Important Duffield Street Hearing

(photo from No Land Grab)

Important Duffield Street Hearing

Duffield Street, is a 'smaller' (though I am sure to the home-owners much bigger!) version of what is happening at Vanderbilt Yards, in Brooklyn, and on a larger scale - nationally - politicians and big developers are now using the 'tools' of government to not only raid the public coffers but take people's property away. In this case it is of extra importance because it also is an example of the feverish desire of the East Coast elite in particular to erase America's past and any shared sense of identity.

In the Bloomberg-Bush world the past is erased and replaced by big flashy Frank Gehry designs that are nothing more than corporate Identity logos made large. We're not supposed to think about important issues, rather Paris's jail sentance, the Yank's pitching and other bread and circus distractions. Small companies and home owners - the people that held on an built Brooklyn after central planning destroyed it, are shoved aside not by a free market, but by specific government action that favors large companies that line the pockets of politicians. Lip service is paid to being 'green' and slick press conferences are held, meanwhile, Bloomberg seeks to build more parking lots.

Nearly everything wrong with our country can summed up in what the government is trying to do to this little property on Duffield Street. But this little property both in its participation in the underground railroad and it the current fight of its homeowners, remind us that it is the seemingly small efforts of ordinary citizens that bring down the titans.