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The level of denial on the panel was stunning. I think that I've been part of more winning campaigns over the past ten years than the whole panel combined. Eileen is the only one who has worked on a winning campaign over the past year, both of us on Friends of Ethics who beat Wiener's Props E and F on a shoestring using grassroots organizing.

As predicted, the room was full of nonprofit staffers, perhaps 80% in attendance, folks who've been paid to organize their communities but on whose watch progressive power has faded. Is there no accountability for this failure to win elections? Why do these people continue to get paid even though the situation on the ground is only deteriorating?

The level of prejudice in the room against a majority of San Francisco voters was typical of the insular single issue politicos in attendance. Presumptions that people will not vote "progressive" because of their income, ethnicity or queerness status whittled down any potential electoral coalitions down into the high 30%s.

I am sorry that Eric Quezada is dead. But Eric's third place showing in D9 in 2008 demonstrates that even in the progressive heartland, progressive voters have priorities and values that do not coincide with the agenda of the nonprofit nonorganizers.

The presence of San Francisco Rising, an organization dedicated to increasing participation by people of color was interesting. SFR Action Fund endorsed Ed Lee #2 after Avalos. What was curious was that it went without comment that the inclusion of Potrero in D10 was an act of racism that allowed progressive whites to pick the negro best suited to progressive tastes over the preferences of the black communities in BV and HP.

That progressives abandoned Tony Kelly because he was white in a very close race echoes the abandonment of Eileen in D8 in 2000 because the race was seen as unwinnable. The issue of dividing communities of color was raised only when it divided perceived progressive communities of color. The proposed map incorporated the entirety of the Portola into D9 which in effect divided the Asian American communities at the borders of D9, 10 and 11.

Most tellingly, the proposed map made D8 somewhat more conservative in order to remove any D8 precincts from the Eastern Neighborhoods planning area. Why was this proposed? In order to prevent the D8 supervisor from having any appointments on the Eastern Neighborhood Citizen Advisory Committee. Why is that a concern? The ENCAC allocates community benefit dollars to community groups. As one who is not a land use professional and is not a nonprofiteer, my land use knowledge puts me in the 1% of that arcana. Yet I've applied to three supervisors to be on that CAC but been rejected because I'd cast a critical eye onto funding allocations, and I cannot be trusted in that respect. This is all about people getting paid irrespective of whether they are failing or succeeding at accomplishing progressive political goals.

Not to dis Eileen, but one reason she came up short in D8 in 2000 was that she was associated with the people's budget which is more accurately the nonprofit service provider and client's budget. Nothing wrong with that but it did not have anything in it to appeal beyond the realm of liberal white guilt. Missing from progressive budget priorities are public-facing services, Muni, Rec and Park, DPW and infrastructure and ending the rampant corruption in those departments. It gives those outside of liberal guilt land and the nonprofit sector nothing to grab onto. Successful electoral coalitions offer something substantial to a majority of voters. That should go without saying.

For Calvin Welch and Fernando Marti to mention that D6 had grown to 24K over the average without mentioning that it was the crappy land use deals that they'd cut because they refused to organize communities to contest them was astounding but typical. They fought my more progressive proposals and did not even use them to open up more space to make greater asks. That is cooption in action. They have lost the war and are riding San Francisco's east side down from the B52 like Slim Pickens in "Dr. Stranglove."

The main impediment to contesting corporate political power in San Francisco is not the district map. It is the inability and unwillingness of professional progressive nonprofiteers to put their narrow interests aside and put forth an inclusive political message that appeals to San Francisco voters. Progressive appeals to voters have fallen flat because progressives did not deliver policy outcomes to voters during their ten years of governance and because voters see progressives as coopted by municipal corruption and of no use to fight for the honest delivery of government services to which we are entitled under the law.

Power uses two main tools to contest challenge: cooptation and repression. The nonprofits have been domesticated and coopted. They offer no structural challenge and systemic challenge only lives on the bookshelves. The occupation proposed structural change and got repressed brutally. Ross Mirkarimi offers structural change to law enforcement and look what power is doing to him because he gave them a toehold. Until we see nonprofits getting slapped down in any significant way, we know that they are holding back from what needs to be done.

The time to influence redistricting was over the past 5 years when progressives declined to make themselves relevant to most voters and lost elections that appointed task force members. This shamelessness and inability to acknowledge that losing elections has consequences, expecting to be able to shame power into abandoning its base and doing their bidding is psychologically interesting. Ted Kaczinsky was correct in his assessment of the psychology of modern leftism, namely the oversocialization of leftists and their feelings of inferiority/victimhood.

I support the proposed Redistricting Task Force draft map because liberals and progressives can win if we tailor an appeal to SF voters instead of the narrow bases. And if nonprofits can't or won't do that, this map will dilute their power and render them less relevant electorally. Less electoral relevance will mean less funding and that will remove them as obstacles to implementing the kind of structural change that can challenge the rampant corruption that is denying San Franciscans honest government services.

What are you going to do, bleed on Redistricting?

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