Nice to see some self help happening in the wake of Sandy. If those who suffered from the power of Sandy, wait for the "proper" authorities to sort things out, their misery will drag on and on, but if they get together and sort it out themselves, things will start to happen.
Read the full article HERE:Construction Materials Expropriated from Luxury Developments in Manhattan, Delivered to Victims of SandyNEW YORK, NY—Over the past two weeks, a group of concerned New Yorkers has been expropriating thousands of dollars worth of tools and materials from luxury residential developments across Manhattan and delivering them to neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy.The confiscated materials, some of them never even used, include: shovels, wheelbarrows, hand trucks, pry bars, tarps, buckets, hard bristle brooms, industrial rope, contractor trash bags, particulate masks, work lights, work gloves, flashlights, heat lamps, and gasoline.Liberated from their role in building multimillion-dollar pieds-à-terre for wealthy CEOs and Hollywood celebrities, these tools are now in the collective hands of some of the hardest-hit communities in the city where they are now being allocated and shared among the people who need them most. These expropriations will continue as long as the demand for them exists.The targeted developments are being financed with over a billion dollars in bank loans plus untold millions in tax breaks from the city. All are slated to become high-end residential towers with apartments starting at upwards of $2 million, all no doubt with unparalleled views of the city—perhaps even all the way to its outer edges, where tens of thousands remain without power, heat, and hot water weeks after the storm. People continue to wait hours in line for blankets and batteries while the tools to improve their lives, the tools to help them literally dig themselves out from under the rubble, sit idle behind chained fences, safely tucked in beneath all-weather tarps or locked inside heated office trailers.
So you applaud theft of someone else's private property because of someone else's need or want?
ReplyDeleteIf someone can justify "liberating" tools, building materials and the like, would you likewise applaud the person who steals from another with equal need for the same item? Or what about stealing food from someone who may or not be hungry?
Unless I misinterpret the reason you posted this, you applaud the "liberation" of goods based on your arbitrary perception of each party's relative need.
The people with wealth may have looted through crony capitalism, which seems to be your main assumption, and thus grown wealthy, or they may have actually worked hard and EARNED their property. Should the owners of the construction sites be screened and researched to make sure that
Robin o' the 'ood is stealing from the bad rich instead of the rich guy who gains wealth through the honest sweat of his brow, providing employment to others in the process?
So what if the construction projects are financed by banks? The owner still has to produce some product that another person wants to buy to the degree that the builder makes enough profit to pay off the loan with interest and make enough cash to make the whole effort worth his while...
If someone steals your property because they say they "need" it more than you, and say you catch this person with some of your neighbors, and the person is a stranger to all of you...and say you live in a society without government or police---you know, anarchy---what do you suppose happens to the looter?
What moral code do you value?
Oh dear, you in your small corner and I in mine!!
DeleteThose wealthy people who earned their wealth by honest sweat, those kind compassionate capitalists who provide everybody with a job?. Honest sweat doesn't provide wealth, getting more out than you put in gets you wealthy. If all it was, was honest sweat I would have inherited considerable wealth. My father was a coal miner all his life and earned the reputation of a real hard grafter, we were poor all our life! what went wrong? No he didn't drink or gamble.Take a deeper look at the world we live in, you accumulate wealth by taking out more than you put in, what you gain is taken from the big pot, wealth in this society has nothing to do with how hard you work but more about how much you can get out of other people's work.
I don't inhabit your world of those nice millionaires how got there by HONEST hard work, and capitalists who are fair caring and compassionate organisations for the fulfillment of other people's welfare.Oh, and accumulating wealth in the midst of other people's needs seems to contradict some ancient Christian guy's principles.