September 27, 2013

"Did you bristle at the journalism at all, like why do we need the New York Post if the Times is gonna publish a headline saying you were a leftist?"

WNYC’s Brain Lehrer asked Bill de Blasio (the Democratic candidate for mayor of NYC).

De Blasio, admitting that the NYT headline saying that he "Was Once a Young Leftist" fit his own description of himself, in 1990 as being for “democratic socialism,” but that "I always described my philosophy of being made up of a blend of influences and ideas."

“I think that article didn’t fully represent what I feel except for one passage,” he said, “that very accurately noted that one part of me is a New Deal Democrat – just an updated version of it – one part of me is probably similar to a European Social Democrat, and I’m also very deeply influenced by liberation theology, which I learned a lot about in the years I worked on Latin America.”
So in the interest of diluting his connection to "democratic socialism," he's calling attention to his devotion to "liberation theology." Alex Pareene at Salon plays defense:
De Blasio was working with the Quixote Center, a Catholic social justice group that fights poverty and economic inequality and that is inspired by liberation theology. This is actually very typical humanitarian work, and Catholic groups in particular have been doing it for years.

But the Times seems determined to make working for a Catholic social justice organization sound much more radical than it really was, or is. So unnamed “critics” make a few appearances, to suggest that de Blasio and his friends were Marxists — “its harshest critics accused it of hewing to a Marxist agenda” — or naive hippies: “Critics, however, said they were gullible and had romanticized their mission — more interested in undermining the efforts of the Reagan administration than helping the poor.” Which critics? Who knows! How accurate were these criticisms? You decide!

21 comments:

cassandra lite said...

de Blasio to Wall St: "Drop your drawers."

richard mcenroe said...

Bottom line, NYC is likely about to elect themselves a Sandinista. At best he will make Marcos look like Ronald Reagan.

Time to close the airports and prep the Mississippi bridges for dropping.

Opus One Media said...

journalism...nypost....in one sentence....hahahhahahhahahahhahah

jr565 said...

He was once a young leftist and he's now an older leftist.

YoungHegelian said...

So unnamed “critics” make a few appearances, to suggest that de Blasio and his friends were Marxists

Oh what a crock of revisionist bullshit!

Who but true believers would honeymoon in Cuba? No American "accidentally" ends up in Cuba.

I'm sorry, but every single fucking ex-commie who gets caught somehow was a "progressive" or a "social democrat" all that time. If de Blasio has an ideological journey from the hard to moderate Left to tell, well, let him do so. Otherwise, I believe this as much as I believe the Catholic schoolboy who says "Oh, Marie, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize your breasts were there."

AF said...

In a national election, this would be a story. In New York City, nobody cares. This is why I enjoy living in New York City. And it's not that everyone's a leftist (see our lasy 20 years' worth of mayors) it's that people don't pay attention to irrelevant BS like this. Bill de Blasio has been a NYC public official for 12 years. His political views are not an unsolved mystery.

Sam L. said...

Don't know about the NYP, but the NYT, well...

RAS743 said...

It's gonna be fun, watching "social justice" kick in in NYC. Nothing like voters getting what they deserve -- "good and hard."

rehajm said...

"Miss me yet?"

-Anthony Weiner

David said...

Obama without the fakeout?

Or maybe he's a closet conservative just waiting to take office.

Sure. Un-huh.

Anonymous said...

DiBlasio claims to be 6'5", but I've concluded that he is actually three inches taller, at a towering 6'8". Gothamist recently ran a photo of DiBlasio being sworn into a political office a couple of years ago. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who is 5'4" tall (and seemingly almost that far around the waist), was administering the oath. The top of his head was at the level of DiBlasio's upper chest, I would say just about where the collarbones are located.
I measured my collarbone-to-top-of-head distance and it came to 16 inches. Assuming that DiBlasio's head and neck are proportionately as large as mine, and they may well be larger given that I'm much shorter overall at 5'10", that would make him 16 inches taller than Nadler, at 6'8".

Peter

gk1 said...

I would think Bitcoin stock would be going through the roof at the news some warmed over commie will be taking over NYC & Wall street.

Carl said...

"Liberation theology" was openly Marxist, one reason it was eventually disavowed by John Paul II, who even in the name of humanitarianism could not stomach Communist politics -- and understandably so, given what Communism did to his (or anybody's) homeland.

The only people who think "liberation theology" takes you two inches away from Marxism are people too young to remember the 80s, or who spent that whole decade smoking too much weed to notice what Daniel Ortega did to the campesinos when the media fellators from el Norte turned off the TV lights and left.

Jay Vogt said...

. . . . cassandra lite said...
"de Blasio to Wall St: "Drop your drawers.""


Au contraire, the "Street" drops its drawers for no one. It is always the other way around . . . always. Funny thing is, de Basso won't even that he's owned. That's how good they are. He'll be bundled, rated, securitized, tranched and wirehoused before he knows what hit him

I almost feel sorry for the poor sap.

Giuliani was a tough SOB and the best he could do is fight them to a draw. They let him have a few headlines, but stopped him well short of anything that really mattered. Truth be told, they were glad to give him Boesky and Milken (NOKD).

Bloomberg is of the "Street" - kinda. He was a quirky back room guy. But, he knows the big IBanks well enough to know that they can't be beat. So, he smartly doesn't try. The "Street" knows that he knows this, so it's cool all around.

But de Blasio, he's a boy in a man's world.

I only wish that I knew specifically what they had in mind for him. Whoever knows that could front-run pocket money into some real jack.

hawkeyedjb said...

Jay Vogt is right, The Street will endure, the banks will endure; they know they have nothing to fear from a "social-justice" soft leftie like de Blasio. The folks who are really gonna get reamed are the working class and middle class. There is nothing de Blasio is going to do that will make their lives anything but nastier - higher taxes, higher crime rates, strangled opportunities. But the Park Avenue dilettante-lefties will be happy.

2yellowdogs said...

New Yorkers will be pining for the glory days of David Dinkins before DeBlasio finishes his first term.

Blackbeard said...

In NYC the are about 1100 people who make more than $10 million a year. Those 1100 taxpayers collectively pay about 18% of all NYC income taxes. If De Blasio's class warfare approach chases away a significant fraction of these taxpayers he can, indeed, do much to improve income inequality. And the poor and the lower middle class will pay the price.

Hyphenated American said...

As a person who was born in the ussr,I never understood why some people stupidly believe that being a "young Marxist" is any better than being a "young nazi".

Soxtory said...

The electorate in NYC has changed since Rudy led it out of the jungle 20 years ago. Whole neighborhoods of white people have left. The entire borough of Queens is likely now Democrat. Rudy could not win today.

You may chart the history of Detroit and Chicago and you will see the future of New York. I am now pricing bullet proof vests.

Scott said...

@Hyphenated American:

Why are Nazis worse that Communists? Because killing 6 million Jews is an atrocity that we should be mindful of at all times; but killing 62 million Soviet subjects in the Gulag years is merely the unavoidable price society has to pay for achieving a modern progressive state, and is not worth examining or even mentioning. How dare you compare the evil of Naziism with the bountiful good intentions of Communism. Shame on you.

MD Greene said...

NYC needs a tough mayor to get anything done. Love em or hate em, Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg filled the bill. De Blasio emerged just enough from a crop of local political (go along to get along) candidates who were, none of them, big enough to confront the issues the city faces. Residents will pay the price.