Government

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Suppose you don’t care about the war in Iraq. Suppose you have a secure job, and you aren’t in trouble with your mortgage, and don’t spend much time worrying about climate change. You’re thinking about No. 1, and that’s how you plan to vote.

Let me ask you a question:

Who’s more likely to cut your taxes — Barack Obama or John McCain?

If you figure that the heir to the Bush mantra — cut taxes, cut regulation, cut government programs (except for wars) — is the guy who will reduce your tax burden, try again.

I refer you to a very intelligent article by David Leonhardt in the Aug. 24 New York Times Magazine. Leonhardt is not a radical leftist, and he’s not an Obama campaign operative. He’s an economics columnist who has spent a lot of time trying to understand what both of the candidates are really proposing, and here’s his conclusion:

"Obama would not only cut taxes for most people more than McCain would. He would cut them more than Bill Clinton did and more than Hillary Clinton proposed doing."

Obama is offering big middle-class tax cuts, reductions that would actually put a lot more money in the pockets of the people who are most likely to need, and spend, that money. And he’d do it by raising taxes on the very tiny percentage of people who make very high incomes.

McCain loves to talk about tax cuts, but what he has in mind is cutting taxes on the 0.1 percent of earners who have average annual incomes of $9.1 million. Those people would pocket an additional $190,000 a year, which, frankly, would make absolutely no visible difference to their lives or lifestyles.

Obama would raise that group’s taxes by about $800,000 annually — which would also make absolutely no visible difference to their lives or lifestyles. As the Times notes, "The bulk of Obama’s tax increases on the wealthy — about $500,000 of that $800,000 — would simply take away Bush’s tax cuts. The remaining $300,000 wouldn’t nearly reverse their pretax income gains in recent years."

So when it comes to putting more money in your pockets — as the free-marketeers like to say, giving the middle class more cash to spend as it wants, thus stimuutf8g the economy — the Democrat is far, far ahead. And all he’s going to do is put the very rich back where they were a few years ago, which was, well, very rich.

This message isn’t getting out.

Part of the problem is that tax policy is complicated (Jesus, just look at all those numbers in the past few paragraphs); analyzing the competing tax plans can make my head hurt, and I love this stuff. Part of the problem is that the Obama campaign is leery of sounding too populist a note; class warfare makes people like me happy, but it doesn’t tend to win national elections. (Part of the problem is that a large percentage of middle-class Americans seriously believe they’ll be stinking rich someday, which is why lotteries make money.)

But the economy is gong to be the issue that decides this election, and the Democrats have to sell two messages. One, we’re better than the Republicans at managing economic policy (not hard, when you look at how the last GOP chief has handled things). And two, we know you’re hurting (Bill Clinton became president by feeling people’s pain) — and we’re going to make it better.

Do the math: under Obama, around 90 percent of the country would get an immediate raise. That might be worth mentioning in his acceptance speech.

Extra! Hearst blacks out the word progressive

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“Ultra liberal?” “Far left political factions”? In San Francisco? Hearst, Mayoral Press Secretary Nathan Ballard, and an “ultra liberal” supervisorial candidate from the Excelsior District comment on this astounding election development

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Audrey Cooper, assistant metro editor of the Chronicle/Hearst, has admitted that the Chronicle “has decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions.” (See my previous blog).

Does this mean that supporters of the Clean Energy Initiative are suddenly and unexpectedly given the derogatory terms “ultra liberal” and “far left.” Does this mean Aaron Peskin and a majority of the board of supervisors? Assemblyman Mark Leno? Former PUC General manager Susan Leal? Former Mayor Art Agnos? A majority of the Democratic County Central Committee? A batch of supervisorial candidates? Labor leaders? The Sierra Club?

Here’s the email Cooper sent me this afternoon responding to questions from the Bruce blog and the Guardian. Cooper, let us stipulate upfront, has one of the toughest jobs going, trying to explain why Hearst suddenly banned the word progressive in the middle of a PG&E offensive against the Clean Energy Act. More: Hearst banned the word progressive in one of the world’s most progressive cities, in a city that spawned the famous progressive Hiram Johnson and his successful fight against the Southern Pacific Railroad, and on the newspaper founded by a publisher who called himself at one time a progressive and ran for mayor of New York on a platform of municipal ownership of utilities. In San Francisco, Hearst campaigned vigorously on a pro-Hetch Hetchy public power, anti-PG&E platform until he reversed himself in the late 1920s because of a PG&E loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. Hearst’s pro-PG&E, anti-public power position has remained in effect to this day. (See previous Bruce blogs, Guardian stories, and David Nasaw’s authoritative biography, “The Chief.”)

Cooper wrote:

“Hi Bruce.
I’m Wyatt Buchanan’s editor — he passed your e-mail along to me. Sorry that it took me a day to get back to you. In general, feel free to ask anything about our coverage. I’ll always answer as quickly as I can (that is, when it’s an issue I have control over).

I’ve also sent versions of this explanation to others who have inquired. (I’m only telling you that in case you get a similar e-mail forwarded to you — it’s just easier for me to explain it the same way to everyone.)

In short, just because a label is embraced by a political group does not mean it’s the best way to report a story. As you’ve probably noticed, we generally eschew political labels when possible. In some stories (such as the fight for the DCCC and Board of Supes), this is not as easily done. In those cases, we choose adjectives we think are as politically neutral as possible.

We decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions because it is a politically loaded term that doesn’t mean much to our readers. And while ‘progressive’ may be the preferred term of some politicians — and, of course, they are free to use it to describe themselves — it doesn’t describe where they sit on the traditional political spectrum.

We believe using adjectives such as ‘far left’ and ‘ultra liberal’ more accurately describe city politicians and policies in that broader context.

Thanks for your time. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Audrey”

Reliable sources told us that the mayor’s campaign had complained to the Chronicle about the use of the word progressive and that means Eric Jaye, who runs the Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign at the same time he works for PG&E as a paid consultant to PG&E.

Cooper and Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press secretary denied this. Cooper said:

“Also, I should tell you that we did not make this change in response or after complaints from anyone in the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office does not dictate what words we use.

“Nobody from the mayor’s office has ever contacted me about this issue as far as I can honestly remember. And I can’t recall them saying anything about it over the last two weeks, either.”

Ballard said:

“Personally I’ve never really complained to the Chronicle about this subject. It just wasn’t very high on my to-do list. In fact I don’t recall ever having any conversations about this topic with anyone from the Chronicle until after Heather Knight’s article about the far-left takeover of the DCCC ran.

“I have to admit that I’m pleased to learn from you that the Chronicle will no longer be using the term ‘progressive’ to describe politicians who aren’t. It always struck me as Orwellian doublespeak to describe somebody who wants to legalize sex trafficking and force lobbyists to wear badges as ‘progressive.'”

Executive Editor Tim Redmond responded to Ballard:

“Well, it’s true that the progressives of the early part of the century tended to be against prostitution and drugs and were prohibitionists, a description that I don’t think would accurately describe, say, Aaron Peskin. But over time the term has evolved, and most progressives today are at least open to the idea that sex work should be legalized. Almost all progressives support the legalization of marijuana (and I think Mayor Newsom does, too.)

“I don’t think far-left even remotely describes people like Peskin, whose economic views are pretty close to the mainstream of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Jake McGoldrick clearly isn’t ‘far left.’ I’m not sure even Tom Ammiano could accurately be called ‘far left.’

“I say this as someone who has been called all sorts of names, including Communist, because I advocate higher taxes on the rich and government spending on social services for the poor. At one time, that was pretty much the mainstream opinion of the Democratic Party.

“So who in SF government do you really believe is ‘far left?'”

Ballard responded back to Tim:

“Tim, do us all a favor and count me out of this dorm-room style debate. I never really cared that much whether the Chronicle called these guys progressives, just like I never really cared that much that CW Post calls them Grape Nuts even though they are neither grapes nor nuts.”

George Avalos, a supervisorial candidate in the Excelsior District, also asked Cooper about her designation and sent us her answer and then his comment to her answer. Question: how did Avalos and other progressive candidates in other districts suddenly become “ultra left” and part of a “far left faction?”

Subject: Dude, the preferred nomenclature is . . .

Dear Audrey:

“Thank you for your reply. I was throwing in a little humor here, albeit obscure — a reference to the Big Lebowski.

“Having said that I do believe the Chron’s use of ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left’ is completely biased. After all, who’s the arbiter here about what ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left are?’ What standard are you using and where did it come from? Seems pretty made up to me. Very rarely or better yet, never do I hear progressives talk about themselves in these terms. The Chron’s making it up out of whole cloth.

“It’s unbelievable, that you would even try to justify your use of this language.

“Lastly, if any term is completely meaningless it’s ‘moderate.’ I don’t recall there being a moderate political movement or ideology. A Classical Greek philosophy maybe, but not a political movement like the Progressive Movement. Progressives established labor laws, the women’s right to vote and regulations of our workplaces and food production.

I don’t believe Moderates can claim any such movement or transformation of our government institutions. If there’s something they can champion it’s ameliorating the effects of change or fighting against perennial progressive issues such as single payer health care, taxing high profits and rent control.

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate your sharing with me the Chronicle’s rationale, however shakey it may be.

Sincerely,

John Avalos”

B3 sums up this historic announcement:

So there you have it: a timely snapshot of Hearst double standard ethics: Let Willie Brown do a featured political column on Sunday without disclosing that he is a paid PG&E lobbyist ($200,000 last year alone). Brand all clean energy politicians opposed by PG&E as “ultra liberals” and “far left factions.” And for God’s sake, don’t cover the election in an honest and professional manner and tell us who PG&E is buying off. (See Amanda Witherell story, “PG&E’s blank check, who’s the utility buying off Start with Newsom, Feinstein, and Willie Brown.”) Question: so what will Hearst call the politicians who PG&E buys off? We call Willie PG&E’s Secret Agent Man.

B3, who insists to Cooper he is still a Rock Rapids (Iowa) liberal, and she says she will not challenge it.

Personal or political?

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› sarah@sfbg.com

The Board of Supervisors Clerk’s Office has quietly begun redacting contact information — including phone numbers, street addresses, and e-mail addresses — from all communications sent to the supervisors by members of the public.

The Clerk’s Office will not redact personal information if individuals indicate that they authorize its release, Clerk of the Board Angela Calvillo wrote in a May 23 memo. Yet the policy shift brings to an end a long-standing tradition in which members of the public could peruse copies of all of the weekly communications to the Board simply by asking to see the petitions and communications file.

Instead, Clerk’s Office staff are now asking people which items they want to see before letting them access the file, in case the requested items need to be redacted.

"If it’s a redacted item, it needs to be handled differently," Clerk’s Office deputy director Madeleine Licavoli explained, noting that a Controller’s Office report wouldn’t need redactions, but public communications would.

The COB’s office does provide a one-line summary of each item in the Board’s weekly agenda packet, but it’s hard to know which pieces are of interest until they are read in full. And the public’s contact information has always provided a handy way for citizens to identify like-minded individuals and for reporters to find story sources and material.

Licavoli said the new policy did not occur in response to specific incidents or complaints, but as a result of a discussion about the need to redact personal information. "The first time people encounter this policy, they say, ‘Whoa, what’s this about?’<0x2009>" Licavoli acknowledged. "But we’re trying to protect personal information, not make things harder for people who just want to look at them.

"We are always trying to expand what’s available," Licavoli added, noting that the Clerk’s Office is working to ensure that when the supervisors return from recess next month, people will be able to access redacted public communications by viewing a CD in the Clerk’s Office.

But open government advocates claim there is no provision for the redaction policy under the California Public Records Act or the city’s voter-approved Sunshine Ordinance. Instead, they fear the new policy reflects a growing trend of trying to scare people into believing that the public’s right to privacy trumps its right to know.

Sunshine advocate Kimo Crossman told the Guardian that the overwhelming reason people need access to redacted contact information is for political speech or technology-savvy new media outlets.

"The city is preventing it because they don’t want to have organized citizen push-back," Crossman said. "This is not about private personal information like your blood pressure."

Like Crossman, Sunshine Ordinance Task Force member Rick Knee also opposes the clerk’s new requirement that people must request the release of their contact information.

"There has to be a very narrow application of the redaction policy," Knee told us. "If the law does not require it, the default is for disclosure."

Bob Stern of the Los Angeles-based Center of Governmental Studies told us he understands the arguments for privacy. "But if an individual does not want their contact information posted online, it should be an opt-out situation at the very worst," Stern added.

But some blame the new policy on San Francisco’s sunshine advocates, such as Crossman, claiming it was their attempts to make databases to screen Sunshine Ordinance Task Force appointees that led to the tightening of the redaction policy.

"Certain people insisted that the Clerk of the Board make a policy, thereby forcing them down this particular path," said Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition. "These folks wanted a confrontation, but they ended up worse off than [under] the ad hoc, unarticulated policy that existed."

Scheer believes that if this redaction policy is contested, the government could win. "If you’re not a reporter, then people care more about their privacy than access," he said.

"Everyone is terrified about identity theft," he continued. "There have been all sorts of horror stories about the government inadvertently leaking information. And anything the Clerk of the Board agrees to give to one person, they have to give to everyone, including sleazebags who put it into a big database and sell it to spammers and telemarketers."

But Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, believes that if the case goes to court, the judge would conclude that this information is presumed to be public. "To withhold information, you have to find a specific public interest in keeping it confidential," Francke said.

Francke notes that the CPRA exempts, for example, the home addresses of school district employees, but does not delegate the authority to create new exemptions. "When you have rules that say apples, oranges, and bananas are exempt, that provides evidence that fruit as a general category is not exempt. The example of CPRA exemptions shows they were decided against a background of documented, actual harassment, not the decision of a faceless bureaucrat."

Francke believes public organizing is hindered by the new policy.

"The value of privacy is not one that the government decides," he said. "It’s your choice how private you want to be. It’s your privacy, not the government’s. So unless they give you an informed opt-out choice, then what they are managing is not privacy but government secrecy."

Money for nothing

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi seems to be feeling pretty confident in her reelection prospects this November, despite an independent challenge by high-profile peace mom Cindy Sheehan.

But that hasn’t stopped the San Francisco Democrat from raising big bucks from scores of interest groups who are contributing to her campaign committee and to the political action committee she controls, known as PAC to the Future.

Most of the money she’s raising is going toward assuring her continued power in Washington by giving it to the campaigns of other Democratic members of Congress, particularly those facing tough election battles that could threaten the party’s House majority.

Pelosi’s reelection committee has raised $2.36 million over the past two years, hundreds of thousands more than the average House member, according to federal campaign disclosure records and data maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Her PAC raised an additional $585,000 during the current election cycle and spent $769,000, much of which has also gone to other candidate committees in payments of $5,000 and $10,000.

Many newly elected Democrats in the House represent conservative constituencies, and with her blessing they sometimes vote with Republicans to distance themselves from the party’s perceived liberal leaders like Pelosi, according to a new book published this month, Money in the House: Campaign Funds and Congressional Party Politics (Perseus, 2008). Democratic leaders in the meantime have continued a phenomenal fundraising spree to help protect those House members.

"Speaker Pelosi’s extraordinary financial commitment to her party, and especially to her party’s vulnerable members, illustrates the overriding emphasis congressional parties and members place on money," writes author Marian Currinder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute. "And her encouragement of selective ‘opposition votes’ demonstrates the complexity of governing in a highly partisan and highly competitive political environment."

Even the day-to-day reelection expenses of Washington’s unrivaled leading lady are outsize, as Pelosi’s spending records show. In June 2007, she celebrated her 20th year in Congress with a glitzy fundraiser held in the capital’s Union Station that cost at least $92,000 and featured a performance by soul singer Patti LaBelle.

The bill included $25,393 for a slick video production; $61,105 on catering, rentals, and securing the site; $2,000 for hairstyling and wardrobe assistance insisted on by LaBelle; $2,824 on flower arrangements; and $1,396 for chocolates from a Pennsylvania-based confection maker.

Pelosi spent at least $650 from her campaign on makeup for the steady string of appearances she made after being sworn in as House speaker in January 2007. An annual fundraiser held this year at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco cost $23,454 for catering and other expenses.

As for the top contributors to Pelosi’s reelection committee, they include several members of the Gallo family, proprietors of the E&J Gallo Winery, who gave a total of $23,000 through maximum individual donations of $4,600. The Modesto-based company has long made contributions to both parties, particularly enriching candidates who show a willingness to scale back or even throw out the federal estate tax, which affects the inheritances of the wealthiest American families.

The Corrections Corporation of America gave $2,300 to Pelosi and $2,700 to her PAC. CCA is part of a storied group of for-profit privatization companies in Nashville, Tenn. that are closely tied to former Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist and includes the Hospital Corporation of America and Ardent Health Services.

Just this year, the state of California hired CCA to house 8,000 inmates at six of the company’s facilities; a significant portion will go to a new $205 million CCA complex under construction in Arizona.

The nation’s largest private jail company suffered bad publicity during the 1990s due to a series of high-profile escapes and inmate killings inside its prisons. It teetered on the edge of bankruptcy after overbuilding jails without having enough inmates available to fill them, but the George W. Bush administration helped save the company with a new homeland security agenda that called for confining rather than releasing undocumented immigrants while they awaited deportation or asylum-request proceedings. The company’s revenue jumped nearly a half-billion dollars over the last five years and its lobbying activities in Washington, DC have increased similarly.

The entertainment industry has ponied up its share to Pelosi as well. The maximum $4,600 donation came from Aaron Sorkin, powerhouse writer behind the long-running TV series The West Wing and the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War. Christie Hefner, a regular donor to Democrats and heiress to Playboy Enterprises, contributed $1,000.

Steven Bing, a Hollywood producer who inherited a real estate fortune, and billionaire Las Vegas developer Kirk Kerkorian gave thousands to Pelosi over the last two years. Kerkorian has given to both parties, but he and Bing share a special relationship after having fought a nasty tabloid war.

Kerkorian allegedly hired private investigators to sift through Bing’s trash in search of DNA evidence that would link him to a child borne by Kerkorian’s ex-wife, whom he was divorcing, according to a lawsuit filed by Bing. Vanity Fair in July described Bing as part of a skirt-chasing entourage that ran with Bill Clinton and threatened to tarnish Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid with its freewheeling bachelor reputation.

The wealthy Herbert and Marion Sandler, major supporters of MoveOn.org and other social justice causes, gave Pelosi a combined $9,200. The couple presided over the meteoric rise of Oakland mortgage lender Golden West Financial, which sold to Wachovia for $24 billion in 2006. The housing crisis led Wachovia to post staggering multibillion-dollar losses this summer, and some business writers have attributed its declining fortunes to the Golden West purchase.

In June, George Zimmer of Fremont, founder of the Men’s Warehouse, gave $2,300. Notable husband and wife political team Clint and Janet Reilly, both active as candidates and donors, contributed a total of $19,200 to Pelosi’s campaign and PAC.

"Essentially, raising money for the party and its candidates is required of leaders," Money in the House author Currinder told the Guardian. "Pelosi wouldn’t have been elected speaker if she wasn’t a stellar fundraiser."

So where is Pelosi’s money going if not to television ads for her own campaign? She divided $250,000 among the campaigns of approximately 70 congressional candidates, and disbursed about $532,000 more to them through PAC to the Future. The beneficiaries included $14,000 to Democrat Chet Edwards of Texas, whose district includes President George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch. Pelosi has publicly recommended him to Barack Obama as a possible running mate.

In addition, about half of the money Pelosi has raised since the beginning of 2007, slightly more than $1 million, went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, DC. She also gave to the Democratic parties of key battleground states including Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Ohio. She singled out Democrat Travis Childers of Mississippi for extra cash totaling $21,000. In May, Childers stunned observers by defeating a Republican in a special election held when a representative vacated his House seat to take over for conservative icon Sen. Trent Lott.

"She has had prodigious success raising funds for individual Democratic candidates, for the DCCC, and for her own campaign and PAC," Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institute, told us. "Most party leaders represent safe seats but nonetheless try to set a high standard for raising money to advance their party’s broader objectives."

Pelosi’s Capitol Hill and San Francisco offices directed our questions to her fundraising operations at the DCCC. Her political director there, Brian Wolff, called the war chest "another vehicle for her to communicate with constituents in California." But he conceded that the pressure is on, "especially now that we have so many candidates and incumbents that need help. It definitely falls on her to be able to have a very aggressive fundraising campaign."

Wolff insists, too, that the Democrats revolutionized fundraising by seeking out smaller donations from large numbers of people instead of returning to the same short list of affluent contributors they had in the past.

In general, top donations to Pelosi still have come from lobbyists and lawyers, the real estate industry, insurance companies, banking and securities firms, and Amgen, a major biotech researcher based in Thousand Oaks. Officials from the labor movement’s biggest new power broker, the Service Employees International Union, also gave substantial sums, as did other major unions. But they fell far behind the contributions of large business interests.

Art Torres, chair of the California Democratic Party, told us that health care reform failed in 1990s at least partly because of political spending by drug companies. But he said that Democrats winning the White House and expanding their majorities in Congress would create a greater mandate to overhaul the health care system.

"It’s always been about issues" rather than fundraising, Torres said. "When I’ve talked to her, it’s always been about ‘How can we get this or that legislation through?’<0x2009>"

It’s worth pointing out, however, that the nation’s largest drug wholesaler, McKesson Corp., is based in San Francisco, and donors from pharmaceutical companies gave Pelosi more than $85,000 this cycle. Drug companies have given freely to Democrats in the past, but Democratic officeholders "still voted against their interests every time," Torres said.

Pelosi’s campaign spending on everything but her own reelection shows she doesn’t regard Sheehan as much of a threat. But the antiwar candidate did make it onto the ballot Aug. 8 and the Sheehan campaign has raised approximately $350,000 since December in small contributions after refusing to accept money from PACs and corporations.

"We didn’t have the party infrastructure going into this," said Sheehan campaign manager Tiffany Burns, adding that Pelosi’s campaign expenditures are "just another example of how Pelosi believes she is entitled to this seat."

Newsom heads South

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By Steven T. Jones
In the latest indication that Mayor Gavin Newsom intends to run as far away from San Francisco values as possible during his bid for governor, his campaign announced today the hiring of Garry South as its senior adviser.
I got to know South during my years as news editor for the Sacramento News & Review, when he was an adviser to then-Gov. Gray Davis, and I share the concerns of others that he represents the antithesis of Democratic Party values.
While the California Energy Crisis was barreling down on this state’s citizens and government, with enough time to head off the worst impacts, I listened to South indignantly defend the governor’s laissez faire approach until way after such passivity was indefensible. I argued with him as Davis became the most mindless law-and-order governor in California history (Davis famously argued for patterning our criminal justice system on that of repressive Singapore, a ludicrous South-inspired statement he never disavowed). And I sat in court while South and his Republican counterparts pleaded with a judge to overturn voter-approved campaign finance limits.
Garry South’s conservative triangulation approach to politics is arguably a big reason why Davis was recalled, leaving us with the Governator. Along with other soulless, scorched-earth political operatives in Camp Newsom — including Nathan Ballard, Peter Ragone, and Chris Lehane — South is sure to drag this campaign down into the lowest common denominator muck.
Hmm, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all. Newsom can run from us, lose, and then we won’t need to keep explaining why Newsom is from San Francisco, but not of San Francisco.

The “ultra-liberal” city

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By Tim Redmond

I don’t know what Heather Knight means by “ultra-liberal,” but to say that the San Francisco Democratic Party has taken a “sharp turn to the left” is a bit miselading. Yes, the progressives ran an agressive campaign and picked up some seats this spring, but most of the votes on most of the issues were pretty close to unanimous; public power, fro example, had support from across the spectrum. Same with most of the supervisors races.

In fact, the only reason the Democratic Party seems a little more progressive now is that it has so often in the past been controlled by moderates (and in the days of Willie Brown, by a political machine).

So what’s up with the “ultra-liberal,” anyway?

I mean, the word “liberal” used to mean someone who believed that government was part of the solution to social problems, that income ought to be redistributed and the weathy should pay their fair share and that taxes levied and collected in a progressive fashion should be used for programs to help the needy.

That describes most of the people the Chron is now calling “ultra-liberal.” It does not describe, for example, Gavin Newsom.

In San Francisco, taking liberal stands on social issues is easy. The economic issues are a lot more tough, and that’s where you can draw political lines. The Shorensteins, Walter and Doug, are (generaly speaking) social liberals who give money to Democrats, and they always have. But when it comes to regulating land use and development and taxing downtown — when it hits the Shorensteins in the pocket book — they’re as anti-tax and anti-regulation as most Republicans.

John Burton asked me once why I didn’t call him a progressive, and I told him that the difference between a liberal and a progressive these days is that progressives don’t trust real-estate developers. That’s just a small example, but it makes the point. The progressives in San Francisco stand for both social and economic justice.

Here’s what I think is going on: The Newsom camp is angry about the use of the term “progressive” to describe Newsom’s critics, because it implies that Newsom somehow isn’t progressive. (Honestly, by any meaning of the word, he’s not. Care not Cash was the opposite of a progressive program. His budget is the opposite of a progressive budget. On economic issues, he’s very much a centrist.)

But Newsom’s operatives have been putting pressure on the media, and I’m sure on the Chron, to change that terminology. So now that Chron has come up with the disparaging term “ultra-liberal.”

Really, based on the recent endorsement, the Democratic Party in SF today pretty closely reflects San Francisco values. The nasty label’s got to go.

Georgia: a neocon August surprise election ploy?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Robert Scheer, the journalist who did one of the first major early critiques of the Vietnam War,
today weighed in on the Georgia war.

His lead paragraphs make his point: “Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

“Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.” B3

Click here to read Scheer’s op-ed column in today’s Chronicle, Georgia war is a neocon election ploy. Scheer was most prescient on the Vietnam War. Is he as prescient on this one?

Dirty secrets under the big top

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› steve@sfbg.com

The circus has come to town. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the largest and most profitable show of its kind in history, is in Oakland this week, and will be headed to San Jose next week. Spectators will see trapeze acts, clowns — and animals, particularly elephants, performing the trademark stunts that are considered the highlight of the event.

But the show may soon be over.

Ringling Bros. has been battling with animal welfare advocates for a generation or more, and a landmark federal lawsuit headed to trial in October could finally answer the question of whether rough, regular treatment of endangered Asian elephants by circus handlers constitutes illegal animal abuse.

At stake is the future of performing animals in circuses, particularly this 138-year-old global institution. Circus officials say that if the court prohibits the use of tools like leg chains and the ankus (an elephant training tool that activists call a bull hook and handlers call a guide), they’ll stop touring with elephants — a feature that they admit is their biggest draw.

The case, originally filed eight years ago by three national animal welfare groups and former Ringling Bros. elephant handler Tom Rider, has unearthed a treasure trove of damning inside documents from both Ringling Bros. and the US Department of Agriculture, the agency that regulates circuses and ensures their compliance with the Endangered Species and Animal Welfare acts.

Among the allegations are claims of repeated injuries to elephants by ankus-wielding handlers, efforts to conceal animal abuse from the public and government regulators, the preventable deaths of three baby elephants, prevalence of tuberculosis (the same strain contracted by humans) in elephants and handlers, and a pattern of high USDA officials overriding the enforcement recommendations of agency investigators and ignoring evidence of abuse.

"Ringling Bros. engages in these unlawful activities by routinely beating elephants to ‘train’ them, ‘discipline’ them, and keep them under control; chaining them for long periods of time; hitting them with sharp bull hooks; ‘breaking’ baby elephants with force to make them submissive; and forcibly removing nursing baby elephants from their mothers before they are weaned, with the use of ropes and chains," reads the federal lawsuit filed by American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, the Fund for Animals, and Rider. It will be heard in US District Court in Washington, DC, starting Oct. 7.

Despite its major implications, the case has drawn surprisingly little media attention. But it’s a remarkable story, full of juicy documents, an abundance of YouTube video footage that appears to show Ringling Bros. animal abuse — along with Ringling Bros.’ role in derailing the career of a prominent Bay Area television news anchor and the intriguing involvement of shadowy CIA operatives.

Critics say Ringling Bros.’ extensive advertising makes media outlets pull punches, but another reason the circus has avoided bad press may lie with other Ringling lawsuits that contain some astounding revelations of how the circus — or more specifically, circus owner Kenneth Feld and his Feld Entertainment, the world’s largest live entertainment company — treats those who seek to expose its secrets.

DIRTY CIRCUS TRICKS


Power and illusion have always been mainstays of the circus, ever since P.T. Barnum reportedly said, "There’s a sucker born every minute." Elephants and other exotic animals have always been important features of the show as well, going back to the 1860s when James Anthony Bailey displayed Little Columbia, the first elephant ever born in a circus.

The nation’s three largest circuses — Barnum’s, Bailey’s, and the Ringling Brothers‘ — gradually merged into one by 1919 and enjoyed growing popularity until entering into a period of decline during the Great Depression. That decline continued through the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944, when more than 100 people died inside a Ringling Bros. tent, and into the 1950s, when television became popular.

But music promoter Irvin Feld began to turn the circus around in the late ’50s, bringing in new acts and increasing the circus’s profitability. In 1967 he bought the company and later passed control of the circus to his only son, Kenneth, who has prospered along with the show.

Kenneth Feld made Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans in 2004, with a reported net worth of $775 million. Feld Entertainment made the Forbes list of the nation’s top companies in 2000, ranking 404th with a reported annual revenue of $675 million and profits of $100 million.

Feld also owns and operates such shows as Disney on Ice, Disney Live, High School: The Musical, and the Siegfried and Roy tiger-taming act.

But all is not well in the Feld empire.

When Feld had a falling out with his top lieutenant, Charles Smith, in 1998, Smith filed a wrongful termination lawsuit that exposed the nefarious inner dealings of "The Greatest Show on Earth," including alleged animal abuse, public health threats, and the use of a top former CIA official to spy on, infiltrate, and sabotage animal welfare activists and journalists.

Among other things, the case brought to light charges that some of the elephants have been exposed to or have contracted tuberculosis.

Joel Kaplan, a former private investigator who worked for Feld, alleged in a deposition in the Smith case that TB was a serious problem among the pachyderms. "I think it’s immoral to have elephants traveling in every arena in the country with tuberculosis," noted Kaplan, who filed his own lawsuit and settled for $250,000. He stated that he had been told by a Ringling Bros. veterinarian that "about half of the elephants in each of the shows had tuberculosis and that the tuberculosis was an easily transmitted disease to individuals, to human beings."

Also included in the case was a deposition by Clair George, the No. 3 person in the CIA until 1987, when he was convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-contra scandal (he was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992). George admitted to working for Feld and conveyed chilling tales of sabotage, including the case of freelance journalist Jan Pottker, who wrote a 1990 magazine profile of the Feld family which included allegations that Irvin Feld maintained a longstanding homosexual relationship outside his marriage.

To deter her from writing a book about the Feld family, George outlined a scheme to have one agent befriend her and another seduce her, spy on her progress, feed her conflicting information, and even get her a book deal on another project to divert her, with a $25,000 advance allegedly paid by Feld.

"I undertook a series of efforts to find out what Pottker was doing and reported on the results of my work to Mr. Feld," George wrote in a sworn affidavit. "I was paid for this work by Feld Entertainment or its affiliates. I prepared my reports in writing and presented them to Mr. Feld in personal meetings."

Amy McWethy, a spokesperson for Feld Entertainment, refused to discuss the cases or their implications.

The statements of George and Kaplan describe secret bugging and phone tapping, bribes and clandestine cash settlements to silence critics (including Smith, who settled his lawsuit for $6 million), and infiltration of groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"As part of my work for Feld Entertainment," George wrote in his affidavit, "I was also asked to review reports from [Feld executive vice president] Richard Froemming and his organizations based on their surveillance of, and efforts to counter, the activities of various animal rights groups."

National security reporter Jeff Stein (now with Congressional Quarterly) wrote the definitive account of Feld’s alleged black ops for Salon.com ("The Greatest Vendetta on Earth," 8/30/01), and was also allegedly targeted for surveillance and retribution, according to a story in the May/June 2002 issue of Columbia Journalism Review ("Investigations: The scary circus," by Jay Cheshes).

Stein’s original stories were followed up by 60 Minutes in May 2003, which essentially repeated the allegations.

The next year, KTVU anchor Leslie Griffith got onto the circus story, doing lengthy, investigative reports on the animal abuse lawsuit revelations for KTVU in 2004 and 2005, just as Ringling Bros. was coming to town.

Then Griffith left the station — at least in part because of the backlash she says she felt from both her corporate bosses and Ringling Bros., whose internal documents reveal an aggressive strategy to counter negative media coverage.

A training manual made public as part of the lawsuit outlines how the circus responds to reporters:

"Immediately upon learning about negative stories about Ringling Bros., the Animal Issues Department will put in place the [Rapid Deployment Force]," it states. "The Animal Issues Department will directly contact the editor/news director…. Armed with videos, literature and other information, the Animal Issues Department Head will demand a retraction or equal time and will work in concert with the grass roots campaign…. If the editor/news director refuses the request, Legal will be informed to determine what recourses exist."

Griffith says it was after KTVU was targeted by this effort that she was barred from doing any more circus stories and her relationship with the station began to deteriorate. "All of a sudden my hair wasn’t good enough, my makeup wasn’t good enough — after 25 years of doing the news."

Officially Griffith and KTVU parted on good terms with mutual statements of respect. Even today, KTVU general manager Tim McKay (who was station manager when Griffith left) speaks highly of Griffith, telling the Guardian, "Leslie worked here for a number of years and did a fantastic job."

McKay said he didn’t know about any contact from Ringling Bros. or Griffith being told to back off the circus stories (he said he would check and get back to us, but didn’t as of press time), saying only, "We stand behind the stories as they aired. There was a whole lot of attention given to their accuracy."

But it’s clear that Ringling Bros. was aware of and upset by Griffith’s work. In 2005 Ringling Bros. attorneys argued in court against efforts by the ASPCA and the other lawsuit plaintiffs to obtain financial records and veterinary records on the Ringling elephants, telling the judge: "To shovel this stuff into the public record and try to draw inferences from it, or put it in out of context, lends itself to all sorts of abuse, the very kind of abuse that we contend took place on the San Francisco television station last week."

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Ringling to turn over the documents, but kept many (mostly the financial documents) under protective seal, keeping their contents hidden from the public.

Griffith, who won dozens of major journalism awards over her 25-year career, says the public suffers when journalists are muzzled. "If they took anything from me," she said, "it was my bully pulpit."

ELEPHANTS AND TB


If Griffith still had that bully pulpit and the ability to freely use it, she told us she’d be talking about mycobacterium tuberculosis in elephants. After doing extensive research into the issue — interviewing top experts and traveling across the country to review voluminous court files — Griffith has come to believe Ringling Bros. Circus poses a serious threat to public health.

"You can talk about the [animal] abuse, but with a worldwide epidemic brewing, I’d say the story is the tuberculosis," Griffith told us. She has been writing periodically on elephants and TB on her blog (lesliegriffithproductions.com), the Huffington Post, and prominent news sites such as Truthout, which published her piece, "The Elephant in the Room," a year ago.

"There are several alarming issues for epidemiologists: drug resistance, inability to diagnose if an elephant has been cured, and disease spreading to handlers who work with them and to the public who attend circus performances," Griffith wrote in the article, relying on public documents and experts on both the circus and infectious disease.

Griffith’s star source has been San Francisco–based epidemiologist Don Francis, who helped discover the HIV virus and became the first director for the Center for Disease Control’s AIDS Laboratory. The Guardian talked to Francis, who has reviewed Ringling documents and concluded that the elephants do indeed pose a threat to public health. He told us he’s particularly troubled by records that appear to show elephants being treated with multiple drugs, meaning they could have multidrug-resistant TB (MDR TB), "which really scares me." Ringling denies that any elephants have MDR TB, for which there is essentially no cure.

But Francis remains concerned. "A trumpeting elephant could definitely aerosolize this stuff," Francis told the Guardian — and that would keep small particles of the virus airborne long enough for them to be inhaled by handlers or circus crowds. Children and those with weak immune systems, such as people with HIV, would be especially susceptible to contracting TB from these particles.

Although Francis said he couldn’t say whether any circus attendees have been infected with TB from elephants — and we’ve been shown no evidence that anyone’s ever contracted TB from attending a circus — he sees no basis for Ringling’s claims that the elephants are safe. "I don’t know that anyone has asked the question. I’m not sure anyone has ever tied it together," Francis said.

Both Griffith and Rider maintain that all of Ringling’s elephants have been exposed to TB at one time or another and that the standard annual process used to test for infection — trunk washing — is inadequate to determine if they are carrying and transmitting the virus.

"Every elephant traveling with Ringling has been exposed to TB, and many of them have TB," Rider, a former Ringling elephant handler, told us.

In fact, Kaplan testified in court that he was asked "to find a physician who would test the people in the circus to see if they had tuberculosis but who would destroy the records and not turn them in to the Centers for Disease Control," as the law requires.

Ringling and USDA documents unearthed by the lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests show that at least eight elephants tested positive for TB and that many others have been exposed to them. Ringling veterinarian Danny Graham told the Guardian that two non-traveling elephants are currently being treated for TB, but couldn’t say how many have tested positive in the past.

Yet Ringling officials maintain that active tuberculosis is not a problem in the circus, that their diagnosis and treatment regimens are adequate to protect the health of the elephants, circus employees, and the public, and that no elephants that tested positive for TB have then performed in front of the public.

Graham said the trunk wash, which detects when a TB infection has shed out of the lungs and can be transmitted, is an effective indicator of whether an animal is contagious. "Shedding is when it can be passed to other elephants," she told us. "What our trunk washes look for is a shedding of the bacteria."

Yet Ringling records show at least one case in which the necropsy on a dead elephant, Dolly, showed TB in the lungs even though the trunk wash results were negative.

A Ringling FAQ sheet on "Tuberculosis in Elephants," by Dr. Dennis Schmitt, chair of veterinary services for Ringling’s Center for Elephant Conservation, admits that humans and elephants get the same kind of TB. "However there has been no proven case of tuberculosis bacterium being transmitted from elephants to humans," he writes.

He uses a similarly legalistic, underlined approach on questions of whether humans can contract TB from elephants and whether there have been studies indicating so, saying neither has been "proven." And he flatly denies that any elephants have MDR TB.

Two Ringling officials interviewed by the Guardian — Graham and Janice Aria, director of animal stewardship training — went further than Schmitt and flatly denied that any elephants that tested positive for TB ever performed.

"None of the elephants in our traveling unit have ever tested positive for TB," Aria told the Guardian. "No, none of our traveling elephants have ever tested positive for TB," Graham said in a separate interview.

THE USDA INVESTIGATES


But Ringling veterinary records unearthed in the latest lawsuit cast some doubt on the claims of circus officials. Three of the seven elephants that traveled with Ringling Bros. Blue Unit to Oakland — Juliet, Bonnie, and Kelly Ann — appeared in one redacted veterinary document, marked as exhibit "FELD 0021843."

Kelly Ann’s entry includes this notation: "Moved from CEC to Blue Unit. Just finished TB treatment." Juliet was listed as "currently being treated for presumptive TB" and Bonnie had "blood drawn for Tb Elisa," an expensive TB test that often follows a positive reading in the trunk wash test. Documents connected to a 1999 USDA inspection also list Kelly Ann and "Juliette" among 10 elephants administered drugs for treating TB.

Asked whether Kelly Ann has ever undergone TB treatment and informed of the document, Aria told the Guardian, "From my knowledge, that is not true."

McWethy, the Feld corporate communications manager who arranged and monitored our interviews with Aria and Graham, initially said she was not familiar with the document, and even if she was, "the court requested that the parties not discuss the specifics of the suit." In actuality, the judge has not issued a gag order in the case, and plaintiffs spoke freely about details of the case.

Later, after she reviewed the document at our request, McWethy confirmed that Kelly Ann had been exposed to TB in 1999 and that the circus decided to treat her for the disease. "But she’s never tested positive," McWethy said.

In June 2001, the tuberculosis issue was enough of a concern to the USDA that the agency initiated what one official document called an "investigation regarding allegations that Ringling was using known TB-infected animals in circus performances." But information on the results of that investigation was redacted by the USDA from later documents.

In a 2003 report written by the three plaintiff groups in the latest lawsuit, "Government Sanctioned Abuse: How the United States Department of Agriculture Allows Ringling Bros. Circus to Systematically Mistreat Elephants," they conclude: "Although tuberculosis is an extremely contagious disease, and Ringling’s elephants are publicly exhibited throughout the country, including elephants that go in and out of both the breeding and retirement facilities, the public has been kept completely in the dark about this investigation, the agency’s decision to ‘override’ the conclusions of its own inspectors and investigators, and the reasons this investigation was closed with no further action."

WATCHING THE CIRCUS


Feld — the man and his company — are big contributors to top elected officials of both major parties. Campaign finance records show that since 1999, Feld has given at least $104,900 to Republicans and $35,150 to Democrats on the federal level and in his home state of Maryland.

Benefiting disproportionately from Feld’s largesse are members of the House Agriculture Committee (which oversees the USDA). The contributions include almost $10,000 to former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy), $6,500 to the campaign and committees of Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia (the committee’s ranking Republican), and $6,500 to Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.). Representatives from the two states where Ringling Bros. bases its animals off-season, Texas and Florida, also took in $13,300 and $28,000 respectively, more than those from other states. Animal welfare advocates say Feld’s wealth, power, and political connections have caused the USDA to go easy on Ringling Bros.

"This cozy relationship between the USDA and Ringling Bros. is going to be exposed during the trial," Tracy Silverman, the attorney for Animal Welfare Institute, told the Guardian.

Plaintiffs will make an example of the death of a four-year-old elephant named Benjamin, who drowned in a Huntsville, Texas, pond July 26, 1999 after refusing to heed trainer Pat Harned’s commands to get out. That death came a year after another baby elephant, two-year-old Kenny, died after being used in three circus performances in one day, despite warnings from veterinarians that he was severely ill.

"The United States Department of Agriculture’s final ‘Report of Investigation’ concerning the incident concluded that Benjamin’s trainer’s use of an ‘ankus’ on Benjamin ‘created behavioral stress and trauma which precipitated in the physical harm and ultimate death of the animal.’ On information and belief, the routine beatings of Benjamin were a contributing factor to his death," the animal welfare groups wrote in the lawsuit.

The USDA investigator recommended Ringling Bros. be charged with vioutf8g the Animal Welfare Act, yet the USDA’s General Counsel’s Office overrode those conclusions and issued its own: "Suddenly, and without any signs of distress or struggle, Benjamin became unconscious and drowned." Ringling and USDA officials say the animal died of a previously undetected cardiac arrhythmia, and the final report omitted any mention of the ankus or behavioral stress.

Animal welfare activists and lawyers say this is just one of many examples of senior USDA officials overriding recommendations of front-line investigators and veterinarians, then blocking access to reports and other evidence that might support or disprove the final conclusions. Indeed, the lawsuit identifies more than a dozen such examples.

USDA spokesperson Jessica Milteer told the Guardian she couldn’t comment on specific examples, but said supervisors are ultimately responsible for interpreting field reports. "Things are pretty much done on a case-by-case basis. We try to work with a facility to come into compliance."

But she said that it’s not true the USDA goes easy on Ringling Bros. because of its power or political connections. She said there are currently two open investigations into Ringling Bros. (she would not provide details) and that facilities like Ringling get annual inspections unless they’re found to have problems or risk factors.

"Since 2005 Ringling has been inspected 52 times," Milteer said, indicating the USDA is indeed concerned about some of the things it has observed at Ringling Bros.

USE OR ABUSE?


Aria, the Ringling trainer, said banning the use of the ankus "would not allow elephants to travel anymore." Feld and other top officials have made similar public statements. She bristled when hearing the ankus referred to as a bull hook. "We call them guides," she told the Guardian. "It is used to reinforce a verbal cue."

Aria and McWethy dismissed videos that appear to show handlers inflicting violent blows on elephants, saying they are often selectively edited and spliced in with footage of non-Ringling elephants and handlers. Activists insist this isn’t true and that much of the footage clearly shows abuse at Ringling Bros. For example, one video shows a person identified as a Ringling Bros. elephant handler striking violently at an elephant after saying on camera that he never does so. Another shows Ringling elephants being paraded through a town and one slow elephant being sometimes pulled along by an ankus behind the ear, with a closeup then showing a bloody puncture wound in the spot.

"From the videos I have seen, so much of it is repackaged and old stuff that doesn’t apply to us at all, not at all," Aria told us.

Graham, who worked for Ringling for the two years she has been a veterinarian and who interned with the circus before that, said she visits the elephants at least once a week and "I have never seen a trainer use an ankus inappropriately." Further, she said, she has never seen an injury she thinks was caused by the ankus: "If I see anything, it’s generally superficial abrasions."

Rider and animal welfare activists say the hook on the ankus is used to inflict pain on the sensitive parts of an elephant, mostly behind their ears or on the backs of their legs, as a negative stimulus to encourage the animals to perform tricks or obey commends. If it was simply a "guide," they say, it wouldn’t need a hook.

But Aria said the ankus is akin to a leash, a means of keeping the elephants near them. "It’s a ‘come-to-me’ cue," she told us. "This comes from decades and decades of use."

Sorting out whether such traditions are actually a form of animal abuse is the purpose of the fall trial.

"The circus is really good at creating the illusion of the happy performing elephants," Kathy Meyer, an ASPCA attorney who has been handling the case from the beginning eight years ago, told us. But she said that it’s clear from the documents, videos, testimony, and common sense that the ankus is often used to inflict pain, which is prohibited under federal animal welfare rules, particularly those governing endangered species, which allow Ringling to have elephants only for conservation reasons.

"So we’re asking the judge to enjoin them to stop them from using these practices," she said.

Many veterinarians and wildlife experts agree that it’s not possible for elephants performing in circuses to be treated humanely. The Amboseli Trust for Elephants last year released a letter signed by 14 leading elephant researchers, with almost 300 years of combined experience working with elephants in the wild, arguing for an end to the practice.

"It is our considered opinion that elephants should not be used in circuses. Elephants in the wild roam over large areas and move considerable distances each day. They are intelligent, highly social animals with a complex system of communication…. Elephants in circuses are bought and sold, separated from companions, confined, chained, and forced to stand for hours and frequently moved about in small compartments on trains or trucks. They are required to perform behaviors never seen in nature," they wrote.

Aria said she didn’t agree with those conclusions, saying she looks out her office window every day: "I see elephants and get to see them all day doing the most amazingly athletic things." And she said only those with a propensity to perform are taken on the road, which is about one-third of their 53 elephants. "You can separate the ones who want to do it from the ones who don’t want to do it," said Aria, who joined Ringling Bros. as a clown in 1972. Later, she earned a bachelor’s degree in special education and worked as a teacher during the ’90s. She was named to her current post in 2006.

"All the elephants here are happy and thriving," Aria said, noting there are only about 35,000 Asian elephants still alive and that many, in places like Sri Lanka where she has visited, are regularly abused and killed. "Good for the Feld family that they support elephants from their births to their deaths."

PRESERVATION OR EXPLOITATION?


The path to the courthouse has been long and difficult, with Feld getting a similar earlier case dismissed and this one moving to trial only after threats and stern warnings by Judge Sullivan against any more stall tactics by the defendants.

"It’s been very difficult to get to this point," Meyer, the ASPCA lawyer, said, adding that that just being able to have their day in court is already a huge victory. "To have this issue aired in a public forum will be helpful for educating the public."

Silverman said she was most shocked by documents obtained by the plaintiffs — and introduced as part of the case — showing elephants chained up to 100 hours at a time, for an average of 26 hours when traveling between shows. "In no way did I imagine the bulk of the evidence that would support our claims," Silverman said. "These animals live their lives in chains."

In addition, many members of the public might not be aware that Ringling Bros. obtains its elephants under the Endangered Species Act for the purpose of protecting and propagating an endangered species, and the ESA contains strict rules against physical abuse of those animals.

"There’s no humane way to have a circus with elephants because it has to travel year-round," Rider told the Guardian. "If you take away the chains and the bull hooks, an elephant isn’t going to do anything."

Rider, who worked with Ringling elephants for more than two years, "saw several of the other elephant handlers and ‘trainers’ routinely beat the elephants, including baby elephants, and he saw then routinely hit and wound the elephants with sharp bull hooks," according to the lawsuit.

Ringling officials such a trainer Aria contend the elephants are well-cared for. Yet she also admits that the elephants are the key to the Felds’ lucrative business empire.

"They are our flagship animal," Aria said. "People come to the circus to see the elephants."

As such, a ruling that goes against Ringling could financially cripple the company, which is why animal welfare advocates say Feld has taken such an aggressive stance with his critics, harassing, threatening, and sabotaging them. As Silverman said, "You see that with Leslie Griffith, and it’s that kind of thing that they do all over the country."

Charitable cash cow

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Nonprofit charities in the Golden State should have been raking in the cash in 2004. Gracious Californians gave $60 million more toward fundraising campaigns that year than they did in 2003, totaling almost $293 million. The following year, donors gave even more: $332 million.

Yet despite the increasing generosity of Californians, the percentage that nonprofits actually took away from those campaigns steadily decreased from 2003 to 2005.

Most of the gains went to private, for-profit fundraising companies hired to conduct telemarketing services and coordinate special benefit events like gala dinners, rodeos, and variety shows.

Such companies charge steep fees and commissions that frequently leave charities, especially smaller or less experienced ones, with little or even nothing at all, according to state disclosure records.

Commercial fundraisers collect millions each year relying on the public image of selflessness projected by nonprofits devoted to promoting cultural literacy, saving lost or exploited children, finding cures for deadly diseases, or improving the welfare of defenseless animals.

Some desperate nonprofits elect to allow commercial fundraisers to take a percentage of the money they raise, at times as much as 80 to 90 percent. Alternately, larger charities may agree to set costs and fees associated with the campaign, but that strategy can also prove costly.

For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hired the Los Angeles company SD&A Teleservices in 2004 for a phone solicitation campaign that raised $12,000. But because the company’s fees were greater than the contributions received, the museum had to pay $19,854 more to cover the venture. Similarly, the San Francisco Ballet lost $3,400 in 2005 to the same company after SD&A raised $12,745 from donors, thousands less than what it charged.

Several people we interviewed said the benefits of a fundraising campaign might not materialize until later if contributors eventually become long-term supporters. But unless the typical donor has time to find out how much ultimately makes it to the cause they care so much about, they’re unlikely to be aware of the extraordinary costs involved in nonprofit fundraising.

"The charity agrees to it because they want the easy money that they don’t have to do any work for," Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago, told the Guardian. "Then the person goes out and spends $1 million to get that $200,000, and the charity tries to rationalize it by saying ‘Well, it’s money we wouldn’t normally have. We don’t have staffing for fundraising.’ But they’re ripping off the public and disrespecting the intentions of the people who gave that money."

The Los Angeles Times published a months-long investigation July 6 that examined required forms submitted to the California Attorney General’s Office showing the total revenue generated from 5,800 nonprofit fundraising campaigns and how much of that money went to the charities.

Between 1997 and 2006, the paper discovered, 430 campaigns raised a total of $44 million — but in each case, every dime went to the fundraising company. Charities lost money in 337 more cases. In hundreds of instances, charities entered into contracts that assured them only 20 percent or less of the funds raised, regardless of how successful the campaign turned out to be. The AIP recommends spending no more than 35 cents on each dollar raised. The Times also pointed out that donors enjoy tax deductions from their contributions, even if huge portions go to for-profit companies.

"Nonprofits spend a lot of money attracting donors and then they fall away the next year, so they have to reach out and attract even more donors," Elizabeth Boris, director of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy in Washington, DC, told us. "So there’s a lot of churning that goes on, because a lot of the same people don’t give to the same organization year after year. It is an expensive process of getting the names and contacting people."

Because California is behind in processing the required disclosure forms, the Times had to specially request records from 2006, meaning more recent figures aren’t available. The Guardian took a far less extensive look at the records, but we still found plenty of examples of charities earning astonishingly low rates of return.

In 2004, Campbell-based TBS Productions raised $418,377 for the San Francisco Police Officers Association and its annual "Parade of Stars" event held at the Palace of Fine Arts. But just $87,094 made it into the union’s nonprofit Community Services Fund, which redistributes it in small increments to a variety of causes.

"I’ve wrestled with this since I’ve come on," said POA President Gary Delagnes. "There are two ways of looking at it. Do we really want to lend our name to an outfit that’s taking 80 percent off the top? … The decision we made was: you know what, we’re to do so much good with the charitable money that it’s worth it to us."

That same year the Oakland Police Officers Association also hired TBS for its "Cavalcade of Stars" event. The company raised $402,515 on behalf of the East Bay union for charitable purposes, but only $88,603 remained after covering the event’s costs, a return to the union of 22 cents on the dollar.

That year, TBS coordinated events for at least 16 groups across the state representing law enforcement and emergency personnel, from the San Jose Firefighters Burn Foundation to the Fresno Deputy Sheriffs Association. But almost no one received a better return rate than 20 percent, and two raised just 15 cents on the dollar after accounting for the for-profit company’s take. No one at TBS was available for comment when we called.

More than 250 fundraising campaigns in California netted 20 cents or less from each dollar raised for charities in 2004, according to figures maintained by the state.

Rich Steinberg, a longtime scholar of nonprofits at Indiana University, said several factors mitigate all this. He explained that the United States Supreme Court has been reluctant to permit heavy regulations on charity fundraising because a seemingly poor cost ratio isn’t necessarily bad for a nonprofit.

"Big charities could do everything wrong but still have a good cost ratio" because their support is widespread, Steinberg said. The San Francisco Ballet and SFMOMA, for example, have done much better in some telemarketing campaigns, earning from 54 percent to 81 percent in return rates despite other times losing money.

Could it be that there are too many small, inefficient nonprofits with similar missions, each created in the belief that government wasn’t filling some need? Perhaps. But attempting to curtail them could undermine the democratic spirit that leads to their creation.

"We should make it legitimate for any group of idiots to get together and try to do something good," Steinberg said.

If they want to succeed, he said, charities should not accept terms that give fundraisers a percentage of the donations. Instead they should establish fixed fees so that every dollar beyond that amount goes toward services. Second, to ensure more favorable rates, they can require competitive bidding among fundraisers.

Ken Larson, director of public policy for the California Association of Nonprofits, said that few of the tens of thousands of charitable organizations registered in California use commercial fundraisers to attract donors, a fact confirmed in reports compiled by the attorney general. Many hire full-time professional fundraisers to seek foundation and government grants or relationships with repeat donors, intangible benefits that can go beyond immediate fundraising goals.

As for telemarketing, Mike Smith, chief operating officer of New Jersey-based Charity Navigator, suggests that when donors receive a call, they can just hang up and cut a check directly to the nonprofit.

The debate over nonprofit fundraising costs is nothing new, but with information increasingly available on the Web, consumers are in a much stronger position to give wisely.

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation publicly and angrily parted ways with its commercial fundraiser, Pallatto Teamworks, in 2001 due in part to a dispute over how much the company charged to operate the California AIDS Ride. The charity has since created its own fundraising arm, steadily improving its rate of return from an average of 54 percent over the past seven years to 66.5 percent last year.

The foundation uses another company, MZA Events, to manage its annual AIDS Walkathon, which has averaged a healthy 63 percent return since 1999 with improved results over each of the last three years.

But officials with the SF AIDS Foundation believe telemarketing has enabled it to achieve greater public awareness. It also began moving the task in-house during the past six months and anticipates greater savings.

"Every dime we save in production is a dime that can go to our clients and our programs and our services," said Dave Ellison, spokesperson for the foundation. "We’re always extremely aware of how important it is to keep the costs down because we see the benefits every day in the lives of our clients."

No borders!

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

For all the criticism we could justifiably plop down on the mighty feet of globalization, perhaps one of the few upsides worth positing as the world keeps shrinking is that cross-cultural exchange in the arts is at an all-time high. Purists can grumble at the arrival of the "world music" phenomenon and even accuse some of its Western practitioners of engaging in Colonialism 2.0, but how about a counter-argument: hasn’t the rise of the global groove fostered a greater understanding between cultures? Isn’t this what Bob Marley meant when he sang "One World, One Love"?

Singer-songwriter Rupa Marya makes a compelling case for such counter-arguments as the leader of local — but thoroughly global — culture-jumping, genre-colliding fusionists Rupa and the April Fishes. Switching gracefully between English, French, Spanish, and Hindi vocals while leading her bandmates on breathless journeys from Parisian chanson to Indian ragas, Marya offers a thrilling vision of globalization-gone-good. On their debut, XtraOrdinary rendition — originally self-issued but recently remastered and rereleased by Cumbancha — the nature of boundaries is called into question, not just in terms of nations but also in terms of musical traditions. By drawing upon so many influences — in addition to the aforementioned, we can also add Latin alternative, polka, Romani dance, tango, and American folk into the mix — they share the same mix-it-up mettle as such intrepid travelers as Manu Chao. Hardcore traditionalists they are not.

Over lunch at a Castro teahouse, Marya expresses her dual embrace of and resistance to the oft-used world music tag applied to her band’s sound. "Someone at the label came up with ‘global agit-pop’ — I kind of like that," she offers, chuckling. "’World music’ sounds meaningless, whereas at least ‘global’ is more inviting, more inclusive, to me. After all, we are playing music from all over the world! Really, though, ‘folk music’ makes the most sense to me."

Certainly the folk description does ring true. Their sound sports a distinctly populist bent, and the bulk of the songs originally started off as solo compositions — Marya alone on her acoustic guitar. Peel away the Left Bank accordion waltzes and the sweltering trumpet fanfares, and at their core these are singer-songwriter compositions designed to inspire, motivate, and comfort. This singularly folksy concept — the healing capacity of music — segues with Marya’s other profession, as a doctor. Having deftly orchestrated a schedule that allows her to concentrate on music for part of the year and on her medical practice for the other, she has realized that the seemingly disparate careers are ultimately compatible. "I’ve definitely seen how my work in one setting inspires what I do in the other," she says. "My drive to help and empower my patients often finds its way into my songwriting."

Yet the music goes beyond healing balms. EXtraOrdinary rendition‘s title should be a tip-off that Marya knows how to lead a battle cry: it refers to the torture-by-proxy tactics employed by the current administration in its so-called War on Terror. The ensemble is also passionate about raising awareness of the dubious acts perpetrated by our government in its other ongoing fixation: the US-Mexico border. "Poder," for example — a rousing Spanish-language thumper peppered by clicking castanets and a sprightly trumpet melody — meditates on the arbitrary essence of borders. "In spite of this border," Marya sings, "life is like water / It must run."

The songwriter became acutely political aware at an early age. Marya was born and raised in the Bay Area, but at age 10, moved with her family to the south of France, where she lived for a few years before returning home. The experience left a lasting impression: in addition to cultivating a love for Gallic culture, the relocation brought up issues of cultural identity and prejudice. As someone of Punjabi Indian heritage in a country with relatively few South Asians but sizable populations of largely marginalized Roma and Arab immigrants, Marya found herself on the receiving end of plenty of preconceived notions: "It was then that I began thinking more about race, about inequality, about people treating each other differently over such things. About people creating borders between each other."

Asked about the significance of borders to the band’s platform, Marya observes: "You know, I think the best comments we can get from listeners are when they tell us, ‘When I hear your stuff, I don’t know where I am.’ That’s exactly what we’re trying to do here. We want to get rid of time and space! We want them to be lost for a little while. No borders!" It’s a feat the two-year-old group — which includes Marcus Cohen on trumpet, Isabel Douglass on accordion, Aaron Kierbel on drums, Safa Shokrai on upright bass, and Pawel Walerowski on cello — manages to pull off seamlessly, whether by pairing French tales of longing with a sultry Southwestern desert groove ("La Pecheuse") or evoking sepia-toned photos of ships and sailors in a swaying folk ballad ("Wishful Thinking").

Such versatility is vital to a defiantly non-purist point of view. "This is deliberately a mélange, a smashing of things and ideas. In order to impart a feeling of freshness — and hopefully create a little confusion along the way — we don’t want to simply do what’s expected," Marya explains. "That’s what’s so great about being here in San Francisco, why we identify so closely with here. This city encourages people to get rid of their mental borders." As Rupa and the April Fishes hit the Outside Lands stage this week, their message will surely connect with a new batch of listeners, with new sets of eyes and ears willing to temporarily lose themselves among the tangos and the waltzes.

Rupa and the April Fishes play at 1:40 p.m., Sat/23, at Outside Lands Panhandle stage, Speedway Meadow.

Arnold’s tax flip: Spare the rich, tax the poor

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Faced with an overdue state budget that is simply not going to be balanced by spending cuts alone, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has commendably reversed his longtime pledge of “no new taxes.” Unfortunately, he did so by choosing the most regressive form of taxes: a one-cent sales tax hike that would hit the poor far harder than the rich.
Compare that to the budget plan worked out in the California Assembly (with the help of our own Assembly member Mark Leno), which Leno said would “restore $8 billion in the most draconian cuts that the governor proposed.” How? By increasing income taxes on the wealthiest Californians, a plan that would raise about $8.2 billion per year, roughly double what the governor’s sales tax proposal would bring in.
So the Democrats want to tax the rich (who would write the increase off of their federal income taxes anyway and end up paying about the same) and Schwarzenegger wants to tax the poor. But it all may be a moot point considering it takes a few GOP legislators to reach the two-third threshold for passing a budget and all the Republican legislators have signed on to an inane “no new taxes” pledge, apparently content to just starve state government.
Stay tuned…

The best story in Guardian history

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Joe Neilands and Harold Ickes describe how PG&E has Hetch Hetchyed San Francisco for decades

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Le me add my own Best of selection to our splendid Best of issue this year. It;s a Guardian story with all the elements of great story: It has drama, intrigue, corruption, a cast of characters from John Muir to Hiram Johnson to Harold Ickes to Mayor Newsom, a classic battle between progressives and conservationists, a breathtaking theft of a major public asset by a private corporation, and a long sordid history that continues to this day in San Francisco.

Three years after my wife and I founded the Guardian in 1966, a UC-Berkeley professor by the name of J. B. Neilands came to our tiny Guardian office and offered me a big story. I quickly looked it over and said, Joe (he was known as Joe) this is an incredible story.

Why can’t you get it published in the Chronicle or the Examiner or another major news outlet? Why me? Why the Guardian?

“Nobody will touch it,” said, shaking his head sadly. “It’s too big a scandal. It’s up to you to publish it. If you don’t publish it, nobody else will.”

And so started the saga of what we came to call the PG@E/Raker Act Scandal, the biggest urban scandal in American history. Joe had buried the lead and put some professorese but he had done the research, he had nailed the story and the culprits, and all it needed was some editing, which I was happy to do. Joe and the Guardian had an astounding scoop which no other local paper would publish then and few publish to this day.

The story appeared in our March 27, l969 edition under the fold on the front page. And we have followed it up through the years with literally hundreds of stories, editorials, cartoons, graphics, and charts. . Virtually everyone who worked in Guardian editorial has covered or researched a piece of this story.

The head: “How PG@E robs S.Fl of cheap power”

The lead: “A few months before he died last year, Frank Havenner sat up in his bed in a nursing home in San Francisco and told me of how the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. swindled San Francisco out of hundreds of millions of dollars of cheap hydroelectric power.

“The story was incredible: PG&E and its political allies had defeated eight successive bond issues to establish a municipal electric system in San Francisco and grant city residents and businesses the benefit of low cost power produced by the city’s Hetch Hetchy water system in the Sierra.

“The result: San Francisco has paid through the nose to PG&E for its power and the city loses about $30 million a year in profits it would get from a public system.”

The key quote: Joe research turned up a magnificent phrase used by then U.S. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in 1944 in support of a city bond issue to buy out PG@E. Said Ickes: “The disgraceful history of the handling of Hetch Hetchy power should place a new verb in the lexicon of political chicanery: ‘To Hetch Hetchy’ means to confuse and confound the public by adroit acts and deceptive words in order to turn to private corporate profit a trust set up for the people.”

“I need not repeat the scandalous story thas has given birth to this new verb, but I would remind you that the last chapter of it has not been written. The pledge that the people of San Francisco, with full knowledge, made to their government has not yet been redeemed.” Ickes was making the point that San Francisco was in violation of the public power mandates in the federal Raker Act that and he had sued the city in federal court to force the city to bring its Hetch Hetchy public power to establish a public power system in San Francisco. .

A key Examiner editorial quote: Joe even found the Examiner, then a strong supporter of the dam and public power, stating that “It is a wrongful and shameful policy for a grant of water and power privilege in the Yosemite National Park Area to be developed at the expenditure of $50 million by the taxpayers of San Francisco, only to have its greatest financial and economic asset, the hydroelectric power, diverted to private corporation hands at the instant of completion; to the great benefit of said corporation, and at an annual deficit to the city of San Francisco.” (The Examiner of William Randolph Hearst was of course referring to PG&E. Hearst later switched sides, as a result of getting a chunk of money from a PG@E-controlled bank, but that is another story that a Hearst biographer and the Guardian have previously disclosed.)

Joe asked James Carr, then San Francisco’s general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission,
when the city would enforce the Raker Act. Carr replied to Joe, in a letter 5l years after the Raker Act passed as the Magna Carta of public power, that it was ‘premature to discuss municipal distribution of power in San Francisco.'” Joe concluded: “In March, 1969, it still is.”

Well, in July of 2008, according to PG&E and Mayor Newsom,
it still is.

Click here to read the original Joe Neilands Guardian story on the PG&E/ Raker Act scandal.

Pelosi backs Bush on Iran

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OPINION Has Nancy Pelosi signed off on the George W. Bush administration’s covert CIA operations in Iran? Yes, according to Seymour Hersh’s July 14 New Yorker article, "Preparing the Battlefield." Late last year, the White House submitted a Presidential Finding, a highly classified document signed by the president, to be cleared with the leaders and ranking intelligence committee members of both parties in both branches of Congress — a group that, by dint of her position as Speaker of the House, includes Pelosi.

According to a Hersh source, "Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding … the funding for the escalation was approved" — noting that congressional leaders authorized up to $400 million for increased efforts to destabilize Iran’s government.

When some Democrats became uncomfortable with the prospect of approving "potential defensive lethal action by US operatives in Iran," they conferred with CIA Director Michael V. Hayden who, Hersh writes, "reassured the legislators that the language did nothing more than provide authority for Special Forces operatives on the ground in Iran to shoot their way out if they faced capture or harm."

Nothing more than to shoot their way out? If President Bush were to reveal evidence of Iranian agents dropped into this country and authorized to kill Americans, we can well imagine Pelosi speaking forcefully about the outrage she and the House delegation would feel about such an egregious breach of our sovereignty. But how in the world does the representative of perhaps the most antiwar city in the country sign off on the United States doing this to another nation?

Then there’s the question of whom we’re funding. According to a former Middle East CIA operative, one beneficiary, the Baluchis, a Sunni Muslim group in the majority Shiite country, are "fundamentalists … you can also describe … as Al Qaeda." Another, Mujahideen-e-Khalq, has been on the State Department terrorist list for more than 10 years.

That the Bush White House would resort to arming known enemies in its frantic effort to create new ones is bad. Democrats signing off on it is even worse. But the fact that a representative from San Francisco, a city that has time and again demonstrated its opposition to these sorts of policies, might approve them is about as gross a distortion of the public will as you’re likely to find.

Hersh quotes an aide to one of the four Democrats notified of the Finding predictably arguing that it was "just that — notification, and not a sign-off on activities." But he accurately points out that Congress "has the power to withhold funding for any government operation," but chose not to.

The burden of persuading Nancy Pelosi that the Democratic Party should not approve such policies may lie primarily with her House colleagues. But if she, or they, think that this is what the Speaker needs to do, then she needs to leave that job behind — because funding a covert war in Iran simply does not represent the interests or the will of California’s 8th Congressional District.

Tom Gallagher

Tom Gallagher is a former Massachusetts state legislator who lives in San Francisco.

Clean Energy Act makes ballot

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The San Francisco Clean Energy Act isn’t the only charter amendment on the November ballot, but it’s already shaping up to be the political lightning rod of this fall’s election.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. sent out mailers opposing the measure even before the Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 on July 22 to place it on the Nov. 4 ballot. Mayor Gavin Newsom also announced his opposition to the act moments after Assemblymember Mark Leno, former San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Susan Leal, and a cadre of progressive supervisors announced their support for it on the steps of City Hall.

Authored by Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin, the Clean Energy Act requires San Francisco to fulfill 51 percent of its electricity needs through renewable sources by 2017. That requirement rises to 75 percent by 2030, and to 100 percent, “or the greatest amount technologically feasible or practicable,” by 2040.

The SF Clean Energy Act also mandates that a feasibility study be undertaken to look at the best way to provide clean, green energy, which could lead to PG&E losing its stranglehold on energy if the study finds public power to be the best option.

Explaining the importance of mandating a feasibility study, Mirkarimi said, “Otherwise PG&E has a monopoly here until the planet dies.”

Supporters say it is important for San Francisco to set up a model that others can follow. “As goes San Francisco, so goes the state of California, and so goes the nation,” Peskin said at the July 22 rally, just before the Board voted to place the act on the ballot. “This is a time when people can change the destiny of the planet.”

Moments after that rally ended, Mayor Newsom took a minute to explain his opposition.

“We have other things we should be focusing on,” Newsom told reporters at a press conference at the War Memorial Building to announce housing bonds for veterans. “Let’s call it what it is. It’s a power takeover of PG&E,” he said.

But the elected officials and myriad organizations who showed up at City Hall to support the Clean Energy Act say that public vs. private power is not the main issue.

“The public power considerations have been drafted in a thoughtful and reasonable way,” Leno told the crowd. “It would involve study after study after study, and testimony from experts.”

Leno noted that 42 million Americans have public power, and if San Francisco did turn to public power, it would be embracing something as American as mom and apple pie. “Unlike their private power company counterparts, public power systems serve only one constituency: their customers,” Leno said.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval opined that government is better able to assume renewable energy risks. “The private industry is not going to take that risk,” Sandoval said. “It’s always going to take the cheap way out, which is fossil fuels.

Others warned the audience not to be swayed by PG&E’s anti–Clean Energy campaign, which Newsom’s chief political consultant Eric Jaye is working on.

“This is not some crazy takeover scheme,” Leal said. “It’s about protecting the environment and the rights of San Franciscans and their rate payers.”

The Clean Energy Act has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, San Francisco Tomorrow, ACORN, the San Francisco Green Party, the League of Young Voters, Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice, the San Francisco Green Party, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education and a supervisorial candidate in District 9, described showing “An Inconvenient Truth” to the eighth-grade science class he teaches. “What can I say to my kids — we don’t have the policies in place to mitigate the damage they see?”

The Sierra Club’s John Rizzo noted, “This act insures that San Francisco is at the center of this economy. Not in Japan, China, or Germany. It will be here.”

Aliza Wasserman of the League of Young Voters stated that “PG&E is not investing $1 in renewable energy beyond state mandates, and they lobby against measures to raise those mandates.”

Dictators and disarmament: This week’s cover

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Here at the hyper-local Bay Guardian, we don’t get to write about international organized crime all too often, but it’s something we truly enjoy studying when we’re off the clock. Thankfully, we were able to hoodwink our editors into allowing us to examine the subject during precious work time for this week’s cover story. Suckers.

For those of you who appreciated our profile of human rights investigator Kathi Austin, we’ve got a wealth of additional material below for you to check out, some of it great stuff we hated having to pull from the story due to space constraints and some of it links to other highly informative stories and academic studies on small-arms proliferation in the developing world.

As for Victor Bout’s arrest earlier this year in Thailand, the Russian government has reportedly worked behind the scenes to have him delivered back to Moscow. But Washington’s relatively new attorney general, Michael Mukasey, emerged from meetings during a recent trip to Bangkok declaring that the case for his extradition was “very strong,” according to press accounts. Bout has an extradition hearing in Thailand on July 28.

He fled to Moscow several years ago, probably in 2002, evading an Interpol arrest warrant in the process. Russia doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States, but leaving his safe confines in Moscow and heading to Thailand made him vulnerable to the arrest that occurred in February.

A photo of the arms tycoon from Agence France-Presse – one of the few seen publicly – quickly circled the globe after his capture and showed Bout dressed in a polo shirt and moustache with trim, nut-brown hair. Two massive arms are stuffed into a pair of handcuffs as he glowers at the camera and his considerable size dwarfs the Thai policemen walking next to him.

We first learned about Austin’s pursuit of Bout after reading the definitive book on him published last year by two American journalists, Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible. The co-authors are Douglas Farah, a former West African bureau chief for the Washington Post, and Stephen Braun, a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. The duo thanks Austin for opening up her files during their research for the book, and Merchant of Death is a must-read for anyone interested in human rights and disarmament.

More after the jump.


Lord of War, 2005

Summing up SF’s historic rally for clean energy

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By Bruce B. Brugmann and Janna Brancolini (Scroll down for Jean Dibble’s photo essay of the rally and comments by the speakers)

It was a historic rally Tuesday on the City Hall steps to kick off the third initiative aimed at bringing clean energy and public power to San Francisco.

As our photo essay shows, there was a formidable and diverse array of politicians and environmental and social justice organizations lined up with their signs and speeches to support the measure.

Five supervisors, including the board president, spoke at the rally (Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin, Tom Ammiano, Bevin Dufty, and Gerardo Sandoval) and then went into a board meeting in City Hall and hours later voted with two other colleagues (Sophie Maxwell and Chris Daly) to put the pioneering initiative on the November 2008 ballot. The vote was 7-4, with Sups. Sean Elsbernd, Michaela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, and Jake McGoldrick voting against. The rally and the vote were cannon shots heard round the city, the state, and the nation.

Susan Leal, former general manager of the SF Public Utilities Commission, made her first public appearance since her dismissal by Mayor Newsom, at the urging of PG&E, for her moves toward public power. The Sierra Club, which fought the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park a century ago and still wants to tear the dam down, was standing tall with the group (John Rizzo).

All in all, it was one of the most impressive starts to a tough initiative campaign that i have seen in 42 years of covering City Hall for the Guardian. More: having covered the clean energy/public power beat since l969 and our first expose of the PG&E/Raker Act scandal, I think this initiative and this emerging campaign has an excellent chance of winning in November. Remember: when the public power movement revved up in the late l990s, it faced a PG&E-friendly mayor (Willie Brown), a PG&E friendly City Attorney (Louise Renne, whose husband worked for a downtown law firm getting big PG&E money) and a PG&E-friendly Board of Supervisors (only Tom Ammiano and the late Sue Bierman were pro-public power) and had to go around City Hall by going the route of a Municipal Utility District (MUD) ala the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (MUD). This time around, the board turned against PG&E and the city attorney’s office drafted the initiative for the board president and an emerging mayoral candidate.

The November ballot is filled with the juicy issues that bring out the voters: Obama, seven supervisorial races, and a raft of good initiatives aimed at dealing with major city problems (an affordable housing plan, two new tax plans focused on bringing in revenue from the wealthy, a big bond act to rebuild San Francisco General hospital, and the green energy and public power plan.) This time around, clean energy and public power are in the news and the media carried the story widely. PG&E is more worried than ever before and is already launched an early carpet bombing campaign and setting up astroturf and greenwashing operations allegro furioso. And their operatives are out and about and lurking everywhere. On guard!

The Jean Dibble photo essay

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Julian Davis, campaign chair, leads off the event and introduces the speakers.
The group stretching across the steps from left to right: representatives from the SF Green Party, the Green Guerrillas Against Greenwash Network, the Sierra Club, Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education, Julian Davis of San Francisco Tomorrow, John Rizzo of the Sierra Club (speaking), Mirkarimi,
Sierra Club, Green Action, Green Guerrillas Against Greenwash, League of Young/Pissed Off Voters, more Sierra Club, Global Exchange, Power Vote, and League of Young Voters. (Not pictured in this photo were some l5 people from ACORN.

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Another overview of the group with Davis at the microphone.

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Assemblyman Mark Leno: “Jimmy Carter predicted 30 years ago that by 2000 we could be down from 40 per cent dependence on foreign oil to 20 per cent dependence. We didn’t listen. Instead we were up to 60 per cent by 2000 and now we’re pushing 70 per cent…This measure will take our fate out of PG&E’s hands and put it into the hands of our communities, who have a profound stake in providing clean, sustainable, reliable, and reasononably priced electric services.”

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Former PUC General Manager Susan Leal: “This initiative is about protecting the environment and the rights of San Franciscans and their ratepayers…It’s 167 miles (from San Francisco) to Hetch Hetchy (valley.). The first 140 miles of movement is cheaper than the last 27 miles because PG&E controls it. There’s an economic piece and an environmental piece. We have the technology–geothermal and solar trough. How are you going to move that power? We aren’t going to be able to make it (financially) because PG&E jacks up the rates on the last 27 miles. In 20l5 they’re jacking them up again…this is taking back what is ours.”

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Sup. Ross Mikarimi, co-author of the initiative: “This is not a ‘hostile’ take over,”he said. This is a “meaured way to make the city l00 per cent green and clean in 20 years. This act mandates a feasibility study on how we can provide green and clean energy…otherwise PG&E has a monopoly here until the planet dies.”

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Sup. Aaron Peskin, board president and co-author of the measure: “It’s a very profound thought. This is a time when people (and San Francisco) can change the destiny of the planet…As goes San Francisco, so goes California. As goes California, so goes the nation.”

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Sup. Tom Ammiano, author of two previous public power initiatives: “This issue has a sordid history….500 missing ballots (in the first election), where did they go? …It involves environmental justice. Some have called the (green movement) the Queenhouse effect.” He then said PG&E is avaricious, immoral, and takes homophobic measures. “It wants to shoot the messenger.” He concluded, “This is our time. We’re going to win. We’ll keep the lights on for years.”

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Sup. Bevin Dufty: PG&E’s utility undergrounding system is “an example of PG&E mismanaging things.” He said people in his district were without electricity for 24-48 hours. “This is a referendum for change.”

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Sup. Gerardo Sandoval: “As we’re leaving office, a lot of us want this to be our crown jewel. ..Government works. Government works well because government is better able to assume risk. There is still a lot of risk in renewwable energy, investments, and so on. The private industry is not going to take that risk. It’s always going to take the cheap way out, which is fossil fuels.”

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Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education, said that children in our schools were affected by the ramifications of PG&E’s monopoly.

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John Rizzo of the Sierra Club: “(Al) Gore said the future of civilization is at stake. Gore’s challenge is a moral one–one that we’ve embraced in San Francisco.” He said that “renewable energy and the green movement will change the world’s economy. Not in Japan, China, or Germany. It will be here.”

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Another overview photo.

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Aliza Wasserman of the League of Young/Pissed Off Voters: She warned of PG&Es propaganda campaign claiming to be green. “Take a step back and think about where they’re investing. PG&E is not investing one dollar in renewable energy beyond state mandates and they lobby against measures to raise those mandates.
PG&E is one per cent solar, one per cent wind, and 98 per cent hot air.”

Nicholas Perez, my l4-year-old grandson from Santa Barbara, attended the rally with his dog Charlie.
Early on, as the speakers warmed up on PG&E, Charley summed up PG&E’s position eloquently. He made a timely deposit on the sidewalk in front of the rally. (Nicholas cleaned it up quickly.) Much more to come,

B3, still watching the fumes from the Potrero Hill power plant from my office window at the bottom of Potrero Hill, courtesy of PG&E and Mayor Gavin Newsom

P.S. Incidental question: how can Newsom pretend to be the “green” mayor and be the “green” candidate for governor when he buckles under to PG&E so ignominously? He’s buckled twice to PG&E, first by flip flopping on the Potrero Hill peakers, then on coming out so strong and so quickly against the Clean Energy Act initiative.
Brugmann’s Law: you can’t be a “green” mayor or a “green” anything if you knuckle under to PG&E on the big green issues.

P.S.: A tip of the Potrero Hill martini glass to the seven supervisors who defied PG&E and voted for clean energy: Aaron Peskin, Ross Mirkarimi, Bevin Dufty, Tom Ammiano, Gerardo Sandoval. Sophie Maxwell, and Chris Daly.
The opposition four will be known from now on as the PG&E Four (Sean Elsbernd, Carmine Chu, Michaela Alioto-Pier, and (gulp) Jack McGoldrick). Jake? Jake? What happened to you? Can you please explain? It’s not too late to change your position.

“The Exiles” on Main Street

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TAKE ONE For a sharp perspective on Kent Mackenzie’s neglected 1961 classic The Exiles, push aside most contemporary reviews heralding the film’s rerelease. In the spring of 1962, Benjamin Jackson reviewed Mackenzie’s debut feature for Film Quarterly, and began by noting something no one today seems to think worth mentioning: only 28 years before The Exiles came out, the American Indians who starred in the movie weren’t even considered citizens by the US government.

That basic fact should be at the center of any appraisal of The Exiles, and yet, with the exception of Armond White in the New York Press, most 21st-century critics don’t contextualize the racist history and cultural prejudices the film confronts; forces that have since threatened to erase it. Almost 50 years and countless Sundance Film Festivals after Mackenzie’s look at Native American life in the city and off the rez, it’s still — unfortunately — a one-of-a-kind work. Just as Milestone Films’ successful release of Charles Burnett’s 1977 Killer of Sheep exposed American independent cinema’s lack of artistic imagination and societal insight, the return of The Exiles is partly inspired by the utter failure of American filmmakers to follow Mackenzie’s lead.

In Another Country (Vintage), first published one year before The Exiles‘ release, James Baldwin writes of a New York “so familiar and so public that it became, at last, the most despairingly private of cities,” adding: “One was continually being jostled, yet longed, at the same time, for a human touch; and if one was never — it was the general complaint — left alone in New York, one had, still, to fight very hard in order not to perish of loneliness.” The Exiles tracks a similar fight in Los Angeles, as waged by pregnant Yvonne (Yvonne Williams) while her husband Homer (Homer Nish) goes carousing through bars at Third and Main. Mackenzie follows both with a Weegee-like attention to detail that alights on everything from mechanical monkeys that blow bubbles to boisterous queens at a bar.

This major work of American cinema was created from film stock salvaged from a plane crash and short ends from I Love Lucy. Its potent original score of lip-biting rock ‘n’ roll is by the Revels, whose “Comanche” was exploited by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. Its restoration is by Ross Lipman, who has also rescued Killer of Sheep and the work of Kenneth Anger. Further credit for The Exiles‘ revival belongs to Thom Andersen, whose 2003 survey Los Angeles Plays Itself first brought the film to the attention of a new generation. One year before Godard’s Vivre sa vie (1963), Mackenzie made an unsentimental movie about a woman who goes to the movies — in fact, The Exiles reaches its midway point just as Yvonne watches an intermission jingle that urges people to raid the concession stand. Both Yvonne’s night and this film’s are far from over. (Johnny Ray Huston)

TAKE TWO One reason we watch film noir is to look at the forgotten city. As American crime pictures got grittier, they stumbled from the plush nightclubs of Gilda (1946) to the sticky bars of Kiss Me Deadly (1955). First shot in 1958, Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles is set in the same dilapidated Bunker Hill neighborhood valorized by John Fante and Charles Bukowski. Mackenzie’s ethnographic focus on a small group of urbanized American Indians would seem to place his film in a different league, but then many noir films open with statements not so different from his voice-over: “What follows is the authentic account of 12 hours in the lives of a group of Indians who have come to Los Angeles, California.”

Noir comparisons only go so far in elucidating The Exiles‘ enduring appeal. By focusing on a sloshed night-in-the-life of this group, Mackenzie locates urban malcontent rather than inventing it. After the first of many exquisite evening shots of a long-extinct LA funicular, we’re introduced to Yvonne: her moony face is inexpressive, and her voice-over amplifies her solitude in a bustling marketplace. She explains she’s pregnant and is glad to be having the baby away from the reservation, but worries about her husband Homer’s commitment. Homer’s boys’ club favors a Keroauc-ish jive-talk — with disenfranchisement for heritage, they adapt the “wherever I may roam” frontiersman-speak of the hipster.

Mackenzie wasn’t a native Angeleno, much less an American Indian, but his outsider perspective enlarges The Exiles. If the location details in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep seem incidental, here they are part of a broader lyrical-documentary design. The fact that we can make out so many prices — mackerel for 21 cents a pound, gas for 27 cents a gallon — is symptomatic of the characters’ hand-to-mouth milieu and Mackenzie’s aesthetic calculus. The filmmaker’s anachronistic tendency to play the peripheries reaches fullest bloom when Homer burns with unnamed anomie, surrounded by the Café Ritz’s unsavory characters. The moody scene is a vivid if intense evocation of the kind of democratic mixing place Mike Davis eulogizes in his 1990 LA history, City of Quartz (Vintage).

If The Exiles anticipates both Jim Jarmusch (the outsider-as-hipster and jukebox soundtrack) and Gus Van Sant (the bender crawl and the combination of voice-over and neorealism), it’s more a sign of Mackenzie’s intuition than his priorities. The bitter irony of the title is that Mackenzie’s characters are exiles from both the past and the future. The director was well aware of City Hall’s redevelopment slate for Bunker Hill when he framed his long-take vistas. “Time is just time to me,” hep-cat Tommy (Tommy Reynolds) muses on voice-over. “I’m doing it outside, so I can do it inside.” Not so for Mackenzie, a true preservationist whose work has now been treated in kind. (Max Goldberg)

THE EXILES

Aug. 1–7

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

 

Hunting the lord of war

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Accused illegal arms dealer Victor Bout’s long-awaited arrest by Thai police officers March 5 was an important victory against unchecked human rights abuses around the world, and a personal vindication for the San Francisco woman who helped bring Bout to international attention.

Bout arrived at the luxurious Sofitel Hotel in Bangkok believing he was to meet with two senior leaders of the Marxist guerrilla army known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The men, it turned out, were paid informants operating on behalf of US drug enforcement officials.

Through an associate, the 41-year-old Bout allegedly promised to sell the duo large quantities of weapons to continue FARC’s decades-old insurgency against the Colombian government. According to an April federal grand jury indictment filed in New York, the arms included surface-to-air missiles, AK-47s, C-4 explosives, land mines, and even people to help train FARC soldiers in using the weapons.

Among those most relieved — and surprised — at the arrest was a relentlessly determined human rights investigator who lives in San Francisco. Kathi Lynn Austin, 48, has been pursuing the notorious trafficker and war profiteer for more than a decade.

Bout, a former USSR Air Force officer, is widely reputed to be one of the world’s most active criminal arms dealers, perhaps best known for his spectral presence on the African continent. There, he cultivated professional relationships with its litany of brutal dictators and helped fuel some of the most appalling human rights tragedies of the last century.

Austin and other investigators, as well as journalists and law enforcement officials in several countries, say that Bout expertly structured a business empire of shell companies, dubiously licensed cargo planes, and endless arms accumulations from former Soviet stockpiles — all of which were intended to minimize evidence linking his name to illegal weapons dealing.

But the work Austin did to penetrate that shell and expose Bout was so notable and dramatic that Paramount Pictures announced in December 2007 that superstar Angelina Jolie would play her in a drama inspired by Bout’s infamous career.

It’s a stunning achievement for someone who 15 years ago struggled to convince even her colleagues in the human rights community that the end of the Cold War and the globalization of organized crime made nonstate actors like Bout as much of a threat to peace as the tyrannical governments they’d been naming and shaming for years.

"A human rights violation is considered a violation that is carried out by a state actor," Austin told the Guardian. "We were trying to change the whole field of human rights to philosophically say we should be going after these private perpetrators as well."

Austin has helped document Bout’s convoluted network since about 1994, first as a consultant for Human Rights Watch and later as arms and conflict director for the Washington, DC–based Fund for Peace, for which she maintained a San Francisco office, before eventually working for the United Nations.

After returning to San Francisco in June from an 18-month UN mission in East Timor, Austin agreed to talk about her investigations of Bout over several hours of interviews near the North Beach apartment where she’s been holed up writing material for the Paramount script.

Seeing Austin in a crowded coffee shop with clear features and wide, earnest eyes, it’s not easy to imagine her charging through the world’s hellholes: Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, and other African conflict zones where the UN has imposed longstanding but ineffective arms embargos.

The work of Austin and others repeatedly helped show that death and destruction could continue indefinitely for the right price paid to savvy arms brokers like Bout, while the United States failed to regard the plight of civilian populations across Africa as vital to its interests.

As the world would learn in 2004, even the US military relied on Bout’s planes to conveniently bring its partially privatized war machine down on Iraq, making this story about more than just Bout and his pursuers.

Following Bout’s arrest in Thailand, federal prosecutors here charged him with conspiring to kill US nationals and attempting to illegally acquire anti-aircraft missiles.

In 1997 the United States designated FARC a terrorist group for kidnapping and murdering American citizens in Colombia. US officials also consider Colombia the globe’s largest supplier of cocaine, a trade that’s kept the leftist rebels afloat.

Bout allegedly told DEA informants that an ongoing, violent campaign by the FARC to counter America’s cocaine fumigation efforts in Colombia was his fight, too, and that he could supply the guerrillas with everything they needed.

Days after this story goes to press, however, he’s due for a court hearing in Bangkok, where a judge will decide whether to extradite him to the United States. That means Bout could face a criminal trial on American soil. To Austin, that’s long overdue. She had lost hope that her country would subdue a top-tier enabler of gross human rights violations. A secret sting operation led by American narcotics agents was the last thing Austin believed would lead to Bout’s capture — and for good reason.

She first became aware of his name in 1994, shortly after witnessing one of the brightest moments in contemporary African history. On April 24 of that year, Austin stood near the polling station as Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner of 27 years, marked his ballot in South Africa’s first fully democratic election. She’d been invited to attend after working as a researcher in the Natal province documenting political violence and the apartheid government’s desperate attempts to preserve decades of white control through upheaval and destabilization. No one was sure Mandela would reach the ballot box.

"We got up at three, four in the morning to load a bus," Austin recalls. "Nobody told us exactly where it was. We had to go under cover of darkness. When we got there, he voted just after the sun came up."

The inauguration party weeks later spilled out everywhere in Johannesburg. Austin mingled with foreign journalists and drank champagne. But one of the greatest parties of the century turned glum as vague reports mounted describing trouble in a nearby country, one smaller than Maryland and at the time unknown to most Americans: Rwanda.

"Nothing was really clear. It was all very ambiguous," Austin remembers. "We just kept hearing these reports that 10 Belgian peacekeepers had been killed and the UN was pulling out and people were dying on a massive scale."

The Rwandan genocide would become one of the greatest human atrocities since the Holocaust as extremists from the ethnic Hutu majority massacred at least 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates with gruesome efficiency while the world stood by.

As details emerged, Austin raised money in the United States and worked to get to the beleaguered African nation as soon as possible. Meanwhile, a Tutsi-led military offensive defeated the Hutu Power government in the capital city of Kigali by July 1994 and supposedly ended the genocide. But as Austin and others would learn, the violence was far from over.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees streamed toward the eastern border of neighboring Zaire, among them the perpetrators of the genocide. Hidden inside refugee camps, Hutu militias renewed their strength and began amassing weapon caches with the quiet support of Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

Austin fearlessly penetrated the militia encampments, persuading exiled Hutu military leaders to disclose how they had obtained antitank grenades and high-caliber ammunition. The list included Col. Théoneste Bagosora, considered to be a chief architect of the genocide. Her trick? Austin told them she was a researcher for the neutral-sounding Institute of Policy Studies — which was technically true — and simply needed to hear their side of the story.

"It was a really treacherous place to be," Austin said. "At the time I appeared young, nonthreatening. I didn’t often say I was with Human Rights Watch…. In any kind of organization, people are motivated by many different things. You find those sources that for some reason or another want to help out or are so ego-driven they don’t think that any information they give to you is going to be used somehow against them."

She also interviewed members of flight crews who gave her information on cargo companies hired by the Mobutu government to secretly supply its Hutu allies with weapons by falsifying official flight plans and end-user certificates, key legal requisites designed to curtail transnational arms shipments.

According to her later Human Rights Watch report, "The militias in these camps have taken control of food distribution, engage in theft, prevent the repatriation of refugees through attacks and intimidation, carry out vigilante killings and mutilations of persons suspected of crimes or of disloyalty … and actively launch cross-border raids."

What didn’t make sense was how the suspected ringleaders of the genocide could obtain weapons despite the return of peacekeepers to the area and an arms embargo on Rwanda imposed by the UN.

CIA investigators later discovered that planes belonging to Bout were involved in supplying the outlaw Hutus, according to Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun’s definitive book on Bout, Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible (Wiley, 2007).

Austin also came to that conclusion by the end of an eight-month fact-finding trip to the region carried out in 1994 and 1995. Her findings for Human Rights Watch helped propel her to international notoriety as more NGOs focused on illegal arms flows coming from private brokers.

"The Rwandan genocide was really the watershed, for me and for Bout," Austin said. "In the early years, he’s building his empire and I’m beginning to narrow what I want to investigate. I was becoming more and more convinced that in all the wars I was looking at, it was logistics. It was all about who could bring in the guns, the fuel — keep the war going."

Back then, Bout was still a bit player among many weapons suppliers working on the continent, according to Austin. But he soon did something that would significantly boost his career and help make him what another Bout pursuer once described as "the McDonald’s of arms trafficking." He switched sides and helped the new post-genocide Rwandan leadership topple the neighboring Zairian presidency of Mobutu, Bout’s own longtime client.

Zaire is known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bout would make yet more money years later aiding another warlord who attempted a violent coup inside the country, Jean-Pierre Bemba. The International Criminal Court last month charged Bemba with mass brutality and rape committed against civilians between 2002 and 2003.

"He [Bout] has no loyalty," a Bout associate told Merchant of Death authors in 2006. "His loyalty is to his balls, his sweet ass, and maybe his wallet."

Probably Bout’s most cynical move occurred in Afghanistan. At the start of his career, in the early 1990s, he allegedly maintained an intimate business relationship with commanders of the Northern Alliance, the tribal army that fought Taliban extremists for years until gaining power in Afghanistan with US help following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

US officials began openly acknowledging in 2005 that Bout earned as much as $50 million also furnishing the Taliban with military equipment during its reign over the country.

Austin’s upbringing is the antithesis of what one might expect from an international human rights investigator. The oldest of five kids, she played guitar in a country-and-western band with the rest of her siblings, embarking on tours throughout the South from their home in Richmond, Va.

"We would play for people who had no money," she said. "We’d camp out for three days just to give them some music."

In the ’60s , the family of Baptists played at small African American churches during the climax of Southern segregation and against the backdrop of racist terror. They defied the neighbors and invited black friends over for dinner or socialized with them publicly. The Austins were largely apolitical, but Kathi says her parents insisted on human decency and encouraged a basic sense of justice and rebellion.

Her exposure to the destitution of many formerly enslaved black families in the South translated seamlessly in her own mind to Africa, a continent that fascinated her. But her understanding of the continent was limited.

"I just wanted to go save Africa one day. It was what I said I wanted to do with my life when I was really young…. I had this kind of missionary zeal, this very naïve, humane impulse."

Few people in her family considered going to college, but Austin hungered for academic achievement, securing a scholarship to the University of Virginia in the late ’70s.

Civil rights turmoil at the school politicized her and transformed her deeply. A model Organization for African Unity held for college students each year at Howard University in Washington, DC had the greatest impact. She attended it devotedly for several years. After competitive debates, politicians, professors, and other experts would speak to the students about Africa’s colonialist history and the anti-Apartheid movement.

"I really began to understand a lot of the underpinnings of what was going on with the African liberation movement in South Africa," she said. "I became engrossed in it and learned a lot intellectually and got a good sense of what I thought."

Austin began to zero in on the Ronald Reagan administration’s agenda of undermining Soviet communist influence in the region. The United States covertly backed the UNITA rebels in Angola against a communist-led liberation movement there, and continued to support the white-dominated and separatist apartheid regime of South Africa.

She wanted to investigate the unsavory relationships Reagan’s White House had developed on the African continent in its crusade to defeat communism during the Cold War. But Austin was aware of only two think tanks in the capital that examined such issues and had a reputation for attracting left-leaning luminaries. One was the nonprofit National Security Archive, a repository of declassified intelligence and foreign policy documents obtained largely through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Headquartered at George Washington University, lawmakers concerned about US covert activities abroad and some of the nation’s best-known journalists, including New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, palled around at the independent, nongovernmental research library after it was founded in 1985 by a group of muckracking reporters and scholars.

Austin’s internship there in 1988 created a new realm of possibility — solo investigations — and sparked an interest in following the intricate paper trails that accompanied her growing knowledge of Africa’s geopolitical landscape, frequent outbreaks of low-intensity conflicts, and evasive weapons procurers.

But she still had never been to Africa. "That was my big ambition," she said. "If there’s anything about me it’s that I’ve got to see for myself."

As her ties to Washington expanded, she joined a World Bank urban rehabilitation team, writing political and economic background reports on Angola in 1989, believing she could make a difference inside the ill-reputed lender to developing countries.

She didn’t, but it was enough to give her first contact. After that trip to Angola, Austin used her savings to stay behind, joining a UN mission overseeing the withdrawal of Cuban troops above the 19th parallel, who were there as a result of Angola’s years-long civil war. She later went to Mozambique on a MacArthur Foundation grant and interviewed private mercenaries operating there for a report called "Invisible Crimes" that included a simple investigative formula she would employ for years to come: What’s wrong? And who’s doing it?

"Through the years, you realize just what kind of danger she’s in," her sister, Cindi Adkins, said from Virginia. "We would go days, weeks, months without hearing from her. My mom would say, ‘We have to call the Red Cross and see if we can find out that she’s okay.’<0x2009>"

Wanting to escape Washington culture, she moved to North Beach in 1997 after becoming entranced by San Francisco’s slower pace. Between missions, she’d spend full days at Caffe Sapore on Lombard Street writing a book about arms trafficking she’s still working on today.

Stanford University’s Center for African Studies invited her to become a visiting scholar for a year, researching arms proliferation and lecturing students, while the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, did the same thing shortly afterward.

But the San Francisco–based Ploughshares Fund became one of Austin’s biggest supporters, helping her finance the creation of a local arms and conflict office for the Fund for Peace, an antiwar think tank in Washington.

"At that time, one of the areas we did a lot of funding in was the control of small arms and light weapons," said Deborah Bain, Ploughshares’ communications director. "Kathi was someone who did a lot of very courageous work tracking arms flows around the world. We were very impressed with the work she was doing and the kinds of results she was getting."

By then the UN had grown to understand the need for knowledgeable people on the ground who could travel across various war-torn African countries and gather evidence on who was vioutf8g arms embargos and how they were doing it. In the coming years, Austin served as a consultant and official expert on panels that investigated sanctions violations in Liberia, the Congo, Uganda, Burundi, Sudan, and Sierra Leone with teams of other human rights investigators who’d long followed Bout’s operations.

Her ex-boyfriend, Todd Ewing, a foreign economic development specialist and Bay Area native who began dating her in East Africa during the ’90s, described Austin as intense and ambitious. While his own blonde hair and six-foot frame made him conspicuous in the region, he said Austin’s "big brown eyes" and polite manner enabled her to slyly convince gritty characters to talk.

"Her MO at that time would be to just disappear for months [on fact-finding trips]," Ewing said. "I always liked to describe her as a sort of spy for the good guys."

Observers say that history handed the equally ambitious Victor Bout a perfect storm in 1991 at just 24 — an age when many Americans are looking for their first post-collegiate job.

The Soviet empire dissolved that year, ending the Cold War between Russia and the United States. Economic globalization expanded and gave every creative entrepreneur with good connections, criminal or legit, a chance to make a fortune. Aging Cold Warriors in the Beltway during the Bill Clinton era and later in George W. Bush’s cabinet maintained a stark binary ideological view of the world and failed to take seriously the growing threat posed by transnational criminals who had exchanged ideology for profit.

After the Berlin wall fell, corrupt Russian oligarchs infamously plundered the country’s assets as they were privatized following years of state control. Some robbed Russia’s rich oil reserves. Bout sought its military installations and airfields containing rows of cheaply available and unused commercial planes, all essentially abandoned by the central government.

Profiles of Bout put him in Angola — and possibly Mozambique — working as a translator for Russian peacekeepers when the Soviet Union broke up. US officials say Victor Anatolijevitch Bout was born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, a deeply impoverished former Soviet state, and speaks several languages.

Bout told the New York Times in a rare 2003 interview that he purchased three Antonov aircraft for next to nothing in 1992 and used them to exploit a gap in the transit market, at first ferrying innocuous cargo like flowers from South Africa to the Middle East.

But the mogul quickly fostered connections to old Eastern bloc manufacturing and storage facilities in places like the Ukraine and Bulgaria, which were filled with AK-47s — ubiquitous in the developing world — ammunition, tanks, helicopters, and other military equipment.

Over time, investigators say he erected a complex web of cargo and airline companies designed to throw off suspicion. If one firm faced too much attention from aviation authorities, another was created to hold the assets. Otherwise, bribery, fraud, and forged documents were used, according to a report on Bout created by the US Treasury Department. In many African countries, aviation regulations are weak and international law is rarely enforced.

"Unless confronted with documentary evidence to the contrary, Bout’s associates consistently deny any involvement with Bout himself or playing any role in arms trafficking," the treasury report from 2005 reads.

US officials believed by then that he controlled the largest private fleet of Soviet-era aircraft in the world and employed hundreds of people, overseen partly from a nerve center in the United Arab Emirates, at the time a fast-growing and highly unregulated intercontinental transportation hub east of Saudi Arabia.

The Treasury report and other investigations say Bout became a confidante of the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, supplying him with gunships and missile launchers. Taylor is currently on trial in the Hague for directing horrifying atrocities in neighboring Sierra Leone, ranging from widespread and extreme sexual violence to drugging and forcing children into combat.

When treasury officials here finally moved to seize Bout’s assets and bar Americans from doing business with him in 2004, they concluded that he had received diamonds extracted from Sierra Leone in exchange for supplying arms to Taylor.

That year saw one of Austin’s boldest attempts to confront the trafficking of illicit goods, on an airport tarmac in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at that time under its own arms embargo. A UN team Austin worked with uncovered piles of questionable registration records during a surprise inspection of two dozen planes, some of which fit Bout’s profile, as their Russian crews stood by, annoyed.

"I only told one or two high-ranking UN officials to get their permission, so we could be sure it didn’t get leaked out," Austin said. "None of the people involved in the actual inspection knew about it until that morning…. I’m still surprised it was so effective. I’m not sure it would work again."

International aviation rules require pilots to maintain several different types of documents, but the group found that 21 planes had invalid registration papers, two had false airworthiness certificates, and three had no insurance to speak of — telltale signs of smuggling. The group determined that weapons in the area were being exchanged for illegally mined columbite-tantalite, or coltan, a valuable mineral contained in some modern electronic devices such as cell phones.

The revelation led the UN Security Council to place Douglas Mpamo, a prominent alleged Bout manager in the region, on the DRC sanctions list, along with a pair of well-known Bout subsidiaries. With Austin’s help, another reputed top Bout lieutenant named Dimitri Popov made a similar security watch list in the United States.

Meanwhile lower-level bureaucrats in the US State and Treasury departments collected evidence on Bout for years, assisted by Austin, who occasionally met with them to relay information she had gathered on fact-finding missions. She testified to Congress about the proliferation of small arms, too, but after Sept. 11, the White House drifted away from a growing campaign to stop Bout.

"I don’t think the Bush administration should get any credit for the fact that Victor Bout was arrested," Austin said. "I think it has to do with the DEA being insulated from the policy influences of the administration. They kept the case so secret they were able to succeed. In the past, once it became an interagency issue or problem, bureaucratic inertia and turf wars entered in and always raised some obstacle to the actual pursuit of Bout."

Eventually, that bureaucratic inertia began to look like something far more shameful.

On April 26, 2005, several state and federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI, IRS, and Dallas Police Department, raided two homes and an office in Richardson, Texas, looking for evidence that Bout’s tentacles had reached the United States.

The properties belonged to a Syrian-born American citizen named Richard Chichakli, who had served in an aviation regiment of the US Army during the first Gulf War. After being discharged in 1993, Chichakli helped create a free trade zone in the United Arab Emirates.

That’s where Chichakli likely first met Bout. Chichakli later returned to the US and became licensed as an accountant and an expert in military contracting. Officials found records showing that the 49-year-old Chichakli had created American companies connected to Bout.

Also discovered during the raid were wire transfer statements showing hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time moving from Bout-connected companies in the UAE to Chichakli in Texas, and credit card invoices managed by Chichakli listing Bout’s lavish purchases at businesses serving the nouveau riche of Moscow.

The raids were the result of a July 2004 executive order signed by President Bush — who, facing pressure from the UN, authorized the raids and prohibited Americans from doing business with Bout due to his connections to Taylor in Liberia.

The White House’s action came years after Austin and other investigators compiled their own research on Bout’s role in arming African warlords. Thirty companies and four individuals were added to a blocking order as a result. Federal court records from the case include extensive references to UN reports on Bout, including some Austin worked on, like one citing witnesses who saw a Bout-connected plane transporting large volumes of arms and ammunition through a Congolese airport between February and May 2004. Something was finally being done, or so it seemed.

But Austin and her colleagues were furious to learn that the US Defense Department hired Bout’s vast air armada with taxpayer money nearly 200 times in 2004 alone to ferry supplies and construction materials into Baghdad after the start of the Iraq war.

Merchant of Death co-author Braun, a Los Angeles Times national correspondent, reported for the paper in December 2004 that two well-established Bout companies, Air Bas and Irbis, had contracted with the US Air Force and Army as well as private companies like FedEx and Kellogg Brown & Root, the much-maligned former Halliburton subsidiary. The State Department had circulated a list of Bout companies warning its officials not to use them, Braun wrote, but the Pentagon made no similar effort.

A fuel purchase agreement included in Chichakli’s court file shows that the Defense Department used Air Bas "for official government purposes" just nine days after Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold questioned top defense officials, including then–Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, about such contracts. But Wolfowitz didn’t acknowledge what he eventually characterized as the "inadvertent" use of Bout’s planes for Feingold until months later.

When Austin delved into the issue in 2005 with fellow Merchant of Death author Farah, a former West African bureau chief for the Washington Post, the pair obtained new information for an article in the New Republic showing that the US military also used Bout-controlled companies during a four-month period in 2005, long after the "inadvertent" contracting had first been publicized.

The discoveries were a major letdown for Austin. She’s discussing with some NGOs the possibility of suing the federal government for vioutf8g its own presidential executive order. But Austin knows that even if Bout lands in a US prison for life, there will be someone else to take his place. It’s already happening, she says. As dark as it sounds, Austin will never have to go without a job.

"I’ve seen so much of the same thing go on year after year," Austin said. "You just have to take it in stride and keep coming back punching and hitting. That’s just the nature of the beast, the nature of the work that I do. You just have to keep going."

Pedal power

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›steve@sfbg.com

Hundreds of bicyclists invaded City Hall July 21 to demand safer bike routes and decry new bureaucratic delays in environmental review work on the Bicycle Plan, which a judge said the city must complete before it can make any improvements mentioned in the plan, from new lanes to simple racks (see "Stationary biking," 05/16/07).

But they arrived a couple hours too late to change the tenor of a hearing on another priority for car-free advocates: the Sunday Streets proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom to close the Embarcadero to cars Aug. 31 and Sept. 14, which is being challenged on procedural and economic grounds by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and conservative supervisors.

Presentations to the board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee in support of Sunday Streets were overshadowed by a big turnout of merchants from Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf — who have vociferously opposed the proposal, citing concerns about lost business — and labor leaders, who unexpectedly lent their support to Peskin’s play.

"We just don’t want to have a beta test of a new program on one of the busiest days of the year," said Karen Bell, executive director of the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefits District. "People want to drive down the Embarcadero. They don’t want to take side streets."

Advocates of the program are resisting Peskin’s effort to postpone the events until after an economic study can be done.

"Every other city that’s tried this has found it has tremendous economic benefits, as well as tremendous health benefits and social benefits," said Andy Thornley, program director for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The committee moved Peskin’s resolution to the full board with no recommendation after Sups. Sophie Maxwell and Tom Ammiano voiced support for Sunday Streets. It was set to be heard July 22 after Guardian press time, but Mayor’s Office officials said they intend to hold the events as scheduled no matter what the outcome and work with opponents to ease their concerns.

But most cyclists were focused on the Bike Plan, which might not have final approval until late next year, as an afternoon Land Use Committee hearing called by Sup. Gerardo Sandoval revealed.

Bicycle Advisory Committee member Casey Allen called the delay unacceptable, and said he’s working with others to formally intervene in the case next month, arguing that unsafe conditions are a public health issue demanding immediate action.

"We have to take risks sometimes and challenge the status quo," Allen said. "That’s how we move forward as a society."

For more on both issues, visit www.sfbg.com

Bad news for SF bicyclists causes bad blood at City Hall

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Advocates for bicycling, walking, and the creation of more carfree spaces were already in full battle mode this week over challenges to Sunday Streets, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s plan to close the Embarcadero to cars for four hours each on Aug. 31 and Sept. 14. Then came word that the Bicycle Plan — which the city must complete in order to lift a two-year-old court injunction against any bike-related projects — is falling behind schedule once again.

The two unrelated setbacks will be the subjects of a pair of hearings at City Hall on Monday, events likely to fill their respective hearing rooms with angry bicyclists, angry business people, and angry political proxies of all stripes.
First up is a 10 a.m. hearing at the Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee on a pair of measures by Sup. Aaron Peskin: one a resolution calling for detailed economic studies before the Sunday Streets events, the other an ordinance that would require board approval for new athletic events that require street closure.

Then the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has scheduled a 12:30 rally on City Hall steps before the 1 p.m. Land Use Committee hearing, which will include an update on the Bike Plan progress that was requested by Sup. Gerardo Sandoval after learning that work on the plan has fallen months behind schedule due consultants missing deadlines and other bureaucratic delays.

High speed rail on track

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› steve@sfbg.com

It’s crunch time for high speed rail in California, a project 12 years in the planning that will finally go before voters in November, following a controversial July 9 vote in San Francisco on the system’s Bay Area alignment and ongoing political struggles in Sacramento.

As envisioned by project proponents, riders would be able to board the sleek blue-and-gold trains in San Francisco’s remodeled Transbay Terminal and travel at speeds of up to 220 mph down the Peninsula, cutting over Pacheco Pass into the Central Valley, and arriving at Union Station in Los Angeles two hours and 38 minutes later — or continuing on to Anaheim and arriving 20 minutes after that.

The $9.95 billion bond measure, Proposition 1, would cover about a third of the costs for this initial phase (the plan would eventually extend the tracks to run from Sacramento to San Diego), with the balance borne almost equally by the federal government and private investors. With around 100 million passenger trips per year, and LA-SF tickets projected to cost around $60, fiscal studies show the project will more than pay for itself in less than 20 years, then generate about $1 billion a year in profits.

Perhaps most important in these times of heightened environmental concern, the system is now proposed to run entirely on renewable energy sources and would use about one–third of the energy of air travel and one-fifth that of driving, eliminating 18 billion pounds of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing California’s oil dependence by 22 million barrels per year.

Yet there are still obstacles that could derail high speed rail, which was set in motion in 1996 by then–state senator Quentin Kopp, a San Franciscan and retired judge who chairs the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA).

Critics of the CHSRA’s unanimous vote choosing Pacheco Pass over Altamont Pass are threatening to sue and now have about 30 days to do so. Union Pacific Railroad has complicated the right-of-way acquisition process by claiming it won’t allow the project on its property. And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his allies have been inconsistent in their support for the project (see "Silver bullet train," 04/17/07).

On top of that, legislation to update the six-year-old language of the bond measure, Assembly Bill 3034, appeared at Guardian press time to have fallen short of winning needed support on the Senate floor before the July 15 deadline set by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. And there was a renewed effort by Republican legislators to try to push the bond measure back to 2010.

Yet for all the challenges the project continues to face, the recent hearings in San Francisco demonstrated that there is a consensus emerging among some of the most powerful political players in the state that California is finally ready to catch up to Europe and Asia and start building the first high speed rail system in the United States.

CHSRA met in San Francisco July 8-9 to take public comment and finalize its last critical decision before the November bond measure — selecting the train’s route through the Bay Area and making the legal and environmental findings to support that decision. The stakes were high as the board weighed whether to select Pacheco Pass or Altamont Pass as the route from the Bay Area to Central Valley.

CHSRA staff and consultants, along with most Bay Area politicians and civic groups, favored Pacheco Pass, which is the faster and cheaper option, and one that doesn’t require a logistically difficult crossing of the San Francisco Bay to reach the Peninsula.

Most environmental groups favored Altamont Pass, which avoids ecologically sensitive Henry Coe State Park and areas where activists feared the rail line might induce urban sprawl or threaten agricultural viability. The conflict seemed intractable just a few months ago, with South Bay politicians threatening to oppose the project if it used Altamont and organizations, including the Sierra Club, threatening litigation if Pacheco was chosen.

But it appears that project proponents have allayed many of the environmentalists’ concerns by eliminating a proposed rail station in Los Banos or Avenal and including strong preservation policies in the project.

"We have worked with as many of these individuals as we could to accommodate their concerns," CHSRA executive director Mehdi Morshed said at the hearing, noting that they’ve done all they could to make changes and still have a sound project. "We can’t deal with the dogma. Some people say you must do this or else, and we can’t deal with that."

After years of studying the options, Morshed said the choice is clear.

"Pacheco is the appropriate corridor for fast intercity rail service," Morshed told the CHSRA board. "Somewhere along the line, we have to decide we’ve studied enough and move on, and this is one of those circumstances."

Most of the dozens of people who spoke at the hearing agreed, including Tim Frank, who represented the Sierra Club of California and praised CHSRA staff for addressing most of the group’s concerns.

"The opportunity to get people out of cars and out of airplanes and get them into steel wheels running on steel track is very important," Frank said, noting that the project was essential to meeting the state’s goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet others are still threatening litigation, among them Oakland attorney Stuart Flashman, who addressed the hearing on behalf of clients that include the Planning and Conservation League, the California Rail Foundation, and the Mountain Lion Foundation. He made a number of technical points about the project’s environmental impact reports, such as the use of alignment corridors rather than more specific routes.

"We find your report completely inadequate," Daniel McNamara, project director for the California Rail Foundation (a train users group), told CHSRA.

After the vote didn’t go his way, Flashman told the Guardian that the coalition he represents will meet soon to decide what’s next. They have 30 days from when the notice of decision was entered July 9 to sue unless the Attorney General’s Office waives the statute of limitations. "We’re going to be considering what to do now, but litigation is certainly on the table," Flashman said.

Whether filed by this group or another entity, the CHSRA has been working closely with Deputy Attorney General Christine Sproul to create a project that will withstand a legal challenge.

"We wanted to make sure that if and when there is a lawsuit — and there probably will be a lawsuit — that we are capable of defending it," Morshed told the board, noting how Sproul was brought in because of her expertise in environmental law.

Before the authority voted, Sproul explained that the environmental documents are for the overall program to build the project and are therefore not as detailed as the specific project studies that will be performed after CHSRA secures specific property to build on.

"Today, before you is really a broad policy choice," she said.

Sproul also said that the project is likely to proceed even if a lawsuit is filed, noting that getting an injunction to stop the project would require the litigants to secure a bond against losses to the state as it pursues this high-dollar project, "which could be millions."

But recent CHSRA actions have appeased many of the would-be plaintiffs and created a project that was effusively praised by stakeholders.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said San Francisco is "very supportive" of the project and will work to make it a reality. "We stand behind your efforts to bring high speed rail to the state of California," Newsom told CHSRA, later adding, "We need to connect the state to itself."

Newsom said San Francisco International Airport officials support the project. While it might seem to be a competitor, Newsom said high speed rail will take some of the pressure off SFO, which would otherwise experience congestion at problematic levels by 2020. Current plans call for a high speed rail station at SFO, as well as one near Palo Alto.

"We recognize that we need to have competitive modes of transportation," Newsom said. "Our airport is very supportive of this effort, and that’s very important."

Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin echoed the point, noting that he began his political career as an activist opposed to filling in more of the bay, something an airport expansion would probably require. He told the authority that his board has unanimously endorsed the project.

Jim Lazarus, vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, also announced that group’s support for the project, telling the authority that Californians have long been ready for high speed rail: "I think the public is ahead of the politicians in Sacramento on this one."

Many of the speakers spoke knowledgably about high speed rail.

"I’ve ridden on the Japanese Shinkansen and I can’t wait to ride on the first high speed rail system in the United States," said Dean Chu, a commissioner with the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

"I’ve been building high speed rail systems for 15 years in Asia and Europe, and I just want to say, ‘It’s about time’," said Robert Doty, the rail operations manager for Caltrain, who has worked in Germany, England, Taiwan, and China.

Echoing that sentiment was Eugene K. Skoropowski, who also worked on high speed rail projects in Europe before taking his current job as managing director for the Capital Corridor Joint Powers Authority: "It’s about time we bring our American firms that have expertise (on building high speed rail systems) back home to work here."

Enthusiastic supporters of the project urged the authority the move quickly.

"We feel a great deal of urgency over this project," said Emily Rusch, a San Francisco–based advocate with the California Public Interest Research Group.

"Everyone I talk to is very excited about the idea," said San Francisco resident Mary Renner. "It’s embarrassing that we’re so far behind the rest of the world, and I just want to tell you the public is supportive of this project."

"Our priority is to get this thing built and get it built quickly," said Dave Snyder, transportation policy director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. "Let’s get rolling on high speed rail."

The final step in getting high speed rail ready for the November ballot was to be AB 3034, which sought to update the language and financial oversight provisions of Prop. 1, whose language was written for the election of 2004 before changes in the project.

"I feel good and I’ll feel better when AB 3034 is in appropriate condition," Kopp said after the vote on the Bay Area alignment.

Kopp was critical of Sen. Leland Yee for amending the bill to guarantee the bond money went to the San Francisco to Anaheim section, something Yee said he did to protect San Francisco’s interests but that Kopp felt hurt the measure’s statewide chances. Yet that tiff was overshadowed by the bill’s apparent and unexpected failure in the Senate.

Sen. Mike Machado (D-Stockton) was unhappy with the Pacheco choice and decided to oppose the project, meaning that proponents needed three Republican votes to win the two-thirds needed for passage and only Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) was willing to cross party lines, Capitol sources told the Guardian.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen had set a deadline of July 15 for substituting the new language in Prop. 1, so at Guardian press time it appeared the old language would remain in place, which Kopp said was acceptable and probably wouldn’t hurt the project.

Meanwhile, a project opponent, Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), sought to kill Prop. 1 by doing what’s known as a "gut and amend" to an unrelated bill, SB 298 by Senate Minority Leader Dave Codgill (R-Modesto), in an attempt to push the bond measure back to 2010.

If he can find the two-thirds vote in both houses — which most sources consider unlikely — it would be the fourth time the bond measure has been delayed. So barring any unusual political deals, the high speed bond measure is still up in November.

If a majority of voters approve Prop. 1, the CHSRA would begin negotiating rights-of-way and working on final technical studies. Construction could begin as early as 2010, although completion could take up to 10 years.

In the meantime, CHSRA unanimously voted to work with regional rail agencies such as BART to create a rail system over Altamont. As Morshed said, "We need to immediately start working on the Altamont corridor and find a solution to that."

Dangerous jumpers

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"We’re not just late ’90s scientifical backpack revivalists," says Ian "Young God" Taggart, one-half of production duo Blue Sky Black Death.

It’s a reference only a hip-hop head could appreciate. The "super-scientifical" tag comes from a verse in Jeru tha Damaja’s 1994 classic "Can’t Stop the Prophet," a bizarre drama in which the Brooklyn MC battles thugs who represent the seven deadly sins. The term has come to represent an influential wing of ’90s hip-hop culture, evoking yin-yang flights of lyrically ornate action fantasy and pre-millennial dread.

But with its fourth album, Late Night Cinema, Blue Sky Black Death has distilled its essence into something more original than Wu-Tang Clan homage. Released on independent hip-hop label Babygrande this spring, it blends live instruments — by Young God and various musician friends — and samples into a dense tapestry of themes, from the antiwar epic "Ghosts Among Men" to the yearning romance "The Era When We Sang." The disc expertly evokes the group’s namesake, a skydiving term for snatching ecstasy from oblivion.

"Probably the most beautiful thing when you’re jumping out is all the blue sky, but it’s the most dangerous thing you can do at the same time, you know?" explains Taggart by phone from his Upper Haight District home. "That’s the black death. I thought it went well with our music because I thought it could be really dark or really pretty."

The 23-year-old Taggart doesn’t earn a living from music yet. Instead, he lives a journeyman’s existence sustained by a hodgepodge of retail and restaurant gigs. Meanwhile his Seattle musical partner, 30-year-old Kingston Maguire, has more stable employment as an apartment complex manager. "I feel like I’m attracted to bullshit jobs so I can focus on my music," Taggart says.

Since joining forces in 2005, Taggart and Maguire have worked hard to expand their audience beyond a small but appreciative following of hardcore rap fans. Their label has a — sometimes unfair — reputation for issuing angry, conspiracy-obsessed rap epics. Its flagship artist is Jedi Mind Tricks, a Philadelphia group whose ’90s-style beats and verbal assaults against organized religion and the government have become a controversial subgenre unto itself.

Blue Sky Black Death has expertly mined this niche with wintry street dreams such as 2007’s Razah’s Ladder, an album recorded in conjunction with Hell Razah from former Wu-Tang affiliate Sunz of Man. But Taggart’s afraid his group is being dismissed as a JMT acolyte. "Honestly, I don’t want to be lumped in with them," he says. "That’s not a diss towards any of those artists, and it’s probably our fault because of the people we’ve worked with. But we try to drift away from that with our instrumental music because we don’t want to be pigeonholed with our sound."

Blue Sky Black Death wants to break out of the super-scientifical ghetto without forsaking its roots. Upcoming projects range from Slow Burning Lights, a San Francisco downtempo band with Yes Alexander from the Casual Lights, to an album with rappers Ill Bill from Non-Phixion and Crooked I. "As far as when we’re making actual beats and we have rappers in mind, I guess we’re definitely influenced by the ’90s sound," says Taggart. "But we take it a lot farther."

Campaign pain?

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

November’s presidential election already looms on the horizon like a herpes outbreak, promising nothing so much as a painful, shame-filled denouement to a drunken and ill-conceived flirtation with someone you thought you knew. So it’s refreshing that the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s seasonal offering of free, rabble-rousing political theater is an election-year special in which the opposing candidates from the two monopolizing parties are conspicuously absent. Instead, Red State, which opened by tradition July 4 in Dolores Park, focuses on the screwed-if-you-do/screwed-if-you-don’t quandary of voting itself, and does so with populist gusto tinged with a reddish hue — a thematic color imbuing everything from the design scheme to the pointedly funny dialogue’s New Deal–style social-democratic slant. It also reflects the rising blood pressure that results from underlying but palpable frustration and outrage.

Reclaiming red from the dusty color wheel of history, Mime Troupe head writer Michael Gene Sullivan’s smart and consistently funny script — brilliantly delivered by a uniformly sharp and charismatic cast and fueled by composer–band leader Pat Moran’s eclectic set of apt and catchy songs — posits FDR’s small-town America as marooned at Francis Fukuyama’s end of history. Set in a puny Kansas ‘burb named Bluebird, Red State casts November’s "Countdown to Armageddon" (as the play’s CNN reporter colorfully advertises his network’s election coverage) in the screwball style of Depression-era comedies as Bluebird becomes the unlikely tiebreaker in an electoral dead heat.

Suddenly the nation’s eyes are riveted on an otherwise microscopic microcosm of average American life at the beginning of the 21st century. This focus on the lives of the town’s humble and much abused citizens throws everyone for a loop, not least the government’s smarmy and ambitious election official (Velina Brown), who is so obsessed with thoughts of a cush Washington, DC-based promotion that she has difficulty remembering which state she’s even in.

For its part, Bluebird feels like a town under siege, but just who the enemy is remains initially hard for the inhabitants to fathom, or agree on, anyway. Is it the wrath of God? The communists? It all depends on whom you ask among the locals, a population whose representative eccentrics include a God-fearing, Jesus-toting fundamentalist (Noah James Butler, bearing cross and life-size Christ) and a rabid (and equally anachronistic) anticommunist named Eugene (Robert Ernst).

What is clear enough is that jobs have dried up (the local pencil factory — the onetime pride of the town, which liked to promote itself as "the Number 2 pencil capital of North Central Kansas" — just relocated to the cheap labor environs of Uzbekistan), public services have dwindled to nil, and the dilapidated sidewalks and roads are a physical menace (nearly undoing a local soldier, played by Adrian C. Mejia, who’s just returned in one piece from Afghanistan).

If that wasn’t enough, the town’s only electronic voting machine is on the fritz. But this little debacle, in the context of an electoral tie, ends up being an opportunity that gets the town thinking and the earth trembling beneath Washington, DC. Deciding to withhold their votes until the proper share of their tax dollars gets re-diverted back to their community where it belongs, and away from endless war-making and corporate welfare, Bluebird manages (in the most unlikely but coruscating of Capra-esque scenarios) to hold a corrupt and hubristic system at bay, spotlighting the government–big business alliance that for decades has fleeced towns like Bluebird of their taxes, able-bodied military-age youth, and everything else not nailed down. Or so to speak: before the town turns the tables on the system, even Bluebird’s fundamentalist is driven in desperation to ask the Antiques Roadshow host, "How much for Jeezus?"

RED STATE

Through Sept 28, free

Various Northern California locations

Visit www.sfmt.org for schedule

Red ink stains green rhetoric

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Environmentalists are pondering the state’s seemingly schizophrenic approach to fighting climate change after a recent state report encouraging increased use of mass transit came out at the same time that the governor’s budget proposal denies the state’s public transportation fund more than $1 billion.

The California Air Resource Board’s June 26 Draft Scoping Plan to combat global warming, released pursuant to Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is at least the second major report this year to recommend expanding public transit. But the governor’s latest spending plan redirects that sizeable chunk of money — gasoline tax revenue that voters who approved Prop. 42 in 2002 directed toward transportation projects and agencies — to help reduce the state’s $17 billion budget deficit.

"There’s a lot of misallocation of resources going on," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Livable Cities. "The governor on the one hand wants to say, ‘You should all ride mass transit.’ But on the other hand, he is taking away [transit] support from the state budget."

The governor’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, said the budget proposal spares transit from cuts faced by other programs during these tough economic times.

"Funding for public transportation stays level in the governor’s budget proposal. That’s in the face of a $17 billion deficit. The fact that it remains level is better than a lot of cuts we’ve had to make," McLear said. "We wish we could increase it, because it certainly is something the governor believes in. But again, the state is facing a $17 billion shortfall. We can only spend the money that we have. There will have to be some tough decisions to be made."

The CARB plan calls for California to lead by example by encouraging state employees to take advantage of public transportation during their commutes. It notes that transportation accounts for 38 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, most of which comes from cars and trucks, and that curbing these emissions is critical to reaching California’s goal of reducing total emissions by 30 percent over the next 12 years.

"Overall I think this is headed in the right direction. For better or worse, this really does put California ahead of any other state if we fully implement this plan. Of course, having a good plan does not guarantee that it will be implemented, but this is a very serious attempt," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, of the state’s global warming plan.

Yet he also said that reaching the plan’s ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gases means people will have to drive less and use transit more, and that local governments will need to stop approving urban sprawl projects.

"The easy answer that most Americans would rather have is to keep driving just as much as always, but have alternative fuels. And that just is not going to work. AB 32 has a major land use change component. Is it enough? No, it is not. But it is at least an acknowledgment of what we have to do," Metcalf said. "Overall I’m pretty impressed, but they’re not proposing enough land use change and they’re not proposing transit funding increases. They are still unwilling to face facts about the role of the automobile and climate change."

Yet instead of increasing funds for mass transit, the governor has redirected billions of public transportation dollars into the general fund, maintaining status quo transit funding in the face of increased gasoline prices and the new climate change mandate. At the same time, billions of dollars have been allocated to highway expansion programs, exacerbating the global warming problem.

"Anybody’s budget should be a reflection of their values, whether it’s an individual or an agency," said Carli Paine, transportation program director for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. "The state is saying, ‘We value public transportation as a climate friendly choice.’ Yet when it comes to expressing those values in the budget, we say, ‘It doesn’t matter that much,’ so we’re actually undermining those original statements."

The governor’s revised state budget allocated $306 million to the State Transit Assistance Program, the state’s source of funding for mass transit operating costs such as maintenance, drivers, fuel, and mechanics.

This is the same amount that was allocated last year, even though transit ridership is the highest it has been in more than 50 years, according to a June report by the American Public Transportation Association. And factor in that crude oil is about $140 per barrel now compared to about $73 per barrel this time in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency. "The budget is kicking transit in the teeth when it needs it [money] the most," Radulovich said.

The $306 million allocated to the State Transit Assistance Program comes from funds generated by Prop. 42, the voter-approved gasoline tax measure. But Paine said the STAP should also be entitled to what is called "spillover" money. Spillover refers to additional funds generated when the price of gas rises faster than inflation on other goods, leading to unusually high revenue from the tax.

The governor’s budget predicts $1.77 billion in spillover for the 2008–09 fiscal year, but he decided to put the money toward shrinking the deficit instead of funding public transportation. The current fiscal year was the first time since the proposition passed that the spillover did not go toward public transportation.

Radulovich said he believes the state is hesitant to fund mass transit — even though it recognizes the importance of reducing the number of cars on the road — because building more roads and freeways leads to more expansion and urban sprawl.

"Sprawl makes a lot of people a lot of money," he said, including oil companies, car companies, homebuilders, construction firms, and trucking companies. "These are political questions, not policy questions. The policy answers in many ways are very clear. The question is whether there is the political will to deal with it, and that’s what we’re going to find out."

Radulovich said this reality is why many California business groups support outward expansion and put pressure on the government to fund highways over mass transit. The Bay Area Council, for example, pushed aggressively for highway expansion during the last budget cycle.

Paine said she believes political pressure also comes from structural flaws in the state’s budget system.

"It’s the legacy of Prop. 13, which really froze the income our state received from [property] taxes," she said. "Public entities that are committed to social services, such as education, are still receiving property taxes at levels that are decades behind what they used to be." This puts a strain on the state’s general fund, and money has to be diverted from the mass transit account to relieve the burden generated by California’s low income tax levels, Paine explained.

Paine said a new budget proposal has been submitted to the California legislature that would restore hundreds of millions of dollars to the mass transit account for the 2008-09 fiscal year by generating additional revenue for the general fund. She said that since 2000, more than $3 billion of mass transit money has been redirected to the general fund, and the number will exceed $4 billion if the governor’s current proposal goes through.

"This isn’t just a problem this year — it’s a chronic problem. And public transportation is chronically being leaned on for relief," she said. "It’s just not a sustainable system."

TRANSIT FUNDING 101

Carli Paine of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition explained the finer points of California’s complicated system for funding — or not funding — improvements to the public transit system. Transit’s main account is called the State Transit Assistance Program. This money is flexible, but is mostly used for transit operations (maintenance, operations, fuel, mechanics, drivers, and so forth). Sometimes, though, it is used for capital projects (such as buying new tracks or replacement cars).

The STAP is the largest portion of the public transportation account, and the funding is critical. As Paine put it, "If you can’t even operate the system that you have, it doesn’t help much to have money to lay new tracks." The STAP is therefore often the focus of discussions about transit funding.

Prop. 42, which directs California’s gas tax to transportation projects, funds the STAP, although not all Prop. 42 money goes there. For example, 25 percent of Prop. 42 revenue goes to a special account for transit capital projects.

Prop. 1B is another big source of transit funding. It is the 2006 measure that allowed California to sell $19.9 billion worth of bonds to fund transportation programs. Only about $4 billion of that was allocated to public transportation, with the lion’s share of the money going toward new freeway projects.

This is where things get a little complicated.

California originally had a sales tax on all goods except gasoline. In the 1970s, voters passed Prop. 42, which decided that it would be more equitable to reduce the sales tax rate by a fraction of a percentage point, but expand the sales tax to include gasoline.

This was expected to be revenue-neutral for the state, so it wouldn’t cost people more. That was true unless gas prices rose quicker than the cost of all goods, which it eventually did.

Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan argued that it was important to return the extra revenue to public transportation because when gas prices rise, more people use public transit. As a result, this "spillover" has been set aside for transit expansion.

Last year was the first year in which the spillover was diverted to the general fund instead of being given to the STAP. It was redirected to help close the state deficit, and the 2008–09 budget proposes doing the same thing this fiscal year. (Janna Brancolini)

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