By Dick Meister

The Fourth of July, as we all know, is Independence Day. Hurray for George
Washington and the revolutionaries, down with King George and the British.
That sort of thing.

But have you ever wondered what it's like on the other side? Have you ever
celebrated the Fourth across the border in Canada, in that territory settled
by pro-British "Loyalists" who fled the United States after the
Revolutionary War? It is a most peculiar experience for one accustomed to
the American way of viewing the events of 1776.

My wife Gerry and I observed the Fourth on the other side once -- in
Fredericton, the beautiful little capital of New Brunswick, named in honor
of King George's second son, Frederic. Going into Fredericton meant going
into the camp of a former enemy - a friend now, but a former enemy who
openly hailed the "Loyalists" who fought for them against us. I mean people
who opposed our revolution and never even said they were sorry.

Our first stop was the hallowed Loyalist Cemetery near the banks of the
Saint John River at the far end of Waterloo Row, burial ground of
Fredericton's revered founders - anti-American Tories, the lot of them. We
trudged down a muddy path to a ring of trees around a swampy grass clearing
in which the Tory heroes lay, prepared to utter a revolutionary sentiment or
two over them in honor of the holiday.

We managed to get a quick look at a couple of thin, well-worn, tottering
slate headstones - but that was all. Before we could even open our mouths,
they struck - angry swarms of dread North woods mosquitoes. Backwards we
dashed. Quickly. Very quickly. We slapped at each other as we squished
awkwardly over the wet ground, batting mosquitoes off hair, face, neck,
arms, clothes. Much buzzing. Much stinging. They were everywhere. The
Tories' revenge. For days afterward, we bore the swollen red marks of the
Loyalists.

More insults were to come, in the Legislative Assembly chambers downtown.
The chambers are elegant: ornately carved desks, elaborately patterned silk
wall covering, thick crimson carpeting. But look up on the walls, in the
places of honor on either side of the Speaker's chair. To the left there's
a portrait of George III, the very monarch we made a revolution against, to
the right a portrait of his queen, Charlotte - and both painted by no less a
master than Joshua Reynolds.

George is in fact treated much better in New Brunswick than he generally is
in Great Britain. Historians there ridicule him for being a bit of a loon
and for such loony acts as overtaxing the American colonists and
overreacting to their protests by then waging war against them. In
Fredericton, they think George did the right thing.

In the United States, of course, we celebrate the end of colonialism. But
in Fredericton they seemed to yearn for its return. Union Jacks flew from
staffs all over town and portraits of Queen Elizabeth and her consort hung
in government and private buildings everywhere. Ceremonial guards outside
City Hall wore the white pith helmets, long crimson jackets and black
uniform trousers of the British colonial soldier.

Just behind City Hall stand the restored quarters of the British garrison
that was stationed in the city for more than a century, one of the buildings
now housing a museum full of anti-revolutionary twaddle. Captions below
portraits of leading Loyalists praised them for "faith, courage, sacrifices"
against Yankees, who were for the most part described as violent, crude,
rude and vulgar.

Here, too, a portrait of George III hung in a place of honor. Among the
Loyalists singled out was that other fine fellow, Benedict Arnold, who lived
in New Brunswick before slinking off to Mother England in 1791. At least the
museum keepers had the decency to own up to Arnold's "reputation for
crookedness."

Loyalists also are favorites in New Brunswick's neighboring province of Nova
Scotia, particularly in the capital of Halifax. There, the American
revolutionaries are portrayed as bad guys who would have made Nova Scotia a
U.S. colony if the British hadn't beefed up their garrison on Citadel Hill,
a massive fortress that towers high above the city, guarding every access,
be it by land or by sea.

The champion Loyalist stronghold is the New Brunswick city of Saint John.
"Loyalist City," it's called. It has a Loyalist Burial Ground, naturally,
but also a Loyalist Trail, Loyalist Apartments, Loyalist Coin & Collectibles
shop, Loyalist Pub and, among many other things loyalistic, Loyalist Days,
an annual week-long festival honoring Saint John's founders. At a high
point in the festival 100 or so appropriately costumed Loyalists - "His
Majesty's Loyal Troops" - fend off a brigade of actors portraying American
rebels attempting to "capture" Saint John.

The latter-day Loyalists claimed to like us nevertheless. In Fredericton,
for instance, a half-dozen U.S. flags fluttered smartly outside the Lord
Beaverbrook Hotel, the city's finest, and the marquee proclaimed, "We Salute
our American Friends. Happy 4th of July."

Sure. Funny, though, that they forgot to call off the mosquitoes.

Dick Meister lives in San Francisco, but has spent a lot of time among our
former enemies in Canada.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Note: In July of l972, when the Guardian was short a Fourth of July story, I sat down and cranked out this one for the front page on my trusty Royal Typewriter. I now reprint it each year on the Bruce blog, with some San Francisco updates and postscripts.)

Back where I come from, a small town beneath a tall standpipe in northwestern Iowa, the Fourth of July was the best day of a long, hot summer.

The Fourth came after YMCA camp and Scout camp and church camp, but before the older boys had to worry about getting into shape for football. It was welcome relief from the scalding, 100-degree heat in a town without a swimming pool and whose swimming holes at Scout Island were usually dried up by early July. But best of all, it had the kind of excitement that began building weeks in advance.

Next week, Congress is scheduled to vote on reauthorization of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which directs $2.2 billion annually in federal grants to small technology businesses across the country.

The problem, according to Hauge and White, is that the House bill contains a provision which changes the definition of small business to include subsidiaries of multinational corporations and companies that are majority-owned by multi-billion venture capital funds and other large financial institutions, including foreign financial institutions.

Click here to read their statement. They recommend that people call Rep. Nancy Pelosi's office and Rep. Jackie Speie's office to oppose the changes and keep the original SBIR small business eligibility criteria in place.

The UN Takes Charge

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – While discussions about economic “green shoots” continue unabated in the United States, in many countries, and especially in the developing world, matters are getting worse. The downturn in the US began with a failure in the financial system, which quickly was translated into a slowdown in the real economy. But, in the developing world, it is just the opposite: a decline in exports, reduced remittances, lower foreign direct investment, and precipitous falls in capital flows have led to economic weakening. As a result, even countries with good regulatory systems are now confronting problems in their financial sectors.

On June 23, a United Nations conference focusing on the global economic crisis and its impact on developing countries reached a consensus both about the causes of the downturn and why it was affecting developing countries so badly. It outlined some of the measures that should be considered and established a working group to explore the way forward, possibly under the guidance of a newly established expert group.

Kamala Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, has set up a laudable program called Back on Track that offers counseling and job training for first-time drug offenders who otherwise would be clogging up the local jail.
A handful of the people who went into the program were undocumented immigrants. Some completed the program successfully and were allowed to graduate.

This is a problem?

San Francisco Celebrates The 40th Anniversary of Woodstock
Announces Partial Huge Line-up For Free Concert
Golden Gate Park — October 25, 2009

Event: “West Fest” Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock
Producer: 2b1 Multimedia Inc. and the Council of Light in association with
Artie Kornfeld, the original producer of “Woodstock 1969”
When: October 25, 2009, 9am to 6pm
Where: Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA USA
Non-Profit: 501-(c) 3
Admission: FREE
Contact: Boots Hughston, 415-861-1520 www.2b1records.com/woodstock40sf or woodstock40sf@yahoo.com

June 25th, 2009—Acts confirmed with more to come: Country Joe (Country Joe and the Fish), Denny Laine (Paul McCartney, Wings, Moody Blues), Lester Chambers (the Chambers Brothers), The Original Lowrider Band (with Lee Oskar), Harvey Mandel and the Snake band, Barry “The Fish” Melton, David Denny (Steve Miller), Alameda All Stars (Gregg Allman's Band), Michael McClure (Beat Poet) and Ray Manzarek (the Doors), PF Sloan, Michael Narada Waldon, Jimmy McCarty (from Detroit Wheels), Peter Kaukonen (from Jefferson Airplane), Terry Haggerty (from the Sons of Champlin), John York (from the Byrds), Leigh Stevens (from Blue Cheer), The Great Jeffersonian Tricycle (members of the Original Jefferson Airplane), Greg Douglass (from Steve Miller), El Chicano, Cathy Richardson (Starship), David and Linda La Flamme (from it's a Beautiful Day), Lydia Pense and Cold Blood, Lost Creek Gang and the Merry Pranksters, featuring, Ken Babbs, George Walker, and Mountain Girl, Scoop Nisker - KFOG, David Harris - speaker, Ben Fong -Torres (Rolling Stone), Jose Neto and Friends, Dennis Peron and Richard Eastman (Marijuana Initiative), Terrance Hallinan (Former SF DA),

Poster Artists series: Staley Mouse, Arnold Skolnick (original Woodstock 69 poster artist), Chris Shaw, Mike Dolgushkin, Wendy Wright, David Singer, Wes Wilson, Mark Henson, Carlon Ferris, Dave Huckins, Lee Conklin, Bob Masse, Andrew Annenberg, Victor Moscosco, Michael Moss, Thomas Yeats, Chrissy Costello, Gilbert Johnson, Ron Donovin - Fire House Crew.

In honor of Jimi Hendrix, who headlined the festival in 1969, 3,000
guitar players will attempt to break the World's Record for the Largest
Guitar Ensemble playing "Purple Haze" -- all at the same time!
Players are encouraged to register at:
www.steveroby.com/Jimi_Hendrix_Archives/Register.html
OVERVIEW:

Woodstock was not just an event, a happening, or a concert with 400,000 people. It was a pivotal moment of realization for an entire generation, an epiphany, a moment of realization for the entire country. The hip movement started in San Francisco a couple of years earlier in the Haight Ashbury and the “Summer of Love” had spread across the nation. There were now millions of hip people with 400,000 of them converging on Woodstock.

Woodstock was a statement to the world, “humanity had evolved”, coming together through peace, love and spirituality. An event whose original intent was to make money became the largest FREE event in history. The hip movement had come of age and was recognized by the world. The principles of love swept the country and we had become the 'Woodstock Nation”.

Hundreds of San Francisco stars and musical luminaries will perform at this October 25, 2009 event to commemorate the original principles of peace, love and spirituality. The Woodstock 40th will begin with a blessing by the American Indigenous People and several Beat Generation poets. There will be many speakers from the Peace Movement, the Free Speech Movement and the Anti-War Movement along with many of the acts who originally performed at Woodstock (to be announced). There will also be an “Eco Friendly Green Village” highlighting the products, services, and information of the emerging green movement.

Lee Houskeeper
Managing Editor
San Francisco Stories
615 Burnett Avenue, Suite 2, San Francisco, CA 94131
http://www.sanfranciscostories.com/
(415) 777-4700 Newsservice@aol.com

Thoughts on the death of Michael Jackson

Let there be no doubt about it, I'm saddened to learn that singer Michael Jackson has died.

My sadness isn't, however, because I will miss his music. Truth be told, I don't believe I could name any song he recorded since he sang "Never Can Say Goodbye" or "Ben" -- whichever one came first. I probably heard him sing, however, before most anyone I know. I was stationed outside of Detroit in 1969 and 1970 and I remember watching him and his brothers on local television there.

He was cute and amusing. And it was clear he had a lot of talent.

It was 1993, however, when he sort of stepped into my life and changed things forever. It was when a Los Angeles Police detective blessed me by tipping me to what was, up until today, the biggest single entertainment story in history. I was able to break the story that the police were investigating the famous singer as a possible child molester.

The cost of sending your kid to a city day camp will jump 35 percent. The cost of after-school latchkey programs will go up 112 percent. It will cost a dollar more to swim in a public pool. Annual swim passes for seniors and people with economic needs will rise by $25. And that's on top of the Muni fare hike. Fines, fees and licenses will go up a staggering 41 percent.

In other words, poor people who use city services will see their taxes — that is, the cost of using city services — go up significantly. But rich people, big business, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., property owners — they won't pay anything more at all. (Of course, if you own a small tatoo parlor, your city fees will go up 1,200 percent.)
This is one of the essential lies of the Newsom budget. It's not revenue-neutral at all; it just raises taxes on the poor.
It's also not a budget that shares the economic pain fairly.

Click here to read a recent Meister post, Jack Henning's lifelong crusade

Jack Henning was a notably outspoken and forceful leader, as this sampling from his writings and speeches should make clear:

On the Role of Labor

Although labor is no longer acknowledged as the principal agent of social change in American society, it is the one progressive force with the capacity to build a new and nobler nation. Labor teachings must be honored if the nation is to enjoy liberal priorities, if the nation is to know full employment, racial amity, academic freedom, adequate housing, decent health and the social services of a contemporary state....

The labor movement must remain liberal if it is to survive. We can argue about the definition of liberalism, but we know it as a commitment to wages and hours and conditions of work that are worthy of the human person and as a commitment to the service of all humanity....

Tip: pin down Newsom and pin down the supervisors and everybody who is running for mayor on these critical PG&E moves. After all, in this budget crisis, public power is the largest potential source of new revenue for San Francisco (upwards of $300 million a year) and public power would stop the enormous financial drain of PG&E's expensive private power (PG&E yanks upwards of $650 million a year out of the local economy in high rates.)

PG&E's new attacks on public power

The ability of cities to switch to public power could be eliminated if a proposed state ballot initiative moves forward

By Rebecca Bowe
rebeccab@sfbg.com

A ballot initiative backed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. could amount to a death sentence for community choice aggregation (CCA) and expanded public power in California.

Dubbed the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act, the proposed initiative would require a two-thirds majority vote at the ballot before any local government could establish a CCA program, use public funding to implement a plan to become a CCA provider, or expand electric service to new territory or new customers.

Click here to continue reading.

As Rebecca Bowe reports, a proposed initiative that would require two-thirds of the voters to approve any sort of public electricity measure, including community choice aggregation (CCA), has been submitted to the state attorney general's office. And Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s fingerprints are all over it.

There's no doubt whatsoever that this measure is designed to derail successful CCA efforts in places like Marin County and San Francisco, where the supervisors are moving forward to set up the equivalent of a buyer's co-op for electricity. A San Francisco CCA would offer lower costs and much greener power — and would give the city far more control over its energy future.

The mayor's cheery line may sound good when he's out of town running for governor, but it's not going to play so well on the streets of San Francisco.

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom was upbeat when he delivered his budget proposal last week. It won't be that bad, he told everyone — "At the end of the day, it's a math problem."

Well, actually, it's not. At the end of the day, it's job losses, major cuts to city services, and hidden taxes — most of them, despite the mayor's rhetoric, falling on the backs of the poor.

You can't cut $70 million from the Department of Public Health — which is already operating at bare-bones levels after years of previous cuts — without significant impacts on health care for San Franciscans. You can't cut $19 million out of the Human Services Agency without badly hurting homeless and needy people. You can't raise Muni fares to $2 without taking cash out of the pockets of working-class people. The mayor's cheery line may sound good when he's out of town running for governor, but it's not going to play so well on the streets of San Francisco.

America’s Socialism for the Rich

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

With all the talk of “green shoots” of economic recovery, America’s banks are pushing back on efforts to regulate them. While politicians talk about their commitment to regulatory reform to prevent a recurrence of the crisis, this is one area where the devil really is in the details – and the banks will muster what muscle they have left to ensure that they have ample room to continue as they have in the past.

The old system worked well for the banks (if not for their shareholders), so why should they embrace change? Indeed, the efforts to rescue them devoted so little thought to the kind of post-crisis financial system we want that we will end up with a banking system that is less competitive, with the large banks that were too big too fail even larger.

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister has covered labor and political issues in California for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator. To read a sampling from Jack Henning's writings and speeches, click here)

California lost a remarkable public figure with the death of John F. Henning
on June 4 at age 93. Labor leader, government official, ambassador. Jack
Henning had been all of those - and more - during a career that spanned many
decades.

Eloquent, visionary, forceful, successful. He had been all of that, too, in
what was a lifelong crusade in behalf of those who do the work of the world
and against the wealthy and privileged who exploit them.

Few leaders of any kind have been as liberal and outspoken as Jack Henning,
a gifted orator who had the rare ability to sway people with words as well
as deeds, and few leaders have ever done more for ordinary people.

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a print, broadcast and online reporter, editor and commentator.)

It's been three-quarters of a century since enactment of the National Labor Relations Act that grants U.S. workers the basic legal right of unionization
- the right to bargain with employers on setting their wages, hours and working conditions.

But for all that time, two groups of our most highly exploited workers have been denied the law's protections - farm workers, and housekeepers, nannies, and other domestic workers.