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PRUNING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE...7-01-95, C. Denney
FRB REPORT 7-1-95
...later in our program we'll have nude aerobics led by Mayor Shirley Dean followed by safe and sane flag-burning techniques for the family on the 4th of July...but first it's pruning the pickled political landscape with your political landscape gardener Laura Drawbridge...
starting with a wild and wooley Monday morning when a Chronicle survey on compensation showed a pay increase for top executives of 25% while the average worker's pay increase was 2.9%. The median income for top executives including stock options was just over $800,000. Fully one third of the 177 Northern California executives included in the study make over a million dollars and, as luck would have it, all of them are white men. Some of them, of course, are UC regents. One consultant for the study stated, "By 2010 the ratio (of executive pay) to the average worker will rise to the same as it was in 1789 between Louis XVI and his workers, and you know what happened to him."
.....the night of last Monday, June 26th, 284 people, many of whom were injured by the police, were trapped on Landers Street in San Francisco, rounded up and arrested after a march in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the black journalist framed for a police killing whose death warrant was signed June 2nd by the Governor of Pennsylvania. Charged with felony arson, conspiracy to riot, and some my favorite, failure to disperse, men, women, children, reporters, legal observers, the famous and the infamous alike, including media critic Michael Parenti, all got a chance to get up close and personal with the custody facilities at 850 Bryant Street in San Francisco, bail for many set at more than $5,000, and as predicted, all charges were dropped on Wednesday, in what is to the demonstration-weary a traditional police MO of rounding up the "troublemakers" and putting them on ice for a few days, then dropping all charges. See Peoples Park, Rodney King et cetera, et cetera.
.....yours truly, Laura Drawbridge, would like to commend the not one but two KPFA reporters who participated in the march and got caught up in the melee so that at least two radio stations in the Bay Area had credible coverage of what was clearly a police riot...but I just wouldn't be doing a good job of pruning the political landscape if I didn't take Dennis Bernstein of KPFA's Flashpoints to task for assuming that a press pass would mean something to SFPD and protect him in some way, but more importantly, for assuming that the police and the sheriff's department were brutal, arrogant and oblivious to people's rights because of the subject of the demonstration, that being support for what Dennis Bernstein theorized SFPD would consider a cop-killer; Mumia Abu-Jamal. I don't think so, Dennis. I love you to death, but come on out and watch the way people get treated for trying to hand their brother a bagel with Food Not Bombs! Wake up and smell the OC spray! And it isn't just SFPD; tiptoe through the police riot footage from the UC cops, the Berkeley cops, San Jose and Santa Cruz cops and Dennis, you'll find a similar theme running through all the film no matter what the subject of the demonstration, that being if people aren't indoors getting their news off the TV instead of making some of their own, then they ought to be hammered into spam. But we're glad you attended the march because then and only then will KPFA catch on to what is really going down at demos...nothing like catching a facefull of riot baton and then seeing nothing but the smiling weatherman on the evening news to roust yes, even a liberal.
Mowing the national lawn, yowza, the Supreme Court affirms the legality of drug tests for high school athletes, broad enough a decision to offer opportunity for other high school and collegiate programs to do the same, and ...you want me to what in that cup? This is brave new world I was...not quite counting on....this may, by the way, be the last July 4th you'll be able to legally burn the flag, which has always been a family tradition of mine, not to mention the ritual smashing of TVs which takes place routinely at Peoples Park on July 4th, I'm hoping that tradition will continue, but the House of Representatives thanks to those of you who think voting doesn't matter, had no trouble voting to criminalize the "desecration of the flag" with several votes to spare despite the imaginative efforts of Democrat foes to characterize this move as an affront to the Constitution. Californians should note that the move to criminalize the desecration of the flag was co-sponsored by our own Diane Feinstein, so give her a call if you can.
In better news the Supreme Court affirmed the protection of the habitat of endangered species....all the little marbeled murrelets and snail darters must have had their fingers crossed really really hard because this is the best and possibly the only good news this decade will bring to environmentalists...look forward now to a re-tooling of the definition of "endangered" such that it ends up meaning blond, blue-eyed and with one kid in Harvard.
Mowing back across the local lawn, the best news for yours truly Laura Drawbridge out of the council is that...drumroll here....this year is the last year the Downtown Berkeley Association and the Telegraph Area Association get to party down with public money! Hit from the right and and left-wing with criticism of the DBA and the TAA's policy of using public money to lobby city hall, our feisy fireplug, Mayor Shirley Dean, finally cut the cord, saying they'd had five years (and half a million dollars from the general fund) to get off the ground and it was time to push them out of the nest. ....now I know this will come as frightening news to you DBA and TAA members out there...it's probably really scary trying to imagine having to buy your own stamps, and pick up the cost of the $5,000 newsletter but hey, you know, if Copwatch can do it, if Free Radio Berkeley can do it, if the Long Haul can do it...why I bet you can do it, too, and we'll be happy to offer our services as consultants in how to work collectively for one of those fat $20,000 fees...
....the sweet smell of fertilzer you may be smelling on the wind is the enormous mound of public relations coming your way, at your expense, of course, to try to convince you and the downtown merchants to voluntarily foot the bill for the $200,000 DBA operating budget for fiscal year 95/96. If you've enjoyed paying for the private club of the richest developers in town, why, you'll really love the even more expensive membership dues of the Business Improvement Districts. What should really be fun for us at Free Radio Berkeley is watching the poor DBA and TAA realize that to pull this off at all they're going to have to pool their resources and ....merge, as it were, and somebody's going to have to take a back seat to somebody else...which developer will come out on top? Nothing like a catfight between dogs, and we'll be right here at ringside broadcasting live from 104.1. and last but not least my favorite item from last Tuesday's council meeting......
then a news flash.....
BERKELEY SELLS DRUGS!
The city council on Tuesday, June 27th, passed a resolution allowing the sale of alcohol at upcoming Downtown Berkeley Association and Telegraph Area Association events in order to boost sagging attendance. "It's hard to party with the right-wing," offered councilmember Carla Woodworth, co-sponsor of the item. "Conservatives need drugs to really get things off the ground."
District 4 representative Dona Spring expressed concern over the city's sponsorship of alcohol sales, citing the consequences of alcoholism as causing "way more problems than other drugs." District 8 representative Polly Armstrong stated in response that alcohol was legal.
Critics argued that city-sponsored alcohol sales at public events were hypocritical considering the crackdown on poor people drinking in public, which in Berkeley is against the law. Armstrong waved off the criticism by pointing out that rich people "hold their liquor better" than poor people, and again underscored the legality of alcohol, inspiring supporters to call for a task force investigating the possibilities of other legal drug sales at civic events. "Prozac comes to mind," commented one official, who requested anonymity. "We plan a thorough course of study." Legal drug recommendations should, of course, be forwarded to City Hall with the obvious caveat that, as recent events make clear, should the police decide to beat you to death, the drugs in your system will be considered exoneration of your murder. So, we at Free Radio recommend you stay high on the airwaves and the natural comedy coming out of city hall! This is Laura Drawbridge for free radio Oakland and Berkeley at 104.1..........
....with a last flash forwarded from my friend Michele...step out of your house tonight around 9:54 pm, gaze into the sky about 25 degrees northwest and you may be able to see the shuttle drifting across the horizon....there's really people in there...and we wish them well here at free radio.........