Baghdad by the Bay #4

A wise observer, noting the decline of San Francisco's waterfront, said that San Francisco had given up working for a living and decided to live off of her looks. A non-profit group, Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square, aware of San Francisco's new avocation, put together a proposal to accept and host the Iowa, boosting San Franciso's tourist industry. However, late last month the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declined by an 8 to 3 vote, to support the effort, effectively banning the USS Iowa from San Francisco's morally pristine shores.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Board voted against supporting the bid for the battleship because of "the widespread opposition to the war in Iraq, the unequal treatment of gay and lesbian enlisted men and women, and the city's reputation as a home of the peace movement." Calling the decision, "very petty" Feinstein said "This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in and was born in." Indeed, it isn't a San Francisco that anyone who knows any history would recognize.

The USS Iowa has been here before. For two months in early 1945, the Iowa was in San Francisco undergoing an overhaul, San Francisco being the biggest Naval port on the west coast in World War II. The U.S. Navy had long played a positive role in the life of San Francisco, even organizing a seaborne rescue of thousands of people trapped on the waterfront by the flames of the burning city after the 1906 earthquake. Most reasonable people recognize that the U.S. military's primary mission over the last 100 years has been to keep the peace or regain it. But the eight "progressives" are obviously not reasonable.

The eight "progressives" also seem unable to discriminate between animate and inanimate objects. Mention has been made of the Clayton Hartwig affair associated with an explosion in turret #2 in 1989 that killed 47 crewmen. Naval Investigators had theorized that Hartwig had detonated an explosive device in the turret, killing himself and 46 others, allegedly due to the end of a homosexual affair with another sailor. This was a scandalous and libelous charge by the Navy which they later had to retract. Of course, blaming the USS Iowa for the behavior of Navy Brass is silly. The Supervisors might as well order the demolition of City Hall because that is where Dan White shot Harvey Milk. Turret #2 was never rebuilt, and could just as well be regarded as a monument to and warning against prejudice as the evil personification of prejudice.

The Iraq war that so upsets the progressives started in 2003. The USS Iowa was decommissioned in 1990. Guilt by association, even when there is no association is very popular with the left.

The vote by the eight progressives shows a disregard for the proud history of San Francisco's support for the U.S. Navy, and for the Navy's support of San Francisco. It betrays their irrational prejudice of the military, and it shows that for San Francisco's progressives, ideology is more important than the economic health of the city.

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