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“Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism”, Says Op-Ed in Paper That Stole Land

“Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism”, Says Op-Ed in Paper That Stole Land
By Daniel Greenfield

“Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism”, a New York Times op-ed falsely claims. But then again at the old gray lady, everything from your recipe to your underpants to your light fixtures are based on racism.

“Your X is Based on Racism” is the perfect New York Times op-ed pitch where the value of X is literally anything: including possibly the letter X, the X-Men, and pirates marking buried treasure which they stole because they were racists.

But “Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism” is a hell of a claim to print for a paper that literally stole land to build its ugly headquarters.

Those “values” and “democratic ideals” included using eminent domain to forcibly evict 55 businesses–including a trade school, a student housing unit, a Donna Karan outlet, and several mom-and-pop stores–against their will, under the legal cover of erasing “blight,” in order to clear ground for a 52-story skyscraper. The Times and Ratner, who never bothered making an offer to the property owners, bought the Port Authority-adjacent property at a steep discount ($85 million) from a state agency that seized the 11 buildings on it; should legal settlements with the original tenants exceed that amount, taxpayers will have to make up the difference. On top of that gift, the city and state offered the Times $26 million in tax breaks for the project, and Ratner even lobbied to receive $400 million worth of U.S. Treasury-backed Liberty Bonds–instruments created by Congress to help rebuild Lower Manhattan. Which is four miles away.

The New York Times’ home’s values is based on thievery.

The property’s present owners charge that the Times used its clout as a powerful newspaper publisher to grab the valuable land away from them through a sweetheart deal with city and state government.

“You just don’t think things like that can happen in this country,” said Scot Cohen, who runs his family’s B & J Fabrics, a garment district fixture since 1958 in a 16-story office building that the Times wants to demolish. “You work hard to build something up, and then someone who is bigger than you can take it away.”

Being lectured about racism by thieves is the best.

Original Article

Image Credit: Bigapplestock

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