I Warned Everyone About This...

Tiny Human Ferret

2005-01-29 19:11:11 UTC

Post by The Robinsons
As usual my protestations were dismissed. It couldn't be that bad,
they said. More of the same, they said. I don't see how all this
shit is connected, they said. You're a conspiracy theorist, Brian.
While DC residents went on blithely sitting in their pot of simmering water...
I long ago pointed out that, shortly after dismantling Daniel Patrick
Moynihan's Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation (his first act
as Speaker) which had been responsible for sheltering the few remaining
artsists in Downtown DC,
Newt Gingrich co-founded the futuristic, Orwellian-named
National Association to Restore Pride in America's Capital (NARPAC, INC.)
to assist DC in implementing what NARPAC mockingly referred to as "The Plan"
described by DC civil rights activists. In much the same way as local
architects in my own community had similar ideas but not intentions, I
ran into this group while searching for organizations interested in expanding
Metrorail service. I warned people about NARPAC's intentions on Usenet
<http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search>
back in 1998, long before DC General, Carrollsburg, and the last of the
PADC art spaces was shut down, before Mayor Williams began wining and
dining senior Republican leaders and NARPAC officials, as us "Plan"-iacs
predicted he would.
--Brian R.
The following is a sample letter from the NARPAC website which
NARPAC proudly links to take credit for inspiring the demolition
of the Arthur Capper high-rises by the U.S. Military and its
replacement by a low-slung,
(Photo: <http://www.narpac.org/INTHOPHO.HTM>)
------------ Letter from NARPAC senior staff ------------------
To General Charles Krulak, Commandant, US Marine Corps, March 9, 1998
I would like to encourage you any way I can to support the efforts of David
Gilmore of the DC Housing Authority--and others--to rejuvenate Southeast DC
(re Washington Post 3/8).
I founded this non-profit organization some 18 months ago to bring national
attention to the disgraceful condition of our nation's capital. Since then,
I have learned a lot about the decaying cores of American cities, and the
difficulty of reversing the "blight" that infects the slum areas and,
more important, the people who live in them.
I believe that one of the greatest threats to our country's future lies
not abroad, but in a growing confrontation between urban "have-nots",
and suburban "haves" in sprawling US metro areas. This is no longer a /race/
struggle so much as a /class/ struggle. We are facing the consequences of
allowing the human equivalent of "toxic waste" to accumulate for generations.
Most inner city problems flow from these "dumps". First the housing is
poisoned, then the schools, then the residents' minds, then the neighbors'.
But the problem seems more complicated than just buying up or tearing down
dilapidated structures--somebody has got to "recycle" the people who didn't
make it the first time, give them the rudiments of an education, and some hope.
This is a "nation-building" effort for which I think our military-- and the
Marines in particular--are well suited. Beyond buying the buildings, you would
have to adopt the neighborhood and help "process" its residents back into
productive American lives. I hope you will give it a try.
cc: General Becton, Mr. John Hill
http://www.narpac.org/INTHOCOR98.HTM#20

I'm trying to figure out what exactly bothers you.

He's especially on-target where he says:

<quote>

I believe that one of the greatest threats to
our country's future lies not abroad, but in
a growing confrontation between urban "have-nots",
and suburban "haves" in sprawling US metro areas.
This is no longer a /race/ struggle so much as
a /class/ struggle. We are facing the consequences of
allowing the human equivalent of "toxic waste"
to accumulate for generations. Most inner city
problems flow from these "dumps". First the housing is poisoned,
then the schools, then the residents' minds, then the neighbors'.

</quote>

That's pretty much exactly what anyone with any sense has ever said,
from the 1980s through the final demolition of Arthur Capper. If you
really _wanted_ to get shot in DC, Arfer's Cappers is where you'd go to
have the greatest likelihood.

The exact process described is what happened to ALL cities in the US
where Welfare Projects were placed.

It's absolutely essential that those concentration camps for poor people
be destroyed. They were the Auschwitz of America.

--
The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may
often assume the appearance, and produce the effects,
of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy.
--Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"