Democracy Now! • Oct 17, 2022 • Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at https://democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.
Days after Oakland bakery owner Jen Angel was dragged to her death in a brutal robbery gone wrong, her friends and family are grappling with the senselessness of the tragedy, but say they’re determined to let the world know what she would have wanted: for the perpetrators not to be jailed.
On Friday, Oakland police officials said they were investigating the incident as a homicide, and that they suspected two people were involved.
The confrontation unfolded in a matter of moments in a parking lot near a Wells Fargo bank in Uptown Oakland. Angel was leaving her parking spot when she was cornered by a pair of thieves, who smashed her car window and ran away with her belongings, her fiance, Ocean Mottley, said. As she chased after the car, she got caught in the vehicle’s door and was dragged more than 50 feet, her head smashing on the sidewalk as the car sped away.
Three days after the encounter, Angel lay in Highland Hospital, surrounded by dozens of friends, community members, and her fiance. After two failed attempts to remove her from life support, she was declared legally dead on Thursday.
As of Friday, the pair of suspects – whom police reportedly described as known to the department – had not been apprehended.
Friends who knew her not just as an esteemed culinary artist but also as a community organizer and punk journalist said given Angel’s lifelong commitment to restorative justice, she would not have wanted those responsible, if they are found, to be imprisoned.
“I think Jen would affirm that of course that’s what people have been trained to believe is the answer, to lock people up,” said Emily Harris, a close friend of Angel’s who works as a human rights and anti-prison director. “But we know that if the people who cause her harm are sent to jail, all we’re doing is perpetuating more harm.”
In announcing her death, her family and friends underscored what they said was her desire to eschew punishment if anyone were to be implicated in her death, writing that the family was committed to pursuing all the available alternatives to imprisonment.
“As a long-time social movement activist and anarchist, Jen did not believe in state violence, carceral punishment, or incarceration as an effective or just solution to social violence and inequity,” they wrote.
Harris, who described Angel as her first political mentor, said Angel believed that punishing people through mass incarceration, including the violence and isolation of imprisonment, only stymied real healing, both for the perpetrators of crimes and their victims.
“That doesn’t mean that there isn’t accountability that we would want for (the perpetrators),” said Harris. “What (that) could look like isn’t about putting a person into further harm … (but) understanding how we’re going to prevent this from happening to the next Jen Angel.”
Harris has already reached out to an Oakland-based nonprofit, Restore Oakland, that implements methods of restorative justice for situations not unlike what happened to Angel.
And even though friends like Harris say they’re outraged by the callousness of what happened to their cherished friend, they say an approach that leads with love and understanding — and a belief that “no one is disposable” — would be what Angel would have wanted.
These were convictions Angel embodied throughout every aspect of her life; as a small business owner in a neighborhood of Oakland challenged by violence and mounting racial inequity; as a fervent political advocate of alternative media; as the heartbeat of a Oakland community dedicated to collectivism; and as a punk teenager in the late 1980s branching out of a small town in Ohio through DIY zines.
Angel’s philosophy was kindled early on, as her early work as a writer showed. At 16, she created a fanzine that circulated widely across Ohio tackling issues of social justice, politics, identity, and sexual freedom. They were topics that resonated with Matt Leonard, a punk teenager who was living in Seattle and became penpals with Angel; They only met by accident in person more than 20 years later, after they both moved to the Bay Area.
“Someone’s personality through the written word may or may not be what they are like in person, but even more than I had expected from her writing, she exuded kindness and inclusivity. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever met who has lived life with such integrity,” said Leonard.
“Jen was always building the world that she wanted to see,” said Pete Woiwode, a longtime friend and a local political organizer. “Where everyone has dignity and the resources they need to live a good and joyful life.”
When a speeding car crashed into the window of Angel’s bakery in 2019, causing extensive damage to her business, she did what she did in every moment of conflict, scarcity, or struggle, Woiwode said: She turned toward her community – for support, fundraisers, and guidance. She didn’t move her bakery and didn’t involve the police.
Friends say now, almost a week since the devastating encounter and a day after her death, they are thinking of the even-keeled community activist who encouraged people around her to lead with heart and explore their own anarchic ends.
They said they were imagining her in the kitchen making handmade gnocchi for dozens of friends as she nursed a glass of red wine; at their doorsteps with a box of their favorite cupcakes; taking vacations to warm places with her mother, as she had done just a month ago. They are also imagining that Angel would have known exactly what to say and what to do if it had been anyone else but her on that day.
“She’s the person who we would have gone to,” said Harris. “She is the person we have gone to.”
Annie is a reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. She previously was a digital producer for The Chronicle’s Datebook section. She graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 2017 with a degree in journalism. During her time there, she spearheaded a culture column, produced radio pieces for NPR-affiliate station KCBX, and was a DJ and writer for KCPR, the campus radio station. Before joining the Chronicle, she was an associate producer at SFGATE and interned at VICE and Flood Magazine. She’s particularly interested in communities and scenes that are often misunderstood.
NowThis News • Streamed live on Feb 7, 2023 • Watch the State of the Union 2023. President Joe Biden addresses a Joint Session of Congress at the United States Capitol and delivers the annual State of the Union.
The President’s Manifesto for America’s Next Revolution — And Why It’s a Good One
So. The State of the Union. Did you watch it? How do you feel about it? Was it consequential, meaningless, or just meh? I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet, and I’m not going to mince words. Americans probably don’t get it yet — but that was an historic State of the Union.
Right about now, you can bet the world’s leaders woke up today, and watched Biden’s speech, desperately, several times over, then sat down and debated it with their advisors and cabinet ministers. Because that was a State of the Union that will go down in history. No, I’m not kidding. Enough with the eye-rolls whenever someone brings up Biden — that’s the feeling I get that Americans have these days, and let me say it loud and clear. That’s wrong. The entire is beginning to recognize Joe Biden as one of America’s most consequential Presidents for decades.
So why aren’t Americans?
I’ll come back to that. First, like I said, suspend your judgment, because you need to learn, and I use that word in a precise way, learn, just why this an historic State of the Union.
What was it about? Biden covered many, many topics and issues. Many more than a usual State of the Union. But at the core of this State of the Union was a very, very specific, very certain, and very precise idea. A theory, if you like. Even a model. That means: a set of relationships made of causes and effects. The world’s leaders are waking up today in a panic precisely because Biden’s model of how the world works — and what America’s place is in it — is the most dramatic sea change to happen to global politics and economics in post-war history.
No, I’m not kidding. We’ll discuss, shortly, whether that sea change should be thought of as a good thing, but the first thing Americans need to understand is that Biden just outlined a manifesto that’s more or less revolutionary, and again, I’m not kidding. Why do I say that? Especially as someone who was criticalof Biden?
The model of the world, and America’s place in it, that was at the core of that State of the Union went like this. America was once a place of broadly shared prosperity, which created a thing called “the middle class.” But as jobs went offshore, the middle class began to collapse. Even going that far would be a big change for American politics — in which both sides have long supported the ideas of “globalization” and “offshoring,” hell, invented them both together. It was under Reagan that this set of ideas began — and under Clinton that they accelerated out of control. Both sides.
But Biden went further than challenging this old orthodoxy, which both sides created — offshore, globalize, and America will be just fine. Much further. He recognized that the gains of this model of organizing the global economy — which is what America still does — flowed mostly to the rich, which is how they became super and then ultra rich. And he went even further than that — making an absolutely critical link, that no American President, let alone politician, really, except maybe Bernie and Liz, have made before. That hollowing out of the American middle led to a loss, as he said, of pride.
Once-thriving cities and towns became shadows of what they used to be.
And along the way, something else was lost.
Pride. That sense of self-worth.
Now. He meant that in a certain American way. But we can also put it in a much more formal one. A loss of confidence. Optimism. Trust in institutions. In each other. Among social groups. A sense of fatalism. Despair. The growing sentiment that life would never get better. Pride.
Biden did something incredibly important. I don’t use the word “incredibly” lightly. He made the link between politics — one model of organizing the global economy, in which America’s middle class was effectively sacrificed to cheap labour — and economics — that led to widespread stagnation, and a fall in living standards — and society.As a result of this political ideology, the economy went south, and that led society itself to grow impoverished, in a deep way. In terms of social bonds, ties, trust, optimism, self-belief, self-confidence, self-efficacy. But how is self-governance possible without all those?
No American President has made this set of links. Not since Hoover or maybe Eisenhower. No American President has linked politics, economics, and society. Instead, in the post-war era, most Presidents have assumed that American society — and I mean that in a deep sense, as in, how society’s doing, its sense of optimism, confidence, self-belief, social bonds, ties — is a thing divorced from politics and economics. That it’ll weather any set of blows aimed at it.
But that’s not true. What do we know? What’s the single biggest lesson of 20th century social thought? Sudden slides into impoverishment produces waves of fascism, precisely because societies lose their “pride,” their confidence, optimism, self-belief, and thus become easy prey for demagogues, who blame a people’s woes on scapegoats. That’s the story of the Nazis turning Weimar Germany into a killing machine — but it’s also the story of America from about 2010 or so, its own authoritarian-fascist wave surging, and still right there, battering away at the doors of democracy.
Biden did something radical. Revolutionary, even. There are many on the left who style themselves as radical and revolutionaries — you know the type — and they’ll object to my point. But that doesn’t make them any less true. Being radical in this age isn’t just about, I don’t know, having a poster of Che in your bedroom and still hoping for the revolution. It’s about actually challenging failed systems.
My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.
Maybe that’s you, watching at home.
You remember the jobs that went away. And you wonder whether a path even exists anymore for you and your children to get ahead without moving away.
I get it.
That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind.
Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back, because of the choices we made in the last two years.
Let me put it more formally. Biden launched a quiet revolution last night. In it, he repudiated the governing ideologies that have led America to the brink of collapse — all of them. He didn’t call them out by name, because of course this isn’t a grad school seminar. And yet to translate the SOTU in a far more concise way would be to say something like: “Neoliberalism’s done. It didn’t work. It led to economic stagnation, which led to social degeneration, and that produced MAGA Trumpism. But MAGA Trumpism, of course, doesn’t work either — it doesn’t solve anything. And neither does the old-school conservatism — nobody should have healthcare!! Insulin!! Everything should be run for maximum profit — that aligned so neatly with 90s era neoliberalism. These ages of American politics are done. They are over. They have failed. We are going to try something new.”
For example, too many of you lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen if your spouse gets cancer, your child gets sick, or if something happens to you.
Will you have the money to pay your medical bills? Will you have to sell the house?
I get it.
…You know, we pay more for prescription drugs than any major country on Earth…Every day, millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can stay alive. Insulin has been around for 100 years. It costs drug companies just $10 a vial to make.
But, Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars — and making record profits.
Let me say that again, so that it’s really, really clear. In that SOTU, Biden very, very firmly repudiated, rejected, even scorned America’s governing ideologies for the last five decades or more. All of them. From neoliberalism to drown-government-in-a-bathtub-conservatism to MAGA Trumpism, their hateful bastard offspring. All of them.
Whether you like it or not, that’s radical. And it’s revolutionary, too. It’s not revolutionary in, say, the French sense — France just nationalized its main energy supplier, because, well, hello, climate change. Possible in France — not in America. For America, though? This was, make no mistake, revolutionary, incendiary stuff.
If you don’t get why, think about how…the entire city of…Washington DC….feels this morning. It’s waking up, too, in bleary, confused, panic. The lobbyists are baffled. The pundits are bewildered. Did America’s President just say…all our ideologies for the last…five decades…haven’t worked? Where does that…gulp…leave us? You can see why all these folks — from lobbyists to media — hate Biden so much.
As a simple example, American media hates Biden so much it spends more time telling him not to runagain than covering any of the above. That’s not its job: a media isn’t there to tell a President not to run, except in cases of abuse of power. It’s covering reality. But America’s media hates Biden because he is doing the one thing they can’t abide, hate, loathe, despise, think of as contemptuous.
He’s becoming a radical. And that leaves them in the lurch, because, well, then, instead of dumb horse-race style coverage, from which they earn cushy sinecures, they might actually have to do the hard work of investigating reality, and asking tough questions, like: is Biden right? Is that why the entire world is now listening to him? Why Europe’s scrambling to copy him? Why nations like France’s and Germany’s leaders are inspired by him?
Americans don’t hear those stories, and so they don’t see Biden for what he is. American media needs to create characters — cliched, derivative ones — to sell their hackneyed, trite narratives. The character they’ve tried to create for Biden is “the doddering old man.” Just as for Steve Bannon, LOL, it was “the great intellectual” — remember that? Or for Trump, it was “the firebrand” — thus legitimizing and normalizing fascism. But Biden isn’t a doddering old man. Ask Macron. Ask Trudeau. They will tell you that he is becoming the most radical American President in the post-war era. Otherwise — well, why would they be intimidated, trying to copy his moves?
What is that quiet revolution? For the first time, Biden actually began to describe it in concrete terms. I’ve discussed it quite a bit, but this was the first time Biden himself has connected all the dots. What made America different before the five decades of ideological failure? Well, it used to make stuff. Stuff the world admired, wanted, needed. Made in America used to be words that meant something. That’s not just a nostrum.
In those days, America was a net exporter. And as a net exporter, it was a much, much healthier economy and society both. It had a middle class that was robust and vibrant, because there were plenty of stable jobs. Inequality was far lower, because the rich weren’t basically arbitraging cheap Chinese labour. And all that meant that, despite America’s problems, society was far more bound together, healthier, more confident. In his words, there was more “pride.”
Biden laid out a manifesto for a revolution. Now let me describe it in detail. America’s to become a net exporter again. Of stuff the world needs.
Where is it written that America can’t lead the world in manufacturing again?
For too many decades, we imported products and exported jobs.
Now, thanks to all we’ve done, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs.
As that happens, three effects unfold. Number one, the middle class roars back to life, because now there are stable jobs at a social scale once again, not just rampant inequality and downward mobility. Two, that puts enough back in the public purse to begin funding advanced public goods. Biden didn’t quite fully say this part out loud, but he clearly understands it, thinks it — that if you can get the economy back to where it was way back then, during America’s post-war Golden Years, then you can offer Americans European-level public goods, like childcare and healthcare and so forth.
Three, all of that begins to rewrite the social contract. An America like that, with a robust middle class, a stronger public purse, less inequality — it’s also one that doesn’t have to simply accede to predatory exploitation for things like insulin, right down to connectivity, because it’s powerless, the ultra rich holding all the money and power. Now, people have self-confidence, belief, “pride” again. Because they have real power again. Economic power, social stability, financial security, social ties and bonds, a sense of community.
That is seriously radical. I’m sorry if that offends some people, because, certainly, it will. But it needs to be said. We have never heard an American President speak this way. Not even JFK, for all his many historic accomplishments, made these links — stagnation, a loss of confidence, the erosion of democracy, the degeneration of society. Biden’s revolution is about restoring the fortunes of the average American again — in serious ways, not just superficial ones. Giving them fundamental things that democracy relies on. It’s a manifesto about security, stability, and prosperity for the average person.
Why is that radical? Well, who’s preached anything like that — let alone begun to do it? Every American President for the last fifty years or so, with the exception of Carter, has basically told Americans that their problems are….their fault. They don’t work hard enough, they don’t save enough, they’re not thrifty enough, resourceful enough, imaginative enough. Self-reliance and rugged individualism are the mantras that unite everyone Clinton to Bush to Obama. Hey — stand on your own two feet. (If you don’t believe me, skim some of these old SOTU’s from Bush, Clinton, and Obama and see the difference for yourself.)
Biden explicitly rejected that philosophy of individualism, aggression, and atomization. Explicitly. Instead, he proposed a philosophy of cooperation, togetherness, and interdependence. Our fortunes rise together, he said — if we get back to making stuff again, then we’ll have pride again, confidence, self-belief, and with that comes a stronger society, which can do the hard work of democracy better, too. It’s the precise opposite of the overtly mean every-person-for-themselves, the strong survive and the weak perish Presidential philosophies of the last several decades.
I ran for President to fundamentally change things, to make sure the economy works for everyone so we can all feel pride in what we do.
To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.
Now. That doesn’t mean any of this will happen overnight. It won’t, and that’s the danger and the problem. Biden’s revolution faces three challenges. One we’ve covered — the media won’t cover it, choosing to portray him as the character of the “doddering old man” — and so Americans are more than a little confused by it. Who is Biden — this bold guy proposing all this new stuff, getting stuff done — or the guy the media says is Uncle Goofy?
The second challenge is that all the above takes time, and Americans are impatient. How long will Biden’s revolution take — to deliver real-world improvements Americans can feel, point at and say, hey, this happened to me? Five to ten years. A long time. But Americans need to understand that turning around a society as decrepit and broken and America isn’t going to happen overnight. They need to be grown ups now, and understand that patience is key if they want a better country, that just writing all this off because it’s not all happening at immediate-gratification speed is foolish.
Challenge three, and you could see it on flagrant, vulgar display last night is…the GOP. They jeered, sneered, heckled, interrupted. Fanatics like Marjorie Taylor Greene put on a gross show. Then came the bizarre official response, which was about…LOL… “wokeness,” the far right’s favorite new scare tactic. There’s a point there, which is that the GOP doesn’t want any of Biden’s revolution to happen. Any of it. Precisely because to them, a frightened, desperate, anxious America is a divided one, which is easier to control, prey on, and profit from. An America whose confidence and optimism and “pride” is restored? That’s the last thing the GOP wants — and the thing it fears most, because then, well, it’s obsolete. So the GOP will do everything it can to stall, flame out, crash and burn Biden’s revolution before it can really happen.
I wanted to put all this in perspective for you, because today, I didn’t read much good commentary about Biden’s SOTU. The fact is — and you can take this to the bank — everyone from Emanuel Macron to Justin Trudeau to Antonio Guterrres is studying it, repeating it in their minds. Because it was and is an historic moment for America.
An American President repudiated the direction the nation’s governing ideologies — on both sides — have taken it for an historical era. And set forth a manifesto for a quiet revolution, that cuts through from politics to economics to society. Serious stuff. Era-defining visions. Global transformations. Yes, Biden’s still no Bernie or Liz. But in his own way? He’s becoming something I think even he never expected. Radical. In the sense of fundamental transformations to the Big Stuff — economies, social contracts, how a nation works, what America’s place in the world is.
Doddering old man? Wrong. Biden’s stepping up the plate. The question now? It’s whether Americans will be wise enough to hand him the ball, so he can score a touchdown.
Think of Paris — a city famous for being beautiful and livable with its sidewalk cafes and tree-lined streets. We can bring the spirit of Paris to San Francisco, thanks to my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors unanimously passing our city’s housing element to create 82,000 residential units by 2030.
How so? It’s common to see six-story apartment buildings throughout Paris neighborhoods. Yet no one leaves Paris with the impression it’s a terrible place because of housing density. Visitors only remember the wonderful ground floor bistros, not the building height.
In San Francisco, long stretches of major transit corridors on the westside have only one story of retail and no housing above. This is a lost opportunity on streets served by train lines.
I don’t propose turning San Francisco into Paris. We will remain uniquely San Francisco. But the survival of our city — and our environment — depends on embracing the six-story apartment building.
We can’t continue relying on suburban sprawl to meet our housing needs. Climate change demands that we build housing near public transit and return to a focus on cities. It’s time for San Francisco and many other California cities to end a 50-year resistance to new housing that matches population and job growth.
New housing is often opposed because of genuine fears that it will displace current residents or impose faddish designs that won’t hold up over time. Consider the horrors and trauma of “urban renewal” along with the brutalist architecture of the 1960s that we do not want to repeat.
Today’s new housing should be created with the goal of solving the real needs of longtime residents:
People want to stay close to their families, but adult children and grandchildren can’t afford to live in San Francisco. With an average home price of around $1.5 million, families of most income levels are finding it increasingly difficult to buy a home here. We are facing a “missing middle.”
For today’s renters and owners who were fortunate to find housing, they have no options to relocate when they have kids and need more space.
Seniors have no options to downsize when they become elderly and unable to navigate the stairs or maintain a large home. There is nowhere to safely age in place — such as an elevator building — without leaving their neighborhood or San Francisco entirely.
Newcomers who wish to move to The City and bring their innovative talents and diversity are deprived of an inviting housing market.
We need to be open to 21st-century creative solutions that adapt to new realities and solve the actual housing problems families face in San Francisco. This starts with a concept called Dom-i-city (Domiciles in the City).
It’s ideal for San Francisco’s westside neighborhoods. Dom-i-city would fit on the footprint of one, two or three standard lots. On a single standard lot, it puts five stories of townhouse housing (one unit on each floor) above a ground floor with off-street parking, community space or retail.
What makes life sciences companies like Gilead so attractive in our evolving economy is the degree to which they rely on in-person work to succeed
On a transit corridor, a larger Dom-i-city could hold 15 units of two- and three-bedroom family housing. All the units can face a courtyard below for kids to safely play or families to have a vegetable garden.
Imagine several Dom-i-city structures within a few blocks of each other. One can include a grocery on the ground floor that serves the entire neighborhood or even a senior center. Another might provide space for child daycare. Others could anchor bakeries or cafés.
Neighborhoods that are far from a commercial corridor would be transformed into vibrant communities where people can connect and enjoy amenities close to their homes.
Dom-i-city fills the need for “missing middle” housing — mid-rise buildings with at least two bedrooms per unit. The new residents will also create the foot traffic and become the customers to revitalize and sustain commercial corridors.
Dom-i-city doesn’t propose replacing all single-family homes. Westside areas like the Sunset will always be a majority of single-family homes. But Dom-i-city offers options that currently do not exist. If only 5% of Sunset homes were converted to Dom-i-city, it would create 6,000 new homes — much-needed housing for both middle-income families and seniors who want to age in place in the neighborhoods they love.
Dom-i-city returns areas of the westside to its original intention. Beautiful five- and six-story apartment buildings from the Art Deco era were built on West Portal Avenue and Irving Street a century ago. San Francisco built multi-family housing until the 1970s. But since then, we have implemented zoning laws that limited most areas to single-family units.
Dom-i-city goes back to the future to solve San Francisco’s housing needs. If we build concepts like Dom-i-city, we won’t need comparisons to Paris. We will have created our best San Francisco.
Joel Engardio is a San Francisco city supervisor serving District 4/Sunset.
by Randy Shaw on February 6, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
Nearly 200 people at TogetherSF Action Feb 1 meeting
Growing Citywide Movement to Close Drug Markets
“The energy last night was incredible! San Franciscans everywhere are fired up and ready to take action. This year, we will end open air drug markets in San Francisco!”—Tweet on Feb. 1 TogetherSF Action meeting
The Tenderloin Business Coalition (TBC) has its rescheduled meeting with Mayor Breed on February 7 at 2:30 pm. Its January 24 meeting was delayed after the mayor expressed dissatisfaction with SFPD’s plans for closing Tenderloin open air drug markets. She wanted to make sure SFPD offered the TBC a strategy that would work.
Will SFPD’s new plans pass the mayor’s muster? Has anything changed in regard to Tenderloin drug markets in the last two weeks?
The answers are Yes and Yes and No.
SFPD’s Disruption Strategy
On January 26 Tenderloin Police Captain Sergio Chin told the TBC’s leadership meeting that he was starting a new “disruption” strategy for closing drug markets. The plan would do exactly what it sounds like—use beat officers to disrupt drug markets.
Mayor Breed has long promoted this disruption strategy. But it never got implemented. When drug markets overflowed early last week it seemed the “disruption” was the latest broken promise to the Tenderloin.
But something happened on the night of February 1 that is a potential game-changer for the Tenderloin.
“Probably the most honest, realistic and informed civic meeting I’ve ever witnessed. Keep beating this drum.”—Tweet about Feb. 1 meeting
At a citywide meeting of nearly 200 people convened by TogetherSF Action, Assistant Chief David Lazar announced that the Disruption plan for the Tenderloin would begin Saturday, February 4. He publicly detailed exactly what would happen in a way that the SFPD has not done since open drug markets exploded in 2020. You can hear Lazar’s plan on the NBC Bay Area coverage of the event (among the many excellent television news stories on the meeting. The SF Chronicle ignored it).
The Tenderloin is a show me neighborhood. It takes nothing for granted. But Lazar has put his credibility on the line. And two factors have changed the dynamics around Tenderloin drug markets.
First, the TBC has brought a powerful and politically sympathetic constituency into the battle. When over 190 businesses, many owned by women and/or immigrants, sign petitions saying that their survival is imperiled by drug markets, City Hall feels compelled to respond.
Second, never before has the Tenderloin had a growing citywide organization like TogetherSF Action in its corner. TogetherSF Action’s involvement sends a message that closing open drug markets is a top city priority, not just a problem for those working or living near the dealers.
TogetherSF Action is uniting diverse constituencies behind closing drug markets. I talked to many people and organizational representatives at the meeting who I did not know cared about this fight; there is already a much broader citywide base for closing drug markets than I realized.
Initial Signs of Progress
The day after TogetherSF Action’s February 1 meeting saw two unusual developments. Eighth Street between Market and Mission was clear of dealers for the first time in at least a year. The notorious 300 block of Hyde was cleared of dealers for the first time in at least two years.
A coincidence? Or the city’s desire to quickly show a broader public that it is listening?
Active drug markets remained on both sides of the 600 block of Eddy. So the full power of the Disruption strategy remains to be seen.
Also remaining at the end of last week was the expansion of dealers to blocks patrolled by Urban Alchemy. This expansion preceded any disruption. This is not a case of dealers being pushed by police to once safe blocks. Keep this in mind should you hear such claims in the weeks ahead.
Tenderloin drug dealing steadily expands due to a lack of police enforcement. There were so many dealers on the 300 block of Hyde last Tuesday—the day before the TogetherSF Action meeting— that the entire sidewalk was blocked. Dealers had no choice but to move to other blocks.
Measuring Success
There’s only one way to measure the new strategy’s success: is there a visible reduction of open air drug dealers in the Tenderloin?
An increase in arrests says the police are more active. But if police are walking down 600 Eddy all day and night dealers will leave to avoid arrest. That’s why the TBC and other Tenderloin activists have always called for the sidewalks to be cleared without regard to arrests.
I always urge reporters to come to the Tenderloin and see the open drug markets instead of relying on misleading and often irrelevant statistics about arrests and drugs recovered. But many don’t want to deal with the drug scene that Tenderloin children, seniors, and other residents and workers face every day.
Because much of the media relies on arrest statistics I connected with Stanford Professor Forrest Stuart to review the same stats the SFPD uses. Stuart did not find evidence for the high arrest rates claimed by by SFPD. The statistics instead showed a downward trend. He will be working with the community to monitor Tenderloin drug arrests stats as the disruption strategy takes hold. Stuart will track arrest stats for as long as needed.
The TBC’s February 7 meeting with Mayor Breed will hopefully confirm that the mayor made a good decision in waiting for a winning strategy before meeting with aggrieved Tenderloin small businesses . The meeting hopefully becomes a turning point in the city’s approach to Tenderloin drug markets.
Open drug markets damage San Francisco’s present and future. Please email the mayor and supervisors to demand their closure.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
by Randy Shaw on February 6, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
Mayor and Planners Celebrate Housing Element Passage
City Must Adopt “By Right” Approvals
Last week San Francisco became one of the few cities to meet the state deadline for its Housing Element. San Francisco’s plan allows for 82,000 new units over the next eight years. The city’s past building experience says that the city is unlikely to reach this goal, but optimists believe the state-mandated target will force the city to reform its costly and glacial housing approval process.
I decided to talk with some builders last week to see if they shared this optimism. They did not. I heard the same troubling refrain: Lenders see the market for new housing in San Francisco as dead. They don’t know who will move into new housing and they are not encouraged by what they see happening on the streets of the city.
We need to listen to lenders. The national foreclosure crisis of 2009-10 showed that when lenders don’t provide money, housing doesn’t get built.
Regardless of demand.
San Francisco’s housing market is in a much worse place today. In 2009 and 2010 there was a huge unmet demand for housing. Local builders were being unfairly penalized for a national crisis that had little impact in San Francisco.
Today, the days of a seemingly never-ending flood of tech workers eager to buy or rent in SOMA, Mid-Market or Downtown are gone. This group now primarily work at home. And they are not coming back soon.
San Francisco will soon respond to the crisis by reducing the city’s inclusionary housing requirements and other fees. That will help. But more radical reforms are needed.
San Francisco must approve housing “by right.”
Lenders see record high apartment vacancy rates and San Francisco’s crime and drug problems and are staying on the sidelines. San Francisco cannot change this perception without showing lenders that it is ending its notorious process of discretionary housing approvals.
This means the Planning Commission, Board of Appeal or Board of Supervisors would no longer have the power to kill projects that meet applicable zoning laws.
By Right Approvals
Does the city enacting right approvals sound politically impossible? Maybe so. But who ever thought three years ago that the city’s downtown would have the nation’s highest office vacancy rate?
A radical change in San Francisco’s housing demand requires a radical openness to new strategies.
I describe in Generation Priced Out how Seattle dramatically outbuilds San Francisco because housing that meets applicable zoning is approved as of right. Seattle’s Planning Commission focuses on planning, not on hearing from neighbors and citywide anti-housing activists opposing projects. Nor can Seattle councilmembers stop housing.
Enacting “by right” approvals is complicated in San Francisco by the many zoning districts that use the discretionary conditional use process. For example, developers in parts of the Tenderloin that meet certain criteria can build thirteen stories rather than the standard eight. To avoid discretionary approvals on these projects the city will have to rezone areas to establish standard limits. Since building under state density bonus laws already preempts local zoning the conditional use process is not as controversial as it sounds.
Lenders will not be satisfied with San Francisco making changes around the edges. The city needs a radical change in how it gets housing built.
Crime and Drugs
If you think that all the stories about San Francisco’s open air drug markets and retail crimes do not affect lenders, I suggest you talk to some. Lenders see and read these stories and decide that their money is not safe in San Francisco.
I don’t recall ever hearing that from lenders during past economic downturns. It confirms what many have been saying for some time: the city’s open air drug markets hurt the entire city economy, not just the areas where dealers operate.
Build Only Affordable Housing?
Does lenders refusal to back market rate projects open the door to San Francisco exclusively building 100% affordable housing?
With what funds? Whenever I hear a supervisor talk about a potentially great affordable housing site I ask: do they think funding for affordable housing is unlimited? If so we wouldn’t have a homelessness and affordability crisis.
Affordable projects cost $500-750K a door. Add up all the local sources and then tell me that San Francisco has the funding to build 82,000 units at 100% affordable.
Let’s stop playing make believe on affordable housing.
The Board knows that making reforms around the edges will leave the city tens of thousands of units short of its 82,000 goal.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes speaks during Milwaukee’s 48th Annual Juneteenth Day Festival on June 19, 2019.
(Photo: Dylan Buell/Getty Images for VIBE)
“Too often, fairly or unfairly, the questions of ‘Can this person win?’ and ‘Does this person have what it takes?’ come up,” Barnes said. “Sometimes those questions aren’t always asked in good faith.”
To challenge establishment Democratic leaders who focus on the so-called “electability” of candidates and, in many cases, withhold funding that could be the deciding factor in whether they win or lose, former U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes on Tuesday announced the launch of a new political action committee aimed at helping supposedly long-shot contenders.
The Long Run PAC will invest in the campaigns of “women, people of color, LGBTQ, and working-class candidates across the country” and in Barnes’ home state of Wisconsin, where he came within 26,000 votes of beating two-term Republican Sen. Ron Johnson last year.
The former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin said that “changemaking candidates” in the Democratic Party are increasingly “redefining what a winning candidate looks like and where they come from,” but they continue to face naysayers within their own party—and struggle to secure the funding needed to ensure their campaigns reach the finish line successfully.
“Every single one of them is being asked the same question: ‘Can you win?'” said Barnes in a statement. “The Long Run PAC is my way of making sure the answer to that question is a resounding, ‘yes.’ Because winning a race isn’t just about what you put in on race day, it’s about the support, training, and resources you put in from day one.”
The PAC plans to announce an initial slate of candidates it is supporting this summer.
During his own campaign last year, Barnes refused to take money from corporate PACs, and raised more than $40 million from grassroots supporters, breaking fundraising records in Wisconsin. Barnes is a supporter of Medicare for All and focused heavily on workers’ rights and strengthening unions during his Senate campaign.
In recent years corporate Democrats have shown hostility toward progressive candidates and lawmakers, warning that pushing for government-run healthcare will harm the party despite the proposal’s popularity with Democratic voters. Political pundits have also claimed that support for progressive policies will hurt Democratic candidates’ chances at the ballot box.
“Too often, fairly or unfairly, the questions of ‘Can this person win?’ and ‘Does this person have what it takes?’ come up,” Barnes toldAxios on Tuesday. “Sometimes those questions aren’t always asked in good faith.”
Hand-wringing over “electability,” he added, ensures that “there are a lot of ‘different’ candidates out there who don’t get the attention they should be getting or the initial investments that they should be getting.”
In recent elections, progressive candidates including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), and Summer Lee (D-Pa.) have won while campaigning on progressive policy proposals, after receiving early grassroots support from left-wing PAC Justice Democrats.
“We’re going to make sure these candidates have support through their run, ensuring their final sprint is a sprint to win,” said Barnes on Tuesday. “The leaders who are ‘different’ are the ones who will make a difference—and winning a race depends on what you put in from the start.”
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Using language that many Republicans are employing to attack LGBTQ+ communities, the Nebraska Democrat said the proposal is meant to highlight the discriminatory nature of certain bills.
A bisexual state senator in Nebraska has proposed that a measure be enacted prohibiting children from enrolling in Bible studies, attending church camps, or participating in other forms of “religious indoctrination.”
Megan Hunt, the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to the Nebraska Legislature, presented this proposal as an amendment to a bill prohibiting minors from attending drag shows.
Under the bill, LB371, introduced by Republican Sen. Dave Murman, anyone under 19 would be prohibited from attending drag shows. The bill defines drag as a performance by someone who uses clothing, makeup, or other physical markers to demonstrate a gender identity that is different from what they were born with, as well as singing, lip-synching, dancing, or performing for entertainment.
Murman claims never to have attended a drag performance but relies on videos he’s seen online to judge them as inappropriate for children, Nebraska Public Media reported.
“I think the vast majority of Nebraskans would agree that sexualized dancing and enhanced genitals is not appropriate for children to view,” he said.
Because of the broad wording in the bill, critics argue it would ban children from attending theatrical performances like Shakespeare’s works and musicals, where men routinely dress to perform women’s roles.
It’s unclear how Murman’s proposed law would affect the restaurant Hooters, which features women in suggestive tank tops who serve the patrons. Nebraska has at least one Hooters in the town of La Vista. All ages are welcome in the establishment.
Hunt chose to highlight the hypocrisy of the proposed law, even if the conservative legislature passes it. Her amendment would prohibit children from attending camps that are religiously based, like Bible camps.
“There is a well-documented history of indoctrination and sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders and clergy people upon children,” according to the amendment. “Abusers within churches and other religious institutions often use events like church or youth-group-sponsored camps and retreats to earn children’s trust and gain unsupervised access to such children in order to commit such abuse.”
Children also are prohibited from attending religious camps where alcoholic liquor is served, regardless if such alcoholic liquor is part of a religious ceremony. The amended law would punish violators and groups that host these camps with a fine of $10,000.
“This is an amendment that I will use to make a point about the underlying bill, LB371, which bans all-ages drag shows,” Hunt told The Advocate. “This amendment obviously won’t pass, and I would withdraw it if it had the votes to pass. It’s just a device to make a point.”
Hunt says she has introduced similar amendments to other bills.
“Any manufacturer who distributes chocolate-coated candy for consumption by an individual under nineteen years of age without explicitly identifying the candy’s gender assigned at birth on the 11 packaging of such candy shall be fined ten thousand dollars,” reads an amendment she wrote in January.
“They aren’t meant to pass,” Hunt said. “They are meant to help kill harmful and discriminatory bills like LB371, which, if we are forced to debate in the full legislature, will truly be a waste of time for Nebraskans and for lawmakers.”
Powell’s Books Sep 10, 2021 In his new book, The Hidden History of American Healthcare (Berrett-Koehler), popular progressive radio host Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality. For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people — one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s. Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan’s single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just 10 deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States. Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create versions of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn, including Obamacare. There is a simple solution: Medicare for all. Hartmann outlines the extraordinary benefits this system would provide the American people and economy and the steps we need to take to make it a reality. It’s time for America to join every industrialized country in the world and make health a right, not a privilege. Order The Hidden History of American Healthcare: https://www.powells.com/book/hidden-h…
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TODAY: Swing Left SF Bay Area Coalition Phone Bank: Wednesday, September 20 (and every Wednesday), 2:30–4:30 PM. Join Swing Left SF and the Bay Area Coalition to phone bank for all the key 2023 elections, as we organize swing states for key elections in 2023. RSVP here.
Phone Bank Force Calls Virtual Phone Bank Time Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 6:30 – 9pm EST Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Sign up to make calls with the Our Revolution Phone Bank force. The calls can be for candidates or issues! Get involved in... Continue reading →
Bay Area Coalition Phone Banks to CA, NV, and AZ: Wednesday, Feb. 21, 5–7 PM (and every Wednesday thereafter). Join to help elect Adam Gray in CA-13 and Rudy Salas in CA-22. This phone bank also calls into swing states Nevada and Arizona. RSVP here.
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue reading →
Phone Bank Force Calls Virtual Phone Bank Time Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 6:30 – 9pm EST Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Sign up to make calls with the Our Revolution Phone Bank force. The calls can be for candidates or issues! Get involved in... Continue reading →
As of today, we’re only two weeks away from CalCare’s first hearing and vote in the California State Assembly Health Committee! This is our first major hurdle to move the bill forward, so we need to build public support for it across the state ASAP — especially as the corporate,... Continue reading →
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading →
True to Blue IN-PERSON Phone Bank for VA, OH, and CA: Saturday, September 23 (and every Saturday), 10:00–12:00 PM at 541 Castro Street. Join an in-person phone bank with the Bay Area Coalition to make calls to voters in key states for critical elections in 2023 and 2024. RSVP here.
With the help of people like you, we’ve built a growing list of people and small businesses that support CalCare all over the state. These small business and crowd canvasses have been a huge success so far, but we need to keep the momentum going. Will you RSVP for one... Continue reading →
As of today, we’re only two weeks away from CalCare’s first hearing and vote in the California State Assembly Health Committee! This is our first major hurdle to move the bill forward, so we need to build public support for it across the state ASAP — especially as the corporate,... Continue reading →