A BULLETIN

Dear Neighbors:

I have lived in this neighborhood since I, 964.
I generally keep to myself - although I try to stay in touch with some of the old timers - some of whom i have known since 3rd grade at P.S. 53.

I am writing to you because of the upcoming general election.
Most of you are probably pretty disgusted by the political situation we find ourselves in.
Many of you are registered to vote, but are not very interested in going to the polls.
I am writing this to change your minds.

I am registered as an independent.
I am not involved with any political club, party, or group.
I am writing because I believe the political situation is more serious than i have ever seen it and requires a more serious response than we have been giving it.

The race which I believe is crucial for us is the race for U.S. senator from NEW YORK STATE BETWEEN AL D'AMATO AND CHUCK SCHUMER.
D'Amato has been our senator for i8 years.
He is a republican and has supported all those policies which, since I 98O, have brought us homelessness, higher social security and local taxes, more prisons, and vast drains on the treasury such as the savings and loan bailout.

However, all of this is in the past. What i warn you about today is the future.
You are all aware of President Clinton's scandal.
Many of you may have laughed or been disgusted by the whole thing, but the situation is more than the circus it seems.

Ask yourselves the following questions: who in public life -or out of it for that matter - could stand more than 4 years of intensive investigation of all aspects of his or her life - and at a rate of 10 million dollars a year?
There have been half a dozen separate investigations of the president and his wife.
When one probe has turned up nothing another one has been started.

I think we all know that if the authorities wish to drag one of us into court they can always find something - or make it up if they have to.
So he had sex with a young woman who went to work in the White House with the hope of seducing the president.
Is this even news?
I am surprised this was all they could find.

Why is this man being investigated?
It can not be for any thing he has done since he has spent plenty of money on war machinery, balanced the budget, and eliminated our right to be fed, housed, and medically treated should we fall on hard times and be unable to do for ourselves (Welfare).
These are all things the Republicans and the other spokesmen of the rich say need to be done.
so why is he being persecuted?

It stands to reason that if the president is not being attacked for what he has done, it must be for what he has not done.
While the president has been more than willing to throw the poor overboard to sink or swim as they may, he has refused to do so to the middle class.
He has tried to protect this class from the worst the henchmen of the rich have dished out.
In particular he has refused to shift what remains of the upper class's tax burden onto the middle class and he has refused to let Wall Street use the Social Security trust fund for it's gambling - oh, sorry - it's 'investments'.

I believe that the class which the republicans most represent wish to have a world in which an ordinary person has no rights which a rich person need respect.
Since non-whites and women are now allowed to join the ruling class if they qualify, the upper class actually consider this progress!
(Note that, as in many criminal gangs, the first requirement for qualification is that one give up on one's own people - indeed, actively betray them.)

President Clinton is a small, but annoying & popular stumbling block to the plans of this powerful minority.
While the Russians and their half-baked social system were a threat, the upper class showed some patience and toleration toward us, now they are impatient to get about the business of putting every upstart who thinks he ought to have a place in the sun in his or her proper place - that is, in the back.
As far as they are concerned, it's time to stop fooling around. If this president won't play ball their way, drive him from the ball park by any means necessary.

Which brings us back to Senator D'Amato.
He has been the main man in the senate supporting the continuing investigations of the Clintons.
Whenever Ken Starr seemed to be running out of steam, there would D'Amato be, urging him on.
Removing him would send a signal to those he serves that they would have no easy job of depriving us of out rights and livelihoods.
Chuck Schumer will at least try to protect what has not already been destroyed.

Make no mistake, elections make a difference and elections are won by voting.

Who can fail to see the great difference in this country between the presidency of Jimmy Carter and that of Ronald Reagan?
Or the difference in this city between the mayoralty of David Dinkins and that of Rudolf Guiliani?
Even George Pataki's governorship has had a marked impact on our lives.

Whenever you go into the subways you can not help but notice the delays, by-passed stations, shut down lines, and general confusion.
This is caused by the M.T.A.'S program to re-build every station in the system.
This has nothing to do with the riders - the changes are almost entirely cosmetic.
It has to do with the contractors.

When the ancestors of most of New York State's residents came from Italy, Ireland, and Eastern Europe, they were dirt poor - and unwanted by the English Americans already in the land.
These immigrants eventually became citizens and elected politicians who then commisioned bridges, subways, highways, schools, and other public works.

These works provided employment for the immigrants and were their ticket out of poverty.
These immigrants made their way to middle class status with public money.
It also provided vast profits to the moneylenders since the state invariably borrowed the money for these public works.
Now the descendants of these peoples live out side the city and are building suppliers, construction workers, contractors, and union presidents.
They still vote for politicians who create public works for them to make their living from.
They still owe their middle class status to money which we are all taxed to provide.
The banks & other money lenders still make vast profits by lending the money and getting all of us to pay them the interest.
They will not send their children to our public schools under any circumstances, nor pay for the instruction within the walls, but they make money from re-building them - at our expense!

The work force which has to run and maintain the trains and stations is io% less than a few years ago - and this with a huge increase of riders.
It should not escape your notice that the subway's work force reflects the multi-racial makeup of the city.
The contractors doing the renovations are almost entirely white.
The white, immigrant descendants are unwilling that the subways should be properly funded as far as operating budgets go since they and theirs do not use it nor make up most of it's work force.
Yet they must have contracts at our expense to pretty up the stations and keep their sub-urban lifestyles from being touched by the problems which we have to deal with day in and day out- all the while disrupting service.

We are regarded with contempt, yet our tax dollars go to make-work projects to keep them sitting pretty.
Projects which harm or ignore our real needs.
It is no wonder that Guiliani, Pataki, and D'Amato are all well liked outside the city - they are plundering it and distributing the spoils among the favored ethnic groups and classes outside.

This sort of thing - business as usual in New York State - has gotten much worse under Pataki than it was under Governor Cuomo.
So a vote for any Republican in New York State is a vote for your own exploitation.
Not voting when you can do so is almost as bad since doing nothing favors those already in power.

One of the big jokes of recent times is the claim that the Democratic Party is a party of liberals and that the Republicans are conservative.
Actually the Democrats are the conservative ones.
They are trying - generally ineffectively - to preserve some of our traditional rights and privileges.
The Republicans, on the other hand, are radical.
They are trying to demolish the social system which has been in place since the I 93OS and replace it with some bastard version of the I9th century or worse.

Not voting against Al D'Amato is a vote to remove President Clinton - a man who, if not a friend, is not hostile to us.
Not voting against Al D'Amato is a vote to allow the rich to steal the Social Security money.
Not voting against AI D'Amato is a vote for more prisons, more death sentences, more armed men in uniforms on our streets and in our schools, and fewer rights - if any.

We already have frequent, nightime, helicopter surveillance of our neighborhood. Imagine what we will have if the current authorities decide they can do anything they want.
We will end up living in the equivalent of a military occupation: fences all around our neighborhoods, passes, check points, curfews, & worse.
Look at the Palestinians if you want to see what the right wing wants to do to us.
Not voting in the senatorial race this time is to give up what little opportunity we have to prevent a hostile minority from gaining a crucial advantage.
We are in a situation in which one class, the rich class, has declared war on the rest of the population.
The leaders of this class believe they have the absolute right to rule the entire earth.
Not doing what we can to delay or de-rail their plans when we have a chance of doing so means we will have to fight harder, later with little or no hope of success.

Make a difference this week: vote.
If you know of someone who is registered, but can not get to the polling station by himself or herself, offer to accompany him or her.
If you know of someone who is registered, but is disillusioned with the whole situation, show him or her this flyer.
Go to the polls and vote for your interests - or we will have only ourselves to blame.

If you are unsure whether you are registered to vote or not, call the board of elections at 299 9OI7; ask for Ms. Tannenbaum.

October/1,998

"Toucan" by Joan Hardin (copyright)

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