The people who run this country could give two shits about your vote, they stay in power because they have your money. Democrats and Republicans are run by the exact same people; the ones that own the banks. Remove your money from the banks and then worry about who is in power. I know you think Jon Stewart is some kind of political savior, and perhaps he does too, but do you really think that if the people in power where even worried about you creating a real change they wouldn’t just “accidentally” have you killed in a terrorist attack just to ignite their ideals with the larger body of Americans so that writing something like this would just look unpatriotic.  Do you think that they wouldn’t just search your home and remove you from the system?  Do you really believe they care what you think about them?  I’m sure Obama is crying on his pillow right now, while his underlings continue to rake in the money and power for the people that put him in the white house. I once believed it mattered, and 2 years after we made a vote for the people, absolutely nothing has changed.  Do you still feel oppressed?  Like a rat in a cage?  You you feel angry?  Well that’s cute, what do you want to do about it?  You’re gonna “BOO!” them?  You’re gonna hiss at the government?  What the hell is that gonna do.  They know you’re pissed.  They know you can’t do a god forsaken thing about it either.  So they’re happy to let you “rally” because a bunch of people yelling for a few hours doesn’t mean shit.

Sure the speech is free, and that’s just because they haven’t found a secure way to ban us “pinko-commie” scum from the internet. I’ll end on this note: Every puppet master has more than one hand. Does it matter what hand you vote for?  Ask yourself what it would really take to change this system? Got any real answers, because if I changed one persons mind about how it really works, I have done more for change than your precious “Million Hipster March” did.

So Vega, steps down, probably the only honorable thing to do at this point.  Yet, he still managed to soil that move with a slight against Ward B and Jersey CIty as a whole.  Thats because he strategically waited one day after the could be a special election for his replacement.  Doesn’t that burn your ass right off?  I mean one day?  Why not just wait til you’re tried and convicted.  Hell, Why not see if you can keep the position inside whatever prison they send you to?  I’m sure you won’t hear much from him in the coming weeks.  

Frankly, citizen, I think its a slieght against us both.  It’s sort of cruel too.  I mean he assumes that we should just let him take his very last political move (a blatantly corrupt maneuver) laying down.  That we should sit there like lazy automatons and nod our simple robot heads at the Political Machine thats been running this town from behind the scenes.  I think it’s time to draw a line in the sand.

So I’m positive that the good folk of Jersey City will rush to protest this tomfoolery.  Of that I have no doubt.  Calling “BULLSHIT” is what we do best.  But follow through!  Condemn any member of the council that doesn’t vote for holding a special election instead or appointing a member.  Let them know, if you are not for us, you are against us.  If you do not stand stalwartly against the evil that our political leaders have wrought in our city, you are part of it.  

And when they vote, to either hold the line, or support a people’s election, YOU MUST REMEMBER who voted against the people!  Who was it that struck out against the rights of each of us to have an elected official.  And besmirch and shame those members… then come election day when their head sits on the political block, remember how they did not serve you as an elected leader but as a tainted servant of of the machine.  A machine that has only it’s survival in mind.       

So I was hanging out at my local watering hole with a few friends, and these guys wander in and harass a bunch of my friends (my friends happened to be female, this is important for later reference so let the jury note there were girls keeping company with me).  Now by harrass I don’t mean the Webster’s version of the word, which is: (1) to annoy persistently (2) : to create an unpleasant or hostile situation for especially by uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical conduct. OH WAIT A GODDAMNED MINUTE! That’s exactly the word I was looking for, though I would have preferred unwanted sexual advances from a subhuman, but hey Webster’s like to keep things general. They don’t want to alienate anyone from Hoboken. I mean, hell, the crowd there is just finding out that Al Gore created the internet, and let’s face it most of them are worshiping obsidian slabs with the rest of the apes in collared shirts. I digress.

So my friends decided to take the quick way out and tell the assholes they weren’t interested. Admittedly they didn’t do this in the most diplomatic of manners, but I’m convinced that was the point.

At this place in time the gentleman, I use the term falsely, slapped the girl in the face, pulled a roll of money…. A large stack of 1’s 5’s and 10’s totaling in excess of $40 and said to the now extremely appalled and angry friend of mine, “This is what you’re missing now, bitch!” I’m not positive really, but I think he was trying procure my friend’s services (presumptuous, with her not being a lady of the night), although amidst the grunting and ball grabbing I couldn’t tell. She threw a drink in his face then he threw his at her. Things were quickly broken up and I went out to smoke a cigarette. Of course this Neolithic bottom-feeder was asked to leave the bar and never come back. It’s this curse I bear; to have these fucktards want to explain things to me. “I didn’t even do anything wrong.” He says. I told him he caused a scene and physically hit a female. I was trying to be as inoffensive as I could, and smoking my cigarette as though I was looking for the prize at the bottom of the cereal box.. His response was one I get from idiot behavior in this town far too often. “I was born and raised here.” So now you see what this weeks article is all about. My rage was building as he told me his story, and how hitting a woman is okay because that how he was bought up. And mind you, I’m not coward I thought to slug the bastard but his five very stupid very large born and raised friends were just waiting for a fracas. I just nodded and flicked out my smoke then went inside.

Listen I get it, you lived here before me and you were born in the same place you live now. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact I applaud your sticktoitiveness! Good on you! But being an asshole and blaming it on your point of origin, no matter how close is, is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. I know asshole cops from here asshole thugs, and punks from here and it’s this mentality of “this is my town you came here and fucked it up”. Not everyone born and raised here has that view, but many do. I’m guessing there’s an educational gap in the concept of what progress is. And I can certainly understand how gentrification can upset a neighborhood. But I think for most folks imminent domain isn’t all that familiar just yet. So this chip on the shoulder seems a bit forced to me.

In short, this is the sort of thing that a corrupt government uses to it’s advantage. Divide and Concur. That’s the oldest trick in the book. Take the new people and tell them the that people living here are low lives and the them the people living here that their new neighbors are infringing on their so called turf and raising their taxes, then swindle the both of them into fighting each other and/or giving up hope of a voice in the future. This is how incumbents stay in power. Get in and use misinformation to lower the voter turn out. Once in power these “elected” officials begin to think they are invincible. They wheels and deal their way toward amoral behavior. Its not totally the fault of native Jersey Citians, but this stigma of the oppressed Neanderthal isn’t helping anyone. We are all individuals with individual needs and wants. I think we are united in our want for a better Jersey City. I guess what I’m saying here is we’re all in this together, the only people who gain from this separatist composure are the people exploiting us all.

With that in mind, hitting a girl is perhaps the most despicable thing a man can do. The owner of a local restaurant on Varick Street should be ashamed of himself. I say this you all of the rest of you who want to blame your brash and unwelcome behavior on your point of origin, be it here or where ever you are from, pull your fucking pants up, stop pretending like the world owes you something, and before you do ANYTHING just think: how would your grandmothers feel about this? I’d be damn sure they’d both take turns beating the hell out of me and my parents for letting me act that way around company.

Last Wednesday’s Public City Council Meeting certainly had one or the other going on.  To be fair, I suspect the former over the latter.  In that fairness as well, I have to wonder what came first.  Was it the conniving government here or the mistrusting public?  I mean either one is a product of the other.  If the government is secretive and working behind locked doors then the public is likely to be a little mistrusting.  No doubt the government would have a lot of trouble getting even the most mundane of things accomplished with out a gathering line of 20 persons spending several minutes repeating the same thing the person in front of them said twenty mins prior.  Such rants are the equivalent of a manager, upset at a call, coming out to kick dirt on an umpire.  Perhaps the call won’t be changed, but I’m damn sure the umpire would pay a touch better attention in the future.

So with the Mayor’s blessing (as if that was necessary), our local government mired in scandal, with fingers pointing directly at members of the council, the people were more than ready to have this Pay to Play reform passed once and for all.  Everything seemed on the up and up.  That’s when I started to get wary.  I’m the mistrusting sort to begin with.  Why all the to do?  I mean hell just pass the bloody thing.  Then we can move on and get back to scrutinizing your every word.  This is about the time when it’s about to be put to a vote.  Then it’s mentioned that there are some amendments that were adapted to the reform.  HOLD THE PHONE.  Amendments? Wait a second.  What’s to amend?

Well, apparently the first one limits the liability of individuals on the council in the event that the public wants to take legal action against them for breaking the rules again.  Red lights are going off in my head.  Something is definitely up.  The second is that there’s a range of time from when a campaign can accept money from a developer.  A range?  Wait, the whole Idea here was to stop the developers from running our government.  Who cares if it’s two days before they give the money to a candidate for two years?  Is the idea that the amount of time in between receiving money and then doing favors for said money going to lessen the influence of the people giving it?  What’s really going on here?

Of course, While everyone was trying to figure out what the hell was going on Vega motioned to just vote on it first then we could discuss it.  “Wouldn’t that make more sense?” he said.  RED FLAG?!  I’m hearing the riot whistle.  And just as I’m thinking that someone should say something, I’m about to stand up and head over to the podium and give this whole thing what for.  A bloody line forms.  OK good enough at least we understand there something awry here.  So each person steps up the plate and expresses their disgust for the amendments.  And while it seems necessary, it gets old pretty fast.  I do have to say a few well executed blows were laid toward Vega though, one by a woman in here sixties who’s most likely not a stranger to dirty dozen.  But overall it was the same old song, “We, the People, have once again seen past the wool you have once again tried to pull over our eyes, now that we’ve played your game, do the right thing.”  ….Or something of the like.  This went on for a while.  Finally, that ended and as if no one listened to a word said for the last 40 plus mins.  The council voted on the Pay to Play reform as it was amended.   Which I expected they would.  Wish I could say I was pleased that they at least moved in the right direction for once, but this feels like something that won’t stop the political hanky panky with the developers anymore than say THE LAW did in the first place.

So I say all of that to say this.  Where does that leave us?  Skeptical of course.  And a skeptical public is likely to throw a wrench in the works and bog things down just as much as a corrupt politician.  So how do we alleviate both problems?  My suggestion and was the suggestion of many others on Wednesday is you open up these processes to the public.  Give us a chance to see how these things are being written and what changes are being made before they are put to a vote.  No of course the council needn’t listen to each person, that would be madness.  But when something as blatantly shady as these amendments happens, we can see who offered them up and express our objections.  And if we object enough and the council doesn’t listen, then come voting season we have a pretty good idea of who’s in and who’s out.

In brighter news, Catrillo and Khalil both pleaded guilty as sin to the scandal charges and then cried patsy as they pointed fingers at Mariano Vega.  So that’s a step in the right direction.