Christine Quinn's Latest Quiet Showdown

''Stage Seven begins when the movement, after a long process of growing bigger and deeper, reaches a new plateau in which the societal consensus turns the tide of power against the powerholders, launching an endgame process that eventually leads to the movement succeeding in reaching its goal.'' -- from Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Even though City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has backpedaled and temporarily betrayed her "corporate loyalties" by seeming to support a living wage that may benefit perhaps only 1,000 employees, the reality is that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is triangulating his way out of having to sign the compromise living wage into law.

For her part, Speaker Quinn stopped opposing the living wage bill only after the community exerted too much pressure on her from the left. As in with all politics, once the system becomes afraid that the voters will take something away from the corrupt political machine, that is only when the corrupt political machine will ever answer to the community's demands.

Even though Mayor Bloomberg has never committed to sign the living wage bill into law, let's review how Speaker Quinn "evolved already" :

''A quiet showdown happens when powerholders realize that they can no longer continue their present policies and they launch a face-saving endgame process of “victorious retreat.” Rather than admit defeat and praise the movement for its correct views and its principled stand, the powerholders adopt and carry out many of the goals and policies that were demanded by the movement. The powerholders claim credit for victory, even though they have been forced to reverse their previously held hard-line policies. The mainstream media complies by reporting this as a success of the powerholders.'' -- From Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Once more citizens realise that the corrupt political system won't answer to the community's demands until after immense pressure is put on politicians, then, and only then, will more citizens learn to organise to put immense pressure on politicians on every issue. My prediction : the next issue that Speaker Quinn will have to answer to is the shady closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the related Rudin luxury condo conversion of the hospital's real estate properties.