Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Bill de Blasio’s Brave Blue World. By Walter Russell Mead.


New York Mayor Bill de Blasio blew a kiss to the crowd gathered outside his Brooklyn home for his midnight swearing-in ceremony.
NYT pool photo by Seth Wenig.


De Blasio’s Brave Blue World. By Walter Russell Mead. The American Interest, January 1, 2014.

De Blasio Draws All Liberal Eyes to New York City. By Michael M. Grynbaum. New York Times, December 31, 2013.

“Will Not Wait” on Inequality, de Blasio Tells New York. By Thomas Kaplan. New York Times, January 1, 2014.

Text of Bill de Blasio’s Inauguration Speech. New York Times, January 1, 2014.

Bill de Blasio Inauguration: “March Toward a Fairer, More Just, More Progressive Place.” (Transcript, Audio, Video). WNYC News, January 1, 2014. YouTube.


Mead:

The New York Times has a long piece out today calling Bill De Blasio’s mayorship as the cutting edge of a new wave of liberal progressivism sweeping through American cities:
The elevation of an assertive, tax-the-rich liberal to the nation’s most prominent municipal office has fanned hopes that hot-button causes like universal prekindergarten and low-wage worker benefits — versions of which have been passed in smaller cities — could be aided by the imprimatur of being proved workable in New York.
Yet the Times does not refer even once to the gravest challenge that the liberal agenda faces in urban America: the conflict of interest between unionized workers and the consumers of the services they provide.
 
This conflict manifests itself in all kinds of ways: the rising cost of operating transit systems, of infrastructure improvements, of school quality and governance and perhaps most fundamentally in the tradeoff between paying the unrealistic pensions negotiated in past years and funding services ranging from police to education for current residents.
 
We wish Mayor De Blasio every success, but we hope he is smarter about the problems he faces than the cocoon-spinning NYT.


Inauguration speech starts at 1:01:40 in video.




De Blasio excerpts:

From Jacob Riis to Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry Belafonte — who we are so honored to have with us here today — it was New Yorkers who challenged the status quo, who blazed a trail of progressive reform and political action, who took on the elite, who stood up to say that social and economic justice will start here and will start now.
 
It’s that tradition that inspires the work we now begin. A movement that sees the inequality crisis we face today, and resolves that it will not define our future. Now I know there are those who think that what I said during the campaign was just rhetoric, just “political talk” in the interest of getting elected. There are some who think now, as we turn to governing – well, things will just continue pretty much like they always have.
 
So let me be clear. When I said we would take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities, I meant it. And we will do it. I will honor the faith and trust you have placed in me. And we will give life to the hope of so many in our city. We will succeed as One City. We know this won’t be easy; It will require all that we can muster. And it won’t be accomplished only by me; It will be accomplished by all of us — those of us here today, and millions of everyday New Yorkers in every corner of our city.
 
You must continue to make your voices heard. You must be at the center of this debate. And our work begins now.
. . . .
 
We will reform a broken stop-and-frisk policy, both to protect the dignity and rights of young men of color, and to give our brave police officers the partnership they need to continue their success in driving down crime. We won’t wait. We’ll do it now.
. . . .
 
Of course, I know that our progressive vision isn’t universally shared. Some on the far right continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics. They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else. They sell their approach as the path of “rugged individualism.”
 
But Fiorello La Guardia — the man I consider to be the greatest Mayor this city has ever known — put it best. He said: “I, too, admire the ‘rugged individual,’ but no ‘rugged individual’ can survive in the midst of collective starvation.”
 
So please remember: we do not ask more of the wealthy to punish success. We do it to create more success stories. And we do it to honor a basic truth: that a strong economy is dependent on a thriving school system. We do it to give every kid a chance to get their education off on the right foot, from the earliest age, which study after study has shown leads to greater economic success, healthier lives, and a better chance of breaking the cycle of poverty.
 
We do it to give peace of mind to working parents, who suffer the anxiety of not knowing whether their child is safe and supervised during those critical hours after the school day ends, but before the workday is done. And we do it because we know that we must invest in our city, in the future inventors and C.E.O.s and teachers and scientists, so that our generation – like every generation before us – can leave this city even stronger than we found it.
 
Our city is no stranger to big struggles — and no stranger to overcoming them.
 
New York has faced fiscal collapse, a crime epidemic, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters. But now, in our time, we face a different crisis – an inequality crisis. It’s not often the stuff of banner headlines in our daily newspapers. It’s a quiet crisis, but one no less pernicious than those that have come before.
 
Its urgency is read on the faces of our neighbors and their children, as families struggle to make it against increasingly long odds. To tackle a challenge this daunting, we need a dramatic new approach — rebuilding our communities from the bottom-up, from the neighborhoods up. And just like before, the world will watch as we succeed. All along the way, we will remember what makes New York, New York.
 
A city that fights injustice and inequality — not just because it honors our values, but because it strengthens our people. A city of five boroughs — all created equal. Black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, old, young, rich, middle class, and poor. A city that remembers our responsibility to each other — our common cause — is to leave no New Yorker behind.
 
That’s the city that you and I believe in. It’s the city to which my grandparents were welcomed from the hills of Southern Italy, the city in which I was born, where I met the love of my life, where Chiara and Dante were raised.
 
It’s a place that celebrates a very simple notion: that no matter what your story is – this is your city. Our strength is derived from you. Working together, we will make this One City. And that mission — our march toward a fairer, more just, more progressive place, our march to keep the promise of New York alive for the next generation. It begins today.
 
Thank you, and God bless the people of New York City!