Okay, it's time to be serious about all this.
on Howcast
This seems like a whole lot of work and it requires things I don't have, like friends and money but I think I am going to give it a go.
I will tell you quite frankly that I do not like most of the changes that have taken place here in the past 25-30 years.
Apartments once were plentiful and cheap compared to now. Our public schools had problems but they were top of the line compared to now. Imagine a kid from the projects being taught to read music, play two different instruments, participate in a chorus, a band and an orchestra! To be able to identify a Picasso. To draw a picture using perspective. Logical thinking too. To learn for example why the civil service system came into being - hint, it was about corruption, nepotism and "to the victor go the spoilsism"
Young people today ought to be plenty pissed off. Just look at this:
I'm a lifetime New Yorker in my sixties. I want to talk with younger people about the good old days because what was reality not so long ago should make you mad and galvanize younger people to get busy with #OWS or some similar allied group.
Did you know that back in the sixties the City University was well reputed and had zero tuition? That on top of that students who were good at least at test taking got Regents Scholarships that would at least cover carfare and lunch?
That most apartments were rent controlled. You could go to school, have a part time job and live in a thirty-five dollar a month apartment on Avenue A.
There were union jobs out there. We had major employment in the publishing industry with several newspapers and magazines employing lots of unionized proofreaders, deliverymen, printers, etc.
That in many ways there was more personal freedom. People bought joints outside movie theaters and lit up in the smoking section. (Maybe that was an excess but no one was getting locked up for personal use or possession of small amounts of marijuana). Probably one of those happy smokers was Mike Bloomberg.
Not to say that things were perfect or that we were just wonderful, just to say things can be better and you can fight for it and win.
We need a reappraisal of the changes that have taken place. Is it really so good for instance that a taxi driver can't find a parking place so he can take a leak, or get a snack? That prices are geared to the tastes of tourists and millionaires? That you don't see so many ragged poor people on the streets? Where did they go? There is plenty of poverty, so how do we have a Manhattan Potemkin Village?
34,500 cop! Do we really need all of these cops? How much are they costing us and what do they actually do?
The NYPD is the biggest police force in the country, with over 34,000 uniformed officers patrolling New York’s streets, and 51,000 employees overall — more than the FBI. It has a proposed budget of $4.6 billion for 2013, a figure that represents almost 15 percent of the entire city’s budget.
on Howcast
This seems like a whole lot of work and it requires things I don't have, like friends and money but I think I am going to give it a go.
I will tell you quite frankly that I do not like most of the changes that have taken place here in the past 25-30 years.
Apartments once were plentiful and cheap compared to now. Our public schools had problems but they were top of the line compared to now. Imagine a kid from the projects being taught to read music, play two different instruments, participate in a chorus, a band and an orchestra! To be able to identify a Picasso. To draw a picture using perspective. Logical thinking too. To learn for example why the civil service system came into being - hint, it was about corruption, nepotism and "to the victor go the spoilsism"
Young people today ought to be plenty pissed off. Just look at this:
I'm a lifetime New Yorker in my sixties. I want to talk with younger people about the good old days because what was reality not so long ago should make you mad and galvanize younger people to get busy with #OWS or some similar allied group.
Did you know that back in the sixties the City University was well reputed and had zero tuition? That on top of that students who were good at least at test taking got Regents Scholarships that would at least cover carfare and lunch?
That most apartments were rent controlled. You could go to school, have a part time job and live in a thirty-five dollar a month apartment on Avenue A.
There were union jobs out there. We had major employment in the publishing industry with several newspapers and magazines employing lots of unionized proofreaders, deliverymen, printers, etc.
That in many ways there was more personal freedom. People bought joints outside movie theaters and lit up in the smoking section. (Maybe that was an excess but no one was getting locked up for personal use or possession of small amounts of marijuana). Probably one of those happy smokers was Mike Bloomberg.
Not to say that things were perfect or that we were just wonderful, just to say things can be better and you can fight for it and win.
We need a reappraisal of the changes that have taken place. Is it really so good for instance that a taxi driver can't find a parking place so he can take a leak, or get a snack? That prices are geared to the tastes of tourists and millionaires? That you don't see so many ragged poor people on the streets? Where did they go? There is plenty of poverty, so how do we have a Manhattan Potemkin Village?
34,500 cop! Do we really need all of these cops? How much are they costing us and what do they actually do?
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
The NYPD is the biggest police force in the country, with over 34,000 uniformed officers patrolling New York’s streets, and 51,000 employees overall — more than the FBI. It has a proposed budget of $4.6 billion for 2013, a figure that represents almost 15 percent of the entire city’s budget.
NYC’s population is a little over 8 million. That means that there are 4.18 police officers per 1,000 people. By comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. with 3.8 million people, has only 9,895 officers–a ratio of 2.6 police per 1,000 people.
What has the NYPD been doing with all that cash and manpower? In addition to ticketing minorities for standing outside of their homes, spying on Muslims who live in New Jersey, abusing protesters, and gunning down black teens over weed, the NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalleled in the history of US law enforcement.
4.6 billion dollars !!! Way, way too much! Got to cut a lot there. I am the one who will do that. No one else will.
And the cops will surely need their unions once I am in because I will take no shit. Abuse means "you're out of here." If I can't get a thug cop competently prosecuted at least I can weed out the worse of them. I will personally seek and find cops asleep in their squad cars at night. I will stop cops and ask them what they are assigned to do at that very moment. Are they even inside their own precinct? If not, why not, and give me no shit.
Get out of your squad cars and start directing cross town traffic! Canal street is not only for New Jersey commuters! It's for people who live here too. Cops will not be sitting in their cars blasting their sirens to show their impatience. They will be clearing intersections. On foot.
You shoot someone, I want to know why. I will get rid of the ridiculous rule that allows cops who partner in mayhem two days to cook up their alibis and line up "witnesses".
Abolish the Child Protective Function of Administration for Children's Services and reduce foster care by 90%. That will save a bunch of money. Foster care has in act declined by more than half while reports of child maltreatment have risen as the terroristic showboating "get tough" policies of Giuliani were quietly shelved by Bloomberg. What this shows is that over decades the city admittedly kidnapped tens of thousands of black and latino kids for no good reason! There needs to be trials for that! Still and all foster care is immense and over 90 percent could be home. Poverty is not neglect- and customary and traditional means of discipline though wrong, are not cause for kidnapping children and destroying their lives.
Prostitution happens to be a means by which many people feed and support themselves and dependents. It is not a crime, it is a sin. The government is not the church, it is the state. Sins may be answerable to God, they don't have to be dealt with by cops and judges.
So we don't need to pay cops to chase after prostitutes, nor prosecutors to prosecute them, nor judges to sit in judgement over them. Leave them alone.
Go after all forms of involuntary servitude- child labor in unregistered sweatshops, immigrants whoe passports are held by their employers. To think or say that the only labor that is trafficked is sex labor is a lie. I will go after all of it starting with the enslaved nannies and domestics, I will publicize the incredible horrible situation of home health workers. They "sleep in" without a bed to sleep in and with no relief from responsibilities. They are unpaid for this overnight "sleep." It's slavery.
