It has just come to our attention that The National Butterfly Center needs your help. Please call your Representatives TODAY and ask them to investigate potentially illegal behavior by We Build The Wall, Inc, (Steve Bannon + Brian Kolfage) on the property immediately adjacent to the Center.

The National Butterfly Center is a privately owned 100-acre magical butterfly preserve along the Rio Grande River near Mission TX. A former onion field, it has been lovingly turned into an oasis of birdsong, native bees and butterflies. Lots of butterflies. But now Trump’s Wall threatens to take away a sizeable chunk of the property. You may have heard about their struggle in earlier news reports by CNN (video), The Washington Post (video), NPR, National Georaphic, and The Texas Observer.

If built The Wall will push 70%, or 70 acres, of the Center’s private property behind the barrier. Access to the river, an important source of drinking water for the region, could be cut off. Border Patrol will have the option of completing clearing all land between the river and the wall, installing bright security lights that shine 24/7, wreaking havoc on all the nature and animals that call that area home. Some may be pushed to extinction, like the ocelot which is already threatened.

Today the National Butterfly Center reposted to their Facebook page a video originally posted by “We Build the Wall”. (Scroll down to see the video.) It shows them bulldozing vegetation and clearing a road right down to the river’s edge on the 6,000 acre property immediately to the east of the Center. In the video the group states that they are taking matters into their own hands and will build the wall themselves. It is heartbreaking to witness the backhoe tearing up huge chunks of grasses at the river’s edge, destroying all life in its path. 

Theirs is an apparently illegal action and could do irreparable harm to the region. Please speak out! Call your State Representatives today and ask them to look into this alarming development. 

Barbara Lee: (202) 225-2661, Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965, Jackie Speier (202) 225-3531 - Buffy Wicks (619) 513-7913 (district), (916) 319-2079 (capitol) 

My wife, Carol Brill, died peacefully on Friday November 8th. Carol had a bad case of Parkinson's and as a result she suffered very severe pain. I and her many friends lost a remarkable woman, who had a very big generous heart. Carol devoted her life to making our world a better place to live. In particular, she very much cared about supporting programs that would improve the quality of life of poor Americans and racial minorities.

During the many decades that we lived in the Boston area, Carol was the director of the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). She encouraged the chapter’s members to lobby the legislature and governor to adopt laws on behalf of those who needed assistance. This had not been the chapter’s orientation.

Prior to moving to Boston, Carol in the 1960s got her masters at the UC School of Social Work. During this period, she organized social workers to support the Free Speech movement on campus. She did not know that the dean of the social work school placed in her dossier a commentary that claimed she was an irresponsible radical. She learned about this insult from a progressive social work board when she applied for the job as executive director of the state chapter. To the Board’s credit, they hired her.

We both retired to the Bay Area in 2004, where Carol continued to work hard on behalf of others. Personally, she appreciated almost everyone she met and knew. So not surprisingly, Carol had many, many devoted friends. Most of all, our 60 years of marriage was a blessing to me. She has been a joy to live with. I am deeply honored to have been her spouse for more than 60 years.

In one important way Carol is still alive. Our wonderful daughter, Deborah, has so many of Carol’s admirable qualities. Also, Carol loved her grandkids, who are age 13 and 15. They are wonderful, mature youngsters. In fact, Carol played a major role in their development. How our daughter and grandchildren have developed has made it easier for Carol to go to sleep forever.

Boy, sometimes I hate it when I’m right. Recently with the approach of what’s now called Veterans’ Day (sadly, formerly Armstice Day) there’s been a spate of articles in the major media calling attention to the appalling rate of suicide among current and veteran service members in the armed forces of the United States. Here’s one from the November 1 New York Times.: Suicide Has Been Deadlier Than Combat for the Military.

What’s so sad about the statistics quoted by editorial writer Carol Giacomo, in her piece, subtitled “The Pentagon has made strides in helping those in need, but the rate of deaths is rising” is that nothing’s new . 

Back in the Big Muddy

Casual conversations with strangers can be more revealing than stories on the nightly news. A Berkeley friend, a motherly lady in her fifties, started chatting with her seatmate on a bus a couple of weeks ago. He was an army officer, a personnel specialist in a big infantry unit down South somewhere. He said his job is dealing with “bereavements”—supporting families of service people who have died on duty. My friend, who comes from a military family herself, was shocked at what he told her: that in the last few months, out of every 100 deaths he’s worked on, 14 have been suicides. That’s not an official Army statistic, he emphasized, just his estimate, but in his opinion, based on about 20 years experience in the military, the suicide rate has gone up dramatically since the Iraq invasion.

One detail he revealed to her was that families are not usually informed that their loved one committed suicide unless they ask. Suicide, like much else in the bureaucratic world of the armed forces, has a special code number. The information the family initially receives doesn’t contain the suicide code, so the family must dig, must ask the right questions, to get the cause of death. He told my friend of one particularly harrowing case: A soldier committed suicide in Iraq, and his buddy sent his wife an e-mail apologizing for not seeing the symptoms in time to prevent the death. The wife had not been told that her husband had committed suicide, and so was doubly shocked when she found out.

The officer said that there’s a big internal controversy in the army right now about how such cases should be handled. Even though he has a strong personal belief that the practice of concealing suicides is wrong, he’s afraid to say so publicly. But he’s distressed. 

It’s hard to confirm what this officer believes to be true using official or unofficial sources. For one thing, army personnel are warned not to reveal any information of this kind. The friend who told me this story got her informant’s phone number, so I called him, told him I was writing this, asked him to tell me more. Of course he wouldn’t say anything. It is against the rules, and he clearly feared the consequences of sharing his anxieties about his job with a motherly woman on the bus. As he probably should. 

We’ve read in the New Yorker and other publications about some harrowing cases of how things seem to be badly wrong in Iraq. What we won’t necessarily read about is the terrible toll this is taking on ordinary American service men and women, who know it’s a mess but don’t know what they can do about it. A very few, like the guy who blew the whistle on the prison torturers, might summon the courage to back up their convictions about what’s right and wrong by speaking truth to power and taking the consequences . Others, perhaps, see only suicide as their path out of the morass. 

On the Memorial Day weekend, as this is being written, it’s the duty of those of us at home to think about our fellow Americans in Iraq who are caught up in a situation not of their own making and can’t escape. Most of them joined the armed forces out of a real desire to serve their country, and never anticipated that they would become an army of occupation in an increasingly hostile Middle East. They were told, and believed, that the Iraqi (and Afghani) populations would welcome them as the liberators of Europe were welcomed after World War II. 

Even arch-conservatives like Pat Buchanan now accept the awful reality that our American troops have been led, once again, into the Big Muddy, potentially even deeper, if that’s possible, than in Vietnam. Pat and his gang probably didn’t learn all the words to Pete Seeger’s Vietnam-era song about the captain who tried to lead his troops into a swamp and almost drowned them all, but here’s the key verse, as pungently adapted by Scots folkie Dick Gaughn: 

“Captain, sir, with all this gear 

No man’ll be able to swim.” 

“Sergeant, don’t be a Nervous Nellie,” 

The Captain said to him. 

“All we need is a little determination; 

Follow me, I’ll lead on.” 

We were neck deep in the Big Muddy 

And the damn fool kept yelling to push on. 

And here’s the most discouraging part: 

My piece was originally published for Memorial Day of 2004. Since then American men and women have been fighting and dying for Big Oil for 15 more years. Just recently Trump pulled American forces out of the Syrian border, all right, but left them in place to control the oil fields. How must the Americans who trained their Kurdish counterparts only to be ordered to abandon them feel about this? Suicidal, perhaps? 

And Iraq this week is in an even bigger mess than it was 15 years ago. 

And yet our damn fool of a president and his crew of equal idiots continue to say push on, disguising what they're really doing with a fraudulent claim that they're disengaging. Perhaps somewhere in the current administration there can yet be found some sergeant with some sense to actually turn this mad middle east crusade around. We can only hope so.

The city staff’s proposal, announced this fall, to cut down traffic circle trees and take over maintenance of all traffic circles raises deep concerns. It is deeply insulting to those well-informed citizens of Berkeley who volunteered many hours of their time as members of the mayor’s traffic circle policy task force, for unelected members of the city staff to put forward a view of these issues as taking precedence over the citizen commission’s findings and policy proposals. Decades ago, neighborhoods that suffered the dangers of high speed through-traffic encouraged the city to put in place traffic-slowing circles. Research has shown that plants and trees, pruned to ensure clear sight lines at driver level, not only beautify the circles but contribute to their calming effect. Volunteers planted and maintain the circles to protect their neighborhoods from speeding traffic, to enhance their neighborhood, and provide the city with the multiple benefits of greenery and trees in our cityscape. 

To propose to cut down the trees that have matured in some of them and that store carbon for us, without a careful analysis of the driver’s sightline in each, is rash and irresponsible. To say that new trees will be planted elsewhere begs the question of where and assumes we don’t know how many years it takes for a tree to mature to its highest carbon-sequestering capacity. To legislate against planting trees in our traffic circles would be equally irrational, especially since studies show that the trees themselves have a slowing effect on traffic. Trees are a very important part of our environment, not just aesthetically but for our physical and mental health and the health of our natural environment. (Sacramento policy: 15.2.3 Traffic calming Devices, page 5, Traffic circles shall be landscaped and/or decoratively hardscaped, including street lights, trees, etc.) 

On my recent trip to West Virginia I asked people if they'd ever heard of People's Park. All of them said of course. But that's not all. Their faces lit up. I asked why they were smiling, and they'd say the sixties, music, dancing, free speech, freedom of speech, thought, the "movement", adventurous clothing, freedom, poetry, people-centered thinking. This was in West Virginia.

So imagine my surprise when after a vigorous pro-People's Park rally on UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza Wednesday, November 6, 2019, a debate-style discussion group about People's Park at Wheeler Hall took a hard right turn into the university's two favorite tropes used to excuse any proposal to destroy the park: crime and the housing crisis.

While facts indicate you're much more likely to be raped, robbed, die of an overdose, die of alcohol poisoning, commit suicide or just be murdered up on fraternity row, facts never seem to stop even young inquiring minds from a Reaganesque embrace of fifty years of UC chancellors' favorite stereotypes.

Even if both of these curious non sequiturs were actually true, it baffles the mind how anyone could imagine that crime is eliminated if you blow up the location it happened, or that the existence of a housing crisis means parks must be destroyed. It doesn't take much imagination to make room for the possibility that crime and housing needs could both be addressed without being in opposition. We can have safety and parks, housing and open space. 

If you suggest that the Reaganesque embrace is no accident, given the convenience of this mythology for UC's constant expansion plans, you'll get accused of being unfair, as if 150 years of historical record was unseemly to observe at all. And if you're an alumna you'll be accused of disloyalty to what is, after all, both your alma mater and one of the largest nuclear weapons contractors in the world. 

It's complicated. At least one's sense of loyalty, in such a case, would seem entitled to complexity. But there's nothing complex about housing or crime. More crime, especially serious crime, is committed on frat row, but nobody's arguing to have it bulldozed. And more housing, especially non-controversial housing, could be accommodated on any of the other eight sites the university itself designated as available. The university has yet to meet the community to discuss the matter, although according to its spokesperson Dan Mogolof, small student groups will soon be invited to private discussions. 

It's a puzzle only if it's left hip deep in ignorance about the city's history, the park's history, the university's history, poetic movements, social justice origins, the intricacies (legal and otherwise) of free speech, open space, and landmarks to name a few. I asked one presenter as respectfully as possible why he would voice an opinion without any foundation in research, and he said he was just riffing on behalf of a friend. 

This is a valuable skill. But so is researching a topic before one commits to a perspective. So is making sure all considered community and ecological perspectives are represented in plans which could cost so much, not just in money but in creative possibilities, opportunities for cooperative community potential, and in lives. People's Park's 

 

Islamophobia has taken hold in the UK. My brother, Lord Indarjit of Wimbledon's, recent broadcast was censored by the BBC. Here is the background of historical facts that were deemed too sensitive for British Muslims. It is an historical fact that the ninth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Teg Bahadur, was martyred by Mughal emperor Jahangir for refusing to embrace Islam. Tyranny and religious persecution of Hindus and Sikhs reached its peak when Aurangzeb ascended to the throne in Delhi. He had long cherished converting India to Islam and vigorously started destroying temples and forcing Hindus to embrace Islam or face death. Fearing the imminent destruction of their religion, a group of Kashmiri Brahmins visited Amarnath, the abode of Hindu Lord Shiva, to invoke his mercy. At Amarnath Lord Shiva visited the Brahmins in their dream and asked them to go to Guru Teg Bahadur and plead for his help in saving the Hindu religion. Teg Bahadur agreed to visit Aurangzeb in Delhi to ask him to stop the persecution and slaughter of Hindus. He was arrested on the way and brought in chains to Delhi. Aurangzeb demanded Teg Bahadur embrace Islam. When Teg Bahadur refused he was executed with three of his companions. Many saints, sages and heroes have died for the sake of their own convictions, but rarely has someone died in defense of another faith. Lord Singh, has been a broadcaster for the BBC in the UK for more than 35 years. It was therefore most disturbing when a scheduled broadcast, called “Thought for the Day” was censored by the BBC out of fear of offending Muslim sentiments. The following is a copy of the censored broadcast.

---Jagjit Singh 

---

Thought for the day 28, November 2018 by Lord Singh

Last weekend was, for Sikhs, a bit like Christmas and Easter rolled into one. Celebration of the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak who taught the need for responsible living centered on the rights and concerns of others, was followed next day by the commemoration of the martyrdom of the 9th Guru, Guru Teg Bahadhur who in 1675 gave his life in the defense of human rights. 

The Mughal ruler Aurangzeb, in his determination to extend Islam to the whole of the sub-continent, was forcibly converting large numbers of Hindus in Kashmir. In desperation the Hindu leaders asked Guru Teg Bahadhur to intercede on their behalf. They said, we know that you and earlier Sikh Gurus have always stood up for the rights of all people, will you appeal to the Mughal Emperor to stop this forced conversion? 

The Guru knew that such an appeal would almost certainly cost him his life. But true to Sikh teachings on freedom of belief he set off for Delhi. The Emperor refused to change his policy and instead offered rich gifts to the Guru to convert to Islam. When Guru Teg Bahadhur refused, he was publicly beheaded in the center of Delhi. His crime, defending the right to freedom of belief of those of a different religion to his own. 

The universal right to freedom of belief is emphasized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, written in the aftermath of the Second World War. We all applaud its lofty sentiments, but all too often put these below trade and economic interest. For example, questions have been recently asked about the selling of arms to Saudi Arabia in the light of the killing of the prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the on-going conflict in Yemen. 

Guru Teg Bahadur set the bar high when on a cold winter’s day, he gave his life in the defense of human rights and gave stark reality to Voltaire’s, famous words: ‘I may not believe in what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. Yet, in the Sikh view, fundamental human rights will continue to be ignored unless those in power and authority are prepared to put these rights well above the false lure of short term economic gain.

Is College really worth the effort? The answer is both yes and no. On the average the earnings of college graduates are substantially higher compared to those who are only high school graduates. A college graduate averages about $51,000 annually. But the yearly income of high school graduates is $28,000. It is not surprising, as the polls show, that for the overwhelming number of students the main motive for attending college is to obtain a good job, particularly one that pays well. Nevertheless, despite their ambitions about 40 percent drop out. For students whose families are in the top 25%, 75% earn a bachelor’s degree. But only about 10% of students whose family is in the lower 25% graduate college.  

Of course, the problems related to being poor discourage many students from remaining in college. But the consumer-oriented culture of many colleges victimizes students as well. Rather than encourage low income students to feel at home by providing an affordable education, they are instead showered with many unjustifiably high costs. Among the high costs is student housing. When the colleges built and operated student housing, not only were rents reasonable. Among the advantages the housing was operated in a way that encouraged a sense of community.  

But In recent years the colleges have changed their housing policy. Now many colleges are leasing the land to private developers to both build and operate student housing. Their only interest is in maximizing profits. Among the dire consequences is that about 10 percent of college students have experienced homelessness. At community colleges, the problem of homelessness is even higher.  

Also, a recent study found that 36% of college students do not have enough to eat. The colleges can solve that problem by providing poor students with a free or a very low cost pass to eat at the school cafeteria. Instead, most school cafeterias are too expensive for low income students. What is also costly for students is how the colleges have allowed banks to treat student ID cards as credit cards, which are controlled by the banks. The banks charge fees and interest on these cards, thanks to the colleges. It is no surprise that so many students drop out.  

But significantly, even many college graduates are in trouble. According to the Census Bureau there are 3.6 million college graduates living in poverty. And the problem, the Census claims, could be getting worse. Actually, the number of college graduates in poverty are already much higher because the Census appreciably underestimates the cost of living.  

Because of developments in the economy that favor business at the expense of the public, college graduates as well as dropouts are confronting an increasingly more competitive labor market. Only 27% of college graduates are working in jobs that are even remotely related to their major. According to Glassdoor Inc. which is a business that attempts to match workers with jobs, on the average there are 250 applicants for every job that companies are offering. As a result, the competition is driving wages down. So even many of those who were doing relatively well financially in part because of their educational achievement are now living on very tight budgets.  

Ironically, as the earnings of higher wage educated employees fall, the gap in income inequality is beginning to narrow. But clearly, a reduction in inequality by reducing the wages of some employees who have graduated college is certainly not good news. Unfortunately, this tells us that the value of a college degree is declining.  

What has also declined is union density. In the private sector, only 6.4 percent of workers are unionized (compared to 35% in 1954). The loss of union density for most workers has been a critical factor in reducing wages. The education that working people need most of all is how to work collectively to recapture union power. Obtaining advanced degrees cannot replace unionization as the major route to achieving good wages and secure jobs.

Covering local events in Santa Cruz has never been more challenging. In Surf City, journalism currently drips painfully through a leaky spigot.Many stories of import go unreported, not for a lack of resources but rather a lack of investment.

Reading print news lately is like participating in a kind of cultural bloodletting. It will perhaps die off when the current over-50 crowd dies off.

Here, all writers' heroic efforts in practicing their art die under the feet of a hedge fund, Alden Global Capital. Alden is squeezing the remaining writing shards from a handful of aspiring young journalists at the local Santa Cruz Sentinel and the San Jose Mercury News. Alden owns both. They make good money, but do not reinvest it. A few more pounds of flesh and the Wall Street vultures will be off to their next victim.

The Santa Cruz local media also includes a snarky and opinionated weekly, the Santa Cruz Good Times; a couple of insensitive and shallow local TV news stations, KION and KSBW; a tenacious and bright college newspaper, City on a Hill; an upstart podcaster. SantaCruzLocal, and me, a councilmember/journalist who contributes to BrattonOnline and elsewhere..

All of us cover local politics from various angles—some more consistent than others. Below is one report, not done for Alden, but a councilmember’s perspective on local politics.

Recalling the Recall

A recall campaign is going on in Santa Cruz to oust Drew Glover, one of only two African-American men ever elected to the city council, and me. We've been outspoken on the need for rent control, demanding developers build the legally required affordable housing units that were often negotiated away by previous councils, standing up to the UC Regents' extreme growth plans for UCSC, and building a much-needed emergency shelter.

This is what we campaigned on, me in 2016 and Glover in 2018, and it's essentially why we are being recalled. Who's funding this effort?

You may have guessed, real estate and developer money and perhaps some disgruntled homeowners who overpaid for their houses and now want to sanitize our town of renters and the houseless. You can be sure the California Apartment Association is also in the thick of it. Over $1 million was raised to defeat Measure M, rent control, last November.

There is a bigger picture to this recall and having a statewide political lens might help. Republicans are flailing electorally in California. Voter registration has hit all-time lows , so in order to hang onto power they've devised a three-prong national strategy: 1) Gerrymandering districts, which several states are currently fighting back on; 2) Using voter fraud allegations to make it difficult for new voters and non-regular voters to actually vote, and 3) Stopping anyone who has served jail time from voting.

In California, since these three no longer yield positive outcomes for the GOP in this overwhelming Democratic and "No Party Preference" state, they are resorting to recalls. If they don't like the outcome of a local election, because rent control, affordable housing, or homeless advocates have been elected, they use our state's fairly liberal recall method. The Washington Post and FiveThirtyEight among other news outlets have reported that Republicans are using recalls in states like Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon to overturn elections that did not go their way. 

Recall, Santa Cruz-style 

In Santa Cruz, all you need are 20 valid signatures on a petition to start the recall process, and the standard for recalling an elected official is essentially anything you want to write on the petition. The California election code says, "A reason must be provided, but under Article II. Section 14(a) of the California Constitution, the sufficiency of this reason is not reviewable." It appears that you can accuse an officeholder of anything and it can go on the petition. Recall efforts are also currently underway in Chico and Westminster, for apparently political reasons similar to those in Santa Cruz, not because any law was broken. 

To understand how concerted the recall effort is in Santa Cruz, it must be recognized that the threat that four new city councilmembers represent to the lifeblood of local capitalism, namely to market rate development interests led by Barry Swenson Builder, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk corporations, and a dozen or so realtors, is a grave one. So perhaps not too surprisingly, this item appeared recently on the Santa Cruz City Council agenda: 

Censure of Councilmember Chris Krohn and Councilmember Drew Glover for substantiated findings in two cases of violation of the City of Santa Cruz Administrative Procedure Order 

It played right into the recall script, possibly planned by some of the above interests. The authors of the resolution were two councilmembers whose benefactors have been accustomed to controlling local power, approving all market-rate development projects, working in lock-step with UCSC as it proceeds to gobble up all available off-campus housing, and never turning down Marriott or Hyatt corporate proposals. 

But these councilmembers are now part of a 4-3 minority. Their grip on local decision-making has been loosened. and they must be hoping that a favorable vote on the censure would help fuel the recall and maybe return them to power. 

How did Santa Cruz get here?  

We have had two elections and elected four new councilmembers (all supporters by the way of Bernie Sanders) who now constitute a four-person majority on a seven-member city council. A day after the 2018 election, pronouncements were made by the more edgy racist minority in town about recalling all four of us. When that gang that couldn't shoot straight failed to turn in a completed petition form, the A-team of local “moderates” took the reins away from the right-wing group of ne'er-do-wells. It seemed similar to how the alt-right fuels the mainstream of Trumpland. 

This moderate group has now apparently spent well over $100,000 of local real estate and California Apartment Association largess to obtain enough signatures to recall Glover and me. They reportedly were paying at least $16 per signature—even up to a reported $50 per registered voter—to petition circulators in the last week of the campaign. They turned in over 11,000 signatures, and the County Clerk has until Nov. 22nd to verify the signature count. 

But let's take a step back. What was the real kick-off to the more serious recall movement, given that some politically displaced Republicans had first tried to light the match? It was at the city council meeting this past February 12^th, when the Mayor of Santa Cruz stated at the beginning of the evening session that there was a "perception in the community" that she was being "bullied" by Councilmembers Chris Krohn and Drew Glover. Three more city employees stepped forward to complain and stand with the Mayor. Thirteen charges in all against the two of us were leveled by five women, two councilmembers and three city employees. 

After the report of an investigation by Sacramento attorney Joe Rose, at a cost of $18,000, yielded only two actually "substantiated" findings, recall petition circulators still called us "sexual predators" in order to get more signatures. 

The only substantiated findings against me was described as a "sarcastic laugh," which allegedly took place on that same evening after the Mayor registered her bullying allegation. If I actually laughed it is not audible on the video from that evening's proceedings, nor was it corroborated in interviews with four other city councilmembers when they were asked if they heard it, and I don’t remember laughing. 

The only person who told the investigator that she’d heard me laugh was another councilmember, who was also the complainant in the one other substantiated finding, against my colleague, Drew Glover. This resulted from an argument between the two over city hall meeting room availability. It seems that the councilmember overstayed her meeting time and Glover expressed his irritation in an argument that took place in the narrow hallway running through the city council's cramped office cubicle spaces. 

Our opponents clearly took these "findings" and used them to fuel the recall campaign. Front page headlines have appeared often this fall in the daily Santa Cruz Sentinel under banners like, "Santa Cruz Leaders' Conduct Investigation Reveals Wrongdoing" and "Santa Cruz City Council Members May Face Peers' Censure." The weekly Good Times smelled blood and produced two cover stories with dramatic titles, "City Counseling: Can Santa Cruz Detoxify Itself," and "Does Santa Cruz Have a Bullying Problem?" The local KSBW television ran with, "Investigation into Two City Council Members Showed They Lacked Decorum." What seems even more troubling is that the $18k Rose Report recommended "conflict resolution" to include all councilmembers. This recommendation was accepted on a 7-0 council vote and $12,000 was set aside to pay for it, but not before a vote on censure took place at the same meeting. 

It was weird. 

The Censure 

What is "censure?" From what I've been able to gather it is a formal public condemnation that expresses "strong or vehement expression of disapproval," according to Dictionary.com. In practice at the city council level, it is the public shaming of an elected official. There are no legal consequences that occur when a public official is censured. At the federal level, US Sen. Thomas Dodd was censured for using campaign funds for personal use, Sen. Herman Talmadge accepted $43,000 and did not report it to his campaign, while Sen. Joseph McCarthy, yes, that Joseph McCarthy was censured for "abuse" and "non-cooperation" when a Senate committee was investigating him. Seems to me that censuring should be reserved for political figures who are real criminals like Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, or real sexual harassers in the political realm like Judge Clarence Thomas, former Sen. Robert Packwood, and former US Rep. Anthony Weiner 

In Santa Cruz, the last censure to take place was in 2016. Then Councilmember Micah Posner was censured for renting out an unpermitted dwelling unit in his backyard. That was illegal. 

On October 8^th, with the Santa Cruz city council chambers packed to capacity, thirty-six members of the public spoke against the censure and eight in favor. The words of those 36 were at times both poetic and poignant. Those comments included: 

Conflict is not abuse (Alicia Kuhl) 

The person punking all of you is the City Manager. (Nora Hochman) 

Don't kick off reconciliation with punishment. (Brett Garrett) 

From the Merchant of Venice, "The quality of mercy is not strained." (Darryl Darling) 

This censure is a misuse of feminism. (Katherine Herndon) 

This is a #MeToo town, the city manager should've fixed this before it turned into a civil war. (Ed Porter) 

Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, but you must first go to the person and ask for forgiveness. (Rabbi Posner) 

Donna and Martine, perhaps your deepest need is to be completely heard and understood. (Satya Orion) 

Censure is just more shaming. (Rick Longinotti) 

Censure is a political tactic to reinforce the recall. It's a Republican tactic in many states to overturn elections. (Eric Ericsson) 

These same councilmembers are the ones who most represent the people, yes, I support Drew Glover and Chris Krohn. (Marilyn Garrett) 

 

After the last member of the public spoke, a motion and vote on the censure were quickly dispatched by the city council. Since four Bernie-cratic, rent-control, make-government-more-transparent councilmembers were in the majority, it was not difficult to predict which way the vote would go. From the minutes: 

Councilmember Brown moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Cummings, that the Council finds that the censuring of two of its members is inadequate based on the findings of the Rose report as it relates to Administrative Procedure Order II-1B regarding respectful workplace conduct, which states, “A single act shall not constitute disrespectful conduct unless especially severe and egregious.” 

The crowd of well over a hundred cheered and high-fived. The handful of real estate and pro-development people who were present bowed their heads. But as this part of the journey into our version of Trump-land ends, the real estate-developer power duopoly may in fact get its paws back on Surf City. 

Recall proponents submitted over 11,000 "raw count" signatures on October 22nd. The county clerk has until November 22nd to verify them. If 7,938 signatures are deemed valid the recall of two councilmembers then goes on the March 3rd ballot. To paraphrase Peter Douglas the former Executive Director of the Coastal Commission, maybe the fight for affordable housing, homeless services, and reining in rampant UCSC growth is never won, but is always being won. Those are the politics for now in Surf City. 

It’s always mind-boggling in America that people can’t find restrooms,” said John Caner, the CEO of Downtown Berkeley Association. Caner suggested the city work with BART to provide better restroom access around stations.

John Caner, quoted above in a local paper, is the same CEO of the Downtown Berkeley Association who insisted during the planning of the renovation of BART plaza that there be no restrooms for fear of attracting the "wrong crowd." It's all nicely documented in the DBA's meeting minutes.

The bathroom in People's Park pictured in the article was inexplicably but firmly locked during the park's most recent public concert, making it clear that the presence of restrooms is only part of the difficulty. 

Let's applaud the City of Berkeley for having a bit of public process in their expensive exploration of restroom availability. And let's hope those impacted insist that BART plaza be the, er, number one location for among the most obvious of human needs. After all, at a certain moment of the day, we're all the wrong crowd. 

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The fallout from the September attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities is continuing to reverberate throughout the Middle East, sidelining old enmities—sometimes for new ones—and re-drawing traditional alliances. While Turkey’s recent invasion of northern Syria is grabbing the headlines, the bigger story may be that major regional players are contemplating some historic re-alignments. 

After years of bitter rivalry, the Saudis and the Iranians are considering how they can dial down their mutual animosity. The formerly powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Persian Gulf monarchs is atomizing because Saudi Arabia is losing its grip. And Washington’s former domination of the region appears to be in decline. 

Some of these developments are long-standing, pre-dating the cruise missile and drone assault that knocked out 50 percent of Saudi Arabia’s oil production. But the double shock—Turkey’s lunge into Syria and the September missile attack—is accelerating these changes. 

Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, recently flew to Iran and then on to Saudi Arabia to lobby for détente between Teheran and Riyadh and to head off any possibility of hostilities between the two countries. “What should never happen is a war,” Khan said, “because this will not just affect the whole region…this will cause poverty in the world. Oil prices will go up.” 

According to Khan, both sides have agreed to talk, although the Yemen War is a stumbling block. But there are straws in the wind on that front, too. A partial ceasefire seems to be holding, and there are back channel talks going on between the Houthis and the Saudis. 

The Saudi intervention in Yemen’s civil war was supposed to last three months, but it has dragged on for over four years. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was to supply the ground troops and the Saudis the airpower. But the Saudi-UAE alliance has made little progress against the battle-hardened Houthis, who have been strengthened by defections from the regular Yemeni army. 

Air wars without supporting ground troops are almost always a failure, and they are very expensive. The drain on the Saudi treasury is significant, and the country’s wealth is not bottomless. 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to shift the Saudi economy from its overreliance on petroleum, but he needs outside money to do that and he is not getting it. The Yemen War—which, according to the United Nations is the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet—and the Prince’s involvement with the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has spooked many investors. 

Without outside investment, the Saudi’s have to use their oil revenues, but the price per barrel is below what the Kingdom needs to fulfill its budget goals, and world demand is falling off. The Chinese economy is slowing— the trade war with the US has had an impact—and European growth is sluggish. There is a whiff of recession in the air, and that’s bad news for oil producers. 

Riyadh is also losing allies. The UAE is negotiating with the Houthis and withdrawing their troops, in part because the Abu Dhabi has different goals in Yemen than Saudi Arabia, and because in any dustup with Iran, the UAE would be ground zero. US generals are fond of calling the UAE “little Sparta” because of its well trained army, but the operational word for Abu Dhabi is “little”: the Emirate’s army can muster 20,000 troops, Iran can field more than 800,000 soldiers. 

Saudi Arabia’s goals in Yemen are to support the government-in-exile of President Rabho Mansour Hadi, control its southern border and challenge Iran’s support of the Houthis. The UAE, on the other hand, is less concerned with the Houthis but quite focused on backing the anti-Hadi Southern Transitional Council, which is trying to re-create south Yemen as a separate country. North and south Yemen were merged in 1990, largely as a result of Saudi pressure, and it has never been a comfortable marriage. 

Riyadh has also lost its grip on the Gulf Cooperation Council. Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar continue to trade with Iran in spite of efforts by the Saudis to isolate Teheran, 

The UAE and Saudi Arabia recently hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pressed for the 22-member Arab League to re-admit Syria. GCC member Bahrain has already re-established diplomatic relations with Damascus. Putin is pushing for a multilateral security umbrella for the Middle East, which includes China. 

“While Russia is a reliable ally, the US is not,” Middle East scholar Mark Katz told the South Asia Journal. And while many in the region have no love for Syria’s Assad, “they respect Vladimir Putin for sticking by Russia’s ally.” 

The Arab League—with the exception of Qatar—denounced the Turkish invasion and called for a withdrawal of Ankara’s troops. Qatar is currently being blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE for pursuing an independent foreign policy and backing a different horse in the Libyan civil war. Turkey is Qatar’s main ally. 

Russia’s 10-point agreement with Turkey on Syria has generally gone down well with Arab League members, largely because the Turks agreed to respect Damascus’s sovereignty and eventually withdraw all troops. Of course, “eventually” is a shifty word, especially because Turkey’s goals are hardly clear. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to drive the Syrian Kurds away from the Turkish border and move millions of Syrian refugees into a strip of land some 19 miles deep and 275 miles wide. The Kurds may move out, but the Russian and Syrian military—filling in the vacuum left by President Trump’s withdrawal of American forces—have blocked the Turks from holding more than the border and one deep enclave, certainly not one big enough to house millions of refugees. 

Erdogan’s invasion is popular at home—nationalism plays well with the Turkish population and most Turks are unhappy with the Syrian refugees—but for how long? The Turkish economy is in trouble and invasions cost a lot of money. Ankara is using proxies for much of the fighting, but without lots of Turkish support those proxies are no match for the Kurds—let alone the Syrian and Russian military. 

That would mainly mean airpower, and Turkish airpower is restrained by the threat of Syrian anti-aircraft and Russian fighters, not to mention the fact that the Americans still control the airspace. The Russians have deployed their latest fifth-generation stealth fighter, the SU-57, and a number of MiG-29s and SU-27s, not planes the Turks would wish to tangle with. The Russians also have their new mobile S-400 anti-aircraft system, and the Syrians have the older, but still effective, S-300s. 

In short, things could get really messy if Turkey decided to push their proxies or their army into areas occupied by Russian or Syrian troops. There are reports of clashes in Syria’s northeast and casualties among the Kurds and Syrian Army, but a serious attempt to push the Russians and the Syrians out seems questionable. 

The goal of resettling refugees is unlikely to go anywhere. It will cost some $53 billion to build an infrastructure and move two million refugees into Syria, money that Turkey doesn’t have. The European Union has made it clear it won’t offer a nickel, and the UN can’t step in because the invasion is a violation of international law. 

When those facts sink in, Erdogan might find that Turkish nationalism will not be enough to support his Syrian adventure if it turns into an occupation. 

The Middle East that is emerging from the current crisis may be very different than the one that existed before those cruise missiles and drones tipped over the chessboard. The Yemen War might finally end. Iran may, at least partly, break out of the political and economic blockade that Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel has imposed on it. Syria’s civil war will recede. And the Americans, who have dominated the Middle East since 1945, will become simply one of several international players in the region, along with China, Russia, India and the European Union. 

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Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedge.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although the impeachment inquiry is cloaked in legalese -- such as whether Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense -- it's also about the relationship between Trump, and his associates, and Ukraine. There is a counterintelligence aspect: Trump was trying to manipulate the Ukrainian government on multiple fronts. 

The Crime: There are two pivotal documents in this matter. The first is the "Unclassified Memorandum of [Juy 25th] Telephone Conversation" between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/25/trump-ukraine-phone-call-transcript-text-pdf-1510770 ). Early in this conversation, Trump says: "We do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing." Zelensky says, "We are almost. ready to buy more Javelins [missiles] from the United· States" and Trump responds, "I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it."  

The second pivotal document is the "Unclassified Whistleblower memo to Senator Richard Burr and Congressman Adam Schiff." (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/26/us/politics/whistle-blower-complaint.html) In this memo the whistleblower says that during the July 25th phone call, Trump pressured Zelensky to do three things: 

• "initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden;
• assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike, which initially reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC’s networks in 2016; and
• meet or speak with two people the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem."

Three things jump out of these documents. The first is there was a quid pro quo. Trump mentions aid to Ukraine and then says "I would like you to do us a favor." Many constitutional lawyers have stated that Trump's action is a violation of U.S. Government Code title 18 Section 201(b) ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201), which states that any public official who “corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for… being influenced in the performance of any official act” is breaking the law. 

The second thing that jumps out is the sequence of the ask: first Trump asks for assistance in "uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine;" and then he asks for helps investigating the Bidens. It's clear from the memorandum of the July 25th telephone conversation that the former is what's on Trump's mind -- he spends more time talking about it. 

The third thing that jumps out is that Trump goes out of his way to malign the previous U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. "The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news... she's going to go through some things." 

Ukraine and Paul Manafort: What lurks in the background is the unsavory relationship between Trump, and his associates, and sketchy characters in Ukraine. This relationship first became apparent in June of 2016, when Trump hired (former Ukraine) political operative Paul Manafort as his campaign manager. Manafort served in this position for three months, resigning in August of 2016. During this period -- which included the Republican convention -- three significant event happened: Manafort was part of the notorious Trump Tower meeting with Russian agents; Manafort intervened to weaken a Ukraine policy item in the Republican platform; and Manafort's connection to former former Ukrainian President Yanukovych, and his for-Russian party, was revealed to the American press. (In addition, the Mueller report noted that, during this period, Manafort passed proprietary campaign polling data to pro-Russian Ukrainians.) 

On October 30, 2017, Manafort was arrested by the FBI after being indicted by a federal grand jury as part of the Mueller investigation.The indictment charged Manafort with conspiracy, money laundering, failing to register as an agent of a foreign country, and making false statements. In March of 2018, Manafort was sentenced to seven and a half years in Federal prison. 

Many have reported that Manafort maintains contact with Trump. Recently released Mueller documents reveal that, in 2016, Manafort told Trump that he thought Ukrainians had been responsible for hacking the DNC during the presidential campaign. (https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/paul-manafort-pushed-ukraine-conspiracy-theory-on-trump-during-the-2016-campaign-mueller-documents/?) Whatever the reason, Trump has long nurtured resentment towards Ukraine (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/for-trump-ukraine-is-a-story-of-personal-resentment-and-political-opportunism/2019/10/04/a256eb70-e6d8-11e9-a6e8-8759c5c7f608_story.html). 

Ukraine and Rudy Giuliani: The "memorandum of the July 25th Trump-Zelensky phone call" makes it clear that Rudy Giuliani is Trump's man in Ukraine. Trump encouraged Zelensky to talk to Attorney General Barr and Rudy G. There's some (baroque) logic to the involvement of Barr -- he's leading an investigation into the origins of the Mueller investigation. But there's no clear logic to Giuliani's involvement. 

Rudy G has been involved in Ukraine for couple of years. He's worked as a U.S. lobbyist for Ukrainian businessmen and he's tried to get American companies lucrative Ukrainian contracts. Giuliani was part of a small group that, apparently, worked outside the U.S. State Department to influence the government of Ukraine. One member of this group was Trump-donor turned Ambassador-to-the-EU, Gordon Sondland. Another member was Energy Secretary Rick Perry. (Recently the Wall Street Journal noted that, "Rick Perry wanted to put two U.S. energy industry veterans on the board of Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, according to text messages written by the former Ukraine special envoy.") Giuliani also has ties with controversial Ukrainian Oligarch Dmytro Firtash (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/how-an-indicted-oligarch-became-a-key-player-in-trumps-ukraine-scandal/ ). 

Giuliani pushed for the replacement of U.S.Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. On November 7th, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent told the House Intelligence Committee: "Throughout March 02019], Giuliani trafficked in 'slander' designed to get... Marie Yovanovitchhas fired from her posting in Kyiv and clear a roadblock to the agenda Giuliani and his clients were pursuing there." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trumps-demands-of-ukraine-came-down-to-three-words-investigations-biden-and-clinton-officials-testimony-shows/2019/11/07/d5ffab54-0197-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html ) Now Rudy's activities are under investigation by Manhattan-based Federal Prosecutors (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/us/politics/rudy-giuliani-investigation.html ). 

Summary: There are four part of this affair. First, Trump came into the White House with animosity towards Ukraine. Second, Trump did not trust the State Department to manage relations with Ukraine so he commissioned Rudy Giuliani to represent him with President Zelensky. Third, Giuliani and Trump deliberately withheld much needed Ukrainian military aid in order to coerce Zelensky into launching two investigations: possible Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden. Fourth, Giuliani and (no doubt) Trump conspired to have Ambassador Yovanovitch removed from her position. 

And, of course, Trump has abused his position by not cooperating with the impeachment inquiry. 

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