San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Columns

Border Angels Open Door Between San Diego and Tijuana

by

Right Wing ‘Rebel Alliances’ in Imperial Beach

Before the elections, Imperial Beach residents received unsigned election fliers in their mailboxes. The fliers asked people to join “Rebel Alliances” and contained debunked conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton. Vincent Farnsworth at the San Diego Reader reported here.

Border Residents and a Trump Presidency

Residents and employees at the U.S.-Mexican border feel jittery after Trump’s election, especially since Mexico is the U.S.’s third largest trade partner. What’s more, calls for “Build a Wall” baffle some of us because — here’s what Border Field State Park looks like today.   [Read more…]

Congressmen Darrell Issa and Duncan Duane Hunter: San Diego’s Sore Winners

by

In recent days the richest man in Congress has sent three fundraising appeals to supporters claiming that an election he’s likely won is being compromised by ‘liberals’ with ‘illegal votes.’

Representative Darrell Issa has apparently survived a challenge from Doug Applegate, though his margin of victory is much smaller than he’s used to. Recent reports from voter registrars in San Diego and Orange Counties indicate the incumbent he has a 2% (4000+ votes) lead. There are still ballots to be counted, but it’s rare for a lead of this size to change with late returns.

Issa, who was known as the House ‘Mini-Trump’ until he volunteered to advise Hillary Clinton late in the campaign when he thought she was winning, wants to gin up the fear. He’s inferring the disproven/fake news account currently being consumed on social media saying 3 million ‘illegals’ were allowed is a threat to his incumbency.   [Read more…]

Post-Election: Infighting & Hate Speech vs Emerging Local Actions

by

The shock and awe phase of the post-election period is winding down. Now the question ‘what next?’ is coming to the forefront of public consciousness.

Lots of people have ideas. Some of them are pipe dreams. Some of them are impractical. And some of them will evolve into what I can only hope is a wave of widespread, sustained, and effective resistance to the Trump administration’s policy proposals. (Friday’s column will focus on San Diego-oriented activities.)

For the moment what people are protesting is the very idea of Trump taking over the executive branch along with promises made on the campaign trail. It’s a murky mess to organize against because the man has no plan and his advisors are squabbling.   [Read more…]

Facebook’s Complicity in Trump’s New Order

by

In the 21st century world of social media as a source of news and information, the truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Tell a lie on Facebook and you’ll likely be rewarded with a large audience. Tell (for some) an unpleasant truth and the vigilantes of darkness will leverage their technical expertise to get an offending account expunged.

A made up story from a Macedonian site claiming Hillary Clinton had once said candidates like Donald Trump should run for office because they were honest and couldn’t be bought garnered more than twice the response (in a week) of the New York Times exclusive story (over a month period) revealing the GOP nominee declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns.

Diverse media outlets including the New York Times and the MIT Technology Review are examining how much those fake headlines influenced the election. New York Magazine cut to the chase with the headline “Donald Trump won because of Facebook.”   [Read more…]

Bin Laden Won from the Grave on November 8, 2016

by

In some deep, dark corner of hell, Osama Bin Laden must be having a good laugh. Fifteen-plus years after his group leveraged a half-million dollars in costs into a $4 trillion hit on the global economy, the after-shocks continue to eat away at the core of the secular democracy he so despised.

While a good part of the al-Qaeda plan may have been to provoke the United States to increase its military and cultural presence in the Middle East, it also spawned a rot domestically.

I would argue there is a definable link from much of the US response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center with the economic and political conditions making possible the election of Donald J. Trump as President.

It’s not the only reason or even the main reason. But there’s a connection.   [Read more…]

You Want It Darker: Why Trump and What Next?

by

I spent the days after the election, one that I too had hoped and predicted that Clinton would win, mourning and comforting despairing friends, colleagues, and students afraid of what the future will bring. Where I teach at San Diego City College, the majority of the students are part of the America that Trump hates. There is terror at the thought of family members being deported, unease at the prospect of discriminatory policies based on religion, race, gender, and sexuality, and fear of a cynical climate-denying opportunist bent on sealing the fate of the endangered natural world.

Most of all, there is grief and rage over the murder of hope.

Somehow it was fitting that Leonard Cohen died this week after penning one last shout: “You Want It Darker”   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: November 6-12

by

This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: the rise of a dictator and the end of American democracy. Plus, lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.
  [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Depreciation

by

Driving
with the check engine light on
because auto repair
is grand theft

Like most of the middle class
I’m being written off
road   [Read more…]

San Diego Democrats Dominate in Local Contests

by

San Diego Democrats came away with an impressive set of victories in the 2016 general elections, though you wouldn’t have known it from all the glum faces at election central on Tuesday night.

The implications of their party’s loss at the top of the ticket ruined the night for most folks. The question remaining now is how effective Democrats in San Diego and California will be in the face of a tidal wave of reaction coming out of Washington DC.

How bad is it? It’s so bad that Congressman Duncan Hunter, Jr has emerged as one of those being vetted for a position in Trump administration’s Department of Defense.   [Read more…]

South Bay Election Results: Highlights, Insider Information and Facts

by

This year, I tried to cover elections for a region that often feels ignored: the South Bay — defined as everything south of the I-54 (including National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and South San Diego). For Democrats and pro-labor, the overall results were quite positive in this region.

Here, I want to introduce you to the candidates based on my own coverage. During this election cycle, I have gotten to know many of the candidates and wish them all best of luck serving our communities.
  [Read more…]

Let’s Do This, People. Calls to Action & Nationwide Anti-Trump Protests

by

Emerging from shock and denial over the results of the 2016 Presidential election, protesters took to the streets in more than two dozen cities nationwide, including San Diego.

Carrying signs including slogans like #NotMyPresident, “Misogyny Has to Go”, “Black Lives Matter” and “Trump Makes America Hate,” demonstrators carried flags and effigies of the president-elect, disrupted traffic, and declared a refusal to accept Trump’s victory.   [Read more…]

California Goes a Different Way in 2016: Election Reactions & Results

by

San Diego, Statewide Results on Propositions, Legislative & Federal Offices

Voters in the State of California opted for more progressive choices when it came to elected officials than most of the rest of the country.

Nationally, it should be noted marijuana measures did well (except Arizona), as did minimum wage increases, and paid sick leave, along with reform-oriented local prosecutors.

(It’s a two-column day, folks. Look for coverage of protests & calls for action in a subsequent piece, posted as fast as I can type.)   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry