Milk Club Fiasco ...
by , 2007-10-25
Hi Paul -
Just wanted to thank you for the excellent accounting of last night's horrible spectacle. I linked to the story in my blog entry about the experience:
http://lindasusan.blogspot.com
Special thanks for saving me from having to recount the madness. What a mess.
Cheers,
Linda Ulrich
Dear Paul,
Your report on last night's Milk Club meeting was in a way far too kind in describing what happened. I had gone in expecting that the vote would be a question of which side would successfully pack the club in getting its way. I even admit that I thought I had seen everything in politics. But last night's events definitely marked the first time that I saw the body of democracy suffer multiple public gang-rape under the cover of alleged democratic procedure.
Rafael Mandelman may have stated that a vote for an early endorsement was approved by the PAC and the E-Board. What would have been too disingenuous to mention was that the E-Board (which I know first-hand, as Mandelman and Debra Walker were voting at that meeting) and the PAC (which I can't vouch for) were packed with Migden supporters. So the results at those other levels were already pre-ordained.
My earlier support for Carole Migden was based on recognition of her good works on behalf of Milk and other progressive causes. But so far in this race, the dirty tricks I've seen or heard about have come from Migden's side. As far as I know, no Leno supporter has done the equivalent of a Migden supporter's slamming Leno as a protector of child molesters. Migden and her folks may have won the Milk Club vote. But to do so, I feel they compromised the Milk Club's hard-fought credibility in the course of a couple of hours.
As of this writing, I sent an e-mail to the E-Board announcing that I was withdrawing my support for Migden. However, this doesn't mean I'm automatically supporting Leno. My official position is currently None Of The Above.
To be honest, my action amounts to little better than hoping that my cough could drown out the roar of a hurricane. I have no illusions about my relative lack of political clout in local circles. But at least my public rejection will allow me to sleep easier at night.
Peter Wong
Correspondent, Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club* (for identification purposes)
I'm sorry to see how the Milk Club meeting played out.
I have seen both Carole and Mark do important and wonderful things for our LGBT community. I have experienced many inspiring and encouraging times with both Mark and Carole in the fight for my rights as a hiv+ bi man and as a human being. But in my heart, what I saw tonight was deeply troubling. If this was the defining moment of a destructive, divisive and non-productive campaign that will tear apart my beloved community, my family, I am very disappointed and saddened.
The energy that was used in anger in that room fighting amongst ourselves was wasted. We need to focus that kind of anger and energy on an inclusive ENDA; on a gender neutral marriage amendment; on ending bigotry within our own community; on standing up to end hate violence and the powers that encourage it; on supporting a lgbt-supportive presidential candidate; on creating a greener america; on putting an end to the war in Iraq; on fighting for more affordable housing and medicines for everyone living with HIV/AIDS and for universal healthcare for all people.
If this is how this campaign will continue, I question if I can be involved in or even watch how it will tear us all apart. Because if that is what happens, neither side will win. And it will take that much longer to mobilize for the real battles for our community.
Sincerely,
Kelly Rivera Hart
Dear Paul,
Thanks for your article. You are correct, the meeting was a fiasco. No matter who one is supporting for the Senate race, this process was not the slightest bit democratic. People in the back of the room could not even hear what was being voted on, and simply raised their hands to vote with their "leaders." At one time when votes were already being counted, I approached the front of the room saying "We cannot hear in the back of the room - we don't even know what is being voted on," I was told by an eboard member to "be quiet." I asked again, and this time the reply I got was "to reconsider." My question of "reconsider what?" was not answered in a satisfactory manner.
As far as the "special" meeting goes, I don't care how many people vote to call the Dec. 11 meeting "special," it doesn't make it true. An example of a "special" meeting would be the one we called a few months ago to decide whether or not to revisit the endorsement process for a mayoral candidate - it was the 3rd meeting held in that month, a "special" meeting.
The December 11 meeting is a regularly scheduled meeting that had to be rescheduled because it fell on a holiday, Christmas! I don't see how semantics can even play a role here.
Truth was ignored to get the process to go a certain way. When I cast a "no" vote against the process, I was accused of "voting against Migden." Forget about having my own morals and ethics and voting accordingly. I guess that is not allowed in the "new" Milk Club.
I am again neutral in this race, and may refrain from voting in it at all.
Respectfully,
Terrrie Frye
To The Editor:
What is pathetic about the goings on at the Milk Club last evening is not that any one side took odious steps to prevail, rather that the progressive movement is bogged down in ratifying kinship networks comprised of the already connected and asserting cooties on other networks rather than mobilizing atomized progressives and liberals to confront the pressing issues of the day against a highly funded and organized corporate community.
Right now, Nancy Pelosi is poised to become personally responsible for war crimes as her Congress prepares to authorize expenditures for the criminal wars in Iran and Afghanistan. Our local Democratic Central Committee, the party organ of the Speaker's district, must take some responsibility for enabling war crimes. Human beings are being killed daily by our inactions.
Gavin Newsom is running roughshod over progressives, using homeless human beings as pawns in a public relations campaign that many believe is a prelude to the recall of Supervisor Chris Daly. Carole Migden and Mark Leno, instead of fighting each other, should compete in Sacramento to demonstrate who is most progressive by providing substance abuse, mental health treatment, work and housing opportunities to the homeless.
Newsom's regime has replaced the "pay to play" era of Willie Brown with a "just play" standard which is festooning San Francisco with environmentally unsustainable luxury condos that do nothing to ameliorate the oppressive housing crunch faced by most working San Franciscans. Progressives are sitting by idly while we are being built out from our city.
The Milk Club and the Tolkas Club have for all intents and purposes fused. This fusion, some have called it Malice, has been a vehicle for the advancement of political operatives in Milk at the expense of Milk's historical progressive politics.
When politics gets munged together with friends trying to prove to each other how cool they are, and tough policy stances are supplanted by concern for these friendships, then the losers here are the hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans who are not connected and have to live with under conservative rule because our gang is too busy lionizing or demonizing one another to move our agenda.
The truth is that Mark Leno and Carole Migden are both impressive politicians and flawed human beings. Fortunately, in the state senate, progressives have the luxury to run a heated, contested race. This is one of the times when I'm glad I'm a Green.
But next November, the Malice coalition is organizing to promote David Campos, a moderate, to run in the progressive core, D9, against progressives including Mark Sanchez. This fight on our home turf distracts scarce resources from efforts to retain progressive power in Districts 1, 3 and 11.
When it becomes all about loyalty to a circle of friends rather than about electing people based on their records who don't need to be told how to move our common policy agenda, the progressive project becomes exhausted and irrelevant.
Marc Salomon
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