Egypt and NYC
Dear Diane,
"This is not democracy—letting people yell and scream," says Mayor Michael Bloomberg in publicly chiding theprotesters at the meeting of his education advisory board. As UFT President Michael Mulgrew noted, the mayor has nothing to worry about since he has packed the Panel on Educational Policy (the closest thing in New York City to a school board) with eight of its 13 members and fires anyone who doesn't vote his way.
Bloomberg and Hosni Mubarek agree. Facing protesters, the Egyptian dictator agrees that letting people yell and scream is an infringement on his rights.
In short, all roads lead to ... the same place. The protests over 200 years go in Boston, the protesters in Budapest in 1956, or in Tiananmen Square in 1989, as well as the protesters who have, over and over again, come out to protest in NYC share one thing: they don't like dictatorships. In New York City, there are a thousand