Re: RAT "at least the trains ran on time"

["David Sinclair" <mal_occhio@hotmail.com>]

for your general consumption...

benito guiliani has instigated a program of class liquidation in manhattan 
that goes un-noticed outside of new york city due to his media machine and 
his use of "offical" channels of harrissment (i.e cops).

under his reign, there are now more police officers in manhattan than there 
are marines in paris island. these cops are not "properly" trained (if cops 
by definition ever could be), so they are roaming around new york city armed 
and dangerous to civilians.

by the time i left new york, the amount of reported incidents of police 
brutality had reached a new city record. (including many famous deaths of 
innocent blach youths, the lumia case, and my personal favorite, the full 
body cavity search of an eighty year old woman at 2am.)

in anticipation of any type of mass social protest against his regime, 
benito has built himself a riot-control bunker at the top of the world trade 
towers.

to further intimidate the masses he has installed video cameras in all 
public parks that only "the authorities" have access to -- under the premise 
of 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.'

benito and jay oliva (president of new york university, the single largestst 
private owener of land in the city) have worked together to destroy any 
potential resistance to this class liquidation posed by the unions. "New 
York will no longer be a place where poor people live" -- giuliani on a 
televised public speech, circa 1996.

Skagg is not the only artist that has been arrested or harris-ed by the blue 
shirts. his arrest is only further testiment to the extent to which 
guilliani will go to stop other from publicly disagreeing with his policies.

so audie, forgive me for thinking that you knew of the climate in which 
these events might have unfolded. exactly for whom do you think a transit 
strike (or a possible wildcat strike that might have accompanied it) might 
have been a "SEVERE hardship"? Did you honestly think that the only message 
here was one of pleasure at the potential that we might consume images of 
social unrest as they would be presented to us by the spectacle of everyday 
life? Do you honestly think that striking has never done anything for the 
betterment of our working conditions?

Consider the massive amount of blood that had to be shed because those who 
make profit didn't want to even give workers a 10 hour work day. the only 
benefits workers of anykind enjoy today had to be won and wrestled from 
thier employers.

yes, although that is not what you said or may have been implying with your 
post, the consequences of your sentiments are exactly those: shut up and get 
back to work. as artists, we need to learn how to cultivate the 
theatricality of daily situations like the one that might have occured in 
manhatten, not for the sake of a symbolic destruction of the persons or 
images that dominate us, but the actually overthow of the conditions under 
which we are dominated.

david

>From: NOMADMONAD@aol.com
>Reply-To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>Subject: RAT "at least the trains ran on time"
>Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 14:27:42 EST
>
>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!
> >

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