Why Brown? Why Now?

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

Few will remember why Jerry Brown was elected governor back in the 1970s, as most of the current California electorate either wasn’t born yet or has immigrated here since that time. Those were the halcyon days of the post-Vietnam War, Watergate and college student uprisings— Governor Jerry was the antidote to everything wrong that Ronald Reagan stood for. Reagan represented The Man who tear-gassed the students at UC Berkeley’s People’s Park and was famously quoted for his anti-environmentalist statement, “If you’ve seen one redwood [tree] you’ve seen them all.” Jerry was our man. He represented our generation’s disdain for everything Vietnam, Nixon and Reagan stood for while outlining a new vision for our future. It was a vision that would not be completed.

He talked about green energy, before we really knew what it was, and then he funded the first solar energy farm out in the Mojave dessert that is still functioning today. He, of course, was derided in the press for his prescient vision that one day we would be talking on telephones connected to satellites, which earned him the nickname “Gov. Moon Beam.” But who among us today hasn’t adopted the use of a cell phone? And then there was the invasion of the Med-fly.

As the environmental governor, Brown was confronted with the invasion of the Mediterranean fruit fly, a threat to this state’s billion-dollar agriculture business. He had the option of aerial spraying vast sections of urban California with malathion, or using less invasive methods to fight the infestation. He rightly chose to use the later tactic, using ground dusting and on-site spraying with the use of the release of sterilized Med-flies, imported from Chile. His credentials as the pro-environmental governor were on the line and his efforts were basically sabotaged. First, several millions of “sterilized” Med-flies were released and then were discovered not to be sterilized! This exacerbated the situation and undermined his already contentious decision not to do aerial spraying. Then the federal government stepped in threatening to withhold millions of dollars in agricultural subsidies to the state if he didn’t implement the aerial spraying. Brown eventually caved in to the Fed and was forced to contract with a helicopter outfit that only later was revealed to be connected to the infamous CIA shadow corporation Air America.

In short, Brown got screwed, losing all credibility with his green, Sierra Club-type supporters and many younger voters at the same time. I always considered this a political “set-up” or character assassination. Some might call it a conspiracy. But let’s just settle it by saying “it wasn’t an accident!”

But this is the past and Jerry has moved on, grown up— aged you might say—and gotten a bit wiser to the ways of political sabotage and right wing baiting.

Most politicians with less experience would have collapsed this last summer from the heat of Meg Whitman’s self-financed $119 million attack campaign, but Brown didn’t. He stood his ground and waited, even against all the hysterical advice to fight back early. Clearly, Jerry Brown has learned a few things since his early days as the “youngest governor.” But does any of this qualify him to lead California out of its current crisis?

Compared to Whitman, probably yes. We’ve just suffered through six years of a governor who was too wealthy to need the job, who was too inexperienced in either state or party politics to do the job, and who basically told us that he was going to run our government like a business. Well, that hasn’t worked out so well. We are still running state budget deficits of $19 billion a year and he can’t even convince his Republican minority party to compromise on passing a budget. Meg, with all of her eBay/Silicon Valley savoir-faire isn’t saying anything better than what Schwarzenegger promised when he deposed Gov. Gray Davis.

What is undiscussed in the mainstream media is that running a for-profit business is fundamentally different than running a not-for-profit government. Does anyone remember opening up our state regulated energy supply to the free marketeers like Enron? But let’s just ask this one question: why would any California voter trust someone running for the state’s highest office who hasn’t even voted for the past 20 years?

Democracy belongs to those who show up and if you don’t show up at one election you can be forgiven––but for 20 years? Come on! Everyone has the right to complain about the government we’ve got, but if you don’t show up to vote for this long, save your breath for singing in the shower because nobody really wants to hear you.

So, Jerry Brown is not the perfect candidate, but in my estimation, California kind of owes him a shot at finishing what he started 30 years ago, because A) we’ve finally caught up to where he was then, B) his policies were previously ambushed by political forces now exposed and discredited and C) in a crisis, you hire the one who has the relevant experience, and he does.

I am personally not impressed with the current set of amateur politicians who want to start at the top simply because they have the money— show me what you’ve actually done for somebody other than yourself before you get paid to represent everybody in my state! That goes for you too, Carly.