That the Bay Area and the nation are in the midst of a housing crisis is undeniable. Pre-coronavirus, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reported that more than a half million people were without shelter on any given night. Public officials seem to be at a loss to help the many thousands now sleeping in our parks and city streets.

This was not always the case. In his “Second Bill of Rights” speech in 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt articulated that every citizen has the right to employment, education, housing and medical care. These values took a hard right turn with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. His trickle-down, tax cuts for the rich philosophy has colored policy since that time, no matter if there was a Republican or Democrat in the White House.

Real estate investors recognize the Bay Area as a target of opportunity by erecting profitable market rate housing, in turn displacing residents who cannot afford ever higher rents and mortgages. Proposals to deal with the homeless are at best very temporary and inadequate measures like crowded shelters, a few tent cities, or a handful of tiny houses, or at worst coercive measures to break up and displace encampments.

However, the problem of housing is not insolvable. Just as the management of the coronavirus crisis should not be handled by politicians and corporations, but rather public health scientists and physicians, likewise the housing crisis should be managed by those with public housing expertise and sound, well-funded public policy. 

Very few recognize the names of Catherine Bauer, Garrett Eckbo, Vernon DeMars or Burton Cairns – all were builders and advocates of affordable public housing, all connected with UC Berkeley. Collectively they were referred to as “housers” – a term that since World War II is not part of our vocabulary and seemingly beyond our ability to even conceive. They were committed to raising the quality of urban life through improving availability of shelter for low-income families. 

Catherine Bauer’s major written work was Modern Housing, which was based on research done in Europe on post-World War I government supported housing projects. As an activist she worked on establishing public housing legislation during the New Deal and was involved with regional planning. She advocated for racially integrated housing. 

Garrett Eckbo worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the New Deal to design housing for migrant agricultural workers. Post-war, he was involved in designing an integrated cooperative housing project in Palo Alto that eventually was scuttled because the co-op refused to have restrictive racial covenants. 

Vernon DeMars worked with Garrett Eckbo on FSA projects that housed migrant agricultural workers, wartime housing projects for defense workers, and after the war on public housing in Richmond. He collaborated with Burton Cairns whose life ended prematurely in an automobile crash. 

Today building more market rate housing is touted as the solution for the housing crisis, yet it comes with little real support for affordable housing. The YIMBY “movement” has become the visible voice of Reaganomics in housing. These advocates of building anywhere and everywhere are lavishly funded by the same for-profit developers and landlords that fight rent control.  

Bauer stated back in 1940, “In actual practice, there is very little direct relation between the supply of dwelling available for the upper-income groups and those available at low rents. An all too frequent real estate phenomenon is so-called ‘overbuilding’ at the top (i.e., a large number of vacancies in the high-priced class) side by side in the same community with a severe quantitative shortage, few or no vacancies and extreme doubling up, at the bottom.” Sound familiar? 

UCB’s recent symbolic gesture of renaming Wurster Hall as Bauer Wurster Hall is welcome but a poor substitute for embracing the policies that Bauer championed. 

UC Berkeley, with support from Berkeley’s mayor and a few council members, plans to build housing on People’s Park, which will destroy irreplaceable open space – a bad idea made worse by the increase in urban-wildland fires and the ever present danger of earthquakes. Eliminating a natural sanctuary in an extremely crowded neighborhood is regretfully shortsighted, as is the destruction of a historical and cultural legacy. UC Berkeley also plans to destroy three historic buildings, including a rent-controlled apartment building, on another development site. These projects directly contradict the enlightened ideas of its past “houser” faculty members. 

Clearly cities can only work around the fringe of the homeless problem; they cannot solve it because it is a regional and national issue, which calls for redistributive policies from state and national government based on progressive taxation. The super-wealthy and mega-corporations need to pay those taxes. 

A hard left turn in public policy, recognizing housing is tied to the other rights FDR articulated, is unquestionably needed. Eliminating homelessness will only come with equity for all in employment, health care, education and housing. Intelligent leadership at the top coupled with sustained community activism can turn around the social disruption that plagues our country. 

---

Harvey Smith is author of Berkeley and the New Deal and a board member of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group. 

 

 

 

 

 

"...the CDC Guidelines before this Court are clear and specific: if there is no alternative housing available, leave the encampments to remain where they are because clearing encampments may increase the potential for infectious disease spread." (S.J. Federal Magistrate Susan Van Keulan)

On January 20th, Federal Magistrate Susan Van Keulan issued a ruling that allows homeless people to inhabit a public park near downtown Santa Cruz because "the length of the Covid-19 pandemic is unknown." In the past, City Manager Martin Bernal has repeatedly directed the police department to remove houseless people, forcibly when necessary, from areas where encampments have taken root. Both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Santa Cruz County Health Director recommend not moving large numbers of homeless people during a pandemic. Their opinions are backed presumably by good science, but City Manager Bernal, armed with master's degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a Stanford BA, presumes to know better. 

News Flash: It is hardly news that there is a housing crisis in Santa Cruz linked to a homeless crisis and located inside of a Covid-19 crisis. Yes, these three issues are related, and the Santa Cruz city bureaucracy led by Bernal seems to ignore the multiple calamities playing out not so harmoniously in his city. 

And I do mean his city. Bernal, like many city managers up and down the state of California, has been given extraordinary "executive" powers to go beyond the city council and dictate public policy. Until now. 

This city manager met his match in federal court on Jan. 20th. Even though he knows about the CDC recommendations, and he was alerted on Twitter by county health director, Gail Newel, both suggesting it’s unwise to move large numbers of campers during a pandemic for the sake of their own health and that of the greater community, Bernal moved forward anyway and ordered the forcible removal of campers in San Lorenzo Park. 

His "executive order" was promulgated on Dec. 17th and was to be carried out over a national holiday that is often depicted by a homeless family, a couple and their infant son, searching for shelter as they entered the city of Nazareth on a cold, clear night more than a millennium ago. 

On Dec. 28th, a confrontation occurred in San Lorenzo Park between police, campers, and community activists. Thank goodness cooler heads prevailed and the police stood down. 

On Dec. 30th, the Santa Cruz Homeless Union, partnering with Food Not Bombs, filed a petition for an emergency temporary restraining order (TRO), which was granted by US Magistrate Judge Susan Van Keulen. 

On Jan. 6th she heard arguments from assistant city attorney Cassie Bronson and Homeless Union counsel, Anthony Prince, and on Jan. 20th, she issued her decision. Because of Covid-19 concerns among a vulnerable population, the judge ruled that campers, currently numbering well over 100 and at one point near 200 (many having left fearing further police attacks) can stay in the park. 

The ruling represents a decisive victory for campers and homeless rights advocates. It is also a stunning blow to a politically tone deaf city bureaucracy. 

During the Jan. 6th court session (available on Zoom) what became most clear was the depth of the city's lack of sensitivity. Attorneys representing the city of Santa Cruz not only sought to evade science in their presentation to the court, they also showed themselves to be callous and disrespectful of a growing economically and housing-burdened population. Anyone watching the proceedings would likely squirm and might reconsider their own city residency. The judge certainly wasn't impressed. 

Most Santa Cruzans are simply not as heartless as was portrayed at the hearing by lawyers representing their city. Most residents I know want more resources channeled to assist those experiencing homelessness. They do not want them to be just moved around like cheap plastic chess pieces. 

Of course, in normal times, many might agree that San Lorenzo Park, the river levee, and the Hwy 1/9 intersection are not places where people should be camping. Not only are these spots not designed for it, camping interferes with other uses, notably recreation, sitting, strolling, jogging, or bird watching. 

But these are not normal times. Bernal is now in the role of the heartless banker, Mr. Potts, in the timeless movie, It's a Wonderful Life.  

What’s even more disheartening is the city manager's willingness to upend an encampment and put people at risk of getting Covid-19 in order to score political points with the likes of—Who? The anti-homeless and anti-progressive "Take Back Santa Cruz" organization? The Santa Cruz Police Department? The busy-body politically active trolls on Next Door? It feels a bit like a local TrumpLand where the city manager and city council blunder and must get beaten in court to do the right thing for the vulnerable. 

The city of Santa Cruz has yet to identify any available housing, so up to 500 people spend their nights in a patchwork of shelters while hundreds more are outside in tents. There has to be an alternative, but the Santa Cruz bureaucracy isn't offering any. 

The rains are bringing new evacuations. Forcing campers to simply move on is a recipe for disease spread and social unrest, and the judge saw it that way, too. Judge Van Keulen concluded: 

"The situation is fluid and the length of the COVID-19 pandemic is unknown. However, the administration of vaccines is now underway. As the COVID-19 crisis recedes, the preliminary injunction will need to be revisited." 

The parties are due back in court on March 9th. 

Several weeks ago, I was invited to participate in my first podcast—an event hosted by World BEYOND War. WBW is a global organization devoted to promoting peaceful alternatives to local and geopolitical conflicts. WBW's concerns have been voiced by none other than Martin Sheen, who appears in a number of WBW videos. Here's one example: 

Martin Sheen Talks to World Beyond War 

 

The participants (myself included) were all members of the WBW board. They included: Donnal Walter (Arkansas), Odile Hugonot Haber (Michigan), John Reuwer (Vermont), Alice Slater (New York) and our host, Marc Eliot Stein. We were invited to discourse on matters including "Trumpism, cultural divides, the Green New Deal, deeper issues and hopeful solutions."

The topic was an assessment of the current and imminent state of the USA. (You can listen to the podcast here.) 

There were five large topic areas on the discussion list but, as it turned out, the panel generated so many thoughts and ideas that we never got past the second question in the hour-long session. 

Since I put a good amount of time reflecting on responses to the five major themes, I'd like to put these thoughts on record. With your kind forbearance, here are my talking points from WBW's "This Is America" podcast: 

Episode 20: This Is America 

By way of introduction, I'm a long-time activist and journalist based in Berkeley, California. I'm the founding editor of Earth Island Journal and a co-founder of Environmentalists Against War, a global coalition of more than 100 peace organizations founded in 2003. 

In 1964, I was one of the 800 students arrested during the Free Speech Movement sit-in sit-in at the University of California. The next year, I stood in front of the first troop train to come through Berkeley, carrying soldiers to Washington's Vietnam War. 

The first train barreled through without stopping as protesters (and police) jumped from the tracks. Other trains followed, but each time a train appeared, the size of the protests continued to increase until, after the fourth attempt, the Pentagon was forced to surrender. 

We literally derailed part of the War Machine. 

• • • 

I became a member of the World BEYOND War board because WBW combines the tools of action, witness, and problem-solving—a powerful triad that, as I know from personal experience, actually works. 

• • • 

Over centuries, armies large and small have demonstrated that war doesn't work. This leads to the question: "If war doesn't work, why do we keep employing it?" 

World BEYOND War offers a different path—a Global Security System: An Alternative to War built on creating "cultures of peace" and nonviolent conflict management. 

• • • 

What is the historical significance of our current constitutional crisis? Is USA becoming a failed state?  

The crisis is institutional. We are not a real democracy. Five of 45 presidents have assumed power without winning the popular vote. The Electoral College is an anti-democratic institution. We need to abolish the college and honor the national popular vote. It doesn't take a Constitution Amendment. Sixteen states and the District of Colombia have already joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The NPV would become active once enough states have joined to consolidate 270 state electors. 

• • • 

Even before the pandemic struck, the US had become a Failed State. Donald Trump rode to power by leveraging the Failed State meme and promising to "Make America Great Again." Instead, he's made America Hate Again. 

• • • 

In Trump's world, things are either "tremendous" or "disgraceful." But these extremist terms are never defined. 

Let's try a definition. The US makes a claim to "Exceptionalism"—to being "the one, indispensible country." Many people in the world would agree that the US is exceptional—exceptionally dangerous, murderous, greedy, imperialistic, and heartless. 

• • • 

Consider some examples of American exceptionalism: Among industrialized nations, we have the greatest income inequality, highest poverty rate, greatest number of children in poverty, lowest social mobility, highest healthcare costs, highest obesity rates, highest dependence on anti-depressant drugs, abiding gender and racial inequality, largest number of jailed prisoners, epidemic gun violence, soaring murder rates, and highest rate of military spending. 

• • • 

America's wealth is a myth, maintained by the printing presses of the Federal Reserve. In FY 2020, the federal deficit topped $1 trillion, compared with $600 billion during President Obama’s last year in office. 

• • • 

Are the Black Lives Matter movement or the climate change movement or the antiwar movements in the USA making a positive difference? 

Both movements have raised an abundance of what the late John Lewis called "good trouble." 

• • • 

The Environmental Movement has been more successful in blocking harmful laws and passing progressive legislation. In part, this is because the environment is an issue that concerns everyone—even the people who profit off climate-changing pollution. 

• • • 

The racial issue is, unavoidably, more divisive, and appeals to some peoples' worst instincts in the name of White Supremacy. 

White Supremacy was responsible for the genocide and removal of Native Americans and continues to feed the historic oppression of slavery and persistent racism against people of color, from California's Chinese Exclusion Act to Donald Trump's Muslim Ban, to the separation of hundreds of immigrant families detained at our borders. 

• • • 

Trump has used the Black Lives protests to divide the country. Instead of addressing the root causes of the protests—institutional racism and police brutality —he has resorted to calling the protesters—and their Democratic and progressive supporters—"socialists," "communists," "terrorists," "anarchists," and "rioters," out to "destroy America." He has openly called on his armed supporters to "stand by" and prepare to "Liberate" Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia—and other states governed by Democrats. 

• • • 

Is there a reasonable hope that a Biden/Harris administration with Anthony Blinken as Secretary of State will make good decisions? 

I like the fact that Tony Blinken did a Sesame Street sketch with Grover. I think it's cool that he plays guitar and sings in a band that performs classics like "Hoochi Coochi Man." But Blinken's history shows him to be a member of the warmonger tribe. He supported the destruction of Libya, the invasion of Iraq, the US-backed arming of Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi's horrific and continuing war in Yemen. The Quincy Institute has described Blinken as being "more of an interventionist" than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden. 

• • • 

We need a Secretary of Defense who will compel the Pentagon to submit a credible audit—after decades of wasteful, unaudited spending. We need leaders who will cut the Pentagon's budget and use the savings to fund human needs not human greed. Year after year, the military routinely burns through more than half of the country's discretionary budget. Half of the Pentagon's massive budget flows directly into the pockets of corporate war contractors. We need leaders who will stand up to the Military-Industrial complex. And talk about closing some of the 800 military bases we have built around the world—including eleven active bases and "military points" inside Syria! 

• • • 

Over our entire history, there have only been 16 years during which the US has not been actively waging wars against people in other countries. There are 193 members of the United Nations. Over the past two centuries, the US has attacked, invaded, policed, overthrown or occupied 62 of them. If the military's goal was to "spread freedom and democracy" the most democratic countries on Earth would be Panama and Colombia, both of which have been invaded by US troops more than nine times each. 

• • • 

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the truth when he called the US the world's "greatest purveyor of violence." In 2019, Jimmy Carter responded to Donald Trump's anti-China rants by pointing out that the US has been "the most warlike nation in the history of the world. . . . Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war." 

• • • 

Is it reasonable to hope that Biden might exercise better judgment than to rely on former staffers who promoted the concept of the US as the "World's Policeman"? Well, it's going to take more than hope. It will take a sustained howl of protest from constituent Democrats and Green Deal progressives to promote candidates who will break from the party's corporate business-as-usual players and create some breathing room for candidates who will hold big business and the War Machine to account. 

• • • 

Leaving Washington DC politics aside, what is going on all over the USA? Tell us what you observe in your own region, and among your own friends and relatives. 

My home state, California, is best known for its scenery and its leading-edge industries—from Hollywood to Silicon Valley—so it may come as a surprise to learn that California is also one of the world’s most militarized states. California hosts 32 major military bases with facilities covering nearly 6,000 square miles.  

• • • 

We host nearly eight percent of the country’s 420 domestic military bases. One base, the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, occupies more than 1.1 million acres—a stretch of land larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. 

• • • 

California is home to nearly 190,000 active duty and reserve troops—the largest concentration in the country. California is also home to more than 30,000 weapons contractors including Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. 

• • • 

According to the Governor's Military Council (yes, there really is such a thing), in 2018, the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the Department of Veterans Affairs accounted for nearly 800,000 in-state jobs and contributed $167 billion to the State's economy. 

So it looks like the Golden State could be called the Olive Drab State. 

• • • 

Impediments to a Peaceful Society 

If we want to demilitarize our culture we've got to start demilitarizing our vocabulary. 

Every week I get messages from anti-war groups that include phrases like:
"We're fighting for you." "We're spearheading the charge for nonviolence." "We're beating-back the forces of imperialism." 

We talk about high-caliber efforts on the battlefield of ideas to create media bombshells that are right on target. We salute straight-shooters who don't go off half-cocked but know how to target an audience and aim for total victory while mounting a resistance that rolls out the heavy artillery to blast holes in the opposition's strategy. 

• • • 

Here's another cultural impediment to sustained organizing: For generations, American cinema has promoted stories of combat and conflict—from soldiers to Superheros—and trained us to believe that, no matter how bleak the situation, there's no need to get up off the sofa and become an agent of change. It will all work out somehow thanks to the miracle of the "Hollywood ending." 

• • • 

The US economy is fueled by addictions. Capitalism has become an exercise in Addictionomics, with companies shamelessly profiting off of "habit-forming" products designed to enshrine the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, sugar, and salt. 

• • • 

Television and social media keep human brains entrained by glowing screens, feed-back loops, visual eye-candy, addictive click-bait and doomscrolling. 

• • • 

The corporate medical establishment benefits from the illnesses and diseases caused by addictions—with "health maintenance" bringing in more money than "disease prevention." 

What solutions can we offer? 

I think it's fair to say that the fate of our country—and the fate or our entire planet—rides on the outcome of two Senate races in Georgia. 

If Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win the seats now held by strident Trumpists Perdue and Loeffler, it could spell an end to GOP leader Mitch McConnell's destructive rule as "the Grim Reaper" of progressive legislation. 

If the two Democrats win, the Senate would be evenly divided and legislation involving the environment, the economy, health and foreign policy would be decided by Kamala Harris' tie-breaking Vice-presidential vote. [Note: Major legislation would require a 60-vote majority, necessitating a significant bipartisan effort.] 

If the Senate retains a Republican majority—by even the smallest of margins—the expressed goals of the Biden-Harris ticket and the hopes of the Berniecrats and the Green New Dealers will be forever dashed—along with any hopes to save the planet from war, pestilence, plague, hunger, annihilating global wars, and extreme, life-extinguishing climate change. 

• • • 

Ordinary Americans need to pay more attention to the world outside our borders. 

We should be prepared to answer the question painted on a banner held by survivors of a US bombing in the Middle East: "America! Ask why you are hated!" 

• • • 

We should be joining the European Union in condemning the ongoing political assassination of Iranian scientists. 

• • • 

We need to speak out in defense of peace treaties that Trump has abrogated—including the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the US-Russia Open Skies Treaty. 

• • • 

As Sharon Tennison of the Center for Citizen Initiatives recently observed: 

"Although we American citizens pay little attention to treaties, Russian citizens do. I remember when Ambassador Matlock stood in Washington, DC in 2016 and said, “Nothing will change unless many American citizens themselves get involved" (and push Congress and policymakers to act differently). So far this hasn’t happened." 

• • • 

America First! is really just another way of saying "Me First!" In addition to #MeToo we have to deal with #MeFirst and #MeOnly. We see this being played out whenever people gather in crowds to party without facemasks, insisting that it is their Trump-given right to do so. 

Thanks to Trump, we are no longer the United States. We have become the Divided States of America. Instead of USA! USA! Our chant should be DSA! DSA! Hopefully, a healing time awaits us. 

• • • 

We live inside a myth: The not-to-be-questioned belief that America is a uniquely god-blessed guardian of global freedom. 

We are told that, like our country, we are an exceptional people and it is our responsibility and duty to spread freedom and democracy around the globe. 

• • • 

The historical and present truth is the US has generally acted as a greedy and brutal empire. We are not a Popular Democracy. We are what I would call a Corporate Militocracy. 

The best inauguration comment I’ve heard so far was a stand-up comedian guesting on NPR.

“I fell asleep during the President’s speech” she said. “That’s the first really relaxing sleep I’ve had for months.”

She’s not the only one of us who desperately hopes to be bored by the Biden administration. Sadly, he’s got so many hard-to-swallow items left on his plate that boredom might not be an option.

The other hot post-inauguration topic is tears shed watching the guard change: “When did you cry?” Even the sainted Paul Krugman owned up to it, saying “ I know I wasn't alone in suddenly and unexpectedly finding myself tearing up. “

Me, it was just as Kamala was sworn in. A number of commenters have nodded approvingly at her purplish suit (on my screen purple tending toward blue). They, especially the young, white and male ones, have been guessing that it was meant to symbolize that unity between the red team and the blue team which is at the top of Joe Biden’s fantasy wish list, but those of us who can remember all the way back to 1970 have a different take.

The first documented assignment of red to Republicans and blue to Democrats, per Wikipedia, was by NBC in 1986. Even at the time that choice seemed odd to my cohort. We remember that The Left, especially the scary left of socialism and communism, was previously called The Reds, and still is in many places. There’s even a stirring song about The Red Flag still sung, in Italy at least, Bandiera Rossa: 

 

Way back in 1970, when the left still ruled the red, purple had another meaning. As Kamala Harris, one of the women who dressed in purple for the inauguration, has said, purple was Shirley Chisholm’s color. Congresswoman Chisholm was the first woman of color to seek the nomination of a major party and the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress. 

Now almost a half-century later there are still some of us around who were part of the Chisholm campaign who were particularly moved by Harris’s achievement. One of us, Berkeley’s Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who ran the California campaign, wore a string of Shirley Chisholm’s pearls, a gift from her family, to the inauguration. Our Michigan campaign, almost all women, was proud of getting, what was it, 5% of the vote in the 1970 Michigan Democratic primary. The winning nominee, George McGovern, was a lot less colorful in all ways than Ms. Chisholm, and he didn’t do very well as it turned out. 

It’s only taken a half-century since then for a woman of color to get half-way to the top. Perhaps Vice-President Harris will be able to speed the path for those who follow. 

The other teary moment for many was Amanda Gorman’s splendid poetry reading. She’s a poised young woman of 22, but from my advanced age she still looks like the girl she recently was. Her piece reminded me of the role young African Americans have played in recent decades of bringing poetry back into the center of life. Gorman’s poem was within the late 20^th century free verse tradition, but it pleased the ear because it also reintegrated older rhetorical devices like alliteration, assonance and rhyme which now survive best in vernacular contexts with rap and other spoken word art forms. 

Seeing and hearing her reminded me of another campaign, one I worked on in the 60s, a doomed effort to elect a primary candidate who opposed the Vietnam War and supported civil rights. He lost, of course, because he was prematurely right, but it was a noble effort. 

At the time we lived in a historically Black neighborhood, in a period when the hottest local controversy was whether to pass an ordinance prohibiting racial discrimination in housing. Our block had lots of lively kids on it, particularly a bunch of little girls who spent their free time, in this pre-video-game era, playing in the street. 

They got wind of the campaign we were working on when we put up posters advertising an upcoming rally with our candidate, and they came to me with a proposal. They thought that the best way to attract a crowd was with performance, and they showed me how they could provide it. 

They were six girls, 11 or 12 years old. They’d taken their traditional jump rope chants (do girls still jump rope?) and written a whole new set of well-rhymed political verses complete with movement and a bit of hand jive which they proposed as the warm-up act at the rally. 

Of course I accepted immediately, and as they and I suspected, they were a tremendous hit. They were so good, in fact, that the candidate employed them for subsequent rallies, though they were not able to win the election for him in the end. 

But a decade or three later, when topical rap and its cousins became popular forms of what might be called social entertainment, I remembered that my groovy girls had pioneered the form. This week, seeing Amanda Gorman reminded me that what’s old can be new again, and is pleasing because it is so. 

Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign wasn’t successful, and yet it was. It was an inspiration for many effective women who worked for Shirley like Barbara Lee, and also for younger women like Kamala Harris who came later. 

Amanda Gorman is just a couple of years younger than I was when I worked on those varied campaigns with the general goal of saving the world. Oddly enough, the world still needs saving, and perhaps always will. That’s why I’m happy to be reminded that there are still young people like her out there who are working on it, and to remember that in the end it's not the triumph of the red flag or the blue one which counts, but the hope and enthusiasm that such people bring to the ongoing task which will keep the earth turning. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While many poor innocent African Americans (see GEORGIA INNOCENT PROJECT) languish in America’s dark dungeons while others serve long jail sentences for minor infractions of the law, the former (the word sounds delicious) President Trump has granted pardons to rich felons, are another example of the shameless influence-peddling on his watch. Predictably, Trump bypassed the vetting and approval process of the Justice Department. This monumental abuse of power screams for Congressional action.

Trump’s swamp was overflowing with notable felons Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, , ,but with a stroke of the pen he freed them from the clutches of the law, free to continue their sordid activities. One of the most egregious miscreants was former Trump strategist, Steve Bannon, indicted for fraud as part of crowdfunding campaign to build the border wall. But much to the dismay of his gullible donors Bannon used the stolen money to purchase a million-dollar yacht. Who said crime doesn’t pay?

What do the pardon beneficiaries have in common, - intimate knowledge of Trump’s political and business activities which could exacerbate Trump’s legal problems.

Selling indulgences (forgiving sins for donations) used to be common practice in the Roman Catholic Church. Modern day preachers in megachurches whip up emotions of guilt and redemption to exact donations from their congregations.

Monetizing pardons is nothing new. In Chaucer's "Pardoner’s Tale" the pardoner has hair “yellow as wax” as well as false credentials, and derives great pleasure in swindling his victims.

The university fenced off part of People's Park this week to "test the soil", or so they say, for their proposed sixteen stories of concrete. It's hard not to wonder what lab they will use that can tell them that the soil is Ohlone land. That it's full of the blood of those who fought for it and the tears of those who mourned them. That the patch of asphalt in the west end was left there deliberately to highlight its surrounding transformation into a garden worked by generations of hearts and hands.

What lab will tell them that the soil is laden with the ashes of many for whom the park was always home with a hearth full of welcome, and thus a perfect resting place. The soil is leavened with the petals of flowers that fell away from wreaths tangled in the long hair of dancing men and women and massaged with fifty years of native drums, African house music, and rock and roll. The soil is littered with the finest poetry charging like lions from the lips of hearts on fire.

What lab will tell them that the soil is dense with the powerful prayers of thanks as strangers bent to lend hands to strangers and cooks reached to offer hot plates of steaming food. That the soil is full of the alchemy of musicians who invented joy out of thin air and artists who wove sunlit moments into mass, accidental epiphanies.

The lab will surely find the seeds of the next rebellion, and the next, and the next, and the next. And see the necessity most of us hope never to mourn that the park remain magical, irreplaceable open space, a crucible of the historic forces that stopped a war and built a garden. 

What good is a constitution if you can’t use it? What good is it if it tells you how to govern and you say: “we can’t govern that way.” What good is it if it proclaims democracy and you use it to dominate people? When the cops enact their brutality toward black people, are they making themselves a “role model”? Is that the source of their constitutionality? 

In the previous article about “Police Use of Force,” the following was established: 

§ When the public calls for minimum use of force by the police, the police not only resist, but increase their violence against the people. 

§ The police have the (court-given) right to demand obedience from the people. 

§ There are three institutions in which obedience can be demand: the military (enlistment), the prison (conviction), and the corporate bureaucracy (employment). Civil society is not one. 

§ To be forced to obey a command in civil society is to be placed within a military-type institution without consent. 

§ To be forced to obey the pedestrian commands of anyone without consent is a violation of the 5^th Amendment. It is a deprivation of liberty without due process of law. 

§ "Civilians" are people who have neither enlisted nor consented to membership in a military institution, nor to its obedience structure. They belong to “civil society.” 

§ To use force against a civilian to make them obey is a violation of the Constitution. 

§ To demand pedestrian obedience from a civilian (not under arrest) is to change their civil status. They become part of a military organization without consent. 

§ The police have been given the power to determine the legitimacy (and relevance) of their pedestrian commands. 

§ To adopt a “commanding officer” stance toward a civilian is an act of violence against them. 

§ To change a person’s civil status without consent or due process is an act of state violence. 

§ For "militarized" command-giving police, there is no “zero-level” force to which to reduce their violence. 

§ To use force against a non-compliant civilian is a violation of their human rights. 

§ To punish pedestrian non-compliance is already excessive force, in excess of militarization. 

§ Police violence, when accompanied by racial profiling, is an act of white supremacy. 

§ The courts have ruled that a person must obey a “lawful order,” but nowhere have the courts or legislature defined what juridically constitutes a lawful order in a pedestrian context. The "legal" concept of a “lawful order” is thus provided to the police as a "wildcard" to use for social control. 

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/1/07/the-police-use-of-force-and-berkeleys-use-of-farce/ 

Obedience and militarization

What does all this mean? 

The militarization of interactions between the police and civilians (persons of non-military status) produces a disparity of rights. It is a disparity produced by the absoluteness by which the police can expect obedience to their commands, and in terms of which they can punish non-compliance. Both police and civilians allegedly have the same rights granted them by the Constitution, since both groups belong to constitutional society. However, the police have a right that civilians do not have, the right to deny or curtail the rights of civilians. Their right to do that through an expectation of obedience translates into the power to do so. 

We are not speaking of the level of obedience to social agreements or understandings of social solidarity or organizational esprit de corps. This absoluteness legitimizes responding to the least disobedience (such as a person walking or running away) with lethal force. The list of people shot in the back by police is long. 

This disparity in rights generates a cultural difference between the police and civilians. It is not just a difference in social standing or occupational necessity, it is a difference of power. As a power relation, it engenders a difference in ethics, a vast disparity in what each culture considers reasonable, and a discrepancy in the social logic by which events are comprehended and interpreted. As a cultural difference, it represents divergent consciousness toward the world. Example: a cop hits a man with a baton; the cop can then charge the man with “assaulting an officer.” 

As a power relation, this cultural difference produces a hierarchy between the police and the people. The police not only have rights that civilians do not have. The hierarchy of those rights translates in forms of social control. People are no longer simply "people" governed by the same constitutionality. They become "subjects" with abrogated civil rights. In other words, the rights to which civilians could lay claim have become contingent rights. The Constitution may present "life" and "liberty" as human rights, but the police power to kill in the name of obedience (“I felt threatened”) subordinates them to police power. 

An inherent corollary to hierarchical control is unquestionability. To question why a cop has stopped a person, and to even indicate the absence of "probable cause," is to risk restraint or beating – especially if one is a person of color. Yet questioning is only a form of petitioning for redress. The right to petition for redress of grievance is abridged. The police decide when and where a person cannot make such petition. To bar questioning is to insulate the police themselves from such grievance. Thus, the perspective and reasoning articulated in any such petition is squelched by those it is about. Nothing in the 1^st Amendment restricts when and where such a petition can be submitted. To bar questioning, to refuse a civil response, or to get violent against questioners is to commit a criminal violation of the Constitution. 

On the other hand, the power bestowed by the militarized demand for obedience includes the power to criminalize whoever the police wish. The cop has simply to give a command that the person will find humiliating or disrespectful. For the person to refuse out of self-respect is then to commit a crime. To thus criminalize self-respect is to substitute criminalization for the law. It renders questions of law enforcement secondary and irrelevant, insofar as they are replaced by social regimentation. Regimentation, the degree of control based upon routine social violence, implements the real disparity in social logic between society and police. 

The right to due process

There is yet another right that the police routinely deny the people; the right to due process of law. This right protects individuals from the power imbalance between civilians and institutions such as corporations, governments, and police departments. For that reason, it is generally withheld, ignored, and thrown into the dark corners of judicial processes. 

Due process of law means that before any attempt to deprive an individual of life or liberty, a hearing must be held in which both parties, depriver and defendant, have equal voice, and can present their case (for and against deprivation) before a third party. This third party, which must be mutually acceptable to those in contention, would judge the propriety or legitimacy of the proposed deprivation. And that deprivation could proceed only if the neutral third party accepted its reasonableness. 

It is essential that due process precede deprivation. The temporal or sequential aspect is critical. If the deprivation occurs first, the person is only left with appeal, which is not due process. To grasp the enormity of withholding due process, think of how many people would be alive today if that constitutional guarantee had been implemented. Appeal is not a judicial process available to a person who has been shot dead. But with due process, a cop couldn’t even handcuff a person without some legal discussion saying it was okay, in which the person facing restraint had an equal voice. For cases of police approaches to people on the street, community members on the block could provide the personnel to hear both sides and judge the necessity and relevance of what the cop proposed to do. A traditional court proceeding would not be necessary. And indeed, the Constitution does not specify what kind of venue would serve for facilitating due process and an equal voice. On the other hand, what the police have shown through their impunity is that ignoring the right to due process leads to a form of police state. It renders the police a governing body beyond regulation. 

Ultimately, the police dispensing with due process, which negates the human right of having an equal say in one’s own destiny, affects a structural disconnect between the people and the law. It is this disconnect that is expressed in police refusal to curb their brutality even in the face of massive demonstrations against it. If social outrage on the streets is necessary for justice and accountability to occur, and for law enforcement to obey the law, then there is no law. There is only administration and executive discretion. 

The racialization of obedience

In sum, under militarized obedience, the police have the ability to criminalize at will, to substitute themselves for the law itself, to deny or abrogate a person’s human rights, and to approach and command persons on the basis of whim alone (whose legal name is “suspicion”). These powers divide society into a hierarchy of cultures. Insofar as these powers get expressed through profiling, which implies that the police pick their targets on the basis of appearance rather than deed, they impose a form of racialization on society. 

To pick out people on the street based on appearance is to make a subjective selection. It is not a selection that redirects people to one prison camp or another, such as during the 1930s. But it is a selection nevertheless, out on the street. It amounts to a decision process that produces a new "color" line, one which forms between those who will be treated gently and with respect, and those who face being criminalized. It divides people into those whose humanity will be respected and those for whom it won’t. This ability to construct a new color line is another special right that the police have constituted for themselves. 

As a color line, it is built person by person, selecting who to harass, who to treat arbitrarily, and finally who to injure or kill in a self-justifying manner. It doesn’t matter that not all police engage in such activity. The fact that it occurs at all is sufficiently atrocious to be unignorable – ultimately by all other cops (who become complicit in ignoring it). The trauma of police impunity is and has been disruptive of local community at the hands of cultural hierarchy. It takes control of the destiny of the people selected, and changes their future, their hopes, the integrity of their community, etc. 

iAs a color line, the police become the immediate practice of racism. Their construction of this color line provides the role model for individual racism. It gives white people a choice. They can choose which side of the color line they will stand with, whether that of militarization or that of human rights. They can signal their attitude toward police militarization by how willingly they obey or not. But mostly, they choose to categorize police actions, however brutal, as simply “law enforcement.” The support they offer through white obedience is an acceptance of the white racialized identity that police racializing processes construct for them. 

For most people of color, the choice they face is what kind of statistic to become. What the color line does is conflate individual racism with institutional racism. When the white cop knelt on George Floyd’s neck, it represented a clear intention to kill him. You could see that in the cop’s face. The cop knew the other three on his team would not stop him. Was he therefore acting as an institutional agent or an individual? In reality, he embodied the fact that individual racism and institutional (systemic) racism are inseparable. He demonstrated that the ability of white people to be racist is always in relation to the institutional. The institutional is what guarantees that a white race-identified person can get away with it (that is, not be criminalized for it). 

Because police racism exists, race itself is made to exist. It is constructed out of the single “material resource” that has always been its foundation, namely, violence. Official social violence. The fact that this occurs through the construction of a police color line and a selection process that is part and parcel of legitimized militarization (“commanding officer” impunity) indicates that this process of racialization is itself a government project. That is what it has always been, from the first kidnaping of people who got loaded into boats to the profiling of people on the street who got thrown behind iron doors by the signing of plea bargains. 

The color line repeats the original creation of “people of color.” It doesn’t set them opposite a “colorless people.” It creates the “white racialized identity” that then sees the others “of color” through the haze of hierarchy. "Race" is something that one group of people does to others. It is a verb: “to racialize.” 

There are those who understand that the white mind, white consciousness, is anti-democratic because it relies on exclusion rather than inclusion. And that extends to the granting of militarized power for social control.

In the seventies, I was working in Silicon Valley when email became ubiquitous on business' campuses. Although email simplified office communication, I noticed two negative aspects: email discouraged face-to-face interaction and it facilitated uncivility. On January 8th, Twitter—email's progeny—suspended Donald Trump's account. This was a welcome, although belated, defense of civility. 

As a computer technologist —since the sixties— I've become used to the dual-edge of technological progress: Each new advance, in some regard, makes our life easier; on the other hand, each advance has unsavory side effects. The first computers simplified the keeping of financial records but also eliminated the jobs of many bookkeepers. In business, the invention of email made day-to-day communication easier, but email made these conversations less personal and, in some cases, more abrasive. (It wasn't long after I started using email that I first became aware of the email "flamer;" an angry, accusatory, or disparaging email—someone saying something digitally that they would never say in person.) 

Often, technological progress has political consequences. Political historians note that Adolph Hitler's rise was facilitated by his use of the (then) new technology of radio. Donald Trump's political rise was facilitated by his use of Twitter. 

There's nothing inherently wrong with Twitter—a quick, convenient form of social networking. Unfortunately, like email, it facilitates uncivility. 

Twitter was the perfect social media outlet for Trump because he has a short attention span and is (famously) uncivil. The dictionary definition of "civil" is to be cultured, courteous, and polite. Donald Trump is none of these things. Donald doesn't thank people or give them compliments; he criticizes and disparages. Trump disdains conciliation and compromise; his idea of negotiation is "my way or the highway." 

Donald Trump loved Twitter. When irritated by something, Trump used Twitter to instantly respond; from July 20, 2020, until January 8, 2021, Donald sent 5993 tweets. Many flamers. Many lies. (In October, the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/22/president-trump-is-averaging-more-than-50-false-or-misleading-claims-day/ ) noted that Trump was averaging 50 lies per day.) On a daily basis, Donald broadcast his uncivility. 

The lie that the 2020 election was "stolen" was facilitated by Trump's tweets. On January 6th, the insurrectionists that stormed the US Capitol were egged on by Trump's tweets. The nature of American political dialogue has been been massively influenced by Trump's tweets; this discourse has become coarser and more partisan. 

Civility matters. (Truth matters.) Civility is the moral framework for "civil society," without which Democracy cannot function. Civility is the heart; civil society is the circulatory system. 

Twitter amplified Trump's uncivility. Therefore, I support Twitter's suspension of Donald Trump's account. Of course, there is a "free speech" aspect of their decision. Nonetheless, Trump's recent conduct -- particularly his lies about the 2020 election -- meet the constitutional definition of prohibited speech: "that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action." Equally important is the notion that, as President of the United States, Donald Trump should not have been using his "bully pulpit" to foment uncivility -- he should not have been undermining democracy. 

Donald Trump's preferred style is to be uncivil. Trump's presidency was an expression of the insurgent wish to "blow up" Washington. Donald railed against Washington "elites" and promised to "drain the swamp." He bragged about not being a politician, of bringing a different perspective into the oval office. Trump advertised himself as a political insurgent. 

Of course, there's nothing wrong with looking at national politics from a different point of view. It's true that there are Washington elites, who often do not promote the best interests of the American people but rather the power and fortune of the wealthy. Many Trump supporters voted for Donald because they truly believed that he would shake up Washington; that he would foment a populist revolution that would improve the life circumstances of his supporters. He didn't do that during his term in office. 

Donald Trump was unsuccessful because he was pathologically self absorbed. The Trump presidency was not an era of finding new ways to promote the people's best interests but rather finding ways to promote Trump's interests. Donald practiced the ultimate "bait and switch." He promised to "drain the swamp" but instead became the swamp; raised self-dealing to an art form. Trump promised to "end American carnage" but instead promoted violence with attacks on the press, people-of-color -- most everyone other than white men -- and political dissidents. Ultimately, Trump's rhetoric promoted the January 6th insurrection. 

With his uncivility, Donald blew up "political correctness" and replaced it with anger, insults, and lies. He demeaned gentility. He normalized what had previously been viewed as unacceptable behavior. 

Now is the time to step back from the abyss. Now is the time to defend civility.