Reflections on 45 Years

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I have often been asked over the years by various people, “Just how did you get into journalism?” The answer: It was a long and circuitous route that started when I was just 14 years old. I started publishing the only off campus, unauthorized, student newspaper on mimeographed paper and distributed surreptitiously so I wouldn’t be expelled from school. That was against the rules at that time. I’ve always been a rebel with a cause and it started early in my life and apparently, it’s never stopped.

In 1964-1965 after the assassination of JFK and the expanded war in Vietnam, there was quite a bit to rebel against — it wasn’t just that war but the hypocrisy of the entire nation starting with our school administration’s restrictions on long hair, girls wearing blue jeans, corporal punishment by coaches and restricting student free speech. I rebelled against it all — the war, the oppression of black people, police abuse, the failures that we still see today and there was the particular hypocrisy of being forced to say the pledge of allegiance with the part of “one nation under God… with liberty and justice for all.” All of this was splattered on the cultural backdrop of rock n roll: Chuck Berry, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Buffalo Springfield —“What a field day for the heat. Thousands of people in the streets,” the Watts riot and smoking pot. All of it fueled a cultural revolution that hasn’t stopped. Instead, it is still being fought over today.

Many of those culture war battles have been won: like legalization of marijuana in many states but many are still in dispute. Women’s bodily autonomy had been won, then challenged and then lost again. The Vietnam War was lost, but the military industrial complex continued on with wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and now Gaza. Some fought with American surrogates but with U.S. arms. In my opinion the only war that we should be supporting is Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, as defense of one’s own country to preserve democracy and resisting authoritarian rule is the only excuse.
I see it as my patriotic duty to resist American follies in foreign wars that do not support democracy at home, to not fall victim to the incessant sabre rattling of blind allegiance to military aggression and what I call false patriotism. I was a conscientious objector in the Vietnam War and know full well the brutality of warfare. I knew at a very young age that going halfway around the world to kill people who didn’t look like me for very suspect reasons was morally wrong. It wasn’t like our country was invaded but we invaded theirs — they had a right to defend themselves.

My life has been one of planting the flag of free speech with every issue we’ve printed and standing behind that freedom— defending it against all accusers, detractors and ignoramuses. I’ve been doing it for so long that it has come second nature to me. That the corporate owned media hasn’t become any better at pushing back against the American state of hypocrisy is still a particular annoyance to me and has built a groundswell of distrust among many citizens. However, the misnomer of “the liberal media” is so completely inaccurate because most of the media is now more conservative than it was 60 years ago because of the influence of far right Fox News (a true threat to our democracy), media consolidation and far right talk radio. For all the media it’s about chasing the money and/or who owns the media, not about truth telling but the slant of the news.

TV news is infamous for its car chases, murders and violent crime reporting (especially if they involve celebrities), while ignoring larger truths. For instance, on any given day the vast majority of the 10.4 million residents of LA County (and many more if you include everywhere else south of Santa Barbara to the border) are actually law-abiding citizens. Outside of the frauds, petty crimes and white collar grifts which rarely get reported on the evening news. Now it’s all about pretty faces reading the news, ratings and infotainment with sexy girls reading the weather reports. Aren’t the graphics wonderful these days? The truth would be boring if the headlines didn’t bleed exaggerating violence or perhaps not if the media corporations actually did real investigative reporting like Democracy Now! does, a rarity these days. The real truth is 99.99% of our population are relatively law abiding except for the incessant double parking and running stop signs.

There are reporters still dedicated to telling the other side of the news–the under reported, the censored or covered up stories that the corporate media and far right influencers aren’t going to expose. Some of these courageous reporters are right here at RLN and they need your support, your subscriptions to our publication and donations on our website, and for you to tell our advertisers to continue, for our reporters to continue giving you the news.

This paper can only remain independent and free with your support, especially in the years to come with a fascist dictator in the White House and a country confused between left and right. The real alternative to the liberal/conservative conundrum still is Progressivism. It’s still a revolutionary idea here in America, but the foundations of it are with us in the form of Social Security, Medicare, child labor laws, the eight-hour work day, disability benefits and every environmental regulation (all of which are massively popular). It is also the foundation for voting rights laws and all of women’s rights to control their own lives and bodies. I believe that Progressive rights are what was intended by the Founding Fathers of this nation who believed that all people derived their rights from Natural Law, not biblical law or a king’s dictates. This is still a revolutionary idea not only here but around the world. And whenever those among us transgress the Natural Law it is up to those of us with the courage and vision to rebel against it, to expose it and resist it in every way possible.
Remember that freedom in every era takes eternal vigilance and that is what honest, truthful and diligent reporting needs to be — a vigilant witness to our times. Keep reading my friends and don’t be lulled to sleep by the din of the digital rain.

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James Preston Allen
James Preston Allen, founding publisher of the Los Angeles Harbor Areas Leading Independent Newspaper 1979- to present, is a journalist, visionary, artist and activist. Over the years Allen has championed many causes through his newspaper using his wit, common sense writing and community organizing to challenge some of the most entrenched political adversaries, powerful government agencies and corporations. Some of these include the preservation of White Point as a nature preserve, defending Angels Gate Cultural Center from being closed by the City of LA, exposing the toxic levels in fish caught inside the port, promoting and defending the Open Meetings Public Records act laws and much more. Of these editorial battles the most significant perhaps was with the Port of Los Angeles over environmental issues that started from edition number one and lasted for more than two and a half decades. The now infamous China Shipping Terminal lawsuit that derived from the conflict of saving a small promontory overlooking the harbor, known as Knoll Hill, became the turning point when the community litigants along with the NRDC won a landmark appeal for $63 million.

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