Firefighters and Bodies, Cops & Gold

Anonymous Comrade forwards from the Cultural Studies Central list:

"I'm astonished to find that no one has mentioned the FDNY (Fire Dept. of New York) revolt last Friday. I waited patiently for somebody to take this up, but so far I don't see anything. And you're talking about praxis! (Though few, if any, have actually used the word.) This is too important to overlook, so I will sum up the circumstances. (Forgive the New York slang; it just seemed appropriate for a description of Gutsy-Firefighters' Who-Punch-Out-NYPD-Cops. And it just sort of spilled out rather naturally. Their articulation of theory is my theory, in this context.)Guilliani (Hizzoner, the mayor), after the firefighters found the gold (literal and/or figurative) buried in fiery vaults and had it trucked to safety, ordered 75% of the firefighters off the Ground Zero site! With whole bodies of firefighters and body parts of civilians still buried in the rubble! Hizzoner wants to bulldoze the whole thing and cart it off to a landfill! He wants to bury the *bodies* - dead human beings, Jesus H. Christ - in *a garbage dump*! No ceremony, no clergy, no music: just bulldoze 'em, cart 'em and dump 'em! Let the buzzards gorge themselves, for all Mayor Dearest could care. Those men (and I'd guess a few women) have been risking their lives for weeks for reasons they were not told: there were hundreds of millions of bucks or more in the burning vaults (way below ground). Brinks' trucks arrived and safely transported the money. That's all Rudy was interested in, and he had these brave men risk their lives for the freakin' gold! He couldn't care less about the human beings who still lay buried in the burning cauldron, of the folks who, unbeknownst to them, risked their lives for MONEY. To say this pissed off the firemen is putting it rather mildly. There was, you could say, that "galvanizing moment of consciousness." These men, no professional theorists among 'em, took ACTION. When they held aloft signs that said, in bold red ink, "It's all about the money," they were engaging in true praxis, because that's a theoretical notion if I ever heard one.

WELL, to get to the best part of the story - the firefighters on Friday staged a MASSIVE (and "violent") demonstration and insisted they would hold their ground and never leave a fire while it's still burning - even if they had to hit cops, especially while there are still human bodies to be recovered (including some of their own people - not just fellow firemen, but ACTUAL blood-related brothers and uncles). As it turned out, they did unfortunately have to hit people in order to stand their ground. A few very brave firefighters, who warned those cops not to take a step further in their direction, cold cocked five cops who did. Knocked them on their cans.They were arrested and charged! Yeah, you heard it right. New York cops were ordered to ARREST New York firefighters! And they did. They "followed orders." Over 55 years have passed, and we haven't learned a damn thing. When a law is immoral, you must disobey it! That was the lesson of Nazi Germany, and did we learn anything? Certainly not they NYPD, if their recent history is any indication. Now, they've added a shameful new chapter.

In these times, this devilish action against these brave, decent, loving souls is a genuine atrocity: an atrocity committed against New Yorkers, and against the American people, and against humanity as a whole. These extraordinarily brave and loving individuals will save anyone, will give their lives for anyone, and Rudy ordered them *arrested*! 350 or so of them DID give their lives already. And this, apparently, is their reward: arrests.

This "United We Stand" crap is over and done now. And Rudy is through, mercifully at his own stupid hands.

Yesterday's demonstration and arrests stood as a moment of American and world history that should NEVER be forgotten. Yes, these guys ARE New York's bravest.