James Preston Allen, publisher of Random Lengths, writes At Length articles on current political and local LA Harbor topics. http://www.randomlengthsnews.com Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:12 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/images/M_images/rss.png http://www.randomlengthsnews.com James Preston Allen, publisher of Random Lengths, writes At Length articles on current political and local LA Harbor topics. http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=896&Itemid=33 Double Parked and Oblivious The Port and the Chamber Scramble to Market San Pedro in Expectation of the USS Iowa By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) Anyone who has spent time driving the neighborhoods of San Pedro knows the frustration of driving down some street and having one of your neighbors double-parked, blocking the lane just to drop-off or pick up somebody right in front of their house. Especially when there is a perfectly good parking space not 20 feet away. It is annoying how oblivious they are. Yet it happens so often that it is just taken for granted as a part of the culture of doing things here. In other words, it's considered “normal,” even though inconsiderate and actually illegal. I've never seen anyone get a ticket for it. People generally have the best excuses for being oblivious, like picking up their children or an aging grandmother and not wishing them to walk too far. But hey, why not park the car, get out, and help them the extra few yards? I only mention this because this obliviousness is kind of symbolic for the way San Pedro and much of the greater Los Angeles area operates. We spend a great deal of time avoiding getting stuck behind people who are parked and not moving. The congenital rush-hour traffic jamb on the 405 Freeway is a worst-case extension of how oblivious we are in pursuit of our own individual lives, making things chaotic for everyone else. Mass transit is an option, but as most of us who have lived here for any length of time know, it's never been quite effective unless you are without a car and have to use it. We vote for transit funding and bullet trains knowing this is logical, but the benefits are years if not decades in the making, especially here in the southern part of Los Angeles. It would make all the sense in the world to connect LAX to the Port of LA by light rail to facilitate the half million cruise ship passengers a year and to get area residents to and from the airport without getting into their cars. There's even an existing rail line that could be used, but there is no coordinated political will to pursue this solution, even though there is “a plan” residing in some office of the now defunct Community Redevelopment Agency-Los Angeles. Like most things, they don't get fixed unless they’re broken. So we will wait until there is gridlock on the 405 24-7 and we say hello? However, getting to the breaking point may come sooner than expected with the arrival of the USS Iowa to the Port of Los Angeles with the addition of the Crafted center and a bunch of summer events that the port has planned that will bring the throngs from everywhere who will attempt to “rediscover San Pedro”. If any of the planned (or yet unplanned events) draw the kinds of crowds that past Tall Ships or Navy Days events have, the Harbor Freeway may end up looking like a parking lot south of the 405 on certain days. Meanwhile the port and the USS Iowa, scheduled to arrive in mid-May 2012 and open by June 24, continue to discuss the litany of permits that they'll need pursuant to them actually getting a lease at the port. Everyone is scrambling to get ready for this grandest of events and expectations are running high. Will there be enough parking and can there be signage to it directing tourists to the down town area? How are the various groups coordinating their marketing efforts and are all the players in this loose confederacy of tourism and commerce actually sharing information? Or will some of them simply park their car in the street to pickup grandma? I'm not sure that anyone is actually prepared for this summer to be wildly successful, even with all of the assurances being made. The merchants of Sixth Street seem to be especially unprepared. They have been promised so many times in the past that one thing or the other is going to be “huge!” And it turned out to be for naught. There are a lot of things coming into place that just might, and I repeat…“might” change the face of San Pedro, its waterfront and the rough edged reputation that the rest of Los Angeles relegates to Pedro. How the “spin” about this town will be manipulated by all of the cyber jockeys, bloggers, PR pros, and media boosters is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain, we will have a very big ship parked by the side of the main channel for the foreseeable future and somebody is going to take notice! Luckily, it won't be double parked waiting to pick someone up with its lights flashing! Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:46:49 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=878&Itemid=33 The tragedy of forgetting history Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:16:32 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=868&Itemid=33 The GOP’s Big Top Circus It’s Looking Like a Parade of Woolly Mammoths Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) By James Preston AllenThe months long parade of Republican debates, caucuses and primaries has brought a lot of entertainment value to American politics, the likes of which we haven’t seen in some time. The gaffes and misstatements of candidates like Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” plan has provided a veritable humorous smorgasbord for pundits and cartoonists alike, exposing the real intent of the ultra-conservatives leading the anti-Obama, “he’s-a -socialist” charge. The scary thing is, if left to their own devices in the unlikely event that they win at the polls in November, this herd of nearly extinct pachyderms would likely roll back all the reforms that have been put in place since the Great Depression. Even the Rush Limbaugh “slut” tirade against the congressional testimony of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke on contraception that exploded in the media recently drew into focus the huge disconnect between “conservative values” and 21st century realities. Is Limbaugh that out of touch or is he still addicted to his painkillers? I thought for one brief moment that the old political blow-hard of right-wing talk radio would pull a Donald Trump on us and throw his hat into the three-ring circus too. Now I’m not prudish nor offended by profane language. At times it’s appropriate to make an exclamation or exhibit frustration, But if a liberal radio commentator used those words I’m sure the Federal Communications Commission would be reviewing the station’s license. Sandra Fluke, the target of his rebuke, has a very good case for slander and I suppose that being a law student she could find a good lawyer. This of course is all just a sideshow in the ongoing circus with the main event being the spin-jugglers and media clowns, who continue to give the pachyderm four-stooges- prime-time exposure. Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul, all these guys have to do is to keep doing to each other what they’ve already done and Obama may not even have to run a campaign. They will have killed each other off in the primaries. And, this is perhaps how it should be, as much of what they are laying out is mostly extinct political rhetoric. Moreover, even with all of their complaints about the deficit, according to the official projections, of all the candidates’ plans, only Ron Paul’s reduces the deficit. The rest of their plans expand the deficit beyond what President Obama’s would. Curiously, Paul’s libertarian economic model might be more appropriately termed 19th century, but all of them have drunk the Milton Friedman Kool-Aid of free market capitalism, the deregulated drink that crashed Wall Street and from which we are still hung over. By the time the Republican convention comes to Tampa, Florida in August, they will likely be so wounded by each other that none of them can be nominated. Some have suggested that ending up with an “open” convention, where none of the candidates has a majority of delegates, would allow for a “dark horse” candidate to emerge, like Sarah Palin or one of the Bush brothers. This hasn’t happened at a Republican convention since 1940, when the relatively unknown industrialist, Wendell Willkie emerged as the unlikely nominee. Willkie, a former Democrat and Franklin D. Roosevelt delegate at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, was considered an improbable choice. So, here we are in the beginning of the 21st century with a set of 20th century candidates who are running on political ideas that were popular when Wendell Willkie opposed FDR. Does anybody in the corporate media or the Republican Party get the irony of this situation? Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:44:31 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=864&Itemid=33 U.S. Media Put On A LeashDuring China VP’s Visit By James Preston Allen, Publisher It was curious how we discovered that Xi Jinping, the vice president and soon to be president of the People's Republic of China, was going to visit China Shipping terminal at the Port of Los Angeles Feb. 16. It all started with a call I made to Councilman Joe Buscaino's office about a video posted on Facebook of him greeting the local star of the American Ballet Theater, Misty Copeland, at San Pedro High School. Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) I called his chief of staff Doane Liu and asked, "How is it that Misty is invited to an event at our high school and Joe is attending, and your public relations team doesn't send us an advisory?" Doane responded, "It wasn't our event and we don't send out advisories on other peoples’ events. We weren't even sure that Joe was going to make it because of his schedule." "So let me get this right, the most accomplished ballet dancer in the history of San Pedro comes back to visit, the council is going to present her with an official certificate of recognition and you don't think the local media should be given notice?" "No," he responded. So I posited a hypothetical to him. "So let's say that the president of the United States is coming to town and Buscaino is going to meet him, you don't think you should notify the press?"Liu’s answer was, "He is! “What?,” I asked, surprised. “The president is coming to Los Angeles and Joe is going to meet him and when were you going to tell us this, after it happens? What else is going on that you don't feel obligated to give us advanced notice on?” "Well the vice president of China will be at the port on Thursday," Liu advised. "And the reason you didn't send us an advisory is ... because it wasn't your event, right? "Right," he responds. Within the hour, we were on the phone with the port trying to find out the details of this historic visit to the port and to figure out how the local press could get credentials to witness and report on what the heir to the Chinese presidency has to say. We were first told that this wasn't a Port of LA event, then we were directed to the Chinese Consulate who didn't respond, we contacted the Secret Service, Los Angeles Police Department, Janice Hahn's congressional office and then just two days before the event we get an official advisory from the Los Angeles Mayor's Office saying that it was their office that would credential reporters. We called immediately upon reading this and were told that their office had already chosen the "pool" of reporters who would make their reports and photos available for the entire rest of the media, but that there were no more slots available. This smelled fishy. I personally called and asked the Mayor’s public relations deputy, Barb Solish, how it is was that out of the hundreds of media outlets in Los Angeles they could choose just three. "This isn't like the Iraq War where the government gets to choose who gets embedded with the troops and who doesn't," I asserted. "There's nothing I can do," she responded. So I'm working my way up the chain of command in the Mayor's Office getting few results and leaving plenty of phone messages. In the process, I have an interesting conversation with an LAPD captain who tells me that he got word that the vice president of China doesn't want to see any demonstrators while he's in America. He — high-placed police officer — says, "How are we suppose to accomplish this and hasn't he heard something about the U.S. Constitution?"I suggested that we could provide Vice President Jinping with a blindfold and he could just be led around on a leash. By the time the Mayor's office finally responds to our application for credentials, they are oh so apologetic but incapable of doing anything. It has become quite clear that this event at China Shipping Terminal is a highly "managed news event" that is being stage manged for some specific propaganda purposes. It only became apparent later that Mr. Xi's entire trip was set up for this very purpose and that the entire American media was restricted from getting too close, asking too many embarrassing questions and reporting on much of the very few words Mr. Xi uttered while he was either in Washington D.C., in Iowa buying soy beans, or Los Angeles at a Lakers’ game. When I finally blew my top at the public relations deputy, who was politely stalling by saying, "I'll see what I can do if you just lower your voice." I responded by saying that there isn't anything she is capable of doing since the decision has already been made to trash our free press rights to serve the propaganda needs of our Communist guest. Yes, I said this and it is quite true that the public relations mechanism of our city was basically hijacked so that the vice president of China could use the "pooled" media and his state controlled press to basically run a propaganda routine on us and everyone from the secretary of state on down to the Mayor's Office was so willing to kiss ass because of what? China holds $1.11 trillion of our national debt (the safest thing they can put their hands on) or that that China is our largest trading partner. However, one of the messages that Xi may have delivered to Washington was that China was decreasing it's U.S. debt securities by $31.9 billion or 2.8 percent of its holdings, that according to a U.S. Treasury Department report released Feb. 15. This of course was not reported on by the "pooled" reporters, no one seemed to be least concerned. So the assumed next leader of the the world’s second-largest economy decreases its U.S. debt by 2.8 percent, and the only thing we get out of this public relations tour is a few pictures of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa giving a model ship to Mr. Xi while the leaders of our state and city blithely look on. Was the reason for the tight security at China Shipping because Mr. Xi was loading the $31.9 billion into shipping containers on pallets of $100 bricks of cash? No, they only do that sort of thing in Iraq. It’s more likely he just avoiding the Occupy San Pedro activists who might just want to hold up a few signs that say, "Free Tibet." What is quite revealing in all of this is exactly how the American corporate public relations mechanism, which has been adopted by every politician and government agency to control the "spin" of the news cycle, was so easily and adroitly melded to conform to the needs of China where there is no free speech or freedom of the press. It’s as if the two systems were made for each other. There’s a direct parallel to the Chinese working conditions under which many of their factory workers labor — conditions that any modern industrial nation with basic labor laws would find objectionable, if not intolerable. What is perhaps even more telling is how easily the corporate media played along with this charade, even to the point of the Los Angeles Times running a beautiful biography of Mr. Xi, probably sourced from official Chinese documents and then getting one of it's own reporters chosen for the reporters pool. In the end, I could find only a handful of news sources that actually reported what the Chinese vice president said. The headline in the Washington Post seems to sum it aptly, "Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping's Trip Plays Well Back Home." And, indeed, it should, as the entire trip was custom made to make him look presidential, even though he doesn't have to put up with the kind of public scrutiny that Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum or the rest of the GOP rat pack have had to deal with lately. Lastly, I find it mildly humorous that after all these years of having red baiting epithets slung at this newspaper and at myself personally that when a real communist actually shows up on our door step, everyone lines up to kiss his ring, while pretending that the emperor is wearing new clothes while ones like myself, who might actually ask an intelligently uncomfortable question, are left outside of the chain link fence. Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:42:41 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=729&Itemid=33 Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) He’s passing out newspapers and has something to say If you find me standing in the middle of the street some day yelling, don’t presume that I’ve recently booked a room at the local halfway house. Presume that there’s something terribly wrong going on. Let me explain. This was posted on my Facebook page on Jan. 20 under the title “Idiots at the Gates.” So this just happened to me on the way to the local Occupy protest in San Pedro. I was walking through the Farmers Market on 6th Street passing out a few copies of the newspaper when the assistant manager of the market comes up to me and says that the vendors don’t want the paper and that “you can’t distribute that here because this is private property.” I said, “What? You’ve got to be kidding. This street is a public street, the farmers market resides in the public domain and as far as I know, you can’t prohibit the First Amendment on a street corner.” He threatened me with arrest if I didn’t comply. Well, I didn’t. I invited him to call the cops. PBID security showed up instead. I told them that if they really wanted to arrest me, they would have to find someone with a real badge. By this time, I was really angry and speaking loud enough to be heard over the buskers who were playing nearby. Then this guy says he was going to have me arrested for disturbing the peace. Well, hell yes, I’m disturbing your peace because you are trying to cancel my civil rights. So to all my friends, especially my Occupier friends, I suggest that next Friday we Occupy the San Pedro Farmers Market and express our collective free speech rights. And, if you choose, help me pass out a few copies of your favorite newspaper. Just to make the point that things haven’t gone off the deep end so completely that the average citizen has to give up their rights just to go shopping at the Farmers Market. This is what we are going to do. Now I’d like to make this perfectly clear, this is not just about my rights as opposed to your rights. It is about guaranteeing that the free exchange of ideas is more protected in the market place than the sale of products. Stopping the distribution of printed materials is the same as censorship. One of the most exquisite forms of censorship in the market place is to censor distribution. You can write anything you want, but if no one has access to read it, then what does it matter? The Chinese government knows this when they block certain websites on the Internet. This is part of the crux of the matter in the battle between Google and Hollywood over the recently defeated Internet Piracy Act in Congress. During three decades of publishing this newspaper, we have had multiple battles with both public and private entities attempting to censor our distribution. There was a time when Councilman Rudy Svorinich ordered his staff to stop allowing our papers to be delivered at any of the city facilities. That was clearly an attack on the Fourth Estate by an elected official. Rudy and his chief of staff, Barry Glickman, didn’t really appreciate my editorials that challenged his policies and ethics. When Janice Hahn replaced him in office, she wrote a directive to all city offices that are open to the public rescinding Svorinich’s directive. It has stayed in place ever since. It becomes more difficult when dealing with either the Catholic owned Providence/Little Company of Mary that operates the San Pedro Hospital, or the local YMCA. The hospital still bans Random Lengths from being distributed there, years after the nuns objected to a photo graph of a painting containing a copy of Venus on a Half Shell by the Renaissance painter Botticelli that was published in our pages. The YMCA hasa “corporate policy” that doesn’t allow anything that isn’t “Y” related into their lobby. The corporate banks like Chase and Wells Fargo aren’t particularly free speech friendly either. Both have policies that prohibit any materials that aren’t approved by their corporate headquarters, where ever that is these days. Local managers have no discretion in the matter. But this includes everything from fliers for a Boy Scout pancake breakfast or community charities to even information about the businesses that bank there. They seem to be saying “We’ll take your money, but leave your free speech at the door.” Everything is “corporate speak” propaganda, and as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, money is speech. Who has more money than the banks? So it really comes down to this...profit versus the First Amendment. I would argue that you can’t have a vibrant market place if you don’t allow for the free exchange of ideas and that corporations don’t have more rights than citizens just because they control more money. Moreover, once you invite the public into the door of a private business, how is it that you can control what they say as long as it isn’t, “Give me your money, this is a hold-up?” The local Farmers Market is kind of the classic example for the bigger market place in that Farmers Markets are held on public property at the behest of the local chamber of commerce, which acquires the appropriate permits to block off the streets so that the market can take place. This then holds the chamber accountable for making sure that its policies regarding free speech and the free distribution of information are interpreted in the most legally inclusive way possible. And, the last time I checked, it was against the law to prohibit the free dissemination of speech within the public domain. The market’s manager Lee Ostendorf apologized for her assistant’s transgression, but it is the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce’s responsibility to issue a clear and inclusive policy that supports the free speech rights of everyone, regardless of their political persuasion in the market place, whether they agree with them or not. That policy would be consistent with the stated goals and policies of this century old institution. It would embrace the fundamental American creed that their board of directors recites at the start of each board meeting—when they pledge their allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands... with liberty and justice for all. No one should have to be reminded that there is no liberty or justice without the First Amendment. Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:59:37 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=722&Itemid=33 The Progressive Versus the Populist The decision between Furutani and Buscaino By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) The political odds makers have all but anoint- ed Joe Buscaino to be the next councilman for Council District 15 of Los Angeles before the election is even held. If you were to judge this critical election or be swayed by the abundance of political signage in the south end of the city, this might seem true, ex- cept for the fact that the only real poll that counts is the actual one reflecting the will of the people on election day­ and those results can be fickle­ Just look at Iowa and New Hampshire. Populism as a current in American politics that can swing either right or left, varying upon what is most popu- lar at the moment. Anti-immigrant, anti-communist, anti-abortion and law and order are often the call for rightwing populist uprisings. Just look at the Tea Party or some of the Republican candidates running for president. Michele Bachman comes to mind. Now, I’m not saying that this very local race for office amounts to the kind of political luna- cy that we are witnessing on the national stage, but the difference between Warren Furutani and Joe Buscaino basically comes down to this one critical distinction: one is the progressive candi- date and the other is the populist. The progres- sive leads in the direction of greater social and political justice, understanding that the arch of history leans towards political reforms designed to make our society more equitable and govern- ment fairer. The populist champions the current most popular cause without a true sense of the direction his politics may lead him. Without any malice towards Buscaino, whom I know as a quite honorable police officer and concerned citizen, I find him to basically be a reflection of all the populist zeal and a man wanting to replay his days campaigning for student body president. His City Council campaign kind of reflects this. He has even brought it up as a resume experience. But this isn’t stu- dent council! What hasn’t been fully explained by Fu- rutani’s campaign are Warren’s roots in polit- ical activism, community organizing (before he ever ran for office) and his continued fight for social justice while in office. The recent “dust-up” he had on the Assembly floor with one of the freshman Tea Party Republicans was over the derogatory use of a slur related to, of all groups, Italian Americans. Furutani isn’t anywhere close to being Italian, but I am sure he has been on the receiving end of many racial slurs during his life as a Japanese American. He just wasn’t going to stand for some Teabagger ragging on an ethnic stereotype under the capital dome. Good for him! That’s the kind of person I want to represent me. And it’s not that I think Buscai- no wouldn’t be fair or sympathetic. I just don’t think he’s had this kind of experience that will help him make the right choice. I’ve said in the past, that one can’t ask enough questions of a candidate who is running for office to know what they’ll do when they get elected. Which is why most vot- ers chose to vote for those who have actually been elected before––those with a track record. Furutani has a track record of progressive politics with strong ties to both the labor and civil rights communities. Buscaino is running primarily on a “populist” public safety and business growth platform. Both sound good, but Buscaino’s talents are untried and his solu- tions are untested. For myself, one of the tell-tale issues that has come before the city recently is the issue of impounding of vehicles from drivers who are stopped without a valid drivers licenses or reg- istration. Currently there is a 30-day impound on these cars and has been called a discriminatory form of enforcement by both Mayor Antonio Vil- laraigosa and Los Angeles Police Chief, Charlie Beck, who wants this impound reduced to 24 hours. The issue centers on the estimated $24 million that is collected each year by the Associa- tion of Official Police Garages (OPG), composed of 18 towing companies that provide their servic- es to the municipality. The city council has taken this under its control from the LAPD Chief and transferred it to Councilman Mitchell Englander, chair on the Public Safety Committee. His un- cle, Harvey Englander, runs the firm Englander, Knabe Allen, which has been lobbying for the OPG since 2010 and also represents the Police Protective League.The question for us is how would Buscaino vote on this issue, being the third former LAPD officer to sit on the council. Englander is a “re- serve officer” making him the fourth. Would he buck his former chief or would he bow to the lob- byists who have spent some $305,000 on cam- paigns? He is running on the public safety posi- tion, but his conflict of interest comes in when he has to weigh the public’s rights versus city reve- nues, his loyalty to the Police Protective League, nd the profits of the 18 contracted towing com- panies. Joe will undoubtedly be appointed to this subcommittee.The progressive position would be to reduce these onerous fines because putting people back to work in Los Angeles means they must have a car. In the end, as this example underscores, I doubt and distrust populist campaigns and renew my endorsement for Warren Furutani as the real progressive candidate in this election. Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:40:44 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=694&Itemid=33 Democracy Is Coming to the USA By James Preston Allen, publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) It's coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet; from the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat. From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray for the grace of God in the desert here and the desert far away: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. From "Democracy" by Leonard Cohen 1992 This prophetic song by Cohen starts: “It's coming through a hole in the air”––like the Internet, like a text on the cell phone and a twitter, that can't be censored or ignored. The Occupy Wall Street uprising, as reported on Russian television, has hit 100 cities in the good ol' USA. You get better coverage of this apocryphal protest movement on Al Jazeera English, but you wouldn't particularly know it by watching Fox News. Search the mainstream broadcast stations, you'll only find brief reports. The corporate media is missing the point. But this is the response to the Tea Baggers that we've all been waiting for– democracy that can't be controlled by money or corporations or gerrymandered or stolen by voting machines. This is not one of those right-wing AstroTurf yellow ribbon campaigns, but a rising up from the guts of America that has finally gotten the message that they are the 99 percent who are left out of the money machine, but they––meaning we––are the ones who are asked to pay! The protesters, are mostly, but not exclusively young, and are the generation who was brought up during the time of privatization, from our prisons to our schools and now the U.S. Post Office. The zeal for privatizing public assets, making the public pay fees for the formerly free or cheap services that gives access to all in a equitable manner, has been a target for those whose fundamental belief is that capitalism has to be unregulated to unleash the energy of the free market system and wouldn't these same “free marketeers” just love to get their hands on the $86 billion enterprise of the USPS? This same zeal is behind the move to privatize Social Security and Medicare into the private sector. Both of these popular public programs emanated from the philosophy of the New Deal, have had a huge affect on the lives of millions of Americans saving many from destitution and poverty. One need only to go back and review the documentaries on the Great Depression that have aired recently on PBS, another one of the public assets some would privatize, to understand the necessity for federal bank regulations, the stimulus effect of federal infrastructure spending and the value of free public education. Left to their own devices, the far right of this country would wind back the clock of progressive reforms to where America was 100 years ago, with no worker rights, no Social Security, no taxes on the rich. This was an America that was run by the wealthy for the benefit of the wealthy and back then, just like now, it took a political uprising to take back our country from the railroad barons, the steel and oil companies, the banking trusts and all their cronies that corrupted and co-opted our republic. Half a century later, it was my generation that made the mistake of simply marching for civil rights and demonstrating to end the Vietnam War never dreaming that the plutocracy of old could ever return to its position of almost total control. We changed the culture but not the power structure that controls the economy, even though we have long understood the warning from President Dwight Eisenhower about the Military Industrial complex. As we are now still enmeshed in not one but three wars, two in the Middle East and the other a universal war on drugs that seems to never end, with military bases and secret prisons in countries many have never heard of. The price seems endless for our expansion of empire. Finally when the costs of sustaining this empire spirals onto the backs of the working class and the children of once middle class families, they will start to ask–just who are we working for? This then raises the conflict between the one percent who own 80 percent of the wealth and everyone else who doesn't. And yes, this is “class warfare.” And you don't know what's happening, Mr. Jones, because nobody in the corporate media who wants to keep their job will explain this to you. To put this more explicitly, I will end with a quote from Noam Chomsky: "Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street financial institutions generally ― has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat,” seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity, not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail. "The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course." Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:48:45 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=682&Itemid=33 9/11 Book Ends <4>By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) The date September 11 is significant in two particular ways: the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the 1973 coup d’etat in Santiago, Chile. The two events act as bookends separated by 28 years and the distance of 5,125 miles. Oddly enough, the United States and Chile are connected in other interesting ways as well. The overthrow of democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military junta was followed by a brutal dictatorship—a reign of terror, torture and violence that murdered several thousands of political leftists, labor unionists and nearly anyone opposed to Pinochet’s rightwing dictatorship for the next 17 years. This was a watershed moment of the Cold War and for the U.S. backed policy of President Richard Nixon, who covertly supported Allende’s overthrow with $8 million secretly donated by U.S. corpora- tions. The CIA, through the Copley News service, worked to destabilize the Chilean economy by feeding disinformation to the Chilean news media and disrupting Chile’s transportation system with the help of the corrupt Chilean Teamsters Union. The torture and murder of thousands of dissidents in the soccer stadium in Santiago is well documented, as are the “disappearances,” as well as the acts of torture and political imprisonments that followed. Only recently have a few of these perpetrators been brought to justice and Pinochet haunted by this history died of natural causes before he could be prosecuted. Milton Friedman died at almost the same time—heralded as the “visionary” of the free market and never connected to the brutal consequences of his theory. What is not understood so well by those of us living in North America is that this was the first test in a real economy of Friedman’s laissez-faire theories and free market capitalism could triumph against the spread of socialist doctrine––doctrines often confused with communism. In Chile, this was predicated on Allende’s nationalization of Chile’s copper mines, and telephone system along with a land redistribution policy, which is still a popular, yet polarizing idea, in most of Latin America where the vast majority of the poor live in a kind of indentured servitude on land belonging to wealthy elites. Is it any wonder that so many Latinos sneak across our southern boarder looking for a life with a future that they can own? In the intervening years between that Sept. 11 and our own, there have been a string of economic triumphs of capitalism over socialism— each well chronicled in Naomi Klein’s master- piece, The Shock Doctrine—The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which she reveals the process and end results of this shift from state ownership to private enterprise in the free market, and the steps Milton Friedman and his devotees of the Chicago School of Economics took to accomplish it. Friedman’s philosophy, which can almost be translated verbatim into the contemporary politics of the American Tea Party, can best be explained in his work Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago press, 1962), and is the philosophical basis for the Republican positions on deficit reduction, school vouchers, deregulation, floating monetary exchange rates and that there is a “natural rate of unemployment” that offsets inflation. (There is embedded in his work the idea that full employment is bad for our economy.) Essential to the rise of these policies and their dominance in the “world economy” is their adoption by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, both of which have used “monetization” to influence countries such as Poland and Russia emerging from strict communist economics, but also used in the political convergence of key Middle Eastern oil producing countries that must trade solely in the American dollar. The march toward political freedom almost universally carries with it the use of the U.S. dollar as the world currency and the attachment to U.S. economic policies not disconnected to our political agendas. It is this expanding free market “monetization” of other countries’ natural resources, the economic dominance that comes with it, and the consequential support for corrupt leaders that has fueled much of the animosity against our country. It is not our liberties and our “civil society” that draws so much contempt from the insurgents and terrorists, but our foreign economic policies that often shackle these countries to an economic system not of their own choosing. Under our current policies we can support Saudi royal control without suggesting any form of democratic change as long as they continue to trade their oil in American dollars. And Libya, where the Arab Spring has brought revolution to the people, will gain their political freedoms at the cost of their ownership of the their most precious national resource––oil. So when we look back on our very own tragic Sept. 11 and wonder what would motivate some Muslim fanatics to use airplanes to execute suicide attacks against two buildings in the financial capital of the United States and the Pentagon, killing some 2,800 innocent people, we have to put this in a larger perspective than just this one act of retaliation. This is an ideological war, not against Christians or necessarily against democratic freedoms, but against our imperial financial domination that has not served most Americans well these past few years. It is a war we need not fight if we are wise enough to realize that we don’t need to win the world over to our free trade system based upon the “all-mighty-U.S. dollar” ––that there are indeed many economic strategies that work better than one based solely on unregulated capitalism. As our nation reflects this week on the tragedy and heroes of a decade ago, it would do all of us well to do some soul searching regarding the truth of these events, and how our own foreign economic policies have come home to divide our nation along ideological lines, cloaked in religious, racial or party disguise. But more fundamentally, divided by beliefs in economic theories now seen as terribly flawed. Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:57:53 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=675&Itemid=33 Foreclosing on the Future By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) The Federal National Mortgage Association commonly known as Fannie Mae, was founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. It is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), though it has been a publicly traded company since 1968. It is one of the ways the U.S. government stimu lates the economy and creates wealth for both homeowners and the private banking industry. This is the part that Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn’t get about Washington’s relationship to Lubbock, Texas. Fannie Mae’s purpose is to expand lending by creating a larger pool of affordable mortgages. In the 1930s, this dovetailed with federal policies creating longer-term mortgages, thus allowing millions of working Americans to become homeowners. More recently it has securitized mortgages in the form of mortgagebacked bonds, which allows lenders to reinvest their assets into more lending and in effect increasing the number of lenders in the mortgage market and the amount of money they are able to lend. Fannie Mae has more than half of the $12 trillion in American real estate loans along with the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) both created by the U.S. government. Due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis, they were left with a couple trillion dollars in debt on the loss of home values particularly in areas such as Las Vegas, Florida and Southern California. If the government hadn’t stepped in to back up these two GSE’s, the real estate market would have crashed even harder and few lenders would be able to continue making loans. Even still, there are now some 1.5 million homes that have been foreclosed on and as of July 2011, 63,360 homes were in Los Angeles County. Though a significant number of foreclosed properties are owned by banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chase, the German owned Deutsche Bank also has a considerable number and was recently accused by the City of Los Angeles as being a “slum lord” for failing to maintain foreclosed properties. However, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have the most of these mortgage notes and recently were publicly asking for ideas on how to sell them off without depressing the market even further. This has brought out a significant amount of speculators hoping to scoop up properties at depressed values of 35 - 50 percent of their all time high values. The banks have been slow to sell off these foreclosed properties out of fear of further depressing the market values and have significantly screwed up the legal process of foreclosing on many homeowners and failing to adequately adjust rates even when given government incentives. The current trend in political economics would tend to drive the foreclosure market into the hands of the private sector investor and leave the public once again holding the debt bag. Yet, there is an age-old solution that makes more sense. Back in the days of the westward expansion in these here United States of America, there was something called “homestead- ing” that gave free land to anyone brave enough to venture into the hinterlands and make a go of farm- ing in the plains. The idea was that the government owned all this land had a growing population that needed some place to go. The fron- tier was the place to expand. My great, great grandfather homesteaded land near Lawrence Kansas back in the 1870s as did the ancestors of millions of Americans today. It made sense. Today we again have a growing popu- lation and a lot of vacant, foreclosed property, and instead of giving it to the “haves” why not turn the “great recession” around by letting people earn home ownership with a little “sweat equity.” This is the same concept that is used by Habitat for Humanity. Founded by Millard and Linda Fuller, in Americus, Georgia in 1967, it was later made famous by President Jimmy Carter. If Fannie Mae were to partner with non gov- ernmental organizations like Habitat for Human- ity, whose goal is to end homelessness and pov- erty, the millions of foreclosed properties that now plague our cities would be put back into service, restored and repaired and not resold on the open market for a significant time. This is a doable project that would put many thousands of people back to purposeful work, stimulates the construc- tion industry and save the federal government bil- lions in debt support, while saving the real estate market from a flood of unwanted properties sold at a discount. The old adage that “charity starts at home” applies here. But this is not so much a handout as it is a hand-up for the many thousands of Ameri- cans who have lost everything in this recession– their jobs, their homes and their sense of self- worth. It is the reason why we have a government to do for the people that which they cannot achieve individually. And as much as Gov. Perry wants to pray for Texas or America’s salvation, the future of this country is in the hands of man, not God. Put America back to work again! Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:20:45 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=668&Itemid=33 What Everyone’s Asking By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) In the absence of an elected council member, the vacuum in leadership causes uncertainty and doubt. Every other person I meet asks, who I am endorsing or more importantly, “Who’s going to win?” It is in these times of doubt and apprehen- sion that you realize that the perpetual motion of the bureaucratic wheel of governance, which grinds on steady, does so even without a hand at the controls. The system is left up to its own for- ward momentum and the need of city workers for a paycheck. There is, of course, a process in place where the chief of staff, Doane Liu, continues to manage the day-to-day office, with the over- sight of an appointed legislative analyst—now Jerry Miller. However, beyond doing the basic constituent responses, the council office lacks the direction of a leader to both motivate and mediate and will be missing at least two council deputies who have decided to run for the va- cant office––thus leaving the council office understaffed. One has taken earned vacation time to launch his campaign, the other is pretending there is no conflict of interest. With the final fil- ing date to run for the unfinished term of now Congresswoman Janice Hahn of Aug. 22 the full field of candidates has yet to be completed and sorted out. Currently, there are 15 who have filed and one, David Greene, the president of the San Pedro Democrats, is sadly dropping out, which makes it a total of 14. Some have pondered if there were going to be more people running for office than will vote in the November elec- tion? Such is the nature of our “democratic” process as practiced in the 15th District and Los Angeles. This newspaper in conjunction with other sponsors in the Harbor Area are proposing a candidate forum that will be aired on cable TV in October and by that time the field of candidates should have solidified and settled to make it more clear who has the stamina or a least the tenacity to persist. Yet, this alone doesn’t settle the key question for the elector- ate of the 15th District, which is: who actually has the vision to lead this district through these next few challenging years and who do we actually trust to represent the district honestly and with integrity? (Not just who has the most money to run a campaign.) This is not just a question posed from the armchair of my desk, but also one posed as a re- sult of being engaged in the mix of civic discus- sion and policy making for 30 years. As there are those who are drawn to power for their own self- aggrandizement; and then there are those who see the power of elected office as a service to do for the people the greater good. There are those whose intent is to “just return to some misconception of the past”—the mythical, “good ‘ol days of yore” and then there are those who propose a future that encompasses some critical understanding of the past. There is a difference. The fact that so many voters that I’ve talked to don’t remem- ber the reign-of-error of the former Councilman Rudy Svorinich, Jr., gives me great trepidation, particularly when they criticize Janice Hahn’s perfor- mance. By comparison there isn’t any similarity. Hahn was not the perfect council representative. She could have been more proactive in certain aspects of her represen- tation and she could have taken bolder steps along with hiring more competent staff and suffered with, at times, an adversarial relationship with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. However, these things pale in com- parison to good-ol’-boy approach of Svorinich, which created as much conflict and division as it did solutions. Unity was not a word one would use regarding his approach, as he knew nothing of community organizing, consensus building and less about legislative process and the word can only be used in the negative as when he lost in his bid for the 54 th Assembly District to Alan Lowenthal by one of the largest margins ever. The most unity Rudy ever accumulated in his two terms in office was a growing animosity that culminated in the voters choosing term limits and his losing every precinct in San Pedro except two, to Lowenthal. What allowed him to originally attain the office or to be reelected can only be at- tributed to vulnerability of his predecessor Joan Milke-Flores who had lost two attempts for higher office and the lack of community leadership to oppose his second term. Much of what the cur- rent candidates and the voters don’t remember about him can be found in the archives of this newspaper. Suffice it to say, a vote for Svorinich would be a step backward not forward—and in that, I believe there is still some great unity! Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:11:20 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=658&Itemid=33 The End Is Always a Beginning James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) The atmosphere inside the ballroom at Ports O’Call Restaurant was thick with anticipation as the crowd of Democratic loyalists and locals began filling up the room soon after the polls closed on the night of July 12. They were only expecting a couple hundred people to attend this campaign party for Councilwoman Janice Hahn’s election night celebration for U.S. Congress, but as the results started to roll in the crowd swelled and by 10 o’clock the owner of the restaurant estimated that there was more than 800 people. The list of supporters included everyone from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, City Controller Wendy Gruel and the mayor of Carson, Jim Dear, along with nearly everyone who is vying to run for Hahn’s soon to be vacated council seat. The exception was Rudy Svorinich Jr. When Janice Hahn arrived to the podium the poll numbers were leaning decidedly in her favor with the absentee ballots giving her the same edge that turned out to be pretty much what the final count was the next morning 54.6 versus 45.4 per- cent for the Teabagger Craig Huey. Hahn spoke with the confidence of a political journeyman who had just achieved a personal “right of passage” to becoming a master and the vibe in the room pulsated with a kind of celebratory unity that has been lacking for two years amongst Democrats in the wake of the 2010 elections. Her entire family flanked her, save for her mother Ramona, who sadly, died suddenly the day before the election. Her brother, former L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn introduced her amidst the rising expectation that Janice would announce victory. She did not, but the attention of so many cameras from the media seemed to indicate that it was a fore- gone conclusion. As it turned out, Hahn’s win was not a slam-dunk. But still a nine point win in an election where both sides spent over a million dollars in attack ads and direct mail solicitations. This is significant especially considering that Huey is a professional at right-wing campaigns. Huey conceded the election in a phone call to Hahn’s campaign Wednesday morning. Hahn is reported to have already booked a flight to Washington D.C. for July 14 as the Democrats in the House of Representatives wants her sworn in as soon as possible. They need the extra votes! This will leave an immediate vacuum of leadership at the council office, which will be filled by a caretaker administrator appointed to manage the position with the majority of Hahn’s council staff remaining to run the day-to-day affairs, but there will be no one to vote for the Council District 15 until a replacement is elected. Of course the campaigns for this office have already been gearing up over the past few months. And, even as I write this editorial, both Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Joe Buscaino and ex- Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. have sent out campaign announcements. Who’s to follow? The sense of elated unity with Janice Hahn’s victory will only be a brief interlude into what will undoubtedly be a ruckus campaign between competitors from all parts of the council district, which could tend towards a nasty fight. At this point I can only say that the position of this newspaper is to provide fair and independent coverage, that any campaign trickery will be reported and exposed and that under no circumstances will I support Svorinich to win this office again. Longtime readers of this paper will understand this position and those newbies will be in- formed in subsequent reports. All I can say at this point is that what we are witnessing is the end of an era of relative peace in the district led by the one of the most liberal council representatives we’ve ever had and any future council office holder will have a difficult, if not impossible, task of forging enough unity to maintain a political coalition as strong as Janice and Jim Hahn’s. Even as Janice prepares for departure the stress cracks in the facade of the Hahn dynasty Pax seem to be appearing just as the fruits of her labors are beginning to be realized. With no heir apparent for this now open seat, the question is who has the ability to lead into future rather than dabble in past conflicts? Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:54:34 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=651&Itemid=33 Tyranny of the Austerity Budget From Athens to Los Angeles, Sacramento and Beyond By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) To the cash-strapped consumers of America watching TV, it seems odd to see the people of Athens, Greece rioting over what, a budget crisis? I mean after all this isn’t like the political tyrannies of other Mediterranean countries like Syria, Egypt or Libya where oppression has been enforced under the heals of brutal tyrants. After all Greece is a democracy and hell we’ve had a budget crisis here in California forever and no one is out in the streets throwing rocks at the police because the Democrats and Re- publicans can’t agree on balancing our state budget—at least not yet. What is actually happening in Greece amounts to nothing more than a coup d’etat by the troika of banks that control its sovereign debt. These three groups are the European Commission (EC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Central Bank (ECB). These financial institutions are using the threat of cutting off credit to the Greek government on their $112 billion debt to force their parliament to change their social spending and political sovereignty. I am told that “our good friends” at Goldman Sachs had something to do with getting the Greeks up to their necks in debt in the first place. The justification offered by one Greek economist, who is also a former member of the IMF was, “There really is no alternative however painful the [austerity] measures are.” It just makes sense to cut all of these social welfare programs because we just don’t have the money, is what the bankers are saying and of course this somehow all makes sense—or does it? One does wonder where all that money went. We are being fed the same lines here in America, the mantra of the conservatives is “that we can’t spend what we don’t have,” Well, that would have been a great thing to propound back when Bush was in office running up the debt on his war in Iraq. It would have been even better to remind the Wall Street bankers about this when their subprime mortgage house of cards collapsed and damned near froze our entire monetary system. And now just two years later the U.S. Department of Justice, which only lives up to its name occasionally, has only prosecuted a few of the fraudsters and Wall Street crooks, letting the really big banks off with few millions of dollars in settlements. One ultimately has to ask, “In whose benefit is the passage of austerity budgets?” Or why haven’t more people gone to jail? Greece has escaped imminent bankruptcy, by the skin of its teeth by caving in to the IMF troika but in the years to come this “austerity program will only plunge their country into a deeper recession as the parliament is convinced to privatize and sell assets, spending more on servicing its debt and less on its people—perhaps the IMF would like to own the Parthenon? Watching the Greek parliament kneel to the gods of international finance is like watching a modern day Greek tragedy in which the hero severs his own head in the delusion of saving his body from further torment. This tragedy is one to be watched as it serves as the harbinger of things to come our way. It is the exquisite exercise of severing the people’s control over their money from their finances. It is the final act of allegiance to the universal monetary system controlled, not by nations or their legislatures, but by the banking system that is not beholden to the will of the people but only the greed of the market place. If all of this seems slightly abstract to you let me make it simple with a personal example—one many of you can identify with. In 2008 about the time of the Wall Street crisis American Express, the company that advertises that it helps small businesses, cut my credit by $10,000 for no apparent reason other than its own assessment of its risk. Since then, I returned the favor by paying only the minimum due. However, recently, I thought better of this and paid them half of what was owed on this account realizing that the interest payments were eating up more than it was worth. Last month, I missed a payment as the bill was lost under a stack of already paid bills and as a consequence, my business friendly AmEx just raised my rate by five points, once again lowered my credit to just above what I owe them and has become so adversarial that I no longer trust doing business with them. They are at the top of my enemies list. They have become more of a threat than a benefit to the survival of my business! This is precisely the relationship our governments, large and small, have with their banking institutions. From Los Angeles to Sacramento to Washington, D.C. the banks’ own risky invest- ments, which were covered largely by U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, have now come back to haunt the very people who saved them from bankruptcy. And these very same financial institutions who rating systems failed to recognize the inherent “risks” of subprime mortgage bonds are now using this same system to leverage or hammer us with “austerity” measures to balance our budgets. This is the perfect example of the use of the “shock doctrine” to influence the political hegemony of the majority by institutions that have no accountability to the people. This is an economic coup d’ etat separating our legislatures from the control of their monetary policies that ultimately inflict pain by cutting social spending. “There is really no alternative,” the conservatives say once again. Well lets see if this really passes the smell test. First of all I challenge the comptrollers of our various governments to add up all of the losses from the pension funds that were invested in the subprime mortgage market and then I would ask them to recalculate our debt if those losses were replaced. You see, the government has a responsibility to maintain those funds for the benefit of the retirees even when those investments lose value and that comes directly out of the operating account that pays for everything else like schools. The banks and investment houses that invest those funds for the public have a fiduciary responsibility to invest them safely and they did not—many of them knowingly and fraudulently—and we should be demanding our money back! Secondly, instead of cutting social security or Medicare or schools with more “austerity programs” we should end a couple of foreign wars we are fighting at the tune of hundreds of billions a year. We could also include a third war that we have been losing for the last 40 years started by President Nixon called the War on Drugs—a recent report on this misguided venture reveals that it has been an abject failure and done nothing more than fuel large sums of money to the drug cartels, placed thousands of drug users in prison at a huge cost to society and done nothing to cure their ad- dictions. Thirdly, what about taxes? Is there something sacrosanct about an oil severance tax in California that keeps that option off the table? And what about taxing the $42 billion in imports that comes through the local ports from China? The war we are losing is the trade war with countries who take advantage of our “free trade” policies while artificially manipulating the value of their own cur- rencies, who then invest their public monies in manufacturing for export while “dumping” products at a loss on the open market in direct viola- tion of multiple treaties, and stealing our technology and pirating our copy rights. Tell me about why American businesses can’t compete in the world market! Left to their own ideologies the no-tax Republicans, the “free market” neo-cons and the world bankers would have us believe that, “there really is no alternative to austerity budget cuts” and that even with this kind of unfair trade advantage by countries like China and India, that has fundamentally shrunk American manufacturing, our gov- ernment spending has to shrink to stay in line with our shrinking economy. This is complete nonsense! These people are drinking Milton Friedman’s Kool Aid, they want to reeducate our children in the theory of “trickle down economics” and in the end they want to avoid any discussion of “class warfare,” which is what this actually is because they know if the majority of Americans woke up one day and voted for their own enlightened self interests, we would take back our country, put the bears and bulls of Wall Street on a leash and we would outlaw the gaming tables from our banks and force them to once again make money the old fashion way—lending it to the people from whom they receive their deposits. One last thing before I sign off—the reason to elect someone like Janice Hahn to Congress in the July 12 special election is because she actually believes in the mission of government, which is to do for the people that which they cannot do for themselves. Why would we elect anyone who didn’t believe in this fundamental American creed? Fri, 01 Jul 2011 08:40:53 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=644&Itemid=33 The Fake On the Right Don’t be fooled or surprised by the tactics of the unscrupulous who use false morality and deceit to gain power for their own benefit By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) The just-released attack ad against Janice Hahn, who is running in the special election for the 36th Congressional District, has been called “the most offensive, racist, sexist ad I’ve seen in all my years in politics,” by Jonathan Parker, the political director for Emily’s List. The opposing religious right-wing Republican candidate, Craig Huey, denies any involvement with either the creation or release of this demeaning attack ad, which features an image of Janice Hahn’s face pasted over the face of a bikini-clad pole dancer. The video also depicts African-American men as criminals waving guns and stuff- ing dollar bills in the dancer’s panties. This kind of personal political attack recalls the kind of Republican dirty tricks that once got the likes of Richard Nixon elected to Congress and would probably embarrass even Hahn’s most harshest critics––Jane Barton, Anthony Santich and others, who have frequently condemned Councilwoman Hahn’s tenure in the L.A. City Council. I have to constantly remind these same critics of the bad behavior of Hahn’s predecessor, Rudy Svorinich Jr., while he was in office and caution the rest of you that if Janice Hahn defeats this anti-choice, conservative teabagger Huey, Rudy Jr. will be back for one more bite of the apple. The problem with the right-wing leadership that is emerging is that not only are they too far to the right socially and politically, but they don’t fundamentally believe in government at all, both locally and nationally. Now, I am not a huge fan of big government, but I’m also not so naïve as to believe that big business, those “too big to fail” corporations or those that hold monopolistic control of the marketplace, shouldn’t be regulated and controlled for the safety and benefit of the entire nation. Government’s true mission is to do for us that which we cannot accomplish individually by ourselves and that which private corporations won’t or can’t do for the benefit of society for a reasonable profit. For those who object to this definition, let me just remind you all of the Enron gaming scandal of the California electric market or the failure of the subprime mortgage bonds that collapsed our national financial markets creating the Great Recession. Both caused by an ideologically driven right-wing, anti-government belief in an “unregulated free market”—free of government regulation that protects the interests of the people and the nation first, not placing corporate profits first. Craig Huey and the gaggle of potential presidential candidates throwing barbs at President Barack Obama are just this kind of antigovernment demagogues, who preach “small government,” and then, like George Bush before them, explode the federal budget by handing out billions on insider contracts and bailouts to an even smaller elite of wealthy contributors. Then they object to raising taxes on the wealthiest of these same few, saying that the “trickle down” from these tax breaks grows the economy. That is patently untrue! The choice is simple once you wipe away the propaganda, dirty tricks and the wall of noise that pervades the corporate dominated media. You can either give Wall Street carte blanche or you can give Main Street and the middle class a hand up. Janice Hahn will represent the common people. It’s in her political DNA. Craig Huey won’t! Huey is going to connive and slander his way through this campaign––dirty tricks and all. You can be fooled by these tactics or be complacent that Hahn will win this special election without your vote. This vile ad shows just how low Hahn’s opposition and the Republican party will stoop to defeat her and return this district to days long ago when it was represented by Bob “B-1 Bomber” Dornan. There are just a few weeks left in this campaign that will have significant repercussions nationally if not locally if Huey were to somehow dirty-trick his way into Congress. Don’t be fooled or surprised by the tactics of the unscrupulous who use false morality and deceit to gain power only to use it for their own benefit. See the video on line for yourself— http://tinyurl.com/3myevj4 (http://tinyurl.com/3myevj4%20) Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:24:00 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=639&Itemid=33 Let the Races Begin It’s Croatian Independence Day and Everyone’s Suddenly a Croat By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) Like Cinco de Mayo or Saint Patty’s Day, when every American becomes either Mexican or Irish for the day, Croatian Independence Day—at least in San Pedro—is becoming just such an adopted cultural fete. While the age old antagonisms between the Croatian Hall loyalists and the Dalmatian Hall regulars seems to be diminishing 21 years after the conflict that split the former Yugoslavia apart. Some of you will remember the war in which this country intervened back in the 1990s as the warring parties on all sides leaned towards genocide. Even now accused war criminals are still being arrested. The past has not always been so gentle or just for this territory generally called the Balkans. On this recent Sunday in May, with blue skies above and the smell of barbequed lamb on the grill, hundreds of familiar faces gathered to celebrate the political freedom and culture of this ancient region and one of Europe’s newest nations. The war seemed distant. Although Croatian politics is much more complicated, both here and in the motherland, than Croatian culture with its folk dancing and music. You don’t even need to know the words to understand the joy and exuberance for life that comes from these Balkan origins. But a primer on about a 1,000 years of post-Roman Empire political history in the Adriatic would be helpful in understanding the history some of it is hung on the walls at Croatian Hall. But on this day, it’s a celebration and everyone is a Croat, as they say. Not unlike our July 4th Independence Day, the ceremonies were laced with political icing. The leader in the recent open primary race for the 36th Congressional race, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn was the first to speak. Her opponent in the July 12 run-off, conservative Republican Craig Huey didn’t show up (see more on him in this issue). What followed however was a short list of who is running to replace Ms. Hahn if she wins the July 12 runoff for the House of Representatives. The ever-so-controversial former councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. was the first to follow. He smiled and gave what might be considered the opening salvo of campaign rhetoric. He was then followed by newly elected State Sen. Ted Liu, who praised Janice’s run for Congress and introduced Assemblyman Warren Furutani, a contender for the council seat. Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Joe “I’m only running for Honorary Mayor” Buscaino, followed Assemblyman Furutani. All were warmly greeted and all said only wonderfully vague, if not positive things, disguising thinly their intentions for political office. Arriving late to this parade was San Pedro’s esteemed Croatian, City Attorney Carmen “Nuch” Trutanich, the smiling pit bull who is now stumping to become Los Angeles District Attorney. I suppose he really wants to have his own grand jury to work with. Nuch is forever gregarious in these types of social functions, but was delayed in attending due to his appearance at Sheriff Lee Baca’s son’s birthday party on the Westside on the same day. So who was missing from this Croatian Day line-up? I’m really not too sure about Jack Baric’s political mathematics. As the former editor of San Pedro Magazine, and the official emcee for this event, was he even peripherally aware his podium was being usurped as the launching pad for the unofficial kickoff for the CD-15 race before the current occupant has even left office? It was not- so-subtly apparent to the audience. Well, the race to replace Janice Hahn will likely look a lot like the primary race for the 36th Congressional District––a variety pack of 16 candidates with a few obvious frontrunners. Besides the names listed above, there is the San Pedro Democratic Club president David Greene, and there is the possibility of former Los Angeles City Council member Robert Farrell, a San Pedro resident since his last stint in office. Then there is Pat McOsker, brother of Mayor Hahn’s chief of staff Tim, the President of the Los Angeles firefighters union. These are just six of who I predict will be 16 contenders for the, as of yet, vacant office. All of whom will most likely or already have endorsed Janice for Congress. Still waiting on the sidelines are yet another six candidates from the San Pedro region, at least one from Wilmington and a handful from the rest of the council district, which reaches all the way up to Watts, that once held all the swing votes. Longtime readers know that this newspaper will not be endorsing Svorinich under any circumstances. Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:20:14 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=633&Itemid=33 The District of the Disassociated The Special Election for the 36th District By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) The 36th Congressional District, as it is configured today, is one of those ill-conceived political creations made out of the stalemate between the Democrats and Republicans in the State of California. It represents no one well. From Venice down through the Beach Cities of the South Bay ––avoiding the bastion of conser- vatism on the Peninsula––it works its way down to the San Pedro Harbor Area while leaving a shoestring along the coast that connects Huntington Beach and the Hill. The perfect political trade-off! And for a decade now, voters in both the 36th and 46th districts have not been enamored with this deal nor the kind of representation it provides either district. Jane Harman, the hawkish Dem from Venice, traded liberal values to maintain her position in the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, while Dana Rohrabacher, the Congressman from Huntington Beach, famously drank tea with the Afghan Taliban fighting the Soviets and who has been more of a Libertarian and a disappointment than a Republican. They were or are kind of “odd fellows” of political arrangement. California’s Citizens Commission on Re- districting hopes to change this, but meanwhile we are left with the districts “as is.” Harman resigned a few months after being reelected last November, thank you very much Jane, which triggered the May 17 special election. It now appears L.A. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn has topped the 16 other candidates in this race with 24.66 percent of the vote against Craig Huey’s 24.66 and Debra Bowen’s 21.48—as of May 18 there are 9,000 ballots left uncounted. Someone is going to be very unhappy with the final count, but then only 15.54 percent of the voters turned out to cast ballots. What surprised Hahn’s campaign was the pre-election rise of Huey’s poll numbers from an initial 3 percent to a neck-and-neck tie with Secretary of State Debra Bowen, ahead of Mike Gin (7.78%) the popular Redondo Beach mayor and the only openly gay Republican in the race. Huey’s rise from obscurity is not so surprising given that he has spent the past two decades planning direct mail campaigns and building his online base of Libertarian and conservative Christian voters. He runs three voting guide websites, including judgevoterguide.com, which advises, “do not vote for a judicial activist." This will be a clear choice if Hahn faces Huey in the run-off. What is more curious about this 36th district is not so much how the Democrats outnumber the Republicans nearly 2 to 1, but that of all of the 347,812 registered voters, the “decline to state” party affiliated voters are the third largest block with 22.27 percent. The disadvantage of running for office in this gerrymandered district is that it groups three different natural communities and umpteen cities or parts there of into one district, placing community organizing with a challenge, behind high priced direct mail targeted campaigns. Further complicating this political infrastructure is the lack of news publications covering the entire district. At odds to this artificial construction is obvious. The San Pedro Bay communities are not part of what generally is called “the South Bay.” Just think for a moment what that term really means, the south part of which bay? That would be the Santa Monica Bay—look at it on a map. It ends at Point Vincente and the region east of there has more to do environmentally, politically and economically with the Los Angeles Harbor and San Pedro Bay than it does anything else. Yet, for simplicity sake we are thrown into this amalgam of South Bay. It is also quite obvious to even the casual bystander that social-political culture of the San Pedro Bay region is distinctly different in almost every way to the Beach Cities and perhaps only has the most affinity to part of Playa del Rey near the LAX and Venice. If only Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach and Torrance could be their hamlet of conservatism and we could move Venice 20 miles closer to Pedro. As things may be in this round of the run-off Janice Hahn will have her work cut out to prove that she really, really wants to be in Congress. And after raising and spending more than $400,000 in the primary election, there may be national attention to this race if the Christian conservative Huey squeaks past Bowen to be Hahn’s contender. Hahn’s not taking anything for granted with this primary win, nor should those concerned about the balance of power in Congress consider her a shoe-in. The worst of all scenarios would be to have a right-wing Christian Teabagger representing us in the capital. God forbid that should happen. Fri, 20 May 2011 09:01:33 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=629&Itemid=33 Notes from the Edge of L. A. The LA Weekly, John Ek, Janice Hahn and the Race to Replace Her By James Preston Allen Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) It goes almost without saying that the rest of Los Angeles hardly knows that the Port of L.A. is actually a part of the city, or that the largest seaport in the nation is run by a department of this metropolis. In fact, most of the time anything that doesn’t line up politically on the east/west axis of downtown to LAX is considered marginally relevant, that is until the Valley and the Harbor decided to secede a few years back. Then suddenly there was the first Mayor ever elected in the city who lived in San Pedro. Mayor James Hahn didn’t make a big deal out of it as his then-wife refused to live in the Hancock Park Mayor’s mansion, nor did he take being mayor so seriously as he could often be seen standing in line at Ralph’s buying groceries or taking his kids to dinner at the San Pedro Brewing Company. When Mayor Jim was running for re-election, the L.A. Weekly sent a reporter down the 110 Freeway to sniff out a rumor that he was having marital problems. This, of course was true, but none of the Mayor’s neighbors, none of his then-wife’s friends, nor this newspaper would cooperate with the sensation-snooping reporter from “The City” trying to dig up “sleaze” on our Mayor! Recently, the L.A. Weekly was back at it again, trying to implicate John Ek and his wife Esther in some kind of phony influence scandal headlined, “How Lobbyist John Ek Gets His Way at City Hall” by Gene Maddaus. The writer boldly accused Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the former Mayor’s sister, of using EK, a registered city lobbyist as her ex-officio chief of staff. Well, it’s an amusing piece of gossip-laden reporting, amounting to nearly a promotional piece elevating Ek Ek to the preeminent position of “King of L.A. Lobbyists.” Much of what it reports could have been discovered by simply choosing the right night to have drinks at J. Trani’s or asking the Councilwoman who she spent last year’s vacation with, but who knows where he got his intel on Janice outside of Jesse Marquez, the well known Wilmington environmentalist? Although John Ek resides in San Pedro and has been chairman of both the local Chamber of Commerce and the Boys and Girls Club, he has been perpetually shy about talking on the record to any reporter, even myself, which he refused to do even now. The only thing that I could get out of him was that he “couldn’t have written a better story himself.” A curious comment seeing as how Maddaus is at once both slamming Ek for his influence, yet promoting him as the preeminent “insider” and deal maker. The rule of thumb in getting publicity is always, “make sure they spell your name right” and with a two letter last name it’s hard to misspell it. Meanwhile, Janice Hahn is in the throes of running the campaign of her life to replace long term Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Venice), the wife of the late wealthy industrialist Sidney Harman who passed away on April 12. Hahn is running neck and neck with Debra Bowen, the current California Secretary of State, Marcy Winograd, the 42 percent contender against Harman in last year’s Democratic primary, and an entire herd of unknowns and Republican contenders in an open primary. One has to ask why the LA Weekly is now attempting to sabotage Hahn’s political career when they’ve had the opportunity at any point over the last twelve years? And why they don’t take on the substantive questions like, “which way to L.A.’s future?” But they don’t. With this election coming on May 17, there is no clear winner to garner the requisite 50-percent-plus-one votes to declare a virtual winner without a run off. But who’s waiting to see if Janice will be in that race? Assemblyman Warren Furitani, David Greene, President of the San Pedro Democratic Club and LAPD Sergeant Joe Buscaino have all but announced that they are running for an office that is not, as yet, even open. Curiously, Buscaino is using his campaign for Honorary Mayor and his badge relationship to the community, as the “soft opening” for the hard politics that will surely pit several more local San Pedrans and others from various parts of CD-15 in what portends to be a 12-way arm wrestling/beauty contest for Hahn’s seat at City Hall while it is still warm. The question that remains unanswered, or even unasked by the good reporter of the LA Weekly, while the city continues to give away hundreds of millions in bed tax dollars to wealthy downtown central developers is, “What’s the benefit to the rest of the boroughs of Los Angeles when we get so little back in benefits and even less in respect?” I mean Leimert Park doesn’t even get a station on the Metro Crenshaw line! What has been missing from the civic debate of this city is why does the metropolis turn its back to the Port and the communities that surround it and why isn’t a significant portion of the revenues garnered by the city being poured into downtown making it the Mecca of all things L.A. rather than pouring it into the 32 cultural arts districts through- out the city if only to counter the great sucking sound of the capital drain surrounding City Hall. Fri, 06 May 2011 18:59:05 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=625&Itemid=33 The Los Angeles Disconnect Why the city remains so dysfunctional even as it plans for the future James Preston Allen Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, council members Janice Hahn, Tom LaBonge and Bill Rosendahl, and Gina Marie Lindsey, Los Angeles World Airports executive director announced today the findings of a report released by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LACEDC), which concludes that “new construction at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) will create nearly 40,000 jobs, gen- erate $2.62 billion in worker income, $6.9 billion in revenue, and help the Los Angeles area recover from the ongoing recession.” This, along with the news that the city is now attempting to connect the Metro Crenshaw light rail line to the airport, all seems like a move into the future, but what is missing from this? The Port of Los Angeles is also moving ahead with its years of planning on waterfront development—hundreds of millions in public improvements and even though these two “ports” are part of the same city, there seems to be no imperative to connect the dots between the LAX and POLA. It just seems so logical, but not likely to happen any time soon. The problem is historical if not political. Ever since the oil companies and Detroit automakers helped push America into the auto age by buying up the Pacific Red Cars, Los Angeles has increasingly become more disconnected from itself as the population expanded and an entirely new network of freeways dissected our landscape. Sure, if you have the luxury to travel at nonpeak commute times, which seem to be getting narrower each year, you can travel from the Harbor Area into downtown L.A. in half an hour. But commuting with the hoards can double your transit time or more and Los Angeles (both the city and county) aren’t going to get any smaller as time goes on. One can argue that it was just as time consuming to travel by Red Car 100 years ago in Southern California as it is today, with all of our expensive freeways and gas-powered cars. Time is distance in our modern world and it’s also the cause of a certain “disconnectedness” that we Angelenos feel about being citizens of this great metropolis. Los Angeles remains the sole exception in the world of international airports that isn’t connected by rail to the rest of the city. I haven’t looked closely at the world’s seaports, but I’d bet that Los Angeles is also one of the few that doesn’t connect its cruise ship industry to the airport by rail–– bringing some 500,000 passengers per year from all over the world. The amount of lost time spent on our “modern” freeways due to congestion, if added up, would equal the loss of hundreds of millions of hours that could have been better spent connecting people, our families, friends and even political representatives, as opposed to fighting traffic to get to work, home or city hall. Then there’s the Green Line, which was built years ago along the center of the 105 Freeway, but ends two and half miles short of connecting to LAX. Yet, for years the city has had the option to build a light rail line on what is called the “South Bay Loop,” which starts near downtown L.A. passes right by the airport and could connect to the Green Line. The SB Loop then proceeds south through Hawthorne, Torrance and into Harbor Gateway at about Sepulveda Boulevard, just north of the county sanitation plant. Would this be such a leap of faith to then connect this into Wilmington or even use the abandoned Red Car right-of-ways along Normandie as the LA/CRA study suggests? As the City of Los Angeles contemplates its future by continuing to centralize certain of its cultural assets like the proposed AEG convention center and NFL stadium into a few square miles of the city in which the majority of its citizens don’t live or work, it is imperative that the discussion of connecting the airport and the seaport to the rest of the metropolis by something other than more freeway congestion be offered as an alternative solution. Should AEG consider an investment into the light rail infrastructure as part of its “mitigation” and pay back for L.A.’s investment? Should the LAX commission invest in connecting the airport to the seaport as an extension of it transportation impact of expansion? And likewise, is the Board of Harbor Commissioners considering what mitigation it is responsible for with its expansion of the waterfront to increase both tourism and container traffic? We will never be able to solve our traffic prob- lem for the longterm by adding Diamond Lanes and double-decking our freeways. If we don’t begin fully connecting this city with rail, the entire Los Angeles region will become even more dysfunctional than it is today. The mayor and all of his department heads, along with the City Council need to get off of their east/west mantra of rail connectivity and consider the logical transit paths already in planning and reconnect the city to itself for its citizens. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:16:52 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=608&Itemid=33 America is Not Broke, Just Broken James Preston Allen Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) What is there to say? The national debate— hell, the local debate is dominated by those screaming that the sky is falling and everyone is trying to cover their ass from the budget ax. Few people are discussing the causes of the deficit. Even fewer are discussing how to avoid them in the future. And no one is prosecuting those who defrauded the American people in the first place. Oh yes, there was Bernie Madoff with his overlooked ponzi scam and Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp. But the real crooks are still hiding in plain view. The problem with our country is not that it’s going broke, it’s that it is broken––politically broken. Can you just imagine for one moment what would have happened if we’d taken the advice of those Republicans who are now screaming to balance the budgets, and placed the Social Security Trust fund into the stock market? Talk about disasters. That would have been the crown- ing crisis of George Bush Jr.’s 8 years in office. The crisis-filled legacy of that presidency is what we are now grappling with. How the issue is being framed by the Gingrich faction, media pun- dits and the Tea Party idiots, is that America is broke. The truth is far from this accusation. As Michael Moore proclaimed on the steps of the Wisconsin State House the other day, “Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.” This makes you wonder just who the Tea Partiers call “We the People?” Moore continued, “Let me say that again—400 ob- scenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer ‘bailout’ of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.” So if you are wondering why we can’t afford pension funds or health care and social programs like funding schools and libraries, ask yourselves why it is that these 400 de- serve any tax break at all. This divide be- tween the uber -rich and the average citizen has been ever growing since the Great Communicator—Ronald Reagan—convinced us that “trickle down” economics was the formula for creating wealth in America. He just didn’t say for whom that wealth was going to be created and that you weren’t included. What is even more disturbing is the recent report that reveals that some 25 percent of all children in the “greatest nation on earth” are now living in poverty. In many cities across this great nation, the rent-by-the-week hotels are doing a booming business with families of unemployed workers whose homes have been foreclosed on—unemployed workers, who are now forced to live in a single room and compete for daywork with the immigrants on the corner. You could blame the immigrants, but they’re only here because NAFTA decimated their economy as part of the same “free trade” system that gave incentives to American corporations to ship good, middle class manufacturing jobs to China. We are now witnessing the demise of the American Dream with the foreclosure of millions of single-family homes. We have just witnessed a vast transfer of wealth from the middle class to the robber barons of Wall Street and their super rich investors. Wall Street has managed to skirt all reasonable regulation and scrutiny of billions (or trillions) of investments. If exposed, betting your measly 401K plan at the racetrack will look like a better option than trusting Bear Stearns and their exotic derivative bond algorithms. To explain how America has been sold short, just read Michael Lewis’ book, The Big Short—Inside the Doomsday Machine or see Charles Ferguson’s Oscar-winning documentary, Inside Job, which presents a comprehensive analysis of the 2008 global financial crisis–– a crisis that cost us over $20 trillion. Both of these have exhaustive research, revealing interviews with key players and commentators in the financial game. And if any of you doubt what I’m offering here, just do a little research yourself. What we have here is not that America is broke, it’s that we’ve been robbed. Not by the bandit on the corner, but by the bankers on Wall Street who are now holding our government hostage. And no one is calling for these people to be arrested for the biggest robbery in history. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:12:04 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=598&Itemid=33 The Mad Hatter's Tea Party By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Tweet (http://twitter.com/share) There is a simple underlying fact that seems to be missing in all of this talk about deficit spending––something that you can check out for yourselves without having to take my word for it––the federal budget has only been in balance or had a surplus 24 of the last 110 years. The last time the budget had a surplus was when President Bill Clinton was forced to make certain uncomfortable compromises with the Republican majority in Congress––although he began cutting the deficit before then. Otherwise the "great anti-government" Presidents like Reagan, Bush the elder and then his son "Scrub" Bush, as he was called by the great Texan columnist, Molly Ivans, all ran huge deficits and nary a word was spoken by the Republicrats about spending too much money. After all, war is good business. It’s only peace that doesn't make a profit! This is the paradox of our times, the military-industrial complex versus public education, universal health care and providing for the "general welfare." Humph… which to choose? This does seem to be a recurring theme when the Republican's are in charge of Congress and there's a Democratic President. They scream for “fiscal conservatism,” tax cuts, balancing the budget and otherwise "crying wolf.” During the years of Republican presidents, they're all on board for spending on wars, huge government contracts and cutting social welfare. Of course privatizing Social Security would be a huge bonus for the capital class on Wall Street that would love to get its hands on our $2.6 trillion Social Security trust that is held in U.S. Treasury bonds. Which contrary to the Republican's myth will not run out of money for the next 30, and some say 75 years, depending on whose projections you consider. State pension funds, which have been invested in the stock market all took a hit from the Wall Street crash some losing as much a 30 percent of their investment value and are only now recovering as the Dow Jones jumps past 12,400. The problem this has created in Los Angeles, California, as well as Wisconsin, is that governments now have to pay supplemental contributions to these pension funds because of these market losses. So much for believing that the "free market" is going to save us from insolvency. What we will discover with all of the Tea Party hysteria over deficits and the "crying wolf" of fiscal insolvency is that our governments both large and small are far from being near bankruptcy. Let's face it, this is a manufactured crisis that strikes directly at the heart of the working class and the social reforms that have been fought for and won over the last century by organized labor and progressive reformers of both parties. What is happening in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana is a political counter-revolution by the Mad Hatters of the Tea Party, who are nothing more than a front organization for Koch Industries, Wall Street carpetbaggers and Bush's political hatchet man Karl Rove and his 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, Crossroads. Wisconsin is just the test market to see if anyone will really notice or object. It is the first salvo against President Barrack Obama's re-election. But we should not be so smug as to think that this only applies to the Cheese-head state. The real goal is to force California with its Democratic leadership to adopt similar tactics to address our "budget crisis" with the same type of critical cuts to social spending, which includes public education, health, welfare, and pensions. This just at a time when our economy could use a boost in government spending to lower unemployment and to spark a reinvestment in public infrastructures. Clearly Wall Street and the "too-big-to-fail" banks aren't going to be investing in these things as they are making too much profit in China and Brazil, yet the Golden State is far from bankrupt. The common discussion revolves around these three options: (A.) reducing spending and fixing such things as the state pension plan, (B.) by raising taxes, or (C.) combinations of the two. The fourth option would be to play hardball with the bond raters to get a better rating on refinancing the state's bond debt and to borrow against, rather than sell, assets. It’s sort of like refinancing your home to get a lower rate and to pay off your credit cards. Refinancing debt is a tactic that any business would consider under these circumstances, yet it is precisely those who call for us to run the government "like a business," who are clamoring for cuts to the programs they detest, rather than resolving the revenue problem. The Los Angeles Unified School District, and the City as well, find themselves in the very same predicament and coming to the very same conclusions of balancing their budgets on the backs of workers and common taxpayers. Everybody is pointing the finger of blame at schoolteachers and organized city workers and their pension plans. Few are looking at how the money was mismanaged, invested and/or lost in the economic crash on Wall Street– the cause of all this consternation and confusion. Has anyone notice how few of these corporate criminals have been prosecuted out side of the ponzi poster boy Bernie Madoff? Let's face it, schoolteachers in Los Angeles or Madison, Wis. didn't suddenly start making more money last year and tipping the deficit scale off balance. Most of them haven't had a real raise in salary in years. We are here because our largest capital financial institutions have failed us, and failed in their fiduciary responsibilities to protect their investors–– many of which were government pension plans. Yet the American government bailed, not the school districts or the cities, but the banks and hedge funds. And now as the financial crisis trickles down to the state and local levels, it's the fault of the workers and the common citizen. This is, if you'll excuse my uncensored use of the Anglo-Saxon exclamation… bullshit! A term even the most deranged Mad Hatter Tea Party member could understand. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and all the other fakers who got elected on the Tea Party ticket, should be driven from office by popular defiance, protest and, if necessary, civil disobedience. The tea party is over–clear the china, save your forks and remove the linens. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 08:23:22 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=595&Itemid=33 Democracy On the Verge By James Preston Allen, Publisher I was stopped at the San Pedro Post Office the other day and asked (by one of our not so liberal readers) whether I had “predicted the Cairo and Tunisian uprisings?” My answer was, “No, I am not a fortune teller. By the way, it appears as though the CIA and the rest of our intelligence agencies didn’t see this coming either!” So much for the great “Wurlitzer” of our spook network and all the intel satellites we’ve blasted into space predicting the political frustrations of 80 million Egyptians. But it’s about time that this happened. What should be noticed in the coverage of the Cairo uprising is that the majority of the protest banners are written in English, often with a message for President Barack Obama. These signs of protest are directed at our leaders, calling on us in this nation to reconsider what we mean by “democracy” in the Middle East, or perhaps everywhere where our foreign policy supports tyrants, dictators or repressive regimes at the expense of our national creed of liberty and justice for all. It is interesting that this revolt emanated not from the repressed Muslim Brotherhood, which has been outlawed and jailed for years, or from the feared al Qaida, but from the Egyptian labor unions and the student movement that emerged in the textile mills north of the capital. This tinderbox of frustrated and oppressed political aspirations only needed a single match to be struck. That was Tunisia. It is inspiring to watch and listen to these voices in the street and compare them with what little gets reported in the mainstream press and the “talking-head pundits” on Sunday morning talk shows. It is curious how President Mubarak’s power has been offset by the Egyptian military, and how that military had been shifted into neutral, not taking sides, but at whose direction? I am encouraged by the reporting of alternative news sources like Democracy Now! and others who report real news that only Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, seems to be capturing. The English version of Al Jazeera is available at http:/ /english.aljazeera.net/. Portions of their coverage are aired on KOCE, KPFK and other public TV and radio stations. This is a “teachable” moment, as our President often says. But is anybody learning? Our national press has learned something as they have been assaulted and beaten by the pro-Mubarak thugs, but will they really get the blunt force message that has politicized the students at Tahrir Square or Kasr al Nile bridge? Will the American people learn from this in any greater context other than just the current string of foreign events—the wars, the drug cartels and the Great Recession? Or will our history teachers take the time to put this in a historical line that goes all the way back to our suppression of the Philippines more than 100 years ago, the American financed coup d’ état in Iran in the 1950s, or even how we ended up on the wrong side of the liberation of Vietnam from French colonialism by Ho Chi Minh, who modeled his declaration of independence after ours? American economic interests enforced with gunboat diplomacy, have trumped our support of democracy for more than a century, and yes, here in Egypt too. “So where does this end?” my friend at the post office asks. “Probably when democracy comes back to America,” I respond. What’s that you ask? We have drifted a far distance from the first shot fired at Concord. We are now more in doubt of our Constitutional rights than ever before—jeopardized as they are by economic crises, fiscal mismanagement and the granting of civil rights to corporations. When the power of the almighty dollar surpasses the rights of individuals; when belief in our war machine displaces our beliefs in democracy; when we can no longer afford to pay for the basic tenants of liberty, such as public education, adequate access to swift and fair justice, then there needs to be a change at home. But who will deliver that message of change? Will it be those running to replace Congresswoman Jane Harman who just resigned her 36th Congressional seat or will it come from Jerry Brown rearranging the state budget? Or will it be President Obama as he addresses the U.S. Chamber of Com- merce? Will it come from below from a Twitter feed or from a text sent to millions at once, lighting the fire of revolt in Tunisia? Will anyone pay much notice to the rumblings of dissent in the United Teachers Los Angeles elections or will the displaced home owners that are being foreclosed on by Bank of America rise up in dissent asking, “Where is the justice in a system that bails out the banks but doesn’t help citizens keep their homes?” What will happen when the people who routinely pledge their allegiance to the flag and sing the national anthem realize that their rights and liberties have been trampled on during the mad rush for bottom-line quarterly profits on Wall Street and the next speculation bubble of Internet connectivity investments? Yes, I applaud the uprising in Cairo at Tahrir Square and wish them a swift victory over all those who oppose the aspirations of democracy both at home and abroad. May their spirit inspire a whole generation, if not the whole world. Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:38:05 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=570&Itemid=33 Just Like Christmas By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) With the solstice here and the rains coming down, I have come to wrapping a scarf around my neck and to wearing a heavy jacket to protect against the elements––winter has arrived. They make a big deal about the weather on the TV news with all of the high tech radar graphics and the girls in tight sweaters who read the reports. Oh, Jackie Johnson, you make the weather report so sexy. And when it rains, it pours with the weather news coverage in this land of per- petual sunshine—snow reports from the mountains, traffic collisions on the 405 freeway, mudslides in the foothills near the Station Fire burn- off and the usual falling rocks along Highway 1 in Malibu—this is news? Well, maybe. But on any average day in our media saturated metropo- lis, you get the same five lead sto- ries on all channels, usually about someone being shot or killed, a fluffy feature on some new cosmetic procedure, the same sports report and an awful lot of news anchor chit-chat. Yet, the most “scientific” thing they can report is the weather forecasts, which vary widely in projected temperatures, rainfall or when the next storm arrives. My point is that in this country, we have a fun- damental mythology about competition—from sports to business to money and warfare, there is an absolute drought of competition in the main- stream news––daily! Is it any surprise that a new survey from the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Mary- land, found rampant misinformation around the 2010 elections. Fox News viewers lead the way, but misinformation was so wide- spread that on six of the 11 questions asked, a majority of respondents gave incorrect an- swers—in some cases up to 80 and 90 per- cent—even higher. Which is not to say that you can’t find things out if you look to alter- native sources such as Truthout, ProPulica, Huffington Post and if you can still access it Wikileaks. Democracy Now! on radio KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles and on 250 public stations around the country are also coura- geous and reliable news sources. With news anchors like Amy Goodman, you will not be anesthetized. What you can always count on from the mainstream press, as we ramp up to this holiday season, is the optimistic retail voodoo and plenty of hyperbole about people shopping at the malls dominating their cov- erage. Yes, we are a consumer culture, and yes, the buying power of the working class actu- ally drives this economy, yet what the Grinch has brought the working class for Christmas is a huge credit crunch. The banks are the cutting credit lines of individuals and small businesses alike, even as I write this holiday missive. The public is getting––even as they are driven and enticed to spend, spend, spend––the sad greetings on their credit worthiness. This news is not deliv- ered by the corporate-owned media, but by the very banks that our government bailed-out and to whom the Federal Reserve loaned some $9 tril- lion because of their bad bets at the Wall Street casinos of finance. Merry Christmas to you too! But, hey, you say the season isn’t about the money, or the food, or the spiked eggnog. It’s about giving and some spiritual thing about being born or reborn. I won’t wade into your per- sonal religious beliefs about Christ, as it’s none of my business. How- ever, in this country, which openly celebrates the diversity of its people, passing laws against segregation and prejudice, there is one place where we still choose to be segregated–in our houses of worship. In particular, the various Christian sects are separated like the black Baptists from the white Baptist churches, the Catholic Church for Latinos is sepa- rate from the one for the Italians and the Croatians and even they have separate services from what I understand. Sure there are a few “integrated” churches but by far the vast majority of churches are less integrated than our public schools or our places of work. You simply can’t legislate reli- gion and religion shouldn’t dictate law. Yet, here we are once again, in the religious season, grappling with our own issues of family and recession, balancing between depression and joy, economic chaos and hope, the Christmas tree ornaments and the cat stuck under the house. I find myself wondering if it’s all worth it, even as I look forward to the tradition, the warmth of friends and family and a glass of good cheer. Good friends and solid family mean more than all the gifts we receive. Yet, the stress of giving is only heightened by tight economic times and the news reports tell us that the economy is recovering. Only we know it hasn’t recovered here on Main Street or here in the unemployment line or down on Skid Row. The banks may have been saved by the na- tion, but they have done damn little to save the people in return. So, if the president, or the new GOP leaders in Congress or the folks up at the Federal Reserve are listening this season, just remember as is said, “It’s better to give than to receive” and not to be such Scrooges when it comes to fiscal reform. What I’ve Been Reading Lately— Robert Reich’s book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future. This is the one I’d recommend for both President Barack Obama and Governor-elect Jerry Brown. Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:14:59 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=551&Itemid=33 Politics As Reality TV By James Preston Allen, Publisher and Executive Editor Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) Since the infamous televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard (I’m not a crook) Nixon in the 1960 Presidential Election,the nation has huddled around the electronic hearth of the TV set to be entertained by the spectacle of American politics. As a child of the first TV generation, this had a huge impact on my understanding of the influence of the media on politics. In the first few years, we seemed to think of presidential debates more like televised Lincoln versus Douglas bouts that we read about in our history books. But this was not to last. Things soon devolved with the advent of political TV advertising. Advertising soap was converted into political attack ads often meant to confuse and distract rather than illuminate. It’s only gone down hill ever since. This recent round of mid-term election is perhaps a new high for the low slung art of political advertising. Not only was more money spent especially by those recently freed corporations, who the Supreme Court has deemed to have the same right of political speech as individuals, but it has also unleashed the horrified fear of this country’s unions to defend what gains they have made over the past 30 years against the onslaught of right-wing attacks. What has changed is how the media has played this, reported this and ultimately profited from this huge outlay of cash as free speech. What is both annoying and sarcastically humorous is how these political ads, mostly on TV, have evolved from being something akin to bad Borax commercials, to highly evolved infomercials issuing vindictives and slander (the later being legal in the game of politics). The sophistication of political propaganda has become so good, meaning bad, that by the time voters actually get down to voting, it is far from clear what they are reacting to because of the mixed messages, canceling each other out. This was most prominently played out in the Brown versus Whitman and Boxer versus Fiorina campaigns to the point that many potential voters simply turned off the tube or voted early to avoid the mind boggling jingoistic verbal jihad. But you know I think “we the people” wouldn’t have it any other way. Americans like a good fist fight whether in a boxing ring, on the field or court of your favorite sport. We have this voyeuristic instinct to watch while something unscripted happens and we all look on in horror and surprise and say, “Gawd did you see that?” We have in fact become increasingly bored with the highly scripted and orchestrated forms of TV violence to the point of evaporating any true sense of suspended disbelief and only really pay attention to the reality TV of the freeway car chase waiting to see the next reality star crash, shot or beaten by the police. Enhanced with flyover helicopter commentary, much like a sports caster calling the balls and strikes. This year’s political reality TV included the bizarre to the inane. The witch from Delaware to the looney toon odd ball Democrat in Georgia and then of course the self-demonizing characters of Meg and Carly, the billionaire duo, running in our own special show of “I’ve never done this before, but let me buy my new job.” As Californians, we are just a bit more jaded about people waving money in our faces than they are in Kentucky or Ohio. But hey, we always seem to be a sucker for a B movie star. But this new fascination with reality TV as politics will probably soon become the next phenomenon. Think of it— a Hollywood producer rounds up a group of ex-CEO’s and failed actors and documents their attempt at become politicians. Could turn out better than American Idol or The Apprentice. Sarah Palin is the perfect reflection of this come from nowhere and know nothing “new reality” TV personality. Sadly, sooner rather than later, America is going to elect another idiot to run this country. After we finally fix what’s wrong, they’ll run it into the ditch with another war and tax breaks for the rich who don’t need them. Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:18:38 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=545&Itemid=33 Give ‘em Hell, Jerry! By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) This coming election is a pivotal one. The choices couldn’t be much more defined. Who do you trust? Wall Street or the union-backed Dems? Do you really believe the oil companies trying to roll back environmental laws, have our best interests in mind or do you think they’re trying to scare the electorate with doom and gloom? Yes, I do find it amusingly odd that Halloween comes just days before our November elections, and at times, election day is scarier than “Fright Night” at Knott’s Berry Farm, but this year is no joking matter. The Tea Party goblins are trying to hijack this election with the help of some very unsavory characters like the billionaire Koch brothers and then we have the U.S. Chamber of Commerce running attack ads against Sen. Barbara Boxer. Have you ever questioned just who is the U.S. Chamber? But what about the ones you probably haven’t heard about? Like American Crossroads, founded by Karl Rove––the political operative behind President George W. Bush––who has received millions of dollars from the men who funded the “Swift Boat” attack on Sen. John Kerry in 2004. The biggest contributor, at $7 million, is Bob J. Perry, a home construction tycoon from Texas, who was also the biggest contributor to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But since the Supreme Court has upheld the idea that money equals speech, it would seem that some billionaires speak louder than the Tea Partiers who are screaming “We the People.” All I really want to know is “who the people are” behind these Fox News type of campaigns. The Tea Partiers stated goals are: 1. Lower taxes 2. Smaller government 3. Fiscal responsibility 4. Transparent government 5. Ethics reform 6. An end to corruption 7. Stricter adherence to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights 8. An end to deficit spending 9. A balanced budget 10. Less intrusive federal government Who doesn’t want these things? What isn’t explained by this list of 10 is the billionaire Wall Streeters that are behind the Tea Party, far right fiscal conservatives who want to cut spending and shrink government, privatize Social Security, and oppose national health care. They basically object to most government spending except when we bail their sorry asses out or give them a no-bid contract. Then there are the far right social conservatives, who believe in the sanctity of life, which they say is “written in the U.S. Constitution.” This is a bit like the Delaware Tea Party candidate who asked “where in the Constitution does it say anything about the separation of church and state?” In the First Amendment— duh! The amount of misinformation that gets touted as truth these days is only surpassed by some people’s ignorance. The problem with these ideas about how to change our government is that they are misguided and their criticism of the Democrats as the cause is only partly true. If we want to have lower taxes, then lets stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan–– the biggest expense is our military budget. This single cut would lend fiscal responsibility. The Department of Defense’s own auditor couldn’t sort out the expenses in the Iraq War. Do you suppose there was any corruption involved? And, while we are on the topic of transparency, have you tuned into the recent WikiLeaks documents that exposes our government’s involvement in torturing and killing innocent Iraqi citizens? Ethics reform and a stricter adherence to our own Constitution might start with the prosecution of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. Or, does anyone really want to remember just how things got to be so screwed up in the first place? The current recession and bad economy stems from the premise that government shouldn’t regulate or control certain capital enterprises like AIG, Goldman Sachs and British Petroleum. Yet in the last three years these three corporations have done far more financial damage to our country than has al-Qaeda. I would argue that the size of our government and the political clout of the unions is in direct contrast to the wealth of the multinational corporations who are the biggest contributors to the U.S. and California Chambers of Commerce. These two “corporate” chambers do not represent either the goals or interests of the millions of small businesses across this nation––the ones who create the majority of the jobs. So we are fortunate this year to have some candidates running for office who aren’t wimps, who aren’t afraid to fight the wrong headed rightwing take over—just remember the three “B’s”— Brown, Boxer and Bowen and it wouldn’t hurt to re-elect John Chiang. And you have to remember this one quip from President Harry S. Truman, “If you want to live like a Republican, you have to vote like a Democrat.” Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:09:07 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=543&Itemid=33 The California Exception By James Preston Allen, Publisher Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) The other day I was invited to a rather swank hilltop fundraiser to support the re-election campaign of Debra Bowen for California Secretary of State––a candidate for whom I have the utmost respect and confidence in performing the duties of this office. On the tail end of this was added the Democratic Party event featuring party chairman and former Senate President Pro Tempore, John Burton, and a performance by singer/songwriter Jackson Brown. With Jackson belting out the refrain to his hit song, “The Pretender,” I looked out over the great expanse of the Los Angeles basin from the Santa Monica Bay to the epicenter of power in downtown Los Angeles, thinking how much this sprawl of civilization has grown in the last 50 years. There are some who look back with a sense of political nostalgia, longing for the much simpler Ozzie and Harriet days expressed in the complaint that government is “too big” and dysfunctional. Yet, the size of our state’s $129 billion budget is probably proportional to the per capita increase in our population from what it was in 1955. No visionary ever expected this state’s population to explode the way it has or for our economy to increase in such a way as to compete for being the eighth largest in the world. The truth is California has, from its inception as a state, always played catch-up to the reality of its growth. From the initial boom of the Gold Rush to the post-World War II baby boom, California has never adequately planned for its future growth or done well in dealing with the interceding recessions. And our government over the past century and a half kind of reflects this. Our state constitution is a patchwork of ideas–some lifted from the Iowa State Constitution in 1879 and then amended some 500 times since. According to Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, the authors of California Crack Up–How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It, California’s government has been flawed since its inception and nearly every attempt to fix it has only made the situation more complex and less functional– particularly since the passage of Prop. 13, which was originally proposed as a two-tier tax plan, not a one percent solution for everyone. The continued use of voter-approved propositions that were passed without funding sources combined with term limits in the legislature have hobbled the state into a perpetual deficit spending cycle and political stalemate, they claim. Some of us remember the days when public education, particularly our colleges and universities, were in ascendancy and were the envy of the nation. Not so today as we compete with states like Mississippi for the rank of 46th in education spending as a percentage of personal income (and that was in 2008-2009, before our last round of cuts). What we are witnessing today is the battle over accountability in our public schools where government mandated tests are used like darts thrown at the backside of the teacher’s unions while local control of spending is ignored and actual learning relegated to statistical debates over graduation versus drop-out rates. Does anyone really care about educating students so that they can critically deconstruct the political mess we’ve left behind and make an intelligent vote? Everyone complains about how messy and nasty political campaigns have become. But you know what— I think Americans actually like a good fistfight. If you look back, our history is accented with political pushing and shoving matches that have, at times, devolved into out-in-out violence. The Civil War is but the most example. One might hope that we as a people have evolved past the point “ritual warfare” when it comes to politics. But we haven’t. Just look at the attention the Tea Party is getting for their misguided intent and misplaced blame focused on President Obama and the Democrats. The truth of the matter is, we have had 30 years of collaboration between Republicans and Democrats that has led us down the acid-Kool Aid path of “free market” economics as being the fix-all solution to everything that ails this country and it has only made matters worse. Unregulated capital’s only goal is to amass greater profits without regard to the consequences for the rest of the nation. But this understanding is lost on the Tea Baggers, the born-again Christian rightwingers and Karl Rove, whose secret hand orchestrates astro-turf uprisings funded by corporate conservatives like the Koch brothers and fronted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While the rest of our nation is challenged by the façade of the Tea Party uprising, unable to recognize it for what it is, as a phony political movement, California has slowly awakened to fact that our votes, if not our entire state, have been put up for sale by Meg Whitman, Carly Forina, Tesoro and Valero oil companies. This November elections will decide whether or not California is still the Great Exception that historian Carrie McWilliams once explained in his book of the same name, or if we have become so lulled into a stupor of idiocy by Fox News, Karl Rove and the U.S. and California Chambers of Commerce propaganda machines that we will actually vote against our own self-interests. For my generation, this is a test of greater significance than the “value added” exams we forced on our children and whether we pass it or not will determine the legacy that we leave them and ourselves. I’m betting that California will vote for its future and not repeat the mistakes of its past by electing novices to run its government like a Wall Street business venture. Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:40:20 +0100 http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=536&Itemid=33 Why Brown? Why Now? Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php) By James Preston Allen, Publisher Few will remember why Jerry Brown was elected governor back in the 1970s, as most of the current California electorate either wasn’t born yet or has immigrated here since that time. Those were the halcyon days of the post-Vietnam War, Watergate and college student uprisings— Governor Jerry was the antidote to everything wrong that Ronald Reagan stood for. Reagan represented The Man who tear-gassed the students at UC Berkeley’s People’s Park and was famously quoted for his anti-environmentalist statement, “If you’ve seen one redwood [tree] you’ve seen them all.” Jerry was our man. He represented our generation’s disdain for everything Vietnam, Nixon and Reagan stood for while outlining a new vision for our future. It was a vision that would not be completed. He talked about green energy, before we really knew what it was, and then he funded the first solar energy farm out in the Mojave dessert that is still functioning today. He, of course, was derided in the press for his prescient vision that one day we would be talking on telephones connected to satellites, which earned him the nickname “Gov. Moon Beam.” But who among us today hasn’t adopted the use of a cell phone? And then there was the invasion of the Med-fly. As the environmental governor, Brown was confronted with the invasion of the Mediterranean fruit fly, a threat to this state’s billion-dollar agriculture business. He had the option of aerial spraying vast sections of urban California with malathion, or using less invasive methods to fight the infestation. He rightly chose to use the later tactic, using ground dusting and on-site spraying with the use of the release of sterilized Med-flies, imported from Chile. His credentials as the pro-environmental governor were on the line and his efforts were basically sabotaged. First, several millions of “sterilized” Med-flies were released and then were discovered not to be sterilized! This exacerbated the situation and undermined his already contentious decision not to do aerial spraying. Then the federal government stepped in threatening to withhold millions of dollars in agricultural subsidies to the state if he didn’t implement the aerial spraying. Brown eventually caved in to the Fed and was forced to contract with a helicopter outfit that only later was revealed to be connected to the infamous CIA shadow corporation Air America. In short, Brown got screwed, losing all credibility with his green, Sierra Club-type supporters and many younger voters at the same time. I always considered this a political “set-up” or character assassination. Some might call it a conspiracy. But let’s just settle it by saying “it wasn’t an accident!” But this is the past and Jerry has moved on, grown up— aged you might say—and gotten a bit wiser to the ways of political sabotage and right wing baiting. Most politicians with less experience would have collapsed this last summer from the heat of Meg Whitman’s self-financed $119 million attack campaign, but Brown didn’t. He stood his ground and waited, even against all the hysterical advice to fight back early. Clearly, Jerry Brown has learned a few things since his early days as the “youngest governor.” But does any of this qualify him to lead California out of its current crisis? Compared to Whitman, probably yes. We’ve just suffered through six years of a governor who was too wealthy to need the job, who was too inexperienced in either state or party politics to do the job, and who basically told us that he was going to run our government like a business. Well, that hasn’t worked out so well. We are still running state budget deficits of $19 billion a year and he can’t even convince his Republican minority party to compromise on passing a budget. Meg, with all of her eBay/Silicon Valley savoir-faire isn’t saying anything better than what Schwarzenegger promised when he deposed Gov. Gray Davis. What is undiscussed in the mainstream media is that running a for-profit business is fundamentally different than running a not-for-profit government. Does anyone remember opening up our state regulated energy supply to the free marketeers like Enron? But let’s just ask this one question: why would any California voter trust someone running for the state’s highest office who hasn’t even voted for the past 20 years? Democracy belongs to those who show up and if you don’t show up at one election you can be forgiven––but for 20 years? Come on! Everyone has the right to complain about the government we’ve got, but if you don’t show up to vote for this long, save your breath for singing in the shower because nobody really wants to hear you. So, Jerry Brown is not the perfect candidate, but in my estimation, California kind of owes him a shot at finishing what he started 30 years ago, because A) we’ve finally caught up to where he was then, B) his policies were previously ambushed by political forces now exposed and discredited and C) in a crisis, you hire the one who has the relevant experience, and he does. I am personally not impressed with the current set of amateur politicians who want to start at the top simply because they have the money— show me what you’ve actually done for somebody other than yourself before you get paid to represent everybody in my state! That goes for you too, Carly. Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:05:14 +0100