From: "Dave Coull" <d.y.coull-AT-dundee.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 16:46:32 GMT
Subject: California


Carpo wrote

>>And your observations on Life In The Belly Of the Great Satan?

Well, during my brief visit, there were lots of thing I liked.
For instance, as well as my own Californian flower, Keri,
I liked seeing loads of ice plants and Californian poppies 
growing wild by the roadside. But I did see some disgusting 
opulence alongside misery. Keri had to visit the VA hospital
as an out-patient, and I saw a lot of poverty stricken Vietnam 
War veterans. And I saw a lot of beggars. One guy had a placard
that read "non-aggressive panhandler"   -   there is a local law
against "aggressive" begging. I saw the Dali House, which
has a furniture arrangement of tables and chairs stuck to its 
outside walls, so that you might wonder which way is "down",
especially if you came across it unexpectedly after a night 
on the town. On Haight Street, a guy came up to me and said
"Hey man, you want to buy some weed?"   -   I think he makes
his living playing the part of hippy and using this nostalgic line
on tourists (but no sale in my case). Also on Haight Street,
we visited Bound Together anarchist bookstore, and enjoyed
a good, cheap (omnivore) breakfast at The People's Cafe.
When we visited the Castro, the gay district, Keri wanted
to buy me a tee-shirt with "The Castro" on it, but I said 
no, because I didn't want anybody to get the wrong idea. 

The population of San Francisco and the Bay area is very varied 
of course. Post Offices have official signs in Spanish, lots
of shop signs are in Spanish, and Daly City, a suburb of SF
with over a hundred thousand inhabitants, is known locally
as "Little Manila".

On April 24th, a few days after I arrived in California, 
the local TV news reported a "political" strike by dockers
(which would be illegal in the UK, but of course what matters
is not what the law says but what rights people  _take_ )
in solidarity with Mumia Abu Jamal. They 

>stopped work at West Coast ports from San Diego 
>to Bellingham, Washington state, in solidarity with
>Abu Jamal   -   keeping at least six ships in the Bay
>area alone from being unloaded. Leaving the docks
>in San Francisco and Oakland, longshore workers
>headed up a  15,000  strong march calling for
>a new trial

I picked up a copy of the San Francisco Bay Guardian,
a free newspaper (paid for by capitalist advertising)
with over 100 pages. The front cover of the Bay Guardian
proclaimed

> Take Back May Day !
>   -   Thousands of San Francisco activists are 
> rallying to reclaim International Workers Day

Inside, the Bay Guardian described plans for a street 
party involving workers and environmental activists :

>Partyers are gathering May 1 to do more than demand 
>better wages, working hours and conditions. They're
>focussing on all the reasons why San Francisco 
>is becoming a less livable town for the working class
>    -    gentrification , rising rents, environmental degradation, etc.

That issue of the Bay Guardian had a picture of the 1998
SF May Day celebrations, with street theatre actors playing
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The Bay Guardian
correctly identified the origins of May Day as a workers'
holiday in

>an 1886 strike for an 8 hour day. During a demonstration
>in Chicago's Haymarket Square,  eight  anarchist
>labor leaders were arrested for allegedly throwing
>bombs. After sham trials, four were executed.

The day before May Day was bright and sunny, 
and Keri and I planned on going, with Keri's
daughter Nadja, to the May Day celebration
in San Francisco. But, unfortunately, May Day
itself turned out to be one of those cold and foggy
San Francisco days, and we figured Nadja might
get miserable if we dragged her along to the event.

The Bay Guardian also had an interesting historical
article about the San Francisco general strike
of 1934. But the most interesting thing, for me,
was to find that this wasn't just "ancient history".
As well as all those West Coast dockers striking 
in solidarity with a prisoner on death row, the latest
group of workers to become involved in struggle
are the bicycle messangers who whizz through
the traffic jams of downtown San Francisco
delivering documents and packages.
The class struggle is alive and well
in California.


Dave