Okay, I’ve got a lot of problems with Jerry Brown. He was an awful mayor of Oakland, sided with the developers and the cops, and seemed to lose almost all of his progressive insticts. He’s against raising taxes on the rich. He won’t even support marijuana decriminalization.
There are good reasons to criticize the guy, and I’m right there at the front of the line.
But I fear that’s not what the press is going to do over the next year. It’s way too much fun to dredge up the old Gov. Moonbeam shit
Check out Carla Marinucci today:
now’s a good time to re-introduce you to author Jerry Brown, whose ’90s book “Dialogues” also contains a few memorable quotes that may end up in some 2010 gubernatorial campaign ads …. For Brown fans, the material illustrates the intellectual curiousity and independence that they say set him apart in the current pack of pols. For conservatives, it’s more proof he’s still that ultra-liberal, wacky “Moonbeam” character.
(btw, ultra-liberal is the Chron’s disparaging term for progressive. Although C.W. Nevius seems to like “militantly liberal.”)
So here are some of the examples of questions Brown asked in his interviews that the Chron thinks are utterly wacky:
*To author and philosopher Noam Chomsky:
*”How would you compare the propaganda system in the so-called free world to an authoritarian system? What are the differences?”
Umm, Chomsky is a brilliant linguist, an expert on the use of words. That’s a perfectly legit question to ask him. And it’s based on what anyone who follows the news media knows very well — that a lot of what is presented as unbiased news is actually slanted to promote a point of view. Why is that strange or wacky?
OR:
*To Judi Bari, late “Earth First!” enviromental activist:
*”None of us is an isolated monad with this bundle of private property rights outside the fabric of these larger obligations. So I very much believe that it’s time to take another step in the evolution of capitalism. Right now, I don’t think the federal government can make that happen…it can’t even operate what it owns, so that’s not the answer. But we’re on a track of real destruction socially and ecologically and we have to understand that as clearly as we can in order to come up with a better set of rules.”
*To Wolfgang Sachs, author and enviromental researcher:
*”As you observe modernizing projects in the world today that are operated by multinational corporations without much interference from national governments, do you see fascistic elements there? There are certainly enormous changes imposed without the consent of the governed.”
Again: Brown’s points are pretty basic, pretty clear — and almost indisputably correct.
The Sacramento Bee has had fun with some of Brown’s old lefty stuff on KPFA, but again, I have to ask: What did he say that was wrong?
He called capital punishment “state murder” and said U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, had “sold out” U.S. truck drivers by letting their Mexican counterparts drive uninspected vehicles into the United States.
In one of the most controversial excerpts, Brown called the prison system a racket that pumped profits out of the poor’s misfortunes and into the pockets of prison guards.
“The big lockup is about drugs,” Brown stated in an excerpt from late 1995. “Here’s the real scam. The drug war is one of the games to get more convictions and prisoners. There’s a lot of chemicals out there and when certain ones are made illegal, they become a huge profit opportunity and bring violence, crime and more people to imprison.”
Again: What, exactly, is wrong with anything he said? It’s all perfectly true.
More from the Bee:
Garry South, a top strategist for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, said the KPFA (94.1 FM) broadcasts would make Brown vulnerable if he reaches the general election.
Brown opened an exploratory committee for a gubernatorial run last month but has not officially announced his candidacy.
“California Democrats need to ponder very seriously the prospect of putting up a candidate for governor who comes with reams of radio-show rantings and ravings like Brown,” South wrote in an e-mail.
Rantings and ravings? Does Newsom support the death penalty? NAFTA? The drug war? If he does, that’s a bigger problem than Brown’s off-the-cuff radio remarks.