In 1852, the official seal of the newly-established San Francisco Gas Company bore the words fiat lux– let there be light. A century and a half later, the time has come to say âlights outâ to its successor, the company we now call PG&E. Californiaâs energy history has always been a fight between those who …
Op-Eds
Op-eds
DSA SF’s Red Star Caucus on the Bernie Sanders Endorsement Vote
The National Political Committee of DSA is currently debating the question of whether or not to endorse Bernie Sandersâs campaign for president. While Red Star San Francisco does not have a common stance on whether the national organization ought to endorse his campaign, we are united in a critique of it, and in an understanding of our role as socialists engaging in electoral struggles.
San Francisco Wants Union Beer
On February 7th, workers at Anchor Brewing Co. announced their intent to unionize with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), citing low pay, cuts in hours, and rising costs of benefits. The announcement was the culmination of a year-long underground organizing drive supported by the ILWU and The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) San …
Solidarity with Park Rangers
Who do our National Parks really serve: the public or the profit motive? With the government shutdown, national parks and public lands have been closed throughout the US. But during the holidays, Alcatraz and Muir Woods–two of the most visited parks in the Bay Area–stayed open. The Department of the Interior has decided that national parks …
Deadly Wildfires Prove We Must Nationalize PG&E â and Every Other Utility
If we want utilities that truly serve human needs, and a shot at preventing the worst effects of climate change, we must abolish all private utilities. Energy joins water, waste disposal, telecommunications, and transportation as essential services that must be brought under full democratic control, with revenues being reinvested in providing better, greener service at lower rates to the public.
The Rent is Too Damn High
Proposition 10 stands to repeal Costa Hawkins, a brutal law that is in no small part responsible for our state having somewhere between a fifth and a fourth of the nationâs estimated homeless population. Costa Hawkins has made every single-family home, apartment, and condominium built after 1995 exempt from rent control (a price ceiling on …
The Shameful History of San Francisco’s Homelessness Policy
The homelessness crisis in SF is all over the international news, and Proposition C on the November ballot proposes to fund the most comprehensive package of services for addressing the issue in the cityâs history. Built on best practices learned over the last thirty years, it prioritizes housing rather than services on the street, and …
5 Facts about Prop C
In the era of Fake News, Donald Trump and the Kardashians, can we really afford any more confusion? Call us âSnopes of the Proletariatâ, âcause we got your facts, right here.
Our Housing Crisis Is Out Of (Local) Control
Not In My Backyard, Forest Hill Edition Earlier in 2018, the Mayorâs Office of Housing and Community Development dropped a proposed development in Forest Hill that would have changed the lives of 150 low-income, formerly homeless seniors by providing them with permanent, affordable housing. The city and Supervisor Yeeâs stated reason for torpedoing the development was that the …
Exiting the Magic Kingdom
Burned by the junta in Chile, and effectively banned from the US over copyright infringement claims, How To Read Donald Duck is a guide to exposing the ideology in mass culture and a call to extricate the aspects which teach us to subjugate and be subjugated. If It Looks Like An Empire⌠On September 11, 1973, a coalition …
San Francisco’s Chamber of Horrors
Editorâs Note: The SF Chamber of Commerce relaunched its website after this piece was written, sending much of their record of supporting anti-worker/anti-tenant policies into the memory hole. Several links in this article will make use of the Internet Archive and Googleâs cache to source the history of the Chamberâs policy agenda. Given the severity …
The Gall of Galles
On July 20th the SF Chronicle ran an op-ed arguing against rent control. In an extreme case of headline abuse, they slammed rent control and inclusionary housing as âself-interested and harmful.â In a city that is majority renter, with more than 60% of renters protected by rent-control, arenât the real self-interested parties the corporate developers …