Supervisor Chris Daly
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Chris Daly, special to FogCityJournal.com
January 11, 2010
For 2010, I vow to use the word “fuck” in each of my remaining Board of Supervisors meetings.
A funny little status update on Facebook – 15 seconds to compose and share with my group of on-line friends. A minute more to link to the context, the Bay Guardian’s Worst of 2009 column, where I was tsk-tsked for my use of the word at a December Board meeting.
But the update struck a chord in my Facebook community. By days end it received more “Likes” and comments than any other post I’ve made. By the end of the week, this post had generated me more than 100 new Facebook friend requests.
Within my circle of friends, mostly activists and progressives, there is a genuine frustration with the state of politics and the status quo. For those of us who were so energized and worked hard in 2008 to elect the change we could believe in, it was difficult last year to stomach the mortgaging of our future to Wall Street and subsequent healthcare sellout to the likes of Joe Lieberman. Or put more eloquently by one of my more soft-spoken, but well-respected constituents…
“Once again you have expressed how many of us feel. Fucked.
One year ago, despite confirmation worldwide that the plutocrats who own our nations had done their worst, I felt that some good things would happen in 2009. Coming into 2010, I felt depressed and helpless. With great efforts and lots of time some of us might accomplish a few good deeds, but they feel like minor concessions granted by the powerful to distract us. We are unable to change the system nor, it seems, improve it. Greed, meanness and cronyism have become permanently ingrained.”
Meanwhile, at the local level, we’ve been bogged down by budget cuts and have had most of our progressive initiatives blocked. In the last few years, with local dollars short, we’ve heard endless hours of public testimony on the worst of budget cuts – meals for homebound seniors, services for people living with AIDS/HIV, shelter for homeless people, mental health services for victims of violent crimes. Some of the cuts we’ve been able to stop, but many have gone through. Meanwhile, when we’ve tried to slow recession-related evictions or grant due process to immigrant youth, the Mayor has wielded his veto pen or simply refused to enact the laws we pass.
“It’s impossible to get anything done in our city. The age-old combination self-interest, cowardice and obscurantism. Our state magnifies the problems. Our country is awash in it. Isn’t it refreshing to learn that instead of all those laments we can spare the air by uttering just one word? Chris has done it again.”
None of this explains, of course, why a little Facebook status update caught wildfire in the mainstream press. In 2010, is the work “fuck” really so provocative that it’s national news when someone says they’re going to say it? Certainly not. I think George Carlin took care of that in the 70’s.
The interest in this story from the media is its offbeat sensationalism – a politician vowing to use profanity in the public forum. That’s not something you hear everyday. No policy is being defeated. No program is getting cut. No one is getting hurt. But that wasn’t the case with my Facebook update the previous day…
We’re getting our asses handed to us at the Air District by industry, developers, and politicians. Sorry clean air.
At Wednesday’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District meeting, new guidelines to begin to deal with environmental injustice by cleaning up the region’s most polluted communities were set to be adopted. Environmentalists and families who lost loved ones to cancer testified en masse to support the new guidelines. The opponents were some of the most powerful special interests including oil companies. Even though the District’s mission is to clean the air, the votes on the Board weren’t there for the new guidelines. By definition, we were considering a life and death issue (the guidelines deal with number of allowable deaths.) The communities in question, where people are 4 times more likely to die of cancer, are disproportionately low-income and communities of color. That’s right, environmental racism was in full effect in that Boardroom, but there was hardly a peep from the press. (The only report appeared in the Contra Costa Times.) I guess I should have called it “fucking environmental racism!”
While the bias is typically more veiled, the decisions in City Hall haven’t been any better. In the time I’ve been around, we have given some of the world’s largest corporations hundreds of millions of dollars. We rewarded our highest-paid employees with lavish raises, while laying off lower-paid, front line workers who tend to be women of color. We took away tens of millions of dollars that was supposed to be for affordable housing. We ran homeless people out of drop-in centers. We turned over the last significant swath of undeveloped land to a rogue developer and received a bunch of campaign cash. We doubled MUNI fares and cut service.
As far as I know, we did all of this without using any bad words. The establishment is adept at delivering the truly profane without using any profanity. Representing entrenched power is downtown’s political leader, Gavin Newsom. He has taken the lead on delivering the truly profane at City Hall. That’s probably why he was so offended that I would use the word “fuck” at the Board of Supervisors, saying, “What other City would put up with this for so long? This is just one in a serious of acts and actions that doesn’t just appear to be petulant, it is petulant.”
Now, keep in mind, that is the same Gavin Newsom that fucked his appointments secretary. She was his best friend’s wife at the time, so it’s fair to say that he fucked his best friend too. That’s probably why it’s so difficult to believe the man’s righteous indignation.
Unfortunately, it’s not so easy for those of us who are challenging the status quo. Justice does not flow effortlessly like a river. We need to use each and every tool at our disposal. It can mean stepping on toes and ruffling feathers. It sometimes means saying things that people don’t like. But I can say for sure, after 9 years in City Hall, little words are not what is truly profane.
“You have made the city more affordable for many people who have suffered the most. You exposed corruption and taught me about the hypocrisy of journalism. Now you have captured in one very descriptive word what I had been using many tedious sentences to express–fuck.”
I vow to challenge the status quo, to fight for justice using every tool at my disposal, in each of my remaining Board of Supervisors meetings. I will ruffle feathers and step on toes. And I will certainly say things that some people don’t like.
The Hunger Site
January 16, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Arthur, I was about to respond, but I realize I’m getting myself into a useless pissing contest with someone who clearly believes that he has the monopoly on The Truth. There’s no winning that argument. And as your buddies Andrea Dworkin and Mary Daly would probably agree, a testosterone-fueled male such as yourself won’t rest until he monopolizes the debate and gets the last word.
So I submit, Arthur. You are the master debater. Go ahead and fire away. I’ll let you get the last word, since it’s something you obviously need.
January 16, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Some responses below, Greg, to your recent post.
You say:
“…undocumented immigrants are entitled to due process, as are any persons under the constitution.â€
Illegal immigrants already get due process.
They cannot be convicted of a crime unless the indictment is proved at a trial. They cannot be deported unless the government can prove they are here illegally.
However, being indicted for a crime does not entitle them to remain here illegally if they have entered the country illegally to begin with. That’s not due process. It’s an absurdity.
You say:
“What is a threat to public safety is a policy that makes people live in fear of going to the police when confronted with crime …â€
I support the current policy in SF whereby the police overlook the immigrant status of someone who comes in to report a crime against themselves or others.
However, I do not support David Campos’ ordinance whereby someone accused of a felony is given a pass to remain here illegally if they entered the country illegally.
You say:
“By my definition they’re [the Six Guys Club] all feminists.â€
Is it feminist to yell “Fuck you, bitch!†at people?
Is it feminist to snarl “Payback is a bitch†to a woman sitting in a wheelchair?
Is it feminist to turn your back at concerns about crime and grime, which are mostly perpetrated by men?
Is it feminist to justify packing the leadership circle entirely with men?
If so, then the word “feminist†has lost all meaning.
You say:
“*you* define them as the ‘six guys club,’ deliberately and artificially excluding Sophie Maxwell …â€
The Six Guys deliberately excluded Sophie Maxwell from the club. They and their surrogates have repeatedly attacked her for not being a progressive.
When Sophie Maxwell ran for board prez, the Six Guys went into a panic. Their major concern was to keep her from being elected because they regarded her as not being a progressive.
After the Six Guys succeeded in shutting her out, David Campos (one of the Six Guys) boasted that they had saved the position of board prez for “one of our own.â€
This is all a matter of public record.
You say:
“How many senior citizens does the Gang of Four have?â€
None. But they don’t claim to be the vanguard of progress in politics.
Nobody would object to the pretensions of the Six Guys Club if they stood up and said “We’re just a cheesy clique like every other cheesy clique you’ve ever encountered in politics.â€
Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
It’s not going to happen anytime soon.
You say:
“Identity politics is an abject failure.â€
I have been involved in various struggles to make the world a better place since the 1960s.
In every case, when an oppressed group has struggled to make its voice heard, and its experiences taken seriously, the Leftist ideologues have scoffed at its efforts as “identity politics.â€
Luckily, women, African-Americans, gay people, seniors, and people with disabilities have not let themselves be discouraged by such attacks.
Bottom line:
The sect has gone stale and needs a Reformation.
January 16, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Arthur, undocumented immigrants are entitled to due process, as are any persons under the constitution. The constitution does not mention the word “citizen” when enumerating rights, only “persons.” What is a threat to public safety is a policy that makes people live in fear of going to the police when confronted with crime, because they fear the police will go after the victim instead.
You also say:
“They have no feminists among them and no women. ”
They have no feminists by your definition. By my definition they’re all feminists. If they’re not the “Arthur Evans/Mary Daly/Andrea Dworkin” brand of sex-negative, transphobic, misandrist feminists, thank goodness for that! And they only have “no women” among them, because *you* define them as the “six guys club,” deliberately and artificially excluding Sophie Maxwell. Usually, the progressive majority is thought of as having 7 members. The ironic thing is that nowadays, Sophie Maxwell probably sides with the other 5 more often than Chris Daly.
“No senior citizens. ”
That’s because Tom Ammiano was elected to the Assembly. How many senior citizens does the Gang of Four have?
But again, I think Ann Garrison said it best. Identity politics is an abject failure. Mayors Newsom and Brown have been masters at playing identity politics, managing to appoint people of all races, colors, and creeds with the one qualification that they be loyal corporate lackeys.
January 16, 2010 at 1:33 pm
marc, in a post above, you say:
“when you continue to focus on the worst of people, as in your fixation with Chris Daly, and cast them as irretrievable patriarchs, while ignoring the good they do, you diminish your own position.”
There is usually some truth to most positions taken by SF progressives. The problem is that they demonize anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with all their dogmas, have temper tantrums, and yell obscenities.
This is a new development with SF progressives. They used to be more open, more intelligent, more good-natured, more mature, and more of a popular movement. I know because I was among their number in those days.
But in recent years, SF progressives have hardened into a sect. Today the sect is anti-intellectual, anti-cultural, and foul-mouthed, lacking in both social skills and spiritual depth.
As noted in an earlier post, the leadership of the sect – the Six Guys Club – contains no women, no feminists, no African-Americans, no seniors, and no people with disabilities. Yet the leadership of the sect pretends to speak for all.
These deficiencies and contradictions can no longer be papered over.
It’s time for a Reformation.
January 16, 2010 at 11:11 am
As to David Campos’ ordinance –
Illegal immigrants who are accused of felonies are not deprived of due process. They are entitled to a trial on the accusations, just like anyone else.
Moreover, someone who has entered this country illegally has no constitutional right to remain here. No court has ever taken this position.
The fact that illegal immigrants are also accused of other felonies does not exempt them from the illegality of their presence. It’s totally absurd to argue for giving them an exemption on that basis.
International drug cartels, operating out of Mexico, are infiltrating male street gangs in CA and using their members, many of whom are illegal immigrants, to endanger public safety. They have done some horrible things, and their power is growing.
David Campos’ ordinance is a threat to the public safety, and especially so in the city’s most at-risk neighborhoods. Not to mention that it violates federal law.
As to the Six Guys Club –
They have no feminists among them and no women. They have no African-Americans. No senior citizens. When their deficiencies are pointed out, they and their surrogates respond with obscenities.
Yet they like to pose as the vanguard of political progress in SF.
Anybody see any contradictions here?
January 16, 2010 at 10:28 am
Arthur, I think that countless families have been given economic cover by progressives to remain in San Francisco, largely by public programs that take the load off of working women.
So when you continue to focus on the worst of people, as in your fixation with Chris Daly, and cast them as irretrievable patriarchs, while ignoring the good they do, you diminish your own position.
Remember, Arthur, Mary Daly’s axe has two heads for a reason.
-marc
January 16, 2010 at 1:06 am
Ann,
Well said! A lot of hot air has been expended, but you summed it up very nicely.
A few weeks back, The Guardian did an article about a 15-year old immigrant girl who got into a fight at school with her American-born sister. For this, the 15-year old was turned over to ICE, literally kidnapped and taken to Florida for deportation proceedings without her parents even knowing where she was. No conviction. No court. Just ICE acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
All David Campos’ bill does, is preserve the due process rights of immigrants so that this kind of shit doesn’t happen. It’s about simple due process, to which we are all entitled, immigrant or not. But on a deeper level, it’s about empathy. To be able to say that this girl can get summarily deported, without due process, to a country she’s never seen since she was an infant -that requires a certain lack of it.
And the vote breakdown only underscores the failure of identity politics. I have no doubt that women like Eileen Hansen would’ve joined the progressive block had they been elected, and I have no doubt that men like Rob Black, Joe Alioto Jr, and Ahsha Safai would’ve joined the corporate block had they been elected in place of some of the progressives. It’s not about women vs. men. It’s about what wins out -a lawmaker’s empathy, or their self-interested tendency to ingratiate themselves to power. The former we generally think of as “progressive,” the latter “conservative.”
January 15, 2010 at 11:14 pm
* * *
Says Chris Daly: “Fuck you, bitch!â€
Says Ann Garrison: “Fuck identity politics.â€
Says marc salomon: “Fuck yeah!â€
Says Tom Ammiano: “You fuckin’ piece of shit!â€
Says Aaron Peskin: “Payback is a bitch.â€
Jake McGoldrick: “Kiss my ass!â€
* * *
An inspiring crew, huh?
January 15, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Says Ann Garrison:
“Fuck identity politics.â€
Thank you, Ann, for this intelligent comment.
However, from the perspective of feminism, the progressive takeover of the board of supes in 2001, with its 10 to 1 gender imbalance, was a patriarchal counter-revolution.
The practical effect has become especially clear in dealing with the issues of crime and grime, which are of special concern to women.
An example is David Campos’s immigration measure. It requires the city, contrary to federal law, to shield from federal authorities any youthful illegal immigrants who are indicted for felonies.
Nearly all of the people who fall into this category are men.
When the measure came before the board of supes, two-thirds of the women voted against it, while 88% of the men voted in favor.
One-hundred percent of the Six Guys Club voted in favor.
January 15, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Fuck identity politics.
This Six Guys Club complaint is empty because Maxwell, Chu, and Alioto-Pier are the majority on the corporate Board, along with Dufty and Elsbernd, just as Pelosi, Boxer, and Feinstein are among the most corporate, imperial, warmongering voters and power brokers in Washington.
And this first African American president of ours is no friend to Africa. This was obvious on his Inauguration Day, when the U.S./Allied and UN-backed realignment of force that is now an ongoing humanitarian disaster began, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/13/democratic-republic-of-congo-civilian-deaths.
January 15, 2010 at 6:55 pm
marc,
You say:
“… carping on everyone’s worst aspects can also be seen as dragging things down to the lowest level.â€
You are referring here to Chris Daly’s style of doing politics, right?
You say:
“…iconoclasts abound.â€
It helps if they act like adults.
You say:
“Fuck yeah!â€
That’s what Chris Daly said just before David Chiu kicked him down to the bottom of the committee totem pole.
January 15, 2010 at 5:47 pm
“We can’t drag things down to our own lowest levels and call the result progressivism.”
We are all mixed bags, carping on everyone’s worst aspects can also be seen as dragging things down to the lowest level.
“Profanity never inspired a people to greatness.”
Yet iconoclasts abound.
“The first step in such striving is to acknowledge its importance.”
Fuck yeah!
-marc
January 15, 2010 at 1:53 pm
marc,
You say:
“Does the profanity of the system ensure that everything which arises out of it is likewise tainted by profanity?â€
If we want to change the world for the better, we will each have to rise to the level of our own best selves. We can’t drag things down to our own lowest levels and call the result progressivism.
You say:
“… by some measures, profanity is a good thing, profaning the doctrines of oppression is desirable.â€
Profanity never inspired a people to greatness.
You say:
“We are products of our environment, the best we can do is to identify the nastiness we carry within us and to try continuously to account for them and hopefully heal the damage.â€
We are not just passive products of any environment. We always have some power of self-creation. Death occurs when that power ceases.
You say:
“it is profane to hold the powerful and less powerful to the same standard.â€
Goodness is fragile. It becomes more secure in the world when we all strive to be our best according to our several capacities for goodness.
The first step in such striving is to acknowledge its importance.
January 15, 2010 at 10:16 am
Thanks, Rob Anderson, for your contribution above.
You say:
“I still don’t see any barriers to women getting elected in SF.â€
Prior to 2001, there where times when women were a majority of the board of supes. After the progressives took over in 2001, there was a stark set back, with ten men and only one woman. That is, women were 0.9% of the total.
Today, nine years later, there are three women, that is 27% of the total.
At the current rate of progress, women will not achieve parity for another eight years. At the same time, this board claims to be a progressive alternative to its predecessors.
You don’t see a problem here?
You say:
“Progressive women in the city—Susan King, Alix Rosenthal, Lisa Feldstein, Leah Shahum, Jane Kim et al—don’t have significant political differences with progressive men.â€
That’s right. They’re not women-identified women. They’re progressive-male-identified women.
That’s a big part of the problem.
You say:
“Women per se don’t bring anything special to the table politically.â€
Women are more concerned about crime and grime, and especially so with women who have recently given birth and are raising young children.
Most violent crimes are committed by men. Most public crime is caused by men. Men are more likely than women to give a pass to men for this sort of behavior, or to make excuses for it.
You say:
“Important San Francisco issues—homelessness, transportation, development—are not waiting for some kind of gender-related solution.â€
The great majority of the drunken and stoned homeless people who live on the streets and cause problems are males.
One-hundred percent of the snarly, testosterone-generated behavior that we see at City Hall comes from males.
January 15, 2010 at 9:51 am
Arthur, far be it for me to presume the ecstatic experience of others, way, way above my pay grade.
Does the profanity of the system ensure that everything which arises out of it is likewise tainted by profanity? I’d hope not, because that would be way too depressing, better to retire to the garden than try to futilely change the world.
Tools created in a profane system that would be used to challenge that profane system must be specially engineered to account for the profane contexts in which they were crafted. And by some measures, profanity is a good thing, profaning the doctrines of oppression is desirable.
Are progressives adept at taking extreme steps to factor out profanity from our practice? Of course not, that’s like trying to get the tea out of the water in a cup once brewed. We are products of our environment,the best we can do is to identify the nastiness we carry within us and to try continuously to account for them and hopefully heal the damage.
Facing the onslaught of profanity dressed up in nice suits, communicating in tailored precise language designed to conceal true intent, I’m going to appeal to Mary Daly again and say that it is profane to hold the powerful and less powerful to the same standard.
-marc
January 15, 2010 at 8:49 am
I still don’t see any barriers to women getting elected in SF. Progressive women in the city—Susan King, Alix Rosenthal, Lisa Feldstein, Leah Shahum, Jane Kim et al—don’t have significant political differences with progressive men. Women per se don’t bring anything special to the table politically. Important San Francisco issues—homelessness, transportation, development—are not waiting for some kind of gender-related solution.
January 15, 2010 at 12:37 am
marc,
Thank you for your continuing, thoughtful reflections.
You say:
“I’d also respectfully question whether it is appropriate to assert whether others have seen divinity or not.â€
The issue is not so much divinity as the sacred. Divinity is one form in which we humans commonly mask the sacred.
Masks can be valuable, especially in ceremonies, but the reality behind the masks is more important.
The sacred is an energy that radiates from Mystery, which is beyond and above all appearances, realities, and knowledge in the universe.
The sacred elicits awe and acts as a vector, pointing to Mystery, inspiring our minds to rise to higher levels of consciousness in the contemplation of Mystery.
Mystery is “sublime†in the twofold Latin meaning of the word. That is, Mystery is both “lifted up†and “uplifting.â€
Mystery radiates the sacred throughout the universe as the sun radiates light throughout the solar system.
Mystery cannot be fully captured by any name, concept, mask, ceremony, movement, priesthood, theology, holy book, or church.
In the end, we fully encounter Mystery only when we are speechless, in the light of unknowing.
You say:
“I agree that Chris Daly has had his moments and at times that has not been beneficial for progressives.â€
More than that. The profanities of Chris Daly are no answers to the profanities of the System.
We humans have reached a juncture where we must create a system of governance that is not rooted in profanities. Otherwise, we run the risk of perishing as a species
You say:
“the rupture of the human species from its relationship with nature and evolutionary lessons learned from nature might eclipse the rupture of people from their land by enclosures.â€
We agree on this point!
* * * * *
We, rising in our minds
Above Earth and Moon and Sun
And all the worlds and forms of life,
Now behold, in clear crystal light,
Unknowing and in silence,
You alone,
Mystery sublime.
January 14, 2010 at 8:39 pm
“The Six Guys Club…”
How precious.
January 14, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Arthur, I’d also respectfully question whether it is appropriate to assert whether others have seen divinity or not. I’d assert that the more someone speaks with specificity about divinity and tries to cordon it off for some and away from others, the further away they probably are from divinity itself.
I agree that Chris Daly has had his moments and at times that has not been beneficial for progressives. But I would say, that like FOX News, Daly’s negatives have been magnified to distract the debate from the issues to Daly. Yes, Chris gave them enough rope, but concerted efforts made sure there was a gallows in place and Daly was there at the appointed time. It is regretful and represents a lost opportunity, however the point is to learn from it rather than use it as a tactical gotcha.
On feminism, we agree. For all of its faults and shortcomings, the Green Party has a key value of feminism and from that derives a political culture that would be based on consensus rather than power-over, and that is what attracted me to the party originally and what keeps me there in spite of it all.
To my mind, the left has either focused on the class struggle to the exclusion of the so-called “identity” struggles, or it has fixated on narrow identity struggles to the exclusion of other identity struggles and the greater emancipatory project.
Each of feminism, queer rights, anti-racism must inform each other as well as the class struggle which must must humble itself to confront the fact that the rupture of the human species from its relationship with nature and evolutionary lessons learned from nature might eclipse the rupture of people from their land by enclosures.
In a nutshell, eco-feminism was novel in that it tried to create a garden in which the above mentioned grant narratives could play themselves out nicely amongst each other. Remember, there is no ongoing nurturing infrastructure that keeps “the left” or “progressives” a going concern over time. There is no money in that, and what there is money in is most explicitly not that. Aside from the coopted nonprofits that serve more base interests first, we rely on word of mouth and our elders to hopefully let us know when we’re about to crash like they did earlier.
Everything incents against political participation in this society, and against that backdrop where our own political commons has been enclosed upon us like so many English sheep walks, the fact that we are here at all is remarkable..
-marc
January 14, 2010 at 4:37 pm
marc,
As to Chris Daly –
No movement can succeed whose leaders repeatedly offend people of intelligence and good will. Only the nasty ideologues will be left. They’re not good enough.
As to Mary Daly –
The death of a major philosopher is always a signifcant event. The death of philosopher Mary Daly, in particular, has served as the occasion for reminding us of something important.
In re-reading her works, we realize how much the Left in general, and our local progressive sect in particular, has lost the creativity, goodness, and intelligence that feminism brought to public discourse.
I mourn the loss of both the philosopher and the vision.
January 14, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Arthur, I’m just applying some Mary Daly to Chris Daly.
The power dynamic in San Francisco is clear and lop sided, in Mary Daly and Chris Daly’s common style, the amount of leeway a person or group gets varies inversely with the amount of power they wield.
-marc
January 14, 2010 at 2:33 pm
marc,
Chris Daly has made himself radioactive to nearly everyone, including the other members of the Six Guys Club that runs the board of supes.
This is not an intelligent way to create a revolution or, for that matter, to be an effective public servant.
You continue to make excuses for Chris Daly’s flaws of character. Your doing so is an example of why our local progressive sect is losing its ability to inspire.
January 14, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Arthur, Mary Daly was cast out as profane by patriarchy who denied her claims on feminist divinity.
There’s not much sacred energy flowing around anywhere in City Hall.
I think the difference between theory and practice is that practice contradicts what theory would lay out as nice and neat.
Humans are both sacred and profane, our being produces and needs both. Any time we try to imbue perfection or total evil on any thing or phenomenon we encounter in our daily lives, we are generally wrong.
When we allow the extrema to substitute for the general case, then we allow our attention to be focused out of the problem solving range and onto the gotcha, control power-over range.
The public political antics of the mostly male political class would be but a footnote if they were solving the problems facing the City at this critical juncture.
But while Chris Daly was the second most productive supervisor as measured by ordinances between 2001 and 2006, he has become marginalized since in equal measures to a well funded, concerted campaign to demonize him and his reaction against that.
The standards for fighting back against organized, patriarchal oppression are less than would be imposed upon the violence of oppressor.
Daly’s response diminished his productivity, but I’d wonder how any of us would respond as the focal point of concentrated downtown rage against the temerity of average folks to participate in the poltiical process and to bring, mis-mediated as it were, our agenda to the table and demand consideration for the first time.
It is bogus to hold grassroots, volunteer community groups and parties to the same standard as well funded corporate interests or parties because the power differential is so significant.
-marc
January 14, 2010 at 10:56 am
This thread has mostly focused on the profane – the profane that comes from Chris Daly, and the profane that he sees in the establishment, which he uses to justify his own.
Mary Daly, on the other hand, reminds us that preoccupation with the profane is not enough.
Revolution, if it is to be worthy, requires an encounter with the sacred (which is not the same as “Godâ€). Otherwise, we end up with just another system of institutionalized thuggery.
The sacred elevates those who encounter it. It gives them a larger way of looking at the world and changes their character for the better.
This process of expanding one’s heart to the cosmos, in response to an encounter with the sacred, Mary Daly calls “cosmosis.â€
No one who has ever encountered the sacred could ever behave as Chris Daly does, or as this country’s ruling class does. That’s the point here. Chris Daly has lived his life in the absence of the sacred, as has the ruling class that he criticizes.
It’s time for us all to experience something bigger.
* * * *
Boundless All,
We marvel, not alone that you exist,
But also that you ever change,
And from yourself create new life
From age to age in an endless flow.
The forms of lasting reason that we discern
Among your stream of things that change
Disclose to use the grand harmony of nature.
Therefore, we raise our hands to the azure sky,
Awed by your bounty and splendor.
January 14, 2010 at 9:06 am
To continue on the nexus of relativity and politics, the gang that can’t shoot straight probably cannot do so because the relative masses of political bodies moving through space time warp the fabric of space time that what appears to be a clean, straight shot is actually a curved path through space-time which has been deformed by the presence of bodies with greater mass than progressives can muster.
Of course, mass is not measured by mass in this context, rather by power. The relative strengths of mass, for the purposes of illustration are, assuming 100 as top, corporate San Francisco runs in the range of 80-100 mass equivalent units, while the progressives might get to 30 mass units on a good day.
We can whine and complain about the disadvantageous circumstances in which we find ourselves, however the onus is on us to figure out how to leverage what power we can scrape up to make strategic runs at challenging more entrenched power, because it is clear that we cannot wait for the affirmative action cavalry to come over the hill to save us by righting power imbalances.
-marc
January 14, 2010 at 8:35 am
Arthur, I’d not read Daly for 25 years or so, since my last (as in final) girlfriend, a witch, turned me onto Daly in my 20s.
“The becoming of women implies universal human becoming. It has everything to do with the search for ultimate meaning and reality, which some would call God.â€
I’d thought this meant that as women became empowered to act as-women, then that would benefit us all, not that if we all became women, then the world would would be divine.
“The becoming of androgynous human persons implies a radical change in the fabric of human consciousness and in styles of human behavior.â€
I’d also question this to the extent that the world would be a very boring place if we were all the same, or if we all existed within a narrow band of androgyny. At some point, the world would be better if through interbreeding we were all papersack brown colored and racism eliminated, but there is something to be said about the tensions between diversity and bigotry. I’m much more into a zen approach, where one can only value maleness in the context of femaleness, and vice versa, and that people own the autonomy to determine where, over time, we will place ourselves on those axes.
One thing that 2d wave feminism also taught me is that in evaluating power systems, that the powerful and weak must be held to standards appropriate to their level of power as they are compared and evaluated.
That is, for one brutal example, a woman fighting back against a rape is not held to the same standard to justify the use of violence as the man who is raping her. Context and relative power matter.
As the various centers of political and economic power array across the 4 dimensional fabric of San Francisco’s political space/time, we can see that the amount of power wielded by different participants and how those play together is generally structurally different based on their circumstance.
While i find the corruption on the progressive side repugnant and ultimately self-defeating, and am one of the few progressives not afraid to call them on it. The nonprofits are positioned as mediators between the electorate and electeds, and are not accountable for the legitimacy of their mediation, they don’t stand for election, they have no membership base that elects their boards of directors, they get their grants and contracts and run like any for-profit business that has no independent shareholders. But with mediation imperfect, flawed, illegitimate, we’ve got to play the hand that’s been dealt, not some imaginary hand unless we can figure out how to deal a new, more favorable hand.
Thus, that nexus allows for interests not necessarily those of the electorate not represented elsewhere (economic conservatives, downtown businesses, small businesses, restauarants, building owners, apartment owners, landlords) to be taken as legitimate expressions of the “progressive” will of unaffiliated San Franciscans.
If you are a San Franciscan not represented by a CSFN neighborhood group, not a Republican and not a corporate conservative, then you are deemed to be represented in matters concerning development by Calvin Welch and his nonprofit housing mafia. Whether you like it or not, and if you don’t, you’re a racist who hates the poor.
In other words, in order to take a short cut, that is, to avoid having to engage with tens of thousands of voters to ascertain their consensus positions on issues, electeds always designate stakeholders appropriate to their politics, to coalesce what they think the views of their constituency are.
It is almost axiomatic that “the gang that cannot shoot straight,” probably cannot shoot straight because its political base of power is no contest for the better organized more powerful interests. In fact it is testimony to our scrappiness that with a largely volunteer campaign force, we’ve managed to create an ongoing coalition capable of doing what they told us we could in civics class, contest electoral campaigns and try to govern.
Thus, any good feminist would acknowledge the improbability of a non-corporate-based participatory, democratic electoral political project, the strength of forces allied to prevent the rise of such a movement, and demand that the playing field be balanced such that emancipatory ideas be valued equivalent to reactionary ideas.
And a good feminist would acknowledge that while street people can be annoying and dangerous, that the standard applied to them should not be the same one as to the powerful in society. Yes, we want our streets to be clean, we want people to respect one another and the commons in the public realm, but the relative dangers posed to the legitimacy of the commons does not arise from those kicked to the curb by the economy or their own vices or illnesses, rather it comes from those who feel compelled to purchase their politics with their disproportionate resources, leveraging their relatively larger power over those with relatively less.
Again this year, those male forces in politics are going to try to distract attention from problem solving towards manipulation by putting yet another ballot measure before the voters, as if Care not Cash and Prop M solved the homeless and panhandling problems and the cops need just one more law to do their job, even though all nastiness done by street people is already illegal under California law. But I digress onto a hobby horse for the purposes of illustration alone.
Of course, ideas don’t “affirmative action” themselves, we’ve got to do that. But the first step is to acknowledge the relative strengths and weaknesses of each political formation, to account for the structural constraints and benefits that accrue to each formation, and to evaluate how each performs relative to its capacities and structural limitations.
For instance, progressives are pretty good at winning supervisor and school board/community college board races when we put our energies into it. Downtown is better at winning at-large charter offices races. The deadlock comes when we see 7 votes at the Board and a Mayoral veto on issues that would most likely pass the voters by 55% or so, given historical patterns.
But in cases without an at-large charter officer, such as school and community college board, progressives have managed to bring the sanitizing sunshine to what had been closed, corrupt rackets, ensuring that bond money does not go to “the right people.” I’d note that even a woman like Arlene Ackerman can channel male energy quite effectively, $375,000 effectively, but once divisive manipulative figures like her are removed from the picture, formerly stormy public governing bodies can identify common ground and govern according to consensus San Francisco values.
Of course, the nature of male power-over is for each player to value the scoring of a “gotcha” over identifying common consensus ground, focusing on problem solving in areas where we agree rather than directing the debate to the familiar terrain where everyone gets to ride their hobby horse.
This is a losing game for progressives, as the base and depth of the corporate coalition dwarfs that of the progressive coalition. The progressive governing coalition is one of illegitimate nonprofits inserting themselves between the voters and electeds, sucking down public cash while attacking any who would question the presence of their money funnel which is enabled by an electoral coalition that has a totally different reason for participating.
We have learned from Obama that it is critical to keep organized to ensure that the governing coalition does not depart from the values of the electoral coalition. But here in San Francisco, nonprofits are like Eucalyptus trees, exotics which drip toxic sap around their base so as to prevent the growth of competing challengers.
The absence of female energies in city government is problematic, but the uniquely American patriarchal structure in which government operates and the rules of the game which thrive on perceptions of dominance and strength as opposed to cooperation and consensus.
I’d wager that most progressives agree with Newsom on between 40 and 60 percent of policies. Yet we see Newsom more so and progressives less so working overtime to figure out how to move proposals that fall outside that range of consensus. This is how it functions in Sacramento and in Washington, but in mature social democracies like the Netherlands, such a politics of control and beating one’s opponents would be inconceivable.
The upshot is that as power is distributed and practices, problem solving is discouraged, but that does not change the fact that the economic and political context upon which San Francisco finds itself is changing, and that our government will need to adapt in kind if it is to be effective.
-marc
January 13, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Sacred
We thank you, mother of the worlds,
For the strength of our circle,
Which runs from hand to hand outward
Even to the earth, the sea, and the stars.
We raise our hands in thanks and sing.
We give our blessing to you
And to every part of you.
We bless the life we eat,
The buildings that protect us.
We bless our bodies, our minds, our desires.
We bless our friends, our lovers, our relatives.
We bless those who are different from us.
We even bless our oppressors:
May they return to the good within themselves
And find their rightful place in nature.
We bless the world and all that is in it,
The good and the bad.
Upon everything, we send this blessing:
May the ancient harmonies be restored,
And every being, cleansed and reborn,
Passing and re-passing through the wheel of life,
Find reconciliation at last with you,
Mother of the worlds.
January 13, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Also profane:
Obama wants extra $33 billion for wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, atop 2011 record $708 billion, http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100112/world/us_obama_war_funding
January 13, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Thank you, marc, for your well presented and substantive post above. I’m glad to see that we are reaching a level of intelligent and mature dialog. We continue to disagree on some things, but we also have areas of agreement.
Some responses follow.
You say:
“I recently learned that Mary Daly, who was a lesbian separatist, managed to alienate transgender people because she referred to them as Frankensteins.â€
Mary Daly was wrong about transgender people and also a number of other issues.
However, her strength was to show that the mentality and energy that created God the Father permeated many non-religious areas, including politics.
You say:
“Mary Daly’s formulation of ecofeminism greatly influenced my political development even though she had no place for males like me in her politics …â€
You seem to have overlooked passages in her work such as the following:
“The becoming of women implies universal human becoming. It has everything to do with the search for ultimate meaning and reality, which some would call God.â€
“This is beginning to encourage and in fact demand a comparably liberating process in men.â€
You say:
“Daly was so invested into the gender duality upon which her conception of patriarchal oppression was rooted that any ambiguity threatened that framework…â€
You appear to have missed the following:
“The becoming of androgynous human persons implies a radical change in the fabric of human consciousness and in styles of human behavior.â€
You say:
“The difference here is that in all societies, there are homosexuals who have sex in ways that do not promote the greater social norms. But not all patriarchal societies have the same gender dualisms as we’ve grown accustomed to in puritanical America.â€
I haven’t seen Mary Daly deny any of this.
You say:
“My position is that patriarchy is the magnetizing feature in sexuality, and that both gender and sex are peers to patriarchal oppression, intersecting to some extents but largely independent of each other, more so defined by their common relationship to patriarchy.
Mary Daly would pretty much agree with this formulation.
You say:
“lesbians and gay men are not oppressed for violating gender norms, no, we are oppressed for how we LOVE and how we FUCK.â€
We are oppressed for all of the above.
You say:
“the powerful actors in progressive politics are the nonprofits, because they have the money and they have been granted the access to power ostensibly on our behalf. Yet there is no accountability whatsoever for these nonprofits.â€
We agree on this point.
You say:
“Once upon a time, up until 2005 or so, progressives had found their groove, and were legislating productively.â€
The new progressive board that came into power in 2001 raised everyone’s hopes, including mine. But they’re just another bunch of cheesy politicians now.
You say:
“Whatever it is, progressives are not adapting, and as the good ecofeminists in Mary Daly’s spirit, we all know that unless we adapt to adverse conditions in the various environments we inhabit, we die.â€
We agree on this point.
You say:
“We are at a moment of political transition, of economic and political crisis.â€
Agreed. What is needed now is what Mary Daly called “existential courageâ€:
“This becoming who we really are requires existential courage to confront the experience of nothingness.â€
“This confrontation with the anxiety of nonbeing is revelatory, making possible the relativization of structures that are seen as human products, and therefore not absolute and ultimate. It drives consciousness beyond fixation upon ‘things as they are.’ Courage to be is the key to the revelatory power of the feminist revolution.â€
January 13, 2010 at 9:30 am
I agree with Arthur that we need balance to the male energy on the Board of Supervisors. But I recently learned that Mary Daly, who was a lesbian separatist, managed to alienate transgender people because she referred to them as Frankensteins.
To many trans folks the hurt that this position meant to them is understandably significant. But to my mind, as abhorrent as remarks like that are, human beings are always conflicted and bring to the table both good and bad aspects of their being.
So Mary Daly’s formulation of ecofeminism greatly influenced my political development even though she had no place for males like me in her politics, and even though she did not evolve past her time to adjust her position to transgendered folks to new norms.
My read is that Daly was so invested into the gender duality upon which her conception of patriarchal oppression was rooted that any ambiguity threatened that framework and her life’s work, and instead of incorporating new developments into her theoretical framework, she just boxed it up and closed it in to protect it and her investment in it.
It also seems that Daly’s death exposed to me a fault line in queer theory, between the feminist oriented theories of homophobia and the newer gender theory. Feminist theory departs from the position that patriarchy, like racism, is a defining oppressive narrative of our time. As such, whatever patriarchy touches is magnetized to further patriarchal control.
Under feminist theory lesbians and gays are oppressed because patriarchy commands nuclear heterosexual families and imposes sexual restrictions to achieve this. Lesbians and gays are oppressed under this model because our sexuality is not geared towards reproduction of patriarchy, rather towards desire.
Gender theory approaches it differently, although it does depart from a similar point, that patriarchy does indeed magnetize oppression, only gender theory asserts that there are certain defined gender roles, that may or may not have a sexual component, the violation of which results in sanction.
The difference here is that in all societies, there are homosexuals who have sex in ways that do not promote the greater social norms. But not all patriarchal societies have the same gender dualisms as we’ve grown accustomed to in puritanical America.
Getting back to Daly, I’d long been curious as to why there was a rupture between gender and feminist conceptions of homophobia. One possible reason for this has to do with her ecofeminism, connection to nature, and how so much of transgender folks living their lives as they see fit is dependent upon artificiality, on nurture.
Going back to the Pleistocene to the cusp of humans moving from hunter gatherers to sedentary agriculture (the Eden myth), where humans shifted from being “part of nature” to expressing patriarchal control over nature, one could imagine that there were homosexuals whose sexual practice did nothing to stabilize the emerging settlements, but probably few if any transgender folks, given the lack of economic surplus with which to craft gender’s social signifiers.
My position is that patriarchy is the magnetizing feature in sexuality, and that both gender and sex are peers to patriarchal oppression, intersecting to some extents but largely independent of each other, more so defined by their common relationship to patriarchy.
Who knows if this is true, but to bring this back full circle, lesbians and gay men are not oppressed for violating gender norms, no, we are oppressed for how we LOVE and how we FUCK.
At some point, democracy gets turned into a big “game,” and that “game” gets rigged against us. What is the proper response then? To sit by and keep a chair warm as the votes always come out 7-4, and the majority of San Franciscans as represented by district elections lose to the slim majority of San Franciscans as represented by a winner take all Mayor?
We can all do the math, and our resources are better spent more strategically.
But the exhaustion of the greater progressive project is partially a function of its success. Again, the powerful actors in progressive politics are the nonprofits, because they have the money and they have been granted the access to power ostensibly on our behalf. Yet there is no accountability whatsoever for these nonprofits.
All too often, the nonprofit mafiosi capos are heterosexual white college educated men, predominantly of the post-war boomer ethos, the most entitled generation to ever walk the planet, who are living under circumstances diametrically opposed to those who their nonprofits ostensibly assist. And given that they are self-made saints who have sacrificed great things to help the least amongst us, when their funding is threatened, they act as if they are a junkie at 16th and MIssion who is combing through the cracks in the sidewalk for another rock of taxpayer smack to stick up their veins.
Thus, you see powerful entitled white guys beating up not only on “the conservatives,” who look a whole lot like the nonorpfit capos, on communities of color, on poor folks and on voting progressives and liberals in order to preserve their franchise. Of course, this single mindedness sucks the oxygen out of the room for translating progressive electoral sentiment into public policy. And it serves power well in that once the designated stakeholders have been funded, the funding is conditioned upon attacking former allies to ensure that nothing changes.
Once upon a time, up until 2005 or so, progressives had found their groove, and were legislating productively. Whether Gonzalez left the Board because of this, or whether his absence exacerbated the trend, whether the disappearance of Willie Brown from the scene eliminated a useful boogie man, whether Newsom’s play to D8 with same sex marriage kept progressives from every winning D8 (at least until Prop 8), critical mass for the progressive project began to evaporate, a trend which is not abated.
Part of this is that power has evolved and progressives have not responded to that evolution by evolving in kind. Part of that is a product of progressive success in neutralizing nonprofits by providing stable funding during the previous economy. Whatever it is, progressives are not adapting, and as the good ecofeminists in Mary Daly’s spirit, we all know that unless we adapt to adverse conditions in the various environments we inhabit, we die.
Progressives adapted in 2000, but power has adapted to match us. The ball is in our court, and the problems we face are existential more so than the product of frustrated white males in power.
Barack Obama is learning the lesson that Matt Gonzalez has yet to grasp, that when you raise people’s political expectations with promises of progressive policies and don’t deliver on your promises, either by switching sides or dropping out, that folks are turned off to politics, turned off to future receptiveness of a progressive message.
Of course, oppression is easily magnetized, it is always easy to get power to coalesce behind its preservation, always easy to get males to express misogyny to keep women down, always easy to get hets to beat on on queers at the ballot box, always easy to get white folks riled up about people of color.
Resistance and liberation, on the other hand, do not come as easily magnetizable vectors. There are no manuals, no guideposts, we as participatory citizens in a democracy are rolling our own out of whole cloth. And that is the greatest threat to the consensus corporate liberalism that is selling out what was good about the US on the altar of economic and political sharia.
We are at a moment of political transition, of economic and political crisis. Either we rise to the occasion and figure out how to check unaccountable power and the damage it is doing to our communities, or we will end up with some sort of Chinese model of authoritarian capitalism. And that would be most certainly FUCKED.
January 12, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Thank you, Greg Kamin, for your willingness to continue this worthwhile and interesting dialog on feminism.
You say:
“I could throw in a few choice words about the purveyors of your favored ideologies. But this is an article about Chris Daly, not Mary Daly.â€
This is a tale of two Dalys. However, you and Chris Daly see but one. That’s the problem.
You say:
“So I’ll just say that there’s nothing profound about hatred masquerading as philosophy, and leave it at that.â€
I agree. I hope you will also agree with the following statements by Mary Daly about creative anger:
“The burst of anger and creativity made possible in the presence of one’s sisters is an experience of becoming whole, of overcoming the division with the self that makes nothingness block the dynamism of being.â€
“Since women are dealing with demonic power relationships, that is with structured evil, rage is required as a positive creative force, making possible a breakthrough, encountering the blockages of inauthentic structures.â€
You say:
“you keep lambasting progressives for not having enough women on the board (and lambaste me for saying that I care about issues rather than superficial gender quotas). But then when I call your own lack of support for women…â€
Our local progressive sect has pushed out both women and women’s concerns from its horizons. The few women whom it has supported have been weak on women’s issues.
You say:
“and your pretending to be a woman yourself -WTF is that all about anyway?â€
Why on earth would a man use a woman’s handle to challenge a patriarchal sect to come to terms with the sisterhood of men?
Well, think about it a bit.
You say:
“Who appointed you the arbiter of what is and is not a women’s issue, and who is or is not sufficiently pure on those issues?â€
I’m just expressing my own views on a topic, feminism, that concerns us all, both men and women.
However, if you prefer, I suggest you skip over all my words in this thread and just read the words of Mary Daly.
You’ll get the point.
January 12, 2010 at 10:51 pm
The issue is not men’s or women’s issues. It’s about gender. OK, so some dysfunctional, crackerjack sociologist has become a millionaire telling us all about how and why the concerns of women AND MEN need to be considered in respect of most issues. But this does not address the above. I am an expert on women. Believe it or not, my mother is one, and so strangely enough is my sister. BUT I refuse to have any woman sit in on our annual poker session down in Reno (except the ones who bring us the drinks) .
Love live peoplehood, no to discrimination (except when I say so), and roll on roll off.
AJ
January 12, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Is Chris Daly still in town?
January 12, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Arthur, I could throw in a few choice words about the purveyors of your favored ideologies. But this is an article about Chris Daly, not Mary Daly. So I’ll just say that there’s nothing profound about hatred masquerading as philosophy, and leave it at that.
Beyond that, your response makes no sense at all. On the one hand, you keep lambasting progressives for not having enough women on the board (and lambast me for saying that I care about issues rather than superficial gender quotas). But then when I call your own lack of support for women (and your pretending to be a woman yourself -WTF is that all about anyway?), you backpedal and say that feminism isn’t just a women’s issue. You can’t have it both ways.
Who appointed you the arbiter of what is and is not a women’s issue, and who is or is not sufficiently pure on those issues?
January 12, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Thank you, Greg, for your thoughtful post above. You touch on some important issues that deserve a greater public airing but are rarely discussed. Good for you for raising them! Below are some responses.
You say:
“A man (Arthur) masquerading as a woman (Ruth) having the audacity to tell us who’s good on women’s issues and who’s not!â€
Feminism is not just a woman’s issue. Feminism affects everyone. That’s what our local progressive sect still doesn’t get.
On this point, you may want to reflect on the following statement by feminist philosopher Mary Daly:
“In self liberation women are performing the most effective action possible toward universal human liberation, making available to men the fullness of human being that is lost in sexual hierarchy.â€
You say:
“Hey Arthur, where what side were you on when Eileen Hansen was running against Bevan Dufty?â€
Eileen Hansen turned her back on the concerns of women in her district about public safety and sanitation. Bevan Dufty, on the other hand, respected these concerns.
The problem with our local progressive sect is that the women whom it supports as candidates commonly show no interest in women’s concerns, or are just plain goofy.
Witness the campaign of Alix Rosenthal against Bevan Dufty. She said her goal was to make SF more “freaky†– at a time when women were getting more worried about public safety caused by the misbehavior of men.
You say:
“Personally, I could care less what they have in their pants. I care about issues.â€
Here you show typical male blindness about women’s issues.
Guess what? – The personal is the political, the sexual is the political, gender is political.
Feminist consciousness brings all of these connections into the light and draws out the far-reaching implications.
As Mary Daly said:
“The becoming of women in sisterhood is the countercultural phenomenon par excellence which can indicate the future course of human spiritual evolution.â€
You say:
“But when you start yanking my chain and telling me that it’s about something that you clearly, demonstrably (based on your history), could really care less about, that’s (to use a Daly-ism) F***ed up.â€
Umm, there’s a book you may want to read:
“Critique of Patriarchal Reason: A New View of Reason, Gender and Meaning.â€
Bottom line:
The brotherhood of men is no longer enough. The sisterhood of women has shown us that we also need something else: the sisterhood of men.
Our local progressive sect, and Chris Daly above all, has no understanding at all of what the above statement means.
January 12, 2010 at 1:03 pm
This is really funny! A man (Arthur) masquerading as a woman (Ruth) having the audacity to tell us who’s good on women’s issues and who’s not!
Hey Arthur, where what side were you on when Eileen Hansen was running against Bevan Dufty? Lynne Newhouse Segal vs Gavin Newsom? Christine Linnenbach vs. Sean Elsbernd? Carole Migden vs. Mark Leno? Jaynry Mak vs whoever that guy the mayor supported was? Um, yeah. Thought so.
Personally, I could care less what they have in their pants. I care about issues. Rent control, immigrant rights, poverty, health care, sick leave, environmental justice, open government… these are all women’s issues and they’re all men’s issues.
It’s fine if you disagree on these and other issues. Healthy debate is good. But when you start yanking my chain and telling me that it’s about something that you clearly, demonstrably (based on your history), could really care less about, that’s (to use a Daly-ism) F***ed up. Especially when you do it disingenuously under an assumed name that leads people to believe that you are something you are not.
But to Chris… this illustrates my original point. The Right knows they can’t win on the issues. The people of San Francisco are completely in agreement on just about all the issues progressives stand for. So they’ll obfuscate, and try to rework the system to their advantage, based on PC issues and scapegoats that hide their true motivations. If you make yourself enough of a lightning rod, they’ll succeed. Don’t give them that opportunity!
January 12, 2010 at 10:36 am
The deterioration of SF progressivism into a patriarchal sect during the last ten years is a source of sadness to all who remember better days.
I remember a time when SF progressivism was not a sect, but a popular movement. It was open to new ideas, filled with the brightest and most creative people in politics, and alive with a feminist spirit.
But it became co-opted by cheesy politicians and their operatives, who made it into a meal ticket for furthering their careers. Women were made to feel increasingly unwelcome and pushed out of leadership roles. Anti-intellectual and anti-cultural attitudes grew and hardened.
Today it is led by the Six Guys Club at the supes. Their ayatollah is a bullying, foul-mouthed straight white male real-estate speculator, living in a suburban enclave, and pretending to be the voice of the inner-city oppressed.
We need to create a post-progressive reform movement to replace this rotted-out sect. It will not begin in the supes’ chambers but in our neighborhoods, which is where progressivism, when it was a creative popular movement, first arose.
January 12, 2010 at 5:41 am
Supervisor Daly, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to see you remaining true to character: a foul-mouthed trust fund brat who came to SF and now that you’ve turned everything you touched into shit, you will take your children and move to the distant suburbs where you will live in a house that daddy bought for you. Let’s just say that I am “standing up to your status quo”, buddy. And while I’m at it, my New Year’s resolution is that whenever I hear your name, I will say “that fucktard??!!” Happy 2010 and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
January 12, 2010 at 1:30 am
The man who EFFIN hated the system so much, he was compelled to join it 🙂
AJ
January 11, 2010 at 11:53 pm
In a post above, Greg Kamin says:
“When Debra Walker and Janet Reilly are on there [the board of supes] as well, they’ll lose the argument that the system is bad for women and progressives are a boys club’ as well.â€
Better late than never, huh!
However, the boys club has dominated the board for nine years now, ever since the takeover by the progressive sect in 2001.
The progressive takeover started with ten men and only one woman on the board. The woman was not part of the progressive sect. Previous boards, however, saw a majority of women members.
Since the progressive takeover in 2001, the number of women has risen to three. None is part of the ruling progressive sect.
You point to the possible election of Debra Walker or Janet Reilly, to bolster progressive ranks. However, there is no guarantee that Debra Walker will defeat Theresa Sparks, and no guarantee that Janet Reilly will be a progressive.
Sparks is enormously popular. Reilly is the totally bourgeois wife of a multi-millionaire political consultant and real-estate speculator.
The board’s controlling progressive block of six votes has always consisted entirely of men. The most vocal is Chris Daly. He is the living embodiment of both the bullying progressive male and abusive phallocentric language. He is as much of a feminist as a hyena is a lion.
The progressives’ shut-out of women has harmed two issues that are of particular concern to women – crime and sanitation.
Most violent crimes are committed by men. Most sanitation problems in public places are caused by men.
The proper committee to initiate programs dealing with crime and sanitation is the Public Safety Committee. It has never done so effectively. Also, this committee has never had a woman as its chair.
The committee’s big priority in recent months has been to shield young illegal immigrants, who are suspected of felonies, from federal authorities. Most of the people who fall into this category are males.
The record of the board’s progressives in dealing with women and women’s issues is a disgrace.
This disgrace will never lift as long Daly-type energy prevails at the board.
The time has come for sisterhood power in SF.
January 11, 2010 at 6:30 pm
http://coloredopinions.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-hometown-san-franciscos-bad-boy.html
January 11, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Great piece.
And I’m noting that Chris Daly, an enthusiastic Obama delegate, posted this. Though Obama’s not mentioned, this is sort of a relief to read:
“Coming into 2010, I felt depressed and helpless. With great efforts and lots of time some of us might accomplish a few good deeds, but they feel like minor concessions granted by the powerful to distract us. We are unable to change the system nor, it seems, improve it. Greed, meanness and cronyism have become permanently ingrained.”
Someone recently asked me to help draft the national Green Party platform, thinking that my interest in Africa might help with foreign policy. At first I thought, “what’m I gonna have to say about either of those?” National platform? Foreign policy? Don’t have any faith in either idea; just don’t think that way. But then I talked to a few other people about, for one, proposing that Greens stop wasting time and resources fielding presidential candidates they can’t elect, stop lobbying the White House and Congress to stop the war, and focus on local action, local economies, local war resistance, local sustainability.
Having this perspective, I’ve long been depressed by San Francisco local government’s deep commitment to the war and corporate power.
January 11, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Chris,
You’ve done an amazing job, and frankly the whole city owes you a debt of gratitude. And you’re 100% right in pointing out the hypocrisy of people getting their panties tied up in knots about the F-bomb while ignoring the truly profane, how people are being F-ed over by corporations and developers.
And with all that said, PLEASE don’t do this! The right wing will have a field day with this. And even if you don’t care what they do to you anymore, please understand it’s not about you.
They’ll use you as scapegoat. They’ll use you to attack district elections. They’ll use you for an attack on IRV. In a worst case scenario, I could see an abuse of the recall system in order to subvert the democratic process and stick some Newsom-appointed a-hole in your seat ahead of the 2010 election. If you make yourself enough of a lightning rod, it could happen.
They’ll say it’s about civility. They’ll say it’s about representation of women. It’s all disingenuous BS, and the major players on both sides know it. But that’ll be the excuse, and if you give them enough ammunition they’ll pull it off. The whole “IRV and district elections disenfranchises minorities argument” has now been all but eliminated, now that there are whites, Latinos, Asians, and African Americans all represented on the board. When Debra Walker and Janet Reilly are on there as well, they’ll lose the argument that the system is bad for women and progressives are a “boys club” as well. Then maybe they’ll be all out of excuses.
Until then, Chris, please don’t F*** it up for others who are trying to build on the legitimately good work you have done over these years.
January 11, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I agree with this comment made above by Rob Anderson:
“The leftist women in SF share the same political assumptions as the guys in the Boys Club.”
The situation reminds me of the Left in the 50s and 60s, before feminism made its mark. In those days, women served as applause-givers to male leaders. These strutted about with bullying behavior and phallocentric language. The situation today in SF has regressed back to that primitive, pre-feminist state.
By coincidence, another person named Daly has been in the news of late, Mary Daly, the feminist philosopher who recently died. Many of the men who now run SF progressivism have never heard of her. They have no understanding of sisterhood.
In memory of Mary Daly, and as an alternative to the testosterone energy and phallocentric language of Chris Daly, I have attached below some quotes from Mary Daly’s famous 1973 book “Beyond God the Father” —
“The word ‘sisterhood’ no longer means a subordinate mini-brotherhood, but an authentic bonding of women on a wide scale for our own liberation.”
“It is self-defeating for women to allow ourselves to be submerged in one male-dominated cause as opposed to another.”
“Androgynous integrity and transformation will require that women cease to play the role of ‘complement’ and struggle to stand alone as free human beings.”
“The raising up of women’s new image and pride means giving prime energy to our own cause.”
“Women are starting to know now the defects of language because it is not ours.”
“It is time for men to learn at least to listen and to hear.”
“The Most Unholy Trinity of Rape, Genocide, and War is a logical expression of phallocentric power.”
“Marxism does not fully confront patriarchy itself.”
“For the person who has learned to see sexism, nothing can ever be the same again.”
“Women attempting to express new consciousness do live in conflict with the mechanisms of social control, which include ridicule, insults, instant psychoanalysis expressed in such comments as ‘penis-envy,’ ‘man-hater,’ or ‘unfeminine.'”
“It was not women who brought slaves to America.”
“Rape is a way of life.”
“Women and men inhabit different worlds.”
“Virginia Woolf, who died of being both brilliant and female, wrote that women are condemned by society to function as mirrors, reflecting men at twice their actual size.”
“Sisterhood means revolution.”
January 11, 2010 at 2:46 pm
The leftist women in SF share the same political assumptions as the guys in the Boys Club.
January 11, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Even my MAC DICTIONARY APP defines FUCK as “To Ruin or Destroy Something.” I didn’t even have to go to Urban Dictionary for that EFFIN’ DEF.
Thank you EFFIN’ Newsom for being part of the EFFIN’ problem.”
PLUS, I have always (since 2002) said — EFFIN’ repeatedly — that Supervisor Chris Daly gets EFFIN’ pissed off at all the CORRECT(*) EFFIN’ THINGS!
(*Not using the word “RIGHT” in this post)
Thank you, Chris Daly, for understanding what it truly means to be EFFED AND EFFIN’ PISSED OFF ABOUT IT — AND SAYIN’ EFFIN’ SO!
January 11, 2010 at 10:08 am
I’m happy to see that Chris Daly no longer yells “Fuck You, Bitch!” at people, but “Fuck You!” instead.
Did he make this change out of respect for the recent death of feminist philosopher Mary Daly?
By the way, whatever happened to all the feminists among SF progressives?
And how did it happen that SF progressives are now led by an all-male group, the Five Guys Club at the supes?
And how did it happen that the most vocal of SF progressives is now the biggest patriarchal bully in local politics?
And how did it happen that the guiding principle of SF progressives became the Peskin Principle? – “Payback is a bitch.” First delivered, by the way, to a woman sitting in a wheelchair.
And how long will women on the Left put up with this shit?
January 11, 2010 at 8:33 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVPkcyM4ohw