Just read a great blog entry by Karen Finley, over at The Huffington Post, about the failure of NYC’s Republican Mayor to get a plan to build a new Olympic Stadium passed.
My favorite exerpt:
Let me tell you the real reason the Olympic stadium didn’t go through: It’s payback time. New York City is sick and tired of having the party in their house, providing the booze, food, the space and then everyone putting their cigarettes out on our rug. After last summer’s hosting of the Republican Convention, (even though 75 percent of Manhattan voted for Kerry) New Yorkers have had enough.
During the Republican Convention last year, the city turned into a military zone, with unnecessary sweeping arrests. Citizens were held in mass holdings at the pier. The military and police were lined along thoroughfares, visibly armed. Pedestrians were regularly searched, stopped. Democrats watched the Republicans USE The Red Apple, exploit Ground Zero as a backdrop to justify the occupation and war in Iraq. Then leave us being a standing duck.
Republicans came to our town for fun, then in a month felt guilt and made it all better with continuing the agenda of No Stem Research, No Gay Marriage. Everything done here, stays here. And that needs to change. Believe me the Republicans didn’t come to New York for the weather in August. They came for the clubs, the loving, the sex, the art. No one said, “Oh I can’t wait to have the Republican Convention in a town that doesn’t serve liquor and you go to church when you can’t sleep.”
We have had enough of our city’s Red Alert, being used as an erotic zone for conservatives to facilitate their agenda at our expense. They are pimping us. Ground Zero’s fear becomes propaganda to continue the Patriot Act.
Amen.
I remember, right around the time the war started, graffitti and t-shirts started to appear in the city, saying “U.S. OUT OF NYC”—there was even the occasional wild-eyed rant about seceding…becoming a “Free City-state.” I tell ya, if that happened, as much as I love the friends that I have here, I’d be packing my shit and heading back east in a heartbeat.
Cool.
And I’m gonna be there tomorrow!
Know what? I just might join you.