Interview: Former San Bruno CA Mayor Gary Mondfrans about Bernie, Contemporary CA Politics, and Facebook Censoring

Fox: Mayor, clearly you are a major creative force with an insightful and experienced political mind. When you look around California, are there any crusading journalists left? For example, I just yesterday suggested to a sincere friend that she call the Sacramento Bee with some routine questions about vote discrepancies in the slowly returning counts of the uncounted votes, and their political reporter jumped all over her and said "you must be one of those Bernie

Mondfrans: Most of the really great reporters are gone, the corporations have swallowed up the hometown papers. Only some good "reporters" and commentators exist but those are usually found over local community radio stations and those by and large are all "Labors of Love."

Fox: Robert Reich, in my mind, was always an esteemed major brilliant supporter for Bernie, one of the top ones, but when it came right down to the crunch on efforts to get a new NY primary, he ignored us entirely, not even to say "take a hike." "Us" included hundreds of people emailing him directly and calling his office. Did you ever meet Reich? Why do you suppose so many legislators and major figures were never asked to put it in writing and submit it to editorial pages in California? Even Bernie did this only once, that I know of, against fracking, and it was on the editorial page in USA Today, the largest circulating paper in America. What happened? Is the Battle of the Editorial Pages a thing of the ancient political past? What an impact it would have had on the primaries if they had made a point of doing that?

MONDFRANS: I follow Robert Reich, and he and Bernie Sanders are

substantially on the same page. I would like to see Mr. Reich on the Supreme Court as Bernie's first pick of 2017. Far to many people stood silent when the could have helped Bernie Sanders, and while I am not familiar with the NY issue to me Elizabeth Warren has been a big disappointment, although she can certainly out trump Trump on Twitter and would have been a major asset to Bernie had she chimed in earlier.

FOX: I like your idea of training demonstrators. The campaign should have been doing that all along to combat the skilled operatives in the Clinton camp. As to the convention, I have suggested that there be an alternative for the demonstrators, maybe calling it "Reshaping the New Democratic Party," and get these people off the streets and out of the faces of the Super delegates. What do you think of that?

MONDFRANS: I have actually met with people here in Northern California, as well as on-line chat with people I will be staying with in Philly and have been using the working title of "Camp BernieMan" for non-violence training. Susan from Chico, California, has a friend who is actually a trainer in protests and demonstrations, and I know a couple of people in San Francisco, the most demonstrated city in the nation whom I plan to contact. "Camp BernieMan" will follow the train-the-trainer concept we used in the SFPD and Dept. of Emergency Service where I retired from after 31 years. It is not possible to train every #Berner and Berniecrat who shows up out side what might be the walled convention center at the Philadelphia Freedom Convention, but we can show by example how to behave in the traditions of Jesus, Gandhi, MLK and Nelson Mandela--we must reverse Chicago '68 and truly give peace a chance.

Fox: A very serious question: I believe Hillary would lose to Trump, especially after a half billion or more in ads tearing her up, like the Koch brothers 246 million they spent in 2014 and won all sorts of

legislators and statewide spots. Would the Democratic party then dump its blindsided DNC, and recover, or would it ever recover?

MONDFRANS: Oh my God! The Democrats have so much to loose sticking with a straight Hillary course, possibly straight into Trump Hell. The only thing that can truly save us if if the Super Dooper Delegates get a clear sense as to what is at stake and look at what Bernie Sanders "Purple" grass roots movement has created. A great purple tidal wave washing out the do-nothing Republicans from Washington, to state houses to city councils and county seats. The #BlackLivesMatter folks can see the opportunity to change sheriffs, police chiefs and judges from coast to coast and the resulting smiling faces will be real come this November.

FOX: What do you foresee down the political highway, if Hillary gets the nomination, and not Bernie? Those super delegates might shake loose if her legal "baggage" more or less explodes (in a figurative sense, of course....)

MONDFRANS: Backtracking a bit about journalism:I think by and large that the People Media, the internet, and in major part "Facebook" and Reddit especially have filled that gap by and large, and that is a good thing for local papers are no longer economically viable and actually digital media can reach more people instantaneously and without editing, yet with limitations now imposed by corporatists like Maark Zuckerberg directly or indirectly limiting our Freedom of Speech and ability to reach out to the very groups they so eagerly recommended to us in the first place it is having a dampening effect upon this election.

Fox: Last questions: How many times has Facebook restricted you and what percentage of the time have you been up vs. what time down?

Mondfrans: For the past two-three months I have been unable to post into the pro-Bernie groups and pages I belong to and that has been most frustrating.

FOX: Does this discourage you?

MONDFRANS: Yes, it means that each time I must redouble my efforts and ask others to post things for me or to endlessly post on individual pages and chat rooms. But you know, where there is a will there is a way, and this has opened up even more opportunities to get Bernie's cause out before the people and getting interview by people like you, so thank you kindly, Stephen Fox.

FOX: You are not far from San Mateo, and so you could go down to Facebook Headquarters at 1 Hacker Way. If you could talk with one of the executives for five minutes (and I recommend their lawyer, Colin Stretch, who already knows about your situation), what would you say to them, Mayor?

MONDFRANS: I do plan to go down there to talk with him as I told you previously, and I especially would seek out Counselor Stretch: I would ask him to open up to the what-if this will be eventually be called the "Facebook Revolution" and that Mark Zuckerberg has created something amazing for us to instantaneous communicate with anyone, anywhere and what are their plans for the next generation in Outer Space: Spacebook!!

FOX: Is it necessary for them to exercise such censorship, or it is a doubtful case of algorithms and numbers piling up for vigorous posters? They should be glad to have us doing what we do, to counter the Hillary Trolls posting pornography to get pages shut down for groups that have 400,000 members, the night before five primaries, as happened just a few weeks ago.

MONDFRANS: You and I are on the same page; many, many, in fact too too many people have been wrongly censored by Facebook, some possibly targeted in the extreme. I don't think it's just mathematics, but something quite as unseemly as election fraud back east and digital distortions here in California. In the end I think we will all be better for it.