San Francisco Swerves To The Right

but yes... it seems like you would just have to look at the rental listings on Craigslist to see the underlying cause for this phenomenon. San Francisco liberals, and especially the liberals running the national democratic party, *are* the upper-class, college educated elitists frequently described on right wing radio. They wouldn't understand the concept of class if it hit them in the face; for instance, look at how frequently you hear the term 'white trash' or you encounter people in San Francisco who never leave the city and regard the rest of the country an expanse of 'whitebread' low-brows, and who think that the enemy is almost entirely religious-right rednecks rather than upper class people who run things and might even donate to NPR and pro-choice causes. They think that as soon as the 'rednecks' are eliminated, the country would be perfect. And this isn't to mitigate the real oppression that people receive for sexuality or religion in certain geographic areas. If you were to go to South Dakota or Arkansas, there wouldn't be nearly the same stretched out income pyramid that you can easily see by standing on a corner in downtown San Francisco.
Nationally, I think the democrats are going to think for a few minutes, wondering what went wrong, but will inevitably have to realize that it would be physically impossible for them to become more middle of the road or indistinguishable from the republican party. If people support some republican ideas, they might as well vote for an actual republican rather than a wanna be. There might be some reason in a couple southern states for a democrat to take a really moderate approach, but by and large, the democrats have absolutely no economic substance even though there is a whole list of populist economic issues that they've been letting go, such as permitting Ken Lay, the biggest Bush contributor, and other corporate scandals to just slip off the front pages within a few days. They aren't talking about the huge problem with companies massively mismanaging pensions, and the facts of regressive taxation remains undiscussed.
Gray Davis totally could have turned the Enron thing in his favor and recruited the state to fight back against this company that ripped us off, but you hardly even hear about it any more - we just have to pay the bills for a few years.

Enron also donated money to Gray Davis, so his hands are just as dirty as GWB.

Yes, Gray Davis is poster boy for the democrats - he is representative of the whole phenomenon. He only accepts money from rich corporations, plus a few clueless liberals who care about a single social issue rather than the big picture, and then he returns nothing to his constituency. They only vote for him out of fear of republicans. Just watch - in a few weeks, he's going to start chopping pieces out of education in the budget, which he has been saving up for after the election because the one group he pretended to pander to was middle class parents, but they have a $25 billion deficit due to his Enron + the unstable economy of Calif. that was built on Silicon valley companies etc. The state legislature, without Davis, is actually fairly decent right now compared to decades before that, and this is why California isn't worse off than it is right now.

Thanks to Z for the gallery of images of anti-San-Franciscans. Not long before coming across this, I was thinking about people being concerned about government spying and surveillance cameras and e-mail privacy and so forth, and it occurred to me that we could turn the tables and spy on THEM. We could stand outside police stations, courts, federal buildings etc., take pictures of everybody who goes in and everybody who comes out and then post the pictures on the internet.

Nov. 5, '02 - San Francisco declares Moral Bankrutpcy.

What happened to the San Francisco "left"? It had to move across the Bay to find more affordable rents. Oakland's the place to be. (Barbara Lee vs. Nancy Pelosi. Nuff said.)

It really has become evident that high rents are keeping many young/progressive/artist/seeker types from moving to the city and are pushing people of color out.

Thanks for sharing with us a portrait of who supports Newsome and his agenda.

The SF working class supported N. WAKE UP!!!!!


Like most leftists your wrong. The upper class liberals are way more in touch with working people than your average "activist" frequenting this site. Thats why Gavin Newsome KICKED THE ACTIVISTS ASS!!!!

GAVIN NEWSOME KICKED THE ACTIVISTS ASS

The little rich kid that wants to be mayor is more in touch with ordinary SF citizens than all the homeless activists combined. WAKE UP!!!!!

Activists dismiss anyone with any complaint about the homeless (no matter of how legitimate) as some kind of nazi. No wonder N won in a landslide.

I would have to spend 100% of my income to live in SF, so I wouldn't know what the people are like. There sure are a lot of SUVs and bmws there. Where are the working class SF people... in scrunched together in some apartments by potrero hill?

Here is another example about the democrats. Do you see this article by Paul Krugman?
It was in the NYTimes magazine
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&th=43534b81356394b5&rnum=6
Paul Krugman is not a leftist. When I first noticed him around 1998, I was really irritated by his writing that insulted antiWTO/IMF/WB protesters, and cited his own authority as a bigwig economist. He is a neoliberal who embraces those big centrally planned 'free' market organizations. In any case, what he is saying here isn't new. Any marxist, and any antiauthoritarian could tell you the same thing, and they've been writing such in their own publications, but no one listens. There might not be any leftists in the media, but there are liberals.
Why can't liberal democrats in congress dare to bring up things like this? Why does it take this big moderate to be the biggest critic of Bush? The majority of the public cares a lot about these things.

SF voted against R to preserve rent control--A CLASS ISSUE. There are plenty of working class people still in SF. If the working class is all in Oakland and SF is controlled by yuppies than how come we still got rent control?

I think I know who you are Tricky.

In your haste to score ultra points against "homeless activists", you claim, but fail to substantiate, that the working class is all for Newsome's measure.

We all know that thousands of poor and working class people have been driven out of SF in the past decade. Of those that remain, most don't bother to vote. It is pretty fucking obvious that Prop N won because of the votes of the well-to-do, who now comprise a very high percentage of SF voters.

Sure, of course, there are quite a few working class people in SF that support Prop. N, some of whom voted and others that didn't. There are also a good number of working class people that support bombing Iraq and building a new football stadium.

In previous posts you've stated that you're opposed to Prop N. Your glowing depiction of the reasoning that you impute to the working classes' allegedly overwhelming support for Prop N suggests otherwise.

Is this all a game to you?

SF COUNTY LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT BY OCCUPATION
Employed civilian population 16 years and over 427,823 100.0%
Management, professional and related 206,804 48.3%
Service 61,364 14.3%
Sales and office 109,316 25.6%
Farming, fishing & forestry 462 0.1%
Construction, extraction, and maintenance 17,990 4.2%
Production, transportation, and material moving 31,887 7.5%
CLASS OF WORKER
Self-employed workers 37,140 8.7%

Follow the   link for definition and source information.

Browse more data sets for San Francisco County, California

	People QuickFacts	San Francisco County	California
	Population, 2001 estimate	770,723	34,501,130
	Population percent change, April 1, 2000-July 1, 2001	-0.8%	1.9%
	Population, 2000	776,733	33,871,648
	Population, percent change, 1990 to 2000	7.3%	13.6%
	Persons under 5 years old, percent, 2000	4.1%	7.3%
	Persons under 18 years old, percent, 2000	14.5%	27.3%
	Persons 65 years old and over, percent, 2000	13.7%	10.6%
	Female persons, percent, 2000	49.2%	50.2%
	White persons, percent, 2000 (a)	49.7%	59.5%
	Black or African American persons, percent, 2000 (a)	7.8%	6.7%
	American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2000 (a)	0.4%	1.0%
	Asian persons, percent, 2000 (a)	30.8%	10.9%
	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2000 (a)	0.5%	0.3%
	Persons reporting some other race, percent, 2000 (a)	6.5%	16.8%
	Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2000	4.3%	4.7%
	Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2000 (b)	14.1%	32.4%
	White persons, not of Hispanic/Latino origin, percent, 2000	43.6%	46.7%
	Living in same house in 1995 and 2000, pct age 5+, 2000	54.2%	50.2%
	Foreign born persons, percent, 2000	36.8%	26.2%
	Language other than English spoken at home, pct age 5+, 2000	45.7%	39.5%
	High school graduates, percent of persons age 25+, 2000	81.2%	76.8%
	Bachelor's degree or higher, pct of persons age 25+, 2000	45.0%	26.6%
	Persons with a disability, age 5+, 2000	150,131	5,923,361
	Mean travel time to work, workers age 16+ (minutes), 2000	30.7	27.7
	Housing units, 2000	346,527	12,214,549
	Homeownership rate, 2000	35.0%	56.9%
	Housing units in multi-unit structures, percent, 2000	67.7%	31.4%
	Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2000	$396,400	$211,500
	Households, 2000	329,700	11,502,870
	Persons per household, 2000	2.30	2.87
	Median household money income, 1999	$55,221	$47,493
	Per capita money income, 1999	$34,556	$22,711
	Persons below poverty, percent, 1999	11.3%	14.2%

Okay Aaron--- I'll try to explain myself.

1) Rent control was saved in SF by a pretty good margin-- so I believe it is wrong to say its only yuppies who live in and are voting in SF.

2) Now ask yourself why did a lot of those people who voted No on R. (rent control) vote yes on N?

3) when you're getting clobbered by a guy like Gavin Newsome (who really only represents the upper 5 to 10% of the population)-- maybe there should be some internal criticism and some reevaluation of strategy.

I tried to say some of my criticisms--maybe not politely enough for which I apologize-- but i feel frustrated by the losing strategy, tactics and rhetoric that I read on here. Sorry if i'm coming off as divisive but I'm trying to register my dissent.

having given it a moments more thought, I realized that what I was reacting to in Tricky's posts wasn't so much the content as much as the sneering tone.

I agree with Tricky that the tendency among "homeless activists" to paint all support for prop N as emanating from some fascistic impulse is wrong -- strategically most of all. The whole electoral charade is about administering what is, and what is these days is perma-austerity. So long as this isn't fundamentally challenged, hucksters like Newsome will be able to come around with "solutions" that treat the surface symptoms in a way that's more satisfying than the feckless palliatives that left-liberals (with all their endless moralizing) offer.

Lots of leftists view the proposition system as partially vindicating an otherwise corrupt democratic system. Contra this view I'll quote a friend: "Democracy is the language of common sense in a world where capitalism controls the senses." It is exactly to the extent that radicals adapt to the logic of the present system -- fighting battles on its terms and within its logic -- that we relinquish our capacity and power to forge something different.

I'm going to repeat it cause it's so right:

"Democracy is the language of common sense in a world where capitalism controls the senses."

For me, the passage of N has helped me to personally re-learn a lesson activists have learned over and over: organizing is hard. Creating change is hard. Seeing the cheering post-election celebrations, I was reminded of an observation by one political theorist that electoral politics is about one side symbolically vanguishing the other and that the victory celebrations are a form of public humiliation of the losers.

Here's the quote from Why democracy is wrong:

Democracy has substituted the democratic process for hope, and for commitment to ideals. The electoral process illustrates this otherwise abstract substitution.... At all of these elections, the minority lose: the inevitable fate of minorities in democracies. Every election is a triumph for the majority: the election gives that majority power to influence the lives of others. In Austria and Italy a racist electoral majority gained power over existing and future immigrants.

A democratic election, like all exercise of political power, blocks the possibility of some people realising their ideals.... The idealists will become more disillusioned and despondent. They will lose hope, because of democracy. The victorious parties understand this well: that is why they celebrate their victory. In fact all victorious majorities understand this: this is why elections are described in terms of 'victory' and 'defeat' anyway.

Victory celebrations are normal after elections: it is a form of public humiliation of defeated minorities. In Europe it became culturally acceptable after the Second World War. The Austrian case [the election of racist Haider] should remind people, that the triumph of a majority is not always something to celebrate. In the long term, democracy harms innovative minorities most of all. In this way, democracy erodes, and often destroys, the hope of change.

So don't lose hope, except in the institution of democracy.

"At all of these elections, the minority lose: the inevitable fate of minorities in democracies. Every election is a triumph for the majority: the election gives that majority power to influence the lives of others."

What kind of convoluted psychobabble is this? You mean when citizens go to vote on issues, the majority on one side of the issue is going to prevail and the other side isn't? Oh, how discriminating!

So when the majority chooses a certain way on an issue, then the minority is disenfranchised from directing the issue the way they had hoped to proceed? Oh my, how can we be so cruel?

In life, issues arise that involve the whole community. It's good to have open debate, a discussion of ideas in the political arena. But when the vote has been cast, the people have decided which side of the issue they prefer. Since you seemingly have a problem with 'victory' and 'defeat', maybe you need to consider a different line of work.

One can never really hope for anything better than democracy, especially spatially delineated so that local people only decide local issues and people have the opportunityt o move around. Under authoritarian governments, and under republics, pieces of paper ensuring rights to minorities never actually do ensure those rights until the majority finally decides to respect it. Women and non-euroamericans never could even vote in the US despite the constitution until the majority deigned to let them.

Anyway, with measure N, I still do think that the city isn't going to dramatically change. First, the city wasn't doing so much for the homeless beforehand. Second, the marina people depicted in those photos above are soon going to notice that they wrote an initiative focused at the wrong people. Really, they aren't 'suffering' from sharing the sidewalks with the homeless, but are suffering from the lack of mental health treatment in this society. Canada and europe and most other countries with any money do provide mental health options for the 2-5% of people who will have problems. They are unhappy with the percentage of homeless who are mostly panhandling, single men, and are mentally ill, vietnam vets, or alcoholic. As N. pointed out, most of the homeless aren't standing on the sidewalks, but are women, often with kids, who are the lowest earning group in society. Cutting off payments will bring the people who actually found a cheap room to live out onto the streets, while the mentally ill aren't going to drive to another city.

The biggest consequence of the senate having 51 republicans is Bush's Iraq war. For a couple weeks it seemed like that was dying down, but now he says he has a mandate. I bet $2 that he sends marines and airforce in starting January 15th target date - or a one week period before and after, and subtract a quarter for each day outside of this range.

From the front page:

>>>>SF officials were surprised by the low turnout--about 190,000 people voted in a city of 730,000, slightly more than 1 in 4 people. Oakland saw a little more than 80,000 voters in a city of 400,000, about 1 in 5.

SF - 730,000 & Oakland - 400,000. I believe these numbers to be the population of these cities. It would be better to compare number of votes in relation to registered voters in order to obtain an accurte reflection.

This is a pretty sleazey article. I don't see what purpose there is to photographing people leaving political rallies besides barely-veiled intimidation. What authority will leftists have to cry foul of surveillance by the police if we do the same thing? As someone who's been videotaped at countless protests I don't think it should happen to anyone, even if they are assholes.

"I don't see what purpose there is to photographing people leaving political rallies besides barely-veiled intimidation"

We take pictures of ourselves at protests, so why not also take pictures of those who support things we oppose? Its only intimidation if you think making people feel guilty about greed is intimidation. The people in these pictures are MORE responsible for prop N than Newsom since he was playing to their desires rather than the other way around.Look at comments to this and other articles with all the debate on who really supported N and I think pictures of the organizers behind N are pretty useful.

Making the political personal is the only way we will prevent the slow migration of the Bay Area to the right. Right wing organizations may use PR to change public opinion but right wing organizations get their beliefs from somewhere. Following the money shouldnt just involve picking on random rich people like Ken Lay and Bernard Ebbers (if they go to jail the effects would be minimal since they are just two people). The majority of wealth in the US may be in a few hands but these people are not nameless figures, they are the people who show up at rallies like this to support Newsom (perhaps these people are not the richest of the rich but they are in the top 5% and are using the wealth they have for a pretty dispicable purpose).

Boycotting businesses of the far right is appropriate behavior since by not doing so we are basically funding things we oppose. At leftwing protests, the real news is the base that shows up and not the leaders (the WWP has few members and the politics of those who show up at an IAC rally does not reflect the beliefs of the WWP) Likewise the people who show up at a proN rally tells one alot more about N than the leaders who one normally sees...

that the only people of color at this event are the security?

* * * * *

By the way, I can explain why N passed but O didn't. It's not that working class people voted for N, unless someone can show election returns from working class areas to prove otherwise. There are plenty of yuppies who rent as well and may not want to see their rents go up too high.

The primary beneficiaries of the abolition of rent control are a relatively small number of people -- landlords, developers, and affluent homeowners who want to see their property values go up. Why would any renter, regardless of income or ideology, want to see their rent double or triple? You don't have to be bleeding-heart liberal to support rent control. I know plenty of conservatives who would have voted the same way.

Yo ?, your response only shows how incredibly short-sighted your worldview is.

a) Minorities can be discriminated against by majorities. This is a serious problem with democracies. Yes, "Oh how discriminating!" Tell it to a black person in the South in 1950. Tell it to a black person today. Tell it to a poor person pretty much anytime.

b) You believe there are only two sides to an issue. For example: how do we deal with homelessness? Yes on N, or no on N. No alterations allowed, just yell "aye" or "nay", please. If you throw in O you get three possible outcomes. Still limited.

c) Who are "the people"? How are they defined? How does this affect the election results?

d) The simplistic ideas about "the people" choosing one of two sides are compounded by assumptions that
i) "open debate" on any issue makes the outcome legitimate (a classically liberal position)
ii) "open debate" on any issue makes the outcome legitimate if 51% support it no matter how vehement or how large or how principled the opposition is
iii) there is anything approaching "open debate" in this society
iv) ... especially on an issue as heavily about class as N is.

--

And voter, you mean R, which would have hurt rent control. O modified Care not Cash (N) to make it actually include some "care".

Come off it lil' nessie. Without the Prozac your simpleton conspiracies would have about as much chance of holding up as an ice cream cone in Death Valley in August.

I hate to sound reactionary, but rehab, 12-steps, and anti-psychotropic drug campaigns came about because of bugs like you.

Once you're off drugs, try reading. Start with something that analyzes the world we live in, not your reductionistic connect-the-dots adult coloring books of conspiracies that you look at the pictures in now.

Your Mean Aunt Mae

Come off it lil' nessie. Without the Prozac your simpleton conspiracies would have about as much chance of holding up as an ice cream cone in Death Valley in August.

I hate to sound reactionary, but rehab, 12-steps, and anti-psychotropic drug campaigns came about because of bugs like you.

Once you're off drugs, try reading. Start with something that analyzes the world we live in, not your reductionistic connect-the-dots adult coloring books of conspiracies that you look at the pictures in now.

Your Mean Aunt Mae

Now let's get back to the topic.

"Cutting off payments will bring the people who actually found a cheap room to live out onto the streets, while the mentally ill aren't going to drive to another city. "

Uh... cp - did you read prop N? It doesn't cut off payments to people who can show they have a room they live in.

And as for the 'democracy sucks' thread: yes it's the worst form of govermnent there is - except for all the other forms of government!!!

In countries where there isn't a winner-take-all system, the government better represents the people - for example: Germany and Israel. There is compelling evidence that because of this difference, typical turnout is 80% of the population, instead of 30%.

I'd love to see the Board of Supervisors elected under this kind of system!