Emmett

Stick to the Core.

Since I wrote this (five months ago as of this writing) more arguments have been added to the four I here enumerate.   The opposition is metastasizing, grabbing headlines like nobody could have predicted in December.  I will include those new arguments — and my counter-arguments — in red.   There are four main arguments against the…
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New York City.

the starlings and the pigeons in city hall park the traffic coming off the brooklyn bridge then into the subway and under the river a transfer later and up into the brooklyn air walking for no purpose on 8th avenue staring at passing fences then it’s william gaynor’s house but somebody’s removed the stoop nothing…
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2014.

It’s always fascinating to look to the new year. All we can do is guess what’s going to happen. Will we be okay? Will all our loved ones be okay? What’s the worst thing that will happen?  Every year has its ups and downs. Not many are as bad as 1941, 1963, 1968, and 2001. All…
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Minimum wage?

Emmett J. Hoops· Minimum wage laws rigidify urban poverty. Picture this: You get $8.50/hr. in a town where you can buy a house for $60,000. You’re middle class, almost. You get $8.50/hr in Brooklyn, where the house next door just sold for $2,000,000 and your rent is going up to $2,000 a month. You’re homeless….
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The “Defense” budget

Talk about a bunch of doggerel: six hundred billion dollars for “defense.”  They used to call it the War Department, before 1945; unless there was a war, they didn’t really have all that much to do.  But defense?  Ah.  Everyone’s against war, but nobody can be against defense, or you’re anti-American. Well, the Senate just passed a…
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This Pope

Pope Francis isn’t a bad fellow at all. I know that today we’re expected to dissect every public figure to find out what isn’t all-good (such as today, the day after Nelson Mandela died, and the first voices reminding the world of Mandela’s cooperation with exploitative capitalists) but I still think this Frankie is okay….
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