Open Thread

benson, unfortunately I would not at all be surprised by your prediction.

What, that is my exact point. I agree with you. How on earth can Obama (whom I supported fully during his campaign and continue to support) hope to give out all this bailout money and STILL allocate hundreds of billions of dollars towards the Iraq catastrophe? Any money spent at this point should strictly be helping the families of the 100,000+ innocent civilians who lost their lives. Other than that, we need to get out of there.

As for your other point, wow, I never thought I would see the day I would get a compliment from you, but I sincerely am glad that we’ve been able to have more constructive discussions than the crap we used to throw out at each other. It was just too much negative energy to deal with. And I do give you credit for predicting things (i.e., economic collapse) that most others didn’t believe or want to hear which ultimately came to fruition. I just wish your delivery was a bit less aggressive, but on the other hand, if nothing else, it has gotten you noticed. And admittedly I’ve flown off the handle at people way more than I should have.

As for the gentrification thing; I think I’ve come to understand your perspective a bit better recently. I wasn’t in Brooklyn in the ’70s (or 80s or 90s) and I can’t comment on how things were so I have to respect your opinion and opinions of others who grew up here and knew what things were like before us newbies arrived. You seem to have had a much different upbringing than me and I would suspect things weren’t easy for you. But I just don’t completely get your issue with someone like DIBS, who seems to have moved into a neighborhood he loves, is trying to improve it and didn’t do it for the intention of flipping his place to make a profit. I’m assuming whomever he bought his place from sold it to him willingly (and made a tidy profit in the process – as I’m posting this I just saw that he noted he bought his place from a white family). Further, weren’t a lot of people (of all colors) living in SoHo, the East Village and other traditionally areas in Manhattan priced out of those neighborhoods? I guess I could argue I was priced out of the Upper East Side because I couldn’t buy the same kind of place there that I have now (of course that’s a stretch as I didn’t HAVE to leave there).

Anyway, I don’t want to disrupt the lovefest and I really do appreciate what you said. Be well also.

Biff;

BTW, mark my words on this: just like Obama has already jettisoned his campaign promises regarding NAFTA, he will do a slow climb-down from his words on Iraq. He knows full well that if we leave, it will create a huge vacuum in this politically volatile area. You think $4/gallon was high for gas? That would be nothing compared to what can happen if Iran were to move into Iraq. I’ll wager anybody that we will still be in Iraq 4 years from now, with at least 50,000 troops,just as we had to stick around in Germany and Japan for quite a long time.

I got news for you What. The people I bought my house from in Bed Stuy weren’t black!!!!!! I guess that shatters your theories about ghetto displacement.

What = lover of segregation.