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Newsom Moves to the Right
"And while Newsom accuses cable car workers of being crooks, he has yet to say a negative word about the serial evictors for profit plaguing North Beach and other neighborhoods."
During his seven years as a Supervisor, Gavin Newsom consistently backed the Chamber of Commerce’s agenda and offered little in the way of progressive legislation. But after becoming Mayor, Newsom took several actions that changed his political identity, increasing his support among gays and lesbians, organized labor, and progressives overall. Since 2006 began, however, Newsom has quickly moved back toward espousing the agenda of his downtown/real estate base. Last week, the Mayor accused members of the heavily African-American transit workers union of stealing on cable cars, appeared unconcerned about the closure of primarily African-American schools, and refused to slow the exodus of families from San Francisco by his late Friday afternoon veto of the first of two pieces of legislation designed to protect tenants from Ellis Act evictions (the Mayor has already pledged to veto the other). Add the Mayor’s opposition to a local version of the employer health care mandate conceived by ex-Senator John Burton and the state Democratic Party, and can readily conclude that Newsom’s courting of progressives is over.
During his first two years as Mayor, Gavin Newsom legalized gay marriage, supported the hotel workers boycott, put a housing bond and business tax increase on the ballot, increased funding for children’s services, created Project Homeless Connect, and appeared to be following the political evolution of his role model, Robert F. Kennedy.
But a different Mayor Newsom has emerged in 2006, one closer to Supervisor Newsom than to Robert Kennedy.
Virtually every policy position endorsed by the Mayor this year echoes that of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the San Francisco Association of Realtors. These constituencies elected Newsom to do their bidding, and, after two years of business interests complaining that Newsom had deserted them, he has apparently returned to the fold.
Consider the following:
• After two years as Mayor, Newsom continues to ignore the harm caused by escalating Ellis Act evictions. The Mayor told San Francisco magazine that “I want people to know that we’re thinking about the problems, that we’re working on the problems and that we have ideas to try to solve the problems.” But the Mayor has offered neither ideas nor solutions to the working families and seniors forced out of their homes pursuant to the Ellis Act.
While the Mayor avoids the problem, seven members of the Board of Supervisors passed legislation requiring sellers of TIC’s to disclose to prospective purchasers that the building was vacant due to evictions of seniors or disabled tenants. Although this mild measure gave the Mayor an easy opportunity to show his concern about Ellis Act evictions, he nevertheless vetoed it.
Read More
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=2861#more
During his first two years as Mayor, Gavin Newsom legalized gay marriage, supported the hotel workers boycott, put a housing bond and business tax increase on the ballot, increased funding for children’s services, created Project Homeless Connect, and appeared to be following the political evolution of his role model, Robert F. Kennedy.
But a different Mayor Newsom has emerged in 2006, one closer to Supervisor Newsom than to Robert Kennedy.
Virtually every policy position endorsed by the Mayor this year echoes that of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the San Francisco Association of Realtors. These constituencies elected Newsom to do their bidding, and, after two years of business interests complaining that Newsom had deserted them, he has apparently returned to the fold.
Consider the following:
• After two years as Mayor, Newsom continues to ignore the harm caused by escalating Ellis Act evictions. The Mayor told San Francisco magazine that “I want people to know that we’re thinking about the problems, that we’re working on the problems and that we have ideas to try to solve the problems.” But the Mayor has offered neither ideas nor solutions to the working families and seniors forced out of their homes pursuant to the Ellis Act.
While the Mayor avoids the problem, seven members of the Board of Supervisors passed legislation requiring sellers of TIC’s to disclose to prospective purchasers that the building was vacant due to evictions of seniors or disabled tenants. Although this mild measure gave the Mayor an easy opportunity to show his concern about Ellis Act evictions, he nevertheless vetoed it.
Read More
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=2861#more
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Look, it shouldn't be necessary to have to point this out, but our elected representatives will operate according to the political context in which they find themselves. In a case like this, since the "progressives" have failed to organize themsleves into presenting an alternative, OF COURSE somebody like Newsome will move rightward. This will only gain him support (a larger set to represent) as long as those to his left are forced to continue to vote for him because they lack any alternative.
If you don't like this outcome your first step is to look in the mirror. Don't blame Newsom for rational behavior but your own lack of success in organizing the threat of an alternative that will force such politicians to continue to more fully represent "progressive" interests. Unless and until we "progressives" do our positions will become less and less represented. Poltiics is "hardball" -- your positions get representation to the extent that you are able to make THAT the price of your votes.
There is nothing wrong with that. That's how it SHOULD be in a democracy. If you think otherwise, if you think that those who have been elected should be pushing "what is right" and not what those who have elected them want them to do then perhaps you need to rethink your commitment to the concept of "democracy".
If you don't like this outcome your first step is to look in the mirror. Don't blame Newsom for rational behavior but your own lack of success in organizing the threat of an alternative that will force such politicians to continue to more fully represent "progressive" interests. Unless and until we "progressives" do our positions will become less and less represented. Poltiics is "hardball" -- your positions get representation to the extent that you are able to make THAT the price of your votes.
There is nothing wrong with that. That's how it SHOULD be in a democracy. If you think otherwise, if you think that those who have been elected should be pushing "what is right" and not what those who have elected them want them to do then perhaps you need to rethink your commitment to the concept of "democracy".
All the Bay Area white liberals, progressives and even leftists just *LOVVVED* Newsom when he was, so-called, "marrying" thousands of predominantly privileged, largely yuppie WHITE gays at city hall in his purely symbolic political venture -- yet, once again, they blamed *Nader*, instead of Newsom, for threatening Democrat success in the last presidential elections -- but those thousands of whites didn't say a *DAMN* thing while Newsom was cutting loose the SFPD for about a month in 2004 to go rampage on and turn the predominantly black Bayview area into 'BLACK FALLUJAH'.
Newsom is no mystery and no chamelion. He is what he has always been; that is to say, he comes from privilege and will
always act to protect his privileged class of wealth, whether it
be downtown interests, real estate speculators, or the controlling, conservative-wing of the Democratic Party (i.e.
Clinton, Feinstein, Lieberman, et al.).
Newsom is a well-spun front man for the right-wing, monied interests destroying what remains of what was once home to
a great labor and social tradition. Newsom will finish the job that the administrations of Christopher, Alioto, Feinstein, Jordan, and Brown started, developed, and managed, and that is, sell out San Francisco to the highest bidders and destroy any and all remaining elements of a progressive and ethnically-diverse community.
For all of the naive liberal suckers, Newsom played you like a harp on the gay marriage ruse, the hotel "strike", SFUSD
bail-out promises and the SFPD video flap.
You've been TKO'd in the first round!
always act to protect his privileged class of wealth, whether it
be downtown interests, real estate speculators, or the controlling, conservative-wing of the Democratic Party (i.e.
Clinton, Feinstein, Lieberman, et al.).
Newsom is a well-spun front man for the right-wing, monied interests destroying what remains of what was once home to
a great labor and social tradition. Newsom will finish the job that the administrations of Christopher, Alioto, Feinstein, Jordan, and Brown started, developed, and managed, and that is, sell out San Francisco to the highest bidders and destroy any and all remaining elements of a progressive and ethnically-diverse community.
For all of the naive liberal suckers, Newsom played you like a harp on the gay marriage ruse, the hotel "strike", SFUSD
bail-out promises and the SFPD video flap.
You've been TKO'd in the first round!
Poor Newsom!
Of course he is beholden to downtown financial interests-- it is they who bought his election for him! We all know how Matt Gonzalez got more votes than Newsom on election day-- and how Newsom squeaked by with "absentee ballots". After years of corrupt and/or inept management under Willie Brown, the mainstream media was eager to celebrate a reformed Election Department-- only to later backpage stories about how some officials electioneered on the job.
As we know with Bush, as president: victors are not to be questioned in the name of stability. After Newsom won everyone knew who was to butter their bread-- so they all crowded into Newsom's tent. Perhaps the only one who made any demands was Angela Alioto-- who was awarded with a supervisory seat for a relative and a position (not as Vice-Mayor as she hoped-- Newsom hedged on that) as Homeless Czar (bringing in a short spate of dollars from the Bush administration eager to propagandize its compassion) to the acclaim of everyone eager for whatever crumbs would come their way in a dire environment.
What is sad is that Newsom is smart enough and well-intentioned enough to figure out how to break free from the interests that control him, but he hasn't done it.
Allowing gay marriages and walking a Local 2 picket helped: but when the pressure was on him-- didn't he back down?
Gay marriages was a great photo-op-- still reverberating in salon level gallery showings and in the slick pages of high-brow magazines. The early Spring may still be a portent of a real Spring to come (although real progressives don't seem to ask if it is right that people's private lives and the State should be coupled at all-- esopecially in an environment that lacks real protections for citizens). Hotel workers are still on technical strike after working through (now two) all-important Christmas seasons-- how many of them squeak by on calories from free candy and the manufactured cheer of pasha-like Christmas decorations? San Francisco is not special anymore: it has become just another third world metropolis where the super-rich live luxurious lives off the fear of workers without the most basic protections or representation. Why would any such city save schools for people whose children can be easily replaced by new waves of desperate people?
As for his accusations about theft at Muni--
How in God's name I wonder, could a white-prep like Newsom ride a cable car incognito and witness operators pocketing fares?
Of course he didn't.
More likely-- some feckless rich donor or confident related to him their adventurous experiment riding San Francisco's increasingly beleaguered public transportation system -- and Newsom dutifully passed that person's concerns off as his own-- just as he does the bidding of the financial interests.
What will happen next? Is it possible for Newsom to cut the purse strings and be his own person? Can he stand for the people? Can he make his own opportunities if they don't exist within his own corporate controlled party?
The swimming pool with sound system beckons. America takes good care of its sell-outs-- even as it moves on from its road-kill.
Of course he is beholden to downtown financial interests-- it is they who bought his election for him! We all know how Matt Gonzalez got more votes than Newsom on election day-- and how Newsom squeaked by with "absentee ballots". After years of corrupt and/or inept management under Willie Brown, the mainstream media was eager to celebrate a reformed Election Department-- only to later backpage stories about how some officials electioneered on the job.
As we know with Bush, as president: victors are not to be questioned in the name of stability. After Newsom won everyone knew who was to butter their bread-- so they all crowded into Newsom's tent. Perhaps the only one who made any demands was Angela Alioto-- who was awarded with a supervisory seat for a relative and a position (not as Vice-Mayor as she hoped-- Newsom hedged on that) as Homeless Czar (bringing in a short spate of dollars from the Bush administration eager to propagandize its compassion) to the acclaim of everyone eager for whatever crumbs would come their way in a dire environment.
What is sad is that Newsom is smart enough and well-intentioned enough to figure out how to break free from the interests that control him, but he hasn't done it.
Allowing gay marriages and walking a Local 2 picket helped: but when the pressure was on him-- didn't he back down?
Gay marriages was a great photo-op-- still reverberating in salon level gallery showings and in the slick pages of high-brow magazines. The early Spring may still be a portent of a real Spring to come (although real progressives don't seem to ask if it is right that people's private lives and the State should be coupled at all-- esopecially in an environment that lacks real protections for citizens). Hotel workers are still on technical strike after working through (now two) all-important Christmas seasons-- how many of them squeak by on calories from free candy and the manufactured cheer of pasha-like Christmas decorations? San Francisco is not special anymore: it has become just another third world metropolis where the super-rich live luxurious lives off the fear of workers without the most basic protections or representation. Why would any such city save schools for people whose children can be easily replaced by new waves of desperate people?
As for his accusations about theft at Muni--
How in God's name I wonder, could a white-prep like Newsom ride a cable car incognito and witness operators pocketing fares?
Of course he didn't.
More likely-- some feckless rich donor or confident related to him their adventurous experiment riding San Francisco's increasingly beleaguered public transportation system -- and Newsom dutifully passed that person's concerns off as his own-- just as he does the bidding of the financial interests.
What will happen next? Is it possible for Newsom to cut the purse strings and be his own person? Can he stand for the people? Can he make his own opportunities if they don't exist within his own corporate controlled party?
The swimming pool with sound system beckons. America takes good care of its sell-outs-- even as it moves on from its road-kill.
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