political stuff

[rm]

Dear New Yorker,

As you know, Mayor Bloomberg, and NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, are saying New Yorkers can't rally against the RNC in Central Park, because a demonstration there would damage the grass.

Let's take this grass issue off the table: let's volunteer to clean up our own mess. We're pledging to give 4 hours of our time to the Parks department, to repair and clean up Central Park if the City permits our rally.

We should also be ready to trade those 4 hours for other jobs, in other parks, sometime in the next year, to offset costs for re-sodding or other specialized repairs in Central Park, which may not be suitable for volunteer labor.

Don't New Yorkers deserve free speech, AND nice parks? It shouldn't be so hard, if we all pitch in.


Click below to sign our petition to Mayor Bloomberg, and pledge to volunteer:


NOTE: Since you are pledging to volunteer, please sign the petition ONLY if you live in the NYC area! If you do not, please forward it to someone who does. Your name and address will not be shared, and will be used only to contact you about volunteer opportunities for NYC parks, if the petition is successful and the RNC rally is permitted.


http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/975111804

And don't forget to forward this message! Our goal is 1,000 volunteers, but we're guessing many more will be ready to help. The more volunteers we can offer, the stronger our case will be.


Additionally, this completely journalisticly appropriate article on the latest terror threats is worth reading, mainly for the thinly veiled rage of the journalism community at having to scurry about and devote front pages to news that boils down to "freak out! don't leave your homes! voting scary! we have no idea what is going on and neither do the guys in charge!" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/09home.html?hp

Because I have such a dim view of the intelligence, organizational skill and ability to contain leaks by any government or organization, ultimately, I wind up pretty much not being a conspiracy theorist at all. That said: Power is an organism that, regardless of what we wield it for, is designed to protect and propigate its own existence. This emphatically does _not_ make it inherently bad, but like fire, like a dog that will bite its master and like the odd-numbered social group that will ultimately eat its own, you can't ever forget what it is, and what it wants and what it will do, quite well and apart from human will.

To me, that's one of the more interesting and disturbing facets of our current political state of affairs.

Comments

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, with a solid belief in the cause, a secret can be kept. The best example is the stealth bomber.

I recall, very clearly, that in the late '80s there were leaks about it, people had seen it, and a model was even made of it.

And all of them were accurate, save for one thing, it was the "fighter" (I put it in quotes because it has zero air to air capability, zip-zilch-nada). The bomber was in production longer, and not known to the public until it was through the trials. Under wraps for more than 10 years.

On the other hand (and this is in part from 11 years in the intel community) if there is any doubt about the merits, the justifications for the secrecy... nothing more than Ben Franklin's dictum (three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead) will preserve it. It may not come out until it is too late to stop, but it will come out.

More depressing is the phrasing of the, "alert" with a modicum of care a lack of attack can be trumpeted as a sign of the effectiveness of the administration's programs. This sort of fear mongering is almost a no-lose situation.

I hate the way this administration makes me feel like a nut-bar conspiracy theorist.

TK