He Did It Again / The True Face of the Exploiter

Two biggest news in New York of the last week were
1) Yankees' victory
2) Michael Bloomberg got his third term.

I didn't know Yankees's last win at the world series
was nine years ago, wow.
Actually my career crisis started around the same time.
So I really hope to have a positive change in my career
as well for the next year.
Well, even I know, judging with the current economic situation
and the huge media ciris in Japan, that would be very difficult.

Anyway, Yankees victory was of course a happy story
for New Yorkers, even though it did not effect
anything of my life except some conversations
with my Japanese acqauintances about Matsui.

On the other hand,
Bloomberg buying the third sheet of the mayor
was not a happy story for me at all.
First of all, he changed the law
that had limited the mayor's terms no more than two.
And he spent staggering $100 million for that one,
which was $157.27 for each voters,
and his opponent spent $13.12 for each voters.



As the matter of fact,
He has not recieved any salary from the city
since the first time he bought the seat of the mayor 8 yeras ago
because he does not need that kind of small money,
instead he makes tons of profit by using
his status and the power to control this city as a moyor.

Unfortunately many people admire rich people and vote for them.
Though I think it is so easy to understand that
rich politicians do politics for riches not for others,
many people do not get that logic sadly.

He has such a nice persona,
a great business man with a nice smile.
But nobody can be that rich without manipulations and exploitations.
If you think only hard & honest work can take you that high,
you are absolutely naive.
Yet, apparently too many people are that naive
and so easy to be exploited.

When you imagine about the face of the exploiters,
you may think a mean face of greedy landlords or something.
But the real exploiters exploite those cheap exploiters
and they exploit the system of the socirty
with a smile of a gentle man.
Yes, they are good at manipulating you,
aren't you manipulated?

Believe me, in this city, under this ministration,
the gap between riches and poors will keep windening.
Well, only hope I got out of this election was
after that much of spending,
the gap between him and his opponent actually widened
insead of getting bigger.

I hate Republicans!

Yes, I am a Republican hater.
Because I am an Asian who lives in U.S.,
who speaks English with accent and make a little money.
How can I relate myself to the group of people,
who are mostly rich White conservative males,
who are very very good at manipulation.

This does not mean I think the Democrats is a great party.

I also did not like the fact that Obama put so much emphasis
on the part his health care reforming plan is
not for illegal immigrants.
I know he said that in order to get Republicans' votes.
However, it is the fact that this country depends on
illegal immigrants' cheep labors so much.
You simply can not leave them out so easily.

In a way, Wilson was right, Obama said a lie.
But he would have not have to do that
if Republicans were not that evil.

Yes, We Have a Very Rich Mayor

Wednesday, I went to the rally of Coalition
to protect Chinatown and Lower East Side
from Blomberg's racist rezoning plan.
As I planned to write about Chinese community in New York,
some of organizations that I had a contact with for that
suggested me to come.

Now the huge gentrifications are going on
in many areas of this city.
Powerful developers buy out the many lands and buildings,
bulldoze them and build high rises for offices
and luxualious apartment complexes.
But there is the strict zoning law in this city
to prevent those activities,
to protect neighborhood.

However, things are changing because of our rich mayor.
He has been modifying this law in favor of developers.
As the result of that, for the last few years
so many high rises have risen up in Lower East Side,
which you can rent an apartment with the rent like
$4.000 to $10.000 a month.
And now the mayor likes to allow the same things to happen
in Chinatown as well because Chinatown is located
in the walking distance from Wall street area.
He said that the city will build
the affrodable housings there,
but they are for the people who makes $60,000 a year.
Since Chinatown is pretty much poor Chinese immigrant slum,
most of their residents make a very little money,
which means they have to move out.
And go where?
In this city, it is a very difficult task now
to find one bedroom apartment under $1.500 a month
even somewhere far away from the center of the city.
Certainly people who can afford to live in high rises
do not want to live near the poor Chinese immigrants.
So this project is about pushing away poor colored immigrants
to make more money for riches.

When Michael Blomberg announced that
he would enter the race for the mayor,
very few people said that they would vote for him
according to the survey at that time
because he was a well-know figure in business community
but not in general public.
However, after that, he placed so many ads on TV
by using his huge resources
and won the seat of the mayor.
he basically bought it.

Last summer, during I was doing some field reserch,
means talking to lots of strangers,
I talked to a middle aged woman
who appeared to be a middle class and educated person
and she said she loved this mayor so much.
So I said to her that I do not understand
why the educated person like you do not understand
the simple logic that
rich politicians do their politics for the riches.

In my tiny home town in rural Japan,
most of town congress men are either factory owners
or big whole sale marchants.
In rural Japan, people are very very naive
and they admire rich people only because they are rich.
So they vote for them.
As the result of that,
the unequality like big wage gap between men and women
can never be solved.
But still they vote for them.

The election is for people to choose the politician
to do politics for them.
And that is the very important basic
for this system of democracy.
Considering that, in my little town,
this system is obviously not working.
And I had never dreamed that the same thing could happen
in the world most famous city called New York.

Think about it.
Do you think you can be super rich like Blomberg
if you are just a honest hard worker?
I think only the people who are good at
manipulating and exploiting other people
can be rich like him.

The very sad trend of this society right now is that
you have to be the one who exploits
if you do not want to be exploited.
I do not want to exploit anyone
and I do not want to be exploited either.
But that is becoming more and more difficult point to stand on.
It is very sad.
And not many people are talking about it
including media which of course is controled by money
in this society.

Animal Rights

This is the pic of the poster with Pam Anderson
I recently got from PeTA
for the article I wrote about Animal Rights.
Those Japanese lines are saying "Let's be Vegetarians."

A while ago, I got "Live in Japan" album of late great Laura Nyro.
She said to her audience
"Is there any Animal Rights movements in Japan?"
I laughed because it did not exist there 14 years ago,
in which this album was recorded,
and still does not exist there now either.

When I met a vegetarian for the first time,
I could not help asking her why she had become the one.
She said "not so much about health issue,
but I think eating animals is very cruel
because I grew up with so many of them."
I did not believe her or could not,
I thought simply because she did not like the taste of meat.

A few years later, I got a kitty
and a year later she had five kittens.
Well, I was amazed about how close they were to humans.
They had individual personalities and emotions just like us.
And then I felt ashamed of myself
about the way I had felt toward that vegetarian girl.

In U.S. middle class Whites are educated
and tend to be libral and generous.
However, I gradually learned that
those are probably backed up
by the huge gap of between rich and poor
just like ancient Greece had a democratic society with slaves.
Despite of that, I definitely appreciate those qulities of them.

Then I wonder why
Japanese does not have this kind of generousity.
At least they have been enjoying to live
in the wealthy socirty for more than 30 years.
Five or Six reasons I can think of
and one of those is the stupidity of Japanese media.
They just do not do any enligtenment
for their readers and audiences.
I believe they have obligations
to introduce and inform about new ideas to people.
If they do not have to do that, then who else?

So for the latter half of the article,
I was indulged in bashing Japanese medias
and that made me feel gooooood!
Hahahaha.

I myself am not a vegetarian,
but I consume a very little of meat and fish.
I do not say all of us shuld be vegetalians,
but so many lives of animals can be saved
if we cut back the comsumptions of meat,
fish and other animal products
to the half of the amount we do now.
And that would be great for our health and our environment
if we replace them with veggies and fruits.

It is not easy for people who live in poor nations
to understand this concept, that's for sure.
They are struggling to survive every day.
But most of Japanese aren't.
Then it is the time for them to learn this idea
that they do not have to eat meat because they are not poor.
Otherwise, they are the people of the mentality of the third world.
Actually many of them are.
I am sorry this expression might be prejudical
against the people of developing country.
But you know what I mean.

Obama: Aquittal for Whites

A few Month ago, I wrote the article,
which was about Why Obam was so popular
among middle class Whites.
I wrote it is because voting for him was
like buying a letter of aqittal.
Sorry, I do not know what exactly they were called
that people bought from church
during the midieval time in Europe to aquit from their sins.
Each time I go to a Korean grocery store,
the deep inside of me saying
"I'm so sorry, so sorry about what we had done
even that happened before I was born."
"That" was more than sixty years ago.
Blacks had been lynched until '60s.
Then why not White feel the same way,
especially the ones who are educated.

Of course, I know that is not only one reason
why Obama is so popular among middle class Whites.
But, isn't that guilt play some role in this???
I love to ask this question whn I will do the field research
in the nex week at some colleges.