A man has been charged with numerous offenses for allegedly trying to set multiple people on fire Monday night in Berkeley, police said Wednesday.  

Brandon McGlone, 46, was charged with arson, criminal threats, throwing a flammable substance on another and among other offenses, assault with a deadly weapon following a melee around 9:30 p.m. on Durant Avenue.  

The melee began when McGlone allegedly went up to two people eating at Artichoke Basille's Pizza at 2590 Durant Ave. and knocked their food off the table, police said. 

He apparently told them he was going to light them on fire, according to police. The two walked away from McGlone and he allegedly sprayed them with WD-40.  

Then McGlone apparently sprayed and was able to set on fire the hair of two people outside Feng Cha Teahouse at 2528A Durant Ave., police said. Bystanders put the fires out while other people tried to gain control of McGlone. McGlone allegedly showed them he had a hatchet.  

Police said officers were able to get McGlone to drop the hatchet. Officers searched McGlone and found he had several Molotov cocktails, knives, matches and lighters.

Berkeley police said Tuesday they are increasing their presence along Grizzly Peak Boulevard because of reports that people are lighting fireworks and bonfires there. 

Concerns have been raised over the past few days about the alleged fireworks and fires sparked between Centennial Drive and Claremont Avenue. 

University of California police have already increased uniformed patrols in the area. Police said the area is within several jurisdictions including Oakland, the University of California at Berkeley and the East Bay Regional Park District, so more officers will be in the area.  

Police are asking that anyone who sees a fire being set or someone setting off fireworks to please call either Berkeley police at (510) 981-5900, UC Berkeley police at (510) 642-6760, Oakland police at (510) 238-3455 or East Bay Regional Parks police at (510) 881-1833. 

If a caller calls the wrong police department, that person will be transferred to the correct department.

September 17 is the 97th anniversary of the 1923 Berkeley Fire.

It’s quite possible you’ve never heard of it. And given the vast conflagrations in California of the past few years—even just the past few weeks—it may be easy to forget or diminish the significance of that long ago fire.

But the devastating experience of Berkeley in 1923 presaged what we are experiencing now. And it was also the first major “urban/wildlands interface” fire of the modern era in the United States.

Of course there had been earlier huge urban fires—including 1906 in San Francisco—as well as large rural fires that had burned forest and countryside and destroyed any small towns in their way. But 1923 in Berkeley appears to be the first instance where a fire began in California wild lands and then burned deep into one of the largest urban areas of the state.

What exactly happened in 1923?

Much the same thing that happened in the Oakland/Berkeley Hills Firestorm in 1991, in Santa Rosa in 2017 (the Tubbs Fire), in Redding in 2018 (the Carr Fire), in Paradise last year (the Camp Fire), and in Oregon and California’s Berry Creek / Oroville region (the Bear Fire) this month. A wild lands fire that became a runaway inferno in one direction when the wind strengthened. 

In 1923 a fire began in the late summer in grasslands or brush in Wildcat Canyon. Even with dry conditions, if wind had been absent, it might have just slowly burned through a handful of acres until crews and volunteers could respond from nearby cities and build firebreaks along the edges. 

However, the extremely dry day combined with blustery and warm offshore winds which picked up in the morning, funneling over the Hills from the east and down towards the Bay. 

Almost before anyone knew there was a big fire burning over the ridge line into North Berkeley, and throwing smoke and embers ahead of it. 

In that era, there was not much in the way of hillside settlement north of Berkeley, just rolling hills. And much of today’s north Berkeley itself had not yet been developed. But the steep-sloped district just north of the UC Berkeley campus was packed with hundreds of homes, many of them picturesque “Berkeley brownshingles”. 

The neighborhood population was a mix of bohemians who had gone there for the view, proximity to nature ,and eclectic neighbors, staid wealthy residents who had built large homes in Berkeley’s expanding “streetcar suburbs”, and UC students, staff, and faculty who wanted to live within easy walking distance of the campus. 

The blocks immediately around Euclid Avenue and Hearst Avenue were dense with fraternity and sorority and boarding houses. UC land acquisition and buildings had not yet crossed Hearst, and the era of “Holy Hill” independent religious seminaries and schools had not yet emerged. 

As the morning wore on that September 17, residents of the neighborhood suddenly found the air choked with smoke and burning brands descending on rooftops and vacant lots and setting spot fires ahead of the rapidly advancing main front. 

People had, in some cases, just minutes to evacuate. Most children and men were away at work or school in Berkeley’s lower elevations, but many women and UC students were at home. 

Some gathered up practical or cherished belongings before quickly evacuating, others fled their homes with nothing more than the proverbial “clothes on their backs”. Automobiles were not ubiquitous possessions in 1923, but many hill residents had them and used them to escape, while others with cars drove their “machines” into the threatened areas to help both friends and strangers hasten down the hilly streets. 

The official public safety response was, by necessity, limited. Berkeley had a well respected, but small, police force and a Fire Department that had proven itself in fighting structure fires but had nowhere near the men, means, or equipment to respond to a disaster spanning an entire district, and scores of blocks and hundreds of buildings burning at once. 

Those fire engines that got into the hills found that pressure was low at hydrants, and it was lowered even further as residents in lower elevation Berkeley neighborhoods pulled out their garden hoses to wet down their roofs. (Embers did land far out in the flatlands and started some fires, but none grew to a threatening size.) 

Some relief came in two forms. First, as the smoke plume towered over the Bay Area, fire engines and fighters were sent from Oakland and from San Francisco (via ferry boat). 

Second, on the UC Berkeley campus the bells of the Campanile were rung, classes dispersed, and many male students set out on their own, or were encouraged, to go into the fire area. In at least the lower elevations they searched homes for those who hadn’t yet evacuated, pulled belongings out of vacant houses to stack them on the street or nearby empty lots where they were less likely to be destroyed. They even fought the fire at individual buildings, climbing on roofs to put out shingle fires, and perhaps saved some structures. 

Photographs show, and aftermath accounts describe, both the UC campus and some parts of the burned area dotted with forlorn clusters of unburnt furnishings, including carpets, lamps, tables, sewing machines, and even pianos. 

(There were some tragi-comic experiences as well. Writer Hildegarde Hawthorne and her mother used the precious minutes they had before evacuating to carry a large can of fuel oil from their home to the lot next door in order to reduce combustibles in the house. When they returned to the fire area they found their house burned completely to the ground and all their possessions and family heirlooms destroyed—but the volatile can was standing intact in the field.) 

The fire continued to burn into the afternoon, reaching as far as the northeast corner of commercial downtown Berkeley, jumping Oxford Street at several points. It probably would have continued burning southwest unchecked. It might have also set fire to buildings on the UC Berkeley campus; near the northern campus edge several of the buildings in that era were wooden, not stone. 

But the wind died down, then changed to Berkeley’s standard sea breeze in the late afternoon. 

Before that point even a surplus of modern fire equipment and firefighters probably wouldn’t have mattered. But after the wind changed, while buildings still burned, they weren’t rapidly spreading flames and blowing embers to nearby structures. 

The fire edge was irregular, but the wind probably also saved many buildings along the edges since the flames were driven past downhill, rather than spreading equally in all directions. A house might burn completely, but it’s neighbor, to the northwest or southeast, survived. A triangle of buildings survived around the upper (eastern) end of Ridge Road and Hearst Avenue as the fire burned past, downhill and to the southwest. 

The 1923 fire also burned a much broader area than most maps show. The areas of damage officially mapped for 1923 concentrated on built up blocks, not undeveloped hillside, but accounts from the time make it clear that after the wind died down the fire continued to burn, as a slower moving grass and brush fire, over portions of Strawberry Canyon and south, threatening not only Berkeley’s Claremont district but even Orinda, over the hills. 

No one is known to have died in the 1923 Fire, perhaps due in part to the volunteer searchers and rescuers who swarmed the neighborhood, and the relatively short distances—by today’s standards—people had to evacuate. There were no extensive neighborhoods of homes high up in the hills, or standing along the ridge line on tortuously winding streets. 

However more than 600 buildings burned over an area of nearly 50 blocks, leaving a shocking, smoking, forest of chimneys charred trees, and soot blackened streets. A fire station, a school, and Berkeley’s Hillside Club succumbed, along with some student living groups. 

Twenty two years ago for the 75th anniversary of the Fire I took a look at UC administrative records, and was able to determine that the homes of about 10% of the students, and about 25% of the campus faculty and staff, burned in 1923. Particularly sad was the loss of home libraries, research materials, and unpublished manuscripts. In 1923, many professors did much of their research and writing at home so they lost not only their houses but much of their scholarship. 

Relief efforts were organized by the City and also by women students on the UC campus who quickly converted the new student union building into a refugee center. Male students, already organized for military training in the campus Cadet Corps, did guard duty in the burned area. Thousands came to see the ruins. 

In the aftermath, as is often the case, there was a cacophony of blame, grand but unfulfilled plans for reform, and imperatives to quickly rebuild and get back to normal. Some may have talked about rethinking Berkeley’s whole pattern of development, but they were countered by those who had lost their homes, had insurance, and wanted to rebuild as fast as they could. 

Few, if any, permanent and sweeping changes were made. 

Berkeley did ban shingle roofs, but that was overturned later by a campaign led by the wooden shingle industry. Efforts to widen streets and build direct evacuation roads came to naught. The City eventually built a new fire station in the hills, and a look-out on the ridge line to give early warning. 

Architecturally, the new neighborhood did not resemble the old. “Period Revival” architecture was coming into vogue and many of the new homes and apartment buildings constructed were stucco walled and tile roofed, in “Mediterranean” and “Spanish Revival” motifs. 

In some areas new housing was built more densely. Look at the blocks of Oxford and Walnut Streets north of Hearst Avenue as an example; they are lined by three story stucco apartment buildings built in the later 1920s on lots where wooden single family houses stood before the fire. 

Gradually, memory and worry faded. In the 1970s there were some wildfires fires that burned homes high in the hills, but nothing of the scale of 1923. 

But sixty-eight years after the great disaster, wildfire came again, with almost the same weather conditions and patterns. This time it started not northeast but southeast of Berkeley. The 1991 Firestorm burned southwest, like the 1923 Fire, destroying some homes on the edge of Berkeley but doing most of its damage in Oakland neighborhoods. Again, as in 1923, it burned uncontrolled until the wind died down. 

Another 29 years have passed since 1991 and today Berkeley now watches and worries as wildfires ring the Bay. They haven’t, as yet, come from our Hills but 1923 shows they have burned Berkeley before, and most likely will again. 

---

(Steven Finacom is a Berkeley community historian. He co-curated an exhibit on the seventy-fifth anniversary of Berkeley’s 1923 fire, and is working towards a centennial exhibit in 2023 on the same theme.)

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has extended an air quality alert through Monday, September 14. Some parts of Alameda County have Unhealthy or Very Unhealthy air.

When air quality is Very Unhealthy, everyone, especially children, older adults and those w/ breathing or heart issues, should stay indoors with windows and doors closed. Go to http://www.baaqmd.gov/ for info, and http://www.acphd.org/air-quality.aspx for tips.

To reduce smoke exposure during COVID-19 Shelter-In-Place, consider creating a clean room in the home: https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/create-clean-room-protect-indoor-air-quality-during-wildfire.

The best way to protect from COVID-19 and poor air quality is to stay indoors. Cloth and surgical masks do not protect from smoke, but do protect from COVID-19. N95 masks should only be used by those who do not have the option to stay indoors.

The current advisory may be extended. Current Air Quality can be found at: https://www.airnow.gov/ and https://www.baaqmd.gov. 

Health Information can be found at our Public Health page at: http://www.acphd.org/air-quality.aspx. See Frequently Asked Questions about Smoke and Your Health, including COVID-19 Protection, here: http://www.acphd.org/media/597038/wildfire-smoke-and-your-health-faqs-eng-2020.08.28.pdf. 

For more information, follow @AirDistrict, @Dare2BWell, @AlamedaCoAlert and @NWSBayArea on Twitter. 

Strange as it seems, the election is upon us. TV pundits are counting down the days until the official presidential deadline: 54, 53, 52…. If you’re a Berkeley resident like me, you’re haunting your mailbox waiting for your vote-by-mail ballot to arrive so you can immediately vote and send it back. And like almost everyone else in Berkeley, possibly with the exception of a few Loony Libertarians or still-sulky Bernie-Babies, deciding who gets your vote is No Problem.

That’s on the president’s line, of course, and Barbara Lee for Congress too. Even when you scroll down to the California offices, many of the choices are easy.

Myself, I’m a bit annoyed with the record of our state legislators, Senator Nancy Skinner and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, both of whom are obviously bought and sold by the building industry, as evidenced by their consistent support of the numerous bills put forward by Scott Wiener and his gang which are intended to strip local governments of their control of land use. But these proposals have now been shelved for the second time, and since neither Berkeley legislator has any meaningful opposition it doesn’t matter whether you vote for them or not.

Actually, Skinner has a very good record on police-related issues, so that’s enough reason to tick her box. Buffy is terminally cute and has a cute baby or two, but I’m not sure that’s enough to get my vote. I did sympathize a bit with her well-publicized need to schlep her nursing infant to Sacramento in order to vote last week. I managed a congressional primary campaign with a baby on my hip and two older kids trailing behind—it’s not easy. Let’s say that for now Buff’s a toss-up in my list.

Today I got email announcing the local endorsements of Berkeley Citizens’ Action and Berkeley Progressive Alliance, and I observe that they’ve agreed with my choices for Berkeley City Council. Good for them.

Here they are:

District 2 City Council: Cheryl Davila, website: www.cheryldavila.vote
District 3 City Council: Ben Bartlett, website: www.benny.vote
District 5 City Council: Sophie Hahn, website: www.sophiehahn.com
District 6 City Council: Richard Illgen, website: www.richardforcitycouncil.org 

I notice that as yet these groups have, like me, taken no position on the state legislators.  

The first three on the above list are all incumbents, and as a frequent observer of the Berkeley City Council I think they’ve all been doing fine. Davila is never afraid to stick up for her (and my) principles. Bartlett is well tuned to what might be called traditional Berkeley values, coming from a long-time Southwest Berkeley family. Hahn has both a good mind and a good heart, both of great value in trying times. 

What the three of them have lacked, in terms of getting things done, is a consistent reliable majority on the council. Kate Harrison in District 1 votes with them, but that’s still only four votes where five are needed to accomplish anything. That’s where Rich Illgen comes in. 

He goes way back in Berkeley, being an early champion of tenants’ rights. His mid-life legal career was in the Oakland city attorney’s office, where his reputation was as an expert in the arcane world of municipal law. One of Berkeley’s major current problems is the lack of timely and vigorous staff implementation of policies developed by the council in sensitive areas such as homelessness and police practices. Having a retired city attorney who knows how to get things done on the council would be a major asset. 

Rich’s opponent, Susan Wengraf, has just been in the District 6 office for much too long. She started as the paid aide to her predecessor Betty Olds in 1992 and took over Olds’ seat when she retired in 2008. That will add up to 32 years if she’s re-elected in 2020, and that’s just too darn long. Anything you might want to complain about getting done or not getting done in Berkeley should really be laid at her doorstep. Her instincts are good, but her execution is lacking.  

She’s the quintessential moderate, the reliable fourth vote for worthy proposals when she’s pretty sure there are not five votes to actually pass them. She’s often compared to Susan Collins: there for you when you don’t need her vote, absent when you do.  

If an energetic progressive like Illgen replaces Wengraf, the council might actually accomplish something. It’s time for a change in District 6. 

Berkeley in a host of ways is a mirror for all the ills of society. The two most visible problems are lack of affordable housing and the need for police reform. We are tempted to think that these are “only in Berkeley” issues, but in fact they are increasingly present everywhere, especially in the Bay Area.  

The catch-all adjective “affordable” is used by advocates of all stripes to cover a variety of sins. Needed “affordable” housing can cover everything from unhoused people camped along the freeway to teachers who can’t afford to live here given their inadequate pay.  

Berkeley becomes a prime target for gentrification when still-solvent techies working at home decide that small houses with backyards and extra bedrooms trump views and kitchens with marble countertops as life-style enhancements. It turns out that it’s hard to work at home with three roommates in a two-bedroom apartment, no matter how exciting the bird’s eye view of the bridges might be. They can and do outbid traditional residents in what have been lower-income ethnic neighborhoods like South and West Berkeley. 

What that pattern will look like in the wake of Covid19 is the subject of much conjecture and few facts. 

The Berkeley faction which has championed over-building of expensive apartments on our few remaining available sites seems to be facing a moment of reckoning. Real estate sections these days are full of the all-too-unsurprising stories about vacant market rate apartments in the cities amid a land-rush to the inner suburbs The developer-backed attempt to cancel back yards is losing momentum as people who can afford it long to grow some vegies while working at home.  

As young people are counseled to form pods while fighting Covid19, stack-and-pack rental apartments are losing favor to group houses in older neighborhoods. But at the same time the essential workers who need places to live they can afford are still driving to work from Tracy and beyond. 

Police officers are often mentioned as those who might need affordable housing in Berkeley. In fact many on the Berkeley police force make annual wages in the hundreds of thousands, and they choose to live outside Berkeley because they don’t like it here, not because they can’t afford it. That’s their right, but a sensible interpretation of the poorly-named Defund the Police movement would say that social workers and mental health professionals (who should be doing the kind of work now done clumsily by violence-trained police officers) should be hired more often and paid better. 

And finally, what about the mayor? In crucial votes on the council, he’s all too often effectively a cipher. He’s much too deferential both to employed city staff, who tend to ignore the few important decisions made by the city council, and to UC Berkeley, where he was a student government officer. His gratuitous offer to sacrifice People’s Park, a City of Berkeley Historic Landmark situated in a valuable potential Historic District, to the university’s insatiable appetite for expansion is inexcusable. But he has no effective opposition, so my non-endorsement won’t make much difference.

First there was the little neighborhood group that could. Then there was the pants on fire report. And then, of course, there was the deflated football cherry on top of the heap of stink that has become the college experience on campus. What's even worse, discerning alumni and observers know that the University of California at Berkeley bears full responsibility for it all. 

It was simply a bad bet that nobody in the Bay Area would notice an extra 8,000 to 10,000 students UC Berkeley Chancellor Christ and previous chancellors thought they could hide under their skirts while people in Berkeley noticed people living five to a bedroom and vying for space under the overpass. UC Berkeley tried to argue that overshooting their own enrollment projections in its contract with the City of Berkeley wasn't a "project", an argument rejected by San Francisco's First District Court of Appeal which noted that environmental review can be required if the impacts of a rising student population are significant. 

Then came the one-two cross, a $2.35 million dollar fine when a federal Department of Education's three year review affirmed that UC Berkeley had improperly reported more than 1,100 crimes on and around campus between 2009 and 2016, repeatedly misstating the time and place such that the federally required information was "of little or no value." In one case a student accused of and who had indirectly confessed to multiple sexual offenses was allowed to participate in an internship in Washington, D.C. Or perhaps the chancellor thought that might be a good fit. 

It was all reported on the same day that most of Oregon went up in flames, where the scrambling UC Berkeley athletic department had planned to have at least some semblance of a football game despite the PAC-12's season's cancellation. The $50 million loss estimated by Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton to his department’s budget for the coming fiscal year came before breathing the air resembled trying to drink toxic sludge. Thousands are evacuated throughout the west watching their communities torched. Even though many sports events are taking place in front of cardboard cutouts, continuing to play at all has unsettling optics even before Oregon registered between 400 and 500 on the air quality index. 

UC Berkeley can bulldoze our landmarks, our parks, our community's cultural shrines and traditions almost without obstruction given its well-worn exemptions and its facade as a school, the most convenient cover for one of the largest nuclear weapons contractors in the world. But as the school facade literally crumbles under the crush of long-deferred building maintenance issues, UC might consider that the hundreds of millions of debt it is now saddled with on behalf of a football stadium it can't use might indicate that it's time to re-think endless expansion in favor of a modest amount of common sense and responsible stewardship. 

Those of us who are alumnae struggle to take pride in a school both so badly mismanaged and so deliberately aimed at the destruction of the values we thought we shared. UC San Diego booted football entirely in favor of an academic focus years ago for good reasons besides their 0-7 record, according to the Triton News, February 1, 2019: 

"... NCAA Division I college football is a multimillion dollar boondoggle the university has a responsibility to avoid. In the NCAA’s most recent publication of national athletic department finances, UCLA ranked 29th, breaking exactly even in revenue and expenses. Berkeley ranked 42nd, reporting a net loss of almost $16 million. The highest ranked public university was the University of Oregon, but approximately $95 million of their reported revenues came from in-kind gifts, like the Hatfield-Dowlin football complex. This does not appear to take into account millions siphoned from the University of Oregon’s general fund into the supposedly self-sufficient athletic department." 

 

UC Berkeley, which uses similarly creative bookkeeping, could certainly have seen years ago that football posed a health risk because of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and even mild concussion research well-known in medical and academic circles long before public awareness of its potential for long-term damage to the brain. These revelations were breathtaking as a stand-alone issue which preceded the Covid-19 pandemic's effect on the impossible equation for paying off UC Berkeley's stadium debt, a debt which made the campus a laughing stock by offering itself as a wedding venue. The Covid-19 pandemic is predicted to last at the very least well into next year - and UC Berkeley is pumped and ready to play. 

UC Berkeley's penchant for self-inflicted wounds is not unstoppable. But our somnambulant city council needs to wake up and say something. The current council majority has not reflected community values plainly stated in our Public Parks and Open Space Protection Act and in multiple city plans going back decades, opting instead to favor tinkering with the wording of various plans to include corporate interests. The mayor is famous for insisting on even bigger canisters of chemical irritants for the police. 

The dominant council faction's preference for shoveling largesse into wealthy developers' pockets for cramped high-end housing in a pandemic while turning a blind eye toward a serious approach to the pandemic's requirements to reduce contagion, the community ravages of the attendant recession (beyond the heartbreaking inconvenience to wealthy diners), an unaccountable police department disproportionately stopping Black people, a pepper-spray-equipped army of "ambassadors" trained to automatically combat the presence of the homeless and poor, and the crying need for honestly affordable housing for displaced families while enthusiastically embracing the re-purposing and destruction of local parks for commercial use. 

Pick up the phone and talk to them about it before yet another election passes where, with the clear exception of a couple of councilmembers, they are entitled to assume anything they please from the deafening silence. 

 

The Question of Identity

As the white cop’s knee slowly squeezed the life out of George Floyd, there were people standing ten feet away, yelling and begging him to stop. To no avail; he could hear them, but his only response to them was his unrelenting desire to kill. Thus, he exemplified in microcosm the overall response of the police to the massive demonstrations against their brutality. That response has been to increase their killings and tortures. When Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, sought to mediate a fight between two women on the street in broad daylight, the only thing the cops could think to do, when they arrived, was shoot him seven times in the back. 

The cop who killed Floyd was not a rogue cop; he was a member of a team, as was the cop who shot Rayshard Brooks in the back, as was the cop who killed Breoona Taylor with an assault rifle, as was Messerle when he shot Oscar Grant in the back. The progression of murders signifies not only that the cop who killed Floyd was not "rogue;" he was not even a "rogue" white man. He was enacting a tradition that stretches from the slave ships to 19th century KKK raids to the Tulsa riot to racial profiling to the mass incarceration program that has made the US prison population the largest in the world. Since 2015, on average, 1000 people of color have been killed by police in the US each year. It is a tradition that passes by way of Hiroshima, Vietnam, and the contemporary bombing and invasion of other lands (Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria). 

Race, like military intervention and assault, does not occur for natural reasons. "Race" occurs by definition, just as military assault occurs by political decision. And when the concept of "race" changes from one period to another, it reflects a process of political decision-making. Specific people make those decisions. We see some of them happen on the street, when a cop makes a decision to kill. Some we only glimpse in their wake, as when a DA decides not to charge a cop for killing, or the government decides to defund affirmative action programs. They all belong to an unfolding of the structures of racialization. And as every military assault decision will be labelled self-defense, so will a cop’s political decision to kill a black person. To call it “self-defense” makes it seem like a "natural" response, rather than a political decision. 

How would a white person seeking to talk about race find their way out of this labyrinth. Caught between arbitrary political decisions and a false "naturalness," one could easily be overwhelmed by the irrationality of what one addresses. 

In white people, race takes the form of identity. White racialized identity determines, rather than is determined by, the "nature" of the body it inhabits. As an identity, it too is a result of political decision. As we have seen (in Part 2), white racialized identity is actively produced through the process of racializing black people (for instance), and not by belonging to a specific territory or language group. In that, it is different from other cultural identities, such as the French or the Senegalese. Whiteness is certainly not native to the Americas, though that is where whiteness as a racialized identity was developed (invented). Since then, it has been busy constructing racialized identities, such as Native Americans, Latinxs, Asians, etc., formed as "minorities" by white majoritarian supremacy, but using its black racialization as a model. 

To be white-oriented (as a form of consciousness) means to accept one’s white racialized identity as natural, and to forget its historical origin as a cultural construction. To intentionally forget requires the substitution of something else for the remembrance. For whites, that is done precisely by defining a supremacy for itself. It hides the memory of colonization, enslavement, segregation, and the arbitrary mob murder that has graced the history of racialization. 

Supremacy implies replacing one’s knowledge of coloniality and enslavement with a special forms of identity that demands acceptance of the color line by which that identity was created in the first place. It also demands confirmation of the sanctity of its decisions. White people may disagree over the nature of the color line, or its degree of enforcement, but most tend to give a universal rather cultural value to being white. 

Forms of white identity 

Suppose a white person was to look at current events and say, “ugh, I don’t want to have any part in these injustices.” Can such a person, who had originally been given their whiteness by other white people, give it back? Can one live a de-racialized life by autonomous choice? Is a disconnect from white racialized identity possible, or does one get automatically reconnected by all others as soon as one walks out into the street? 

Here are a few examples of variations in white racialized identity. 

1- I am white, but I have a sense of justice. If the police are killing people to the point where it engenders a movement demanding they stop, it must stop. I don’t want arbitrary murder to be a characteristic of my cultural identity. 

2- I am white, and I am filled with trepidation and anxiety, thinking about how black people are treated in this society. I bemoan their fate, and wish I could help them in some way. For some reason, many of them look askance and decry my concern for them as patronizing. 

3- I may be white, but I am a person, just like black people are persons. When they complain about what happens to them at the hands of white people, they are playing the victim instead of standing up for themselves, like I would. So they get no sympathy from me. 

4- I didn’t ask to be white, but I am white. I understand that there were injustices in US history committed by white people against black people. But I didn’t do it. So making me feel guilty for being white is another injustice. 

5- This is a white society, which is why black people are called a "minority." They are outside the "majority," and thus don’t belong in the same way that white people do. Where is the injustice in that, if white people are the majority? 

6- When black people say that black lives matter, they are being supremacist, and seeking to take all the power of this society for themselves. Who are they to say that they are the only ones who matter? So we have to fight for the rights of white people against this. 

Each of these examples represents a different "pragmatic" position. Whether it manifests itself as prejudice, hostility, liberalism, empathy, sociological concern, patronizing or marginalizing attitudes, etc., each exemplifies the role a white person plays in the productive activity of racializing people of color. In each subject-object relation, there is a "myself" as a member of white society who speaks and judges "them.” Representing degrees of objectification of black people, they express different white hegemonic forms of subjectivity. None grant any autonomy to black people. None include a vision of a government that values human beings as such, and which can then guarantee justice. In each of these examples, white racialized identity simply becomes a “ticket to ride.” 

Special mention could be made about the first one. There are many white people who, while accepting the whiteness given them, refuse to participate in the injustices that are committed in its name. Many are labelled "liberals," and have become a whipping-boy for extremely white-oriented people, such as “white nationalists.” As liberals, they condemn racism, segregation, a government capable of murdering of its own people, and the special structures of impoverishment to which people of color, and especially black people, are subject. But their reproach is on a policy level, rather than on one of cultural ethics. 

Though the liberal ethic rebukes racial injustice, it tends to focus on the resulting status of the victimized, and thus tends to see them in that generalized sense. Their empathy becomes a universalizing attitude, one which corresponds to that of white racism itself. Thus, they often defeat themselves, falling into a racialized objectification of racism’s victims. 

The liberal “policy approach” is based on the centrality of the individual with respect to rights and social responsibilities. For this reason, liberal anti-racists (as opposed to those who seek a totally de-racialized society) tend look on racists as simply ignorant of the common humanity of people. Thus, they often propose education as a proper response or antedote to racism. But education occurs at the ideational level, rather than the cultural. What is hard for many to understand, in terms of their educational paradigm, is that what they see as ignorance is actually a form of "knowledge" for the white supremacist. It is a “supremacist knowledge" on which one can rely for an impunity of action against others. 

How is one to talk about race if one has trouble grasping the cultural nature of white identity, or the structural nature of racialization? Many anti-racists will counterpose an ethics of law and sociological pragmatics to racist violence. But it falls on deaf ears because their ethics exist at the level of civil engagement, while racist impunity (criminality) legitimizes itself ethically on a cultural level. The anti-racist gets trapped between a desire to be proactive against racism, and an inability to do so in the absence of specific acts of discrimination. They are reduced to a practice of "watchful waiting." 

Ironically, though white nationalists and white liberals oppose each other on the terrain of racial oppression, their conflict (segregation vs. integrationism) tends to become a disagreement only on how to stabilize white hegemony and the tranquillity of its social framework. The former proposes control while the letter proposes mediation of social discontent. Both are on the same side of the color line, and both live an I-them relation to people of color. They each become a means whereby whiteness grants itself a sense of sanctity through its objectification of black people. Segregationism and liberalism are simply two instances of the way white supremacy and white racialized identity manifest themselves on a daily basis. 

The paradox of white dependency on black people. 

We see, in all these thumbnail sketches of white racialized identity, that there is an aspect of corruption. It is found in their sense of independence. The identity culturally given as whiteness becomes the center of a person’s consciousness of the world. Insofar as it governs one’s actions in the world, it expresses itself as an ethical structure. It promises a superior independence, but depends on racism for how it is constructed as an identity. It is also an identity that centers the thought that racism as valid. That implies that each form of white racialized identity, as it defines itself ethically, is dependent on the existence of black people. Each becomes an identity dependent on that existence. Remove that existence, and the ethical structure that determines one’s relation to the world would collapse. Without black people, each form of identity would be bereft of that for which it had been established, the very substance of its reality. Real racial equality would ultimately result in a deep traumatic identity crisis. 

Richard Wright tells the story (in Black Boy) of how, when planning to go to Chicago, his main white tormentors in Mississippi begged him not to leave. They seemed to exude, on Wright’s account, a kind of panic. It couldn’t have been that they were going to run out of people to oppress. More likely, Wright’s exit bespoke an autonomy he was establishing for himself, one which would be anathema for white supremacy. It implies that if black people liberate themselves from the hold of whites, the white world would fall apart. In that sense, black autonomy as such constitutes a direct threat to white existence as white – and thus, a source of white paranoia. 

Clearly, white dependency on black people is paradoxical. On the one hand, black people have been subordinated and inferiorized by white racism; on the other, they must be present in some way in order to fulfill their role in the construction of white identity. That role may be, for whites, as a target for imposed social exclusions. But within the racializing process, there has to have been an assumption that black existence was fully human, in order for white people to act to subordinate and mutilate it. 

This implies that the white reduction of black people to subordinate status is an ongoing active process essential to the maintenance of white identity. It is not "exclusion" or "marginalization" in themselves that characterize racialization, but the continuous activity of imposing it. That unceasing process is what white racialized identity cannot do without. To grant black people their humanity in order to then abrogate it is at the core of constructing white racialized identity. 

This is evident in the continued underfunding of education for children of color. Health care is skimped so their health is constantly in jeopardy. People of color are suffering infection and death at the hands of Covid-19 far beyond their population proportion. White supremacists continuously make attempts to restrict the right to vote for people of color through identity cards and new forms of poll taxes. It goes on and on. 

In short, white people do not debase black people in order to feel greater and more powerful. They do it to establish themselves as white in the first place. It is a testament to the artificiality of the concept of race that the power of whiteness, as an imposed racial hierarchy, exists only if given practical dehumanizing expression, individually and systemically. 

The psychotic self-degradation inherent in this never-ending process of debasing other human beings should to be enough to repel any self-respecting white person, and turn them against the culture that requires that kind of atrocity for itself. The central obstacle to white people rebelling against that white culture is the paranoia inherent in white racialized identity. 

Paranoia blinds one to self-awareness in a manner similar to the way generalization of people obstructs knowledge of those generalized. It is due to that paranoia that, for white racialized identity, equality, social equity, and the autonomy of others become a dire threat. 

Living in a morass of invented threats, white racialized identity responds by desiring violence that it can then call self-defense. The confluence of paranoia, enforced solidarity, and violence is the deep structure of white racialized identity. The slave patrols, the Jim Crow laws, the mob murders and poll taxes were all designed to valorize that structure. Today, it is police brutality that fulfills that basic need for white supremacy. That “deep structure” is the dynamo that continually drives the on-going process of racialization to new atrocities. 

A word of warning is needed at this juncture, for anti-racists. There is danger in standing opposed to white supremacy and its racialized identities. White supremacy will mobilize forms of violence against that opposition, as seen in practice in the recent events in Kenosha. 

Yet more and more white people are concluding that seeking an alternative to whiteness has become imperative. Many have gone beyond liberalism to a critique of racism as a white cultural phenomenon. By seeing racism as the operations of a structure of racialization, it becomes possible to start acting proactively against it. One need no longer wait for incidents to use as examples. Unfortunately, many who seek to be proactive for justice also wish to do so without objectifying themselves. They think it is possible to maintain a white identity that is not racialized, and thus will not be complicit with the structure of racialization. But by now, we should be able to recognize that as an idle dream. A justice-oriented white person’s task is ultimately to tear up their “ticket to ride.” 

The deep structure of identity 

What does it mean that whiteness has a deep structure? For one thing, it implies that white racialized identity cannot be described psychologically. If it is given culturally, it is lived as such, like the weather. “To be lived” signifies that what happens in its relation to the world “goes without saying.” In particular, it is the racism implicit in each mode of living one’s white racialized identity (as a mode of “living race as a verb”) that “goes without saying.” It may be present in one’s sense of entitlement as white, or undertaken in an assumption of privilege. But to “go without saying” marks the unfolding of a cultural process. On the other hand, one’s opposition to racism is also how one lives the world. If one lives the world as a white person, one’s anti-racism becomes a valuation of how one lives that same white culture. One has not avoided complicity in it. 

Ultimately, those who value their disdain for people of color may actually find their racism to be a comfort zone. Similarly, those who value their anti-racism may find their vision of justice and a just society to be, as well, a comfort zone. It is the racializing processes, deep in this culture, that constitute the trap for them. In demanding allegiance, it delimits how far they can go in advocating justice and equality. 

To take real steps in the direction of justice and equality, one must first de-racialize one’s own white identity, and then rehumanize what that process liberates in oneself. That means establishing an autonomy, and a demand for mutual respect (given and received) that can only be achieved socially – by assuming and guaranteeing the autonomy of all others. To still be a white person living one’s racialized identity is to be locked into the narratives of dependency by which white racialized identity had originally constructed itself.

Four years ago, a new malady hit the American public—ESD. “Election stress disorder” affected more than half the voters in the nation. The symptoms are headaches, nausea, sleeplessness, light-headedness, and spiking of blood pressure. Small wonder; the 2016 election cycle, like none in our history, demeaned public discourse, denigrated the public good, and diminished the democratic process.

And now, in 2020, as a new presidential election is rapidly approaching, ESD is on the rise again. This time, a substantial number of Americans are jittery about the future of democracy itself. They are deeply concerned that the Trump administration has led us away from the traditional democratic values of equality, fairness, justice, and opportunity based on the public good; and replaced these values with cynicism, greed, and selfishness motivated by the compulsion for personal power and private gain. And they are also deeply troubled, that in doing so, Mr. Trump has demonstrated that he has either an alarming ignorance of, or utter contempt for: The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law.

In the early days of our nation, Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense that the highest vocation of an individual in a democracy is that of being a citizen. What he meant was that civic engagement and political involvement are the lifeblood of a democracy.

During the Trump impeachment hearings, Congressional Republicans, as an excuse to justify the abdication of their Constitutional obligations, kept repeating the mantra, “We have an election soon, let the people decide.” Well, that election will happen on Nov. 3. There are also critical elections for Congress. This election is about the future of democracy. That’s why it is important that each and every one of us gets involved. We can contribute energy, time, money, or all three. And we can make a difference. For too long, Americans have been serious about unserious issues and unserious about serious issues. Perhaps the tragic consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic will force us to get serious about serious issues.

TWENTY-FIVE REASONS TO GET INVOLVED:

If you are thinking of sitting out the upcoming Presidential and Congressional elections on November 3, think again; because the results will, directly and indirectly, affect you and your whole family in ways that you never imagined. So think about the issues that matter to you. It’s worth the effort as the stakes are high! The most crucial issues to consider, not necessarily in order of importance, are: 

1. Decent Jobs at Livable Wages
2. Affordable Health Care
3. Global Warming
4. Public Education and Student Debt
5. Women’s Right to Choose
6. Medicare, Daycare, and Medicaid
7. Voter Suppression
8. Campaign Finance Reform
9. The Supreme Court and Federal Judges
10. Sexual Abuse and Equal Justice
11. Separation of Church and State
12. Increasing Poverty, Hunger, and Homelessness
13. Assault Weapons on the Street
14. Social Security
15. Consumer Protection
16. Immigration Reform and a Path to Citizenship for the “Dreamers”
17. Preemptive War and National Security
18. National Health (Pandemic) and Disaster Preparedness
19. Maldistribution of Wealth and Economic Justice
20. Fair and Progressive Tax Reform
21. Basic Research in Science, Health, and Technology
22. Renewable Energy and a Sustainable Environment
23. NPR, NET (Sesame Street, et al.), the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities
24. Cronyism, Corruption, Lying, Manipulation, and Incompetence in Government
25. Infrastructure Development (Mass Transit, the Energy Grid, Schools, Hospitals, Bridges, Roads and Airports)

Finally, it is important to understand that it is not only critical for Joe Biden to win but it is crucial that he win by a big majority as that would help the Democrats pick up Senate seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina--and possibly additional ones in Georgia, Iowa, Kansas and Montana--which would give them control of the Senate and the ability to pass much-needed progressive legislation. 

---

Professor Arthur I. Blaustein recently retired from teaching Community Development, Politics, and Public Policy at the University of California. He served on the Board of the National Endowment for the Humanities under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and Chair of the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. His books have included Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport, The American Promise, Man Against Poverty, and the Star-Spangled Hustle. His articles have appeared in Harper’s, Mother Jones, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, and the New York Times Wire Service.

Aside from defeating Donald Trump for President, probably the most important thing voters can do in this election year is return control of the Senate to Democrats. This article suggests nine close Senate races where Berkeleyans and other locals might contribute effectively and financially to help Democratic and Independent candidates for Senate. Republicans need to lose a minimum of four seats for Senate control to shift to the Democratic Party.

Our actual votes in national elections, at least in Berkeley, won’t matter much this November since Berkeley will certainly send a Democrat back to the House of Representatives, there are no California Senate seats on the ballot, and the State seems pretty solidly ready to vote for Biden and reject Trump for President.

So one of the best things we can do is donate to and otherwise support Democratic and independent incumbents and challengers for Congressional seats. It’s less than two months to election day, and absentee and early voting will start soon in many states. 

Democrats look in a good position to sustain and possibly expand their majority in the House of Representatives. (There are, however, a number of Democratic “pick-up” opportunities in the House which I won’t try to describe here.) 

The key is the Senate where Mr. McConnell, allied with those who are either scared of Trump or willing to act as his minions, has successfully ignored, delayed, buried, or turned backwards, almost any attempt at meaningful action on most of the key issues of the day—climate change, race relations, economic inequality and reform, and the COVID-19 crisis. 

Donating to Democratic candidates in key Senate races is one of the most consequential things we here in “safe” California can do to bring about change. But where might the money do the most good? 

I’m glad I waited late in the election season to write this, because the election landscape has been changing and most of those I would have donated to a few months ago in “close” races now seem either well funded or in a good position for the election. 

For example, the four top tier opportunities to replace incumbent Republican Senators with Democrats were and are in Arizona, North Carolina, Colorado, and Maine. The Democrats now seem to be ahead and well supported financially in all of those races. The odious Arizona Republican appointee Martha McSally, Tom Tillis in North Carolina, Cory Gardner in Colorado, and the lamentable faux “moderate” Susan Collins in Maine, all seem on their way to defeat, if current polling and political trends prevail. 

(A side note. I think the best political comment of the year comes from a Mainer disillusioned with Collins who pointed out that she tends to vote “with” Democrats on meaningless things, and with Trump on consequential things. The observation was something like this “Susan Collins is always there for you when you don’t need her.” Hah! I know some Berkeley politicians who are like that.) 

This is not to say don’t donate to the Democrats running in those four states. But their position, both in terms of polling, and fundraising, is better than it was earlier in the year so it gives us the luxury, if that’s the right word, of looking for pick-up opportunities elsewhere. 

(The Democratic candidates in those four races are John Hinkenlooper in Colorado, Sara Gideon in Maine, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, and Mark Kelly in Arizona.) 

Beyond those four, however, there are at least six other Senate races where there’s a possible chance to achieve a Democratic majority in the Senate. If Democrats can win the four Senate races above, and two or three of the ones below, that would give them a slight cushion in the Senate and, if he’s elected President, Joe Biden will have a meaningful chance to undertake real progressive reform. 

And if Trump is re-elected or steals the election, a Democratic Senate and House for the next two years will be the last essential firewall protecting actual American democracy. (Well, Canadian American democracy may survive. But ours might not.) 

This is not written to give you all the details of the positions and backgrounds of the Democratic candidates in each race. It’s just an overview based on the premise that these particular Democrats are, in each and every case, better than their particular Republican opponents in their election contests. I’ve provided the campaign website links for the each of the Democrats so you can research them further. 

MONTANA
 

Governor Steve Bullock is the Democratic candidate running against incumbent Steve Daines. 

The small size of the Montana population and the affordable media markets also mean that contributions can have an outsized impact here. And Montana, although it usually votes Republican in presidential elections, does periodically elect Democrats to its Congressional seats and support for Trump has recently eroded there. Democrat Jon Tester currently holds the other Senate seat for the state. Bullock is reportedly a well known and popular figure in Montana and has already shown he can win a statewide election. 

Bullock for U.S. Senate website: stevebullock.com 

IOWA 

Theresa Greenfield is the Democratic candidate running against incumbent Republican Joni Ernest. Ernest has made herself into an odious Trumper, clinging tight to him, including supporting his COVID-19 non-response in what is now one of the top “hot spot” states for COVID-19 cases. 

Iowa has tended to vote for Republicans in recent years but is also a state where many Republican and independent voters are well educated so there’s a better chance of a reasonable and sensible Democratic candidate breaking through. Iowa also gave Barak Obama its electoral votes in 2004 and 2008 and elected Democrats to three of its four House seats in 2018. Most recently the state suffered a pretty severe natural disaster in August where windstorms devastated some of its southwestern counties, and Republican officeholders at the State and National level seem to have partially fumbled disaster response. 

Greenfield has a compelling personal narrative; she grew up on a Minnesota farm across the border from Iowa, and her first husband, a union electrician, died in a work accident. She was left at the age of 24 a pregnant widow with no job and a one year old child. She credits support from Social Security and Workers’ Comp for helping her family survive, and give her the means to return to college and learn a new career. Unlike many Republicans who have benefitted from government assistance personally, then politically spurned government social service programs, she takes the broader view that government has a role in helping the disadvantaged. 

Greenfield’s website is greenfieldforiowa.com 

KANSAS 

Barbara Bollier, the Democratic nominee, is running for an open Senate seat, after the retirement of Pat Roberts, Republican incumbent Senator. Roger Marshall is the Republican nominee in a generally Republican state, but he doesn’t have the usually considerable advantage of incumbency. 

Bollier is a doctor who was appointed to the State Legislature as a Republican in 2010; she ran for re-election either unopposed in the Republican primaries, or opposed by Republicans supported by business interests and right wingers. In 2018 she began to support Democrats for Statewide office and at the end of that year she was one of three Kansas legislators who formally changed their party affiliation from Republican to Democratic. She said at the time,“Morally, the party is not going where my compass resides.” Her main issues have been health care, including Medicaid expansion, and school funding. 

The one mark against her from our local perspective might be that she has a son who went to Stanford. :-) But we can certainly overlook that in this election year. 

Marshall, on the other hand, was one of the Republican House of Representative members who, last October, in an act of ludicrous grandstanding, broke into the House Intelligence Committee hearings investigating possible impeachment articles for Donald Trump. He also wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

Having another woman in the Senate, especially a fact-based medical doctor, would be a great plus. And a win by Bollier would also show that actual moderate Republicans won’t destroy—and can even further—their careers by switching parties or defying Trumpism, something that Republicans running for election or re-election after 2020 will be well aware of. 

Bollier’s campaign website is bollierforkansas.com 

GEORGIA REGULAR ELECTION 

Georgia is a big toss-up this year. It’s generally been a reliable Republican state, but the Black Lives Matter movement, the tumultuous 2018 election there (that barely put into office a corrupt Republican and big Trump supporter as Governor) and the fact that both Senate seats are on the ballot—puts the State into play. 

Journalist Jon Ossoff is the Democratic nominee running against incumbent Senator David Perdue. In recent polls they are close to tied. Perdue has opposed climate change legislation and the Paris Agreement, wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and drastically cut legal immigration and has been a close ally of Trump. 

Ossoff’s campaign website is electjon.com 

(Note, there’s a fake anti-Ossoff site using the domain name jonossoff (com) DON’T make the mistake of using that.) 

GEORGIA - SPECIAL ELECTION
 

The second Georgia Senate election is a special election for the seat currently held by Republican appointee, Kelly Loeffler. In this election all candidates will be on the same ballot and if one doesn’t win more than 50% of the vote, there will be a special election in January between the top two vote-getters. 

Since there are two Republicans on the ballot, it’s possible that the runoff could be an all-Republican election. So the campaign focus is on getting the leading Democratic candidate, Rev. Ralph Warnock, into at least the second place for the runoff. 

Multi-millionaire appointee Loeffler has been tone deaf and repugnant for much of her short tenure in the Senate. Most recently there were the private investment shifts she allegedly made after private briefings on the likely economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Loffler’s better known endorsers include Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, and Ivanka Trump. But the Republican side in the election is somewhat split since Loeffler wasn’t supported for appointment by Donald Trump, and Trump’s favorite, Representative Doug Collins, is also on the ballot as the second primary Republican candidate. 

Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He’s running on affordable health care, support for workers, and voting rights in particular. Voting rights is a huge issue in Georgia where the current Republican governor was elected when he was Secretary of State, and apparently actively aiding voter suppression. 

His website is warnockforgeorgia.com 

ALASKA 

Dan Sullivan is the Republican incumbent. Al Gross is the Independent challenger. 

There is actually no Democrat formally on the Senate ballot in Alaska this year, although Gross has been formally endorsed by the Alaska Democratic Party. But you can help defeat Trumpism by supporting a moderate independent. Gross, like Bollier in Kansas, is another actual doctor. Alaska media markets are inexpensive and the population is small so small amounts of money can have a big impact. 

Some people will argue that only those who run specifically as Democrats should be supported. In this case, that isn’t an option. I also tend to be of the opinion that legislatures can quite often be more healthy and representative and hear more diverse views if they are not essentially limited to two parties. 

(Look at the British House of Commons, for example, where there are elected representatives from no less than 11 formal parties. There are two major parties, but there are 75 out of 650 members of the House of Commons who do not belong to them. Partially for that reason, if you listen to Commons debates, they are often refreshingly specific and direct about actual issues and people, as compared to monochromatic Congressional “debates” in this country.) 

Back to Alaska. Electing Gross would reduce the Republican total in the Senate by one, and add another independent who, along with Maine’s Angus King and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders—also elected as independents—would presumably caucus with Democrats. 

Gross has an-only in Alaska backstory. His website says he “was born in the wake of an avalanche in Juneau in 1962. Their house, at the foot of Mt. Juneau, was nearly buried…” He worked as a commercial fisherman for ten summers, buying his own boat, to help pay for college and medical school. His opening campaign video also says he “killed a grizzly bear in self defense after it snuck up on him.” Hmmm. Cal Bears can overlook that this year in the interests of saving national democracy. 

His campaign website is dralgrossak.com 

OTHER SENATE OPPORTUNITIES 

In addition to those six Senate races, there are three other races where the Democrats may be less likely to win, but where a campaign contribution could help and would also be a moral statement against corruption and right wing extremism. 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

The election has incumbent Lindsey Graham against Jaime Harrison. Although Graham was a heavy favorite months ago, polling now shows the election very close. 

A few years ago Graham was a caustic and outspoken critic of Donald Trump and one of the supposedly “centrist” members of the Senate. During Trump’s time in office Graham has remade his public face as a rabid right-winger, most notably through his shouty support for Brett Kavanagh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. 

Graham appears to have gone right in part to protect himself against a Trumpian primary challenge. But when you act just like the people you used to say you abhorred, that sort of makes you one of them. It would be just for Graham to lose his seat because his choice was to cynically positioned himself to survive rather than stick to any political principles. 

(As if that’s not enough, the Graham campaign admitted at the end of July that in a campaign ad they had darkened the skin of his African American opponent for “artistic effect”. That’s a old and standard trick from the Republican playbook—make your opponents look dark and scary, as a racist dog whistle to voters.) 

Graham is probably hoping that he’ll win re-election, Trump might lose, and he can go back to pretending to be a “centrist” in the Senate. Don’t give him that chance. He should not be allowed to go back to “I’m one of the reasonable ones…” after the election since he has so often abetted and ignored true evil in the past four years. He’s basically been a craven collaborator and enabler for Trump. 

Jaime Harrison’s campaign website is: Jaimeharrison.com 

ALABAMA 

Incumbent and Democrat Doug Jones is running for re-election. It seems a political age ago when Doug Jones surprisingly won the special election for the Senate seat previously held by Republican Jeff Sessions. Once he won, Jones could have aimed at a second term by becoming “Republican lite”, voting on consequential issues in ways he could claim supported Trump. Instead, he seems to have been a principled Senator, including voting to convict Trump in the impeachment trial. 

His Republican opponent is former college football coach Tommy Tuberville who has been regarded, even by some Republicans, as a carpetbagger. He also sounds like he’s running for office mainly so he can add “Senator” to his resume, like winning a football bowl championship. Although he’s a well known Alabama native, Tuberville may be vulnerable locally in that he actually lived and voted in Florida as recently as two years ago. 

The website for Jones is: dougjones.com 

KENTUCKY 

While Donald Trump is an authoritarian wannabe, buffoon, and grifter without parallel in recent American politics, Senate incumbent Mitch McConnell is the one who has done the most legislative damage to the United States in the past four years. He blocked President Obama’s nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy, has concentrated on confirming radical right-wing (not traditionally “conservative”) judges and appointees to Federal offices, and made the Senate sit on its hands rather than act on national emergencies. 

He’s been contemptuous of legislative norms, applying or ignoring Senate rules when they don’t benefit himself and Trump, and treating the narrowly divided chamber like it’s a one party legislative body in a banana republic. He’s also a political grifter himself, proclaiming fiscal conservatism but making sure that all sorts of Federal funds pour into Kentucky, including, quite possibly, through the hands of his wife, Trump’s Secretary of Transportation. 

He should go. His challenger is Democrat Amy McGrath, a military veteran who flew combat missions for the Marine Corps. Although she has been running as a centrist—something many in Berkeley will dislike—getting rid of McConnell should be paramount. And Republicans have moved so far to the authoritarian right that Democratic centrists should be regarded with a bit more kindness. 

Supporting the McGrath campaign even if she loses also helps Democrats in other states, since McConnell is nothing if not self-centered, like Trump, and is reportedly directing a lot of Senate Republican campaign funds he controls or influences to support his campaign, reducing the money that goes to other races. 

McGrath’s website is amymcgrath.com 

Donating:
 

You can donate directly to Senate campaigns. The campaign websites of the Democrats and Independents are listed above.
 

Many Democrats also use ActBlue for fundraising. You can set up a simple account there to make your donations. ActBlue does charge candidates a 3.95% processing fee taken out of your donation. secure.actblue.com 

One further note. I have read complaints by people who have donated to campaigns, provided their telephone number, then been deluged with enormous numbers of unwanted text messages from those and other campaigns asking them to donate again. So you might consider not listing a phone number when you donate, if that’s possible. 

As a final note, remember this is an immensely consequential national election on so many fronts. Perhaps no less so than 1860 or 1932. Imagine what the country would have been like if a Southern appeaser had been President instead of Lincoln, or if Hoover and a Republican Senate had been re-elected three years into the Great Depression. 

To meet the challenges of our times not only does the United States need a new—and legitimate—President, but Congress needs to change as well. Franklin Roosevelt rode a “wave” election into office in the midst of the deepest economic crisis in 20th century American history but the New Deal was only able to happen because in his first term had a comfortable Congressional majority to swiftly enact his programs and reforms. Democrats need that, too, when 2021 begins. If we have a divided Congress fin 2021 and 2022, it may well be too late to salvage things.i

How best to encourage mask wearing in Berkeley?

At our council meeting next Tuesday, the city will consider allowing staff to issue fines for people who refuse to wear masks in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. There would be exceptions for those that have documented medical reasons for not wearing them and provisions for waiving the fines for those with financial hardships. This is based on an order from Berkeley’s Health Officer and it would be primarily enforced by Code Enforcement staff. 

Over and over again we have seen evidence that wearing masks is one of the best ways to curb the spread of COVID-19. But are fines the best way to encourage our residents to adopt good mask practices on a large scale?

I believe that fines can help but only if they are part of a comprehensive, sound policy. They should be a last resort after a combination of educating the public, distributing masks, offering people a chance to comply with law, and issuing written warnings. I also believe that we should use any money collected through fines to purchase more masks for those who may not be able to afford them. 

But I want to hear from readers: how should we encourage more people to wear their masks? 

Bike patrols will begin soon. 

Berkeley Police Department is expected to begin downtown patrols by bike beginning in the next few weeks. BPD has trained officers and secured the necessary bikes and will be conducting regular patrols of Downtown Berkeley soon. 

I have been an advocate for Downtown Berkeley bike patrols since before taking office and proposed legislation requesting these in my first year so I am glad to see them becoming a reality. I am looking forward to the benefit that this will provide for residents of District 4 as well as our downtown merchants, some of whom have suffered an uptick in vandalism since shelter-in-place began. 

Pools open Monday by reservation 

Berkeley residents age 16 or older can now reserve a 45-minute block of time to swim next week at City of Berkeley pools, which will re-open to the public on Monday, September 14. The City is using these appointment times, along with new capacity limits and wellness checks, to lower risk of COVID-19 infection.

Sign-ups will be done a week at a time, following the same schedule. Berkeley residents get first priority, starting each Wednesday for the following week. Reservations for non-residents will open on Fridays. You can make an appointment online or call (510) 981-5150 to sign up by phone. 

Drive-in Covid tests 

The City of Berkeley continues to open new testing facilities to ensure readily available testing to our residents. 

Instructions from the Berkeley Drive-in Testing Site: 

You can now be tested for COVID-19 at a drive-through, self-administered test site established by the City of Berkeley near the North Berkeley BART Station parking lot. The process is simple and you don’t have to get out of your car. You drive up to the site, roll down the window to get a lab kit from clinic staff, roll up your window to swab your own mouth, and then drop the completed kit with another staff member farther away. It will be open from 9am to 3pm every day, weekends included, for the next three weeks. 

Walk-up testing is also available at the MLK Jr. Youth Services Center at 1730 Oregon St. You must make an appointment first, either online or by calling (888) 634-1123. Visit the City of Berkeley’s website for more resources about how and where you can be tested. 

Apply for Redistricting Commission 

The Independent Redistricting Commission is launching recruitment efforts for the planned redistricting this fall. “Redistricting” is the act of redrawing or adjusting electoral district boundaries to ensure that districts are balanced with the same number of residents. The City of Berkeley redistricts every 10 years and 2020 is the next round. This is done by a commission of Berkeley residents and anyone over the age of 18 may apply.

If you are interested in serving on the Commission, read through the City’s website. Applications are due by October 9th. For questions, email the City Clerk Department at redistricting@cityofberkeley.info or call (510) 981-6900. 

 

Two scholars, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, reported in their book, Death By Despair, the substantial increase in the death rate of white workers who were 45 to 54 and without college degrees from 1999 to 2017. Had the death rate not increased, about 600,000 would still be alive. The deaths occurred as a result of drugs, alcohol, and suicide. These workers had been experiencing serious problems in their lives both on and off their jobs, which as the authors mention, can suck the joys out of life as well precipitate considerable stress. This is why the book is entitled “Death By Despair”.  

Although many readers are likely to blame capitalism for the problems discussed, the authors instead believe that the problems could be readily corrected. Whether a serious problem can be successfully tackled is always an important issue. Unfortunately, the enormous clout of the wealthy suggests that the barriers are generally immense. But the authors do not think so. Let’s consider several important issues that the authors claim that they are hopeful about. 

Obviously, a very important issue is providing working people with wages that exceed the poverty wage. Unfortunately, the authors make a very modest proposal. They propose a “gradual” increase in the federal minimum wage from its present $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. That would certainly be in the right direction. But even many decades of trying, only seven states and one federal district have done so.  

Moreover, a wage of $15 an hour is still too low to escape poverty for an average size family. A $15 full time wage yields only about $31,200 annually, which realistically speaking, is a poverty wage even for a small family. Since the authors express considerable concern about the problem of poverty, Is this really the best they can propose to escape poverty? 

But the main path to achieving a high standard of living is by union organizing. During the 1950s 35 percent of workers were unionized. But the campaign against labor organizing, both legal and illegal, reduced union membership to about 6.2 percent, 

The business community is still hammering away. In fact, employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5 percent of all union elections. However, not a word about this outrageous conduct is mentioned in the book, At the very least they should have advocated for a major campaign to persuade business and public officials to obey the law. However, the reason for their silence is because they have no interest in proposing a more radical program. There is nothing in their book to suggest otherwise. 

About the important issue of taxes, progressives favor higher taxes on the rich to finance various programs that benefit the public. But the authors don’t agree, they explain, because they “do not see inequality as the fundamental problem. Rather, the problem is unfairness. That the authors believe inequality is fine as long as it is fair ignores how contradictory these two values can be in a capitalist society. 

Generally speaking, readers will certainly benefit from the book’s scholarly research. But also, they will be reminded that even written words do not  

necessarily mean what the authors claim they mean. In fact, they can mean the very opposite,

Given that KPFA (the nation's first listener-supported radio station) was founded by a pacifist, it's somewhat surprising that the Pacifica radio network of today is so frequently roiled by internal rumblings, factional infighting, and class-struggle conflicts. 

The latest eruption—over a vote on new Bylaws that would structurally realign Pacifica's decision-making—has been spilling over on Indybay. 

I don't pretend to have a grasp on all the pros and cons involved. But, over the past few days, I've been deluged with a mudslide of position papers debating this brewing bylaws brouhaha so my hope is that this quick review of some of the charges and counter-charges will spur further debate and discussion. 

A Call to Revise Pacifica's Bylaws 

On September 1, KPFA Local Station Board representative Akio Tanaka sent out a pitch inviting station members to sign a petition to endorse a slew of bylaws to consolidate decision-making by reducing the number of directors on Pacifica Foundation's national board. 

Complaining that the Pacifica Board spends "much of its meetings on factional infighting," Tanaka quoted a call from Pacifica's auditors to revise the Board's bylaws to "encourage more productive meetings." Tanaka also claimed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) had been calling for Pacifica to change its bylaws so that its stations could "continue to be an effective voice to counter corporate media." 

Pacifica's current auditors, Rogers & Company, spelled out the goals they hoped the new bylaws would achieve. These included: restructuring board with "fewer members" to "reduce the number of disparate voices," "restrict voting participation, and restrict impediments to efficient Board actions," which were portrayed as being rife with "protracted and unproductive discourse between participants." 

So what would the revised Bylaws accomplish? 

The size of the current board would be cut from 22 Directors to 15, a reduction that would reduce "proportional representation." While cutting back on one end, the bylaws call for the surviving 12 boardmembers to appoint three unelected At-Large Directors "to bring experience and expertise that elected members might not have but board needs." To learn more about the bylaws, go to: https://newdaypacifica.org 

The Blowback against Bylaw Revisions 

On August 27, an LA-based group called Pacifica Fightback for Democracy weighed in with its own critique, linking the new bylaws campaign to the very people behind an earlier bylaws-change vote "and who were rejected by nearly 2-1 margins of both listeners and staff around the network who voted a resounding 'NO!' on that Bylaws proposal." 

In their detailed criticism, PFD claimed that the proposed bylaws "would centralize Pacifica governance, remove oversight functions from Local Station Boards, and eliminate ranked-choice voting for the national board." In addition, PFD claimed, the new bylaws would "create a new third class of members of Pacifica, institutionalizing a split between paid and unpaid staff." 

The folks at "Pacifica Fightback for Democracy" continued their volley of charges on Indybay. "Even if these were the best bylaws in the world," PFD posited, "you still should not sign this petition." 

PFD pointed out that the earlier bylaws change effort (involving a petition that ran for 85 pages) was "rejected overwhelmingly" by Pacifica's voting members in a one-off election that cost $100,000 to stage. If there is to be a new election, PFD reflected, why not postpone it until the next regularly scheduled Pacifica general election in the summer of 2021 "when it can be sent out at no additional cost?" 

PFD recounted the rationale behind that failed pitch—i.e., "that Pacifica would collapse if you didn't immediately install a bunch of handpicked people." Lack of financial resources has been an abiding problem at Pacifica but adding four "preselected officers" to the Pacifica National Board wouldn't guarantee a reversal of financial challenges. 

In addition to the four preselected officers, the new bylaws would allow one representative from each of Pacifica's five stations. According to PFD, "this cuts staff representation on the national board by 60% and gives ten-times more representation to 100 paid staffers than to the 1,000-plus unpaid staffers who produce the majority of the on-air programs." The new bylaws would also add "three random at-large directors with no criteria required other than a majority vote by the ad-hoc board." 

More Elections, Less Democracy? 

The new bylaws call for nine additional elections to fill the positions of national board chair, vice chair, secretary, treasurer, local and vice board chairs, secretaries, outreach coordinators and fundraising coordinators. "In short, 13 elections and all by strict majority rule since there is only one seat in play for each." 

PDF notes that the proposed rewrite would leave "intact," a number of "objectively problematic" bylaws. As PDF sees it, the main focus of the revisions is to reduce "the allowance for diverse points of view" and that would constitute "a travesty for a network that literally defines itself as a home for minority points of view." 

On September 2, a comment from James McFadden added some historical grist to the debate. 

"I think the only threat the bylaws pose is to Aki's faction—preventing their minority from gaining control of Pacifica…. 

This is the same faction that shut down WBAI without PNB permission at the start of WBAI's fund drive (costing Pacifica hundreds of thousands of dollars). 

This is the faction that shut off microphones during a PNB meeting about WBAI's shutdown so they could win a vote—a vote over turned by the PNB the next day with the microphones on. 

This is the faction that (unsuccessfully) attempted to remove KPFA's Tom Voorhees from the PNB so their faction could gain a vote edge. 

This is the faction that has brought frivolous lawsuits—the most recent costing KPFA $80,000 last fall on a retainer in a lawsuit against Pacifica!!! 

This is the faction that kept hidden … the fact that KPFA failed to pay property taxes for 7 years. 

This is the faction that sponsored the last anti-democratic substitute bylaws effort. 

And this is the faction that again worked in secret to generate another bylaws rewrite, with no attempt to find a consensus within the Pacifica community." 

Dysfunctional Diversity? 

PFD complains that the new rules would introduce "a winner-takes-all voting method for every single seat on the National Board. . . leaving no room for minority voices as our current ranked-choice voting system does." 

Under the new rules "individual representatives from each of the stations on the Pacifica National Board would be a small minority (5 out of 15)" resulting in reduced state and affiliate representation on the National Board. 

PFD warns the new bylaws would open the door to "a return to a centralized, self-selecting board structure, lacking local oversight by the station's listeners or staff members and with no room for minority perspectives." 

In PFD's analysis, using Pacifica's ongoing financial troubles as excuse for reducing representation is akin to arguing that "Pacifica's economy problems are the fault of an excess of democracy" attributable to "dysfunctional boards … mired in in-fighting." An ironic position, PFD says, given that the would-be bylaws revisers "are the source of much of the factionalism and most of the litigation." 

On the Plus Side 

While accepting the reality of current and ongoing financial challenges, the PFD statement offers a defense of the existing governing process. Pacifica has rolled out a Payroll Protection Plan to assist staff suffering from the dislocations of the Covid-19 pandemic. Pacifica has applied for a $2 million low-interest economic disaster loan. The Interim Executive Director is effectively dealing with an imminent loss of essential KPFA property (including its studios and transmitters) owing to the failure to pay property taxes and the failure to extend the station's non-profit status. 

More good news: "For the firs time in years, we are weeks away from being current on audits and thus, soon, grant-eligible. And we just paid a 2012 CPB debt." 

Finally, the "Don't Buy the New Bylaws" critics argue: Who needs the distraction of a second costly Bylaw Battle when "events of Earth-shattering importance are happening every day, much of it inadequately covered or misreported by the corporate media?" PDF's grisly response to that rhetorical question is as follows: "Only people who still believe bankruptcy is the best deal for them—that Pacifica is worth more as a carcass that can be carved up and sold off to benefit a few select operations." 

But, on the Other Hand . . . 

In the end, there are strong partisans on both sides of the Bylaws Divide. FDP's list of "KPFA Staffers Supporting These Top-Down Corporate Bylaws," includes a number of KPFA's most respected senior voices, including: Mitch Jeserich, host of Letters and Politics, Aileen Alfandary, KPFA News Director, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, co-host of Up Front, and Philip Maldari, host of KFPA's Sunday Show. 

Stay Tuned: There's More… 

Pacifica Fight Back will be hosting a Town Hall meeting on September 12 at 4 PM PDT where these and other issues will be discussed. The New Day Pacifica presentations can be found online at https://newdaypacifica.org.

Donald Trump has been mercilessly attacked for denigrating the combat deaths of members of the US armed forces. As we have all recently learned, during his November 2018 visit to Paris to mark the centennial of the World War I Armistice, "hallowed ground" where more than 116,000 US military personnel died, "Cadet Bone Spurs" (a fellow who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War with a record five deferments!) refused to take a 90-minute drive to join other world leaders at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in a commemoration of the Allied dead. Instead, Trump asked: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” Trump went on to mock the 1,800-plus Marines killed in the Battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers.” Presumably by not dodging the bullets or (as in Trump's case) dodging the draft. 

No president has ever uttered such a disgraceful dismissal of "America's fallen heroes." Just listen to what 98-year-old WWII survivor Pvt. Dan Crowley has to say: 

 

Trump scurried to cover his suddenly exposed flank by conscripting Breitbart to mount a campaign of support from the right-wing website's uniformed readers. That effort generated proclamations of support from 700 veterans. In response, the veterans at Common Defense pointed out that Breitbart's tally of vet votes constituted a mere "0.00038% of America’s veteran population." Alex McCoy, a former Marine who serves as political director of Common Defense, declared: "We are proud to be a grassroots movement of 'losers and suckers' organizing to #EndForeverWar, defeat Trump, and win a country where liberty and justice truly is for all." 

Common Defense has now posted its own anti-Trump appeal to enlist thousands of "suckers and losers" who a willing to put their names on the line in opposition to Trump's ruinous reign. 

But what if Trump is not totally wrong? 

Were Hundreds of Thousands of Dead Americans "Suckers"? 

It could be argued that young men who feel the urge to enlist in the US Armed Forces have been "suckered"—by the words of our leaders and the militarism and "exceptionalist" propaganda engrained in our culture. These forces include—war-glorifying Hollywood blockbusters, up-armed TV serials, patriotic anthems, comic books, Bowderlized history texts, point-and-shoot videogames, and ultimately, by faked casus belli provocations and outright falsehoods used by multiple presidents who have "lied us" into war. 

Remember "Remember the Maine," The "Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor," The "Tonkin Gulf Incident," Saddam Hussein's non-existent "Weapons of Mass Destruction"? And trigger for the Global War on Terror: "The 9/11 Attack," in which the alleged sky-jackers (and much of their financing) were ultimately traced to Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan. 

So, anyone who enlisted to "defend the homeland" in response to "fake news" provided by the government in Washington (no matter how brave, patriotic, and self-sacrificing they may have been) could fairly be seen as individuals who had been "suckered" into service. 

Condemning Trump While Defending America's Wars 

So it's painful to hear the Democrats responding to Trump's cruel insults by gearing up the engines of patriotic hoo-haw—complete with sloganeering about 'brave soldiers fighting to defend our country." 

Defend our country? The US hasn't defended our country since the War of 1812. Instead, the US has spent most of its 244 years invading other countries—"from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." 

According to a study by historians Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock, the US has invaded 84 of the 193 countries recognized by the United Nations and has been "militarily involved" with 191—a staggering 98 percent. There are only three countries that have never felt the pressure of a US military boot—Andorra, Bhutan, and Liechtenstein. The US even has troops stationed in Antarctica, the only demilitarised continent in the world. 

Here is a partial list of countries invaded by the US: 

 

In the two decades since September 11, three presidents have used the 9/11 attack to justify 41 military adventures targeting 19 other nations. According to Win Without War, America's "endless wars" have killed 800,000 people around the globe, "driven by the Pentagon, egged on by corrupt multi-billion dollar defense corporations and arms dealers, and funded by warhawks in Congress." 

And Donald Trump agrees. 

As the Commander-in-Chief told reporters on September 7: "The top people in the Pentagon . . . want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay healthy." 

Of course, Trump also likes to trumpet his ability to strike billion-dollar arms deals with foreign countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Even more troubling is the prospect that Trump may have a personal interest in conflict—one that poses a conflict-of-interest. 

We have yet to see Trump's income tax statements but we do know that, prior to becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces, he had money invested in Raytheon, a weapons contractor that builds Tomahawk missiles for the Pentagon. On April 6, 2017, Trump ordered two US naval vessels to fire 59 Tomahawk missiles at targets inside Syria. Each missile cost US taxpayers $1.87 million (FY2017). Because each missile fired had to be replaced, Raytheon's stock surged after the attack. 

The False Propaganda of "Sacrifice" 

As even Fox News reported, Trump also criticized the Vietnam War, stating: ‘It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker." While that's a fair assessment of the war itself, it's a pretty harsh judgment to impose on the 359,226 Americans killed and injured during that brutal US war of aggression. Unfortunately, Trump failed to condemn the political system and military complex responsible for the deaths of 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians. 

The Hypnotic Words of War 

It's worth noting how the nomenclature of war is used to mask the reality of death—another tool employed to "sucker" soldiers, their families, and supporters. 

The familiar phrase "loss of life" is a cruel euphemism. A soldier does not "lose" his life and cannot recoup a "misplaced" existence. Other war-culture sucker-slogans include "laying down your life," "making the ultimate sacrifice," and joining the ranks of "the fallen." To call soldiers "fallen heroes" makes it sound as if their deaths were the result of some clumsy misstep on the part of the soldier. ("Johnny tripped over a landmine." "Frank fell victim to a sniper.") 

Most soldiers do not freely hand over their lives as a gift to "God and country." They have their lives taken from them. A soldier who saves his companions by throwing himself on a live grenade can clearly be called a hero. A soldier who believes in his cause so deeply that he is willing to sacrifice his life for God and Country can also be called a martyr. Depending on which side of the battle line the sacrifice occurs, the individual can be called "a heroic patriot" or "a suicidal terrorist." 

So Much for "Suckers." Now Let's Talk About "Losers" 

If you want to talk about "losers," how about the thousands of maimed soldiers who lost hands, feet, arms, and legs during their service? Not to mention those who lost their lives (407,000 killed and 25,000,000 wounded in WWII; 58,220 killed and 304,000 wounded in Vietnam; 3,502 dead and 20,719 wounded in Afghanistan—as of May 2020.) 

These victims of war are clearly "losers" in Trump's mind. He has expressed a craving to preside over massive military parades in Washington as long as they exclude any disfigured Purple Heart winners with missing limbs. "Not a good look," Trump says. "Nobody wants to see that." 

Even when they return from Washington's wars (or non-combat assignments at more than 800 US bases in foreign countries), many American soldiers find themselves to be "losers" even after they've been mustered out of the service. More than 9% of all adults experiencing homelessness in the US are military veterans. The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 40,056 veterans are homeless on any given night. 

How War Celebrates "Victors" and Forgets the "Losers" 

In his criticism of Trump's insults, Joe Biden cited his son Beau, who spent most of 2009 serving at two US military bases in Iraq. "He wasn’t a sucker. The servicemen and women he served with, particularly those who did not come home, were not losers," Biden said. 

But Beau Biden's bravery and his motivation as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard did not protect him from becoming a "loser." 

Beau Biden lost his life due to glioblastoma multiforme, a form of brain cancer that some doctors have linked to exposure to toxins released by Pentagon "burn pits." The younger Biden was stationed at Baghdad's Camp Victory and at the Balad Air Force Base in Iraq—both of which hosted large burn pits that routinely incinerated plastics, chemicals, paints, solvents, batteries, tires, and medical wastes. 

During a PBS interview, Biden spoke of reading Joseph Hickman's book, “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers,” which featured an entire chapter on his son's brain cancer and its likely link to his military service. 

“That stunned me," Biden said. "I didn’t know that [during his service in Kosovo and Iraq] . . .he was co-located in both times near these burn pits.” 

Beau Biden did not die during an act of heroism on the battlefield, Instead, there's a strong chance that Beau Biden died from unnecessary exposure to preventable Pentagon pollution. 

Joe Biden has spoken eloquently of the death of his son. Unfortunately, in less eloquent terms, Beau Biden's military service turned him into a "loser"—one of thousands of sick and dying US veterans who inhaled the deadly smoke pouring from the Pentagon's incineration sites.

We are sadly familiar with the drumbeat of police killings of Black and Brown people across the country. These killings may be far away, but we in Berkeley have our own policing problems. The BPD’s own data show a clear pattern of racial discrimination in stops, searches, and use of force. This year has also seen examples of guns drawn and less-lethal weapons used on Black people.

Measure ii will create a new Police Accountability Board and Director that will have full access to internal BPD records and data, more time for investigations and training in due process procedures, allowing for better oversight of police. This is not a panacea, but it will allow the City Council and the public to better understand what drives policing practices and to impose discipline if needed.

This Campaign deserves your support because:

This is a civil rights issue

The NAACP and other rights organizations have long demanded that the era of “Two Berkeleys,” with police practices impacted by the race of the civilian, end immediately. Racial profiling is a clear violation of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. We need strong disciplinary procedures to make sure the rule of law applies to police.

This is a public safety issue

Each of us is only safe if all of us are safe. The willingness to call and work with the police to combat crime depend on the community knowing they will be treated fairly and equally.

This is a regional issue.

Bay Area police agencies work together closely. A breakthrough in Berkeley in creating a strong oversight structure will be a good model for communities around the region.

The political conventions have come and gone and little has changed in the 2020 presidential election. Before the conventions, Joe Biden led Donald Trump by an average of 8.0 percentage points; after the conventions, Biden led Trump by an average of 7.6 points. (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/ ) Trump continues to be unpopular; his latest ratings are 53.1 percent disapprove and 42.7 percent approve. (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ ) For Trump to win, external factors will have to intervene. Let's consider ten possible game changers.

1.The Presidential Debates: There will be three presidential debates: September 29 (Cleveland), October 15 (Miami), and October 22 (Nashville). (There will be a Vice-Presidential debate on October 7 (Salt Lake City).) 

A recent USA Today poll found that 47 percent of respondents expected Trump to prevail, versus 41 percent who thought Biden would win. (http://poll trump expected to win debates) This is a curious result. In 2016 Hillary Clinton bested Trump in every debate. (https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-trump-debate-win-hillary-1447108) In 2012, Joe Biden defeated Paul Ryan in a Vice-Presidential debate. (https://www.businessinsider.com/ryan-beats-biden-debate-cnn-poll-2012-10 ) 

The debates should be fascinating. I expect Biden to prevail. 

2. Russian Intervention: Many believe that Donald Trump's 2016 electoral college edge was the direct consequence of Russian intervention: Millions of Russian-oligarch funds funneled into the Trump campaign via the NRA; Russian hackers providing key Clinton campaign emails to Wikileaks (Julian Assange); and Russians trolls manipulating social-media feeds to favor Trump in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 

The Russians are at it again, but there's more energy directed to protecting the vote. Specifically, there is more focus on social-media companies, such as Facebook, taking action to circumvent malignant Russian actions. 

Recent New Yorker article observed that the impact of Russian disinformation is over stated: "Russian-produced disinformation certainly exists.... But compared with, say, Fox News pundits like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, let alone Trump himself, the perceived menace of Russian trolls far outweighs their actual reach." (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/is-russian-meddling-as-dangerous-as-we-think? ) 

(By the way: Reuters reports that the White House has systematically downplayed the possibility of Russian interference in the election (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-whistleblower/former-u-s-official-told-to-halt-russia-intelligence-assessments-whistleblower-complaint-idUSKBN26032Q?).) 

I expect the Russians to screw up counting the vote in at least one swing state. 

3. Money: Six months ago, when Joe Biden secured the Democratic presidential nomination, it was assumed Donald Trump would have a huge financial advantage, going into the campaign homestretch. Now it appears that Biden has the money edge. 

Recent New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/us/politics/trump-election-campaign-fundraising.html? ) revelations indicate that Trump's campaign team mismanaged their multi-million dollar financial advantage and now they are scrambling for funds. Biden is running ads in all the swing states and Trump in only a couple. (By the way, the Trump campaign appears to have conceded Arizona to Biden.) 

For the remaining 7 weeks before the election, I expect Biden to have more money. 

4. Enthusiasm: For months, the Trump campaign has boasted of their "secret" advantage: Trump supporters are more enthusiastic about Donald than Democratic voters are about Joe. (Of course "MAGA" voters are crazy about Donald; they are cult members.) 

A recent Reuters poll ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-turnout-analysis/supporters-who-helped-trump-win-presidency-lagging-in-motivation-this-year-idUSKBN25Z1ID?) suggests the Republican narrative is false. "President Donald Trump’s supporters are less motivated this election cycle than they were in 2016. Although non-college-educated whites comprise 44 percent of the electorate and were pivotal to Trump’s 2016 victory, less of them support him this time around... his 12-point advantage in August is down from a 21-point lead in May, and well below the 34-point advantage he had over [Hillary] Clinton." 

Early voting numbers are out ( https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/democrats-early-voting-lead-412106) and they favor Democrats. Advantage to Biden. 

5. Trump health: For months, there have been rumors that Donald Trump is in poor health; that he cannot walk a ramp without assistance, that he has trouble operating one of his hands, that he has more than his share of memory lapses... There's speculation that Trump, aged 74, has contracted the Alzheimer's disease that felled his father, Fred. 

What's clear is that Trump is overweight (estimate 250 pounds), has an awful diet, and gets almost no exercise -- he plays golf relying on a cart. He has, to say the least, a high-pressure job. My doctor friends tell me Trump is a prime candidate for a stroke. 

On the campaign trail, Trump mocks Joe Biden's health and age. (Really!) Advantage to Biden. 

6. COVID-19 Pandemic: Trump has treated the pandemic as if it is a crisis that has been solved. Unfortunately, It hasn't been solved and is likely to get worse when flu season starts in October. By November 3rd, 250,000 Americans will have died from the virus. Trump can't wish this away and most voters blame him for the crisis. (The latest ABC News/Ipsospoll found: "A clear majority of Americans (63%) disapprove of Trump's oversight of the public health crisis -- a steady trend since early July.") 

As this was written, Bob Woodward's book, "Rage," was published. Woodward taped Trump admissions of intentionally downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. (During a period where Trump was telling supporters the Coronavirus was a "hoax" and suggesting it was less dangerous than the flu.) ( https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/09/trump-admits-that-he-lied-about-the-coronavirus/?) 

The pandemic will rage on and voters will blame Trump. 

7. Economy: Trump acts as if the economy is growing but last quarter it shrank at a rate of 32.9 percent. Trump pretends we are in a V-shaped recovery but it's actually a K-shaped recovery where only the richest 1 percent are benefitting. 0 As the weeks go by, and Trump presents no plan to deal with the recession, increasing numbers of voters will be angry. (Voters are split on Trump's handling of the economy (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval_economy-6182.html ).) 

(At this writing, the Senate failed to approve a Republican-backed "skinny" stimulus bill (https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911414284/senate-gop-covid-relief-bill-fails-prospects-of-bipartisan-deal-before-election-?).) 

Advantage Biden. 

8. Climate Change: As we head into the final days of the presidential campaign, Trump refuses to acknowledge climate change. Meanwhile, the west is beset by wildfires and the southeast by hurricanes. 

This week Trump went to Florida and declared himself, "the No. 1 environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt.” 

Advantage Biden. 

9. Law and Order: Coming out of the Republican convention, Donald Trump tried to brand himself "the law and order President." He predicts dire consequences if Joe Biden is elected President. 

A recent CNN poll found, "Biden ahead of Trump by a 7-point margin on who [respondents] thought, if elected, would do a better job on the criminal justice system in the United States. Biden was favored by a 6-point margin on who would keep Americans safe from harm." 

Advantage Biden. 

10. Trump Scandals: As this is written, Trump is dealing with (at least) three scandals: the revelations about his attitude towards the American military ("suckers," "losers"); the insider information from Trump's one-time attorney, Michael Cohen; and, the publication of Bob Woodward's book, "Rage." 

There are seven weeks left until the presidential election. It's reasonable to assume that every week will see some new revelation about Trump's conduct. Trump's base will be eroded to the hardcore -- below 40 percent of voters. 

Advantage Biden. 

Summary: Most potential game changers favor Biden. The notable exception is Russian interference in the election. Next time I'll take a closer look at election interference, in general. 

---

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