District 9 Debate Wrap-Up-Victoria Theater

Truth-in-ranting disclaimer. I’m supporting Eric Quezada, always have. Since all of the candidates went to so much trouble to talk about how much they respect each other, I’ll try to infuse this post with all feel good mutual respect our allegedly post-partisan era requires. I’ll try to say something nice about everyone. Although I believe that Mark Sanchez is an excellent second choice and that David Campos isn’t the stealth machine politician I once thought he was, certain things are worth arguing about. I have friends working on all three of the front-runner’s campaigns, but it ain’t about personal warm feelings I have for each.

Last night at the Victoria Theater, seven community members all vying to replace Supervisor Tom Ammiano as District 9 Supervisor squared off in what might have been the most civil and too the point debate in San Francisco history. Seven candidates might seem a crowded field, but is mild by San Francisco standards. In 1999, the District 6 candidates, all eighteen of them squared off in the Saint Anthony’s Dining room, entertaining such brilliant public policy initiatives as hiring homeless people to build homes in a subterranean tunnel underneath Golden Gate park. Don’t forget four years ago in District Five with fifteen candidates, and mysterious, anonymous leaflets cropping up around the Western Addition alleging that then-candidate Mirkarimi and his supporters were nothing but closeted homophobes.

Ah, San Francisco.

So back to last night’s debate. First of all, as a lefty, I gotta implore other lefties to cut out that hissing bullshit in public forums. Did someone order self-righteous and annoying from Central Casting? That constant ssssss sound makes lunatic outbursts seem preferable. Perfect the King Louie-The-Snake-From Jungle-Book imitation at home.

Eva Royale. I would expect that someone who has Delores Huerta’s endorsement would have some concrete positions, but she seemed more than content to offer jabs and stabs at other candidates with the occasional distortion her opponent’s record thrown in for good measure. Quezada fended off her half-baked Home Depot line of attack like a pro, pointing out that Home Depot had pulled out of San Francisco and that the project would have killed small businesses throughout the City. She’s perfected the “your-so-stupid” eyeroll, the “I-implore-the-gods-to-kill-you” evil eye, comparable to Sarah Palin’s insidious wink.

Eric Storey Move to the Marina motherfucker. His comments about low-income housing were basically just racist rehashes of myths of affordable housing creating crime. Bet this guy can’t wait to one day arrive at Reagan’s “shining white city on a hill” which thanks to folks like him, San Francisco is almost. The John McCain of District 9.

Tom Vatlin An honest, sincere liberal. He had the candor, but not the understanding of the issue, around the Sanctuary Ordinance. When he says he would support limits on Sanctuary, he’s voicing something that some of the other candidates believe, but dare not say. Choked up a bit when trying to say the words “People of Color”, but was spot-on when pointing out that the traditional environmental groups have been largely AWOL when it comes to the air poor communities have to breathe. There’s probably a City commission that would be well served by his presence on it.

David Campos Rhetorically, Campos was strong. Answered almost every question well. Tried to stick it to Sanchez about policing being absent from his crime prevention strategy, but attack fell flat. A Supervisor couldn’t keep the cops out of the mix if they wanted to. Just like Prostitution and politics, the police ain’t going anywhere. There’s lots to like here, especially his stand of immigration but: Why the hell did the SF Bay Guardian give their number one endorsement to a lawyer who worked so closely with former Superintendent Ackerman and her extortion and shakedown of the San Francisco Unified School District?

Mark Sanchez I have always liked Mark a lot as a person, but couldn’t believe how someone who says he is in support of holistic services for homeless people could support the Community Justice Center. The CJC, an alternative court just for quality of life crimes has plenty of good ideas like alternative sentencing that could simply be incorporated into existing alternative sentencing procedures. That way it wouldn’t drain much-needed money from existing effective programs, like Tenderloin Health, which I assume Sanchez supports. (The premiere HIV services program, TH is cutting its hours thanks to budget cuts). I’ll give Sanchez props though, he has a whole host of respectable positions that make his CJC stand all the more bizarre. He was also very willing, to talk with me directly about it afterwords.

Also, in the spirit of respect, I’ll hand it to Sanchez that his principled stand on Proposition V (anti-JROTC in schools) has front-loaded plenty of right-wing money against him in this race. Whether you agree with him or not, the choice wasn’t a clear cut political win for him. Also, it was interesting it watch Mark try to pin down Royale and Campos on their picks for the very-important slot of Board President. Neither one of them bit.

Eric Quezada I’m backing Eric because he has the knowledge around land-use and education that his district needs. he also truly understands that his candidacy is just a part of a larger movement for housing and human rights in the globalized cit. His best moments came when he took the gloves off called it like he saw it. Some moments were teeth-grinders, I was hoping that he would get those gloves off a little sooner. His record of building and preserving affordable housing speaks for itself.

About the only thing I can find wrong with Eric is that his victory will take a very talented and dedicated Community Organizer out of the mix. In a city where so many folks describe what they do as Community Organizing, it is always a pleasure to have someone out here who isn’t afraid of a old-fashioned door knocking and listening to the people. However, I suspect that if elected, Eric will reinvent and reorganize the office of the Supervisor itself.

Saving the City

On May 21st, 2008 over 500 people marched through the streets of San Francisco’s Central City to protest Proposition 98, a measure that would destroy Rent Control. The march and rally was one of the most spirited and alive political events I have witnessed for at least five years; and an honor to co-organize. I always hesitate before I use the term “diverse” as the right-wing has learned how to mis-use that word. It was obvious however that the key organizations: Community Housing Partnership, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, and Chinatown Community Development Center had reached deep inside their base communities, activating the passions of everyday people. At times, the march resembled more of a street party. A resident from the Senator Hotel brought his drum and the crowd collectively remixed the chants, which eventually morphed into Spanish and Chinese.

Chant #1: Save, our city, save our state: vote no on 98!

The next generation of freedom-fighters.

Norman Fong (CCDC) and Lashawndra Price (CHP) MC’d the event. This was Lashawndra’s first time as an MC for a demonstration and she rocked the house. Supervisor Peskin is in the background.

No and Yes

This week, debate about kicking the ROTC off of campuses has reached an interesting fever pitch. Here in San Francisco. As my friend, Marc Norton reports in Beyond Chron:

The San Francisco school board voted in November 2006 to end JROTC in San Francisco schools this June. Last December, the school board extended JROTC for another year, until June 2009. However, the JROTC Must Go! Coalition continues to press the board to end JROTC now. (See “JROTC Must Go Now” in the May 14 Bay Guardian

The JROTC Must Go! Coalition represents a shift in strategy for many in the anti-war left. Discouraged by large mobilizations, groups such as these have focused on the local arena: bringing creative tactics to challenge military recruiting at ROTC programs nationwide. These groups succeed in bringing essential information recruiters aren’t going to tell your kids before they sign up. Little details such as the real limits on accessing college funds, fiscal hardships, and of course risks. I have known many an ex-service person who wished they were gotten the other side of the story.

Any sports fan can tell you that any strategy only has a limited life-time. Unless it is remixed and revised, the play just dies. The other side runs interference, having studied its opponents strengths, and learning how to beat back its advances.

This well could be happening to the counter-recruitment movement in the near future. The problem is that every single ROTC program could be shut down, and kids would still turn to the military out of sheer economic necessity.

The ways in which race, class and now gender are intertwined are extremely clear in the case of military service. Approximately two-thirds of service people are working-class white people from rural areas. This is a reversal of the Vietnam-era statistics where working-class people of color from urban areas dominated. Movements such as the Chicano Moratorium and the massive GI Resistance efforts helped to reverse this, which held for many years. As the War on Terror became a disaster even by terms of US Imperial interests, the military has had to ramp up its efforts to recruit in cities, and in communities of color. Young women are being recruited into the military like never before.

So I’m wondering, if cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, and others are really interested in curbing military recruitment–why stop just saying no? What are economic strategies that would provide life-changing alternatives for young people considering military service? Should they create Urban Peace Corps where participants are paid as well, or better than soldiers? Should the anti-war movement be pushing for universal access to four-year education? Programs such as these probably would only put a dent in the conditions caused by the global economy, yet should be explored fully.

One popular left-wing slogan is “One No, Many Yesses,” yet sometimes the demands and complexity of organizing leaves us in the “no” gear for a long-time. This November, it is very possible the liberal president will be elected. This president will be able to sell incursions into Iran and other countries, even as s/he nominally ends a war in Iraq. With this at stake, it is time for us to start figuring out what we’re going to say yes to.

This May Day–The Strike!

I’m honored to be invited to read at City Lights’ grand May Day event, The Strike! It is a sequel of sorts to a reading which happened during the last Presidential election year, entitled Manifesto. Like last time, thirty poets are going to sound-off (three minutes at a time) on the subject of empire, only now we’re supposed to answer the question So what are we gonna do about it? Obviously, the “surge” of poetry isn’t likely to stop the war, but hopefully it might just put a spring in your activist step, and maybe, provide some inspiration to delete the empire once and for all!

A City Lights May Day event
@ First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, San Francisco, CA
Doors open 7 pm; performance begins 7:30 pm
Admission: $12.00 @ door

Join City Lights and friends for an evening of narratives that cut through the core of the neo-liberal agenda

30 local poets, performers, fiction writers, playwrights, and musicians deliver 3 minute pieces offering imaginative responses to the hunger of global capital and its effects upon community

STRIKE addresses strategies of resistance. We pose the question: what serves as meaningful resistance in an age of disaster capitalism? We shall explore the liberation of the commons- through poetry, performance, music, and magic.

Participants:
Charlie Anders
Maxine Chernoff
Justin Chin
Diane di Prima
Camille Dungy
Ananda Esteva
Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Lisa Gray-Garcia
Jack Hirschman
Paul Hoover
Kevin Killian
Joseph Lease
Jon Longhi
Michael McClure
Cameron McHenry
Annalee Newitz
Barbara Jane Reyes
Al Robles
Leslie Scalapino
Matthew Shenoda
Bucky Sinister
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Amber Tamblyn
James Tracy
Roberto Vargas
Youth Speaks
more to come..

Nothing About Us, Without Us! - Interview with Leroy Moore

I originally published this in Left Turn Magazine, October 2007.

Leroy F. Moore, Jr. is a radical Black organizer in the disability and racial justice movements. He works with Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, Poor Magazine, and Harambee Educational Council, an organization for parents, advocates and young adults focused African Americans with disabilities. Long a fixture in the anti-police brutality and homelessness efforts nationwide; he is now taking on the hip-hop industry with a groundbreaking compilation of disabled rappers: Krip-Hop. He is also a member of the Molotov Mouths Outspoken Word Troupe.

Leroy

LT: Tell me a little bit about your background, what led to your politicization?

LM: I was born with cerebral palsy into a family that was and still are activists. My father was a Black Panther and my mother was an independent thinker. I had no choice but to be an activist.

My experiences in both communities-Black and Disabled, and how they treated, or better yet, not treated both of my identities gave me a real eye-opener on how society treats Blacks and other people of color with disabilities.

Racism in the disability movement and services for people with disabilities became clear when I was mainstreamed from my all Black Special Education class to a majority White non-disabled mainstream class. From that point onward, I had the question of race and disability in my head.

LT: You talk about the “intersection of race and disability” How exactly are these entwined? Some present disability as color-blind, something that could happen to anybody.

LM: The reality of race and disability has been with us since day one. Disability is a part of our fabric of our being, just like race, all the way back to Moses. People of color have found themselves in situations where the onset of disability is delivered by the oppressive society we live in. From robbing the land from Native Americans to slavery to the Tuskagee Experiment, to today’s budget cuts in mental health, hospitals, and the violence we seemed to live in at home and abroad, this country’s action and policies have helped increase disability in POC communities.

Dogs of War

(Picture of Mr. Noam Chompsky)

Last Wednesday, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was indicted by a federal grand jury for illegal dogfighting. The pictures weren’t for the faint of heart. It seems as if in the games Vick refereed, the loosing dogs were hung by trees. That is, if they managed to live that long.

If the allegations are true, this of course is disgusting. Truth in advocacy here: I’m a pushover for dogs, and I have two of them at home. The thought of one of their cute loving faces mangled by Pitbull or Rotweiler boils my blood. You don’t need to be a robe-wearing pacifist to concur with Ghandi on the subject: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

However, something even more disgusting is at foot here; truly an even greater marker of the moral progress of the nation: the continuing appeal of racism.

Talk-radio and the blogosphere practically exploded with calls for Vick to hang from a tree himself. A sample culled from a simple Google search last Friday:

• “Someone should take him and hang him from a tree.”
• “If it were up to me, I would put Michael Vick in a pit with some dogs and see how he mother fucking likes it.”
• What if we hung the Atlanta Falcons the next time they loose a game?”
• “Well, he is from the South after all.”

These are just some of the more printable reactions. Needless to say, such comments can only be taken in context.

The context of advocating hanging a black man from a tree.

The context of sicking dogs on a black person.

The context of the south.

The context of war. What does war have to do with it?

On the same day Vick was indicted at least 103 Iraqis were killed by American forces in Iraq and the death toll for American service mean reached 3,632. Beyond the normal alternative media outlets that note these things, discussion was scarce.

Vick creates reprehensible deed against man’s best friends. The cyber gloves come off and suddenly thousands of people have a pass to advocate lynching. The War Without end take the lives of more Iraqis and Americans and…

You can hear a pin drop in the far corners of cyberspace.

If convicted, Vick may, and should, spend quite a few years in prison. Yet the true dogs of war seem headed towards comfortable retirements at the Bohemian Grove–a quiet indictment of the moral progress of this nation.

A Tale of Two Movements Part I

This beginning of this week marked the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The end of this week marked the 3,233^rd death of an American soldier and the deaths of at least 59,408 Iraqis. In San Francisco, the anti-war movement marked the occasion in much the same manner it did the invasion—a series of non-violent civil disobediences (“die-ins”) that shut down key intersections of the financial district.

I was one of about five dozen people who were arrested for refusing to move out of the intersection of fifth and Powell when told to do so by the police. At 850 Bryant (SF’s southern police station), protesters were placed into small corrals made out of police barricades and never even saw the inside of the station. All were promptly cited and released by officers who were by the most part, very restrained, professional, and polite.

Non-violent civil disobedience seemed to me the least we could do, at least to send a message that somebody in San Francisco wasn’t waiting for the Democrats to swing low a sweet chariot. The organizers of the event pulled off a disciplined, creative action that momentarily injected some political clarity into the evening news.

Yet I left the police station with a cloud of dissatisfaction over my bald head. I was emotionally prepared to commit a symbolic act of defiance, in hopes that the symbol could give rise to substance. It took me an entire day to fully comprehend what had bothered me so deeply.

That realization hit me on lunch hour the next day. I attended a press conference for the People’s Budget Campaign, at City Hall. The People’s Budget is an ambitious project in which dozens of community groups from all over San Francisco draft a “shadow city budget” based on human needs and unite for a budget that actually increases spending on healthcare, housing, and community safety. The groups represented here are the ones I have worked and struggled with for the past decade and a half. These are the people who fight the good right everyday because their very survival depends on it. (eg PODER, Coalition On Homelessness, SF Organizing Project, CLAER).

Suffice to say that the $410,825,804,723 spent on just the Iraq war could fund every item of the People’s Budget; in fact thousands of People’s Budgets in every city. Very clearly, the cost of US imperialism is exacted both here and abroad. Yet in a time when large populist movements must be built; the word “fractured” doesn’t even begin to describe what it going on.

More like segregated.

Yes, segregation. We have separate movements. One has to find ways just to survive, squeezing little drops of sanity from a municipal budget. The people at this rally represented the rainbow of the urban working-class. There were a quite a few allies, but it was obvious that the People’s Budget was deeply rooted in the neighborhoods. On the other side of the colorline, the classline and the generation line was the anti-war movement. If you think it is possible for one group to stop a war, or to transform a city, then I guess this is no big deal.

I bring this up not to guilt-trip or to point fingers.I would gladly be arrested again and again in the company of these brave people if it could end the war a minute earlier. However, how effective can a “movement” be with this many degrees of separation?

In the next post I’m going to explore tangible ways to bring the domestic fight against empire together with the international fight against empire. I’m interested in hearing your ideas.

 __________________________________________________________

On my reading list this week:

Left Turn Magazine #24

“The War at Home” by Francis Fox Piven

“The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism” by Chip Smith

Their Land Grabs, and Ours

These are the notes I prepared for a talk at Counterpulse on 2/14/07. The talk was part of a series on urban life and resistance co-sponsored by City Lights Foundation and Shaping San Francisco. Thanks to Chris Carlsson for inviting me to speak and Erick Lyle for rounding out the evening with an inspiring talk about housing takeovers in the Mid-Market redevelopment area.

Patterns of displacement as resistance remain pretty constant throughout the centuries. They are revised, re-ramped and remixed; given a different face. The political economy in which each story occurs in is often very different from the last. But the blueprint of domination, the strategies of the elites, the response of everyday people tends to remain quite constant.

Take for instance, settlers on this continent clearing the prairie of Native Americans. For the most part they were those of limited resources who bought the lie that the land was theirs to take, and that no-one of any consequence was there before, just savages a notch or two above animals. Then the settlers too were largely displaced, often urbanized as robber barons cleared their claims to make way for railroads.

Jump to today where the presence of young artists and bohemians is manipulated in order to soften up a neighborhood, make it appealing for the truly rich to walk in and finish the process of destroying a working-class neighborhood. The process is of course, economic but is far more complex than political economy of a ‘hood.

In order for their land-grabs to be successful, the Real Estate Industry breaks bonds of solidarity neighbors might develop with one another by amplifying anxieties of community safety, immigration, and sexuality to warp the discussion about how a city can develop. This masks a discussion that is about class hatred and white supremacy in the codes of revitalization.

Then debates around housing to boil down to “supply and demand” without ever asking “what kind of supply, and what kind of demand?” The discussion hardly ever arrives at what it takes to make an open, egalitarian city that honors its workers, preserves communities of color, and develops a strong artistic life that cannot be manipulated to help destroy all desirable areas of life.

Governing Under the Influence of…

San Francisco is a city that enjoys booze and sex. We enjoy both in every conceivable variety and mixture. This joie de vivre is responsible for attracting folks from all over the globe to live here, brave the high rents, and ignore the fact that the City only really enjoys 1.5 changes of season. Mayor Gavin Newsom’s troubles raise a lot of questions, but with the very critical exception of the possibility of sexual harassment in city employment, none of it is anybody else’s business.

I write this as someone whose “Matt for Mayor” sticker only recently fell off his bike.

I’m not writing to defend the Mayor, rather the basic principles of privacy which dictate that we treat sex, and sexual indiscretions, as solely the business of the of those having it or directly harmed by it. That excludes just about everyone, except for three people.  Once the decency police are unleashed, they rarely relent. Then no one’s bedroom is safe. As for the booze, you can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting someone who is high on something. As the great prophet Marilyn Manson said “We’re all stars in the dope show.” That means that if you aren’t a star, you are probably a supporting character. We on the left are the first to call for Harm Reduction, and compassionate approaches to the illness of addiction. That said we can only sincerely wish the Mayor a speedy and meaningful recovery.

However, there is one form of governing under the influence that always needs scrutiny-the influence of corporations, big money, crooked lobbyists and the real estate industry.

So ultimately Gavin Newsom will be judged not by the influence of alcohol and women in his life.

Rather, when the true history of the Newsom years are written, the following questions will need to be answered:

Did the Mayor preside over a redevelopment of the Bayview District which revitalized the neighborhood for the exisiting community or one that decimated one of the last African-American communities in San Francisco? Did he truly deal with the homeless epidemic or did his programs pit various populations of poor people against each other for the same small scraps of housing? Did this administration manage to stem the tide of street violence without turning San Francisco into a surveilance state? Did San Francisco stand by while the Inland Boatmen’s Union was busted by the Hornblower Corporation? Will San Francisco be developed in a way that preserves the brilliant diversity of our city, or turn Baghdad-by-the-Bay into Disneyland of the North? Will our city find a way to build more truly affordable family housing, or will the city become a sick version of Logan’s Run, where no one over thirty is welcome?

At each of these points, tough decisions will have to be made.

While some of them might require a stiff whisky, none should be made under the influence of the kind of money that would steal your mother’s pacemaker if it means a higher return on a Tenancy in Common.

The answers to these questions are, everyone’s business.

A World of Possibilities at 45 Westpoint

Originally published in Processed World, Winter 2004. Thanks Chris!

Thanksgiving Morning 2003. At the intersection of 30th and Mission an odd assortment of humanity gathered—even by San Franciscan standards. Homeless families, most with strollers in tow, cautiously mingled with trade union activists. College students tried out their Spanish on Latino day laborers. Street punks, checked out the non-profit workers with a sneer that acknowledged “I’ll probably be you one day.” The crowd of about 140 had diversity written all over it—elderly and young, and enough ethnicity to make even the most jaded observer speak about Rainbow Coalitions as if the idea was just invented five minutes ago.

Protest signs handed out casually read “Let Us In!” below a cartoon of a global village angry mob. The mood remained mellow, maybe strangely so for a group of people who, in an hour’s time would be participating in an illegal takeover of vacant housing; one unit among thousands owned by the San Francisco Housing Authority —the often troubled agency that is charged with providing homes for the city’s most impoverished.

Photo by Joseph Smooke

Announcements are made: the bus chartered to bring the protesters to the secret takeover site is late, but will arrive shortly. The driver of the bus had been reached by cell phone and reported a hangover from which he’d just woken up. He would be stopping for a strong cup of coffee. Even on Thanksgiving Day, there was more than one protest going on in San Francisco. A couple of hundred feet away, United Food and Commercial Workers members picketed Safeway in the ongoing battle over the company’s attempts to do away with healthcare benefits. A delegation went over to wish the unionists well as one nervous housing protester tried to conceal the Safeway logo on her fresh cup of coffee.