Military recruiters are known for minimizing the personal risk associated with joining the armed forces. They are very good at exploiting any sense of invincibility that comes from the average teenager’s lack of direct experience with death or serious injury. If necessary, a recruiter will admit to a young person that bad things do sometimes happen in the military, but they only happen to people who are too “weak” or “stupid” to survive the challenges of being a proud member of the U.S. (insert the military branch here). [Read more…]
U.S. Border Patrol Gone Wild: “If the U.S. is not a Police State now, it soon will be!”
By Herman Baca / President, Committee on Chicano Rights
The stopping, detaining, and the senior citizen abuse of 96 year old ex.-Governor (1974-77), of Arizona, Raul Castro along with his wife and Ms. Anne Doan (driver) by the U.S. Border Patrol raises legal and constitutional questions that the Committee on Chicano Rights (CCR) has requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate. The history of the U.S. Border Patrol… the agency was organized in 1924 and is the only national police force in the U.S. The agency was created specifically to deal with persons of Mexican ancestry and was modeled after the infamous Texas Rangers that served as the private army for Texas cattle barons and agricultural business interests. Their primary enforcement job was to insure that no person of Mexican ancestry (citizens, documented, or undocumented) got to “uppity” and started to demand the same rights, wages or working conditions as their Anglo counterparts. Since 1924 that law enforcement job has been carried out nationally by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Bert Corona, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez, Cesar Chavez and numerous others have rightfully labeled the U.S. Border Patrol, “the Gestapo of the Mexican People.”
[Read more…]
Anti-Nuke Activists Strike Deal With Labor Over San Onofre Outage: Call for Independent Review and Hearing Before Restart
Safety Advocates Strike Exceptional Pact with Labor
One of the items approved on the agenda of the California Democratic Party’s Executive Board meeting in Anaheim this past weekend was a resolution that calls for an independent design review and public hearing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides to restart either Units 2 or 3.
The resolution was a compromise worked out between anti-nuke activists and labor advocates over the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant since its outages earlier this year. Here’s the final wording:
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the California Democratic Party calls for an independent design review prior to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to permit a restart of either Unit 2 or 3, culminating in an adjudicatory hearing including discovery, testimony and cross-examination by independent experts on whether it is safe to restart the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant before it makes a decision on whether to permit a restart of either Unit 2 or 3.
Based on a final consensus between anti-nuke advocates and the Labor Caucus of the state party, the resolution is remarkable because for the first time since the crisis at San Onofre, labor advocates and union reps have come together to address the array of issues that has been forced upon them. [Read more…]
‘Hands Across the Sand’ Protest of Offshore Drilling Scheduled for Aug. 4 in La Jolla
The San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation continues its involvement in the international movement opposed to any new offshore drilling – called “Hands Across the Sands” – by sponsoring its annual local protest here in San Diego.
The demonstration will be at noon on Saturday, August 4th in La Jolla. Here is the facebook page for the La Jolla protest. Protest organizers say any increase in offshore drilling will add to the degradation of the sea and marine life.
Also planned is a Hands Across the Sand action at the Oceanside Pier up in Oceanside, at the same time. And here is the facebook page for that event. San Clemente will also hold theirs.
Haley Jain Haggerstone, the local chapter coordinator, told the media:
“We are asking San Diegans to help us draw a line in the sand, literally and figuratively, to demonstrate our opposition to offshore drilling and support for clean energy alternatives. The future of our oceans, waves and beaches depends on it.”
The Starting Line – Controversies Plague Local, National GOP Campaigns
It may be August, but the back and forth between political campaigns continues at a pace that leads us to wonder just how crazy things will get come post-Labor Day, which is when these sorts of contests usually heat up. Here in San Diego, today’s coverage highlights differences of opinion within the GOP regarding the ‘non-partisan’ race for Mayor of San Diego, which is actually hyper-partisan this year. And on the national scene, Democrats continue to dog presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney with allegations designed to raise questions about his character. So join me today as we take a peek into the sausage making process that passes for selecting our leaders in this day and age.
“I hope Tom enjoys his 30 pieces of silver…” Political consultant Tom Shepard’s decision to sign on with Mayoral candidate Bob Filner continues to have repercussions on the local political scene. Republican Party leader Tony Kraric’s comment over at conserv blog SDRostra comparing Shepard to Judas unleashed a lively exchange (this is excerpted, there’s plenty more over at their site) :
From Tony Krvaric…Long-time Republican consultant Tom Shepard today signed on as a consultant for Bob Filner. Yes, you read that right and no, this is not a joke. This is a betrayal of our entire reform effort that so many have been working on for so long.
That said, I have no doubt that we will prevail in November because Carl DeMaio is a superior candidate and the voters are with us on the issues. Plus, Tom’s two latest campaigns in the City of San Diego were abysmal failures; Proposition D (sales tax increase) and a certain failed mayoral campaign.
I hope Tom enjoys his 30 pieces of silver.
Best, Tony
P.S. The Republican Party of San Diego County will not do business with him ever again as long as I remain chairman. Elephants don’t forget – and principles matter.
more inside… [Read more…]
U-T San Diego Misrepresents Work by San Diego River Park Foundation – It Does Not Roust the Homeless
Having just gotten off the phone with Richard Dhu, program manager at the San Diego River Park Foundation, I found I had to totally re-orient the article I was writing on whether his clean river program rousts the homeless from the San Diego River area. It does not do that, he said.
I had called him because of a U-T San Diego article written by Mike Lee about the Foundation’s latest river clean-up. In his article, posted July 27th, Lee – it appears – misrepresented what the Foundation is doing. In his opening sentence, Lee spells out his perspective:
“The San Diego River Park Foundation is launching a yearlong cleanup initiative in the Mission Valley Preserve to reduce homeless camps and garbage that gathers along the river’s lower stretch.” (My emphasis.)
“That’s not what we’re doing,” Richard told me this morning when I asked him about Lee’s article. Richard told me that is not what he told Lee. There is nothing about dealing with the homeless in his group’s mission statement, plus, Richard said, they receive grant monies and not any for rousting homeless people. [Read more…]
The Starting Line – Is Carl DeMaio Really Comparable To Harvey Milk?
Last weekends’ protest aimed at Mayoral candidate and City Councilman Carl DeMaio during the 38th annual Pride parade continues to reverberate throughout the community. Johnathan Hale, publisher of SDGLN.com – who also happens to be DeMaio’s significant other – posted an article entitled Letter to the Community: Real LGBT leaders don’t put politics above Pride that has provoked fierce debates across social media platforms. The commentary compared DeMaio to LGBT political icon Harvey Milk and accused labor unions of organizing and funding the “Turn Your Back on Carl DeMaio” campaign.
Activist Wendy Sue Biegeleisen took to Facebook to respond, saying, “Harvey Milk was Jewish, from NY and fought for the underdog. He was pro-union, labor, supported diversity, feminism and Equal Rights for all LGBTQQIA people. What about this description sounds like Carl Demaio?” Labor Council leader Lorena Gonzalez, joined the debate via Twitter from the east coast, denying that Labor had a role in the protest and challenging Hale to prove his charges. Kelly Davis over at City Beat chimed in by pointing out that DeMaio “gave LGBT community plenty to be pissed off about by courting support of Charles LiMandri” and posting a link to an article about that controversy the paper had run. SDGLN tweeted back, saying “when @SDCityBeat covers Pride a stellar as the UT did this year, THEN we’ll take your opinions on LGBT issues seriously.” [Read more…]
Pacific Beach Planning Board Resists City Builders’ Plans for Beach Development
For the moment, city plans to develop the coastal cliff beach at Law St. in North Pacific Beach, with another new live-in lifeguard tower and garages, have met with an equally divided planning board, 7-7, with the tie vote cast by the board president, in a heated debate at the last PB Planning Board meeting, July 25, 2012, at the PB library community room.
Planning Board members, trying to balance the needs of the lifeguards and public safety, and city contractor jobs, with the obvious coastal erosion and rising ocean level concerns evident at this beach, decided to delay consideration of this project until more information can be provided. Questions as to the true nature and need of the project before a site could be chosen were at the forefront of the dilemma. [Read more…]
Brief History of OB Grassroots Activism – Part 2
This first appeared at the OB Rag.
This is Part 2 of my “brief” history of modern OB activism. Here’s Part 1. It is taken from a talk I gave at the Open House of the Green Store on July 14th.
The Eighties
The 1980s were a period of accommodation. Hippie businessmen and women emerged on the scene in OB and were accepted. The projects of the hippie radicals of the late Sixties and Seventies had all but faded away – many of the hippies remained however, buying homes in OB or Point Loma, getting married, and having careers and children. But the radical pioneers had paved the way for a new wave of hippies – it was the coming of age of the “hip-oisie”, a type of hip petite-bourgeoisie.
Young, hip businesspeople not only emerged and opened up shops within OB’s business centers, but they became the leaders on Newport Avenue, breathing new life into a older, moribund business elite that had grown out of touch with the residents of the community.
The new hip-oisie ushered in a new type of activism, an activism that resulted in such mainstays that they are taken for granted today : the OB Christmas-then-Holiday Parade, the Christmas Tree, the OB Geriatric Surf Team, the annual OB Street Fair. In essence, then, over the decade, there had been a re-making of the main commercial street in the village. Newport Ave had experienced an overhaul.
[Read more…]
Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial to Get Wired
by Frances Zimmerman
Influential and privately-funded Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial Association (VMA) got backing Monday afternoon from the volunteer citizens advisory group at La Jolla Parks and Beaches (LJP&B) to install an electrical easement at the City of San Diego’s 118-acre Mount Soledad Natural Park.
The motion, made by LJP&B members Dan Allen and seconded by John Beaver, passed 9 to 3. An earlier motion to deny the VMA’s request to install lighting failed 10 to 3. A representative of the Sierra Club was among those who spoke against electrification, citing light pollution and negative effects on celestial observation. [Read more…]
A (Brief) History of Ocean Beach Grassroots Activism
The following is based on a talk I gave at the Green Store’s Open House on Saturday, July 14th.
This is an outline of the history – the modern history – of OB grassroots activism – which began in the late Sixties with the development and growth of the hippie sub-culture, the counter-culture.
By 1967, Ocean Beach had become the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego. OB was the San Diego equivalent of that fabled and iconic San Francisco neighborhood that had become synonymous with “hippie-ism”. If you were a hippie or a hippie-wannabe during this time somewhere in San Diego, you ended up in OB.
Of course, other factors contributed to the incubation in Ocean Beach of a community sympathetic and supportive of the new emerging counter-counter: before there were long-haired hippies in OB, there were long-haired surfers – as this community had been a center of surf-culture for years by time OB had morphed into a hippie haven. And, more in general, OB had been a classic southern California beach-college town, where students and young people made up a huge proportion of the residents. There were no colleges right in OB, but there were plenty close by. Cal-Western (now Nazarene) was just up the hill in Point Loma. Plus OB was a bedroom community for USD – also not too far away, but especially for San Diego State, and Mesa, City, UCSD.
[Read more…]
4th Night of Unrest in Anaheim As Protesters Confront Police – Support Caravan Planned From San Diego
Hundreds of Protesters – 24 Arrests and 7 Hours of Confrontations
Unrest continued last night – Tuesday, July 24th – in Anaheim, the fourth night in a row – between community residents protesting recent police lethal shootings and law enforcement. 24 arrests were made yesterday and overnight, near a half dozen injuries occurred during the seven hours of conflict Tuesday that ended around 2 a.m.
Anaheim police remained on alert Wednesday. The family of the man fatally shot on Saturday is suing the City and police and a support caravan from San Diego is going up to Anaheim on Sunday, July 29th.
Between 500 and 600 demonstrators were reported to have carried out protests throughout Tuesday, as hundreds of extra police were brought in to supplement Anaheim’s city police. Many of the protests were peaceful, yet police again fired pepper balls and beanbags at unarmed protesters. Some business windows were smashed, rocks were thrown at police, and dumpsters lit on fire.
[Read more…]
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