I don’t want to seem like a killjoy, but I don’t think asking politely is quite the comprehensive gang violence-reduction strategy we’ve been calling for.
Yesterday the Los Angeles City Council asked residents to stop killing each other for a minute or two and instead to promote peace and talk about the causes of violence — for at least 40 hours.
The “period to promote peace, justice and non-violence” will begin at exactly 6:01 p.m. on Friday and end at 10:01 a.m. on Sunday—dates that coincide with the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Okay, nothing wrong with that, per se, but some of us were looking for something…meatier.
Evidently the talk-don’t kill thingy was originally proposed by activists Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Eddie Jones to be a straight up ban on murder. As blogger Zuma Dogg rightly put it “I thought murder was already banned in Los Angeles.”
Uh, yeah.
Opposing activist Joe Hicks also gave the whole idea a large raspberry: “It’s just an incredibly silly notion that you can do some kind of symbolic maneuver for 40 hours that the street terrorists that are killing people are going to notice that and say, `Well, I can hold off for a few hours here. Forty-five hours in, I can get busy again,”’ Hicks told KTLA.
According to David Z. over at the LA Times, the LA County Board of Sups passed its own resolution, declaring a moratorium on violence during the same 40-hour period.
Call me boringly literal-minded, but frankly, I’d have really preferred that the Council instead acted on Laura Chick’s gang violence report, which would put into place actual, you know, programs. (It’s been a month and a half and counting on Laura’s, a year on Connie’s.) But yesterday, it seemed, it was politics as usual meaning only purely symbolic actions were on the agenda.
I think the Daily News has it right. The LA public has to start screaming “NO” to politics and keep screaming until the Council gets it, grows a backbone, and says NO to Tony Cardenas’ political stalling.
Write letters. Make phone calls. Send emails.
Dear fellow Angelenos, as we say in pre-school: use your words. Loudly.
Maybe they can play “Give Peace a Chance” over city loudspeakers and gang members can hold hands in a big circle and light candles.
We’ve officially hit bottom when Zuma Dogg knows more about the law than the combined Los Angeles City Council.
That Robert C.J. Parry is a funny guy.
One of my dreams is for David Simon to create a show based verbatim, on the clowns who run the city of Los Angeles.
We have the Mayor HollyWood who has been ineffective finding solutions to L.A biggest problems, gangs, LAUSD, traffic and over development. But he does have bright bleached teeth and black “JustForMen” hair, and never met a camera he didn’t like. And of course the Mayor, loves the ladies and booze.
We have a city council and Mayor who couldn’t balance the budget of an elementary school candy drive. We have a great cast of “characters” such as Bitter Bernie, NoBigMac Perry, ReggieTheGator Hahn, Tijuana Huizar, TijuanaInTheHills Reyes, CheerLeadingClown LaBonge and others. Add the puppet masters like Billionaire Broad, NoLicense Delgadillo and even a major newspaper which would miss a pack of big fat rats running between it’s legs.
I think it’s wonderful the number of times Woody is the first commentor here. The readers should chip in and buy him an “I (heart) LA” teeshirt.
Ms. Fremon,
Didn’t I tell you that this gang funding is rapped up in political ass rubbing.
Tim Rutten in his opinion piece certainly agreed with Poplock, on what’s motivating Cardenas. (Which he accuses the others of doing.) The Opinion in the Daily News is even blunter, saying Cardenas “is acting like a street thug.” Ouch.
Lost Res, yeah, you nailed Reyes as “Tijuana in the Hills.” LOL, gigantic, low-income projects in the hills, and this guy is the head of the Council’s Planning/PLUM Commission, not just some outside clown. Scarier, Mike Woo and some geniuses in the Planning Dept. seem to agree that this is a brilliant idea, especially if the projects have no parking.
At least David Zahniser in the Times seems to be on top of him: he’s the only commenter in news or the media who noted this bizarre attack on “the hillside federations” who reject his brilliant TJ in the Hills plan, gratuitously thrown into the MLK “peace weekend.” Plus Zahniser pointed out how Reyes and Perry ganged up on westside rep Jack Weiss over the billboard blight issue, accusing him (and Rosendahl’s CD11) of taking parks away from poor people. So the Times still has ONE or two guys who know what’s up. (CityWatch/ Dennis Hathaway’s article says the MTA is somehow involved in that tangled mess with Rocky Delgadillo, too.)
Reyes accused the same evil westsiders a couple of weeks ago, during a discussion of distribution of parks, of being not only narrow-minded and selfish for not wanting projects in Holmby Hills, but for making kids in the hood fat. He’ll have to duke that one out with Perry: Parks or Big Macs, which is the real culprit? They’ve already got the schools, now their target is the parks and and Mulholland Drive. Sure, just bring Glassell Park to Bel Air. That will fix everything. Reyes and Perry should be thrilled that the state parks slated to close are those on the westside, discussed earlier in this blog, like Topanga and Will Rogers. Reggie the Alligator seems the only sane one. (Inside word was, he’s an import from FLA: Hahn/the city didn’t want to admit they’d spent a couple of hundred thousand failing to catch the real one, so they got a sub.)
We forgot an Honorable Mention to Las Lomas Alarcon, who one blog dubbed “the Zorro Marxist,” rather aptly. But he adamantly refused to turn down his recent City Council raise, as did some of them to show solidarity with city workers, arguing he’d just had a baby, plus had other kids and grandkids and he worked hard for the money and just had to be treated right. — Socialist redistribution is a marvelous thing, as long as it comes FROM other people.
Another thing he tried to redistribute in his favor, was land belonging to his then-fiance, a month before they got married, which she wanted to develop. Because if he acquired it into his district, he could have uh, helped with rezoning for greater density. Only thing is, it would have also meant acquiring a few hundred other hapless souls from Wendy Greuel’s district, who’d have woken up to find themselves no longer part of middle class Sherman Oaks and Studio City, but TJ in the Valley. Only a timely article in the Times (by David Zahniser again, I think) embarrassed him enough to pull the plug on the unseemly plan. (This would be blatantly illegal to do for a wife, so after they got married, their hopes were dashed indefinitely.) But there’s always tomorrow, there’s always Las Lomas (whose lobbyist’s husband is his Chief of Staff, and used to work for Tijuana Huizar and master crook Alatorre.) You’d think these clowns (along with first-ever Hispanic City Attorney Delgadillo) would realize as the first bunch of Mexicans to control a large voting block in the city, and a majority with the three African-Americans when it comes to anything to do with density or socialist redistribution, they’d try to set a better example and not scare the s-t out of all the whites off the bat. Even the Mayor knows that much.
But with people like Hahn and LaBong, who even joke that they’re the Council married couple (and babblemouths and court jesters), who’s going to stop them? The difficulty of the rest of them getting a quorum on anything is daunting.
Any ideas out there for a theme song?
reg, we’ve covered this before. If I were in Hawaii instead of the east coast, then I would be waking up and commenting after you and others on the west coast. It must kill you for me to comment first. Try getting up earlier.
Also, as Celeste has said before, this site is also about social justice and is not limited to problems and solutions of L.A. Even though L.A. may be the subject, the concerns are universal.
Given your attitude, may I expect you and yours to not make any more comments about the South since you don’t live here?