[SFGP] Greenzine - Vote No on the Recall, Dan Kapelovitz to replace Newsom

Thu Sep 2 19:29:41 PDT 2021

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?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

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-anti-imperialists-tickets-168184132267?aff=erellivmlt

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-health-and-health-inequality-tickets-156485415089?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch&keep_tld=1

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-of-antiuniversity-2021-tickets-164722452289?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch&keep_tld=1

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-circle-for-all-races-tickets-166734205497?aff=erelpanelorg

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-registration-166512871481?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch&keep_tld=1

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-the-dawn-of-everything-tickets-167995911293?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

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-the-nature-of-the-police-tickets-168747015867?aff=erelpanelorg

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?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch&keep_tld=1

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 at sfgreens.org.  Messages to a mailing list will be rejected.