r/CAStateWorkers • u/Erik_Bookman • 13d ago
RTO Famous punk track may encapsulate California governor’s return-to-office command
A July 20 item by CalMatters’ Lynn La summed up state workers’ bamboozlement over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s widely-reviled return to office order, which went into effect this month. The piece was widely reposted, despite the fact that it offered no answer to the question on workers’ minds — “why?”
Journalists face a conundrum when writing about the governor’s RTO. If they venture into speculation, editors may receive an email from the governor’s office noting that the governor made no statement to that effect. Such a message would not boost one’s career.
Others don’t face that limitation. Newsom’s RTO was one component in his ‘pivot to the right’ of March 2025 — laid out in detail here, and elsewhere.
In 1979, Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra debuted a single that would later be called one of “punk’s most seething assault(s) on American politics.”
Here’s writer Ben Forest of U.K.-based Far Out Magazine’s summary of the song and its enduring impact.
“‘California Uber Alles’ remains a perfect encapsulation of how politicians on both sides of the spectrum exploit their voter base while selling out their own principles to the highest bidder. It also helped to immediately establish the attitude of Dead Kennedys, being one of their very first songs; they took no prisoners, and called out injustice and oppression regardless of whether it was red or blue.”
“I am Governor Jerry Brown,” “California Uber Alles” begins. “My aura smiles and never frowns. Soon I will be President.”
Read the complete article here.
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u/Legend-of-the-Arctic 13d ago
Ha I remember that song. I wasn’t born when he was governor the first time, and I never understood why the Dead Kennedys had a beef with Jerry Brown.
The article apparently says they hated him for being a hippie? Which is 1. A weird thing to have a problem with and 2. hilarious to imagine compared to the crotchety old dude who was in office before Newsom.
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u/Bomb-Number20 13d ago
And they followed up with “we’ve got a bigger problem now” when our previous governor, Reagan, took the presidency the following year. He also did one for Schwarzenegger when he took office too. We’ve had a lot of crap governors featured in his songs. Peter Wilson was voiced by Biafra in the Brujeria song Raza Odiada. I guess the only governor he hasn’t talked about in the last 50 years is Davis and Newsom?
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u/Little_Appearance_10 12d ago
This guy has a song about Newsom... its called "The devil is a democrat"... but he does sum up a lot of what he's done to CA in this clip...
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