Last Saturday, June 11, San Francisco leftists (they like to refer to themselves as “progressives”) from a whole slew of City political organizations held a “big tent” meeting hosted by a new umbrella group called the San Francisco Peoples Organization.
Attendance was pretty good — about 500 people, according to multiple sources. And, as expected, several San Francisco notables and politicians (Supervisors Chris Daly, Gerardo Sandoval, Jake McGoldrick and Ross Mirkarimi and former Board of Supervisors President and losing mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez and Sheriff Michael Hennessey and Public Defender Jeff Adachi among them) attended the meeting to genuflect before the liberal “base.”
SF People has a Manifesto, of course, which they’re calling “Points of Unity.” I’m reproducing the whole thing here, to give a full and detailed sense of what the political climate of San Francisco is like.
Here’s the fun: see how many examples of begging the question, jumping to conclusions, demonizing, and false assumptions you can find in the SF People statement.
Here’s just one example:
“We oppose the ongoing hyper-investment of public resources into punishment and policing.”
What does this mean? One wag I read said it well, “My guess is that it’s a code phrase for opposing all attempts at law enforcement and public sanitation.
“One of the reasons that the city’s progressive sect has had some setbacks lately is, I believe, that they scoff so dismissively at folks who want to make their neighborhoods safe, clean, and peaceful. That’s a big, and growing, chunk of the population.”
Amen to that.
Anyway, here is the full text of the SF People’s Organization’s “Points of Unity.” I found myself “unifying” with very little of it:
“We are an organization of groups and individuals committed to bringing sanity, humanity and compassion to San Francisco politics. Our ranks include people from all walks of life. We each have different backgrounds, different experiences, and different opinions. But there are some basic things on which we all agree.
We believe in the power of everyday people to shape our lives, our city, our world. It is the people of San Francisco – not downtown interests – who have the power to transform San Francisco into a city that places human need and the common good above corporate greed and private profit. When the people areorganized and united, they can and will remake the city in their own image:
beautiful, compassionate and free.
We believe in unity among progressives. Too often, progressives pay more attention to their disagreements than to their commonalities. This divisive error too often derails progressive and left movements before they even begin. We will not do this. We value and uphold our unity. We do not impose a single ideological position, practice or approach. Rather, we aim to support one another
in spirit of respect for difference, shared purpose, and hope. We will not be afraid to struggle with one another. But we will do so to build our unity, not to tear it down.
We believe that economic justice is essential to a healthy, safe and democratic San Francisco. The concentration of corporate power and personal wealth is one of the primary sources of instability and injustice in San Francisco and the country at large. We must counter this by securing basic economic rights for everybody: secure, living wage jobs; adequate food, clothing and housing; accessible, affordable health care; quality education; a safe, clean environment; a safety net
for those unable to work due to old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
We support workers’ rights. We support workers’ rights to organize, to collective bargaining, to strike, to safe and healthy working conditions, and to receive a living wage and benefits. Workers are the heart of San Francisco; we must protect and support them.
We oppose all forms of oppression and exploitation. Though our city enjoys both a reputation and a self-conception as a hotbed of left and progressive politics, everyday San Franciscans still suffer the daily injuries of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and transphobia. Racism, sexism, classism and xenophobia are key features of San Francisco politics today. We work to bring an end to
oppression not only in San Francisco’s politics and economy, but also in our own organization and movement. In particular, we promote and encourage the leadership of women, people of color and others from oppressed, exploited and marginalized communities.
We want real democracy in San Francisco politics. We support fundamental political reforms aimed at fully realizing the democratic promise of our country. These include publicly financed elections, instant runoff voting, walk-up voter registration, district elections for Supervisor, proportional representation, and other efforts to broaden public access and participation in policy formation and
decision-making in San Francisco.
We value democracy in our own organization. We do not strive for real democracy only in city politics. We also value democracy in our organization. We make decisions as collectively as possible. We work to empower one another as individuals and as a collective through trust, patience and open spirit.
We oppose the ongoing hyper-investment of public resources into punishment and policing. The criminal justice system has become today’s Jim Crow. The U.S. has more prisoners than any other country in the world. California has more prisoners than any other state. And in San Francisco, everyday people are as afraid of the police as they are of street crime. Overwhelmingly, it is people of color under surveillance by police and under lock and key in prisons. We need a
new model for dealing with crime based on rehabilitation, restoration and reconciliation – not racism and revenge.
We support efforts to restore our fragile ecology and develop a “green” economy. Impending ecological crisis is humanity’s most pressing survival concern. To stave off this crisis, we must reorganize our economy around “green” principles that will restore the ecology. Such a transformation is possible, but we cannot rely on polluters to make it happen. It’s going to take a shift in government investment away from pollution-based, poison dependent industries like nuclear, coal and oil
and into clean, green technologies and economic development.
We are politically independent. We are independent of any political party. Party affiliation serves too often as a proxy for real political unity. We are committed to building a progressive movement based on our shared vision and shared work – not membership in the same political party.
We believe in sustainable progressive politics that is committed to continually developing the leadership of progressives in San Francisco.
We are committed to keeping the public informed of pressing issues facing the
City, important decisions being made at City Hall, and work being done by our organization.”
June 19th, 2005 | Economics, Liberty, Politics, SF Politics & Culture
I hear you, Greg. But the sad part is, this is what passes for actual political discourse here in San Francisco. While it is nausea-inducing, I think things are changing — slowly.
It’s my hope that, as more people become aware of what’s really going on and what groups like SF People stand for, we’lll get more people involved with the political process and the influence of groups like SF People will diminish. I don’t think the majority — or even a large minority — of San Franciscans really agrees with this manifesto. Despite their presumptuous name, “SF People” does NOT speak for the people of San Francisco. ~rich
Comment by rich — June 20, 2005 @ 11:12 am