Showing posts with label OpCityCouncil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OpCityCouncil. Show all posts

Friday, February 11, 2011

Democracy in Italy

#OpItaly : February 13 Countdown To Democratic Process that Can Only End With Berlusconi Resignation ; Will #OpCityHall Or #OpCityCouncil Be Next ?

News is spreading on the Internet that the combined impact of WikiLeaks documents and Anonymous will soon bring reform to the Italian government.

Although Prime Minister Silvio has weathered many corruption scandals, he has not been held accountable, ''because of his remarkable control of Italian television and the press.'' But the international mood is changing.

''Outsiders may find it easy to group all Italians as Berlusconi sympathizers or as passively resigned to their predicament. But there are many Italians who are fighting against him and the effect he has had on Italy,'' wrote Clare Watters in an opinion-editorial featured in The New York Times.

While we always hear international chatter about undemocratic leaders, as with the recent democratic revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, we can safely bet that change will next come to Italy.

Look no further than here : Operation Italy Part 2 PRESS RELEASE English.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Bloombo Dicto Hosni Bloomberg

Maybe after #OpEgypt and #OpItaly, we'll have #OpCityHall or #OpCityCouncil ?

After Mayor Michael Bloomberg insulted parents who heckled Chancellor Cathleen Black, Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, compared Mayor with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, reported The New York Post.

Ms. Black's ''Awwwwwww'' moment came when she mocked parents, who were going to desperate measures to save several schools from closing, and her insensitive mocking and juvenile immaturity has inflamed the anger of parents and has shocked the conscious of even some school officials. In response to the despair of parents, Mayor Bloomberg has predictably unleashed a ridiculous backlash against Ms. Black's critics.

Mayor Bloomberg, who subverted a public referendum to run for a third term as mayor, went on to say that angry parents were acting unpatriotic. "This is not democracy -- letting people yell and scream. That's not freedom of expression," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That's just trying to take away somebody else's rights. And if we want to attract good people to come and work for the public, you don't do this."

Under his tight fist of ''mayoral control'' over the school system, Mayor Bloomberg wields totalitarian control over the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes to close schools ; the Panel operates under the appearance of independence, but in reality the Panel is ''entirely undemocratic'' and takes its ''marching orders only from Bloomberg,'' according to the Post Mr. Mulgrew noted that if the Panel doesn't vote the way that the Mayor wants, he retaliates against them. ''The last time they voted against him, he fired them,'' Mr. Mulgrew said.

Even The New York Times Agrees : the ''Fix'' Was In.

Meanwhile, at a meeting on Thursday night, where more schools were voted to be closed, City Councilmember Charles Barron said, “You will let us scream until we get hoarse, and then we know what will happen — you’ll shut all our schools down.”

''The closing of struggling schools has been a key piece of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda, and his eight-person majority has stood behind him, phasing out more than 100 schools, often replacing them with small schools and charter schools,'' reported The Times.

Update on Christine Quinn

While Mayor Bloomberg spent the week closing schools, firing teachers, and getting rid of classrooms and school lunches, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was using NYPD as enforcers against activists outside a fundraiser for her presumed candidacy for Mayor in 2013.