Sorry for the light posting,

posted by The Vidiot @ 3:22 PM Permalink

But I'm still trying to digest a meeting Mr. Vidiot and I attended on Wednesday that was about Bruce Ratner's mega-development less than a mile from our home. (For some background, you can go to Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn.) The gist of the background is that through a bunch of sweetheart, backroom deals, a college buddy of Governor Pataki was able to gobble up lots of land at a cheap price. Not only that, because of his close ties with city and state officials, he's gotten his hands on lots and lots of city and state money. Not only that, he's using eminant domain to get rid of the people who don't want to lose their homes. On top of that, he's making all sort of promises that he will never fulfill. We know that because Mr. Ratner has built before in Brooklyn, made similar promises, all of which were never kept. On top of all that, the development is huge, ugly, will blot out the sun for many neighborhoods and increase traffic to an already congested area. And all of THAT ain't even all of it. But you get the gist.

So, we went to this meeting that was supposed to be the only public meeting on the environmental impact statement. It's a 1,400 page document and the meeting was called just a few weeks after they released it and in the middle of most peoples' vacations. They're only required to have one meeting because a large portion of the development is over state property and state requirements are lame. But of course, Ratner already knew that which is why he chose the site.

Never before have I ever witnessed such a ridiculous and insulting piece of political theater. Ratner's people had organized huge groups of labor people to be there. See, Ratner has "donated" money to lots of groups and acquired lots of support for himself that way. In some cases, he's given money and empty promises to organizations, mostly minority groups and in return, they promise to remain quiet until needed. This was a clever strategy because with so much support coming from the working class and minority communities, anyone who is white who is against the development, which many of the opponents are because many of the neighborhoods around the development have been gentrified over the years, then those white people can be labeled as racist or elitist. Clever, no?

Anyway, the Ratner people had all these labor unions and ACORN and BUILD, etc, get in line WAY early for a 4:30 meeting (like 7am) and fill the auditorium up. They were fed and were given matching t-shirts, etc. So there were these huge swathes of orange labor shirts and red ACORN shirts and blue BUILD shirts, etc. Oh, and they were told to be quite vociferous in their support. So the rest of us, the ones who WEREN'T paid to be there, had a hard time getting in and signing up to say our piece. Once inside, there of course were cameras and reporters everywhere, it was quite a zoo. The first part of the meeting were the "officials" talking about the report. Most of them wore expensive suits, were young and spoke in monotone. Then all of the elected officials got to speak, most of whom were for the development plan. (Though, to be fair, Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president who was the first to invite this blight upon our community to begin with, has begun to sing a slightly different tune. He's toning down his support and calling for a scaling back of the mega project, probably because Pataki will be out by the end of the year and the new guy who's leading the race, Elliot Spitzer, is taking a second look at the whole project. Marty knows what side his bread will be buttered on. And that man knows bread. Trust me.) Only a few politicians are against it. VERY few. Even ones from Coney Island who have nothing with downtown Brooklyn, got to speak in favor of the thing.

Then finally, it came time for the public commentary. And who's the first guy to speak out against it? Who's the first person to get up there in front of the cameras and mics? Some morbidly obese, video-gaming, pasty white schlub from New Jersey! Man, those Ratner people are good. They made sure that guy got up there and was the first to represent the opposition! That HE was the poster child for the opposition. I admire the man for his brilliant manipulation of the system. He's gifted. It's an evil gift, but a gift nonetheless.

So, Mr. Vidiot are watching the show. He's signed up to speak though we suspect it will be hours before he's called. He yelled "Boo! Boo! Liar!" when necessary. At one point, some slobbering politician in a snake-skin suit was doing his victory walk after his big support speech and Mr. Vidiot yelled right at his face "You're a manipulator and a liar! You know it and I know it! You are a liar!" He must've looked quite mad to the person. (I'm sure at some point, he'll have a nightmare and some portion of it will have Mr. Vidiot in it, with his crazy, long, mad curly hair screaming "Liar! Manipulator!" You know. Just his head in that cartoony floaty way.) And we watched as the majority of the speakers were in support, mostly because they were allowed into the building first and were able to sign up, as was the plan. It doesn't represent the feelings of the surrounding neighborhoods though.

The vast majority of the supporters were labor people who were going on and on about the 2400 or so affordable housing units (less than a third of the units being built and in Brooklyn, affordable housing is a misnomer anyway. It's based on the median income of a neighborhood and the median income of that neighborhood far exceeds anything a labor union employee could hope to make.) They also went on about the jobs for union labor. (Anytime union labor was mentioned, there were loud hoots and hollers) But see, there really aren't going to be THAT many jobs for them. Some, but not a lot. What they don't get is that everything they support is such a small part of the project. Teeny weeny. Miniscule. Near sub-atomic in portion. They're being used and I don't know if they don't care or don't realize or are they just structurally blind to a powerful, dominant, corporate power class. (An example of class hegemony.)

But the "opposition" made us even angrier. We can forgive some people for being tricked into believing this or that, but the opposition is supposed to oppose, and they didn't. They picked out this or that and said "Waaaah. It's bad. WAAAAAH." But they didn't oppose.

And here's what this whole blogpost is about:

There is no opposition. There rarely is. There is a constructed argument. Two sides are fabricated, problems are created, solutions are presented and the solutions that are created by those who created the problems are what's discussed. In the case of Ratner, he's going to build his damn megalopolis. He's created a monster of an issue, knowing full well that as it was proposed, it won't happen. So he presents compromises and solutions, so that the "opposition" feels like it's winning things and beating "the man." But everything they think they're winning is really what Ratner wanted all along. Those in power create the problem, explain the important debates to solve the problem, and offer all solutions as well as "alternatives" to the problem, to which the solutions are already worked out.

Nobody said what was really going on. Nobody talked about the fact that there is a myth called "private property" in this country. There is no such thing as private property. You may THINK you own your home. But you don't. The bank does. And even if you pay of the mortgage, you still don't own it. Just try to not pay your property taxes and see how long you get to live there. The crux of the Ratner project is the way he acquired the land -- through guise and eminant domain abuse.

Mr. Vidiot has coined a really good term for this and he doesn't want me say too much about it yet, and hopefully, he will blog about it soon. (He doesn't blog much. He'd better start. Hint hint.)

It was all so demoralizing and disappointed and disheartening. Mr. Vidit didn't get to speak and we both left, aggravated and upset, made worse by our low blood sugar. (Remember, the union people were fed. We were not.)

This is only one battle in a much larger fight. A fight we are destined to win in the end.

Of course, Mr. Vidiot made me write that last line. He wants me to be optimistic. Not my natural state as many of you might know.