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Reds Liberate Mission

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Part Four of Seven. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969.

During the years 1770- 1775 the San Diego Mission, newly transplanted from Old Town to its present location in Mission Valley, managed to survive. The priests even managed to convert a few Indians.

Of course the techniques of conversion were not always the most “Christian.” Whereas Christ fed the multitudes and advocated no-strings-attached giving to the needy, the Spanish priests modified that scheme as the following quote from Smythe shows: “Those who had accepted the new faith had been clothed and fed, while those who rejected the faith had been let alone.” Nice guys, the priests: bribery was for them an acceptable method of religious inducement.

After 5 Years of this treatment, the Indians had had enough. They decided to revolt against the Spanish settlement which had imposed itself on their homeland. The first Indian uprising was on November 4, 1775, a date that should be celebrated by the people of San Diego as it marked the initiation of the people’s struggle for liberation which is still being waged today, 200 years later.   [Read more…]

North of the Fence: Americans Flee Across Border, The Pope and Chula Vista Elections

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Is there an onslaught of American immigrants coming to Mexico? The story isn’t new. For decades Americans have been moving to Tijuana where the rent is cheaper. For local Tijuanese, this means Americans drive up their housing prices and create housing shortages.

How many Americans live in Tijuana, and in Mexico at large? The number is unknown. Guesstimates run the gamut from 5,000 to 500,000 Americans (in Tijuana alone). That’s a pretty big spread. Why don’t we know?   [Read more…]

The Four States That Have the Biggest Gun Industry Economies in America

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From jobs to political contributions to ownership, the firearms sector spans the United States

By Sarah Lazare / AlterNet

We can’t truly address the epidemic of gun violence in the United States without taking a hard look at America’s deep-rooted economic dependence on the arms and ammunitions industry.

The firearms sector spans the country, including jobs, political contributions and ownership. According to one analysis, in 2014 alone the guns and ammunitions industry pumped almost $43 billion into the economy.   [Read more…]

Ratcheting Tensions, Obama Orders Huge Weapons Increase Along EU-Russia Border

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Just last week, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov referred to NATO’s build-up near Russia’s borders as “counterproductive and dangerous.”

by Deirdre Fulton / CommonDreams

Less than a week after Russia’s foreign minister warned that NATO’s military build-up near Russia’s borders is “counterproductive and dangerous,” the United States is ramping up the deployment of heavy weapons and armored vehicles to NATO member countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Administration officials told the Times “the additional NATO forces were calculated to send a signal to President Vladimir V. Putin that the West remained deeply suspicious of his motives in the region,” referring to Russia’s ongoing presence in eastern Ukraine.   [Read more…]

Military In Control From the Start

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Part Three of Seven. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

After the Spanish settlement had been established in 1769, there followed a period of digging in—trying to make a go of it and becoming self-sufficient.

There is no question that, behind the religious front, it was the military that was firmly in command. We quote Smythe: “With the dedication of the Presidio and the Mission, the first institutions had been established in what is now the State of California. These institutions were typical of Spanish civilization (sic)—the soldier and the priest working side by side, but always with the sword above the Cross in point of authority. It was essentially a military government, and the commandant was empowered to deal out justice, civil and criminal.”   [Read more…]

San Diego: A City Gone Full Circle, From Imperialism to Neo-imperialism

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From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

In a nutshell, the history of San Diego dates from its discovery as an object of Spanish imperialism to its present-day status as a base for U.S. neo-imperialism. It all started when Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain landed on Point Loma in 1542. That is, the official San Diego history starts at this point in time. The Indians, of course, had been here some time before that. As Stokely Carmichael says, “You ain’t nothing till some white man comes along and discovers you.”   [Read more…]

Between Allah and Ennui

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By Nat Krieger

When you tire of the televised prescriptions of funereal amnesiacs, and you’re feeling nauseated by generalizations repeated so often they become shorthand for not thinking, you could do worse than listen to voices from a Muslim land where the hatreds and the loves produced by the encounter with the West—specifically La France—have been cooking and periodically exploding for a long time.   [Read more…]

The Realities of Implementing San Diego’s Climate Action Plan (Hold the Kumbaya)

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I suspect there might be more than one sore shoulder in local political circles after all the back-slapping going down after the San Diego City Council unanimously (with Scott Sherman absent) passed a Climate Action Plan on Tuesday.

The council vote was preceded by a mayoral press conference, an environmentalist rally (a half hour later, same basic location, many overlapping participants) and more than seventy speakers testifying in favor of the plan.

Never has a slam dunk been guided by so many hands.   [Read more…]

Love in the Time of Mania: Six Ways Americans Are Defying Islamophobia

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If you watch the news, you’d think anti-Muslim hysteria is everywhere. Thankfully, that’s not true

Nur Lalji / Yes! Magazine

On Dec. 8, a man identified as Piro Kolvani reportedly walked into the Fatima Food Mart, in Queens, New York, yelled that he was going to kill Muslims, and began punching the store’s owner, 53-year-old Sarker Haque. A customer restrained Kolvani until police arrived.

The attack is being investigated as a hate crime and, in the wake of terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, there has been a surge of similar assaults on Muslims.   [Read more…]

San Diegans Say No To Hate, Refugees Welcome

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Hundreds of people gathered along San Diego’s Waterfront Park yesterday to mark International Human Rights Day and to make their voices heard on the subject of refugees and support for the local Muslim community.

The San Diego area has long been a prime resettlement area for refugees, taking in as many as 3,000 annually. Successive waves of people from Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the Middle East have created new lives here in recent decades.

Fear-mongering over Syrian refugees following terrorist attacks in Paris has led to increasingly strident rhetoric from prominent political figures. Now a ban keeping all people of the Muslim faith from entering the US has gained some traction. Hate crimes have soared, including attacks on places of worship.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: A Moment of Silence

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When bullets
fly back into guns
blasts
implode into casings
bombs
ascend into planes
missiles return
to grain silos   [Read more…]

A Centuries Old Sunni-Shiite Conflict is at Heart of Middle East Problems

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American politicians, including George W Bush and Barack Obama, have failed to deal with the fact of Sunnis and Shiites hating each other and have been fighting for 1383 years. Their lack of knowledge and/or acceptance of that fact has led to their bungling and botching of Middle East policy. There are effectively two religions: Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam.

Understanding the religious composition of countries in the Middle East goes a long way toward explaining why certain countries are fighting other countries or are standing by doing nothing in the fight against terrorism. For instance, why won’t Saudi Arabia fight ISIS? The answer is simple. They are both Sunnis. For the most part Sunnis won’t fight Sunnis and Shiites won’t fight Shiites. But they sure as hell will fight each other. Americans and the western world in general have just been snookered into getting involved in this mess, which has been going on for over 1000 years, starting with George W Bush’s ill-conceived and immoral invasion of Iraq.   [Read more…]

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