The state mirrors the national picture in many ways. Since the 2008 elections, the right has gone on a rampage, especially with the formation of the tea party, perhaps the most openly racist movement this country has seen in decades. It is at once sad and frightening, and, despite a relatively small base of support, it occupies much media coverage.
Against that, there have been significant victories under the new balance of forces that was ushered in with Obama's election, especially health care reform and the stimulus package of 2009 - but, economically and in most other ways, the country isn't out of the woods, and Obama and allied forces looking for a road forward are perpetually stymied. Every good initiative has run up against immediate obstruction by the minority Republican Party.
The state mirrors the national picture in many ways. Since the 2008 elections, the right has gone on a rampage, especially with the formation of the tea party, perhaps the most openly racist movement this country has seen in decades. It is at once sad and frightening, and, despite a relatively small base of support, it occupies much media coverage.
Against that, there have been significant victories under the new balance of forces that was ushered in with Obama's election, especially health care reform and the stimulus package of 2009 - but, economically and in most other ways, the country isn't out of the woods, and Obama and allied forces looking for a road forward are perpetually stymied. Every good initiative has run up against immediate obstruction by the minority Republican Party.
Here in New York, using the current economic crisis as a pretext, the corporations and developers are on a rampage to break unions and to decisively shift power away from working people towards Wall Street. Their first line of attack has been to cut services and, as we've seen in the budget fights and the attempt to privatize schools under the guise of creating more charters, to break the public sector unions.
The assault on public workers is an assault on all workers: the aim is to divide those who work in the public sector from those who work for private companies, in order to weaken the working class fightback overall.
While the big corporations have a home in both the New York Democratic and Republican parties, the Republicans are leading the most vicious assault. And while there are Democrats in our state leadership who've taken some terrible positions, the legislative Democrat caucus has been the group most responsive to the needs of working people.
Consequently, as bad as outgoing Democratic Gov. David Paterson has been, the main enemy for progressives is still the Republican Party.
Unfortunately, there's nothing to be excited about when it comes to the Democratic candidate for governor, Andrew Cuomo, the current state attorney general. He's been arguing for exactly the same business-friendly, reactionary economic policies as Paterson. Further, his shocking insensitivity to the African American, Latino, Asian American and Afro-Caribbean communities is deplorable. How can it be that there is not a single member of any of these communities on the statewide Democratic ticket?
The answer: insensitivity at best, racism at worst.
It's easy to understand the indignation felt by African Americans and other communities. Still, it's hard to see the formation of the new Freedom Party, co-chaired by City Council member Charles Barron, as a viable tactic in the fight against racism. History has shown that the only way to defeat racism and other social evils is for a united fight by the Black, white, Latino and Asian communities, male and female, old and young, unionized and unorganized. It doesn't seem like the bulk of these forces is ready to abandon Cuomo and the Democrats this year, despite the obvious shortcomings and chauvinism in his campaign.
Barron is right in charging that Cuomo is banking on the vote of the Black and other minority communities in New York State without planning to deliver on their needs and concerns. But the elections are not simply about the current Democratic ticket; more important is which block of social forces will gain supremacy this fall, those around the Democrats or those around the Republicans.
We have to ask how all working people, the racially and nationally oppressed, women and youth can build up the movement to push state Democrats to offer better choices. We've seen that, in communities across the state, this has been possible: look at the progressive, labor-oriented, Black, Latino and Asian city council members. There are many in and around the Democrats who are part of this fight: the labor movement, community organizations, women's rights organizations and others.
It's only this movement that can defeat the Republicans in November, and that can strengthen the anti-corporate, anti-racist currents within and around the state Democratic Party, many of whom are also working within the Working Families Party. Eventually, these currents will be able to, in some form or another, establish a labor-based people's party that can consistently challenge the big corporations.
This year, the Working Families Party, despite many concerns, may well offer Cuomo their ballot line. If he is able to win with a large number of WFP votes, a message will have been sent: we are voting for Cuomo because he's better than the Republican, but we support, and will fight for, pro-labor and pro-people policies.
Despite Cuomo's shortcomings, the November elections can be a huge step forward in defeating the anti-worker, racist extremists and in building a broader and more united movement for peace, equality, civil rights and democracy, both at the state and national levels.
Sound far-fetched? That's because it is.
The above statement is pure fabrication. Pure fabrication - with the exception of the angry mob. They actually did show up.
Egged on by right-wing talk radio and the rest of the tea party crowd, these people descended to protest a "mosque" they perceived to be too close to Ground Zero.
Sound far-fetched? That's because it is.
The above statement is pure fabrication. Pure fabrication - with the exception of the angry mob. They actually did show up.
Egged on by right-wing talk radio and the rest of the tea party crowd, these people descended to protest a "mosque" they perceived to be too close to Ground Zero.
Every mosque, they argued, is a breeding ground for terrorists, as Islam is based in cruelty and terror and its logical outcome is the fight against modernity, democracy and tolerance.
Further, given that the 9/11 hijackers were Islamic, the hate-talkers say, the "mosque" must certainly be a slap in the face to those who perished. (Whether or not this would be an insult to the several hundred Muslims who also died there was never explicitly said.)
What's being built two block away from Ground Zero isn't even a mosque at all, but a community center based on Islamic values. According to the website for Cordoba House, the center's name, the mission will "[promote] tolerance, reflecting the rich diversity of New York City."
While these are likely not values appreciated by the frothing demonstrators, they are a far cry from mocking 9/11 victims.
Then there's the concept that if people of one religion do something wicked to some particular group or in some certain place, it naturally follows that the presence of that religion near the people or area where the atrocities occurred is somehow an insult. But except in the case of Islam, no one in America believes that. If that were the case, there should be no Christian churches near any synagogue, given the horrible persecution that Jews have experienced for centuries at the hands of Christians. But there are synagogues and churches side-by-side all around this city.
And, of course, Catholic churches are allowed not only to be near, but also to run, elementary schools.
Most nakedly obvious is the blatant bigotry against Islam. Those protesting the "mosque" argue that it is a religion of hate based on violence. A fair reading of the Koran will reveal some truly ugly verses-but the same can be said of the Bible. There are acts of genocide, incest, hatred, collective punishment, and so on in both the Old (Torah) and New Testaments.
But millions upon millions of religious people, Jewish, Christian and Islamic, base their faith not on this or that terrible verse, but on a perception that their preferred holy book tells them to love their neighbor.
Sure, Osama bin Laden calls himself a Muslim, but Pat Robertson (who told America we deserved 9/11) calls himself a Christian. In Israel, the hateful settlers take the Torah as their basis, but so do the progressive and democratic sections of the Zionist movement.
Just as most Christians and Jews are not extremists, neither are most Muslims. In fact, the very center being protested has as its aim to "provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all."
Compassion, generosity and respect for all: These are values common to billions of Muslims, Christians and Jews, as well as any nonbeliever, Communist or true progressive.
Perhaps, most chilling of all is what these demonstrators were demanding: the government to stop the construction of a community center specifically because of the religion of those building it. In short, they wanted the suspension of the Bill of Rights.
Is there anything more chilling than thousands of people demonstrating against fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution?
Osama bin Laden and his thugs wanted to destroy the west, particularly the United States. They failed miserably. Only seven years after 9/11, the American people elected the first ever African American president, a man who grew up in a Muslim country and whose middle name, Hussein, is the same as that of two current or recent Middle Eastern rulers.
There is a huge democratic movement in this country, with labor at its core, that is white, African American, Asian, Latino, Arab and that unites people of all faiths or lack thereof. Its aim is to continue the very American tradition of the fight for peace, equality, democracy, civil rights and freedom-including of religion.
In an ironic twist, though many of them sported American flags, those protesting downtown had much less in common with this movement-and much more in common with bin Laden.
But while the effects of the crisis are real, the perceived lack of wealth is not.
A federal court struck down Gov. David Paterson's plan to furlough state workers and delay their pay raises, and now he is now calling for thousands of layoffs. Paterson openly questions whether or not an agreement made between labor and the state in 2009, which says that there would be no layoffs in return for big pension concessions from labor, is binding. Even if it can't be overridden, the governor is laying the groundwork for the layoffs to take place as soon as the agreement expires.
But while the effects of the crisis are real, the perceived lack of wealth is not.
A federal court struck down Gov. David Paterson's plan to furlough state workers and delay their pay raises, and now he is now calling for thousands of layoffs. Paterson openly questions whether or not an agreement made between labor and the state in 2009, which says that there would be no layoffs in return for big pension concessions from labor, is binding. Even if it can't be overridden, the governor is laying the groundwork for the layoffs to take place as soon as the agreement expires.
On top of that, many in the state Legislature are working to slash funding to education, aid to cities and towns, health care and other areas. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken advantage of the situation and is pushing to reduce the city's workforce by nearly 4 percent. After widespread protest, the mayor was forced to retreat on his plan to axe several thousand teachers, but he is now threatening their planned pay raises.
All across the city and state, the effects of the budget crisis are being felt. Even the New York Public Library has been forced to send out appeals to its supporters urging them to get in touch with their local representative to halt the mayor's proposal for the biggest funding cut to the library system in the city's history. The transit system is planning to lay off hundreds of station agents (there would have been more had a judge not intervened) and to shut down train lines and bus routes.
On the surface, the deficits seem huge. The state is short $9.2 billion, and the corresponding figure for the city is $4.9 billion. In addition, the MTA, a public authority, faces an $800 million shortfall.
What to do?
Of course, there are a number of ways to reduce wasteful spending without cutting services important to working people, and a number of watchdog groups and unions have pointed them out.
But the money is there. Instead of making draconian cuts, the state should simply raise revenue.
Let's put the deficit into perspective: If you add up the city and state deficit, and throw in the MTA to boot, you come up with a total of $14.9 billion. Our mayor, who is presiding over the gutting of people's living standards, is a billionaire. So much of a billionaire, in fact, that he could pay off all of the city and state debts and still have more than $2 billion left over. To put that number into perspective, Bloomberg would then, if he lives to be 108 years old, still have, not accounting for interest, $50 million per year to live off of.
And there are more like Bloomberg: According to a 2008 issue of Forbes, there are 70 other billionaires in the city limits, and they have an average net value of $3.3 billion. These 70 New Yorkers - out of nearly 8.5 million and not including the mayor - control $231 billion alone.
On top of all that, this is the home of Wall Street and its huge firms like Goldman Sachs and others, and countless multi-millionaires.
Compared to all this wealth, the $15 billion the state needs to sustain services to working people seems like a trifle.
Aside from the pressure that monopoly capital can put on the city and state governments, there is simply no reason for New York to face layoffs or cuts to social services. Perhaps more than any other state in the country, we can, if the political will is there, balance the budget - or go further and enact our own statewide stimulus plan.
A small surcharge on the billionaires, a stock transfer tax (specifically tailored to exempt 401k and other pension savings), ensuring that the Fair Share tax law doesn't sunset: all of these things could solve our budget problem.
A planned demonstration by DC 37, the UFT and others, as well as a number of other rallies and campaigns to get people to contact their representatives, are all steps in the right direction.
What's needed is the reemergence of the coalition that enacted the Fair Share Tax Reform a couple of years ago, a broad alliance of all New York City labor, the Working Families Party, the African American, Latino, Asian American communities, religious groups and others.
While there are some legitimate concerns, the vast majority of the controversy has been spearheaded by the extreme right wing, which is doing all that it can to try to weaken Obama, this time by attempting to make him look "soft" on terrorism.
While there are some legitimate concerns, the vast majority of the controversy has been spearheaded by the extreme right wing, which is doing all that it can to try to weaken Obama, this time by attempting to make him look "soft" on terrorism.
The announcement of the plan ignited a firestorm of demands that the DOJ change venues to somewhere outside the city, perhaps even somewhere outside the state-or civilian law. Those calls now span the political spectrum, as more and more elected officials have been changing their minds about supporting the Manhattan trial since the tabloids and our few Republicans began a campaign against it.
According to those on the right, trying Mohammed in the city would be an insult to the nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 mass murder. Further, it would place a huge target on downtown Manhattan and would cost the city billions of dollars for security measures.
But this is all nonsense.
Let's start with the simple stuff. Virtually everyone now knows that Washington will pay the billion or so dollars necessary for security, creating something of a downtown Manhattan stimulus program. As for increased risk for Manhattan, if the trial actually does attract homicidal maniacs, can't the same be said for anywhere else in the country? As a New Yorker, I love my city and don't want to see anyone attack it. On a more personal note, I don't want to be murdered by terrorists. But I'm not prepared to say, "Well, why don't they hold the trial in Des Moines? Better a terrorist attack there." Still, what could be more ridiculous than the idea that this will make Manhattan a target? As the cultural and financial center of the United States, Manhattan is, unfortunately, always going to be at the top of the list for any crazed terrorists.
The most pernicious of the claims made by the right wing, and those it has influenced, is that holding the trial here is somehow a "slap in the face" to those who perished on 9/11. This is just wrong; in fact, the opposite is true. By trying Mohammed in Manhattan, in a civilian court, Obama and his administration are upholding long-standing American traditions.
It is an old tradition that, in federal courts, people are tried in the same jurisdiction where they committed their crimes. The reason is that whatever local circumstances there are may have some sort of influence. Residents know more about the case in the area: if you're guilty, the knowledge will help the defense; if you're innocent, you're more likely to go free.
People like Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who represents parts of Long Island in Congress, have called for Mohammed to be tried in some secret military tribunal, "where he belongs." The New York Post openly talks about the upcoming trial as "just for show" and says that we should not "pretend innocence until proven guilty."
Is the American system of justice not good enough for people like King and his cohorts?
Mohammed is portrayed as a demon in the mass media, and this is all very likely true, even by his own admission, but do we want to allow monsters like this to be used as a pretext for subverting the notion of a fair trial, something for which generations of patriots, going back to the Revolution and even before, have fought?
That would be a real slap in the face.
There are, as in all things, pros and cons to trying Mohammed in Manhattan, and it may very well be a good idea to change the location for logistical or other reasons. In fact, the trial will most likely not be held here; the administration is currently looking at other locations across, and even outside, the state. However, condemning Obama's Department of Justice for trying to uphold cherished democratic legal traditions (and campaign promises) is misguided at best, and anti-democratic in essence.
Respect for our legal system is not "softness" on terror.
First, to dispense with the obvious: Although the billionaire representative of Wall Street, big developers and the Republican Party won, New York City elected John Liu comptroller, marking the first time in this city's more than 400 year history any Asian American has held citywide office. Further, a grand people's coalition formed around Liu: his campaign was composed essentially of the city's entire labor movement; the African American, Latino and Asian communities; women; youth; the LGBT community and a large percentage of white liberals.
First, to dispense with the obvious: Although the billionaire representative of Wall Street, big developers and the Republican Party won, New York City elected John Liu comptroller, marking the first time in this city's more than 400 year history any Asian American has held citywide office. Further, a grand people's coalition formed around Liu: his campaign was composed essentially of the city's entire labor movement; the African American, Latino and Asian communities; women; youth; the LGBT community and a large percentage of white liberals.
It is this exact coalition that, if it remains united, can usher in all sorts of progressive changes in New York City.
Further, there was important progress made in the city council elections. For the first time ever, racially and nationally oppressed council members are in the majority. In other words, the council has actually begun to reflect the people of New York City. A prime example would be Margaret Chin, who defeated an incumbent and became the first Chinese American to represent the district that includes Chinatown-ever.
But the results of the mayoral race itself, though it was a defeat, should leave us feeling hopeful. Firstly, the Democratic challenger, lost to Bloomberg by less than five points, about 46 percent to 51. This is an astoundingly low margin of victory for Bloomberg, given that pollsters predicted the incumbent "independent" (read: Republican who supported George W. Bush and thinks Giuliani would be a good governor) would score a margin of victory in the double digits, as he did in 2005. In that election, he beat Fernando Ferrer by nearly 20 percentage points.
Bloomberg also put a lot into this election: officially, he put about $100 million into his campaign, the most any candidate has spent vying for municipal office in the history of the world, literally speaking. (By contrast, Thompson, who abided by the city's campaign finance rules, and therefore spent less than $7 million.) However, in reality, Bloomberg spent even more: if one counts money the Bloomberg campaign spent essentially buying the Republican and Independence Party lines, as well as giving "charitable donations" to agencies that, in turn, endorsed and even put people on the street for Bloomberg, the figure is closer to $200 million.
With his money, Bloomberg was able to send daily fliers to people, targeting recipients by race, gender, party affiliation, neighborhood and so on. He was able to run TV spots attacking Thompson every day for months. And he had the best campaign operation money can buy: hundreds of paid staff and a very highly sophisticated get-out-the-vote apparatus.
But with all of that, and two terms of incumbency, Bloomberg was only able to get ahead of Thompson by five points.
How did Thompson do so well, one might ask. The first thing to be said is that people don't really like Bloomberg that much anymore: he's known to be an out of touch billionaire, and people are especially unhappy with his maneuvers to change city election law to allow himself the opportunity to run for a third term (though New Yorkers had voted twice to limit all city offices to two-terms).
Thompson himself was good on the issues, and generally connected with the working people of New York City. While no campaign is perfect, his hit most of the right notes. He campaigned on a platform of, as he put it, taking the city back from Wall Street and the big developers who have been pushing working New Yorkers further and further out of the city. (In fact, a recent study showed that 1.1 million working New Yorkers had already left.)
Further, he had the backing of the vast majority of the African American, Latino, and Asian American elected leadership, and most of those communities. According to the New York Times, 82 percent of African Americans, and 65 percent of Latinos, voted for Thompson. Large sections of the Asian communities voted for Thompson, especially South Asians, who voted 61 percent for Thompson.
Thompson also had the backing from a number of the city's largest labor unions, including Transport Workers Union Local 100, AFSCME District Council 37, and a host of others. Labor did an impressive job of mobilizing the vote for Thompson. In many areas, DC 37 (which had endorsed Bloomberg in 2005) and TWU Local 100 worked together to bring out voters and drive them to polling places. All of the unions made efforts to contact their members and ask them to vote for Thompson. CWA Local 1180 put $500,000 into advertising, and TWU held several demonstrations and distributed leaflets condemning Bloomberg.
Thompson had the backing of most progressive elected officials as well as dozens of Democratic Party clubs, community organizations and churches.
Essentially, Thompson's campaign had the makings of the sort of all-people's coalition, the type we previously wrote would make it possible to defeat Bloomberg and his millions. As it turns out, we were correct in that assessment. A relatively little-known candidate, with less than $10 million (compared to $200 million), because of a broad coalition, nearly slew Goliath.
The question then arises: was it actually possible to win? The answer is an emphatic "yes." While Thompson had many things in his favor, he had a lot working against him (aside from a lack of money.)
Firstly, we can't ignore racism, which was fanned at the top, i.e. from the Bloomberg campaign itself, as a deciding factor. While it is true that there have been great strides forward in the fight against racism, especially with the election of President Obama, we are nowhere near living in a "post-racial" society. Simply looking at a map of who voted for Thompson and who voted for Bloomberg gives lie to that story: where red denotes an area that supported Bloomberg, the whitest neighborhoods were, on the map, also the reddest. To be sure, thousands of white people voted for Thompson, but there is clear evidence that a large percentage of the city's white population is still under the influence of racist ideology. (This was made shockingly stark in a city council race in Queens, where extreme racist rhetoric was used by a Republican pagan (literally) to defeat Kevin Kim, a Korean American.)
The Bloomberg campaign was almost explicit in its racism: Giuliani, stumped for Bloomberg, telling a crowd that "we don't want to go back to the days of Dinkins." He added, "You know what I mean." We know what he meant.
Another factor was a feeling, promoted by Bloomberg, that the incumbent's victory was inevitable. After the election, campaign leaders said this was an overriding strategy of the campaign: the spending overkill, even though Bloomberg's team knew it would annoy New Yorkers, was aimed at convincing people that he could not be defeated. This helped to suppress the vote for Thompson: If Bloomberg will win anyway, many reasoned, why go and vote at all?
This air of inevitability also played into another huge problem for Thompson: a split labor movement. While some big labor unions supported Thompson, a greater number sat the election out. SEIU 1199 and the United Federation of Teachers both avoided making any endorsement, while SEIU 32BJ and some others endorsed Bloomberg. It's possible to say that any one of these huge unions, with tens or hundreds of thousands of members each, could potentially have pushed Thompson to victory, had they either endorsed Thompson, not endorsed Bloomberg, or, better yet, both.
While we would never actually condone endorsing Bloomberg or sitting out the elections, We can certainly understand why they did: Bloomberg essentially told them, "I'm going to win the election, and you know what will happen to you if you oppose me." Most of these unions were simply concerned what might happen to them if they stood up to Bloomberg and he won: would he attack their contract? Would he go after them and do real damage to their members?
The results of this mayoral race are contradictory. We can look at the elections and see a bitter defeat, given that Bloomberg won. We could look at them and see a victory, given the closeness of the race and all the obstacles that Thompson and the movement around him had to go up against.
Most importantly, we can see opportunity.
What we said before was proven true: If we can build a movement of the labor movement, the African American, Latino and Asian communities, white liberals and other progressive forces drawn around that core, the people can defeat anyone. In this election, this coalition was built, but only partially. But even a partially built coalition was able to put us within a hair of replacing a 17th richest man in the world, who represents, as mayor, Wall Street and big developers with a mayor sympathetic to labor and progressive sectors of New York City.
Next time we go all the way.
For instance, Bloomberg has recently noticed that the public transit system is “the lifeblood of our city.” He should know; he rides the 6 train to work (after being chauffeured from his mansion to a subway station by SUV, of course). Apparently, he’s come to the realization that the city’s lifeblood isn’t as plentiful as it should be. He’s released a whole 33-point program to fix transit for New Yorkers!
For instance, Bloomberg has recently noticed that the public transit system is “the lifeblood of our city.” He should know; he rides the 6 train to work (after being chauffeured from his mansion to a subway station by SUV, of course). Apparently, he’s come to the realization that the city’s lifeblood isn’t as plentiful as it should be. He’s released a whole 33-point program to fix transit for New Yorkers!
As a former Coney Island resident, I can appreciate the need (listed in his program) to add express service on the F line. That would cut a commute from Manhattan to the far edge of Brooklyn by maybe 20 minutes. And he doesn’t stop there! He wants to spread the largesse: Now, he’s advocating free crosstown bus service, reopening a whole rail line in Staten Island, van service to help underserved neighborhoods... The list goes on!
Bloomberg’s going all out. He’s created a petition to the MTA, featured on his website, so that we can tell the authority, “no more excuses, no more delays!”
The mayor has started this campaign with such a passion that, if taken at face value, would leave one feeling slightly perplexed, vexed by a number of questions.
Why has it taken the mayor eight years in office to notice that the MTA is a mess?
If he noticed the trouble before, why didn’t he do anything? Could he have just discovered the art of the petition, only now? Couldn’t he have at least said something?
Of course, the plan doesn’t mention the transit workers themselves. But that’s to be expected: We already know he hates them. During the 2005 labor dispute, which eventually led to a historic strike, Bloomberg wasted no time siding with the MTA management. In fact, the mayor was a major force pushing for then-Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Roger Toussaint to be thrown in jail. He also referred to the strikers as “criminals,” basing his comments on the state’s Taylor Law, which bans public workers from striking. (Many consider this law to be a violation of ILO labor standards, but Bloomberg can’t be bothered with that.)
So he’s against the workers, the people who actually run the trains, buses and so on. We’ve always known that. But we always thought he viewed the riders with a malevolent neglect. He seems to be saying this isn’t the case.
The problem with Bloomberg’s narrative—that of a caring mayor looking out for his constituents—is that it diverges wildly from reality, as do a number of statements on the website itself.
“Our transit system is run by the MTA, and controlled by Albany,” says the site.
Of course, even great lies have grains of truth in them. The MTA is a “bloated bureaucracy,” as Bloomberg’s site says. And it’s a public authority (the type that the Senate Democrats are trying to tame), that shields politicians from blame. This is bad, and the MTA should be democratized.
But one of the politicians shielded from blame by the MTA is Bloomberg himself. What he neglects to mention his website is that, of the 17 members of the authority’s board, eight are named by the leaders of New York City and surrounding communities, four by Bloomberg himself.
Is he really telling us that he’s had no influence over an agency of which nearly a quarter of its board are handpicked by him?
And even if it were the case that he had no authority, which it’s obviously not, where was he for the past eight years? While he’s been mayor there have been several fare increases (base fare was $1.50 in 2002; now it’s $2.25) and cuts: hundreds of booths in subway stations are now closed.
Earlier this very year, there was a crisis in the MTA, with the possibility of huge service cuts—the elimination of entire subway lines and bus routes, less frequent buses and so on, brand new tolls on the East River bridges—as well as steep fare increases. You’d think that Bloomberg would have been there, championing the rights of New Yorkers, figuring out a solution—doing something.
But where was he?
Where was he when the TWU was rallying against cuts? Where was he when people like Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson (who, incidentally, has spent the past eight years actually supporting transit workers and commuters), comptroller candidate John Liu and others were holding press conferences demanding that there be no cuts or fare increases?
Thompson and Liu, as well as tens of thousands of New Yorkers were fighting for a solution: Raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, those who make over $500,000 per year, to stop what would have been devastating cuts, then look at reforming the authority so that people—like Bloomberg—couldn’t hide behind it.
Where was Bloomberg? When the demonstration of 75,000 people in front of City Hall, demanding taxes on the rich to avoid all sorts of public service cuts, was going on, he was inside telling the press, “We love rich people.” For some reason, he didn’t join his colleagues in elected office, Thompson, Liu and others, in speaking at the rally.
The reason that there is no plan as to how to pay for all the new services he’s offering is clear: he doesn’t intend to deliver on them.
His whole campaign is a lie, a sham, to cover up an abysmal record of not fighting for New Yorkers. Transit is a big issue for New Yorkers, and he’s looking to, if not convince people he’ll do something good, at least hide the fact that he’s been a hindrance to better transportation.
As his poll numbers drop, the mayor is desperately trying to find a way to distance himself from ... himself.
This campaign is a new low for Bloomberg, who has now taken to treating New Yorkers as fools.
Unfortunately for the mayor, people realize that you simply can’t be the solution to a problem of which you are a main part.
Whether or not this will stand, or if the State Senate will come back to order and re-issue some form of mayor control remains to be seen. However, what we’ve seen so far is not good: Bloomberg is making sure to keep himself and his corporate-world school’s chancellor, Joel Klein, firmly in control, with as little in the way of checks and balances as possible.
Whether or not this will stand, or if the State Senate will come back to order and re-issue some form of mayor control remains to be seen. However, what we’ve seen so far is not good: Bloomberg is making sure to keep himself and his corporate-world school’s chancellor, Joel Klein, firmly in control, with as little in the way of checks and balances as possible.
The seven-member board is composed of two people directly appointed by the mayor, and one person appointed by each of the five Borough Presidents. The mayor and the BP’s have made their appointments, and six of them are sympathetic to Bloomberg: There are three deputy mayors and three allies. The other, Dolores M. Fernández, was appointed by Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., and thankfully, she is expected to oppose Joel Klein’s continued reign as well as many of Bloomberg’s policies.
It’s too bad that four of the five Borough Presidents decided not to challenge Bloomberg’s power. If they had, we could have seen a board that would fire Joel Klein, and bring in someone who has an actual background in education. Klein has imposed a top-down corporate model on the schools, and has left room for virtually no input by parents or the community.
We need a system that will not be bogged down in bureaucracy and patronage, as the old Board of Education was, as well as something that is democratic, allowing for the greatest possible involvement of the people of New York—something that the Bloomberg top-down control model was decidedly not.
For that reason, we agree with the efforts of the new Democratic leader, John Sampson, as well as other Democrats and members of the State Senate who want to pass an amended version of executive control that is far better than the version passed by the State Assembly, which left the Bloomberg version largely unchanged.
An example would be the “Better Schools Act,” introduced by Sen. Kevin Parker, D-Brooklyn, and endorsed by the Alliance for Quality Education, a diverse coalition of community organizations dedicated to bettering local public education. This bill would divide appointment to the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), which leads the Department of Education, between both the mayor and the City Council, which, by its nature, is closer to the people of the city. Members of the PEP would be appointed for fixed terms—not at the leisure of the mayor or city council. As it stood until this morning, the PEP was a farce: any member who disagrees with Bloomberg is simply removed and replaced. The bill would also add accountability and transparency to the DOE, and would allow for greater participation by the community.
Neither the current nor the previous setup works. We need a democratic form of executive and legislative control.
But here’s the thing: The operative word is “some.” Much of the mainstream press have been painting all the state senators with the same brush: They are, according to New York City’s tabloids, a bunch of lowlifes who have stayed out of work (i.e. the Senate has not been in session for a couple weeks), but who are still getting paid. They’ve directed rage at the senators in general, and, in doing so, deflected it from the real villains.
But here’s the thing: The operative word is “some.” Much of the mainstream press have been painting all the state senators with the same brush: They are, according to New York City’s tabloids, a bunch of lowlifes who have stayed out of work (i.e. the Senate has not been in session for a couple weeks), but who are still getting paid. They’ve directed rage at the senators in general, and, in doing so, deflected it from the real villains.
While there are lowlifes in our State Senate, there is a real, principled reason for the Senate to not be in session. And half the senators are in the right—as far as what’s in the interests of regular New Yorkers—while others are way off into the field of wrong.
The reason that the chamber is deadlocked is the unreasonable set of demands from the coalition of Republicans and Pedro Espada, the turncoat Democrat. They argue that the vote they took June 8, when Queens Democrat Hiram Monseratte was also working as a turncoat, should stand. This vote “elected” Pedro Espada as the Senate’s President Pro Tem and Republican leader Dean Skelos as the majority leader. The legality of this vote is dubious at best—was the Senate even technically in session when the vote occurred?—and is even less valid ethically, given that Monseratte later returned to the Democratic fold.
Now there’s an even split: There are 30 Republicans plus Espada (the DINO, or Democrat in name only), and 31 Democrats. The Republican/Espada coalition has no majority, yet it wants the leadership of the chamber. Usually, the lieutenant governor would, in case of a tie, cast a vote. But since Paterson was made Governor after the Elliot Spitzer sex scandal, there is no one to break the tie. In a strange twist of logic and the law, the Republican/DINO coalition now argues that Espada should have two votes in case of a tie—one as a senator, and a second as President Pro Tem of the Senate.
A situation in which the Republican Party has control of the chamber would be disastrous. Pro-tenant legislation, which was advancing through the Senate (though, Espada, as head of the housing committee had been stalling the bill as much as possible) would almost certainly be completely derailed. The gay marriage bill? Forget it. A bill introduced by Diane Savino to extend the right to strike to public workers? No way, labor. Some fix for Bloomberg’s school dictatorship—a.k.a. “mayoral control of the schools”? Sorry. A bill that would allow people raped by priests to sue? Nope.
Given this situation, it would be a crime against New Yorkers for the Democrats to return to the Senate, go into session, and allow the Republicans and Espada to take control. The best thing to happen would be for the will of New Yorkers—expressed when they voted to elect the first Democratic State Senate in more than 40 years—to be respected. The Democrats have been fighting for this, but Espada doesn’t seem to care: He’s more interested in his own power and prestige. And, of course, we can’t expect the Republicans to be any less intransigent.
The best option is some sort of power sharing deal. The Democrats have offered this, but the Republicans rejected it several times. In this kind of situation, the Democrats have a choice: stay far enough away so that there is no quorum while working to make some kind of deal, or come back and let the Republicans were havoc. Currently, they’re doing what’s right.
In their politics and support for working New Yorkers, the members of the Republican caucus range from truly horrible to very bad, while the members of the Democratic caucus range from pretty bad to really good. On issues of labor rights, women’s rights, and civil rights, there is no comparison. Obviously, the Democrats are far from perfect, but it is clear that the real enemy here is the Republican Party/DINO caucus, which, unhappy that it lost power in 2008, has tried to seize control of the State Senate. Any talk about all the senators being clowns in an Albany circus, or that paints all the senators in the same way, obscures this real issues.