San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The Battle for Barrio Logan. Which Side Are You On?

by

By Brent E. Beltrán

This war, and it is a war declared on us by maritime industry interests, will be fought at various levels from within the community to outside. From the streets and in the courtrooms. From Chicano Park to City Hall and beyond. Battles will be won and battles will be lost but we are not afraid because we have struggled all of our lives for the little things that this community has.

We will use whatever legal means we have to defend the health and safety of Barrio Logan residents. Perhaps even use extra-legal means. We don’t have money. We don’t have power. All we have are our bodies and a righteous cause with a little soul thrown in.

Barrio Logan residents are tired of being polluted by maritime industry, tired of being disrespected by San Diego power brokers and are tired of being ignored by City Hall. Maritime industry is well funded and has many powerful backers. Barrio Logan is but a poor, working class, predominantly Mexican community. In this struggle, the Davids of Barrio Logan, with slings in hands, will take on the Goliath that is San Diego’s maritime industry to determine the future of San Diego’s most historic Mexican barrio. Which side are you on?   [Read more…]

Nelson Mandela, Rock Star? (Thoughts of His Passing)

by

By Ernie McCray

First thing that came to my mind when I heard that my hero of heroes, Nelson Mandela, had passed away was “Man, what a Rock Star he was!” Now I know it seems profane to diminish a great man’s name like he was a Beatle or Rolling Stone or some facsimile thereof but let me explain.

When I got the news I had just spent a very pleasant morning and early afternoon with fellow University of Arizona alumni listening to one of us, a bright inspirational warm and beautiful woman, a motivational speaker, share from her successes as a business person, what leadership should be all about. Kristi Staab is her name. And she has a lot to say. To summarize, she advocates leading like a Rock Star, “inside out,” with passion and with solid ethics and personal values. That sure epitomizes Mandela.   [Read more…]

There’s No Fool Like an Old Fool: The Final Chapter – Not

by

Instead of finding love, many online daters are left deceived and heartbroken. The FBI’s San Diego branch stated it deals with more than 1,000 “Catfishing” cases a month. Here’s a candid account of one such scam.

By Judi Curry

For months I have been experimenting with “on-line” dating. As each of the paid sites have finished, I have not renewed my membership. However, there are two dating sites that I still frequent, because there is no money needed for membership. I want to talk specifically about OK Cupid.

Loneliness is getting the better of me. There are days that I am so blue I wonder why I should ever get out of bed. I am so close to completing my third cookbook, yet I have not completed a chapter in it for more than 11 months. I have missed deadline after deadline. The book I am writing about on-line dating is waiting for its “final chapter” – which I thought I had just hours ago. But, alas, I have been had, and I don’t like that feeling either.

I was sent a message from Tom on OK Cupid. He said he was a widower; both his wife and his daughter were killed by a drunk driver more than five years ago. He had not dated since, but felt it was time to begin his life again. I commiserated with him, because I had lost my husband four years ago and know the emptiness that widowhood brings. Thus began daily, sometimes hourly conversations, with Tom.   [Read more…]

ALEC Stands Its Ground, but Stumbles

by

By Brendan Fischer / PR Watch

“I’m proud to stand with ALEC today,” declared Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday, as he addressed the American Legislative Exchange Council in Washington D.C.

“I first came to ALEC over a decade ago. When I was serving in the Bush administration, I’d been privileged to work with ALEC in the federal government,” Cruz said. “I’ve been privileged to work with ALEC when I was back in Texas with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, leading the 10th Amendment Center.”

As Cruz addressed the conference, around 200 activists marched outside, waving signs reading “A Legislator for Every Corporation” and chanting “you can hear us loud and clear — we want ALEC out of here!”

Cruz (who became notorious for his effort to shutdown the government) was at ALEC to give its corporate lobbyists and state legislator members a pep talk. It was a rough week for the organization that has become known as a “corporate bill mill.”   [Read more…]

Mayor Todd Gloria Affirms Support for Barrio Logan Plan

by

By Doug Porter

Interim Mayor Todd Gloria has decided to draw a line in the sand against business interests seeking to overturn the Barrio Logan Community plan, telling KPBS yesterday he’s not in favor of reversing a City Council vote despite imminent referendums.

Should the rest of the Democrats on the City Council decide to stand firm on the subject this means voters citywide will weigh in on the community plan, opposed by shipbuilding interests who say a proposed nine block buffer zone is a threat to the future of their industry in San Diego.

The City Council will probably vote on whether to repeal the Barrio Logan Community Plan Update on Tuesday, Dec. 17.  If the misinformation campaign waged by opponents in connection with gathering signatures for the two ballot measures is any indication, we can expect an all-out and very negative media blitz over the coming weeks.   [Read more…]

Many Tears Shed for Madiba Nelson Mandela, the Man Who Could Not Cry

by

The media today is dominated by coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death at age 95. Following a few fast facts designed to put this great man in perspective, I’m reposting the best of the obituaries I’ve seen posted today. (It’s long, but worth it)

Facts you might not see in today’s mainstream media coverage:

  • During his 27 years of imprisonment he was forced to labor in Robben Island’s limestone quarry. The dust damaged his tear ducts, and when released, he could not cry.
  • He was never a pacifist, never a Gandhi and never afraid to assert the absolute right of the oppressed to fight back
  • The South African government banned photos of Mandela in prison. When he was released in 1990, few South Africans knew what he looked like.
  • Even after serving as the first Black President of South Africa and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Mandela remained on the US terrorist watch list, requiring special certification from the State Department to enter the country. In 2008 George W Bush signed a bill fixing this just prior to his 90th birthday.
  • Mandela’s arrest in 1962 came as the result of a CIA informant, allowing the South African police to nab him at a roadblock, even though he was disguised as a chauffeur.

  [Read more…]

Corporate Espionage Tactics Used Against Leading Progressive Groups, Activists and Whistleblowers

by

Corporate spies for Dow, Kraft and others have tried to discredit, shame and infiltrate civic groups using an array of dirty tricks.

By Steven Rosenfeld / Alternet

Posing as volunteers. Stealing documents. Dumpster diving. Planting electronic bugs. Hacking computers. Tapping phones and voicemail. Planting false information. Trailing family members. Threatening reporters. Hiring cops, CIA officers and combat veterans to do all these dirty deeds—and counting on little pushback from law enforcement, mainstream media or Congress.

These are some of the ways that many of America’s largest corporations have spied on nonprofits for years, according to a detailed new report from the Center for Corporate Policy tracing decades of corporate espionage where tactics developed for American intelligence agencies have been imported by a long list of corporate giants for use against progressives.

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Monsanto, Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Burger King, McDonald’s, Shell, BP, BEA, Sasol, Brown & Williamson and E.ON have all been linked to espionage against non-profit organizations, activists and whistleblowers,” the report said, noting that its targets are “environmental, anti-war, public-interest, consumer, food safety, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control, social justice, animal rights and arms-control groups.”   [Read more…]

California Legislature’s Calderon Scandal Spreads to Rhee’s Faux School Reform Group

by

By Doug Porter

Allegations of pay-for-play proclivities by elected members of the Calderon family are shedding a negative light on the activities of faux education reformer Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst organization.  Last month Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit revealed an FBI investigation of Sen. Calderon, including allegations he’d accepted $60,000 in bribes from undercover agents posing as independent movie executives.

Members of the Calderon family serving or having served in both branches of the legislature are considered to be a powerful political dynasty. A federal undercover investigation into state Sen. Ron Calderon has rocked Sacramento, “altering the dynamics of the Southern California region he and his political family have dominated for decades,” according to columnist Dan Walters.

Information is now emerging regarding connections between the Calderon family and education reformer Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst group.  Her political action committee has spent $1.6 million in California in recent elections backing political figures that supported her agenda.   [Read more…]

Duncan Hunter, Nuclear War Enthusiast

by

By Andy Cohen

Congratulations, San Diego! We now officially have our very own neo-con nuclear warmonger as one of our five representatives to Congress! As if having Darrell Issa entertain us by wasting tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money on wild conspiracy chases in search of narratives that only exist in the insulated cocoon of right wing Fantasyland wasn’t humiliating enough, now we have our very own member of Congress that wants to start a nuclear war! Well isn’t that special!

That’s right folks! Representative Duncan Hunter (R-50th) has the answer to our country’s Iran problem: Let’s nuke ‘em! Who needs diplomacy when, after all, we’ve got the bombs! (Cue Denis Leary)

Yesterday, in an interview on C-SPAN, speaking on the deal struck recently between the West and Iran. As a part of the pact, Iran agrees to stop building new centrifuges for the refinement of nuclear material, caps the amount and type of nuclear material that Iran is allowed to produce, and it halts Iran’s work on the construction of a heavy-water reactor that would eventually allow the country to produce plutonium, which could lead to high yield nuclear weapons. Iran also agrees to increased oversight of their nuclear related activities.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Watch: November 2013 – Super Typhoon Hits Phillipines, Tornadoes Wipe Out Another Midwest Town

by

by John Lawrence

Super Typhoon Haiyan

Super Typhoon Haiyan, the largest typhoon to hit land in human history, impacted the Phillipines on November 7 with winds exceeding 200 miles per hour along with torrential rain. The lives of 25 million people were affected. As many as 10,000 may have lost their lives. It was the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane, and the only difference between it and a hurricane was its name. Hurricanes are called typhoons in certain parts of the world and cyclones in others. Since they are the same weather phenomenon, why confuse people? In this era of globalization let’s globalize the names too and call them all hurricanes.   [Read more…]

Public Banking: How a Public Bank Could Benefit San Diego – Part 4

by

By John Lawrence

In this fourth part of our series on Public Banking (check out Parts 1 – 3 here, here and here), we explore how a Public Bank could benefit the taxpayers and citizens of the City of San Diego.

To recapitulate, the Public Bank of San Diego (BSD) would be owned by the City of San Diego and would provide functions similar to the Bank of North Dakota which is the nation’s only public bank as of this date. All BSD deposits would be guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the City of San Diego.   [Read more…]

Monsanto, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Global Food Dominance

by

By Ellen Brown / EllenBrown.com

“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.  ”Control food and you control the people.”

Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry