Editorials

Letters, letters, we do get letters! Time for what Herb Caen (or someone) used to call a Mailbag Column.

First, the important stuff:

Two letters from a couple of intelligent, well-read readers, better educated than I, asking me to tell them how to vote! Why me? I change my mind a lot.

Tim Redmond has revived the San Francisco Bay Guardian masthead just to continue its longstanding tradition of endorsements, and I value Tim’s opinions, so you should take a look at them on sfbg.com. I agree with the most controversial opinion noted on the site: No on Proposition AA. Its goals are good, but its mechanism just won’t work. It's regressive. Time to try again, and get it right this time.

But I do remember, back in the Dark Ages, when I was working in the newsroom of the old Bay Guardian the day endorsements were going to bed, and someone, maybe even the sainted Bruce Brugmann himself, hollered “Anyone know anyone in Marin?” The revived SFBG has the good sense not to endorse outside of The City, so we’re on our own in Alameda County.

One more time, for those of you who weren’t paying attention the first time and still haven’t voted: Harrison, Casalaina, Huen, Badelle: reform candidates for the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. Pamela Drake if you live more down Oakland way, and you’ll have to read your own ballot to figure it out. None of the incumbents for this one. Why? Because the current DCC is Un-Democratic, and also because I say so. This is a small enough electorate that every vote really counts.

For State Senator: Sandré Swanson, like Shirley Chisholm Unbossed and Unbought. Loni Hancock did endorse him to fulfill a promise made when he agreed not to run against her in the last election, but he’s his own man, not a creature of the Hancock/ Bates set.

For U.S. Senator: Kamala Harris, one of us. Her major opponent expressed and hasn’t retracted a categorical opinion on Moslems that people like us just don’t approve of.

Assemblymember: Tony Thurmond, essentially unopposed and basically a good guy. But you do need to let him know what you think, because Jerry Brown’s ugly pro-developer sleeper bills are coming into Thurmond’s purview right now, and they could destroy local land use planning. Thurmond must be encouraged to oppose them.

President: You’re on your own on this one. I still haven’t made up my mind, because I agree with Sanders’ goals and increasingly deplore his campaign. A younger friend said to me last night that he likes Bernie but hates many of his supporters, and that resonated with me. Except, of course, that lots of them are my good friends. 

To give you an idea of what I mean, here’s what I’ve gotten from one guy who shall be nameless since his letter was addressed to me by name, and not to “opinion”: 

“What is with the constant attacks on Bernie Sanders? Ignoring our extreme difference on the Sanders v. Clinton issue, I thought the Daily Planet was supposed to be a progressive paper about local news and events. We seem to agree on the big issues in Berkeley politics, but your constant and unwarranted attacks on Sanders are such a turn-off I'm about to stop reading. Please stop it! “ My main point [is] that Daily Planet is supposed to be about local news. An article or column about national news once in a while is one thing, but you've gone way beyond that. “ You're supposed to be progressive, yet you constantly bash the by far most progressive candidate. 

“ You sent me a bunch of editorials claiming that Sanders is not progressive enough. If you agree with those editorials, you should hate Clinton even more, because she's far to the right of Sanders on every issue. 

“I really hope you don't let this Sanders bashing become an obsession. The Daily Planet is a good source for local news and I don't want to be forced to stop reading.” 

 

Second, the word I’d most like to retire at this point is “progressive”. (Second choice: “amazing”.) 

Those who know history remember that at one point “progressive” included racist eugenics, and at another point in the Eisenhower era it was touted as a benign alternative to the dreaded leftist “liberal”. 

Third, all politics is local. 

Around here we’re all progressives, aren’t we? And what does that mean? Not a whole lot. 

In Berkeley you can’t tell the progressives without a scorecard. 

I was listening to U.C.B. Prof. Robert Reich on the radio yesterday extolling Bernie Sanders on Michael Krasny’s show, and at the very same time my mail came, with a glossy postcard with Reich’s picture on it endorsing the candidate which the Democratic establishment (sometimes called The Machine) is running against Sandré Swanson. Professor Reich has a history since he’s moved to Berkeley of endorsing every single one of the candidates and issues favored by Perennial Mayor Tom Bates and his allies, who are not the most progressive kids on the block. But out of town Reich plays as more-progressive-than-thou. 

(Come to think of it, I had a pricey lunch once a number of years ago at chichi Chez Panisse, seated right between that very same Mayor and Senator Bernie, who was then in the habit of making trips to Northern California trolling for cash. Since his state has fewer voters than the Bay Area, I wondered then what he would be using the money for, but he was a “progressive icon” so no one asked why.) 

It’s confusing, and maybe it all comes down to memes (a fuzzy neologism ripe for retirement the day it was coined). Memishly speaking (an unborn coinage ripe for abortion), I have three daughters and three granddaughters, any one of whom would make a great president, and it would be a lot easier for that one if there had already been a woman president when she ran. 

And of course: President Voldemort, he whose name we dare not speak. 

Hillary Clinton has already won the Democratic nomination by vote of the people, despite naysayers on the lunatic fringe. It’s time now for Bernie and his bros and bots to lay off attacking her as a person—she’s the candidate, get over it—though they should certainly continue to espouse his “progressive programs” until the convention and beyond. 

(Not, of course, that any of those protracted platform fights which Democrats have always enjoyed have added up to a hill of beans any time in my long life. However…) 

And no harm done if anyone’s “forced to stop reading" this stuff. It’s worth what you pay for it, no more and no less. We won’t lose advertisers (since we have none) if we lose readers. Soon we should really find better things to do with our time anyway. 

Vote for whoever floats your boat, with my personal blessing. Our Berkeley votes for President on Tuesday matter not at all. 

What matters is what happens elsewhere, so we should be planning our get-out-the-vote excursions right now. I have friends, former Berkeleyans, in Virginia and North Carolina and Ohio, and they’d put you up I’m sure if you went there to work. And if not, there’s always phone-banking.