- McDonald's -

Re: The vendors need to write or take it up with the City Council.Takes more than votes

In Reply to: The vendors need to write or take it up with the City Council. posted by Mike Bacon on December 07, 1997 at 12:47:58:

Unfortunately, it takes more than votes and polite letters to get results from bureaucrats. As we speak, some of the vendors have launched a campaign of defiance against the regulations in an area called Eastern Market.
In general the only way the underclass is ever listened to is when credible threats are made in such a way that the authorities can neither preempt the threatned action nor arrest the messenger. A good example is lobbyists inside while 500 people outside chant "No Justice, No Peace". Remember, the only way the cops that beat Rodney King were convicted ws because of the threat of another riot,and the only reason Mumia abu-Jamal has not been executed is that the Pennsylvania governor knows that it would burn half of Philly.
Negotiating with bureaucrats is just like any other kind of diplomacy:It is useless unless backed up by power. For the rich, this means witholding campaign contributions. For the poor, this means riots in the streets. For everyone, it ans exposing dirty little secrets and otherwise arranging bad press. For nation-states, it means sending in the Marines. Politics is nothing but war by other means, just as the communists claimed that war is diplomacy by other means. This implies that a political campaign to vilate someoe's rights by passing an unjust law is, in fact, an act of war.
On the stadium issue, you have finally found something we(and almost everyone else)agreeon. I feel that team owners who demand tax money for new stadiums by bidding jurisdictions against oneanother should, according to the logic above, be treated as pirates. Why pirates? They rob the common man and destroy his land,doing as big corporations do in the Third World and having the taxman collect the money the banks would never lend and condemn the land people would never sell. This is piracy ashore. It happens because politicians value the favor of super-rich team owners and those who benefit from the stadia more than thegeneral public-becase more money is involved. The traditional formula is $2 US=1 vote.

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