Friends,
Last evening, when it became clear that our campaign had lost the race for mayor, the pain in my chest was so deep that it was nearly unbearable.
Susan found me and hugged me. She was crying. I was afraid to cry. Afraid that I might never stop.
We both got our jackets and started to leave the party. As we passed through one of the big tents set up in the parking lot, I realized that something was happening on a stage that I could not see. It was being projected on to the roof of the tent.
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick was speaking. He was speaking with great passion. We stopped to watch.
Jake was saying that we had won. We had won a battle against corporatism. With only one tenth the money and with the media entrenched in our opponents' camp, we had won 47.5% of the vote in San Francisco. An outsider, an unknown, a total underdog was able to articulate the passion of 110,000 San Francisco voters for justice and democracy.
Following Jake, three other Supervisors, a Public Defender, and a past mayor - all Democrats - echoed Jake's excitement for this victory.
The pain in my chest subsided. We went back into the room that was reserved for the full-timers, people who had devoted most of their waking hours for the past 100 days to this campaign for social and economic justice for all people.
The healing had already begun. People were beginning to realize that, indeed, we had won a major victory. We had brought the National Democratic Party to its knees. They were forced to send their last President and Vice President to San Francisco to shore up the failing campaign of one of their ilk - a Democrat in name only. They had come to our city to defeat a candidate who sounded like a real Democrat. They had revealed to anyone who cared to look that it was even more important in their minds to beat back our movement than to beat Republicans.
It was an astounding victory for us.
The revolution HAS indeed begun.
For those of you who don't live here, I'd like you to be aware that in order to win this race, the Democratic campaign used every dirty trick used by the Richard Nixons and George Bushes of this world. They lied; they attacked families. They behaved contemptibly.
The New York Times referred to this mayoral campaign as "Left vs. Lefter".
Bull shit!!
That headline reflects social definitions that no longer exist. They perpetuate a myth about the Left that prevents Americans from understanding the true nature of this movement.
This was and continues to be a battle between corporate interests and social values, between profits and compassion, between privilege for the few and economic justice for the many.
This revolt in San Francisco is part of a much larger global movement.
It is growing quickly in America as more and more people begin to understand its true nature.
It cannot fail because it represents in a very profound way our deepest human desires, the aspirations that give meaning to our humanity: justice and fairness for every person who lives among us.
Tune in.
And DON'T drop out.
Your pal,
Charles
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