If you heard someone telling you a story where uniformed semi official "police" were taking over and deciding where polling places would be, where and when would you believe I was talking about? If I told you that these folks didn't allow qualified voters to vote where and when would you believe I was talking about? If I told you there was a independent investigation of these irregularities and at least nine more in an election and the same uniformed troops showed up and intimidated the folks who were to rule on the investigation where and when would you believe I was talking about? If I told you that when it came to appoint cabinet officers for this group that the people who had been elected through this seemingly flawed process, the general rules that had always been applied were violated and the violators voted themselves the privilege to change those rules? Where and when would you believe I was talking about?
Would it be:
Moscow in 1926?
Italy in 1927?
Spain in 1928?
Berlin 1933?
Yugoslavia 1945?
Peking 1946?
Nope none of those totalitarian governments.
Try Altadena, 2008. Amazingly enough the shock troops were organized by a local not for profit grant writer, Board member of the League of Women Voters (an organization with a proud history of corrupting Altadena elections) , and All Saints functionary. Go look at the tapes of the July and August 2008 Altadena Town Council meetings. The bylaws only mean in Altadena what the good old East Side White Boys say they mean, and they mean whatever those East Side White Boys need them to mean in the moment, even if they didn't mean that last year, last month, last week or ten minutes ago. The Fearless Leader of EngSoc in 1984 had nothing on these guys when it comes to revisionism. Orwell's novel only suffers from a lack of imagination.
Coming next will be votes on issues where those voting will no longer to bother not disclosing that they have been paid by developers, they will advertise their "donations" and go right ahead and vote while having conflicts of interest large enough to drive a battleship through.
When will the public stop it?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Swine Shit
So there I am. Innocently at my drill press, drilling the 103 extra holes in my second Model T Quadbeck backing plate, making my 90 year old aftermarket brakes lighter so my 1912 Model T speedster will handle better and the Evil telephone rings. It does that, generally when I am trying to have fun or deeply concentrating on work. Its about as welcome in either case. I ignore the phone from hole 73 to hole 77, but it keeps ringing. Dammit. I lay down my backing plate carefully and grumble across the studio, totally annoyed.
I glace down at the telephone and it's Helga's number. I adore Helga. It's amazing what having a good heart and making a tastee Hot Link Taco can do for a persons esteem in my mind. I sigh, however. I know she means to, but Helga never calls me to say hi or see if I want to go have some fun, she calls when there is trouble, and in Altadena there is always trouble.
"Hello Sweetness how are those light eyes today?"
"Brother Steve", she says as if to lightly scold my joking forwardness,
"Brother Steve, they shut down Par."
I was so pissed off I couldn't say anything. I couldn't swear. I just took my stainless steel Architects three sided rule and threw it against my backwall, where it still is embedded three inches into my plaster.(Note to self: fix that...)
SO I went to Lincoln Crossing. I saw the Evil taking place. I consoled the disraught citizens and the small business owners who had been displaced..I hugged Par Aria. We could say nothing to each other. He had worked so hard for Altadena to fulfill the longing for a high quality full service Supermarket. He had become beloved by the good people of Altadena for this effort, reviled and hated by the bad ones. It had become a easy earmark of a persons other qualities, to ask how they liked the market.
I spent the next week, as I had spent much of the last several years, trying to help Par Aria. That fight wages on and will for quite some time , I suspect. I came away from this week with some thoughts:
Living in the County with no direct local government sucks. Yeah yeah I know Mr. Mike, he does everything for us, blah blah bullshit. To think that, you have to enjoy the sensation of vaseline at your backside. The County took twenty years of promising a supermarket and then they tried very hard not to deliver one. We had to organize a army to get one. The shopping center as it was redesigned is a piece of shit. It has terribly constructed buildings that the County signed off on, it has a horribly designed parking lot, the buildings suffer from Grandomania and the site plan is the worst thing I have seen built in over twenty years. Retardete thinking and not even a good example of that. Shit. Pure swine shit. Well as Frank Lloyd Wright always said "When a man builds, you see him for what he is." In this case, the builder, Dorn -Platz, clearly is what they have built. Swine shit. More than that, the County government that is to protect the people from such monstrosities has been deeply involved in the creation of this nightmare in steel, glass, and concrete. They have also been double dealing, pretending to be a neutral arbiter in disputes between the tenants and landlord, when in fact they had months before approved the removal of the tenants with the landlord and conspired in the facilitation of that removal. The County of Los Angeles as an entity and the individuals involved in the defrauding of the public here are complete total swine shit.
Now it must be said here, that I have no great affection for, or illusions regarding the government of the City of Pasadena. They are corrupt. They are little shits themselves, it is undeniable, but at least they are not pure swine shit. At least the City of Pasadena will make you design a decent looking (not great mind you, but not an eyesore either) well functioning development. The City of Pasadena won't stand for this three years behind building schedule either. Build it, get it done, or lose it and it gets bulldozed. I've seen them do that one twice. Hey, they are about the People's business. Its serious. Act right.
Long ago, at the start of Lincoln Crossing an old African-American Republican political hand took me aside and told me he had a message from "on High" for me:
First thing: "The County will see to it the Supermarket fails, there are other plans for that redevelopment, bio-tech is going there no matter what the community thinks."
Second Thing:" Its more important that Mike is seen as being central to the success of any endeavor than the community succeed. The community can not be allowed to succeed without Mike. He will see to that. Remember it."
Now I thought the Kemo for this guys cancer had gotten to his head. I thought he was crazy. Too much time spent helping kids build craft projects, the glue got to him. Uh problem is, he uh seems to have been right. I hate it when the whack job who is more of a conspiracy theorist than I am is right. Makes me feel like I live in an ocean of Swine Shit. I just hate it!
But I do live in an ocean of Swine Shit. Its a undemocratic place where the reflexive question of most in town life regarding any issue is "What does the fearless leader think about this?" Not "whats good for the community?" Certainly almost never "Whats the right thing to do?", not logical stuff like "what are the benefits and liabilities?". No in a ocean of Swine Shit the first question is always: What does the unaccountable fearless leader want? The second question is something like "Who of the fearless leaders friends can be given service contracts for portions of this project?" Pure unadulterated Swine Shit.
That's the biggest problem really with Altadena. Its part of an Empire, the County of Los Angeles, and it has a hostile competing Empire, the City of Pasadena, waiting to rescue it by annexation, not to represent, but again to subjugate and exploit. It has no voice of its own, because any attempt to speak with a voice of for and by Altadena will be opposed fiercely by town "leadership" who are nothing but castrated gagged vassals of the Emperor, who must flog anyone who dare threaten the trough at which they gorge themselves. So we are lead by, surrounded by,awash in Swine Shit.
If we were not awash in Swine Shit, if we were a city of free responsible people, we would not allow any developer to keep our money, destroy our local business people and be three years behind his construction schedule, have already built substandard buildings and be bragging that he is about to start the next phase. What can you say about that situation except everyone involved in pushing it forward is nothing but Swine Shit?
There is a lot of highly paid Swine Shit waddling around the halls of County Offices, Board rooms and community centers. As some old Jewish Prophet dude once said "By their fruits shall you know them." Absolute runny brown smelly Swine Shit.
I glace down at the telephone and it's Helga's number. I adore Helga. It's amazing what having a good heart and making a tastee Hot Link Taco can do for a persons esteem in my mind. I sigh, however. I know she means to, but Helga never calls me to say hi or see if I want to go have some fun, she calls when there is trouble, and in Altadena there is always trouble.
"Hello Sweetness how are those light eyes today?"
"Brother Steve", she says as if to lightly scold my joking forwardness,
"Brother Steve, they shut down Par."
I was so pissed off I couldn't say anything. I couldn't swear. I just took my stainless steel Architects three sided rule and threw it against my backwall, where it still is embedded three inches into my plaster.(Note to self: fix that...)
SO I went to Lincoln Crossing. I saw the Evil taking place. I consoled the disraught citizens and the small business owners who had been displaced..I hugged Par Aria. We could say nothing to each other. He had worked so hard for Altadena to fulfill the longing for a high quality full service Supermarket. He had become beloved by the good people of Altadena for this effort, reviled and hated by the bad ones. It had become a easy earmark of a persons other qualities, to ask how they liked the market.
I spent the next week, as I had spent much of the last several years, trying to help Par Aria. That fight wages on and will for quite some time , I suspect. I came away from this week with some thoughts:
Living in the County with no direct local government sucks. Yeah yeah I know Mr. Mike, he does everything for us, blah blah bullshit. To think that, you have to enjoy the sensation of vaseline at your backside. The County took twenty years of promising a supermarket and then they tried very hard not to deliver one. We had to organize a army to get one. The shopping center as it was redesigned is a piece of shit. It has terribly constructed buildings that the County signed off on, it has a horribly designed parking lot, the buildings suffer from Grandomania and the site plan is the worst thing I have seen built in over twenty years. Retardete thinking and not even a good example of that. Shit. Pure swine shit. Well as Frank Lloyd Wright always said "When a man builds, you see him for what he is." In this case, the builder, Dorn -Platz, clearly is what they have built. Swine shit. More than that, the County government that is to protect the people from such monstrosities has been deeply involved in the creation of this nightmare in steel, glass, and concrete. They have also been double dealing, pretending to be a neutral arbiter in disputes between the tenants and landlord, when in fact they had months before approved the removal of the tenants with the landlord and conspired in the facilitation of that removal. The County of Los Angeles as an entity and the individuals involved in the defrauding of the public here are complete total swine shit.
Now it must be said here, that I have no great affection for, or illusions regarding the government of the City of Pasadena. They are corrupt. They are little shits themselves, it is undeniable, but at least they are not pure swine shit. At least the City of Pasadena will make you design a decent looking (not great mind you, but not an eyesore either) well functioning development. The City of Pasadena won't stand for this three years behind building schedule either. Build it, get it done, or lose it and it gets bulldozed. I've seen them do that one twice. Hey, they are about the People's business. Its serious. Act right.
Long ago, at the start of Lincoln Crossing an old African-American Republican political hand took me aside and told me he had a message from "on High" for me:
First thing: "The County will see to it the Supermarket fails, there are other plans for that redevelopment, bio-tech is going there no matter what the community thinks."
Second Thing:" Its more important that Mike is seen as being central to the success of any endeavor than the community succeed. The community can not be allowed to succeed without Mike. He will see to that. Remember it."
Now I thought the Kemo for this guys cancer had gotten to his head. I thought he was crazy. Too much time spent helping kids build craft projects, the glue got to him. Uh problem is, he uh seems to have been right. I hate it when the whack job who is more of a conspiracy theorist than I am is right. Makes me feel like I live in an ocean of Swine Shit. I just hate it!
But I do live in an ocean of Swine Shit. Its a undemocratic place where the reflexive question of most in town life regarding any issue is "What does the fearless leader think about this?" Not "whats good for the community?" Certainly almost never "Whats the right thing to do?", not logical stuff like "what are the benefits and liabilities?". No in a ocean of Swine Shit the first question is always: What does the unaccountable fearless leader want? The second question is something like "Who of the fearless leaders friends can be given service contracts for portions of this project?" Pure unadulterated Swine Shit.
That's the biggest problem really with Altadena. Its part of an Empire, the County of Los Angeles, and it has a hostile competing Empire, the City of Pasadena, waiting to rescue it by annexation, not to represent, but again to subjugate and exploit. It has no voice of its own, because any attempt to speak with a voice of for and by Altadena will be opposed fiercely by town "leadership" who are nothing but castrated gagged vassals of the Emperor, who must flog anyone who dare threaten the trough at which they gorge themselves. So we are lead by, surrounded by,awash in Swine Shit.
If we were not awash in Swine Shit, if we were a city of free responsible people, we would not allow any developer to keep our money, destroy our local business people and be three years behind his construction schedule, have already built substandard buildings and be bragging that he is about to start the next phase. What can you say about that situation except everyone involved in pushing it forward is nothing but Swine Shit?
There is a lot of highly paid Swine Shit waddling around the halls of County Offices, Board rooms and community centers. As some old Jewish Prophet dude once said "By their fruits shall you know them." Absolute runny brown smelly Swine Shit.
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