Columnist Stephanie Salter of the Chronicle may be getting fired

Stephanie Salter is a Tom Ammiano Democrat. Her columns are usually boring. Once in a while, she comes up with something worth reading, but of course, nothing radical at all. Anyone with any decency at all would not want to have a column in the reactionary, Chamber of Commerce rag known as the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chronicle is so bad there is almost no reason to read it. There is almost no news, which is the reason to buy any newspaper. Its editorial pages are, of course, complete garbage, at best, and fascist rantings at worst.

It's just not true that the Chronicle is "reactionary", let alone "fascist". It's in general pretty liberal. The business section is decent with that guy David Lazerus (sic) and the new "question man" is often excellent. Several weeks ago the question was posed whether capitalism is on the ropes (or something to that effect) and almost all the answers were anti-capitalist.

Of course, the Chronicle is hardly great. But canned leftist responses like the one above are silly.

Hey SF Chronicle Reader,

How about you stop reaching into your grab bag of insults and stop spraying my computer monitor with your e-idiocy?

How in the hell is the Chronicle "fascist" or reactionary? The Chronicle is one of the most liberal papers in the country. I agree that it's not a very good newspaper but there is no need to blindly smear something you obviously don't read.

Tom Ammiano isn't a democrat. He ran as an independant last election and is more closely allied with the Green Party.

SF Chronicle Reader sez "Anyone short of Mao is a reactionary."

He/she may go a *little* overboard in how he/she describes things, but the Chron is pretty bad in a lot of ways - why can't we ever read read columns by Robert Fisk? When was the last time Noam Chomsky was featured in there? Or even Michael Moore? Why is the Examiner moving to the left of the Chron (despite its plethora of right-wing stuff also)?

I think the Chron is a mixed bag - they've done some unusual coverage of cointelpro and related civil liberties stuff lately - but *overall* promotes the same stupid stuff that all these idiot newspapers do - Macys, Macys Macys, Sports, MIIB,MIIB, MIIB, Sports, AP story supporting Israel, Sports, local homocide, Macys, Macys, Sports, local dog-mauling, Macys, local pedestrian decapitation by truck, Neiman Marcus, Reuters story on UN, Macys, Macys, Macys, Sports . . .

Also, they are *vicious* about protecting CA from the Green Party - for the Chron, reporting anything on the Greens is only done to stem lawsuits. This is disgusting.

But I also don't support local columnists getting axed for stupid reasons - or no reason - when they aren't right-wing and can get replaced by a right-winger.

Calling the Chronicle fascist is typical of brain-dead leftists. For example, last week they had an editorial strongly cautioning against hiring 70 new cops in Oakland as the solution to the increasing homicides there. As Aaron mentioned the Chronicle is generally liberal, as in representing the liberal wing of the ruling class. As far as quality of reporting, i would rank it poor to fair but certainly better than the new tabloid style of the Examiner (who one of the posters absurdly described this new direction as "moving to the left").

To whom this may concern,

As a Chronicle subscriber and regular reader of SF Gate, I am opposed to your removal of Stephanie Salter from the Op-Ed pages at the end of this month.

Ms. Salter continuously provides an alternative angle missing from much of the mainstream press and to banish her to the back pages of the paper is wrong and misguided.

Ms. Salter has said that she was told her removal from the Op-Ed pages was due to her not being “fresh” enough, whatever that means.

Right-wing stooge, George Will, was featured in yesterday’s edition giving his slant on things, yet he’s been writing for the media just as long if not longer than Ms. Salter. If you think the opinions of Mr. Will and his proteges are any more “fresh” than Ms. Salter’s, you are clearly not listening to your readership and that is absolutely preposterous.

So. Is it due to ideological reasons that Ms. Salter no longer has her old job? I wonder. If it is, surely the role of the press is not to become another mouthpiece for the illegitimate regime in Washington. What is the purpose of “free speech” when everyone is saying the same thing? Whatever the reason, I urge you to reconsider this virtual assault on the intelligence of your readership and keep Ms. Salter in the position she best excels in.

The tolerant and liberal city of San Francisco gives the SF Chronicle an excellent platform in which to diverge from the prevailing ideologies handed down from Washington and New York. Getting rid of one of the few voices in your paper that represents that spirit of our city and region is a betrayal of the many readers who’ve kept you in business thus far.

Keep Stephanie Salter on the Op-Ed pages.

Keep Stephanie Salter where she is.

I know that the Examiner *looks* like a tabloid - and certainly has been in the past, but what I think is happening is that they've fallen low enough off the radar screen that they're getting some excellent columns in that the Chron wouldn't dare print. Writing about cointelpro is somewhat safe because the details they describe happened years ago - despite the fact that that stuff still goes on, they aren't writing about things being done by X-gov't official yesterday right here in CA. And they're glad to pretend to smash Davis on his exploits, but they'll protect him tooth and nail when it comes to promoting other candidates.

Here's a column you *won't* see in the Chron., but the Ex has the nerve to write it:

Publication date: 08/12/2002

Davis shuts out the Greens
BY JEANNE ROSENMEIER
Special to The Examiner

SUPPOSE I TOLD YOU that there is a candidate for governor of California who had the support of a million California voters, who was a successful businessperson, who was a pioneer in socially responsible investing, a lifelong advocate for working people and a Latino.

Suppose further that this candidate was campaigning full-time, with a statewide party behind him. Suppose he had proposals to improve healthcare without spending more, make solar energy affordable, balance the state budget without cutting vital services and reduce poverty. Would you want to hear his ideas?

Well, the candidate's name is Peter Miguel Camejo, and he is the Green Party candidate for governor, but you won't get to hear him. Not if Gray Davis gets his way.

Davis' campaign staff is lobbying the media not to cover the Camejo campaign. To give just one example, Gary South, Davis' campaign chief, asked Bill Rosendahl, host of the Los Angeles cable TV show "Week in Review," not to cover the Camejo campaign. (Rosendahl refused.)

NBC and its subsidiary, Telemundo, are planning a gubernatorial candidate debate. They were ready to invite all three candidates, but a Davis representative made it clear that Davis would pull out if the Green Party candidate was included. NBC capitulated to the threat and agreed to exclude Camejo.

The Greenlining Institute, an umbrella group of 39 organizations of businesspeople of color, is sponsoring a debate. Peter Camejo has agreed to participate, as has Bill Simon. Gray Davis has not responded. The word is that he refuses to appear on the same platform as Camejo.

If you went to a restaurant and the waiter refused to show you the menu, but insisted that you choose from only two entrees, wouldn't you complain?

So why accept the Davis/Simon abbreviated menu? Historically in this country, third parties have been the incubators of innovative ideas, from abolition to direct election of senators to the 40-hour week. The media need to stand up and seize their vital role as providers of information to the electorate. It is the job of the voters to decide which candidates "count," not TV executives or Davis or anyone else. But voters need a chance to hear Camejo.

In this gubernatorial campaign, there could be debates sponsored by NBC/Telemundo, the Greenlining Institute, the League of Women Voters, the Los Angeles Times and more. Who should decide who is included? Camejo's position is that the people of the state should decide. He is ready to abide by a poll asking if the people want the Green Party candidate included in the major debates.

Right now, Camejo's poll numbers are the same as Gov. Jesse Ventura's were before he was included in the candidate debates. Remember that when Ventura got press, he got elected. The American people are more than open to new ideas; they are starving for them.

Gov. Davis has heard the forthright and passionate Camejo speak. He knows that if Californians could hear Camejo straight out, his commonsense proposals would resonate with many, if not a majority of voters. That's why Davis is moving heaven, Earth and his corporate media buddies to keep the public from hearing what Camejo has to say.

We know that the vast majority of Californians favor fair play. Whether they would ever consider voting Green or not, they want to have a free and open set of debates.

Are you listening, NBC?

Comment: letters [at] sfexaminer.com.

Jeanne Rosenmeier is co-chair of the electoral reform working group of the Green Party of California and the Green candidate for state treasurer. See more at http://www.votecamejo.org.

Being a native San Franciscan, and having been reading the daily newspaper since age 10 when San Francisco had 5 daily newspapers, and currently not only a daily reader of the San Francisco Chronicle, but a reader of many newspapers, magazines and books constantly, as well as a reader of news daily online from a variety of newspaper sources, I know what a newspaper should be. The San Francisco Chronicle has declined greatly in quality, and is fast losing its title of Newspaper of Record of Northern California to the San Jose Mercury, or perhaps to the Sacramento Bee. The race is too close to call at this moment.

A newspaper's politics are defined by its editorials and election endorsements, which are made by its Editorial Board. The San Francisco Chronicle is a mouthpiece of (1) the ruling capitalist class of Northern California, (2) the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, a ruling class organization, and (3) the Republican Party, the twin capitalist party of the Democratic Party. It has traditionally endorsed Republicans for president and governor. However, since the 1990s, when the representative of the business section of the Democratic Party, Bill Clinton, became president, the Chronicle has endorsed Democrats for president and governor because they are sufficiently reactionary, and they certainly represent the same capitalist class, carrying out the same reactionary agenda.

The editorials are usually reactionary. When it comes to hiring more police in Oakland, there is currently a debate among the ruling class on that particular city's homicide crisis and whether police should be hired with the pretext of addressing it or not. Those ruling class mouthpieces like the Chronicle which currently oppose more police in Oakland are not prepared to call for spending lots more money on education, health care, housing and job training for decent paying jobs to eliminate the poverty in Oakland and the rest of the United States, which would end the street crime problem that exists today. In other words, they are not willing to demand a cut in the police, prison and military budgets and transfer that money to education, healthcare, housing and job training for decent paying jobs, which is what is needed. For that, we need a labor movement.

The best litmus test in San Francisco for the politics of a newspaper's editorial board is their position on rent control. The San Francisco Chronicle is always viciously anti-rent control, anti-tenant, anti-labor and pro-war. It supports the entire fascist ruling class agenda, and the American ruling class has clearly opted for fascism, from the US "Patriot" Act to all attacks on the workingclass at home and abroad. Thus, the San Francisco Chronicle is reactionary.

As to my home town of San Francisco, where I have lived in and around all my life, it is not liberal or progressive; it is simply part of the United States, the most backward country in the industrialized world, with the highest infant mortality and the lowest life expectancy. Anyone who knows the history of police brutality in San Francisco, which history is chronicled on this excellent website and occurs daily, the rotten school system and the history of election fraud would know that there is nothing liberal about San Francisco. In addition, the voters in the past 10 years have voted in the majority for death penalty initiatives, and that is profoundly reactionary.

The school system has one decent high school, Lowell High School, and the rest are substandard. This is an insult to the taxpayers and the students. There is nothing liberal about that at all.

The long history of election fraud in this city, including the "re-election" of the current "mayor" Willie Brown, which election fraud and "re-election" was supported by the San Francisco Chronicle, is a sign of a profoundly rotten, backward, reactionary government and ruling class, which the Chronicle represents. The election fraud of Willie Brown in 1997, which was supported by the San Francisco Chronicle, can be found at:
http://www.brasscheck.com/stadium

The election fraud of the Democratic Party in the 1970s, including Willie Brown and Oakland's current mayor, Jerry Brown (at that time, California governor), can be found at: http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown

The liberal newspaper in town is the San Francisco Bay Guardian, a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party and now that the Democratic Party does not even pretend to be liberal anymore, also a mouthpiece of the Green Party, which is not a socialist party, but a party of small business. That is, the Green Party supports capitalism. There are many good qualities about the Bay Guardian and the Green Party but that does not change their basic positions.

Tom Ammiano is a registered Democrat and has always run for office with the endorsement of the Democratic Party's Central Committee. The offices of the County of San Francisco and the San Francisco School Board are non-partisan, and thus we have no primary race for those offices. However, Tom Ammiano ran for School Board, member of the Board of Supervisors and for mayor as a registered Democrat. His write-in race for mayor in 1999 was to thwart a growing socialist electoral campaign for mayor, as the reactionary politics of Willie Brown, including Brown's promise to the Republican Party to repeal rent control in exchange for their endorsement, have severely weakened the strength of the Democratic Party. In other words, Ammiano ran for mayor to save the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party exists to keep the Reds out of office. There is nothing independent about Tom Ammiano whatsoever. He is simply a spokesperson for tenants, and that puts him in a position of representing the workingclass of San Francisco. The fundamental contradiction in a capitalist society is between labor and capital. To represent tenants in San Francisco is to be a voice for labor. There is really nothing unusual about Tom Ammiano's politics at all as the Democratic Party knows that if it officially opposes tenants, and in particular rent control, it is gone from the San Francisco political scene. Tom Ammiano did support Al Gore for President; he has supported both the baseball and football stadium swindles (he supports the $100 million limit on the football stadium swindle); he supported privatizing park land on Mt. Davidson to circumvent a good Supreme Court Church/State separation ruling to maintain the illegal cross on Mt. Davidson; he returned from a recent trip to Israel and claimed to "feel Israel's pain" but said nothing about the Palestinians' pain, and generally has supported the Democratic Party and its candidates for office.

It is the defenders of the San Francisco Chronicle who are brain dead. Rather than defend the indefensible, how about promoting alternative media, starting with all the Independent Media websites, each of which offers more news than the San Francisco Chronicle even attempts to offer. Three cheers for Independent Media.

Great second comment, SF Chronicle reader.
I wish I could "mod it up".

Quite enlightening, 'cept the stuff about Ammiano, which lacked evidentiary support, and was quite implausible.

yea, I can agree with most of what you said this time mr. Chron reader. I just think that you err when you refer to a liberal rag as reactionary. These words lose all meaning when you do that.

If it weren't for AC Thompson and a couple of other writers at the Bay Garbage Can, it wouldn't be worth picking off the rack ever. How many times do we need to be told that PG&E is greedy? Booooring.

Tom Ammiano is shifting right but it won't matter: He'll lose to Newsome for the reasons you've spelled out. SF is made for a slick peice of shit like Newsome; he'll wow enough comfy liberals and centrists with enough bones to get elected. Ammiano's a sacred cow of the progressive left, but, I predict, in the next year that'll change.

I disagree with your comment about "keeping reds out power" (or something to that effect) as it implies that a "red" could effect real change if s/he were to get elected. That's not to say that I wouldn't find it rather interesting to see a "red" get voted in. But let's get real: capital ain't about to allow "democracy" get in it's way.