{"id":38946,"date":"2025-01-21T21:10:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T05:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=38946"},"modified":"2025-01-21T21:10:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T05:10:18","slug":"primal-scream-or-fighting-back-against-trump-it-starts-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/primal-scream-or-fighting-back-against-trump-it-starts-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Primal scream\u2014or fighting back against Trump? It starts now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Plus: The immigrant rights march, Fielder’s ceremonial swearing in, what the billionaires fear\u2014and why is all the new housing in SF so ugly? That’s The Agenda for Jan. 19-26<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By TIM REDMOND<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JANUARY 19, 2025 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump becomes president Monday\/20<\/strong> at 9am local time, and some of my neighbors in Bernal Heights are encouraging people to meet up on the hill for a \u201cprimal scream.\u201d I totally get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you want to organize and fight back, local author and activist Rebecca Solnit is hosting a livestream program featuring Charlie Jane Anders, Anand Giridharadas, Bill McKibben, Liz Ogbu, and Akaya Windwood \u201cto celebrate community and cultivate a pathway for hope in these dark times.\u201d It\u2019s called \u201cThe Way We Get Through This is Together,\u201d and it also starts at 9am. You can see it here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the People\u2019s March Saturday<\/strong>, focusing on immigrant rights, the energy was palpable. Several thousand packed the corner of 24th and Bryant and marched through the Mission. City Attorney David Chiu talked about how San Francisco was, and will remain, a sanctuary city. Sup. Jackie Fielder\u2019s first resolution confirmed that, unanimously. Mayor Daniel Lurie has made it clear that city officials, including the cops, will not participate in or in any way coordinate with ICE raids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Trump has said that mass deportations will be the first order of business (after he pardons the Jan. 6 rioters), San Francisco will need to be ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Protesters at the Saturday march<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the second order of business in the White House and Congress may be cutting federal funding for sanctuary cities, making the city\u2019s looming budget crisis even worse. I don\u2019t see how Lurie and the supes can cut their way out of this, particularly when services that the federal government has provided in the past may go away, leaving even more burden on local and state governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DE–8wxyRCz\/embed\/captioned\/?cr=1&v=14&wp=723&rd=https%3A%2F%2F48hills.org&rp=%2F2025%2F01%2Fprimal-scream-or-fighting-back-against-trump-it-starts-now%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A5863.600000023842%7D<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fielder\u2019s ceremonial swearing in Friday was packed,<\/strong> the auditorium in Mission High pretty close to standing room only. Former Assemblymember Tom Ammiano administered a very different oath than the supes take in their formal appearance; Fielder swore to protect and defend the most vulnerable in the community, and to bear good faith and allegiance to the organizers that came before her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ammiano was in his element. He talked about his hope for Sup. Fielder, and the need to expand Healthy San Francisco, his landmark legislation, to include dental care. He talked about the need to repeal Prop. 13. He talked about his days teaching in the Mission when that initiative eliminated funding for so many needs in the public schools. \u201cThis right wing guy told me we are cutting your funding, but we want to see God back in the schools,\u201d Ammiano said. \u201cI told him I used to have 20 students, now I have 30, and if God can find any room in my class, she\u2019s more than welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tom Ammiano swears in Sup. Jackie Fielder. Photo by Andrew Brobst<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lurie showed up, as he has to the previous supe events, which alone is a dramatic change: London Breed didn\u2019t reach out to people who she opposed, and I can pretty much guarantee that she would not have joined Fielder on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie introduced and thanked all the supes and former supes in the room, and the audience applauded nicely. Then he mentioned Dean Preston, and the room erupted, ongoing cheers, standing ovation\u2014other than Fielder, Preston was the most popular person in the auditorium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie said he was going to work with all 11 supes\u2014although his first big move is to try to take away their authority to approve contacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preston has been talking for some time now about the problem of corporate, conservative news media<\/strong>, which in San Francisco have their own echo chamber. The local media have created, allowed, and expanded false narratives about crime<\/a>, about progressives opposing housing<\/a>, about homelessness<\/a> and so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So at a party celebrating his five years in office, he mentioned that he wants to work on addressing that media narrative, and that his next big project will involve media. The Chron picked up on this instantly<\/a>, and the story by Aldo Toledo was perfectly fair, and I don\u2019t blame Toldeo because reporters don\u2019t write headlines, but think about this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Preston, now out of office, wants to launch a progressive media outlet to push his politics<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

First: He hasn\u2019t said he\u2019s going to launch a news \u201coutlet.\u201d Second, as Preston told me, if, say, Sup. Matt Dorsey wanted to start a media outlet, the headline would talk about fighting crime. If the Yimbys launched a newspaper, the Chron would talk about promoting housing development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it\u2019s a progressive like Preston, it\u2019s all about \u201chis politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preston talked in his 48hills exit interview<\/a> about why the billionaires were so determined to get rid of him:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I\u2019m not friends with these billionaires. I know people who [are]. And what they\u2019ve all reported to me is that the original sin, the thing that they hold against me more than anything else and has motivated their massive giving against me, has been Prop I. Doubling the tax in San Francisco whenever one of these real estate tycoons or conservative billionaires sells an office building, sells a mega mansion in Pacific Heights, brings in, the low end around $100 million a year. The high end is about $180, $190 million a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we didn\u2019t ask their permission. We didn\u2019t negotiate the number down with them, we just did it. They outspent us over five to one, and we won. So, they\u2019re very motivated by the bigger money interests. Billionaires, big corporate interests. They want to deregulate, to not pay as many taxes and to maximize profits.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s another element to this, too, I think, and it explains a lot about local and national politics. The last thing very rich people want is a clear public demonstration that taxing their fortunes to make the rest of our lives better actually works. If taxing the rich to build social housing gets people off the streets, maybe every city will want to do it. Maybe the message will get out the economic inequality is the root cause of most of our social problems, and that it\u2019s relatively easy to fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s terrifying to the billionaire class. That why they can\u2019t let progressives win on economic issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw a picture on social media the other day of a beautiful, shiny, car<\/strong> from the early 1960s, the kind you see in the Mission now and then, sometimes with a custom suspension built as part of lowrider culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The caption said it all: \u201cFifty years from now, nobody is going to \u2018lovingly restore\u2019 a Tesla.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that\u2019s safe to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought about that when I saw the latest move by developers to demolish a little single-family cottage on Sanchez St. and replace it with a much bigger, five-unit building. It comes up at the Planning Commission Thursday\/23<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The existing building isn\u2019t a great historic treasure, but it dates back to 1900, and is the kind of place that someone might fix up and restore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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City Planning Dept. photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re going to get this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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City Planning mockup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

125 years from now, nobody is going to \u201clovingly restore\u201d that new building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, 125 years from now (if it lasts that long) nobody will look at it and say: Wow, that\u2019s worth walking the neighborhood to see. Wow, that\u2019s a great example of really cool 21st Century architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not blaming the architect: Today, design is all about maximizing every single square inch of building envelope space to squeeze every possible dollar out of a residential structure. There will never be a gabled roof or a turret tower (nice touches of Victorian architecture) in a modern San Francisco building; it\u2019s a waste of space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The existing building is vacant. It\u2019s got one legal unit and one unauthorized unit; the city gets a net gain of three units, all of them market-rate. This is the future Sen. Scott Wiener and the Yimbys want. I know: Cities have to change, and can\u2019t be \u201cfrozen in time,\u201d and some believe that more housing will eventually bring down prices (although there\u2019s no evidence that it will).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, people come from all over the world to walk through the cool neighborhoods of San Francisco. They aren\u2019t going to come to look at this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the commission is voting to continue discussion of a bill I hadn\u2019t even noticed:<\/strong> Sup. Joel Engardio wants to allow condo conversions of Accessory Dwelling Units. That means you can build an ADU on your property, and instead of letting an aging relative live there, or renting it out (which are the arguments for more ADUs as affordable housing), you sell it at whatever the market will pay. Maybe you evict the existing tenant and sell it as a condo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will, of course, create an incentive for more ADUs\u2014but won\u2019t create any affordable housing, and could very well eliminate existing affordable housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s supposed to come up at the\u00a0Thursday\/13<\/strong>\u00a0meeting.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plus: The immigrant rights march, Fielder’s ceremonial swearing in, what the billionaires fear\u2014and why is all the new housing in SF so ugly? That’s The Agenda for Jan. 19-26 By TIM REDMOND JANUARY 19, 2025 (48hills.org) Donald Trump becomes president Monday\/20 at 9am local time, and some of my neighbors in Bernal… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38947,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38946\/revisions\/38947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}