[Sosfbay-discuss] Inner City Blues: Oakland and Los Angeles

[alexcathy at aol.com]

Dear Green Friends,


Assassination of Oakland Post Editor, Chauncey Bailey
(See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20182623/site/newsweek/?and? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/09/BAEKRF8VU.DTL)

I don't know if you have been following the shocking story about the?Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post.? Bailey, a very distinguished African-American journalist, gunned down by two shotgun blasts in broad daylight in downtown Oakland.? He was working on a story about finanical shenangians at at outfie called "Your Black Muslim Bakery" in Oakland.? Bailey was apparently "hit" by thugs from a the criminal gang.? It's a stupendous shock, and if this had happened almost anywhere else in the world other than The Dreaded Inner-City in the United States it would have been a big international story.? A few rightwing crazies, e.g. David Horowitz and the insane Christopher Hitchens, have tried to make it into an "Islamic-extremists-indulged-by-politically-correct-San-Francisco-liberals" thing, even though "Your Black Muslim Bakery" is *NOT* connected to Farrakhan's NOI, let alone, mainstream Islam.? 


A Personal Note

When Cathy and I lived in Masschusetts we used to write for a little alternative newspaper called the Somervlle Community News.? Many, many times SCN published exposes on financial shenanigans involving politically "connected" people in and around Boston involving banks, social clubs, and other legitimate businesses known to be money-laundering operations for Mafia hoodlums.? Reading about?what happened to Chauncy Bailey a the Oakland Post makes me shudder thinking back on?those days.???

The kernel of truth to the Horowitz-Hitchens charges, however, is that the Oakland Democratic Party Machine *HAS* been indulging Your Black Muslim Bakery for many years.? In the 1990s they got "job training" grants from the City of Oakland which were completely squandered away (among other things they used the money to lease a Cadillac).? There is a framed letter on the wall in the bakery from?California State Senate Leader Don Peratta praising the?bakery's founder for his service to the community.? Former East Bay Express reporter, Chris Thompson, has a story in the Village Voice describing how he, too, was stalked and threatened when he wrote a story about these thugs and how the Oakland police tolde him "we hate those bastards? but we can't do anything about them until they do something that we can nail them on."? Yeah, right.? I?know?peace groups, labor groups, legitimate civil rights groups, an 100% innocent Islamic religious groups that have been hassled by the F.B.I., the state police, and local cops for a lot less than the stuff those creps in Oakland are accused of doing.? 


Green Daniel Brezenoff v Democrat Laura Richardson
(See http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/8930012.html) 

It's like living in some tin-horn "bananna republic" if not totalitarian China or Russia.? I've written to every newspaper I can think of in Los Angeles on behalf of Green Party candidate Daniel Brezenoff for Congress.? So far I've only "scored" one printed in the Daily Breeze in the spring.? You'll find all kinds of crazy opinions in these newspapers but not one letter that deigns to mention the (shudder, gasp) Green Party.? It's like we are "Reds" in Joe McCarthy's heyday.??It's infuriating and frustrating as hell.? Everytime I turn around I'm reading some hand-wringing thing about how awful the Democrats and Republicans are and how we need more "independents" or more "bipartisanship."? And all of a sudden there's a demand for "green" this and "green" that and global warming is "hot" but the Green Party, the folks who have been talking about this stuff all along,?is beyond the pale.?

Almost every day there is a new scandal?involving Democrats in Los Angeles and they are about to elect a weak, mediocre slob to the United States Congress from a "safe" Democratic seat because?the Green Party is beyond the pale.??? 


Conclusion: Inner-City Democratic Party Machines Must Go

I've been arguing this point for years: namely, that the Democratic Party Machines in the Dreaded Inner-City are corrupt and incompetent and need to be overthrown.? The Democrats in Washington are fucked-up because almost all of them (including some famous liberals), are standing atop Democratic Machines that are rotten to the core.? Unfortunately, so long as?people with lazy closed minds insist every political struggle in the universe is about?"liberal" Democrats vs. "conservative" Republicans paradigm, nothing will change, because no self-respecting people of color are going to support that rightwing, racist, suck-up-to-the-rich/kick-down-on-the-poor Republican Party.


Alex Walker
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