REPORTING FOR DUTY
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Oct
16
ACORN And Bloomberg Are Killing New York
October 16, 2009 | 9 Comments
Over the past couple of days, there has been a lot of column space devoted to the Working Families Party in New York. First the Wall Street Journal, and then Michelle Malkin.
The hollowed out city as “luxury product”—as Mr. Bloomberg once described his vision for a New York in which the wealthy subsidize the city’s work force—is unsustainable because Wall Street’s decline has coincided with the rise of the city’s public-sector unions as the dominant force in local politics. With Albany crippled, and the city’s Democratic Party atrophied by 16 years of backbiting while trying to wait out Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, unions have filled the vacuum with a political party of their own: the Working Families Party (WFP).
The WFP’s candidates for comptroller and public advocate (the other two city-wide positions) won easy victories in record-low turnout Democratic primaries, immediately becoming front-runners in the 2013 mayoral contest. The WFP, a party with less than 15,000 voters, has effectively taken control of the city’s three-million strong Democratic Party. The WFP represents the public-sector workers who have been protected in the downturn. And their agenda—higher taxes, a stock transfer tax that would impose a levy on the sale of corporate offerings, paid sick leave for all, free tuition to the city’s public universities, and of course higher wages and benefits for public-sector workers—can only strangle a recovery.
Read the whole column to learn how tight Bloomberg is with the WFP and their unions.
Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal fails to mention that the Working Families Party was invented by ACORN, and financially supported by the Democratic Socialists of America.
From the Summer 2000 issue of the DSA publication Democratic Left:
DSA is no more loyal to the Democratic Party – which barely exists as a grassroots institution – than are individuals or social movements which upon occasion use its ballot line or vote for its candidates. The peculiar nature of the American constitution renders third party politics difficult at both the national and state level. Myriad structural factors mitigate against viable third parties, and various constitutional blockages are exceedingly difficult to amend: executive-based federalism makes parliamentary-style coalition-governments impossible, winner-take all districts, absence of proportional representation, open primaries in which party membership is regulated states not parties themselves — allowing both Klansmen and Communists to be members of the Democratic Party, In the GOP, white libertarian upper-middle-class suburbanites contend with white working-class fundamentalists for influence in that party. Veterans of the left will remember that the 1968 Peace and Freedom Party and the 1980 Citizens Party arose at moments of greater left-wing strength and did not significantly alter the national electoral landscape. Nor has, unfortunately, the New Party, which many DSAers work with in states where “fusion” of third party and major party votes is possible (such as the DSA co-sponsored Working Families Party in N.Y. State).
Electoral tactics are only a means for DSA; the building of a powerful anti-corporate and ultimately socialist movement is the end. Where third party or non-partisan candidates represent significant social movements DSA locals have and will continue to build such organizations and support such candidates.
And that is why the WFP lists the New York chapter of the DSA as an affiliate on the last page of their 2004 annual report:
Incidentally, also from the Working Families Party archives, is this image of Hillary Clinton receiving and accepting the Working Families (ACORN-SEIU-DSA) Party nomination for US Senate:
“There’s no question in this race that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the candidate who will best represent working families,” said WFP co-chair Bob Master. “On labor issues, health care, education, and living wage jobs, Hillary Clinton stands with working families while Rick Lazio stands with the corporate lobbyists and the right-wing Republican leadership.”
“We’re asking people to vote for Hillary because she’s superior, but also because the WFP can help keep her accountable if we get a good number of votes on our line,” says co-chair Bertha Lewis (Current leader of ACORN).
John Edwards is also a proud supporter of the Working Families (ACORN-SEIU-DSA) Party. He even helped them raise money:
ACORN, SEIU, DSA, and the Democratic Party have been working together for a VERY long time, and economic socialization is the end goal.
Thank god this group of Democratic Socialists are only in control of New York, and not the whole country. [/sarcasm]
Michelle Malkin wrote about the Working Families (ACORN-SEIU-DSA) Party today, exposing a “Republican” who has run as a WFP candidate in the past. Thankfully, she does not shy away from the roots of WFP:
More troubling, Scozzafava in past elections has embraced the ballot line of the Working Families Party — a socialist outfit whose political DNA is intertwined with scandal-ridden ACORN. ACORN and the WFP have shared office space in New York City, Arkansas and Illinois. ACORN head Bertha Lewis, a close Scozzafava friend and political supporter, wears a second hat as vice chairman of the WFP. The WFP has been listed in ACORN documents dating back to 2000 as an “affiliate.”
The Tea Party has its work cut out for it in New York.
Comments
9 Comments so far
Apparently, last week, Scozzafava was also endorsed by the United Auto Workers (UAW).
On the surface however, Scozzafava opposes the cap-and-trade bill, and today she picked up the endorsement of Newt Gingrich. But the problem I’m having is, if Scozzafava held strong Republican values, then why are the United Auto Workers endorsing her candidacy? This confuses me.
So now I also have to ask myself why Newt Gingrich endorsed her… After all, he founded American Solutions and actively supports the tea parties, but now he is endorsing Scozzafava? This is odd. Especially since she doesn’t seem to fit the profile who tea partier’s are hoping to elect.
On the contrary, I suppose I’d need more information about Hoffman. The only information I really know about Hoffman is what was written in a recent syracuse.com article. It said that Hoffman mounted a late surge in the special election with endorsements by conservatives that include former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson; Campaign for Working Families founder Gary Bauer; and the conservative Club for Growth in Washington, D.C.
So I guess the question remains: how different are the political philosophies of Hoffman and Scozzafava? What does Hoffman’s voting record look like – and does he support the values of true conservatism?
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As a voter in Buffalo, NY, I’d noticed the WFP line in the voting booth, but didn’t really know who they were. I just assumed (correctly) that they were a communist group since the word “working” was in their name.
I got a job at a UAW affiliated print shop last summer. Prior to last year’s presidential election, I boasted that I was a member of the Libertarian Party, then my boss chimed in and said, “I’m a member of the Working Families Party.” I thought, “gee, isn’t that just swell.”
I’m glad that they are being exposed for the mobsters that they are. And as hard as it is finding work here in Buffalo, I am willing to lose my job if it means an end once and for all to organized labor.
I am opposed to labor unions, but since New York is a forced union state, if I wanted the job, I had to join the union. If that isn’t a racket, I don’t know what is.
hparis- You don’t even know the half of it. Just wait till we start releasing some of other research. Nothing that isn’t available from public sources, but not widely seen and very disturbing.
…The peculiar nature of the American constitution renders third party politics difficult at both the national and state level.-DSA
There’s nothing in the US Constitution that prevents Proportional Representation at the state level. Ideally, states should elect one house of the state legislature using Anglo-American first-past-the post system and the other by a from of PR.
Why? Because PR would allow ideological minorities to get a voice in the governing process, and anything resembling genuine conservatism or libertarianism is a barely visible minority in the US-especially in states like NY and CA where leftist factions and public employee unions (and politicians whored out to them)are completely dominant.
An improvement but, of course, no panacea.
Oddly enough, lefties tend to be the strongest supporters of PR. Don’t they realize that they are in charge? Or do they think that they can abolish the private sector and repeat the disastrous Soviet experiment-and get it “right” this time?
Leftist are not in charge. Moderates are in charge. That is why the left support PR. They think PR will allow leftist to get their foot in the door. In reality, PR would open the door to allowing the various segments of society to have a proportional amount of representation. California would have to change its state constitution to allow for multi-member districts before PR could be implimented.
This underscores the fact that it doesn’t take that many people to swing the agendas away from the one party system. Both major parties use fear that if you don’t vote the party line, the other party will take over.
Since both parties are in bed together, what does it matter? If more of us start giving our vote to outsiders, we will see a momentum build that cannot be stopped. Until we start showing the establishment politicians that they are vulnerable, the more secure they are in legislating this country into oblivion.
Roger Stockton
http://www.DefeatReid2010.org
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