Moving to make way for MGM? Don’t forget about Holyoke
Very interesting article (Raising the Stakes: Springfield’s South End businesses relocate to make way for MGM, Nov. 8, 2014), but it didn’t go far enough. MGM, the city of Springfield, and the property owners are throwing small businesses to the wolves.
MGM will put 15 acres of Springfield in limbo for three years, cause major traffic problems, the loss of about 1,000 on-street parking spaces and 40-plus small businesses will have nowhere to go.
Springfield will hold hearings this month to address street closings and parking bans during I-91 repairs, which will knock the hell out of small businesses on alternate routes for five years.
Property owners have already started raising rents in anticipation of more businesses, which is an uncertainty three years down the road. One high-traffic bar/restaurant on Main Street has already closed due to a rent increase. Small businesses need lower, not high rents. There are many empty locations in area cities that would welcome them. Holyoke has dozens of locations with fair rents, and low gas and electric rates — and it’s on the PVTA Express.
Keystone Pipeline not a job creator
Why do some in the media refer to Keystone Pipeline as a jobs bill? It only creates 35 permanent jobs. Solar energy would create tens of thousands of jobs if we didn’t have to fight the Koch brothers and their people in Congress to do it. Solar technology is ready for widespread use. Denmark already is getting 40 percent of its power from photovoltaics.
Tar sands oil is the worst to clean up. Because of heavy metals such as lead, the oil sinks to the bottom of waterways. It’s killed 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. Four years later and it’s nowhere near cleaned up and has cost the taxpayers billions.
Pet (petroleum) coke, which is left after the refining process, is a black powder stored in piles the size of football fields in Chicago and elsewhere. This highly toxic residue blows when the wind blows and sticks to skin, throats and lungs. Lead, sulfur, and other toxins in pet coke cause health problems such as cancer, asthma, COPD and emphysema. There is no safe storage of this toxic waste. Add to this that the refined oil is mostly going to foreign markets (China) for profit (Koch Bros) and Americans will get no benefit.
Proud to hear Levasseur speak
Editor’s Note: Raymond Luc Levasseur spent 20 years in prison for his connection to United Freedom Front, which carried out domestic bombings in the ’70s to protest U.S. actions in South Africa and South America.
A lot of us radical, left-wing Mainers were excited when Raymond Luc Levasseur was getting out of prison. Ya, we saw the stuff on the news about him being a terrorist, but we didn’t care. Over a period of years his story had circulated in our ranks, so we all knew who he was and what his platform had been.
I saw Levasseur at a public event put on by radical, young left-wingers. It’s cool, you know; cool for us young people to get the opportunity to see a piece of history like that.
I don’t understand why cops have the nerve to talk about violence as if they don’t own violence. Cops perpetuate all different kinds of violent human rights abuses every day all over the U.S.A., all over New England, in Maine, in Western Massachusetts, even in Amherst and Northampton. They need to hold their tongues.
Freedom of Speech is freedom of speech. Not just for the left or the right. For all of us. If I, a radical, left-wing woman of color can accept the KKK should have freedom of speech and freedom to meet, I think the cops and everybody should leave Levasseur alone to speak his piece. They make it seem like his voice is a lone voice of violent dissent when it simply ain’t.
There are thousands of black, white, yellow and brown brothers and sisters who are sick and tired and angry as can be. These youth are on the left and the right, my dear. These youth are violently anti-government. These youth are not going to go away and most of them are patriots.
So, I’m proud to say that I saw Brother Levasseur in Maine. The struggle continues!
