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<H2 class=date-header><SPAN>Saturday, September 7, 2013</SPAN></H2>
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<H3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">Bloomberg: de Blasio's
campaign racist and class warfare </H3>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=tr-caption><FONT size=4>The "racist"
campaign literature</FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>by Richard Mellor<BR>Afscme Local 444,
retired<BR><BR>You gotta laugh at politics in America.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The race for mayor of NYC is heating up.
Present mayor, Michael Bloomberg who is owner of Business Week magazine and is
described in the media as a <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“self
made”</I> billionaire, has accused one of the candidates hoping to replace him
of running a <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“racist”</I> campaign based
on <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“class warfare.” </I>In an interview
with New York Magazine Bloomberg said that Democrat Bill de Blasio’s is <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">"in some ways ... a class-warfare
campaign……..class-warfare and racist.”.</I><BR><BR>What the hell is a <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“self made” </I>billionaire anyway?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is there a collectively made
billionaire? A billionaire by committee? What does <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“self made”</I> mean? Is there anyone that
believes you can accumulate billions of dollars all on your own, working lots of
overtime and stashing away savings. But I must let that sidetrack
me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><BR><FONT size=4>When asked what is racist about Democrat
Bill de Blasio’s campaign, Bloomberg says, according to the Associated Press, <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">"Well, no, no, I mean he's making an appeal
using his family to gain support. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone watching
what he's been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It's comparable to me
pointing out I'm Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote."</I><BR><BR>Is Bloomberg
Jewish? I’d never have thought it. Bill de Blasio is married to a black woman
and apparently his campaign ads have featured his family. Have we ever seen such
a thing in American politics, a candidate having their partner, kids and dog on
stage with them or in campaign ads with them?<BR><BR>I would say its one of the
standard sickening practices we see every election time as these people try to
appeal to the conservative elements in society showing that they are <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“normal” </I>peopl<I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">e </I>in a normal god-fearing marriage, a
man, a woman, two kids and a dog.<BR><BR>The real issue is not that de Blasio
has an interracial family. It’s that he’s striking a bit of a populist tone.
He’s not obscuring the fact that there is a class war, that’s the problem.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>De Blasio has attacked Bloomberg for not
doing enough to help the poor and that New York has become <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“two cities”, </I>one for the rich and one
for everyone else. De Blasio is well aware of the mood out there in the
aftermath of the Great Recession and is tapping in to the anger and hatred for
the rich that lies beneath the surface, but so is Bloomberg which is why he has
reacted so strongly.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Bloomberg, a
coupon clipper, is the 7<SUP>th</SUP> richest man in the US worth about $27
billion. He is as detached from American working class life as Putin is.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><BR><BR>He comes to the defense of his coupon
clipper colleagues, many of whom live in NYC. But first he attacks the poor in
NYC, <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“By most of the world’s standards,
you ain’t poor,” </I>he says reminding us that when compared to most places in
the world <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“…our poor are wealthy.”
</I><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You see, you don’t have to be
bright to be wealthy and won a major magazine.<BR><BR>Bloomberg is quite hurt by
de Blasio’s assault on the NY City’s billionaires as they contribute so much to
the city in the form of tax revenue. <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">"The
way to help those who are less fortunate is, number one, to attract more very
fortunate people. They are the ones that pay the bills. The people that would
get very badly hurt here if you drive out the very wealthy are the people he
professes to try to help,"</I> Bloomberg says.<BR><BR>He gets a little madder
and reveals to us his real view of the world when he says that </FONT><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><FONT size=4>“…this city is </FONT>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=tr-caption><FONT size=4>Bloomberg,
worth $27 billion</FONT><I><BR></I></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><FONT size=4>not
two groups, and if to some extent it is, it's one group paying for services for
the other." </FONT></I><FONT size=4>We should all be grateful to the Michael
Bloomberg, Donald Trumps and Warren Buffets of this word for giving us miserable
wretches an existence.<BR><BR>The fact that poverty and unemployment and all the
negative aspects of their so-called free market hits black folks, as a
percentage of the population, far worse than most groups, with the exception of
Native Americans perhaps, is definitely an issue when a white candidate with a
black wife, a multi-racial family, is speaking about how the world actually is,
is raising the class divide as Jesse Jackson did in his first presidential
campaign before the Democratic Party hacks gave him a good talking to before the
national convention. Plus, the Great Recession has hit a lot of people who
thought they were safe; pointing fingers at the 1% in this climate is a
dangerous game.<BR><BR>De Blasio has been getting a lot of support from the
black community according to reports but I’ll wager it is predominantly for his
populist rhetoric.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Were his wife to
take a cue from Bill Cosby and chide black folks for not pulling themselves up
by their bootstraps and going out there and <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“gettin’ it”</I> as opposed to complaining
all the time, there’d be no accusation of racism from Bloomberg
then.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>I saw a plug for <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“Crossfire” </I>on TV tonight as I was
flipping through channels and it had two Democrats and two Republicans in the
plug and it was making the point about issues and differences being
discussed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But there is not
significant difference between these two parties on the fundamentals.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They both agree that workers and the
middle class must pay for their crisis and would both oppose a real candidate
that made the class war that is forced on us daily an issue. It’s as if there is
only a Democratic and republican view of the world.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><BR><BR>This support that Occupy initially got
and the support that de Blasio is getting is an indication of the mood that
exists in society and that a genuine mass party of working people could have
significant success in the political arena.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The 128 million or so of Americans that
didn’t vote in the last election cycle aren’t all asleep, they have simply given
up, recognizing correctly that on the basic issues, food, shelter, health care,
workplace and civil rights, both parties are against them.<BR><BR>As for
Bloomberg threatening that if you attack those <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“more fortunate”</I> we will have no
services or they’ll leave town, our response is that we won’t let you, or we
won’t let you with all the money you’ve stolen from those who work and create
the wealth in society. His solution to poverty, he says, is to make more rich
people.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><BR><FONT size=4>Every human being deserves a secure and
productive life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A society that
cannot provide that is not a civilized society.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is not simply the billions they waste
on predatory wars and such that we must take and allocate more efficiently in a
humane sense, but the personal billions they have stashed away, what they call
private money or their <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“personal”</I>
wealth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They never earned that
money; it’s a collective product. Michael Bloomberg should be guaranteed a
decent and secure life, and most socialists and ordinary workers would agree,
just not off the backs of the rest of us.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>We would guarantee them what they deny
us.</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>