[de Blasio] Living in a post-Bloomberg era

[Razgovory]

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/02/04/de-blasio-wont-march-in-st-patricks-day-parade/

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he won't be marching in the city's St. Patrick's Day parade.

De Blasio says he won't partake in the parade along Fifth Avenue because of organizers' refusal to allow participants to carry gay-pride signs.

"I will be participating in a number of other events to honor the Irish heritage of this city and the contributions of Irish Americans, but I simply disagree with the organizers of that parade in their exclusion of some individuals in this city," he said.

Former mayor Michael Bloomberg always marched. De Blasio also did not march while public advocate.

Its organizers say gay people are welcome to march, but they say signs celebrating being gay would detract from the parade's focus on honoring Irish heritage.

The mayor says he won't heed activists' call to ban city workers from marching while wearing their uniforms.

"I respect the right of our city workers to march in uniform, period," de Blasio said.

The parade is a tradition that predates the city itself. Organizers predict more than 1 million people will attend on March 17.

I've always thought it ridiculous that the St. Patrick's Day parade hides behind the figleaf that it is a religious event.

One Term, peeps, one term. This is a religious affair, and there is no way the Irish could allow this and be reverent Catholics. The Church says sodomy is evil, case closed. smokersodysseycom

And why don't we talk more about the Japanese during black history month?

[garbon]

Gay people are anti-something.  You, Martinus and Grallon are the most hateful people I've ever met.

What hate do I have?

[garbon]

And why don't we talk more about the Japanese during black history month?

I wouldn't have any issues if a Afro-Japanese* group wanted to celebrate black history.

*actually wouldn't have issue if it was just a Japanese group but not sure why they would want to.

Besides, there isn't a moratorium on talking about people from different backgrounds during black history month.

[Jacob]

Irish people are allowed in the gay pride parade; seems only fair to reciprocate.

  Gay people can march in the Irish parade, so reciprocity seems to exist already.

... but they can't identify as such in the parade. A group could march under a "gay and Irish" banner in the gay pride parade, for example, but not in the St. Patrick's day one, unless I misunderstood something?

[Neil]

Gay people are anti-something.  You, Martinus and Grallon are the most hateful people I've ever met.

What hate do I have?

You're Martinus-esque in your hate for mankind.  You just project it with bitchiness rather than malice the way he does.

[Neil]

Irish people are allowed in the gay pride parade; seems only fair to reciprocate.

  Gay people can march in the Irish parade, so reciprocity seems to exist already.

... but they can't identify as such in the parade. A group could march under a "gay and Irish" banner in the gay pride parade, for example, but not in the St. Patrick's day one, unless I misunderstood something?

Such divisive behavior isn't what the St. Patrick's Day parade is about.  It's supposed to be a celebration of unity within the Irish community, rather than getting bogged down in sectarian nonsense.

[garbon]

Gay people are anti-something.  You, Martinus and Grallon are the most hateful people I've ever met.

What hate do I have?

You're Martinus-esque in your hate for mankind.  You just project it with bitchiness rather than malice the way he does.

But that has nothing to do with me hating mankind...and why it isn't malice.

[Sheilbh]

Such divisive behavior isn't what the St. Patrick's Day parade is about.  It's supposed to be a celebration of unity within the Irish community, rather than getting bogged down in sectarian nonsense.

[Neil]

Gay people are anti-something.  You, Martinus and Grallon are the most hateful people I've ever met.

What hate do I have?

You're Martinus-esque in your hate for mankind.  You just project it with bitchiness rather than malice the way he does.

But that has nothing to do with me hating mankind...and why it isn't malice.

You're the sort that would enjoy hurting people through inaction and snide comments.

[Neil]

Such divisive behavior isn't what the St. Patrick's Day parade is about.  It's supposed to be a celebration of unity within the Irish community, rather than getting bogged down in sectarian nonsense.

I know, right?

[garbon]

You're the sort that would enjoy hurting people through inaction and snide comments.

It is almost like you don't know me at all.

[garbon]

Apparently Al Roker tweeted mean comments about de Blasio having schools open yesterday. De Blasio then smacked back during a press briefing saying "I respect Al Roker a lot, watched him on TV for many many years. It's a different thing to run a city than to give weather on TV."

[OttoVonBismarck]

After I read the statistics I became convinced stop-and-frisk is a non-issue.  Unless people contend the "fear" of it somehow suppressed crime, the number of arrests actually produced through stop-and-frisk, relative to the size of New York City, the total arrests in New York City in a year etc is essentially microscopic. It's basically an unpopular policy, that unless there is some mechanism where it has impact vastly greater than the number of arrests it produces, probably had little to do with New York's amazing reduction in crime over the past generation.

Bill does give me some small beacon of hope as a Republican, though. If you follow the leftist internet sphere you know there is a minority (but a loud one) of the Democrats who are seriously hard with the thought of finding some progressive Democrat in the de Blasio mold to be the party's standard bearer in 2016. Typically their dream candidate is Elizabeth Warren.

The more I read about de Blasio the more I realize that while my party no longer knows how politics works and thinks it can win the White House by trying to appeal to 40% of the electorate and massively alienate the other 60%, I do see two silver linings. One is that in age past progressive Dems were a lot more powerful politically, now it's moderates like Cuomo, Obama (honestly), and Clinton who are nationally relevant democrats. So in a way while we're probably going to lose at politics for a generation the Dems that are beating us are by and large people who could have comfortably fit within the George H.W. Bush era GOP, at least on economic issues or foreign policy issues. The rest is basically meaningless to me (yes, today's Democrats are far more progressive on things like gay rights, which genuinely don't matter at all to me or anyone who is focused on the important aspects of running a country.) The other silver lining is that de Blasio's or Warren's ideas, the more you read about them, would be so massively popular outside of the liberal fortresses where they live that if somehow a candidate like that snuck in through the Democratic nominating process we'd basically win the White House by default.

[CountDeMoney]

Apparently Al Roker tweeted mean comments about de Blasio having schools open yesterday. De Blasio then smacked back during a press briefing saying "I respect Al Roker a lot, watched him on TV for many many years. It's a different thing to run a city than to give weather on TV."

I honestly don't know why anybody in the public eye would ever Tweet anything anyway.  There's no upside to it at all.

[garbon]

Easy to make gaffes and get publicity?