But we are allowing neo-fascist policy to be made to made all around us.
Rather than predict doom and gloom, it is best to give the neo-cons this caveat – The Screw Can Always Turn.
Many of us hope that it will, but the reality is that we lose avenues for redress like the rain forests of the world lose trees. At some point, we won’t be able to breathe.
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Posted on 10/6/2005
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