So Di-DI is appalled by the (typically) lame-brain decision in San Francisco to refuse to allow a WWII battleship to be berthed here...
... I love the Bay Area, even if I live on the other shore in Oakland. It's the inane crap like this decision to blow off the USS Iowa because they "don't want to glorify war and/or an anti-gay system that's so much fun.
Ahhhh....
But, Ms Di-Di -- when you say "This isn't the San Francisco I knew and loved when I was growing up," I can only say this:
"If you HADN'T persuaded Mayor Moscone to renege on his promise to Dan White (that if he WANTED to reconsider his resignation from the Board of Supervisors, wanted to take his job back after a period of reflection, he would welcome him), if you hadn't convinced Mayor Moscone that fucking over the obviously unstable Supervisor White was the way to gaining a Liberal majority on the Board, well, perhaps the City would still be a bit more like the one you knew when you grew up." *
Oh yeah, the record states it was Harvey Milk who convinced Mayor George to go back on his word, but hey -- he's dead and you became mayor, and the survivors get to write / re-write history.
But once Danny Boy cracked and took out the Mayor and the most extraordinary intelligent, compassionate, humanitarian Supervisor The City had perhaps ever seen (his being gay irrelevant to me, as I'm not) -- Harvey Milk -- (actually being gay was not irrelevant, but he was so much more of a human than any single aspect-label could encompass), well, many people consider that the trauma coupled with you being sworn in as the new mayor was what made you become such an uptight authoritarian.
But those of us who were around City Hall BEFORE know you were ALWAYS like that, or as one of your aides told me "If she COULD force us to dress up in brown uniforms and march in step, she WOULD. I've never SEEN a liberal fascist before."
Oh, and oh yeah, also went on to say, "And if you EVER quote me by name or even tell people if I'm male or female, I will have to hunt you down and kill you, because she will make sure I can't ever work in government again."
Those of us who tend to favor small-l liberal attitudes (tolerance, live-and-let-live, compassion for the disadvantaged, etc) have long been sorry that you claim to be a Democrat, because then that leaves us with the only alternatives at the polls total duds like Michael Huffington and Dan "Eddie Haskell" Lundgren.
*Well, the history of San Francisco is such that shootouts at City Hall and mean-spirited betrayals ARE totally historically consistent.
Remember where the Tammany Hall fellows went after they were run out of New York? Right. Their City by the Bay.
And when the Sydney Ducks showed up -- a bunch of rogues who were thrown out of the penal colony in Australia -- that was another glorious part of the history.
Too far back? How about 1936 when the response to a demonstration for Union on Market Street one Thursday afternoon was to direct the guard to shoot them from the tower ... shot 600 of them in broad daylight, of which a few dozen were killed.
So maybe refusal to anchor gigantic big guns in the harbor is a betrayal of Captain Montgomery's warship taking over the City from the Spanish, but hey, izzit such a big deal?
The point, Di-Di -- is you can sell YOUR OWN future to the highest bidder, but for many of us -- voters -- it's a delight to see the city of San Francisco is still the sort of unruly child that won't necessarily go along.
Ahhhh....
But, Ms Di-Di -- when you say "This isn't the San Francisco I knew and loved when I was growing up," I can only say this:
"If you HADN'T persuaded Mayor Moscone to renege on his promise to Dan White (that if he WANTED to reconsider his resignation from the Board of Supervisors, wanted to take his job back after a period of reflection, he would welcome him), if you hadn't convinced Mayor Moscone that fucking over the obviously unstable Supervisor White was the way to gaining a Liberal majority on the Board, well, perhaps the City would still be a bit more like the one you knew when you grew up." *
Oh yeah, the record states it was Harvey Milk who convinced Mayor George to go back on his word, but hey -- he's dead and you became mayor, and the survivors get to write / re-write history.
But once Danny Boy cracked and took out the Mayor and the most extraordinary intelligent, compassionate, humanitarian Supervisor The City had perhaps ever seen (his being gay irrelevant to me, as I'm not) -- Harvey Milk -- (actually being gay was not irrelevant, but he was so much more of a human than any single aspect-label could encompass), well, many people consider that the trauma coupled with you being sworn in as the new mayor was what made you become such an uptight authoritarian.
But those of us who were around City Hall BEFORE know you were ALWAYS like that, or as one of your aides told me "If she COULD force us to dress up in brown uniforms and march in step, she WOULD. I've never SEEN a liberal fascist before."
Oh, and oh yeah, also went on to say, "And if you EVER quote me by name or even tell people if I'm male or female, I will have to hunt you down and kill you, because she will make sure I can't ever work in government again."
Those of us who tend to favor small-l liberal attitudes (tolerance, live-and-let-live, compassion for the disadvantaged, etc) have long been sorry that you claim to be a Democrat, because then that leaves us with the only alternatives at the polls total duds like Michael Huffington and Dan "Eddie Haskell" Lundgren.
*Well, the history of San Francisco is such that shootouts at City Hall and mean-spirited betrayals ARE totally historically consistent.
Remember where the Tammany Hall fellows went after they were run out of New York? Right. Their City by the Bay.
And when the Sydney Ducks showed up -- a bunch of rogues who were thrown out of the penal colony in Australia -- that was another glorious part of the history.
Too far back? How about 1936 when the response to a demonstration for Union on Market Street one Thursday afternoon was to direct the guard to shoot them from the tower ... shot 600 of them in broad daylight, of which a few dozen were killed.
So maybe refusal to anchor gigantic big guns in the harbor is a betrayal of Captain Montgomery's warship taking over the City from the Spanish, but hey, izzit such a big deal?
The point, Di-Di -- is you can sell YOUR OWN future to the highest bidder, but for many of us -- voters -- it's a delight to see the city of San Francisco is still the sort of unruly child that won't necessarily go along.
posted by Saintperle at
10:45 AM
