Post by Darth Stateworker on Nov 2, 2012 18:30:51 GMT -5
Joe No0ney wrote on the PEF Employees Uncensored page about EJ McMahon being up to his old tricks via a NY Post article he wrote. While I responded there, it appears my comments there on this only appear to me, so I'm cross posting here:
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Joe - my last sentence was basically this: I see a small, almost imperceptible change in Cuomo, like he has pivoted towards being more progressive of late. I suspect it has something to do with being in the national spotlight a bit more since the DNC.
Additionally, the national political winds seem to be changing. Instead of raging teabagger-driven anger giving Romney a cakewalk to victory, people seem to be leaning towards deciding to give Obama another 4 years at this point, something that I would generally have considered to be an impossibility under the current economic conditions - but it's happening anyway. This means that there's a change in the mood of the electorate from 2010. How that will play out in the House, who knows, but it seems pretty solid it will not play out well for Mittens and give the Repubs for the White House.
Now, why are these two things interrelated? Cuomo, if anything, is EXTREMELY politically astute. If he senses that there is starting to be a bit of a backlash starting against rightwing nutjobs and their brainless attacks on things like organized labor, it will give him pause to take any other actions that may be detrimental to his national image that is just now in it's infancy. On top of this, if he wants to run in 2016, he may very well have to deal with a primary, where ONLY Democrats will have a say, because it seems probable that Biden will run given his recent comments, and the speculation on Hillary is also rampant. Not to mention others like Martin O'Malley, etc, who also have better overall "liberal street cred" than Cuomo, because Democratic voters aren't narrow minded enough to focus only on same sex marriage to be the defining issue of a 2016 primary. In other words, Cuomo may very well NEED labors backing in 2016 - especially the backing of labor from his home state, which happens to be the most unionized state in the nation. If he were to fuck us YET AGAIN and we were to throw our support behind Biden or Hillary for example, he'd almost certainly be toast in a primary. He'd be a laughstock amongst Dems for not being able to carry labor from even his OWN state.
As such, I'm beginning to feel like Cuomo has made a political calculation to act more liberally/progressively. He not only won't or his staff mention Triborough of late - which is contrary to his tone a just a few months ago, he basically told municipal leaders in no uncertain terms to STFU in a recent press conference over a question on mandate relief, which we all know is the code word de jour for Triborough. On top of that, he wouldn't TOUCH minimum wage earlier this year, and now he wants it as part of a special session if there is one, along with campaign finance reform, another traditionally progressive item he previously wouldn't touch.
All of this is my own armchair politicking/gut feeling on what's going on. I could be way off base. But I think you'll agree that I'm usually pretty damn perceptive on reading the political tea leaves.
As far as Triborough itself, I sense no current danger. As I noted before, I would speculate that if Cuomo has any sort of inkling to go after Triborough, Triborough or the code words "mandate relief" will be a big part of his State of the State in January. It's certainly something he will have to work to build momentum on within the Legislature to go after - he can't simply spring it at the last minute before demanding a bill gets passed.
If he does mention Triborough/"mandate relief" in January, not only would I demand and expect the current PEF administration to start working against any possible legislation, but I will be SCREAMING that every single union in the state had better put their heads together and come up with a COORDINATED plan to push against it. Lack of coordination amongst unions is what brought us Tier VI. It's what brought us such a shitty contract. The fact that I didn't see the old PEF administration working to coordinate with the multitude of other unions on these previous issues was a large part of why I voted to fire them. If Kent and Co. fail to do so if Triborough comes up next year, I'll vote to fire their asses as well. My concern is the union and the labor movement overall, and not which faction within the union gets their ego stroked and to play leader for 3 years. In fact, internal union politics tends to turn me right off, because most of the people I have personally been exposed to who are involved in internal union politics tend to be the slackers and the dregs looking to get out of having to do their "real" job, and not because they truly believe in the union or the labor movement in general.
My $0.02 on whats going on. YMMV of course.
As an aside: Edmund is representative of a large part of why unions lose the ground game so much in this state of late. The right is organized and well funded, hence the creation of the Manhattan Institute/Empire Center, Unshackle Upstate, and other such organizations, and why Edmund has a job. They have been spewing for their message like a broken record for years, basically unchecked, because there is no equivalent left leaning think tank to counter them. And no, I do not think Demos fits that description. They are unfocused, they are rarely in the press, and when they are, their main spokesman - Brodsky - generally is not all that great at articulating his arguments. I watched Edmund chew him up on Capital Tonight not long ago, and I was SCREAMING what Brodsky should have been saying at the TV the entire time while Brodsky choked.
Since I see this as an area where we are lacking, it makes me wonder - why are the unions in this state not joining together with each other and other progressively oriented groups to fund a liberal think tank to start countering these clowns? It seems like it should be blatantly obvious that's what we should be doing. For example, when Cap Con runs a story about X, not only would they have a right wing think tank to call, but a left leaning one as well - so that way, they could get BOTH sides of the story. As of now, they - and most other news organizations in this state - seem to rely heavily on Edmund and ONLY Edmund, because there's no one else out there to get the other side from.
If we want to start beating some of this shit back, I believe we have to get on this, because letting this asshat and others like him repeatedly go unanswered is a very large part of our PR problem here in this state. We need to not only create a think tank of our own, but get that think tank on the offensive, posting reports showing the facts we all know people like Edmund fail to include in their own reports - and doing so preemptively before he even WRITES his report. This is simply another area where union leaders and progressive leaders in this state in general have failed us (unions, liberals, and the public overall) for years. Again, my $0.02 and YMMV, but I feel really strongly about this since PR allows us to sink or swim. Either start pumping money into Demos to get them to start directly working against the Empire Center, or create our own damn think tank. It's not even a huge expense if spread out amongst various unions and other groups, because TBQH, looking at the Manhattan Institutes publicly available tax returns, they aren't raising more than a couple million each year. I believe this is the sort of item where our political action money would get us the most bang for the buck.
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Joe - my last sentence was basically this: I see a small, almost imperceptible change in Cuomo, like he has pivoted towards being more progressive of late. I suspect it has something to do with being in the national spotlight a bit more since the DNC.
Additionally, the national political winds seem to be changing. Instead of raging teabagger-driven anger giving Romney a cakewalk to victory, people seem to be leaning towards deciding to give Obama another 4 years at this point, something that I would generally have considered to be an impossibility under the current economic conditions - but it's happening anyway. This means that there's a change in the mood of the electorate from 2010. How that will play out in the House, who knows, but it seems pretty solid it will not play out well for Mittens and give the Repubs for the White House.
Now, why are these two things interrelated? Cuomo, if anything, is EXTREMELY politically astute. If he senses that there is starting to be a bit of a backlash starting against rightwing nutjobs and their brainless attacks on things like organized labor, it will give him pause to take any other actions that may be detrimental to his national image that is just now in it's infancy. On top of this, if he wants to run in 2016, he may very well have to deal with a primary, where ONLY Democrats will have a say, because it seems probable that Biden will run given his recent comments, and the speculation on Hillary is also rampant. Not to mention others like Martin O'Malley, etc, who also have better overall "liberal street cred" than Cuomo, because Democratic voters aren't narrow minded enough to focus only on same sex marriage to be the defining issue of a 2016 primary. In other words, Cuomo may very well NEED labors backing in 2016 - especially the backing of labor from his home state, which happens to be the most unionized state in the nation. If he were to fuck us YET AGAIN and we were to throw our support behind Biden or Hillary for example, he'd almost certainly be toast in a primary. He'd be a laughstock amongst Dems for not being able to carry labor from even his OWN state.
As such, I'm beginning to feel like Cuomo has made a political calculation to act more liberally/progressively. He not only won't or his staff mention Triborough of late - which is contrary to his tone a just a few months ago, he basically told municipal leaders in no uncertain terms to STFU in a recent press conference over a question on mandate relief, which we all know is the code word de jour for Triborough. On top of that, he wouldn't TOUCH minimum wage earlier this year, and now he wants it as part of a special session if there is one, along with campaign finance reform, another traditionally progressive item he previously wouldn't touch.
All of this is my own armchair politicking/gut feeling on what's going on. I could be way off base. But I think you'll agree that I'm usually pretty damn perceptive on reading the political tea leaves.
As far as Triborough itself, I sense no current danger. As I noted before, I would speculate that if Cuomo has any sort of inkling to go after Triborough, Triborough or the code words "mandate relief" will be a big part of his State of the State in January. It's certainly something he will have to work to build momentum on within the Legislature to go after - he can't simply spring it at the last minute before demanding a bill gets passed.
If he does mention Triborough/"mandate relief" in January, not only would I demand and expect the current PEF administration to start working against any possible legislation, but I will be SCREAMING that every single union in the state had better put their heads together and come up with a COORDINATED plan to push against it. Lack of coordination amongst unions is what brought us Tier VI. It's what brought us such a shitty contract. The fact that I didn't see the old PEF administration working to coordinate with the multitude of other unions on these previous issues was a large part of why I voted to fire them. If Kent and Co. fail to do so if Triborough comes up next year, I'll vote to fire their asses as well. My concern is the union and the labor movement overall, and not which faction within the union gets their ego stroked and to play leader for 3 years. In fact, internal union politics tends to turn me right off, because most of the people I have personally been exposed to who are involved in internal union politics tend to be the slackers and the dregs looking to get out of having to do their "real" job, and not because they truly believe in the union or the labor movement in general.
My $0.02 on whats going on. YMMV of course.
As an aside: Edmund is representative of a large part of why unions lose the ground game so much in this state of late. The right is organized and well funded, hence the creation of the Manhattan Institute/Empire Center, Unshackle Upstate, and other such organizations, and why Edmund has a job. They have been spewing for their message like a broken record for years, basically unchecked, because there is no equivalent left leaning think tank to counter them. And no, I do not think Demos fits that description. They are unfocused, they are rarely in the press, and when they are, their main spokesman - Brodsky - generally is not all that great at articulating his arguments. I watched Edmund chew him up on Capital Tonight not long ago, and I was SCREAMING what Brodsky should have been saying at the TV the entire time while Brodsky choked.
Since I see this as an area where we are lacking, it makes me wonder - why are the unions in this state not joining together with each other and other progressively oriented groups to fund a liberal think tank to start countering these clowns? It seems like it should be blatantly obvious that's what we should be doing. For example, when Cap Con runs a story about X, not only would they have a right wing think tank to call, but a left leaning one as well - so that way, they could get BOTH sides of the story. As of now, they - and most other news organizations in this state - seem to rely heavily on Edmund and ONLY Edmund, because there's no one else out there to get the other side from.
If we want to start beating some of this shit back, I believe we have to get on this, because letting this asshat and others like him repeatedly go unanswered is a very large part of our PR problem here in this state. We need to not only create a think tank of our own, but get that think tank on the offensive, posting reports showing the facts we all know people like Edmund fail to include in their own reports - and doing so preemptively before he even WRITES his report. This is simply another area where union leaders and progressive leaders in this state in general have failed us (unions, liberals, and the public overall) for years. Again, my $0.02 and YMMV, but I feel really strongly about this since PR allows us to sink or swim. Either start pumping money into Demos to get them to start directly working against the Empire Center, or create our own damn think tank. It's not even a huge expense if spread out amongst various unions and other groups, because TBQH, looking at the Manhattan Institutes publicly available tax returns, they aren't raising more than a couple million each year. I believe this is the sort of item where our political action money would get us the most bang for the buck.