[Sosfbay-discuss] Calif. Green Party Release: Dems blocked bills that may have prevented Oakland youth shooting death

[alexcathy at aol.com]

Dear
Friends, 

As a not-very-active member of the Green Party of California Media
Group, I just want to add that I really do appreciate the heavy research and hard work that went
into carefully crafting this important release. Erika McDonald is a
virtual scholar on this subject and ought to win a medal. 

I am sure you all know that
Oakland, California was the home of the Black Panther Party and the
San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley area was a hotbed of radicalism in the
1960s and 1970s.  This was also the district of the legendary
antiwar Congressman Ron Dellums and his protégé,
Congresswoman
Barbara Lee -- the only one out of 535 senators and representatives
in Congress to vote NO on Mr. Bush's first "blank check"
for war a few days after 9/11. 





[FLAME
ON] 




For
these very reasons, many people of color among the California Greens
regard Oakland, California as the "poster boy" for the
failure of the liberal Democrats in the cities of America. 
People all over the world hear about those world-famous "San
Francisco Liberals" and assume the Bay Area is some kind of
"Black Power Peoples Republic."  This is simply not
true.  Over the past forty years, the big city Democratic Party
Machines have simply co-opted all those "Black Power"
slogans and woven them seamlessly into the Democratic Party Machine
“ethnic politics” liberalism. That is one reason why I,
personally, have become a little “crazy” in my rejection of
“ethnic politicsE2 as we have known it for too long.  








Despite
the best intentions of the best African-American nationalists, the
*effect* of racialist thinking has been to *strengthen* the worst of
the Democratic Party Machines in places like Oakland, San Francisco,
Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, D.C., and Baltimore
(where the Democratic Party Machine mayor has just been indicted). 
In Sunday's paper here in Los Angeles there was a photo of
President-Elect Barack Obama with D.C. Mayor
Adrian Fenty having
lunch at “Ben's Chilli Bowl” on U Street in Northwest D.C.  See,
we are suppose to take this meaningness symbolic non-event as “proof”
that Mr. Obama is “down with the brothas”... blah, blah, blah. 
This is exactly like Hillary Rodham Clinton drinking straight shots
in Pennsylvania or George Walker Bush clearing brush on his “ranch.”
  








Now
is the time to heap ridicule and scorn on the “Old Politics.”  I am planning to incorporate this issue in my campaign in Los Angeles where nobody knows the meaning of the word "accountability." 








[FLAME
OFF] 








Alex
Walker 








-----Original
Message-----


Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
News Advisory
THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA
http://www.cagreens.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, January 9, 2009

Contact: Susan King, spokesperson, 415.823-5524 sking at cagreens.org
Erika McDonald, San Francis
co Green Party, 415-337-1499 erika at dolorespark.org
Cres Vellucci, press secretary, 916.996-9170 cvellucci at cagreens.org

Democrats blocked legislation holding police accountable for
misconduct; political solution may have prevented shooting death of
Oakland youth on New Year's Day, charges Green Party

OAKLAND - Political remedies to hold police more accountable for
outrageous acts such as the shooting death of an African-American
youth here on New Year's Day have been blocked by even supposedly
"sympathetic" Democratic Party politicians, charged Green Party of
California spokespeople Friday.

Greens said the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant by Oakland police
should spark a renewed interest in police misconduct, transparency and
accountability.

"Elected officials, including lawmakers representing the Bay Area such
as Democrat Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-SF), have been blocking police
accountability for years in Sacramento, She helped kill police
accountability legislation in 2007," said Erika McDonald, a
spokesperson for the San Francisco Green Party.

Ma was a member of the 2007 Assembly Public Safety Committee which
refused to even bring to a vote two pieces of legislation, SB 1019 and
AB 1648, which would have given the public access to police records
about misconduct and discipline involving police officers, including
excessive force, officer-involved shootings and dishonesty.

"Another young man of color is dead. So much for change we can believe
in, and an end to a practice of allowing law enforcement officials to
act as a protected class. Suppose
dly 'progressive' Oakland Mayor Ron
Dellums, and the District Attorney, both Democrats, have not done what
needs to be done," added McDonald.

"Public access to police records about sustained police misconduct not
only protects the public by helping deter police misconduct, but it
generates public confidence in the police by holding police
accountable," said Cres Vellucci, Green Party spokesperson and member
of the ACLU Board of Directors in Sacramento.

Prior to a relatively recent court decision, there was access to some
discipline records of police with virtually no problems regarding the
rights of police officers. Now police are protected from any real
disclosure of discipline problems.
-30-

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