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The Blue Angels: Officially sanctioned terrorism

Photo: Steven Ringman: Blue Angels in 1983

Peter Hartlaub in Friday's SF Chronicle:

The Blue Angels will always be a simmering debate in San Francisco. Until the city’s dogs get organized enough to hire a lobbyist, the Navy precision flying team will almost certainly continue its multi-decade tradition of flying above and between our city’s landmarks during San Francisco Fleet Week.

But no modern controversy compares with the great Blue Angels panic of 1983, when six A-4 Skyhawk pilots surprised the city with a series of low-altitude San Francisco flybys that rattled windows and nerves. The coalition of enraged residents included Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who got on the phone and ordered the planes grounded...

“I thought it was the Russians coming when I heard the jets,” said Diane Comer, who at the time worked in the Financial District, where planes passed some workers below. “I thought Reagan had done something, and we were going to get it. But I didn’t hear anything on the radio and later someone said it was the Blue Angels”...

Rob's comment:

Yes, this officially-sanctioned bullying by the military will continue until an accident that takes out a city block ends the annoying annual foolishness.

From the NY Times in 1983:

The Blue Angels, the Navy's aerobatic flying team, buzzed the city for 30 minutes today, rattling windows and residents with sonic booms.

Mayor Dianne Feinstein, whose windows at City Hall shook along with those of hundreds of others, ''got on the telephone to the Navy and ordered them to bring those planes down,'' according to her spokesman, Tom Eastham..

The Mayor's office, the police and the authorities at San Francisco International Airport were flooded by telephone calls as six A-4 fighter jets swooped over the city.

''The Mayor was concerned that so many people were frightened,'' said Mr. Eastham, who acknowledged the Mayor had no actual authority to ban the planes from San Francisco's airspace....

Why is this officially sanctioned terrorism by the military a necessary part of Fleet Week? Can't we honor the Navy without being bullied by its air force?

Why can't those who like this dangerous show enjoy it somewhere else, like in rural America where many boobs and rubes who support Trump live? I suspect that the military likes the idea of annoying the people of liberal San Francisco.

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