Guy Saperstein

By Eugene Tssui (July 1, 2020) notes from Guy Saperstein about his life story: I grew up in a low-income family in North Hollywood and became an anti-war radical during eight years at the University of California, Berkeley, 1961-69, eventually turning in my draft card and becoming a draft resister. I graduated from Berkeley School of Law in 1969 and took a two-year fellowship representing migrant farmworkers in Colorado. My wife and I then took a 4-month break to backpack in the Rocky Mountains, and I returned to Oakland, California in 1972, where I founded the law firm which eventually grew from two people to 165 employees and became the largest private plaintiff civil rights law firm in American history; my firm successfully prosecuted the largest sex, race, age and disability employment discrimination class actions in American history. For six years [1991-97], I was included in the National Law Journal list of "The 100 Most Influential Attorneys in America"-the only private civil rights attorney ever included in that list. I also prosecuted False Claims Act lawsuits against Lockheed Missiles & Space, Boeing, TRW and Raytheon for fraud in the NSA satellite surveillance programs and the National Missile Defense Program-which I can say with substantial authority after reading thousands of pages of test results, is a $200 billion fraud and sham which not only does not work, but never will work. I retired from law at age 51, wrote two books, including my memoirs and a book about hiking the John Muir Trail with my youngest son which won several national awards, produced a feature film ["Skeleton Woman"], did many month-long adventures, including trekking the Himalayas with one son and kayaking the Grand Canyon with another son, and became a partner in the Democracy Alliance, where I was Co-Chair of the DA's Strategy Working Group and Chair of its National Security/Foreign Policy Working Group. I also was appointed by Nancy Pelosi as a member of the Democratic national security policy group, which in 2006 re-wrote the Democratic Party platform on national security, titled "Real Security." I subsequently founded a small think tank, The New Ideas Fund, for the purpose of generating new ideas on national security and foreign policy. I have written many articles on politics and history and have even ventured into the realm of humor writing [Why aren't you laughing?]. I am one of the co-founders of Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and currently am active on three boards: The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which is fighting with little help from the Obama Administration to protect 10 million acres of wilderness on the Colorado Plateau; Brave New Films, which I am happy to report is in the process of producing a series of films about defense industry waste and fraud; and, the Northern Sierra Partnership, which is seeking to raise $170 million to protect wild lands in the Northern Sierras. I also am a co-owner of the Oakland Athletics. My politics today are no different than they were in the 1960s; if anything, I have an even more radical vision today of what is required to put America back on a healthy and just path than I had in the 60s. Not everyone gets ground down by life and compromise. I also raised two children, helped to raise a third, and have been married to the same beautiful woman for 52 wonderful years, who I met while picketing the United States District Courthouse in Los Angeles in 1967 on a demonstration I helped organize for the Welfare Rights Organization. Through it all, I have learned one important over-riding lesson: You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about. "Be the person your dog thinks you are." Moxie and Wookie