My apologies up front but that was the best title I could come up with.
In the days after the last election, with members of the Reactionary Left using semiotic warfare against their chosen enemies, and finally using their ultimate trump card - the slate card of the Democratic Party - to fool the public into believing that their candidates are representative of the city's mainstream thought, there has been a flurry of emails being sent back and forth between various opinion makers on the proper labels for the various political factions in San Francisco.
Chief among the issues has been what I refer to as the Blood Libel of San Francisco politics: that anyone who propounds policy focused on economic development, or combating crime or blight, is "Conservative." If you start talking about the homelessness issue in a way that our Reactionary Left establishment doesn't like, they call you a "Secret Republican," much in the same way the President-elect has been called a "Secret Muslim", an "Alien", a "Terrorist," and so on, by Reactionary Right Wing commentators on national politics.
Ultimately, we need to reflect on why this is being done.
There's a bifurcation in the motivation for political support in San Francisco politics. Just as in Washington, San Francisco has developed superconstituencies - interest groups which endorse and raise campaign funds - and just like in Washington, the political climate favors those who pay more attention to those superconstituencies than to ordinary voters.
On one level, it should come as no surprise that in cities, superconstituencies should develop around issues and needs which have been traditionally addressed by political Progressives. In America it's the cities that, for better or worse, have had to deal with the brunt of poverty. It's municipal governments that have to police the blight and crime, to shelter people who can't do so themselves, and issue welfare checks.
And increasingly, local government has, mainly due to Republican propagandizing and tax policy on state and national levels, had to privatize off much of those services to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Once this was done, local governments essentially set the stage for local superconstituency-dominated politics. Once we privatised these services, we turned them into industries which self-select policy choices based upon their own self-interests. Civil service unions have done the same, as their own memberships shrank, and as organizers and union leadership became more powerful and also more desperate to preserve what they have. Local Progressive advocacy organizations - who often have or are allied with organizations who hold municipal relief services contracts - no longer fight for policies based upon The Right Thing To Do, but to keep themselves in business.
This is called the Industrialization of Homelessness and Poverty.
The effect this has upon urban politics is huge. Teacher unions now care more about compensation and amenities than they do about teaching. Criminal Justice nonprofits are more concerned with maintaining their contracts for diversion programs than they are in enforcing restorative justice or decreasing recidivism. Homelessness advocacy groups fight against policies which take homeless people off the streets and into care. Tenant advocacy groups fight real estate development that would ease housing supply and make it cheaper, and they often sabotage efforts to beautify at-risk neighborhoods and make them safer. The focus is no longer on altruistic advocacy for their chosen constituents, but upon self-preservation as a superconstituency.
In many American cities, Progressives have achieved for themselves something which they are intrinsically uncomfortable with - the status of being part of a political establishment. The response in San Francisco has been primarily to portray themselves as a still-insurgent force - still fighting the revolution as it were, despite being on top. This has been the habitual pose of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which in turn presided over a government still mired in inequality and corruption. There are other examples. It's tempting to compare San Francisco's poverty policy to Trotsky's concept of a "Degenerated Worker's State", really a corrupt form of state capitalism.
The problem is that all political establishments face the temptation of Reactionism, whether that establishment is Leftist, Rightist, or Centrist. And San Francisco's Establishment Left is nothing if not fiercely reactionary. Reactionary enough that much of their rhetoric and drama, from working to inflate housing costs, to opposing Nancy Pelosi because "she is too moderate", to putting their fatuous self-absorbed spokespeople like Gerardo Sandoval on Fox News, often plays into the hands of Republicans, who clearly play the reactionary role on the national stage. That should be no surprise considering that San Francisco's Reactionary Establishment Left is the product of Republican social policy.
Oh, and Fuck You, Chris Daly.
In the days after the last election, with members of the Reactionary Left using semiotic warfare against their chosen enemies, and finally using their ultimate trump card - the slate card of the Democratic Party - to fool the public into believing that their candidates are representative of the city's mainstream thought, there has been a flurry of emails being sent back and forth between various opinion makers on the proper labels for the various political factions in San Francisco.
Chief among the issues has been what I refer to as the Blood Libel of San Francisco politics: that anyone who propounds policy focused on economic development, or combating crime or blight, is "Conservative." If you start talking about the homelessness issue in a way that our Reactionary Left establishment doesn't like, they call you a "Secret Republican," much in the same way the President-elect has been called a "Secret Muslim", an "Alien", a "Terrorist," and so on, by Reactionary Right Wing commentators on national politics.
Ultimately, we need to reflect on why this is being done.
There's a bifurcation in the motivation for political support in San Francisco politics. Just as in Washington, San Francisco has developed superconstituencies - interest groups which endorse and raise campaign funds - and just like in Washington, the political climate favors those who pay more attention to those superconstituencies than to ordinary voters.
On one level, it should come as no surprise that in cities, superconstituencies should develop around issues and needs which have been traditionally addressed by political Progressives. In America it's the cities that, for better or worse, have had to deal with the brunt of poverty. It's municipal governments that have to police the blight and crime, to shelter people who can't do so themselves, and issue welfare checks.
And increasingly, local government has, mainly due to Republican propagandizing and tax policy on state and national levels, had to privatize off much of those services to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Once this was done, local governments essentially set the stage for local superconstituency-dominated politics. Once we privatised these services, we turned them into industries which self-select policy choices based upon their own self-interests. Civil service unions have done the same, as their own memberships shrank, and as organizers and union leadership became more powerful and also more desperate to preserve what they have. Local Progressive advocacy organizations - who often have or are allied with organizations who hold municipal relief services contracts - no longer fight for policies based upon The Right Thing To Do, but to keep themselves in business.
This is called the Industrialization of Homelessness and Poverty.
The effect this has upon urban politics is huge. Teacher unions now care more about compensation and amenities than they do about teaching. Criminal Justice nonprofits are more concerned with maintaining their contracts for diversion programs than they are in enforcing restorative justice or decreasing recidivism. Homelessness advocacy groups fight against policies which take homeless people off the streets and into care. Tenant advocacy groups fight real estate development that would ease housing supply and make it cheaper, and they often sabotage efforts to beautify at-risk neighborhoods and make them safer. The focus is no longer on altruistic advocacy for their chosen constituents, but upon self-preservation as a superconstituency.
In many American cities, Progressives have achieved for themselves something which they are intrinsically uncomfortable with - the status of being part of a political establishment. The response in San Francisco has been primarily to portray themselves as a still-insurgent force - still fighting the revolution as it were, despite being on top. This has been the habitual pose of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which in turn presided over a government still mired in inequality and corruption. There are other examples. It's tempting to compare San Francisco's poverty policy to Trotsky's concept of a "Degenerated Worker's State", really a corrupt form of state capitalism.
The problem is that all political establishments face the temptation of Reactionism, whether that establishment is Leftist, Rightist, or Centrist. And San Francisco's Establishment Left is nothing if not fiercely reactionary. Reactionary enough that much of their rhetoric and drama, from working to inflate housing costs, to opposing Nancy Pelosi because "she is too moderate", to putting their fatuous self-absorbed spokespeople like Gerardo Sandoval on Fox News, often plays into the hands of Republicans, who clearly play the reactionary role on the national stage. That should be no surprise considering that San Francisco's Reactionary Establishment Left is the product of Republican social policy.
Oh, and Fuck You, Chris Daly.
