By Brendan S.
“I grew up with two sets of parents. I grew up in two different worlds. One immersed in all of the opportunities and privilege, and another shackled to an existence mired in degradation and humiliation. One known to far too many Americans because of our addiction to caging human beings.”
After meeting a delegation of Venezuelan feminist organizers yesterday, I filmed San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin as he gave his final speech as district attorney at The Ramp in Dogpatch District. Boudin was raised by revolutionaries of the Weather Underground, both of his parents imprisoned for participating in the 1981 Brink’s robbery. Rarely does the child of enemies of state make it to such a high office in the US.
Since his radically-propelled election in 2019, Boudin has been hated by the state, hated by real estate, hated by tech, and hated by a capitalist Democrat bloc which formed an alliance with the Republican Party to recall him. With these entities dominating the SF political sphere, Boudin was recalled last night after a 3-year fight to liberate unethically-incarcerated humans.
During this 3-year span, Boudin ended cash bail, established an oversight board to prevent wrongful convictions, and filed homicide charges against police. Critics blame Boudin for rising crime rates while selectively ignoring an exponentially expanding housing crisis and mass evictions laced with the pandemic. Consequences of liberal policies have in turn been used against Boudin by the liberal bloc itself, even though Boudin has actively fought against these policies.
Thus, Boudin’s recall sets a concerning electoral precedent not only for police statism but also for diverting capitalist problems away from the elite and instead toward those who fight against capitalism. The alliance between liberals and reactionaries in this recall also reminds us once again that there is no structural difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, both attached to the same oligarchy and state, two wings of the same bird.