[Mb-civic] NY - Post RNC Report

[RJ Mac]

Well the formal hate-fest has come and gone.  I must
say, I kept myself away from the hot zones of
conventioneers and protestors, and so found the city
nearly abandoned;  a weekday afternoon in Times Square
was about as populated as a suburban park.  Instead of
customary throngs of citizens and tourists: a police
presence hard to comprehend.  On every corner, pairs
of police with firearms at-ready, not handguns in
holsters in case of need: rifles with sites held up in
both hands and eyes scanning.  Teams of motorcycle
cops, police escorted busses of conventioneers and
caravans of police vehicles speeding through sparsely
trafficked streets.  There is no simile or metaphor. 
This city was under military occupation.  One friend
was actually harrassed by police inside a pharmacy
while he went to obtain his medical supplies. 
Washington treated New York City and it's residents
like a kinder, gentler Iraq.

===================
a week or so back I forwarded a post from a playwright
friend re: his visit by the FBI.  I've taken the
liberty of forwarding his follow-up:
====================

Regarding recent visitors to my city.

When I came to Manhattan in the late 1950s it was for
me a safe haven. I somehow felt the hatred lurking out
there in middle America could not reach me here.
Remember, back then this was the America of
segregation and the McCarthy witch hunts and the
cookie cutter conformity which passes now as "happy
days" nostalgia only for those who didn’t live through
it. Landing in NYC was like landing on a square on a
Monopoly board only to discover you already owned it.
You were home free.

Even to this day I feel safe here, 9/11 be damned. Or
I did until last week. I only had to look out of my
window or walk up my street to see a cherished
Republican wet dream come true - New York City as a
police state. Two cops on every corner - some with
machine guns - snarling at us locals, almost begging
us to make their day (you live here, you are a
"girlie-man"–and fair game). Pure GOP Viagra for the
limpest conservative dick. All that was missing for
the perfect sexual climax were the "concentration
camps."

As one Republican woman (for some reason she thought I
was a retired policeman) explained to me "to win the
war on terror we may need to detain" - and I quote -
"political malcontents, sexual deviates and racial
ingrates." She added with a sweet motherly smile "if
only for their own good." I asked her who she meant by
"racial ingrates." After a quick look over her
shoulder to see who might be listening and gesturing
widely, she answered "Them!...those people have no
gratitude! You give them absolutely everything and
they still demand more." I didn’t dare ask about the
"sexual deviates."

Years ago I came home to a burgled apartment. I felt
violated. I felt what belongings remained had been
desecrated, my very life besmirched. I wanted to move
out immediately. An actress friend of mine suggested I
cool it and recommended I take a shower, sort of a
ritual cleansing. It worked. I could now slowly take
back my life. The violation of my city is another
matter. To paraphrase the Scottish play "all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the stench" left
behind by the pachyderms. Wherever I step there seems
to be steaming piles of malice. I doubt my city will
ever be clean again. I do know it is no longer safe.
And I do not mean from terrorists.

Doric Wilson

PS - Now that Ed Koch (former Democratic mayor of NYC
and longtime enemy of gay people - read David Carter’s
Stonewall) is a spokesperson for Ariel Sharon
shouldn’t he register himself as an agent of a foreign
government?




		
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