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Contrary to What Biden Said, U.S. Warfare in Afghanistan Is Set to Continue

Norman Solomon
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Contrary to What Biden Said, U.S. Warfare in Afghanistan Is Set to Continue
Guljumma, 7, and her father, Wakil Tawos Khan, at the Helmand Refugee Camp District 5 in
Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 31, 2009.
(Photo by Reese Erlich)

When I met a seven-year-old girl named Guljumma at a refugee camp in Kabul a dozen years ago, she told me that bombs fell early one morning while she slept at home in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley. With a soft, matter-of-fact voice, Guljumma described what happened. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.

Troops on the ground didn’t kill Guljumma’s relatives and leave her to live with only one arm. The U.S. air war did.

There’s no good reason to assume the air war in Afghanistan will be over when — according to President Biden’s announcement on Wednesday — all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from that country.

What Biden didn’t say was as significant as what he did say. He declared that “U.S. troops, as well as forces deployed by our NATO allies and operational partners, will be out of Afghanistan” before Sept. 11. And “we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily.”

But President Biden did not say that the United States will stop bombing Afghanistan. What’s more, he pledged that “we will keep providing assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces,” a declaration that actually indicates a tacit intention to “stay involved in Afghanistan militarily.”

And, while the big-type headlines and prominent themes of media coverage are filled with flat-out statements that the U.S. war in Afghanistan will end come September, the fine print of coverage says otherwise.

The banner headline across the top of the New York Times homepage during much of Wednesday proclaimed: “Withdrawal of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Will End Longest American War.” But, buried in the thirty-second paragraph of a story headed “Biden to Withdraw All Combat Troops From Afghanistan by Sept. 11,” the Times reported: “Instead of declared troops in Afghanistan, the United States will most likely rely on a shadowy combination of clandestine Special Operations forces, Pentagon contractors and covert intelligence operatives to find and attack the most dangerous Qaeda or Islamic State threats, current and former American officials said.”

Matthew Hoh, a Marine combat veteran who in 2009 became the highest-ranking U.S. official to resign from the State Department in protest of the Afghanistan war, told my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy on Wednesday: “Regardless of whether the 3,500 acknowledged U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, the U.S. military will still be present in the form of thousands of special operations and CIA personnel in and around Afghanistan, through dozens of squadrons of manned attack aircraft and drones stationed on land bases and on aircraft carriers in the region, and by hundreds of cruise missiles on ships and submarines.”

We scarcely hear about it, but the U.S. air war on Afghanistan has been a major part of Pentagon operations there. And for more than a year, the U.S. government hasn’t even gone through the motions of disclosing how much of that bombing has occurred.

“We don’t know, because our government doesn’t want us to,” diligent researchers Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies wrote last month. “From January 2004 until February 2020, the U.S. military kept track of how many bombs and missiles it dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and published those figures in regular, monthly Airpower Summaries, which were readily available to journalists and the public. But in March 2020, the Trump administration abruptly stopped publishing U.S. Airpower Summaries, and the Biden administration has so far not published any either.”

The U.S. war in Afghanistan won’t end just because President Biden and U.S. news media tell us so. As Guljumma and countless other Afghan people have experienced, troops on the ground aren’t the only measure of horrific warfare.

No matter what the White House and the headlines say, U.S. taxpayers won’t stop subsidizing the killing in Afghanistan until there is an end to the bombing and “special operations” that remain shrouded in secrecy.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Life After Mother – Getting a Conservatorship Shouldn’t Be Like This

Lyn Jensen
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Life After Mother – Getting a Conservatorship Shouldn’t Be Like This

After my mother had a stroke and was diagnosed with dementia in 2017, I knew all the efforts of encouraging her to plan her estate were unsuccessful. Her dementia no longer allowed her to understand the situation and she was as unreasonable as ever. 

When persuasion fails and family finances are at risk, a conservatorship may be the answer, but getting one took me two years, encountering obstacles whether I approached the situation as a legal or medical matter. 

Lawndale, where my father once resided, had a senior advocate who was helpful with him, so I contacted that service for advice. The woman directed me to a legal-aid clinic that offered sporadic appointments at various Harbor Area senior centers. I went to one in Wilmington, where the legal “advice” consisted of a sales pitch for the clinic. Except the clinic practiced only in Los Angeles County — I needed someone who practiced in Orange County — they couldn’t help me there.

Neither Anaheim nor Orange County had a senior advocate similar to Lawndale, while Carson, where I resided, was useless, too. I paid for a referral from the Orange County bar and may have got the slimiest member they had. The guy jerked me around for a year, scoffing at the medical documents I produced and advising, “Talk to your mother some more,” before he all but ran me out of his office. He treated me like a greedy gold-digger, not someone who needed legal action.   

My mother’s health insurance was part of her pension. She had to use the bureaucratic health maintenance organization, or HMO, that came with it. I couldn’t just call my mother’s HMO and talk. The patient had to have an appointment — weeks or months away. Then I’d have to go, too and hope any questions I asked about the patient’s inability to handle her own affairs weren’t met with hysteria (from the patient) and/or stonewalling about “patient confidentiality” (from the HMO). They often were.

According to the HMO, they couldn’t discuss my mother’s condition with me because my name wasn’t on her chart as someone to discuss her condition with. When I protested I was my mother’s next-of-kin, a staffer mansplained, “California has no next-of-kin law, do you understand?” 

I told her, law or no law, I was my mother’s next of kin — and still got nowhere.

Trying to talk to my mother got either, “None of your business!” or else screaming that my name was there, although according to the HMO, it wasn’t.

After a wasted year someone coughed up a phone number for a senior case manager at the HMO. He said he’d flag my mother’s file for a “cap dec” (capacity declaration). She didn’t see her regular doctor again, though, until after she was placed in a nursing home in July 2019, two years after her dementia diagnosis. The doctor passed the buck, saying a neurologist would have to fill out the cap dec. First available neurology appointment? That’d be in November.

I was reluctant to go to random lawyers after the prior experiences, but I got an old-fashioned Orange County phone book and called lawyers, left messages. One message found a family-law lawyer who took the case. She pried a cap dec out of the HMO and a conservatorship out of the Orange County court system — a whole four days before my mother died.

Lessons of War and Gain

Terelle Jerricks
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Lessons of War and Gain

Latino historian talks history, fatherhood and what it means to be an American

When I met up with him at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #2967 in Wilmington, Post Quartermaster Carlos Portillo showed me a document listing medal of honor recipients with Spanish surnames through all of the wars fought in U.S. history dating back to the Civil War.

“There are 61 Latino or Hispanic, or whatever people want to label us, recipients of the Medal of Honor,” Portillo said. “They break it  down by military service … Army, Marines and posthumously.  Forty-one of them were honored in person, out of a total of 61 Medal of Honor recipients.”

Portillo is a second-generation veteran who served in the Vietnam War. His father served in World War II.

Portillo reminded me that the last time I interviewed him, he was still a careerist, working as a facilities specialist while he was curating Hispanics in the American Civil War. That was back in 2005. 

Since then, he joined the VFW and became the quartermaster at the Wilmington Post and is also a part of the San Pedro Battleship American Legion. To date, he’s been entertaining the notion of going back to the Drum Barracks and curating a refresher on Hispanics in the American Civil War exhibition.

Another reason I was intrigued by Portillo was because of my vague recollection that his family was five (now six) generations deep and happened to reside in one of San Pedro’s oldest French colonial style homes (built in 1929).  Portillo made sure I didn’t confuse my vague recollections for facts.

“Well, [you must] remember the original Sepulveda house … real Dodson-Sepulveda house if you look at your history, that’s actually on 13th Street near Richard Dana Junior High School,” Mr. Portillo reminded me.

His wife and daughter turned their French colonial home into an event space, hosting weddings and other special occasions there. Portillo noted that they chose the name “Sepulveda Home,” because it was on Sepulveda Street. The home was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2016.

For about an hour and 10 minutes, Mr. Portillo and I talked about the pandemic and the good that came from it; and war and the good and the bad that comes from that. We talked about civil rights and the fact that we’re back where we began. But our conversations started with the Californios.

In Portillo’s view, war and the COVID-19 pandemic are just a couple of more processes by which humanity evolves.

Every two months, the grandfather of six publishes a newsletter called Goosetown News. He read from a piece he wrote in the latest publication about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic:

 As we emerge from this pandemic that literally shut down the world, we must pause and give thanks to our creator, to the universe and to the scientists who are figuring out how to slow the destruction of humanity. And we must give thanks to ourselves for having faith, patience and the spirit to weather the storm. Humanity will be experiencing a new renaissance, a rebirth, rejuvenation and evolve into better human beings….

Portillo went on to note that while the pandemic has hurt the country economically and put a lot of people out of work, it has also really helped “homo sapiens” in this country to stop stealing.

“We were bullying ourselves … we were bullying other people … we were bullying the underserved classes,” Portillo said. “It is time that we all own up to it. How can we make this a better world? How can we share the planet? We can’t hide anymore. We need to embrace Americanism. Because it’s all we have going.”

Portillo has three children, all of whom are grown and are parents to their own children. His oldest grandchild has just graduated from high school.

Portillo noted that his grandchildren are just learning how to survive the anxieties of growing up and deal with their hormones during the pandemic. It’s been a major challenge for every child, he said.

“We had to teach our kids this last year how to accept solitude … how to accept boredom … how to entertain yourself one day at a time without going nuts,” he said. “So,  the pandemic has done more than parents can teach their kids.”

 He offers the kind of guidance, support and advice to his children that comes with age and maturity.

“We mellow out as we get older and we share that with our kids,” Portillo said. “Take it easy. Don’t sweat the small stuff; don’t let the large stuff bring you down.”

Portillo said the history as it pertains to California and the American Civil War was part of that evolution.

“These  guys that had land and knew they were going to lose it, embraced Americanism,” he said, bluntly. “They had no choice. You can be on the winning side or be on the losing side; you’re not going to know which side you’re on; you’re going to lose some and hopefully keep some and that’s what happened here. That’s evolution. So do I look back at it and feel negative about it? It’s reality.

“You have to remember, and this probably applies to a lot of Latino-Hispanic families during that era […],” Portillo said. “A lot of these guys probably never heard about the American Civil War.”

Look at some of the photographs from that time, Portillo pointed out.

“These guys were farmers,” Portillo said. “These guys were cowboys, just out there trying to earn a day’s wage. Remember, the Civil War happened 15 years after the Mexican-American War, the war in which [Mexican President] Santa Ana gave away the whole store to save his ass. including Arizona, New Mexico, California and probably a few others on that list. Once the U.S. took over this territory, a lot of the Californios saw what was coming.”

He pointed to the big families — like those of Californio Gov. Pio Pico (who resided in early Los Angeles) and Californio Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in Northern California, which consisted of the Bay Area.

“A lot of the big-name families thought they were going to lose everything to the U.S.,” he said. “So, they did what they thought was in their business interest during the Civil War.”

Portillo noted the Californio soldiers participated in the war on the side of the North and the South.

“They formed their own regiments of troops,” Portillo noted.  “Some of these guys came up as lancers because they were cowboys and they basically only had lances. That’s how they came ready for battle. They marched down here, in Wilmington, to the drum barracks, to go East to join the Civil War. The only skirmishes they encountered were Indians in Arizona. But they were ready. They were in uniform and they were sworn in to protect the Union.

“Those in the South fought to save the Confederacy. So you had bands of troops with different titles. Their effort netted the average soldier a couple of meals a day and a fresh horse. For the really wealthy ones, the Californios, they knew they were going to lose everything they had, unless they partook of the war effort. But they lost everything anyway.

“Look at the history here. This was all Rancho San Pedro. The Anglos who came in, married into the families. They did the right things and said ‘Hey, I got a beautiful rich daughter here. But being an American, I already have points here, right? I’m gonna marry her’ and that’s how the Dodsons got in and a lot of other families.”

Portillo is a historian and a keeper of this region’s stories. Ask him if he was always this way, a lover of history, he’ll tell you, “Not more than the average.”

Upon further reflection, he said, “You get curious about how your people got here, like, why are we still at the bottom rung?’

“With all of those challenges as you become an adult, you start asking, ‘What can I do as an individual to bring this up a notch or two?’” Portillo said. “What I did … I went to school. I went into the military like my father.”

A day before we hooked up for this interview, Cub Scouts and the Brownies placed 500 flags at the Civil War era cemetery. Portillo was among the war veterans to speak at the Memorial Day ceremony.

He talked about the Vietnam War and war itself.

“As much as I’d like to pray that there’s a  future without war…” Portillo said. “Since the beginning of humanity, we’ve been warring to sustain liberty and democracy and all things that people cherish. It’s taken wars to iron all of that out.”

Looking back in retrospect, he said that even though a lot of what has happened is not so pretty, all of it needed to happen to achieve a new evolution.

What does it mean to be a patriot?

In very basic terms, Portillo explained patriots follow the direction of their government, without regard to personal feelings, whether it’s right or wrong. He said he didn’t care one ounce for the previous president,  and has no problem expressing it. But when he went to the VFW, he always checked his opinions at the door.

“A lot of the wars we’ve been in, the war I was in was a very wrong war, but I was there. I didn’t question…. Like, ‘Why were we in Southeast Asia?’” he said. “Were we fighting for the rubber plantations? Were we fighting for their rice plantations? What were we fighting for? You know, my personal values, [I believed] it was the wrong war [to fight].”

Portillo said there are so many components to what makes an American.

“We are the home of the brave,” he said. “That’s for sure. If you are a true American, then there’s going to be courage in your blood. If it’s not there, then you need to build it up, because being an American, you’re not a coward. You have to fill that shoe, being an American. You don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not. But being an American requires you to live with courage. When you see that red white and blue flag, you’re proud of it.”

Portillo said he tells his kids that the red stripes represent the blood that was shed. He recalled how as a teenager, when he was dating his girlfriend who later became his wife, he took a trip to Catalina Island. At 19, he was a veteran even then.

“I was already back from the military. I was wearing a red, white, blue jersey — problem colors. I guess the culture on the island was different from out here,” Portillo said. “Latinos were really suppressed back on that island. And these white kids, they saw me and they were on a trolley going in a different direction than us, so they could say what they wanted and I would never catch them. They made fun of me because of the jersey I was wearing. It wasn’t about my brown skin, but because of what I was wearing. Not my brown face, but the red, white and blue. So, being an American, means fighting for that flag, and being proud to fly it. And defend it.”

“If I go to Mexico, I’m told, ‘You’re not American.’” Portillo said. “‘Yes I am.’ ‘Well, am I Mexican?’ ‘You’re not a Mexican either.’ So I’m caught in between there. So you have to stand and deliver what you believe in. I’m an American and I’ll fight until the end to defend it. That is a part of being an American.”

Stand and Deliver

Portillo recounted that one of his first jobs was at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which he acquired after joining an apprenticeship there.

“They would hire like 125 apprentices every two or three years and put them through good training,” he said. “The 125 positions were spread across several different shops including welding, rigging, pipefitting, electrical and refrigeration and air conditioning among others. Refrigeration and air conditioning was the smallest. There was only one apprenticeship opening for refrigeration and air conditioning. They had plenty of spots in the other trades.

“To get  into this federal apprenticeship you have to take a civil service test and if you were a veteran, you get 5 points. If you were disabled veteran, which I am, you get 10 points,” Portillo said. “I was working down there as a pipefitter’s helper. That’s how I learned about the program. So I studied for the test. I was planning on becoming a pipefitter apprentice. If I get into that … it’s a great job.”

Portillo got picked up as one of the 125. After the administrator and instructors of each apprenticeship from each trade explained the selection process they were sent out on a short coffee break.

“‘When you come back, we’ll have your name on the board based on your score,’” he recalled.

After the coffee break, many of the new apprentices gathered around the refrigeration and air conditioning trade even though there was only one position.

“I kind of stood back, thinking, ‘I don’t have a chance,’” Portilo said. “He calls us up one at a time. He looks at my record and notices that I worked as a pipefitter,  then says, ‘You want to be a pipefitter, don’t you?’”

“I said, ‘Well, sir, I did … but since I’m No. 1 now, I’d like to take that experience and get into the refrigeration air conditioning trade.’ There was an instructor and one other guy. He brought the administrator of the apprenticeship program to discuss this guy, who wants to get into it. Let me tell you, I was the first non-Caucasian to get into that training. But I had to stand and deliver. I had to convince them why. Well, you have experience as a pipefitter. But now that I’m No. 1, that’s what I want and I got in.

“Let me tell you, I had to fight my way through because I broke that ceiling. And there were some really racist guys in that shop,” he recalled. “They made it miserable for me and I could have easily caved in and lost my cool and said, ‘Screw this; it’s not worth it.’ But I fought and I stayed in there. Finally, they approached me one day and I asked, ‘Did you serve in the military?’

“‘No, I didn’t and I don’t have to,’ they said.

 “‘Well, I did. So I can say I’m more American than you because I risked my life for this country. What have you done?’” Portillo recounted. “It hasn’t been an easy journey for me but that’s what being an American means. Especially when you’re the minority … you’re underrepresented … underserved. You have to be tough.”

Portillo says his upright style has often been interpreted as him having a chip on his shoulder.

“Sometimes you have to have that chip on your shoulder to show that you won’t be steamrolled,” Portillo retorted.

Mike Watt and Dave Widow Play a Night of Music in San Pedro

Melina Paris
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Mike Watt and Dave Widow Play a Night of Music in San Pedro

Please note: Out of an over abundance of caution by the LAPD regarding the main event at 6th and Mesa Streets this week the PBID has postponed the Watt/Widow show to Sept. 2 as part of Fleet Week. The PBID wanted a breakout show to kick off the summer and when it was apparent that it could be delivered the police got nervous, about imagined crowd control issues, and pulled the plug. Their decision was beyond our control.

HOWEVER, THE REST OF THE SHOWS WILL GO ON AT ALL OF THE OTHER VENUES THIS JULY 1ST AS SCHEDULED!

San Pedro is having a night of music July 1, with the perfect musician to set the night off right: Mike Watt + the secondmen will perform live at 6 p.m. on the corner of 6th Street and Mesa along with Dave Widow & the Line Up in the first of six performances to occur in downtown San Pedro within the next several weeks (Mike Watt and Dave Widow postponed until Sept.2).

Watt, known as one of the best bassists of all time, said, music is life for him. 

“I’ve recorded every … day,” he said. “I have it well set up here. The Internet’s not all bad, you can decide to spread BS or you can trade files with people and you don’t even have to be in the same room.” 

Luckily, Watt had already been doing that for 20 years. He said it’s just like being in a band when you have to be in the room with the cats, but it’s still a way of making music. Making music never stopped for him through the pandemic. In fact, it increased. He also has a weekly show on the Internet called The Watt from Pedro Show. He did one show a week except when he was touring. Since November, he’s started doing five shows a week. When I remarked that’s almost a full-time job he said it’s not so much a job but a payback for the movement. 

“Up in Hollywood, back in the day, there was a scene where they would actually let you get on stage and play and we got involved in the movement,” Watt said. “People were open-minded, musically. It was a rare time … Why can’t them ethics survive?”

By getting that kind of exposure on the stage, trying out and using music as a form of expression, Watt said his way to pay back is with a music show. He plays music that’s not being played elsewhere, and listens to people’s personal journeys. He said maybe other people hear that and get inspired thinking, “If he did it, I can.” The bassist noted that that worked for him many times. 

“Remember the days of the mixtape?” he asked. “Your friend gave you a cassette that had all the shit you never heard before. That’s how you got turned onto things. That’s the ethic that I’m trying to [carry on].” 

When it comes to music, Watt said he’s matured and this idea of genres is bullshit; music is music … a righteous thing humans can do to connect.

“I believe music is art,” Watt said. “There is no separation between a painter and a bass player. 

That’s what I did in this period. I have enough material for over a dozen albums with these cats I never even met who I’ve collaborated with … trading files on the Internet in the last 14 months.”

Watt, who is in his early 60s, said they had to be careful, he couldn’t be in the room with the person. 

“We had to be safe,” he said. “I tour, that’s how I make my living.”

Watt has done 67 tours but said, “the bungee cord yanks me back to Pedro.” He explained a strange feeling he had. He was on a 45-day tour and did all the driving. This was immediately prior to COVID. Something told Watt he couldn’t get sick at the beginning of the tour. So instead of shaking anybody’s hand, “They’re going to get elbow or knuckle,” he said. 

 “It’s just weird, not that I could even suggest that I got a premonition or can read the future,” he said. “I didn’t know that two months later [COVID] was going to come down. After 40 years of recording and rolling through everybody’s town [sometimes] you got to play with a … fever. Life’s a classroom … but I think it’s a new way of being healthy; watch out with the … hands.”

Watt tours every fall and spring. He said recordings are documents, so people can hear you when you’re gone but they’re also flyers for your gigs so, “you always want to keep recording and put stuff on people,” he said.

Watt has been on both major and independent labels. He said he’s met good people by doing that, but he posited maybe now the paradigm is more like Vaudeville, playing in front of people, working the room. 

“It’s a very legitimate tradition to come from,” he said. “It’s an old word opportunity. But you got to get healthy to do that shit. That’s how that came about. I was just a pragmatist. I had no idea that this was coming down. 

Watt noted, on the other hand, music is a lifeline. If things get rough, go to music, do more shows, more records and use the Internet as a conduit. 

“In fact, music got me through this, because I never thought things were going to be canceled, just postponed,” he said. “That’s where my faith was. I always thought the vaccine was the way. 

“This is the way I’m going to start doing gigs again.”

“In the old days here, me and D. Boon got our first guitars at the pawn shops that used to be there, they weren’t on Pacific Avenue, for $10,” he said. “I’m most grateful to James [Preston Allen] for that. It’s bitchin’ and Dave Widow is a good cat.

Watt has local gigs lined up now that things are opening up, people are getting vaccinated and we’re taking care, he said. Watt + the secondmen featuring Pete Mazich and Jerry Trebotic will play for Todd Concgelliere at Sardines on Pacific and 11th Street for a three-day festival, Aug. 13 to 15. Watt plays on Aug. 14.

Details: www.mikewatt.com

July 1 Downtown San Pedro Free Music Schedule

Public Works Improv Presents “Pop Up” Storyphile @ Sacred Grounds

With host: Lee Boek

Featuring: Greg Palast, James Preston Allen, Jack Landron,  Anna Broome, Matt Sedillo, Camille Jacob, Paul Fleisher, Peter Coca

Time: 7:30 to 9 p.m. July 1

Venue: Sacred Grounds, 468 W. 6th St.

Architecture And Music @ COLLAGE

Enjoy “Classics to Cabaret” with Christina Linhardt and Paul Pezzone. Virtuoso pianist Pezzone will play while Linhardt sings in English, German  and Italian.

Time: 7 p.m. July 1 

Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Linhardt and http://www.circussanctuary.com

Venue: COLLAGE Gallery, 731 Pacific Ave., San Pedro

The Glass Family Electric Band @ JDC Records

Psychedelic music from the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Time: 7:45 p.m.

Venue: JDC Record Store, 447 W. 6th St.

Ken O’Malley @ The Whale & Ale

Irish folk music.

Time: 8:45 p.m. July 1

Venue: The Whale & Ale, 327 W. 7th St., 

Haywood Nighttrain and the GTX @ San Pedro Brewery Co. 

Time: 9 p.m. July 1

Details: 310-831-5663

Venue: San Pedro Brew Co., 331 W. 6th St.

Buscaino and Sheriff Turn Boardwalk into Political Circus

Reporters Desk
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Buscaino and Sheriff Turn Boardwalk into Political Circus

By John Seeley, Contributor

The Venice Boardwalk, long viewed by some visitors as a low-key freak show, transformed in June into a full-fledged three-ring political circus when a long-shot, would-be mayor, a troubled sheriff and foes of the Westside’s city councilman kicked off their 2022 campaigns a year early, drafting Venice’s beachside tent-dwellers as the menace or symbols of “anarchy” they will run against.

District 15’s Los Angeles city councilman, ex-policeman, Joe Buscaino of San Pedro, chose the Boardwalk as the site for an early launch of his run for Los Angeles mayor on June 7. Buscaino used the locals as props as he announced his plan for a “safer Los Angeles” that would build more housing but also “must engage every measure available” — including arrests — to clear the homeless from parks and other public spaces. He cited two recent incidents of nearby violence, although the perpetrators had not been identified as boardwalk residents, and urged the shutdown of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, better known as LAHSA, whose policies had, in his view, failed badly. His press conference was attended by dozens of indignant locals holding “SAVE US JOE” signs, and much amplified in the media when an unhoused 19-year-old woman who dropped a hunting knife at the periphery of the gathering was detained by Buscaino’s security detail and arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department.

“I am grateful for my safety, the safety of the public,” said Buscaino later that day after being whisked away; “I am convinced now, more than ever, that bold action is needed to make our city safer for everyone.”

The young woman, charged with possessing an illegal dagger and released that evening, said she carried it for defense against rapists, and had no idea who Buscaino was.

Within the Buscaino rally was a preview of Ring Two, the recall campaign against  Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin, who is detested by many Venice residents and businesses for supporting a “bridge home” blocks from the beach. Recall proponents were there in force, but Bonin was not served with formal recall papers until June 15, eight days later.

Later on June 7, the Big Top opened when Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva — facing shaky prospects for a second term after a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, or LASD, killing of an unarmed Latino teenager, refusal to meet with the Oversight Committee and feuds with the inspector general and county supervisors — suddenly appeared for a photo op on Ocean Front Walk, promising holiday fireworks by clearing the boardwalk by July 4. In tweetwars and other heated exchanges with Bonin and County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl — neither of whom were notified of his appearance or plans — he condemned their oversight and asserted his right, as top local law enforcement authority, to substitute his own forces for a “handcuffed” LAPD.

While Venice homelessness will be a continuing problem for Bonin and an ongoing talking point for Buscaino, Villanueva has set himself a shorter timeline for resolving problems, which may be self-defeating, considering the host of obstacles he faces.

Among the practical obstacles are a lack of interface with local service agencies that unhoused people know, some of them are openly hostile to what they consider “grandstanding.” Venice Family Clinic CEO Elizabeth Forer told KCRW June 14 that the sheriff isn’t trying to solve the issue — he’s “trying to score political points … stirring up people,” and “just popping up …without coordinating with anybody.”

Six other community groups joined the clinic in a joint “Get-lost” statement. (Others, including Venice Neighborhood Council members and the Venice Chamber of Commerce, countered with a statement backing the sheriff, but these groups have little sway among the tent-dwellers.)

In lieu of local partners, LASD opened their contacts with the unhoused through flyers promoting SHARE! Collaborative Housing, offering “A Solution, Starting at $550” [per month] for room-sharing in private homes. SHARE! does offer a range of supportive services for people with mental health challenges, substance use issues, and peer counseling, say its program director Jason Robison and outreach worker Tom Haberkorn, but they have only two homes in the Westside area. While there will be openings elsewhere in the county, many spaces are committed to locals, and expecting much aid from SHARE! by July 4 would be “a really heavy lift,” says Robison.

The following week, LASD had less to say about SHARE! Instead, a woman using a wheelchair and a 20ish young man were sent to Salvation Army shelters in faraway City of Bell, while  another man was placed in a rehab facility. A majority of the tent residents I met in Week 2 had not spoken with deputies, some avoiding encounters, others simply refusing to talk.

By June 17, the military tone of Villanueva’s debut strutting had softened, and LASD troops evolved into a pizza posse, dispensing lunches with or without pepperoni; conversations on housing was also optional. At an adjacent free haircut service in the same parking lot, a persistent deputy sealed the deal during his trim with a young tent-dweller, who agreed to relocate to a Salvation Army shelter 20-some miles away in Bell. The posse’s half-day harvest was only three campers, even though two dozen deputies and other outreach personnel were on duty. Next week, said Lt. Geff Deedrick, his LASD outreach team will be on the beach three mornings, but at this week’s rate of progress, the homeless census wouldn’t change much.

The sheriff also faces challenges from activists, including StreetWatch and People’s City Council, who demonstrated against the park closure and evictions at Echo Park Lake, plus members of the Venice Justice Committee, all of whom have been handing out “know your rights” flyers and discouraging divulging information to deputies. A Twitter storm was launched June 18 with hashtags #VillanuevaOutof Venice and #VillanuevaMustGo. Activist coalitions sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors the same day demanding they defund the sheriff’s HOST program and transfer resources to community services.

Beyond passive resistance, there may be legal action pending. While the sheriff’s authority may trump that of the LAPD, he is as vulnerable as the City of Los Angeles to limits imposed by the U.S. District Court, 9th Circuit, whose 2018 Martin v. Boise decision holds that anti-camping ordinances aren’t enforceable, if adequate shelter beds aren’t available for those displaced.

Villanueva may have handed opponents additional ammo in his June 9 comments that out-of- state beach residents were special targets:

“We’re coming for you,” he said on his Facebook chat. “You do not belong here in LA County … you need to pack up your bags and head back to the state you came from.”

This statement has echoes of the Depression era, when another local lawman, LAPD Chief James “Two-gun” Davis, erected a “bum blockade” on the state border in 1936 to turn back “Okies” in their jalopies seeking refuge from the Dust Bowl. That was ruled unlawful by the state’s attorney general’s office. Courts, attorneys say, would recognize no distinction between the rights of destitute locals and those from other states, or any authority to deport “alien” Nebraskans or New Yorkers.

Whatever happens by July 4, the homelessness issue will continue as a key factor for the political fortunes of Bonin, Buscaino and Villanueva. But recent polling suggests that the latter two may have misread public opinion on homelessness. An April survey commissioned by AIDS Healthcare Foundation found the issue at the top of voters’ minds – 79% considered it “very serious” — but that doesn’t mean they favor sweeping the unhoused away. Most Los Angeles voters ( Black and Latino voters strongly) also show compassion towards the unhoused, with 54% blaming rising rents and inadequate wages over poor personal choices (31%) as the primary cause of homelessness.

 A survey of 2000 Los Angeles County residents by Loyola Marymount University’s StudyLA project early this year found that people are against — by 61 to 39% — clearing encampments unless substitute shelter is offered. Two out of three respondents would endorse supportive housing for the homeless in their neighborhood, a finding perhaps related to the fact that 57% worry that someone in their household may face homelessness.

For the central players in the drama, the days since June 7 have had mixed results. Buscaino scored a small plus with the introduction of his dump LAHSA resolution to city council, co-sponsored by retiring Councilman Paul Koretz. Bonin suffered a setback with the service of the recall petition.

Bonin called the campaign “a thinly disguised attempt to derail my efforts to provide real solutions to our homelessness crisis, and the latest in a series of recall attempts to silence strong progressive voices.” (One was also filed against fellow progressive Nithya Raman, the co-sponsor of the softer, service-oriented approach to homeless sweeps the council adopted unanimously in April.)

Villanueva took a major hit when the Los Angeles County Democratic Party that put him in office voted by a 10-1 margin for his resignation, citing the shot-in-the-back LASD killing of security guard Andres Guadardo as well as long-standing management problems. Whether this inhibits Villanueva, or convinces him he has nothing to lose, remains to be seen.

As for the unhoused Boardwalk residents, little has changed, and most are adopting a wait-and-see attitude. “Got nowhere to go,” said army vet Jack on Thursday — “I’ll hang in as long as I can.”

San Pedro Resident Helps Tiny, Furry Community Members

Hunter Chase
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San Pedro Resident Helps Tiny, Furry Community Members

If Gina Lumbruno had been anyone else, she would have had a gun to her neck.

A Port Police officer told her this while she was attempting to show him the traps she uses to catch stray cats. 

On Jan. 20, Lumbruno was confronted by Officer Aldo Morales and Officer Stacey Creech at lots E and F on the property of the Port of Los Angeles. She was feeding cats at the time and the officers tried to discourage her from doing so.

Lumbruno said that she doesn’t just feed them, she traps them as well. Morales asked to see the traps.

“I turned around to show him the traps in my car,” Lumbruno said. “I went to open the door, and the next thing I know, he comes rushing over, he’s like at the back of my neck. And he said to me, right in my neck, ‘You’re lucky that I don’t see you as a threat, because if you were anybody else, my gun would be in your neck.’”

Lumbruno said that Creech told her this was how people got shot by police, by going to get guns from their cars. Lumbruno said she does not own a gun.

Morales continued to argue with Lumbruno for several minutes, and before he and Creech left, he said that he would give her a ticket if he saw her feeding the cats again.

“I’m out there trying to help, you know, help the hopeless, these poor animals,” Lumbruno said. “It’s just so sad. And here, the Port Police are giving out tickets and they’re calling it littering because there is no ticket for feeding cats.”

Lumbruno confronted Creech about it at the June 15 meeting of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

“There was no one ever in danger of getting shot in the neck,” Creech said.

Lumbruno recorded the conversation, but did not issue a formal complaint with the Port Police until June. Since then, the Port Police have interviewed her multiple times about the incident. The Port Police are conducting an internal investigation based on her complaint, said Lt. Philip Heem.

Gina Lumbruno preparing to trap area cats, so she can bring them to the vet for spaying or neutering. Photo by Chris Villanueva

Life Mission

Lumbruno began caring for stray cats about two years ago, but in that time has re-homed hundreds of cats. She also feeds them and traps them so that she can bring them to the vet for neutering, or any other medical care they require.

“I do the best I can,” Lumbruno said. “Everything comes out of my own pocket, my time … it’s like a life mission. It’s kind of a love-hate thing, it really is a lot of work.”

Lumbruno’s involvement with strays started when she found a severely injured cat in her parking lot. She brought it to the vet and found out about other people who helped cats.

“I couldn’t find where it came from,” Lumbruno said. “But I did find a couple people that were taking care of cat colonies that looked like my cat, so that’s kind of how I got involved.”

Despite her encounter with Port Police, Lumbruno still feeds three cats that live in lots E and F. It’s a large, open space without many human visitors, with lots of thick, tall grass that hides them well. There used to be seven cats; Lumbruno found homes for four of them, but these were simply too wild.

Lumbruno isn’t the only person overseeing the well being of San Pedro’s feral felines. She said she is among about 10 people who have taken on this responsibility, but emphasized that they do not operate as a formal group.

“We all have our little areas that we work on,” Lumbruno said. “And we’ll help each other out. And if somebody’s sick, or on vacation or whatever, we’ll feed [their cats]. And we also help trap, because it’s hard to trap by yourself.”

Lumbruno gets some funding from a nonprofit called Healing Arts Haven for Animals, which pays when the cats need vet visits, including neutering. Everything else comes out of her own pocket.

“I pay for all the food, and whatever else they need,” Lumbruno said. “And they eat a lot, because when they’re out there running around … they burn up a lot of calories.”

Lumbruno also feeds two cats that live around The Whale & Ale parking lot, as well as a group of seven cats in the parking lot of Kalaveras — two of the seven have already been fixed. Lumbruno can tell because the tip of one ear has been clipped in both, which is a way of marking strays that are fixed. They are part of something Lumbruno calls a colony.

“A colony is usually one or two cats that have either been dumped, or came from another area,” Lumbruno said. “They’ve either gotten run out by another colony of cats, or they’re dumped, or lost, and they just kind of establish a little living area.”

Oftentimes another cat will join and have kittens with the existing cats. Then those kittens grow up and have their own kittens, and their kittens will reproduce as well.

“It’s terrible; it’s a vicious cycle,” Lumbruno said. “It’s from us; it’s from humans. … They’re not wild animals, they’re not out there by themselves. They’re out there because they were either dumped or lost.”

Lumbruno uses a three-step process called trap, neuter and return, or TNR, for feral cats. After capturing a cat, Lumbruno and others will assess how tame it is. If it is really feral, it would not be able to live as a pet.

“Sometimes we just have to put them back in the area,” Lumbruno said. “Like the ones in The Whale & Ale parking lot; I have not been able to find a spot for those two.”

There are places that will care for feral cats, but they tend to be very expensive, costing about $3,500 to $4,000 per cat. The money covers food and medical bills for the rest of the cat’s life.

She usually has no trouble finding homes for kittens. Even if they are born feral, if they are caught young, they are easily domesticated.

Not everyone Lumbruno has encountered while taking care of cats has been supportive.

“A lot of people hate cats,” Lumbruno said. “They hate that you feed the feral cats and they just want it to go away, and they don’t care.”

Specter of Racism Haunts SCIG Railyard Project

Paul Rosenberg
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Specter of Racism Haunts SCIG Railyard Project

The specter of environmental racism permeated the Port of Los Angeles’ June 15 public hearing on the Southern California International Gateway, also known as the SCIG project, just two days before Juneteenth was signed into law as a federal holiday. 

The disconnect between the  port’s plan (only partially discussed in its revised draft environmental impact report) and the new national holiday was staggering. A chorus of community members explicitly condemned the environmental racism involved, while representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD, echoed their criticisms in more muted tones, focused specifically on formal failings in the EIR.

“This project is racist,” said Paola Dela Cruz-Pérez, youth organizer with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “This project and your deliberate choices to continue bringing it back are oppressive and I’m here to tell you: Not today, oppressors. Not today.”

“We oppose this project for many reasons that have been described by many members of the community today,” said NRDC attorney Julia Jonas-Day. “First and foremost because it will disproportionately impact low income and communities of color already overburdened by pollution, as the revised draft EIR itself makes clear.”

That disproportionate impact was “the one thing you all have been truthful about,” said mark! Lopez, former head of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “That is literally the definition of environmental racism.

“Mayor Garcetti, this is your environmentally racist project. Gene Seroka, this is your environmentally racist project. Chris Cannon, this is your environmentally racist legacy.”

“SCIG is located in an environmental justice area heavily impacted by neighboring refineries, diesel truck traffic on the Terminal Island Freeway and the intermodal railyard north of SCIG,” said AQMD assistant deputy executive officer Ian MacMillan. “BNSF’s SCIG project will further exacerbate this burden.”

In MacMillan’s prepared remarks, he said, “SCIG project will generate significant localized air quality impacts and exceed the applicable significance thresholds for NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 by 325%, 518% and 47%, respectively.”

Local residents have been opposing the SCIG project in public meetings since it was initially proposed in the early 2000s, voicing similar concerns that have been sharply underscored by recent events.

“The past year-plus of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter uprisings has been the most traumatizing and awakening period of recent American history,” Long Beach resident Elsa Tung said. “This SCIG project, as many, many others have mentioned, will disproportionately harm Black, indigenous communities of color that are already overburdened by pollution, disease and lower life expectancy.”

“We stand with the community, and echo the concerns that SCIG will increase pollution, worsen public health, and exacerbate inequities in already overburdened communities of color,” said NRDC attorney Heather Kryczka. “We urge the port to reject this project.”

“Allowing SCIG to pass is like telling people, ‘If you can’t afford to live in an expensive neighborhood, you deserve to die of cancer, yeah. Terminal asthma? Sure! Cardiovascular disease? Why not!’” exclaimed East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice organizer Tiff Sanchez. “It’s racist. It’s environmental racism.”

“If you support this project, you are supporting the death of our neighbors,” Jessica Prieto, another East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice organizer said.

Carlos Ovalle, vice president of the River Park Coalition, also called it “the embodiment of environmental racism,” going on to say:

In the nearly 50 years since I moved to Long Beach I’ve seen my friends, neighbors and family members suffer the consequences of pollution resulting mostly from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Please end this project. My mother passed away in my arms vomiting blood running from the inside out because of two different types of cancer. Please end this project. My father passed away in my arms desperately gasping for air, asphyxiating slowly like a fish out of water from pulmonary fibrosis. Please end this project. My four younger brothers and myself suffer from leukemia, brain cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, asthma, endocrinological and neurological disorders. None of this is hereditary. It is due specifically to environmental damage from the pollution due to shipping and transportation.

There was one lone voice who spoke in support of the SCIG, Chris Wilson with Los Angeles County Business Federation. 

“Our ports have seen significant measurable increase in trade activity during the pandemic that underscores the crucial need for infrastructure improvements, [specifically, the SCIG],” he argued.

But Ovalle disagreed. 

“Please end this project,” Ovalle said. “It exists only to facilitate shipping and commerce that in the end has but one purpose: to create exorbitant profits for the few at the cost of our health and our life.”

Missing and Outdated Data

Both NRDC and AQMD drew attention to outdated data in the revised draft EIR, as did Andrea Hricko, a retired professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine, who has commented at SCIG public meetings since the 2000s. And Jesse Marquez, founder and executive director of Coalition For A Safe Environment, drew attention to absent emissions data about the full work cycle of trucks servicing the SCIG.

“You are using your models and not actually identifying all the sources that we have identified in the past public comment periods over the past seven or eight years,” Marquez said. “For example, your project emissions baselines are underestimated and they did not include the 1,000-plus truck trips a day coming from their point of origin. They are leaving all over Los Angeles County, Orange County and wherever they’re coming from, and those distances and those emissions were not included.” 

Additional trips to get fuel and pick up empty chassis are also ignored. 

“There are in Wilmington, for example, over 100 container storage yards and many of the storage yards also store chassis,” he noted. “Many of those containers must also be fumigated.” 

This adds even more mileage that has never been included in POLA’s models. But overlooked changes drew even more attention.

“We note that changes in the circumstances under which the SCIG project was analyzed in the 2013 Final EIR have occurred, and new information is available and should be analyzed,” AQMD’s MacMillan said.

“The port attempts to correct its earlier CEQA violations by providing an ‘updated’ ambient air quality analysis and cumulative impacts analysis. But both are unreliable and misleading because they rely on out-of-date information and are not supported by common sense,” NRDC’s Jonas-Day said.

“First, the air quality analysis relies on baseline data from 2010, eleven years ago. This is illogical and results in misleading conclusions,” she explained. “Many changes have occurred since 2010 that are relevant to the analysis — from changes in the entities operating at the project site to changes in regulations affecting air quality. For example, the 2010 baseline conditions include significant emissions from the operation of Cal Cartage at the proposed project site, even though Cal Cartage is no longer in operation there.”

Hricko went into this analytic lapse in greater detail.

“In 2019, POLA issued a lease to the Toll Group, which was to employ only one third of the workers Cal Cartage was to have, meaning fewer truck trucks and less emissions,” Hricko said. “I sent emails today to dozens of Port of Los Angeles staff asking if the Toll Group was actually in full operation at the old Cal Cartage site and how many employees it currently has. I got no responses except for one POLA staff person telling me I should file a formal California Public Records Act request to get that information. Without knowing today’s situation, we cannot know if truck counts and initiated action are still correct 10 years later.”

This isn’t the only example of crucial missing data Hricko cited.

“It’s relevant to the port’s honesty to note that in late April, the port suspended one of its monitoring sites,” Hricko stated. “Suspiciously, it was the one that the port admits has the highest emissions at the port. I’ve been stonewalled by port staff asking why it’s suddenly depriving the public of this critical emissions information. What is the port trying to hide from the public, anyway?”

Jonas-Day cited further data problems as well.

“Second, the revised air quality analysis attempts to provide more detailed information about the timeline of ambient air pollution impacts in the surrounding community by using six ‘benchmark years,’”she said. “But this fails a common-sense test because two of the six ‘benchmark years’ for which the agency predicts expected air pollution effects from the SCIG project have already passed. The port should revise its analysis to reflect the project’s current proposed timeline.”

Indeed, a third ‘benchmark year,’ 2023, will surely pass before the project even begins to operate, meaning that half of them are utterly meaningless.

A Broader View

But NRDC’s Kryczka approached the changed circumstances from a broader perspective. “The Revised Draft EIR fails as an informational document because it relies on outdated, inaccurate assumptions, and fails to account for nearly a decade of developments that have occurred since the original EIR was drafted,” she said, going on to cite four broad ways in which “circumstances have changed dramatically since the port considered SCIG in 2013.”

“First, the purpose and need for SCIG has changed as Southern California’s rail capacity has developed over the last decade,” Kryczka noted. “The ports have invested in significant build-out of new on-dock rail facilities, and cargo projections have shifted.”

“Second, new state and local policies promote environmental justice, and call for transitioning our goods movement system to zero-emissions,” she said. “SCIG threatens to undermine these policies, including the 2017 Clean Air Action Plan Update, the mayor’s Green New Deal, and the governor’s recent executive order calling for all drayage trucks in the state to transition to zero emissions.”

Marquez and others have repeatedly stressed POLA’s policy disconnect as well.

“Third, new technologies exist to reduce and eliminate emissions from the trains, trucks, and cargo handling equipment proposed to serve the SCIG facility,” Kryczka pointed out. “The Revised Draft EIR confirms that SCIG will have significant air quality impacts, but fails to consider technology that is now available to mitigate those impacts.”

Fourth, and finally, Kryczka said, “New residential developments have been built at the Century Villages at Cabrillo — including hundreds of new housing units, and plans for future expansions.

If built today, SCIG would directly impact an even greater number of residents, including veterans, families and children.”

Another widely-expressed complaint was the lack of adequate opportunity for public comment. At the beginning of the meeting, Chris Cannon announced that the comment period had been extended three weeks, to July 30, 2021, but AQMD requested an extension of “at least one month, if not more,” due to a month-long delay in receiving modeling files for the EIR from POLA, while community members asked for extensions of 120 days or more, and for the opportunity for an in-person public comment meeting.

“Many of my friends and peers who live in Long Beach and Carson and areas surrounding the prospective project area were not notified,” said Long Beach resident Robert Bagalawis. “In addition, people are disadvantaged at this time from speaking their opinion, because not everyone has Internet access, or has knowledge utilizing room and other platforms.”

For a project with a 50-year projected lifespan, it only seems fair to give those most affected a reasonable chance to be heard. Or perhaps what’s fair is what Carlos Ovalle concluded with: “Please kill this project, before it kills more of us.”

What the Headlines Don’t Explain About Racism

James Preston Allen
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What the Headlines Don’t Explain About Racism

With Juneteenth just now being made a federal holiday, one would think that America is making great strides in being less racist — systemically or otherwise. And as much of a milestone as this appears to be and as much as the recent recognition of the Tulsa massacre is — making Juneteenth into a federal holiday will no more cure racism in America than Veterans Day stops us from going to war again.

You see,  since the Civil War and the passage of the 14th Amendment, the battle ground has been and continues to be about voting rights — as in who gets to vote and who doesn’t. What most high school history books don’t mention are the means by which the South resisted Reconstruction following the Civil War. History books don’t delve very deeply into the racially-based violence perpetrated against African Americans at that time. Terrorism was used to end Reconstruction and suppress the Black vote and install an aparthied system that we have colloquial called Jim Crow. Through the intervening years, the argument over voting rights has mostly been an argument between powerful white men over whether Black people, women and other people of color should have the same rights as they do.  Frequently, challenges to white supremacy were met with violence, extra judicial lynchings and murders by white people. If you have any doubts about this, just search history of race riots in America and educate yourself.

Immediately following the Civil War, political pressure from the North called for the full abolition of slavery. The South’s lack of voting power led to the passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which in theory granted Black-Americans and other minority males equality and voting rights. Although federal troops remained in the South to protect these new freedoms, this protection was withdrawn as a compromise to ensure the election of Rutherford B. Hayes as President in 1877.

By the time this compromise was made, the North had lost its political will to protect voting rights in the name of reconciliation with the South. The continued existence of the Black Codes and the emergence of segregation helped erase most of the freedoms guaranteed by the 14th and 15th amendments. It took nearly another 100 years of struggle to restore full voting rights to all Americans.

For the majority of Americans (60.7% non-hispanic white) this history has been ignored, purged or not taken into account as it doesn’t seem to reflect their history. In other words we can’t be held liable for what our ancestors may or may not have done to your ancestors.  I can tell you that when I was growing up in Southern California and going to a nearly all white high school, nothing was taught about racism even as civil rights issues were on the news nightly. If not for my parents’ political activism, reading Soul On Ice by Black Panther leader, Eldridge Cleaver and an unfortunate trip to Washington, D.C. on the very night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, I too, might have been oblivious to the plight of communities of color.

Like many of my generation, my consciousness was born of this era. The Watts insurrection, the Vietnam War demonstrations, the flagrant police abuse and the criminalization of drugs all amounted to a systemic oppression that is still embedded in our laws and institutions today. These are the issues that the Black Lives Matter demonstrations confront. This is what Critical Race Theory analyses and Stacy Abrams in Georgia exposes. This is what Fox News, Ted Cruz and others on the far right try to deny.

As I watched from afar last summer, memories of another time came back to haunt me like a ghost from the past, whispering in my ear “the past isn’t dead. It’s not even the past.” A new generation has emerged, and they have ripped the rag off the faces of the old white guys who continue to stand in the way of progress. The times are still a changin’ Mr. Dylan, but “the wheel’s still in spin.”

So don’t try to fool yourselves about the current struggles over voter suppression in many states, the Arizona recount supporting the “Big Lie,” and the filibuster of voting rights legislation in the U.S. Senate this week are all attempts at resurrecting Jim Crow. That we here in Southern California have remained ignorant to much of this history was only revealed by the recent recognition of the tragedy of Bruce’s Beach. Our story, in this regard, is not so unique.

Here in the San Pedro Harbor Area, whose chapter of the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked ethnic dock workers attempting to strike for better conditions under the Wobbly banner — those dockworkers adopted the motto, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”  This motto was later adopted by the International Longshore Workers Union a decade after the mass incarceration of the IWW unionists and the arrest of noted author Upton Sinclair at San Pedro’s Liberty Hill in 1923. This history is memorialized at the monument of the same name near 5th Street and Harbor Boulevard.  The building, which housed the KKK headquarters, still stands on 10th Street — a silent reminder of our forgotten history. Yet, here we are left with this uncomfortable legacy and the statue of Stephen M. White down by Cabrillo Beach.

For many in Los Angeles, there will be this faint sense of regret for the past without any recognition of the present as they protest the homeless camps on the Venice Boardwalk or at Echo Park. The thing is, the past is still hiding in plain view, right in front of us, as we drive past the unsheltered encampments here in the wealthiest state in the union.

What the homeless stats attest to is that some 34% of the 64,000 living on our streets are African American. This, in a county where the total population of African Americans is 7.9%. Just let that sink in for a moment. The causes of homelessness are many and the answers are few. Providing shelter will end homelessness. It won’t cure racism.

The Different South Asian Cuisine

Richard Foss
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The Different South Asian Cuisine

Food fads are a strange and sometimes cruel phenomenon. Some cuisines go from obscure to wildly popular in almost no time, propelled by pop culture shifts — the sale of Japanese food exploded after a TV mini-series set there debuted in 1980. At other times a charismatic chef’s cooking show or hip restaurant creates an opening. The popularity of Thai food in America may be credited to media-savvy restaurateur Tommy Tang, who exploited his connections among LA’s rock stars and screen royalty to make Bangkok’s bites the hip thing. Tang was doing more than working his phone book, because he also created hybrid dishes for an American palate and wrote a menu that tantalized diners to explore the new experience.

Cambodian food hasn’t found its Tommy Tang yet, and as yet no movies set in that culture have caught the popular imagination the way the Shogun series mesmerized audiences 40 years ago. Interest was sparked in the early 2000s when LA band, Dengue Fever, which rocks out on psychedelia with vocals in the Khmer language, released several albums and that’s when I first visited Long Beach’s Cambodia Town. We went to a cavernous nightclub and filled the middle of the table with noodles, stir-fries, and other delights before the band came on. When they did we were transfixed as they started playing traditional tunes for an audience that joined in stately and graceful circle dances. As the evening went on the music got louder, faster, and more modern, the dancing more freeform and we listened and watched from early evening until the last note.

That restaurant eventually closed and we found a new favorite – Sophy’s Cambodia Town, which I recently revisited. Sophy’s has discontinued live music for the moment, but the food is enough of a draw to be worth the trip. It has relationships to both Vietnamese and Thai food because the Cambodian Khmer empire once ruled the majority of both countries, but there are subtle shifts in even familiar dishes. The menu here is huge, and when ordering we let our server be our guide, asking him to select a balance of traditional dishes. He steered us away from some that use pungent fermented fish and shrimp paste, ingredients Cambodians adore but most Californians don’t, but I ordered one deliberately. The beef ribeye with anchovy sauce was a large salad of artfully cut raw vegetables alongside sliced grilled ribeye and a bowl of garlicky, peppery fish sauce. I like robust Caesar salads, but this took concentrated fish flavor to another level, salty, funky and challenging. A little of it went a long way, but if you dipped just a bit on the beef and followed it with the one of the vegetables, it was bracing but enjoyable. I should mention that I was alone in this evaluation, and I got to take a fair amount of it home.

Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala

My companions were much more enthusiastic about another beef dish, the Cambodian-style jerky. This isn’t much like American jerky, as thick rolls of beef are seasoned and slow-cooked so most of the fat melts out, then deep-fried just before serving. It’s slightly leathery outside, tender inside, and amazingly good when dipped into the sauce of rice vinegar, sesame, pepper, garlic and sugar. My friends were equally enthusiastic about the shrimp and squid salad, an item that isn’t on the menu but is always available — they list this salad with shrimp or squid, but will combine them if you ask. The seafood is tossed in a complex dressing that has a gentle heat from chili, ginger, pepper, garlic, citrus and who knows what else. Even the person at our table who usually picks around the squid was eating it cheerfully.

Another popular item was the Banh Cheo, a crisp fried crepe filled with ground chicken, shrimp, bean sprouts and onion. This was served with leafy vegetables and mint, and is very similar to the Vietnamese crepe with an almost identical name. It’s good, but not essential to get an idea of Cambodian flavors. Neither are their chicken wings, which are conventional but saved by an array of dipping sauces that range from mild and fruity to one that is spicy enough that I momentarily lost the power of speech after tasting it.

Our server had warned me about that sauce but I had to try it, and after doing so I was delighted that we had ordered Cambodian beers from Ankgor Brewing. The lager was decent, the stout excellent and slightly fruity, and if you enjoy a good brew with Asian food, it’s a must. We ordered an extra one to share to finish the meal, and took a fair amount of it home because the portions were generous. Dinner for three with beer ran just over $100, and was well worth it.

Long Beach’s Cambodia Town boasts many excellent restaurants like Sophy’s but hasn’t become a tourist attraction the way that Los Angeles’ Thai Town has. This may be due to several factors, including the fact that one is spread out, the other compact — they have about the same number of restaurants, but Thai Town is six blocks long, Cambodia Town is over a mile. It’s also more focused on serving the community than arranged around tourist traffic, so there’s less neon and faux-Asian architecture. Menus items may be sparsely explained and you may end up eating something quite different from what you expected. The plus side is that the welcomes are warm and genuine, servers are used to helping guide outsiders through the intricacies of the menu, and the prices are quite modest. Sophy’s and places like it are ambassadors of an ancient and interesting culture and though they don’t have the music back yet, the day may come when people dance the old dances for their pleasure and you watch for yours.

Sophy’s Cambodia Town is at 3240 Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach. Open daily 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. for indoor and outdoor dining. There is a parking lot in the rear. Reservations accepted for six or more, call 562-494-1763.

How Does America Solve Its “Fake News” Crisis?

Thom Hartmann
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How Does America Solve Its “Fake News” Crisis?

So if we can’t regulate the “news” or even stop foreign trolls from stirring up Americans, how can we activate the “immune system” of democracy?

America is now in the midst of a “truth crisis” that threatens to tear us apart and end the American Experiment in democratic governance; Finland is implementing a solution to “fake news” that we should seriously consider. Back to that in a second.

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Patrick Condonnotes, in a great deep-dive analysis article, that:

“National pollsshow large numbers of Republicans continue to believe Trump was the election’s real winner. The staying power of this alternate history of recent events is driving awave of restrictive new voting lawsin Republican-led states around the country, and driving concerns about long-term damage to the U.S. democratic system.”

That “damage” is massive, and it’s an open question now whether America will remain a functioning democracy (and improve on that by strengthening our democratic institutions) or if we’ll follow the path of Hungary, Russia, Turkey and other countries that have slid from democracy to oligarchy and autocracy.

And, to a large extent, that depends on having an engaged and accurately-informed populace.

Yesterday on my radio program, a caller laid some misinformation on my listeners and in the moment I didn’t know if it was right or wrong (he said the Catholic Church owned residential rental property and was making money on it, tax-free; in fact, the Church pays taxes on such income). Today I’m correcting that on the air.

I reported the news on WITL in Lansing, Michigan in the early 1970s and learned “the truth” must be media’s highest standard. Generally, “major” media outlets agree; they employ people who check stories for their accuracy before they get to air or in print, and when they get things wrong, they correct them on-air or in print.

Sadly, that’s not the case with the rightwing media ecosystem that’s resulted from Lewis Powell’s infamous 1971 “Memo” urging big business and billionaires to get together and seize control of the institutions of America — including the media — to stop “socialism or some form of statism.”

These outlets specifically and intentionally misinform their listeners, viewers and readers, all to increase the power and influence of billionaires and the industries that made them. “Truth” and “fair and balanced” are simply slogans for these folks, not realities.

Giant corporations that have allied themselves with rightwing extremists within the Republican Party own over1500 radio stations across the nation that carry exclusively rightwing talk and “news” programming. One of the largest networks of television stations in the country with over 200 stations runs exclusively rightwing commentary.

Fox News has millionsof viewers a day who believe things they hear on television. Literally thousands of websites disguising themselves as “news” pour rightwing propaganda poison into the bloodstream of the American part of the internet every day.

When a high school student working on a paper — or any other American — plugs virtually any topic into a search engine, from trade to medicine to history or Covid, the first 20 hits are dominated by rightwing sites.

Rightwingersrelentlessly edit Wikipediaand other open-source information sites to give themselves an edge in the neofascist “information wars.”

They’ve established a huge beachhead on Facebook.

And social media outlets’ algorithmsrelentlessly drive people deeper and deeperinto insane conspiracy theories after they nibble on a single hook like a somewhat-rightwing clip or article about Trump or any other topic that even remotely involves politics.

Open advocates for turning America into a white-supremacist neofascist ethnostate run websites, Facebook groups and even appear as prime-time commentators on large national platforms like Fox News.

Most deadly of all, multiple nations that have rejected democracy in favor of oligarchy, authoritarianism or outright kingdom now run well-funded stealth operations to fill American social media and the internet with trolls pretending to be citizens. These apparently “average people” post a steady stream of messages denigrating democracy and arguing “both parties are the same” so “there’s no reason to bother to get involved in politics or vote.”

The result is now clear. Athird of Republican voterstoday think Donald Trump will be reinstalled as president in August, and about the same numberbelieve Democrats are up to satanic activitiesthat include drinking the blood of Christian children. This is a frightening echo of the antisemitic blood libel of theRussian Tsar’s 1903 disinformation campaignspearheaded with the publication of the fraudulentProtocols of the Elders of Zionthat Hitler used to justify his “final solution” of the Holocaust.

Large quantities of Republican voters nowopenly reject democracyand have become convinced that a white-dominated ethnostate as advocated by Donald Trump should be the future of our nation.

America is experiencing a crisis of democracy, and disinformation and blatant lies from both foreign governments and domestic “dark money” groups are the main forces driving it.

This is a particular challenge for a nation founded on a free press and a nearly absolute right to political free speech.

We don’t want the US government to decide what’s “news” and what isn’t because when the GOP gets the next Donald Trump in power a wannabee autocrat like Rick Scott or Tom Cotton would simply use that power to pull the plug on real media and exclusively promote their allies’ neofascist propaganda. It’s a conundrum.

Asone of our Founders notedin 1786:

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.”

Reading is relatively universal in America butunderstandinghow propagandists can twist and distort reality is largely lacking, as we can see with the millions of Americans who’ve bought into patently false rightwing neofascist conspiracy theories.

So if we can’t regulate the “news” or even stop foreign trolls from stirring up Americans, howcanwe activate the “immune system” of democracy?

Some folks think that bringing back the Fairness Doctrine that Reagan stopped enforcing and Obama finally removed from the IRS code is the answer. But that only required “equal time” to rebut statements and editorials presented by the owners or management of media outlets; it didn’t deal with the content of on-air talent or the way news was presented.

Breaking up media monopolies and bringing back local ownership rules blown up by Congress and Bill Clinton with the 1996 Telecommunications Act would be a big step toward bringing back a healthier American media ecosystem, but it won’t deal with the problem of naked lies and misinformation.

Instead, we have to figure out a way to help Americans spot open lies or realize how bizarre, antidemocratic and destructive to democracy is so much of the rhetoric coming from these trolls and sites.

Finland believes it has found the answer.

They’re actively teaching their people how to spot propaganda and media disinformation, starting with schoolchildren and extending all the way to the oldest of their citizens.

It all began a bit more than a decade ago when Finland was overwhelmed by online and social media trolls, many coming out of Russia and aligned nondemocratic countries, pushing the idea that bringing Syrian refugees into the country would “pollute” the nation’s gene pool and destroy their “Christian heritage.” It was a onslaught reminiscent of Trump’s and Fox News’ hysteria about the “caravans” of brown people coming to “invade” our southern border just before the 2018 midterm elections.

This was followed by a propaganda campaign from the same sources (along with the Brexit campaigners) pushing the idea into Finland (and every other European country) that the European Union was a terrible idea and should be broken up.

Then came another wave of propaganda pouring into Finland trashing the NATO alliance, a treaty that was originally designed to help Europe push back against potential Soviet aggression.

At that point, the Finnish government acted, putting together media literacy programs to teach in schools from top to bottom. As the Chief Communications Officer of the Finnish Prime Minister’s officenoted, “The first line of defence [against fake news] is the kindergarten teacher.”

Finnishfirst-graders are“guided in finding information from different sources and communicating it” and considering “the fact that each text has its author and its purpose.” They learn to spot hidden agendas.

Byfifth grade, students learn to “analyze fiction, nonfiction and argumentation and recognize the difference between them,” and by seventh grade this media literacy is integrated into coursework on “writing, rhetoric, and argumentation.”

This,says Mikko Hartikainenwith theFinnish National Agency for Education, is specifically designed to create “constructive interaction [as] a way to strengthen democratic participation and prevent hate speech and violent radicalism.”

The Finns have embraced this anti-propaganda effort with gusto; even video games from for-profit publishers that are played by Finnish kids, and Finnish-made television dramas for adults have started incorporating anti-propaganda strategies and memes.

Recognizing propaganda is now a common theme on Finnish TV. Politicians speak proudly of their fellow Finns’ ability to spot trolls, lies and logical fallacies.

Now other European countries are jumping on the bandwagon; the United Kingdomrolled out a similar programjust 18 months ago.

America should copy this model.

Since Reagan’s Secretary of Education gutted civics education in our public schools, two generations of Americans have grown up without understanding basic concepts like critical thinking skills, recognizing propaganda, and even knowing how a republic should work.

While having a populace “capable of reading” is important (don’t tell Texas, with their19% illiteracyrate),understandingwhat you’re reading is critical.

This should move to the top of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s agendanow. And what’s left of America’s “truthful” media must begin to teach media literacy by embedding such concepts in its reporting.

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