< rant >

Yesterday I was stuffing envelopes for work, and the girl sitting accross from me asked who she should vote for Mayor to support the expansion of the mall. Someone answered Joanie Mahoney. I commented that the mall project was a really bad idea. And she wanted to know why, asking in quite the prissy condescending tone. So I told her.

The expansion of the mall will cause many people's small family run businesses to not only go out of business, but be torn down. The Syracuse Antiques Exchange, Little Gem Diner, just to name two. In its place we'll have a golf course in a biosphere and a hotel so you can shop, sleep, wake up and shop more.

Prissy SU girl asks, so if we don't build the mall bigger, how else are we going to turn this city around?

"Say what?"

This city is slipping, I feel, so says Miss Priss.

Oh, you feel this? Do you? How long have you been here in total... what, two years? So the city is slipping. That's debatable. But what do you think the mall would do for the city? Everyone says it will make jobs. Do we even WANT the jobs it'll make? Low income jobs with no benefits. What, you think it'll attract new businesses... like factory jobs? More low income jobs, with little benefits.

And why do these assholes get a vote? You don't live in this county. Who cares what you think? You flounce into my city in your Prada shoes and Coach handbag, whine that there isn't a Prada store at the mall and how you miss your precious Macy's, hear a rumor that some big business men want to expand the mall, and your little ears perk up and you pat daddy's credit card. Yes, build a mall, preppy needs a new pair of shoes.

That's all we need. In a college town where people already think everyone at SU is filthy rich, just build us a mall so that we can feed the rampant capitalism, make the man richer, and continue to ignore the real reason people don't have jobs: the system of capitalism demands that it is so. YOU wear your Prada only because some people have to live marginalized, on the streets, begging for $.60 for coffee, which you deny them and laugh as you pass, jibing that you can't even afford your beer. Hypocrites.

I hope you fall over your pile of Gap shopping bags and choke in a mass of Coach purse straps.