WILL JOHNSON:

Occupy Activist Says Movement’s Alive and Well

interview by MARK GABRISH CONLAN

Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s Newsmagazine • All rights reserved

EDITOR’S NOTE: The introduction to the print version of this article states that Occupy San Diego is still holding General Assemblies (GA’s) at the Civic Center Plaza downtown. Will Johnson has since informed us that this is not true; so many Occupiers were arrested and given “stay-away orders” to keep out of Civic Center Plaza as a condition of their release that Occupy is no longer hosting GA’s there, though a city-permitted “Occupy the Arts” is scheduled for the Plaza on Saturday, June 9, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (visit www.womenoccupysandiego.org for more information). The information below as to the location and scheduling of the Occupy San Diego GA’s is correct. Zenger’s regrets the error.

Will Johnson is a bundle of energy. Attend virtually any event sponsored by Occupy San Diego (OSD) and you’ll see him all over the place. Though, as he confesses below, he wasn’t involved in Occupy San Diego during the heady first week — October 7-13, 2011 — once he did get down to San Diego’s Civic Center Plaza (“Freedom Plaza,” as the Occupiers redubbed it), he stayed.

 I wanted to interview Will because the corporate media have almost universally reported on the Occupy movement as something that happened — past tense — and is now over. Certainly the mass occupations of big public spaces that gave Occupy its name and its original media exposure are mostly done, shut down by a coordinated campaign of police repression that made it clear that in 21st century America, you have far more freedom of speech if you’re celebrating corporate power and economic inequality than if you’re challenging them.

But there’s still a General Assembly — a “GA,” in Occupier parlance — every Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. at San Diego Children’s Park near the San Diego Convention Center, and another every Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the Redwood Circle on the 6^th Avenue side of Balboa Park. Occupy San Diego still stages demonstrations, mostly targeting the mega-banks that got the government bailouts and have continued to run socially immoral and fiscally irresponsible operations like JP Morgan Chase’s recent $2 billion-plus loss on its own trading operations in London. OSD also works with other organizations on major events like the four May Day celebrations recently held in San Diego, a sort of morning-to-night floating festival of political and social activism throughout the city. And during May it held at least three soul-searching meetings to plot out its future purposes and plans for action.

What’s more, other Occupy movements have sprung up throughout the San Diego area. Cities in traditionally conservative North County have their Occupy movements going. So do the traditionally Latino Barrio Logan (where it’s called Occupemos el Barrio) and ethnically diverse City Heights neighborhoods of the city of San Diego. If nothing else, Occupy has put the issues of economic inequality and socioeconomic class before the American public in a big way. The phrase “We are the 99 percent” has become part of the language — and has inspired a response from the Right, “We are the 53 percent,” meaning the proportion of the population that pays U.S. income tax, implying that those too poor to do so are freeloaders mooching off the rest of us.

Though Will is clearly more comfortable actually doing activism than talking about it, he and I met for an interview one Sunday afternoon at Activist San Diego’s headquarters in City Heights — where Will actually lives as part of ASD’s five-person progressive residential collective — and he talked about Occupy’s current goals, its often misundertood way of making decisions, and what it’s meant to Will personally to participate in Occupy. For up-to-date information on Occupy San Diego, visit http://www.sandiegooccupy.org/

Zenger’s: First off, we ought to make it clear at the outset that you’re not speaking as an official representative of the Occupy movement. You’re just an individual who’s involved in it.  So why don’t you tell me a little about your background, how you got into activism, how you got into Occupy.

Johnson: I really started getting into politics back when I was 14 or 15. I was involved in the Government Club on campus, and I would always debate people. I’d be sort of the “designated moderate,” because I was able to see both sides of any issue, and then be able to vocalize  the varied opinions on either side. But I wouldn’t say that I really became an activist. I really started to become active, trying to make a change, when I was 21 at UCSD. This was back in 2010, when the entire Compton Cook-Out thing happened on campus.

Zenger’s: Just for the sake of our readers who might not remember that, could you talk a little about what that was?

Johnson: The Compton Cook-Out was a party that was located off campus. It was started by some fraternity guys, and what they were doing was racist. They encouraged people to dress really low budget and pretend like they were from the ghetto — talk, act, eat watermelon, do all these  sorts of stereotypical “Black” things.

So we protested that on March 1 [2010]. We took over the Chancellor’s Complex at UCSD with the Black Student Union. That was really my first direct action experience. I was there with a whole bunch of my classmates, talking about the various issues around campus and singing songs. I thought we should sing “We Shall Overcome,” since it was supposed to be a civil-rights demonstration. The people running the Black Students Union were O.K. with that. Only nobody knew the lyrics, except for me. So here I am trying to lead everybody, and everything is off pitch. It was just an odd, fun, funny experience.

Three days later, on March 4, there was a walkout regarding the student fee increase. That year it was going up 32 percent. We were outraged by this obvious attempt at privatization of the university. So we organized people. We did marches on campus and downtown. It was a very intense and interesting day that would continue to influence my activities later on.

Zenger’s: That was about a year and a half before Occupy started. What did you do in the meantime?

Johnson: I’ve always been very, very passionate about poverty and issues of development. My major at UCSD was international studies, with emphasis on economics and economic development. So it’s something that I do want to work in at some point. So I would read all these articles and find out about all these different things that were going on in the world that were blasted all over my Facebook and, talk to people about the issues, but I wouldn’t really do too much in the way of actively working for change — aside from yelling a lot over the Internet, of course.

But as soon as summer started last year, I got a job working for the USA for UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] downtown. I was part of the first crew that they hired. I was there for two months, but I was let go because I didn’t make the quota. You needed to get two people a day to sign up for monthly donations, and that’s very, very difficult in a city that’s as apathetic as San Diego is. So I lost that job on August 30, 2011, and Occupy Wall Street started September 17.

I was still checking all my news sources, and they started talking about Occupy Wall Street. I got really, really excited about what this could be, considering all the events happening earlier that year in Egypt and Tunisia. Libya was still a really big issue at that time, as well as Syria. Syria, I was and still am heartbroken about. But I got really excited, and when Occupy Wall Street started — and then when Occupy San Diego started — I immediately followed that on Facebook, some of the larger Facebook profiles.

What actually got me down to Civic Center October 14 was I saw a tweet from Keith Olbermann saying that there were  mounted patrols on horseback about to attack the Occupation in San Diego. That turned out to be  false, but it still got me down there and I spent the entire night there waiting for the cops to come and tear it down. I sat down in a couple of circles, and started listening and then started talking to some people about what was going on. Then I just stayed. I would come back every day I Felt I was needed there.

I missed the entire first week of the encampment. People always talk about Day One: I wasn’t there Day One. I don’t know anything about Day One except for what I’ve seen in some pictures. But from Day Seven onward, I’ve been there.

Zenger’s: A lot of people, particularly in the mainstream media, are talking about Occupy in the past tense: like, “It happened. It’s over.” What would you say to someone who thought this was all over?

Johnson: Just because you don’t see tents doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who are passionate about this, are still going after these issues, still  consider themselves part of Occupy and are still doing Occupy events. The entire tactic of occupation has somewhat ended here in San Diego. But the spirit of it is still living on within the movement as it is now.

Zenger’s: So what is Occupy doing now?

Johnson: Here in San Diego, we have been working on several campaigns. Most of these pertain to local issues, like the World Beat Center [an African-American cultural center on Park Boulevard in Balboa Park that was being threatened by a proposal to remodel the park]. We were very, very vocal about trying to save it. They still don’t have the 25-year lease they wanted, but at least it’s not going to be turned into a parking lot.

We also still do protests against banks. We take over bank corners and pass out flyers and informational materials, and we still participate in marches. We also participate in some solidarity actions with other organizations, like the Justice for Janitors movement. They’re part of the SEIU [Service Employees’ International Union]. We’ve been helping them with their events, and they’ve also been helping with ours, bringing people, stories and speakers. May Day was a very, very big action. Labor Solidarity [Occupy’s outreach to organized labor and working people generally] organized quite a bit of the activities that were happening that day. We all put in work. We made the schedule.

Right now we don’t have too many actions planned long-term, but Occupy here in San Diego has been spreading out. There are several different groups. There’s always been the one, the Occupations up in North County, Encinitas, Vista, Escondido. Reclaim UCSD is still up there at UCSD protesting the budget cuts and tuition hikes. Occupy City College is planning its own activities. OSD is right now pretty much flying by the seat of its pants. We’re getting ready for an Occupy the Arts event on June 9, and Occupy City Heights is starting up right now. But they have some major actions that they’re already planning. Also Labor Solidarity is still meeting at 12:30 p.m. at Civic Center Plaza every Saturday. Occupemos El Barrio, they’re everywhere in San Diego. You can find or create your own niche within Occupy.

Zenger’s: I know when Occupy was at its height, one of the main criticisms of it was that it didn’t have a specific set of demands. It has put the words “the 99 percent” and “the 1 percent” in the middle of popular discourse, but it was often criticized for not having any idea of, “O.K., well, so you think the inequality of wealth and income is a bad thing. What, specifically, do you want to do about it?” What specifically do you want to do about it?

Johnson: When 40 percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the top 1 percent, and 50 percent of the United States are just one paycheck away from poverty, what I think needs to happen is a Keynesian-like spending program that can create a lot of middle-class jobs. Whether they’re in the public or private sector doesn’t really matter too much, as long as we’re able to create some jobs in the long term for the American populace that will pay them a living wage.

Zenger’s: Of course, the arguments that are dominating the political discourse right now are, if anything, just the opposite: that we have to really severely cut back government spending. We have to do more of what in Europe is called an austerity program. We have to stop the growth of the government debt. We have to cut taxes on the rich so that they’ll have more money to invest because, according to this line of thinking, the line of thinking of the Right and the Tea Party, the only way we’re ever going to have a recovery is if we give scads of money to the private sector, and they will create the jobs, because the public sector doesn’t actually create anything. It just takes money away from the private sector, and we need, according to them, to stop doing that.

How would you respond to that, and how do you think groups like Occupy can fight an ideological battle against that particular point of view, which has a lot of popularity in this country and is being pushed very heavily by the corporate media?

Johnson: I was listening to an interview with [economist and New York Times columnist] Paul Krugman earlier this morning, and he said that these sorts of austerity measures they’re trying to implement here in the United States, cutting taxes and spending across the board, don’t stimulate the economy. What stimulates the economy is spending. You’ve got to keep the cycle moving. You’ve got to keep transferring wealth to and from each other. You’ve got to create actual products. You’ve got to create capital.

When you free up money for the richest people, that doesn’t do too much for the economy because their tendency is to sit on it, not spend it. Whereas if you give money to the 99 percent, like the middle class, the lower class, the impoverished, they will spend that money. That will cycle back into the economy, because they’re spending money on products that they actually buy. Their money will go into a company, which will pay people to make things, and their workers will then buy something else. That’s how you grow an economy. When you put on the brakes of spending, the economy stops growing.

Zenger’s: One of the interesting things that’s happened lately is we’ve seen voters in Europe, particularly in France and Greece, rebelling against the austerity programs: that they have a sense that their economy is not working. And you’ve got parties that were historically on the extreme Left and parties historically on the extreme Right both running against the center-Left and center-Right parties, saying, “Enough with the austerity already.”

In this country we don’t seem to have any Right-wingers who dare question the austerity gospel. The only alternative voters in this country are going to have to President Obama and the status quo is Mitt Romney, who I think is a charter member of the 0.001 percent, and is saying even more tax breaks for the rich, more cuts in government spending, more austerity, more of what you’re saying hasn’t worked.

Johnson: The Republican economic program is total nonsense. But unfortunately, at least for the American public, the Republicans in Congress understand the concept of solidarity. They know that their policies are messed up. They know that they don’t work. And they’re in the pockets of Wall Street. But because they stick together, they’re able to maintain this sort of narrative and convince people their policies are valid.

Zenger’s: Ralph Nader said in his 2000 campaign that the United States doesn’t have two political parties. It has one political party with two Right wings. Similarly, I think that America has essentially two corporate media parties, the center-Right and the far Right. And one of the points Thomas Frank made in his book Pity the Billionaire is that Americans see that what we have now is not working, but when they look for something to replace it, they’re going to go farther to the Right because that’s all they’re hearing.

You have this enormous Right-wing media machine — talk radio and Fox News— just repeating this over and over again: “Too much government spending. Not enough capital for rich people because the government is taking it all away. So we’ve got to get government off the backs of the rich,” and, as they like to say, “unleash the private sector.” They used to call it “trickle-down economics.” Then they called it “supply-side economics.” Now they call it “unleashing the private sector.” And Thomas Frank is predicting people are going to vote for that simply because it’s the only alternative they’re being presented. A lot of people had hopes, when the Occupy movement started, that it might put a more progressive alternative on the table.

Johnson: We sort of hoped it would, too, quite frankly. And we do think that our voice has been getting heard somewhat. I’ve heard talk of “the 99 percent” and “the 1 percent” on the radio hundreds of times now. And these questions about wealth and equality didn’t seem to be too present before. So I think our ideas are penetrating through this machine.

Zenger’s: What do you think has to happen to get the message of Occupy more into the broader American consciousness, and get it into the political system so it isn’t just a choice between Obama talking a good game and delivering for Wall Street, and Mitt Romney talking Wall Street’s game and delivering for Wall Street?

Johnson: I think that people need to begin to understand what impact everything that they do has on their lives and on the community. As an Occupier, I’m constantly thinking about what I’m doing, where I have got these things from, what went into making this product, what am I putting into my body, where did my food come from, and how I fit into — as a cog in the American economy, and in our entire social structure.

 What I see from sort of growing up in the suburbs, living a very consumerist lifestyle, I’ve seen that people totally ignore these little questions, and assume that things are going right, or that people are doing right. People know about sweatshops, but they’re finally starting to understand Foxconn [the controversial Chinese assembly plant where many of Apple’s products are made]. We need to be more aware of what these corporations do, and how they manipulate you into thinking that what they’re doing is positive.

Chevron will have you buy their gas, and then they’ll plaster their ads all over the TV claiming how they’re creating these alternative energy solutions — which really amount to little or nothing, because their money is still in oil, and it will be in oil for quite some time. People see these lies, and they digest it as truth. I call it sort of sheep-like behavior: following, and then pretty much just ignoring problems that are quite apparent.

Zenger’s: So what you’re saying, then, is in a somewhat different way than the feminists meant it in the 1970’s, people need to see that the personal is political: that every time you buy something, you’re voting with your money for a whole host of things corporations do that you may not like. And that may ultimately be hurting you and your ability to make a living and function in this economy, but you do them anyway.

I know, for example, I’ve somewhat startled some of my friends when I say, with a tone of righteous indignation in my voice, “I have never set foot inside a Wal-Mart, and I never will.” They just look at me and wonder, “Mark, why are you making such a big deal out of it? What’s wrong with getting a bunch of cheap stuff?”

Johnson: Well, the main problem is that you’re feeding your money to these people who essentially do bad things. The problem with going to Wal-Mart is their prices aren’t particularly cheaper, they have horrible labor practices, they pay most of their employees minimum wage. It’s just a money funnel. All the money from the 99 percent gets extracted from them through these massive corporations that they are brainwashed into thinking are the best places to shop. And it all just gets funneled into the 1 percent.

Zenger’s: So what you’re saying is, rather than think they’re going to change things at the ballot box, people should be more aware of where they’re spending their money and what sorts of corporate practices they’re encouraging by how they spend their money.

Johnson: Yes. The ballot box isn’t the only place where change can be instituted. I mean, you get Election Day one day every two years. You shop almost every day.

Zenger’s: One thing that’s confused a lot of people about Occupy is the way it’s governed. All the talk about “horizontal decision-making” and “a leaderless organization” really baffles a lot of people. Just before Occupy started, Malcolm Gladwell wrote in The New Yorker about the Arab Spring, and he said that if you’re going to take on a hierarchy you need to be a hierarchy yourselves. The labor movement in the 1930’s was run hierarchically. The civil-rights movement in the 1960’s was run hierarchically.

 A lot of people think one of the reasons the Left has fallen from influence in this country is it’s hamstrung itself with “consensus decision-making” a.k.a. “non-hierarchical decision-making” a.k.a. “horizontal decision-making” that has, in their analysis, led to organizational confusion and paralysis. What, in your experience, is Occupy’s decision-making method, and what’s good about it?

Johnson: Occupy’s decision-making method runs on consensus. For the longest time it was the 100 percent model, but we’ve just recently dropped it down to a 90 percent consensus model. That that if there’s no real opposition to any sort of proposal, then you go through with it. Then you’re essentially all in agreement. It’s a way of making formal agreements between a group of people, similar to the idea of voting.

Consensus does take time, because it’s important to get people’s opinions out there and get a diversity of opinions out there. So people need to be patient. They need to be able to listen, to comprehend perhaps abstract topics or thoughts that they may never have had before, or ways of thinking that they may not have had before. But consensus essentially works the way that you want it to. You can talk to the group. It’s essentially just trying to convince the people around you to do something.

Zenger’s: One of the objections to consensus decision-making has often been that because it takes time, because it requires patience, it’s difficult to deal with an emergency situation, especially when the other side attacks. You have a long history of consensus organizations, from the Paris Commune of 1870 to the Occupations, suddenly shut down because all this consensus and all this process and all this coming to agreement and whatnot left them absolutely paralyzed when the bad guys attacked.

Johnson: As I said before, time isn’t necessarily on the side of the consensus model. But it really just takes one clear head to create a motion, create a plan, tell people about it and get them involved in doing it. Consensus tends to work slower, depending on whatever topic or situation, but with a little bit of focus and some just getting down to business, you can make some very, very good decisions rather fast.

Zenger’s: So what do you think is the future of the Occupy movement, and also how do you see your own future, both as a part of it and with the rest of your life?

Johnson: It’s really hard for me to say. As far as the future of Occupy, we’re still going to be active, and fighting back against the banks and the corporate 1 percent, probably for the foreseeable future. Whether or not it is Occupy is still up in the air, but the people and the sentiment are still going to be there. The idea will live on, I guess.

As far as what I’m doing, I really don’t know. I can’t see past Thursday!

"Explosive" 9/11 Documentary Premieres in San Diego

Film Argues “Controlled Demolition” Brought Down World Trade Center

by MARK GABRISH CONLAN

Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s Newsmagazine • All rights reserved

PHOTO: L to R: Richard Gage, architect; Michelle Little, sister of 9/11 victim; and Casey Pfeiffer, structural engineer; at the “9/11: Explosive Evidence” screening May 21.

Virtually everyone in the U.S. knows — or thinks they know — what happened on September 11, 2001. The TV images of two hijacked giant airliners flying into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City are embedded so indelibly in our memories that when we see them again, it’s like reliving a disaster that happened to a personal friend. But a small but determined group of people is intent on making us take a second look at the events of 9/11 and what we think we know about them — and on May 21 they drew a capacity crowd of over 200 to the Joyce Beers Community Center in Hillcrest for a look at the latest in a series of documentary films challenging the conventional wisdom of why and how the Twin Towers went down.

The film has the awkward title 9/11: Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out, and its producer and narrator, San Francisco-based architect Richard Gage, was there to introduce it. Sponsored by Activist San Diego and San Diegans for 9/11 Truth, the showing was the first stop in a 30-city tour Gage is making with his movie — though his group, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, rushed out a longer first cut of the movie to show it last September for the 10^th anniversary of 9/11.

“More than 40 experts in the fields of architecture, structural engineering, firefighting, chemistry, physics and explosives are interviewed in the film,” Gage said when he was introducing it. “They highlight the irrefutable evidence of the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers” — including the World Financial Center, also known as World Trade Center 7, which came down a few hours after the Twin Towers fell and whose mysterious collapse, since it was not hit by a hijacked plane, is a linchpin of 9/11 rethinking.

“We’ve had quite a lot of consultants and volunteers who have helped put the film together,” Gage said. “Our co-director, Marty McGee, said, ‘You’ve got to interview these guys,’ and now it’s two and one-half years later and the film is finally complete. We are also supported by family members of 9/11 victims, who were the ones who started the 9/11 truth movement.” Before he showed the movie, Gage took on the people who write off 9/11 rethinking as a “conspiracy theory,” stating that that’s “a loaded term to get you to stop thinking about the evidence. Our detractors would not be stooping to such tactics if they had rational evidence against us.”

The standard theory of what happened on 9/11 is that the Twin Towers were brought down by fires started by the impact of the planes and the burning of the jet fuel inside them. The alternative case presented in 9/11: Explosive Evidence is elaborate and difficult to summarize, but the basics are that the buildings “pancaked” — that is, they fell down in a straight line instead of tipping over, each floor crushed the floors below it, parts of the steel beams on the outside of the towers were hurled from the site at great force, the buildings were utterly destroyed and the concrete in them was vaporized into dust.

Had the buildings been destroyed by fire, Gage argued, none of that would have happened. Even if the interiors had been gutted, the overall structure would have survived. To make this point, the film includes footage of large buildings in which fires have been set deliberately to test what would happen — and the outer cores of the buildings have withstood the fires even if the insides were destroyed.

What’s more, Gage said, the way the buildings came down — not only in straight lines but at a so-called “free-fall” rate of speed, the same rate at which gravity would have brought down structures of the weight of one floor of the towers if there had been nothing under it at all — suggested a so-called “controlled demolition” in which the structural supports are removed from one or more floors, and then explosives inside the building are set off. The film includes footage of buildings that have been intentionally destroyed in just this fashion and runs it side by side with the footage not only of the Twin Towers but also the fall of WTC 7.

For the most part, 9/11: Explosive Evidence avoids speculation about who brought down the towers, or what their motives might have been. However, an extended sequence towards the end of the film, presenting interviews with psychologists purportedly explaining why so many people find it difficult to consider alternatives to the official view of 9/11, introduces some of the most heavily criticized elements of 9/11 rethought — including the accusation that the U.S. government or factions in it deliberately staged the 9/11 attacks to justify the USA PATRIOT Act and the other assaults on civil liberties in the last decade in the name of the “war on terror” — which were carefully avoided in the rest of the film.

Gage pulled a rhetorical trick at the opening of the screening — he asked the audience members to raise their hands if they believed the government story of 9/11, then if they were skeptical, then if they were convinced that the government’s version was wrong — that revealed most of the audience members were already convinced believers in the 9/11 rethought movement. Indeed, some people in the audience thought the filmmakers should have cut back on the scientific parts of the movie and used more of the heart-tugging emotional scenes not only with psychologists but with the family members of the victims.

Not surprisingly, virtually the first questions that came up were who did 9/11, why, how did they get away with it and why hasn’t anyone involved come forward and talked. “We don’t answer these questions because we don’t know,” said Gage. “We have the evidence of a controlled demolition. Your responsibility as citizens is to get those other questions answered. We support you in any inquiry with technical and forensic evidence. There’s enough evidence in this film to put people away for mass murder.”

On the question of why nobody involved has talked, Gage referred the audience to a paper called “Where Are the 9/11 Whistleblowers?” by his legal advisor, Greg Roberts — who was also present at the screening. “We don’t know that they haven’t come forward,” Gage said. “The mass media won’t publish the story. In America, 90 percent of the media are owned by six corporations, run through interlocking directorates by the same people who run the arms industry, the oil industry, the banking industry and the insurance industry, all of which made tons of money after 9/11.”

Obama's Profile in Courage

by MARK GABRISH CONLAN

Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s Newsmagazine • All rights reserved

On May 9, President Obama startled the nation when he gave an interview to ABC-TV stating in no uncertain terms that his long period of “evolution” over whether he was willing to support marriage equality for same-sex couples was over. Obama said, “Over the course of several years, as I talked to friends and families and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous … same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf, and yet feel constrained … because they’re not able to commit themselves in a marriage; at a certain point I’ve just concluded that … it’s important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

It may not have been that big a revelation to long-time Obama-watchers. Shortly after his announcement a quote surfaced from a questionnaire from the Chicago Queer paper Outlines he’d filled out during his first Illinois State Senate campaign in 1996, in which he’d said, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” But it’s one thing to say that as an obscure candidate for the back bench of a state legislature, and quite another to say it as a sitting President facing a tough re-election campaign. It was a stunning act of political courage, especially from a chronically cautious, risk-averse politician like Obama.

Though polls taken since his announcement have indicated that 67 percent of respondents think Obama came out for marriage equality “mostly for political reasons,” versus only 24 percent who say it was “mostly because he thinks it is right,” it’s hard to see much potential gain for Obama and easy to see substantial risk. The same polling indicated that, though most voters said Obama’s support for marriage equality wouldn’t affect their vote in November either way, 26 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for Obama and only 16 percent said it would make it more likely.

The Los Angeles Times reported on May 22 that Gallup’s tracking polls for May 1-7, just before Obama’s announcement showed Mitt Romney leading Obama 47 to 44 percent — essentially a statistical tie — and the same polls for May 15-21 showed an identical 47-44 percent margin for Romney. Times reporter David Lauter concluded that the issue had had “zero” impact on Obama’s chances for re-election, but even that is deceptive.

As we all remember from the 2000 election, you don’t win the presidency by getting more popular votes than anyone else. You win it by getting more Electoral College votes than anyone else, and since they are awarded state-by-state, that means you have to get more votes than anyone else in enough states to give you at least 270 electoral votes. Same-sex marriage is relevant to this equation because Obama’s support for marriage equality is likely to help him in cosmopolitan states like New York, Massachusetts and California — places he was likely to carry anyway and additional votes aren’t going to do him a damned bit of good.

It’s going to hurt him — perhaps even kill him — in the so-called “battleground states,” particularly in the South. Obama made his announcement just one day after North Carolina voters passed a sweeping anti-marriage amendment by a 22-point margin. (Need I remind my readers that every state whose voters have had a chance to vote on marriage equality — including California, twice — has rejected it?) This bill not only banned legal recognition of same-sex marriages, it also forbade domestic partnerships, civil unions and any acknowledgment of legal rights between unmarried partners, straight or Queer. North Carolina was one of the three former Confederate states Obama picked off from the Republicans in 2008 — the others were Virginia and Florida — and it’s where he chose to hold the 2012 Democratic National Convention. His pro-marriage stance is likely to send the entire South back into the solidly Republican column where it was (with the arguable exception of Florida in 2000) in both of George W. Bush’s elections.

I’m sure Obama is a savvy enough politician to realize that a stand for marriage equality is going to cost him more than it gains him in the electoral arena. About the only good it’s done him so far is shaken a little more money from wealthy Queer donors — and even that’s probably not going to do much to change the financial equation of the 2012 election. Obama’s campaign is still going to have scads of money in direct donations, and Romney will still have the aid of secret multi-millionaire donations to the supposedly “independent” super-PAC’s which crushed his Republican opponents and will more than neutralize Obama’s advantage in candidate-controlled campaign funding. Obama’s stance will also hurt him among homophobic African-American ministers who supported him enthusiastically in 2008 but who this time around, though they’re hardly likely to back Romney, may well either sit out the election (and encourage their congregations to do so) or give Obama a tepid endorsement at best.

So if Obama didn’t come out for marriage equality in 2012 for politically opportunistic reasons, why did he? I think he finally reached his “aha” moment, in which — like other prominent politicians, including San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders — he realized he simply couldn’t go on saying that one group of people in one sort of family were “better” than other people in other families and therefore entitled to greater legal rights. And, by his own account, he reached that moment because he was surrounded by a lot of Queer people in loving, committed relationships that clearly meant as much to them as his own relationship does to him. (In Mayor Sanders’ case, it was his own Lesbian daughter who brought him to that awareness.) If nothing else, this underscores the importance of Queer people being as “out” as possible to their families, friends and employers; as we’ve known for decades, the more Queer people someone knows, the less likely they are to hate and fear us as somehow “other” than them.

I can identify with Obama’s “evolution” on marriage equality because I’ve gone through something like it myself. By coincidence, around the time of his announcement I was looking at my journal notes on a December 2004 screening of a film called Freedom to Marry, and I was stunned that even though I’d been with my current partner (now my lawfully wedded husband!) for nearly a decade, I wrote after that movie that “I don’t feel particularly invested (in either sense of the word — philosophical or financial) in the same-sex marriage issue,” and added that even before the November 2004 election, in which Bush’s victory was often attributed to the religious Right’s use of anti-marriage initiatives to mobilize conservative voters, “I had a weird ambivalence towards the speed with which [marriage equality] had become the defining feature of Queer liberation.”

Yet when the California Supreme Court opened the window for Charles and I to get married in 2008, we both leaped through it — and now I’m a member of the steering committee of the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (S.A.M.E.) and, to paraphrase the National Rifle Association’s famous rallying cry, they can pry Charles’ and my marriage license from our cold, dead hands. And I would hope that Obama’s marriage equality announcement will put an end once and for all to the delusion of many of my Leftist friends (including some of my colleagues in S.A.M.E.) that there’s “no difference” between Democrats and Republicans and therefore it doesn’t matter who wins this year’s election. The choice is clear: Barack Obama, who says, “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married” — or Mitt Romney, who says, “I will fight for an amendment to our Constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.”

San Diego Queer Groups Fight Proposition B

San Diego Queer Groups Fight Proposition B, the Risky Retirement Initiative

With less than a month until the San Diego primary election, Queer groups in San Diego are mobilizing to speak out against the Risky Retirement Initiative (Proposition. B), which eliminates a guaranteed retirement for city workers and replaces that guarantee with a 401(k) for all new hires (except police officers) and proposes a five-year freeze to the portion of current workers’ salaries used to calculate future pensions. Canvass for a Cause and San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality are working to spread the word about how Proposition B hurts the Queer community.

“San Diego city workers will be left without any safety net for their golden years, they are already locked out of social security and Proposition B will take away the guarantee of an income during their retirement and instead let the fate of our elderly rest in the hands of Wall Street Bankers, a very risky thing to do,” states Rachel Scoma, co-Executive Director of Canvass for a Cause.

“Like many laws that are bad for workers, this law is specifically harmful to Gay couples who are not allowed to marry,” remarked Jersey Deutsch, Director of Programs for Canvass for a Cause. “Because Gay couples can’t get married in the majority of states, including California, they do not get certain protections like federal social security survivorship benefits. So in addition to having no safety net of their own, Gay city workers can’t even rely on the social security of their lifelong partner if and when that partner dies — a problem not faced by heterosexual couples. Proposition B leaves Gay couples more vulnerable than anyone else. This is not the right way to bring about positive pension reform and we can do better for our community”

For Canvass for a Cause and San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (S.A.M.E.), this fight against Proposition B is essential. ”Right now San Diegans believe the only opposition to Proposition B comes from ‘big, labor, but that’s just not true,” said Sean Bohac, a member of S.A.M.E. and one of the defendants in the city’s case against the Equality 9. “The LGBT [Queer] community is rallying to defeat this law because it shows how the denial of marriage equality has far reaching implications, leaving our families, once again, in the most vulnerable position.”

Members and organizations from the San Diego Queer community will be holding a rally and press conference to send this message to San Diego voters and ask them to vote No on Proposition B, the Risky Retirement Initiative on June 5, 2012. The press conference will be held May 30, 2012, 11 to 11:30 a.m., at the Joyce Beers Community Center in the Uptown District mall in Hillcrest. For more information, including directions, visit the Canvass for a Cause Web site at www.canvassforacause.org

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Is Still Alive at MCRD

by LEO E. LAURENCE, J.D.

Copyright © 2012 by Leo E. Laurence, J.D. for Zenger’s Newsmagazine • All rights reserved

I’m going through living hell after being “discharged” because I’m Gay at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) where I served as a volunteer Client Services Assistant in the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS) offices in Building 14.

I was also under serious consideration to become the director of our suite of offices. The sitting director, Mike Brown, seems to be a closet homophobic. He retires from the NMCRS this month.

I hold a law degree and completed an unprecedented four-year post-doctoral study of appellate law at the California Court of Appeal in San Diego.

A three-star lieutenant general recruited me at the Quantico Marine Base last year. Following the general’s instructions, I first looked into the L.I.N.K program at Miramar, but re-located closer to my Hillcrest home at the NMCRS suite of offices at Marine Corps Re-cruit Depot in San Diego. I liked working in the Marine environment at MCRD.

My post at the front desk was to answer all phone calls, and I also processed interest-free, Quick Action Loans (Q.A.L.) providing up to $300 in about 15 minutes to help Marines and sailors with unexpected emergencies. I always dressed businesslike in a shirt and tie.

It was always thrill to see the wide smile on a sailor or Marine’s face as I hand them an interest-free, $300 Q.A.L. check.

I am solidly Marine in my soul and am impressed by the feel of a very special pride that every Marine shows. Marines are special!

Every Thursday, I have reported to the suite of offices at NMCRS in Building 14, behind the base exercise building.

Walking across the base, I’ve noticed that every Marine that I’ve seen is dressed as if getting ready for a formal inspection.

During all the months when I’ve served in the NMCRS offices, I’ve never seen a fat Marine.

Miracles are being performed on this base every day as teenagers right out of high school become proud Marines!

Two Awards

I eagerly attended training sessions at the 32nd Street Naval Base, and attended the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society Southwest Professional Development Day on March 7.

Mr. Brown is retiring this month and on March 15, I sent a written application to replace Mr. Brown. I don’t think he liked that, to have a “faggot” succeed him as the NMCRS director at MCRD.

On April 16, I received a Certificate of Appreciation signed by Brigadier General Daniel D. Yoo, the base commanding general.

Two days later on April 18, I received a second Certificate of Appreciation, which was signed by Mr. Brown in recognition of having reached 100 hours service in our NMCRS offices.

That second award was presented at a special luncheon in the elegant Base Boat House, overlooking the bay.

Mr. Brown told me I could bring one guest to the luncheon.

I told him Isaac Rodriquez would be my guest. He’s 22, a graduating senior in history at SDSU, and is helping me write my autobiographical history book.

My boss, however, sat directly opposite Isaac and me at a large, round table. He apparently interpreted Isaac as a Gay date, and that was too much for him.

My boss didn’t say one word to either Isaac or myself.

“I totally agree with you that Mike hardly said a word to you, if that. I didn’t notice any hostilities during the luncheon, but I did notice that he was very quiet,” said Issac in an e-mail.

His tense eyes were staring down on his luncheon plate and never looked up at Isaac or myself during the entire luncheon. By the way, Isaac isn’t Gay. Indeed, he’s straight and recently married in New York City.

The next time I reported for duty in the NMCRS office I was ordered to leave. My base ID card was confiscated by Mr. Brown.

It was a horrible, humiliating experience and quite odd just one week after I was praised for my work with two awards. I had been “discharged” without due process of law.

“Unfortunately, the NMCRS office aboard the Depot is a tenant aboard the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and we are supported by their efforts, but have no control or oversight over their hiring/firing practices or their management decisions,” wrote Depot Inspector Col. J. Q. Hall.

“I suggest you forward your concerns to either the NMCRS Regional Office located at the 32nd Street Naval Base or the NMCRS Head-quarters in Virginia,” Col. Hall added in a letter on behalf of Brigadier General Yoo.

A brief letter from NMCRS Executive Vice President Carl B. Jensen simply echoed the misinformation and distorted facts used by Mr. Brown.

Business Card Fiasco

I was doing very well as a “Client Services Associate.” I liked my post on the front desk of our NMCRS suite.

I loved answering the phones because I talked to so many special people.

My former desk had colorful business cards, which my fellow workers usually ignored.

One day a smartly dressed Marine came in for a Q.A.L. I could see his pride being a Marine.

After I gave him a $300 Q.A.L. check, he asked me for a card. I did not proffer a card, because Mr. Brown forbade it. The Marine asked me to simply print my name, including my doctoral degree in law, and cell number. It would have been rude to deny that simple request.

I helped a Marine, but someone with a dirty mind might interpret the business card as a way to “connect” with the Marine later.

Mr. Brown and I seemed to get along fine … until the awards luncheon. Just one week later, I got canned because I wrote my name on one of our business cards, as requested. Totally weird, but also typical of the actions of older homophobes.

Mr. Brown artificially took a very kind jester to a Marine who had asked for the card, and made into something so serious that it could warrant a dismissal from the NMCRS offices.

My life has suddenly gone from my personal pride serving on the base in a nightmare in my mind. I’m having serious difficulties sleeping and can’t get this nightmare out of my thinking.

I have asked for several investigations to determine if Mr. Brown violated any rules, including a due-process challenge. I am also asking for the immediate return of my base ID card.

I’m a senior citizen and one attorney said he thinks this may also be a good case of elder abuse.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is very much alive at MCRD.

Jume 5 Election Endorsements

by MARK GABRISH CONLAN, Editor

Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s Newsmagazine • All rights reserved

 

President: BARACK OBAMA

 

It seems that every election gets described — especially by progressive Democrats arguing with their Leftist friends that there really is a difference between the two major political parties in the U.S. and therefore it does matter quite profoundly which one holds the Presidency and both houses of Congress — as “the most important election in our lifetimes.” But the 2012 election actually comes close to meriting that description. Since 2000, when Zenger’s endorsed Ralph Nader for President over George W. Bush and Al Gore, the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties has widened from a hairline crack into a chasm — and, unfortunately, that hasn’t been because the Democrats have become more progressive.

No, it’s because the Republicans have become so outrageously Right-wing that the word “conservative” — originally a political philosophy that respected tradition and was wary of large-scale social change — has long since ceased to be an accurate description of them. Under the guise of “fixing” the national debt, the Republican Party of today wants to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and just about any attempt by government to protect working people and long-term unemployed people from the full force of “The Market.” It wants to end virtually all government controls on business greed and environmental destruction. It wants to — and is perilously close to — destroying what’s left of America’s labor movement.

It seeks a society in which women, people of color, Queers or anybody who believes in a religion other than Right-wing Christianity are consigned to permanent second-class citizenship. And abroad it, like the Inner Party in George Orwell’s 1984, seeks a state of permanent warfare in which, as Orwell put it, “War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

If you don’t believe me, listen to talk radio and watch Fox News. There you’ll hear Republican spokespeople and ideologues who, like Marx’s Communists, disdain to conceal their aims. They talk about “the Constitution” the way the Taliban talk about the Koran, eliminating everything in it that safeguards the rights of ordinary people and exalting those parts of our founding document that were designed to keep wealth and income in the hands of the rich. They also refer to the Constitution as “divinely inspired” — which would evoke horse-laughs among the Deists who actually wrote it — and as assuming that America is a “Christian nation” and all other faiths are here only because the Christian Right chooses to tolerate them.

And look at the way Republicans have actually acted, both in the U.S. House of Representatives and in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Maine, in which they gained complete control of government in 2010. They immediately used it to deny public workers the right to organize (they’ve already essentially destroyed unions in the private sector and only labor’s success in organizing public workers has kept the U.S. union movement from complete extinction), to destroy environmental protections, to attack the civil rights of women (including freedom from workplace discrimination as well as reproductive choice) and Queers and to disenfranchise young voters, people of color and anyone else less likely to vote Republican.

When Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s Republican governor, was facing a recall election — which, like the California primary, will take place June 5 — he not only defended his successful denial of public-sector workers to organize. He also pushed through the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature laws virtually destroying the right of women to sue for sex discrimination in the workplace and eliminating the right of Queer people to visit their partners in the hospital. This mobilization of the radical religious Right to support his anti-labor Libertarian agenda seems to have worked; once those bills went through, Walker went from dead-even in the polls against his Democratic opponent to 6 to 9 points ahead.

In 2012, we face a unified, ideologically coherent Republican party which is determined to wipe out all the gains working people, women, people of color, Queer people and anyone who isn’t rich made in the 20^th century. Republicans used to uphold the 1950’s as the “golden decade” to which they wanted to return America — a time when women were still in the kitchen, Blacks still at the back of the bus and Queers still in the closet — until they realized that it was also the time when a greater percentage of the American workforce (32 percent; today it’s 12 percent and shrinking) belonged to unions than at any time in our history, before or since.

Now the radical Right, both its “Christian” wing and the Libertarian crazies of the Tea Party, want to take us back even further — to the 1880’s, when the U.S. Supreme Court perverted the 14^th Amendment and first perpetrated the insanity that corporations are “people.” They long for the day when minimum-wage laws and health and safety regulations in the workplace were thrown out by the courts as interfering with the “freedom” of workers to accept lower wages and more dangerous workplaces. Some Tea Partiers want not only to abolish the income tax but take away from voters the right to elect U.S. Senators and give that back to the state legislatures, which in practice was a virtual invitation to bribery and corruption.

And not only do they have this foul vision of America, they are within one election victory of bringing it about. If Mitt Romney wins the 2012 Presidential election and the Republicans gain a majority in the Senate and keep the House, they will enact just about every item on their wish list. Congressmember Paul Ryan’s budget, which abolishes Medicare as we know it and calls for draconian cuts to education, food stamps, transportation infrastructure, health care for the poor and virtually everything the government does except defense — and offers huge tax cuts for the rich — will almost certainly become law.

The Republicans are proposing as sweeping a change in American government, and its relationship to the people, as the one Adolf Hitler brought the German people when he took power in 1933. And though they’re not proposing to round up their political adversaries and ship them to death camps, their social priorities — especially securing corporate power and building the military-industrial complex — are similar. So are the ways in which they sell their program to the people, through an unending series of scapegoats — in Hitler’s case, Jews, Communists, Gypsies and Queers; in the modern-day Republicans’ case, “illegal” immigrants, people of color, so-called “feminazis,” environmentalists, Occupy protesters and, yes, Queers.

I’m not saying President Obama has been a beau ideal of progressivism: he has not. I’m not saying he has done everything in his power to advance the social causes he claimed to support when he ran for President in 2008: he has not. Part of the fault has been ours, not his; while the Tea Party organized grass-roots rallies against Obama just months after he took office, progressives waited nearly three years before beginning the Occupy movement. Therefore, unlike Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, Obama hasn’t had to deal with pressure from the streets to move him Leftward and counteract the Democratic party’s corporate and rich-individual funders pushing him Rightward.

But I am saying that electing Obama and voting for every Democrat on the ballot against every Republican is the only way to keep the Republicans from taking total control of the U.S. government and enacting their hard-Right agenda. Leftists used to say the choice for the future was between “socialism or barbarism”; today, with the words “socialist,” “communist” and even “liberal” so totally beyond the political pale in this country they are routinely used as conversation-stopping insults, our regrettable choice at the moment is between the Democrats, with all their faults, and barbarism.

Mayor of San Diego: BOB FILNER

The race for mayor of San Diego has got to be one of the weirdest in history — especially for those who thought that openly Queer candidates would generally be more progressive than non-Queer opponents. In this case the Queer candidates — district attorney Bonnie Dumanis (whose war on medical marijuana was enough to persuade us not to endorse her for anything again) and the unspeakably evil City Councilmember Carl DeMaio, whose made his name as Darth Vader with city workers in the cross-hairs of his Death Star — are on the Right.

Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher has won a lot of progressive support he really doesn’t deserve simply by leaving the Republican party and declaring himself an independent. He’s still a Republican, and the only possible reason to vote for him is he doesn’t hate city workers quite as much as Carl DeMaio does — though he’s still supporting the upper-class class warfare pension “reform” initiative, Proposition B.

Bob Filner has been a true progressive for 50 years: a supporter of civil rights since he put himself at risk on the Freedom Rides to challenge racial segregation on interstate transportation in the early 1960’s, and a school board member, a City Councilmember and for the last 20 years a Congressmember who co-organized the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives and has been not only a reliable but an enthusiastic vote in support of progressive causes. He’s the only chance we have to elect a mayor who will fight corporate giveaways and treat city workers with the respect they deserve.

State Proposition 28 (Revising Term Limits): YES

State Proposition 29 (Cigarette Taxes/Cancer Research): YES

Zenger’s has consistently opposed term limits on elected officials as one of the dumbest ideas of all time. In the private sector, experience is valued; in the public sector — at least those jobs covered by term limits — it is scorned. Once upon a time, the California state legislature was hailed as one of the most effective in the country; today it’s damned as one of the worst — and while that’s not entirely the fault of term limits, they haven’t helped.

Term limits supporters on both the Right and the Left have the insane delusion that they will create a new breed of “citizen legislators” who will do politics for a while and then go back to their regular careers. What they’ve actually produced is newbie legislators who don’t know their jobs — and who get termed out just as they’ve started to learn them — and who play a game of musical chairs trying to get to the next rung on the political ladder. Term-limited legislators tend to be more beholden to corporate lobbyists, not less, not only because lobbyists are the ones with the institutional memories but because once they’re termed out of office, they’re going to want to find work …and it’s the corporate lobbyists that have the power and the money to offer it to them.

We’d enthusiastically support a measure to get rid of term limits on the California state legislature (and every other office on which they’ve been imposed) once and for all. Alas, the mythology surrounding term limits has been so effectively sold to a gullible public that such an initiative wouldn’t stand a chance. What Proposition 28 does is lower the total length of time a state legislator can serve from 14 years to 12 but allow all that time to be spent in the same house of the legislature — thereby at least allowing them to gain experience (and learn how to legislate) on one side or the other of the state capitol.

Proposition 29 was a harder sell: we generally oppose ballot-box budgeting —initiatives that create new revenue streams for government (or sometimes don’t, which is even more irresponsible) but specify what can and can’t be done with them. This initiative raises the tax on cigarettes and uses it to fund cancer research. The tobacco companies have spent big-time to put the usual deceptive ads against it, but the measure does fit in with the model California has adopted to deal with tobacco (and which should be applied at both federal and state levels to other drugs as well!): allow it to be sold, tax the hell out of it and use the tax money to pay for the social damage it causes. On balance, it’s a yes.

San Diego Proposition A (Banning Living-Wage Agreements): NO

San Diego Proposition B (Destroying City Workers’ Pensions): NO

One of the undoubted propaganda triumphs of the Right in San Diego has been to blame the city’s economic woes not on the real culprits — the multi-millionaire land developers, sports-team owners and other individual and corporate deep pockets who’ve won huge giveaways from the city and its taxpayers, and the at best feckless and at worst corrupt politicians who’ve given them — but on city workers. Over and over, using Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ strategy of the Big Lie and its constant repetition, we’ve heard the lies that the city got sunk into near-bankruptcy by its workers and especially its pensioners. Now the perpetrators of this propaganda are striking while anti-labor sentiment in San Diego is at its highest since the free-speech fights of 100 years ago — when the local newspaper organized vigilantes to kidnap, beat and drive out of town labor organizers — for two measures which will basically abolish workers’ rights in San Diego.

Proposition A is a ban on so-called “Project Labor Agreements” in city contracting, so that instead of being able to demand that companies that build for the city pay their workers living wages and allow them to organize, the city will have to grant contracts to the lowest bidders — even if those bids are based on paying sub-minimum wages to undocumented (so-called “illegal”) immigrants. Proposition B is essentially the destruction of the city workers’ pension system; it doesn’t affect current retirees (mainly because the courts say it can’t) but it puts new city workers on a 401(k)-like system — so they end up with as much retirement security as their brethren and sistren in the private sector. Actually they end up with less, because in the 1970’s San Diego city workers voted themselves out of Social Security in exchange for lifetime health coverage — a promise the city has already reneged on.

A lot of people are going to vote for these measures, especially Proposition B, because with the appalling lack of solidarity typical of America’s working class, instead of asking why they don’t get as good pensions as people in the public sector, they instead ask, “Why should they be any better off than we are?” It’s time we declared these propositions to be what they are — a product of the 1 percent’s continuing class war against the 99 percent — and reject them resoundingly.

United States Senator: DIANNE FEINSTEIN

There are going to be a number of endorsements in this column of not especially progressive Democrats who are nonetheless worlds better than any likely Republican opponents. Dianne Feinstein — whom I’ve blown hot and cold on ever since her rise in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970’s — is one of them.

House of Representatives:

 

District 49: DICK EIDEN

District 50: DAVID SECOR

District 51: DENISE MORENO DUCHENY

District 52: LORI SALDAÑA

District 53: SUSAN DAVIS

We’re making an exception to our rule of only endorsing Democrats in District 49, currently represented by slimeball Republican Darrell Issa — who’s probably launched more crass, politically motivated “investigations” than anyone in either house of Congress since Joe McCarthy. In case you’ve forgotten, he was the one who called a hearing on protecting the “religious freedom” of churches to deny their employees health coverage for birth control and didn’t allow any women to speak. The Democrat in the race is a nobody; Dick Eiden, a longtime Green Party member who’s running under the open primary rules as “nonpartisan,” is a veteran community activist and Issa’s genuinely serious opponent.

In District 50, with no progressive alternative, Democrat David Secor is the only serious opponent to the Duncan Hunter Congressional monarchy (after nearly three decades in office, Hunter Sr. — who’s now organized an anti-Obama super-PAC calling for even more defense spending than the Defense Department wants — turned his seat over to his son, and the sheep-like Republican voters of his district ratified it).

District 51 is Bob Filner’s old seat, now being coveted by one of the biggest Right-wing slimeballs in the Democratic Party: Juan Vargas, who’s anti-choice, anti-Queer and so far in bed with the Roman Catholic Church that when he spoke on marriage to the San Diego Democrats for Equality he seemed to be saying the government shouldn’t be involved in marrying people at all. So who’s the best alternative? The only progressive choices are Denise Ducheny, an experienced state legislator with a problematic record on some issues but a solid record of support for the Queer community; and John Brooks, a political newcomer who’s clearly intelligent and capable, but is frankly in over his head as a campaigner and would be in even farther over his head as a Congressmember.

In District 52, the choice is even more clear-cut: DINO (Democrat In Name Only) Scott Peters or genuine progressive Lori Saldaña. It’s amazing that Peters has won the endorsement of organized labor and the San Diego Democrats for Equality, and the co-endorsement of Progressive Democrats for America, when his whole record in office as a San Diego City Councilmember was sucking up to the 1 percent.

Susan Davis is someone we’ve blown hot and cold over, and her support of continued funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with the lame excuse that once the war started we needed to “support the troops”) and her votes for job-destroying “free trade” agreements are worrisome. But she’s been a solid vote for women’s rights and she did — after a lot of coaxing — take a leading role in repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and allowing Queers to serve openly in the U.S. military.

State Senate, District 39: MARTY BLOCK

There were more progressive alternatives in the Democratic primary when Block first ran, but he’s been good and he deserves re-election — especially against cookie-cutter Republican opponent George Plescia.

State Assembly:

 

District 77: RUBEN HERNANDEZ

District 78: TONI ATKINS

District 79: PAT WASHINGTON

District 80: BEN HUESO

Despite the promise of the redistricting reform initiative to produce more competitive districts, there are still all too many “dead-goat districts” — ones so biased towards one major party or the other that a dead goat could get elected as long as it had the right party letter after its name — which is why we’re not endorsing in District 75 (only one Democrat running) or 76 (no Democrats at all). In District 77 we’re endorsing a Democrat against three Republicans and hoping for the best.

In District 78 we have a rematch of the 2010 race between openly Lesbian Democrat Toni Atkins and openly Gay Republican Ralph Denney — who’s a nice guy but basically Carl DeMaio in sloppier clothes.

We look at the District 79 field and wonder why things like this happen — two excellent African-American Democrats, either of whom we’d feel proud to support, plus a capable white male Democrat all running against each other. All things being equal, though, we’re going with Pat Washington, not only because she’s openly Queer but she’s an aggressive defender of women’s rights and a seasoned community activist.

We’ve never endorsed Ben Hueso before — as a City Councilmember he came perilously close to DINOhood — but it’s between him and a Republican.

San Diego City Council:

District 1: SHERRI LIGHTNER

District 3: TODD GLORIA

District 7: MAT KOSTRINSKY

District 9: MARTI EMERALD

One of the most baneful results of term limits is that frequently incumbents run not only without serious opposition but without any opposition. Potential challengers figure, “Why bother to run this time? S/he will be termed out in four years anyway.” Two of the five City Council districts up for election this year — Districts 3 and 5 — have only one candidate: Gloria in 3 and Carl DeMaio’s hand-picked successor, Mark Kersey, in 5.

Sherri Lightner is yet another Democrat on the ballot who hasn’t always lived up to progressive ideals but is still far better than her Republican opponent, Ray Ellis, would be. Todd Gloria hasn’t always been that progressive, either, but he’s been better than we expected when we endorsed his opponent, Stephen Whitburn, in 2008. Mat Kostrinsky is a reasonable Democrat in a tough (for progressives) district.

Marti Emerald has pretty much taken over from Donna Frye as the one “out” progressive on the current City Council — she was the only Councilmember who wanted the City Council to  pass resolutions endorsing the right of public employees to organize and bargain collectively, and supporting Occupy San Diego during its occupation of Civic Center (“Freedom”) Plaza — and she deserves re-election.

San Diego City Attorney: COLIN PARENT (write-in)

At last — at the very last minute — a write-in candidate surfaced to take on incumbent city attorney Jan Goldsmith and his (he’s the Boy Named Jan) jihad against medical-marijuana users, Occupy protesters and the Equality Nine. Go to the trouble and vote for him!

San Diego County Supervisor:

District 2: RUDY REYES

District 3: DAVE ROBERTS

While supporting Rudy Reyes — who was badly burned in the 2003 wildfires, became a medical marijuana user to deal with the pain and has courageously resisted the county’s outrageous war on medical cannabis and the people who need it — is basically a protest vote, Dave Roberts is a serious, well-backed challenger to incumbent Republican Pam Slater-Price and deserves to win.

San Diego County Board of Education:

District 1: GREGG ROBINSON

District 2: LYN NEYLON

Want the chance to vote for someone who’s actually appeared at Occupy San Diego events and aggressively campaigned for workers’ rights? Well, besides Lori Saldaña for Congress, there’s teachers’ union leader Gregg Robinson for district 1 of the San Diego County Board of Education. Lyn Neylon has a similar background, and though she’s been less publicly prominent than Robinson she’s still a good choice against long-term incumbent Jerry Rindone.

San Diego Unified School District:

District A: JOHN LEE EVANS

District D: RICHARD BARRERA

District E: BILL PONDER

We’re joining the San Diego Democrats for Equality in endorsing two strong incumbents, Evans and Barrera, who have coped well with the insane cutbacks they’ve had to impose because of reductions in state funding of education. We’re parting company with them in District E because Ponder’s opponent, Marne Foster, responded to their question on marriage equality with a statement of faith as a Christian and a belief in “love that encompasses all” — talk which all too often leads to anti-Queer “love the sinner, hate the sin” rhetoric — and because Ponder, despite his troublesome support for the failed initiative to add non-elected members to the school board, seemed a much more reasonable and capable candidate.

Superior Court Judge:

Office 24: TERRIE ROBERTS

Office 25: GEORGE SCHAEFER

Office 34: GARLAND PEED

We feel a little odd about endorsing in judicial races because judges shouldn’t have to be elected at all. This is one issue the framers of the U.S. Constitution got right; the only way to ensure that judges have the independence they need to follow the law instead of political pressures (coming largely from corporations and the well-funded radical Right) is to give them lifetime tenure and make them safe from removal except for gross misconduct. But as long as we have judicial elections, we need to vote in them, and these are good people supported by the San Diego Democrats for Equality (they endorsed Roberts and Schaefer and gave an “acceptable” rating to the Republican Peed, whose opponent is a radical-Right activist with the incredibly appropriate name of Gary Kreep).