RAT "at least the trains ran on time"

[NOMADMONAD@aol.com]

I, like all my New York friends, am sick of Guiliani's bullying.  It's hard 
to explain how his "zero tolerance" policy has affected our lives. 

Come outside your home to find a $50 ticket attached to your car because your 
inspection sticker is placed over the registration sticker, not to the side 
where "zero tolerance" says it officially belongs.   No matter that your 
mechanic has been placing it on your windshield that way for the past 20 
years.  No matter that the cops are giving a ticket to every other car owner. 
 In Rudy's perverted mind this is good for the city.  But the only thing it 
really does is feed an animosity between the cops and good citizens. Between 
good citizens and their good citizen mechanics. Now multiply this one 
instance by the many other similar ones and you have a city that starts 
hating one another and itself.

Recently two artists created an inspired work in reaction to Guiliani's 
attempt to cutoff funding to the Brooklyn Museum. A giant portrait of 
Giuliani as the Madonna, painted by Skaggs and artist Steve Powers, was 
exhibited; a giant barrel of elephant poop was provided as ammo. Each 
participant was given a latex surgical glove with which to dip into the 
doodoo and heave ho a handful at the portrait. A $1.00 contribution per 
"load" was donated to Housing Works, Inc. to benefit homeless people with 
AIDS.  

The day before this event Skaggs' apartment was raided and he was arrested.

I wish my city would react against this littlest dictator en masse. We do not 
a riot or a war, but we do need an Action. A strike, a protest, civil 
disobedience, militant nonviolence.  Something. Whatever the name, what we 
need is a big piece of theater that puts us all on the stage with one 
another. We need a catharsis to set us free from Rudy and ourselves.

--nick

In a message dated 12/15/99 8:30:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
audiemccall@yahoo.com writes:

> Maybe this is why most Americans loathe artists.
>  
>  A transit strike would bring basically nothing but
>  hardship, and in some cases SEVERE hardship to
>  millions of working New Yorkers-- including the
>  strikers-- but to some of us Rats it's only so much
>  Theatre.  People get gassed, arrested, hurt?!?  Wow! 
>  Good show!
>