Hey New York, Michael Bloomberg Is Not Your Daddy
By Phyllis Eckhaus, AlterNet. Posted June 20, 2009.
Once-feisty New Yorkers have gone soft, trusting in a powerful daddy to take care of the city. It's not going to work.It's primal. We'd all love a powerful daddy to protect us and ward off looming dangers.
That yearning made Michael Bloomberg mayor. A long shot before 9/11, he seemed a cartoon, the Billionaire Who Would Be Mayor, until traumatized New Yorkers turned to him for rescue.
And Mayor Bloomberg has been in many ways a good daddy. He has offered a welcome voice of reason and racial tolerance, in contrast to the choler of Rudy Giuliani. The mayor does what often feels like the right thing: banning cigarettes, transfats and traffic from Times Square. His grand-scale projects promise fun, from new baseball stadiums to an ill-fated attempt to host the 2012 Olympics in New York. (The Games have gone to London.)
Bloomberg's critics sound shrill, their vehemence ill-suited to a good man of good will. What is the problem?
The problem is us, we who defer to Daddy. Father Knows Best government may make for comfort and efficiency, but it eats away at the capacity for self-government, damping even the appetite for information that might spur questions of authority. ...........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/politics/140783/hey_new_york%2C_michael_bloomerg_is_not_your_daddy/