Whatever Happened to …

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 13, 1999 | by John Elvin

Jerry Brown, the activist formerly known as "Moonbeam"? A perennial question, perhaps, but the answers keep changing. Since serving as California's governor and flirting several times with presidential politics, Brown now is mayor of Oakland, Calif., and he's causing a bit of a stir. He's acting, according to critics, like a real politician.

A recent profile in the Wall Street Journal notes that Brown has ditched his longtime limit on donations from individuals. He used to accept no more than $100, but those days are over. Now he's hitting up lawyers and developers with invitations to fired-raising events, strongly suggesting that the pleasure of his company might be worth, say, $500.

Remembered for his lectures on capitalism's nasty "prison-industrial complex" and other reformist positions, Brown now devotes much attention to reducing local crime. He's developing a 10-point criteria which would allow for jailing of juveniles. Seems the kids rarely are prosecuted at present, though they commit most of Oakland's 18,000 annual auto break-ins.

As for capitalism in general, Brown had this to say regarding a onetime favorite buzzword: "I don't talk about `sustainable development.' I talk about downtown development." And that doesn't go over so well with his former faithful who liked it when Jerry got fired up about humanistic values and that sort of thing. Now, they complain, he only wants to talk about "cops and cranes."