Because if anything was made clear in this past week, it’s that regular people can and will make the choices that politicians won’t. We will take care of each other, and that is a principle we should all strive for our society to embody.
I’m tired of eating club themed cupcakes, attending cosponsored lectures, flyering for discussions, and rambling about interesting ideas in class. If we never put our high minded philosophy into issues as clear cut as this, it’s all useless.
Some folks go into the police force genuinely wanting to protect and serve, but it’s not just that those good apples are overshadowed by the bad ones. The institution itself is rotten to its core.
“There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” This past year was a year of such weeks, and now the first anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park is just around the corner.
State Senate District 31: Linares vs. Espaillat In an election that turned out to be one of the ugliest in the state, State Senator Adriano Espaillat defeated Assemblyman Guillermo Linares in his bid for reelection 62 percent to 38 percent. Both candidates are trailblazers in Dominican-American politics: Linares was the first Dominican-American elected to the New York City Council; Espaillat [...]
The Republican Party’s formula may in fact be a strong one, and its success may be continued, however it will not be if the Party overlooks factors as big as prior leadership failure and political scandal and nominates Malcolm Smith.
The question left to be answered is whether sending sexually revealing pictures to a young woman will continue to haunt Weiner. Given his strong legislative record and his ability to spend up to $6 million on the race, Anthony Weiner should throw his hat in the ring in the public advocate’s race to find out.
While it is important to maintain an attitude that individual participation is vital to a thriving democracy, it is easy to lose sight of this when staring at overwhelming voting patterns and the media portrayal of electoral trends.
Today’s most pressing debate should center on the latest economic initiative or education proposal or MTA budget - not the size of a Pepsi. And unfortunately, with Bloomberg’s relentless campaign to dictate the health choices of every New York City resident, issues that really matter – and that are really the business of the office of the mayor – are being sidelined.
If the system is broken, then it must be fixed. The question, of course, is how. It might be helpful to first look toward public policy elsewhere that has succeeded in reducing inequality and involving citizens more in governmental deliberations. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, a municipal policy called participatory budgeting (PB), which has democratized the process of city budgeting, has succeeded in accomplishing just that.
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