hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (06/10/85)
In article <1454@bbncca.ARPA> rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes: >The New England Gay & Lesbian Film Festival: Week #3 >=========================================== >June 26/27 Wed/Thurs >TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (US, 1984) 1:00 5:00 8:00 >A moving documentary about San Francisco's first openly gay Supervisor, >who was murdered in city hall in 1978 by a homophobic fireman, it traces >Harvey's eccentric but flamboyant political career, giving just a glimpse >of the Castro Street culture of 70s' SF (THE book or movie on the Castro >has yet to be done, if it ever will). "The winner of of the Best Docu- >cumentary award by almost every critic group this year, including the >New York Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics." But >someone should've told narrator Harvey Fierstein to gargle before he >recorded! The summary is slightly off. Dan White, who assassinated Harvey Milk and Frank Moscone, was not just a fireman, he was an ex-city councilor. Besides being homophobic, he was not particularly good at the kind of dirty politics which Milk (a master of the fine art of kicking his enemies in the political crotch) and Moscone (who became a paragon unrivalled by anyone short of the Kennedys after he died) used to get rid of him. White was not a very (words elude me) complex? complete? human being. He seemed to think that killing Moscone and Milk would fix things. But it isn't fair to just label him homophobic as if that explained it all away. Hutch
rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (06/11/85)
The tone of "hutch"'s posting (from under what rock did he just crawl?) should betray the author's intent. Anyone who followed either SF politics or the subsequent trial of White should recognize the odious nonsense in the posting. More detailed accounts are available (Randy Shilts' THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET). It's probably a waste of time answering a posting displaying such hatred & idiocy (common these days, on the net & elsewhere), but here's one example to show how loony the claims being made are: George Moscone's popularity flourished almost entirely during his lifetime. A native San Franciscan and Favorite Son (basketball star at an SF high school), he was one of the most popular mayors the City's had in its long history of flamboyant local figures. Except for rival politicians, it was hard to dislike Moscone; he was one of those public figures universally regarded as a Nice Guy. However, the bizarre homophobia of the White trial resulted in the murdered Moscone dropping almost completely into oblivion: Feinstein became mayor, Milk's memory was kep alive by the gay community, but the straights seemed to forgot Moscone ever existed, a really nasty twist of fate for the Favorite Son. The posthumous naming of the Moscone Center hardly makes up for this. Moscone is apparently tainted because he was killed along with the fag Supervisor. I lived in Sf for an entire year after the city hall murders and well remember the weird public response or lack of it. The Moscone mayoralty, an exceptional period of coalition politics, now looks quite rosey, though, at the time, seemed less than perfect. Now SF is stuck with Princess Di and her tireless prudery, the splintering of the brief political links that had been made, and the more familiar more ideological cliches of left and right. Hutch's whining about "dirty politics" eerily echoes the very same infantile excuse-making that Dan White indulged in the flimsiest of attempts to exculpate himself from guilt in the killings. All the backroom manuouverings are detailed in Shilts' book. They aren't very pretty, but they're hardly exceptional in any American city. You can crawl back under your stone, soldier. Diiiiiiiismissed! Ron Rizzo
brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard Brower) (06/11/85)
In article <1425@shark.UUCP> hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) writes: >Dan White, who assassinated Harvey Milk and >Frank Moscone, was not just a fireman, he was an ex-city councilor. >Besides being homophobic, he was not particularly good at the kind of dirty >politics which Milk (a master of the fine art of kicking his enemies in the >political crotch) and Moscone (who became a paragon unrivalled by anyone >short of the Kennedys after he died) used to get rid of him. If you are going to tell the story, please make some attempt to make it complete. Dan White was once a policeman, once a fireman, and resigned from the Board of Supervisors a few days previous to murdering Milk and Moscone, with the claim that he needed to spend his time running his business as he could not support his family on a Supervisors pay. It was then the job of the Mayor to appoint a replacement for him until the next election. Dan informed the Mayor that he wanted the job back, which Moscone didn't want to do, as Moscone was a liberal, and White was extremely conservative. Your slurs against Milk and Moscone are completely uncalled for. Harvey Milk was noted as a colilition builder, not as a dirty politition. He was serving in his first term as a Supervisor after running for the office about 6 times. District elections had just replaced the former at-large method of electing Supervisors (which has now changed back to at-large). Moscone was recognised as beginning to repair the damage caused to the city by the neglect of former Mayor Alioto(?) to worry about the physical plant (streets, sewers, parks, etc.). Richard A. Brower Fortune Systems {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd,hpda,sri-unix,harpo}!fortune!brower