In response to this article by Editor in Chief Alisa Farenzena, the following letter was composed by some of the Patriot’s editorial board.

Fellow Patriots,

We strongly disagree with Alisa Farenzena’s Conservative Case for Abortion article.

The article claims supporting abortion is consistent with small government principles. However, the article then goes on to say the government should fund this heinous procedure, giving poor women a perverse incentive not to bear their children. Forcing taxpayers to fund such a disgraceful practice is certainly not small government.

The argument in the article is similarly devoid of family values. The most important value in any family is the love and worth accorded to each member. The youngest and most vulnerable people in a family are the most needing of protection and care, not a death sentence.

Many times the Hippocratic Oath is mentioned. This ancient oath specifically instructs doctors to not engage in abortions.

We, the undersigned staff of the California Patriot, recognize the importance and value of life in the womb and stand firmly against abortion.

Rohit J. Joy
Publisher

Derek Yee
News Editor

Charles Huang
Design Director

Christopher Page
Online Editor

Andrew R. Quinio
Editor Emeritus

I received an interesting email from a friend. It was commentary about the recent Judicial Council case against DAAP that was sent out to the Berkeley BAMN email list. I put the complete version below interspersed with a few comments. If you want an alternative view so you can assess the validity of their statements see Beetle’s posts about DAAP.

This is a satire about the recent ASUC Judicial Council
Shenanigans, written by the Defend Affirmative Action Party.

- Yvette Felarca, BAMN Northern California coordinator
(Title for identification purposes only)

======================================
Court of the Absurd – cancel the “ASUC judicial council
procedures” sock-puppet theater for good.
======================================

Friends, Californians, Enemies – let us not suffer through
sock-puppet theater next election season – let us drag the
name of our school and student body through the fetid morass
of stupid election charges no longer!

We should not forget how DAAP dragged the name of our school and $15,000 of student fees through a “fetid morass” two years ago.

Facing two charges – ostensibly brought for violation of the
election rules – has forced our party to think once again
about the arbitrary and truly stupid character of the post-
election tradition at Cal of “ASUC judicial council
procedures.” It is a simple and universally known fact that
ASUC elections are fair – the candidates who get the votes
win the seats.

Both of the circus-worthy charges that our party faced have
been dismissed – limping out of existence just as
pathetically and honorlessly as they came about. The first
was dropped when the “charging party” was 49 minutes late for
the hearing. Apparently this “charging party” has failed to
appear a number of times this judicial procedures season.

It is really the story of the second charge whose full
telling is deserved. It is our hope that, next, election we
can convince the three branches of student government not to
debase themselves, to set aside the clown suits and cancel
the “judicial procedures” sock-puppet theater for good, out
of embarrassment, self respect, or maybe because one or two
democratic principles survive - starved and outcast though
they may be.

Perhaps the finest example of the Senate debasing itself this past year was the filing of impeachment charges (by DAAP Seantor Dimitri Garcia among others) against Judicial Council Chair Sonya Banerjee. Coverage of this from the Patriot blog in exile here and Beetle here. Canceling out the judicial procedures would make the government run easier, since it would then have two and not three branches.

The second charge against DAAP was for a campaign phone call
into a dorm room. This action was alleged to have violated
the prohibition on “campaigning in the dorm.” The stupidity
of this charge, the fact that the election rule plainly is
intended to prohibit the physical presence of campaigners was
not enough to cancel the sock-puppet theater date. The fact
that the case would be moot - DAAP did not win an ASUC seat -
that was not enough. The fact that if the Judicial Council
upheld the charge it would prohibit the use of all modern
means of communication in ASUC elections was not enough. The
“charging party” did not have a single witness - no matter! -
the sock-puppet theater show must go on!

If anyone bothered to read 12.3 of the elections bylaw, the campaigning in the dorms prohibition applies to more then just a campaigner.

Due Process had a small, tragic part in the sock-puppet play;
it was not a speaking part and died early. During the two
hours of hearing in which pre-oral argument motions were
heard, no standard of the Judicial Rules of Procedure was
above summary elimination by the Judicial Council. The
problems went beyond just trampling the protections enshrined
in the stone tablets of the Judicial Rules of Procedure.
Basic democratic standards that have been in place in more or
less every society in the world for hundreds of years were
casually tossed aside by the Judicial Council in a fog of
blissful ignorance. Just when the unbridled foolishness of
the hearing had lost its novelty and was becoming genuinely
annoying, the sock-puppet theater gods intervened with
redemptive generosity.

The hearing was cut short.

Apparently the stone tablets of judicial procedure that had
been up on the ASUC website for some time were outdated. A
new hearing, “starting again” was set for several days later
(this time on the basis of the “new, improved JRP”) despite
no allowance for this procedure in the Judicial Rules of
Procedure themselves.

DAAP’s lawyer got involved and threatened to sue regardless of the outcome of the case. The word “intimidation” is used in the Daily Cal article.

In the intervening days a pretext was contrived as a face-
saving device to extricate the “charging party” from the
hopeless idiocy of the judicial procedure. It was
“discovered” by the “charging party” that the voice message
left on their dorm phone did not have a date.

Thus the tragic/comic sock-puppet theater one-act came to an
embarrassing, sputtering, pathetic end.

- Defend Affirmative Action Party (DAAP)

The text goes wrong in many places. This is where Beetle can do a great section by section analysis. Again, I will refer everyone to Beetle’s entries that include DAAP. The further back you read, the more you will be enlightened.

I am glad to know we will not be deprived of entertainment next year just because DAAP no longer has a senate seat.

Today’s letter fix comes from Bob Ryan in the SF Chronicle:

But the long-term solution to the immigration problem is for the United States to declare that a living wage is a basic human right, and show real leadership in advancing the cause of an international minimum wage. The national debate over immigration reform should include a thorough review of the merits of this approach. If we are truly serious about fixing our broken immigration laws and policies, an international minimum wage may well be the key element in reaching that goal.

No comment. If anyone else wants to jump in and state how this would mess up not only America but the entire world, feel free to share.

The Chronicle has been running an interesting series about schools in the city this past week. For additional reading, see the Patriot story on the topic from our May issue.

Anyway, in today’s Letters to the Chronicle, Julie Billington explains why public schools are better:

When we made the choice to go to public school, I heard comments from parents sending their kids to private school such as “I wouldn’t sacrifice my children for a principle” — referring to our public-school choice.

In the end, what I see from the private-school parents in most cases is racism and elitism. They don’t want their hothouse flowers mixing with underprivileged or minority kids. It’s just that simple. Of course, they won’t admit it and probably don’t even acknowledge it to themselves. But, I see it from their comments and their actions.

Interestingly, right next to non-racist and non-elitist Mrs. Billington is a letter by Maureen Huntington, the Superintendent of Catholic Schools in SF, shooting out statistics:

Overall, the 32 Catholic elementary/middle schools in the city have a student population that is 29 percent white, 22 percent Latino, 17 percent Chinese, 14 percent Filipino, 9 percent multiracial, 5 percent African American and 4 percent other Asian. The seven high school/college prep Catholic schools in San Francisco have a student population that is approximately 39 percent white, 14 percent Latino, 14 percent multiracial, 13 percent Filipino, 9 percent Chinese, 4 percent other Asian and 4 percent African American.

It would be interesting to see the demographics of the school that Mrs. Billington’s “hothouse flowers” attend.

About a week ago, the courts struck down the use of a high school exit exam in California. Supporters of the exam argued that high school graduates need a certain level of proficiency in basic subjects, while opponents argued that the exam discriminates against low income and immigrant students. The ruling is currently being appealed.

In today’s Chronicle, Anne Dilenschneider of Half Moon Bay gives us the following letter:

I work as a counselor in a community rehabilitation and residential treatment program for people who are working through acute psychiatric crises.

Last week, in a group I lead there on current events, we discussed the pros and cons of the high-school exit exam. After some discussion, the 16 residents came up with the questions they would like to see on a high school “exit exam”:

1) Can you change a tire?

2) Can you change your oil?

No and no. I’ll let the pros handle that.

3) Can you balance your checkbook?

4) Can you use public transit?

I suppose, if I must, on both counts. I honestly never used the bus or other public transportation until I started college.

5) Are you willing to ask for help — and do you know how to access social services?

Not really. Note how the question isn’t “Do you know how to get a job?”

And — this one was their first suggestion, and my personal favorite –

6) Are you a compassionate person?

Now that’s a bit subjective. I thought I was graduating high school, not competing to be Miss America.

So I guess I fail Ms. Dilenschneider’s exit exam. Woe is me. At least I know Calculus.

Last week, I posted about how setting yourself apart from the political mainstream can put you in a position where people hate you, but only because you’re so different from the norm.

The response to Debra Saunders’ columns demonstrates my point. She is the Chronicle’s token conservative and penned a column questioning the “so-called war on drugs” last week. In the column before that, she wrote about the injustice of mandatory-minimum laws. In today’s letters to the editor, Howard Wise writes:

Has Debra J. Saunders lost her edge? Has she been working too long with liberal journalists, or is she is really a “liberal democrat” (to quote Tom Delay) in wolf’s clothing?

First, she wrote a column on the injustice of mandatory sentencing. Then, a few days later, a column on legalizing marijuana. As a confirmed and proud liberal, I agree with her on both counts.

I used to love to hate her, and now I may hate to love her. Must I now find another right-wing-supporting journalist to rant about over my morning coffee? Debra come back! All is forgiven!

And so begins the progression from “love to hate”, to “hate to love”, to just plain love. This guy may not be convinced all the way, but the most important thing is that he now realizes that the right is by no means uniform. Maybe if the right candidate comes around, he or she can capitalize on this phenomenon.

On a side note, Saunders spoke to BCR a few weeks ago and I thought she was pretty interesting. There is an interview with her in the upcoming Patriot.

A nice, topical letter in today’s Chronicle. Robert A. Casper Sr. writes:

Recently, a very nasty note was put on my car while parked in Berkeley. It was obviously a reaction to the Bush bumper sticker I had on my car.

I was initially angry because the intolerant individual didn’t have the courtesy to leave his name. Later, I became depressed and saddened. There was a day when a Republican could vote for Jack Kennedy and a Democrat could vote for Ron Reagan. Those that lost would accept the election and move on. No longer…

Today, if a person, Republican or Democrat doesn’t embrace the party’s total ideology, he or she is disloyal or a renegade. Certainly there are positive things that Bush has done as well as positive things that Bill Clinton did.

This is all too true. Deviate a bit from the party platform and suddenly you’ve become a Democrat in the eyes of your peers. It surely goes the other way too (from my experience reading DemocraticUnderground and DailyKos). Respectful criticism and disagreement is to be expected when someone espouses a minority viewpoint, but it’s becoming more and more common to see outright hostility between people who, aside from the disputed issue, agree more often than not. Whether it be the war, immigration, gay marriage, abortion, or what have you, there are people who think you must hold a certain view on that one issue or you’re not a conservative/liberal.

I don’t know how we’re going to get beyond this. I don’t think it’s the fault of the two-party system, since no amount of parties could ever adequately cover the diversity of views in a given population. The Greens and Libertarians no doubt face the same internal disputes as the Dems and Pubs. Is this just a “feature” of democracy? Or can we just agree to disagree and focus on what we have in common?

From the SF Chronicle, Dec. 9:

Editor — Lighten up, folks. It was comedy. It was parody. It was satire.

Please, San Francisco, don’t become like your humorless, Stalinist neighbor, Berkeley, where freedom of speech has disappeared.

The Chronicle story (”Video scandal rocks S.F. police,” Dec. 8 ) noted that Mayor Gavin Newsom, before condemning the video, “consulted in his office with his chief political strategist …” I think that says it all.

MARK JOHNSON
Berkeley

Dec. 10:

Editor — Regarding Mark Johnson’s Dec. 9 letter (”Is that all there is?”):

Q.: How many Berkeley Stalinists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A.: That’s not funny.

STEVEN WALSTEAD
Berkeley

Let me take a break from worrying about midterms and projects to post a Letter to the Editor. Here’s one from left-wing activists Naoki O’Bryan and Michael Zhichec in the SF Chronicle:

With the Bush administration at an all-time low in popularity because of its stupidity in New Orleans and Iraq, we want to bring another careless Bush plan into focus. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a national park that is home to thousands of species of wildlife and six months of oil, is at risk of oil development.

One species is the polar bear, which hates the disturbances of drilling so much that the mother will abandon its den, leaving its cub unable to fend for itself. It’s a lot worse when they come in contact with oil. Oil causes polar bears to suffer temperature deregulation and digestive problems. For a polar bear, that means death. Similar fates will happen to the bowhead whale, woolly bear caterpillar, caribou herds and ringed seals. All this for just six months of oil?

Nothing special about this letter right? Just the typical talking points.

But wait for it…

Wait for it…

We’re two 11-year-olds that want a clean planet for future generations. We started out recycling, conserving energy, reusing bags, etc. It’s about time other people start doing that and that the federal government takes some action. We’re writing this motivated by the fact that we only have one Arctic refuge and we only have one Earth.

Haha! So what’s worse? Adults that pose as kids to get the letters in the paper? Or kids that write letters to the paper instead running around and playing videogames? How much do we want to bet that this was a school assignment given out by some Green-minded school teacher?

Obligatory Nazi reference from Nancy Chirich in today’s Daily Planet:

With a formerly unthinkable American Holocaust horrifying the whole world, it should be clear to the most obtuse right-wing fundamentalist “Christian” that the George W. Bush administration has no business being in the White House to “lead” the American people.

If the Democrats can’t rise to an occasion such as the one evolving in Louisiana with a filibuster on the John Roberts nomination, an Alberto Gonzales nomination, and any other nominee to the Supreme Court named by this disastrous president, it is over as a party.

I see that Nancy has already adopted George Lakoff’s talking points. When a Democrat mayor and a Democrat governor botch and hinder the disaster aftermath, what should we do? Filibuster Supreme Court nominees! It makes so much sense. Not only do they want to block Roberts, but also Gonzales, a moderate, and “any other nominee.” Bush could probably nominate Bill Clinton and the Dems would still put up a fight, lest Bush actually gets something accomplished. Ahh, politics…

In the SF Chronicle, Robert Lynch of Berkeley poetically compares Democrats to retarded birds (your new word of the day is Zoomorphism):

I thought the Democratic Party was extinct, or at least an endangered species. But I spotted it the other day — was sure of the identification because of its characteristic walk (constantly stepping on its own feet) and its habit of viciously pecking parts of itself.

But oddly, I did not hear any of its usual raucous cries. It seemed curiously mute, which astounded me because of the ruined American setting in which it perched. Perhaps it has become afraid to make a noise because of all the hawks wheeling around.

We Americans need this bird in all its old robustness, vigorously squawking and kicking up dust! How do we nurture and reinvigorate the species?

I wonder how this letter got into the Chronicle… If it were the Daily Planet, I would understand. But the Chronicle?

In today’s Daily Planet, John Murcko complains:

I believe that the right wing in Berkeley, including three members of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, have launched a campaign to discredit the commission…

The attack on the commission is an attack on our First Amendment right to free speech and a free press. It wants to stop Berkeley from speaking out on the violence and terrorism of the U.S., Israel, and other right-wing governments and the rule of the corporations and neo-liberals. We must work to stop this trend in Berkeley. Support the commission and call a city councilmember to support the commission members for the commission.

For those not in the know, the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission is kind of like a high school Model United Nations team, but less effective. I wonder why Murcko thinks that he needs a commission to exercise his free speech rights. Since when do cities speak out on anything? If you want to speak out, speak out on your own time and money. This is not a proper function of government.

Though that final sentence made me smile…

Julie Wilder-Sherman, of Petaluma, writes the Chronicle to whine about what she thinks the problem is with kids these days:

As I attended the vigil Wednesday night in support of Cindy Sheehan, I was struck by two things. First, I realized I was shoulder-to- shoulder with people my age — Baby Boomers. Very few young people were at the vigil. While we mostly received positive greetings from passing cars, I was troubled to see that the few negative responses were mostly from young men, looking to be between ages 17 and 25, who raced down the street in trucks and yelled, “Support the war!” and “Go Bush!” When I protested the Vietnam War, I was with mostly young people who were against the war. So, the people who held the ideal that war is wrong a generation ago still hold that ideal.

Not just young men, young men in trucks! Kids these days, all occupied with their videogames and cd players and the Internets. Why can’t they join us older, more wiser folk in our protest rallies, Matlock marathons, and shuffleboard tournaments? But seriously, in Berkeley, only old people go to these rallies, even when school is in session.

Could it be that not having the draft produces no threat, so the young people feel they have little to lose by jeering?

The other thing was the perception that we who are opposed to the war don’t support the troops. How much more supportive can one be than to try to save a life?

There they go again. The draft is gone, grandma. Don’t wish it back. And on supporting the war vs. supporting the troops: let’s acknowledge that the military is much more supportive of their mission than is the general public. Trying to “save a life” doesn’t make you supportive. It makes you a meddler. People have the choice to do as they wish with their lives. If they want to risk their lives for something, and you try to stop them from risking their lives, then you’re stoping them from doing something that they want to do. It’s like saying that you support firefighters by trying to shut down the fire department so they don’t have to risk their lives anymore.

Revan Tranter, of Berkeley, writes that Debra J. Saunders is wrong when she says that the United States would still be a British colony if the media covered the Revolutionary War like it is covering the Iraq War:

Canada didn’t fight a war against Britain, but was granted independence in 1867. Nor, for example, did India, the world’s largest democracy, which became independent in 1947. In fact, Britain has no more colonies — just a few small islands (known as Overseas Territories) such as Bermuda, which could become independent countries anytime they want.

What would have happened here if the Revolutionary War had been abandoned is that untold thousands of deaths and horrific injuries would have been avoided, and America would have received its independence two or three decades later.

Oh, and we’d probably have national health insurance.

Wow, you’ve got to be kidding me. While we can’t say for sure how things would have turned out, we at least have clues that can point us in a realistic direction. Maybe there is a reason why Britain was more eager to let its colonies go in the 19th-20th centuries. Maybe they didn’t want to go through a prolonged struggle like they did with the Americans. And maybe the people in colonies such as Canada and India felt like they deserved better, seeing as how America was doing pretty well on its own. Not that there would have to be any bloodshed, because the world had already witnessed that. Even the possibility of a threat would be enough. America shocked the system, which opened up new possibilities for other colonies.

And let’s go back to Iraq, and the Middle East in general. One reason for supporting the war, besides WMD or humanitarian concerns, is that it is a region that desperately needs to be “shocked” out of the status quo. There are a bunch of different names for this, such as the “Big Bang” theory for instance. We can already see the results in places such as Lebanon.

Now would the liberalization of the region happen without the Iraq War? Maybe a few decades or even centuries from now. Likewise, would the British colonies have gained their independence if America had not taken the initative first? Much, much later. Sometimes, the world needs a “Big Bang” for major progress to happen.