How to Defeat Ratner and the Nets

We need to enter a protest candidate in the upcoming Brooklyn Borough President election. Markowitz will be running (of course), and the proposed Nets stadium at the Atlantic Yards will hopefully be a hot button issue. Regardless, it is almost inevitable that Markowitz will be re-elected.

Marty Markowitz

So why not run a protest candidate who could fully out Markowitz's complicity in the sickening land grab that is Ratner's sweetheart deal to snare the Atlantic Yards? Too much effort is being expended on attacking and vilifying Ratner. While it is all very much deserved, he is simply a businessman, and a shrewd one at that. It is far more disheartening that an elected official ostensibly appointed to serve the people of Brooklyn's interest would rip those same people out of their homes just to get a NBA team and a few more photo-ops.

We need a portly, white-haired simulacrum to step forward and deliver us into the Promised Land. We need our savior to tout Junior's cheesecake with demented glee and wear polo shirts to cop funerals. A man who differs in only one respect from our current figurehead, that he is AGAINST the razing of Prospect Heights and the political backscratching that is Ratner's profiteering from a gross abuse of eminent domain.

Marky Martowitz?

Very simply, someone needs to enter the Brooklyn Borough President's race after legally changing his name to Marky Martowitz. A big belly and shock of white hair wouldn't hurt either. In order to run for Borough President, one would need to collect 5,000 signatures, no mean feat in and of itself. But Marky might be able to get those 5,000 signatures just by canvassing Prospect Heights, speaking to residents about to be displaced by the Nets stadium project or worried about the irreparable havoc it will unleash on the neighborhood. Marky could pick up an easy thousand by setting up a table at the next Develop Don't Destroy rally. Too bad you can't collect signatures above the pissoir at Freddy's. Or can you? I also have a feeling that in a pinch Marky could pick up an extra 400 or 500 signatures by hitting up some quieter neighborhoods where a facsimile would not be expected.

Elect Martowitz.


The Spunk Lads - Iron Lady
More about this friend of Freddy's Bar and the neighborhood at The Spunk Lad's site
The Spunk Lads at Artistdirect.com

Resistance to Ratner and the Nets stadium (not affiliated with this blog)