Summer is here- first shooting of the season

Readers: I believe the above poster stated previously that he lives near Union and Franklin, an area that now has lots of police presence.

Does your landlord feel the police are acting in response to his requests, and those of other people with same interests?

Actually, what's deplorable is the fact that a group of healthy young men choose to shoot at each other whenever they have a dispute rather than find some other way to manage their disagreements.

What's deplorable is that the people that love them turn a blind eye to these activities as well as their selling illegal drugs to others in the community and yet are the first to show up in greek chorus when one of these men is struck down.

What's deplorable is all the fine upstanding citizens that participate in precinct council, community board, block association meetings and the like, but don't seem to be able to affect any change on these corners where open and notorious drug activities occur.

What's deplorable is that the police whose job it is to stop illegal activity can't seem to figure out that the same guys who hang out on the same corner every day for years, and for whom neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds might actually be involved in something illegal.

Yeah, all that is deplorable.


end quote

I'm a homeowner, also. I attend precinct council meetings and am a member of CB8. I have raised three children in this community, and they are all leading successful adult lives. I constantly try to affect change by lobbying my local politicians. I have been fortunate enough to see changes by using the process of "law & order"; the creation of legislation, the application of the law by the police force, and the adjudication in the courts. Unfortunately, people are in charge of that process, and never are we all perfect or expedient. And "I" realize that change can only occur when WE all work together.

If you want to see a change in people who are gripped in poverty, who don't realize that they CAN be part of a viable society, look to the root cause - Money. The love of money is the root of all evil (or so the bible says). The disenfranchisement of the poor by removing funding from education, health (including mental health) and decent housing are major root causes of the madness that is evident on our streets. The recent article by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the June 2014 issue of "The Atlantic" deals with many of the root causes.

A few months ago I posted on NYNOW the following, in response to our mayor's request for funding for Universal Pre-K:

Whose universal pre-K funding plan do you prefer?
Newly elected mayor deBlasio's plan to fund
NYC "universal pre-K" (UPK) is in the best interests of the
citizenry of the city and state. It has been proven that early
stimulation of children leads to better educational results
later in their lives. These better results are then translated
into a better workforce, which obviously increases the state
fisc. The population of NYC is in excess of 8.1M, and that of
NYS 19.6M making NYC at least 41% of the state’s population. The
meme of local government being the best government would apply
here . DeBlasio was elected by more than 73% of the voting
population. The financial benefits of catalyzing early
development are striking in view of the fact that 80% of
incarcerated felons lack a high school diploma.
Nationally, states are trying to find ways to reduce the cost of
their penal institutions. This applies to NYS. The average
annual cost of incarcerating one person in NYS (in 2010) was
more than $60K. The cost in 2011 to incarcerate 59,237 persons
statewide was almost $3.6 billion. 22% These costs come from
expenditures outside of just the corrections budget. That cost
of jailing one person is easily the annual cost of an ivy league
education. With globalization rapidly challenging the US
workforce, we need to stimulate our human capital to its highest
level of productivity. That would start with having the best
educated workforce, and reducing the waste of human potential
lost to a “crime university”. NY state is already on record as
having underfunded NYC. The "Campaign for Fiscal Equity" (CFE)
case that was initiated in 1993, and wound its way through state
courts for thirteen years. In 2006, the Court of Appeals final
ruling was that the state must provide essential resources for
public school children. This occurred after (then) Gov. Pataki
said after the appellate court struck down the initial finding
of the case ruled for the plaintiffs, that the state had no more
responsibility than to educate students to an 8th grade level,
which would be sufficient for an entry level job, and sufficient
for the citizen to pull a voting lever. When the ruling, on
re-appeal, was re-instated, Gov. Pataki turned on his words and
said that the state of NY has always sought the highest levels
of education for all of its citizenry. Currently, much of the
sentiments of Pataki's original statement still linger in the
legislature. State Sen. Greg Ball's bio, on his official state
website lists him as "fighting for the elimination of unfunded
mandates". That could include the tragically unfunded mandate of
educating students in all (urban) areas, not just NYC. -Desmond


A., Brooklyn  (the part of my statement
that is underlined was what was chosen for broadcast)

The dysfunction that is evident in our community, our city, and other parts of the country could be blamed on the roll of government and legislation that systematically "strangled government until it could fit in a bathtub". People who are being pushed onto train tracks or stabbed in public housing can look back to Gov. Rockefeller(R)  and later Gov. Mario Cuomo(D)  closing down mental health centers.

Until people realize that the taxes that WE pay should be used for the benefit of ALL society, WE will unfortunately continue to have the types of madness we see on the streets. WE will probably also see more of the madness that the banking system criminally perpetrated on the city, state, country, and the world. (that thing about the love of money being....)

The fact that I or my progeny aren't part of that dysfunctional group comes from being fortunate enough to have been born into a poor but loving home, where God, education, and respect for law was revered. Basically, structure. Oddly enough, people tend to become more structured when they aren't fighting the stifling, drowning effects of poverty. A wise friend of mine told me once that " you can't fight for yourself and fight for your balance at the same time". As long as poor people are constantly kept in a perennial state of disenfranchisement, with no visible means of uplifting themselves, and no instruction about how to achieve upward mobility, we will continue to have the results that we see on our streets.

The problems that are being discussed in this thread started 15-40 years ago. They can't be fixed overnight. That doesn't mean to stop working in that direction.