City of Radicals
New York pols finally went too far with OLR
WHAT do you know? There’s hope for New York yet.
Weeks after the Puerto Rican Day Parade announced it would fete terrorist Oscar López Rivera as a “national hero,” the idea has fizzled. He’ll still march, but the ex-FALN leader has declined the honorific. That’s left City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who helped orchestrate the move, looking every bit the radical she is.
But the speaker had her enablers. Gov. Cuomo maintained radio silence for days after the announcement. Sen. Chuck Schumer and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman would say only that they wouldn’t march because of scheduling conflicts.
Meanwhile, 29 council members backed the move (though some now say they did so only because they feared MMV would penalize their districts). Mayor de Blasio, too, defended it: “I understand why so many Puerto Ricans in this city respect that [López Rivera] fought for Puerto Rico, in their eyes. I don’t agree with the way he did it. But he did serve his time.”
Now Hizzoner claims he was privately against the idea all along.
Only Police Commissioner James O’Neill was brave enough to blast the idea from the start. Police and firefighters unions stepped up soon after that.
But why did so many local pols stay silent, or worse? What kind of city’s political leaders don’t immediately see the rank stupidity of toasting a man whose terror group bombed their home turf, repeatedly, and isn’t even sorry about it? Especially if that city is New York, after 9/11?
Where, for that matter, did Mark-Viverito even get the idea that honoring a terrorist would be OK?
Welcome to New York — a city that’s not just bluer than blue but often completely over-the-top politically. Progressives go so far and get away with so much — supporting terrorists like OLR and lesser outrages like offering sanctuary to illegal-immigrant criminals or forging deals with unions that stiff kids and taxpayers — that it’s easy to lose sight of right and wrong.
The lack of any strong political counterbalance — a viable Repub- lican Party, for instance — doesn’t help. Rather, it leaves an echo chamber that blesses the craziness. Heck, pols here compete to out-left each other. Consider: Neither Mark-Viverito’s longtime support for the FALN leader nor her refusal to say the Pledge of Allegiance kept her from being speaker. When Councilman Jumaane Williams last year refused (like Colin Kaepernick) to recite the pledge, several other lawmakers followed suit.
Assemblyman Charles Barron is an unrepentant former Black Panther who supported Muammar Khadafy and Louis Farrakhan. As a city councilman in 2002, he and other lawmakers honored Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe at City Hall, with Speaker Gifford Miller defending it as free speech.
In 1990, then-Councilwoman Carolyn Maloney, backed by Mayor David Dinkins, had the city rename a corner after convicted IRA murderer Joe Doherty. De Blasio himself once raised money for the thuggish Nicaraguan Sandinistas and honeymooned in Cuba, in violation of the US travel ban.
New York politics isn’t always so far off the deep end, but it’s generally well outside the mainstream. We redistribute wealth more than most other states. We joined California as the first to OK a $15 minimum wage, more than doubling the federal rate. After the Sandy Hook school shooting, Cuomo raced to push through a far-reaching gun-control law.
In the last mayoral election, most of the Democratic wannabes vowed to keep open dysfunctional city schools, just to preserve jobs for staff and cater to unions. De Blasio now gives an extra $30 million a year to school-bus companies above what the contracts call for, simply because he thinks workers should get paid more.
Given our record, it shouldn’t surprise that pols here think they can get away with anything. Well, guess what? Turns out they can’t. Some ideas are too radical for even New York.
It wasn’t just cops and firefighters who objected to saluting a terrorist, or the parade’s sponsors, most of whom backed out. Many Puerto Ricans, including Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rossell, also slammed the idea. As did victims of FALN terror and their families. And ordinary, clear-eyed New Yorkers.
De Blasio, Cuomo, Schneiderman, Schumer and even Mark-Viverito, now a lame duck, won’t likely pay a price for their cowardice and complicity. But at least New Yorkers will be spared the salt in the wound of watching a terrorist whose group struck their city crowned a national hero.
Be thankful for small things.