A Little Siegel Incident

Before I moved to NYC, I had never heard of the term Public Advocate. Of course I had never heard the Norman Siegel name. Then I move to the city, and Siegel is the biggest name the DFNYC is attached to. He is running for the biggest office at stake, and he actually has a good chance of winning.

I am not a voter. I am not much into city politics: I am a total novice. So largely I have stayed away from the fray.

But then I showed up to watch a Public Advocate debate that was a DFNYC event. I just wanted to get a feel for the guy that DFNYC was so behind. And I actually liked most of what I heard. He was easily the most passionate about the job. He came across as someone who really wants to be your attack dog. But primarily because he was endorsed by the DFNYC, I had this tribal feeling of extending my moral support to him.

But then there was this one Rick Lazio moment in the debate that kind of froze me for a little bit. He cornered the woman - I never got her name - who holds the office now and is up for reelection by suggesting because she is complying by the police guidelines in response to a persistent stalker, she is unfit for the office.

It is like in a Hillary, Rick Lazio debate, the guy actually walked over to her, and hovered over her, insisted she sign something to do with campaign finance this or that. Made me so utterly angry.

And then I show up for a DFNYC Research and Advocacy meeting, and you know how there is the main meeting, and then you break into smaller groups, to work on specific issues in a more focused way. And there was this woman sitting next to me. And she mentioned how Siegel had fought for the right of some Nazi group to protest in a neighborhood where many Holocaust survivors lived. And that totally threw me off. I am like, what is this guy up to?

The lady had this air about her that made me feel she had watched the same debate I had, and she had been taken totally aback by that stalker episode, and she could not bring herself to talk about it directly, so she brought up the Nazi episode. Progressives don't instill fear among women.

I don't know much about this guy at all. And I really don't want to rush into conclusions. But in my book that is two strikes.

I have heard he is a damn good civil rights lawyer, and I am glad for that. But I want the option to approach him and be able to confront him on these two issues. Maybe he needs some help seeing things a little differently. Maybe he needs sensitivity training.

Or if he is beyond reform, do I have doubts about him? I sure do. How does this concern me? Sexists tend to have a high chance of also being racists.

And our own leader of DFNYC who had signed up to work for him full time stepped down from it and I see obvious signs of the glass walls and ceilings thing there. A progressive is not one who creates and sustains glass walls and ceilings. Progressivism is about breaking them.

I will skip this particular election cycle locally. I plead ignorance.

But DFNYC is the group that will born the next President of the United States. We sure can afford to pick and choose. We are important. We are very important.

We should be gunning for Mayor and Governor of New York. We should be gunning for Governor of California.

We are out of power in New York City. That is a mystery to me. Lack of power can lead to much infighting. That is why I want to restrain myself on this seagull topic. But if my outspokenness of the issue of glass walls and ceilings might hurt you, you should be extra eager to let me help you reform yourself. Right?

Pragmatism might ask for some restraint on my part. But it is not like my blog has the readership of Wonkette.

It can not be accept me in totality or you are hurting the cause. That is blackmail. It should be more like, I am a progressive, help me become one. And if you think there are chinks in my armor, help me fix the chinks.

A party nationally out of power is in much local disarray. We need to patiently and persistenly think long term.

(Also see: Landscape Talk)