User:Griot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A little about me: I was born and raised in San Francisco, California, and still live there (in the Western Addition, to be exact). Except for a time in Nicaragua, I have lived my entire life in San Francisco.

My major interests are African-American history, jazz, the American civil rights movement, San Francisco and California poets, and California history and politics. I haunt Wikipedia in part to find new interests.

I am a college professor and also own a small business (selling records -- whoops, I mean CDs).

I am the author of these articles:

One of these days I'm going to write articles on these interesting people: Ruth Asawa Benjamin Linder Charles Hurwitz Eugene Hasenfuss Luis Posada-Carriles John Halle Franck Roberts Havenner Gregor Von Rezzori

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1227-03.htm

I also use this page to write first drafts of articles. Pardon the gibbrerish below. There is method in my madness.

http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Grid.aspx?searchtype=BOOKS&artist=87903

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup

[citation needed]

Makes a cameo appearance in William T. Vollmann political novel The Royal Family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Democrat_Party_%28United_States%29

Danny Santiago; Dan (sometimes Daniel) James; 1911 - 1988

Blacklist victim; literary hoaxes category

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5715

Famous All Over Town; published March 198; favorable reviews in The New York Times, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, the Pittsburgh Press, and the Dallas Times Herald.

Dunne, John Gregory, The Secret of Danny Santiago. New York Review of Books, August 16, 1984.

Famous All Over Town by Danny Santiago

who collaborated on "The Great Dictator."

In 1984 the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded one of its distinguished fiction prizes to a new and presumably young Chicano writer named Danny Santiago, for his first novel, Famous All Over Town. Subsequent to the award it was revealed, with some embarrassment, that the newly discovered Chicano writer was not Chicano at all: "Danny Santiago" turned out to be the pseudonym of seventy-three-year-old Daniel James, author of several previously published books, and better known as a playwright and screenwriter; and a former Communist Party member who had been blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s. By his account, James wrote Famous All Over Town as a consequence of his experience doing volunteer social work in Mexican-American districts of Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, and chose to publish it under a Hispanic pseudonym because he had lost confidence in his own writing ability. Yet it is plausible to assume that he chose "Santiago" over "James" because, while writing the novel—which is narrated by the fourteen-year-old Chicano boy—he felt closer to "Santiago" than to "James." [1]

Young African-American Males: Continuing Victims of High Homicide Rates in Urban Communities By comparison, the probability of being murdered by age 45 is 2.21 percent nationally for all U.S. black males and 0.29 percent for all white males

Hoping to keep guns from criminals, the NAACP said Monday it will sue handgun manufacturers, distributors and importers, seeking restrictions on the marketing and sale of firearms. [2]

Gun Laws Get Credit for Homicide Declines An article published by the American Journal of Public Health last December showed that the six states with the highest rates of gun ownership--Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wyoming--had homicide rates that were three times higher than the four states with the lowest rates of gun ownership--Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. The study's lead author, Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, concluded that "guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans." Combined

"By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim; by allowing our movies and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing... we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular past times" - Martin Luther King, November, 1963 [3]

Wiki, I need remind you, is an online reference work. Here are reference Web pages that refer to the Party. On some of these pages, you will find no reference whatsoever to.

Here are 12:

Encyclopedia Britannica; Reference.com; American Heritage Encyclopedia; U.S. Facts on File; Encarta Encyclopedia; World Encyclopedia; Studies for Kids; Ohio History Central Online Encyclopedia; Oxford University Press Encyclopedia; SparkNotes (very popular with American high schoolers; Your Definition.com; The Free Dictionary.com

BBC History

"Democratic-Republican Party," Encyclopedia Britannica, academic edition: "Although the Federalists soon branded Jefferson's followers 'Democratic-Republicans,' attempting to link them with the excesses of the French Revolution, the Republicans officially adopted the derisive label in 1798."

The OED lists an entry in Underworld Slang, a dictionary published in 1929 and authored by M.A. (Merle Avery) Gill. The entry is "Saturday night pistol," and its definition is ".25 automatic."

I did a study of 25 American history books to determine which term historians favor, "Democratic-Republican Party" or "Republican Party." Only one book (Salliant's Black Puritan, Black Republican) uses the term "Repubican Party"; one other (Laudau's Friendly Foes) uses the term "Jeffersonian Republican Party." All others use the term "Democratic-Republican Party." Here are the results of my study:

  1. Brinkley A et al, The Reader's Companion to the American Presidency (Houghton-Mifflin, 2000). Quote: "At its outset this highly unusual race involved five major candidates, all of whom were at least nominally identified with the Democratic-Republican party ..." Index: "Democratic-Republicans" 18 entries; "Republican Party": none. Result: "Democratic-Replublican" by 18 to 1.
Written for high schoolers. The editor, Alan Brinkley, is a professor of American history at Columbia University # Casstevens S H, The Civil War and Yadtkin County, South Carolina (McFarland, 1997). Quote: "The Democrats had their roots in the old Democratic-Republican Party, whose power base came from the small farmers, traders, artisans, as well as plantation..." Index: No entires. Result: "Democratic-Republican Party" by 1 to 0.
The author of this monograph is a history professor at Wake Forrest specializing in anti-bellum history. McFarland Press is a leading publisher of scholarly, reference and academic books. Located in Jefferson, North Carolina (in the Appalachian Mountains).
  1. Cornelison, P et al, The Great American History Fact Finder (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Democratic-Replublican Party had one entry. No index. This is a reference book. "Democratic-Republican Party by 1 to 0.
This book was updated for the current edition, according to the publishers, and it is meant for an adult audience. Published by Houghton-Mifflin.
  1. Doak, R S, Profiles of the Presidents: Martin Van Buren (Compass Point Books, 2003). "In 1801, when he was just nineteen years old, Van Buren joined the Democratic-Republican Party." Index: Democratic-Republican Party 3 entries; "Republican Party" 0. Results: Democratic-Replublican Party by 3 to 0.
For the high school reader.
  1. Editors, The Political Reference Almanac 1999-2000 (Keynote Publishing, 2000). Entry for Democratic-Replublican Party; none for Republican Party. No index in this reference book. Results: Democratic-Replublican Party 1, Republican Party 0.
  2. Fortier, J C ed., ’’ After the Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College’’ (, 2004). Quote: "The congressional caucus of the Democratic-Republican Party nominated Vice President." Index: none. Results: Democratic-Replublican Party by 1-0.
  3. Gillespie M K, Free Labor, Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia, 1789-1860 (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2004). Quote: "American artisans believed that republican thought, which would become the basis for the Democratic-Republican Party at the national level..." Index: Democratic-Republican Party: 9 entries; Republican party none. Results: Democratic-Replublican Party by 9-0.
  4. Guelzco, A C, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans Publishing, 2002). "The stampede reached Clay himself in 1824, when the Tennessee legislature bypassed the customary Democratic-Republican Party caucus and nominated, not Clay..." Index: no entries. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.
  5. Hirsch E D et al, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Houghton Mifflin, 2002). "A political party that arose in the 1825 from a split in the Democratic-Republican Party..." Index entries: none. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.
  6. Hybel, A R, Made by USA: The International System (Palgrave - St. Martin's, 2001). "The second party, the Democratic Party, was the offspring of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party." Index: No entries.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.
  7. Jacoby S, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (Metropolitan Books, 2004). Quote: "Washington was of course the head of the Federalist Party and Thomas Jefferson became the leader of the Democratic Republican Party..." Index: Democratic-Republican Party: 3 entries; none other.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 3-0.
  8. Korzi, M J, Seat of Popular Leadership: The Presidency, Political Parties, and Democratic Leadership (Univ. of Massachussets Press, 2004). Quote: "Monroe, however, declined to name anyone, and the ensuing scramble for nomination had dire effects on the Democratic-Republican Party..." Index: Democratic-Publican Party, 9 entries; none other.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 9-0.
  9. Landau, E, Friendly Foes: A Look at Political Parties (Lerner Publications, 2004). "It became known as the Democratic-Republican Party." Index: Democratic-Republican Party, 16. No mention of Jeffersonian Republicans.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 16-0.
  10. Lipset S M, The First New Nation (Transaction Publishers, 2003). "...the crystallization of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican party." Index: no entires. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.
  11. Newman, S, Parades and the Politics of the Street (Univ. of Pennsyvlania Press, 1997). "For while the rural South provided the nascent Democratic Republican party with its most important power base, relatively few French Revolutionary festivals..." Index: 15 entries; none for Republican Party. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 15-0.
  12. Paulson A, Realignment and Party Revival: Understanding American Electoral Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (Praeger, 2003). "The Federalists had died out, and the Democratic-Republican Party under Monroe provided an umbrella that covered John Quincy Adams and the New Englanders..." Index: no entries. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.
  13. Payan G, The Federalists and Anti-Federalists: How and Why Political Parties Were Formed in Young America (Rosen Publishing, 2004). "The Democratic-Republican Party won every election from 1800 to 1824." Index: Democratic-Republican Party, 3 entries, no other. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 3-0.
  14. Purcell S J, Sealed With Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). "While Mercy Otis Warren's 1804 history of the Revolution clearly betrayed her allegiance to the Democratic-Republican party, she sought to record the war as..." Index: Democratic-Republican Party 10+entries; none other.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 10+-0.
  15. Richarson, D G, Third-Party Politics from the Nation's Founding to the Rise of the Greenback-Labor Party (iUniverse, 2000). "Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, a states' rights party adhering to a policy of strict construction and committed to the doctrine of a..." Index: "Democratic-Repubicans": 9 entries; no other reference. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 9-0.
  16. Salliant J, Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes (Oxford University Press, 2003). "Jefferson and James Madison were foremost among his foes in the Democratic-Republican Party, while George Washington and John Adams symbolized sagacious ..." Index: Democratic-Republican Party: no entries; Repubican Party: 3 entries. Results: Republican Party by 3-0.
  17. Schantz, H L ed., American Presidential Elections (State Univ of New York, 1999). "The Democratic-Republican party, or the Jeffersonian Democrats, were the most successful party in presidential elections, winning seven consecutive..." Index: "Democratic-Repubican Party (Jeffersonian Democrats)", numerous entries. Results: Moot.
  18. Sidlow, E et al, America at Odds (Thomas Higher Education, 2005). "James Madison worked to extend tine influence of tine Democratic Republican Party..." Index: Democratic-Republicans (Jeffersonian Republicans): 3 entries. Refers to "Democratic-Republicans" in the text. Results: Mixed.
  19. Tichenor, D J, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton Univ. Press, 2002). "These restrictive measures only strengthened ties between enfranchised immigrants and the Democratic-Republican party, as foreign-born voters..." Index: Democratic-Republican Party: 2 entries; none for others. Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 2-0.
  20. Walter, R, Dictionary of Politics and Legal Terms (Brunswick Publishing, 1992). "One of the two major political parties in the US, tracing its origin to the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson, which for the first time openly..." No index. This is a reference book.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.
  21. Wishart, D J, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains (Univ. of Nebraska Press). "The Democratic Party is usually deemed to have been formed by supporters of Andrew Jackson who split away from the vanishing Democratic-Republican Party..." Index entries: none.Results: Democratic-Republican Party by 1-0.



Contents

[edit] Matt Gonzalez

Matt Gonzalez is a leading member of the Green Party. From 2001 to 2005, he served on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, California, and was president of the board from 2003 to 2005. He narrowly lost the 2003 San Francisco mayoral election. Gonzalez now heads the law firm Gonzalez & Leigh (pronounced LAY) in San Francisco.

[edit] Childhood and youth

Matthew Edward Gonzalez was born June 4, 1965 in the border town of McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, but spent his first five years in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His father was a division chief for the international tobacco company Brown & Williamson. Besides San Juan, job transfers took the Gonzalezes to New Orleans, Maryland, and Kentucky, before the family returned to McAllen when Gonzalez was eleven years old. "Eddie" as he was called in his youth, was an Eagle Scout and president of his senior class. He discovered his talent for debating at Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1983. [4]

Gonzalez said about his childhood in South Texas: "The Mexican-American–Latino–Chicano culture in California is different than my experience in Texas. I grew up in a town that is majority Mexican and Mexican-American. In McAllen, we didn't refer to ourselves as Latinos or Chicanos. We referred to ourselves as Mexican. There's a different feel in that border area." [5]

Gonzalez's interest in politics, El Universal suggested, was hereditary. [6] From 1981 to 1983, Enfrían Martínez Rendón, his godfather and maternal uncle, was mayor of Reynosa, an industrial city across the border from McAllen in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. [7] [8] Oralia, his mother, was born in Mexico; his father Mateo was born in the United States.

[edit] Education

In 1987, Gonzalez earned a B.A. from Columbia University in political theory and comparative literature. He was captain of Columbia's debating team; he developed a taste for modern art in New York City's many art museums and galleries. "I see myself as a product of affirmative action..." he said in an interview. "It's something when your first museum experience is going the Metropolitan or the Whitney or the Guggenheim." [9]

Gonzalez earned a law degree from Stanford Law School in 1990. He was an editor of the Stanford Law Review and member of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. He helped Paul Brest, the Dean, revise a constitutional law casebook (his contributions to this textbook had to do with gender discrimination and no-religious-test-clause issues). Gonzalez also worked for the California Appellate Project, a state-funded non-profit law firm that represents indigent people in death-penalty and other criminal appeals.

[edit] San Francisco Public Defender's Office (1990–2000)

For ten years beginning in 1990, Gonzalez worked at the Public Defender's office in San Francisco as a trial lawyer. He earned a reputation for being fiercely loyal to this clients. "Most public defenders are devoted to their work," colleague (now Public Defender) Jeff Adachi said about Gonzalez. "But we don't give clients our home phone numbers or let them know where we live. Matt would bring clients home with him." [10]

Defending a client in a minor marijuana-related offense, an angry Gonzalez told the deputy district attorney handling the case that he would run for district attorney if his client were sent to jail on a felony conviction rather than allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge. [11] In 1999, Gonzalez ran for district attorney against incumbent Terence Hallinan. Although he came in third in the election with just 11 percent of the vote, he earned the endorsement of many Democratic clubs, and his campaign for district attorney raised his profile in San Francisco. [12]

[edit] San Francisco Board of Supervisors (2001–2005)

In 2000, a system of electing supervisors by district rather than citywide took effect. At the urging of Supervisor Tom Ammiano, Gonzalez moved his residence from the Mission District (in District 9) to Hayes Valley, and ran for supervisor in newly made District 5 (besides Hayes Valley, District 5 comprises the Haight-Ashbury, the Western Addition, Alamo Square, and the easternmost part of the Sunset District). Between the general election and the run-off election in which he defeated school-board member Juanita Owens, Gonzalez left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party. Gonzalez became the first Green Party member ever elected in San Francisco (although the first according to some sources, namely the San Francisco Green Party, was school-board member Mark Sanchez [13]).

[edit] Conversion to the Green Party

Gonzalez's conversion to the Green Party occurred at the spur of the moment, without aforethought, in what he called "a political or moral epiphany." Gonzalez was attending a rally at the offices of KRON-TV in San Francisco to protest the absence of Green Party senatoral candidate Medea Benjamin at a debate between Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger Tom Campbell. Gonzalez described his conversion to the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

I wasn't anticipating anything. I certainly wasn't expecting any kind of political or moral epiphany.
But as the event wore on, what was at stake became disturbingly obvious to me: a thoughtful, intelligent, and honest progressive candidate for senator was being excluded from the opportunity to reach voters and win electoral support.
I couldn't help thinking of how most of my support in last year's district attorney's race came as a result of being allowed into televised debates with my better-known opponents and how that support has eventually led to my being the frontrunner in the District 5 supervisorial race.
The more I thought about it, the more I knew I wasn't OK with it. I didn't want to be a member of a party that was urging the exclusion of a candidate solely on the grounds that the candidate didn't have enough support, when it's precisely television coverage that could win that candidate public acceptance. [14]

In the run-off election, Gonzalez's opponent, Juanita Owens, tried to take advantage of his Green Party affiliation and capitalize on many Democrats' ill feelngs toward the Green Party in the wake of the acrimonious 2000 presidential election [15], but Gonzalez won the run-off election. Like all municipal elections in San Francisco, elections for supervisor are nonpartisan, but some Greens saw the election of their candidate as a significant achievement because, for the first time, a Green Party member had been elected to an important position in a major U.S. city.

[edit] Term on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Midway through Gonzalez's four-year term on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, his colleagues elected him to a two-year term as Board President. From this powerful position, he was able to push his legislative agenda. Gonzalez told the San Francisco Call about his term on the Board: "I'd rather think of the minimum wage and IRV (instant run-off voting) and the chain store legislation as my legacy." [16]

Gonzalez's crafted these ballot propositions that won election in San Francisco:

  • Minimum Wage (Proposition L in 2003): A city ordinance that raised the minimum wage in San Francisco to $8.50 an hour (or $7.75 for nonprofit groups and companies with fewer than 10 employees). The ordinance gave San Francisco one of the highest minimum wages in the United States. [17]
  • Instant Runoff Voting (Proposition A in 2002): A charter amendment changing the election laws to allow for instant run-off (IRV) elections in San Francisco. IRV reduces the expense of run-off elections and is believed by its supporters to promote third-party candidates. San Francisco became the first city in the nation to implement IRV. [18]
  • Supervisors' Salaries (Propositoin J in 2002): A charter amendment re-classifying the eleven San Francisco supervisors from part-time to full-time status and setting their salaries by the Civil Service Commission at $112,000 (previously the supervisors' salaries were $38,000) [19]

Gonzalez also wrote and pushed to pass this legislation:

Gonzalez opposed the sale of the naming rights to Candlestick Park (he tried but failed to qualify a ballot proposition to rename the ballpark "Mays Field at SBC Park"). He prohibited the San Francisco Zoo from keeping elephants after concerns were raised about their health [20], and he changed the term "pet owner" to "pet guardian" in city regulations. [21] He supported transgender health benefits for city employees [22] and the acceptance of Matrícula Consular ID cards for immigrant workers from Mexico. [23] He sponsored a resolution calling on San Francisco to develop a means of generating electrical power from tides. [24]

Gonzalez also authored these ballot initiatives that were voted down at the polls:

  • Energy Self Sufficiency (Proposition D in 2002): A charter amendment requiring San Francisco to acquire its own municipally owned and operated public utility system. The inititative would have required the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to secure electrical supplies for all the city's power customers and to possibly buy out PG&E's local distribution system. [25]
  • Noncitizen Voting in School Board Elections (Proposition F in 2004): A charter amendment giving non-citizen parents and guardians of schoolchildren the right to vote in local school board elections. [26]

[edit] 2003 San Francisco Mayoral Election

In 2003, Gonzalez entered the race for mayor of San Francisco only 24 hours before the filing deadline. The race pitted Gonzalez against Gavin Newsom, a millionaire businessman and ally of then-Mayor Willie Brown. Like Gonzalez, Newsom was a member of the Board of Supervisors. Both candidates were not yet forty years old.

The Gonzalez campaign benifited from anger against Mayor Brown, whose policies, many believed, encouraged gentrification in the City and who was thought to practice corrupt machine-style politics. Gonzalez presented himself as the candidate with the most personal integrity. "They're scared, not of a Green being elected mayor," Gonzalez said, "but of an honest person being elected mayor." [27]

To many voters, Gonzalez personified San Francisco's traditional blue-collar, liberal values (although some observers pointed out that Gonzalez came from a privileged background and went to an Ivy League university, whereas his opponent was raised by a single mother in relatively humble circumstances). [28] Perhaps because he entered the race so late, Gonzalez's positions on the issues were not as well-thought-out as Newsom's. For example, Newsom's "Care Not Cash" initiative (Measure N in 2002), [29] passed by the voters, called for specific policies for addressing San Francisco's notorious homeless problem, but Gonzalez's ideas for addressing this problem, some voters thought, were vague. [30]

Still, Gonzalez's charismatic appeal was undeniable, and many volunteers flocked to his campaign. "He's the indie-rock Kennedy," one supporter said of Gonazlez. [31] Said Rich DeLeon, professor of political science at San Francisco State University, "The Gonzalez campaign was truly a mobilizing campaign. It really attracted young people who had not been involved — who were perhaps cynical and apathetic — into the active electorate." [32]

Newsom outspent Gonzalez by $3 million. The national Democratic Party, fearful of losing one of its traditional liberal strongholds, San Francisco, to the upstart Green Party, dispatched Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, and Dianne Feinstein to campaign on Newsom's behalf. Nevertheless, Gonzalez lost the race by only 6 percentage points. [33] He received 10,000 more votes than his opponent on Election Day but lost when the absentee ballots were counted. Voter turnout was the highest for a mayoral election in 25 years (although, at 53 percent, turnout was well below the 2000 presidential election, when 67 percent of San Francisco voters went to the polls). [34] Had Gonzalez won the election — had he perhaps entered the race sooner, articulated his positions more thoroughly, or not faced organized opposition from the national Democratic Party — he would have become the first Green Party mayor of a major U.S. city.

[edit] "Floppy-haired, slump-shouldered champion of the counterculture"

"Gonzo" as he was affectionately called by his supporters was an unorthodox politician. Newspaper accounts from the San Francisco mayoral election noted that Gonzalez slept on the uncushioned slats of a futon frame because "it's more comfortable," didn't own a watch, and wore Dr Martens and baggy suits [35] (some of which were given him by former San Francisco mayor Art Agnos). [36] The "floppy-haired, slump-shouldered champion of the counterculture," as the Christian Science Monitor called him [37], never married or owned property. He gave away his 1967 Mercedes Benz sedan because, he said, he found it easier to get around on public transportation. [38]

Gonzalez hosted monthly art exhibits in his City Hall office. He was fond of playing chess and reading poetry. In 1997, at his own expense, he published a collection of poetry by Beat poet Jack Micheline called Sixty-Seven Poems for Downtrodden Saints. He served on the Board of Directors for Intersection for the Arts, a non-profit organization, and in 2004 taught a course called "Art & Politics" at the San Francisco Art Institute. He played bass guitar in a rock band (called John Heartfield after the German artist and anti-Nazi activist). Also in the band were his brother Chuck and his law partner Whitney Leigh. [39]

Gonzalez's critics considered him a stubborn and willful idealogue. He walked out of Mayor Willie Brown's State of the City address in 2002; he refused to meet with Brown during his first two years on the Board of Supervisors. When the Board put forth a resolution commending Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, a San Franciscan, for being elected House Minority Whip and being the first woman to hold that position, Gonzalez was the only board member who voted against it. As a public defender, he was twice jailed for contempt of court and ordered arrested a third time (the contempt findings were overturned on appeal).

At an art exhibit in his City Hall office, graffiti artist Barry McGee spray-painted "Smash the State" on the wall. [40] In March 2002, Gonzalez stunned a Golden Gate Breakfast Club audience when he allegedly told them, "Really, I am a Marxist." [41] He had earlier written in regard to why he joined the Green Party, "I read The Communist Manifesto & liked it." [42]

[edit] Retirement from public life (2005)

In early 2005, Gonzalez, arguably the highest-ranking Green Party politician in the United States, abruptly announced that he would not seek re-election as supervisor and would return to practicing law. He explained his decision to the San Francisco Examiner:

I like the whole idea of disengaging from politics for a while and looking at things from the outside. I think the world would be a better place if politicians returned to private life from time to time... Hey, you've got to follow your instincts, you know. That's how I got into politics in the first place, joined the Green Party, ran for the board presidency and later for mayor. What am I supposed to do now? Not listen to myself? [43]

He told the Golden Gate Xpress:

What you’re hearing in terms of bitterness is just someone who is angry about the state of political matters, period. I hope I stay angry, because out of that comes a willingness to do things, like getting a minimum wage passed, or changing how elections are done, or fighting chain stores, or keep zoos from having elephants or whatever the hell the issue is. That doesn’t come because I’m happy with everything; that comes because you gotta be pissed-off. You get out there, you try and change it, you expend political capital to try and make it happen. [44]

Besides his work at Gonzalez & Leigh, the former supervisor keeps busy as a frequent contributor to the publications Mesh and SF Frontlines. A return to Texas may be in Gonzalez's future. "I’m not capable of saying I won’t go home," he told Columbia College Today. "Notwithstanding the political differences of Texas, I’ve always liked where I come from, so it's always been a natural thought that I would get back there." [45]

[edit] External links

[edit] External links to articles written by Gonazlez

[edit] External links to audio and video recordings of Gonzalez

[edit] Further reading

  • Carlsson, Chris, ed. (2005) The Political Edge, City Lights Foundation Books: San Francisco, CA. ISBN: 1-93140-405-4.
  • Walter, Nicole (2004) Go Matt Go! Hats Off Books: Tucson, AZ. ISBN: 1-58736-346-1.

Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt

Charles McCabe (1915 - May 2, 1983) was an author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

His work covered a wide range of subjects, often reflected his liberal views and frequently bespoke his Irish ancestry.

"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art."

"An alchohoic is someone who permits alchohol to interfere with his work."

"The only real sin in the world," wrote Charles McCabe in his column in the San Francisco Chronicle, "is not to fight, not to realize the fullness of your own nature."

Mr. McCabe started as a police reporter for the New York American in 1936 and later worked for the Puerto Rico World-Journal, United Press and, the San Francisco Examiner before joining the Chronicle in the mid-1950s.

  • The Charles McCabe Reader (Chronicle Books, 1985); ISBN: 087701325X.
  • Tall Girls Are Grateful (Chronicle Books, 1973); ISBN: 0877010471.

Reprint of a San Francisco Chronicle column, May 19, 1967 Love and the Buck Charles McCabe

The most beautiful word in this or any other language is sure taking a beating in these parts lately. The word is that four letter sigh and expletive called love.

Love has been around for quite a while, but it was not well and truly discovered until last year when the hippies, here and elsewhere, started working it the way the Forty-Niners worked the Mother Lode.

The hippies created a very groovy scene out in the Haight-Ashbury. They kissed cops, gave flowers to drunks, invaded downtown department stores with lovely bright balloons, and turned on with strange drugs. Everything they did was brilliantly merchandised under the name of love.

Whether the hippies know as much about love as, say, St. Francis of Assisi, is much to be doubted. But likewise, it cannot be doubted that to think of love is a good thing, and to think of it often is almost certain to increase the supply of it in this sorry world. So more power to all lovers, everywhere.

It is the merchants of love who are another matter. These camp followers of the lovely life are enough to curdle your marrow. They are debasing the currency of brotherhood. They are the carnies who follow the missionaries into uncharted land. They rightly stink.

A couple of months back the Diggers and other Haight militants picketed a "Love Dance" on account of it cost three bucks fifty to get the body in. A jewelry store called "Happiness Unlimited" has a window sign: "We love you; we hope you love us."

About the same time a bar on Haight Street converted itself into a hot dog and hamburger establishment. The hamburger is called, naturally, a LOVEburger. The hot dog is a LOVEdog. And this [c]uddly establishment has applied for permission to change its name to "THE LOVE CAFE."

Look at that civic cancer, the topless phenomenon of North Beach. This whole nauseous scene is a direct outgrowth of the rather engaging nihilism of the beatniks who took over Grant avenue and its suburbs in the mid-50's. Because Ginsberg and Kerouac used feelthy words in their efforts, the area got a faintly orgiastic reputation. The tourists came from Fresno and Gilroy and dreamed feelthy thoughts as they looked at the beats, and saw pretty white girls walking arm in arm with black men.

When the landlords, and the beats themselves, wearied of the North Beach scene, the merchants of love knew they no longer had the product, but they still had the customers. Ergo, mothers of eight swinging their nates, and heaving their mammaries, while the salt of the earth slaver and think those same feelthy thoughts. (Next week: The First Topless Nun!)

In the end, the punishment of the hippies will be brutal and biblical. Their own imagination and talent for self-advertising will do them in. Their love, and their flowers and their balloons will bring the creeps. The creeps will prove unendurable. And this too will pass.

  • Guatemala: "On March 23, 1982, army troops commanded by junior officers staged a coup d'état to prevent the assumption of power by General Ángel Aníbal Guevara, the hand-picked candidate of outgoing President and General Romeo Lucas García. They denounced Guevara's electoral victory as fraudulent. The coup leaders asked retired Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt to negotiate the departure of Lucas and Guevara. Ríos Montt had been the candidate of the Christian Democracy Party in the 1974 presidential elections and was widely regarded as having been denied his own victory through fraud. Ríos Montt was by this time a lay pastor in the evangelical protestant Church of the Word. In his inaugural address, he stated that his presidency resulted from the will of God. He was widely perceived as having strong backing from the Reagan administration in the United States. He formed a three-member military junta that annulled the 1965 constitution, dissolved Congress, suspended political parties and cancelled the electoral law. After a few months, Ríos Montt dismissed his junta colleagues and assumed the de facto title of "President of the Republic"."
  • El Salvador: "Following increasing clashes between the Marxist group Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), El Salvadoran Armed Forces (ESAF) and rightist vigilantes known as death squads, a civil war errupted that would last for twelve years (1980-1992) and claim the lives of approximately 75,000 people. Among the victims of the war included Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who is believed to be the greatest apostle of the poor in Latin America for delivering his message of peace and equality for all Salvadorans. He was assassinated while delivering his homily on Sunday, March 24, 1980. Throughout this civil war the USA intervened heavily on the side of the right-wing.According to the 1993 United Nations' Truth Commission report, over 96% of the human rights violations carried out during the war were committed by the Salvadoran military or the paramilitary death squads, while 3.5% were committed by the FMLN."

MightyMo Ragib Mantanmoreland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Democrat_Party_%28United_States%29

[1]

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/r/i/User%7EGriot_3b50.html"