Racist NYC Mayor Reveals His Not-So-Secret White Hood

“I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little,” Mr. Bloomberg argued during his Friday morning WOR radio show with John Gambling. “It’s exactly the reverse of what they say. I don’t know where they went to school but they certainly didn’t take a math course. Or a logic course.” And so outgoing New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg reminds us of the depth of his racism, of his utter contempt for the black and brown citizens of New York City.

New York City's "stop and frisk" policies are a textbook example of racist repression. Every day black and brown people, mostly young people, and routinely stopped by the NYPD for absolutely nothing at all, and a vastly greater rate than white people. And here Bloomberg suggests they should be subject to even more arbitrary harassment, scrutiny, and repression.

Disturbingly, stop and frisk and the uniformed pigs who enforce it continue to be supported by the majority of mayoral candidates to replace Bloomberg. Christine Quinn even wants to keep the current police commissioner, a main architect of the policy, right in place. The only African-American in the mainstream race, William Thompson, actually advocates for keeping stop and frisk in place unchanged.

We don't need any of these pigs. Abolish the NYPD. Dethrone the mayor. Create People's Power!

"We Aren't Talking to Them"

The following is the Editorial, "We Are Free People" from the just-printed issue #4 of the Occupied Wall Street Journal:

"Democracy is not simply speaking truth to power, to ask, politely or not, for reforms great and small. Sometimes you have to do it yourself.

The 1% is just beginning to understand that the reason Occupy Wall Street makes no demands is because we aren't talking to them. The 99% are speaking and listening to each other. 4,167 people have been arrested since the occupation began; millions more are reimagining the world we want to live in.

Police forces have been deployed by Republican and Democratic politicians alike to break a movement that was first ignored and then mocked in what passes for news. It's not just America. This is a living democratic movement that is global in scale and growing in real time. That this beautiful thing is met with state violence says everything we need to know about the perpetrators. It also means we're on to something. Their attacks are based on an understanding of power that's dying, if not already dead.

Mubarak is Berlusconi is Bloomberg is Quan is Walker is pepper spray is broken politics bound to the past and we make no demands of them because free people constitute governments, not the other way around.

We don't know how this is going to end, but the beginning is near."

(Photo is a sign at this week's 30,000+ rally at New York's Foley Square: "Not a different slice, we want a different pie!" After his cops tried their best to harass and repress the rally and march afterwards, Mayor Bloomberg said, "That's not even Occupy Wall Street...those were trade unionists." How very little he understands.)

It Ain't Over

Mayor Bloomberg's shock troops have smashed the #OWS encampment at Zuccotti Park. the peaceful, nonviolent encampment was violently attacked by riot police doing the state's bidding. The media was kept away in an attempt to let the goons brutalize the Occupy Wall Street protesters without public scrutiny. According to an activist quoted on radio, the police came in with knives, shredding the tents and sleeping bags and tarps of the encampment and turning the protesters' belongings into so much garbage.



RT points out that the encampment was shut down in advance of the planned November 17 day of action.



Bloomberg and his friends in the 1% are fooling themselves if they think this means Occupy Wall Street is going away. They have revealed to the world their true face, and it's not pretty. This thing isn't going away. Even my neighborhood in Brooklyn now has an Occupy movement. We can Occupy Together!

Update: Check out this post of overheard quotes at the police raid on Gawker: "Just overheard cops talking about the losers and faggots of the Occupy movement in Zuccotti. nice. #OWS"

#OWS is meeting this morning to determine how to respond.

#OWS Occupy Wall Street in Danger

From OWS:

"EMERGENCY #OWS EVICTION DEFENSE:
Prevent the forcible closure of Occupy Wall Street

Tell Bloomberg: Don't Foreclose the Occupation.
NEED MASS TURN-OUT, SHOW UP NO LATER THAN 6 A.M.

This is an emergency situation. Please take a minute to read this, and please take action and spread the word far and wide.

Occupy Wall Street is gaining momentum, with occupation actions now happening in cities across the world.

But last night Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD notified Occupy Wall Street participants about plans to “clean the park”—the site of the Wall Street protests—tomorrow starting at 7am. "Cleaning" was used as a pretext to shut down “Bloombergville” a few months back, and to shut down peaceful occupations elsewhere.

Bloomberg says that the park will be open for public usage following the cleaning, but with a notable caveat: Occupy Wall Street participants must follow the “rules”.

NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that they will move in to clear us and we will not be allowed to take sleeping bags, tarps, personal items or gear back into the park.

This is it—this is their attempt to shut down #OWS for good.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION

1) Call 311 (or +1 (212) NEW-YORK if you're out of town) and tell Bloomberg to support our right to assemble and to not interfere with #OWS.

2) Come to #OWS TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT to defend the occupation from eviction.

For those of you who plan to help us hold our ground—which we hope will be all of you—make sure you understand the possible consequences. Be prepared to not get much sleep. Be prepared for possible arrest. Make sure your items are together and ready to go (or already out of the park.) We are pursuing all possible strategies; this is a message of solidarity.

Click here to learn nonviolent tactics for holding ground.

Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe—we even have a Sanitation Working Group whose purpose this is. We are organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly.

If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here he should support the installation of portopans and dumpsters. #OWS allies have been working to secure these things to support our efforts.

We know where the real dirt is: on Wall Street. Billionaire Bloomberg is beholden to bankers.

We won't allow Bloomberg and the NYPD to foreclose our occupation. This is an occupation, not a permitted picnic."

This morning on the radio (WNYC no less) the pro-Bloomberg media cheerfully reported that Bloomberg visited the encampment and said they would be allowed to stay if they temporarily vacated the plaza for cleaning. Of course the radio didn't say that the city's intention was to end the encampment by establishing "rules" denying the right of people to lie down in the park after they "cleaned" it. For the record, when I've been to the plaza it was cluttered and full of people but it didn't smell, there was no filth, and no evidence of the lack of sanitation facilities (which for crying out loud, New York should have in its public spaces anyway). Let this be crystal clear: Bloomberg and his media enablers are liars on the side of the 1%.

UPDATE: The overnight protest effort seems to have at least postponed the eviction. Some inspiring details in this Gawker account.

Shovelling Out Again

Last night we had another massive snowstorm in New York City. As you can see from this picture of my Brooklyn block, there's over a foot of fresh snow on top of the remnants of two earlier snows. While school was cancelled and some buses were halted, the big story is that unlike the post-Christmas "snowpocalypse," the city seemed to keep functioning. When I woke up to shovel at 6:30 this morning, the street had already been plowed. There was less snow than before, but still quite a bit. Walking home from the subway tonight I saw that most people have about three or four feet of snow piled in their front yards, a combination of natural accumulation and what shovellers have flung there because the snow from the sidewalks has to go somewhere.

Mayor Bloomberg was on the radio and TV all morning sounding calm and collected, and making himself sound thoroughly in charge. The disaster of December was not repeated; he seemed anxious to avoid another media shitstorm like the one that's kept the mayor and his minions on the defensive for much of January.



One of the creepier things that happened after the last storm was a typical attempt to blame last month's infrastructure failure on organized workers. For weeks the media was full of fairly vague reports of some labor conspiracy to slow down the cleanup after the storm. The reports were always short on details. Well it turns out the reports were coming from one place, a newly-elected Republican city councilman named Dan Halloran. Halloran is a right-wing lawyer who campaigned on a "tea party" platform. Which is hilarious because somehow the teabaggers who claim to be such champions of "we the people" seem to revel in blaming working class people for the country's problems. Halloran has spun an elaborate fantasy around his claims, which seems to be coming completely unravelled through, of course, lack of any evidence whatsoever.

Making the story a little odder is Halloran's unusual faith. Although he is a political and social conservative, he's also a Neopagan, a member of the Asatru-related religion of "Theodism," one of the modern reconstructions of ancient Norse religion. Some such reconstructions of Norse religion are notoriously racist, since of course, getting in touch with Norse roots seems to involve finding one's inner pure-white/Aryan core. I have no idea if Halloran's sect is tainted with that, but it does practice a sort of mock indentured servitude called "thralldom" where newbies in the faith have to do chores for their elders. I try in general not to criticize how people choose to experience their spirituality, but I find it interesting that an adherent of a religion that waxes nostalgic about feudalism and social hierarchy should be trashing working people. Separation of church and state is to me not negotiable. Interesting that a Pagan can get elected to office; and a useful reminder that "alternate spirituality" does not equal "progressive and open-minded."

I'm glad that in addition to shovelling out of this latest snow we seem to be shovelling out of Halloran's elitist bullshit as well. Winter is almost half-over...I wonder how much more snow we're gonna get?

(All photos by me this morning.)

Millionaire Businesswoman Appointed by Corrupt Billionaire Makes Poor Joke

New York's billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg shocked the city late last year when he nominated millionaire media executive Cathie Black to replace businessman Joel Klein as chancellor of New York City's public schools. Klein wanted to go back into the "private sector" (media, in fact) while (former media executive) Bloomberg is still in office so he can cash in his ties and connections while there's still time. Black has zero experience with education or New York's public schools, and had even sent her own privileged children to private schools. Bloomberg had to twist arms to get Black through the vetting system: there are laws preventing someone without a Masters Degree in Education or teaching experience from holding such a key post, but as usual, Bloomberg didn't care about those and insisted that the board responsible for approving candidates gave her a waiver. Which of course they did. Bloomberg doesn't think that laws apply to rich people like himself. He has shown this over and over again.

New York's parents have been outraged since the initial announcement...Bloomberg was thoroughly booed at an MLK Day celebration. Well now Ms. Black has made what she called "a joke" that shows her true colors and they're not pretty.

According to the NY Daily News: "Could we just have some birth control for a while?" Black said Thursday night. "It would really help us."

So Ms. Black thinks that the problem with New York City's failing public schools, the population of which is overwhelmingly non-white, is uncontrolled breeding. Or at least she thinks it's funny to joke about it: there are just too darn many little brown children running around ruining the place! Well I suppose we can be slightly grateful she took a break from blaming teachers' unions for the disastrous state of the public schools, but she might notice nobody's laughing now.

Count me as shocked, SHOCKED, that Cathie Black turns out not only to be entirely disinterested in how working class people get an education, but she's a racist to boot. How many days has she been on the job? I'm thinking those days are already numbered.

Snowpocalypse Part 2: NYC FAIL

I snagged this really cool picture of the highway up in the 'burbs from facebook. It's pretty incredible. We don't have quite that much snow in the city, though it seems to have been plenty, because the real story of the snowpocalypse turns out to be that it's yet another sign of our failing urban infrastructure.

My street had a stalled bus at the foot of the hill from Sunday night til this afternoon -- Tuesday -- and the street is still not plowed. Which means the busline can't run on the street at all. The crosswalk up by the main avenue is a jumbled mass of snow that people can hardly walk through. While the avenue itself is cleared there are few cutaways to the sidewalk. Any subways which spend part of their route operating above ground are still iffy. And there's been no mail delivery since last Friday; apparently that "neither rain nor snow nor dead of night" line was just a line. And it stopped snowing before dawn on Monday.

Mayor Bloomberg has come under severe criticism for his handling of the cleanup in the storm's aftermath. Budget cuts have meant layoffs and staffing reductions through attrition and it's obvious that this has had an effect on the city's ability to deal with the weather. Not a big surprise since Bloomberg values the richest residents of the city above all others. Coupled with the debacle of the rollout of electronic voting machines this last election, and subway cutbacks which have lengthened rides and dramatically increased costs, Bloomberg's last term is not chalking up a roster of achievement. His government seems callous and out of touch, living in a rarified universe far above the streets and the rest of us.

It's completely empirical, but having lived in NYC since 1981 I've seen a lot of bad weather and it's only in the past few years that the city has been brought to its knees so completely by precipitation. Even a heavy rain seems to throw the subways into crisis, and seeing normally busy streets go unplowed for two days would have once been unimaginable.

The Battlelines Are Drawn Over Cordoba House

The photo above shows a rightist protester holding up a sign at New York City hearing over Cordoba House's real estate: "No 9/11 Victory Mosque." Cordoba House is the downtown NYC Islamic community center and mosque being villified as the "Ground Zero Mosque" by the right wing.

It pains me to recognize that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is eloquently on the correct side of this issue:
"We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That's life. And it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001....
“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that...
"For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right...
"Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith. And they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group. In fact, they have been worshipping at the site for better, the better part of a year, as is their right. The local community board in lower Manhattan voted overwhelmingly to support the proposal. And if it moves forward, I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire city...
"Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us can attest."

Now President Obama has forcefully also come out on the correct side of the issue: "As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country...That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."(full text)

Contrast this with the remarks of insane racist blogger Pamela Geller whose "Atlas Shrugs" blog is leading the charge to paint Cordoba House as a den of terrorism: "Obama came out for the Islamic supremacist mosque at the hallowed ground of 911 attack. He has, in effect, sided with the Islamic jihadists and told the ummah (at an Iftar dinner on the third night of Ramadan, of course) that he believes in and supports a triumphal mosque on the cherished site of Islamic conquest. If you had any doubt who Obama stood with on 911, there can be no doubt in our minds now. I believe he planned it all along. He waited until Ramadan. Symbolic." Geller has previously ranted on issues of Obama's citizenship. She is the force behind the outrageously hateful and inciteful signs shortly to appear on NYC buses attacking Cordoba House. Lining up behind Geller's disgusting campaign are a host of right-wing Republicans ranging from local political candidates like Rick Lazio to unemployed quitter and political parasite Sarah Palin.

Even George Bush resisted the urge to tar all muslims with the taint of 9/11 terrorism. These unleashed forces of Islamophobia are indicative of the qualitative rightward shift that has been transforming the Republican base into something quite new and dangerous.

For more discussion of the issues around Cordoba House see my previous posts on the Massacre Monument, Islamophobia, and on "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day."

What's wrong with this picture?

This is a photo of Lenora Fulani with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, who was elected twice as a Republican, recently strongarmed democracy and bribed City Council into letting him run for a third term, against the term limits laws twice voted into law by New York voters. Lenora Fulani is a figure in the Independence Party. Since Bloomberg--at least until last week; apparently he will now ALSO be running as a Republican again--calls himself an Independent and "Independent" sounds like "Independence" and he thought that would be a nice way to appear on the ballot.

Bloomberg basicaly agreed to bankroll the Independence Party in return for their party line on the ballot. Nice deal, eh? But who is the Independence Party? Just a bunch of nice independents?

Um, not really.

The Independence Party is the latest incarnation in a mind-control cult half a step away from such outfits as Scientology and with traceable connections to Lyndon LaRouche. Formerly known by such entities as The New Alliance Party and the Institute for Social Therapy and Research, this shady outfit and personality cult for Fulani and founder Fred Newman, used to haunt the left and progressive movement trying to siphon off disaffected questioning individuals into its near brain-washing psychotherapy programs. They would urge troubled people to attend their therapy sessions with a doctrine saying that "the system" was responsible for people's depression or mental issues and that the solution to personal unhappiness or psychological issues was to join their group and fight capitalism.

Now, apparently capitalism is no longer the enemy. As the left and progressive movements faded, providing a lack of recruits for this cult, the Independence Party drifted rightward, toying with all sorts of unsavory right-wing characters. This unholy alliance between a would-be dictator and a power-hungry personality cult should be a major scandal in this city, but it is not. My question is:

WHY?

I moved to New York City in 1981. One of my closest friends was a man names Steve Rose. He had moved to NYC from upstate New York, become an RN, and joined the gay activist world with gusto. He joined GAA, the Gay Activists Alliance--in the late 1970s, and was part of the faction of GAA at its end who became sympathetic to the Revolutionary Socialist League, then one of the left groups most active in that pre-AIDS gay movement. Steve was not drawn to the left through intellectualism, through student disaffection at some ivory tower. He became a leftist because his heart told him it was the right thing to do. He chose the RSL because of its unique attempt to combine socialist orthodoxy with a left libertarian spirit and its complete embrace of the nascent GLBT movement.

Eventually as the RSL imploded in those dark Reagan years Steve and I had a falling out. We both moved on, and sadly, Steve joined those first ranks activists to be diagnosed with AIDS. His first over Alberto passed on first, and Steve himself lost his battle with injustice sometime in the mid to late 1980s. The last time I saw Steve was on a street corner. Although a few years before he made numerous sharp and stingingly incisive polemical attacks against the New Alliance Party and their ilk, by then he was defeated. Facing personal demoralization along with the challenges of fighting HIV Steve joined the NAP. When I saw him on that corner telling me of his new allegiance to NAP I saw such despair behind his eyes belying the wooden and rote recitation of how NAP had helped him to see that his problems were not his own, rather the burden of oppression and capitalism. It was heartbreaking to see him so broken, so surrendered to the easy answers of a cult that could do his thinking for him. I grieve that he spent his last years in such company. While brash and not always sympathetic, Steve was a fighter and a real hero of gay liberation. The cult that parasitically attached itself to him, joining the HIV in sucking out his life force, cannot now go unopposed.

Bloomberg's unholy alliance must be exposed, and Bloomberg's Giuliani-like power grab must be spiked.

update: check out Lyndon LaRouche Watch for a lot of details about the Fred Newman cults.

Hello Giant Egos, Bye-Bye Democracy

So NYC's allegedly-independent-former-Republican billionaire mayor and Democratic, openly lesbian city council president Christine Quinn have made a devil's bargain to go around the law and give themselves extra terms in office.

I think term limits are a terrible idea. But New Yorkers have defeated attempts to roll back these misguided laws, and both these politicians are on record previously opposing attempts to get around the voter's wishes. Tinpot dictator Rudy Ghouliani made a feeble attempt to extend his mayoralty for a third term in the aftermath of 9/11, and he was soundly and rightfully trounced for the suggestion.

Now a mayor who I didn't actually hate--until now--and a political careerist hack--who I have never heard anything good about--have decided that they are the annointed ones who can override democracy and lead the city out of its current economic crisis, which, oh yes, both have presided over. They will get the City Council to temporarily override term limits and allow them to run again.

Enough. The minute a politician says he or she is above the rules and indispensable is a minute beyond the time anyone should put up with them. It's time for Bloomberg and Quinn to go. This completely self-serving undemocratic attempt by them to railroad themselves into longer terms is blatantly and transparently corrupt. Buh-bye. Get out of town, dictators to be. Not only do you not deserve to run again in the next elections (next year!) but I think maybe you should just resign now for this disgusting attempted coup.