For Immediate Release (1/20/98):
Demonstration Alert. Members of A.R.T.I.S.T. will stage a Chalk-In to protest Giuliani's pedestrian barricades Wednesday, 1/21/98 at 12 noon beginning at the SW corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street.
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
The Pedestrian Crackdown is Only the Beginning. The furor Mayor Giuliani's arbitrary pedestrian crackdown has ignited is more than just impatient New Yorkers reacting to inconvenience. It's becoming apparent to more people every day that for Giuliani, "quality of life" means repressing their civil freedoms. When it was street artists, vendors and teenagers being targeted by Gestapo-like crackdowns most people didn't understand the direction Giuliani was heading. Now that their own basic freedom to cross the street is being threatened they can understand why he's called Rudy "Police State"
Giuliani. Giuliani = Police State. Watching the Mayors' State of the City address in handcuffs from the basement of City Hall gave me an insight into what Giuliani means when he says, "This is my chance to do all of the things that I was too timid and restrained to do in the first administration." I'm one of the "criminals" he admonished before a hand-picked audience of obedient admirers clapping and cheering on cue. My crime? Writing GIULIANI=POLICE STATE with chalk on the street near his car.
It's All About Big Business. The worst aspect of the evolving Giuliani Police State is that its motivation is neither "public safety" nor a well meaning but misguided attempt to improve our "quality of life". Every Giuliani initiative begins and ends with his agenda to satisfy the corrupt demands of big business. The average persons' civil freedoms and constitutional rights are viewed as annoying impediments to the smoothly running corporate police state, New York Inc. Giuliani has replaced small-time gangsters (like the Mafia) with big-business gangsters (Business Improvement Districts and real estate interests like the Times Square B.I.D.). While our schools, roads, bridges and streets are disintegrating due to Giuliani's budget cuts large corporations, real estate interests and other major campaign contributors are given massive tax write-offs and allowed to do anything they please. Corporate felony crimes are ignored or given the Mayor's blessing while the average New Yorker finds themselves increasingly likely to be arrested on the slightest pretext.
Is Giuliani Protecting Public Safety or Corporate Profits? If the Mayor had a real interest in public safety he might order some of the 38,000 cops presently assigned to harassing street artists and pedestrians to inspect the City's thousands of crumbling buildings. Is it an oversight that New York City has only 76 building inspectors? Of course, the real estate interests that put Giuliani in office would not appreciate a sudden increase in building inspections leading to massive fines and enormously costly renovations. When pedestrians are crushed by falling building facades on a daily basis the Mayor will use the pedestrian barricades to steer us like sheep past the most dangerous corners. It was no coincidence that he started his pedestrian initiative right after a series of incidents involving falling bricks, crumbling buildings and exploding water and gas mains. Forcing people to cross the street three times instead of one does nothing to help pedestrians although it does help the Mayor's limo get to his photo opportunities faster.
Giuliani is a Hypocrite. We street artists have fought the Mayor's repressive policies for the past four years and are familiar with his tactics. Mayor Giuliani is a hypocrite. In reverent tones he talked about the value of art for school children while petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to eliminate First Amendment protection for artists. He recited platitudes about "including all New York" as an army of police closed off a three block section around City Hall to prevent anyone but Giuliani supporters with invitations from attending his inauguration. Each Veterans Day he delivers a speech about the sacrifices of "our brave men and women in uniform". The other 364 days of the year he orders the police to harass disabled veteran vendors off the streets. While the only protesters at his inauguration were being handcuffed, arrested and dragged away, Giuliani cynically called free speech, "a New York tradition". Is anyone so naive as to believe that Giuliani's pedestrian barricade initiative is about public safety?
Defiance is the Key to Freedom. The Mayor is right about one thing. Protest IS a New York City tradition. We invite all New Yorkers to join with us in acts of non-violent civil disobedience to protest the Mayor and his police state tactics. Such acts of defiance protect the civil freedoms that determine authentic Quality of Life. The Constitution specifically protects our right to publicly disagree with the Mayor, to gather together in protest against his policies, to criticize him by speaking, writing, painting, chalking and publishing our opinions about him and to sue him when he violates our right to protest by having us arrested. The principle underlying the Declaration of Independence is that people have a right to rebel against oppressive tyrants.
Use Your Freedom of Speech While You Still Have It. Giuliani's worst nightmare involves large numbers of New Yorkers using their freedom of speech to criticize him while he's climbing the public relations ladder to national office. All you need is a simple piece of chalk with which to write your opinion on the sidewalk for other people to see. For chalk we recommend using a piece of drywall recycled from the garbage and available everywhere in our crumbling city. It makes an effective medium to fight back with and it's free. Let the world know that the so-called accomplishments of the Giuliani Administration are nothing more than a Disnified version of "The Emperor's New Clothes".
We Are Not Sheep. New York City's street artists were among the first targets of Giuliani's oppression. We invite you to join us now in showing the world that New Yorkers are not sheep; that we need no pens or corrals on our streets; and that we will not tolerate the Mayor abridging our freedom to speak, sell art, walk or protest.
A.R.T.I.S.T. PH: (718) 369-2111 or (212) 561-0877; E-mail <ARTISTpres@aol.com>; Web site http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html; Postal address: 255 13th St. Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215