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Because People Mater
Progressive News and Views September / October 2006
By Dorothy L. Wake
I
magine Sacramento City Council election rules thatwould eliminate representation or a large percent-age o residents. Outrage and demands or restoringequal representation would no doubt ensue.Electing city council members at large rather thanrom small representative districts would likely produce very lopsided results. Council members would be clus-tered within the more auent areas.But wait! Tis undemocratic model is exactly howSacramento City Unied School District (SCUSD)trustees are elected now! Five o the seven trustees livein the Pocket or Land Park areas. Meanwhile, areassuch as midtown, East Sacramento, and Oak Park lack representation.All public school students and their parents/guard-ians deserve a school board representative who is electedby, and is accountable to, the constituents living in theirspecic trustee area. And this is only possible i onetrustee is elected rom each trustee area by only the vot-ers who reside within that specic trustee area.Currently, SCUSD trustee candidates must runcostly and exhausting at-large campaigns that cover theentire district. Something is terribly wrong when thecampaign area or school board elections is several timeslarger than city council campaign areas. And somethingis surely amiss when school board campaigns can costsignicantly more than city council or even congressio-nal campaigns.
November Ballot Proposals can eliminate at-largeElections for School Board.
Te Sacramento County Oce o Educationresolved that: “An election on the proposal to establishseven trustee areas and the alternative method o elec-tion shall be held on November 7, 2006” (Resolution No.2005-A, 7/1/2005).Measures J and K aim to x current SCUSD trusteeelection inequities. Measure J seeks to establish seventrustee areas in the SCUSD or election purposes (seetrustee area map). Measure K seeks to elect one boardmember per trustee area by voters within their trusteearea o residence. (Tis is the same model used to electcity council members, county supervisors, state assembly members and senators, etc.)Passage o Measures J and K will result in repre-sentation or every area o the SCUSD. And hopeully,grass-roots candidates, who truly represent their specicdistricts, will emerge.
The legacy of the “Serna juggernaut”
Te current “machine politics” model o electingSCUSD trustees needs to be understood within the con-text o the “Serna juggernaut” ormed in 1996. FormerSacramento Mayor Serna’s coalition o higher electedocials took control o SCUSD school board elections toensure political agendas.For example, on June 17, 2004, SCUSD trustees voted to lease the old district acility at 16th and NStreets to the Capital Unity Center, ounded by thenDemocratic state Assemblyman Steinberg (and others).Tis helped to boost his political ortunes. It is worthnoting that the annual lease rate or the old districtacility is $1.00, according to some sources. However,conrmation o this rental rate was “unavailable” romSCUSD’s legal oce.
Why two ballot measures?
When questioned about the necessity o two separateballot measures, David W. Gordon, Sacramento County school superintendent, stated, “Election law splits thequestions.”In other words, only one question can be presentedin each ballot measure. Measure J addresses the questiono establishing trustee areas. And Measure K addressesthe question o electing one SCUSD trustee rom eachtrustee area by only the registered voters in that trusteearea.Gordon cited one criticism o Measures J and K:“Tey would allow people to become too provincial,”whereby “the seven members would all want what othermembers have in their districts,” he said in a July 31phone interview.
“Passage o Measures J and K willresult in representation or everyarea o the SCUSD.”
Improving City School Elections
Tis criticism rings hollow, however. It ignores theright or all citizen/taxpayers to have equal representa-tion. And it disregards the need to (a) provide equaleducational opportunities to all students, (b) eliminate“machine politics” rom local school board elections, (c)promote the emergence o grass-roots candidates whotruly represent constituents within their specic trusteearea, and (d) eliminate expensive, unwieldy, and exhaust-ing school board campaigns.Passage o Measures J and K is a step in the rightdirection or managing our local schools more demo-cratically and equitably. Vote “Yes” on Measures J and K.
Dorothy L. Wake is a Sacramento area writer and poet, and author o
Mother Jones, Revolutionary Leadero Labor and Social Reorm
<www.xlibris.com> or <www.amazon.com>.
Vote Yes on Measures J & K
Inside this issue:
9/11 Truth ...............................2Opt Out: protect yourchildren from militaryrecruiters ............................3Ballot propositions ..............4–5The Maloof Arena Tax ............6Education issues .................7–9Black Panthers ......................10Lebanon and Palestine ..........12Sudan ....................................13
BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER
September / October 2006
People Mater
Volume 15, Numbe 5
Published Bi-Monthly by theSacramento Community for Peace & JusticeP.O. Box 162998, Sacramento,CA 95816(Use addresses below for correspondence)
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ummer is coming to a close. Students andteachers are returning to schools. Tis issueo BPM ocuses on education. It is a broadeld with many issues that are subject to muchdebate. Our writers weigh in on a variety o edu-cational issues—local, national and global—thatwe hope will expand the debates in a direction o progressive action that puts human needs rst.Heidi McLean and Dorothy L. Wake look atissues involving parents, students and teachersin the Sacramento City Unied School District.From high school reorm to electoral politics,they provide crucial inormation and analysis tohelp you better understand what is at stake.Michelle Matisons teaches in the women’sstudies program at CSUS, and ocuses on man-agement, junior proessors, and students there.Brigitte Jaensch exposes right-wing censorshipon college campuses aimed at critics o the BushWhite House.Mary Schleppegrell is a ormer co-editorwith BPM who is also a linguist and author o many articles and books. She addresses the lan-guage o learning and the learning o language inour classrooms.Heather Woodord o Code Pink in Sacra-mento presents what the group has done andplans to do to educate local people on issues o peace and war. Anie Wilson gives teachers inor-mation on progressive Web sites to share withtheir students to supplement assigned textbooks.Staajabu, a ormer Sacramento poet who ison the East Coast now, contributes a poem oneducation. Rhonda Erwin tackles the substan-dard instruction that some low-income youthace in our schools.In the meantime, on the national educationalront, top US billionaires are becoming moreinvolved in public schools. ake philanthropistWarren Buet. Recently, he announced a uturemulti-billion dollar give-away to the Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation.Te oundation, launched by the co-oundero the Microso Corp. and his wie, seeks toimprove US education. Buet and the Gatesclaim to be interested in helping the nation’sschool kids. Tey certainly have the personal or-tunes to do so, but shouldn’t the government wepay our taxes to pay the bill or education?Recall that Sacramento’s St. Hope Academy was launched with a multi-million dollar grantrom the Gates Foundation in August 2003. Tatcash successully changed Sacramento HighSchool (in Oak Park, a working-class, major-ity non-white neighborhood) into SacramentoCharter High School.Former National Basketball Association starKevin Johnson is involved in this change. Fromhumble beginnings, he became a star guard atSacramento High who later lead the University o Caliornia basketball team and played or thePhoenix Suns o the NBA.Johnson is also the head o St. Hope, and wasrecently appointed as the spokesperson or thenational SAND UP, a campaign launched by theGates Foundation to improve US public schools.Johnson is a ormer pro athlete helping Gates tosell education reorm.A charismatic man like Johnson is much indemand by the business orces that push educa-tion reorm. Consider also his recent appoint-ment to the board o directors o the CaliorniaBusiness or Education Excellence Foundation.Te CBEEF backs the increase o competitionor public education via the expansion o charterschools such as St. Hope in Sacramento.Why charter schools? Charter schools donot have to ollow many o the regulations andrules o community school districts and statelawmakers. Tat means respecting the rights o teachers and other school workers to orm laborunions.Against that backdrop, US labor unions areacing extinction. In 1946, 35% o Americanlabor was unionized. Currently, 12.5 % o theUS work orce are members o labor unions.Tis is a complicated and complex situation withunclear solutions.Why do employers dislike unions? Unionmembers earn higher wages and better benetsthan their non-union counterparts. Laborunions help most working people most o thetime.Current US struggles around education aretaking place against the backdrop o the waron terror, apparently without an end. Tis warbegan aer the attacks o September 11, 2001which killed thousands o innocent people. Sup-posedly, this crime “changed everything” aboutour world. At least that is what most leadersrom both political parties say about that tragicday ve years ago. President Bush and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) have even called this a waragainst Islamic ascists, using World War II imag-ery to build support.At any rate, endless war is sour news ormeeting the needs o all people, which includesa decent education. We hope that you nd thisissue o BPM useul as a resource or progressivesocial change that enhances the lives o peoplerom every background.
Seth Sandronsky is a co-editor with
BecausePeople Matter.
“Endless war is sour newsor meeting the needs o all people, which includes adecent education.”
Education Matters
Terror myths and politics
By Jeanie Keltner
I
t was a brilliant, ingenious, and, above all,cinematic event. Te huge towers explodinginto mammothstreamers o dust andthen toppling intogiant smoke clouds thatseemed to chase peoplethrough the Manhattanstreets were the stu o nightmares—tappinginto powerul eelings o terror and rage.Suddenly we were at the mercy o blood-thirsty, brilliant, anatical, unstoppable terroristsout to destroy us. Tat justied any expense,any measure to protect us—illegal wars, illegalwiretaps and searches, signing statements, tor-ture, more hundreds o billions to deense and“security” contractors. Te warmongers repeatedcontinually,
9/11
changed everything
.And yet even a single aernoon spent on<911truth.org> will convince the most skepti-cal person that the ocial story is a lie. TeBush/Cheney easy success in the crudely obviousthe o the 2000 presidential election must havemade them careless. Tey le threads danglingin every direction—rom obvious lies about ore-knowledge to ghter jets that didn’t scramble tostill alive hijackers to a non-responding presidentto improbable explosive collapses to Pentagonpictures without plane parts to FAA tapes cutin little pieces to stock options on corporationsdamaged by 9/11 (they just couldn’t pass up achance to make a buck) to three dierent 9/11day stories by Cheney, Rumseld, and Gen. Myers(ormer chairman o the Joint Chies o Sta).Te wonder is they thought they could getaway with it. O course the arrogance o peoplewho believe that they can rule the world withorce cannot be underestimated. (May it be theirundoing!) And without the internet throughwhich thousands o cunning and dedicatedinvestigators gathered and spread their assidu-ous research—they might have gotten away withit. (Tey still might—though it looks less likely every day.)Carole Brouillet <Deception Dollar.com>captures the wider implications: “I began tounderstand 9/11 as ‘a special operation’ designedto gain public support or a war without endagainst a new ‘elusive’enemy, to justiy apolice state, to rede-ne opposition tocorporate/governmentpolicies as domestic
terrorism
, to give thegreen light to thecrushing o dissent worldwide, to permit themilitarization o outer space by a small minority to control the world’s resources and people. Itwas a crime against humanity, with clear victimsand clear beneciaries, which demanded a loudpublic outcry.”And despite the corporate media blackouto 9/11 research—or mocking o “conspiracy wingnuts”—9/11 truths are suracing daily in themainstream. As the Bush/Cheney/neocon warand other lies become more blatantly obvious, it’seasier or people to doubt the ocial myth—i this administration is telling the truth about 9/11,it’s the rst time they’ve told the truth so ar.Ridicule is a powerul weapon, and it’s stilldaring in the mainstream to discuss 9/11 as anopen question. So kudos to SN&R’s RV Scheidewho highlighted Sacramento’s very active 9/11truth group (see Calendar Page or meeting ino).All over the country such groups have plowedthe ground or the change in public opinion nowtaking place.
Vanity Fair
, likewise, has run 9/11truth stories in the last two issues. A panel on the
Neocons and 9/11
has been aired on C-SPAN sev-eral times and is a top online request. And thenthere’s
Loose Change
, the downloadable videothat’s inorming thousands daily. Attempts to reKevin Barrett, U o Wisconsin proessor and 9/11researcher, have also raised awareness.Te Zogby opinion poll in May showed thatmore than hal the American public distruststhe ocial 9/11 story and believes the attacks
The 9/11 truth movement grows
“My job is to remind olks o 9/11 and that we’re protectingthem.” President Bush to FoxNews interviewer, August 2.
See
9/11 Truth
, page 14
September / October 2006 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER
SacramentoProgressiveEventsCalendar onthe Web
Labor, Peace,Environment, HumanRights, Solidarity…Send calendar itemsto Gail Ryall,<gryall@cwnet.com>.
<
w w w .s a c l e f t .o r g
>
By Dan Bacher
C
indy Sheehan, the Vacaville motherwhose son Casey died in Iraq, recently appeared in Sacramento at an eveninganti-war demonstration at 16th and Broadway,which Steve and Virginia Pearcy organized.About 300 people were there.Sheehan reinvigorated the anti-war move-ment in the US last year during her vigil, dubbed“Camp Casey,” outside President Bush’s vacationranch near Craword, exas. Sheehan began thatprotest aer she repeatedly asked to meet withBush. He reused her each time.“Bush is too cowardly to meet with me,”she said. “We are beginning to believe that heis rightened o us. It can’t be because we are aphysical threat to him.Tis year, Camp Casey was held on Sheehan’sland in Craword near Bush’s vacation homeAugust 12 - September 2. She bought the landwith some insurance money rom her son’s deathin Iraq.“Hal o Camp Casey is woodland and theother hal is pasture,” said Sheehan. “It’s a beauti-ul and peaceul spot.”She will keep Camp Casey near Bush’s vaca-tion home until two things—the US withdrawsrom Iraq and he leaves oce. When both o them happen, she will donate the property to thecity o Craword to use or a peace park in honoro her son.“GW is a war criminal,” said Sheehan. “Bushlied to the public about going to war in Iraq.He lied to my son. I don’t want to see any moreCindy Sheehans created in this country. Te warhas to stop.”Te recentSacramento vigilprotested theoccupations o Iraq, Aghanistan,Palestine and Leba-non, as well as thecontinued US andIsraeli aggression inthe Middle East. TeIsraeli bombard-ment o Lebanon’sinrastructure andthe massive deathtoll o innocentcivilians there wason everybody’sminds, includingSheehan’s, duringthe protest.“Israel has theright to deend itsel,but that doesn’tincluding killinginnocent people likeit is doing in Leba-non and Gaza now,” she said. Somebody has tosay no to the killing and stop this war!”Te US corporate media has portrayedHizbullah, the Lebanese resistance ghters, asstarting the confict in mid-July by capturing(“kidnapping” in many reports) two Israeli sol-diers. However, they were actually captured onLebanese soil, Sheehan pointed out.Many signs displayed at the recent vigilhad slogans protesting the Israeli invasion o Lebanon, including “Free Palestine: No Aid toIsrael,” “Impeach AIPAC,” and “Occupation Is aCrime, From Iraq to Palestine.” Activists camerom a diverse array o groups, such as the Sac-ramento Coalition Against the War, SacramentoFor Democracy, Code Pink, Voluntarios de LaCommunidad, the Women’s International League
Sacramento Welcomes Cindy Sheehan
Anti-war activist moves near President Bush’s ranch
“Bush lied to the public aboutgoing to war in Iraq.” CindySheehan.
or Peace and Freedom, Zapatista Solidarity Committee and the Central America ActionCommittee.Cindy Sheehan has been asting since July 4 to urge the Bush administration to bring UStroops home rom Iraq. Code Pink and Gold StarFamilies or Peace have organized the ast.“We hope the ast will stir public attention,invigorate the peace movement, build pressureon elected ocials, and get our troops back home,” Sheehan said in a statement beore start-ing the ast.For more inormation, contact Gold StarFamilies or Peace, <www.gsp.org>.
Dan Bacher is an outdoor writer, alternative journalist and satirical songwriter in Sacramento,Caliornia.
Military news thatfamilies can use
By Dan Bacher
he unpopular Iraq war and occupationcaused US troop recruitment to drop in2005. Te military dislikes that. Tus itportrays service as a smart move or those seek-ing to gain new skills.“In the Army, soldiers can take advantageo a long list o job and leadership trainingopportunities to keep their skills sharp,” statesthe US Army Web site <www.goarmy.com>.“And because there are over 150 army jobs, every soldier plays an important part in the army’ssuccess.”Roanna Costa-Krisko o the SacramentoCoalition to End the War has a dierent viewo military service, and is reaching out to localhigh school students and their parents. Her ocusconcerns section 9528 o the ederal “No ChildLe Behind Act” that allows students to “opt out”o having their personal inormation released tothe military.Tis isn’t inormation the government wantsparents o high school students to know.“Our goal is to save kids’ lives by giving themoptions other than joining the military,” she said.Costa-Krisko encouraged people to join“Adopt-A-School,” which involves giving fyers tochildren and parents inorming them about opt-ing out, the reality o military lie, as well as othercareer and non-military school opportunities.o “opt out”, a parent or guardian signs aorm restricting the release o his/her child’spersonal inormation, including age, sex, phonenumber, address and other data, to recruiters.Te law requires the schools to release this inor-mation to recruiters unless the parent signs the“opt out” orm.Costa-Krisko and volunteers distributedinormation to parents and their kids during“back to school nights” at Mira Loma and ElCamino High schools in the San Juan UniedSchool District in September. Tese magnetschools are attended by students district-wide.Volunteers are also involved with NatomasHigh, Grant High, Cordova High and highschools in the Sacramento Unied School Dis-trict to distribute “opt out” inormation. Later,Costa-Krisko plans to organize volunteers toinorm parents and students about the “opt out”option at career days and Parent eacher Asso-ciation meetings.“I want the students to know that there arepeople out there ghting or them to make surethat they don’t get lied to by military recruiters,”she said. “I have two children I want to keepalive. I’m sure there’s a mother in Iraq who wantsto keep her children alive.“Te politicians are sending our childrenout to slaughter and be slaughtered. Te soldiersdon’t know the enemy and may end up killinginnocent people because they are araid o beingkilled by them.”For more inormation, contact Roanna
Learning About “Opting Out”
“Our goal is to save kids’ livesby giving them options otherthan joining the military.”Roanna Costa-Krisko.
Costa-Krisko at 730-9044 or <ruthgeo@aol.com>.
Dan Bacher is an outdoor writer, alternative journalist and satirical songwriter in Sacramento,Caliornia.
Bill Lackemacher and Karen Bernal o Sacramento ForDemocracy with Cindy Sheehan (center), holding a picture o herson, Casey, at the July 29 rally.
photo: Dan Bacher
Gandmotes fo Peace Intenational isalso distibuting “opt out” bocues. Te ae available in Englis and Spanis at<www.gandmotesfopeace.og>.
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