Obama welcomed by SF protestors

By Alex Emslie
OPINIONS AND EDITORIALS EDITOR

President Barack Obama’s whirlwind San Francisco visit to raise money for the Democratic National Committee was met by droves of protesters outside the Westin St. Francis Hotel at Union Square on Oct. 15.

Air Force One landed at San Francisco International Airport just before 5 p.m. The president’s motorcade then whisked him to his speaking engagement.

A crowd of several hundred, unified by their dissent, gathered at the intersection of Powell and Geary streets as the president entertained party contributors inside the hotel.

“I’ve never seen so many different groups protesting the same person,” said Lee Wolf, San Francisco State University alumnus and member of the Young Republicans.

The president’s national approval rating has dropped consistently since his inauguration, according to data compiled by pollster.com. The beginning of this year showed Obama with mid-to-high 70 percent approval rating, which has now fallen to about mid 50 percent.

“Obama, do your job,” San Francisco resident and former City College student Cookie Arceo said. “We used our voice in voting for you, and we want change.”

Though there was a small contingency present to show support for Obama, the majority of the crowd was there to protest the administration’s policies, but their messages differed widely. Various activist groups including Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Veterans for Peace, Tea Parties, Single Payer Now and Code Pink were at the event. The major issues of contention were health care reform, the coup that ousted the democratically elected leader of Honduras and the war in Afghanistan.

“A public option would have decreased health care costs in terms of putting another option for the public in the insurance sector, but I don’t think it was the answer  anyway,” said Dr. Bill Tarran, a San Francisco podiatrist and Single Payer Now member. “We really have to start all over getting rid of the insurance companies and having a single payer. That’s not socialized medicine. That’s just having a payer that’s going to reimburse physicians and hospitals fairly and without tremendous overhead.”

A single-payer health care system would eliminate insurance companies. Private doctors and hospitals would be paid by the government on a fee-for-service basis, similar to the way Medicare is administrated now. Tarran advocated H.R. 676, a House of Representatives single-payer bill.

Very different ideas could be heard just a few feet from Tarran’s banner, which read, “Doctors Want Single Payer Health Care.”

“Obama’s health care plan would put the insurance companies out of business, which some people think is a good thing,” Fresno resident and tea-partier Jim Westfall said. “I happen to think we need insurance companies, and we have the best health care system in the world. This is about control. It’s not about improving everybody’s health care. Most of us are happy with our health care.”

San Francisco resident and Vietnam veteran Jean Morris, a member of Veterans for Peace, stood outside the Westin St. Francis to show his concern for the overthrow of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and the Obama administration’s lack of action to re-instate the democratically elected leader.

“Unbeknownst to, I would say, most Americans, there has been the use of chemical weapons against the people who are supporting the official president Zelaya,” Morris said. “There have been these kinds of terrible acts against the people who are trying to make their voices heard, and this can only continue because our government enables that. Under United States law, if there’s a military coup in a nation, we are obligated to withdraw all of our support, and the Obama administration has not done that.”

Morris’ criticism of the Obama administration’s foreign policy included the “serious health issues” of Vietnam veterans due to exposure to Agent Orange, the defoliant used in Vietnam, and a “legacy of our last war.” He said sickness caused by exposure to depleted uranium  will be the legacy of the current U.S. war.

Arceo added to Morris’ criticism of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. “If he really wants to honor the fact that he got the Nobel Peace Prize, he should probably pull out all of America’s colonial fingers from all around the world — out of the pies that are Third World countries,” Arceo said.

City College alumna Dajenya Kafele advocated a full pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan while Obama is considering a request for more troops from General Stanley McChrystal.

“I’m here today because I’m very concerned that the peace movement appears to have gotten rather complacent and quiet since Obama got in office,” she said. “He’s spending even more on the military than was being spent before. Where is the peace movement in all this?”

Massive loss of life and billions of dollars spent monthly on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t worth it, according to Kafele.

“Let’s stop wasting money making more enemies through military means and spend this money at home where we need to get our economy back on track,” she said.
Obama left San Francisco on the morning of Oct. 16. Several news sources including CNN and Fox cited an anonymous DNC source estimating the fund raiser made $3 million for the Democratic Party.