There's More Left, If You're Hungry (For Change)

PUBLISHED : SAT, 12 JUL 2014, 06:25 PM
UPDATED : MON, 14 JUL 2014, 07:45 PM

Response to "Nothing Left" by Adolph Reed, Jr.

There's a way forward, to break through the stranglehold that neoliberals have over the Democratic Party, but, to do it, leftists need to leave the Democratic Party. In "Nothing Left," an essay by Adolph Reed, Jr., in the March issue of Harper's, Mr. Reed, described how the Democratic Party fails leftists in American politics. More or less, he described a Democratic Party that believed in working within a broken political system that affirms neoliberalism over the party's former New Deal politics. There are too many payoffs in the current broken political system for the Democrats to want reforms. Following is a response and commentary to Mr. Reed's essay. For years, activists in New York City have been trying to fight back against the influences of Big Business interests in local politics, but activists are stopped by party politics that want to see the correct Democrat elected into public office. Activists play a greater role in trying to bring about reforms, precisely because most voters do not participate in government, much less vote. In the mayoral election won by Bill de Blasio, only 24 percent of registered voters turned out to cast ballots, a rate of participation described as a record low by The New York Times. This compares with a 25 percent voter turnout in Detroit, a city in bankruptcy. A sense of voter powerlessness to fight back against the corruptive influence of money and lobbyists in politics is succeeding in suppressing voter turnout. "Three other cities showed an even deeper level of apathy. Atlanta had 17.2 percent turnout, Houston only 13.2 percent and Miami just 11 percent,” according to one report. This compares with an incredible recent peak in voter turnout of 93 percent in the 1953 New York City mayoral election. Voters have come to believe that their participation doesn’t make a difference, and in the age of the corrupt Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, they are almost right. The lack of voter participation means that activists play a larger than normal role in how political, legal, and economic issues get put on the social agenda. We know that activists are passionate, because they are driven by motivations to change the system when they take up causes. One consequence to how how we compensate for the lack of voter participation is that the same activists keep showing up over and over again for a variety of issues. In the face of such great voter apathy, some activists speak of inactive voters as uneducated, because if voters truly appreciated what was at stake in the broken political system, voters would get involved. Voters need to become activated, so that they can claim their rightful role in overhauling the broken political system. Otherwise, going forward, as in for the past decades, some activists (or, some political operatives is more like it) will take for granted that only activists or political operatives will know what reforms are needed, because only activists and political operatives know the lay of the corrupt political landscape. A huge contributing factor that keeps such super-majority percentages of voters inactive is the failure of mainstream media to fully report the truth about the depths of corruption in how elected officials run the business of government. And activists and political operatives know the truth about how corrupt the system is, but they don't do much of anything to challenge the press to fully report the truth about corruption. Somehow, the same small numbers of activists and political operatives have yet to overcome the limitations imposed by the failed mainstream media, and this keeps inactive voters in the dark. Compounding this dysfunction is the fact that some activists readily accept some aspects of the corrupt political landscape, and these activists adjust themselves accordingly to the corruption, as opposed to fighting it. Once they play by the rules of the broken political system, some activists adopt downsized scopes of reforms to make nice-nice with the power players of the broken political system. To varying degrees, Mr. Reed and others have previously described this phenomenon. Where is the Democratic Party in all this ? Democrats only care about winning elections, not rolling out fundamental reforms to overhaul the broken political system. Brining back online the inactive voters doesn't matter to Democrats, because elections can be still be won without the participation of inactive voters. Making matters worse, the Democratic Party uses what Jane Hamsher describes as "veal pens" to proverbially lock-up activists and nonprofit organizations in a state of atrophy to deescalate demands for political reforms from the political left. Except for a few brave souls, the mainstream media buys into these and other deceptions of the Democratic Party for several reasons. Some politicians, their political operatives, and their lobbyists employ teams of people to feed the media only approved talking points. Some reporters make the mistake of thinking that they have become "friends" with politicians and their enablers, losing their objectivity in the process. The influence of of corporate owners and editors slant reporting coverage according to suitable idealogical packaging. The media has often been describe to move with a pack mentality, they themselves not wanting to appear to be dissenting from their peers. And sometimes, the few brave souls, who do report the truth about government and political corruption, face a loss of access to each of sources, political gossip, or other professional privileges. Many times, this retaliation plays out privately, as the spurned reporter tries to do damage control out of the view and judgement of their peers and possible future employers. Given that Democratic Party insiders and political operatives know this, it is not difficult for Democrats to try to control the media. In respect of the media, several important things have happened in the time leading up to, and since, Mr. de Blasio was elected as mayor that can act as reality checks on the City Hall press corps. First, while LGBT activists were rejecting the "identity politics" of former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in favor of substance, Mr. de Blasio rolled out his family, offering a "biographical narrative" to take center stage in his cornerstone promise to "end the stop-and-frisk era," a promise that was devoid of truth, in turns out, when Mr. de Blasio move the goal posts to "stop the over-use of stop-and-frisk" with the subsequent appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner, a move which the media largely did not challenge as being incongruent with Mr. de Blasio's campaign promises. At a lengthy public forum of some of the city's top political reporters held after last year's Democratic mayoral primary election, some reporters openly disavowed any duty to vet candidates for public office. As a consequence of this attitude, many reporters admitted that they had failed to scrutinize Mr. de Blasio before last year's Democratic primary race. For those few New Yorkers planning to vote, relying on the press for information was a dangerous proposition, because the city's top political reporters were saying that voters were on their own to make sense of the broken political system. Resistance to reforms that borders on needing to keep the system corruptible Who can forget Rep. Nancy Pelosi's three-part interview (Part 1 ; Part 2 ; Part 3) revealing interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in which Rep. Pelosi refused to come clean about the Democratic Party's reliance on Big Money campaign contributions, amongst other controversies. Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised to clean up Albany of corruption, but he refused to close a gaping loophole through which Big Money campaign donors funnel campaign contributions to elected officials as a way to control the government's agenda. One of Mayor de Blasio's closest political operatives, Scott Levenson, faces what has been described as multiple possible investigations due to allegations of campaign finance violations, but the mayor refuses to update the city's campaign finance laws, as he promised he would during last year's mayoral campaign. Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito hired lobbyists in a shady campaign to become the City Council speaker, pledging to turn the page from the corrupt record of her predecessor, but, now that she's in power, she's waging an effort to take control over the city's Board of Elections, "giving her power and control of a host of patronage jobs," according to The New York Daily News. Other issues, like how Gov. Cuomo was carrying out a state-sponsored plan to close hospitals across New York City, were never reported in the mainstream media with the full truth about what was truly happening. Even when Mr. de Blasio was reportedly described as trying to save Long Island College Hospital when he was only a candidate for mayor, he never fully tied the wave of hospital closings back to Gov. Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team. When the media did work itself up into a frenzy, like when one of the mayor's political supporters, Bishop Orlando Findlayter, was let out of jail on account of alleged intervention from City Hall, the mayor blocked the release of possibly damaging (or incriminating) evidence. At the conclusion of last year, The New York Times opined that no matter the real reason former Council Speaker Quinn lost the mayoral race, it wasn't because of any "major ethical lapses," contrary to the multiple examples of ethical lapses chronicled in Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn. One way or another, the corrupt system finds a way to keep the truth from being reported. Whenever the media is interested in covering a story, like with Bishop Findlayter's arrest, the government denies requests made under freedom of information laws. Some political bloggers and government reform advocates believe that Mayor de Blasio's denial of freedom of information law requests for Bishop Findlayter's arrest report, for example, is in keeping with the Obama administration's pattern of denying requests made under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Amongst the many outstanding FOIA requests pending before the Obama administration is a request for records about the government's vindictive prosecution of activists, including the prosecution of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal hero, Lt. Daniel Choi. It's easier for the press to politically report that the Obama administration is denying FOIA requests than it is to show how the Obama administration has been targeting activists for vindictive prosecution. The political climate facing government reform activists within the Democratic Party is so severe, that pressuring the Democratic Party for reforms routinely involves backlash, sometimes in the form of political retaliation. This environment of hostility is indicative that the Democratic Party doesn't stand for reforms. That is why you see political operatives, a/k/a "Yes Men," ring fence Democratic Party politicians from criticism. When grassroots activists make demands for reforms, the Yes Men deceptively water-down those demands for reform into downsized requests that can be easily met with empty rhetoric. Given this reality, how can voters mobilize to overhaul the broken political system, if some political operatives downsize their demands for reform -- at the same time when the press refuses to report the whole truth about corrupt elected officials ? The fairytale life of elected officials Part of the never-ending election strategy for the Democratic Party, indeed for any political party, is to establish and then maintain their leaders as likable characters. And so begins the requirement that followers can never question leaders, for, if one makes this irreconcilable error of questing a leader, then one gets shown the door. The Democratic Party spends millions on campaign consultants, lobbyists, focus groups, opinion polls, other messaging, and public relations that the party will not tolerate insiders, who undo these expensive media machinations. This is why voters get duped into buying the party line. Activists, who think they can operate an inside strategy, must first pledge to operate from a place of compromise -- there can be no criticisms of elected officials. This is why there is no room for dissent in expensive modern-day politics. Even when most progressives support immigration reform, for example, the Democrats, under Mayor de Blasio, go to such extremes as only allowing supporters of the city's new identification cards speak at official City Council hearings. Free speech and open debate go out the window. Regrettably, whole classes of nonprofit executives and activists sell-out their communities in exchange for insider access privileges. Even before Mayor de Blasio took office, former Council Speaker Quinn had established new norms of what it meant to be a neoliberal Democrat in New York City. Her relationship with real estate developers, chambers of commerce-like groups like the Partnership for New York City, and big money campaign donors like Rudin Management Company, have served as a pattern for Mayor de Blasio to follow as he seeks constant approval from Big Business interests. Moving in the same Big Business interest circles of former Speaker Quinn, Mayor de Blasio perpetuates the corrupt nexus of insider access and and a culture of backroom power deals for which activists once criticized former Speaker Quinn for having embraced, but the press doesn’t report things this way. Having made his Black family the core of Mayor de Blasio's identity prevents critics from raising race as an issue, even as some of Mayor de Blasio's policies have unfair racial overtones. Look at how easily Mayor de Blasio sold out on his pledge to reform policing in New York City when he authorized the police to undertake military-style invasions of public housing projects -- public housing projects -- and blaming some of the poor for the desperate lives that some of them live on account of the broken political system that never addresses the underlying conditions, which cause that desperation, a broken political system which Mayor de Blasio so very well represents. Police raids are sinister forms of behavior modification that blames victims for being poor, and that the targets of these policing actions are largely people of color goes unexamined by the media and by long-time activists, who have, by now, adapted to the new political realities of no expectations of reforms under the Democratic mayor. That the new police commissioner has promised to keep using the racist and classist "broken windows theory" of policing means that the mayor was all talk about police reform. Now that race is not a safe subject for examination, the media fails to look at how political operatives undertook efforts last year to manufacture a spike in voter turn-out in Black voting districts as a way to help elect the next mayor. Whenever the mayor does find himself under criticism from his political left, he relieves the pressure by spouting the right buzzwords, talking points about how he's a "progressive." Mayor de Blasio likes to tout his record of having signed new labor contracts with the municipal unions. NEWSFLASH : Any Democratic mayor had to give the unions new contracts. It's not rocket science to do what the unions, which elected you, tell you to do. The left, whom Mayor de Blasio will not accommodate, gets "trashed" the way activists in other social movements were once rolled over for not adapting to the corrupt status quo. Seeing the political landscape for what it is, first ; and then organizing for reforms, second One can most visibly see this dysfunctional dynamic play out between the Democratic Party, the mayor, nonprofit groups, political operatives, lobbyists, and activists in the police reform movement. Inside this dysfunction, nonprofit organizations and their executives play by the rules of the broken political system. They lock themselves -- and others -- up in "veal pens," where the goal of the broken political system goal is for activists to atrophy and waste away. If one tries to expose how some nonprofit groups are duplicitous in this dysfunction, then it is as if one has kicked a proverbial hornets' next -- one is going to get stung for pulling back the curtain on this political charade. And the veal pens and the stingings are very effective to condition activists to obey the rules of the broken political system. The totality of this dysfunctional political dynamic is given to us by a broken political system in which Democrats fully participate, that goes to great lengths -- indeed, any length -- to avoid reforms. Besides Big Business interests, the Democratic Party has become beholden to a class of "professional" political operatives, campaign consultants, and lobbyists, such as Patrick Gaspard, Scott Levenson, George Arzt, Jonathan Rosen, Dan Levitan, and others, making it impossible to enact reforms within the Democratic Party given these co-opting political gatekeepers. Matters are so corrupt that this class of consultants and lobbyists become entrenched and form a permanent, unaccountable form of backroom government insiders. Helping these permanent government insiders stay in power is the fact that that they have learned to exploit the campaign regulations that are meant to make electoral contests open and fair. When one accounts for the added role of fundraising and bundling of campaign donations by these permanent government insiders, one can see how figures with significant political power operate in backrooms, with no accountability to voters. These permanent government insiders are also largely responsible for removing the ethic of public service from those serving in public office. And those activists, who blog or write about these truths, are labeled fringe activists as a way to marginalize and disenfranchise muckraking bloggers. At every point, the broken political system tries to discredit critics, who are only calling for an overhaul to end government and political corruption. One of the major reasons why leftists cannot reform the broken political system is that the Democratic Party has instituted a culture that prevents leftists from holding Democratic officials accountable for reforms. Activists are marginalized by the Democratic Party, a viewpoint more or less shared by Mr. Reed, forced into the political fringes, then accused of running outside pressure political tactics against corrupt or inept Democrats -- when an outside pressure politics strategy is the only approach that the broken political system leaves activists. The system blames activists for exhibiting disenfranchised behavior when it is the broken political system that causes this disenfranchisement in the first place ! The only hope for overhauling the broken political system, in my opinion, is for all of the inactive voters to become activated. The current system, where the same small pool of activists, some of whom organize from a place of privilege, move from one issue to another, in "solidarity," after each "crisis moment," as Mr. Reed pointed out, isn't enough to overhaul this system. It's not just the numbers that a successful overhaul needs, but new ideas, new voices, and enough of them -- so that the people represent themselves in the process to bring about necessary reforms. If activists need to come in out of the fringes, then voters, too, need to come in out of dormancy. People need to dial-up their civic engagement. Contrary to what Democrats, Big Business interests, and permanent government insiders would have voters believe, it will be O.K. if voters participate in their own reform movement. And there's more to civic engagement than just voting, as it should be. People need to find more and more ways to have a say in how the government conducts business on our behalf. Voters need to create new groups, new organizations, through which they can exert new pressures on the system for reform. These groups must be new, in order to circumvent the stranglehold that Democrats have on unions, nonprofit organizations, and other political clubs or groups. The first step to start organizing is to vote out the highest figurehead neoliberal Democrat, which would be New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and vote in a Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, who can break the corrupt two-party hegemony in American politics. Voting in a Green Party governor would demonstrate that the government can survive the loss of a center-right Democrat to a true leftist. Considering the corrupt political landscape, this is actually the only way our government can survive. The second step to start organizing is for voters to establish a new relationship with how they get the real truth about government and political corruption. This either means challenging reporters to fully report the truth, or else it means supporting new platforms or structures of muckraking-reporting that can come in out of the fringes and fully go mainstream.

RELATED Nothing Left : The long, slow surrender of American liberals By : Adolph Reed, Jr. (Harper's)

Sal Albanese looks at exploitation of LICH closure through political lens of post-Bloomberg New York

LICH Leftovers : Mayor de Blasio has been very quiet about the closure of Long Island College Hospital on his watch, outraging the community allies he exploited to use LICH as a campaign prop to get elected.

RELATED LICH Leftovers (The Huffington Post)

"The powers that be back down from a public fight only to pull the plug in a backroom deal days later," wrote former New York City Councilmember Sal Albanese about the bitter fight to save Long Island College Hospital. Mr. Albanese's essay, published on The Huffington Post, is his second installment on the post-election political realities playing out in New York City. His first essay in this series was published earlier this month. The allusion to backroom deals is a damning indictment of how Mayor Bill de Blasio has abdicated his public health policy responsibility to voters with LICH closing on his watch. "But LICH already served its purpose as de Blasio's campaign prop," Mr. Albanese concluded, informing voters about how duplicitous Mr. de Blasio was in last year's mayoral campaign. Let's hope more voters read Mr. Albanese's writings and follow him on Twitter. Mr. Albanese's political analysis offers voters an unvarnished truth about how politics plays out in New York City -- sadly, often to the detriment of voters' demands for reforms.

Are you just going to keep watching NYPD police brutality videos online ?

How Can NYC Police Reform Activists Break Free From The Veal Pen ?

In February, NYPD officers used unnecessary and brutal force to detain and arrest an innocent man after he deboarded the Bx12 bus. The New York Daily News wrote a widely cited article about the police department's over-use of force in that incident. In a viral video of the attack, the innocent man screamed for help, asking of bystanders, "Are you just going to watch this sh-t ?"

Police commissioner William Bratton enforces a "broken windows" theory of policing that deliberately targets the poor, people of color, and other minorities for harassment. If the NYPD is left unreformed, then its foreseeable pattern will be more incidents of brutality. And the inevitable question we will all face each time that more and more of these incidents are recorded and posted online will be, "Are we just going to watch these videos -- and do nothing else ?"

In an excerpt of the video of the attack, we ask you this very question :

Join us for a police reform workshop at this year's Left Forum, where we will engage in activities to prompt community groups to renew their calls for reform. To attend the workshop, you need to register to attend the Left Forum ; after that, you can attend other workshops or panels, as well.

ATTEND OUR WORKSHOP : How can NYC police reform activists break free from the "veal pen" ?

Date : Saturday, May 31, 2014

Time : 3:20 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.

Place : 524 West 59th Street, Manhattan -- Session 3, Room 1.92

Join us for an intensive workshop designed to challenge groups and activists, who have voluntarily de-escalated political pressure for police reform by climbing into the "veal pen" following the election of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Registration is required to attend the Left Forum. REGISTER HERE NOW

veal pen \ vēl pɛn \ noun a holding cell, where young cattle and activists are restrained to keep their bodies tender, until all of their strengths atrophy in preparation for being butchered by the system.

If you want to take part in the conversation to free activists and community groups from the "veal pen," please join us for this important workshop.

2014-05-29 Veal Pen Police Reform Workshop - Movement Action Planning - Flyer (Final) by VealPen2014

Two prominent Democrats Complain About Cuomo's Pick For Lieutenant Governor

With dissatisfaction growing amongst Democrats, Gov. Cuomo faces a bumpy reelection campaign

Is Gov. Andrew Cuomo going to get his neoliberal ass handed back to him in the form of collapsing opinion polling leading up to this year's gubernatorial election (à la Christine Quinn in last year's mayoral election) ? One can only hope.

Fred Dicker in today's The New York Post reports that more and more brave Democratic leaders, some of whom can hardly be called on to form a coalition for anything, are speaking up in a rare unified voice of dissatisfaction with Gov. Cuomo's reelection campaign.

Bill Samuels is seriously considering a primary challenge to Gov. Cuomo's pick for lieutenant governor, former Congresswoman Kathy Hochul, based on her work as a bank lobbyist, work that Mr. Samuels rejects as in contravention of the state's progressive sensibilities.

• RELATED : Cuomo’s pick for Lt. Gov. facing challenge from left (The New York Post)

Mr. Samuels, who is described having "millions to spend," could upset Gov. Cuomo's plans for an avalanche reelection margin of victory.

Joining Mr. Samuels in expressing dissatisfaction with Gov. Cuomo's pick for lieutenant governor is none other than radical right wing Bronx conservative Democrat, Sen. Ruben Diaz. Generally counted on to espouse bigoted positions on social issues, Sen. Diaz shocked the conscious of middle of the road Democrats when he reasonably objected to Ms. Hochul's selection based on her own incredulous radical right wing rejection of the Dream Act, a proposed state law that would, amongst other things, allow undocumented college students who meet in-state tuition requirements to qualify for state financial aid and scholarships for higher education. The Dream Act is supported by progressive Democrats, but Ms. Hochul has a record of opposing legislation that would end aspects of de jure discrimination against undocumented immigrants.

Democrats have several reasons to be disgusted with Gov. Cuomo. His neoliberal record of closing five New York City hospitals during his first term under the guise of "Medicaid reform" were nothing more than a scorched earth campaign of austerity cuts to healthcare for the poor, the sick, and people of color in the urban neighborhoods of New York City. To undermine pressure for reforms from the political left, Gov. Cuomo enabled a break-away faction of Democratic state senators to form an unholy alliance with Republican state senators to jam the state legislature into gridlock. His recent budget reforms amounted to more tax cuts for the wealthy at the continuing expense of the working class and the poor. Finally, his cockblocking of ethics and campaign finance reforms up in Albany was so foul that federal prosecutors could no longer turn their backs to the governor's alleged obstruction of justice. Government reform activists in New York City are eagerly awaiting to see if a grand jury empaneled by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan will hand down indictments of corrupt Cuomo administration officials.

If Gov. Cuomo's reelection is already triggering backlash from disparate corners of the state's Democratic Party, it foretells of a long hot wilting summer for the governor's popularity. Already, the governor is calling on electoral help from the Dan Cantor, New York executive director of the Wrecking Families Party, to fluff his reelection campaign.

With each passing day & each revelation, I get the sense that Gov Cuomo is becoming the Demicratic Party's version of Dick Cheney.

— Michael Benjamin (@SquarePegDem) May 23, 2014

Donate Your Twitter Account to : Stop New York Medicaid Redesign Team

Donate Your Twitter Account to : Stop New York Medicaid Redesign Team

NYC's Impotent Protected County Political Party Bosses

New York Party Bosses Can't Get It Up Anymore

I am not endorsing the Working Families Party, but, as a third party, it was able to make advances this year, even though it may have involved shenanigans. Until the neoliberalism can be gutted out of the Democratic Party, maybe supporting a third party can either lead the Democrats to reform themselves (or face irrelevancy) or else help build up a third party that can actually deliver reforms ? Either way, reformers win.

From True News From Change NYC :

Broken Party Bosses. Today both The Daily News and City and State both have done stories crediting the Working Families Party with winning the Mayoral election. What both papers failed to talk about is the disconnect of the city's Democrats and Republicans party bosses from the voters in their own parties. In other words they can no long deliver the vote. More importantly they represent only themselves and a few close criminal co-conspirators in dysfunctional parties that have cut off the public they claim to represent. The Queens Boss supported Quinn, the Bronx and Brooklyn bosses supported Thompson the Manhattan and Staten Island bosses did not endorse anyone. Over on the Queens side none of the party bosses supported Joe Lhota in the primary, but the voters in their party did.

Party Bosses and Ballot Lines For Sale. Former Bronx Republican Party leader Jay Savino and Queens GOP Vice Chair Vincent Tabone wait for their used to selling their party line to Bloomberg tried to sell their party this year to Malcolm Smith. The Queens party leaders even lost control of who runs the Board of Elections. It very strange that the media is doing story of Bill Lipton's WFP big win and not talking about who the losers are. What the newspaper should be looking into is not only the corruption connected to these party leaders, but how few people participate in party elections and picking who leads party bosses. Why are the newspapers and the city's permanent government, led by the partnership protecting the party leaders? The cluelessness of their Quinn endorsement shows they are as disconnected from the voters as the party bosses are. The permanent government has allowe a political and election system where only cleaver activists from the WFP know how to win in. And a media that covers the horse race rather the getting to the realities of the real issues that effect New Yorkers. The Working Families Party's long game is paying off(NYDN) * Last Look: Bill Lipton (City and State)

Robert Kennedy : The Last NY Politician, Who Tried to Reform the Party Bosses * Incumbent Protection * Party Leaders. Elected officials have taken over the party positions with the sole purpose of centralizing power and using it resources to help them get reelected. The party has no agenda or issue it pushes for. Most of the people in party positions have never beenchallenged. It function more like the old soviet union' Communist Party, then a democratic institution. It is even allow according to the U.S. Supreme Court to use politics to pick judges. Lopez Torres v. NYS Bd of Elections

Elected Officials, Reformer, Goo Goos Groups Silent On Party Reform. It has been 50 years since anyone has tried to reform New York's Democratic Party. In the mid 60's Robert Kennedy who defeated the democratic machine to become senator set his sights on cleaning up the state's Democratic Party. Kennedy tried to clean up Manhattan’s Surrogate Court, which to this day remains a Piggy bank for party patronage. Kennedy called the Court "a political toll booth exacting tribute from widows and orphans." He took aim at cronyism in Albany and fought to strengthen home rule of New York City. He also proposed nonpartisan redistricting, a move aimed at eliminating one of the main tools party leaders use to keep their incumbents in office for decades. Fiercely battled by a faction of the Democratic machine, Kennedy’s attempts reform the city's political parties died with his 1968 assassination. So called reformer and good government groups have never taken up his cause.

The Nation Article About Christine Quinn And Homonationalism

"There was even an 'LGBT against Quinn' contingent at last weekend’s @HeritageofPride march." http://t.co/dq16QIhZsx @thenation @Quinn4NY

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) July 7, 2013

From "The Powerful Lesson of New York's Police Oversight Law" (The Nation) :

"Then there was Christine Quinn, notorious for her vow to offer Police Commissioner Ray Kelly the same job. Perhaps she just is not that angry about how Kelly has treated Muslims and people of color New Yorkers, whether gay or straight. But the NYPD has also directly profiled queer people. It’s common for transgender and non-gender-conforming people to be stopped and arrested for prostitution simply for carrying condoms, and until recently many trans people were afraid to carry condoms for fear they could be used as evidence against them in court. I’m not alone in my ire for Quinn or my sense that she’s a flip-flopper (e.g., she voted no on 1080, but yes on 1079). There was even an “LGBT against Quinn” contingent at last weekend’s pride march. How depressing that a host of prominent gay and lesbians groups and activists—most recently Edith Windsor herself—have endorsed Quinn’s run for mayor. That’s homonationalism in action."

What's the difference between Christine Quinn and Ken Mehlman ?

Devastating comparison between @chriscquinn and Ken Mehlman being made by @dangerfishback : queerty.com/dan-fishback-w… @msignorile @queerty

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) March 31, 2013

Here's a devastating comparison between Christine Quinn and Ken Mehlman being made by Dan Fishback, via Queerty :

Queerty : One of the most interesting themes of the play is “proximity to power,” particularly how homosexuals in those positions – closeted or not – forsake the LGBT community, e.g. Ken Mehlman. Can you speak to that a bit?

Fishback : One of the worst culprits of this kind of betrayal is Christine Quinn. People support her because she’s a lesbian, but her actual policies are terrible for most queer people. She supported turning St. Vincent’s Hospital in the still-gay West Village into a luxury condo high rise, as if gay people need wealthy neighbors more than they need a hospital. She won’t pass paid sick leave, she’s supported our demonic Police Commissioner, the list goes on and on. But the thing is: queer people are everywhere. So when politicians like Quinn attack the poor, they attack the LGBT community. When they attack immigrants, they attack the LGBT community. When they attack people of color, they attack the LGBT community.

It happens over and over again – not just here, but in Western European countries too. When white homosexuals gain access to political power, they consolidate it by joining the white heterosexual elite in oppressing some “other” group – like immigrants, the poor, or people of color. This is being called “homonationalism,” which I think is a really helpful term, because it’s so widespread – the desperateness with which so many white homosexuals shit on whoever is beneath them in order to feel more secure in the power structure that, only a few years ago, would have eaten them alive.

After years of throwing the LGBTQ community under the bus, Ken Mehlman came out of the closet as having been a self-loathing gay man. What does Mr. Mehlman's episode of hate for his own community have to do with Christine Quinn ? For starters, watch how City Council Speaker Christine Quinn does nothing to help LGBTQ New Yorkers stand up to the Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who in practise profiles, uses stop-and-frisk against, harasses, and falsely arrests LGBTQ New Yorkers :

Related : Christine Quinn betrays the LGBT community

Full Queerty story here : http://www.queerty.com/dan-fishback-waiting-for-barbara-20130330/

LICH is Open for Care

A Brooklyn judge prevented the closure of Long Island College Hospital, because officials from the State University of New York plotted in private to close the facility, according to court documents made public last Thursday, according to DNAinfo.

Protest against debt-ridden healthcare system at St. John's Queens Hospital

Join us for a protest to stop hospital closings : 1 p.m., Sunday, March 24, 2013, at the former site of St. John's Queens Hospital : 90-02 Queens Blvd.

RSVP on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/events/223995181075326/

Subway Directions : Take the R train to Woodhaven Blvd.

This is a demonstration in affinity with #strikedebt. Fore more information about Strike Debt, please visit : http://strikedebt.org/lifeordebt/

St. John's Queens Hospital has been closed for about 4 years now ; it is an example of how our debt-ridden healthcare system drives hospitals to closure. At the time of its closing, St. John's and its sister hospital had debts and losses in excess of $110 million. The healthcare infrastructure at the former St. John's Queens Hospital was lost, and it was not replaced. Meanwhile, the Emergency Room of nearby Elmhurst Hospital is overwhelmed.

Our debt-ridden healthcare system drives hospitals into closure.

Join us on Sunday, March 24 at 1 p.m., to demand that healthcare, hospital, and medical debt be absolved, so that medical emergencies stop driving hospitals -- and people -- into bankruptcy.

Please support a single-payer healthcare system, which would be a stable way to fund hospitals and healthcare.

Follow these hashtags on Twitter : #lifeordebt #strikedebt

Follow us on Twitter : @StopNYMRT

Looking to create a Progressive political blogging network in New York City

Are you a -- or do you know any -- Progressive political bloggers interested in being a part of a network of online activists in New York City ?

The activist and blogger Louis Flores and the journalist Gary Tilzer are looking for bloggers to be a part of a collective of online activists. Members of this network will blog about citizen issues in New York City, while helping us to establish an online network of Progressive activists.

Description : Bloggers and online activists -- who care about Progressive issues, government transparency, and improving direct Democratic participation in our own governance -- can enhance their civic participation by forming an online network. Because of the 2013 mayoral election in New York City, our network can play an important role in voter education and mobilisation.

What We’re Looking For : We want someone with passion and expertise in an area of civic issues. If you have a perspective to share, we want you to join us !

Requirements :

• You should have experience with online writing
• You should have a unique interest in an area of New York City civic issues
• You are eager to engage with voters and can commit to blogging regularly
• You are eager to expand your online activism beyond blogging and into areas, such as producing original YouTube videos that educate and mobilise the public
• You have an Adsense-like account (but not limited to Google platform), so that you can monetize your own blogging and YouTube videos, if possible

What You're Looking For : As a blogger and an online activist, you want to stop the neoliberal political doctrine of standard flim-flam politicians in New York City.

• You will be an online activist in the resistance movement fighting the dangerous neoliberalism doctrines of New York City politicians
• You will be inspired to develop your online activism skills
• Our network will offer you an expanded platform to expand your online reach
• You will be making a difference

Get in touch with us today ! If you would like to join our network, please send us the following information via email to: stopchrisquinn (at) gmail (dot) com :

• A brief description about your background, your experience with writing for activism, and any special skills that you may have
• Link to your existing blog
• Describe your interests in activism (what issues do you care about most and why)

Thank you for all that you do.

Andrew Cuomo and the Neoliberalism Spree of Hospital Closings

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is closing hospitals, cutting healthcare, and attacking the social safety net in a spree of neoliberalism to "window dress" the New York State budget. His plan will make him look good, but it comes at the risk to public health. What are you going to do about it ?

Eleven hospital closings in New York City alone, since 2006 :

- Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn voted to be closed down under pressure from the Department of Health in 2013 ;

- Peninsula Hospital Center closed by the Department of Health in 2012 after it filed for bankruptcy ;

- North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy in 2010 ;

- St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village was shut down in 2010 to become luxury condos built by the greedy Rudin family ;

- St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst went bankrupt in 2009 ;

- Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, Queens, went bankrupt in 2009 ;

- Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills, Queens, closed in 2008 ;

- Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan closed in 2008 ;

- Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, closed in 2008 ; and

- St. Vincent's Midtown (f.k.a. St. Clare's Hospital) closed in 2007.

We are at the point right now where there are not enough hospitals left in New York City to deal with a mass civilian trauma event, natural disaster, or epidemic.

This year's flu season was aggravated by the temporary closing of these hospitals, which sustained major damage from Hurricane Sandy :

- Bellevue Hospital ;

- NYU Langone Hospital ;

- New York Downtown Hospital ;

- Coler-Goldwater Hospital ; and

- Coney Island Hospital.

And the only functioning hospital in all of Lower Manhattan was Beth Israel, but it was functioning for a time solely on back-up generators.

Is this the kind of healthcare system that we can rely up on save lives in times of a medical emergency ?

Ed Koch and the AIDS Crisis - A Historical Fact Checking Duel Between NYT and YouTube Videos

In response to the biased "praises" and instant beatification of Ed Koch, I made a YouTube video set to music by Dalida, to help visualise former Mayor Ed Koch's complete failure on the AIDS crisis.

My video was made in response to the video promoted by The New York Times, which whitewashes any responsibility or culpability of the AIDS crisis away from former Mayor Ed Koch :

I'd love to hear what folks think ?

Ed Koch, the Closet, Neoliberalism, and AIDS

From The Nation

The instant beatification of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has a lot of folks itching to do some grave dancing. Leftists will denounce Koch because he was one of the original neoliberal mayors, ushering in a regime of gentrification and finance-driven inequality that defines the city to this day. Minorities regard him with suspicion because he marginalized the city’s black and Hispanic leadership and inflamed racial fault lines to corner the white vote, presaging the Sister Souljah moments that would come to afflict the national Democratic Party. And yet even there, among the new Democrats, Koch was never a stalwart, breaking with the party to endorse George W. Bush for president in 2004 and flirting with the neocons over Israel late in his life.

All that said, there is a special place reserved for Koch in gay hell—because he was mayor during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, which he is widely seen as failing to do enough about, and because it’s commonly assumed that Koch was a closeted gay man. “I hope he’s burning next to Roy Cohn”—or sentiments quite like it—have appeared frequently on my Facebook feed, especially from vets of ACT UP. ...

Read more : Ed Koch and the Cost of the Closet (The Nation)

Bill Thompson Political Advisor Attacks Quinn's Critics

Hank Sheinkopf, an advisor to Bill Thompson, predicts that the growing grassroots movement against Christine Quinn, and her political doctrine of corruption and neoliberalism, will fail. What do you think ?

Democratic Party political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said that he thinks most of the protesters’ arguments against Christine Quinn are bogus.

Among the lone few truly real Progressive voices in New York City, one person spoke up to question the outrageous statements by Mr. Sheinkopf. Gerson Borrero took to Twitter to express his dissent to Mr. Sheinkopf's lack of any political ethics.

WHO IS HANK SHEINKOPF WORKING FOR? Anybody But Quinn | City & State: cityandstateny.com/anybody-but-qu…

— Gerson Borrero (@GersonBorrero) January 30, 2013

From City & State :

Despite the ongoing protests, political insiders say the [growing grassroots] movement [against Christine Quinn] probably won’t gain enough traction to affect the November mayoral primary.

“There’s always unusual things that occur in every mayoral election, and this is the first unusual thing that’s occurring here,” said Democratic Party political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who added that he thinks most of the protesters’ arguments are bogus.

“The speaker makes deals,” he said. “That’s the nature of legislative government. Her job is to make deals.”

Sheinkopf, who is serving as an advisor to mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, also downplayed Quinn’s status as the Democratic front-runner. A recent poll has her far ahead of the pack, with 35 percent of likely voters pulling the lever for her as compared with 11 percent for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and 10 percent for Thompson.

Have we reached a low point in New York City politics, where campaign consultants cannot attach the most corrupt mayoral candidate for fear of exposing the shared, underlying political corruption that exists amongst all of the mayoral candidates ?

Hank Sheinkopf defends @chriscquinn against protests. Really? @ows_getmoneyout @occuvote cityandstateny.com/anybody-but-qu… @gersonborrero @ny1thecall

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) January 31, 2013