MoveOn Rallies To Fight Corporate Corruption Of Our Politics.

Aug 10, 2010

A new campaign has been launched by the popular and powerful, progressive group, MoveOn.org. Simultaneous rallies across the country had its counterpart right here in Brooklyn where a group of some 50 residents crowded into the small triangle that sits in the middle of Flatbush Avenue at the intersection of Atlantic and Fourth Avenues, across from the Atlantic Terminal shopping mall.

www.moveon.org wants to Fight Washington Corruption

The campaign aims to return our government to "the other 98% of us" - that is the majority of the American people who have been left out in the cold while corporate cash saturates the Congress and lobbyists representing the banks, the oil companies and the war profiteers call the shots on what legislation gets passed.

Shawn Walsh of Brooklyn MoveOn

Shawn Walsh, MoveOn's Brooklyn coordinator, welcomed the ralliers and laid out the three main points of her organization's new campaign:

•  To reverse or override the recent Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court which reversed long-standing rules barring Corporations from influencing elections. Citizens United allows unrestricted corporate cash to be spent on behalf of candidates who would support the corporation's agenda.
• To shine a light on lobbying activities in Congress so the public can know what they're up to and can know which Congress members have met with lobbyists of various corporations. They also demand legislation shutting the revolving door between Congress and corporate offices by mandating a 5-year waiting period between those employment positions.
• To make elections fairer by leveling the playing field -- grass roots candidates need public financing so that they compete equally with corporate-backed office-seekers with lots of money for media and publicity.

NYC Public Advocate blasted Target for tainting the Minnesota election

Speakers included NYC Public Advocate, Bill DeBlasio, who pounded Target for taking advantage of the Supreme Court decision allowing unrestricted corporate money to be used to influence elections. Target stores is, shamefully, the first corporation to put the decision to work by donating $150,000 to the extremist Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota. That candidate, a supporter of the Arizona law that allows police there to terrorize citizens and non-citizens on the suspicion that they might be undocumented aliens, is also viciously anti-gay and anti-labor. DeBlasio demanded a pledge from Target to withdraw from financing such campaigns and to reject future participation on the basis of Citizens United. If not, then consumers and stockholders, he said, must be informed of their perfidious activities so that pressure can be brought to bear on their bottom line.

Council Member Tish James - a champion against local corruption.

City Council member, Letitia "Tish" James, a champion in the local fight against corporate corruption of politics, spoke next. It was ironic that the rally was held directly across from the Ratner-owned shopping mall and the construction site where Ratner is to build his new stadium complex despite massive opposition from the communites affected.

James had led the opposition to that corrupt  land grab, standing with the community. In an impassioned speech she urged the crowd to hearken back to the glorious struggles of the American civil rights movement and the fight for woman's voting rights as models for the battle to reclaim democracy that is now confronts our country .
 

Me: "What's more corrupt than a trillion dollar war while people are losing jobs and homes?"

I spoke next, representing Brooklyn For Peace, claiming war as the biggest corrupting force of all. I spoke of the no-bid war contracts given to Vice President Cheney's Halliburton Corporation which he previously headed before his election as an example of the sickening corruption infecting Washington.

The spending of a trillion dollars on the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while Americans lose jobs and homes and cities decay with terrible cutbacks to services shows the insidious virus that has infected our government -- a government beholden to the demands of the corporate elite in their drive for ever-larger profits at the expense of the rest of us.

I applauded MoveOn's initiative because I believe it's clear that we can't end these wars and war spending nor can we make progressive change as long as this corruption is allowed to fester in the halls of Congress.

I quoted Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who was frustrated, back in April, by bank lobbyists who persuaded the Senate to cripple a bankruptcy reform bill that would have come to the aid of Americans struggling to hold on to their homes. In his anger at their subterfuge, Durbin said:

"and the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." (i.e. the banks own the Senate)"

What a striking admission - the banks own the Senate! But it's so true and therein lies the battle ahead - to loosen the grip of corporations on what is supposed to be the "People's Congress." If Citizens United is allowed to stand and the cesspool of corporate cash continues to inundate Congress then our democracy is doomed and we will live in a land where Corporations will do whatever they please - they'll continue to beat down labor, exploit immigrants, wage endless (and profitable) wars and drill for oil in the Gulf and gas in our soil, polluting our precious water and poisoning our planet. That's not a future I want for my children and their children.

Susan Metz - "separate your lives from corporate influence."

The final speaker, Susan Metz, a life-long teacher, called on people to live outside of corporate control by supporting food co-ops, using alternative media and pursuing independent political action that could be used as a lever against the corporate-dominated parties.

We're at a crossroads now - the fight ahead is crystal clear -we must take back our government so that it is truly works for the other 98% of us!

To see ALL my photos of today's rally, just CLICK HERE.

How Many Times?? -- A Tragedy Waiting To Happen

Jun 11, 2010

Lying in bed this afternoon around 5pm (something we retired people like to do - it's called a nap), I was jarred by the terrible sound of cars colliding on the street outside. This has become a somewhat usual occurrence on Underhill Avenue. The sound always fills me with dread - I live directly across from the playground, a neighborhood mecca filled with kids and parents. My first thought was to hope that nobody was hurt who might have been an innocent bystander: a child and parent crossing the street, a neighbor out walking their dog. Then, of course, I worried about the drivers and passengers, hoping they too were spared injury. But the sound was so loud and so terrible, I thought for sure, someone had to be hurt.

We were lucky. This time. This was the second horrible collision at the intersection of Prospect Place and Underhill Avenue in the space of a year. Same thing last time - two cars, one on Underhill, one on Prospect, meet in the middle of the intersection and smash into each other. One had to be running the light, a not uncommon sight in our city today. What utter foolishness and stupidity. But also malicious, because a car driven that way, fast and without care to the people on our streets, becomes a dangerous weapon; a weapon that can maim or kill.

The last time this happend, in May of 2009, I wrote:

"Driving to make the light without regard for safety of people on foot on our streets will, sooner or later, result in catastrophe. It is a fact that the leading edge of death of young children in New York is not disease but being struck by a car. his time nobody was seriously injured. Next time?? NOW IS THE TIME TO GET SPEEDING CARS AND RECKLESS DRIVERS OFF OUR STREETS."

This time we must take action. A petition must be written and distributed to all our neighbors demanding from our elected officials and the Department of Transportation that action be taken to insure that traffic is calmed on Underhill Avenue, particularly near our school and playground. Either by use of traffic humps, 4-way stop signs, re-timing of lights, increased signage or other methods that the DOT has and uses in its inventory, we must get this dangerous condition under control.

We should not wait to take action until after one of our children or neighbors is maimed or killed. The time for action is now!

- Matt

Click Here to see all of these crash photos.

Three Days In April and May --Americans Begin To Fight Back!

May 6, 2010

These are exciting days.

Exciting because the potential for pushing our country forward toward the change that we need and want is within reach. But corporate America - the banks, Wall Street and the oil companies - stand in the doorway, the enemies of any progress. Not content with record profits and tax-payer funded bailouts, these great patriots want it all and at any cost: massive unemployment, the loss of people's homes and security, increasing poverty and hunger, oil spills that despoil entire regions - none of that means anything to them as long as their bottom line continues its upward trajectory.

Exciting days - filled with promise but only if "we the people" can mobilize and organize ourselves to be the agent of change that is our potential. It is the strength of our numbers, united in demanding change, that scares the living daylights out of those who control our destinies (and our government)now.

It has become clear that the election of November 2008, as exciting and as promising as it was, has not fulfilled the expectations of the millions who turned out and, with their votes, demanded a change in the direction and priorities of our government. Only by organizing those Obama voters to continue to push and push hard, can we make good on the promise of change. As the sage said - "The people shall lead and the leaders will follow." Change will not be handed to us but will only come if we demand it and organize millions to make those demands irrefutable.

Three actions recently point to exciting new developments that move us in the direction of building that new force for change.

On April 29th the AFL-CIO brought thousands to Wall Street to demand pay back from the crew that wrecked our economy and threw eight million people out of their jobs. This was inspiring and, in case you haven't been paying attention, new! Perhaps you missed reading about it in the NY Times - Well, that's because because it wasn't covered in the "newspaper of record" at all! Here was the NYC working class on parade - angry and militant - something we haven't seen in decades and something we need much, much more of: a fighting union movement for progressive change! Strange, isn't it? Three hundred tea party nut jobs standing on a street corner gets front page coverage but 15,000 trade unionists demanding that Wall Street criminals go to jail instead of bonuses - that's ignored. Newspaper of record - yeah, right!

Richard Trumka, President of the labor federation, blasted the banks for their criminal activities and demanded that their profits be taxed to provide good jobs for those who have suffered from their reckless actions. "Good jobs now! Good jobs now!" echoed throughout the crowd as thousands took up the call.

A call for fairness and justice: Hold the banks accountable!
>>> Click any photo to see it larger

A new, bolder labor movement - just what the doctor ordered.

Just two days later on May Day, the international workers' day inspired by the 1886 Chicago Haymarket strike demanding an eight-hour day (something we sadly need to fight for again), thousands again gathered in lower Manhattan to demand human rights for immigrants and all of labor. May Day in recent years has seen millions demonstrating across our country in search of justice and fairness for immigrants who have come here seeking a better life. Sponsored by a broad coalition of labor and immigrants' organizations, speakers railed against the recently-passed law in Arizona that would use police-state tactics as a racist club to imtimidate immigrants by allowing the cops to stop anyone they might believe to be here without documents. Talk about racial profiling! Arizona, it should be remembered, was also the last state to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday so it came as no surprise that such a law would raise its ugly head in that state first.

Calls for boycott of that heavily tourist-dependent state and demands that the Federal government intervene in Arizona have been heard all across our country because the law flies in the face of traditional American notions of fairness and justice.

What the shameful Arizona law will do: rip families apart!

Brooklyn was well-represented at the May Day march.

Just the other day, on May 2nd, New Yorkers marched again. This time, they were joined by over 2,000 Japanese peace activists, including survivors of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Thousands paraded through Times Square in a lively and colorful demonstration that called for worldwide nuclear disarmament. The marchers wanted a world that was not threatened by the stockpiles of these horrible weapons that threaten the very existence of our world and that rob humanity of resources that could be used to solve intractable problems of poverty and hunger around the globe.

The march, which was the culmination of a weekend conference at Riverside church that attracted thousands to discuss the urgent threat of nuclear weapons, coincided with the United Nations disarmament conference. The U.N. was the destination of marchers and at its conclusion there was a fantastic peace and music festival in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the U.N. headquarters.

A large and spirited Brooklyn For Peace contingent was part of the outpouring for an end to the nuclear threat.

The Japanese peace activist added a colorful and dramatic component to this No Nukes peace march.

The Japanese peace activists added a colorful and creative component to the march with wonderful banners, capes and costumes that all called for peace and an end to the nuclear threat. American and Japanese marchers mingled and chatted, getting to know each other better - what a wonderful and memorable demonstration for worldwide peace!

You can see the rest of my photos from all three actions by going here: CLICK HERE

DOT Creates Car Mayhem On Little Old Park Place

Mar 18, 2010

I'm a bicyclist and the very last person you know who would criticize the DOT for restricting car traffic. Kudos to them for all the new bike lanes in our city and other traffic-calming schemes designed to make our streets quieter, safer and more breathable and to get people out of their cars and into mass transit or onto their bikes or feet!

However! Bruce Ratner recently broke ground for his mega-development and stadium at the Atlantic train yards. Not only is this ill-begotten land-grab-of-a-scheme stinking to high heaven from corruption and public/private malfeasance, it's also creating havoc on our quiet, residential streets due to collusion, I believe, between the billionaire developer and the city to make things go smoothly ... not for you and me but for Ratner and his stadium.

If you live in Prospect Heights, you may have noticed a huge uptick in traffic on little old Park Place, a narrow, residential eastbound-only street. But you may not know the reason. Here's why. If one drives south on Flatbush Avenue - i.e. from the Manhattan Bridge heading toward Prospect Park, there are very few opportunities to turn left (eastbound). Yet, large amounts of people live in our neighborhoods to the east of Flatbush Avenue: in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights and beyond.

Click the map for a larger view.

If you live in those neighborhoods and want to go east from Flatbush Avenue, once you pass Lafayette Avenue, you cannot turn left for almost a full mile, until you reach Park Place! That's because --

• There's no left on Hanson Place - it was closed permanently a while ago.

• There's no left on Atlantic Avenue.

• There's no left on Fifth Avenue or Pacific Street - closed permanently.

• There's no left on Dean Street - ever! (until last week one could at least make a left after 7 pm and all day Sundays).

• There's no left on St. Marks Avenue.

This traffic nightmare was "designed" by the folks at DOT and it has transformed Park Place from a relatively quiet and traffic-free street into a major eastbound thoroughfare. Long lines of traffic between Flatbush Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue are common - cars very often take several red light cycles to finally pass through the intersection at Vanderbilt. Then much of that traffic proceeds up the next eastbound block of Park Place and, frustrated with their long wait on the previous block, many now tear up the street in order to "make" the green light on Underhill Avenue. This has created, noise, congestion, fumes from waiting lines of cars and dangerous speeding by frustrated drivers.

The new sign at Flatbush and Dean - this used to read "no left turn except after 7 pm and all day Sunday." Now it's No Left Turn --- Ever!
Click for a larger view.

Fifth Avenue eastbound from Flatbush - now permnently closed. Privatized for Ratner's stadium.
Click for a larger view.

I'm compelled to ask - is this the professional planning of traffic engineers who ought to be concerned about reducing traffic and making streets safe for residents and pedestrians? Or is it, more likely, an order from up on high to do what has to be done to keep traffic flowing smoothly for the soon-to-be traffic-attracting stadium a few blocks north? It seems to be the latter. The result of this preposterous design is an assault on the residents of Park Place and environs.

No left on 6th Avenue - southbound on Flatbush. The result is that if you want to go east into Prospect Heights or Crown Heights, there's only one way to go and that's up tiny, narrow, residential Park Place. How could this be?
Click for a larger view.

We must demand, from our elected officials and the Department of Transportation, that a better plan be implemented and the current design abandoned. Calls should be made to Community Board No. 8 (Ms. Michelle George, Manager) at (718) 467-5574 or Tish James (our Council Member) at (718) 260-9191 or the Mayor's office at 311.

Call now and call often until this travesty is un-done.

Brooklyn Asks - "Which Way Afghanistan?"

Feb 9, 2010

A large crowd of Brooklyn residents filled the Park Slope United Methodist Church last night. It was one of the city's coldest winters in recent memory but that didn't stop people from turning out to discuss the escalating war in Afghanistan and its impact on the world, the country and, more immediately, on life in their own city and neighborhoods.

A large crowd of Brooklyn residents filled the sanctuary at the Park Slope United Methodist Church.

Initiated by the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) and supported by Brooklyn For Peace along with a dozen or so of the borough's peace and justice organizations, the forum featured Congress member Jerrold Nadler and reporter Anand Gopal who had been embedded with the Taliban and had dispatched many reports from that beleaguered country.

The flyer for the meeting.

The meeting was opened by CBID chair, Lucy Koteen, who welcomed people and described the work of her organization, which is one of Brooklyn's most active Democratic reform clubs with a long history of progressive activism. She then turned the meeting over to Brooklyn For Peace's Vice Chair, Rusti Eisenberg, who introduced the two speakers. Eisenberg is one of the founders of Brooklyn For Peace and a professor of history at Hofstra University.

CBID Chair, Lucy Koteen, opens the Afghan forum meeting. Seated, left to right, Rusti Eisenberg, journalist, Anand Gopal, Congress member Jerrold Nadler.

BFP Chair, Rusti Eisenberg, introduces the speakers.

Representative Nadler read the statement he had made to Congress in opposing President Obama's announcement of escalation and took to task the notion that our country should use massive military occupation of foreign lands in order to deal with what even the CIA has said is "a hundred or so Al Queyda" remaining in Afghanistan. He deplored the fabulous expense of dependence on military solutions which, he said, is wreaking havoc on our ability to solve the huge problems we confront at home. In the long run, he pointed out, using military occupation of countries produces the opposite of what we hope to accomplish since it inspires hatred of the U.S. and helps to fill the ranks of extremist organizations aimed at doing harm to the United States.

Nadler -- these endless, expensive military adventures make it impossible to solve pressing problems at home.

As if to prove Nadler's point, the next speaker, journalist Anand Gopal, related an experience he reported on when he was embedded with the Taliban as a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. He had interviewed a young, teenage Afghan boy imprisoned for an attempted suicide bombing. The boy's experience, as related by Gopal, horrified the audience and was symbolic of the problems resulting from the massive U.S. military presence in Afghanistan ---

Walking home one day, the young man witnessed a crowd in front of his house or what used to be his house. It had been reduced to rubble from a U.S. bomb attack. Sifting through the rubble for a trace of his family of sixteen (all sixteen innocents had perished in the attack) he came across the severed head of his mother.

This propelled the young man into a traumatized, almost catatonic state, and for days he wandered the town aimlessly, clutching his mother's head in his arms. No one could persuade him to let loose of the head and permit it to be buried. Finally, a village elder convinced him to relent and to take up arms with the insurgents in order to avenge his horrific loss.

The young man was thus thrust into the arms of the Taliban -- he was recruited to the bombing attempt only to land up in a Afghan government dungeon.

This tale, which Gopal said is not uncommon, dramatically brought home the counter-productive results of the U.S. war. While the administration says its war is fighting terrorism and terrorists to make American safer, the horrific civilian casualties (the drone attacks that are glorified by the Pentagon are said to have a civilian-to-terrorist kill ration of 55 to 1!) are actually driving Innocent victims into the hands of the Taliban and other extremists and thereby making us more endangered.

Gopal - Massive U.S. military action in Afghanistan only serves to build hatred of America and fill the ranks of the terrorists.

A dramatic high point of the evening was the presence of large numbers of guests from Brooklyn's South Asian community. Bobby Khan, activist and director of the Coney Island Avenue Project spoke, and while attacking the extremist elements in the Taliban, he also opposed the war for the misery and devastation it is bringing to the people of Afghanistan. U.S. bombs dropped from pilotless planes will not solve the problems of the Afghan people he said and said it is the Pakistani authorities and intelligence agents who are largely to blame for the spread of the Taliban's insurgency. He introduced one guest who had lost his young son to the Taliban's murderous attacks.

Bobby Khan (left) of the Coney Island Avenue Project brought guests from Brooklyn's South Asian community.

Guests from Brooklyn's South Asian community.

After the speakers, Lucy Koteen turned the meeting over to questions from the audience. Nadler, in answer to one question, made a passionate defense of civil liberties which, he said, are very endangered by the war atmosphere. Throughout American history, he said, whenver there has been war, civil liberties has been brushed aside and he said the same thing is happening today. A leading Democrat, he nevertheless decried the current administration's continuation of some of the more onerous authoritarian practices inherited from the Bush regime and said the Bill of Rights could well become a "dead letter" unless Americans stand up to defend it right now.

Doug Biviano, a candidate for City Council in Brooklyn's 33rd district in the last election, asks Congress member Nadler a question.

As the meeting adjourned, both Koteen and Eisenberg said that discussion is good but not enough. Right now, they said, it's only action and pressure from the grass roots that can save the day and end the war. Esienberg asked people to involve themselves in the peace movement, to join protests against the war and to continue pressure on Congress which will soon be asked for even more money to continue that war. Only that can help bring a quick end to the war in Afghanistan she said.

To get active visit the Brooklyn For Peace Website. or write to info@brooklynpeace.org

Brooklyn Hears From The Gaza Freedom Marchers

Jan 14, 2010

Brooklyn For Peace sponsored a report back from the recent Gaza Freedom March which brought some 1400 people from around the world to Cairo at the beginning of this year. Their intention was to enter Gaza through Egypt, thereby expressing their solidarity and to draw the world's attention to the continuing Israeli siege of Gaza. That blockade, implemented by Israel in 2007, has resulted in the most dire conditions for the Palestinian population who are suffering joblessness, malnutrition, poverty and extreme deprivation. Israel, which launched a widely-condemned war a year ago, has continued its hostility by intensifying the blockade and sealing off the besieged country, restricting supplies, food and medicine and preventing access, in and out. Palestinians have, in effect, become prisoners in their own land.

Some 60 Brooklyn residents came to the Brooklyn Friends Meeting House in downtown Brooklyn to hear from some of the marchers who recently returned. Besides Brooklyn For Peace, the meeting was also sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and the Peace and Social Action Committee of the Brooklyn Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Of the 1400 internationals, twelve people from Brooklyn marched in Cairo and two of those were Brooklyn For Peace members. The meeting was organized by BFP's Israel/Palestine Committee which has led the way in the borough of forthrightly raising the question of justice and freedom for Palestine along with security and peace for all people both Israeli and Palestinians. That can be achieved, they say, by negotiating an end to the circle of violence perpetuated, first and foremost, by Israeli policies of occupation and expansion.

A large crowd packed into the Brooklyn Friends Meeting House in downtown Brooklyn to hear the Freedom Marchers report-back.

Naomi Allen, of Brooklyn For Peace's Israel Palestine Committee, welcomes people to the event.

First to speak was Ted Auerbach, a member of Brooklyn For Peace. He presented a slide show and narrated photos showing the event in Cairo including protest demonstrations, a hunger strike by several dozen of the marchers and the unprovoked violence unleashed by the Egyptian authorities against the marchers. He said that one impressive aspect of the march was the tremendous support shown by average Egyptian citizens as they passed the marchers in the streets of Cairo. He was also impressed by the militancy of the various national delegations but particularly the spirit shown by the French and the South African delegations.

Ted Auerbach, who marched in Cairo, gave a report and slide show.

Ted narrated a slide show with pictures from Cairo. The connivance of the Egyptian government and police prevented the marches from entering Gaza.

Another speaker, David Letwin, summarized the Cairo Declaration, a statement of principles written by the marchers that chart some goals in the months and years ahead, including boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israeli products and companies. This is increasingly raised by international activists as necessary to expose the nature of Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. Analogous to the international struggle against the South African apartheid regime, BDS was a potent tool that raised awareness throughout the world of the necessity to finally end the evil apartheid regime in South Africa.

David Letwin reported on the Cairo Declaration, a document that summarized the demands of the Gaza Freedom Marchers.

Finally, well-known activist and founder of the International Solidarity Movement, Adam Shapiro, appealed to the assembly to carry on exposing the tragedy of Israel's siege of Gaza to let the world know the truth of what is happening there, the result of the blockade that has led to dire conditions among the civilian population of the besieged country.

Adam Shapiro urged the assembly to carry on the struggle in order to keep alive the issue of Israel's starvation siege of Gaza.

A lively question and answer period followed the speakers. Some cautioned on the need to avoid sectarian jargon and demands and to pursue a broad approach to Mid East problems. Without that approach, it was pointed out, U.S. progressives will be unable to move large sections of the American people, let alone the Jewish community, to demand new, more even-handed policies from our government that can put the peace process back on track to finally end the occupation and win a just peace.