Ladies and gentlemen, I have heard my last horror story about Astorians.com. If you want a place to make meaningful conversation about Astoria and its environs, I suggest you go to Astorialogues, which actually welcomes dialogue about overdevelopment and neighborhood problems. Click graphic to visit site.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Real talk at Astorialogues
Ladies and gentlemen, I have heard my last horror story about Astorians.com. If you want a place to make meaningful conversation about Astoria and its environs, I suggest you go to Astorialogues, which actually welcomes dialogue about overdevelopment and neighborhood problems. Click graphic to visit site.
10 comments:
It's now known this week that the reason why Vallone, Jr., who was told just months earlier by Mayor Dickberg that Astoria was getting yet another power plant in order to feed all of the 'fab' condo's in LIC, and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it, that the reason why he changed his mind at the last minute and actually kissed Dickberg's ass about extending term limits was that the Vallone family was awarded 1.8 MILLION for their 'services'. This was reported in the Village Voice by a team of investigative reporters close to City Hall pranks.
Now all of us native Astorian's that have alway's had our doubts about him are convinced the guy will not win another election at our expense again. His slimy, deceptive reputation will follow him for the rest of his 'career'.
Time to apply to Home Depot, Petey.
Why don't you post this on astorians.com?
A few of us were sharing an IP address and they got rid of us. For that reason.
And perhaps speaking out minds.
For a number of decades, there exists a mind deadening push for conformity of political opinion in this community - any difference of opinion makes its leadership uneasy. Go to a community board meeting, read the paper, everywhere the strong theme is to 'go along to get along' or if you want to express an opinion, you simply parrot what a local poltician said.
Look at the newspapers. Year in and year out, the same two or three dozen people are in all the photos - and there is nothing about them that justifies this power except that they know and socialize with each other. Sort of like a little clubhouse, eh?
The public is led to believe that responsibility for governing seems to bear an inverse relationship to the politician's distance from the actual problem. The president, the governor, the mayor are responsible for everything. Commenting on a local clubhouse hack's inept performance is taboo. The fact that one of the mods over there even calls himself a 'political hack' should engender a fit of eye rolling in all of us. The smarmy 'how wonderful' honorific that inevitably follows the name of a politician just makes me gag.
It’s sad to see this mentality in the cyber age, but I am not at all surprised. Astorians.com simply reflects the mentality of this community's leadership.
The sad thing is any community spirit that has deteriorated to this is a community that is in steep decline. The most vibrant and healthy communities are areas that have lively debate - on development, on local politics, on city services.
The best way to get even is not to fight them directly (it is after all, Merm's sandbox and freedom of the press belongs to those who own the printing press), but take every opportunity that you get when you are in other blogs (Queenscrap, or Angry NYer, for example), to slam their policy of censorship or their stifling mentality when it comes to discussing local issues.
The general tone of that board is smug self-indulgent prattle. Sort of like going to a UCCA bake sale, a reporter once said to me.
There is a very real desire to sweep issues under the rug, while at the same time, a very real lack of desire to come to grips with the very real problems that are growing in this community with each passing month.
Reminds me of our political leadership in Astoria, doesn't it? I wonder if there is any connection ...
Sure, an online medium can provide a powerful vehicle for community activism, but this is New York, baby. It's still very much old-school, back-room horse-trading that gets anything done. Vallone, the City Council, and the rest of the Old Boys Club could give a shit about what some white 20-something hipster thinks or wants. Or what he types furiously in his wordpress blog. This is the place the invented Machine Politics -- fuck, they elevated to an art form! And the Machine is decidedly NOT online.
You have a small clique that runs Astoria and have been doing so for a very long period of time. They know each other and have no real desire (or incentive for that matter) to open up their little clubhouse. Years ago when the rest of the city was burning this made some sense, but now the city has moved forward and this little group has lot touch with progress. To ensure a quiet public, any avenue for discussion or information is blocked. Newspapers, community board, officials, and what passes for civics.
Good luck in even trying to get a serious discussion.
As the attitude (on astorians.com) demonstrates, the first reaction is to deny there is a problem, and the second (when their face is rubbed in it) is to snarl that you should move as others (more desperate and not as discriminating perhaps?) would be happy to fill your shoes. Check out their 'human feces thread' as a stellar example of public discourse in this community.
So you have the small time small town local talent (with no taste or sophistication) throwing up cheaply built tenements and ready to milk as much as they can as quickly as they can. As someone wrote on Queens Crap, they have written off the community and are ripping out the pipes.
Architects on the community board are involved in building in the community, everyone has a fratboy approach to an empty lot - "lets see how much we can make." Many people making choices on our future don't even live here. The largest contributor to politician's campaigns are developers. Your tax money is used to subsidize them, not provide services to your family. Remember that when your taxes take a big jump next year.
When that stucco starts to fall off, fades, and gets dirty in about 20 years these developers will either be dead or in Florida.
The west of Queens is targeted for a massive jump in population and - with no discussion of infrastructure to support it - a massive decline in quality of life. Thoughout the city, with a smirk, its called the 'Wild West.' And Community Board One is famed as the belly of the beast. Go to another community board meeting and the difference is glaring.
Go down to LIC or Dutch Kills. Look at communities hoodwinked and betrayed, or if that failed, simply ignored.
That is Astoria's future.
*This is the place the invented Machine Politics -- fuck, they elevated to an art form! And the Machine is decidedly NOT online.
Dont act like a kid.Politics in NYC is like the mob and the only place as bad as this b.s. is Chicago.Do something instead of ripping on people and comparing them to lefties you hate.You think in black and white.
* Architects on the community board are involved in building in the community, everyone has a fratboy approach to an empty lot - "lets see how much we can make." Many people making choices on our future don't even live here. The largest contributor to politician's campaigns are developers. Your tax money is used to subsidize them, not provide services to your family. Remember that when your taxes take a big jump next year.
Finally someone who speaks coherently on this site instead of rambling taxpayer or wade.But NYC has always been about money money money and nothing else so developers go hand and hand with this place.Theres no thought to this place.Its just right wing private property mentality and fuck everyone else.
I hate Astoria.
It's an unsightly place, full of the pollution that the rest of New York City won't tolerate being produced in its backyard.
It's full of immigrants who may or may not take their new country seriously.
It's full of longtime United States citizens, who decided decades ago that with as little learning and bravery and creativity as possible they could just about avoid any progress.
It's decorated in cheap wrought iron and gaudy fake-gold appliqué, like a prize out of a 25 cent machine in a grocery store.
Buildings keep going up all over the place as rents in Manhattan become too severe and people move east towards Queens and Long Island.
And that construction is of the poorest quality possible because the entire borough has been put up for sale by the smalltime crooks who are elected to run it.
Families hand down run-down diner or restaurant dynasties to their offspring.
Newspapers are bought out by the advertisers or the politicians who pay for their printing.
The old ladies, Italian or Greek or Croatian, sit on their front porches and are very sure they know exactly the way life should be and why you are not acceptable.
The men make a lot of talk about what they won't tolerate and how they're not afraid to stand up to so and so and then quietly, with harsh lined faces, let themselves be hoodwinked again and again.
It's a place of sit down and shut up and don't you dare talk back you'd better like what's coming to you.
It's a place of sit down and shut up and don't you dare talk back you'd better like what's coming to you.
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You been on astorians.com?
Theres no thought to this place.Its just right wing private property mentality and fuck everyone else.
Now who's yammering in terms of "black and white"? The ignorance of your statement is astounding, and a page torn out of the "Whiney New Yorkers Guide to Entitlement."
There is little respect for private property here -- the developer clique has gotten where it is precisely because of their cozy relationship with the city government.
Stop blaming "private property", or capitalism, or whatever bogeyman you need to blame for whatever life situation you are desperately trying to rail against. There is no free market at play here in New York City; and if there was, I bet life would be a fuck-load better for all of us.
try being an atheist in astoria
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