This was a week of national news that ties in close to home.

As I write the voting rights bills look to be dead, thanks to Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin leaving gerrymandering and voter suppression alive and well. Closer to home, the Berkeley Independent Redistricting Commission met last Monday, January 10^th.

Berkeley, just like the rest of the country, is looking at the fallout from the 2020 Census population changes and redrawing voting district boundaries to equalize population. We had until November 15, 2021 to submit redistricting maps for Berkeley City Council districts, and I’ve been flipping back and forth among the 29 submitted maps until I feel dizzy. https://redistricting-commission-berkeley.hub.arcgis.com/ And, even though I attended the Monday meeting, I watched the video again before writing just to make sure I am accurate in my comments.

By January 20^th , staff with three commissioners will create or choose five maps, using the following criteria for every map:

1. Prioritize communities of interest (neighborhoods),
2. Follow major thoroughfares,
3. Correct accommodations for councilmembers (in the current map from 2010 there is a bulb out in District 4 north of Cedar-Arreguin and another in District 7 east of Telegraph to Hillegass-Worthington),
4. include a student district.

During the discussion of submitted maps and comments, Commissioner Choy stated that the comments regarding the BNC map looked to be the same, copied. Since BNC is the Berkeley Neighborhoods Council representing neighborhoods across the entire city with multiple contributions, it would be expected to have multiple people submitting similar comments. 

Greg Magofna commented on his map, “…the map that I submitted is very neutral…” Neutral is a hard pill to swallow, since Magofna lost his candidate bid for council in 2018 and submitted a map that looks to advantage him if he runs again in 2022. I tried my own hand at redrawing district boundaries with Maptitude, achieving what would be classified as minor changes with a 1% total variation in population among the eight districts. The maximum allowed deviation is 10%. My map isn’t in the running so to speak, but it was a good experience doing it. 

Not enough happened at Monday’s Agenda Committee to take up any space, and if we are lucky the January 25^th Council meeting agenda will stay short, a much desired change from this coming Tuesday. The January 18^th council agenda is so long it looks like an all-nighter, with lots of important stuff like adopt-a-spot, parking [fee] referrals for the marina and Gilman and Lorin commercial districts, the paving plan, merger of the Health Commission and Sugar Sweetened Beverages and merger of the Energy Commission, Zero Waste Commission and Community Environmental Advisory Commission. 

The referrals on parking will come back later, but it looks like the effort from the city manager’s office is to kill the adopt-a-spot proposal. The Adopt-a-Spot Program Development Recommendation is to fund two fulltime volunteer coordinators. Diane Ross-Lesch, who worked on the Traffic Circle Task Force, attended our neighborhood meeting Saturday. When I heard there are well over two hundred community volunteers for native plant pollinator gardens in our parks, traffic circles, storm drains and the other projects mentioned in the recommendation, the reason for the plea for volunteer coordinators is obvious. I am hoping after the council and the city manager hear how successful volunteerism has become, they will find their way clear to approve the recommendation now. 

As for the commission mergers, I am baffled about why during a pandemic the Health Commission was not allowed to meet but once, and why during the climate emergency we are all living in, the council has decided this is the time to cut the expertise of three commissions which dealt with it with a total of twenty-seven commissioners to one commission with nine. 

Thursday, when I heard the news of Stewart Rhodes, founder of the “far-right” militia the Oath Keepers, and ten other co-conspirators charged with seditious conspiracy for their wide-ranging plot to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, I kept thinking back to the first time I heard of the “far-right” militia the Oath Keepers. It was in relation to Berkeley Police participation in Urban Shield terrorist training exercises organized by Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern and the presence of the Oath Keepers in a booth next to the Sheriff’s booth at the accompanying exhibit. 

In the January 13, 2022 release from the Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs’ announcement that “Leader of Oath Keepers and 10 Other Individuals [were] Indicted in Federal Court for Seditious Conspiracy and Other Offenses Related to U.S. Capitol Breach,” the description of the Oath Keepers in Justice News included: “…Though the Oath Keepers will accept anyone as members, they explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military, law enforcement and first-responder personnel…” https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-oath-keepers-and-10-other-individuals-indicted-federal-court-seditious-conspiracy-and 

Back in 2017 and 2018 there was an all-out effort to convince the Berkeley City Council to withdraw from Urban Shield. At the special meeting on July 23, 2018 on Urban Shield public testimony warned about the close association between the Sheriff’s Office and the Oath Keepers, racist paraphernalia sold at the event, racist toned training exercises and the White Supremacist extremism presence. Concerned community members lost when Mayor Arreguin and Councilmembers Wengraf, Maio, Droste and Hahn voted for Urban Shield. Councilmembers Harrison, Davila, Bartlett and Worthington voted in opposition. 

The Alameda County Supervisors took a much harder look and used their control over budget to end Urban Shield. 

The Community Environmental Advisory Commission (CEAC) met Wednesday. Becoming a Bee City is dead from staff pushback and not enough excitement. They also tabled (no further action) the tobacco waste litter program. 

In a surprising move at the Zoning Adjustment Board, the action on whether to legalize two accessory dwellings at 1151 Grizzly Peak was postponed to gather more information. At least one of the accessory dwellings will be required to move. The decision is whether it should be moved north or south. The decision on the appeal to block a change of use from media production to research and development at 2600 Tenth Street was also postponed. 

The City of Berkeley is deep into planning with WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority) to provide ferry service to Berkeley and for WETA to pay for part [300 feet] of a new pier at the Berkeley marina as part of the package. At the WETA meeting on Thursday, it was announced that ferry ridership is not meeting projections. People are not going back to the office, not commuting in the numbers expected. The drop in commuter ridership below projections fits in with articles and notices about companies staying remote and closing offices. Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn, gave similar news on the 60 Minutes segment on jobs and the “great resignation”, saying that pre-pandemic 1 out of 67 jobs was remote. Now it is 1 of 7. 

January 11^, 2022 was the 20^th anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay Prison. On November 7, 2021, I introduced two books with: “I wish these two books were required reading for every adult American, then maybe we would finally see Guantanamo closed and the military budget slashed.” 

The books are: Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and found in Guantanamo by Mansoor Adayfi and The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock. 

Mansoor Adayfi describes so well what we really need to know about the kidnapping and sale of innocent men and boys for the monetary awards from the CIA and the imprisonment and torture that followed. What happened to the men held in Guantanamo under the banner of fighting terrorism isn’t just a blight. It is a horrific prison. Reading even a few chapters of The Afghanistan Papers is blistering. 

The title of the book I finished this week encapsulates how I feel and think about reading: Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature by Farah Jasmine Griffin, 2021. This lovely book introduces us to the author, the teachings of her father, Black culture and the remarkable literature of Black authors and poets. Griffin takes us down the path of her own joy in her discovery of Black authors, poets and artists. Now I have an even longer reading list for the coming year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/10/read-until-you-understand/ 

Worth Noting:

The week starts with a virtual Breakfast at 9 am Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.

Tuesday at 6 pm City Council returns from recess for the first regular council meeting of 2022.

Wednesday is filled with 11 city meetings. FITES at 2:30 reviews update to Landscape policy to include native plants. Planning Commission at 7 pm agendized hearing is a condo conversion. The Civic Arts Commission and Commission on the Status of Women meet at 6 pm. The Health, Welfare & Community Action meets at 6:30 pm. The Commission on Labor meets at 7 pm.

Thursday is filled with 7 city meetings. The Land Use Committee meets at 10:30 am on streamlining toxic remediation in the manufacturing district. At 6 pm Council has a special meeting on infrastructure while NICJR conducts a Community Public Safety meeting for Districts 3 & 4. The Transportation Commission meets at 7 pm on Southside Streets and BerkDOT. The Rent Board and DRC also meet at 7 pm.



The January 25 City Council regular meeting agenda is available for review and comment.

 

Sunday, January 16, 2022 - No City meetings or events found 

Monday, January 17, 2022 – Martin Luther King Jr Holiday 

2022 MLK (virtual) Breakfast at 9 – 10:30 am 

Event is free, donations are welcome 

Pre-register: https://www.berkeleymlkjrday.org/#rsvp 

https://www.berkeleymlkjrday.org/ 

Tuesday, January 18, 2022 

City Council Regular Meeting, January 18 at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84056667405 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 840 5666 7405 

AGENDA: full agenda follows list of meetings or use link 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx 

Wednesday, January 19, 2022 

City Council Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment & Sustainability Committee (FITES) at 2:30 pm, 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82147250716 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 821 4725 0716 

AGENDA: 2. Native and Drought Resistant Plants and Landscaping Policy Update, Unscheduled Items: 3. Wear and tear on roads by commercial vehicles, 4. Plastic bags, 5. GHG Limits Update Climate Action Plan. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Facilities,_Infrastructure,_Transportation,_Environment,___Sustainability.aspx 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board – Outreach Committee at 5 pm 

Videoconference: 4. Public Comment, Election, Discussion and Update/Possible Action: 6. Tenant Survey, 7. Fair Chance Ordinance, 8. Eviction Moratorium, Tenant Protection Ordinance, https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89650177721?pwd=MDEzb3A2YS93SGFBcXdhWmI4NUVJUT09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 896 5017 7721 Passcode: 351819 

AGENDA: 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/rent/ 

Board of Library Trustees at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86042306505 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 860 4230 6505 

AGENDA: II. C. 25^th Annual Authors Dinner Event May 21, 2022, D. License Agreement between Library and the Berkeley Public Library Foundation for us of space in the Central Library, III. A. Public report of actions taken Dec 8 Closed session. 

https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/about/board-library-trustees 

Civic Arts Commission Public Art Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: hhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/86089984060 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 860 8998 4060 

AGENDA: 4. a. Cube Space exhibition by Leila Weefur, b. Conservation on “In Berkeley” by Nancy Selvin, c. Design for Berkeley arts Works Project Mural by Eduardo Pineda, d. Design for Berkeley Art Works Project by Suzi Garner 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CivicArtsCommissionHomepage/ 

Civic Arts Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1614241301 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 Meeting ID: 161 424 1301 

AGENDA: 4. PRESENTATIONS: a. Housing Element, b. Berkeley arts education Steering Committee, 6. Chair’s Report a. January 25 City Council Item on Affordable Housing for Artists & Cultural Workers, b. Commission Vacancy, 7. DISCUSSION & ACTION ITEMS: a. Affordable housing for artists, b. Cube Space exhibition by Leila Weefur, c. Conservation on “In Berkeley” by Nancy Selvin, d. Design for Berkeley arts Works Project Mural by Eduardo Pineda, e. Design for Berkeley Art Works Project by Suzi Garner 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CivicArtsCommissionHomepage/ 

Commission on Disability at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84591042999?pwd=NnRqQS9pdTY1cVpXU0xORnlzV3kyZz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 845 9104 2999 Passcode: 597888 

AGENDA: 2. Elections, 3. Action Letter to Council requesting appointment of commission members, DISCUSSION ITEMS: Housing Element, Elevator Ordinance, Easy Does It. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_Disability_Homepage.aspx 

Commission on Labor at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87306806434 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 873 0680 6434 

AGENDA: 5. Fair Work Week Policy 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_Labor_Homepage.aspx 

Commission on the Status of Women at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87407560738?pwd=dzd4VFpqdEtxOGRNQnBqTkFMUnRoQT09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 874 0756 0738 

AGENDA: 5. ACCW Membership renewal, 6. CA Commissions Grant, 7. CEDAW, 8. Friends of the Commission on the status of Women, 9. Townhall, 10. Gender equity disparity in city awarded contracts as identified in Mason-Tillman Report, 11. Film/speaker event on reproductive rights under Roe v. Wade. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_the_Status_of_Women_Homepage.aspx 

Commission on Aging at 1 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87859343194 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 878 5934 3194 

AGENDA: no agenda posted 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_Aging_Homepage.aspx 

Human, Welfare & Community Action Commission at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/4863098496 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 486 309 8496 

AGENDA: 7. Community Service Block Grant Amendment, 8. Review CofB funded agency Program and Financial reports, Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program (BORP) program and financial reports, 9. Vacant properties 10. Alta Bates Update, 11. Easy Does It review, 12. State of homelessness, 13. Air quality, 14. Discuss potential infrastructure and affordable housing bonds/taxes. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Human_Welfare_and_Community_Action_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Planning Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83013936336 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 830 1393 6336 

AGENDA: 9. Public Hearing: tentative Tract Map #8626 2023-2025 Kala Bagai Way formerly known as 2023-2025 Shattuck Ave, 7-story mixed use project approved by ZAB June 6, 2020 (condo conversion hearing) 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Planning_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Thursday, January 20, 2022 

City Council Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81890429983 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 818 9042 9983 

AGENDA: 2. Discussion of Priorities for future small business listening sessions, 3. Streamlining Toxic Remediation in Manufacturing Districts, Unscheduled Items: Amendments to BMC 23C.22: Short Term rentals 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Land_Use,_Housing___Economic_Development.aspx 

City Council Special meeting at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85382939746 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 853 8293 9746 

AGENDA: 1. Discuss Vision 2050, Infrastructure Priorities, stakeholder and Community Engagement and City’s Bonding Capacity; and Seek Direction on November 2022 Revenue Measure(s) 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81121155936?pwd=TGhIZ25HV3luZWpIWmE5YlJ2WVJ4Zz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 811 2115 5936 Passcode: 837486 

AGENDA: 5. Special Presentation by Corina Gould on the Importance of Land Acknowledgements, ACTION items: 1) Regulation 801 Proper Filing of Rent registration Statement, 2) Amendments to Regulation 1311 Alleging Compliance in Complaint, 3) Modify contract with Sloan Sakai Yeung & Wong LLP for FY 2021-2022, 4) Modify contract with 3DiSystems, Inc., 5) Exploation of possible actions to support Indigenous people of Berkeley, 6) Change name of IRA/AGARegistration Committee. 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/rent/ 

Design Review Committee at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84599873268 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 845 9987 3268 

AGENDA: 1. 1367 University – Final Design review – 39-unit group living accommodation (GLA) operating as a single-room occupancy (SRO) residential hotel on a vacant lot, 

1201-1205 San Pablo – preliminary design review – to construct a 6-story, mixed-use building on vacant lot with 66 units (including 5 very low income units) 1720 sq ft commercial space, 2514 sq ft of usable open space, 17-28 ground level parking spaces. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/designreview/ 

Fair Campaign Practices Commission and Open Government Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83555657961 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 835 5565 7961 

AGENDA: meeting schedule and election of Chair and Vice-chair. 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/FCPC/ 

Transportation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85409127060 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 854 0912 7060 

AGENDA: B.1. Commission Reorganization, 3. Southside Complete Streets, 4. BerkDOT, 5. Ashby Interchange. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Transportation_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Reimagining Public Safety Community Meeting Downtown Civic arts District, South Berkeley – Districts 3 and 4 at 6 pm to 8 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84016485564?pwd=MVl1RiszTHpYY1J2VnFEMVFET0dJQT09 

Teleconference: not listed try 1-669-900-6833 or 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 840 1648 5564 

AGENDA: not described 

https://berkeley-rps.org/ 

Friday, January 21, 2022 & Saturday, January 22, 2022 & Sunday, January 23, 2022 

No City meetings or events found 

************* 

City Council Regular Meeting, January 18 at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84056667405 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 840 5666 7405 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx 

AGENDA CONSENT: 1. 2^nd reading Amendment FY 2022 Annual Appropriations Ordinance, 2. Modifying the 2022 City Council meeting schedule, 3. Donation to Animal Shelter from Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation, 4. Extension of Declaration of Homeless Shelter Crisis, 5. Contract add $916,731 total $2,824,024 and extend to 6/20/2022 with Berkeley Food & Housing Project to administer Flexible Spending Programs for Mental Health Division and provide Russell Street Residence, 6. Contract add $220,800 total $320,700 and extend to 6/30/2024 with Resource Development Associates for Results Based Accountability Evaluation, 7. Contract $250,000 1/1/2022 – 6/30/2023 with Options Recovery for Substance Use Disorder Services, 8. Revenue Grant Agreement expected $465,736: Funding from CA Dept of Public Health to expand workforce 7/1/2021-12/31/2025 for STD, HIV, COVId-19 and other infections. 9. Revenue Grant Agreement expected $19,000: Funding from State of CA Dept of Justice 7/1/2021-6/30/2023, 10. Commission Reorganization merge Sugar sweetened Beverage Product Panel and Community Health Commission, 11. Classification and Salary: Limited Term Emergency Medical Technician monthly salary $3,466.67 - $5,026.67, 12 Classification and Salary: Single Function Paramedic monthly salary $5,200 - $7,800, 13. Revise Classification and Salary: Emergency Medical Services Quality Improvement & Education Coordinator monthly salary $12,273.73 - $14,000.13, 14. Revise Classification and increase salary schedule for Deputy Finance Director from maximum of $14,677.47 - $16,120 to align with other CoB Deputy Director classifications, 15.Increase Salary for Director of Health, Housing & Community Services from $20,151.73 to $21,432 per month, salary adjustment for Department Heads of Finance, Human resources, IT, Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, Planning, Public Works and Fire Chief from maximum of $20,987 to $21,432, 16. Commission reorganization Create the Environment and Climate Commission dissolving the Zero waste Commission, Energy Commission and the Community Environmental Advisory Commission, 17. Kesarwani, co-sponsors Arreguin, Taplin, Robinson – Refer to City Manager to Establish a Marina Master Plan for Parking with Consideration for Establishing a Waterfront Parking Benefits District including demand-based parking, pay stations, pay schedules and/or frequent user/employee permits, consider revenues to boost Marina Fund, 18. Kesarwani and Bartlett, co-sponsors Arreguin, Taplin – Refer to City Manager to Establish a Framework for Parking Benefits Districts in the Gilman and Lorin Commercial Districts. 19. Harrison – Budget Referral: Allocate projected revenues from voter-approved Transportation Network Company User Tax to Support Priority Mobility Infrastructure, including Tier 1 Protected Bicycle lanes and crossings, pedestrian street crossings, and quick-build Public Transit Projects, 20. Wengraf -Resolution Reaffirm Roe vs Wade, 21. Wengraf, co-sponsor Hahn - OPPOSE Net Metering 3.0 Proposed Decision of the CPUC and SUPPORT Net Energy Metering Policy that Continues Growth of Local and Rooftop Solar, ACTION: 22. Recreation and Camps Program Fee Increases, 23. Amendments to Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Ordinance, 24. Amendments to ADU Ordinance to address public safety concerns, 25. Street Maintenance and Rehabilitation Policy and 5-year Paving Plan – a. City Manager recommendation, b. Public Works Commission recommendation, c. Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment & Sustainability Committee recommendation, 26. Adopt-a-Spot Program Development recommendations – a. Public Works Commission and Parks and Waterfront Commission recommendation, b. City Manager recommendation refer to FY2023-FY2024 budget process, 

City Council Regular meeting, January 25 at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84888765689 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 848 8876 5689 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/Policy_Committee__Agenda___Rules.aspx 

AGENDA CONSENT: 1. Minutes for approval, 2. Revenue Contract $90,999.50 from Sierra Health Foundation for IT equipment, telehealth licenses and PPE, 3. Fee assessment State of CA Self-Insurance Fund (Worker’s Comp) $268,093.55 for FY 2022, 4. Grant Application: Land and Water Conservation Fund – Grove Park Renovation Project total project cost $2,400,000, 5. Contract add $250,000 total $500,000 and to remove the $50,000 annual limit with DC Electric Group, Inc. for On-call electronic traffic calming devices maintenance project, 6. Contract $1,780,859 which includes 10% contingency of $161,896 with Glosage Engineering, In for Sanitary sewer Rehabilitation at various locations, 7. Lease 1. Ordinance authorizing CM to execute lease agreement with BART for retail space at Center Street Garage for 15 year lease 2/1/2021-1/31/2036 and 2. $225,000 lease 3-year term 7/1/2020 – 6/30/2023 with BART for operation of Downtown Berkeley Bike Station in Center Street Garage, 8. Arreguin, co-sponsor Bartlett - Resolution requesting State Cannabis Cultivation Tax Reform, 9. 2022 Council seating arrangement, 10. Arreguin – 2022 appointments of councilmembers to committees, regional bodies and commissions, 11. Hahn, co-sponsors Taplin, Harrison, Wengraf – Referring the Civic arts Commission’s affordable housing for artists in Berkeley Report and other Artist Live, Work and Live-Work opportunities to the Housing Element Update, ACTION: 10. Resolution accepting the Surveillance Technology Report for Automatic License Plate Readers, GPS Trackers, Body Worn Cameras and the Street Level Imagery Project, 13. COVID-19 Response 2021 Summary Report, INFORMATION REPORTS: 14. LPO NOD 2212 Fifth Stree, 15. LPO NOD 1120 second Street, 16. LPO NOD 1325 Arch, 17. LPO NOD 1960 University. 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date 2/22/2021 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date 2/8/2021 

Remanded to ZAB or LPC 

1205 Peralta – Conversion of an existing garage 

Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with End of Appeal Period,  

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

3005 - Benvenue expand west front window façade within required front setback on existing SFD 1/26/2022 

1837-39 Berkeley Way – Demolish the existing dwelling at rear of property and build 3-story dwelling with average height of 28’ and a rear setback of 3’3” where 15’ is required 1/10/2022 

1643-47 California – Reconfigure and lift existing duplex and ad 3^rd floor on non-conforming to lot coverage, density and setbacks 1/10/2022 

2345 Channing – Remove a dwelling unit located in the Pilgrimage Hall of the First Congregational Church of Berkeley that was destroyed in 2016, 1/10/2022 

1351 Dwight – Construct 730 sq ft addition to existing 1720 sq ft 2-story SFD adding 2 bedrooms total 5 average height 22’9” within non-conforming front and rear yards 1/27/2022 

2907 Ellis – Replace 8’ tall accessory structure with new accessory structure with average ht 10’ in same footprint 1/26/2022 

1028 Keeler – Alterations within the side (south) non-conforming setback of SFD 1/26/2022 

2962 Russell - Install unenclosed hot tub in backyard 1/27/2022 

810 San Luis – Legalize 120 sq ft balcony with unenclosed hot tub and add new balcony that exceeds 14’ in average ht on 2^nd floor at rear of SFD 1/26/2022 

1934 – 40 San Pablo – Use permit modification to increase ht from 22’ to 27’ 9” increase gross floor area from 6185 sq ft to 6893 sq ft 1/10/2022 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications_in_Appeal_Period.aspx 

LINK to Current Zoning Applications https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications.aspx 

___________________ 

WORKSESSIONS 

February 15 – Homeless and Mental Health Services 

March 15 – Housing Element Update 

April 19 – Fire Department Standards of Coverage Study 

Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations 

Cannabis Health Considerations 

Alameda County LAFCO Presentation 

BART Development (January or February) 

Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program 

Civic Center – Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building (Tentative: Action Item) 

Mid-Year Budget Report FY 2022 

Kelly Hammargren’s comments on what happened the preceding week can be found in the Berkeley Daily Planet www.berkeleydailyplanet.com under Activist’s Diary. 

If you have a meeting you would like included in the summary of meetings, please send a notice to kellyhammargren@gmail.com by noon on the Friday of the preceding week. 

This meeting list is also posted on the Sustainable Berkeley Coalition website. 

http://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet under activist’s calendar http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com 

If you or someone you know wishes to receive the weekly summary as soon as it is completed, email kellyhammargren@gmail.com to be added to the early email list. If you wish to stop receiving the Weekly Summary of City Meetings please forward the weekly summary you received to kellyhammargren@gmail.com

The modern concept of "race" seems to rise above the cultural structures by which society organizes itself. Though that privilege was called in question by the suggestion that "race" is a “social construct,” it still remains to articulate the structure of that construct? For instance, the issue of whether "race" is a noun or a verb has still to be debated. As a verb, it is an avatar for “to racialize,” which refers to what one group of people does to others. And that suggests that "race" cannot be understood apart from its history. 

The issue we raise here is that the history of race cannot itself be divorced from the parallel development of the corporate structure. Is it possible that the corporate structure was actually midwife to the birth of race, whiteness, and white supremacy? Would that not suggest an intimate relation between corporate personhood and white racialized identity. How could that be? A relation between an artificial social structure and a form of human identity? What would the unwitting revelation be in such a relation? 

The complete history interlinking "race" with the corporate structure is too complex for a small article like this. We can however get a taste of it by examining two points in that double trajectory: the birth of white racialized identity in the 17th century Virginia colony, and the 19th century invention of corporate personhood. 

The discussion here will not be an anthropology. Nothing that occurs with respect to the corporate structure has not been intentional, while anthropology pretends to study what evolves impersonally from a people. Conversely, to think that racism is simply an effect of prejudice or false consciousness is coherent only by ignoring the cultural effects of contextualizing social dynamics, such as colonialism, and the rise of the multinational corporation. 

###### 

Return with me, please, to the Virginia colony, founded in 1606 by English nobles and a passel of English bond-laborers under contract. Administratively, the colony was organized as a corporation (“the Virginia Company”), directed by a Board of Directors in London, with an on-site subsidiary Board called the Colonial Council. The overall purpose of the enterprise was 1) to be profitable, and 2) to provide dividends for investors (that is, to be profitable). The responsibilities of the Virginia Board of Directors (Va BoD) were to parcel out the land, to find markets for what the colony produced, and to insure the existence of sufficient labor for colony productivity. 

The English laborers, held under indentured contracts, were essentially "chattel," or "objects" owned for the term of their contracts. The typical contract held a person in thrall for 14 years, granting a small parcel of land and some money upon release. Whether the money and land were provided by the contractor (owner) or by the colony was a condition stated in the contract. Insofar as "chattel" signified that persons were "things," they entered into bartering exchanges as economic value, and could be used also for payment, to cover the interest on debt, or to be given to someone as a gift, etc. The "sale" of a bond-laborer was accomplished by exchanging the contract for money. The buyer of the contract would thus become the new "owner" of the person. 

At first, the colony came close to perishing, unable to figure out how to make this un-English land produce like English land. Though the Algonquian societies nearby were accomplished agrarians, the corporate BoD scorned them and their advice. Indigenous life did not correspond to BoD’s preconceptions of what the colony needed to do. As English people got sick and died, the colony raided the indigenous and stole food from them. In the corporate mind, there was an inherent right to seize the indigenous, their land, and their skill as corporate assets. Even today, that same arrogance infects US corporate relations with the rest of the world. Many Latin Americans migrate to the US because US corporations have impoverished their home countries, seizing their "assets" (resources, labor, productivity, financial reserves, etc.) through imposed debt or forced sale. 

The first successful product of the colony was tobacco, a drug. (Cotton didn’t become a primary export crop until the invention of the cotton gin.) Tobacco was a drug that became immediately profitable in Europe. And it came to serve as a form of colonial currency used for payment. It was the cultivation of tobacco that turned the colonial landholdings into plantations. 

Tobacco production is labor intensive. When a Dutch slave ship showed up in Jamestown in 1619 with 20 Africans unpurchased in the Caribbean Islands, the Va BoD paid for them and distributed them to the plantations. 

At first, these and subsequent African arrivals were held under typical contract conditions, 14 years and out (with land and money). The Va BoD however decided that the Africans were not eligible for the "protections" of English law, and so they were not given contracts. Some were actually released after 14 years of labor. But the colony gradually ignored its own principles, and started to hold Africans for longer and longer periods. The reason for this was the exchange market for laborers. When bond-laborers under contract were sold, the proximity of their release date was a factor depressing their price. That decline in laborer value, which was accounted as estate wealth, could be increasingly ignored with respect to the Africans, who had no official release date. This neglect empowered the colonial tendency to impose perpetual servitude on the Africans, giving them a different form of asset value – though that tendency remained a contested issue well into the 1660s. 

What solidified African bond-laborer existence as assets (tradable elements of structural wealth) was the auction market system. Transference of an English laborer was accomplished by transferring the contract. Since Africans didn’t have contracts, they could only be sold in person. As a market place developed, so auctions were institutionalized. They created a sense of "standard" value for different body types, in the same way that securities markets today establish asset values for the securities of different corporations. The existence of such standards meant that plantation owners could calculate their total estate value, and claim political advantages based on that (in colonial society, Virginia and Maryland by that time, political power accrued directly to wealth). Thus, under the force of economic and political power, the drive to hold all Africans in perpetual servitude was irresistible. 

This historical process was quite distinct from that evolving in the Caribbean and South America with respect to enslavement. The Spanish and Portuguese plantation systems were based on royal military conquest, and worked laborers under an attrition system. It was cheaper to subject them to starvation conditions and replace them with new arrivals from the slave ships. It was a continuation of the initial colonization, which totally depleted indigenous populations on islands and areas of South America. It was the English labor contract system, originally using English bond-laborers, that set the English colonies on a different trajectory, and eventually produced the notion of person as corporate asset. 

The denial of legal rights to Africans was the first step toward the invention of "race." The second step was the colony-wide shift of the labor force to Africans (after the 1650s), which augmented the distinction between colonial subject and colonial asset. It was that distinction from which a white identity first appeared in Va., in the 1690s. When the English first came to North America, they didn’t see themselves as white (racially). Their first official reference to themselves as white occurs in 1691. It was only as a form of social identity. It became a cultural (racialized) identity in the 1720s with the organization of the slave patrols. They raised violence against the black bond-laborers to the level of a norm. [This history is recounted in greater detail in my book, “The Rule of Racialization.”] 

In short, it was the confluence of economic and political structures in the colony that produced the white racialized identity that then fostered its own culture of racialization. As a footnote to this process, and the fact that it took the English almost a century to racially identify themselves as white, when the first Africans were introduced to the colony in 1619, and with the subsequent arrival of others, intermarriage was common. Apparently the Africans and English found each other fairly attractive. The landowners’ desire to set the Africans aside for perpetual servitude led to the passage of a string of anti-miscegenation laws, all of which failed miserably in their goal. In the process, the VA BoD went so far as to overturn the most basic European patriarchal norm, namely that children take the class status of the father. In 1662, totally in service to the augmentation of corporate asset values and plantation wealth, the Va BoD ruled that a child of racially mixed parentage would take the servitude status of the mother rather than the father. The child of a black woman would be black, and enslaved. This in turn led to severe penalties for a white women who bore the child of a black man. When the anti-abortion movement seeks to legislate women’s relation to their child producing capacity, it is following in the footsteps of colonial development of enslavement. 

As another footnote, the emergence of a white identity from a social distinction imposed on the Africans reveals that whiteness came first as a racial identity. It formed the basis on which certain European narcissistic taxonomists, such as Linnaeus or Buffon, thought to divide humans as a whole into races as subgroups. Their theorizations create a mindset of white race primacy and hegemony that then served to rationalize European conquest of others. 

Corporate Personhood 

Thus we see that, at the foundation of what eventually became the US, the corporate structure was already acting to change the concept of a person through its role in the emergence of "racial" difference. Let us move to a later moment when US jurisprudence decided that "personhood" itself could be changed to fit the corporate structure. It was a moment in proximity to that in which black people were denied any juridical claim to personhood itself. 

In popular belief, the source of corporate personhood lies in an 1886 Santa Clara railroad case. That is a mistake. Its real source is to be found in another railroad case that came before the Supreme Court in 1844, called the Letson case. The chief justice on the court at that time was Roger Taney, whom we remember as the author of the Dred Scott decision in 1856. The latter decision barring black people from US citizenship and personhood, and the former granting those same designations to corporations, both emerged from the same mind, using parallel reasoning. 

The Letson case arose because railroads were involved in interstate commerce, over which Congress was Constitutionally given jurisdiction. Problems arose because corporations were chartered by states, so malfeasance resulting in court action in a state other than the home state of the enterprise could only be heard in federal court. For a corporation to be able to respond to such suits, it would have to have standing in the federal court. 

Constitutionally, only "persons" had such recognition. For Taney, the needs of interstate commerce implied that, if a corporation was to have federal court standing, it had to have personhood. And that, in turn, implied federal citizenship. It was Judge Taney’s concept of corporate personhood that more recently was the basis for the Supreme Court decision in the “Citizens United” case. That decision held that corporations had the right to participate in elections as persons. Though they could not vote as entities, they could express themselves (under the 1st Amendment) by other means, which included donating large sums of money. 

When, in 1856, Mr. Dred Scott appeared before Taney’s Supreme Court, he was suing for his freedom. He had been taken to a free state from his home state of Missouri by his "owner." While there, he was considered a free man, and had gotten married. While still under tutelage to his erstwhile owner, he returned to his “home state” and sought to live as a free man, having been recognized as one during his sojourn in the other state. When his erstwhile "owner" denied him that right, he sued. And the case went to the Supreme Court. 

Once again, that structural linkage between the corporate structure and the structure of racialization raised its ugly head. Taney denied Scott his freedom using the same arguments he had used in the Letson case, only in reverse, or rather, turned upside down. Black people had never had standing or citizenship at the federal level, he claimed, and so could not claim personhood or freedom at the state level. Taney referred back to English colonialism, and to its reduction of black people to their status as assets, wealth, things (three-fifths, etc.) to be controlled by "persons" (white or artificial). Thus, while the difference between federal and state power was used to give corporations personhood, the same difference was used to deny black people their existence as persons. 

As a Supreme Court decision, the case guaranteed the sovereignty of the slaveholding class, and put a huge crimp in the abolitionist movement of that time. 

This quirk of dual power in the US enabled Taney to complete a transformation in jurisprudence that the corporate structure had initiated in 17th century Virginia. Today, at the core of US jurisprudence, and still at odds with US ostensive philosophical principles, there is an acceptance of rule, control, and cultural hegemony by artificial (non-human) entities (the corporate structure) that takes its initial colonial establishment as its precedent. In a strong sense, the system later established by Jim Crow legislation both rendered black people non-persons as corporate assets and deputized all white people as a "patrol" or managerial class over them. And today, not as political representatives of a constituency, but as corporate entities acting in the name of political party competition, half the states of the US are working hard to obstruct or deprive black people of full voting rights. 

As we watch oceans die, tornadoes arrive in teams, glaciers melt, and entire communities get destroyed in the interest of resource extraction, we can recognize that there is a destructive core to the corporate structure to which mere capitalism has never been able to lay claim. The primary difference between the two has been capitalism’s dependence on labor for its earnings, whereas, as we see more and more clearly every day, the corporate structure profits most from the "earnings" in securities trading, and the ever rising prices of stocks and derivatives (as a financial reflection of corporate amassing of asset value). Capitalism needed to guarantee a certain level of survival for its labor forces, whereas the corporate structure can dispense with any community that gets in its way (witness that fracking is still going on in the US, destroying both geologies and ecologies). 

Where real estate corporations today enrich themselves by buying houses (rented or not) as an increasing mass of assets (whose primary effect is to increase housing prices and rents), so colonial corporations enriched themselves by turning people into assets (and which is still the primary effect of racialization). 

Corporate personhood evolved in tandem with the structures of racialization, and the production of racialized groups. If "race" is the verb “to racialize,” as something that one group of people does to others, it means that black people were not born black but were made black by white supremacy in the same sense that white people were not born white but were made white by white supremacy. And if the corporate structure is intimately involved in this process, it not only forms part of the structure that makes black people black in the process of making white people white, but therefore implies that corporate personhood is itself actually white. 

As we seek to grasp the true meaning of our climate crisis, we must not neglect to recognize the cultural contribution of white colonialism and white supremacy to the pillaging of the planet and its people, through its corporate structure.

On Jan. 11, 2002 leaflets were dropped by the U.S. Military offering rewards to Afghani and Pakistanis to identify suspected terrorists. The locals wishing to settle scores or accept generous bounties were only too willing to oblige. Hundreds were scooped up by local militia men and delivered to U.S. forces. Bush and Cheney were thrilled at the remarkable “success” of the program. What followed was a dark period in which the U.S. Military and CIA descended into the most barbaric forms of torture to extract “confessions” using "ticking time bomb" scenarios dramatized on the television show "24." The prisoners were sent to black torture sites to soften them up for “confessions” to satisfy US domestic anger following the 9/11 attacks. Prisoners ended up in Gitmo where many continue to languish. None of the prisoners were ever charged with a crime. They were identified as “enemy combatants” and unprotected from habeas corpus. A few were designated “forever prisoners” lest they share the horrors of their internment to the general public which would further erode U.S. standing in the world and make a complete mockery of our claim to be a moral force for good. Successive military commissions found no evidence of crimes committed and were profoundly disturbed by the total absence of any form of jurisprudence. 

The photograph of 20 prisoners on their knees has been seized by our adversaries to justify barbaric acts of violence. Protesters often don orange jump suits and re-enact and mock America’s war on terror. Islamic State fighters used the photo to don their hostages in bright orange clothing, before executing them. 

A former National Security Agency contractor leaked a government document which revealed that classification is routinely used to “conceal wrong doing”, a strategy that has been used to silence whistleblowers, most notably Julian Assange. 

In a recent Senate testimony, Mr. Lehnert, who retired as a major general, called the Gitmo enterprise he had set up misguided, at odds with U.S. values. He urged that it be closed. Subsequent footage had been broadcast from Afghanistan showing U.S. soldiers leading prisoners in rags, with bags on their heads. 

In her 2006 memoir, “Lipstick on a Pig”, Victoria Clarke, Mr. Rumsfeld’s spokeswoman, wrote “the Geneva Conventions strictly prohibit holding detainees up to public ridicule or humiliation. 

“Shaved and Confused,” screamed a headline accompanying the GITMO photo in Glasgow’s Sunday Herald. “Even Our Enemies Have Human Rights,” declared London’s Sunday Independent. “Guantánamo Scandal,” was the title of a blurb on the front page of Le Monde. The Mirror tabloid questioned the alliance between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mr. Bush. “What are you doing in our name, Mr. Blair?”  

The cost of these “never charged forever prisoners” “is $13 million per prisoner per year, an appalling waste of taxpayers’ dollars. 

The remaining “forever prisoners” are often called “the worst of the worst” a more apt description for their torturers and the politicians who gave the orders. 

It is time to bring this satanic chapter in our “war ON terror” to an end, release all remaining prisoners, close down Guantánamo Bay prison and return it to its rightful owners, the Cuban government. It has left a terrible, indelible dark stain on America’s stature in the world.

The Right to Vote Should Not Be a Partisan Issue

Public Citizen notes that the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which was initially passed in 1965 during the height of the Civil Rights movement, was successfully reauthorized in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1985, and 2006. Each vote in support of protecting the ballot received overwhelming bipartisan support. Each extension of the VRA was signed into law by a Republican president. Furthermore, 16 Republican senators and congressmembers who supported the VRA in the past are still serving in the US Senate—where they are now refusing to reaffirm their support of a healthy democracy.

Here are their names: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), Sen. Roy Blunt (Missouri), Sen. John Boozman (Arkansas), Sen. Richard Burr (North Carolina), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia), Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho), Sen. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Sen. Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma), Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Sen. Jerry Moran (Kansas), Sen. Richard Shelby (Alabama), Sen. John Thune (South Dakota).

Click here to remind these senators that they once recognized the importance of voting rights and it's time to put "democracy before party."

How to Improve Political Dialog

One of the biggest political/legal issues in the country today involves protecting the freedom to vote. But you wouldn't know it by visiting Sen. Dianne Feinstein's online comments page.

Because there is no standard guideline for submitting comments to our elected reps, senators and congressmembers are free to create their own list of "fave" topic options. In Feinstein's case, there are 29 topics—including "animals," "trade," and "housing"—but there is no option for "voting." The closest topic I could find was "Homeland Security." 

By contrast, Sen. Alex Padilla's checklist includes more than 40 options, including many areas overlooked by Feinstein, including "chemical safety," "natural disasters," "public lands/forestry," "veterans," and (thank you, Alex) "voting rights." 

Maybe Feinstein needs to hear from constituents who have growing concerns about the "survival of democracy." In my next email to the senator's "Homeland Security" option, I'm going to suggest she add "voting rights" to her short-list of basic concerns. 

Another suggestion for every member of the Senate and Congress: add a new option to the bottom of your personal, pre-selected action categories: an empty box labeled "OTHER." 

Raskin's Warning: "Democracy Is in Peril" 

During a recent Progressive Change Campaign Committee online interview, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin (who is chairing the House January 6 Insurrection hearings) informed 800 Zoomers and a Facebook audience of nearly 50,000 that the committee has firmly established that Donald Trump is "a walking crime wave, and he has committed crimes all over the country… there will be a reckoning there." 

Raskin offered other pronouncements as well, including: 

On the Jan 6 hearings in Congress: "We are going to do everything we can to subpoena all the information we need and to enforce our subpoenas. But even if we don't get every last person in there, we are going to have hearings that I believe will be compared to the Watergate hearings, because they are going to blow the roof off the House." 

On the fight for our democracy: "Democracy is in peril in the United States of America…we're in the fight of our lives to defend democratic institutions and values with everything we've got." 

On the filibuster: "The filibuster is not in the Constitution. In fact, it's completely antithetical to constitutional values...Could the Supreme Court say we're changing the rules and now you need seven votes in order to render a decision, or eight votes?" 

You can watch Raskin's Zoomcast on Facebook. 

Weird Words Abound 

A new word appeared before my eyes in a recent Chronicle op-ed that criticized "those who can afford it to seclude themselves… incognizant of the essential labor that goes into their consumption." [Emphasis added.] Apparently. "incognizant" is a Harvard graduate's way of saying "ignorant," "unaware," or just plain "stupid." And isn't "seclude" just a fancy way of saying "hide"? 

In the same opinion piece, I found another example of the Chron's occaisional lapse into Missing Word Syndrome. In this case, a sentence that begins: "Instead of being split obvious dividing lines…." To quote Rodney King's resonant plea: "Can't we all just learn to get along?" 

Nuclear Weapons Are Now Illegal 

On January 22, 2021, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force, with the United Nations declaring nuclear weapons illegal. On this first anniversary of the treaty's ratification (ratified by 59 nations to date), people across the US will be demonstrating at hundreds of nuclear weapons sites and outside the corporate offices of the Atomic Warlords—Bechtel, Boeing, General Dynamics, Honeywell International, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Click here https://vimeo.com/515883787 for an inspirational video of the last year's events. 

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told Liberation magazine in 1959, his position on nuclear weapons was clear: "I have unequivocally declared my hatred of this most colossal of all evils." 

The Pentagon's "Pink Tax" 

Here's a surprise: When it comes to America's military uniforms, some gender situations are not uniform. 

In a New Year message praising her role in passing the bloated Pentagon budget, Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) spoke of "five key priorities that will help strengthen our country’s defenses and the security of Granite Staters and people across the country." These included "Addressing Gender Inequities in the Military:" 

But Hassan was not addressing gender discrimination or sexual assault. Nope, she was addressing dressing—as spelled out in the Pentagon dress code. To quote Hassan: "Right now, women who serve our country often pay more for their uniforms than their male counterparts. This is a 'pink tax' — and it has no place in our country. I worked with Senator Joni Ernst [R-Iowa] again to right this wrong and address out-of-pocket expenses service members pay for uniforms." 

And what's the deal with Pentagon employees having to buy their own work clothes? Is there any other nation that hands its military $768 billion in tax-dollars and then tells its soldiers to pay for their own uniforms? 

What next? Requiring soldiers to buy their own guns and bullets? 

Going Dutch 

Maybe US grunts have it easy. According to reports in the Associated Press, conscripts in Norway's military ranks have been told they will have to return their underwear, bras and socks after finishing their military service "so that the next group of recruits can use them." 

Apparently, the pandemic has hobbled the supply-chain, causing a shortage of shorts. As the Norwegian Defense Logistics Organization explained it, the new hand-me-down protocol “provides the Armed Forces with greater garment volumes available for new soldiers starting their initial service.” 

Previously thousands of discharged male and female soldiers dutifully surrendered their outer clothing "but were allowed to leave barracks with the underwear and socks they were issued." No longer. 

Teaching a Goldfish to Drive 

It's not clear who came up with the idea but scientists in Israel have claimed a breakthrough in automotive history. They have managed to teach a goldfish to drive. 

Research has shown the fish placed inside a motorized fishbowl can learn how to steer their way toward a distant "target" that triggers the release of a food pellet. In the video, the fish may not have tail-lights but it has no problem making it over the fin-ish line. 

Bravo Pazmaux 

A recent romp-and-rant of poetic rhetoric has been making the email rounds, courtesy of local rabble-rouser, octogenarian savant, and shoot-from-the-hip word-slinger Arnie Passman. Call it a Painful Paean to The Former Guy. Herewith and to wit: 

DON TRUMP DIDN'T DO NO DRUGS, 

NO HE DIN'T, 

NOT THAT LSD 

OR SOMEONCE A JOINT SO VERY THIN, 

DJ NO TAKE 'EM DRUGS, 

NO DIN'T. 

(OR CIGGIES OR ALCOHOL)  

AND THEY SAY DON'S LOVE OF VIOLENCE, 

IS UNSURPASSED. 

HE'S SURE BEEN KNOWN 

TO KISS EVERY VIOLENTEST ASS. 

DON CAME OF AGE AT THE VERY TIME, 

THOSE HIS AGE WERE TRIPPING FINE, 

BUT. NO, HE STUCK WITH ANGER & VIOLENCE, 

(NO DISCOVERY OF COKE, CRACK AND METHEDRINE?) 

LIKE HIS VERY FINAL NICKEL AND DIME. 

NO DOCTOR KING, FOR MAFIAMORESO DON TRUMP, 

NO BERRIGAN BOYS AND JOAN BAEZ 

(THE CHRIST?)  

OF ANY KIND, 

LET'S MAKE DON'S DAY TO BE FROZEN AND KAPUT, 

LIKE KAPUTALISM AT ITS FILTHIEST ROOT 

HEAVYWEIGHT CROSSING AT 75 DEATH'S DOOR, 

AN ONGOING ALWAYS COMING EVER SLIGHT OF MIND. 

Behind the Clash over Ukraine: NATO's Lies to Gorbachev  

In 1990, after the end of the Cold War, US Secretary of State James Baker promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would move “not one inch eastward” toward Russia's homeland. 

But, as so often happens, the US broke its promises. In 1999, the Clinton administration began expanding east as NATO set about absorbing former Russia-allied (Warsaw Pact) countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia. NATO has since moved weaponry (including medium-range missiles) closer to Russia and routinely stages provocative military exercises along Russia's border. 

Meanwhile, Russia's specific demands (seldom mentioned in US media reporting) seem reasonable enough. Here they are. 

Article 1: the parties should not strengthen their security at the expense of Russia’s security; 

Article 2: the parties will use multilateral consultations and the NATO-Russia Council to address points of conflict; 

Article 3: the parties reaffirm that they do not consider each other as adversaries and maintain a dialogue; 

Article 4: the parties shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other states in Europe in addition to any forces that were deployed as of May 27, 1997; 

Article 6: all member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States; 

Article 7: the parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia; and 

Article 8: the agreement shall not be interpreted as affecting the primary responsibility of the Security Council of the United Nations for maintaining international peace and security. 

Unfortunately, Washington seems intractable, calling Moscow's modest requests "non-starters." 

Here's a proposed solution to end this fraught stand-off: Let's agree to keep Ukraine neutral and avoid escalating confrontations that could lead to global nuclear annihilation. 

The Real Disinformation Agents: Corporate Media

The two-minute clip from NBC's Morning Joe features host Joe Scarborough and former senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri). 

Some Rad Women Gain New Currency 

A positive note from US Rep. Barbara Lee: 

"I have an exciting update on the American Women Quarters (AWQ) program — a program based on the legislation I helped introduce to honor the trailblazing women of American history. 

"The US Mint announced its first shipments of AWQ coins, beginning with the Maya Angelou coin. 

"As a leader in the civil rights movement, poet laureate, college professor, Broadway actress, dancer, and the first female African American cable car conductor in San Francisco, Maya Angelou’s brilliance and artistry inspired generations of Americans. 

From talking in her living room as sisters, to her invaluable counsel throughout the challenges I faced as a Black woman in elected office, I will forever cherish the private moments I had the privilege to share with Maya. 

"If you find yourself holding a Maya Angelou quarter, may you be reminded of her words: 'be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.' 

"The additional honorees in 2022 are Dr. Sally Ride, physicist and first woman astronaut; Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and an activist for Native American and women’s rights; Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, who achieved international success despite racism and discrimination. 

"I am proud to have led this effort to honor these phenomenal women, who more often than not are overlooked in our country’s telling of history. And I’m honored to be walking in their footsteps." 

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this important debate on the root causes—I emphasise “root causes”—of conflicts that lead to the displacement of millions of people around the world. 

The devastation of the Second World War and the Holocaust against the Jews and others led to the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council, with the victor nations as permanent members. It was realised that conflicts result when one group or nation sees itself as superior or tries to impose its will on others. This led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognises that we are all free and, importantly, equal. Sikh teachings remind us that this equality must also extend to women. 

Sadly, these lofty ideals for universal peace were instantly ignored by members of the Security Council. If they were employees in a business, they would have been sacked long ago, not only for neglecting their responsibility but for using their privilege and position to further their own interests. The sobering reality is that members of the so-called Security Council now provide more than 80% of the arms and sophisticated weaponry that fuel horrendous conflict throughout the world, conflict that leaves some 80 million people destitute and homeless. Worse, people in more affluent countries see desperate asylum seekers as a problem rather than as deserving members of one human family. We should remember that in supposedly less civilised times, Jesus and his parents were themselves welcome asylum seekers in the land of Egypt. Wars and suffering of innocents will continue until we see what Jesus Christ, Guru Nanak and others saw: that we are all equal members of one interdependent human family. 

Tragically, what passes for religion today, with claims of superiority and exclusive links to God, a God who allows the killing of innocents in his name, has led to religion itself becoming a major cause of conflict. The words of a Christian hymn remind us: 

“New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth.” 

We cannot use the mindset of the 20th century to tackle the problems of today. Today, difficult, frank and open debate is urgently needed to make religion what it was intended to be: a cure rather than a cause of conflict. We need to remove dated cultural norms and practices, which often override underlying ethical teachings. We need to recognise that no one religion has a monopoly of truth and that those not of our faith or of a different complexion are not lesser beings. 

Speaking from a Sikh perspective, I believe that the underlying ethical teachings of religion of concern and compassion, and a realisation that our destinies are inextricably entwined, are the key to reducing mindless violence and the suffering of innocents that we see in the world today. 

See video here: 

Taking an antipsychotic is not easy. People who lack firsthand or secondhand knowledge of this invariably will not understand it. It may seem as though mentally ill people are just sick people, and any differences from what is accepted as normal are just because we are sick. However, when someone has a psychotic disorder and must take antipsychotics, many of the problems we face, and the externally observable differences, are due to the medication and not just the psychiatric condition. 

Antipsychotics cause side effects. Some side effects may be unbearable. The stiff, restless, drugged out, numbed out, shut down feeling we may get is caused by the antipsychotics. This sensation, which I've just described as well as I'm able, can cause some mentally ill people to resort to street drugs or alcohol in a vain attempt to get relief. 

When someone in treatment for psychosis takes the step of resorting to substance abuse, they are making a big mistake. Rather than solving the problem, they are adding an additional problem on top of the first problem. When side effects of medication arise, there are some things that can help. We may, after a while, become acclimated to the effects of the medication such that we won't notice them as much. We can also use mindfulness. 

Antipsychotics can cause depression, yet in some cases they are used to treat depression. They seem to limit brain activity. If a person is psychotic or manic, we may need this limiting effect. It does not mean that we are made stupid. Yet many people incorrectly perceive us that way. 

When overmedicated, faculties may be excessively shut down such that we can't use mindfulness, can't focus, and can barely function. The mental capacity that medication sometimes blocks may be the very same capacity that we need if we are to get well. Overmedicating is a problem. There are strategies for dealing with this other than going too low on medication. 

If we are bothered by medication side effects or if a treatment professional says we are doing well, cutting down on dosages of antipsychotics is sometimes a bad idea. It is a commonly made error in treatment, and it can ultimately trigger a relapse. If we are doing well, it means that something was done right. If so, it implies that we shouldn't change what we're doing. 

An individual in treatment who is on too low of a dosage could manifest this in numerous ways. The faculty of "judgment" may be the first thing to go. We may start to go into a delusional system because of not being medicated enough. This delusional system often sneaks up on us, and it has the potential to fool us on a repeat basis--that's the nature of psychosis. It can take several repetitions of a scenario of relapse and recovery for us to learn some hard lessons in our treatment. Some do not survive this. If we can get through a few repeat episodes alive, and if we've had enough time in recovery in the course of this, we should have what is needed to create a good level of insight about ourselves. 

"Anosognosia" is the state of mind in which the psychotic condition prevents us from having insight about the fact of the psychotic condition. Some patients are simply unable to gain much insight and must live in supervised settings. 

When we are overmedicated, life can be hellish. The side effects may be at an unbearable level, some of them irreversible. There can be medical complications. Being overmedicated will block concentration. It will block freedom of physical movement. It will cause weight gain. It will cause us many problems that we did not create and that nobody deserves. Yet to choose between the two, being just a bit overmedicated may be a better situation than being undermedicated and slipping back into partial psychosis, leading eventually to relapse. 

Having a psychotic disorder is not an easy life, and often it is not a long or healthy life. We need better medications and better treatments. This is a segment of the population being tortured for our entire lives not only by the illness, but also by the treatment. 

If a particular antipsychotic doesn't work or has unbearable side effects, a different drug may work better. There are at least a dozen different ones commonly prescribed, and if one of them is bad for us, it doesn't mean we or our family members should give up hope. 

If you want everyone to get vaccinated

Just enact and widely publicize a policy

That hospitals will no longer treat

The unvaccinated.



If people choose not to get the protection

of the vaccination

Why should we save them?

They chose freely to eschew safety.



They assert the freedom to not get vaccinated

There is no freedom to sicken or kill other people. 

They expose the rest of us to infection, illness and death. 

And to further mutations of the virus–which might kill us all. 

THERE IS NO SUCH FREEDOM! 

They don’t want lockdowns? They are causing the lockdowns. 

By continuing to infect us. 

They want to keep the economy running? They are shutting it down 

By continuing to infect us. 

Why should health care workers die for them? 

Why should we die for them? 

Why should taxpayers pay to treat them? 

They chose to get sick. 

If you announce a policy to refuse treatment to the unvaccinated 

They will all run to get vaccinated. 

Although I’ve lived in the Bay Area for years, I’d thought today’s pressures to build lots of housing at any cost were unprecedented. I also thought our region’s spectacular parkland and green space just somehow “happened,” through wisdom and consensus.

Wrong on both counts, as I learned by watching Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto’s jaw-dropping and inspiring 2019 PBS documentary Rebels with a Cause. Produced for the North Bay’s KRCB, it’s currently free online here, where it’s well worth an hour’s viewing.

Spanning the 1960s through the early ‘70s, the film shows how visionary activists, legislators, lawyers, and meeting-crashers fought and won hard battles to preserve the Marin County parkland and agricultural open space we now enjoy – along with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) that rings San Francisco’s coastline and the Marin Headlands.

The jaw-dropping parts cover our region’s alternative future – one we wouldn’t want to live in. To flesh this out, I’ve added some details from 2014’s Bay Area: What Might Have Been website (archived here), from other online sources, and from a conversation with Greenbelt Alliance’s former executive director, Larry Orman. 

Who Needs Public Coastland? 

Point Reyes, arguably one of the most graceful and beautiful places on Earth, was targeted to be paved over and subdivided into several thousand homes – because, you know, a growing region always needs more housing. A West Marin General Plan approved in 1967 called for a 150,000-person development straddling Point Reyes and the Olema Valley. 

Instead, Point Reyes was preserved as one of the country’s first three National Seashores – and as the initial prototype for all future U.S. national parks near urban areas. This was thanks to a determined, newly elected Marin Congressman named Clem Miller (who’d grown up in Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Del.). 

The comparably beautiful Marin Headlands were targeted for a Gulf Oil–backed nightmare called “Marincello,” with thousands more houses and several high-rise apartment buildings. At least 20,000 people would occupy this 2,100-acre planned community (think The Truman Show or Disney’s Celebration, Fla.), with space also paved over for “commerce and light industry.” 

Instead, the Headlands were saved by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. – a second new urban national park, dreamed up by Bay Area activists. 

In Bolinas Lagoon, family-owned Kent Island was targeted for a high-rise hotel (complete with a helicopter port, of course, and a swingin’ hot spot), and for hundreds of boat slips in a new marina. Instead, the Nature Conservancy and its allies swung Marin Supervisors' permission to buy the island and donate it to the County. 

In San Francisco, the U.S. military had planned to sell off Fort Miley (now Land’s End), Fort Mason, and southwestern Fort Funston, allowing developers to build more 1960s trashy housing. Instead, San Francisco’s beautiful green necklace was preserved as the GGNRA’s southern half.  

How the West Was Saved 

These victories were won by some unlikely heroes and allies. Clem Miller’s likely future as a legislative giant was cut tragically short by a fatal plane crash. But his widow Katy returned to Washington to lobby, with Marin’s grassroots Save Our Seashore group, for the funds needed to make the Point Reyes park a reality. 

San Francisco’s liberal lion Phillip Burton called in chits from Republican colleagues in Congress, whose national parks he’d helped them enact. (Burton “wasn’t an outdoor guy at all,” according to one of the film’s local heroes, and “claimed that he only went outside to smoke a cigarette” according to another. But he could wrangle votes, and “was a giant for conservation in California and the U.S.,” Larry Orman told me.) Even freaking Richard Nixon eventually helped establish and fund the parks. 

With this coastal parkland finally preserved, Marin conservationists turned to protecting inland farms and ranches from tract housing and strip malls. They developed agricultural zoning to keep farmland cultivated, along with easements to buy out ranchers' development rights. 

Straus Family Creamery – still selling organic milk in old-school returnable bottles – was founded by a Dutch/German couple who were refugees from Hitler. They broke the opposition to agricultural preservation zoning among fellow Marin ranchers (who were salivating at selling out to developers), because Ellen Straus declared, “I was not going to be driven out one more time.” 

Straus founded the Marin Agricultural Land Trust – the first of its kind – with biologist Phyllis Faber. Of Marin’s remaining 100,000 acres of farmland, MALT preserved some 40%. So thank MALT for our ability to still get fresh milk products (not to mention award-winning craft cheeses) from our region’s backyard.  

Overall, in a region that currently celebrates its ongoing “innovation” in digital tech and biotech, it’s stunning how many conservation strategies were invented right here. 

More Homes, More Highways, More Nukes 

The alternative futures threatened above – with Marin County completely lost to bland suburbs and skyscrapers – would repel most of us today, just as it repelled Ellen Straus. But unlike today’s implacable housing lobbyists, developers, and sympathetic elected officials, the 1960s' grand planners at least acknowledged their responsibility to devise new infrastructure to move, power, and support all the new residents they’d attract. 

Highway 1 across Marin County – still one lane in each direction – would have widened to four, eight, or 10 lanes total under various regional plans. (Today, development boosters would probably propose just a bike lane.) 

PG&E in 1958 proposed to build one of the nation’s first nuclear power plants near Bodega Bay. Safe, clean, too cheap to meter – and right on the San Andreas Fault, as seismologists pointed out. PG&E ultimately sold the land (known as Bodega Head) to California State Parks for $1. 

Cut Down the Trees and Put ’Em in a Tree Museum 

Today, most of us would view all the above development proposals as archaic, atrocious, and crazy. But crazy never really dies, and neither does irony.  

Last spring, Berkeley City Councilmember Lori Droste’s Planning Commission appointee, Alfred Twu, tweeted that the East Bay Regional Park District should deforest some unspecified portion of its properties in the hills – like Tilden Park – to open the land for development. 

As Thomas Lord reported in these pages on May 2, Twu’s tweet was promptly seconded by Councilmember Terry Taplin’s legislative aide, Diego Aguilar-Canabal.  

Twu wrote that “maybe it’s the forest that ought to go,” so that developers’ leases “could pay for…fire prevention elsewhere in the state.” 

The, um, rationale was that, um, trees can catch fire. But how this was supposed to work wasn’t clear: Clearcutting some trees to build new homes near remaining forest doesn’t exactly improve anything.  

Further ironies just pile up: Unlike Marin’s contested terrain, the East Bay Regional Parks – our own ridgetop sanctuaries – really were enacted with widespread public support. That happened some 11 years after Berkeley’s devastating 1923 fire, which revealed a need for watersheds, reservoirs, and the unified water utility we know today as EBMUD.  

Also, several years before that tweet, Twu had actually illustrated the Bay Area: What Might Have Been site. I hope that gig didn’t gave Twu the idea of paving over green space? 

Sure, kids say the darnedest things. But Planning Commissioner is a consequential appointment. So is legislative aide. Both posts are appointive – meaning that the people to hold accountable for this kind of bomb-throwing are the elected Councilmembers who appointed them. 

Only the Giants’ Footprints Remain 

As for the rhetoric we predictably hear from those current officials, and from their Council allies – watching Rebels with a Cause reminded me that it’s nothing new. 

The true visionaries and conservation heroes of this film, broader story, and special region were called enemies of progress, turncoats against their families, dusty hippies, exclusionists, and elitists. 

They held firm, outfoxed the development machine, and won.  

We’re all in their debt today – for the green spaces the Bay Area has retained for us to connect with nature. And for the uniquely beautiful wild places that could have been desecrated with acres of generic little (and big) boxes. 

Legislative giants like Phillip Burton and Clem Miller no longer walk the Earth. If only they made ’em like they used to. 

-#- 

Thirty years ago January 9th, 1992, my phone rang early in the morning. A male voice said the next morning I had to be in Oakland Superior Court giving me a room number and a time. I thanked the voice for letting me know. I put down the phone, baffled. It rang again a few seconds later. My fellow activist David Nadel said, “did you just get a strange phone call?” I said yes. He said Bob Sparks had gotten the same call. We arranged to carpool to the Oakland Superior Court in his pale green pickup.

I’m not sure how, but when we arrived together the next morning we had a full complement of the very best civil rights lawyers there to help. Osha Neumann, Jim Chanin, David Beauvais, and Dennis Cunningham were all there flipping through pages they were seeing for the first time of whatever was going on. David, Bob, and I had worked hard to speak up for People's Park, but were part of a huge movement and had no clue what this was about.

David and I had no criminal history. I’m not sure about Bob Sparks, who had worked for years as a housing activist trying to challenge Berkeley’s nascent “just house the rich” policy which worked so well for the wealthy and the politicians. We all knew each other in a peripheral way. But this was not a club I belonged to, or an organization I had joined. We were just swept up together in this civil suit along with someone else I had never met before named Michael Lee.

Our lawyers flipped furiously through the pages and at one point Jim Chanin said David and I should leave, that we had not been served, and until we were served we should leave so that the unexpected convention of lawyers assembled could have a bit more time to research what we were being charged with and what was going on. 

So we backed slowly out of the courtroom and then ran all the way up the circular parking structure where the truck was, worried at any moment that someone would leap out and serve us with papers. For months afterward when men in suits showed up at the park asking for David Nadel or Carol Denney dozens of people, both men and women, would raise their hands and claim to be one or both of us. 

I look back now at the tremendous generosity of the community members who doggedly helped us pay for the attorneys determined to keep up with this nefarious tactic, one of the few Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) ever launched against nonviolent community members by a public university with public money- to destroy a landmarked park of international and historic renown with deep appreciation; we told our story about being targeted and the community stepped up to protect us and decry the University of California's effort to mischaracterize us and destroy irreplaceable, culturally precious, open space with public funds. 

The UC expenditure was huge. Money which should have lowered tuition, paid workers and professors, attended to beautiful campus buildings badly in need of repair was squandered in a failed effort to destroy our reputations but instead made us community heroes. SLAPP-suit victims nationwide stepped up to join us in fora about the abuse of civil courts to silence political opponents, and after only a few years of costly, publicly funded 24-hour police protection, the volleyball courts UC had considered crucial were quietly removed at even more public expense. 

But not the SLAPP-suit injunctions, which still stand today as an insult to those of us who were simply non-violent demonstrators against the destruction of People's Park. The insulting injunctions remain, blackening the name of community members most of whom simply spoke out against the destruction of an internationally celebrated symbol of free speech, user-development, and peace. 

Monuments to peace, as opposed to war, are much harder to find than statues of generals and soldiers. And it would very hard to find a better-known landmark in Berkeley than People's Park, which the California Historic Resources Commission unanimously affirmed on October 29, 2021, as eligible for federal landmark status, the notice for which will take place any day now. 

In the meantime, the passing of Bishop Desmond Tutu, celebrated South African theologian, 

reminds us that the university at the helm of an assault which cost a public fortune, disrupted years of community businesses, and cost lives has yet to have the truth and reconciliation moment which more sensible city leadership would at the very least have required to make any agreement regarding the state of the city or its future. 

When Bishop Desmond Tutu came through San Francisco in 2011, disabled activist Michael Pachovas crossed the bay in his considerably large wheelchair to situate himself in Bishop Tutu's hotel lobby, determined to request an audience with him regarding Berkeley's abysmal treatment of the poor well illustrated by anti-panhandling ordinances, anti-sitting ordinances, and build-for-the-wealthy-only housing directives still governing the city today. And Bishop Tutu did not hesitate to agree with Pachovas, roundly condemning the Berkeley City Council. 

It is worth considering that we remain in dire need of a reckoning that has yet to take place. The courts sometimes have it right, sometimes not, but at all times they are the playground for those who have wealth, power, and ready money. If we as a community wish to right our boat about planning, about housing, about fairness, about free speech, and about sorely needed irreplaceable open space at the moment we attempt to recognize our abysmal response to climate change, our city leaders need to step up now for truth and reconciliation in this moment, especially to affirm that repurposing extant housing is the greenest response to the housing crisis - not the destruction of parks. 

We are poised on the precipice of another confrontation over a park internationally beloved and replicated over 1000 times in countries all over the globe where people have started community parks together with user development as the key ingredient. UC's intentional disrepair and neglect is the plan it knows is an effective way to turn people against even the redwoods in the park. Make sure you don't vote for or support anyone who doesn't have at least their courage in the crucial months ahead to speak up for what is at the very least a much needed park in the most densely crowded, under-parked park of town, a park which could thrive as a cultural resource the state, if not Berkeley's current City Council, has no trouble recognizing. 

All the current city leadership, both councilmembers and commissioners, have to do is request that a truth and reconciliation moment take place in our city in honor of Bishop Desmond Tutu, in honor of recently passed Michael Pachovas, in honor of the demonstrators injured, shot, and killed over People's Park and the principles it represents as enumerated by the Peace and Justice Commission's affirmation referenced below.[1] We are, after over fifty years, a patient group of non-violent people. This is the least we deserve, and the least which our city leaders should demand. # # # 

UNIVERSITY ALTERATIONS TO PEOPLE’S PARK WITHOUT COMMUNITY INPUT 

Whereas, the Peace and Justice Commission advises the City Council on all matters relating to the City of Berkeley’s role in issues of peace and social justice (Berkeley Municipal Code (BMC) Chapter 3.68.070); and 

Whereas, the University of California’s current construction project in People’s Park was conceived without consultation with the People’s Park Community Advisory Board, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, or any other city or community group; and 

Whereas, People’s Park is a City of Berkeley Landmark since November 19, 1984, the historical and cultural significance of which is celebrated worldwide; and 

Whereas, the City of Berkeley’s Southside Strategic Plan lists People’s Park as an historic resource the “historical and cultural significance” of which should be “acknowledged and celebrated”; and 

Whereas, the current construction project destroyed a large portion of the decades-old community garden in the west end of the park, and the City of Berkeley greatly values green open spaces and community gardens; and 

Whereas, the next two phases of imminent construction according to UC press releases and maintenance project plans involve lighting projects, the pouring of concrete, and over $200,000 in public funds; and 

Whereas, the City of Berkeley as a whole, and the south-side residents and merchants in particular, need to be included in any potentially disruptive decisions regarding the park as a practical matter; and 

Whereas, the People’s Park Community Advisory Board (PPCAB) was instituted at the recommendation of publicly funded consultants by the University of California for the purpose of having a community forum to meet regularly to discuss park issues and advise the university on park matters in the interests of maintaining a “safe, respectful, attractive park which serves the recreational, historic, cultural, ecological and leisure needs of Berkeley’s diverse community”; and 

Whereas, the University of California failed to consult with the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for review of any proposed changes to city landmarks, in accordance with City ordinances. 

Now therefore, be it resolved that the Berkeley City Council calls for a moratorium on any and all physical alteration or further development of any part of the Park until the People’s Park Community Advisory Board is meaningfully included in the planning process; expresses its concern about the failure of the University of California to give the community due and timely notice about the first phase of the People's Park construction project; and requests the University to promptly inform the public about the upcoming second and third phases of the project, and to honor the purview of and schedule a meeting for the Community Advisory Board in pursuit of its mandate to avoid conflict and nurture public inclusion; and 

Be if further resolved that copies of this resolution be sent to the Community Advisory Board for People’s Park, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the University of California Community Relations Office, the Parks and Recreation Commission, and the Homelessness Commission. A record signature copy of said Resolution to be on file in the office of the City Clerk. 

____________ 

BACKGROUND: 

Attached: 

* UC press release dated December 28, 2011 on People’s Park maintenance project, Phase 1: 

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/12/28/peoples-park-maintenance-work-underway/ 

* UC project plans for People’s Park maintenance (attached) 

* City of Berkeley’s Southside Strategic Plan: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/uploadedFiles/Planning_%28new_site_map_walk-through%29/Level_3_-_General/2011-09-27_SSP_FINAL_9-7-11_Att%203_Exh%20A.pdf, page 50 

Israel is rapidly descending into a pariah state following its appalling crimes against indigenous Palestinians. B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, reports Israel killed 313 Palestinians last Year including 313 minors, demolished 300 residential structures and imprisoned scores of Palestinians without trial. It was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2014.  

Adding to its many crimes, Israel demolished 300 residential structures in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem last ear leaving 900 homeless. Last week, Israeli forces demolished a healthcare system serving 20,000 Palestinians. This criminal behavior flies in the face of core Jewish doctrines which believe all people are equally entitled to human rights, a concept that is central to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which was adopted by the United Nations in response to the Holocaust. 

As the US comes to grips with its own history of racism in new ways, American Jews want to apply similar notions of justice to foreign policy, where an increasing number see apartheid in Israel's approach to the Palestinians. It’s time the passive Biden admiration, who claim to be a fierce defender of human rights, “walk the talk” and immediately halt further economic and military aid to apartheid Israel.

The return to city meetings from the winter break was slow with a mostly quiet week. The secretary for the Public Works Commission did not get the agenda posted or at least functionally posted to meet the 72-hour notice requirement. The Public Works Commission meeting was canceled and rescheduled for this coming week and the agenda is still not posted. In fact, the agenda for the Public Works Commission has always been held to the last minute for all the years I have been pulling together the Activist’s Calendar. 

The soon to be dissolved and merged Peace and Justice Commission voted to support the Assembly Bill introduced by Assembly Member Luz Rivas to require science instruction in climate change. The proposed Commission Resolution will be reworded to reflect that BUSD (Berkeley Unified School District) already includes instruction in climate change. 

The first public comment Thursday evening at the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force meeting suggested that the Task Force should hear from the homeless service providers that gave presentations to the Homeless Commission on Wednesday evening, and then lamented being unable to attend that meeting, and posed this question (really: a statement): Why aren’t all city [public] meetings on zoom recorded?. I certainly agree. 

Commission meeting minutes by and large tell nothing of what happened other than votes taken. Rarely is there any hint of discussion. Public comment is discarded and lost as is the history of meeting content beyond a vote. Also lost is the look at future councilmembers, candidates for assembly, senate, congress and the ideologues who are organizing at the local level. 

As for the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, the “Rec” button was not highlighted, but all the previous meetings have been recorded and posted. The evening discussion and action was the review of the report from the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR). The Task Force took issue with nearly every NICJR recommendation ranging from outright rejection, to modification to request for further analysis. Task Force member and vice-chair Boona Cheema summed up the report best, calling the NICJR Report a “shell game” and “it is not reimagining, just moving the pieces.” A subcommittee was formed to compile all of the Task Force comments and recommendations into a separate report for review at the next meeting January 24, 2022. 

The Agenda Committee met Tuesday to review the draft for the January 18^th City Council regular meeting. There were two items on parking proposed as a referral to the City Manager. One is for charging for parking at the Marina and the other is to “Establish a Framework for Parking Benefits in the Lorin and Gilman Commercial Districts.” 

My neighbor and I have been walking together for exercise most days for almost nine years. Friday was a destination walk with several stops. I stood outside while my walk partner was inside shopping at Trader Joes. Two nearly empty buses went by one with two passengers and the other with four. The City Council is fixated on getting us out of our cars (and rightly so) to reduce GHG emissions. The theory for the basis of their actions is that charging for parking, taking away parking spaces and removing parking from multi-unit housing will push us out of our cars and into mass transit. Is it working? It doesn’t look like it. 

The problem with buses is they don’t get us to where we want to go,, and the response to low ridership is that AC Transit reduces stops and service, resulting in the opposite of what is needed: reliable, efficient and frequent transit service. There seem to be more cars than ever and during that wait outside, a shopper with a big bag of groceries got into the Lyft that arrived as she walked to the curb. Lyft and Uber offer so much convenience, they actually take passengers away from mass transit. 

Councilmember Harrison submitted a proposal for free AC transit on Sundays tied to restoring service to make the bridge and interrupt the cycle of driving. https://www.dailycal.org/2021/11/14/free-ac-transit-proposal-passes-council-faces-uncertain-future/ The proposal got as far as being thrown into the mix of referrals for mid-year budget spending and that is where it died. 

The last time I got on a bus was in 2018 in Berlin. Berlin like so many cities outside of the U.S. has an interconnected transit system that meets all of the criteria, reliable, efficient and frequent. Only a handful of cities in the U.S. have an interconnected transit system. Of course, I wasn’t cooking so that trip to the grocery wasn’t needed, but I could get everywhere. And, there were trains. There are so many things we need to reduce our impact on this precious planet we call earth. Will taking away parking without creating and adding a transit system get us out of our cars? I don’t think so, but I like to be proven wrong. I also doubt that the heavily subsidized ferries, a most polluting mode of transportation, will transform commuting. 

I always wonder who reads the Activist’s Calendar, and then I received this email comment in reference to item 15 in the January 18 City Council agenda “salary adjustment for Department Heads of Finance, Human resources, IT, Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, Planning, Public Works and Fire Chief from maximum $20,987 to $21,432.” 

“I find this somewhat surprising, especially for the public sector? Used to be they made up for lower pay via retirement ‘golden handcuffs’? $275K per year? Trickle down works? 

As you might guess, if you have been reading the Activist’s Diary, I got a little more reading done during the break, not as much as I planned. I came up one book short of my goal, but then my final selection of 2021 was Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon, 962 pages or as an audiobook 41 hours and published in 2012. It was an article in the New York Times about the book being banned in China and blacklisted in Texas that perked my attention and I leaped in without reading any content reviews. Far from the Tree covers how families do or don’t accommodate children with physical, mental and social disabilities and differences and the disagreements that evolve over care, medical treatment and becoming a parent. It is thought provoking with chapters devoted to the deaf, dwarfs, Down’s Syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple disabilities, prodigy, rape, crime and transgender. Through it, Solomon writes of being gay, rejection, bullying and search for identity and family. 

Am I glad I read it even though some days it felt like a marathon? Absolutely.  

I also read There is Nothing for You Here by Fiona Hill and Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could by Adam Schiff. 

Fiona Hill ties together similarities between the loss of jobs and decline of the working class in Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Hill gives a much deeper and personal description of the discontent, disruption and rage we see here in the U.S. than the other books I read over the last year. Her book is definitely worth reading though I kind of wish I had picked up the audiobook instead of the ebook to hear Fiona Hill read it. 

A phase you will often hear from me on aging is: “People Age at Different Rates.” Adam Schiff in Midnight in Washington completed the circle on the failure of Robert Mueller III as he described how sorry he was that he insisted that Mueller testify before Congress. Schiff described Mueller as a shell of the man he used to know and how after watching how easily Mueller became flummoxed in the Judiciary Committee in the morning the House Intelligence Committee completely rewrote their questions. Questions became yes or no and referenced pages in the report that Mueller could use to answer. There is a lot more in Schiff’s book, but this is the section that stuck for me especially as I found an audio version of the Mueller Report when it was released in 2019 and listened to the entire report while I swam laps at the Y. 

Last, if you haven’t watched the Netflix film, Don’t Look Up, put it on your list.

An inherent political corruption in our system

The brand name emblazoned on our system of governance is “the republic." It is a system of periodic elections for legislators and top administrators who, once elected, are said to represent their electorate. There have been times when the elected have actually represented the people who elected them. But not many.

Why is that failure so familiar? Why is it so normal to see elected representatives go their own way, regardless of the needs to their constituents? Sometimes, there is real corruption, involving back room deals and money changing hands. But most often, the failure is owing to a mythological structure called “representationism.” It requires that people see what officials do as "representing" the people, though they clearly do not. It is an ideological disguise that hides the ethical pollution (rather than corruption) to which political proposals or actions fall prey. The notion of ethical "pollution" signifies that each enactment includes counteractions that neutralize it. That happens, for instance, when proposals get bogged down in procedures, so that the means prevent themselves from arriving at their proposed ends. 

Representatives cannot represent 

In theory, representation is designed to facilitate efficient political discussion. The electorate is divided into districts, and each district elects a delegate to represent them in a higher body. It is a recognition of the impossible unwieldiness of a district’s people attempting to meet and make decisions. What is not recognized is the inherent exclusionism that accompanies that desire for efficiency. 

Here’s how it works. Delegates are not elected to a higher body to make policy for their district. They are there to make policy for all the districts together, including their own home district, in collaboration with the other delegates. That is, they "represent" by bodily presence, but not by political purpose. As part of a collaboration, they have substituted themselves for their district in the different process of making policy for the whole. And that substitution constitutes an aspect of political exclusion of the district’s people, because it changes the structural function of their delegate. 

The other side of this coin is that each elected delegate, by being granted membership in this "higher" body, is raised above the level of their district. It establishes an eliteness that separates them from their constituencies. When running for office, they are in primary relation to a constituency; but when serving on the "higher" body, they are acting in relation to people not from their district. In effect, having to act in relation to that body makes those in that body their new constituency. In practice, therefore, each delegate, becoming engulfed in eliteness, shifts their allegiance from one constituency to the other. Membership in the elite body means their primary dialogues and discussions are with the others of the "eliteness." 

This new fabric of relationship requires diplomacy, friendly tact, a deal-making strategy, and a reservoir of political bargaining chips. One must have the ability to trade support with others in order to get support for one’s own projects. As a result, what each delegate accomplishes for their district relates primarily to other districts. Politics becomes a hidden process of horse-trading, lobbying, or bribes, at each stage of which the policy a delegate seeks to promote gets modified, denatured, or degraded in order to satisfy other delegates. 

Substituting oneself for one’s district and shifting one’s focus to a new and different constituency are two sides of the came coin. To call this disconnect "representation" is a mystification. 

But even "real" district representation would fall prey to the same pollution. For a body (of delegates) to represent a district, it would have to be elected by the district with the power to enact policy in and for that district – which is ostensibly what a City Council is elected to do for a city. But that would only shift the geography of the problem. For a body to have the power to make policy for a district would require it to be constituted by "representatives" from subdistricts, which would undergo the same disconnect from representation. 

In short, where representation is the mythic name for governance, "disconnect" is the reality of its relation to the people. 

Representing multiplicity 

But there is more. As a single elected delegate, each finds their job to be unfeasible. Every district is a multiplicity of interests. There are different classes, cultures, ideologies, and local political groupings all co-existing, with a heterogeneity beyond what one person could encompass. 

With respect to housing, for instance, in a working class district, there are renters, home owners, landlords, homeless people, real estate agents, teachers, curbside auto mechanics, and laborers who make their living working on construction. Each has a different approach to housing development, producing a multiplicity of contradictory interests. 

A homeowner’s main allegiance will tend to be toward the market system, deriving comfort from consumerism. Possession will lead to disparaging the dispossessed (homeless) as a blight on their landscape. Many have obsessive fears that unwanted presences (black people, for instance) will diminish their property values, and therefore require "removal." A similar "fear" is heaped on the homeless. Conversely, the homeless will see the homeowners as despotic, biased and anti-humanitarian, an enemy able to deploy the representationist system against them, though they be victims of unseen economic and political forces. 

These differences of interest are deeply embedded in the US and its history. Once upon a time, the representationism of governance limited voting to white male landowners in communities dominated by farmers and local commercial interests. That homogeneity, based on multiple exclusions, rendered the system practical. Over two centuries, the excluded have fought for inclusion, rendering a system based on homogeneity obsolete. Yet it doggedly persists. 

Suppose a delegate attempted to educate homeowners about "justice" or greater tolerance or even common interests with the homeless or with black homeowners. Their success in developing a unity of consciousness would likely drive away banks and developers who are rarely interested in dealing with neighborhood unity or autonomy. The resulting financial abandonment might condemn the district to decay and impoverishment. Between white supremacy and corporate interests, a city just “ain’t got a chance.” If a City Council sought to opt for support for homeless encampment organization, as a self-help means of providing care and survival, that city will likely be sued by homeowners for preferring the humanitarian to a form of “final solution.” 

In any case, elected delegates have to pick and choose between ethics and foreseeable effects. For the most part, they are thrown upon their personal priorities, forming political positions based on ideology, financial offers, and esthetic visions of the future. The purpose of this analysis is not to get any elected officials off the hook, but rather to indicate why failure at governance is structurally inherent. 

Ultimately, that electoral failure has a reservoir of rationalizing mythologies to call upon. One goes: “I did my best,” without providing any critique of how the representationist structure actually worked against representation. Another asserts that “anyone can run for office.” The implication is that different people will do it better. But if the problem is structural, then electing a new face to replace an old one will only subject the new one to the same necessities of substitution and elitism. In Berkeley, against the crying need for affordable housing, we have seen this manifest in unmistakable terms. 

The Two Party System 

But finally, we have a two party system that has grown up to control politics and determine issues based precisely on the inability of elected officials to represent their constituencies. At the most banal level, of course, is the fact that a candidate for office needs a campaign organization and an ability to raise money. Every campaign is limited by the money neded to pay organizers, to buy time in the media, and buy endorsements. This need leads most (even a Bernie Sanders) to run as a party member (one of the “big two”) to “grease the rails,” as it were. (Third parties may exist, but must focus primarily on fighting for political space.) And at the verbal level, a candidate buys votes using words and images as currency. But as "currency," the campaign words themselves mark the deep disconnect between the voters and the political structure. 

In the end, it will be up to the party, and not the constituency, to decide if a candidate is "electable." The candidate is then “run by” the party. This is even evidenced in city elections, though more nuaanced and secretive because many pretend to be “non-partisan.” There are a few small town exceptions, but for the most part, the two party system calls the shots. 

This is very different from the European multiparty ideologically oriented systems, emerging from a wholly different kind of history. It has been said about the US system is that the only thing worse than a one-party system is a two-party system, because in the latter, one has difficulty clearly discerning who the enemy is. 

A primary problem faced by those who run independent campaigns is defense against the pejorative attacks that will be levied against any appearance of success (a form of social pressure designed to maintain the status quo – aka two party domination). In a society built on inequalities, exploitations, and oppressions, it is the desire for status quo that manifests the anti-democratic nature of representationism at its most vociferous level. 

It is well known that the two party system in the US was born of the reality of enslavement and the inevitable abolition that ended the slave system. It represented an original strategic division of white people over how deal with (re-dominate, re-constrain, and further control) the freed bond-laborers. Though Jim Crow existed through legislation in the south, and as a cultural extension in the north, both parties had presence in both zones, and fought nationally over their strategic differences. The two party system masked the political "reality" of white supremacy as a mythology that shifted the criminality of segregation and "apartheid" to the acrimonious subject of the “black vote.” That mythology has not gone away. Today, the ability of black people to vote is being curtailed again by a white elite, as a resurgence of (white) control over the "reality" of representation. 

The corporate structure and elections 

After World War II, the representationist mythology suffered the ultimate pollution of a “bi-partisan foreign policy.” Political issues were relegated to a unified top-down leadership. And at the local level, the pre-war ward system was eliminated in order to dispense with political discussion during local elections. The two parties determined what was debatable and what was to be relegated to consensus. Certain issues were rendered outside public debate (anti-communism, the Cold War, support for Israel, the Vietnam war, seizure of other people’s oil, etc.). It is precisely that kind of conceptual control that is now intent on imprisoning Julian Assange. 

As a framework, the notion of consensus renders society a form of corporate structure. The parties become the managerial bureaucracy, the electorate are the workers producing acceptance of managerial policy-products, and the entire socio-political system functions (without political oversight) in the interest of financial profiteering. In the bay area, where the majority of residents are renters, the most pressing need is rent reductions to livable levels. Yet no political movement exists to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act’s guarantee of rent inflation. In effect, nothing is allowed to interrupt the corporate seizure of real estate as corporate asset. 

The modern corporation now plays the part of "citizen" in a global multinational corporate economic structure, having displaced public involvement in policy-making. It no longer needs consensus of the electorate, and assumes the power to impose itself on all aspects of the planet, which it transforms into assets for itself. This includes housing (e.g. development), law (e.g. one law for you and one for us), education (e.g. a tracking system), health care (e.g. copyrighted Covid vaccines), and politics (e.g. “Citizens united” decision), etc. Having thus replaced humans, the system drives the economy to the point where the planet will no longer support human life. 

For example, up to the 1950s, the Gulf of Mexico was inhabited by members of two-thirds of all the species of fish on earth. It was that rich an environment. Now the Gulf is a dead zone because oil-drilling and chemical fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi watershed have destroyed its ability to support oceanic life. Representationism now dictates that this is an irreversible process. 

Ultimately, the corporations are not the 1% because they are not people. They are an economic apparatus whose cogs and levers and motors are composed of humans put together like pieces of a machine. As agents of corporate interest, the two party system presents itself as the only (albeit dystopian) official space for political participation, while at the same time, making that participation impossible. 

Alternatives to representationism 

One alternative to the "constituency substitution" that delegates face would be a local ratification process in which a district could vote "no" on a measure passed against its interests or needs – like a kind of negative referendum. If a district was not happy with what a city council had produced for the whole city, it could hold a yes-or-no vote for the district itself on the issue that would be binding on itself as a district. For instance, should City Council pass a zoning regulation that only provided for 20% affordable housing units in any new housing development while, in one district, people thought that anything less than 80% would not meet their needs, they could vote the regulation down for their district, thus prohibiting development until something else was accomplished. 

A second alternative might be a form of proportional representation. Each group in a district – e.g. renters, homeowners, the homeless, the professionals, etc. – could organize their own parties, with each sending a delegate to a district assembly. In that local assembly, issues could be resolved on the basis of local party voting strength, as direct representation. Politics would then involve principled coalitions rather than horse-trading diplomacy and obsequious compromise. 

To summarize, "democracy" has still to be won in this country – understanding that term to mean that those who will be affected by a policy shall be the ones to make the policy that will affect them. We are a long way from getting there, with much mythological underbrush to clear in making pathways in that direction.

Rich countries continue trying to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating a majority of their populations only to find new strains of the virus mutating in unprotected poorer countries. 

America often boasts that it is the leader of the free world but sadly missed a critical opportunity to organize a global response to the virus. It’s time the Biden administration demand U.S. vaccine manufactures allow poorer countries to share their vaccine recipes and bring an end to this pandemic. Unless we think about how to manage not just COVID but all other infectious threats globally, not just with a domestic focus, we will find ourselves victims time and time again. 

We need to be more proactive in doing more for the world and less focused on what we can do for our own population at home. That is a losing strategy time and time again. Furthermore, we have a public health system that continues to be subservient to our pharmaceutical system whose only goal is to maximize profits. New strains will invariably arrive in the U.S. infecting mostly unvaccinated non-believers who continue to expose their friends and families. The collective prides of the “Djokovic’s of the world” are a major cause of record infections overburdening health care facilities throughout the country. Vaccine apartheid offers a perfect breeding ground for the viruses to continue mutating into evasive variants which can arrive and potentially undermine the efficacy of vaccines in richer countries.
Vaccine apartheid offers a perfect breeding ground for the viruses to continue mutating into evasive variants which can arrive and potentially undermine the efficacy of vaccines in richer countries.

I'll preface this response to your recent piece with professing ignorance. Since I haven't traveled to Israel, I lack knowledge of any actual events taking place or that have taken place. 

In your piece, you are not denying the Holocaust, something that many anti-Jewish individuals do. You are additionally softening your piece with the assertion that American Jews are becoming unhappy with the behavior taking place in Israel. 

The big problems in your piece are the following: 

The title of the piece: "Israeli Crimes." This lumps together the entire nation as one entity, which it is not. Israel consists of millions of people, it has a government, it has citizens, it has a military, and it has civilians. The term "Israeli Crimes" has a derogatory tone and stokes the flames of hatred toward Jews. What if we substituted? "British Crimes", "African American Crimes", "Chinese Crimes", "American Crimes"? I urge you to rephrase. 

I suggest you phrase your assertion as "Crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli Military." Although this uses more words, it is worth doing. It is a more precise way to refer to your assertions of what could be taking place. Assuming there are crimes taking place, (which by the way is not a completely safe assumption) at least you are not lumping together all of Israel, including millions of Jews, no doubt many of them living in Israel, who find violence to be abhorrent. 

For the twelve years that I've been writing for the Planet, I've seen you focus repetitively on Israel and on how it is doing harm to the Palestinians. While this is a valid topic, the fact that you habitually gravitate to this subject implies that you really want to report on violence in Israel. I've sometimes seen you report on other countries, so this is not absolute. 

I've heard Jews remark that we are subject to a "P. R. War." This is something readers should think about. 

Jagjit Singh, I am not your enemy. However, I urge you to use better language in your reporting and also better substantiation so that we will have a better idea of the accuracy of your essays. 

Human beings are capable of atrocities and Jews aren't an exception. But the beginning of an atrocity is to vilify a person or group of people--let's not do that again. 

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As we begin 2022, we're not lacking for challenges. There's the pandemic, climate change, economic turbulence, and political instability. A year after January 6, 2021, I had hoped that some of these challenges would disappear. That the United States would acquire "herd immunity" and the threat of coronavirus would recede. That Republicans would accept that Joe Biden was lawfully elected President and those responsible for the January 6th insurrection were traitorous criminals. Sadly all of these challenges continue. 

On January 6th, 2022, Joe Biden spoke (https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070931178/jan-6-anniversary-biden-speech-transcript ) in the Capitol rotunda and condemned those responsible for the insurrection, particularly former President Trump. "One year ago today, in this secured place, Democracy was attacked... For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol... this [was] an armed insurrection." 

Biden's speech signified a change in Democratic strategy. Heretofore, Biden had attempted to ignore Trump; the former President had been "he who shall not be named." Since January 20th, the White House seemed to take the position: if we don't talk about Trump, he will go away. That hasn't happened; Trump hasn't gone away. He's maintained his iron grip around the neck of the Republican Party. However, over the past year, Trump's popularity has waned; according to the latest 538 poll summary (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ ) Trump's approval rating has declined to 38.6 percent -- outside the Republican Party, Trump's brand has turned toxic. 

Biden, and the Democratic Party, have decided to make the 2022 election about Trump and the insurrection. They are going to label Republicans as Trump's toadies, willing accomplices in the insurrection. "Republicans don't want to move forward; they are stuck on overthrowing the lawful of election of November 3, 2020. Republicans favor autocracy over democracy..." 

In his forceful speech, President Biden made four points. The first: "the former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election... he can't accept he lost... Defeated by a margin of over seven million of your votes." 

The second point: "The Big Lie being told by the former president, and many Republicans who fear his wrath, is that the insurrection in this country actually took place on Election Day, November 3, 2020." "There is simply zero proof the election results are inaccurate. In fact, in every venue where evidence had to be produced and oath to tell the truth had to be taken, the former president failed to make his case. Just think about this, the former president and his supporters have never been able to explain how they accept as accurate the other election results that took place on November 3rd. The elections for governor. United States Senate. House of Representatives." 

Biden's third point: "The [next] Big Lie being told by the former president's supporters is that the results of the election 2020 can't be trusted." "Right now in state after state, new laws are being written [by Republicans]. Not to protect the vote, but to deny it. Not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it, not to strengthen or protect our democracy, but because the former president lost. Instead of looking at election results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes, the former president and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections." 

The fourth point: " The [final] Big Lie being told by a former president and supporters is that the mob who sought to impose their will through violence are the nation's true patriots. Is that what you thought when you looked at the mob ransacking the Capitol, destroying property, literally defecating in the hallways?... You can't love your country only when you win. You can't obey the law only when it's convenient. You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies." 

Joe Biden ended on a strong note: "Now it's up to all of us — to We the People — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive... Make no mistake about it, we're living at an inflection point in history, both at home and abroad. We're engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy," The President concluded: " I will defend this nation, and I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy." 

President Biden has taken off his gloves and taken the attack to Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Biden has decided to make the 2022 election about Trump and the insurrection. In every Senate and House race, Democrats will tie the Republican candidate to Trump and the insurrection. 

In the next couple of weeks, Senate Democrats will try to pass voting-rights legislation. They will force Republicans to take a visible stance on this and use their -- expected -- resistance as a 2022 election issue. 

The good news is that President Biden, and congressional Democrats, are addressing the challenge of political instability. 

Bob Burnett is a Bay Area writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net 

Coming to Grips With the Insurrection