12/10/98
by Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
12/8/98
DC 37 Scandal: Will Giuliani be Indicted?
Dear Editor,
It doesn't take the skills of a former Federal prosecutor to see where the DC 37 election scandal will eventually lead. Only the truly naive could believe that these union officials risked losing their professional reputations, their lush kickbacks, their huge salaries and their freedom in order to fix an election that virtually every person in the union, the media and City government would see as bogus. Without the word to put in the fix being received from above (above meaning higher than Stanley Hill and lower than God) they never would have done it.
Mayor Giuliani must be shaking in his bunker as he waits for one of the accused to cut a deal in exchange for revealing Mr. Giuliani's key part in this foul mess. The Mayor's only hope is that the Manhattan D.A. will show little or no interest in getting down to the truth; i.e. Giuliani and/or his closest aides were behind the whole thing. The real story ain't about turkeys.
12/7/98
The Fence Around City Hall Park is an Affront to Every New Yorker
Dear Editor,
Mayor Giuliani has finally outdone himself in the arrogance category. After losing numerous lawsuits involving the right to speak, demonstrate or hold press conferences on the steps of City Hall Park or in the park itself the Mayor now has the entire park surrounded by a ten foot high chain link fence. Parks Commissioner Stern, a fawning Giuliani loyalist if ever there was one, would have us believe it's just part of a scheduled park renovation. That would be like Stalin justifying the Berlin Wall as postwar reconstruction. I suggest that like the Berlin Wall, New Yorkers make this fence a medium of expression and a new public forum from which to show our disgust with Mayor Giuliani and his ever-evolving police state. Earlier today I used the fence and the concrete barricades surrounding the park as a display easel for my anti-Giuliani portraits. Police Commissioner Safir happened to pass my display with some visiting dignitaries and looked like he was a about to explode. The time to politely apply for permits to speak, march, hold a sign or hand out a few leaflets in front of the seat of New York City government is over. Let's make the sidewalk and fence around City Hall Park the stage from which to overthrow Giuliani-ism in1999.
12/3/98 Re: City Hall Reopened to Tours
Dear Editor,
As part of his ongoing plans to Disnify New York City, Mayor Giuliani claims he is now willing to allow tour groups to enter City Hall two hours per week. In other words, tourists will be allowed to enter the City's most public building but actual New Yorkers, some of whom may have a political issue to advocate or heavens forbid be critics of the Mayor, will not. According to Giuliani the police will decide who can enter. Perhaps Commissioner Safir can obtain DNA samples from the tourists (earlier this week Safir announced a plan to obtain DNA from every person arrested in the City) just in case any of them are terrorists or suddenly decide to become terrorists after their visit to Giuliani's police state. Hey, even Pinochet allowed tours to his seat of government, at least on the days when prisoners were not being tortured.
12/2/98
Letter re: Mayor Giuliani and the AIDs Protesters
Dear Editor,
Mayor Giuliani is trying hard to live up to his reputation as a Hitler-like dictator. When a handful of terminally ill protesters have to win a lawsuit just to speak in the most public of New York City's public spaces, something is very wrong. A more or less normal American politician would have kept a low profile on this event if he was opposed to it. Not Mayor Giuliani. To the speech-chilling metal detectors, sharpshooters and army of police the Mayor added his own unique touch. That he would personally supervise police officials building cattle pens and barricades in the City Hall parking lot for AIDs demonstrators and the press is further proof that he more than deserves being compared to world's most repressive human rights violators.
12/1/98
[re: Mayor Giuliani attacking Time Magazine for Citing Lucky Luciano as one of the 100 Most Influential business Leaders of 20th Century]
Dear Editor,
As usual, Mayor Giuliani wants everything his way. He opens most public speaking appearances with a third-rate "Godfather" imitation, appears in a Saturday Night Live skit as a Mafia enforcer (during which he beats a black actor posing as Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry to death with a baseball bat) and forces his staff to repeatedly watch the Godfather movies. Yet, when TIME magazine puts Mafia legend Lucky Luciano on its list of 100 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century, the Mayor goes ballistic. Contrary to the Mayor's assertions, Luciano was not, "one of the biggest killers of the 20th century". More New Yorkers have died, directly or indirectly, from Giuliani's repressive police state than have been killed by the Mafia in its entire history. Like Luciano the Mayor is famous for eliminating his opposition as well as close associates that dare to be less than slavishly loyal. He appears to be as involved in union corruption as Luciano ever was. In fact, taken as a whole, the Giuliani Administration has committed more crimes and had a more harmful effect on the freedom of New Yorkers than the Mafia ever did. Perhaps the Mayor is just angry that Time didn't put him on the last year's 'leaders and revolutionaries' cover with Adolf Hitler and Ayatollah Khomeini. The Mayor shouldn't worry. He'll certainly make Time's year 2000 cover celebrating world leaders most likely to be the anti-Christ.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) (718) 369-2111;
Email: ARTISTpres@aol.com; Homepage <http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html>