City Council Affirms Its Utility

While it is doubtful that a resolution concerning the war with Iraq, (the square peg of unilateral stupidity God's President Bush is trying so desperately to shove into the round hole of common sense), should be the highest priority on the agenda of the council of a city currently mired in a rather enormous budget crisis like NYC, everyone, it seems loves a show and so a show was put on.

With TV cameras from CNN and networks in Japan, Germany, Spain and France suddenly thrust these usually incognito local politicians onto an international stage, the New York City Council yesterday passed an anti-war resolution following passionate debate which allowed council members who previously stuck to issues like garbage collection and noise ordinances, to ostentatiously invoke the names of leaders like Churchill, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Neville Chamberlain. The resolution grandly begins:

"Resolution calling on the government of the United States to make all efforts to work through the United Nations Security Council in a manner that would reaffirm our nation’s commitment to the rule of law and the primacy of human rights in our international relationships, and to take all appropriate steps toward securing the participation of other nations and international bodies in the effort to ensure that Iraq does not possess biological, chemical or nuclear weapons and toward promoting human rights for all the people of Iraq; and further calling on the government of the United States to work through the United Nations Security Council and with other nations to ensure the unimpeded access of United Nations weapons inspectors to all areas of and facilities in Iraq and to ensure that the inspectors be given a full and fair opportunity to conduct their efforts in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions; and further calling upon the Council of the City of New York to oppose a pre-emptive military attack on Iraq unless it is demonstrated that Iraq poses a real and imminent threat to the security and safety of the United States or its allies or unless other options for achieving compliance with United Nations resolutions calling for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and the means for their development have failed."

As has been the rule during this worldwide debate on America's preemptive, unilateral war against Iraq, the scorecard of sycophantic zealots who confuse patriotism with intelligence and rational thinkers unmoved by the hypocritical and short-sighted pidgin rhetoric of a president on an ill-advised mission from God, was easy to assemble.

"Let's us not forget that those who declare war are usually not the ones who have to fight it," said Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), sponsor of the revised bill, which passed, 31-17.

Resolution supporter Oliver Koppell (D-Bronx) argued, "This is not an anti-war resolution or a pro-war resolution. It is a resolution that says killing people should always be a last resort."

Gale Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat who also voted for the resolution, sensibly advised: "No city has been more impacted by 9-11 than New York. But based on what we know, a pre-emptive strike by the U.S. would not make the world safer.".

Councilwoman Yvette D. Clark of Brooklyn said she believed it was President George Bush who is sending the wrong message. "If we're going to be looking for a fight," he said, "let's fight poverty, let's fight firehouse closures, let's fight racism and sexism."

On the short end of the stick, like the poor Sheepshead Bay clowns in the 46th District who elected Councilman Lewis A. Fidler into office, there are those who can't seem to stop carping that the 9/11 terror attack left them little choice. "We are sitting today in what should be the shadows of the World Trade Center," Fidler whined, as though the two issues were somehow analogous, "I don't want to be back here in six months naming streets for dead New Yorkers because this country did nothing."

Mr. Fidler cleverly attempts to suggest, in his bankrupted currency of counterfeit thought and incongruous logic that people who voted FOR the resolution DO want to be back in six months naming streets after dead New Yorkers, killed, he hints, by those voting for the resolution. Ahhh, that old familiar vein of love humming through his "You're either with us or your against us" speech that is so popular with the Bush minions. For Fidler, and people like him, here's something to occupy those dizzying thoughts in the future.

"I suggest that you take a walk down the street and take a long, hard look at that gaping hole in the ground, at that gaping hole in our lives," bellowed Councilman Andrew Lanza (R-S.I.) during the vote, referring, one might believe, to the World Trade Center site. Desultory Turgescence suggests that Lanza take a long look at the gaping hole in his own head where the forces of clear analytic thought may have once resided but have now clearly escaped out of only to be filled with the hot air of the sort of hyperbolic rants he currently emits like filthy exhaust pipe pollution.

Margarita Lopez, with the dubious distinction of being the first openly lesbian Puerto Rican ever elected to office, represents my neighborhood in the 2nd District of Manhattan. And she is my local hero because she voted against the draconian anti-smoking bill on the Prohibition of smoking in public places and places of employment due to be inflicted upon us at the end of this month as well as voting for this resolution. Two for two, Señora Lopez. Bien hecho.

If you are interested in knowing how your representative voted (but don't know who that is), check here.

Now if we can only get law Int 0256-2002 overturned, the city of New York will have real cause to celebrate!