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<font size=2>February 07, 2012 <br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/07/let-them-eat-yachts/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/07/let-them-eat-yachts/<br><br>
</a>The Rogues Gallery of the America's Cup<br><br>
</font><h1><b>Let Them Eat Yachts</b></h1><font size=2>by DON
SANTINA<br><br>
The once-proud city of San Francisco is on the verge of turning its
storied public waterfront into a west coast playground and cash cow for
the idle rich, now more popularly known as the One Percent.
America’s Cup is coming to town.<br><br>
“America’s Cup.” It has an odd ring to it. It’s not a
familiar sports appellation like the World Series of baseball, the
Superbowl of football, World Cup of soccer, or even the Stanley Cup of
hockey. That’s because “America’s Cup” is a trophy passed back and
forth between private yacht clubs inhabited by wealthy
people. The Cup originated in an 1851 race staged by
English blue bloods and American robber barons who belonged to exclusive
all-white yacht clubs. The yacht clubs became the enabling
organizations for the wealthy to race their boat toys against each
other. Naturally, as a class that relies on the hard work of others
to produce wealth for itself, the hard work of the actual racing of the
boat toys was done by hired hands. No one expected Lord Bob or
Mister Monopoly to get out there on the deck and take in sail.<br><br>
From the very beginning, America’s Cup was inextricably tied to that
rogues gallery of sociopaths who amassed vast fortunes from the
exploitation of workers and resources while enjoying the protection of
the politicians they bought and sold like stocks. JP Morgan.
Vanderbilt. Rockefeller. Names that live in infamy in
the memory of anyone with a conscience. The tricked-out sailing
vessels they commissioned were merely extensions of their insatiable
egos. They also collected race horses, governors, and mansions (one
of Vanderbilt’s was aptly called “Idle Hours”), as their wives collected
furs, servants and diamond studded collars for their dogs. Mark
Twain dubbed the period the “Gilded Age,” because its thin veneer of
plating was not thick enough to conceal the prevalence of avarice and
corruption underneath.<br><br>
By the end of the 20th century, the Cup races, which had stumbled through
the century with as much as eighteen-year gaps between events, suddenly
expanded into regular matches and rematches between the ever-private
yacht clubs (most of the clubs are still called the “royal” this or that)
and added venues like San Diego, Auckland and Valencia. With the
phenomenal growth of cable television and its voracious need for twenty
four hours of sports, even rich people’s sail boats attracted an
audience, but it was still nowhere near a Sunday morning NFL game.
The game changer happened when Larry Ellison, a billionaire poster boy
for the One Percenters sponsored a team that won the 33rd Cup in
Valencia.<br><br>
Flush from his victory, Ellison called up San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newsom and said something like: “I’m the sixth-richest man in the
world. I’ll fix up some of your piers, race my boats, and when the
race is over, I’ll keep some of the waterfront. Sound like a
deal?” (Actually, the proposal was similar to the late Warren
Hellman’s music festival deal in which the City gave him Golden Gate Park
to indulge his banjo-playing hobby. The big difference is that
Hellman didn’t get to keep part of the Park at the end of his
festival.)<br><br>
In his waning months as mayor, Newsom–ever the errand boy for the super
rich–cobbled together a committee to facilitate corporate funding for the
project and move the sweetheart agreement along. The America’s Cup
Organizing Committee (ACOC) included all the Usual Suspects in the City’s
power elite: vulture capitalists like Tom Perkins and
Hellman; denizens of the Downtown Gang like real estate predator Tom
Coates, who had contributed one million dollars to the statewide
initiative to eliminate rent control; the Pacific Heights layabout,
Dede Wilsey, who ironically coughed five grand to help pass Newsom’s anti
homeless no-sitting/ no-laying on the sidewalk ordinance ; Old Retainers
like George Shultz, whose questionable achievements include Bechtel, the
Iran Contra scandal, and the discredited Committee for the Liberation of
Iraq; Bob Fisher, whose retail giant GAP was built on sweatshop
sweat, and reps from super corps like Wells Fargo and AT&T.<br><br>
Also added in honorary political seats were perennial incumbents Dianne
Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, whose accomplishments include enriching
themselves in office, which is a common activity in
Washington. For Ellison, Feinstein delivered the America’s Cup Act
of 2011–signed last November by President Obama– which waived laws which
prohibited foreign vessels to operate in American waters. Pelosi,
who was Speaker of the House during the Great Wall Street Bailout, is no
stranger to privatizing property that belongs to the public. She
participated in the process that gave away San Francisco’s Presidio
several years ago.<br><br>
So, what does the non-profit (ha-ha-ha up your sleeve) ACOC do with the
funding it raises? Well, it funnels it to Larry Ellison’s
private management team, the America’s Cup Event Authority. The
ACEA is the vehicle through which the One Percenters pocket financial
rights to a large chunk of San Francisco’s extremely lucrative waterfront
properties. In return for Ellison’s chump-change
makeover of some of the waterfront for his event, according to the San
Francisco <i>Chronicle</i>, the latest version of the Host City Agreement
gives the ACEA Seawall Lot 330 and “the rights to leases of at least 10
years and rent credit on four piers depending on the money it spends
improving port infrastructure.” For a minimum $55 million
infrastructure investment by the ACEA, Ellison gets development rights
and a 66-year-rent-free lease on Piers 30-32, and if he spends a little
more pocket change, he gets reimbursement “ in the form of bond proceeds,
then credit to lease Piers 26, 28, and, ultimately, 29, according to a
draft of the deal.”<br><br>
Already, the vultures are descending. Last month, JPMorgan Asset
Management (sound familiar?) gobbled up a 902,000 square foot complex in
China Basin Landing for $415 million. (Those taxpayer-funded
bailouts came in handy in the world of the idle rich.)<br><br>
Oh, but America’s Cup will provide jobs, the hucksters proclaim
loudly. And tourists! Well, we’ve all heard that one
before. What’s new is the hilarious claim that San Francisco needs
an obscure boat race to attract tourists during the summer.<br><br>
The Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915 also promised “thousands” of jobs
in San Francisco, some of which actually materialized. For those
workers who were left out of this capitalist bonanza, Joe Hill, the
immortal IWW songwriter, penned these words to the tune of “It’s A Long
Way To Tipperary.”<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Bill Brown came a thousand miles to work on Frisco Fair<br>
<dd>All the papers said a million men were wanted there<br>
<dd>Bill Brown hung around and asked for work three times a day,<br>
<dd>Til finally he went busted flat, then he did sadly say,<br>
<dd>It’s a long way down to the soupline,<br>
<dd>It’s a long way to go.<br>
<dd>It’s a long way down to the soupline<br>
<dd>And the soup is weak I know.<br>
<dd>Goodbye, good old pork chops,<br>
<dd>Farewell beefsteak rare,<br>
<dd>It’s a long way down to the soupline,<br>
<dd>But my soup is there.<br><br>
</i>
</dl><font size=3>As the recession deepens for the ninety nine per cent,
the souplines are growing longer in the City of Saint
Francis. The Human Services Agency reports that 33,798
residents receive food stamps, up 61% from two years ago. Housing
foreclosures are averaging 3,000 a year over the past four years
according to Realtytrac, and there are nearly 7,000 homeless men, women
and children living in the city. San Francisco’s ratio of homeless
people to the general population is higher than that of New York or
Chicago. (Don’t worry, America’s Cup patrons, the SFPD will sweep
those bothersome people away before your boat toys arrive, just like they
did for Mayor Feinstein for her party’s national convention in
1984.)<br><br>
In the City of Saint Francis, over 100,000 people live in the
government’s definition of poverty, which is a basic subsistence level
living. According to the Center for Community Economic Development,
“to meet the basic expenses for a family of three, one would need to work
more than 3 full-time minimum wage jobs.” I suppose the whole
family could work full time bussing tables at minimum wage for the gentry
eating $25 sandwiches on Ellison’s pretty new waterfront and maybe the
childschool? what school?–could do a little overtime to meet the extra
expenses.<br><br>
So, San Francisco’s inestimably expensive waterfront is up for sale cheap
to the One Percenters, yet another welfare program for the super
rich. What do the people of San Francisco get? Not a
single buck in the deal for the ninety nine per cent. Not even
four-bits for affordable housing. Not even two-bits for schools or
libraries. Not even a dime for healthcare. Not even a nickel
for someone living on the streets.<br><br>
This is the waterfront of the legendary 1934 Strike which changed
American labor history. This was the Strike where workers bravely
stood up to the One Percent’s strike-breakers, who were backed up by the
police and the National Guard. This was the Strike that became the
General Strike after the SFPD shot to death two strikers, Nick Bordoise
and Howard Sperry. This was the Strike that brought decent wages
and working conditions to millions of workers over the following half
century.<br><br>
If logic prevailed, the proper site for America’s Cup would be the Cayman
Islands, where the idle rich hide their money to avoid taxes.
Switzerland would be another likely candidate, but, unfortunately, it
doesn’t have a coast line. So, the boat toys of the One Percenters
will probably sail in San Francisco Bay because the local political spine
usually withers when it comes face to face with Big Money. And, at
that point, the One Percenters can say about the rest of us, “let them
eat yachts.”<br><br>
<b><i>Don Santina</b> is a cultural historian whose grandfather, Humphrey
O’Leary, was a participant in the 1934 General Strike. He can be
reached at
<a href="mailto:lindey89@aol.com">lindey89@aol.com</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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