San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Politics, Reality, and Invention at the Time of Trial: San Diego Repertory Theatre’s ‘Actually’

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One of the first new words the daughter of my friend learned at her elementary school was “actually.” In the first week of her school, she repeated “actually this and actually that,” proudly parading this new addition to her vocabulary. This 6-year-old was also testing the magic of the word “actually” her teacher used while talking to her students. She seemed to have discovered this adverb’s power to validate one’s claim and/or opinion by repudiating the authenticity of the opponent’s argument.

Anna Ziegler’s Actually uses this very word as its title to interrogate the political, gender, and racial dynamics revealed during the Title IX investigation and hearing of a sexual misconduct case at a college campus.   [Read more…]

America is Greater Than It’s Ever Been in One Man’s Really Big Brain

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Regarding the synagogue catastrophe,
a friend of a friend of mine composed
these words setting a healing tone:
“But we Jews are strong;
we have been through this before;
I just had hoped
that we would never have
to go through it again”
and one’s mind,
as it assesses yet another tragedy
during these unquiet times,
wanders to how intensely out of hand
our world seems to be   [Read more…]

Descent | Geo-Poetic Spaces

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Water’s weight
raised sky
held her down

Waves beat fatigued wings
into molten scales of sun:   [Read more…]

Oprah Rallies Supporters Campaigning for Stacey Abrams in Georgia Ahead of Midterm Elections | Video Worth Watching

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Oprah Winfrey’s opening remarks at a town hall with Stacey Abrams demonstrate once again her skill and talent for engaging a crowd and being a stirring storyteller. In emphasizing the sacrifices made by those before us, she reinforces the significance and seriousness of exercising our right to vote. And she does it in a way that’s personal, intimate and moving. She reminds us that “this land was made for you and me. … That’s not just a song, that’s the truth. … We are not powerless. Every single one of us has the same power at the polls.” She reminds us, too, that she’s an independent woman. No one paid her to attend, no one asked her to come. She votes her values and Stacey Abrams is the one who best represents those values.   [Read more…]

The ‘I’m Not Voting’ Thing – Getting Off Your Duff is the Point

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Just in time for the elections, the Union-Tribune’s contrarian opinionator Chris Reed has penned an article disputing the oft-repeated claim about voting being needed for a healthy democracy.

Everyone: Voting key to healthy democracy. Evidence: No, it’s not is thoughtful and, I suppose, logical in its own way. Ultimately it’s about debunking one of those oft-quoted things that “everybody knows.”

But seeing the article right before election day makes me think… Don’t vote? Really? What’s up with that?  

  [Read more…]

November 2018 Cheat Sheet & Progressive Voter Kit San Diego Free Press

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What do you mean you haven’t voted yet? Damn, you’d better get moving.

Here’s our 2018: Printable cheat sheet, links to assorted voter guides, and your questions answered about where, when and how to vote.

  [Read more…]

14 Million People Are On the Brink Of Starvation In Yemen | Video Worth Watching

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From the MSNBC YouTube website:

14 million people are on the brink of starvation in Yemen, but the U.S. can avert disaster if it stops supporting the Saudi war atrocities in Yemen.

  [Read more…]

Happy Halloween – Talk Radio Host Carl DeMaio’s Proposition 6 Trick or Treats

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What if Proposition 6, brought to the ballot largely through a campaign led by Carl DeMaio, was only partially about repealing Senate Bill 1?

It certainly looks like Prop 6 is going to fail, with a coalition of business, labor, and politicians raising ten times more to oppose it than supporters have raised. The argument that taxpayers collectively stand to lose more–via transportation infrastructure projects– is prevailing over the claim the individual pain–more $$$ at the gas pump–used by signature gatherers to get the measure on the ballot.

At this point, it appears the real winner will be Carl DeMaio, armed with a large, national network of small-dollar donors and statewide recognition for his Reform California platform.

  [Read more…]

Michelle Gomez, County Board of Supervisors District 5 | Candidate Profiles for the November 2018 Ballot

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By Michelle Gomez

For the last quarter of a century, our county governing body has been dominated by fiscal conservatives who have turned a blind eye to crisis level problems impacting county residents. They have simultaneously built a bank account which could rival that of some small nations.

Term limits enacted within the last five years are finally bringing an end to their lackluster legacies and progressives are in the driver seat to flip a historically red seat. One that holds a tremendous amount of influence over how our daily lives are led here in San Diego County.

Our Board of Supervisors can and should be a force for good, one that ensures access to health and human services, which addresses our lack of affordable housing, and which protects the natural beauty of this place we are so fortunate to call home.

  [Read more…]

Paul Avrich’s An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre | A Review

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By Mel Freilicher

An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre
by Paul Avrich
AK Press, 2018

The self-professed group of anarchists who comprise AK Press, a worker-run collective which publishes and distributes radical books, visual and audio media, has done a great service by reissuing Paul Avrich’s fascinating study of an American original. As Robert Helms suggests in his instructive Foreword outlining Avrich’s own background and achievements as the premier scholar of American anarchism until his death in 2006, this author “succeeded in rescuing this brilliant and compelling person from near non-existence.”   [Read more…]

District Attorney Summer Stephan Must Apologize to San Diego’s Jewish Community

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On Monday night, District Attorney Summer Stephan attended the vigil at the Congregation Beth Israel for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. She stood on stage and sat in the front row.

However, when asked by a reporter from Times of San Diego about the anti-Semitic website that her campaign launched attacking George Soros during the June primary election, Ms. Stephan refused to answer any questions or acknowledge the issue. 

As the leadership team of the campaign for Geneviéve Jones-Wright, the target of Ms. Stephan’s race-baiting and fear mongering, we watched in horror as the voters of San Diego fell for hateful scare tactics.

  [Read more…]

Against the Advice of Everyone, Trump Went to Pittsburgh to Rub Salt into a Wounded City

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The mayor of Pittsburgh told Donald Trump to wait. Local religious leaders asked Trump to wait. Politicians in both parties begged Trump to wait.

Tens of thousands of local residents told Trump not to come at all until he was ready to completely disown the white nationalist agenda that contributed to the mass murder at Tree of Life Synagogue. 

Still, Trump thought that doing a photo shoot in Pittsburgh as the families of 11 victims were getting ready for funerals was a good idea. And, as everyone except Trump predicted, his presence in the city generated anger and disruption on a day that was already so difficult for so many.

  [Read more…]

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