By Mia Taylor
As a member of the San Diego Public Power Coalition, San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action will participate in a press conference at 12 noon today to kick off the coalition's campaign for a public alternative to an investor-owned utility franchise in the city of San Diego. For those who may not be familiar with the story, San Diego's utility franchise agreement with San Diego Gas and Electric (SDGE) expires this January. The next agreement the city signs with a provider will have broad and lasting ramifications, including exclusive rights to use San Diego's public roads, streets, and right-of-ways for transmission and distribution, as well as to install wires, poles, power lines, and underground gas and electric lines. This is the first time in 50 years the city is renegotiating this important agreement, which means residents have a historic opportunity at this moment to set the terms of our energy future. And we need to do so before city leaders simply give it away in a manner far short of the true value of the franchise. Public Power San Diego, an organization committed to promoting San Diego's transition to a publicly-owned, climate-aggressive, fully unionized, equitable electric and gas utility will host a press conference today (Friday, Aug. 21) at 12 noon in front of 101 Ash Street in Downtown, the notoriously uninhabitable building purchased by the city from Sempra Energy, the parent company of San Diego Gas and Electric. Club president Cody Petterson will be among the speakers, and other board members will be in attendance. We encourage our members to join club leadership for a fully-masked, responsible, socially-distanced press conference to advance an environmentally and fiscally sound energy future for San Diego Join us today (Friday) at 12 noon Downtown at 101 Ash Street. Photo by Tommy Hough
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By Cody Petterson
The California legislature has sat on AB-345 (fracking setbacks) long enough. Are we seriously still arguing about whether to physically separate oil and gas production from child-raising activities? Is that what we’re doing? Does anyone think if it were white kids living, playing, going to school next to oil wells, refineries, etc., we wouldn't have sorted it out on day one? If it were affluent white families like mine who were suffering from elevated rates of birth defects, preterm births, fetal deaths, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease – all associated with residential proximity to oil and gas development – do you believe we wouldn't have imposed draconian setbacks long ago? Come on now. Pass AB 345 already. Establish "a minimum setback distance between oil and gas activities and sensitive receptors such as schools, childcare facilities, playgrounds, residences, hospitals, and health clinics based on health, scientific, and other data." How is this even a debate? Thank you to San Diego's Democratic assemblymembers for voting AB 345 off the floor of the Assembly. Thank you Assemblymembers Tasha Boerner Horvath (AD-76), Brian Maienschein (AD-77), Todd Gloria (AD-78), Shirley Weber (AD-79), Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (AD-80). Finally, I ask Senator Ben Hueso (SD-40) to vote the bill out of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water today and bring a measure of environmental justice to California's disproportionately burdened communities of color. If you live in California's 40th Senate District, I encourage you to call Senator Hueso's Sacramento office at (916) 651-4040 and ask him to do the same. Photo courtesy of San Diego 350 By Cody Petterson
We're still stunned, angry, and, frankly, disgusted that the franchise process is moving so quickly with no effort at, or opportunity for, public engagement. A mere seven days elapsed from when the JVJ Pacific Consultings report and proposal was released to the public to when it was voted on by the Environment Committee, and another brisk three weeks from the Environment Committee to the full council. And this is all occurring in the midst of a global pandemic which already inhibits significant public participation. A mere four weeks to debate how to give away our city's most valuable asset, an asset that provides San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) with a million dollars of profit per day, straight from the budgets of working families to the cash-choked pockets of SDG&E shareholders. It's insane. Who is representing San Diegans? And if our representatives aren't representing San Diego's 1.4 million residents and ratepayers, who are they representing? Who's sitting at the table in the community's seat? We now have a week to let the mayor, council, and those who have taken the community's seat at the table know we won't accept another "San Diego Special," i.e. four weeks of backroom deals and you're good to go. Please call your councilmember today and ask them to send the franchise resolution back to Environment Committee for the public process it deserves. Ask them to take the proposed agreement back to the communities they represent. Ask them to give meaningful consideration to the formation of a city-owned public utility, which promises democratic oversight, greater control over our transition to 100 percent renewable energy, and significant savings for ratepayers. And beyond asking, call your councilmember today and TELL them two specific things:
District 1: Barbara Bry (619) 236-6611 barbarabry@sandiego.gov District 2: Jennifer Campbell (619) 236-6622 jennifercampbell@sandiego.gov District 3: Chris Ward (619) 236-6633 christopherward@sandiego.gov District 4: Monica Montgomery (619) 236-6644 monicamontgomery@sandiego.gov District 5: Mark Kersey (619) 236-6655 markkersey@sandiego.gov District 6: Chris Cate (619) 236-6616 chriscate@sandiego.gov District 7: Scott Sherman (619) 236-6677 scottsherman@sandiego.gov District 8: Vivian Moreno (619) 236-6688 vivianmoreno@sandiego.gov District 9: Georgette Gómez (619) 236-6699 georgettegomez@sandiego.gov Click here to examine the city's current 50-year franchise agreement with San Diego Gas and Electric, dated Dec. 17, 1970. Photo by Tommy Hough By Cody Petterson
Early next month, San Diego City Council will decide our city's energy future for decades to come. The franchise agreement proposal the Environment Committee sent to council on July 16th, a mere three weeks after the release of the final report from JVJ Pacific Consultings (JVJ), is a gargantuan, obscene giveaway to San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), or any investor-owned utility that might outbid them. It commits the residents and ratepayers of San Diego to handing the shareholders of SDG&E one million dollars in profit every single day for 20 years. Spend enough time in politics and you start to lose the sense of disgust with how corrupt and contrary to the common good it habitually is, but a heist this big has the virtue of shocking one back into indignation, of defibrillating the conscience. For the next 20 years, every time one of our residents asks for affordable housing, or transit, or parks, or social services, or solar rebates, or municipal composting, or job training, or subsidized childcare, we will have to tell them, "Sorry, Scott Sherman gave that money to SDG&E's shareholders, Jen Campbell gave that money to SDG&E's shareholders," etc. The only way to stop this monumental theft — and the only financially, environmentally, and socially responsible path forward for San Diegans — is the municipalization of San Diego's gas and electric distribution. Don't take my word for it. I am ideologically predisposed to advocate for public ownership of utilities. Take the word of the consultants whom the city paid to study the alternatives: all four consultancies concluded that a community-owned utility was achievable and financially advantageous under most cost scenarios. The current franchise agreement, which expires in January, saddles San Diegans with the most expensive electricity in the state, by far. Customers of Sacramento's public utility pay nearly half what we do. Because the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) — long ago captured by the very utilities it purports to regulate — guarantees SDGE a 10.2 percent return on equity (in 2019 it actually returned 12 percent), it doesn't matter how inefficient or uneconomical their investments are, they'll still get their guaranteed profit. The JVJ report, commissioned by the city, pegs the value of the franchise at $6.4 billion, by taking 2019's net income of $322 million and multiplying it by 20, the proposed duration in years of the franchise. This is a pretty crude way of estimating the value of an asset, and there are a number of reasons to believe it dramatically undervalues the franchise, but even this low estimate gives an idea of just how usurious the SDG&E franchise is for San Diegans. During last Thursday's Environment Committee hearing, a number of SDG&E supporters attempted to distract from the theft by extolling the $65 million in franchise fees SDG&E pays each year to the city of San Diego. Only, SDG&E doesn't pay those fees, WE do. We, as ratepayers, pay ourselves, as citizens, $65 million a year. Literally. And lest you think I mean merely that our rates cover the fees, think again. Look at your bill. Check out the 5.78 percent "San Diego Franchise Fee Differential," which covers the difference between the 1.1 percent base fee included in our rates, and San Diego's higher, negotiated fee of three percent. We literally pay a surcharge to ourselves to cover SDG&E's franchise fees. SDG&E just passes that money from our left hand to our right. We pay exorbitant rates for electricity and, on top of that, we pay ourselves for SDG&E's privilege of charging us exorbitant rates for electricity, and then, on top of that, we pay SDG&E shareholders one million dollars A DAY in profit. As a result, it doesn't matter what franchise fee we charge SDG&E — three percent, four percent, 25 percent — they'll just turn around and petition the California Public Utilities Commission to allow them to slap a corresponding surcharge on San Diego ratepayers. And the CPUC will oblige because, again, it is substantially captured by the investor-owned utility industry. Is there a financially viable path that frees us from our abusive marriage to SDG&E? Or are they right when they tell us that we’re stuck with them, forever, that no one will ever love us like they do, that we could never make it on our own? The answer is that not only is municipalization a viable path for the city, but that in the majority of cost scenarios, it is the financially superior path, offering significant savings for ratepayers. The Newgen/Advisian/MRW franchise report commissioned by the city found that "the City can, under many (but not all) circumstances, purchase the SDG&E electric and gas assets located within the City limits at the values provided by NewGen while still offering lower rates than SDG&E." JVJ Pacific's draft franchise proposal makes clear not only that municipalization is viable, but that if "the new proposed franchises are not accepted without material changes by a responsible bidder, then we recommend that the City proceed to form community-owned electric and gas distribution utilities." These are not Marxist/Leninist agitators calling for capitalist expropriation, but rather top-tier consultants with decades in the energy industry, hired by a Republican administration to coldly assess and compare the financial benefits of franchising and municipalization. Without a doubt, SDG&E and its parent company Sempra would make the process of eminent domain and condemnation maximally difficult and painful, since the loss of their San Diego cash cow would be a devastating blow to their stock value and even solvency. They would bog our city down with lengthy litigation, aided by a CPUC congenitally hostile to ratepayers. But the law is on our side and we would ultimately prevail. With interest rates at historic lows, our city has never been better positioned to successfully municipalize, while achieving significant reductions in gas and electric rates, and gaining full, democratic control of our transition to a renewable energy future. Divorce is hard. But there is no way that any councilmember with any love for this city and its residents can responsibly drag us back into the abusive, extortionate relationship we are on the verge of escaping. This is our moment to give San Diego back to its residents. Seize this opportunity to take the $320 million in profits we give every year to SDG&E's shareholders and instead invest them in our communities, provide relief to ratepayers, and build a visionary, sustainable, democratic, unionized, financially sound community-owned public utility. Photo by Tommy Hough By Mia Taylor and Cody Petterson
For the first time in 50 years, San Diego is renegotiating its franchise agreement with San Diego Gas and Electric (SDGE) in a decision that will have sweeping ramifications, giving the powerful Sempra-owned utility exclusive rights to use the city's public right-of-ways for transmission and distribution of electricity, along with the ability to install wires, poles, power lines, and underground gas and electric lines. Originally signed in 1970, the 50-year-old franchise agreement comes to an end on Jan. 17, 2021, presenting San Diegans with an extraordinary opportunity to set the terms of our region's transition to a renewable energy future. Conversely, if the terms of a new agreement fail to be negotiated in a meaningful, thoughtful manner, with too much of an emphasis on special interests, our region may be stuck for the next quarter century with an agreement that preserves windfall profits for the investor-owned utility and slows our progress toward a carbon-neutral future. Please join San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action this Wednesday, July 15, for a discussion on our current and future energy needs, and the impact of a new franchise agreement on climate action plans around our region. Featured speakers include:
The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. this Wednesday, July 15. Register in advance here. Photo by Tommy Hough By Mia Taylor, Stephanie Peck, and Tommy Hough
The proposed Otay Hills Quarry in East Otay Mesa has largely gone under the radar of San Diego County residents, but it's another nightmare of a project for our regional environment that, in this case, would be sited in an undeveloped area in the foothills of Otay Mountain and the adjoining Otay Mountain Wilderness. The county recently released the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the project, which provides a 45-day public review and comment period ending Monday, Aug. 10, at 4 p.m. You can access additional information about the project and submit comments at this link. This marks the first opportunity the public has had in the 15-year life of the permit application to weigh in on this project. In addition, San Diego County Planning and Development Services is conducting a rare on-line and phone-in public meeting and teleconference to discuss the project TODAY, Thursday, July 9, from 1 to 3 p.m. Please try to attend this public meeting in order to demonstrate that residents are paying attention to the Otay Hills Quarry project, and that this is the wrong location for a quarry or any other use. The meeting can be accessed via this link: https://tinyurl.com/OtayHillsQuarry If you'd rather access the meeting by phone, you can call (619) 343-2539 and use the conference I.D. 685 237 335#. Democrats for Environmental Action Applaud Board of Supervisors Vote to Reject Lilac Hills Proposal6/25/2020 By Mia Taylor The controversial 1,700-home Lilac Hills Ranch development, a project fraught with wildlife safety concerns and a long list of environmental challenges, has been officially rejected by the Board of Supervisors by a 4-1 vote, a decision San Diego Democrats for Environmental Action says was long overdue. "At long last, it's a validation of our club's long-standing concerns about habitat loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and fire risk that the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has denied Lilac Hills Ranch the General Plan Amendment it sought," said Cody Petterson, president of San Diego Democrats for Environmental Action. The Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday against the master planned Valley Hills project with only District 5 Supervisor Jim Desmond, who represents the part of the county where the project would have been located, voting against staff recommendations to deny the project. "This important, long overdue victory, will hopefully send a message to developers that projects which ignore the county's General Plan are unacceptable," said Petterson. Proposed by developer Ranch Capital, the Lilac Hills proposal dates back some 15 years, and was soundly rejected by nearly two-thirds of voters in a countywide referendum in 2016. Despite superficial repackaging, the proposal brought before the current Board never fully addressed fire safety concerns, and remained inconsistent with the county's General Plan. "Lilac Hills has been one of the region's most persistent zombie projects," said founding club president Tommy Hough, who now serves as the club’s director of policy. "County planning denied it in 2009, and then came the colossal defeat of Measure B in 2016. Lilac Hills has been a loser with the courts, voters, and public safety professionals." "When you have to spend your time trying to convince residents your development won't put their families in mortal danger of dying in a wildfire on a winding two-lane road, you've already lost," said Hough. "Voters figured that out in 2016, but the surprise on Wednesday was a majority of the board similarly came to the realization that Lilac Hills and other loser developments like Newland Sierra are politically indefensible." Despite the defeat of Lilac Hills, Petterson warns the battle to protect San Diego's fragile environment and open space from harmful, habitat-destroying sprawl proposals is far from over. "This important vote further underscores the critical importance of changing the leadership on the Board of Supervisors in District 3 if San Diego's environment is to be truly protected over the long term," he said. "In tandem with their abject subservience to land speculators and sprawl developers, there will always be private equity firms like Ranch Capital eager to exploit the Republican Party's disdain for our environment, our climate, and the will of voters," said Petterson. "Make no mistake, so long as the Board remains in Republican hands, this zombie project will continue to haunt us. Wednesday's vote reinforces the importance of flipping the District 3 Board of Supervisors seat in November to secure a durable, reliable Democratic majority on the Board." San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action opposed the Lilac Hills Measure B ballot initiative in 2016, and stood against backcountry sprawl in our advocacy for countywide Measure A earlier this year. This San Diego County Board of Supervisors' 4-1 rejection of a General Plan Amendment (GPA) for this latest repackaging of the Lilac Hills zombie project marks its third defeat since 2009. Read Tommy's comments for more. Photo by Diane Means
By Tommy Hough
In a surprise move, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has opted to reject the long-running Lilac Hills Ranch proposal. Called "unsafe" by Cal Fire San Diego Unit Chief Tony Mecham at today's hearing, and recommended for denial by county staff in a highly unusual move, Lilac Hills was one of our region's most persistent and durable "zombie projects." Initially denied by county planners in 2009, and at the ballot box with the defeat of Measure B in 2016, Lilac Hills was a loser with the courts, voters, and fire safety professionals. Hopefully the cycle of approving reckless sprawl developments in fire-prone areas is, at last, reaching an end. My remarks today before the Board of Supervisors follow: My name is Tommy Hough, I live in Mira Mesa. I'm the V.P. for policy and former president of San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action, and I support the staff recommendation to reject the Lilac Hills development. In 2016 our organization was active in the effort to defeat what was then Measure B, which was the Lilac Hills ballot measure. As you may recall, it was soundly defeated, as residents throughout the county made it clear, as they did again with Newland Sierra on the primary ballot this March, that sprawl development must not be the future of this county, and is not the highest or best use of the rural areas and open space in our county. We are not Riverside County, and this county should make it a point of pride to resist the temptation to throw open our wildlands, watersheds, and wildlife corridors to sprawl housing developers as has occurred there. If you take a trip north on the 215 to Perris and head east to Hemet, the signs along the road aren't placed by counties or municipalities, but by sprawl housing developers. You know their names. It's clear who holds sway there. It is not a future we should embrace here. When I ran for San Diego City Council in 2018, I often spoke about our housing crisis, and cited areas within the district I was running in (District 6) where denser housing is a functional option that would require some tweaks to zoning laws, but would enable residents to live within our already-established urbanized footprint, near transit, and the abundant employment centers in our district in Sorrento Valley, Mira Mesa, and Kearny Mesa. Furthermore, to claim that any of these homes or housing are truly affordable for average San Diegans, is a gross distortion. Unless we're talking about developer-subsidized, or government-subsidized housing, it will NOT be affordable for the majority of working San Diegans. And housing should not be predicated, anywhere, on the false premise that "affordable" housing at the level this area clearly needs can be achieved by setting aside a required percentage of homes that developers can simply buy their way out of. This is to say nothing of the wildfire danger, and significant greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for new miles traveled to and from manufactured cities in our backcountry like that proposed with Lilac Hills. It is no longer 1980, and the cycle of approving these reckless developments in fire-prone areas must end. Stop putting citizens in harm's way. There is nothing safe or responsible about this project. Please approve the motion and support the recommendations of staff and county fire in opposition to the Lilac Hills zombie project that was so soundly defeated when it was on the ballot four years ago. By Chris Pearson Thank you for visiting the San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action website, and thank you for your efforts and interest in furthering the mission of the San Diego County Democratic Party. As successful as Democrats have been the last two election cycles in San Diego County, the reality is we need candidates. A lot more in fact, to contest and run in seats that otherwise go without any competitor against a GOP incumbent. Do you think that's the right way to carry on in a democracy? By letting seats go unchallenged? Then help us recruit candidates to run throughout San Diego County. This Excel spreadsheet lists offices currently held by Republicans unopposed by Democrats. It's not secret information, it's all quite public, but we've pulled it all together for you in one handy document. The takeaway? We need candidates, and we especially need them in East County. Most of these seats have governing majorities recruited by Trump Republican-supporting megachurches like Skyline, Foothills, and Shadow Mountain that deny climate change, are anti-labor, support gay conversion therapy, and purchase school science books that teach creationism and evolution as equal theories. For the most part, Democrats have never run for these seats – ever. We need to change that. The filing period is Monday, July 13, to Friday, Aug. 7. There is no primary for these races, and it's winner take all in November. We've never done a data dive like this into these races, i.e. "who's in the moderate to high propensity universe," or "where do their eyes go," or "what messaging works for persuasion and turnout," but a lot of these seats can be won with a few hundred or a few thousand votes. They're winnable. But first, we need candidates to run. Please share this post on any platform you deem appropriate, and forward this to anyone you know who may be interested in running or helping to recruit candidates. A list of Democratic Party candidates currently running for seats in November is available on-line at the San Diego County Democratic Party website. Many thanks. Chris Pearson is a long-time Democratic activist who served as community development manager to San Diego City Councilmember Marti Emerald, and as a training coordinator with the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. He currently serves as V.P. for political action with the La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club, and can be reached at (619) 889-9257. Photo by Tommy Hough By Tommy Hough
Maxim One: Everything that Trump comes in contact with, good or bad, innocent or guilty, dies an early death in reputation, career, conscience, or lifespan. Maxim Two: If Trump touches or meddles with anything you love or cherish, like our environment or our democratic heritage or humanity in general, it too will die an early, ugly death (see maxim one). Maxim Three: Donald Trump is President of the United States, and will continue to inflict maxims one and two on all of us until he is driven from office. When Ryan Zinke, the most corrupt Secretary of the Interior of our modern era, moved to redraw the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah in 2017, it was an unprecedented act of desecration, and a terrible harbinger for our nation's conservation heritage that will only become more pronounced and destructive should Donald Trump win re-election in November. Prior to the sheer awfulness of the Trump administration, no president or administration had ever moved, erased, altered, or so violated the set boundaries of parks or monuments, certainly not to facilitate oil and gas interests, thereby undoing the very reason they were established as monuments in the first place: to protect them from environmental destruction and exploitation. Certainly no one has ever even attempted to do so in a manner as transparent and craven as Trump. But this is an administration that, in three short years, has:
That's a partial list, of course. Dating back to the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and even Abraham Lincoln, the idea of erasing the boundaries of protected places was considered cowardly, reckless, needless, and defiant of well-worn American traditions of conservation, however imperfect they may be from time to time. One of the more notable, and uglier, exceptions to this was the construction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam along the Tuolumne River at Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park, from 1919 to 1923. Abhorrent as it was, it was voted on in broad daylight as an Act of Congress for maximum culpability, and didn't physically alter the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. But there's no doubt the stress of the Hetch Hetchy tragedy is what killed John Muir. The lesson was crystal clear: Parks and monuments, intended for the benefit of all Americans, are not placeholders until some other project comes along. The resources protected within them are sacrosanct. Previously, presidents and politicians understood that areas protected for conservation had often been the subject of frequently intense, long-term campaigns by communities and generations of activists. After all, National Parks and National Monuments don't fall out of the clear blue sky. They are established because committed citizens demand these areas be saved. Long before and long after John Muir, careers and lifetimes have been spent to preserve such places. Notable instances in California include the campaigns to save surviving ancient Redwoods and end old-growth logging on federal public land, the lengthy effort to preserve the Stanislaus River, the decades-long fight to preserve the wildest expanses of the Mojave Desert, and more recently, the campaign to Save Trestles and stop repeated efforts to build a toll road through the backcountry of San Onofre State Beach along the length of San Mateo Creek. In erasing the intent, meaning, and boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in 2017, the Trump administration deliberately set a terrible, dangerous precedent, and now they're at it in California as oil exploration (!), i.e. the precursor to drilling, begins at Carrizo Plain National Monument along the border of Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, on the southwestern edge of the San Joaquin Valley. Established by President Bill Clinton in 2001, the monument was intended to preserve the native grasslands of this otherwise unusual depression along the San Andreas Fault in a "land that time forgot" that explodes into extraordinary springtime wildflower shows, and prevent the same kind destruction wrought by the oil extraction that goes on around it for 50 miles in each direction in a network of Chevron and Shell oil and fracking fields, some of which are the size of cities. Now, like other affected National Monuments, Carrizo Plain faces an uncertain future. Further north in the Central Valley, Giant Sequoia National Monument in Tulare County was similarly put on notice in 2017, and sold out by that county's own board of supervisors, who applauded the move (!) and even asked Trump to shrink the monument. Sickening. If we hope to preserve our nation's natural heritage and spirit of preservation – to say nothing of the nation itself – then Donald Trump and his destructive anti-leadership must be soundly defeated and driven from office like the environmental and Constitutional criminal he is. To use an oil and water example, this president and a healthier planet are simply incompatible. As he has demonstrated on far too many occasions when he has turned American against American and neighbor against neighbor, from his Central Park Five accusations to Charlottesville and Lafayette Square, Trump's lifetime of toxic words, deeds, and destructive rhetoric have revealed zero interest or capable curiosity in crafting a more perfect union or bringing our nation together. Trump is the toxic darkness that seeks to divide, conquer, and pillage. No amount of light or empty riches will ever satisfy his corrupt heart. In any ordinary era, he would've been a disaster. In the midst of actual crises like a pandemic and unchecked foreign interference in our elections, to say nothing of our nation's social reckoning in the wake of George Floyd's murder at the hands of police, Trump is anathema to democratic traditions (see maxim one). Staring out into the emptiness from the steps of St. John's Church on June 1st, shortly after he and his pack of jackals followed White House security forces that literally gassed and beat the shit out of citizens gathered along the route, waving a Bible around as a cheap prop for all to see, Trump became the living embodiment of Vishnu in his cruelest form. From the Hindu text of the Bhagavad Gita, it was Trump revealing his soulless, blackened heart to our nation and its people: "I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." Plenty of us already knew, of course, long before Trump took the oath of office. That toll continues to be played out on our nation, our people, and our future. On refugees jammed into coronavirus-ridden concentration camps, kept in cages on freezing concrete floors. On families willfully and deliberately separated, tossed into the wind for maximum angst and emotional trauma. On black men and women harassed and murdered by police who turn off body cameras and use chemical weapons not even used in warfare. And on our wild refuges of America, heretofore and hopefully left untouched by today's daily Washington psychodramas. Our long national nightmare of Trump continues. Banner photo by Tommy Hough |
Green Thoughts
The blog component of San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action welcomes content from SDCDEA members, guests and leadership. Archives
October 2023
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