July 27, 2005


Nothing to Fear but republicans selling fear

I don't think I'll be going to New York anytime soon. I'll miss all the good Indian restaurants, I'll miss my favorite pizza place, Johns. I'll miss going to the American Museum of Natural History and walking through the glass-walled canyons of mid-town. I'm not going to a be a tourist in a city where the republican mayor is making everyone be afraid of their own shadow. The strength and resilience of new Yorkers came out on 9/11 and all the days after. It was inspirational.

But Bloomberg has taken the little shove of the London Bombings to open the floodgates of paranoia in New York. People who wanted desperately to believe that it couldn't happen again and had gotten on with their lives were pushed back to the brink of believing that disaster was just around the corner, and that swarthy people might be the agents of their destruction.

The concerns over a possible terror attack on a New York city tour bus emerged just before noon on Sunday, when a supervisor with Gray Line, the bus company, approached a police captain in Midtown Manhattan to tell him that five suspicious men had just boarded one of the company's famous red double-decker buses, No. 320.
...
The emerging details of the incident in and around Times Square, provided chiefly by the police, have begun to shape a fuller picture of what became a wild scene at one of New York's busiest tourist attractions: police officers ordering tourists to put their hands up, bomb-sniffing dogs climbing aboard the bus, and five men who appeared to be South Asian winding up handcuffed and lined up in a row on their knees. They were questioned and then released.
Bloomberg basically called the GrayLine employees idiots for being paranoid. What he was probably pissed about was the fact that Broadway got shut down in the middle of the day.

Yeah, I'll miss New York. I just don't want to participate in the republicans 24/7 FearFest. So I'll go visit, I don't know, San Francisco or Chicago or something. They don't seem to have mayors who are scared shitless about dropping poll numbers.

posted by Jo Fish on 07.27.05 at 01:14 AM





Comments:

LA's got a new mayor who's not afraid. On the day of the London bombings, he took to riding the busses and the subway talking to "regular joes" and easing their fears.

Viva Villaraigosa!

posted by: jillian on 07.27.05 at 12:48 PM [permalink]



Mostly, New Yorkers are taking it in stride. IMO, it's all election year CYA. See Gothamist for Lively Discussion:
Gothamist: Welcome, Subway Bag Checks by the NYPD!
Subway Bag Check Fashion
Give Me Liberty or Give Me My Subway Ride

posted by: S.D. on 07.27.05 at 01:26 PM [permalink]



I may go to NYC, not only because I love it and have friends there, but because I want to see what happens to a woman with black hair and 'olive' skin (i.e. me) on the 'street'(remember the '02-'03 ridiculous CNN so-called "they're saying on the street" analysis of Muslim opinion?).

posted by: Nina on 07.27.05 at 03:31 PM [permalink]



She put hmmmmm in hmmmmMuslim.

You go girl!

That's what it's about- hearts and minds. Take the love to the streets and win back the silent majority.

posted by: Mr.Murder on 07.31.05 at 12:56 PM [permalink]






Post a Comment:

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember your info?



















usdemvet -at- hotmail.com
or
usndemvet -at- usdemvet.com (coming soon)






All the original material © 2002-2003 Jo Fish
steal what you want, all I ask is an attribution of some sort
Thanks