MSCC, John Mudd, December 1, 2024

Yes, we’re dying!

We’re at the end of our rope and begging for more than a show of humanity, and we are ignored, but for the optics of support—a political practice that is wearing thin: The bullshit drips like saline from an IV bag into our veins while we are on a gurney, without a triage team, anticipate a lottery win for a dwindling hospital bed in the diminishing hospital industry.

I’ve been around for a number of years, experienced this City’s history firsthand—alright, I’ve been here a few decades, living in the same apartment in Midtown Manhattan. I have seen new buildings, luxury investments, and plenty of hotels shoot skyward from the graves of tenement buildings. And in the aftermath, the reflection of our inhumanity, the unrelenting crisis of homelessness decade after decade…ok, one more decade, continues.

As I step out of my front door heading to any number of trains (within a 3-4 block radius), on any given day (early mornings being the roughest), I’ll see plenty of sad, desperate, pleading, distant, and deaden eyes, stripped of dignity, roaming the 8th Avenue strip between Penn Station and Port Authority, or the blocks from 9th Avenue to Broadway. And yes, there is an occasional angry eyed folk. Once on the train, you may catch a few who missed their curfew, didn’t know where to find a respite bed or drop-in shelter. These captured moments will make me impotent.

However, this past Thanksgiving, I volunteered for the Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries, an enduring and giving organization, that provided holiday meals for nearly 400 gracious-eyed people (families, and single men and women), whom I felt privileged to serve.

There were no slash and grabs, no bloody murders. Just a moment of revival, sweet piano music playing spirited holiday tunes giving us a reprieve from darker days from the partisan policies which have pushed many to the side like road-kill.

The big lead going into the holiday was the November 18, 2024 stabbing rampage, Mayor Adams rushed to praise Officer Robert Garvey for “putting himself in harm’s way.” Declaring, “It is a clear example of a criminal justice system and mental health system that continues to fail New Yorkers.” Obviously, “There’s some real questions that we need to look at on why he [Rivera] was on the street and he has some severe mental health issues that should have been examined.” And the act closed, remissed in its wooing finale.

It was all one bad magic act…

U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service told Gothamist that agents assigned to protect a foreign diplomat drew their weapons and ordered the alleged killer, Ramon Rivera, to the ground. The officials said Rivera was only handed to the NYPD after he was detained. And the optics, meant to deflect the attention from the systematic stripping away of our essentials, which the Mayor is a participant, is hard felt by too many of us.

The Mayor is not the only poor illusionist.

The partisanship has never been so clear, the optics so unsatisfying, theft so bold, marauding so heinous, and the denial so absurd. Those who strip away public housing; demolish nearly 20 million square feet and destroy homes and small businesses around Penn Station; siphon tax dollars and tie our infrastructure needs to wealth extraction schemes; build Casinos and prisons instead of homes and communities; and plant friendly folks on Community Boards to  manufacture public’s consent for the ravaging and pillaging of our landscapes, contributes heavily to our demise.

It’s true, death is at our door.

We’re at a crossroad, a pivotal point in our history and failing. The current form of winner take all late stage vulture capitalism has led to unprecedented wealth concentration and income disparity. The doubling down with immoral authority, the Senate rejects Sanders’ bid to halt arms over Israel’s atrocities, US vetos UN resolution for a cease fire, Attorney Alan Dershowitz and Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo team up to protect Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Ex-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrants for them.

This is why we’re dying.  

Like the Biden sharp as a tack campaign—but mixed with rhetoric, justifications, and ignorance—the truth has undeniably surfaced; despite the media best efforts to hide, lie, deflect, and attempt to turn reality on its head, to justify the heinous crimes of homelessness, scarcity, terror, destruction, murder, and genocide. Although poked in the eye with reality, it is unconcionable to arrest Israeli’s PM for his documented efforts to flatten Gaza and wipe out the Palestinians. This is, unfortunately, our political class.

The irony is mystifying as America is laying on the gurney squeezed into the emergency room next to Israel.

The loudest voices in the room (media, pundits) profess to be dumbfounded, while ignoring the big ass pink woolly mamouth wearing a tutu and top hat flicking its tail. Not letting reality get in the way, they craft narratives and spin yarns of reasoning for their recent election losses.

Prognosis? A war of worlds words that could be terminal.

I find it is much simpler, and not all befuddling, given the sick choice of someone determined, through worldwide uproar and condemnation, to continue the ongoing genocide campaign and someone who may likely carry on America’s genocidal legacy.

They are mentally ill, bat shit crazy, perhaps stark raving mad. Another world is unfathomable and they are having a psychotic break from reality. No one will admit to their lunacy. No one wants to grapple with a nation’s lunacy; thus, the growing isolation for the immoral waining belligerence.

However, our diminished capacity need not be a bad thing. It will hurt, I know. Like weaning yourself off an addiction. But we will grow to be a better people and stronger nation, that is, if we overcome our blustery psychotic egos, talk through our psychosis, drop the Manifest Destiny ideology, let go of the fire power, and begin to nurture our humanity.

But for now….let us protect each other from a failing government; our health, housing, and food resources are under threat.