In California, Proposition 8 passed, changing the California Constitution to ban same sex marriage. Proposition 2, a ban on mistreatment of farm animals, passed. Prop 5, which aimed to reform how the prison system deals with drug offenders, failed to pass. In San Francisco, a measure to bring JROTC back into schools passed. A measure to change how police deal with prostitution failed to pass. The SF Board of Supervisors has remained in the hands of progressives.

On Tuesday November 4th, Barack Obama beat John McCain to become the first African-American President of the United States of America. Obama won many traditionally Republican states, including Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, Indiana and North Carolina. As Obama's win became clear, celebrations broke out around the Bay Area.

On November 2, Hebrew University student Ali Bahar was detained for three hours after refusing to shake hands with Israeli president Shimon Peres. Upon approaching Bahar, the student refused to shake Peres' hand and stated "I will not shake hands with murderer of kids." Immediately following the encounter, Bahar was detained by university security personnel and his student ID was confiscated.

On November 2nd, over 1,000 people came to downtown Fresno for a NO ON 8 rally. The rally at Fresno City Hall was followed by an impromptu march to the County Clerks office to demand marriage equality. The keynote speaker at the rally was Father Farrow, who was a priest at the Saint Paul Newman Center in northeast Fresno. . . until he came out (last month) against Proposition 8. For this courageous act, he was suspended as a priest and removed as pastor.

On October 30th, a gathering of Palin family look-alikes met under the rainbow flag on the Castro to the delight of tourists and locals alike. Mainstream media came out in force to photograph the group of men and women in Sarah Palin drag. A non-plussed Bristol Palin impersonator, appearing very pregnant, joined the entourage, helping to lift the spirits of San Franciscans nervous about election outcomes.

On October 30th, a Halloween-themed rally drew a large crowd of employees to the front doors of the Santa Clara Hyatt hotel where they demonstrated for a fair process to choose a union.  Despite intermittent rain, protestors and their supporters chanted and carried placards in Spanish, English and Tagalog. Some wore masks and doled out tiny Halloween candy treats, mocking management’s attitude toward employees. Hyatt management has continually rejected its workers’ request for the company to stay neutral while workers decide for themselves whether or not to have a union.

A coalition of fishing and environmental groups is alarmed that an executive order by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued earlier this year could further threaten imperiled populations of Central Valley and Klamath River salmon. The order, made during the budget impasse between the Governor and Legislature, terminated temporary help positions from the state’s payroll.

This Halloween, Friday, Oct. 31, hundreds of Bay Area youth gathered with community members and families to denounce the atrocities committed against immigrant communities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The action was a response to ICE attacks against immigrant communities in so-called “sanctuary cities” like San Francisco and to a presidential election season that has seen neither major candidate substantively address the issues facing immigrant families. BART police shut down at least three stations - Richmond, Fruitvale, and Coliseum - from which groups of protesters were gathering to commute to the protest in downtown San Francisco. At least three protesters were arrested in Richmond.

On October 27, San Mateo Superior Court Judge Beth Freeman ruled against East Palo residents seeking affirmation of their city's authority to enforce and implement its own Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Tenants and the City of East Palo Alto have been in a legal dispute with Page Mill Properties/Woodland Park Management since January 2008 over Page Mill’s repeated violations of the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, raising tenant rents 2 or 3 times in one year totaling raises of 20%, 30%, and even up to 100%.

On October 17th, seven years ago, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine assassinated Rehavam Zeevi, the Israeli minister of tourism. The assassination was carried out in response to Israel’s killing of Palestinian leaders, among them Abu Ali Mostafa, the head of the PFLP. Zeevi was the head of the Moledet Party that was advocating the expulsion of all Palestinians from occupied Palestine to Arab nations.

The Republican National Committee has sent non-Republican voters in Northern California a letter identifying them as Republicans. The letters include a registration card with a fake voter ID number and a do-not-forward stamp on the outside of the envelope. Voting rights activists say the letters are part of a voter caging campaign and an attempt to undermine non-Republican voters in the November election.

SubRosa, a new community space in downtown Santa Cruz, hosted its grand opening event on November 1st. The event included an art show, spoken word, live music, food, and a first look inside this vibrant new social space.

The 15th annual Peace and Unity March, originally scheduled to take place on November 1st in Watsonville, has been postponed due to rain. For the last 15 years, the Watsonville Brown Berets, along with families of fallen victims and other community members, have organized the Peace and Unity March. In this time, more than 80 residents of the Watsonville community have lost their lives to violence.

Monday October 27th was the first day of a landmark jury trial against Chevron in San Francisco. A protest took place Monday afternoon at the Chevron gas station at the corner of 9th and Howard in San Francisco in solidarity with Nigerian plaintiffs who were in Federal court nearby. Chevron has been charged with gross human rights abuses associated with its oil production activities in Nigeria. The lawsuits are based on a 1998 incident in which Nigerian soldiers shot nonviolent protesters at Chevron’s Parabe offshore platform.

On Wednesday, Oct. 22, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security raided more than a dozen homes in San Francisco, South San Francisco, and Richmond. Victims of the attack included a San Francisco immigrant family, reportedly all US citizens. On Thursday, Oct. 23, community members gathered in front of the ICE office in San Francisco to protest the violent raids.

A group of Hmong gardeners and their allies are fighting an attempt by the City of Fresno to evict them from plots they have farmed for 13 years. The Hmong Community Garden provides food for 300 members of the Hmong community. The city is planning to destroy the garden and build a police substation in its place. City officials have claimed that an agreement was reached to relocate the gardeners, but the gardeners stated they have not and will not agree to be relocated.

On October 17th, Naomi Klein spoke at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz about her new book: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world -- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

This November, whether the San Francisco Board of Supervisors remains pro-tenant, pro-labor, and progressive will be determined by what happens in the swing supervisor districts of 1, 3 and 11. Community activists have called for a protest on Thursday, October 23rd, to picket the realtors and landlords funding a "downtown" slate of candidates. Protesters will gather at the San Francisco Association of Realtors office at the corner of Franklin and Grove St. at 5:30pm.

On Oct. 19-22, the Mortgage Bankers Association, a group which represents the real estate finance industry, will be holding their annual convention at San Francisco's Moscone West. Featured speakers include the chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two companies that have been at the center of the financial crisis. There will be protests on Sun., Oct. 19 during the convention's opening ceremony and on Mon., Oct. 20 during its opening general session.

On October 18th, both exterior surveillance cameras at the McDonald's on Ocean Street in Santa Cruz were stolen. A post to Santa Cruz Indymedia says the action was a follow-up to a similar event in August and also states that, "McDonalds is a major sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics which are flooding the city of Vancouver with increased surveillance and police presence."

On October 13th, a protest held outside of UC Berkeley's new animal testing facility drew media and cops. The protest marked National Primate Liberation Week, which featured demonstrations and press conferences across the country. Completion of the laboratory will lead to a seventy percent increase in animal research at the University, which already experiments on approximately 40,000 animals at any given time, including at least 15 primates.

Proposition 8 is an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election ballot titled "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." If passed, the proposition would "change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California." Recent polls put the initiative ahead 47 to 42 percent among likely voters. San Francisco's No on 8 office at 2278 Market St. has Saturday rallies at 10 a.m. followed by phonebanking.

In the past few weeks, activists in the UC Berkeley area have engaged in correcting pro-Israel propaganda. On the night of September 18, however, someone added an image of a Swastika, an equal sign and a Star of David, to an already stenciled ad that carried the massage "free Palestine". Zionists groups have seized the moment and used the graffiti for the political agenda of creating an atmosphere of fear, in order to silence critics of Apartheid. Additionally, local media outlets have reported on the hate speech graffiti and some have printed false accusations against Palestinian solidarity groups on Campus.

For almost two months, the teachers union in the Mexican state of Morelos rose up against the "Alliance for Quality Education", a neo-liberal plan akin to "No Child Left Behind" that would pave the way to the privatization of education, among other things. They were supported by the people of Morelos in their marches, encampments in public plazas, and blockades of interstate highways. On October 7, 8, and 9, the army and state and federal police were sent in to brutally smash the movement.

The California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) held a conference in San Francisco on October 13th. CARA unites retired workers and community groups to win social and economic justice. Members of CARA took a bus from the conference on the afternoon of October 13th to demonstrate in solidarity with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at a Rite Aid store at the corner of Van Ness and Market Streets.

On the night after Columbus Day 2008, eleven windows were vandalized at the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Recruiting Center in Capitola with a paint and acid mix. The Recruiting Center was vandalized because, "The U.S. government has always waged a war of extermination against land-based ways of life in order to impose capitalist exploitation of the earth and its peoples."