Watching City Hall #368 (5-1-05)
“He will impress the people
so profoundly by his mere existence
and by the impact of his personality
that they will be swayed by him
as the grass by the wind.”
(‘I Ching’ on Gonzalez for governor)
Yeah, that’s really what the venerable prognosticator returned to the question “What are the prospects of a Matt Gonzalez run for governor?” Rachel and I both laughed at the clarity and recorded the page (83).
It returned lots more too.
A little rain fell in the street but Rachel and I were safe under the awning at the Revolution Café in the Mission. God damn, she was looking good.
Rachel that is. A short, 60’s hippie soft dress that flared over a skin-tight leotard. Frankly, that dominated my part of the conversation for the 2 hours that we sat drinking beer and talking about America and the future of our species.
It all revolves around Camejo’s ego
It was the longest return I’d ever heard from the ‘I Ching’. It began with a description about the need for old to yield and join with new in the battle. A long and full account of the massive ego of the old and how they could and might derail the forward rush of the forces of Good. On and on it went about how the old was powerful but should support the new instead of dominate. A truly amazing reading.
Now, that kind of shit doesn’t mean much to Jack Davis and Eric Jaye and their ilk. But, to the 113,000 people recorded as voting for Matt Gonzalez for Mayor 17 months ago, it means lots. It means that with the right candidate, we can capture the office of governor next year. I mean, that is, if we can get the electorate to believe that there is absolutely no essential difference in the Democrats and the Republicans. Think we can sell that one? Fact is, Greens have outpolled Democrats in every City-wide office where they’ve competed over the last 3 years. Outpolled the Democratic candidates with DEMOCRATIC voters! The friggin’ planets are aligned and our job is twofold.
First, we gotta get Peter Camejo to endorse Gonzalez for governor (neither has declared) and act as senior adviser. That will be tough. … Those of you who have read me for a few years will immediately see a parallel. Three years ago I was trying to get Tom Ammiano to admit that his candidacy could only fail and produce a rift in the Left that handed the office of Mayor to Downtown. I was exactly right. … Let me close by saying this about that. Peter, you can’t teach charisma or we’d teach it to you. You can’t buy it or we’d buy some for you.
Second, you gotta get Gonzalez to run. … This is a lot like trying to get Barry Bonds into the batter’s box these days. You know? He’s got lots to win and lots to lose too. He’s already a legend. Would he only hurt his image with a less than stellar performance? Can either of these guys still hit the long ball?
I’ve confronted Camejo
He’d just finished chewing a new anal egress for Medea Benjamin for not supporting him strongly enough in his run for the U.S. Vice Presidency. I didn’t know this. Others told me that and that he’d also slammed David Cobb et al. It’s good to I just saw him leaving the party and threw one of my insightful throwaway lines at him:
h.: “Hey Peter. You’re too old to win an election. Why don’t you get out of the way in the governor’s race and let someone else run?”
Camejo: (turning in surprise) “I wouldn’t get in anyone’s way! (we both knew I was talking about Gonzalez) I’d never do that!!”
He’s doing it now. He’s using Matt’s loyalty to keep Gonzalez out of the race for governor. … That’s a real tragedy. Hopefully, Peter can reign in his ego and help us all by talking the rising star of the Green Party into the race against the ‘Terminator’. Gonzalez with Camejo as chief adviser will crush Arnold in the debates next time. … Yeah, it will have to hurt Peter to watch Gonzo stomp the steroid android in the forums where Camejo was denied a spot for so many years. The senior Progressive economic guru would have to accept a spot in history similar to that of King David. … He prepared the ground, but it was Solomon whom God allowed to build the temple. That was tough for King David to swallow. Can Peter Camejo back off in the best interests of the Progressive movement?
Don’t count on it. If you’re a betting person, bet on Camejo to pull an Ammiano. He’ll demand his right to run for every top office until he dries up and croaks and may the Progressive movement be damned if it gets in his way. The shit is truly sad in both cases. Like watching an over-the-hill Willie Mays dropping fly balls.
‘I Ching’ gives prossible actions and their concurrent outcomes. In this case, the hexagrams move from ‘receptive’ into ‘contemplation’ which leads (hopefully) into ‘wisdom’ at which point, the combined powers of the forces, bring victory.
Conflict in the ‘receptive’ stage spells doom for our team, campers. That’s where we are at the moment. The ball is in Peter Camejo’s court as we speak. And, it is noteworthy that the ‘enemy’ has already moved into attack mode on Gonzalez. They understand who the real threat is.
Allow me to close this short study with two observations. First, I don’t know that we can get Gonzalez to run. And, second, I am absolutely, positively certain the Camejo doesn’t have a prayer.
I am, in short, in exactly the same position as I was 3 (or was it 4?) years ago when I started pushing Matt to run for mayor. It took him til the last day to decide. Then, we had a 4 month rollercoaster ride that the City will never forget. This one will be 5 times that long and cover the entire state of California. Anyone wanna go along?
Robert Haaland and Pat Murphy collusion
It took some serious digging, but I found the source of the Sentinel story Pat Murphy ran last week accusing Matt Gonzalez of trying to influence sitting Board members vis a vis the condemnation of Joe ‘He dances with developers’ O’Donoghue.
Seems weasel, Robert Haaland is back to spreading lies. Don’t let the cherub face fool you. This guy can slither with Jack Davis anytime. Word is, he came upon the idea to hit the two Greenies he blames for defeating him in the recent D5 supervisoral race.
So, Haaland went to Murphy with the lie that new D5 headman, Ross Mirkarimi had told him that Matt called him to get him to derail the resolution kicking Joe in the balls. I went to Mirkarimi for a ‘confirm or deny’ to the Haaland story. He called back within the hour and said he was astounded that anyone would say such a thing and that it was completely false.
Understanding Pat Murphy
The Sentinel no longer produces objective journalism. Now, much as I adore Pat Murphy, he’s so far up Gavin Newsom’s ass that he can see daylight out the mayor’s nostrils.
Unpleasant as it may be, a person has to read all Sentinel pieces on the local political scene with that image in mind. … I’m not saying that Murphy has to be impartial. I’m certainly not. But, I don’t claim to be. I don’t claim a whole lot of bullshit about propriety and journalistic integrity while only telling one side of every story.
Now, on the other hand, it’s OK for me to do that. That’s pretty much my position with the Greens in general and Gonzo in particular. The difference is that I admit it. Murphy, moving ever closer to the Chronicle propaganda line, still pretends what he’s doing is something more than puff pieces for Newsom and his Downtown handlers. A couple of examples.
Mayor to ‘improve’ union ‘bumping’ rights
That’s a summary of the lead on Murphy’s April 29th slurp job on Newsom’s last press conference. Reality is that Gavin is helping Mohammed Nehru build another team of goons to roam precincts on election day in huge City purchased black SUV’s threatening voters. To do this, they have to put these people on the payroll and to do that, they have to throw off people who won’t play ball on Gavin’s team.
Mohammed Nehru should be in prison. Instead, the prick is more likely to get a new school named after him. He fired 15 senior low-level DPW employees to install shock troops loyal to him for the next election. Murphy bought it hook, line and sinker. Didn’t bother to mention the 15 guys who showed up at Public Comment to expose the plot at the Board’s last meeting. No, instead, we get pictures of Nehru up front and center with Newsom at event after event. Giving this guy a new litter of thugs is like letting the pigs raise the litter of dobermans in the barn in Animal Farm. So, don’t you dare say I didn’t tell you when the goons show up in your precinct driven by A. Philip Randolph cohorts.
Mayor takes lead in alternative energy
In the same article, Murphy praises Newsom’s need ‘wave energy’ proposals and goes so far as to publish lots of nice little graphs on how this will all work. His cohorts jump online on the DCCC’s ‘Wall’ chat room to announce that this means that Newsom is now the point guy in the area of new projects to produce alternative energy.
Problem is, it’s a big lie. What Newsom has done, in fact, is to kill the City’s capacity to move toward Public Power. He did it this way.
1. First, he dumped Ed Smeloff, who was the unquestioned local guru in the PUC and institutional memory in every alternative energy project. His replacement? That would be Gerald Green, noted Downtown ‘enforcer’.
2. Then, in a very Chronicle-like move, Murphy ignored Newsom’ moves to first delay, then bury the sensible, pollution free ‘tidal energy’ project brought to town by Gonzalez and replace it with a completely ludicrous ‘wave energy’ plan that would run a huge complicated, vacuum cleaner hose looking tube from Ocean Beach to Pacifica. The tidal project is basically a set of concrete ‘lego’ like blocks stacked in trenches around the bay. PG&E hates it and they hated Smeloff. Those concrete modules could power the entire Bay area from San Francisco to San Jose and render Hetch-Hetchy power and Texas natural gas pipelines obsolete. Thus, Smeloff and tidal energy go away and we get Gerald Green and ‘wave energy’.
3. The list goes on of the stories in which Murphy only reports half of the facts. I ran into Pat and Sentinel master photographer, Luke Thomas at the last ‘Project Homeless Connect’ and regaled them with stories of hundreds being tossed off the rolls at 1235 Mission by a surly, nit-picking staff while this charade was occurring a couple of blocks away at Bill Graham auditorium. Murphy ignored that half of the story. I mean, having a herd of naïve ‘volunteers’ coach homeless hopefuls through long applications that Trent Rohrer’s staff will then pick apart looking for a single uncrossed ‘t’ or undotted ‘i’ a few days or weeks later in order to toss 8 out of 10 of them to the curb is real news. But, that would make Gavin look bad, so instead, they photographed the mayor washing some guy’s feet. I mean, c’mon, did you believe those pictures when you saw them? I’m sure that if Eric Jaye had told Gavin to do it, the mayor would have dried the guy’s feet with his hair.
Less explosive stuff
Eileen: “I just don’t know what I’d do without my kid.”
Jens: (puffing a bowl of hash) “Have you considered miniature golf?”
… … …
Jens: “I knew him before he was Aaron Peskin!” (Explaining why he wasn’t surprised to see the SF Board President at his door last week.)
Peskin: “I don’t have a tv at home. When I’m home, I’m home and right now, I’m not home and my wife’s gonna kill me!” (What are the odds of 2 Board chiefs in a row not having a tube in their domicile?)
Jens: (on lawyers and ethics) “An ‘illegal’ to me is a sick bird. They should put that on their business cards.”
h.: “She said that I’d never amounted to anything and never would.”
Jens: “Well, consistency is good.”
h.: “It shouldn’t matter if I’m poor. Remember the case in Florida where the lady lawyer fell in love with the killer and brought him a gun to break out and they went on a crime spree and she lost everything?”
Jens: “So, you think she’ doesn’t love you cause she didn’t bring you a gun?” (pause) “Relax. You just stuck your toes in the water. Now you can go swimming.”
And, to think, people wonder why I go to Jens Nielsen for advice. Sometimes people who can barely see, have the best view.
Thanks to Phil for coming around to debug my computer yesterday after first cleansing Charles Kalish’s machine. And, apologies to Peskin for yelling “TOW IT!!” to the cops huddled around his new alt energy car.
That’s enough of that for now.
Go Giants!
