The Park Is Fine

Washington Square Park is fine. There is no out of control noise, drugs, violent crime, nudity or sex problem in the park. A minority of residents near the NYU campus, who are mostly white and wealthy, seem to have a problem with young people - particularly brown young people - having some fun in a public park.

Yes, there are lots of young people. Yes, there are artists. Yeah, there are people putting on dancing and music performances. There are tons of sunbathers. Some people play chess. Others smoke pot. A tiny minority of people shoot up. None of this is a reason to shut the park down at 22:00 with the iron fist of the NYPD.

The park is fine.

Know what isn’t fine? The wealthy people who claim to live near Washington Square Park and want it cleared out. Let’s take this resident as a prime example:

Alan Silverstein, a 59-year-old who lives near Union Square, told Gothamist that police were right to exclude dissenting voices from the “Build the Block” meeting.

He lives “near Union Square.” So at minimum, he lives four street blocks up University place, some 0.2 miles away, and out of earshot of Washing Square Park. And he thinks that the police were right to commandeer a community meeting on June 16, and keep defenders of public space out.

People who say that Washington Square Park is "unsafe" with a straight face are either arguing in very bad faith, or they weren't alive in the 1980s. They also equate 'dirty' with 'unsafe.' I moved to NYC 26 years ago, just after Kids was filmed in the park. While I, like anyone, was approached by a weed seller ("smoke, smoke"), I was never not safe. It is ridiculously safe today. I repeat: it is safe.

I am not surprised but still disgusted by the comments from most of the local, millionaire residents. They drop the word "skateboards," as a code for brown people. Also they speak of skateboards as if they are a new phenomenon- as if there hasn't been a skate culture since the late 1960s. No one has been killed in the park. The park is one of the safest places to be in the city. I prefer a city that has people outdoors into the night hours. Washington Square Park is world famous. It's up there with the best public outdoor spaces in Paris (the French love Washington Square Park, by the way). Leave our young people alone. They are keeping the neighborhood safe simply by being there. I've seen sunbathers, not "crack" (Crack!!! What a lie). And if you are so sensitive to the noise, please move to another ZIP code.

Some light Google searches shows that the battle against young people and their skateboards in the park made the news in 2019. This is not news, nor is it a big problem.

Now if the noise and drugs are a real problem, I'd have officers handing out noise citations, and make sure the 8th Street area has a safe injection site. The overall problem of noise in the park, which isn’t a big deal, will simmer down, as it does with each NYU semester cycle. The park is both public and is a part of the small NYU campus. In terms of wealth to campus acreage, NYU has to have one the highest ratios in the world.

Do none of the olds complaining about drug use remember Needle Park? Or even Washington Square Park in the 1980s? What's happening now is cheerful and positive in comparison. In the objectors’ alternative reality, attractive young sunbathers are described as naked hooligans having public sex. Pot smokers are crack addicts. Skateboards are tools of menace and intimidation. These NIMBYs are exaggerating, embellishing, and making stuff up.

New York Deserves Eric Adams

This blog is going to post a few redundant posts this year. This is because we’re acknowledging a common theme: Americans don’t give a shit. They don’t care. That's how this empire dies. No one cared to protect it and put smart people in charge.

New Yorkers, who see themselves as special and above all other Americans, also don’t care.

How else to explain the next mayor, Eric Adams?

We know he’s a lunatic. We don’t care. We know he has no real policy ideas. We know he’s not even a Democrat. We don’t care. We know he doesn’t even live here. We don’t care. We know he sides with landlords and real estate developers, and has the audacity to blame young arrivals from Iowa and Ohio for gentrification. And we will never care.

So of course, New York City, confused by two progressives in the race for mayor, tripped, fell and let Eric Adams walk on through by less than 20,000 votes, thanks to very low turnout and a big case of not really giving a shit.

Enjoy your victory lap, Mister Adams. No, you are not the face of the Democratic party. No, you are not a rallying cry that moderates will prevail. No, you are not evidence of some sleeping giant of black power. Not the black power I prefer anyway. What utter horseshit. Fuck Errol Lewis.

Know why it’s all horseshit? Just look at how right wingers are reacting to Adams. They are already trashing him as a ‘corrupt,’ big city politician (read: black). They are trashing him using the same terms they use to trash Joe Biden, another moderate Democrat. See, the Democrats will never learn. You can declare yourself a moderate all you want, you are still going to get trashed by the same Republicans, at the same intensity, over the same non-issues. Democrats who are sincerely moderate in this era are living their dreams to be a popular 1980s Republican. Enjoy it while it lasts. Because it won’t. This republic will soon collapse.

Adams cannot wait to take over from Bill de Blasio in January 2022. He’s going to let the NYPD trample on peoples’ rights, let the real estate developers continue their profit-making run, and keep his voters happy by trashing people like me who live in Manhattan.

Trash Manhattan at your peril, asshole. And Fuck Brooklyn.®

So liberal, progressive town this is not. Look at Buffalo. What a triumph for India Walton and the DSA! Meanwhile we're heading into a dark four years of scandals, insane tirades and incomprehensible speeches. Warren Wilhelm made promises he couldn't keep, was corrupt, made his wife a city employee with a bloated staff and budget, and generally made every press conference an exercise in excuses and squirming about "unfair questions." Adams is going to take incompetence and Trump-like zaniness to a new level. Anyone unfamiliar with the history of the office being a dead-end is going to see it in action. No contemporary NYC mayor ever goes on to be congressman, senator, governor or president.

Mayor de Blasio's Lack Of Courage And Vision Failed His CIty

Mayor de Blasio is an excellent portrait of political cowardice!

Why there's such fear of the police unions remains a mystery to me. I've belonged to a union for 52 years, and I believe unions are one of the keys to empowering workers and redistributing the wealth that labor creates. But police unions are qualitatively different from all other labor organizations. In addition to the usual efforts to increase salaries and benefits, police unions pursue, and nearly always acquire, virtual immunity from either criminal or civil sanctions for their members' atrocious behaviour. Especially with respect to black men, the police have acted with impunity, assured that even murder will never bring the punishment of the law upon them. Until it's clear that the officers of the law are subject to its penalties, American police will kill unarmed black men, brutalize anyone who antagonizes them, and laugh at attempts to restrain them or hold them to account.

Which brings us back to politicians, and white voters. Since 1993, New York city has had three mayors. Rudy, a crackpot fascist, defended every atrocity committed by the police, including cold blooded murder and sexual assault with a broom. His successor, a billionaire, bought three terms in city hall, and massively violated the constitutional protections guaranteed to all residents by pushing "stop and frisk". In other words the voters in America's largest city, put known violators of constitutional rights in power for 20 consecutive years!

And then came DeBlasio. He ran as a liberal and promised an end to the abuses of the police. But, when push came to shove, he displayed a yellow streak in the face of the police unions . Why, I don't know. Maybe, after the gruesome murder of George Floyd, real change may be possible. I've been waiting for racial justice, waiting for white politicians, and above all, waiting for white voters to do the right thing.

Cowardice, denial, indifference-whatever the reason- the result has been dismal.

Trump Is Bad At Controlling The News

Aside from destructive tweets, Donald Trump can't create news like Ronald Reagan could. Remember (if you're old) Reagan going into the Eire Pub in Boston for a beer and that made news for days? It was a late example of a president "having a beer with regular [white] folks." Bill Clinton also went there and couldn't match the attention it got.

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Wasn't Trump's pose with the bible strange? He held it like it was an alien artifact. He was experimenting with awkward poses in front of his all-white staff. And where did they get it from? The church? A hotel? Trump didn’t answer a reporter’s question about the bible ownership. And that was supposed to send a strong message to his base that "he's got this," and "he's a real christian"? The White House later called the images of a strongman holding a bible to be “iconic.” No. it was very bizarre.

Trump’s attempt to control the news cycle has only supported what we already know. Trump is a failure of a leader. This nation doesn’t have a president. But not just that, the vast majority of our leaders have failed us. We are a failed state.

The Most Explicit Example Of Extrajudicial Murder In Some Time

I didn’t think we’d see a video more explicit than Eric Garner but here we are. There are some striking differences here. First, there was the extended interaction between the police and the witnesses. It went on and on. In the Garner murder, the cops did not interact with witnesses at all. Second, there was no attempt to save Mr. Floyd’s. The arriving medics knew he was expired, and I think the medics and the cops wanted him to stay that way. Third, that’s urine. We see a man pee his pants and die while under the full weight of a law enforcement officer, funded by the city of Minneapolis. And fourth, there wasn’t one instruction from the officers to Mr. Floyd as to what he had to do to make the torture stop. Usually, cops will be brutal, but they will also bark orders. Those orders help protect them from prosecution and lawsuits. Incredible that didn’t happen here. This was murder. It was like the end of Do The Right Thing. It didn’t seem real until everyone noticed that Mr. Floyd had stopped breathing. As the Asian cop (Officer Tou Thao) put it, they tried to get him into their cruiser for 10 minutes, so they were going to snuff the life out of him for 10. This was murder. And I have no expectations of either of these officers ever losing their freedom or their pensions.

We need to demand radical change. We need to show up in numbers and threaten to burn City Hall down. In every city. We need full civilian control of the police. Here in New York. Over where you are. And in the Twin Cities.

Fuck You

It's nothing personal. I don't mean fuck you, personally. I mean it in general terms. Fuck you. You know who you are, even though I don't know you personally. 

I will not stand up for you. I will not salute you. I will not call you a hero. I will not call you a first responder. I will not thank you for your service. I won't fantasize of being anything like you. I repeat, I will not use the word hero. 

It's not your fault. I have been told to worship you. I strongly reject that. Politicians have told me. Movies, going back to Backdraft have told me to idolize and honor you. But I'm 44 now. And I think I know better. And I think I see through all the bullshit that has been sold to me since September 2001 - some 16 years.

I will not stand for the Star Spangled Banner. I will not face nor salute the flag. I am not down with your program. I am not down with the USA's program. It's a broken and cruel republic. The only thing it has left is its empire. And I'm supposed to say "thank you for your service," to the men and women who maintain that empire? Bullshit. Fuck you.

To the police. I will not thank you. I will not call you when I need one. I will not respect you. I will not ask you to pose in a photo with me. Fuck you. You do not protect and serve me. You exist to police black people and make me and other white civilians feel safer. And for that politicians put you on a pedestal, and direct me to honor you. Fuck that. And fuck your evil unions, too. They are the worst. 

To the firefighters. Fuck you too, although I admit I hate you less. We do need firefighters. What we don't need are fire departments full of white supremacists. But because politicians tell me that you need to be worshiped and idolized, I have to lump you with the soldiers and cops. It's nothing personal. Fuck you.

I'm not quite sure how nationalism became intertwined with worship of "first responders," in addition to our soldiers, but here we are. And here I am. Fuck you.

Fuck nationalism. Fuck hero making, hero narratives, and hero worship. Fuck flag lapel pins. Fuck the flag. Fuck the president (all of those who came after Carter). Fuck this.

The Risks Of Being Black In The USA

It's really as simple as this. Black people are to be POLICED, while the rest of us (white people) are to be "protected". Furthermore, the justice system that we have built and maintain is designed to put blacks into prisons and go easier on whites. It's just a fact.

For black men, the risks of living in this country are simply appalling. One wonders how, with an apparently straight face, politicians and pundits can continue to insist that, not only is the United States a democracy, but quite simply the greatest country on earth. The major news stories we have seen over the last two years are not aberrations, and speak volumes about the hypocrisy of our system. The disconnection between our stated constitutional rights, and the actual practice in hell holes like the New York City "correctional system" would be jaw dropping if not for the fact that there's nothing new about this story. Poor people, especially poor people of color, are, and always have been, treated as disposable problems, not equal citizens with unquestionable rights.

And the long history of our justice system treating black Americans differently has huge consequences. Some have taken decades to acknowledge, such as the phenomenon of missing black men. These are men who are off the streets of their last resident town because of imprisonment, or because they relocated to avoid arrest (for anything from traffic tickets, to unpaid child support, to more serious charges).

New York City has 118,000 missing black men.

Philadelphia has over 30,000 missing black men.

And of course it isn't just black men who are ruined by our justice system . It's black women and minors, too. And even in 2015, a celebrity or two can become entangled, however briefly.

And then there's the lost sleep, depression, and the suicides. Kalief Browder was a teenager kept mainly n solitary confinement in Rikers for 3 years, over a petty robbery charge that was ultimately dismissed. After two previous suicide attempts, and a downward spiral into paranoia and post-traumatic stress, he took his own live last year.

No doubt this kid's years in solitary confinement was the cause of his extreme distress. I find it hard to even think of what must have been pure hell on earth. I cannot imagine the pain of his parents. What must it be like to be beaten up, over and over again?  How can we Americans continue to bear what is being done to our children?

How much longer must Rikers prison remain open, processing injustice after injustice?

And another topic for another day: what about extrajudicial sites like Homan Square in Chicago? Do other US cities have black sites? It's like something out of the Dirty War in Argentina, except it is not reported, and designed to make black Americans disappear.

New York Is A Right-Wing CIty

I now fully understand the office of New York City mayor. I already knew it is a dead-end political position. No New York CIty mayor ever goes on to another elected office. But more important, every mayor since Ed Koch has had to be, for lack of a better word, a right-winger, even if there's a D after his name. He has to be 100% pro-cop, pro-Wall Street, pro-war, pro-corporate, and by extension, pro-rich. If you waver from that template, even in the slightest, you end up being smeared and driven out, like Dinkins and (soon) Wilhelm (de Blasio).

The New York (Jerusalem) Post and the police union are painting de Blasio as anti-cop, and a cause of yesterday's assassination of two uniformed officers in Bed Stuy. Why? Because two weeks ago, de Blasio said in a press conference that he understands "the talk" black parents have with their sons about being cautious in their interactions with the police. This is because he has had the talk with his son, Dante, who is black. That one, honest comment has ruined the mayor. In this town, simply acknowledging that blacks are treated differently than whites by the NYPD is an unforgivable sin against the police by the elected mayor. In the next few weeks de Blasio's approval rating will drop to near zero. de Blasio is going to be kicked out of town faster than Dinkins was.

New York is not a liberal town. This wouldn't happen in a liberal town. It is a hard, right-wing enclave that just happens to have better taste than most other "red" cities in the west and deep south. New York likes organic food, premium coffee, gelato, cocktails, gourmet doughnuts, tasting menus, and weed. It does have the strictest gun control in the nation, but that is logical, given how immense the death toll would be if even 10% of the angry, over-stressed population had firearms. It has always been pro-war. And it was never for the little people.

New York is also right-wing because it is home to a real estate bubble that only makes the rich richer. More on that in the long-delayed next post.

I Am A White Supramacist

I have benefited from a system that has given me breaks, but has derailed, blocked, imprisoned, and killed others. I have played with toy guns outside, and I wasn't shot. I have talked back to authority figures, and I wasn't shot. I have walked down dark stairwells, and I haven't been shot. I have fallen down, and I have been given extra chances, time and again. And so, I have to acknowledge that one of the reasons I have made it to age 41 is because I am not a black man. And because I have benefited from this biased system, and I have paid into it, and I have voted for politicians who maintain it, I am a white supremacist.

Destroy this system.

How the GOP Lost 2016 In One Day

The GOP lost the 2016 presidential election in a single day. Here's how:

1. Marco Rubio voted against renewing the Violence Against Women Act.

2. On the same day, he delivered an incoherent speech that recycled Mitt Romney talking points. The speech even made the insane claims that Obama is anti-business and has borrowed more cash than Bush. The speech was clearly not written by Rubio. It even mentioned "Solyndra."

3. In that same speech, Rubio made a bizarre lunge for a bottle of water and chugged it on camera. 

Triple fail. 

Folks, I don't like the Democratic party, either. But Hillary has a red carpet to the Oval Office in 2016. She would have to bite off the heads of kittens to blow this one.

A Video From Sadly, No!

Sadly, No! Productions presents “Officer Barrett and the Jungle Monkey". H/T to Sadly, No! (naturally)

Second Veteran Cop Caught Demanding Free Starbucks

Photo by Flickr user, Waves (UK).

What the hell is going on? First, a 15-year veteran angrily demands free coffee in multiple Daytona Beach stores, and is fired. Now, we have a female 15-year veteran who demanded free coffee and baked goods from multiple stores in Chicago, and was suspended after years of alleged intimidation of store employees.

I thought Starbucks was for liberal pussies like me? Can't these cops be happy with 7-Eleven or Dunkin'? So they want the top-shelf shit. Well, I can vouch that Starbucks really is that good. If your drive is to stay awake, 300+ milligrams of caffeine (in the Grande espresso drinks) is quite a boost. The beans might be over-roasted, but man, what a rush.

Stressful job? You betcha'. Dangerous? Sure. Long days? Yup. But Peace Officers, there is no free coffee on-demand or through intimidation. Freebies are discretionary. We little people need to make a living. Most of us don't qualify for overtime.