San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The KUSI Mayoral Debate: Looking for Clues Between the Platitudes

by

Left unasked was: ‘boxers or briefs?’ 

By Doug Porter

Just about the first thing the finalists in the mayoral contest did following their victory parties was to issue a joint statement announcing there’d be six (and only six) debates prior to the runoff election. Twenty some-odd bouts in six weeks during the first round campaigning (two of which were scheduled simultaneously in different parts of the city) were just too many. The term ‘debate fatigue’ crept into the local lexicon, and for good reason.

I attended the taping for the second of the six final face-offs on Friday hoping for some new insight into the mayoral race. The dictates of writing five columns a week make data collection always a pressing matter for this writer. After all, there’s only so many times you can point out that Kevin Faulconer is running from the Republican label, even as his campaign is orchestrated by the overlords of America’s Finest Plantation City.

I’d seen the ads, been disgusted by the mailers, pondered the contributors lists and gagged as I read the UT-San Diego editorials.. Now it was time to size up the candidates in a mano-a-mano situation. I’ll spare you the details, lest I seem unappreciative of KUSI’s broadcast involvement.

It is/was KUSI’s party: air time is 8pm on Monday (1/20).   [Read more…]

On Human Trafficking

by

Mari’s story is harrowing and heartbreaking, but hardly unique.

By Brooke Binkowski

This week, I visited a home in Tijuana for young girls who have been trafficked — bought and sold into slavery, sometimes across international borders, sometimes not, but always horrifically abused and tortured either psychologically, physically, or both — and spoke with them, an adult trafficking victim, and Alma, who started the home.

The issue of human trafficking is enormous and difficult to fully appreciate, so I will only focus on thing: a woman I met who I’ll call Mari.

Mari is 40 years old. She was born in Mexico, and spent the first few years of her life in Tijuana. She had always heard that the United States were where you could go to make money to take care of your family, so when a friend of her parents said he was going to the US, she asked him to take her along.   [Read more…]

It’s All About Love, Isn’t It?

by

By Ernie McCray

Why is it so hard for people to love one another, especially when all it takes is a mere gesture, a smile, a gentle meeting of the eyes, a willingness to listen to our fellow human beings with an open heart?

We much too often blow easy opportunities to express our love. Like the situation in La Jolla with the organizers of the annual La Jolla Christmas Parade. They won’t even consider using an adjective other than Christmas in the name of the parade, knowing that such a giving gesture would make more people feel comfortable and at ease at the festive celebration, unburdened by their religious beliefs and life philosophies, having a good time in a spectacularly beautiful community called the “Jewel by the Sea. All it would take is a deletion of a word on a PC. Oh, if every social problem could be solved so easily.   [Read more…]

When Martin Luther King Gave Up His Guns

by

By Mark Engler and Paul Engler  / Waging NonViolence.org

Few are aware that Martin Luther King, Jr., once applied for a permit to carry a concealed handgun.

In his 2011 book Gunfight, UCLA law professor Adam Winkler notes that, after King’s house was bombed in 1956, the clergyman applied in Alabama for a concealed carry permit. Local police, loathe to grant such permits to African-Americans, deemed him “unsuitable” and denied his application. Consequently, King would end up leaving the firearms at home.

The lesson from this incident is not, as some NRA members have tried to suggest in recent years, that King should be remembered as a gun-toting Republican. (Among many other problems, this portrayal neglects to acknowledge how Republicans used conservative anger about Civil Rights advances to win over the Dixiecrat South to their side of the aisle). Rather, the fact that King would request license to wear a gun in 1956, just as he was being catapulted onto the national stage, illustrates the profundity of the transformation that he underwent over the course of his public career.   [Read more…]

Humanity Is Becoming Increasingly Less Violent, with One Exception — Religious Violence

by

The findings of a major new Pew Research Center’s study confirm the importance of secularism.

By CJ Werleman / Alternet

Studies demonstrate the world is becoming less violent, and that human warfare is on the decline. There is one aspect of the human existence, however, that continues to ignite humans to commit violence and atrocities against fellow humans. A major new study published by the Pew Research Center shows that religious hostilities reached a 6-year high in 2012.

Dr. Steven Pinker, Pulitzer prize-winning author and Harvard psychology professor, writes, “Today we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species’ existence.” He acknowledges: “In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene.” Pinker points out, wars make headlines, but there are fewer conflicts today, and wars don’t kill as many people as they did in the Middle Ages, for instance. Also, global rates of violent crime have plummeted in the last few decades. Pinker notes that the reason for these advances are complex but certainly the rise of education, and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of others has played its part.   [Read more…]

Leaked Walmart Documents Reveal Propaganda Campaign to Fight Workers Attempting to Organize

by

The mega-retailer misinforms and tells managers to tattle on employees who discuss organizing.

By Aaron Cantú / Alternet

A set of internal documents leaked on January 15 revealed that Walmart is attempting to win the hearts and minds of its employees by scaring them out of joining OUR Walmart, a collection of Walmart workers who have organized strikes on behalf of all the company’s most vulnerable employees.

The propaganda campaign is aimed at Walmart’s managerial staff, the corporation’s last line of defense in barring its low-wage workers from organizing for higher pay and better conditions.   [Read more…]

Gloria Does the Right Thing, Backs Alvarez for Mayor

by

Despite laying out a vision for San Diego at his state of the city speech earlier this week looking very much like the one mayoral candidate and City Councilman David Alavarez might craft, the lack of a formal endorsement in the race by iMayor Todd Gloria was troubling for many Democratic Party activists.

Fear not. It was all a matter of timing. Gloria held off on the official blessing until this morning, issuing a full-throated endorsement of city councilman Alvarez, saying:

“This week, I put forward a progressive vision for San Diego to be a great city. It includes ending homelessness, increasing the minimum wage, aggressively funding infrastructure, and implementing a strong Climate Action Plan. David Alvarez is the candidate in this race who shares my vision and who we can count on to make San Diego great.”

The iMayor’s announcement pointed out he and Alvarez worked together to increase funding for affordable housing, update the Barrio Logan community plan, and increasing vital city services via the 2014 budget.

The Alvarez campaign noted that his opponent City Councilman Kevin Faulconer opposed all three of these measures, lest he disappoint his corporate downtown campaign backers.

Gloria will be on the road until next week, but was eager to release his endorsement, according to a press release from the Alvarez campaign. The two will begin making joint appearances soon.   [Read more…]

Raising the Minimum Wage: At the Heart of the Differences Between Faulconer and Alvarez

by

By Doug Porter

San Diego iMayor Todd Gloria’s call for increasing the minimum wage during the State of the City address on Wednesday is drawing sharp reaction from the local wannabe plutocracy. What Gloria proposed was putting any such proposal before the voters next November. The very idea scares the crap out of them.

You take it to the bank that these “checkbook” democracy types who see it as their duty to pay signature gatherers to spread misinformation getting their corporate vetoes of city council actions blessed at the ballot box will now act to make sure that a proposal via our elected representatives never makes it before the voters.

The same folks that have spun community planning, environmental stewardship and housing for low income people into a conspiracy to drive JOBS out of the city are busy figuring out a way to drive a stake into the heart of any minimum wage increase, even if it’s to be decided at the ballot box.   [Read more…]

Escondido Mayor Abed Railroads New Charter Proposal

by

Eds Note: The City of Escondido is at the epicenter of a power struggle focused on the future direction of the North County. After losing a battle to have city council members elected by district (which opens up the possibility of fair representation for the Latino population), the right-wing is seeking to make Escondido a charter city and thus exempt from California’s prevailing wage statutes. 

After listening to eight residents who urged citizen input into any charter proposal, and after sparring with Deputy Mayor Olga Diaz over the need for a charter, Mayor Sam Abed instructed city staff January 15 to lay the groundwork for placing a charter proposal before Escondido voters in November 2014.

Abed dismissed suggestions that the city create a charter commission or committee to allow a document that reflected the needs and desires of residents. “A commission would derail the process and have a different charter than the Council majority wants,” he said. “It is our constitutional right to do it (bring forward a charter) and we’re going to exercise it.”   [Read more…]

The United Nations in My Closet

by

john-filthy-flagcloths

By John Filthy / OB Rag

People don’t often look at where their clothes come from. We don’t often think about who made them. Our closets are full of garments made by people making less than a dollar an hour. Don’t let the price of those Nike sneakers throw you. They weren’t expensive to make. They are expensive because you will pay. The profits do not go to better working conditions. Just ask the workers who survived the Savar garment-factory collapse in Bangladesh. The factory that manufactured clothes for Walmart, among others, killed 1,129 people and injured 2,515 when it collapsed on April 24, 2013.

I’m one of those hippy-clone-activist-types. I actually care where my clothes come from and read labels. I’m also a cheapskate and like to wear clothes that look like rags to some. Blame Johnny Rotten and Kurt Cobain. I didn’t invent the fashion. I must look homeless at times because people are always trying to gift me clothes. My better half is always trying to get me to throw clothes out. She is astounded that I can remember where I got each piece of clothing and how old some of them are.   [Read more…]

A Personal Story: Anthem Blue Cross Profits by Denying Prescriptions

by

By Brenda McFarlane / OB Rag

It’s happened again. I have been denied coverage for Modafinil yet again, this time by the exact same company who has already approved it.

I’ve been on a prescription medication that treats my Ideopathic Hypersomnia for several years now. It’s an extremely expensive drug, even the generic form can be more than a $1000 a month. I have been diagnosed by a esteemed sleep doctor in San Diego and he confirms that the drug is both medically necessary and that no effective (and non-narcotic) substitute exists.

Without the drug I suffer from sometimes overwhelming sleepiness. Without it I get a band of sleep deprived headaches, driving may be either impossible or require pulling over to take naps, even after 5 minutes on the road. I grew up with this condition – undiagnosed – and lost years of my life to sleepiness. Smoking cigarettes or eating sugar were the two things I could rely on to help stay awake especially to drive.

I am writing this as I wait on hold for the next patient care advocate with Express Scripts, I am at 43 minutes.   [Read more…]

Todd Gloria Lays Out Vision For San Diego

by

By Andy Cohen

If this was indeed his first and final State of the City Address, iMayor Todd Gloria made it count. As politically aware San Diegans have come to expect, Gloria brought his ‘A’ game to the Balboa Theater, delivering a sweeping vision for what he views is the future of San Diego.

One thing’s for sure: This ain’t Texas.

It was a speech and a vision that is sure to rile up the arch conservative sect of the town, but much of it was surely welcomed by the growing and strengthening Democratic base.

If 2012 and 2013 saw a growing partisan divide in San Diego, if this City Council holds to what the once and future City Council President laid before a crowded house, then the ride is sure to get even more contentious and even more partisan, even if, as Gloria noted several times, that was not the intent.

The iMayor began the address by doing something that would have been fairly unthinkable three years ago: He thanked and applauded the city’s thousands of workers, acknowledging the value of the services they provide to San Diego. It was a refreshing gesture in an era where the public workforce is more often than not vilified as moochers and a waste of taxpayer money.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry