In a nutshell: power suppliers have restricted supply because they make more money by doing so.  Our elected officials are helping them rip us off.  Various groups, led by several labor councils, are holding a series of demonstrations.

Opinion

A wonderful propaganda opportunity presents itself.  Here are my thoughts for an op-ed piece, spelling out a radical program for cutting off the root of the problem.  Also available in better looking MS Word 97.  It explains why the effort to fix the blame on federal inaction is a bit of political theatre by local politicians, who are perfectly capable of solving the problems without federal help.

Events

Links

Here's a great web site.
See particularly "Ten Myths of Utility Deregulation" by Public Citizen.

Visit the San Francisco Municipal Utility District Campaign site. It includes downloadable flyers.

Frontline documentary on the blackouts.

Archive

The central labor council of CA is mounting a series of demonstrations calling on FERC (Federal Energy Regulator Comission) to cap price and the state to seize plants and impose an excess profits tax. DSAers attended the kickoff event in the Bay Area, Wednesday, June 7 at 4PM in downtown Oakland. We marched to a nearby Duke Power plant and issued a notice of seizure. Here's a flyer. The next demo is in southern CA.

The SF municipal utility district campaign kicked off on June 11 with many local luminaries.  San Francisco is unique because the Raker act specifically guaranteed it would get the power from the rape of Hetch Hetchy for public power.  PG&E has fought for years to prevent this from happening, while earning a tidy profit by selling us our own power.  This is a great chance to put an end to it.  Click here for a flyer. Here's a smaller one.

In early June public television showed "Blackout" Frontline documentary On the power crisis in CA and elsewhere.