History Of California

From Conservapedia
Democrat riots in Compton, California during the 2020 Presidential election.[1]

The History of California extends from the European explorers to the present; the Prehistory includes the story of the Indians. For current conditions see California.

Colonial History[edit]

Col-cal.jpg

Spanish explorers sailed along the coast of California from the early 1500s to the mid-1700s, but no settlements were established. During the last quarter of the 18th century, the first European settlements were established in California. Father Junípero Serra, a Franciscan missionary, founded the mission chain, starting with San Diego de Alcalá in 1769. The California Missions comprised a series of outposts established to spread the Christianity among the local Native Americans, with the added benefit of confirming historic Spanish claims to the area. The missions introduced European technology, livestock and crops, as well as diseases previously unknown, which decimated the tribes.[2]

The first quarter of the 19th century continued the slow colonization of the southern central, with a Hispanic population of about 10,000 by 1846 living mostly on cattle ranches. before 1820, Spanish influence was marked by the chain of missions reaching from San Diego to just north of today's San Francisco Bay area, and extended inland approximately 25 to 50 miles from the missions. Outside of this zone, thousands of Native Americans were continuing to lead traditional lives. The Mexican government closed the missions.

The highway and missions have become for many a romantic symbol of an idyllic and peaceful past. The "Mission Revival Style" was an architectural movement that drew its inspiration from this idealized view of California's past. The Spanish encouraged settlement of California with large land grants which were turned into ranchos, where cattle and sheep were raised. The Hispanic population reached about 10,000 in the 1840s, located primarily in ranches along the coast of southern California.

Conquest, 1846[edit]

see Conquest of California

The United States captured California from Mexico in 1846 in the Mexican American War. At the time no one knew there was gold in California. There was little blood shed, for the Mexican government had withdrawn most of its forces to suppress rebels elsewhere, and the 10,000 local Hispanics (called "Californios") generally welcomed the new government. For three weeks in 1846 a few hundred Americans in Sonoma declared their independence using the name, "Republic of California", with its "Bear Flag", now part of the official state flag. Then John C. Fremont and the U.S. Army came and took control. The Army was in charge of all of California until it achieved statehood in 1850.

Gold Rush to 1900[edit]

Gold Rush[edit]

In January 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 40 miles east of Sacramento — beginning the great California Gold Rush, which had the most extensive impact on population growth of the state of any era.[3]

The Gold Rush brought the world to California. By 1855, some 300,000 "Forty-Niners" had arrived from every continent; many left after a year or so—some rich, most not very rich. A precipitous drop in the Native American population occurred in the decade after the discovery of gold.

With the discovery of gold in 1848 in the north, the California Gold Rush was one of the great migrations in world history. Population soon reached 100,000 (almost all in the north). The miners and merchants settled in towns along what is now State Highway 49, and settlements sprang up along the Siskiyou Trail as gold was discovered elsewhere in California (notably in Siskiyou County). The nearest deep-water seaport was San Francisco, and it became an overnight metropolis and the base for bankers who financed exploration for gold.

Precious metals drove the state economy well into the 1860s. The needs of the fast-growing population—almost all adult men—stimulated the rapid growth of San Francisco as a shipping, banking and wholesaling center for the entire West Coast. Agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing grew. In the 1860s and 1870s new wealth poured in from the rich silver deposits of the Comstock Lode in nearby Nevada.

Statehood: 1849-1850[edit]

In 1847-49 California was run by the U.S. military; local government continued to be run by alcaldes (mayors) in most places; but now some were Americans. Bennett Riley, the last military governor, called a constitutional convention to meet in Monterey in September 1849. Its 48 delegates were mostly pre-1846 American settlers; 8 were Californios. They unanimously outlawed slavery and set up a government that operated for 10 months before California was given official statehood by Congress on September 9, 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850. California thus became a state in record time, for the Americans realized the necessity of orderly government in the far-off land of gold. Slavery was outlawed because no one wanted the rich slave owners moving in to buy up the mines and squeeze out free labor. Thanks to the migrants there were plenty of voluntary workers.[4] A series of small towns were used briefly as the state capital until finally Sacramento was selected in 1854.

The Civil War[edit]

Because of the distance factor, California played a minor role in the American Civil War. Although some settlers sympathized with the Confederacy, they were not allowed to organize and their newspapers were closed down. Former U.S. Senator William Gwin, a Confederate sympathizer, was arrested and fled to Europe. Powerful capitalists dominated state politics through their control of mines, shipping, and finance, using the new Republican party. Nearly all the men who volunteered as soldiers stayed in the West to guard facilities. Some 2,350 men in the "California Column" marched east across Arizona in 1862 to expel the Confederates from Arizona and New Mexico. The California Column spent most of its energy fighting hostile Indians.

Transportation[edit]

Ships provided easy, cheap, slow links among the coastal towns. within California and on routes leading there. The Panama route provided a shortcut for getting from the East Coast to California and a brisk maritime trade developed, featuring fast clipper ships.[5]

Steamboats (which needed fresh water and wood every day) plied the Bay Area and the rivers that flowed from the goldfields, moving passengers and supplies. With few roads, pack trains brought supplies to the miners. Soon a system of wagon roads, bridges, and ferries was set up. Large freight wagons replaced pack trains, and crude roads made it easier to get to the mining camps, enabling express companies to deliver mail and packages to the miners. Stagecoach lines eventually created routes connecting Missouri to California. By 1869,

Ships brought in many miners from around the globe. Other 49ers, as the Gold Rush arrivals were called, walked overland, with 17,000 to 25,000 taking the southern route from Texas through Arizona, and 25,000-30,000 on the better-known northern route from Kansas.


Before the 1870s, stagecoaches provided the primary form of transportation between towns. Even when railroads arrived stages were essential to link more remote areas to the railheads. Top of the line in quality, with least discomfort was the nine-passenger Concord, but the cheaper, rougher “mud wagons” were also in general use. The Wells Fargo company contracted with independent lines to deliver its express packages and transport gold bullion and coins. Stagecoach travel was usually uncomfortable as passengers shared limited space. Drivers were famous for their skill in driving six horses down winding roads at top speed, rarely overturning. Competition reduced fares to as little a two cents per mile on some routes. Bandits found robbing coaches a profitable if risky venture. US government mail subsidies provided essential base income, but running a stage line was a financially unstable business enterprise.

When the Central Pacific (built east from San Francisco using Chinese laborers) reached Utah in 1869 it linked with the Union Pacific Railroad, built west from Omaha using Irish labor. The transcontinental route meant it was no longer necessary to travel for six+ months by ship or on foot to reach the golden state; travel from Chicago to San Francisco took less than six days. The plunge in the cost and time of travel ended the state's isolation, and brought in cheap manufactured goods, along with more migrants.

Labor politics and the rise of Nativism[edit]

After the Civil War ended in 1865, northern California continued to grow rapidly. Independent miners were largely displaced by large corporate mining operations. Local railroads emerged, using equipment shipped around the horn of South America. The railroad companies and the mining companies became large-scale employers. The decisive event was the opening of the transcontinental railroad in 1869; six days by train brought a traveler from Chicago to San Francisco, compared to six months by ship. Thousands of Chinese men arrived (and a few women), lured by high cash wages. They were expelled from the mine fields. Most returned to China after the Central Pacific was built. Those who stayed mostly moved to the Chinatowns in San Francisco and a few other cities, where they were relatively safe from violent attacks they suffered elsewhere.

From 1850 through 1900, anti-Chinese nativist sentiment resulted in the passage of innumerable laws, many of which remained in effect well into the middle of the 20th century. The most flagrant episode was probably the creation and ratification of a new state constitution in 1879. Thanks to vigorous lobbying by the anti-Chinese Workingmen's Party, led by Dennis Kearney (an immigrant from Ireland), Article XIX of the 1879 state constitution forbade corporations from hiring Chinese coolies, and empowered all California cities and counties to completely expel Chinese persons or to limit where they could reside. It was repealed in 1952.

The 1879 constitutional convention also dispatched a message to Congress pleading for strong immigration restrictions, which led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. The Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1889, and it would not be repealed by Congress until 1943. Nativists sentiments later led to a "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Japan in 1907, by which Japan voluntarily agreed to restrict emigration to the United States. California also passed an Alien Land Act which barred aliens, especially Asians, from holding title to land. Because it was difficult for people born in Asia to obtain U.S. citizenship until the 1960s, land ownership titles were held by their American-born children, who were full citizens. The law was overturned by the California Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 1952.

In 1886, when a Chinese laundry owner challenged the constitutionality of a San Francisco ordinance clearly designed to drive Chinese laundries out of business, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor, and in doing so, laid the theoretical foundation for modern equal protection constitutional law. See Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886). Meanwhile, even with severe restrictions on Asian immigration, tensions between unskilled workers and wealthy landowners persisted up to and through the Great Depression. Novelist Jack London writes of the struggles of workers in the city of Oakland in his visionary classic, Valley of the Moon, a title evoking the pristine situation of Sonoma County between sea and mountains, redwoods and oaks, fog and sunshine.

Southern California[edit]

Southern California until now had a small population, but suddenly began growing rapidly in the 1880s. The arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad, with connections to the east, opened up right farm land, attracting migrants from the Middle West. Boosters advertised the mild sunny climate and stressed the unlimited economic opportunities, as hundreds of thousands of people rushed in. The boom launched wild speculation in real estate and developers platted dozens of promised cities, most of which never materialized. Decline set in by 1890, real estate prices plummeted, and the boom ended. Nevertheless, the boom had lasting positive effects because the influx of population and capital energized some cities and generated the development of hotels, churches, schools, social and civic organizations, and new industries. The small Hispanic population was now vastly outnumbered, as the region took on the values and outlooks of the Middle West.[6]

1890s[edit]

The Depression of the 1890s slowed the state's growth but did not cause the widespread hardship common back east. The major issues were the depression, state expenditures, gold and silver, and railroad regulation. Governor James H. Budd (1853-1908), a Bourbon Democrat in office from 1895 to 1899, was a statesman of conservative integrity. However he faced a legislature with large Republican majorities after the GOP landslide in 1894 and was the last Democratic Governor until 1938.[7]

All too common was the spoils politician on retainer from the Huntington's Southern Pacific Railroad. Huntington failed to stop Los Angeles from getting federal funds for its own port at San Pedro,[8] and was forced to repay the federal government for the land grants of the 1860s, but otherwise got his way to the disgust of the growing middle class whose moralism could not tolerate the corruption of political bosses in both parties. The reform-minded cringed as local public utilities, beer dealers, and other groups seeking special laws set up their own networks of influence among venal officials; The entire state seemed to move on the lubricant of graft and privilege. The moralists tended to blame all the state's ills on Huntington and on corruption generally, but lacked a leader in the 1890s.[9]

Progressive Era: 1900-1930[edit]

Progressive politics[edit]

A coalition of reform-minded Republicans, especially in southern California, coalesced around Thomas Bard (1841-1915). Bard's election in 1899 as U.S. Senator enabled the anti-machine Republicans to sustain a continuing opposition to the Southern Pacific Railway's political power. They helped nominate George C. Pardee for governor in 1902 and formed the "Lincoln-Roosevelt League." In 1910 Hiram W. Johnson won the campaign for governor under the slogan "Kick the Southern Pacific out of politics." In 1912 Johnson became the running mate for Theodore Roosevelt on the new Progressive Party ticket.[10] By 1916, however, the Progressives were supporting labor unions, which helped them in ethnic enclaves in the larger cities but alienated the native-stock Protestant, middle-class voters who voted heavily against Senator Johnson and President Wilson in 1916.[11]

Political progressivism varied across the state. Los Angeles (population 102,000 in 1900) focused on the dangers posed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the liquor trade, and labor unions; San Francisco (population 342,000 in 1900) confronted with a corrupt machine that was finally overthrown following the earthquake of 1906. Smaller cities like San Jose (which had a population of 22,000 in 1900) had somewhat different concerns, such as fruit cooperatives, urban development, rival rural economies, and Asian labor.[12] San Diego (population 18,000 in 1900) had both the Southern Pacific and a corrupt machine.[13]

Businessmen[edit]

Progressives created a new railroad commission with vastly enlarged powers and brought public utilities under state supervision. Organized businessmen were the leaders of both there reforms. The driving force for railroad regulation came less from an outraged public seeking lower rates than from shippers and merchants who wanted to stabilize their businesses. Public utility officers spearheaded campaigns for the passage, and, later, the enlargement of the Public Utilities Act. They expected that state regulation would reduce wasteful competition between their companies, improve the value of their companies' securities, and allow them to escape continual wrangling with county and municipal authorities. Although the businessmen were influential in obtaining the passage of bills incorporating many of their desires, no group of businessmen dominated the California legislature or the railroad commission in the Progressive Era. Laws desired by some businessmen were opposed by others; it is misleading to assume too sharp a dichotomy between the best interests of business groups and the general public.[14] Organized labor made significant gains during the Progressive Era, but they were not a result of the benevolent, middle-class reformer actions, but of a powerful lobbying activity on the part of unions with their solid base in San Francisco and Oakland.

In the 1920s, most progressives came to view the business culture of the day not as a repudiation of the progressive "promise of American life" but as the fulfillment of it. The most important progressive victories of 1921 were the passage of administrative reorganization laws, the King Bill, increasing corporate taxes, and a progressive budget. In 1927-31, governor Clement Calhoun Young (1869-1947) brought more progressivism to the state. A beginning was made toward public power development, state aid to handicapped poor was instituted, and California became the first state to enact a modern old-age pension law. The parks system was upgraded and California (like most states) rapidly expanded its highway program, funding it through a tax on users—that is, a tax on gasoline—and creating the California Highway Patrol.[15]

Women[edit]

The Progressive movement aimed to purify society of its corruption, and one way was to enfranchise supposedly "pure" women as voters in 1911, nine years before the 19th Amendment enfranchised women nationally in 1920. Women's clubs flourished and turned a spotlight on issues such as public schools, dirt and pollution, and public health. California became the cleanest and healthiest state with the best educational system in the nation, thanks in large part to the women. The women did not often run for office—that was seen as entangling their purity in the inevitable backroom deals routine in politics.

Oil and more growth[edit]

In the 1920s, oil was discovered, first near Newhall, north of Los Angeles. Soon, more oil was found all over the L.A. Basin and other parts of California. It soon became the most profitable industry in the southern part of the state. The leading company was Standard Oil of California, now Chevron.

Soon, Americans from all over the country, especially the Midwest, were attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and a wide variety of geography within a short drive by truck.

Hollywood[edit]

The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of the movie studio system. MGM, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers all built production facilities in in Hollywood, which was then a small subdivision known as "Hollywoodland" on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Desert movies were shot in the Mojave or in Death Valley; pirate movies used Carmel. Winter scenes were shot in the San Bernardino Mountains. Outdoor sets on studio land were created to resemble any part of the world, with simulated rain or snow as needed. By the 1930s the show-biz population had extended its reach into radio, and by the 1950s "Hollywood" was the major center of television production, hosting studios for major networks such as NBC and CBS.

Great Depression and war, 1929-1945[edit]

Socialist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic primary for governor in 1934, but voters saw through his fantasies and elected the conservative Republican

Historians have usually rated Republican James Rolph, Jr. (1859-1934) as a do-nothing governor during his term 1931-34. He deserves credit for his efforts to combat the economic depression. He was aware of the depression's impact on California's economy and employment. Rolph approved creation of state labor camps for work on highways and forestry, a model for the federal government's Civilian Conservation Corps. He used state surplus funds to meet expenses, and he applied for Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans for construction of the Oakland Bay Bridge and for emergency relief measures. But he also approved a state sales tax on retail items. By 1934 he was in poor health, and he died on 2 June. Although his record of achievement was spotty, Rolph served the state conscientiously and with some tangible accomplishments against a serious economic crisis.[16]

Strikes[edit]

Unions grew rapidly under the New Deal. The most serious strike came in 1934 along the state's ports. In May 1934, dock workers and longshoremen along the West Coast went on strike for better hours and pay, a union hiring hall and a coast-wide contract. Communists were in control of the union, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), led by Harry Bridges (1901-1990). On "Bloody Thursday", July 5, 1934, San Francisco was swept by the bloodiest rioting in three quarters of a century. Striking maritime workers, pitting themselves against police, terrorized half of the waterfront and the warehouse area of the city. The West Coast Waterfront Strike lasted 83 days with longshoremen returning to work on July 31. Arbitration was agreed to and it resulted in a victory for the strikers. and the unionization of all West Coast ports in the United States.[17]

World War II[edit]

During World War II, California's mild climate and Pacific location became a major resource for the war effort. Numerous air-training bases were established in Southern California, where most aircraft manufacturers, including Douglas Aircraft and Hughes Aircraft expanded or established factories. Major naval, shipyards were established or expanded in San Diego, Long Beach and San Francisco Bay. Mass-produced transport ships for the Army, called "Liberty Ships" were built by San Francisco Bay shipyards.

Postwar Boom: 1945-1990[edit]

California Dream[edit]

Historian Kevin Starr in his grand seven-volume history of the state has explored in great depth the "California Dream"—the realization by ordinary Californians of the American Dream. California starting in the late 19th century promised the highest possible standard of life for the middle classes, and indeed for the skilled blue collar workers and farm owners as well. Poverty existed, but was concentrated among the migrant farm workers made famous in Grapes of Wrath, where the Joad family, driven out of the Dust Bowl, searches for the California Dream. By the 1950s the Joads and the other "Oakies"and "Arkies" (migrants from Oklahoma and Arkansas) were achieving the dream too. It was not so much the upper class (who preferred to live in New York and Boston). The California Dream meant an improved and more affordable family life: a small but stylish and airy house marked by a fluidity of indoor and outdoor space, such as the ubiquitous California bungalow and a lush backyard—the stage, that is, for quiet family life in a sunny climate. It meant very good jobs, excellent roads, plentiful facilities for outdoor recreation, and the schools and universities that were the best in the world by the 1940s. James M. Cain, an eastern writer who visited the Golden State, reported in 1933 that the archetypal Californian "addresses you in easy grammar, completes his sentences, shows familiarity with good manners, and in addition gives you a pleasant smile."[18]

Explosive growth after 1920 around Los Angeles

Baby Boomers[edit]

After the war, hundreds of land developers bought land cheap, subdivided it, built on it, and got rich. Real-estate development replaced oil and agriculture as Southern California's principal industry. In 1955, Walt Disney opened the world's first theme park at Disneyland in Anaheim. In 1958, Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants quit New York City and came to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The population of California expanded dramatically, to nearly 20 million by 1970. This was the coming-of-age of the baby boom.

Hippies[edit]

In the late 1960s the baby-boom generation reached draft age, and many risked arrest to oppose the war in Vietnam. There were numerous demonstrations and strikes, most famously on the prestigious Berkeley campus of the University of California, across the bay from San Francisco. In 1965, as soon as civil rights legislation passed in Washington, angry lower class blacks rioted erupted in Watts, in the South-Central area of Los Angeles.

California still was a land of free spirits, open hearts, easy-going living. Popular music of the period bore titles such as "California Girls", "California Dreamin'", "San Francisco", "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and "Hotel". These reflected the Californian promise of easy living in a paradisaical climate. The surfing culture burgeoned. Many took low-paying jobs and joined the surfers living in trailers at the beach and many others forsook ambition and joined the hippies free living in cities. By contrast the novels and movies set in Los Angeles reflected the unhappy, scary "film nor" style.

Hippies were young anarchistic radicals whose love of free sex and drug usage made them infamous across the nation. The most famous hippie hangout was the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The nadir of the hippie subculture was 1967—called the "Summer of Love" by its dazed adherents. California became known as the "land of fruits and nuts," or "the left coast". It was an exaggeration, for at the same time the nerds were revolutionizing society through the computer revolution they launched from "Silicon Valley" (the area south of San Francisco).

Bay Area Democrats[edit]

Jim Jones and the Democrat party.jpg
See also: Progressivism, San Francisco values, and Peoples Temple Agricultural Collective

Willie Brown, later mayor of San Francisco and Kamala Harris's mentor, compared Jim Jones to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Brown endorsed Jones as “a close personal friend and a highly trusted brother in the struggle for liberation."[19] Dianne Feinstein joined the rest of the San Francisco board of supervisors in honoring Jones “in recognition of his guidance and inspiration” in furthering “humanitarian programs.” Gov. Jerry Brown spoke at the People's Temple. At its peak, the Temple boasted 20,000 members.

Following the San Francisco mayoral election of 1975, the San Francisco District Attorney asked Timothy Stoen, a Temple member,[20] to lead a special unit to investigate election fraud charges.[21] Shortly thereafter Stoen was hired as an assistant district attorney.[22][23] Stoen found no evidence of fraud, but Temple members later alleged that the Temple brought "busloads" of members from Redwood Valley who were not registered to vote in San Francisco, to vote in the San Francisco election.[24] It was Willie Brown who brought George Moscone and Jim Jones together.[25][26] Moscone, who owed his position as mayor to Jones in a tight race, appointed Jones chairman of the city's Housing Commission Authority, effectively making Jones the city's largest landlord. Moscone's press secretary stated that Jones "made his followers available to support progressive Democratic candidates."[27]

Moscone's press spokesman explained it was "common knowledge that if you were going to run for office in San Francisco, and your constituency included the black, the young or the poor, you'd better have Jones in your corner." Of particular interest to politicians was the Temple's ability to produce 2,000 people for campaign work or attendance at an event with only six hours notice. [20] Moscone's aide stated that Jones offered thousands of "foot soldiers" willing to walk precincts and get out the vote, which was "an offer no politician in his right mind could refuse." Similarly, San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos stated that "If you were having a rally for a presidential candidate, you needed to fill up the crowd, you could always get busloads from Jim Jones' church."[28] The chairman of the county Democratic Central Committee, the governing body of the Democratic Party in San Francisco, referred to the Temple as "a ready-made volunteer workforce," and Jones was "a man who touched a component of the consensus power forces in the city, such as labor and ethnicity groups....here was a guy who could provide workers for causes progressives cared about."[29]

Herb Caen, a Pulitzer Prize winner for the San Francisco Chronicle, acted as a hype-generator for Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. Jane Fonda joined other celebrities in expressing that she was “familiar with the work of Reverend Jones and Peoples Temple and have no hesitancy in commending them for their example in setting a high standard of ethics and morality.” [30] The Peoples Temple and the Nation of Islam held a joint event in the Los Angeles Convention Center in 1976 . Thousands packed the Civic Center. Two time CPUSA Vice Presidential candidate Angela Davis, along with the Lieutenant Governor and Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley attended the event. In speaking at the event Jones stated "We are grateful for this symbolic merging of our two movements . . . If the Peoples Temple and the Nation of Islam can get together, anyone can."

Rosalynn Carter called Jones at candidate Jimmy Carter's behest. She held a private dinner with him and had the Peoples Temple leader introduce her at the 1976 grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party Headquarters. Jimmy Carter's running mate, Walter Mondale, met with Jones on the tarmac in San Francisco during the campaign.[31] Jones dined with Rosalynn Carter at the head table at the Democratic National Convention.[32] Jones wrote to Carter requesting aid for Fidel Castro, whom Jones had earlier met with in Cuba.[33] In a handwritten letter to Jones on White House stationery, the First Lady wrote "Your comments on Cuba have been helpful. I hope your suggestion can be acted on in the near future." Carter also wrote that "I enjoyed being with you during the campaign -- and do hope you can meet Ruth soon", referring to her sister-in-law, Ruth Carter Stapleton.[34] Mondale stated regarding the Temple that "knowing the congregations deep involvement in the major social and constitutional issues of our country . . . is a great inspiration to me."[35] Health and Human Services Secretary Joseph Califano stated "your humanitarian principles and your interest in protecting individual liberty and freedom have made an outstanding contribution to furthering the cause of human dignity." President Carter sent a representative to a dinner at the Temple at which Jones and Gov. Jerry Brown spoke.[36]

Jones procured land in Guyana where nearly 1,000 of his followers settled in Jonestown, clearing the land, planting crops, and listening to him preach the gospel according to Karl Marx. “I call capitalism the devil,” Jones said from the pulpit, “and socialism is God.” A former member of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission, Jones often quoted Marx's dictum, "From each as he is able, to each according to his need." One member said the Temple moved to Jonestown because "what we saw in the United States was creeping fascism. It was apparent that corporations, or the multinationals, were getting much larger, their influence was growing within the government, and the United States is a racist place."[37]

Up to $65,000 in monthly welfare payments from New Deal and Great Society programs to Jonestown residents were signed over to the Temple.[38] Officials from the U.S. embassy in Georgetown interviewed Social Security recipients on multiple occasions to inquire if they were being held against their will.[39] None of the 75 people interviewed, according to the embassy, said they were being held captive, were forced to sign over welfare checks, or wanted to leave Jonestown.[40] Civil rights lawyers Charles Garry and Mark Lane, who represented James Earl Ray, depicted Jonestown as a paradise and aggressively defended Jones in the media.

As reports seeped back of people who wanted to leave Guyana, Harvey Milk – the first openly gay elected official who was endorsed by the Temple for San Francisco city councilman – wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter defending Jones "as a man of the highest character," and stating that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones' reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies".[41] The Temple claimed that "reactionary forces were trying to destroy his [Jones] image because he is the most persistent fighter for social justice.[42]

Socialist paradise in Guyana. Lack of beef and living off of jungle plants is said to have added to the mass irrationality. Its leader, a community organizer named Jim Jones, was very active in Democratic party politics.

Russian dignitary Feodor Timofeyev visited Jonestown for two days to gave a speech.[43] Jones introduced him saying, "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland." Timofeyev opened the speech stating that the Soviet Union would like to send "our deepest and the most sincere greetings to the people of this first socialist and communist community of the United States of America, in Guyana and in the world". Both speeches were met by cheers and applause. Angela Davis addressed the crowd by shortwave radio saying, "when you are attacked, it is because of your progressive stand, and we feel that it is directly an attack against us as well."[44]

Hearing allegations of abuse, Congressman Leo J. Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown which included in his group a staff member and future congresswoman, Jackie Speier. Ryan and four others were murdered when they attempted to leave. After the killings, Jones herded his followers into the camp's main pavilion and ordered them all to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. 909 bodies, including 304 children, were found by Guyana police in following days. Some of the bodies had gunshot wounds.

Three survivors claimed they were given an assignment before the suicides began. They were given luggage containing $550,000 in U.S. currency, $130,000 in Guyanese currency, and an envelope, which they were told to deliver to the Soviet embassy in Georgetown, Guyana. The envelope contained two passports and three instructional letters, the first of which was to Timofeyev, stating:

Dear Comrade Timofeyev,
The following is a letter of instructions regarding all of our assets that we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Enclosed in this letter are letters which instruct the banks to send the cashiers checks to you. I am doing this on behalf of Peoples Temple because we, as communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit.[45]

The letters included listed accounts with balances totaling in excess of $7.3 million to be transferred to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[46][47] Jonestown was the greatest loss of American civilian lives in a non-natural disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks. Progressivism suffered a devastating blow in the eyes of most Americans. Not until the rise of Barack Obama did it recover.

Marxist insurrection[edit]

See also: Revolutionary Vanguard

The Committees of Correspondence (CoC), also known as the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) was formed in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.[48][49] Several prominent party Communist Party USA ruderless without the Soviet Union to offer funding and instructions, and disillusioned with the dictatorial rule of CPUSA General Secretary Gus Hall, split off and to form their own group.[50][51]

The group's first organizational conference was held in Berkeley, California, July 17–19, 1992. Charlene Mitchell, who had been a leader of the California Communist Party, spoke at the conference. Mitchell said "the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe left the United States in a near unchallenged position of world leadership." She continued,

“ What began as a moment to take stock and ponder where to go from there has now become a very different entity. People from the Communist Party, from CrossRoads, from the Democratic Socialists of America, from NCIPA [National Committee for Independent Political Action], from Solidarity, from the Socialist Organizing Network and many others, including independent leftists and independent socialists, have come together here in Berkeley. ”

Criticizing U.S. actions in the First Gulf War, Mitchell stated,

“ progressive forces were nearly powerless in the face of an onslaught of demagogic, patriotic jingoism and yellow ribbons. This war, fought for no legitimate reason, was the crowning height of President [George H.W.] Bush's New World Order. Previously, the Soviet Union helped to provide a certain balance to rein in the crazies in this country. Now, that balance is no longer there. It is now up to us, the American people, to rein in our own crazies. The left must take a major responsibility in organizing this task. ”

Former congressional investigator Herbert Romerstein said the CCDS has "a close working relationship with the Stalinist remnants in the former East Germany, now called the Party of Democratic Socialism..." Romerstein points out these were the people who ran the concentration camps and the Communist Party apparatus in East Germany.

Black Liberation Army[edit]

Sup-Ct-Judge-Harold-Haley-w-shotgun-taped-around-his-neck-during-Jonathan-Jacksons-Marin-Courthouse-Rebellion-080770-by-Jim-Kean-Marin-Independent-Journal.jpg

In 1970, Marin Count Judge Harold Haley's head was blown off by a sawed-off shotgun in a hostage incident in which members of the Black Panthers attempted to free Davis' lover, Black Panther member George Jackson. Jackson's younger brother took the judge, the prosecutor, and three female jurors as hostages and armed the defendants.[52][53] Davis had purchased several of the firearms used in the attack,[54] including the shotgun used to kill the judge.[55] Davis was also found to have corresponded with Jackson.[56] California considers "all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense... principals in any crime so committed", and a warrant for her arrest was issued. J. Edgar Hoover listed Davis on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List; the third woman to ever be listed[57] behind Ma Barker and Bernardine Dohrn. She was apprehended and John Abt, general counsel of the Communist Party USA, represent her.[58] Davis was eventually acquitted of any role in the plotting and execution of the crime.

Oakland, California[edit]

People Organized to Win Employment Rights or POWER (Garza) evolved from the now defunct communist group STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). Obama’s former “green jobs czar” and CNN contributor, the self-described “communist” and “rowdy black nationalist” Van Jones, served on STORM’s board. In January 2015, POWER merged with another Liberation Road group, Causa Justa,[59] and Garza left.[60] Garza wrote at about the same time,

"When I use Assata [Shakur]'s powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what its political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context."[61]

Assata Shakur is the former "queen" of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) terrorist group, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. She was convicted of murder and seven other felonies. While serving a life sentence, she escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in 1979. She was granted political asylum in Cuba in 1984 where she has lived ever since, despite US government efforts to have her extradited. She is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, under her maiden name Joanne Deborah Chesimard. BLM founders openly admit to being "trained Marxists".[62] Garza is a black separatist and more recently was affiliated with the Marxist Freedom Road Socialist Organization that wants to carve out an independent nation-state in the Bay Area.[63]

Federal Security Police officer Patrick Underwood was murdered by Antifa terrorists.[64]

Black Lives Matter murder a Black federal officer[edit]

Bay Area Democrats rioted in Oakland,[65] California.[66] Nearly 10,000 people took to the streets of the California community, looting stores like Target and Walgreens,[67] and setting fire to a Chase bank. A Black officer from the Department of Homeland Security was murdered and another officer shot.[68][69]

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf ordered a hate crime investigation after Oakland Police identified five ropes they described as “nooses” hanging from trees at Lake Merrit, with the city government apparently believing that the ropes were akin to racial intimidation tactics and allusions to lynchings carried out by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. The FBI was called in support of the investigation. A black man stepped forward stating that he and some of his friends installed the rope and small nooses merely for use as swings and exercise equipment. The nooses were used to attach a makeshift swing. “It’s unfortunate that a genuine gesture of just wanting to create a good time got misinterpreted," stating that he couldn’t see how anyone would view the small ropes as a hangman’s noose. The Democrat mayor however, refused to accept the word of a Black man and continued to claim the findings are indicative of a hate crime and continued the witchhunt for white supremacists invading Oakland.[70]

San Francisco[edit]

The City of San Francisco official "poop map" of reports of human feces on the street covers Nancy Pelosi's entire 12th Congressional district.[71]
See also: Marxism and Leftwing violence in the Trump era

San Francisco (colloquially known as Scat Francisco[72]), California faces Environmental Protection Agency fines over the environmental damage done by the city in collaboration with its homeless partners.[73]

The last Republican mayor was elected in 1964.

Since 2011, the city's Poop Patrol office has received 118,352 reports of turds in the street, or roughly am average of one every 90 seconds, around the clock, for eight solid years.[74] With a growing population, the numbers can only be expected to increase. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2018 on the plight of residents unable to get a response from the city. A frustrated citizen finally called the newspaper after finding a suitcase full of human excrement on the corner of his block. The resident purchased a $750,000 condo for his wife and 2 `1/2 year old child. The paper described the neighborhood as "progressive."[75] With the city already covered in feces, the newly elected Democrat district attorney vowed to not prosecute public urination.[76]

In a city with an estimated homeless population of 8,000,[77] the taxpayers liberally hand out 4.5 million free syringes annually,[78] or roughly one every 16 hours, assuming (a) the needles are used exclusively by the homeless and (b) all 8,000 homeless are intravenous drug users. While homeowners and renters may take advantage of this taxpayer subsidy, there is no means testing. And the city leaders give little thought to the health and safety of children in public parks and elsewhere exposed to the careless disposal of dirty needles which are thrown away at a rate of some 12,000 daily. While the city has banned the use of plastics straws because they are a "threat to the environment."[79] the city continues the distribution of disposal plastic syringes which are a threat to everybody's health and the environment.

Chesa Boudin was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2019. Chesa was elected with money from George Soros,[80] is the child of two cop-killing communists,[81] and is named after a cop killing communist.[82] Chesa, a Democrat, was elected on a platform of not prosecuting criminals and opening the prisons as an important step in furthering the Marxist revolution.[83] Chesa is named after Joanne Chesimard,[84] also known as Assata Shakur of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list currently living in Cuba. Chesimard was convicted of the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper in 1977 and escaped prison in 1979. Chesimard is the inspiration of Patrisse Cullors, founder of Black Lives Matter (BLM).

Chesa's mother is Kathy Boudin, who served 22 years in prison for the murder of two policemen and a Brink's guard. His father, David Gilbert, remains in prison. Chesa was adopted and raised by Weather Underground (WUO) self-admitted terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.[85]

Chesa's namesake, Joanne Chesimard aka Assata Shakur, is the former "queen" of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) terrorist group, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. She was convicted of the murder in 1977 and seven other felonies. While serving a life sentence, she escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in 1979. She was granted political asylum in Cuba in 1984 where she has lived ever since, despite US government efforts to have her extradited. She is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, under her maiden name Joanne Deborah Chesimard. BLM founders openly admit to being "trained Marxists."[86] BLM co-founder Alicia Garza is a black separatist and more recently was affiliated with the Marxist Freedom Road Socialist Organization that wants to carve out an independent nation-state in the Bay Area.[87] Garza wrote, "When I use Assata [Shakur]'s powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what its political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context."[88]

Los Angeles[edit]

Progressives looted expensive stores on Hollywood's fashionable Rodeo Drive.

Los Angeles has had one Republican mayor since 1961.

Los Angeles currently is undergoing a typhus epidemic.[89] Typhus is the name given to a group of bacterial infections transmitted to people living in crowded and unsanitary conditions by lice and fleas, coming from infected rats. The rats are attracted into the human environment by unsanitary conditions created by humans.

Los Angeles Democrats sold off all its emergency medical stockpiles and ventilators for a respiratory pandemic in 2011.[90]

During the 2020 leftist uprising rioters beat up a cop[91] and burnt a police vehicle.[92] The city's Democrat mayor Eric Garcetti cut funding for the police department by $250 million.[93] LAPD reported that during the week of May 31 to Jun 6 homicides went up 250% and victims shot went up 56% compared to the previous week.[94]

Two police sheriff deputies in Los Angeles were shot in an ambush and sustained critical injuries; BLM terrorists attempted to block them from being transported to the emergency room and cursed death wishes at them.[95] Several malicious bystanders laughed at the deputies when they had been initially injured, refusing to help them.[96] Anti-cop protesters there had previously chanted "Blue Lives don't matter here!"[97] An NPR hack who interfered with police officers paid the price of being arrested.[98]

Economic power house[edit]

The Golden State attracted financial, commercial and industrial entrepreneurs who made the state a world-famed engine of economic growth. The adoption of a "Master Plan for Higher Education" in 1960 allowed the development of a highly efficient system of public education in the Community Colleges and the University of California and California State University systems; by creating an educated workforce, it attracted investment, particularly in areas related to high technology. By 1980, California became recognized as the world's eighth-largest economy. Millions of workers were needed to fuel the expansion. The high population of the time caused tremendous problems with urban sprawl, traffic, pollution, and, to a lesser extent, crime.

A parody freeway interchange in Los Angeles, intended to make fun of how common freeways are in the city

As traffic doubled and trebled on the expanding freeway system air pollution ("smog", a mix of smoke and fog) became worse and worse in the Los Angeles area. With city schools being closed routinely for "smog days" when the ozone levels became too unhealthy and the hills surrounding urban areas seldom visible even within a mile, Californians were ready for changes. Over the next three decades, California enacted some of the strictest anti-smog regulations in the United States and has been a leader in encouraging nonpolluting strategies for various industries, including automobiles. Only specially formulated gasoline can be sold. Freeways have carpool lanes that can be used if the car has several passengers, while electric cars can use the lanes with only a single occupant. As a result, smog is significantly reduced from its historic peak.


In the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Communism in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia flooded the state. Little Saigons were established in Westminster and Garden Grove in Orange County.

See also[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Surveys[edit]

Environment, transportation, agriculture, water[edit]

Ethnicity, gender[edit]

Gold rush[edit]

Politics and economics[edit]

Pre 1846[edit]

Localities[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/09/10/the-united-states-its-constitution-have-two-months-left/
  2. ↑ http://www.californiamissions.com/cahistory/background.html
  3. ↑ See [1] [2]
  4. ↑ Richard B. Rice et al, The Elusive Eden (1988) 191-95
  5. ↑ A. C. W. Bethel, "The Golden Skein: California's Gold-Rush Transportation Network." California History 1998-99 77(4): 250-275.
  6. ↑ Gloria Ricci Lothrop. "The Boom of the '80s Revisited". Southern California Quarterly 1993 75(3-4): 263-301 (0038-3929); William Friedricks, Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California (1992).
  7. ↑ Eric Falk Petersen, "The End of an Era: California's Gubernatorial Election of 1894," Pacific Historical Review 1969 38(2): 141-156; R. Hal Williams, The Democratic Party and California Politics 1880-1896, (1973)
  8. ↑ Huntington wanted federal subsidies to go to his own port at Santa Monica. Opposition to his maneuvers helped mobilize the local Progressive movement. See Curtis Grassman, "The Los Angeles Free Harbor Controversy and the Creation of a Progressive Coalition." Southern California Quarterly 1973 55(4): 445-468
  9. ↑ George E. Mowry, "The California Progressive and His Rationale: A Study in Middle Class Politics," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Sep., 1949), pp. 239-250 in JSTOR
  10. ↑ W. H. Hutchinson, "Prologue to Reform: the California Anti-Railroad Republicans, 1899-1905". Southern California Quarterly 1962 44(3): 175-218
  11. ↑ Michael Rogin, "Progressivism and the California Electorate," Journal of American History 1968 55(2): 297-314 in JSTOR
  12. ↑ Timothy J. Lukes, "Progressivism Off-Broadway: Reform Politics in San Jose, California, 1880-1920." Southern California Quarterly 1994 76(4): 377-400
  13. ↑ Grace L. Miller, "The Origins of the San Diego Lincoln-Roosevelt League, 1905-1909." Southern California Quarterly 1978 60(4): 421-443
  14. ↑ Mansel G. Blackford, "Businessmen and the Regulation of Railroads and Public Utilities in California during the Progressive Era." Business History Review 1970 44(3): 307-319 in JSTOR
  15. ↑ Jackson K. Putnam, "The Persistence of Progressivism in the 1920's: the Case of California," Pacific Historical Review 1966 35(4): 395-411 in JSTOR
  16. ↑ Loren B. Chan, "California during the Early 1930s: The Administration of Governor James Rolph, Jr., 1931-1934" Southern California Quarterly 1981 63(3): 262-282. Journal Issn: 0038-3929
  17. ↑ Robert W. Cherny, "Prelude to the Popular Front: The Communist Party in California, 1931-35." American Communist History 2002 1(1): 5-42 online at EBSCO
  18. ↑ Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963 (2009)
  19. ↑ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/how-san-franciscos-democrats-made-jim-jones-and-then-made-his-memory-vanish
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lindsay, Robert. "How Rev. Jim Jones Gained His Power Over Followers." New York Times. 26 November 1978.
  21. ↑ Taylor, Michael, "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite", San Francisco Chronicle, November 12, 1998
  22. ↑ Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs. Raven (book)|Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. ISBN|0-525-24136-1. p. 270.
  23. ↑ Kinsolving, Kathleen and Tom. "Madman in Our Midst: Jim Jones and the California Cover Up." 1998.
  24. ↑ Crewdson, John, "Followers Say Jim Jones Directed Voting Frauds", New York Times, December 16, 1978
  25. ↑ Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven (book)|Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. ISBN|978-0-525-24136-2. page 266.
  26. ↑ http://www.brasscheck.com/jonestown/
  27. ↑ Los Angeles Herald Examiner, "The Political Pull of Jim Jones", November 21, 1978
  28. ↑ Richardson, James, Willie Brown A Biography, University of California Press, 1996, p. 250 Template:Webarchive
  29. ↑ Taylor, Michael, "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite", San Francisco Chronicle, November 12, 1998.
  30. ↑ Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 1023." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University. Archived copy. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30. The concept often loosely mixed tenets of socialism. The Temple openly preached to established members that "religion is an opiate to the people." (Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 1053." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.) Accordingly, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenmentTemplate:Spaced ndashsocialism." (Layton 1999, page 53). In that regard, Jones also openly stated that he "took the church and used the church to bring people to atheism." (Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 757." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University). Jones often mixed those concepts, such as preaching that "If you're born in this church, this socialist revolution, you're not born in sin. If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born with a big d***o in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."(Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 1053." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.) Archived copy. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30.
  31. ↑ When Deputy Minister Ptolemy Reid traveled to Washington, D.C. in September 1977 to sign the Panama Canal Treaties, Mondale asked him, "How's Jim?", which indicated to Reid that Mondale had a personal interest in Jones' well being, p. 173.
    Moore, Rebecca. American as Cherry Pie Template:Webarchive, Jonestown Institute, San Diego State University
  32. ↑ Layton, Deborah. Seductive Poison. Anchor, 1999. ISBN|978-0-385-48984-. p. 53.
  33. ↑ Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven (book)|Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. ISBN|978-0-525-24136-2. page 305.
  34. ↑ LA Times November 21, 1978
  35. ↑ "First Lady Among Cult's References" "First Lady Among Cult's References; Mondale and Califano also listed", Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1978. 
  36. ↑ Mehren, Elizabeth, "Politicians Defend Associations With Jones", Oakland Tribune, November 21, 1978
  37. ↑ Tim Carter. There was no choice in Jonestown that day... Template:Webarchive Oregon Public Broadcasting Radio interview. 9 April 2007. Archived copy. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30.
  38. ↑ Layton 1998, p. 103
  39. ↑ Pear, Richard. "State Explains Response to Cult Letters." Washington Star News. November 26, 1978.
  40. ↑ Wessinger, Catherine. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven's Gate. 2000. ISBN|978-1-889119-24-3.
  41. ↑ Milk, Harvey Letter Addressed to President Jimmy Carter, Dated February 19, 1978 Template:Webarchive
  42. ↑ Peoples Temple, Victims of Conspiracy Brochure, Jonestown Alternative Considerations, San Diego State University Archived copy. Archived from the original on January 24, 2011. Retrieved on 2019-01-31.
  43. ↑ Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 352." Template:Webarchive Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
  44. ↑ Statement of Angela Davis (Text). Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
  45. ↑ "Letter to Feodor Timofeyev." Template:Webarchive Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
  46. ↑ "Letter from Annie McGowan." Template:Webarchive Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
  47. ↑ "Another Letter from Annie McGowan." Template:Webarchive Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
  48. ↑ https://keywiki.org/Committees_of_Correspondence
  49. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140518231419/http://www.ccds-discussion.org/?p=4
  50. ↑ https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/organizations/committees-of-correspondence-for-democracy-and-socialism-ccds/
  51. ↑ "The Communist Party of the United States has disintegrated, as has the party in Minnesota, as a result of its own failures and misdeeds. The political and ideological crisis that brought down the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist countries produced crises in Communist Parties throughout the world from which none have emerged unscathed.
    The CPUSA survives at present only as a shell, with many of its most active members and best-known national leaders having given up the attempt to reform from within and leaving to work in a new form.
    These reform forces have regrouped as the Committees of Correspondence, for the exchange of information, promotion of education and discussion and coordination of activities....
    On February 9, the Northern California district, with the second largest (after New York) membership in the CPUSA, declared its independence from the national party and joined the Committees of Correspondence. Retaining its Marxist-Leninist ideological and political framework, the Northern California organization stated:
    "We desire to be a working-class, multiracial, internationalist, anti-imperialist organization of women and men, regardless of sexual orientation, with a commitment to coalition politics and mass struggle and a goal of participating in the leadership of such movements. Our work will be based upon participation with people and organizations in struggle, earning leadership through our concrete deeds.
    "The struggles of working people, the racially and nationally oppressed, and women are central to the struggle for social progress, indispensable to fundamental economic and political change. The growing alliance of these forces is central to the building of a broad coalition of democratic forces that will challenge the rule of monopoly capital in this country. The victory of such an anti-monopoly coalition and the establishment of an anti-monopoly government is a necessary step toward the development of socialism in the United States."
    ...Dissent and disaffection within the CPUSA became an outright split because party chair Gus Hall blamed the crisis in the world Communist movement entirely on attacks by imperialism and the weakness of Gorbachev. He did not acknowledge the corrosive role of the autocratic, bureaucratic, paternalistic administrative structures passed down from the Stalin period through the Communist International (Comintern) to most of the Communist Parties in the world, including the CPUSA.
    In reality, these undemocratic structures were ultimately responsible for the inability of the socialist economies to develop to a level that would enable them to counteract the economic offensives of the industrialized capitalist countries against them.
    A second major division arose over domestic political strategy. The Gus Hall leadership wanted to continue a policy of concentrating primarily on blue-collar workers in basic industry, on the grounds that they are most exploited and the sole source of capitalist profit. Critics of this narrow focus argued that the majority of workers contributing to capitalist profit are no longer industrial workers in basic industry, that Marxists must pay particular attention to those sectors of the working class in which there is the greatest opportunity to develop militant resistance to corporate onslaught on living standards, whether in industry, trade, or services, in the private or public sector.
    The most militant labor struggles, they say, are now emerging where there are the greatest concentrations of the most oppressed sections of the working class, particularly African-Americans, Latinos and women. A labor policy ignoring these realities of the contemporary U.S. work force is, in practical effect, racist and sexist.
    The first significant criticism of Gus Hall's political leadership came with near unanimity from leading African-American members. The rigged convention subsequently purged most African-Americans, including Angela Davis, Charlene Mitchell, Kendra Alexander and Carl Bloice, from the national committee. No one among over one-third of the Party's members who had signed a call for reform in the party, including Herbert Aptheker, was safe; all were purged.
    As more and more U.S. Communists re-thought their understanding of socialism and political activism, they confronted a blank wall at the top of the party. Those seeking reform were branded as enemies. The effective lack of inner-party democracy became impossible to ignore. The doctrinaire rigidity of party policies that had rejected rank-and-file union reform groups (unless party-led), denigrated labor organizing of service and clerical workers, lagged in supporting the women's movement, ignored gay and lesbian issues, branded other socialist and progressive organizations as the "phony left" and have been blind or dishonest about "existing socialism," was intolerable if members could not hope to change these policies....The Committees of Correspondence provide hope for new ways of drawing together progressives to work for the replacement of capitalism with a just, humane and democratic socialism, created by and for the working people of this country."     -Erwin Marquit is a Professor in Physics, Doris G. Marquit is on the adjunct faculty in the English and Women's Studies Departments."Party survives, but as a shell", Minnesota Daily, February 19, 1992. (Archive.org copy)
  52. ↑ Aptheker, Bettina (1997). The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press. 
  53. ↑ "Search broadens for Angela Davis", August 17, 1970. 
  54. ↑ Angela Davis’ Archive Comes to Harvard. Smithsonian Magazine (16 February 2018).
  55. ↑ "A Shotgun That Miss Davis Purchased Is Linked to the Fatal Shooting of Judge", The New York Times, April 18, 1972. 
  56. ↑ Freedom on My Mind. Bedford/St. Martin's. ISBN 978-0-312-64884-8. 
  57. ↑ Biography. Davis (Angela) Legal Defense Collection, 1970–1972.
  58. ↑ (1993) Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-02030-8. 
  59. ↑ Causa Justa/Just Cause – a Black-Latino solidarity organization allied with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Right to the City Alliance, and others. Its 2013 revenues, $1.6 million, included $689,484 in government grants. Causa Justa has received over $2.3 million since 2010, mostly from the California Endowment, Marguerite Casey, and a few others.
  60. ↑ https://capitalresearch.org/article/blm-roots/
  61. ↑ A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.
  62. ↑ https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1273739801464725504
  63. ↑ Black Lives Matter Unmasked, Lee Stanahan, 2020.
  64. ↑ https://www.lifezette.com/2020/06/police-officers-all-over-the-country-targeted-for-murder-by-antifa-rioters/
  65. ↑ https://calwatchdog.com/2013/12/18/actually-jim-jones-cult-was-bay-area-democrats/
  66. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQq1Kv2UNpo
  67. ↑ https://streamable.com/y9s4x9
  68. ↑ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/east-bay/one-of-two-federal-officers-shot-friday-night-dies-from-injuries/2299729/
  69. ↑ https://nypost.com/2020/05/30/federal-police-officer-shot-dead-another-injured-in-oakland/
  70. ↑ https://bigleaguepolitics.com/racial-panic-erupts-in-oakland-over-nooses-that-were-actually-exercise-equipment/
  71. ↑ https://www.mrctv.org/blog/new-report-shows-nancy-pelosis-district-seat-piled-high-dirty-needles-and-human-feces
  72. ↑ https://forums.carm.org/forum/secular/society-ethics-politics/11922-drinking-water-danger-scat-francisco
  73. ↑ https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2019/09/19/will-epa-fine-san-francisco-homelessness/
  74. ↑ [3]
  75. ↑ https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Neighbors-disgusted-over-despair-on-block-hit-13015964.php
  76. ↑ https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/11/san-francisco-chesa-boudin-public-urination/
  77. ↑ https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/17/18629080/san-francisco-homeless-population-count-numbers-2019-sf
  78. ↑ https://sf.curbed.com/2018/5/9/17336090/san-francisco-needles-syringes-exchange-numbers-sf
  79. ↑ https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/No-more-slurping-through-plastic-straws-in-San-13102063.php
  80. ↑ https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/05/soros-investments-in-far-left-district-attorneys-campaigns-yields-bitter-fruit/
  81. ↑ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/14/george-soros-pushes-remake-criminal-justice-system/
  82. ↑ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2016/07/17/short-list-black-lives-matters-cop-killing-heroes/
  83. ↑ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/andrew-mccarthy/the-progressive-prosecutor-project/
  84. ↑ https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/joanne-deborah-chesimard
  85. ↑ https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/11/san-francisco-socialist-son-of-imprisoned-weather-underground-terrorists-who-was-raised-by-bill-ayers-and-worked-for-hugo-chavez-elected-d-a/
  86. ↑ https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1273739801464725504
  87. ↑ Black Lives Matter Unmasked, Lee Stanahan, 2020.
  88. ↑ A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.
  89. ↑ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/typhus-reaches-epidemic-levels-parts-los-angeles-area-n917271
  90. ↑ https://www.redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2020/03/29/ca-dismantled-its-mobile-hospital-system-ventilator-stockpile-in-2011/
  91. ↑ https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/leftist-mob-beats-police-officer-street-la-officer-mobbed-rescued-good-samaritan/
  92. ↑ https://streamable.com/61mdlo
  93. ↑ https://youtu.be/DcGSvEl44ow
  94. ↑ https://twitter.com/LAPDHQ/status/1270441223753396224
  95. ↑ Multiple references (Warning: Foul language, graphic videos):
  96. ↑ PURE EVIL: Bystanders Laugh, Mock Deputies including 31-Year-Old Mother After They Are Ambushed, Shot in the Head — NO ONE Runs to Help Them
  97. ↑ Two references:
  98. ↑ Two references:

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