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June 24, 2011
The Battle for Brooklyn: The Moses Legacy
The Icehouse Gang
by Kevin Baker
One of the many vital issues that filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky turn a spotlight on is how little control even we here in allegedly liberal New York actually have over our government. Thirty years after he was laid out in his lead-lined coffin, with two or three stakes in his heart, a wreath of garlic around his neck, and a couple of gargoyles at this feet, the legacy of Robert Moses still lies heavy upon our collective throats.
One of the foremost ways that Moses was able to exert his will for so many decades was by removing the democracy from democracy. Over and over again, he removed legitimate government functions from legislative control, and put them in the hands of state-chartered, independent “authorities.” This seemed like a clever way to dodge the continuous venality of Tammany Hall and other political machines, and for a time it was.
But the machines and machine politics faded away, while the authorities are forever.
...Essentially, the authorities function as a shadow government, dictating much of our economic future without ever having to put anything up to a vote.
Which is exactly why those elected officials, in this case Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Brooklyn Borough President and Head Buffoon, Marty Markowitz, and the Rustics, a.k.a., the New York City Council, decided to go the authorities route when they wanted to press the doctrine of eminent domain to its breaking point, and ram the Atlantic Yards project down the throats of the people of Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at June 24, 2011 10:40 AM