San Francisco Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi should be my hero. She’s about to become the first female Speaker of the House in American history. She’s also the first Italian American. But identity politics isn’t enough. Sure, it’s great that she’s the first woman and Italian to be one heartbeat from the highest office in the land. America’s “come a long way baby,” since the days when women were supposed to be barefoot and pregnant and Italians were gangsters in the movies.

The country needs more than entries in the Guinness Book of Records. It needs real change. Nancy Pelosi isn’t going to do that. She’s certainly an improvement over the corrupt leadership that Congress has had for 12 years. She’s already talking about some worthy goals, including raising the minimum wage (hopefully to a living wage) and reducing the cost of medicine (universal healthcare would do that, though she hasn’t mentioned that yet). The problem is: She doesn’t represent my “San Francisco values.”

Take impeachment for example. There couldn’t be a president more deserving of that fate than George Bush. He’s led us into two unjust wars, botched the response to hurricane Katrina, failed to respond to intelligence reports about an attack on this country just prior to 9/11, authorized spying on Americans, and violated basic civil rights via the Patriot Act and the repeal of habeas corpus.

Yet on the morning after the election, Pelosi told the press that impeachment is not even on the table for discussion. This despite the fact that two cities in the Bay Area (San Francisco and Berkeley) had just passed propositions calling for the impeachment of the president. Granted that Pelosi doesn’t want to appear as if she’s drooling over the next rung in the political ladder, but she has the will of her constituents to consider. The people who put her into the position she’s about to attain want impeachment. Doesn’t that count for anything?

Obviously not.

Just as it doesn’t seem to matter to Pelosi that most people in her district want to bring the troops home right now. Hundreds of thousands of us have marched and spoken out. On the day the war in Iraq started, protesters kept business as usual from happening in downtown San Francisco. Both the Board of Supervisors and the School Board have passed resolutions condemning the war.

Pelosi’s on another page altogether. Concerning the troops, Pelosi told Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News: “We have a responsibility to them to do two things: to find a solution in Iraq and do it, hopefully, in a bipartisan way and secondly, to build a future worthy of their sacrifice.”

The obvious solution in Iraq is not to be in Iraq. Dissatisfaction with the war is reportedly one of the main reasons the Republicans got booted out of office. It would be easy for Pelosi to call for withdrawal. How many more lives on both sides have to be sacrificed before the Democrats do the right thing? The ball’s in their court now.

If Nancy Pelosi were my hero, in addition to withdrawing the troops and impeaching the president, she would be talking about community land trusts and other forms of permanently affordable housing, living wage jobs for all, universal healthcare and ending all hunger in America. She would be talking about an all-out war on poverty and homelessness. She would be talking about an end to the death penalty and the war on drugs that has targeted young men of color. She would be talking about reforming the prison system. She would be setting an agenda for America that is unlike any set before, one that finally places economic and social justice, not to mention redistribution of the wealth, as top priorities.

Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi isn’t ever going to be my hero.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical queer southern Italian working class performer, writer and activist whose writing can be read on his website: www.avicollimecca.com.