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Today is hot. Tomorrow is supposed to edge into triple digits. You are sick of summer and want someplace to go. Here are some suggestions.
(1) Head Towards the Beach for the 8th Annual API Festival!
From 10-5 today (Saturday) and tomorrow — meaning that we’re a little late with this one (s0rry!) — the Asian and Pacific Islander festival will take place in the Huntington Beach Library Megacomplex Area, near where Vern performs.
Email says:
Attached is a flier (reproduced above) and info on our annual Pacific Islander Festival in Orange County. This year we will have Congressman Matthew Harper from the 74th District which covers Huntington Beach, last year Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez in attendance and joined in on the “ava ceremony”.
Should be relatively cool — literally and figuratively!
(2) Chris Hedges comes to the Delhi Center on Sunday!
Noted activist and author Chris Hedges — who, OJB has learned in an exclusive, is not the same person as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes — will come to the Delhi Center in Santa Ana tomorrow (Sunday) for an event entitled “Calling All Rebels: the Moral Imperative to Revolt.” This may be more metaphorically cool than literally. Or maybe not even that — Bernie Sanders supporters may want to go to facepalm and SMDH over Hedges’s dismissiveness — but it’s an event that certainly believes itself to be cool! (And I presume, though I do not know, that some or all of the proceeds will help support the OC Green Party, so don’t let my pro-Sanders snarkiness below keep you from attending! It’s just … GAHHH!!!)
To get all of the background you need — plus all the GSR attitude that you can take — check out Gabriel’s story in the Weekly. An excerpt:
GSR: Bernie Sanders offers middle class reforms that are attracting arena-sized crowds across the nation. But haven’t we learned anything from LBJ, the Vietnam War and The Great Society’s failure? Haven’t we learned that these reforms can’t happen while maintaining empire?
That’s exactly the column I wrote, “The Enemy Within.” You have a military establishment that is bleeding the country dry. Officially, we spend almost 54% of the budget on military expenditures. There’s all sorts of other expenditures that are masked and millions upon millions that are classified within the budget that we’re never allowed to see. The best estimates are that we’re draining 1.6 trillion dollars a year. We’re doing what empires traditionally do where you allow a military apparatus and an imperial power that expands beyond its ability to sustain itself, as we’ve seen in the Middle East, to hollow the country out from the inside. You drive through city after city and they’re just boarded up wastelands. Our infrastructure is collapsing and austerity is being visited on the American citizen to pay for it.
This is the problem with Sanders. You can’t talk about genuine economic, political, social reform if you do not confront the monster of American militarism. After World War I, factories and manufacturing reverted to producing to domestic products. After World War II, you had a huge military bureaucracy who allied themselves with corporatists who decided that even though the war was over they were going to continue to produce weapons systems. Part of that alliance saw them roll back, starting with the 1948 Taft-Hartley Act which makes it very difficult to unionize, the reforms of the New Deal. It’s not just that this has had a catastrophic effect upon the economy, but this alliance has had a catastrophic effect on the political life of the country where all sorts of movements and dissidents were crushed in the name of anti-communism and now are crushed in the supposed War on Terror.
Who can dispute that it will be much easier to stage a revolution and “end history” in a more positive way under President Carly Fiorina and VP Ben Carson than it would be over a Taft-Hartley opponent who wants to cut military spending like Sanders?
The event is listed as going on from 4-11 — I’m sure that there is a backstory as to why it’s 7 hours long — and the cost for Rebels is either $20, $25, or $50. Students either could, can, or will be able to get in for $10. You need an ID. You can purchase an “Orange Juice Blog Academy of Learning” ID for only $8*, meaning that if you can use it to talk your way in you can save big bucks!
*Offer not good in California, or in other states and nations if and when requests from them come in.
Attendees should come prepared to discuss their specific plans to revolt. (Be sure to speak directly into the microphone! Possible additional topic to address: “why are you living in OC eating and supping on that designer dinner, then?”) Note that supporting and voting for Bernie Sanders does not count as “revolt” because electing a President with a coherent critique of the war economy is bourgeois!
Delhi Center, 4-11 Sunday — be there or be square, daddy-and-mommy-os!
I’m torn here due to my liking and respecting the Green Party, and certainly its OC chapter, in pretty much all ways *except* views on electoral politics. But to condemn Sanders supporters for not taking advantage of a moment with revolutionary potential seems to be so completely deranged that it simply can’t go without note.
Look: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF WHAT SEEMS LIKE IT WELL COULD BE JUST THIS SORT OF REVOLUTIONARY MOMENT! IF IT DOESN’T WORK OUT THAT SANDERS EVEN GETS NOMINATED, THEN GREENS CAN GO BACK TO SUPPORTING JILL STEIN’S EXTREMELY DISTANT LOSS FOR THE NTH TIME! IT’S NOT THAT COMPLICATED!
I get the sense that, were he alive and blogging in the 1860s (just go with the concept for a moment), GSR would be slamming Karl Marx for supporting the election and administration of Abraham Lincoln because “that’s not the revolutionary option.” I suppose I’d have some respect for it if they’d just dress in sackcloth and ashes and eat nothing but gruel, but when you combine that armchair revolutionizing with a pretty damn comfortable personal life and it becomes INCREDIBLY OFFENSIVE. Not caring about electing a Democratic Socialist to the White House IS ITSELF class privilege!
(API event sounds nice, though!)
https://berniesanders.com/artists/
Celebrities endorsing Bernie Sanders — Jello Biafra, Susan Sarandon, Sarah Silverman, and Lucinda Williams included!
Take that, Rebels!
The Bloviator is bloviating to himself in the comments section. How sad.
You’re probably right to try to use insults as a substitute for intellect. After all, you gotta use something!
A couple of interesting articles on Sanders, from a publication where Chris Hedges regularly writes. One from a graduate from the conservative Liberty University and the other about the critique from some on the left:
“So I got my Bachelors degree in Religion from Liberty University, and I also got my Masters degree from Liberty University in Marriage and Family Therapy. In 2004 I worked for the George W. Bush campaign. I spent about 8 years as a Conservative pastor. And also as a schoolteacher at a conservative Christian academy…
So that first issue that I’d kind of point your attention to is kind of what Bernie brought up during his speech at Liberty. Basically, the wealth inequality problem—and see a lot of us, on the Evangelical side think that what Jesus really cares about is gay marriage and abortion. And of course, the great irony is if you read the red letters of Jesus, there are no statements on abortion. There are no statements on gay marriage. Now, that’s not to say the Bible doesn’t speak about these things, but it certainly is to say that Jesus, founder and master of our faith, did not see fit to make these high-priority topics. It’s not to say he doesn’t care. But it is to say that we need to be careful not to ‘major on minors.’ We should be focused on the things Jesus did talk about.
So what did Jesus talk about?
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/evangelical_leader_jesus_would_vote_for_bernie_sanders_video_20150918
“ In this presidential summer of our discontent, the radical left has been fighting hard—not chiefly against capitalism and its galloping calamities, it seems, but against . . . Bernie Sanders. Scarcely a day passes without an ominous recitation of Sanders’s manifold political shortcomings—Sanders exposés (read examples here, here, here and here) seem to have become a thriving cottage industry for the far-left commentariat…
It should come as a startling revelation to no one that Sanders is not and has never aspired to be the next Lenin or Trotsky or even Bob Avakian. We readily concede that his record will not pass every litmus test of anti-imperialist and revolutionary probity—no need to belabor this point any further. But then what are we to make of Syriza, Podemos, Jeremy Corbyn, or even Jill Stein—and other assorted leftish flavors du jour—all of them seemingly quite palatable to these same ideological arbiters of the radical left? These other examples and Sanders are cut from essentially the same political cloth: left social democrats or democratic socialists inclined to challenge entrenched corporate interests through established political institutions rather than overthrowing them from without. Then why the radical cheers (however mixed and muted in some cases) for these other leftish types and jeers for Sanders, even though they all represent essentially the same political impulse?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_far_left_needs_to_stop_worrying_and_support_bernie_sanders_20150919
Sanders is no Corbyn. They aren’t cut from the same cloth. Just ask Palestinians.
Or, if you prefer: Sanders more Radomiro Tomic and less (much less) Salvador Allende.
The Bloviator is still probably preoccupied with the Seattle sisters who disrupted Sanders’ rally and the Black Lives Matter movement in general for dissing the Democratic Party’s desire to co-opt it.
Context Gabriel. context. There is nobody else raising the very fundamental issue of income inequality at the mainstream level as Sanders is doing.
To compare Tomic (who represented a progressive wing of the establishment) to Allende, is like assesing the yawning of our local celebrities during the district elections battle, as support for Pringle & Associates.
GSR will go to any lengths to ensure that his uncompromising political principles (except when applied to his patron) will never EVER motivate him to any political action which might actually put him at risk of having to take personal responsibility for any government policy in any area in or near which he lives.
The mere notion that he MIGHT be asked to support anyone who had a real chance of taking and exercising power, as opposed to an ineffectual protest candidate, sends him screaming in the opposite direction.
If the Green Party ever DID put itself in a position to assume power (and responsibility), he would be among the first to condemn it at the first minimal and ambiguous sign of hypocrisy, the better to project his virginity when it comes to the sweat and raunch of *actual* electoral politics.
How does GSR feel about Corbyn’s ideologically broader than expected (or feared, or hoped) appointments to Labor’s shadow cabinet? Someone else had better ask him, because he will contort himself as far as his necessary to dismiss any substantive questions I posed to him as “bloviating.” (He knows that this is OK, because he is borrowing it from Gustavo.)
One wonders: how much does the revolutionary GSR devote his own resources to actual on-the-ground sacrifice-requiring political work? Or maybe we should start at the other end: how much in the past week has GSR spent on entertainment drinks and fine dining – rather than and committing his financial resources to “the struggle”? I guess we need to ask him to itemize, because he probably considers buying some obscure political tracks that no one else will read to be political activity.
If Gabriel didn’t exist, the right wing would have to invent him. If Gustavo didn’t exist – well, come to think of it, the right wing may well have invented him.
Bloviator: Why bloviate about me? Your bloviations serve only to bloviate bloviations that foul Orange County with its bloviate-encrusted bloviations.
I hate to repeat myself, but as I wrote in response to your remora earlier today:
Did you read hijo’s story before it came out? (I only ask because you’re listed as “editor in chief” rather than “food critic.”) What did you think of “[H]aven’t we learned anything from LBJ, the Vietnam War and The Great Society’s failure? Haven’t we learned that these reforms can’t happen while maintaining empire?”
Watch out — I may be trying to get you to go stand out with hijo on the “Sanders is not cool enough for my supposed Leftism” ledge.
P.S. Youstill don’t know what “bloviating” means, and by now that must take some real work.
Afraid of the specter of the spoiler in electoral politics, Greg? Too bad you couldn’t take your own advice in my city three years ago.
You certainly seem to have learned a lot from the experience of having the shoe on the other foot.
It was a pity that we couldn’t work out a slate, as we had proposed. And in this paragraph, I’m not being facetious.
A slate with a complete unknown with no support? Who has since completely disappeared? And eho would have been the third candidate?
Just a reminder, Greg, Al Gore won in 2000. It’s not the fault of the Greens that defended his victory badly.
Another reminder: Democrats can fight for, and, in many places, implement ranked choice voting systems that would eliminate the spoiler factor, but have chosen not to do so because they would rather lose to Republicans than let Greens, or anyone else, be in the game.
Please start using names so we know who in the heck you’re talking about.
Dave, I’m taking about Greg Diamond and the Democrats putting an unknown candidate whose name I have trouble even remembering now, into the recall election in 2012 against Jane Rands. This move to insert a Democrat into the race at all costs may not have ultimately cost Jane the election because enough Democrats voted for Reoublican clown Rick Alvarez, but you just never know. My point was that the Democrats will sacrifice their own to let Republicans win in order to keep Greens out every time, and any time Greg Diamond brings up the “spoiler factor” I will remind him of it.
Dave, I recruited Paula Williams into the race to run against Norby. She is a smart and attractive African American women who had a lot of knowledge about public pensions and social services — she’d have been a good opponent for highlighting issues on which I still disagree with Norby and you (God knows what Matt thinks), despite our agreement about many other issues. In would have likely been a losing cause, but a “useful” loss that would have highlighter both her and the issues she represented.
Then Sharon got into the AD race. At that time, Doug Chaffee was not expected to run for City Council in the recall. I recruited Paula to give Dems and liberals/leftists three people to vote for: one in each of the three races. (Remember, that was not an “everyone goes into the same race” situation; there were three different contests because each recall election was separate.) Those three people were to have be Glenn (running against Travis Kiger), Paula (running against Greg Sebourn and Rick Alvarez), and Jane (who we expected to take the easier path of running against neither Bushala candidate.) She would have been able to run against Sean Paden, Barry Levinson, and Ryan Cantor’s candidate Matt Rowe (who I can to like and respect), which would have left plenty of room on the left side of the equation.
I had explained what I was intending to Jane at the time. As I recall, she made no commitment to cooperate and go up against Paden, Levinson, and Rowe — but it would have been a pretty easy call and she was certainly interested in Democratic support. If Jane hadn’t run in the other race, Paula likely would have, and would have supported each others’ efforts — until things suddenly changed.
Suddenly, Doug was in the race, running for the non-Bushala-opponent seat against Paden et al. While Matt apparently believed that Paula should fold up her campaign and make way for Jane in the race against Sebourn, Jane never made that request, although I did try to direct her towards another seat. From our perspective, Sebourn and Rands were both Bushala-related candidates, and Sebourn and Alvarez were both Republicans, which we hoped would leave the door open for a Democrat who held moderate position (not slavering support, but also not “burn the place down”) on policing issues. Her problems with the police dealt with policing practices in her largely African-American (and Latino) neighborhood in West Fullerton, which I would say were pretty valid concerns to raise.
It could have worked — the Democratic party, to my dismay, was not inclined to support Jane if Paula dropped out; it was more inclined to support Alvarez as preferable to Sebourn. (Sebourn did not then have the “moderate” reputation that he has since developed.) But then, well into the campaign, the County suddenly reversed its course and decided that public employees could not even run for non-partisan offices. This probably had nothing to do with Paula; I believed that it had more to do with Joe “JoJo” Moreno, who was running in AD-69 against Tom Daly, with the hope that if he finished second in that race he wouldn’t be able to challenge the man who was, after all, the sitting County Clerk. But Paula was swept up in this as well, and essentially had to drop her active campaign. Paula’s presence on the ballot probably took more votes away from Alvarez than from Jane; Democrats would not have voted for Jane against Alvarez — I know, I asked, and I pushed — because she was perceived as being too close to Bushala, although I think that they would have voted for her in the race against Paden, Levinson, and Rowe. (They wouldn’t have wanted to, but I had enough sway then that I think that I could have essentially forced it — had Chaffee not entered the race.)
That’s the inside story of how things happened in the spring of 2012. You can compare that to the “outside story” that you see from Matt, just above.
There was never much difference between Republicans and Democrats in Fullerton. And they always seem to herd together when an outside force threatens the status quo.
Excuse me for getting into this conversation. The following question is a moot point for the Anaheim situation, but I remember that the Green representative during the district election process mentioned once the ranked choice voting systems. Does the Green Party prefer the ranked voting system instead of council districts?
My guess based on its platform is that it would — but not that one could also have a ranked choice voting system WITHIN a district system. (In fact, I wish that they would!) I don’t consider ranked-choice to be a substitute for districts; it just doesn’t address the problems of cost and logistics of campaigning.
Ricardo, good question. The Green Party has not yet taken a position on the Fullerton District proposal, which is not yet complete. But I think a reliable Green position would be IRV in any election, district based or not.
The third person on a slate would have been, at least de facto, Glenn Georgieff. (Would he have endorsed Jane?) I think that I could have gotten him to do so. At that point, Doug Chaffee did not appear likely to run. It wasn’t until he belatedly entered the race and Sharon Q-S belatedly entered the AD-65 race (displacing Paula to the Council race) that a conflict arose.
No, actually, Gore didn’t win in 2000. He would have won by every measure except the won that mattere, which meant that he lost.
Democrats have implemented IRV and/or STV voting systems in various jurisdictions. Most (maybe all, so far as I know) have been dismantled by now because the public hated them. I think that they’re clearly superior, but they require substantial training for people to be able to move — and it’s easier to turn people against innovations than to teach them. We see this again right now with the know-nothing thundering against the new ways of teaching elementary mathematics.
What you say about who people prefer is certainly true of some Dems. Within Democratic politics in Orange County, it hasn’t been true of me. In fact, that has notoriously not been true of me. (If you care, which you clearly don’t.)
“The third person on a slate would have been, at least de facto, Glenn Georgieff…” Ha! I like Glenn, but his campaign was non-existent. Doug hemmed and hawed until McKinely called him(!), asking him to run for his seat, which should tell you where he stood on police reform right from the start. Either way, you put Paula Williams into a race where she had no chance just to have a Dem on the ballot. Face it Greg, if you really support the issues you claim to, you’re in the wrong damn political party.
Should have read, above: “Just a reminder, Greg, Al Gore won in 2000. It’s not the fault of the Greens that HE defended his victory badly.
And there’s the Fulas Rag, exposing the Bloviator and the dirty Dems harmfully politricking the viable Green candidacy of Jane Rands in Fullerton.
And GSR continues to expand his ignorance to new regions! I’ll post my answers to Matt Leslie, who at least has skin in the game. (Do you even attend Green Party meetings, Gabriel — or is this also when you hide behind your status as a “journalist”?
GSR lives in a neighboring city with similar police abuse issues. He has more skin in the game than you do, ensconced up in The Great White North.
Can’t we all just get along?
We should get along, once we agree to respectfully disagree, and act on what we agree.
Let’s see how Hedges’ call in yesterday’s long speech is applied in OC.
“Chris Hedges gave this speech Sunday at a Santa Ana, Calif., event sponsored by the Green Party of Orange County”
“… And if we rise up, even if we fail, future generations, and especially those who are most precious to us, will be able to say we tried, that we stood up and fought for life. The call to resistance, which will require civil disobedience and jail time, is finally a call to the moral life. Resistance is not about what we achieve, but about what it allows us to become…”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_it_means_to_be_a_socialist_20150920
Best quote of the evening. Thank you Richard.
Sure. Except that, for the first time I can remember since 1972, we actually have a fighting chance of electing a suitable President. I think that future generations would take us to task for not taking advantage of the opportunity. We can always go back to failing to follow Hedges’s advice about civil disobedience and jail time — as we in comfortable Orange County routinely do — in 2017.
“a suitable President”
Who? And why?
Sanders. I was addressing Matt, who, unlike you, is a leftist. He should support most of Bernie’s agenda, even if that isn’t good enough for his pure soul.
Missed you there, Greg.
When, not if, Sanders fails to get the nomination and endorses Hillary, who will be your next sheep dog?
Sheldon Whitehouse.
Despite the crushing heat, we had a good turnout. Here’s some stuff for those who missed it:
https://greenpartyoc.wordpress.com/recent-events/
I’m glad to hear it. For me, by the way, the cost was a consideration. Such is life.