Category: History

A Retraction … of sorts

A recent post-primary article of mine about how conservatives were celebrating too early caused quiet a stir in certain circles. Causing a stir is putting it mildly, as what I wrote brought in a slew of hate mail, physical threats, and promises to boycott our advertisers. Right after the primary, I wrote an article about the results of the election. In cruising down the list of ballot winners and losers in that article –

Republicans like to denounce the so-called extremism of the liberal Warren Court. But the 5-4 decisions of the Roberts Court are the most divisive in American history.

by Michael Tomasky / The Daily Beast / Jun 21, 2012

As we gather in our respective bunkers awaiting the white smoke from the Supreme Court, I thought a little history discussion might be in order. We’ve heard conservatives say many times that the Warren Court overreached, legislated from the bench, and divided America.

From San Diego Free Press

It probably should come as no surprise that the diverse community of City Heights delivers up equally diverse coffee drinking experiences. The one unifying quality to the coffee here is a certain “robustness–” this IS City Heights after all.

Editor: Here are two “letters to the editor” sent out by local Point Lomas, Susan Town Shea, and Judy Hagar Schons, pleading to their fellow citizens to save Balboa Park, to oppose the Jacobs’ plan, and to support SOHO. We decided that they were important enough to cast as one of our irregular Reader Rants. Susan and Judy, I am proud to say, are also from the Point Loma High School Class of 1966 – my class sisters!

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Many years ago, my mother, Mae Louise Ford Town, was a frequent contributor to Letters to the Editor. Harold Keane, newscaster, had called her “that woman on Pt. Loma”. Mae Louise Town tried to impress the sanity of keeping San Diego true to zoning, historical importance, and natural beauty of San Diego.

This was despite the ill advised people trying to ruin our city, propelled by greed and disrespect, our City Council! I feel compelled, as a second generation San Diegan, to take over the gauntlet my Mother carried.

In protesting what the City Council is supporting, in ruining Plaza de Panama, I say enough is enough! SOHO needs everyone’s support! REACT! Before it’s too late. We are not like L.A. We will be if greedy, unconscionable, thoughtless people ‘in charge ‘ are left alone.

Susan Town Shea

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Massive protests in Cairo and other citeis against military rule as their candidaten declares himself winner of presidential vote.

AlJazeera/ June 20 , 2012

Thousands of Egyptians have packed into Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest against the ruling military council’s decision to claim new powers, amid contesting claims by both presidential candidates of victory in the weekend’s election.

In the hub of the uprising that deposed president Hosni Mubarak, protesters chanted against his military successors, with a steady trickle of people joining the demonstration after sunset.

The demonstration on Tuesday comes against a backdrop of uncertainty over the winner of the presidential vote, with the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi and his rival, former prime minister Ahmed Shafik, both claiming victory.

Last week I commented on the larger economic significance of the Wisconsin recall for the average American, but it is also worth noting what it may very well mean for American politics and the soul of the Democratic Party. One thing is quite clear: Obama threw labor under the bus in Wisconsin. As a candidate in 2007, the President famously said, “If American workers are being denied their right to organize, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk that picket line with you as President of the United States.”

But when the rubber hit the road in Wisconsin, he sent a twitter message, had Bill Clinton sub for him, and walked the other way. Indeed, back at the height of the drama in the Badger state, all the President could muster was a feeble statement about how union workers were “friends and neighbors.”

Here are links and stories from across the country – and at times, from across the seas – national news that you can naturally use.

Did Republicans deliberately crash the US economy? So why does the US economy stink? Why has job creation in America slowed to a crawl? Why, after several months of economic hope, are things suddenly turning sour? The culprits might seem obvious – uncertainty in Europe, an uneven economic recovery, fiscal and monetary policymakers immobilized and incapable of acting. But increasingly, Democrats are making the argument that the real culprit for the country’s economic woes lies in a more discrete location: with the Republican Party.

Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought. This is written by Woodward and Bernstein themselves – more than a retrospective.

The good folks at SOHO – Save Our Heritage Organization – are fighting angry. And for good reason. They are upset that the San Diego Planning Commission approved billionaire Irwin Jacobs’ plans for Balboa Park at its June 7th meeting. SOHO wrote us:

After eight hours of presentations and public testimony on June 7th, with little thoughtful deliberation, the San Diego Planning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend approval of the Plaza de Panama project. Their conduct was one of extreme disappointment as they let down both the public and forfeited their stewardship of Balboa Park in an embarrassing display up one-upmanship of who could thank Dr. Jacobs the most for gracing their presence. This is no exaggeration.

Editor: “City Heights – Up Close & Personal” is a weekly column by Anna Daniels at the San Diego Free Press, our own upstart launched last week. One of the aims of the SD Free Press is to cover long-ignored and forgotten communities around San Diego.

The home my husband and I bought in City Heights over two decades ago is a four mile straight shot along University Avenue from the little house we had rented in North Park for six years. Despite the short distance, the trips east to our new home were initially disorienting.

by John Lawrence/ San Diego Free Press

Criticisms of Mitt Romney’s background at Bain Capital and his record as a “job creator” are fair game.

I have never heard so many conservative pundits offering gratuitous avuncular advice to Barack Obama that his campaign strategy attacking Bain Capital will not get him anywhere. Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe on msnbc and others have gone on and on about how using Bain Capital against Mitt Romney is not a good strategy. Well, when conservatives offer advice to Barack Obama about what will or will not work for him, Obama better do just the opposite of what they recommend because ultimately they want him to lose. Therefore, he should double down, not abandon, the Bain Capital strategy.

Editor: Here is a two-part series about what is going on in Venezuela by Peter Bohmer – a former OBcean, who now teaches at Evergreen College in Washington state. Bohmer just recently returned from a ten week visit to Venezuela, and filed this report.

by Peter Bohmer / Special to the OB Rag / June 7, 2012

I spent 10 weeks in Venezuela in early 2012, two months with a group of 30 students from the Evergreen State College and then two weeks continuing my travels with a good friend. I had a similar 10 week experience in early 2009 and also spent three weeks in Venezuela in 2011. Based on my 2009 study and travel in Venezuela, I wrote an article that can be found here. This article here is a continuation of that one. It focuses primarily on the changes in Venezuela since 2009. Most of my time on this trip was spent in Caracas, Mérida, and Barquisimeto.

By Mel Freilicher / Special to the OB Rag

Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life
By Vivian Gornick
Yale University Press, 2011; 151 pages; $25

Rather than write a political history of Emma Goldman’s very full life (which is already documented in great detail, including in her own hefty, 2 volume autobiography, Living My Life), Vivian Gornick has chosen to “concentrate on the force of her extraordinary rebelliousness and try to understand it in light of the existential drive behind radical politics.”

To illuminate what she believes to be at the heart of many dedicated radicals’ commitment, Gornick delivers a provocative portrait of Goldman’s soul, really: embodied in what’s famously paraphrased as, “If I can’t come to your dance, I’m not coming to your revolution.”