Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Giants fans Smash Cars, Block Intersections: Was it Outside Agitators?
People are more passionate about baseball than they are about the political future of their country/state/city. This is no surprise to those of us familiar with the decadence of Amerikan imperialism. Amerikans don’t need to worry about politics – the government is working in their interests to secure resources at the expense of Third World peoples to maintain wealth at home.
1 November 2010, The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, and in addition to the tens of thousands of fans in the stadium, an estimated 12 million people watched the game on TV (not counting the millions watching in sports bars, restaurants and other public venues). And, as in other winning cities in years past, the city of the winning team erupted into “joyful mayhem,” as the San Francisco Chronicle calls it, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets in drunken celebration that included property destruction, traffic disruption, and violence.
In classic bourgeois press form, pretending neutrality, the SF Chronicle’s headline article today was titled “SF Giants Series celebration is joyful mayhem” and included: “On Market Street, the celebration quickly turned wild and unruly, with an estimated 7,000 revelers in the streets, some jumping on cars, rocking Muni buses, tossing beer bottles, lighting fireworks and blocking traffic at Seventh Street.” A much smaller article, hidden on the Chronicle website, also mentioned “In the Mission, there have been reports of fires, broken windows and an alleged stabbing.” Compare this with the same newspaper’s January 8, 2009 report on the Oscar Grant protests. The article was titled “Protests over BART shooting turn violent” and gave a negative review of the protest which “mushroomed into several hours of violence Wednesday night as demonstrators smashed storefronts and cars, set several cars ablaze and blocked streets.”
We see that the same street violence is condoned when it’s in the name of professional sports. Police wandering the streets after the World Series were friendly, often clapping and cheering, and shutting down streets to help out traffic while enabling the celebration. During the Oscar Grant protest the cops showed up in riot gear and attacked the crowd.
While we’re no fans of imperialist elections, the World Series victory happened the night before election day and begs the comparison: people are more passionate about baseball than they are about the political future of their country/state/city. This is no surprise to those of us familiar with the decadence of Amerikan imperialism. Amerikans don’t need to worry about politics – the government is working in their interests to secure resources at the expense of Third World peoples to maintain wealth at home.
Sports passion includes a remarkable number of fans cheering “we did it!” and “we won!” as if they had anything to do with the team that won the game. In reality the SF Giants, like all professional sports teams, are made up of players from across the country, who are paid a ridiculous amount of money to wear a jersey for this team. Their allegiance to the city lasts only as long as the paycheck continues. In fact people point to statistics about the Giants' last World Series victory 56 years ago when they were based in New York as if that team had something more in common with the SF Giants than the font they use for their logo.
MIM(Prisons) would like to take all the sports passion in Amerika and turn it against imperialist violence or world hunger. But we’d even settle for people getting off the couch and playing sports rather than getting drunk watching millionaires play. Perhaps the improved circulation would help people think a bit more rationally about politics and the relative importance of professional sports.
In classic bourgeois press form, pretending neutrality, the SF Chronicle’s headline article today was titled “SF Giants Series celebration is joyful mayhem” and included: “On Market Street, the celebration quickly turned wild and unruly, with an estimated 7,000 revelers in the streets, some jumping on cars, rocking Muni buses, tossing beer bottles, lighting fireworks and blocking traffic at Seventh Street.” A much smaller article, hidden on the Chronicle website, also mentioned “In the Mission, there have been reports of fires, broken windows and an alleged stabbing.” Compare this with the same newspaper’s January 8, 2009 report on the Oscar Grant protests. The article was titled “Protests over BART shooting turn violent” and gave a negative review of the protest which “mushroomed into several hours of violence Wednesday night as demonstrators smashed storefronts and cars, set several cars ablaze and blocked streets.”
We see that the same street violence is condoned when it’s in the name of professional sports. Police wandering the streets after the World Series were friendly, often clapping and cheering, and shutting down streets to help out traffic while enabling the celebration. During the Oscar Grant protest the cops showed up in riot gear and attacked the crowd.
While we’re no fans of imperialist elections, the World Series victory happened the night before election day and begs the comparison: people are more passionate about baseball than they are about the political future of their country/state/city. This is no surprise to those of us familiar with the decadence of Amerikan imperialism. Amerikans don’t need to worry about politics – the government is working in their interests to secure resources at the expense of Third World peoples to maintain wealth at home.
Sports passion includes a remarkable number of fans cheering “we did it!” and “we won!” as if they had anything to do with the team that won the game. In reality the SF Giants, like all professional sports teams, are made up of players from across the country, who are paid a ridiculous amount of money to wear a jersey for this team. Their allegiance to the city lasts only as long as the paycheck continues. In fact people point to statistics about the Giants' last World Series victory 56 years ago when they were based in New York as if that team had something more in common with the SF Giants than the font they use for their logo.
MIM(Prisons) would like to take all the sports passion in Amerika and turn it against imperialist violence or world hunger. But we’d even settle for people getting off the couch and playing sports rather than getting drunk watching millionaires play. Perhaps the improved circulation would help people think a bit more rationally about politics and the relative importance of professional sports.
For more information:
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/news/all/...
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
While some of us were phone banking to Get Out the Vote, others (mostly male) were on their butts watching the game. In the time honored American tradition, women were serving up the chips and beer. (Yes, some women get as excited about the sport and that is most worrisome!) Meanwhile in Texas, many women are beaten and bruised today...the men whose team lost often get violent themselves after watching sports and take it out on...guess who?
> Celebration of brutal, violent contact sport...
> by A. Feminist
Baseball is less brutal and certainly less violent than driving a car or paying taxes --something that feminists do as much as anybody else.
> While some of us were phone banking to Get Out the Vote
For whom? If it was for either the Republicans or Democrats, it was a far more violence-promoting activity than baseball, or any other sport.
> others (mostly male) were on their butts watching the game.
Being on their butts watching some silly diversion is less harmful than most of the things most people in the United Snakes do in their waking hours, especially between 9am and 5pm.
> In the time honored American tradition, women were serving up the chips and beer.
Didn't any men serve up chips and beer? And didn't anybody at least order a pizza while watching the game? (:->)
> (Yes, some women get as excited about the sport and that is most worrisome!)
Not one hundredth as worrisome as the fact that some women enlist in the U.S. Killitary and many more support 'their' men in doing so.
> Meanwhile in Texas, many women are beaten and bruised today...the men whose team lost often get violent themselves after watching sports and take it out on...guess who?
I've read and heard statements like this last one before. But I've yet to come across data to back it up. Any references?
> by A. Feminist
Baseball is less brutal and certainly less violent than driving a car or paying taxes --something that feminists do as much as anybody else.
> While some of us were phone banking to Get Out the Vote
For whom? If it was for either the Republicans or Democrats, it was a far more violence-promoting activity than baseball, or any other sport.
> others (mostly male) were on their butts watching the game.
Being on their butts watching some silly diversion is less harmful than most of the things most people in the United Snakes do in their waking hours, especially between 9am and 5pm.
> In the time honored American tradition, women were serving up the chips and beer.
Didn't any men serve up chips and beer? And didn't anybody at least order a pizza while watching the game? (:->)
> (Yes, some women get as excited about the sport and that is most worrisome!)
Not one hundredth as worrisome as the fact that some women enlist in the U.S. Killitary and many more support 'their' men in doing so.
> Meanwhile in Texas, many women are beaten and bruised today...the men whose team lost often get violent themselves after watching sports and take it out on...guess who?
I've read and heard statements like this last one before. But I've yet to come across data to back it up. Any references?
This article could read: While some people were supporting the imperialist system by phonebanking for their favorite parties of war, economic exploitation and environmental destruction, others were having fun and getting exercise by running around in the streets building comradery between young people from many races committing small amounts of vandalism against polluting vehicles, capitalist businesses and attacking cops. (see other Indybay article.)
While we do know that major league sports is big business, so is phonebanking for the Democratic and Republican parties. Sexism pervades all of society including sports and politics, but the fact that more women are playing sports (and enjoying them) should be applauded as a way of fighting the sexism, not called "worrisome".
While we do know that major league sports is big business, so is phonebanking for the Democratic and Republican parties. Sexism pervades all of society including sports and politics, but the fact that more women are playing sports (and enjoying them) should be applauded as a way of fighting the sexism, not called "worrisome".
This analysis really spoke to me - especially about the myth of "sports team" identity. Its about just as fake as "national" identity - like about being an "American" or whatever, when in reality the government doesn't really care about a majority of people that live in the US.
There is something subtly fascist about thinking a professional, multi-million dollar sports team that happens to have the "San Francisco" name somehow represents us. Let us not forget the "San Francisco Giants" were once called the "Brooklyn Giants" - before the up and left their "community" of supporters for a better market in the west. The players are mercenaries and the team itself is an enforced monopoly.
However, I find it dangerous to criticize people for rioting for the Giants yet not for Oscar Grant III. Our society doesn't give many options for the way we live our lives, so its not as much of a matter of free will as we would make it out to be. Lets not hate the people that we will eventually will be organizing to be on the front lines, lets learn from them.
There is something subtly fascist about thinking a professional, multi-million dollar sports team that happens to have the "San Francisco" name somehow represents us. Let us not forget the "San Francisco Giants" were once called the "Brooklyn Giants" - before the up and left their "community" of supporters for a better market in the west. The players are mercenaries and the team itself is an enforced monopoly.
However, I find it dangerous to criticize people for rioting for the Giants yet not for Oscar Grant III. Our society doesn't give many options for the way we live our lives, so its not as much of a matter of free will as we would make it out to be. Lets not hate the people that we will eventually will be organizing to be on the front lines, lets learn from them.
Thank you Feminist for doing Get Out The Vote (GOTV) last night as I am now too tired after work to do it but will join you soon as I am soon retired. Thank you also for correctly criticizing the lazy, worthless, male chauvinists who insisted on watching the Idiot Box, or we could say the Idiot Box was watching the Idiots. And yes, violence against women is commonly and correctly connected with these war games, and every year for the Super Bowl, there is also a mass movement to help women cope with the violence perpetrated against them by their football idiot husbands and boyfriends when these so-called men are drunk or angry about something.
This socialist feminist experienced the 3 hours of screaming, drunken rampages of last night as these drunken hoodlums drove round and round the main roads of San Francisco, honking their horns and screaming, a Monday night which by definition is a work night and a school night in November, as well as Election Eve when lots of campaigning could have been done for Props 19, 21, 24, and 25 and No on B, G and L, all important to the workingclass. Those Peace & Freedom Party and Green Party candidates that had campaign literature could have been included in the packets. I see from the videos on this website taken from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/giants-world-series-riot-photos_n_777545.html
and
http://alttransport.com/2010/11/san-francisco-giants-world-series-riots-first-hand-account/
and described at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/02/18662908.php
that glass was broken, etc. This was the same horror show we experienced 5 times in San Francisco from 1982 through 1995. I remember it all very well and I am extremely angry about it.
These are not agent provacatuers; this is what goes on all the time with these "victories," all across the United States, whether it be football or baseball, the 2 worst gambling rackets in this backward country. And when Oakland won this baseball garbage in 1989, the capitalist press covered up for the drunken hoodlums just as they do in San Francisco and did in San Francisco for the football garbage from 1982-1995. And I know lots of men both in my family and on my job who have even sharper criticisms of these drunken hoodlums, with all expletives implied. No member of the workingclass gains anything from these gambling rackets; they are all profit-making schemes of the rich.
And now, we are going to have a sequel, the parade, Wednesday, 11/3, to glorify this gambling racket as all professional sports are million dollar money making fixed rackets. The parade will go from Montgomery and Washington (the Pyramid) to Market and Montgomery, on Market to the Civic Center where the drunken hoodlums will riot again. Everyone in the Financial District who can will miss work in whole or in part tomorrow. Since Deansor, Aaron and Kevin are so sympathetic to these drunken hoodlums, you all could take our place by standing in the middle of these screaming drunken hoodlums at Montgomery and Market, pick up all the trash they are sure to leave, and then you could patronize all the restaurants where lots of workers are desperately trying to earn a living as they will be empty and therefore have lots of food for you to buy. There are lots of reasonably priced nutritious restaurants that we, the labor force of the Financial District, patronize.
I know for a fact that they will be screaming as I have witnessed these parades and I will never witness them again nor should I have to.
Lots of us experienced poverty and continue to be workingclass, and that has nothing to do with being drunken hoodlums. We always had something to do with our time if we were not at work. When I was in my twenties, after work, I took classes or went swimming. San Francisco has lots of inexpensive activities for young people.
As to organizing the unorganized, that is done on the job, and those of us who are serious do not engage in such drunken hoodlum behavior. You have to be drunk or stupid to get so "excited" about this garbage that you can engage in terrorizing someone trying to drive down the street, breaking windows, driving round and round the city screaming and honking horns. I feel sorry for the people of the Mission District who were trying to get a decent night's sleep as they experienced not only the screaming drunks but also the news helicopters overhead.
Thank you Feminist for your incisive comments and for your GOTV efforts.
IT IS NOW ONE HOUR BEFORE THE POLLS CLOSE. PLEASE VOTE: Yes on 19, 21, 24 and 25 and for Peace & Freedom and Green Party candidates.
This socialist feminist experienced the 3 hours of screaming, drunken rampages of last night as these drunken hoodlums drove round and round the main roads of San Francisco, honking their horns and screaming, a Monday night which by definition is a work night and a school night in November, as well as Election Eve when lots of campaigning could have been done for Props 19, 21, 24, and 25 and No on B, G and L, all important to the workingclass. Those Peace & Freedom Party and Green Party candidates that had campaign literature could have been included in the packets. I see from the videos on this website taken from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/giants-world-series-riot-photos_n_777545.html
and
http://alttransport.com/2010/11/san-francisco-giants-world-series-riots-first-hand-account/
and described at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/02/18662908.php
that glass was broken, etc. This was the same horror show we experienced 5 times in San Francisco from 1982 through 1995. I remember it all very well and I am extremely angry about it.
These are not agent provacatuers; this is what goes on all the time with these "victories," all across the United States, whether it be football or baseball, the 2 worst gambling rackets in this backward country. And when Oakland won this baseball garbage in 1989, the capitalist press covered up for the drunken hoodlums just as they do in San Francisco and did in San Francisco for the football garbage from 1982-1995. And I know lots of men both in my family and on my job who have even sharper criticisms of these drunken hoodlums, with all expletives implied. No member of the workingclass gains anything from these gambling rackets; they are all profit-making schemes of the rich.
And now, we are going to have a sequel, the parade, Wednesday, 11/3, to glorify this gambling racket as all professional sports are million dollar money making fixed rackets. The parade will go from Montgomery and Washington (the Pyramid) to Market and Montgomery, on Market to the Civic Center where the drunken hoodlums will riot again. Everyone in the Financial District who can will miss work in whole or in part tomorrow. Since Deansor, Aaron and Kevin are so sympathetic to these drunken hoodlums, you all could take our place by standing in the middle of these screaming drunken hoodlums at Montgomery and Market, pick up all the trash they are sure to leave, and then you could patronize all the restaurants where lots of workers are desperately trying to earn a living as they will be empty and therefore have lots of food for you to buy. There are lots of reasonably priced nutritious restaurants that we, the labor force of the Financial District, patronize.
I know for a fact that they will be screaming as I have witnessed these parades and I will never witness them again nor should I have to.
Lots of us experienced poverty and continue to be workingclass, and that has nothing to do with being drunken hoodlums. We always had something to do with our time if we were not at work. When I was in my twenties, after work, I took classes or went swimming. San Francisco has lots of inexpensive activities for young people.
As to organizing the unorganized, that is done on the job, and those of us who are serious do not engage in such drunken hoodlum behavior. You have to be drunk or stupid to get so "excited" about this garbage that you can engage in terrorizing someone trying to drive down the street, breaking windows, driving round and round the city screaming and honking horns. I feel sorry for the people of the Mission District who were trying to get a decent night's sleep as they experienced not only the screaming drunks but also the news helicopters overhead.
Thank you Feminist for your incisive comments and for your GOTV efforts.
IT IS NOW ONE HOUR BEFORE THE POLLS CLOSE. PLEASE VOTE: Yes on 19, 21, 24 and 25 and for Peace & Freedom and Green Party candidates.
There's no hope.
I'll try to cover some of the main points:
1) Since 'GOTV' is anonymous, no fact she alleges that can't be independently verified is worth the electrons that transmitted it.
2) She managed to use the epithet 'drunken hooligans' nine times. (Actually, one of those times she used it as an adjectival phrase without the 's' at the end, but she made up for that deficiency by using the phrase 'drunken rampages' once as well.) Were there no drunks who weren't 'hooligans' and no sober 'hooligans' involved? And what about people who were sober and not 'hooligans'?
3) She asserts that I, Aaron, am 'so sympathetic to these drunken hoodlums'. Can she point out anything in my comment that would justify that statement?
4) She appears to be upset and angered that these celebrations interfere with the normal rhythms of capitalist work, mentioning in particular that the revels took place on 'a Monday night which by definition [sic!] is a work night and a school night in November' and the loss of business today (Wednesday) to the 'lots of reasonably priced nutritious restaurants that we, the labor force of the Financial District, patronize.' While I don't want to lay a guilt trip on people who work in the Financial District, it should be recognized that that labor force, acting under the instructions of their capitalist employers, does more damage to the world in an average day than all the sports-enthusiast nuts of the world can do in an average year (decade? century?). If the entire Financial District (of San Francisco or any other city) could be leveled (preferably without killing or injuring ordinary workers), it would be a boon to the future of the planet, no matter how many jobs were lost.
5) I'm still waiting to be pointed to any evidence for the association of domestic violence with the Super Bowl. (Web searches mostly turn up denials of such an association.)
6) As for the idea that people could/should have been working to get out the vote on Monday instead of partying/rioting, what makes these anonymous posters think that those people would have been working on the same side of the various issues as they were? Maybe they should be glad that those 'drunken hooligans' weren't paying attention to the election!
I'm sure there are other points I could make, but I am tired. Good night!
Try living in a woman's shoes and you wouldn't ever say "show me the proof that there is more domestic violence after sports games". Women KNOW it, duh! It wasn't that long ago that men said "prove to me that a woman can be raped against her will...she has to be willing for the act to be completed." Aaron, I know for a fact you were alive during those times!
The Financial District is filled with not just corporate offices but also plaintiff's attorneys, non-profit organizations, medical offices, State of California and federal government offices including but not limited to Social Security appeals offices, and much more. After the tourist-hospitality-restaurant industry, government and non-profit organizations are the next biggest employer in San Francisco.
As to not giving a damn about our right to work and education, Aaron is obviously a very sick old man when expressing his contempt for both. He is also profoundly sick when he defends the sports hoodlums, drunk or not (and most were drunk) and insane when he attacks women who correctly abhor the obvious male chauvinism in these war games and the violence associated with them. The most written about is the super bowl violence. See
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/977.html. However, all of these gambling racket "sports," namely football, baseball, basketball, boxing and soccer, ONLY EXIST IN BIG MONEY STATUS BECAUSE OF THE GAMBLING. Otherwise, they would only be amateur exercise, the same as all other sports.
As to caring about elections, if you are not going to participate in elections, you had better do labor organizing, and Aaron is clearly not interested in either; he is interested in random violence, terrorizing the workingclass communities, especially the Mission District where most people wanted to get a decent night's sleep Monday night but were prevented from doing so by screaming rioters getting hysterical about grown men running around a field (that was the excuse for hoodlum behavior, of course), and by the news helicopters hovering low overhead, reocrding the horror scene. AND, ALL OVER SAN FRANCISCO, WE HAD SCREAMING HOODLUMS, DRIVING THEIR CARS AND HONKING THEIR HORNS ON ALL THE MAIN ROADS FOR 4 HOURS, FROM 7 P.M. TO 10 P.M. Since Aaron lives in the university town of Berkeley, and he does not work or go to school, he does not have to worry about any of this. AARON, SINCE YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOST OF US, SHUT UP.
And Aaron, please be sure to be at your hoodlum parade at 11 a.m. today since you love screaming idiots. And don't forget to pick up the trash these thugs leave behind so we, the taxpayers of San Francisco do not have to pay to clean up after them.
It is through labor organizing for a general strike to take state power that we can end thse private profit gambling rackets called "sports" and all the rest of the private profit system. And it is labor which creates all wealth. Work is very important, and so is our education, for which labor fought.
Thank you again, Feminist, for your retort to stupid, sick, insane Aaron and please do not think all radicals are like him. In fact, we are like you. Thank you for your GOTV efforts and keep fighting!
As to not giving a damn about our right to work and education, Aaron is obviously a very sick old man when expressing his contempt for both. He is also profoundly sick when he defends the sports hoodlums, drunk or not (and most were drunk) and insane when he attacks women who correctly abhor the obvious male chauvinism in these war games and the violence associated with them. The most written about is the super bowl violence. See
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/977.html. However, all of these gambling racket "sports," namely football, baseball, basketball, boxing and soccer, ONLY EXIST IN BIG MONEY STATUS BECAUSE OF THE GAMBLING. Otherwise, they would only be amateur exercise, the same as all other sports.
As to caring about elections, if you are not going to participate in elections, you had better do labor organizing, and Aaron is clearly not interested in either; he is interested in random violence, terrorizing the workingclass communities, especially the Mission District where most people wanted to get a decent night's sleep Monday night but were prevented from doing so by screaming rioters getting hysterical about grown men running around a field (that was the excuse for hoodlum behavior, of course), and by the news helicopters hovering low overhead, reocrding the horror scene. AND, ALL OVER SAN FRANCISCO, WE HAD SCREAMING HOODLUMS, DRIVING THEIR CARS AND HONKING THEIR HORNS ON ALL THE MAIN ROADS FOR 4 HOURS, FROM 7 P.M. TO 10 P.M. Since Aaron lives in the university town of Berkeley, and he does not work or go to school, he does not have to worry about any of this. AARON, SINCE YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT MOST OF US, SHUT UP.
And Aaron, please be sure to be at your hoodlum parade at 11 a.m. today since you love screaming idiots. And don't forget to pick up the trash these thugs leave behind so we, the taxpayers of San Francisco do not have to pay to clean up after them.
It is through labor organizing for a general strike to take state power that we can end thse private profit gambling rackets called "sports" and all the rest of the private profit system. And it is labor which creates all wealth. Work is very important, and so is our education, for which labor fought.
Thank you again, Feminist, for your retort to stupid, sick, insane Aaron and please do not think all radicals are like him. In fact, we are like you. Thank you for your GOTV efforts and keep fighting!
Everyone deserves to have a hobby.
With my working class neighbors, certainly sports and sports betting are a diversion.
But I don't quite buy the idea that ordinary workers are all at home by 8pm and should be devoted to the job under normal circumstances. If anything, the modern economy suffers from a crisis of overproduction (i.e. we've had a 40 hour week for decades despite increases in productivity) so we should be finding ways to equitably reduce work hours.
With my working class neighbors, certainly sports and sports betting are a diversion.
But I don't quite buy the idea that ordinary workers are all at home by 8pm and should be devoted to the job under normal circumstances. If anything, the modern economy suffers from a crisis of overproduction (i.e. we've had a 40 hour week for decades despite increases in productivity) so we should be finding ways to equitably reduce work hours.
With the roar of a helicopter overhead at 11 a.m., the parade of baseball gladiators went down Montgomery Street before thousands of people who came to downtown San Francisco from all over the Bay Area. They were the same as the hoodlums in the pictures and videos attached to this article, the young men with falling down pants who get C-D-F in school, along with their girlfriends. These are the kind of men all thinking women deliberately avoid. They dumped-waist high orange confetti on Montgomery Street, which some claimed some businesses dumped but most of the office buildings on Montgomery Street have sealed windows and are very tall, not likely to allow anyone to go on the roof. We, the San Francisco taxpayers, paid for the massive cleanup with lots of blower devices and trucks as well as lots of police overtime. They even had a reviewing stand on narrow Montgomery Street at Post. Obviously, this gambling racket "team" should reimburse the City for all of the cleanup and all of the city worker overtime, both the police and everyone else. I deliberately missed the horror of the parade, but not the horror of thousands of these C-D-F students and former students (most were in their 20s), the kind we never saw at any honor society awards ceremonies or at any college, roaming on Market Street all afternoon until about 5 p.m. There was absolutely nothing for them on Market Street. The City was busy cleaning the huge amount of garbage and then watering Market. Both Market from the Embarcadero to Kearny and Montgomery Street from Market to Columbus were finally re-opened at 3:30 p.m. We are now left with still a lot of confetti on the sidewalk and on the building windows, up to the 8th floor, at least, and ugly orange and black balloons on lamp posts on Montgomery Street, completely out of place and fortunately, the only serious decoration for this garbage. Only Macy's at Union Square had huge signs supporting this gambling racket. The ruling class, led by Democrat Nazi Newsom, gave these gladiators a "key" to the City, thanking them of course for maximizing his profits and that of his fellow gambling racket supporters, the rest of the capitalist class. It was the anti-intellectual whites who showed up who brought their children, clearly demonstrating that they were unfit parents in taking their children out of school for this garbage. Education, is of course, primary, and being an A student is a minimal mandatory requirement for all students to try to be. This requires daily attendance, constant study, and checking books out of the library every week for free reading, after the homework is done. There was one group of people who are a significant part of the San Francisco population who were not part of the roaming bands of fans, although part of their community, Chinatown, is right next to the Financial District. It is the Asian American children, mostly Chinese, who are the A students in San Francisco for the most part, constituting 60% of the students at Lowell High School, the public school system's academic high school that has a test for entrance. Asian Americans are also 46% of the UC Berkeley students and 41% of UC Los Angeles students. Being poor and/or being immigrant does not mean having contempt for education and worshipping garbage. We saw the contempt for culture and education actively cultivated by the capitalist class by unleashing thousands of anti-intellectual C-D-F students or former students upon our City to maximize their profits. We the A students, now adults, always had time and have time for culture too, namely music, art and dance, but that always comes after school and work, and school and work are taken seriously. With education comes the ability to read the voter handbook, among other things. We have to run to university students when Prop 19 comes up on the ballot in November 2012, as the Prop 19 campaign promises it will, to help us pass Prop 19, because education, labor and culture are not valued in this society.
I will retract the generalization i made about the Financial District, since, although most non-profits and government agencies do a lot more harm than good, there may be a few that are beneficial and are located in what's called the 'Financial District', just as there are a few good organizations located on Wall Street.
Since 'GOTV' is anonymous and I'm not, she has the luxury of making ad hominem attacks on me without fearing a response in kind. In any case, I'd rather just respond to what she writes.
1) What's so great about being an 'A' student? Are students who get high grades better social fighters than those with equal mental capacities who don't? I doubt it!
2) Why is 'work' a good thing? Does a harmful or wasteful human activity become a positive thing because somebody gets a wage or salary for doing it? And isn't most paid activity in the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa wasteful and/or destructive?
3) While there are crime syndicates that make lots of money off of gambling on sporting events, is there any evidence that any substantial portion of this money winds up in the pockets of anybody connected with the teams? Don't the teams, and therefore the generally well-paid players, get most of their money from television broadcast rights, which means from television advertising?
4) She writes that "[Aaron is] insane when he attacks women who correctly abhor the obvious male chauvinism in these war games and the violence associated with them. The most written about is the super bowl violence. See http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/977.html."
The article she links to does not back up her assertion. In fact, while it supplies no actual statistics, it makes the following assertion:
"Previous studies have raised concerns about a pattern of violent behavior against women around the time of the Super Bowl. But the preliminary study, presented at the International Communication Association conference in San Diego, found that the number of cases that day was relatively small compared to those reported on holidays such as Christmas or Memorial Day."
In other words, it's not clear that any modest increase in cases of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday are the result of people watching a football game rather than the fact that the day is an unofficial holiday. And wouldn't there be many men at home watching the game who would otherwise be doing something away from home, thus increasing the opportunities for domestic violence?
Enough said.
Since 'GOTV' is anonymous and I'm not, she has the luxury of making ad hominem attacks on me without fearing a response in kind. In any case, I'd rather just respond to what she writes.
1) What's so great about being an 'A' student? Are students who get high grades better social fighters than those with equal mental capacities who don't? I doubt it!
2) Why is 'work' a good thing? Does a harmful or wasteful human activity become a positive thing because somebody gets a wage or salary for doing it? And isn't most paid activity in the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa wasteful and/or destructive?
3) While there are crime syndicates that make lots of money off of gambling on sporting events, is there any evidence that any substantial portion of this money winds up in the pockets of anybody connected with the teams? Don't the teams, and therefore the generally well-paid players, get most of their money from television broadcast rights, which means from television advertising?
4) She writes that "[Aaron is] insane when he attacks women who correctly abhor the obvious male chauvinism in these war games and the violence associated with them. The most written about is the super bowl violence. See http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/977.html."
The article she links to does not back up her assertion. In fact, while it supplies no actual statistics, it makes the following assertion:
"Previous studies have raised concerns about a pattern of violent behavior against women around the time of the Super Bowl. But the preliminary study, presented at the International Communication Association conference in San Diego, found that the number of cases that day was relatively small compared to those reported on holidays such as Christmas or Memorial Day."
In other words, it's not clear that any modest increase in cases of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday are the result of people watching a football game rather than the fact that the day is an unofficial holiday. And wouldn't there be many men at home watching the game who would otherwise be doing something away from home, thus increasing the opportunities for domestic violence?
Enough said.
Aaron is a highly educated insane old man openly promoting male chauvinism and contempt for education and labor. That IS REACTIONARY AND SNOBBERY. He thinks being an A student is good for him but not for everyone else. AND IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT ALL OF THESE GAMBLING RACKET WAR GAMES ARE ACTIVE PROMOTERS OF MALE CHAUVINISM. You should have seen who showed up for this parade and for wasting time afterward standing around for many hours on Market Street, smoking cigarettes and eating junk food at McDonald's. They were the early breeders who think a generation ends at age 16 or 20, the men who walk around in pants falling down while holding onto their crotch and the women who walk around in the latest skimpy clothes and hideous makeup promoted as "fashion" by the profit-making clothing and cosmetics industries. They were the failing students who do not care about education or culture and never vote primarily because they cannot read the ballot as they are functionally illiterate. And they were the allegedly somewhat educated parents who took their children out of school to watch a gambling racket parade, demonstrating their contempt for learning. There were certainly no season ticket holders in that crowd. There were also no office workers in that crowd; they were all too frightened to leave their offices or they took the day off, and rightfully so. And there were no working class A students there either; they were all in school and their parents were at work. We all know who the A students in San Francisco are. It will take a socialist society to change this entire program. This is what the capitalist class welcomed to our work-a-day world to glorify their profits as they have total contempt for our labor and the work that we do and do not care that workers were imprisoned in their offices and did not dare go out to the screaming falling down pants crowd. The capitalist class also gladly stole our tax dollars to pay for this garbage while we have no social services. LABOR CREATES ALL WEALTH AARON including your computer, the clothes you wear, the food you eat and provides all services such as your health care.
These gambling rackets do not exist without the gambling money. All other money is secondary. Just in case anyone wonders how it is this plague of gambling racket baseball is visited upon us, the answer is of course money. The Giants' wealthy owners were losing $4-5 million this year but now that they are going for the "World" series, their wealthy owners will make $7 to 10 million this year. These "sports" are businesses, and are all fixed by the gambling rackets. All the details including how this year's "sudden" turn of good fortune benefits next year's existence of this garbage may be found at Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross' column of 10/27/10 in the San Francisco Chronicle at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/27/BAUT1G2C42.DTL
For the record, it is the Democrats and Republicans, the twin parties of capitalism, who support all of these gambling rackets and their stadium swindles while Peace & Freedom and the Green Parties always oppose all the stadium swindles. The outside agitators alluded to in the title to the article above are the capitalist class.
AARON, YOU NEED TO SHUT UP RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE DESPICABLE AND AN INSULT TO EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THE FUTURE WHICH YOU DO NOT. YOUR VICIOUS ANTI-WOMEN STATEMENTS ARE A DISGRACE TO HUMANITY.
These gambling rackets do not exist without the gambling money. All other money is secondary. Just in case anyone wonders how it is this plague of gambling racket baseball is visited upon us, the answer is of course money. The Giants' wealthy owners were losing $4-5 million this year but now that they are going for the "World" series, their wealthy owners will make $7 to 10 million this year. These "sports" are businesses, and are all fixed by the gambling rackets. All the details including how this year's "sudden" turn of good fortune benefits next year's existence of this garbage may be found at Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross' column of 10/27/10 in the San Francisco Chronicle at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/27/BAUT1G2C42.DTL
For the record, it is the Democrats and Republicans, the twin parties of capitalism, who support all of these gambling rackets and their stadium swindles while Peace & Freedom and the Green Parties always oppose all the stadium swindles. The outside agitators alluded to in the title to the article above are the capitalist class.
AARON, YOU NEED TO SHUT UP RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE DESPICABLE AND AN INSULT TO EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THE FUTURE WHICH YOU DO NOT. YOUR VICIOUS ANTI-WOMEN STATEMENTS ARE A DISGRACE TO HUMANITY.
For more information:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power. The above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that lone give them meaning. And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission.
For more information:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...
What was only beginning to be true in Marx's time is now blatantly obvious to all but the worshippers of "Progress":
Under capitalism, labor is more an instrument for the destruction of wealth than it is for the creation of wealth. This is not the fault of the worker who labors for capital in order to be able to live. However, when workers take part in the fetishization and glorification of 'work', including by raising the demand for 'jobs' without regard to the effects of such jobs on other humans and on the biosphere, they do then share in the responsibility for such destruction.
These comments sure reveal why the Left has become a parody of itself...
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$190.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network