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Earl McNeil: No Justice! No Peace! Riot Police Summoned for National City Council Meeting

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Another week has gone by without the National City Police Department coming clean about what happened to Earl McNeil, who never regained consciousness after being taken into custody on May 27. He passed on at UCSD Medical Center on June 11.

The man may be dead, but he’s not been forgotten. The story of his arrest and the lack of transparency about what happened afterward have begun to attract national attention, thanks to the persistence of community activists.

The fourth consecutive protest at a National City Council meeting brought police in riot gear from six agencies around San Diego County. Platoons of cops marched up and down outside the meeting, forcing the two dozen or so demonstrators off the sidewalks for no apparent reason.   [Read more…]

Homes for the Homeless in San Diego Will Have to Wait. And It’s Nobody’s Fault. Really?

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The people who need housing the most –namely those without– have been shafted again.

Having an affordable and safe place to live shouldn’t be as hard as it is in San Diego. Excuses are made, studies are promised, politicians pledge to take action. And the situation gets worse by the day.

A handful of stories published in the local press in recent weeks taken together highlight just how bad things really are. I have two thoughts on the subject: excuses are for losers, and housing ought to be treated as a right rather than a goal.   [Read more…]

John Cox Can’t Escape Trump’s Shadow in the Race for California Governor

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Gubernatorial candidate John Cox is the latest in a long line of business executives who believe their experiences in the boardroom make then qualified to run the state of California.

To be sure, he was the less extreme of the GOP candidates with name recognition in the June 5 primary. His approach is less bombastic than Travis Allen, but that’s just a matter of rhetoric.

A debate between the two men (and Doug Ose, who dropped out shortly thereafter) in February turned into a bragfest about who supported The Dear Leader the most.   [Read more…]

Resistance at Comic-Con: Voting is a Superpower | Progressive Activist Calendar July 20 – 30, 2018

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Local Indivisible chapters have joined forces with democracy-loving cultural celebrities at this year’s Comic-Con as it stages its 48th annual exposition of comics and related popular artforms in San Diego.

A team of more than fifty people has been recruited to register voters for the 2018 midterm elections inside and outside the San Diego Convention Center.  Indie comic book publisher Matteo Pizzolo of Black Mask Studios has partnered with Indivisible to reach guests from all across the country using an app that facilitates online registration.

Using the theme “Voting Is My Superpower”, volunteers in T-shirts and capes are conducting what observers believe is the first time an organized drive has taken place within Comic-Con. The drive is nonpartisan.   [Read more…]

Racism 101: White Lady Reporter Wants You to Know Black Lives Matter is Coming to National City to Riot

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“…They are demanding answers and they say they are not going to go away until they get them. The groups say next they plan on collaborating with the National Black Lives Matter group and staging riots in the streets if necessary; that is if the National City Police Department doesn’t release police body worn camera [footage] of an incident where a man died in custody.” —NBC 7 Reporter Wendy Fry

UPDATE: “Never mind” says NBC7. “An NBC 7 article referred to demonstrators staging riots in the streets in their pursuit of information. NBC 7 could not attribute that development to a specific community leader and has corrected the text. We greatly regret the error.”

UPDATED UPDATE: The reporter in question is sorry/not sorry

Protests are sometimes loud. They’re always messy. And they’re emotional. They’re challenging for reporters to cover because of the linguistic shorthand used by activists to make their points. 

NBC7’s Wendy Fry takes the cake for decorating her reporting with racist suppositions drawn from the tumultuous protests ongoing at council meetings in National City.
  [Read more…]

On Vidkum Quisling’s Birthday, Reflections on Defeating a Trump-Putin Alliance

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“Yay! I get to vote!” isn’t much consolation to somebody living in a tent.

The statements and actions of the President of the United States of America continue to dominate the news following his acquiescence to the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Those who have proclaimed the uproar over hell freezing over in Helsinki as a turning point (the ‘last straw’ seems to be a popular euphemism) fail to acknowledge Trumps many enablers. There will be no miracle. The Trump train will continue to roll.

The path for progressives and people with good intentions worldwide is to see Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as two sides of the same coin. And to understand that a restoration of any of the trappings of traditional Western Democracy cannot occur with a fundamental reorganization of the economy.   [Read more…]

In the Wake of Yet Another Scandal, UFCW Local 135 Members Want Their Union Back

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United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 135 president Mickey Kasparian is, once again, in the news. In recent years, prior to becoming embroiled in scandal, Kasparian presented himself as a progressive leader in local politics.

That was before multiple women from the local filed (and subsequently settled) lawsuits against him. That was before he was ‘I Quit/You’re Fired’ as president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. That was before he operated in sync with the ultra-reactionary Lincoln Club to oppose Democrat Nathan Fletcher as a candidate for County Supervisor. That was before he jumped into bed with the National City reactionary mayor’s attempt to derail the candidacy of a progressive Latina.

And that was before the latest scandal triggered by accusations that Kasparian was seeking to avoid having to face his membership in a re-election campaign in the wake of allegations about nearly $700,000 in union funds being used to settle a gender based lawsuit filed by a women with another union.

Phew. Doesn’t sound very progressive, does it?   [Read more…]

Facebook, Fascism, Trolls, and Press Freedom in 2018

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This is the week when the San Diego Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists holds its annual awards dinner, recognizing the many efforts in the region attempting to communicate about the people, places and things surrounding us.

Many forms of media and the humans seeking to tell stories co-exist for a few hours over a shared meal with the opportunity to gain a perspective outside their silos. Most won’t venture too far outside their personal safety zones even as the breadth of the field is on display around them.

What we media folk have in common greatly outweighs the things dividing us. Alt, non-profit, student, independent, corporate, data-driven, opinionated, virtual, electronic, and print journalists are all up against forces of change in a world where truth means less than fealty.   [Read more…]

Persist With Pride, Even Though the World is Crazy | Progressive Activist Calendar July 13 – 23, 2018

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As we survey the admittedly depressing landscape of politics in this country, this weekend provides the opportunity to observe some of the accomplishments of the past few decades by activists and allies in the LBGTQ movement.

San Diego Pride festivities have grown from a small grassroots march for equal rights in the 1970s into the largest civic event in the region, with activities spanning a full week. The organizers of San Diego Pride have donated over 2.5 million dollars to LGBTQ-serving nonprofits and runs multiple year-round education, advocacy, and community service programs.

This year’s theme is Persist With Pride, a slogan that should serve to remind all of us of the long and winding road we’re traveling.   [Read more…]

A Blight of White Fright Infects the United States

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I can’t let another day go by without saying something about the increasing number of incidents being reported of intimidation and abuse being directed at people of color in the United States.

White people acting out their racism isn’t anything new. But cellphone cameras have been around for long enough to tell us these confrontations are on the increase. Anybody who thinks they can separate what’s happening on the local level from the tone set by our nation’s leadership needs to stop watching Fox News.

These incidents aren’t likely to make it into statistics about hate crimes (up 17% last year in California), especially the outbursts and racist rants happening without law enforcement witnesses or participants.   [Read more…]

Activist Actions in San Diego Keep Up the Pressure on Border Enforcement Issues

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Ongoing injustices require ongoing resistance. Such is the case with efforts to call public attention to the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers along the southern border of the United States.

The mass demonstrations of June have given way to July’s protests near locations with literal or symbolic connections to the Trump administration’s enforcement mechanisms.

Despite the court rulings saying Zero Tolerance and its kindred sadism aren’t legal, authorities are stalling and/or proceeding as though some draconian solution will eventually prevail.   [Read more…]

The State of Hate in California – Three Consecutive Years of Double Digit Increases

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The California Department of Justice released its annual report on hate crimes reported in 2017 on Monday, July 9. Local law enforcement agencies reported 1,093 hate crimes last year, a more than 17% increase from 2016, which was an 11% increase over 2015.

San Diego County had the second highest statewide total of reported hate crimes with 95 events, 121 offenses, 114 victims, and 82 suspects apprehended. Los Angeles County (with three times the population) was California’s biggest hotbed of hate, with 419 incidents.

A hate crime, as defined by the state, is a crime against a person, group, or property motivated by the victim’s real or perceived protected social group. The data included in the report does not include hate incidents, defined as is an action or behavior motivated by hate but legally protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression.   [Read more…]

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