What the fuck, California?!

[praxis1966]

I know most of you probably couldn't care a feather nor a fig about bourgeois elections, and rightfully so. But I gotta say, I'm at the point where I'm about to go postal as a result of the gubernatorial race here in California. So, I figured this was as good a place as any to post a tirade on the topic.

<rant> Goddammit, California, I've only lived here 20 short months and already I'm sick of this shit. You assholes. For all your self-righteous pretention about being the most progressive state in the union, you sure have a bass ackwards way of showing it.

As far back as 1966, you've had a habit of electing the biggest d-bags in American politcs. It was then that you elected Ronald Reagan, the first time you threw your hands up in defeat and admitted to the country that theatre and politics were really the same thing. That would've been fine if the actor was some kind of progressive. Instead, you gave a springboard into the White House to a guy intent on competing with General Francisco Franco as the world's most prominent living fascist. And you people thought the biggest black mark on Reagan's resume was that he got upstaged by a chimpanzee in his best movie (Bedtime for Bonzo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedtime_for_Bonzo)). How wrong you were...

Constantly in a state of retread, you then elected that empty headed fuckwit Jerry Brown on the basis of name recognition and that he once gave the wood to Linda Ronstadt. That turned out so brilliantly that it prompted the following song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8UlY8eXCk

After that were some real winners. George Deukmejian, former Chairman of the California Gestapo (aka Attourney General) and author of legislation to reintroduce the death penalty, whose primary qualification was that he wasn't black. His opponent, LA mayor Tom Bradley, was. And, despite exit polling that suggested that Bradley had won, the ballots told a different story. This was explained by suggesting that white people, in another example of that famed California politeness, had lied in the exit polls saying they voted for Bradley so as not to sound racist. This lead to one of the most notorious pieces of terminology in the American political lexicon: The Bradley Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect). Deukmejian's stellar accomplishments include the following: vetoing state congressional bills which would've banned homophobic discrimination and encourage green energy sourcing as well as tripling California's prison population.

Succeeding Deukmejian was of course the infamous tenure of Pete Wilson, whose nativist racism lead to the notorious and ironically named Prop 187; ironic since 187 is a police radio code for homicide and Prop 187 by all rights was intended to ethnically cleanse the state of all undocumented immigrants. When he wasn't fucking with the darker skinned inhabitants of California, Wilson somehow managed to sign bills aimed at deregulating the energy industry; leading directly to a near monopoly by, you guessed it, fucking Enron!

Then of course came Gray Davis. This was a guy who, by comparison, wasn't the worst govenor Cali's ever seen. But, then again, that's a bit like saying mortar fire is preferrable to a nuclear warhead if you happen to be on the receiving end of it. The reactionaries couldn't have that, so then-presidential candidate King George II got together with Enron and The Terminator to engineer an energy crisis so bad that folks living here would have no choice but to vote him out in a recall election . The good people of The Golden State followed suit, nevermind that the guy they wound up electing, the gap toothed Gropenfuhrer Arnold Schwarzenegger, in all likelihood was in the room when Davis's fate was sealed [I]and who served on the board of a cute little organization called US English. These untidy Phalangists, by the way, have a lovely way of kicking it with guys in white hoods.

Which brings us to our current quandry: electing either EFraud Chief Robber Baronness Meg 'Turkey Neck' Whitman, or *drumroll* Jerry Brown! Just when you thought the Valtrex had kicked in, like a bad herpes breakout ol' Jerry's back to remind you why you should never pay for sex!</rant>

So whaddya say, California comrades? Have I just about got a grasp on the state's politics or what?

[MasaG4]

Well we're not having that much fun here in Florida either. As you may recall we just finished with 8 years of Jeb Bush. Whom I consider to be much more dangerous than George W. Bush, simply because he is more intelligent. Same ass-backwards policies as his father and brother but more able to get them implemented because of his higher intelligence.

Then there's the little wonder of fate where Jeb Bush's daughter was caught with a stolen doctor's prescription pad. She was going around to different pharmacies with forged prescriptions for Xanax.

archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/29/jeb.bush.daughter.drugs/index.html

Thanks to Noelle Bush's arrest (just in the nick of time) her father, Jeb Bush (then governor of Florida), vetoed a measure that had already passed and was Jeb Bush's own idea. The substance of the measure, you ask? Well it was to take all drug rehabilitation services out of all Florida prisons and jails.

So here, I have to thank Noelle Bush. For being all too human and having a drug addiction. For in your own search for a high, dear Noelle, you saved millions of people who will go to jail or prison and not have drug rehabilitation services that, in many cases, will be the only reason they don't return to jail or prison.

And don't think I don't know how Florida's current governor got elected. There's been all this talk recently of people being elected to public office simply on name recognition. Well my friends, get ready for the whopper of all name recognition stories.

Florida's current governor is Charlie Crist. The first few times I saw signs for his election campaign, I honestly just ignored them because I thought they were some religious fad. I simply glossed over the signs, recognizing only Christ. Therefore thinking the political campaign were religious signs. I came to realize later, to my horror, that the next right wing conservative Republican candidate for governor of Florida was Charlie Crist. OH MY GOD!!! (I ironically thought.) THAT SICK BASTARD IS GOING TO GET ELECTED BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY A 1 LETTER DIFFERENCE IN HIS NAME AND THE WORD CHRIST!!!

And then came election night...and for a moment, just a moment...the voters of Florida forgot about separation of church and state. And elected their savior! Charlie Christ, oops damn, I mean Charlie Crist!

[F9]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWOsbGP5Ox4

[MasaG4]

lol on the post of California Love video

[Adi Shankara]

I really don't know. I never vote in Gubernatorial candidates because they are always center-right no matter what. I used to like my district representative because he was an open socialist but then he lost an election and low-and-behold, he was replaced with a center-right free-market fundamentalist.

California isn't a left-wing state; people just get that idea because the bay area is really leftwing (in a bourgeois sense), but the rest of the state is red as a baby's spanked ass, especially the Central valley; hopefully that will change though, as many mexican Americans who grew up here are having a chance to vote in elections, and almost all of them are economic leftists.

Jerry Brown isn't THAT bad, I mean he's tolerable, but he still has some pretty fucked opinions on immigration.

[praxis1966]

FWOsbGP5Ox4

I don't know how I didn't see this one coming, but I must say well struck, sir, well struck.

[praxis1966]

California isn't a left-wing state; people just get that idea because the bay area is really leftwing (in a bourgeois sense), but the rest of the state is red as a baby's spanked ass, especially the Central valley; hopefully that will change though, as many mexican Americans who grew up here are having a chance to vote in elections, and almost all of them are economic leftists.

I hope you're right about the last bit. Silly me, however. I was sitting in Florida most of my life, looking at the numbers coming out in presidential years thinking to myself, "You know, as long as I have to choose the lesser of two evils, it might as well be liberals..." Then I come out here on vacation and people are wearing "Free Mumia" and "People's Republic of Berkeley" t-shirts, and I'm like, "Holy shit, this just gets better and better." Then you live in a place for a while, and you start noticing shit... I'm starting to understand what Malcolm X meant when talking about this sort of thing; (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Down South, they let you know they're racists. Up here in the North, we've got us a bunch of smiling liberals telling us everything's OK, meanwhile all the black people in New York City are walled up in Harlem."


Jerry Brown isn't THAT bad, I mean he's tolerable, but he still has some pretty fucked opinions on immigration.

Well, I agree for the most part, but something in the deep dark recesses of my brain doesn't think he'll get elected. Just look at the ratio of his ads on TV versus Whitman's and you'll see what I mean. And I still think he's an empty headed jackass.

[Vendetta]

I live in South Carolina.

Count your blessings.

[Il Medico]

Well, in FL, this last primary, Republicans had to choose between a homophobic asshole who wanted *fix* the gap that let gay couples be foster parents. And a capitalist scum bag who defrauded Medicare and pocketed four million for himself. Guess who won? Yep, the guy who stole four million dollars from Medicare.


The Democratic people were more tolerable. There was Alex Sink (who won, but I don't have much of an opinion about) and Brain Moore.

[gorillafuck]

I actually know nothing of Jerry Brown despite listening to that song hundreds of times.

[praxis1966]

Well, in FL, this last primary, Republicans had to choose between a homophobic asshole who wanted *fix* the gap that let gay couples be foster parents. And a capitalist scum bag who defrauded Medicare and pocketed four million for himself. Guess who won? Yep, the guy who stole four million dollars from Medicare.


The Democratic people were more tolerable. There was Alex Sink (who won, but I don't have much of an opinion about) and Brain Moore.

To be fair, and no offense, but I am glad as hell to be out of the South in general and the Florida Panhandle in particular. On the other hand, it ain't all peaches and cream out here either. I'm mean sure, the Bay Area's great, and I pretty well love it here. But it's the Central Valley region and the SoCal burbs that keep fucking up state government for everybody that doesn't have their head lodged three feet up their own asses.


I actually know nothing of Jerry Brown despite listening to that song hundreds of times.

He gets a reputation as a bit of a 60s activist type... Back then, as a lawyer, he did do some good work in the same vein as William Kunstler (just not as well known outside of Cali as Kunstler). As governer the first time 'round, his biggest downsides were fiscal conservatism (which people liked because it produced a budget surplus, but didn't really do much in the way of helping the poor) and his record on immigration is less than spectacular as Adi Shankara mentioned. On the other hand, he's had a pretty good record on environmental and social (read: anti-discrimination) issues.

I gotta say, though, in the current incarnation of his career he's been less than adequate. I dunno how anybody who calls themselves a progressive can run for attourney general in a death penalty state, but he did. Apart from that, his office was more or less responsible for releasing Norman Hsu, a Democratic Party fundraiser accused of fraud, scott free. Anyway, at the end of the day, he's had a lengthy career in Cali politics. In order of office held: Secretary of state of CA (1971-75), governor ('75-'83), mayor of Oakland ('99-'07), attourney general ('07-present). He also ran for president three times but couldn't get out of the Democratic Party primaries. The last time was in '92, when he was Bill Clinton's prime contendor. In that gap after his governorship, he went to Japan to study Buddhism and all sorts of other goofy shit, making the trasition that so many other 60s activists did: from rebel to full on daisy-eared New Age fuzzhead.

As an aside, I suppose I should mention that the n00b MasaG4 is my kid brother IRL...

[Jimmie Higgins]

So whaddya say, California comrades? Have I just about got a grasp on the state's politics or what?That sounds about right to me.

Someone told me that Jerry Brown's candidacy is a "rumor" because the only time you see him mentioned is in a Meg-a Bucks Whitman advertisement. Unions have campaigned more for Brown than Brown has and that's just sad because they'll need that money to fight the cutbacks that either Brown or Whitman are going to try and push through.

Jerry Brown has a reputation in California as "moon-beam" Brown and for his supposedly far-out hippie ideas. He talks a lot about being different and innovative and when he was mayor of Oakland he ran his campaign from a live-workspace warehouse... but having neighbors who maybe threw raves or manufactured meth in their warehouse, is as close as he gets to any sort of political alternative to the mainstream. He is attorney general right now and vowed to uphold prop 8 after it passed, but to my knowledge is no more of a nazi with a happy face (a la the Kennedy's song) than any other liberal politician - take that anyway you like.

This really is a "lesser-evil" campaign and Brown takes all of the unions and Latino groups and so on for granted because Meg is sooooo evil. This allows him to move to the right and promise to only attack pensions and public jobs a little while she campaigns on a platform of getting rid of pensions and eliminating tens of thousands of public jobs (how can anyone campaign on a platform of eliminating jobs during an unemployment crisis?!).

So - just like nationally - we have a situation where the Republican "solutions" where they exist are just austerity and making the working class pay for the econ. crisis and the Democrat "solutions" simply don't exist and so their plan becomes austerity anyway, but just on a slower gear.

Anyway, it's a big shitty mess and the other aspect of it is that the state has laws that mean that a super-majority of legislative votes is needed to raise taxed and so because of that, both parties repeat the mantra: California lives beyond it's means. The state could easily pay for everything and increase funding for schools by either raising taxes or cutting prison spending - but the parties won't unless they feel they have no choice.

If there's one thing that elections in California show, it's that you can buy a recall and even a primary and maybe the governorship. But that's how it's always been - California governors before WWII were always like the son of the right-wing mougals who owned the LA Times or Oakland Tribune or whatnot.

California voters - for the most part - are more to the left than the local or national Democrats, but without any high-profile counter to the "Kalifoneeah must live within its means" bullshit, people are either demoralized or confused.

[praxis1966]

See, this was the kind of response I was looking for. Not that I need people to agree with me necessarily, but it put into perspective some things and told me some others I didn't know (specifically the stuff about his administration in Oakland).

And I can understand the lesser of two evils argument. The trouble is I'm so psychologically exhausted from thinking that way. It honestly makes me not want to vote at all; though I probably will if for no better reason than to vote for Prop 19 (that's to decriminalize herb to all you non-Left Coasters).

Anyway, your mention of the Reps and Dems and their "solutions" reminds me of the following.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGlVhss6Gr4

[Rusty Shackleford]

california is obviously obsolete.

ill have to give this a full read to actually partake in discussion with fellow california comrades.

[Raúl Duke]

I've developed a negative impression of California, outside the fact they may legalize weed, during my job conducting tele-surveys in Cali.

It's like, in many cities of Cali you have all these liberal policies but really not many seem to be anything close to a "socialist" policy or to be important at all except for yuppies. Some of these liberal policies are very lame ones like making you pay extra taxes over plastic bags or whatever or possibly fining you for not composting, etc; besides paying a lot of taxes. Compare this to Vermont's discussing of applying a state-wide single payer health insurance scheme (as long as the federal health bill can allow them to implement) which seems more important, for people, than taxes over plastic bags.

Most people outside of Cali seem to view it has a very liberal place, more liberal than the north-east, but in reality it seems once you start going into the suburbs, rural areas, and interior cities you notice there's a lot of conservative (some of the Palin-esque Christian Republican types) people in California.

Although I would believe that California would be better and more interesting in Florida in some/many respects, but something about their politics leaves a sour taste. Maybe it's like what Praxis mention when he referenced Malcolm X. Politics is more-or-less uniform in Florida, while in Cali it seems dishonest, weird, whatever I don't know.

[Jimmie Higgins]

UW8UlY8eXCkDoes it mean that I'm too soft on the Democrats if I say I like the anti-Ronald Regan version of this song better?:lol:


...I am emperor Ronald Regan, born again with a fascist craving, soon you'll make me Pres-i-i-i-dent...

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I still don't get it when people claim this to be the most progressive state. We have to be really fucking backwards then, where I live in the Valley, most people are racist, sexist, homophobic douchebags. Makes me scared of what lies outside of California if we're considered the most progressive state in the union :blink:

[Agnapostate]

I don't care enough to vote anyway...

[Rusty Shackleford]

I really don't know. I never vote in Gubernatorial candidates because they are always center-right no matter what. I used to like my district representative because he was an open socialist but then he lost an election and low-and-behold, he was replaced with a center-right free-market fundamentalist.

California isn't a left-wing state; people just get that idea because the bay area is really leftwing (in a bourgeois sense), but the rest of the state is red as a baby's spanked ass, especially the Central valley; hopefully that will change though, as many mexican Americans who grew up here are having a chance to vote in elections, and almost all of them are economic leftists.

Jerry Brown isn't THAT bad, I mean he's tolerable, but he still has some pretty fucked opinions on immigration.
Vote Carlos Alvarez of the PSL on the PFP ticket for Governor.
yes, im plugging in my party's candidate, but why not? at least this isnt a "lesser of 2 evils" choice :)

Hes Union, hes a Socialist, and hes a cool guy. Dont forget Marylou Cabral for Sec. of State. Shes an Activist, shes a Socialist, and shes a cool gal.
(our unofficial campaign slogan:lol:)

Also, id still be voting for the PFP candidate if it was Stewart Alexander or Mohammad Arifi(both from the SP-USA).

[Jazzhands]

I'd write in Eugene Debs for every election if I was eligible to vote. He'd still make a better president than Obama, despite being very, very dead.

[Raúl Duke]

I still don't get it when people claim this to be the most progressive state. We have to be really fucking backwards then, where I live in the Valley, most people are racist, sexist, homophobic douchebags. Makes me scared of what lies outside of California if we're considered the most progressive state in the union :blink:

They get this idea because:

1) They live in the South-East or Midwest...perhaps in a backwoods part as well.

2)The impression comes about from a few cities, mostly LA, San Fran, Oakland, Berkeley, etc. It doesn't take into account the rest of the state and the realities (even the most "progressive cities" aren't really doing much progressive stuff unless you see Environmentalism as the only progressive thing besides smoking pot; compare that to Vermont trying to get single-payer health care). When those midwesterners and southerners want to move to California, they're thinking of these cities.

IMO, the most "progressive part" of the US would be the North-East but than again it ain't saying much and I'm biased.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Go to Chico, Yuba, Marysville, the whole eastern part of the Sacramento Metropolitan area(and also most of Sacramento City itself) Modesto, Walnut Creek, Long Beach and all that.

each of them their own little pits of reaction.

Yuba/Marysville has a high ratio of national diversity though. i think its only a little over 50% white.


White26,003African American1,268Hispanic or Latino9,029Asian3,909American Indian or Alaska Native1,171Hawaiian / Pacific Islander215Other6,116

Other is Punjabi/Hindu. i regret not taking the Punjabi class that was offered there. that would have been awesome.

[Vendetta]

dead presidents make the best presidents

[Animal Farm Pig]

I'm fucking fed up with California. After six years of living here off-and-on, I'm emigrating in December, and I don't think I'm going to come back.

Before I start on the reasons I fucking hate this state, I'll mention some things I liked. For two years, I lived in a village of 800 people in the mountains in Siskiyou county. It was awesome. I loved the people and I loved the nature. It got fucking cold in the winter, and there was too much snow, but otherwise it was really nice. The nature and climate around the Bay Area, Central Valley, and foothills are also quite nice.

Aside from that, I don't like this place.

For one thing, I earn $25,000 / year. Last year, I paid about $2,000 in state income taxes. To put this more practically, in Texas (where there is no state income tax), at the same salary, I earned $395 (after taxes) per week. In California, that same check is for $340. So, I pay about $50 / week for the privilege of living here. That $200 / month is my biggest expense after rent and car payment.

I really wouldn't mind paying the taxes if I felt like I got something in return for them. I don't see what I get. If I compare government services to those I received in Texas or Georgia, I think they're actually worse. The transportation infrastructure here sucks. There are very long waits at any public offices. Poverty here is worse than other places I've lived. Crime is much more prevalent-- despite the fact that I see more police patrolling in the Bay Area and Sacramento than any other place I've lived.

Maybe there are more social services here. After hearing about the supposedly liberal social services, I tried to sign up for MediCal. They told me that I didn't qualify. The services can't be that great-- otherwise there wouldn't be massive tent encampments next to the American River here in Sacramento, or (until construction started) under the High Street overpass in Oakland, or lining the fucking sidewalk in San Pablo part of LA (there, the ones in tents are the lucky ones!).

I guess they may be doing something with the tax money. I've been kicked out of two different warehouses where I worked when a land developer decided that they wanted to turn them into fucking hipster lofts and the local government used eminent domain to seize them. Both of those warehouses are still there.

Cost of living blows. A couple of friends and I shared a house at 57th & International (a very bad place) in Oakland. We paid $1,500 per month for a shitty two bedroom house. One of my house-mates was robbed at gunpoint while sitting on the front porch. My girlfriend is now paying $800 / month for a studio apartment in Richmond. Gas costs a good $0.40 / gallon more here than in other parts of the USA. It's nearly impossible to leave the Bay Area without paying a $5 toll.

California (and especially the Bay Area) is famous for being to the Left. I don't see it. I've done canvassing collecting donations for various development and environmental projects in Africa and Latin America. I got a lot more bullshit from people in San Francisco and especially Berkeley than I have in LA or Portland or Seattle or in the midwest. That's shit like "I don't care about people in those other countries", "international aid is a scam", and plenty of just "fuck off!" Yeah, really left leaning here in California... I even got called an imperialist in Berkeley while collecting for a HIV/AIDS prevention and community mobilization project.

That's just the shit that's at the top of my head right now. I'm getting out of here.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I even got called an imperialist in Berkeley while collecting for a HIV/AIDS prevention and community mobilization project.:lol:

That's so perfect. Berkeley: "we kept the pot and the language of the radical 1960s but ditched the politics".