Lusty Ladies and JROTC
August 20, 2008
Prostitutes & Kids at the Party
Would parents allow their teens or infants to attend a meeting with whoops and screams for hookers talking about sex? In the presence of APA teens who were mostly advocating for keeping JROTC in the schools, speakers at last week’s S.F. Democratic Party’s endorsement vote were freely talking about rape, pimps, clients, drug addiction and worker conditions at the “Lusty Lady Theatre.” As one supporter said to the laughter of county committee members, the measure would “benefit the sex workers and their clients [including] any man who could get commercial sex as he needs it without fear of prosecution [and] sexual blackmail in both directions…” The new, progressive S.F. Democratic Party’s four-hour marathon was led on August 13 by three supervisors (party chairman Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly and Jake McGoldrick) and school board member and parent Eric Mar. They were among the elected adults responsible for controlling decorum, yet they supported decriminalizing prostitution while opposing reinstatement of a JROTC program that builds leadership and character. Ironically, the same county committee debated the national ridicule they would face should the party support naming a sewer plant after President George W. Bush, with one member expressing sympathies for insulting plant employees of the award-winning operation. The party took no position on renaming the plant…
ONWARD MARCH…LEFT, LEFT, LEFT… The Asian Pacific American teens acted more like adults, speaking passionately for a November measure to restore the JROTC program in schools. One adult supporter, parent Quincy Yu, criticized anti-JROTC supporters for laying off instructors - 70 percent of whom are African American males. “They are the largest group of African American male instructors, who not only serve as male role models for the cadets, but other African kids in the schools.” Despite the fear that former military officers would be laid off by June, the county committee recommended to more than 200,000 Democrats to oppose the measure - with District 9 supervisor candidate David Campos (legal counsel to the school district) criticizing the school district for not replacing it with a substitute leadership program after voting to eliminate the program two years ago. The vote, along with the endorsement of a public power measure and decriminalization of prostitution, signified the committee’s progressive swing (more left than liberal)…. MAR & CHIU WIN NOD: Another barometer of the party’s leftward swing was its support for two progressive-minded APA candidates over women candidates. Currently, men dominate the board of supervisors with only the female supervisors being Michela Alioto-Pier (District 2-Pacific Heights), Sophie Maxwell (District 10-Bayview) and Carmen Chu (District 4-Sunset). In favor of Mar, the party snubbed two mothers and major candidates in District 1 (Richmond) - longtime California Democratic Party vice chair Alicia Wang and Chinese Historical Society of America director Sue Lee. For District 3 (Chinatown/North Beach), the party tapped corporate executive David Chiu and bypassed two APA women - former Organization of Chinese American national director Claudine Cheng and community college teacher and grandmother Wilma Pang…
CHIU WEAKNESS? Chiu won a significant endorsement that should be perceived as a coup. However, his was the only race that the party did not “bullet vote” as it did with all the other races, including Carmen Chu in District 4 (except for District 5-Haight-Ashbury/Japantown where the party did not endorse any Democrat facing Green Party incumbent Ross Mirkarimi). Neighborhood activist Denise McCarthy received the consolation 2nd ranking recommendation. The county committee was split on the progressive credentials of McCarthy with Sup. Chris Daly arguing for McCarthy and the pro-Chiu Sup. Peskin refuting his arguments. The McCarthy endorsement may signify that the progs like Daly are not totally sold on Chiu by covering their election bases with questions about the debate on Chiu’s company connections with right-wingers and Republicans…
YOUR GRAND OLD FLAG: If you missed the opening Olympic ceremonies in Beijing, children representing China’s nationalities paraded in and handed off PRC’s flag to a goose-stepping People’s Liberation Army honor guard who raised it to the national anthem. At the same opening, President Bush was later waving a miniature American flag and then, in a relaxed moment, was unceremoniously beating his leg with the Stars and Stripes… It was Bush’s dad - also at the Bird Nest - who campaigned on flag desecration. During this election, Barack Obama got flak for not adoring his lapel with a flag pin…
SIGN HER UP: If you’re attractive, flaunt it. While most candidates have put up window and street signs promoting their names and not their faces, campaign manager Jim Ross is plastering commercial establishments in the Sunset with signs adorned with very large photos of Carmen Chu. The photos are larger than normal, but unless she has the budget, bow-tied Supervisor Tom Hsieh (father of county committee member Tom A. Hsieh) is the champ - putting up near life-size signs (I have one in my collection of signs) of him standing up back in 1992 while running for re-election as citywide supe…..
ODDS ON EVEN: There’s a ballot measure - endorsed by the county committee - to move mayoral elections from odd- to even-numbered election years where turnouts are higher. Changing the mayoral calendar would improve chances of electing a left-leaning mayor since Assemblyman Art Agnos’ landslide in 1987. It levels the playing field for the left - and offsets APA landslides that delivered victories to Frank Jordan in 1991, Willie Brown in 1999 and Gavin Newsom in 2003. That should affect calculations of often-speculated candidate State Senator Leland Yee. He could be a lone candidate from the city’s heavily APA, conservative-to-moderate Westside to run while most candidates slice and dice each other on the liberal east of San Francisco. The occasional maverick is no doctrinaire centrist or conservative who unquestioningly follows a strict Chinese or Asian Pacific American agenda. That could help him garner some liberal eastside votes or support (like the lefty Bay Guardian newspaper which endorsed him), which could make a mayoral race mountable for him by picking up second and third choices under the city’s ranked choice voting system…
Reach Samson Wong at (415) 321-5886 or swong@asianweek.com.
Comments
5 Responses to “Lusty Ladies and JROTC”
Got something to say?
David Chiu is the #1 endorsement of the Democratic Party.
David Chiu has also been endorsed by District Attorney Kamala Harris, Public Defender Jeff Adachi and the Police Officers Association.
No one else running for Supervisor can claim such a broad base of support to fight crime and improve our public safety!
Denise McCarthy’s campaign is being funded by Republicans like Don Fisher, Warren Hellman, and Dede Wilsey — and from people involved with the SF Apartment Association and with anti-rent control interests: Janan New (head of the SF Apartment Association), Brook Turner (head of Coalition for Better Housing), David Wasserman (landlord attorney), Bill Maher (fmr. anti-rent control Supervisor), Patrick Kennedy (big-time Berkeley developer), Carmen Policy (ex-owner of the 49ers).
She was also an aide to Quentin Kopp when he was a supervisor.
“In a divisive 1986 maneuver, the club endorsed Independent Quentin Kopp for state Senate over Democratic Assemblyman Lou Papan, despite Kopp’s efforts to make English the state’s official language and getting rid of Chinese language ballots.” - Samson Wong (Mar 27, 2008)
I live in District 3 and will be rank choice voting #1 David Chiu and #2 Denise McCarthy.
Claudine Cheng has raised over 1/3 of her campaign money from real estate interests who conduct business in front of City Hall. I’m concerned about her independence.
Joe Alioto Jr. is simply running on his family name with very little substance. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t done anything for District 3.
He says he served on the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Board of Directors, but I heard from Telegraph Hill friends that Alioto Jr. was kicked off the Board.
Mmmm . . .
Why the heck NOT “legitimatize” the “world’s oldest profession”?
Or, for that matter, “recreational drugs”?
After all, it was only about a century or so ago that “booze” was “Prohibited” and proved prohibitive to sane and adult citizens.
Human nature and human conduct can NOT be legislated, and only diehard, “stiff-necked”? as in the Chinese for “hard neck” demagogues continue to display their own fears and loathings of their own bodies and their own needs and yearnings.
JROTC?
What’s that, other than the exploiting of juvey macho poses and posings.
Been there. Done that.
It’s a drag, folks, in more ways than one.
Gimee shelter.
And a good glass of red.
Wine, that is.
Give great credit to Samson Wong who has had the guts to stand up to a lot of pressure over the last few years years. Past articles of his have been removed simply due to pressure from powerful political interests. For years he has been holding people to account that were blatently hypocritical in their public stands and statements when compared to their professional record. Samson deserves great respect and thanks from our community for championing truth and accountability. He is the one that has tipped off many to the true professional background of one of the candidates in the District 3 Supervisor race.