Sunday, June 27, 2004
..................
Republican Invasion
Am I alone in feeling oppressed, deeply offended, and intimidated by the impending Republican National Convention in New York City, my home?
No one asked our permission for this boorish imposition on the inhabitants of this city. We will be under marshall law in my neighborhood, northern Chelsea, for the entire time—5 or 6 days, and maybe a few before the convention actually convenes. Eighth Avenue from 23rd to 34th Streets will be closed all those days; demonstrators will be confined to 31st Street and Eighth Avenue, no doubt spilling down numerous blocks. Which means police will be swarming around them, maybe on horses like the nightmare last year on Third Avenue from the 40s to the 70s or 80s. Only this time it will last for 6 days, not 6 hours.
Thousands of city taxpayers will have no escape from this but to abandon our homes. Most of us neither can nor want to do this.
Many major city streets will be closed to traffic, which as anyone who is here on a daily basis knows has a profound ripple gridlock effect on much of Manhattan, far beyond the edges of Madison Square Garden.
Precious millions of dollars are being spent on accommodating this invading corps of the cold, dead rich, money which we all know is urgently needed for housing, education, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure——exactly those things Republicans don't want to allow us as a nation to spend our money on.
Yeh, yeh, I've heard that the convention will bring over 200 million dollars here. Start by deducting the millions the City is spending on theater tickets for conventioneers, and more millions for more goodies and special conveniences to insure that the leisure class is kept clear of the realities of our great city——like a pedestrian footbridge to funnel the great unwashed away from the monomaniacal zealots.
So New Yorkers must be inconvenienced——and for what?
So that the Corporate Power-Mad Party whose incompetence brought us September Eleventh can come and celebrate on-site the fruits of that calamity: permanent war.
....................
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Republican Invasion
Am I alone in feeling oppressed, deeply offended, and intimidated by the impending Republican National Convention in New York City, my home?
No one asked our permission for this boorish imposition on the inhabitants of this city. We will be under marshall law in my neighborhood, northern Chelsea, for the entire time—5 or 6 days, and maybe a few before the convention actually convenes. Eighth Avenue from 23rd to 34th Streets will be closed all those days; demonstrators will be confined to 31st Street and Eighth Avenue, no doubt spilling down numerous blocks. Which means police will be swarming around them, maybe on horses like the nightmare last year on Third Avenue from the 40s to the 70s or 80s. Only this time it will last for 6 days, not 6 hours.
Thousands of city taxpayers will have no escape from this but to abandon our homes. Most of us neither can nor want to do this.
Many major city streets will be closed to traffic, which as anyone who is here on a daily basis knows has a profound ripple gridlock effect on much of Manhattan, far beyond the edges of Madison Square Garden.
Precious millions of dollars are being spent on accommodating this invading corps of the cold, dead rich, money which we all know is urgently needed for housing, education, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure——exactly those things Republicans don't want to allow us as a nation to spend our money on.
Yeh, yeh, I've heard that the convention will bring over 200 million dollars here. Start by deducting the millions the City is spending on theater tickets for conventioneers, and more millions for more goodies and special conveniences to insure that the leisure class is kept clear of the realities of our great city——like a pedestrian footbridge to funnel the great unwashed away from the monomaniacal zealots.
So New Yorkers must be inconvenienced——and for what?
So that the Corporate Power-Mad Party whose incompetence brought us September Eleventh can come and celebrate on-site the fruits of that calamity: permanent war.
....................
Friday, June 18, 2004
................
Preface to Love
We must become conscious of our brutality
To see it as unnecessary
Offer mutual respect
Help each other see
That violence is unnecessary,
Beyond Live and let live
Live and help live.
................
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Preface to Love
We must become conscious of our brutality
To see it as unnecessary
Offer mutual respect
Help each other see
That violence is unnecessary,
Beyond Live and let live
Live and help live.
................
Thursday, June 17, 2004
.......................................
War criminals
lusting for Armageddon—
Bush & Co.—
must be jailed
to prevent their perpetrating
further crimes against civilization.
Then we must cleanse the Augean Stables
which ReaganBushCheney
have made of our country.
|
War criminals
lusting for Armageddon—
Bush & Co.—
must be jailed
to prevent their perpetrating
further crimes against civilization.
Then we must cleanse the Augean Stables
which ReaganBushCheney
have made of our country.
