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The Collected Works of Our Savior Nathan Fletcher, the Magic Democrat

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By Jim Miller

In the aftermath of the Filner resignation, a group of Democratic Party insiders and money people are continuing to run around with their hair on fire trying to anoint Nathan Fletcher as our savior and discourage other truly progressive candidates from entering the field.

Of course this includes folks like Christine Forrester, who runs a marketing consulting firm that connects businesses with hedge fund money, and former Labor Council leader Lorena Gonzalez, who has long been championing her personal friend, the former Assemblyman with an 18% labor voting record over the vociferous objections of many in labor.

Indeed, anyone who has been closely following the inside moves behind the curtain of the Filner scandal knows that the backroom meetings and fundraising efforts designed to put the fix in for Fletcher began simultaneously with the press conferences that kicked off our month-long three ring circus.

Let me be clear, Filner certainly opened the door for them with his bad behavior but they didn’t waste a second rushing in to ensure his quick political demise and Fletcher’s ascendancy. It’s not a conspiracy; it’s just inside game politics and Machiavellian opportunism at its worst by Democratic power brokers and moneyed interests who want to fix the game before any of us get to play.   [Read more…]

Dispatches from the Higher Education Wars: Wins for City College of San Francisco, Outsourcing Opponents, and Adult Education

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By Jim Miller

Last week I outlined the plight of the City College of San Francisco (CCSF) noting that CCSF had become the “Chicago of Higher Education” as the college and their community allies were engaged in a struggle to stop the loss of its accreditation at the hands of a corrupt commission that was driven by a misguided corporate education reform agenda.

The California Federation of Teacher’s (CFT) response to this untenable situation was to file a complaint with the ACCJC noting the commission’s failure to follow state and federal law in a variety of areas while being arbitrarily punitive with their sanctions of CCSF. Predictably, ACCJC dismissed the CFT complaint, which was then sent to the Department of Education (DOE) who oversees the commission.

On August 13th, the DOE responded to CFT’s complaint by concluding that the ACCJC had indeed violated Federal regulations by not adequately representing faculty on their visiting teams, refusing to comply with conflict of interest requirements, failing to clearly indicate the significance of their recommendations with regard to meeting standards, and inconsistently enforcing their “recommendations.” The DOE letter to ACCJC ends by noting that given the fact that ACCJC is itself up for renewal by the DOE, the DOE will conduct a full review of their practices that may include other deficiencies not raised in their preliminary report. Hence, after pulling the accreditation of CCSF the ACCJC itself may now face a similar fate.   [Read more…]

Corporate Education Reform Goes to College: San Francisco is the “Chicago of Higher Education”

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By Jim Miller

This summer few people outside of the Bay Area probably noted what was one of the most important stories about higher education in America: City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is losing its accreditation.

After years of wrangling, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), one of the seven regional accreditors in the western United States whose job it is to ensure the quality of higher education programs announced that CCSF was losing its accreditation in July of 2014.

Why should you care? Because ACCJC’s decision had very little to do with the quality of instruction and much more to do with imposing a new business model on community colleges that narrows their mission and opens the door to more privatization in American higher education. And San Francisco is being used as an example to intimidate other colleges to fall in line with ACCJC’s questionable “reform” agenda. Thus, what happened in San Francisco could happen in San Diego.   [Read more…]

Driven to Despair: The Plight of San Diego’s Taxi Drivers and How We Can Help Them in Their Fight for Economic Justice

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By Jim Miller

Last week President Obama sought to turn the nation’s attention toward the fact that the income gap is fraying the U.S. social fabric.  In an interview with the New York Times he noted that “the idea is to promote those things in service of the lives of ordinary Americans getting better” and told reporters that he keeps a framed program from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in his office to remind him that there was a “massive economic component to that” as well as a civil rights focus.

Sadly, however, while Obama discussed the need to move away from the austerity policies of the Republicans and how fiscal policy might be used to help American workers he didn’t even mention the notion that we could empower workers themselves in their fight for a better life. Indeed, he hasn’t really done much in this regard for his entire presidency, but perhaps we might see a pivot in this direction in the coming weeks.  Surely there’s plenty of work to be done on this front.   [Read more…]

Darkness Drops: Filner’s Political Death Spiral Continues and the Likely Endgame

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The fun never stops in America’s Finest City.

By Jim Miller

Last week, Irene McCormack delivered Filner the political equivalent of a deathblow. As I noted in the wake of the announcement of her case, “In contrast to the first two press conferences which I think did it the wrong way, in the press conference yesterday McCormack and Allred had fewer dramatics and more professionalism and dignity.  I think McCormack deserves to be taken seriously and respected.” And she has been.

Indeed, rather than the “drip, drip, drip” I predicted two weeks ago would “surely force him out or get him recalled”, there has been a deluge.

After McCormack, six other women came out publicly with more accusations of unprofessional and inappropriate if not illegal behavior by the mayor. In the wake of these accusations, the Democratic Party abandoned him, and on Friday he announced that he is going into a treatment program rather than resigning, assuring that this nightmare saga will continue indefinitely.   [Read more…]

The Widening Gyre: The Filner Follies and the Ugly Real Politik

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The “political circus” is in town for a long engagement and it is already clear that we have plenty of clowns lining up to perform in it.

By Jim Miller

Last week, in the wake of the first round of accusations of sexual harassment and Filner’s apology for “not fully respecting” and “intimidating” women I noted that: “Thus, the real winners here are the same old downtown insiders who are busy popping champagne corks and laughing at Filner’s implosion and cheering the welcome help they are getting from unlikely sources.”

Nothing has happened to change this assessment.

Some Filner supporters I have spoken to and who commented on my piece chastised me for being too pessimistic but, sadly, I don’t think I am.   [Read more…]

Things Fall Apart: Filner’s Betrayal and the “Political Circus”

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…the real winners here are the same old downtown insiders who are busy popping champagne corks and laughing at Filner’s implosion and cheering the welcome help they are getting from unlikely sources. 

By Jim Miller

Whatever the end result of the Filner sexual harassment scandal, it’s clear that even if the mayor beats the odds and survives, his credibility and ability to move a bold populist agenda is severely damaged. Hence, San Diego’s first truly progressive mayor may have squandered the opportunity to be a transformative figure, the progressive fighter and game changer we had hoped he would be. Worst of all by engaging in abusive behavior towards women, Filner has betrayed the core principles of any progressive politics by failing to respect the civil rights and humanity of women. We don’t need to hear all of the details to know that this is true–he has admitted as much himself.

Additionally, and equally important, Filner’s actions are a betrayal to all those in the broad, historic progressive coalition who worked to elect him. I have spoken to dozens of my friends in labor and community activist groups over the last few days and folks are universally angry and depressed. His fall from grace will have broad and long-term consequences, disillusioning and discouraging people from hoping for change in our city and, discrediting by proxy those who aggressively contest the entrenched interests that Filner had rightfully been fighting. It will take a long time to recover from this.   [Read more…]

Is Your Vacation Stealing Your Life?

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By Jim Miller

Upon returning from my travels it was with some amusement that I noted the tag at the end of my “greatest hits” series of columns in June: “We’re re-running some of the best of his columns while Jim takes this ‘vacation’ thing we keep hearing about.” I was amused because I hate “vacations.”

Hate vacations? What am I crazy? No, not crazy just not a fan of the way our consumer culture steals our lives and sells them back to us. As Michael Ventura notes in his seminal essay, “Report from El Dorado”:

Our idea of “a vacation” is an idea only about 100 years old. To “vacation” is to enter an image. Las Vegas is only the most shrill embodiment of this phenomenon … People come here to step into an image, a daydream, a film-like world where “everything” is promised. No matter that the Vegas definition of “everything” is severely limited, what thrills tourists is the sense of being surrounded in “real life” by the same images they see on TV. But the same is true of the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Park or Yosemite or Death Valley or virtually any of our “natural” attractions.

Indeed, when we consume packaged experiences, even the most beautiful “natural” phenomenon can be drained of any wonder. When all that was once directly lived moves away into the realm of representation, we struggle to escape from the poverty of our experience. Thus, as the Situationists put it back in the 1960s, tourism is “the chance to go see what has been made banal.”   [Read more…]

Why Can’t Mayor Filner Just Be Nicer?: Corporate News as Propaganda, San Diego Style

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By Jim Miller

In this final installment of Under the Perfect Sun media critique greatest hits, I apply the propaganda model to San Diego’s media scene.  Interestingly, it should be noted that while the local press have largely continued the Filner as disruptive narrative cited here, articles in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have recently presented a much prettier picture of Filner as a game changing mayor on multiple fronts.  This is surely an embarrassing development in the House of Manchester, but don’t expect that to change the party line.  

As the historic battle between Mayor Filner and San Diego’s big hoteliers over the tourism marketing deal unfolds, it’s clear where the lines are drawn.

On one side, you have a new strong mayor who is committed to ending business as usual in San Diego and on the other, you have folks like Terry Brown, chairman of the San Diego Tourism Marketing Association who, as Matt Potter at The San Diego Reader has pointed out, is a big time Republican funder as are the crew of business lobbyists, real estate developers, and San Diego Taxpayer Association types who have miraculously found they can love a tax after it has transubstantiated into a fee and serves as a giveaway to corporate interests.   [Read more…]

Corporate Censorship in 2012: All the News They Didn’t Deem Fit to Print

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By Jim Miller

In last week’s column, I discussed Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s propaganda model and noted how it was even more relevant today than it was when they first published Manufacturing Consent in 1988 as the concentration of media ownership they decried in the eighties has only continued to increase dramatically.  I ended that column by referring to Project Censored, an organization that has been monitoring the news media and putting out a list of the top 25 “censored” stories of the year since 1976.

Recently when I mentioned this project to a former journalist friend of mine he objected to the use of the word “censorship” because he didn’t think it applied to the news media, a group of people who, in his estimation, are far more driven by market forces than by the desire to monitor ideas.  With that objection in mind, let’s consider Project Censored’s definition of the term “censorship”

We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets.

Eds. Note: Originally Posted December 10, 2012. We’re re-running some of the best of his columns while Jim takes this ‘vacation’ thing we keep hearing about.   [Read more…]

Beyond the “Conservative Entertainment Complex”

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By Jim Miller

In this column that originally ran in December of last year, I discuss “the conservative media entertainment complex” as conceived of by former Bush propagandist David Frum and note that he only touches on the tip of the corporate media propaganda iceberg.  What follows this is a beginners primer on how to decipher corporate media propaganda.  

In the weeks following the election, David Frum made waves by explaining the shock in conservative circles over Romney’s loss with a bit of interesting media criticism: “Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.”

Of course, those of us with a historical memory longer than five minutes found it amusing to hear this from Frum, the author of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech.  Indeed, Frum was one of the central ideologues promulgating lies aboutIraqand demonizing dissent as unpatriotic.  I guess it takes one to know one.

Still, despite the bitter irony of Frum playing the role of truth-teller, he is on to something.  The trouble with his analysis is that it stops at the obvious.  The truth is that the problem with the media is not limited to the universe of Fox News and right wing radio pundits.  The American media landscape distorts the truth not because it is liberal or conservative but because it is corporate.

Eds. Note: Originally Posted in December 2012. We’re re-running some of the best of his columns while Jim takes this ‘vacation’ thing we keep hearing about.   [Read more…]

Why the San Diego Free Press Matters

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By Jim Miller

When Doug Porter asked the writers at the San Diego Free Press to share their thoughts about our project during the first anniversary of this site, I remembered the column I wrote upon returning from a trip up to Northern California where I had learned of the death of Alexander Cockburn.

My reflections on his life’s work made me think about what the Free Press should be, and what I believe it has been at its best…   [Read more…]

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