What is military newspeak? It is a mumbling, numbing speech by an Al Haig or a George W. Bush. More subtly, it is a TV ad by Boeing – soft music and soothing voices over images of bombers gliding noiselessly through the clouds. Their mission? To defend our freedoms. How? We don’t need to ask. We know. They will soon be dropping bunker busters on un-shown apartment blocks, producing…well…“collateral damage” – all off screen of course. Military newspeak is, in short, a mélange of obfuscating euphemisms designed to hide the truth, desensitize our sense of morality, and re-image reality. Like that Boeing ad, it can manifest itself in non-verbal, sometimes subliminal, forms such as that little American flag that keeps flapping in the upper left hand corner of the Fox News screen or the steady drum beat (literally) that opens each CNN newscast, virtually shouting “War, War, War! Terror, Terror, Terror! Fear! Fear! Fear!” It’s all designed to jangle your nerves, disorient you, instill fear…and conflate fear with patriotism.

One danger of military newspeak is that it conditions the mental muscles in much the same way that video games do – to react instinctively, violently to perceived threats. Enemies are not to be understood or reasoned with. They are to be bombed – killed – as quickly as possible. No questions, no regrets. The worst danger of all, however, is how it creates obstacles to clear thinking. For clear thinking – critical thinking – is necessary to a well-functioning democracy. And, in the current circumstance, our democracy is crumbling under the weight of military newspeak just as surely as Lebanese democracy has been battered by American-made bombs. Our capacity to resist has been dangerously eroded by the rapidity and thoroughness with which the militarization of the American language has proceeded and there is no Edward R. Morrow or Walter Cronkite out there to shout “Wake up, America! Before, it’s too late, wake up!”

None of this is to say that, to one degree or another, we haven’t experienced such things in the past. Remember that Strangelovian Cold War doctrine Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD? Funny thing, it was so mad, it was sane, allowing us to traverse a nearly half-century long nuclear standoff. Closest we came to losing it was Cuba 1962, when we called a blockade – an act of war - a quarantine and, doing so, averted war. Then there was Vietnam where we used to throw about terms like “vertical envelopment,” “pacification,” and “free fire zone,” the latter being an enemy-controlled area where anything was a “legitimate” target. You could kill anything that moved – a water buffalo, the farmer directing a plow behind it, or a child playing in the nearby village. It was a misuse of language that clouded our thinking and numbed our morals to the point of producing a My Lai…and countless other My Lai’s from the air.

In the current circumstance, however, the abuse of the American language has reached pandemic proportions. If we are to resist, we must recover some sense of what’s happening. Let me give just a few examples to encourage you to look more closely at – and behind – the now steady diet of obfuscating euphemisms we are being fed. It’s called the hermeneutic of suspicion.

In many ways, the Cold War over-lapped and merged with the anti-colonial wars of the fifties and sixties – usually against our British and French allies. Vietnam was one such war. There were others – in China, Malaya, Algeria, Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia, Angola, the Congo, to name a few. As a class, they became known as wars of national liberation. The Cold War being what it was, we normally sided with our colonial allies in seeking to thwart these local struggles for self-determination, while the Soviets usually provided support to the home-grown “freedom fighters.”

Lacking the resources of the occupying colonial armies, many of the “freedom fighters” adopted terror – the “poor man’s bomb” - as a weapon and a tactic in increasingly unconventional, always “asymmetrical” wars. Thus, in the eyes of the “civilized world” – i.e., the colonial metropoles of Europe – “freedom fighters” became “terrorists.” But, as we saw in Algeria and Central America, the colonial armies learned well how to be terrorists themselves – witness, the “Contras” in both Nicaragua and Algeria and the death squads in Guatemala and El Salvador. And it was in Algeria that the French elevated the use of terror and torture to an art form, transforming their vaunted “civilizing mission” into a grotesque caricature. In this regard, I highly recommend General Paul Aussaresses’ memoir, The Battle of the Casbah. And, too bad our leaders watched “Patton” rather than Pontecorvo’s masterful “Battle of Algers” before invading Iraq. Had they learned their French lessons, they might have learned how much such warfare can corrupt the would-be overlords…and we would not have to learn how to pronounce such words as Abu Ghraib and Haditha.

So what is the nature of this new “asymmetrical war” we’re involved in. No, I don’t mean Iraq, which began as a conventional limited war and has now deteriorated into an equally conventional guerrilla or civil war. No, Iraq is an unfortunate sideshow to what the President and his Secretary of Defense (Hard to believe Rumsfeld’s still there!) insist is a “Global War on Terrorism” or GWOT. Oh, it’s real enough. Too many people have died already. But, in the minds and mouths of our leaders, it takes on an other-worldly air of fantasy. As we try to wrap our minds around the concept, we find ourselves adrift in a sea of newspeak, on shifting ground, increasingly unsure of what is real and what is unreal, our fear approaching panic. And our leaders are no help, as they rush to feed the fantasy and the fear.

How is it a war? Where is “terrorism?” What is its capital? How is it “global?” Have disparate, unrelated grievances merged into what the Newt Gingrich’s of the world see as “World War Three,” into a cataclysmic “clash of civilizations,” or into some millennialist Armageddon. To be sure, there are some on the religious right who pray for Armageddon and are cheered by each new manifestation of death and destruction. Others, on the secular right, have their own Bible - Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.

Huntington’s is a truly dangerous book, a sort of Mein Kampf for the GWOT. Written in the mid-nineties, when the military-industrial complex was searching for a new “enemy” to replace the collapsed Soviet Union, it depicts the by-definition culturally superior West in a “civilizational war” with Islam and, to a lesser degree, China. All is black and white, life and death, kill or be killed…good and evil. No need for nuance. No need for understanding beyond “they” are bad, we are good. Simple minds latched on to such simplicity as an explanation for all the bad happenings in the world, missing even Huntington’s recognition of the causative tension between modernization and fundamentalism.

In the hands of our leaders, Huntington’s thesis was fashioned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the wake of September 11 – the work of a fanatic spawned by the fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia – we faced, we were told, an “axis of evil” comprised of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, none of whom (save perhaps Iran) had anything to with the attack on the World Trade Center. A nice pre-election catch phrase, it bore, however, no relationship to the real nature of the threat we faced from the Middle East. Arabs – and Iranians – don’t “hate our freedom” or our “way of life” (save perhaps the coarseness of our materialism). They hate a century of deception, colonialism, occupation, exploitation, and humiliation visited upon them by the West.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, we properly attacked Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda (which had attacked the World Trade Center and other American targets around the world such as the USS Cole and the American Embassy in Nairobi) and to take down the Taliban who harbored al Qaeda. An irony – lost on the American public – was that the Taliban had - a bare two decades ago - comprised the mujaheddin or “freedom fighters” that we had armed and trained to resist the Soviet invaders of the time. Fighting us, they became terrorists.

Unfortunately, we quickly lost interest in Afghanistan, never deploying enough boots on the ground, allowing Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership to slip through our fingers at Tora Bora, and allowing the Taliban to reconstitute itself as a credible fighting force in what has become a forgotten war and a side show in the GWOT. Equally unfortunately, the deaths of American soldiers there continue – four last week, three the week before…forgotten – worse yet – never noticed – except by their families.

For still unfathomable reasons, our Commander-in-Chief and self-styled Decider (formerly known as the President), who, he allows, doesn’t think much about Osama bin Laden, decided it was time to move on. It was time for a “war of choice.” So he decided to invade Iraq. We opened this pre-emptive war (formerly known - in places like Nuremberg - as aggressive war) with an aerial campaign of “shock and awe.” Despite our best use of smart bombs, this surgical strike produced extensive collateral damage in the form of thousands of civilian dead in a burning city. Stuff happens!

Within two months, however, the Commander-in-Chief could declare the “end of major fighting.” Mission Accomplished! And, over the next three years, we succeeded in transforming Iraq into the Central Front in the Global War on Terror - another singular accomplishment requiring the recruitment and importation of thousands of foreign fighters to bolster the Saddamist dead-enders who have been in the last throes for the last year or so…ever since the Decider issued his “Bring ‘em on!” challenge and pinned those Medals of Freedom on the architects of success – George Tenant, Tommy Franks, and Jerry Bremer. For nearly that same time we have been “on the verge of civil war.” Freedom is on the march! The progress is palapable. Only last month, for example, we posted a new monthly record for Iraqi civilian dead – 3,438! And the total of young American soldiers killed in Iraq now approaches the number of deaths on September 11. All we need do now is stay the course. Now, there’s a winning strategy!

So steady has been our progress into sectarian violence (aka civil war) that, by early summer, a clear majority of Americans had lost interest in the project, many entertaining “cut and run” as an antidote to their boredom. We no longer wanted to hear about IEDs and car bombs and even the diversions of Paris Hilton, Baby Suri, airborne pedophiles, and assorted serial killers proved to be insufficient distractions. Even such Republican patriots as William Buckley, George Will, Pat Buchanan, Chuck Hagel, John Warner, and John McCain started to yearn for something more than “stay the course.” And, despite the stalwart “Democrat Party” support from Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, and others, the need to change the subject became clear to Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman and, through them, the Commander-in-Chief.

Enter a welcome Deus ex Machina in the form of Hamas, Hezbollah, and a neophyte government in Israel intent on proving its collective manhood. Down in Gaza, some Hamas hotheads took hostage a hapless Israeli soldier, while up north Hezbollah kidnapped two other members of the Israeli Defense Force or IDF and started lobbing World War II-era Katyusha rockets into the Galillee. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who was still in the midst of his on-the-job training, were faced with several choices: launch commando raids to rescue the captured soldiers, negotiate for their release (as had been done on several occasions in the past), unleash some limited proportionate response such as destroying the offending rocket launchers…or do what they had apparently been itching to do for some time (even, according to Sy Hersh, going so far as to tout their plans at the Pentagon) – impress the world, especially the Arab/Muslim world with the crushing power of “asymmetrical deterrence,” the Israeli version of shock and awe. A strategy designed by Ariel Sharon, asymmetrical deterrence demands a wildly disproportionate response to impress upon an aggressor and future aggressors the ability of the IDF to inflict unacceptable pain at will. As the Israeli Defense Minister put it, he would insure that the Lebanese “will remember the name of Amir Peretz.”

Despite the fact that such disproportionate response is generally viewed as immoral and illegal (cf. Just War theory and the rules of war), the temptation proved too great. Thus, with not only another green light but active support from Washington, the Israeli Air Force was unleashed by IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Halutz on the whole of Lebanon and a hapless Gaza. In Lebanon, within days, whole neighborhoods and towns were turned into rubble, the country’s infrastructure destroyed, more than a thousand civilians killed, and the “Cedar Revolution” left reeling – the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” In Gaza, the entire population was thrown into darkness in the middle of the sweltering summer with the destruction of the main, American-financed power plant and some twenty members of the democratically-elected Palestinian government were arrested to join the 10,000 or so other Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners already in Israeli jails. (Allow me here an aside on the power of words as illustrated by treatment of these captives in the American media. Good guys are “kidnapped” or “taken hostage.” Bad guys are “captured” or “arrested.”)

As the destruction proceeded, the American left went mute, the media, by and large, became cheerleaders for the IDF, and neo-cons like Bill Kristol declared this “our war.” And George W. Bush made it “our war” by air-lifting to Israel re-supplies of bunker busters and the cluster bombs, thousands of which remain scattered around southern Lebanon in what a UN mine removal expert called “an angry and very volatile state. More importantly, he ordered Secretary of State Condi Rice and our interim-appointment UN Ambassador John Bolton to thwart efforts to secure a cease-fire…even a humanitarian 48-hour cease fire to remove refugees and provide medical assistance. The Decider had decided that it was the role of the United States to provide Israel time to “finish the job,” to destroy Hezbollah once and for all.

This time, however, the IDF was not up to the job. In the twenty-four years since its last real war, an ill-trained, poorly equipped, ineptly led IDF – seventy percent of which is composed of reservists – was not up to the job. Occupation duty does not translate easily into combat competence. This came as a surprise to the Israelis and to us. Even now, we are scrambling to cobble together a face-saving cease-fire and wondering aloud who “won” – Hezbollah? Iran? Syria?

More important questions are “Who lost?” and “What did we lose?” The Lebanese lost – not only in their deaths, but in the destruction of their infrastructure and the damage to their “Cedar Revolution.” The Israelis lost – not only in their deaths, but also in the damage done to the IDF’s aura of invincibility. Above the United States has lost. We have lost our preciously guarded role as an “honest broker,” leaving the “peace process” and the “road map” in shambles. We have deepened the hatred – throughout the Middle East – of the United States and increased the numbers of young men willing to act on that hatred. And, by allowing the strengthening of Hezbollah, Syria, and, above all, Iran, we have weakened our ability to defend our interests in the area and to prosecute our vaunted Global War on Terror.

Five years after September 11 – five years full of babble about “Homeland” Security, yellow and orange shades of fear, and the “ideology of terror” – we are far less secure than we were then. Our military is hollowed out, demoralized, just plain broken. It is no longer capable pursuing our most basic – and most worthy – interests much less the grandiose dreams spun of the White House’s overblown rhetoric. And no amount of words – newspeak or otherwise – is going to change that reality.

Words, however, retain meaning, because they reveal a culture’s understanding of the world, attitudes toward it, and sometimes serve as predicates to action. For these reasons we should study how others use them. And we should be far more careful about how we use words, for they are being studied by those “others.” And subtly and over time they work their effect on us. They can incite, in their heat, unwise actions or, in their subversive softening where clarity is needed, can benumb us and weaken our resistance to the same unwise actions.

Take a word like torture that must – for the sake of our souls - remain clear in its meaning. It finds meaning not so much in the eye of the beholder – eyes do not easily lie – as in the mind of the beholder, for the mind always entertains the possibility of rationalization. John McCain knows what torture means. Unfortunately, Alfonso Gonzales and Donald Rumsfeld do not, or will not. They stretch the limits of grammatical parsing, declare “quaint” settled standards of morality, and allow the President to append an unworthy signing statement to his signature on the tough anti-torture legislation sponsored by Senator McCain. No wonder we’ve become inured to Rush Limbaugh’s and Bill O’Reilly’s high school humor about “Club Gitmo.” No wonder we fail to protest when General Geoffrey Miller – Miller of Guantanomo and Abu Ghraib - retires “honorably” with a Meritorious Service Medal on his chest.

And take our easy acceptance as “robust” such phrases as regime change and pre-emptive war – un-American phrases that have found their way into the pages of the National Strategy Strategy of the United States of America. Take also the President’s embrace of so offensive a term as Islamo-Fascist, a term popularized by a hate-mongering talk show host and softened only to Islamist-Fascist in the President’s mouth. Does he know how that sounds in the Middle East? Does he care? I doubt it. For in the closed mind of our Decider, there is no need to understand or talk with our growing number of real and potential enemies in the Middle East. Iran? Syria? No need to talk with them. “They know what they have to do.” We’ve told them.

And, if they don’t do what we’ve told them? In our militarized lexicon, they’ll “suffer the consequences.” We’ll bomb them. We’ll kill them. We know how to do that. That’s all we know any more. Trouble is, we can no longer follow through on our threats. It’s time to stow the “newspeak” and to start speaking truth to our friends, our enemies, and, above all, to ourselves.

      But there are local, Vallejo-specific reasons for our opposition. Let’s begin with saturation marketing. The “supercenter” Wal-Mart wants to put in Vallejo is just one of several it plans to cluster in close proximity to each other in Solano, Contra Costa, and Napa counties. Indeed, as I wrote here last year, if it gets its way, we might as well change the name of Solano County to “Wal-Mart County.” The “supercenter” it intends for the old K-Mart site at Redwood Street and Sonoma Boulevard would be 3.5 miles from the one it’s building in American Canyon and, I hear rumored, the one to come in Benicia; about seven miles from one it plans for Suisun City; nine from another in Fairfield; ten from the one Hercules is fending off; maybe a dozen from another in Richmond’s Hilltop Mall; and only slightly further down the road from other stores in Antioch, Concord, Dixon, and West Sacramento. Get the picture?

      Think of the businesses and jobs that would be threatened by a Wal-Mart “supercenter” at Redwood and Sonoma – Mervyn’s, Raley’s, Albertson’s, the Seafood City we welcomed with justified fanfare just a few years ago. Concerning Seafood City, just across the street from the proposed Wal-Mart store, good friends have said to me “Don’t worry, Wal-Mart wouldn’t sell fish or Filipino specialties.” But that’s precisely what they would sell…and at predatory prices designed to undercut Seafood City.

      And, then, there’s the nature of the site itself – an environmentally sensitive property on the shores of the White Slough we are attempting to rehabilitate. It is a site that is protected in the White Slough Redevelopment Plan which restricts development to residential/small scale commercial mixed use – the sort of development that, in business terms, also jibes with the city’s plans for the commercial renaissance of Sonoma Boulevard.

      But VFRG is opposed to a Wal-Mart “supercenter” anywhere in Vallejo. Why? Because Vallejo is a city that is on the cusp of commercial developments that portend a marked upswing in the economic well-being and quality of life for all its citizens. I have in mind the development of our downtown, our waterfront, and Mare Island. Indeed, Triad’s plans for downtown and Lennar’s plans for housing, tourism, and light industry on Mare Island have drawn front-page attention in recent editions of the San Francisco Chronicle’s real estate section. These are developments which will, at last, make Vallejo a quality place to live and tourist destination worthy of its people and location. Accepting a Wal-Mart “supercenter” in our midst, however, would earn us the sobriquet “Cheap Town” and set us back a decade or more. Can you imagine Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Nugget, or Barnes and Noble wanting to invest in a downtown only a mile or so from a “superstore?” Accepting a “supercenter” would be the kiss of death for our downtown development. Were we to do so, we would kill that Golden Goose or at least the golden egg we’re incubating.

      Hopefully, however, our City Council will have at least the same vision and gumption shown by those in Hercules and Turlock. As in Hercules and Turlock, Wal-Mart’s blue-suited bullies have barged into town and arrogantly claimed that they know better than we do what’s good for our city. Will we plan our city or will they? Will our City Council members stand up as their colleagues did in those other towns? They will if you get involved and tell them what you want. The message? “We live here. We know what’s best for Vallejo and what we want and don’t want. And we don’t want Wal-Mart!”

      How can you get involved?

• Come to Planning Commission and City Council meetings and let the members of the Council know that you don’t want a Wal-Mart “supercenter” in Vallejo.

• Send your tax deductible donations to: Vallejoans for Responsible Growth, PO Box 4570, Vallejo, CA 94590.

• Help us circulate our petitions at the Saturday Farmers’ Market and elsewhere.

      To be sure, we will never have anywhere near the money that Wal-Mart will pour into this fight, but we have people power. Remember, it only takes a little over 6,000 votes to get elected to the Vallejo City Council. When, as in the LNG struggle, we presented them will more than 10,000 signatures in opposition, they got the message. Let’s send them another message. We can do it!

And – through it all – my flag flapped proudly out front… as usual and unfortunately, one of the few in my neighborhood. But, as the Chronicle’s editorial on the Fourth (“Patriots, awaken”) put it, “The health of American democracy…is not measured by how much red, white, and blue is displayed on any given day. It is the sum of all who stand up to be counted when the defining freedoms of this republic are under assault.”

And, since they are, I’m back – after eight months of weary silence – to stand up and speak out for those freedoms and for all that is good and just and under assault in this dear country. As Alfred Camus once said about his country in a time of trial, “I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.” For my part, I refuse to let anyone force me to choose between the two.

• Launching an aggressive war without just cause;

• Lying to the Congress and the public to build support for that war;

• Conducting warrantless domestic wiretaps and searches on unsuspecting Americans;

• Compiling a vast data bank of our phone, e-mail, and financial records and sifting through it in an apparently resurrected version of John Poindexter’s illegal “Total Information Awareness” program;

• “Disappearing” suspected “terrorists” into an American-run gulag stretching from Bhagram to Guantanamo;

• Disregarding, in the case of American citizen suspects, the requirements of habeas corpus, the right to speedy trial, and the right to face one’s accusers;

• “Rendering” others to unknown locations in Eastern Europe and to countries known to torture prisoners as a matter of course;

• Exempting ourselves from the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, international treaties ratified by Congress and, therefore, having the power and weight of law in the United States;

• Engaging in the torture of captives in our hands;

• Evading the President’s constitutional obligation to “faithfully execute the laws of the United States” through the vehicle of more than 700 “signing statements” in which the President arrogates to himself the “right” to decide what portions of the laws Congress has passed and he has signed he will actually execute;

• Propagandizing the American people by paying “independent columnists” to parrot the administration line, peddling faux news stories, and seeding faux reporters in the White House press pool;

• Leaking classified information about critics within the government;

• Undercutting the First Amendment, most notably, freedom of the press by attacking and intimidating journalists who would seek to investigate or simply question such erosions of our freedoms; and

• Spreading debilitating fear throughout the land for narrow political gain, trivializing and postponing the addressing of the profound issues facing this nation, and labeling “unpatriotic” those who disagree.

  Where is the outrage? Where are the real patriots this first day after our 230th Fourth of July? Where are the true conservatives who would defend the Constitution and that Declaration of Independence, the signing of which we just celebrated, against the radicals in the White House who would so cavalierly ignore or trash them? Let me repeat what that Chronicle editorial had to say by way of closing:
  

  The men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not doing so to commission an annual party. They were making a covenant with history that requires day-to-day- vigilance to defend the liberties it asserted. Honor them by speaking out.

  I undertake to do just that. I have been silent for too long. I can no longer do so, lest - again to paraphrase the words of the Chronicle - the absence of outrage on my part be taken as a nod of assent.

  I hope, as we proceed in the months ahead, you will share my outrage and speak out yourself on the local, national, and international issues that will be addressed on these pages. You might begin by sharing your comments below.

  I hope, too, you will share my abiding and profound love for our country and for justice. They are indivisible and worth fighting for.

  ]]> 2006-08-11T06:13:38Z 2005-11-12T22:38:40-08:00 tag:www.vickigray.com,2005://2.36 2005-11-13T06:38:40Z
  As someone else once said, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And I want to thank all Vallejoans who came out to vote last week. The turnout – far...
  Vicki VickiGray.com mrhutchins@gmail.com Column

  As someone else once said, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And I want to thank all Vallejoans who came out to vote last week. The turnout – far heavier than normal – was heartening and bodes well for democracy in this city we all love.

  I especially want to thank those of you who opened your hearts and your homes and who supported me with your time, your talents, and, yes, your hard-earned dollars. You were the wind beneath my wings and I am deeply grateful.

  I also want to thank those thousands of you who put your trust in me – and Stephanie - on election day. Your votes and her election have sent a strong and hopeful message. It is morning in Vallejo and change is coming.

  That change, however, will not come easily and not without our continued involvement. Please, please, stay involved – for a better Vallejo, for our children. I pledge to be there with you.

  Thank you, again. Maraming salamat. Gracias.

  ]]> 2006-08-11T06:14:08Z 2005-10-26T21:14:25-08:00 tag:www.vickigray.com,2005://2.35 2005-10-27T05:14:25Z
  Last night, October 25, 2005, a 92-year-old lady died in Detroit. We never met, but she changed my life…and all our lives. She was 42, when she boarded that Montgomery bus in 1955. I was 16, a sophomore in a...
  Vicki VickiGray.com mrhutchins@gmail.com Column Last night, October 25, 2005, a 92-year-old lady died in Detroit. We never met, but she changed my life…and all our lives. She was 42, when she boarded that Montgomery bus in 1955. I was 16, a sophomore in a New York City high school, coming of age at the end of an age, oblivious, as was she, of the shape of the new age just dawning.

  I’m speaking, of course, of Rosa Louisa McCauley Parks, who, of a December day in 1955, refused to give up her seat at the front of a bus to a man – a white man – and who for that “crime” was arrested, booked, and photographed, her “mug” shot numbered 7053.

  ]]> Martin Luther King, Jr. was then but 24, fresh from Boston University, full of himself and Reinhold Niebuhr, and intent not so much on social justice as on balancing the budget at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church as a brand new pastor. Dr. King had been at Dexter but a year and, as Charles Marsh noted wryly, “understood that ministerial success depended on polish in the pulpit and people in the pews.” And, so, he preached…forty-six times that first year at Dexter, seven guest lectures at other churches, and another thirteen at colleges around the country.

  Montgomery at the time was the same size as Vallejo – 120,000 – but, although forty percent of the population was African American, not one sat on any city board or commission. The average annual income for a black family in Montgomery was $908 and every aspect of life there was strictly segregated by the Jim Crow laws that ruled the South of the time…including where one could sit on a bus.

  Two days after Rosa Parks, already a ten-year veteran of the NAACP, got herself arrested on that bus, plans were launched for a boycott of Montgomery’s buses by the city’s blacks. Ralph Abernathy set about organizing the city’s black clergy behind the effort and focused on recruiting the new young preacher at Dexter. Dr. King resisted, citing the need to tend to Dexter’s annual meeting and preparing the church budget. Abernathy prevailed, however, and, on December 5, 1955, Martin took the reins of the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Montgomery bus boycott. His and our lives would be changed forever.

  And our lives – Martin’s and mine – would come together in August 1963, when, beneath a tree near today’s Vietnam Memorial, I listened to Martin’s Dream.

  Recalling the youthful optimism of that dream, I shed a tear tonight for Rosa Parks, for Martin, and, yes, myself, as I remembered what Rosa said in 1988: "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die - the dream of freedom and peace."

  That’s a dream we can’t let die, I won’t let die. On my desk, in constant view, there’s a short poem by Langston Hughes. It reads:
  

  I take my dreams and make of them a bronze vase and a round fountain with a beautiful statue in its center and a song with a broken heart and I ask you: Do you understand my dreams? Sometimes you say you do, and sometimes you say you don’t. Either way it doesn’t matter. I continue to dream. Won’t you, too, continue to dream…of that “fulfillment of what our lives should be"?

  ]]> 2005-10-14T05:42:07Z 2005-10-13T21:37:41-08:00 tag:www.vickigray.com,2005://2.34 2005-10-14T05:37:41Z
  We’re nearing the home stretch and Vicki is running faster, stronger than ever. Here are a few events along the way at which you can catch up with her and share with her your thoughts on how our city should...
  Vicki VickiGray.com mrhutchins@gmail.com Column We’re nearing the home stretch and Vicki is running faster, stronger than ever. Here are a few events along the way at which you can catch up with her and share with her your thoughts on how our city should be run:

  Sunday, October 16, from 2:30 to 5:00 p.m. – Join Jill Cress and her friends at 34 Sandy Beach Road for an afternoon soiree – a fundraiser for Vicki - hors d’oeuvres, beverages, d’jour, a view to die for, and a chance to exchange views with our next council member. Suggested donation $25. Please RSVP to Vicki at 554-0672.

  Sunday, October 16, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. – Race Vicki from Jill’s to the candidates forum at the Vallejo Masonic Hall, 101 Temple Way, sponsored by the Sierra Club/Solano Group, Vallejo Heights Neighborhood Association, and Vallejoans for Community Planned Renewal. This forum, moderated by the League of Women Voters and taped for later broadcast on channel 27 or 28 by Vallejo Community Access Television (VCAT), will focus on issues related to the environment and land use. The event is free but please RSVP to Jeff Kingman at 642-2100.

  ]]> Thursday, October 20, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. – Vicki’s Glen Cove neighbors are especially invited to this forum at the Glen Cove School, Glen Cove Parkway at North Regatta. Another free chance to grill all the candidates.

  Friday, October 21, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. – Vicki, a senior herself, will join other candidates at a forum at the Florence Douglas Senior Center, 333 Amador Street. Free and open to all.

  Saturday, October 22, from 3:00 to 5:00 – A meet-up with Vicki and concerned Mare Island residents who are of one mind that Vallejo is not a dump! Discuss with her what we have to do to save our regional park on Parcel 12 and stop Weston’s plans to dump toxic Bay sediment literally in the backyard of Mare Island’s pioneers. Call Wendall Quiqley at 557-2526 for details.

  Monday, October 24, 7:00 p.m. – Join Vicki at the Planning Commission to oppose plans to amend the Mare Island Specific Plan to allow use of Parcel 12 – our regional park – for ancillary dredging operations and re-opening of the dredge ponds bordering new residential areas and the San Pablo Wetlands.

  Tuesday, October 25, 7:00 p.m. – Pack City Hall, 555 Santa Clara Street, as Vicki and many others seek to thwart a hurried vote on the Waterfront EIR. Demand revisions contained in alternatives and postponement of a Council vote until after the election. Make your vote count.
  
  Thursday, October 27 – Possible NAACP candidates forum. Details TBA.

  Friday, October 28, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. – With the finish line in sight, let’s party to ensure that it marks the end for all those good ole boys who’ve ruled this town for far too long. Moka Davis and John Walker provide the wine, cheese, and good vibrations for this fundraiser at JoMoka House, 637 Georgia Street, designed to put Vicki over the top. Suggested donation $25. Please RSVP to John and Moka at 554-0567.

  Sunday, November 6, from 11:30 to 12:30 – Vicki takes a final breather to offer an insider’s take on running for office – the physical toll, the ethical challenges, and the spiritual opportunities. St. James Episcopal Church, 4620 California Street (at 8th Avenue), San Francisco. Call Vicki at 554-0672 for further details.

  Tuesday, November 8. Election Day. Please vote! And look for details on Vicki’s victory party. That will not be one to miss.

  
  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
  2 Timothy 4:7

  ]]> 2005-10-22T20:56:39Z 2005-10-09T13:29:41-08:00 tag:www.vickigray.com,2005://2.33 2005-10-09T21:29:41Z
  Recently someone who had read my literature asked “I know what you’re against. Now tell me what you’re for.” Fair enough, and deserving of a thoughtful answer. For all Vallejo voters deserve to know who and what they’re voting for and are right to demand that the candidates state clearly where they stand on the issues of importance to the city. I have tried to do just that in countless one-on-one conversations, in letters-to-the-editor, in op-ed pieces, and through vehicles such as this. Sometimes, however, such attempts at clarity and specificity get lost in a cacophony of meaningless 30-second sound bites and buried beneath the mounds of trashy signs. And they certainly don’t get reported on the news pages of the Times-Herald.
  Vicki VickiGray.com mrhutchins@gmail.com Column Recently someone who had read my literature asked “I know what you’re against. Now tell me what you’re for.” Fair enough, and deserving of a thoughtful answer. For all Vallejo voters deserve to know who and what they’re voting for and are right to demand that the candidates state clearly where they stand on the issues of importance to the city.

  I have tried to do just that in countless one-on-one conversations, in letters-to-the-editor, in op-ed pieces, and through vehicles such as this. Sometimes, however, such attempts at clarity and specificity get lost in a cacophony of meaningless 30-second sound bites and buried beneath the mounds of trashy signs. And they certainly don’t get reported on the news pages of the Times-Herald.

  So, what to do? Let me list, as clearly, as succinctly as possible, where I stand on the issues facing Vallejo today and tomorrow, for and against. If you want more detail or have a question, just send me an e-mail at vgray54951@aol.com. All I ask is that you ask the other candidates where they stand on these issues. Mull over the answers – theirs and mine – and, then, vote.

  The Good Ole Boy Network.

  The bottom line in this campaign really is best summed up by that question I’ve posed: “Had Enough?”

  I pledge to open the doors and windows at city hall to let in the fresh air and bright light of scrutiny that have too long been absent in the backrooms where sweetheart deals have been concocted for favored insiders. No more “auto malls,” no more bail-outs of private speculators, no more bargain basement sales of downtown properties, no more waiving of developers’ fees and sales taxes, no more lavishing of city funds – your money – on a do- nothing chamber of commerce.

  A key element of breaking up the ties that bind among the good ole boys will be breaking the link between the City Council and the Redevelopment Agency. Most of the dirty work with developers and speculators gets done when the council adjourns and reconvenes a few seconds later as the Redevelopment Agency. It will take revisiting the city charter to break this link. But there may be other reasons for opening the charter, for example, to get a handle on GVRD, the Greater Vallejo Recreation District, and to staunch the firefighters’ draining of our city budget.
  
  Kurt Henke and the Firefighters’ Union

  I pledge to vote with the growing consensus on the City Council to reopen negotiation of the contract with the firefighters’ union. The current salary scale and staffing requirements are simply unsustainable. Without such a renegotiation, the city faces bankruptcy.

  This is not an anti-union position and I consider myself the strongest pro-union person running. In Vallejo I have stood with the UFCW and the SEIU…as I did – physically – with Solidarity in Poland. I know what solidarity means. Moreover, other city employee unions like CAMP and the IBEW have reached equitable agreements with the city without the threats and histrionics of the IAAF’s Kurt Henke.

  For far too long Mr. Henke, who does not live in Vallejo, has used such threats and tens of thousands of dollars funneled through United for a Better Vallejo, the erstwhile fire/police PAC, to influence election outcomes in Vallejo. With a seat on the chamber of commerce board, the firefighters have also ensured that the chamber, through its PAC, VALPAC, would funnel additional thousands of dollars to the same candidates. And this year, in a feat of backroom legerdemain, the firefighters have folded themselves into the Napa-Solano Central Labor Council, thus assuring themselves a veto over an independent labor voice that might diverge from theirs.

  This inter-locking directorate has not served the best interests of the working men and women and taxpayers of Vallejo, but rather the well-heeled firefighters who have drained the city treasury to maintain their six-figure salaries and who, in their majority, live out of town. It’s resulted in lowered expectations and diminished possibilities for our people. This has got to stop. As I’ve said elsewhere, enough already!

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  Downtown and Waterfront Development

  Yes, I support the long-overdue development of our downtown. Dense in-fill housing in a commercially and culturally vibrant downtown core is exactly what we need

  And, I support the development of our historic and scenic waterfront in ways that would preserve the broad swath of green along Mare Island Way, minimize traffic-generating housing on Parcel A, and mesh with the downtown development in ways that would draw tourists from the ferry landing into the cultural/commercial heart of Viejo Vallejo. That means preservation of our green spaces for our festivals and children and a widened vista at the foot of Georgia Street lined on either side by restaurants, cafes, and shops beneath dense blocks of apartments and condos. And, as a former bookseller, I would be the first to applaud the arrival of a quality bookstore in our city.

  Under no circumstances should Georgia Street be closed in by a hotel and convention center (more on that in a moment) or Mare Island Way lined with more cookie-cutter, cheese box office buildings like that State Farm monstrosity. Offices can and should be located in commercial areas (e.g., along Sonoma Boulevard). They do not generate the after-dark pedestrian traffic we want downtown.

  Housing downtown and on Parcel A should contain an adequate share of low and moderate income units. Elevations of buildings should reflect the historic/architectural character of Vallejo and not, as State Farm does, Emeryville. And, under no circumstances, should any future housing on Parcel A or anywhere else in Vallejo be allowed to lock itself behind fences and locked gates. Gated communities are antithetical to a healthy Vallejo.

  None of this is rocket science nor anti-business. Sound waterfront development can be achieved reasonably quickly by Callahan-DeSilva and with a reasonable profit.

  After three-decades of to and fro on the waterfront, it is time to move forward on its development. But, let’s do it together, with adequate citizen input and considered council consideration, and with goodwill on all sides. And, as we approach this realization of our long –dreamt dreams, let’s not blow it with a mad dash to the finish. In this regard, let me state, as forcefully as I can: We’ve waited thirty years. Won’t you wait three more weeks to vote in council members who represent your views on this definitional issue for Vallejo. Please, don’t let the city council pass the waterfront EIR before the November 8 election. Make this election count!

  Mare Island

  I’ve been accused of “romanticizing” Mare Island. As a Naval Academy graduate and combat veteran, I plead guilty. Mare Island is the historic heart of this city and it deserves preservation as a national treasure and a tourist attraction that will put Vallejo on the map – not as a “gateway” to somewhere else but as a job-creating destination Vallejo.

  To that end I fought to protect Mare Island from the LNG facility and power plant proposed by Bechtel, Shell, and our city officials. And I’m fighting now with the new residents of Mare Island to protect our regional park, our San Pablo wetlands, their children, and the students at Touro from Weston’s plan to re-open the dredge ponds on the island’s western edge – a hare-brained, small-minded scheme apparently concurred in by our city government, its eyes fixated on a quick and pitifully small buck. I know from my association with Oakland’s Breast Cancer Action, which focuses on the environmental causes of cancer, that the Bay sediment has been poisoned by the runoff from refineries and Central Valley pesticides. Do we want to truck that toxic muck through our regional park and residential neighborhoods? I don’t think so. Please send a message to the city council: Vallejo is not a dump for the rest of the Bay Area!

  My vision for Mare Island is the development of our promised regional park on Parcel 12, that hill at the south end; a “Seaport Village” of shops and restaurants on Parcel 11, the Vallejo-facing waterfront strip zoned for waterfront-commercial (where Bechtel and Shell wanted to put their power plant); a living history museum comprising the drydocks, Civil War-era red brick buildings, and cranes; and, in those red brick buildings, our hotel and convention center. Having lived near Baltimore for many years, I know how respectfully, tastefully, successfully one can proceed with such development. Fells Point is a key tourist attraction on Baltimore’s waterfront. Mare Island can be the key tourist attraction on Vallejo’s waterfront. And tourism is a job-creating, pride-inducing industry worthy of this can-do Navy town.

  And Mare Island should be home also to new industries in Vallejo – not the trash of LNG or dredge ponds, but clean, well-paying, future oriented high tech jobs. We’ve lost Genentech to Vacaville, Lucas Films to the Presidio, and any number of computer-oriented businesses to Silicon Valley. Vallejo has, as a Triad rep said at city council, “great DNA” – its people, buildable space on Mare Island and location, location, location. We don’t have to accept whatever comes down the pike. We need to seek what we want!

  Environmentally Sound Development

  Look at our hillsides. When I arrived here a decade ago, they were green. And we had, I thought, a master plan. Over the last decade, however, I’ve seen that master plan ignored, as we’ve filled every last hillside, every last green space with service-starved ticky-tacky developments, my own included. And now they’re plowing Bordoni Ranch, the last green space between Vallejo and Benicia. There will be houses chock-a-block, just feet apart. But what about schools, public safety, water, parks, markets, churches – all the things that make a city a city.

  Isn’t it time to put a stop to runaway sprawl, to dust off the master plan, and consider the costs of new housing to the city and the costs to new residents deprived of basic services? Hiddenbrooke should get a fire house, Glen Cove should get a park, Northgate should get a market, and we should all get adequate schools and churches.

  Wal-Mart and Other Big Boxes

  Need I say more? You can browse “Vicki’s View” for these past several months and plumb all the reasons why I think Wal-Mart is bad for Vallejo and bad for America. Simply put, it is anti-labor, anti-competitive business, and an exporter of American jobs. For Vallejo, a “supercenter” on Redwood and Sonoma and eight within 13 miles would be the kiss of death for downtown and waterfront development and mean the loss of hundreds of good union jobs and existing businesses.

  I understand the desire for senior citizens (of which I am one) for one-stop shopping. I understand also the desire of the unemployed and under-employed for any job. But, in the sense of solidarity I mentioned earlier, I ask you to consider the price for “low prices always” and our shared obligation for a new generation of workers trying to raise a family in the Bay Area.
  
  Bottom line? Wal-Mart is a bottom feeder. And we don’t have to sink to their depths.

  I will continue to oppose Wal-Mart or any other non-union chain (e.g., Home Depot) that seeks to expand in Vallejo. I and others will be aided in that effort by the big box ordinance passed last month by the city council.

  I promise, moreover, that I will not stop at seeking to keep Wal-Mart out. I will seek a desirable tenant business for the old K-Mart site at Redwood and Sonoma and seek to develop that site in accordance with the environmentally-sensitive White Slough Area Plan which envisages mixed residential/waterfront commercial development and rehabilitation of the White Slough Lagoon as a fully tidal, nature-sustaining estuary.

  Crime and Public Safety

  There is no more meaningful charge we can lay on a public official than to demand accountability for the public safety of all our citizens. I will not skimp on that score be it with regard to police or fire protection or emergency services. Indeed, I will seek to fund a fire house at Hiddenbrooke, not out of the city’s reserves but out of savings achieved from a renegotiation of the firefighters’ contract, and will seek to put more police on the street, including if possible, reinstitution of the downtown bicycle patrols.

  The North and South Vallejo Police Sub-Stations should be maintained. And, let me assure you, I will never vote for silly proposals such as those last spring to turn out street lights in the middle of blocks or to levy 911 fees for emergency calls.

  Nor should we skimp on ensuring adequate community-based development grants (CBDG) for effective violence-preventing, hope-inducing programs such as Fighting Back, the Omega clubs, and grassroots neighborhood programs such as Gail Williams’ Stop the Violence campaign.

  Arts and Culture

  Vallejo has a vibrant – and varied – arts and culture scene of which we can all be justifiably proud and which we and the city government should support. I have sought to do my part, purchasing the works of Vallejo’s artists, occasionally reading my own poetry at Listen & Be Heard, and serving on the board of V-CAT, our fledgling public access TV station which should be on the air this month.

  The city government, however, has fallen flat on its face on any number of occasions in terms of its support of arts and culture. Witness its near-decision this spring to zero out funding for the Naval and Historical in favor of turning the entirety of the TOT or tourist occupancy tax over to the Visitors and Convention Bureau. The TOT should be shared evenly among our tourist-generating cultural institutions such as the museum.

  Equally egregious toward the end of August was the decision to look the other way while Comcast and an overly eager Lincoln School principal committed cultural vandalism by painting over the beloved historic mural that has for years graced the school’s wall on Sonoma Boulevard. That mural should be restored to its original condition – something that can be done by Harold Beaulieu and his student artists working from Harold’s detailed photos of the original.
  
  Schools

  The city council is separated from and has no jurisdiction over the school board. I pledge, however, to develop good relations with our elected school board officials and teachers and administrators throughout the school system.

  I will seek also to maximize areas of cooperation between the city, schools, GVRD, and our cultural institutions to reduce costs and enrich the learning environment.

  And I urge you to take an interest, especially as parents, in the school board elections and in the daily running of our schools. Go to PTA meetings, talk with your children’s teachers, and, above, talk with your children.
  
  Parks

  One thing I have had difficulty understanding is why Vallejo, with essentially the same population as Fairfield and Vacaville, has half the parkland as those cities, most of it not nearly as well maintained. I have the impression that GVRD is broke and broken.

  I am open to other suggestions, but wonder why GVRD cannot be absorbed into the city government. However it is done, GVRD has to be made more responsive to the needs and desires of Vallejoans. Perhaps something as simple as making the appointment of board members more competency-based and more transparent would suffice. I look forward to discussing possible solutions with citizens and, consistent with the Brown Act, with officials of GVRD.

  *********

  This may have run on a bit too long, but I thought you deserved to know where I stand. You will probably disagree with some of my positions but at least you’ll know what they are and what you’re voting for. I hope, however, that you’ll agree with most of what you’ve just read and that you will appreciate this effort at candor and plain speak. And I hope that you will seek similarly clear statements from the other candidates and vote with your head and your heart for a better Vallejo. Together we can do it!

  Finally, I sincerely solicit your comments and questions. I can be reached at 554-0672 and vgray54591@aol.com. Thank you very much for listening to me. I promise to listen to you.

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