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Upcoming Events
Save CCSF Coalition Continues the Fight While City College waits to learn whether it will be removed from "Show Cause" sanction by the unaccountable and secretive Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), the "Save CCSF" coalition of faculty, staff and community supporters continues to gain --April 18: Newly elected College Board Trustee Rafael Mandelman appeared with Coalition representatives Wendy Kaufmyn (Engineering instructor) and Shanell Williams (Student Council President) in an educational forum at the Unitarian Church. Shortly after her forum appearance, Williams won election as Student Trustee on the College Board, a real victory for progressive students at City College! --April 23: The SF Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution in support of City College. Sponsored by supervisors Mar, Cohen and Avalos, the resolution urges City College of San Francisco to preserve the --April 30: The California Federation of Teachers sent a complaint about ACCJC practices to the Department of Education and to the ACCJC itself as “third party comment.” The complaint documents harm arising from the ACCJC’s July, 2012 “Show Cause” order which was based on mischaracterization of CCSF’s accreditation history from 2006 to 2012. Citing numerous examples of conflict of interest on the part of ACCJC commissioners, the CFT complaint alleges that the ACCJC “violated Federal and State law, Federal common law due process, State common law Fair Procedure and the Commission’s own policies in its evaluation of CCSF and in placing it on Show Cause sanction.” For more information on the Save CCSF Coalition’s activities and to sign up, click here.
On March 12, 2013, San Francisco for Democracy members were treated to an excellent discussion of the moral and legal issues raised by the increasing prevalence of unmanned aerial drones, both abroad and domestic. First, Linda Lye of the Northern California ACLU talks about the increasing use of drones for domestic surveillance and what can be done to protect our privacy. Then John Arquilla, defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, describes the astonishing proliferation of drones on the battlefield and their use in invading the sovereign airspace of countries we are not at war with, and offers his moral and ethical perspective, as well as a peek into the future. Video here.
Hard to believe it was ten full years ago this March that the governor gave his famous speech at the California Democratic Convention, and a few days later the madness that was San Francisco for Dean was born. How different were things back then folks? And then there was that other anniversary...
Adjust numbers upward as appropriate.
Folks around here have been so busy, it took us till mid-March to get the party photos together. But that doesn't mean it wasn't an excellent party. Have a look. Hostile Takeover of City College The Accreditation Commission for Community & Junior Colleges, funded by the Lumina and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, has used a flawed accreditation process to drastically lower the salaries of staff and faculty at CCSF. It has issued an arbitrary "show cause" order which is being used by Acting Chancellor Thelma Scott-Skillman and Special $1,000-a-day Trustee Bob Agrella to unilaterally alter the institutional structure of City College of San Francisco, sometimes without the knowledge of our elected College Board Trustees. It is doing this in the name of "productivity".....Lumina foundation's buzzword for producing more work-ready college grads in less time and at cheaper labor costs. Their long term agenda includes: Since 1943 more Americans have been killed by domestic gun violence than in all the wars we have fought put together; yet many in Congress are still balking at taking action, and the gun lobby is saying the only solution is to put armed guards in every classroom. Send the government a strong message here, here and here, and tell the NRA what you think of their interference here and here Remember the "Voting Guide for Democrats" from June, 2010? It was a sham slate card that looked just legit enough to convince "Democrats" to vote against Prop 15 (Clean Money) and for Prop 16 (PG&E); we brought it to you in the People Powered Paper. Well, the other day I was cleaning out my mailbox and there was that same damn eagle again:
Only this time, on something called the "Election Digest." So instead of simply tossing it out with everything else, I realized I had to do a little research; cliquez ici to see what I found. and materials are here. On September 26, Dr. Ellen Shaffer of EQUAL Health Network, Ken Tray of United Educators of San Francisco, and Marsha Donat of Planned Parenthood spoke about what America will lose if GOP radicals gain control of the federal government. Also, Clark Sullivan and Jane Smith of Occupy Bay Area United gave attendees the true scoop on the current state of Occupy. In late July, SF4D members Dave Massen and Jeff Whittington attended the Citizens Climate Lobby International Conference in Washington, D.C.. 175 people attended from all over North America, and 303 Members of Congress were lobbied.
CCL is focused on passing Carbon Fee and Dividend legislation similar to that called for by climate luminary James Hansen and others. CF&D would place a steadily rising fee on carbon-producing fuels at the point of extraction with all revenue returned to consumers to keep the economy functioning during the transition. Strong action is needed, in a hurry. According to recent measurements, we may be on the way to restoring temperatures not seen since the late Cretaceous by the end of this century. Such extreme heating during a short time would cause massive disruptions of the biosphere and exterminate nearly all life on earth. Can be found here. February General Meeting: the Future of Occupy
On Thursday, February 2, members and friends of San Francisco for Democracy participated in a lively discussion of the past and future of the Occupy movement with Occupy members Craig Rouskey, Robin Krop, Kames Cox-Geraghty, Ben Hansell, and Diana Macasa. The discussion was moderated by DFA's own Ruby Reid; click here for the video. SF4D PAC also made some early endorsements at the meeting.
San Francisco for Democracy's annual membership party was held on Saturday, January 21, 2012. As always, there was great food and drink, and quite a few local politicos in attendance. Click here for some photos.
On September 23, 2011, SF for Democracy’s Tom Brown, along with Bay Area DFA activists Carole Dorshkind and Kathy Klein, participated in a White House policy briefing organized by the Courage Campaign. Joining community leaders from across the state, we spent the day listening to and asking questions of an impressive list of administration officials including Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Senior Advisor to the President David Plouffe, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Chief of Staff Bill Daley. Listening to these high-powered speakers, a picture emerged of a President who must deal with a do-nothing Congress and a whole cohort of people who simply refuse to work with him. In these difficult economic times, most Americans desire action from their government. Yet those who do not believe in a socially proactive role for government seek to make action in Washington impossible. Despite these challenges, we heard that this President Obama and his administration are determined to do what is possible to bring help to people in America. SF4D PAC's endorsements for the November 8, 2011 local election can be found here. June 16 saw the continuation of our split rent control forum with the Milk Club (the first part was June 7 at the LGBT Center). SF4D member Dave Massen started things off with a description of the Carbon Fee and Dividend legislation sponsored by the Citizens Climate Lobby. A vote to endorse the legislation was called for, but too many members did not understand how the legislation would work. You can read more about Carbon Fee and Dividend here; CCL would really appreciate your cards and letters to Congresspersons. After club officers were re-elected by acclamation, Jim Tracy of Community Housing Partnership obtained our vote of support for the conversion of the Edward II B&B to a youth home. The rest of the meeting was devoted to the rent control and tenant issues forum, with activists Kevin Bard and Brian Basinger presenting their perspectives on various renter's issues. Mayoral candidates Herrera and Chiu came out to defend their record as supporters of rent control, with candidate Chiu offering an explanation of the Park Merced deal (candidate Yee also appeared at the LGBT forum to explain his evolving position on the issue). You can watch a video of the forum here.
President Obama's 4/13/11 speech on the American Economy so well reflected our own vision that several members wanted a transcript of the speech reprinted on the website. The speech, in full, follows:
Bernie Sanders in San Francisco
San Francisco for Democracy is proud to present, in association with Progressive Perspectives, an evening with Senator Bernie Sanders on Friday, February 25, 7 p.m. at the Unity Universalist Church. Senator Sanders is the most outspokenly progressive member of the United States Senate, and has taken a leadership role on a host of issues, including the preservation of democratic government, Social Security, health care, global warming, foreign affairs, and the economy. Tickets are $15 and certain to sell out; you can buy them here. Click here for more info.
2011 may have been a terrible year for democracy in America, but in California it wasn't quite as bad. Mark Leno came out to our annual party to explain his optimism about California's economic future under Jerry Brown. Also in attendance were quite a few of our other favorite state and local politicos, as well as many of the usual great SF4D suspects. Photos are here.
After being treated to a terrific analysis of the local component of the November election by Fine Line Analytics' David Latterman, attendees at the January 5 meetup participated in a three-person panel consideration of the ongoing WikiLeaks controversy. Is a data dump of this sort good for open government, or will it lead to more secrecy? How is the relationship between organizations and private citizens changing as a result of internet activism? And is it possible or desirable to hold "hacktivists" to traditional standards of journalism? See what our panelists and members felt about the issues here. And don't forget to support Bradley Manning here. 2010 Wrap Of course, much of last winter and spring was devoted to propelling one of our favorite agendas: public financing for election campaigns. June's Proposition 15 was already heavily compromised, having been reduced to a mere pilot program to demonstrate the viability of public financing at the state level, but in a time of budget crisis it was the best we could get the legislature to agree to. Since it required a minor change to the constitution, the measure still had to be put before the voters, and the timing was unfortunate: the June election was a mostly Republican primary. We also discovered some very deceptive slate mailers, and the power of misleading a.m. radio ads to squash measures that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation doesn't like. The result was very discouraging, but of course, not enough so to shut us up. The June primary also saw our first true multiparty ballot endorsements. This exhausting but worthwhile process was spearheaded by Political Director Glenn Davis mainly to try and give the less-powerful parties more of a voice. SF4D endorsed candidates for the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Peace and Freedom parties. The summer also saw us cosponsoring a candidate forum on HIV policy in San Francisco, signing on to Phil Ting's "Close the Loophole" (split-roll property tax) campaign, supporting Unite Here Local 2 in their struggle against the hotels, and many other actions. We put together our first ever slate mailer. SF4D members, especially OFA coordinator Susan Pfeifer, worked hard to keep California from falling into the Tea abyss that many other states experienced, and at least in this area our efforts were rewarded. Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the as-always terrific job that Meetup coordinator Peter Wong (along with Susan Pfeifer) did in putting together programs all year. Although we changed from a monthly to bimonthly schedule, there is still a lot of work involved in selecting topics and formats, getting speakers to show up, and making the whole thing come off. Excellent programs on marijuana legalization, immigration reform, human trafficking, activating the progressive base, containing oil spills, the death penalty, and the notorious Jeff Adachi measure (Prop B), among others, were presented by San Francisco for Democracy during 2010. Congratulations, Peter! November Endorsements/Candidate Materials... are on our PAC page. Who's Next? * ACORN has now been investigated and cleared of wrongdoing by four different agencies, but the damage is done. So how many more times do they get away with it? How many more Swift Boats, Iowa Screams, and "Al Gore's honesty problems" will there be? What happens to a society that is ruled by such utter nonsense? * Answer here. PACs Make June Endorsements
Our membership meeting on March 15 intended to give the chairs of the four major Bay Area political parties a forum in which to declaim on the philosophies and merits of their parties. While Republican Party chair Howard Epstein failed to make the event, SFDCC chair Aaron Peskin, Green Party co-chair Barry Hermanson, and Peace and Freedom co-chair Marsha Feinland all were eloquent, and a lively discussion and Q&A session with the good sized audience consumed the entire meeting.
February Meetup Followup Annual Membership Party
Pics are up. Happy New Year! From SF4D and ONN.
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public support. The ACCJC is not expected to announce its decision until late June or early July, but the Coalition has been gaining traction in its campaign against the unnecessary pay cuts and sweeping reorganizations that continue to be imposed in the name of accreditation. Here are recent highlights:
quality and diversity of the school’s education and the City to consider new support.
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