Communications

june 19, 2000. The prospect of district elections has brought politics to traditionally apolitical electorates. Take the Tenderloin, which boasts the lowest voter turnout in the city. Under the auspices of the Alliance for a Better District 6, residents have begun interviewing candidates for supervisor and taking positions on a variety of issues affecting their little bailiwick. Here’s a recent resolution, passed by the Alliance and sent to the Supes over the signature of Alliance president Michael Nulty:

Whereas: San Francisco is in a housing crisis, the degree of which has not been seen heretofore, and

Whereas: Promises of Job-Housing and Transit Linkage have yet to materialize in spite of a decade of intensive, sustained commercial development, and

Whereas: The arrival of a venture capital–fueled dot.com sector has yet to prove its profitability to create commercial office space wherever it can, and

Whereas: The tight web of interlocking relationships of housing, transit, and jobs require significant planning to ensure sustainability, and

Whereas: The politics of soft money and corporate dominance have led to the abdication of its planning roles by the City and County Planning Commission and the Department under its watch, and

Whereas: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into corruption in the decision-making process in the Planning Department, and

Whereas: The future ethnic, economic, and political diversity of San Francisco is threatened by corruption and subservience to commercial interests by the Planning Department at the expense of residents and voters,

Resolved: The Alliance for a Better District 6 calls for a moratorium on all commercial development permit approval in districts 6, 9, and 10 until a community-based planning process is in place.

District 6 encompasses the Tenderloin, Hayes Valley, SOMA, South Beach and Mission Bay, the Inner Mission, and Treasure Island. District 9 contains the East Mission and Bernal Heights. District 10 includes the disparate neighborhoods of Potrero Hill, Bayview and Hunters Point, Portola and Silver Terrace, and Visitacion Valley.

In a recent Chron editorial, it was opined that the "Elgin" Marbles shouldn’t be returned to Greece because, gee whiz, it might spark interest (interest and hope, of course) in the return of a number of works of art and artifacts to their nations of origin. I say it should be done. But the media, simultaneously corporate, corporate lap-dog, and mouthpiece, spews its predictable and uncouth views on "exploration," conquest, and its spoils. Meaning pillage, of course.

In the same way, tribal grave sites are invaded and despoiled the world over for purposes of "scientific" study. Perhaps Native Americans should dig up George Washington’s remains — perhaps there’s a clue there to the rapacity and backwardness that’s apparently so intrinsic to this society.

But I digress. The issue of the return of items of important national patrimony to their respective countries and regions might prompt an amity and concord not reconcilable with Western civilizations triumphalist prerogatives and objectives. When native peoples characterized the whites as "speaking with forked tongue," they didn’t only mean "liar" but also confused, as in "he says one thing and does another." Of course, with good intentions.

I’ve spent half of my life studying U.S. regional and national history and culture — as well as what it’s done to the rest of the world, good and bad. I like white folks individually, but in groups and associations they scare me.

Free Len Peltier — he shouldn’t die in jail for white sins.

P.S. I hope you like my writing paper. I’m a comic collector. This 1938 cover shows Captain Fearless subduing a handful of Chinese. All in a day’s work.