Right Wingers to Rally for Family Values & Flags at People's Park March 3

This anti-abortion, anti-gay gang of warmongers plans to appear in San Francisco at Dolores Park on March 17, the heart of the pro-abortion, pro-gay peacenik community, all of whom should be present. We also celebrate St. Patrick's Day in San Francisco, the day St. Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland, of course. Obviously, some snakes are still slithering around.

no action
clearly this is a reverse freak out the squares type of event that probably one person has planned, and maybe 2-3 people will show up. Seriously - can you imagine any conservative packing up their kids and heading over to people's park in their Ford expedition? It might be vaguely amusing to watch, but they're so unspecified that there wouldn't be much to protest.

As this outfit's website states, they are anti-gay, anti-abortion and pro-war.
In every county of California, including San Francisco and Alameda, two of the few counties that managed to defeat Prop. 22 on the March 2000 ballot, there was sizable support for Proposition 22, the anti-gay marriage initiative, and Proposition 22 easily passed with 61.4% of the vote. The Democrats, like Gray Davis and Al Gore, came out against gay marriage, as well as against Prop 22, the latter just being for votes. Our peace demonstrations remain small as Americans have yet to count the body bags and have yet to connect the dots between social service cutbacks and increases in military spending. The last time we had a pro-abortion march in San Francisco was just before Bill Clinton was elected (and my memory tells me the demonstrations were more than 10 years ago). Those of us who can easily remember when there was no gay liberation movement, no right to abortion and no mass peace movement understand that we must have peaceful, pro-peace, pro-gay rights and pro-abortion pickets of these reactionary rallies to protest these fascists while their rallies are small. That is certainly the lesson of Nazi Germany and it is a lesson we absorbed in our own personal experience right here in the USA.
For the Prop 22 vote, see:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/sov/2000_primary/measures.pdf
The Yes on Prop 22 (anti-gay) vote:
Alameda County: 146,146 or 44.4% Yes
Marin County: 32,022 or 37.2% Yes
San Francisco: 62,371 or 31.9% Yes
Santa Cruz: 31,717 or 40% Yes
Sonoma: 70,572 or 47% Yes
California: 4,618.673 or 61.4% Yes

Fascists and Nazis. Those are rather strong words to describe Gray Davis and Al Gore.

But, hey-- you're entitled to your radical opinions! I just think they're offensive.

Mmmm. their site says that they are protesting the censure of the flag in Berkeley on fire trucks - but that isn't even true - that was a creation of Fox News or something. So he doesn't even know what he's talking about. There are even plenty of flags flying at nearby houses and businesses.
But here's what I think - while it's important to stop reactionary groups when they are small, we all could probably list hundreds of other situations or groups in the bay area that are more worthy of a protest than this person. I mean, where do you start. I think all we could really do is legitimize or bring advertisement to their group. Since I live so close, I might walk by. Right wing and wealthy communities all around the state drive away their mentally ill people and they come to Berkeley and San Francisco. Many wealthy right wingers have zero contact with mentally ill homeless, and are completely shocked when they encounter them - for instance, someone who was considering coming to Cal where I work decided not to come because we took her to lunch on Telegraph and she saw a couple homeless kids. I bet those people show up at the park and get so scared by some folks near the free bin that they run for their SUVs.

These reactionary people are not coming from someplace else. They live, work, vote and pay taxes right here. All of the scapegoating initiatives of the 1990s except the anti-labor initiative passed, with votes from all the Bay Area counties. The anti-labor initiative was barely defeated. The homeless crisis is visible everywhere and not a surprise to these homegrown fascists. They are very well organized and will turn out in large numbers when mobilized. All of the leading Democrats in this area are staunchly pro-war and wave the flag constantly in their speeches. They do not claim to be pro-abortion, but rather "pro-choice," a tepid support at best for our right to abortion. Many Democratic elected politicians have come out against gay marriage, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Gray Davis. The Democratic Party's weak support of gay rights has resulted in very weak local domestic partners laws, which many gays correctly view as second-class marriage.

We are living in an era when the Democrats and Republicans together are actively promoting fascist laws in Congress to silence dissent and promote war. We have a president, illegally "elected," who is openly anti-abortion and is now trying to get the fetus declared a person for purposes of health insurance, thus effectively repealing Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision of 1973 that made legal our right to abortion. There is no gay liberation agenda being promoted by the federal government.

It is imperative that these fascist rallies be taken seriously and peacefully. We have history with us, and our collective, creative intelligence to make our position clear: We are for peace, gay rights and abortion.

As a proud member of San Francisco's gay community, I believe that it is our duty to vocalize our perspectives and views. I grew up in a small suburb of New Orleans where the BAPA people would feel at home. I moved to San Francisco to escape such closed minded persecution. They do have a right to vocalize their viewpoints, but I feel that someone must be there to demonstrate that their racist politics will not ever actualize int he Bay Area. Even if it is 5 lonely men, or 150 of angry Republicans, we of the gay/liberal community should be there to represent what makes Berkeley and SF so beautiful to many of us.

i was shopping on telegraph yesterday afternoon and these people were passing out flyers there. they looked *very* right-wing (suits and ties), and very serious about what they were promoting. their flyers were all over Cal too. i agree with "San Franciscan" that the opposing viewpoint needs to be there in force to show them what this city really stands for.

Regarding the "ban" on American flags on Berkeley fire trucks:

The logic was simple, straightforward, and boring: The flags in question were 'parade' flags, pretty damn big, and they look dandy when a fire truck is moving down University Ave. at four miles an hour in a parade. Removal was requested because of questions about vehicle safety; i.e., can the driver of the fire engine operate the vehicle safely with a flag that size partially obstructing views to the rear)? It was decided to not find out the hard way, and have fire engines display smaller flags.

Told ya it was boring.

Mean Dean

PS#1: My favorite quote regarding stars 'n' bars on cars: "If you really were a patriot, you'd already own a fucking flag."

PS#2: Does it really surprise anyone that FOX news was the one to, um 'contrive' this news item? Murdoch, you schmuck, you're the Cal Worthington of media.

Okay... so this is a group with several chapters?? The amateur web site containing so many errors, including stating that Berkeley has banned the american flag on city vehicles, would have suggested differently.
I'll try to drop by.

But... their flyer says they're having a 'clown for the kids', which means they're probably going to have food and a picnic etc. You know what that means - all the homeless people don't give a damn about their message but they're going to ask for the food because they're hungry. So a situation will arise where these dorks are harrassing the homeless ---which will be very christian of them of course. "What would jesus do?" and all. They'll end up making themselves look bad or stupid w/o much effort on our part.
What were the people passing out flyers doing or saying?

Still, here is a list of more worthy things to protest this next weekend:
1. Chevron. Since our last protest during the WTO meeting in November, there have been about 3 incidents where the oil refineries in contra costa county have had accidents and released mass quantities of sulfur trioxide or other chemicals in the air over the poor communities surrounding their plants. The life expectancy near the plants is up to a decade or more shorter, and very high percentages of kids have asthma. So basically they're killing people. not to mention the broader political connections between oil refining here and our screwed up foreign policy.
2. due to the budget shortfall - which is partially affected by the energy crisis last year which was partially caused by ENRON manipulating the market, the state has to start cutting things. K-12 in Berkeley is having to cut all sorts of teachers and programs, and so do the community colleges. Gov Davis has been emphasizing leaving the UCs alone because he knows where his butter is coming from, but I doubt it will stay for long. But you know what's not getting cut at all: the prison budget. The reasonf or this is that the CCPOA California Correctional Peace Officers ASsociation is the most powerful lobbying group in the state and they are incredibly vindictive against anyone who doesn't do as they say - so more money goes to them even though crime was leveling off at the end of the Clinton administration resulting in fewer prisoners.
3. our screwed up economic system. We are in a recession, and while you keep hearing about out of work technology workers, the people really eating it are the bottom of the rung minimum wage workers who are losing their jobs right now. I've been noticing an increase in street crime lately which probably results from that. the 5 year lifetime state assistance limit is going to kick in for a lot of people this year and they're going to be homeless, and they're also probably going to be homeless on my block here in Berkeley rather than showing up at the walnut creek homes of these Patriotism association idiots. I could go out with a camera and show you dozens of homeless and crazy people within a block of where I live.

By God, it's about time *somebody* started promoting good old fashioned values in this nation!!
If it weren't for God loving patriotic organizations like BAPA, our nation would soon fall prey to the type of vice that we so commonly see parading around in the streets of San Francisco.
I have children, and by God, I want to be sure that they grow up *right*- I want them to understand how important it is to be a Patriot. I want to teach them how important Family Values are, and how important it is to be able to bear arms to defend this great nation against hostile terrorists. But most importantly, I want them to know that they have the right to display the American flag!
Without great Patriots like Wayne Pickering to help us defend against this invasion of immorality, our nation would soon fall into the hands of bleeding heart liberals and find itself in the immoral grasp of homosexuality.
By God, you can count me and several others in to stand PROUD next to Mr. Pickering on Sunday, March 3 when BAPA rallies at the People's Park in Berkeley!!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

and racists too.

If you really want to send these guys packing back to Danville, leave your signs and your silly chants at home. Just sit down, don't say a word to them, and use People's Park for what God intended - drinking beer, smoking dope, and making out with your domestic partner. If they say anything to you, tell them politely that you respect their opinion and that they can fuck off. Trust me. It'll work, and you'll have a lovely time in the process.

does that group still meet or are they taking the winter off?

does that group still meet or are they taking the winter off?

I hang out in Peoples Park. Its pretty weird that their having this event there. I would urge people to let them do their stupid rally without disrupting them. I doubt they'll have more then 15 people there. It'll play into their hands to disrupt them. They can claim how liberals are the censors and they're just there to express that the Berkeley firefighters should be allowed to wave the flag. I'd like to add why i hate nationalistic displays, burning a flag would be stupid also. Undermining nationalism should bedone through explaining class differences in America (i.e, the airlines get bailed out with billions while workers get laid off) not through provactive ineffectual, and uncreative stunts like flag-burning.