San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

My Hopes for the Next 35 Years

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I recently was reminded that the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD) has been around for 35 years; 35 wonderful years I might add. I mean they’ve worked tirelessly in society’s behalf to challenge the military establishment’s overbearing intrusions in our lives.

They, with a host of other peace groups, have kept military issues in our collective consciousness via community forums, in the streets, and through youth outreach, keeping us aware of how much the military strains our economy, how much it magnifies a negative image of our country around the world, how much racism and sexism and homophobia it nurtures throughout its hierarchy.

COMD is a big part of why I continue working with the Education Not Arms Coalition (ENAC) to counter the recruitment of our children.

Without us there would still be rifle training on our campuses sponsored by the JROTC. To us, teenagers firing rifles on their school grounds made a mockery of San Diego City Schools’ Zero-Tolerance of Weapons Policy.   [Read more…]

Toll of U.S. Sailors Devastated by Fukushima Radiation Continues to Climb

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By Harvey Wasserman / Common Dreams

The roll call of U.S. sailors who say their health was devastated when they were irradiated while delivering humanitarian help near the stricken Fukushima nuke is continuing to soar.

So many have come forward that the progress of their federal class action lawsuit has been delayed.

Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner says a re-filing will wait until early February to accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships.   [Read more…]

Improvements Coming to Chicano Park

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Community meets to discuss ways to implement $1.08 million grant

By Brent E. Beltrán

On January 8 members of the greater Chicano Park community met at the Cesar Chavez Continuing Education Center in Barrio Logan to discuss ways to spend a $1.08 million state grant to improve Chicano Park. Around fifty people met in a workshop conducted by Robert Chavez of Urban Corps San Diego. Urban Corps will be in charge of making sure grant regulations are followed as well as do the actual agreed upon improvements.

“The purpose behind the workshop is to really get a whole bunch of new ideas and get a sense of the visioning that a lot of these community residents have for Chicano Park for now and into the future,” said Chavez.

“What we’re really trying to get a sense of is what is the ultimate vision for the park for the folks in this community? We’ll prioritize and see what we can pay for out of that $1.08 million but then down the road we’d also like to refer back to whatever plan we come up with after this planning process and figure out what other resources are available to implement the entire vision.”   [Read more…]

Reefer Sanity Takes Hold in Colorado

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‘For all the sky-will-fall rhetoric about marijuana legalization, there haven’t been piles of dead bodies and overdoses.’

By David Sirota / AlterNet

Seven years before legal marijuana went on sale this month in my home state of Colorado, the drug warriors in President George W. Bush’s administration released an advertisement that is now worth revisiting.

“I smoked weed and nobody died,” intoned the teenage narrator. “I didn’t get into a car accident. I didn’t O.D. on heroin the next day. Nothing happened.”

The television spot from the White House drug czar was intended to discourage marijuana use by depicting it as boring. But in the process, the government suggested that smoking a little pot is literally, in the words of the narrator, “the safest thing in the world.”

Why is this spot worth revisiting? Because in light of what’s happening here in Colorado, the ad looks less like a scary warning than a reassuringly accurate prophecy. Indeed, to paraphrase the ad, for all the sky-will-fall rhetoric about legalization, there haven’t been piles of dead bodies and overdoses. Nothing like that has happened since we started regulating and taxing marijuana like alcohol.   [Read more…]

Book Review: Undoing Border Imperialism

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By Dawn Paley / Upside Down World

Undoing Border Imperialism, by Harsha Walia, introduction by Andrea Smith. AK Press, 2013.

Anyone who has been involved in activism in any of Canada’s largest cities has probably worked with Harsha Walia at some point along the way. An organizing powerhouse who is active across issues and with a lengthy list of groups, Walia is also a writer and regular public speaker. Somehow, amidst a flurry of events and other work, she found the time to grace us with her first book, Undoing Border Imperialism, which came out with Oakland’s AK Press in the fall. In more ways than one, the book is a true manifestation of theory meeting practice, taking strength from Walia’s varied and extensive readings, from her personal life experiences, and from over a decade of movement organizing in Canada.

“Undoing border imperialism would mean a freer society for everyone since borders are the nexus of most systems of oppression,” writes Walia. “Rather than conceiving of immigration as a domestic policy issue to be managed by the state, the lens of border imperialism focuses the conversation on the systemic structuring of global displacement and migration through and in collusion with capitalism, colonial empire, state building, and hierarchies of oppression.”   [Read more…]

College Graduates Beg for a Shrinking Pool of Jobs

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PhDs Go Begging, Microsoft Lays Off High Tech Workers, Graduates Not Able to Cope with Student Loan Debt Getting Jobs as Baristas…

By John Lawrence

…That’s the new reality for today’s college graduates.

Have America’s young people been sold a bill of goods? They thought that a college degree guaranteed them an entry to a good middle class life. Many are now finding out that that’s not the case as they struggle to pay student loans and try to cope with an anemic jobs market. For-profit colleges are advertising on TV in order to perpetuate the myth that a college education is a panacea. Even President Obama spouts that everyone should go to college, saying that’s what will cure the nation’s ills and prevent us from falling into the abyss of national mediocrity.

But don’t count on it.   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: Ortiz’s Taco Shop

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Ortiz’s Taco Shop
3704 Voltaire
San Diego, CA 92107
619-222-4476

By Judi Curry

Interim Mayor Todd Gloria has promised to send authentic Mexican food to Denver Mayor Michael Hancock in the event that the Chargers lose the game this Sunday. As an aficionado of such cuisine, I was amazed to see the three restaurants Gloria selected: Ortiz’s Taco Shop in Point Loma, Lolita’s Taco Shop in Kearny Mesa and Mama Testa Taqueria in Hillcrest.

So I called two of my friends – Ro and Irene – and asked them if they would like to join me in reviewing these three restaurants – one at a time, of course.   [Read more…]

US Republicans and Their “Female Troubles”

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By Ruth Rosen / Common Dreams

Now that it’s 2014, American political analysts, strategists, and operatives are revving up for the November midterm elections.  High on the Republican agenda is the goal of convincing women to counter President Obama and vote for their congressional and gubernatorial candidates.

Usually, the opposition party has the advantage in the non-presidential midterm elections. But in this instance Democrats may in fact have greater appeal, especially among young, minority and low-income women voters.  In 2012, President Obama enjoyed an 18 point gender gap, according to exit polls.

Now, Democratic Party operatives are trying to mobilize even more women voters, especially the minority women who have so strongly supported their platform. They are casting women in starring roles and hoping that by running high-profile female candidates, they will take back important governor’s mansions and keep their fragile majority in the Senate.   [Read more…]

The Race Baiting Begins in San Diego Mayoral Race

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By Doug Porter

I’ve been predicting for some time now that San Diego’s Lincoln Club would play the race card in support of their candidate, Republican Kevin Faulconer, and today’s mailing proves my point.   [Read more…]

Low Income Housing Fee Opponents Up to the Same Old Tricks in Signature Drive

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By Doug Porter

Oops. They’ve doing it again. San Diego’s voters are once again being hoodwinked into signing petitions. Given that our City Attorney apparently thinks this behavior is part of the “democratic process,” the likelihood is they’ll get away with it. 

Currently supporters of an initiative to overturn yet another City Council action have deployed an army of paid signature gatherers at shopping centers in San Diego.  At issue is an ordinance restoring linkage fees on large scale developments to pre-recession levels as a mechanism for funding low income housing. 

As has happened with other recent signature drives sponsored by corporate interests, those individuals are “stretching the truth” in their quest to earn their pay-per-signature wages.  Whether or not these representations cross the line into outright lies is something I hope the courts will someday decide. These latest tactics shouldn’t surprise anybody in the wake the hysterical “the Navy is leaving” campaign staged by opponents of the Barrio Logan Community Plan.   [Read more…]

Steve Fisher, SDSU’s Master Educator (And Basketball Coach)

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By Ernie McCray

When San Diego State’s men’s gifted basketball players showed up at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas and rose from the 21st rated team to number 13 after destroying the Jayhawks’ dream of stretching a 68 game winning streak against non-Big Ten teams to 69 – I couldn’t help but think, at the time, of how lucky those young athletes are in having Steve Fisher as their guide on this wonderful ride.

The man is clearly a wonderful coach, a master teacher if there ever was one. He knows how to connect with folks who are counting on him for guidance.

I know. I’m an educator by nature, in a way. I decided on teaching after my very first day in kindergarten (as much as a five year old can consider such a thing), thinking that there must be a better way to teach somebody than taking a yardstick and whacking their knuckles to Maricopa County.   [Read more…]

King of the Outcast Teens: Kurt Cobain and the Politics of Nirvana

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By Dawson Barrett / Portside

In recognition of the anniversary of the death of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, a host of retrospectives will recognize both the raw potency of Cobain’s songwriting and the tragedy of his heroin use and suicide. They will hide that Nirvana was a band of rebels.

This April marks twenty years since the death of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, one of the most iconic cultural figures of the late 20th century. In recognition of that anniversary, a host of retrospectives will recognize both the raw potency of Cobain’s songwriting and the tragedy of his heroin use and suicide. Echoing the tired, sexist tropes of “John and Yoko” and “Sid and Nancy,” many will also associate Cobain’s downfall with his wife, Courtney Love. These tabloid narratives will overshadow Nirvana’s political and cultural significance. They will hide that Nirvana was a band of rebels.

A year before his death in 1994, Kurt Cobain expressed hope that his generation could reject the “Reaganite bullshit” that was forced upon them during their childhoods. Indeed, from the growing popularity of countercultural music (both “alternative” rock and hip-hop) to the rise of the global justice movement, the 1990s seemed to offer a youth-led counterbalance to the racism, sexism, and homophobia that swept Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush into office a decade earlier. Twenty years later, however, America’s culture wars remain very much alive, and boastful opposition to so-called “political correctness” is used to justify intolerance and oppression in many forms.   [Read more…]

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