Signs Signs Everywhere Signs

Flushing has had an ongoing problem with signs. Every election cycle someone in the audience of a candidate's night will complain about signs in Korean or Chinese without English translations. These signs can be mildly annoying like not being able to read the name of a fruit or vegetable you'd like to try or more serious like a fireman or policeman not being able to read the name of a store they are rushing to.

But signage is a problem that goes much further than Flushing. The corporate community seems to be waging a war on the public through signage. Everywhere you turn there is constant advertising, almost every moment of the day. Everywhere you turn there is a sign urging you... and your kids.. to buy something. A sign showing how happy, popular, good-looking and sexy you will be if you buy these jeans or that iphone.

As you ride the #7 train, the latest ad technique seems to be bombarding the whole subway card with a single ad. I rode from Main Street to 42nd Street with a certain brand of booze staring at me from every angle.

The subway riding experience isnt limited to those 21 years of age and older. Every child, every teen ager, and every alcoholic trying to stay on their program was surrounded by this ad also.

The ever increasing subway and bus fares should be making enough profit for the MTA that we shouldn't need ads at all. What if when you looked up, you saw the multiplication table, or facts about our government and economy like the fact that six Waltons (the Walmart Family) have more wealth than the bottom 30% of Americans. Advice on eating healthy, ads with mini lessons in foreign languages, ads about free events in New York City.

 

What if there were ads showing how to plant window box gardens; or reminding us to water the trees on our streets; or updating us on recent bills that have been passed by our government?

 

What if there was an ad that said, "smile at the person sitting next to you and tell them to have a good day?"

Campaign Money and Flushing

"FBI probe of Liu funds shocks Flushing!" reads the headline in the Flushing Times. I say innocent until proven guilty, but it is a fact that politics in Flushing revolves around money. The politician who raises the most money wins. Any discussion around candidates begins, not with their political views, but with how much money they have raised. Most are business owners, who may or may not lean on their workers to support their candidacies. Corporate donors and business owners are well represented on their lists of donors; as well as donations from employees.

Once elected, it is clear to see who in Flushing is truly represented. Whether Democrat or Republican; Flushing has more luxury housing and high-rises built than most other districts in Queens except perhaps Long Island City. Yet Flushing has large numbers of workers who barely earn enough to make ends meet. We have workers living eight or more to a room; but over the last decade of Asian representation; we have begun to see the Flushing middle-class and professional class feel the sting of the city-wide economic failures.

Flushing has seen layoffs at local banks; closures of small businesses, and the threatened closure of Flushing High School. Maintenance payments on co-ops in Flushing are higher than those on apartments of equal value elsewhere. Flushing residents are facing eviction, unable to pay the raised rents. Few current residents can afford to pay the rents on the new luxury housing that has sprung up throughout Flushing. Our elected officials see no problem with letting expensive apartments and condos remain empty while the people of Flushing are unable to find affordable housing. Affordable housing does not mean that only poor people cannot afford it. Affordable housing is also for the middle class recent graduates who would like to leave home; or young couples with a new child, who have outgrown their studio apartments. Why should anyone work hard at whatever their job may be; and then have to hand over half or more of their pay to the landlord or to pay maintenance, rent, or for an artificially inflated mortgage?  Why should small businesses face constant commercial rent increases until they are forced to close? Why can large businesses in Flushing be so profitable that they can expand and open various branches and yet not give their workers the wages and benefits that are due them?

Politics in Flushing must begin to mean more than raffling off our representation to the highest bidders.

Jeremy Lin Representing for the NY Knicks

Just came back from the Applebee's on College Point where we all screamed ourselfs hoarse for Jeremy Lin and the Knicks! I saw Fred Fu there wearing his Lin jersey, I bet the Modell store on Main Street has been sold out already for weeks. If not, I'm buying one tomorrow. Lin was great, he took a lot of gutsy shots and pulled them off. The new year is looking good for local sports!

Flushing Fabulous

A week ago there was an article in Queens Chronicle, one of our local papers. "DiNapoli calls Flushing fabulous", state comptroller offers glowing economic report on business. (9/29/2011)

There is a photo under the headline, with a smiling Grace Meng and Peter Koo, Tom DiNapoli looking heavenward, and an almost grimacing Toby Stavinsky.

Speaking to an audience Thursday at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel in Flushing, the state official painted a rosy picture of the community's economy. "The dire effects of the recession are not felt here," DiNapoli said.

He attributed that to the plethora of small businesses, many of them founded by Asian immigrants, that have made Flushing the place that is, "brimming with life and vitality".

Flushing is fabulous. Flushing is brimming with life and vitality. But Flushing most definately feels the dire effects of the recession.

As the economy falls deeper and deeper into a depression, the American public has become less afraid to acknowlege the reality of class. The brothers and sisters occupying Wall Street make it very clear what richest 1% are doing to the 99% of the rest of us. There is a class war going on, and the rich have been winning.

Flushing's elected officials side with the 1%. They don't have the wealth and power of the 1%, but they identify with the goals of the 1%, to help the rich get richer. Some of them have or have had direct ties to Wall Street and to bankers. Why should Flushing have so few schools and 60, count them, 60 banks within walking distance from each other?

DiNapoli gave statistics on how Flushing businesses grew by 37.6 percent between 2000 and 2009. He also found that neighborhoods with the large immigrant populations had stronger economic growth than the city as a whole. Wages had also risen, according to Mr. DiNapoli.

Giving out fact sheet figures does not always tell the whole story, but I understand that those figures are all Mr. DiNapoli may have to go on. But Councilman Peter Koo, Assemblywoman Grace Meng and State Senator Toby Stavinsky all know, or should know, more about the Flushing community that they serve.

They must see the very expensive luxury condos that have sprung up on almost every other block. They must see that many of them are nearly empty, some after two or three years. Others are rusting shells that have not been completed. Real housing was knocked down to build these things. Real people lost their apartments, rooms, housing to build them. And now they sit empty or nearly so, waiting for the rich occupants they anticipated in the boom times. And our grinning elected officials in Flushing are still heaping praise on those that built them or the banks that invested in them.

Speaking about all the building projects in Flushing, Stavinsky said: "Jobs are the reason I support extensive development," while stressing that affordable housing is a need and should not be overlooked. Like Stavinksy, every Flushing politician has given lip service to "affordable housing" during their campaigns. But when it is ribbon cutting time, the only housing that has been produced is for the upscale and wealthy. To them, an empty expensive condo is better than an affordable unit that is full of rent paying residents.

City Councilman Peter Koo (R Flushing) who came here as an immigrant and now owns five pharmacies , said he wants the city to protect small businesses, saying they face too many regulations. (Like what, minimum wage?) I think a better use of space would be to tell us what regulations he is opposed to, rather than telling us in each interview that he came as a (poor) immigrant. If this is central to his story, then give the details on how he came with nothing, got his degree while working for Dunkin Donuts and then opened the pharmacies. Where did the seed money come from, or was it from saving Dunkin Donuts tips? I'm not being sarcastic, I want to know. I have too many neighbors here in Flushing, who also came as immigrants, but are having trouble making ends meet.

They might not show up on Comptroller DiNapoli's spread sheets, since many of the businesses they work at pay off the books or have two accounting books. One is the true account and one is the doctored account that lists fewer employees, or just the ones taxes are being taken out for.

Many of the Flushing businesses that are reaping praise for their success despite the failing economy are successful because they hire undocumented workers and pay them less than the labor laws require.

Peter Koo's major gripe is the condition of the Flushing Long Island Railroad station. "It looks like a third world station," he said. At first I couldn't believe that of all things, he was concerned with the cosmetic look of a railroad that serves a fraction of the Flushing community. Maybe there is "stimulus money" for this kind of project, that might work its way into the hands of the Flushing developers. Or maybe Peter Koo has nostalgic memories of living and raising his kids in Long Island while taking the LIRR to his growing pharmacy empire?

Tell it like it is

Now and then someone makes a statement that says just what you want to say. Something that makes you pump your fist in the air and say, "you got THAT right!" That happened to me yesterday, while reading the local Times-Ledger paper. No, it wasn't an editorial, today's journalists for the most part are cowed cheerleaders for the rich.

No, this "yes!" moment was courtesy of a neighbor's letter to the editor. Here goes:

RICH WANT TO KILL WORKING POOR

It's war! The wealthiest Americans are orchestrating a war between private and public sector employees. First, our jobs are sent to China and Mexico. Whole towns are devastated and the tax base gutted. The owner and the corporations move their accounts off-shore and pay no taxes. The Republicans turn billion-dollar surpluses into trillion-dollar deficits, deregulate the banks and fund two wars with blood but not money

The richest 1 percent has more than the ohter 99 percent, while 50 million Americans are without health insurance. The Walton family has more money than the bottom 40 percent of our people combined by selling goods manufactured by non-union labor in China and sold by non-union, low-paid labor in the United States. Our quality of life has declined, poverty has increased and hope has evaporated.

But all this misery is not enough. Now taxpayers have to be pitted against their neighbors. The private sector has to participate in a race to get to the bottom with public workers. Class envy has to mean that the worker with benefits be taken down to relieve the misery of the worker without. Brotherhood, sisterhood, freedom of association and any sense of community must cease.

Yes, we are one of the richest nations on earth, but the money is hoarded by the fat few, the patriots for profit. The wealth that we created has been redistributed from Main Street to Wall Street. Thats right, it is our money and belongs to all of us collectively. These worker-hating suits will not be satisfied as long as there is one proud and dignified worker standing.

Katherine Lynch, Bayside.

Woot, woot! You go, girl!!

Capitalism Is What Made America Great

"Capitalism is what made America Great", was one of the campaign slogans that the Republican Flushing District 20 City Council candidate, now councilman-elect Peter Koo, repeated again and again once he finally began to attend the campaign forums. It's one of those cliches that don't get explained because it's assumed that its so obvious that everyone understands it. Once you accept the cliche, then your mind must make the leap that capitalism made America great, Peter Koo is the biggest capitalist running in the race, therefore, capitalism has made Peter Koo great. The next leap is since capitalism has made Peter Koo rich -- er, great - that by electing a rich man you will somehow share in his riches or greatness.

He told a classic story of "rags to riches" -- he came from Hong Kong to the United States with little money in his pocket, and was able to work his way through college at Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds, and become a pharmacist. I think that feat alone qualifies for greatness. To arrive without English language skills and find a job that many already here are competing for, is great. To take that low wage job and not only pay his rent, buy food (well maybe he ate at Dunkin and McDonald's) pay carfare, is great; but to pay for an university education with it, to become a pharmacist -- the mind boggles at his greatness. Forget Warren Buffet. If Mr. Koo can just share this secret, the poor and the working class of Flushing can find a way to remain here after all. From empty pockets to five or six pharmacies. How? There have been other Chinese pharmacists, and Chinese drugstores. What is Peter Koo's secret for success, that he thrives even after two Duane Reades open in the community? Yes, there is his personal charisma and the care he shows his customers; but he is not a boddhisatva that can appear in all six stores at once. If it's hard work alone, then every waiter would become a restaurant owner in a few years; every construction worker a developer, everyone earning money with a mahjong tables in their livingroom would become casino owners.

So far, it hasn't happened like that in Flushing. Those who work hard for low wages continue to work hard; those who have attained the middle class life are often a few paychecks away from poverty should they have a health crisis or be laid off. And it's not just Flushing -- never was there a time when so much wealth in New York City itself has been funnelled upwards, under the leadership of our billionaire Republican Mayor Bloomberg. Never has the divide between the rich and the rest of us been so wide.

How did we get here? Did capitalism REALLY make America great -- or did it make a select group rich? Does rich = great? Are your financial woes connected to their financial success?

Did the stolen land of the Native Americans and the free labor of slaves for hundreds of years, have something to do with the success of capitalism in America? Is there a similarity today, to the "ruling class" of Flushing, and the underpaid labor of the undocumented workers? Would the wealthy Chinese in the community be as wealthy if they had to pay their workers the same rates that American workers would get for the same job?

Republicrat Flushing

It's finally over. No more candidate forums with Yen Chou's rude and screaming volunteers. No more freebie meals in classy restaurants from Peter Koo. No more private meetings with the Associations, no more private donations, no more sniping and mudslinging, no more lying campaign literature, no more grins in the face and stabs in the back.

Then again, maybe its just the beginning. Maybe its not over, its just that part one of the show has ended and part two will begin with new actors. The voters, well you can get off the stage and go back to your life now; you won't be needed except for a few photo ops during the year when the politician appears at your group's breakfast or banquet (this time you will be feeding them for free). He won't be knocking on your door anymore. You will still see him on Main Street because he has businesses there.

You are going to continue to see the big expensive buildings go up. And as those buildings bring in thousands of more people you will see more dirt and filth from that increase; your schools will be more crowded, the traffic will be even slower. I predict there will be more "big box" stores and the new official will take credit for "bringing jobs to the community".

Unfortunately, these low-wage jobs will not pay enough for you or your kids to live in Flushing, unless you are able to adjust to the new "quality of life standard" that is becoming more and more widespread here. More little landlords will rent apartment space to others, even if its a studio. If you are lucky enough to own your home, prepare to rent out your basement, living room, whatever you can, to meet with the rising costs of life in Flushing.

The campaign bribes and the backroom deals may continue, but not with you. You no longer have anything that is needed -- until the next election.

The candidates remind me of the three Soong sisters.

One loved power, one loved money, and one loved the people.