Category: History

From San Diego Free Press / June 4, 2012

In Under the Perfect Sun, Mike Davis, Kelly Mayhew and I observe that San Diego is a city that “many conservatives extol as a utopia of patriotism and free enterprise.” Indeed it was Nixon’s “lucky city” but, as we note, “San Diego has too frequently been a town wide open to greed but closed to social justice.

Like its Sunbelt siblings—Orange County, Phoenix, and Dallas—it has a long history of weak and venal city halls dominated by powerful groups of capitalist insiders. ‘Private Government’ has long overshadowed public politics.”

Balboa Park Conservancy Board of Director members Judy Swink and Vicki Granowitz recently issued a joint press release in which they announced their resignations from the board. Both of their resignations were precipitated by the board’s June 1 majority endorsement of politically powerful San Diego philanthropist Irwin Jacobs’ controversial Plaza de Panama plan. According to the press release, prior to June 1 the Balboa Park Conservancy had maintained a neutral role with no direct involvement in the creation or implementation of this plan. It now not only supports the plan, it will actively lobby for it.

Beginning Monday, June 4th, the OB Rag is birthing a new online publication for all of San Diego. It’s called the San Diego Free Press – and is named after San Diego’s very first alternative newspaper – which was published from 1968 to 1969.

The San Diego Free Press will bring to the rest of San Diego what the OB Rag has been bringing to the community of Ocean Beach these last four and half years – an online source of news, issues, and progressive views by citizen journalists, plus the providing of a platform for the discussion of issues relevant to the village of OB.

The San Diego Free Press – in the planning stages for over a year and half – will be a source for neighborhood news from all the ignored and forgotten communities of our area, and it will provide a source and platform for progressive views for and by San Diegans.

In my column last week, I pointed out what Scott Peters’ accepting the endorsement by the New Democrat Coalition meant. Specifically, I outlined the history of the Democratic Leadership Council and its transformation into the New Democrat Coalition and noted that these organizations have been the chief engines behind the Democratic Party’s shift toward a far more business-friendly orientation. I also observed something that even Bill Clinton’s former advisor Robert Reich has recently written about—that the Clinton administration’s loosening of economic regulations as a result of this ideological shift helped grease the wheels for the great financial train wreck from which we are yet to recover.

This ideological shift in a large chunk of the Democratic Party was made possible by a web of corporate interests funding the DLC and its NDC offspring in order to influence policy on both sides of the aisle. It is, I argued, just as important to note these ideological and economic networks inside the Democratic Party as it is to look at the well-funded think tanks behind folks like Carl DeMaio.

China cited the treatment of protesters participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, stating that their arrests can provide a “glimpse of the truth regarding the United States’ so-called freedom and democracy”.

China Daily/ May 26, 2012

Beijing on Friday swiftly hit back at Washington’s annual report on China’s human rights, saying in a report that the US government’s crackdown on protesters in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration is the real illustration of American democracy.

In the report, Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011, the State Council Information Office demanded the US stop its double standards.

Beijing issued the report less than 24 hours after the release of the Washington report, which Chinese experts said used harsher wording than previous editions and reflected US double standards that meet political needs in an election year.

U.S. prosecutors asks Manhattan Federal Judge Katherine Forrest to undo ruling against military detention law

By Basil Katz / Chicago Tribune – Reuters / May 25, 2012

NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors on Friday urged a judge to lift her order barring enforcement of part of a new law that permits indefinite military detention, a measure critics including a prize-winning journalist say is too vague and threatens free speech.

Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest this month ruled in favor of activists and reporters who said they feared being detained under a section of the law, signed by President Barack Obama in December.

The government says indefinite military detention without trial is justified in some cases involving militants and their supporters.

It is the role of the world of independent online news and opinion sites such as the OB Rag to call out the corporate media when it goes over the top on something that we can just not ignore.

One of the latest ‘over the top’ instances of reporting was done by the local outlet for CNS, City News Service, a little-known and even less understood network of regional news services, including a branch here in San Diego.

Here is what I’m getting at. In an article about how Mayor Sanders criticized mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio, the article included a list of recent endorsements received by the other mayoral candidates – but oh, wait! It included the endorsements that just the Republicans have received, totally excluding recent endorsements to the sole Democrat in the race, Bob Filner.

Editor: Last Sunday outside the NATO conference, dozens of American Iraqi and Afghan veterans threw their medals away in protest of the wars. A very similar protest by veterans was held during the anti-Vietnam war days in 1971. .

By Dave Lindorff / Nation of Change and This Can’t Be Happening / May 22, 2012

Once again American troops are being asked to keep fighting for a mistake — this time the 2001 fantasy of the Bush/Cheney administration that it could make a client state out of Afghanistan.

John Kerry, back before he was a pompous windsurfing Senate apologist for American empire, back when he wore his hair long and was part of a movement of returned US military veterans speaking out against the continuation of the Vietnam War, famously asked the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing, “How do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?”

Police from Internal Affairs Unit Allowed into Closed Sessions and Bullied Dissenters

The report : intimidation resulted in high turnover rate of prospective board members, including minorities.

By Kristina Davis / U-T San Diego / May 23, 2012

SAN DIEGO — The county grand jury investigating San Diego’s police citizen review board uncovered an atmosphere rife with “prejudice, fear and intimidation,” and determined that bullying and a lack of decorum impairs the board’s ability to be a true watchdog on police practices, according to a report released Tuesday.

BY J. A. Rippo / The Espresso / Originally published May 16, 2012

Arizona governor Jan Brewer has signed into law a bill that effectively ends Mexican-American studies classes in Arizona’s public schools (HB 2281). She did this after Tom Horne, a school superintendent and candidate for Attorney General, made noise about his dislike of a Mex-Am culture program in Tucson.

Horne and Brewer justified their action by claiming the classes promote the overthrow of the US government, preached resentment toward white people; particularly well-off ones, and urged ethnic solidarity at the expense of a melting-pot mentality.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / May 18, 2012

Two things I need to clarify.

First thing: Some regular readers of NumbersRunner questioned last week’s harsh assessment of how San Diego is faring under our ‘strong mayor’ system. Actually, I understated the problems — they’re much worse than you think.

While it’s not unheard of for city leaders to sweep messy problems under the rug, the lack of professional management inside City Hall and the disintegration of public accountability and honest disclosure under our current mayor are — without a doubt — San Diego’s most closely guarded secrets since Diann Shipione (former board trustee of the San Diego City Employees Retirement System) spilled the beans about gross mismanagement, lack of disclosure, and deceptive practices shrouding our pension system.

Editor: Opposition by the public – the people of San Diego – to the plan for Balboa Park by Irwin Jacob – the billionaire – is growing. On Friday, May 18th, San Diego’s Historical Resources Board voted against it unanimously, and on the day before, the Park and Recreation Board voted 5-4 against it. The plan, the Plaza de Panama plan, will be taken up by the Planning Commission on June 7 and by the San Diego City Council on July 9.

By Roger Showley / U-T San Diego / May 18, 2012

San Diego’s Historical Resources Board voted unanimously Friday [May 18] against the Plaza de Panama plan for Balboa Park.

It was the second city board to register its opposition, following Thursday’s 5-4 vote by the Park and Recreation Board. The Planning Commission is scheduled to act June 7 and the City Council, July 9.

By Save Our Heritage Organization

Opposition to the controversial Plaza de Panama plan for Balboa Park is building into a groundswell, as the design team’s cost estimates balloon, from $40 million to $45 million in a matter of days, and doubts arise over completing construction by 2015, the centennial of the Panama-California Exposition.