September 2, 2021 GREENZINE SF Green Party Weekly News and Events www.sfgreenparty.org twitter.com/sfgreenparty instagram.com/sfgreenparty mastodon.sfgreens.org/@sfgreenparty www.facebook.com/groups/SFGreenParty/ Dear Greens, The Gubernatorial Recall election is happening between now and Election Day, September 14. If you are voting by mail, your ballot must be postmarked on or before September 14. You can also vote in person on Election Day, or beforehand at City Hall. Greens are endorsing NO on the recall, and Green Party member Dan Kapelovitz as a candidate to replace Governor Newsom should the recall vote pass. Please feel free to foward our statement on the recall to others: SF Greens strongly disapprove of the job Gavin Newsom has done as Governor. Few officials in California have ever stood so consistently in opposition to the Greens' 10 Key Values. Here are just a few of the ways Governor Newsom has failed: * COVID. As head of the 5th largest economy in the world, Newsom might have led the US in setting up an effective program for testing and contact tracing to stop the spread of COVID within the state. Newsom was unprepared to begin with: along with his predecessor, Governor Brown, he had previously ended Governor Schwarzenegger's pandemic emergency program. Newsom's state "lockdown" was based more on politics than science: he allowed construction and other Democrat-friendly businesses (including his own winery) to continue to stay open while others were closed. State Democrats also declined to use their authority to enact a rent and mortgage moratorium, or to keep locked-down small businesses afloat by paying them to keep their quarantined workers on the payroll (as was commonly done in Europe). * PG&E and Wildfires. After fires caused by unmaintained PG&E equipment burned down the town of Paradise and killed 85 people in 2018, the investor-owned utility declared bankruptcy. This would have been a great opportunity for the state of California to take over the utility and address years of deferred maintenance of equipment. But Newsom, who received over $200,000 in bribes from PG&E during his 2018 campaign for Governor, did everything in his power to ensure that the utility would continue to be run as a for-profit private company. Newsom allowed PG&E to emerge from bankruptcy with the promise to pay fire victims out of a trust fund, which has paid almost nobody to date, other than the people who run the trust. Since emerging from bankruptcy, PG&E has gone on start more fires that have killed dozens of people, including the current Dixie Fire, the largest single wildfire in California history. * The Climate Emergency. Newsom has continued to promote fracking and the gas and oil industry in California. Despite campaign promises to end the practice, Newsom has approved even more new fracking permits than his predecessor, Governor Brown, did. The California Democratic Party continues to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the fossil fuel industry each year. * Universal Health Care. Newsom campaigned in favor of establishing universal health care in California. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor, single payer bills landed on his desk twice. But since Governor Brown and Newsom took over the governor's office, the Democratic-supermajority legislature hasn't seriously tried to pass this legislation. * High Speed Rail. In his 2019 State of the State address, Newsom announced he was suspending California's $77 billion attempt to link SF and LA by high speed rail. This allowed President Trump to take back nearly $1 billion that the federal government had committed to the project. Ever since voters approved bonds to fund high speed rail, Democratic Party officials have used the project to enrich politically connected contractors rather than actually trying to build it. A transition from air and road travel to rail is essential for mitigating the worst effects of the climate emergency. * Democracy. Newsom vetoed a measure that would have allowed cities across California to use ranked choice voting in local elections. California should follow Maine in implementing ranked choice voting for all single-seat elections, including Presidential elections. California should be using ranked choice voting for this recall election, but Newsom and the Democrats have showed no interest in fixing a broken system - only complaining that Republicans are taking advantage of it. California should also use proportional representation for larger bodies such as the state legislature. The current system of "winner take all" elections gives no representation to members of any party other than the locally dominant one (Democrats in most cities, Republicans in rural areas). * Rubber Stamp for the Real Estate Lobby. All of the above priorities have been sidelined by Newsom and the Democratic Party so they can focus on what they do best: passing laws to facilitate more market-rate real estate development (i.e., luxury condos). Newsom has shown no interest in building social housing or other types of development that will ameliorate displacement and gentrification of our cities. As a result of the Democrats' libertarian approach to planning, coastal cities have become havens for the wealthy professionals who are the base of the Democratic Party. The working poor who were displaced from these cities are now forced to drive long distances to work as gig economy servants of urban elites. * Hypocrisy. At a time when public schools were closed (despite scientists from UCSF and other academic institutions providing guidelines for safe reopening), Newsom sent his own kids to private schools so they could benefit from in-person learning. While ordinary people were asked to stay home, Newsom attended a dinner hosted by a lobbyist at the French Laundry restaurant in Napa. Although indoor dining was illegal at the time, Newsom's party ate in a temporary building that was only technically "outdoors." Despite all of Newsom's problems, the leading candidates to replace him on the recall ballot are as bad or worse. Therefore, this recall election is unlikely to result in a Governor who is more in alignment with our Green values. Even worse, the rules of the recall election do not require the winner to have majority support: there will be no runoff or ranked choice voting, so a winner could be elected with only a small fraction of the votes. Although the Democrats who are in complete control of government in California could have reformed this process, they have chosen not to do so. Greens therefore urge a NO vote on the first ballot question of recalling Newsom. The second ballot question asks voters who will replace Newsom if the recall succeeds. On this question, Greens have endorsed Dan Kapelovitz (https://kapelovitz.com/). Kapelovitz is a recent convert from the Bernie Sanders campaign to the Green Party. He is an attorney who also teaches law at the People’s College of Law in Los Angeles. His clients are mainly poor people caught up in the criminal justice system, as well as defenders of animal rights. Kapelovitz' values are clearly aligned with the 10 Key Values of the Green Party, and the platform on his website is very similar to ours. Although he recently joined the Green Party, his long record of activism shows that he has shared our values and priorities for decades. Greens should therefore feel confident in voting for him to replace Governor Newsom should the recall vote pass. *===========================* What: KPFA election Where: online When: ballots were sent by email 8/16, vote before 10/15. If you're a KPFA member, please be sure to vote for the Rescue Pacifica candidates in the Local Station Board (LSB) election. It will be conducted using ranked choice voting. We have endorsed the nine Rescue Pacifica candidates, as listed below. (More info about Rescue Pacifica is here: https://rescuepacifica.net/ ). This year's election is vital to preserve democracy at KPFA and Pacifica! Individuals involved with the opposing faction worked to gut the powers of the LSB and they've filed lawsuits to try to take control of KPFA and the Pacifica network. Please use your democratic voting rights to maintain and strengthen the LSB by voting for the Rescue Pacifica candidates as your top nine choices! Please vote for all nine of the following candidates as your top choices (in any order): Rich Stone * Daniel Borgstrom * Don Macleay * James McFadden * Adisa Armand Donna Carter Pete Farruggio Amber Jayanti Elizabeth Milos * = Registered Greens; note that Rich Stone is a County Council member here in San Francisco. Thank you for standing up for democracy and supporting progressive, independent radio! *===========================* What: Online events When: various dates, see below Below are some more online events -- as before, almost all of them are free, and they're hosted across the country, as well as in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Ireland. (The listed times are for the local Pacific time zone). They cover a fairly broad range of topics, so please just ignore the ones you're not interested in. And of course, do feel free to forward as much or as little of this info to others as you'd like: Fri, 9/3, 11 am -- ODDconvo: Creating Utopia -- What worlds get to exist beyond our imagination? -- Utopia literally means 'nowhere.' For some people, that may seem bleak. For us here at GariTalks, Nowhere is the space of infinite possibility -- Creating Utopia, part of the ODDconvo series, is a space to collectively channel the power of Imagination to generate new ideas about what this world around us could look like -- "Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." – Lewis Carroll -- Once a month, on the 1st Friday, we gather and actively ask ourselves the questions: "What worlds get to exist beyond what we currently see and don't see? What worlds are we longing to build?" -- Come talk about the unexpected. Come share in the power of dreaming: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oddconvo-creating-utopia-tickets-165484062285?a... Fri, 9/3, 3 pm -- Abolition Means No War: The New Generation of Anti-Imperialists -- While the United States sends drones and drops bombs in the Middle East and Africa, militarized police at home are killing Black people and filling detention centers on the Mexico border. These are two sides of the same imperialist coin. Sprawling military bases around the world support the everyday brutal violence of empire and US-backed military coups tear apart homes and force migration. Their wars haunt our families and bring violence into our homes and neighborhoods. It is time we abolish their wars -- Dissenters is leading a new generation of young people to reclaim our resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving services, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world -- Join Dissenters and Rampant Magazine for a discussion about rebuilding a movement against imperialism and creating a new global future built from mutual care, real safety, and liberation -- Speakers: Byul Yoon is a founding member of Dissenters -- Destiny Harris is a Black, queer abolitionist and organizer from the west side of Chicago. She is a student at Howard University, who has organized throughout Chicago on campaigns like #DefundCPD, #CopsOutCPS and the #NoCopAcademy campaign which aimed to combat the narrative that our communities need police -- brian bean is a Chicago-based socialist activist, writer, and speaker originally from North Carolina. He is one of the founding editors of Rampant Magazine. His work has been published in Jacobin, Red Flag, International Viewpoint, and other publications. He is co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction and recently co-authored the article, "Rebuilding the Anti-Imperialist Movement in a New Era.": https://www.eventbrite.com/e/abolition-means-no-war-the-new-generation-of-an... Sat, 9/4, 8 am -- Rise of The Resistance: LA BIOTIQUE & Migrant Health and Health Inequality -- Screening of short film LA BIOTIQUE by Rahila Gupta, followed by a panel discussion with Rahila Gupta, Sonali Naik QC, and guests, on migrant health and the global impact of health inequality as a driver for Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) -- The short film which will prompt the discussion is a contemporary reworking of an aria from Puccini’s opera La Boheme, in which Mimi, a poor seamstress in 1830s Paris is reimagined as a migrant textile worker in today's London, who sings of her heartbreak as she contemplates death from TB -- 'La Biotique' translates into English as 'biotics'; describing living or once living components of a community, for example organisms, such as animals and plants -- The discussion will explore the need to recognise our global health as an issue for the entire community of humanity, in order to address the challenge of AMR -- Rahila Gupta is a freelance journalist, writer and activist. She is a longstanding member of Southall Black Sisters (from 1989) , member of Women Defend Rojava UK and patron of Peace in Kurdistan. Her books include: Provoked, and she co-wrote the screenplay of the film which was released in 2007; and Enslaved, on immigration controls, was published in 2007. Her play, a monologue in verse, Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong, ran between 2012-14 and was nominated for a number of awards. Her epic poem Rubáiyát of Rojava was performed at the Prima Donna festival 2019 -- Sonali Naik QC specialises in public law cases and in all aspects of immigration, asylum and nationality law and practice. She is ranked in immigration in both Chambers UK 2020 and the Legal 500. Sonali is a senior practitioner with over 28 years’ experience. She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2018. She has very substantial immigration and asylum experience in her High Court and appellate court practice, acting in various country guidance asylum cases: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rise-of-the-resistance-la-biotique-migrant-heal... Sun, 9/5, 11 am -- Anarchist Communism vs Big Tent Anarchism (Part of Antiuniversity 2021) -- Anarchism is a political tradition that unites a number of different anti-authoritarian currents and is seen as an alternative to the Leninist tradition. However, anarchism itself has been divided historically, to an extent over the ultimate goal, but largely over important issues of political analysis, strategy and tactics. The situation is the same today -- This session will look at the distinct tradition of anarchist communism to explore how it is both similar and different to other currents. Some of these differences are far from trivial and often put our current in opposition to those who have been grouped under what we call big tent anarchism. It is not a question of sectarianism, as we work with a wide range of anarchists in grass roots campaigns and projects, but with how we can best build an effective revolutionary anarchist movement -- The issues we will discuss are not just of interest to anarchists. Questions such as the role of organisation, insurrectionism, analysis of class, freedom and collective responsibility, attitude towards Labour, support for national liberation are relevant to all who are concerned with social transformation. We will address these questions in the context of specific contexts, from the Russian Revolution to today’s pandemic: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/anarchist-communism-vs-big-tent-anarchism-part-... Sun, 9/5, 1 pm -- Medical Apartheid, by Harriet A. Washington. Book Circle For All Races -- The Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) presents this series of antiracism book circles as an act of radical education and collaboration -- Medical Apartheid:THE DARK HISTORY OF MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION ON BLACK AMERICANS FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT.-- Book Circle Open for all -- From the era of slavery to the present day, starting with the earliest encounters between Black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, Medical Apartheid details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations -- It reveals how Blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of Blacks. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions -- RCNV circles meet weekly on Zoom over the course of 8-12 weeks. This book circle will meet on Sundays from 1-3pm PT; it begins on September 5th and will run for 12 weeks: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/medical-apartheid-by-harriet-a-washington-book-... Mon, 9/6, 11 am -- Poverty, Natural Capital and the Climate Crisis -- Sir Partha Dasgupta and Dr Rowan Williams -- This event will be streamed live from St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square -- Poor communities in the global south are facing the twinned crises of Covid-19 and climate change. Both emergencies require a radical shift in how we live our lives. But while we may have developed a vaccine for COVID-19 we have yet to discover a way to inoculate ourselves from climate breakdown. In this exclusive livestream from St Martin in the Fields, Sir Partha Dasgupta and Dr Rowan Williams will discuss how we can tackle the problem of climate change -- Sir Partha Dasgupta will trace the causes of ecological loss back to three concepts: power, knowledge and agency. Through this he will reveal why it is local communities and their local wisdom that are key to protecting natural environments. Only by drawing on the wisdom of indigenous peoples and giving power to local groups can we stave off climate change and create a sustainable future. Dasgupta will give the lecture, before joining Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chair of Christian Aid in conversation: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poverty-natural-capital-and-the-climate-crisis-... Mon, 9/6, 12:30 pm -- David Graeber Discussion/Reading Group Online: The Dawn of Everything -- Online Discussion about the work of Anarchist and Anthropologist David Graeber as part of https://antiuniversity.org festival -- The writings of anarchist and anthropologist David Graeber have broken open new ways to think about our world in ways that couldn’t simply be dismissed by the establishment. Insightful anthropology of the many examples for alternative organization of society informed his writing as much as his social movement involvement and careful analysis of bullshit economics. The Museum-of-Care was an idea suggested by David before he passed away last year during the pandemic. Taking its name from the fate of an aristocratic palace in the centre of Paris after the French revolution (it’s now a museum) this experimental collective combines art, activism and reading to explore a world with more care in it. Graeber’s work looks at Debt, Anarchist Anthropology, Bullshit Jobs and the many ways in which ‘another world is possible’ in the words of social movements today -- David Graeber in his work pointed out that not only is another world possible but many have already happened and everyday university histories of humanity tend to not tell these stories of alternatives. Join this online session to discuss work by David Graeber and David Wengrow (an archaeologist that David worked with). You can find this article “How to change the course of human history” that the two authors wrote in 2018 at: https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/ If you want to skim read this first, that’s great but we will also be starting off with a careful overview so you can also just bring your own experiences and join the discussion!: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/david-graeber-discussionreading-group-online-th... Mon, 9/6, 2 pm -- Violent Order: Racial Capitalism, Colonialism, and the Nature of the Police -- Join us for a book launch discussion of the nature of the police project and its rootedness in racial capitalism and settler colonialism -- Join David Correia, Melanie K Yazzi, Tyler Wall and Julie Sze in a discussion that will explore that idea that police and police violence are modes of environment-making. The police project, in order to fabricate and defend capitalist order, must patrol an imaginary line between society and nature, it must transform nature into inert matter made available for accumulation. Police don't just patrol the ghetto or the Indian reservation, the thin blue line doesn't just refer to a social order, rather police announce a general claim to domination—of labor and of nature -- Speakers: David Correia is a Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Properties of Violence, co-author with Tyler Wall of Police: A Field Guide, and co-author of Red Nation Rising Nation: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation -- Julie Sze is Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She has written 3 books, most recently Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger and over 60 articles and book chapters, on environmental justice, the environmental humanities, geography, and public policy -- Tyler Wall is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the coauthor with David Correia of Police: A Field Guide -- Melanie K. Yazzie, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Native American Studies and American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She also organizes with The Red Nation, a grassroots Native-run organization committed to the liberation of Indigenous people from colonialism and capitalism: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/violent-order-racial-capitalism-colonialism-and... Thu, 9/9, 6 am -- CLES in conversation with... Kate Raworth -- The field of progressive local economics exists within a context of innovation in approach that is underpinned by social and environmental justice -- This new webinar from the Centre For Local Economic Strategies is designed to explore the intersections between our work on community wealth building (and other practically rooted approaches) and the work of other thinkers in the field -- Join us for a conversation on major ideas around economics, democracy and the future of public services -- Kate Raworth: Delivering the doughnut - the role of community wealth building -- On Thursday 9th September, Kate Raworth - economist, known for her work on “doughnut economics” will discuss the intersections between doughnut economics and community wealth building approaches -- Kate Raworth is a renegade economist focused on making economics fit for 21st century realities. She is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries, and co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab -- Kate is a Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. She is a member of the Club of Rome, currently serves on the World Health Organisation Council on the Economics of Health for All and has written extensively for media. The Guardian has named her as “one of the top ten tweeters on economic transformation”: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cles-in-conversation-with-tickets-154409096765?... Thu, 9/9, 4:30 pm -- Re-imagining 'Quality of Life' and 'Social Wellbeing' -- Join The University of Newcastle’s Alternative Futures Research Network (UoN-AFRN) and New Economy Network Australia (NENA) for a post-capitalist workshop to discuss, challenge and re-define ‘quality of life’ and ‘social wellbeing’ -- This webinar hosts three world-renowned progressive thinkers, Professor Noam Chomsky - "Imagining the Future – if there is one!"; Associate Professor Ariel Salleh - “Some Ecological Feminist Thoughts on Wellbeing"; and Professor Gar Alperovitz - “Democratizing the Economy: Practical Advances and Long Term Strategy” -- GUEST SPEAKERS - PROF. NOAM CHOMSKY joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955, retiring as Institute Professor (emeritus) after 60 years, and taking a position as Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona. He has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy -- PROF. ARIEL SALLEH is a member of the Global University for Sustainability; and Visiting Professor in Humanities at Nelson Mandela University. Her position is developed in Ecofeminism as Politics: nature, Marx and the postmodern, and Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women write Political Ecology -- PROF. GAR ALPEROVITZ, former Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, is Co-Chair of The Next System Project and Co-Founder of The Democracy Collaborative, an organization devoted to developing community wealth-building approaches to local and national democratic reconstruction. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, The Nation, The Atlantic, and many other popular and academic publications: Re-imagining 'Quality of Life' and 'Social Wellbeing' *===========================* To submit events for our newsletter, please email a short blurb to news@sfgreens.org. Messages to a mailing list will be rejected.