These three superwomen – Ahimsa Sumchai, Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan – are boldly challenging some of the most powerful office-holders in our world. They support each other, and if we support them, we can elect them to replace Gavin Newsom, George W. Bush and Nancy Pelosi. Sound good? Let’s do it! Photo: John Morton

Three years later, after the families had the audacity to file suit - some got nothing; some a token settlement - police "specialists" (SFPD sharpshooters) targeted one of those children, young Tyrelle Taylor, chasing him around the housing complex, shooting him repeatedly in the back and once in the hand - his survival a testament to his strong character and God's grace. A bright, loving youngster, the man of the family since age 9, Tyrelle worked three jobs, giving his pay to his mom and caring for his little sister and brother like a parent. For the past year, he's been locked up in county jail awaiting trial on charges of attempting to do to the cops what they did to him.

The terrorism we hear about in Gaza and Fallujah happens in Hunters Point too and for the same reason - imperial forces using their firepower to grab other people's land, pushing them out and into prison or the graveyard. In Hunters Point, the firepower comes from the police, but the orders come from the mayor of San Francisco.

And it's the mayor who - as if police terror isn't enough - authorizes a big developer called Lennar to poison us with a chemical weapon called toxic dust. Re-elect this mayor and he'll privatize all that remains in the public domain, giving greedy corporations control of our public housing, our public health system, our public parks, even our public libraries ... and the name of the Golden Gate Bridge!

Do we have to grit our teeth and dig in our heels to brace ourselves for four more years of the imperial mayor, Gavin Newsom? No! We DO have a choice. We can elect Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D., our mayor on Nov. 6 - Dr. Sumchai, whose truthtelling in defense of our health and our right to our homeland has graced this column countless times over many years.

Ahimsa can't win, you say - because Gavin has all the money, all the resources, all the police and corporate firepower? Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose family is intertwined with Gavin's, is third in line to succeed to the presidency, to become commander in chief over more firepower than the world has ever known. Yet that gutsy grieving mother, Cindy Sheehan, isn't afraid to take her on. And Cindy, along with Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, has heartily endorsed Ahimsa.

Don't you do any less. I'm looking for every Bay View reader who's a San Francisco voter to cast your vote for Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai. Among her many influential supporters is San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman, who wrote her this poem, a tribute to her candidacy:
Because memory serves an African American
the story of such monstrous injustices
such lashes and blowtorches and ropes,
such cruelty and hatred and blight of body and soul

and because an African American woman
has been the vessel most scuttled yet most enduring,
most swarmed and throttled yet ever emerging
as the open fist of the living community

and because I remember the fighting words
of struggle and compassion that young poet Ahimsa
sounded in the days that are no different than today
with respect to the plight of the poor, the fight
against displacement at the hands of those
landlawless bootlickers of corporate greed,
happily I cast my vote for Ahimsa Sumchai
for Mayor of San Francisco

whose race is the one of Reason
whose color is all the People of this town

- Jack Hirschman, Poet Laureate of the City of San Francisco

Bay View Voters Guide

Here once again are the Bay View's recommendations for the upcoming election. Whether you vote early at City Hall or by mail-in ballot or go to the polls on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6, you are welcome to keep this paper with you as you vote.

After you've cast your vote for Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai for mayor, we recommend these choices on the ballot measures:

• Yes on A, Transit reform
• Yes on B, Commission hold-overs
• No on C, Public hearings
• No on D, Library Preservation Fund
• Yes on E, Mayoral attendance at Board of Supervisors meetings
• Yes on F, Police pensions
• Yes on G, Golden Gate Park stables
• No on H, Regulating parking spaces
• Yes on I, Office of Small Business
• No on J, Wireless internet network
• Yes on K, Ads on street furniture

To clarify two of the most contentious issues on the ballot, Eric Brooks, Green Party environmental activist and campaign coordinator of Our City, http://our-city.org, writes: "This November, two critical local measures on mass transit and parking are on the ballot. Proposition H is an extremely bad, pro-automobile measure (sponsored by corporate conservatives) which will vastly increase parking, gridlock, pollution and greenhouse gases in San Francisco. Proposition A is a grassroots initiative that will increase funding for cleaner mass transit and will strike down Prop H if it passes. Vote NO on H and YES on A!"

Library Users Association director Peter Warfield explains that we should vote No on Prop D because it "would control more than $1.2 billion in library spending over the next 15 years." It authorizes hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to be issued without "the usual bond approval requirement of a two-thirds citizen vote.

"Paying off the bonds would drain money away from the only use permitted by the current charter for the Library Preservation Fund: paying for library books, operations and open hours."

"There is no urgency," Peter adds. "At least four elections are scheduled before the current Library Preservation Fund expires in 2009, two years from now." Injecting a sense of urgency is often a sign that the real purpose is privatization. Big corporate vendors want money transferred from our pockets to theirs quickly, before we notice our pocket's been picked.

No martial law on Election Day!

Hoping that this is the last Election Day Gavin Newsom presides over as mayor, I want him to hear this message loud and clear: We will no longer tolerate voter suppression. We know why you redeploy masses of police to Bayview Hunters Point on Election Day, backed by the CHP and a long line of tow trucks to haul off our vehicles - our survival lifelines and to some of us, our homes.

It's because you don't think we'll vote for you or the corporate takeover of San Francisco. And you're right. No matter how many cops hang around public housing and the polling places, giving us the evil eye and implying we'll lose whatever little we have, including our homes, if we vote "wrong," we'll vote our conscience. Our souls are not for sale.

And we won't vote for you, Gavin Newsom, or your corporate takeover. On Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6, we'll elect our own Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai. We'll work with her to stop the police terror and the corporate poison and ensure that all San Franciscans have the opportunity to live long and prosper. Here's to our health, San Francisco! When Ahimsa's our mayor, we're gonna feel good!

Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff may be reached at (415) 671-0789 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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