“I assume I simply wasn’t made for these occasions.” – Brian Wilson, R.I.P.
California Dreamin’ in LALA Land
Southern California has great climate. Inside the coastal zone it’s particularly great. The solar shines brightly daily, there’s low humidity, and a cool breeze wafts off the Pacific Ocean making issues completely nice. You simply can’t beat it.
However for each candy smelling rose there’s a stem stuffed with jagged thorns. In Southern California, the site visitors, value of dwelling, state and native authorities taxes, and the massive swaths of city blight and homeless encampments fall far wanting perfection.
The remnant luster of Hollywood’s golden age was irreversibly corroded with the slaying of Sharon Tate and her unborn child by the Manson Household within the early morning hours of August 9, 1969. By then, the cultural decline of Los Angeles was already nicely underway.
Brian Wilson misplaced his thoughts in 1964. The Watts Riots burned scorching in 1965. And by 1967, Pacific Ocean Park – a rival to Disneyland – had fallen to terminal disrepair.
The inflation of the Nineteen Seventies blighted the expansive boulevards and concrete sprawl. By the Eighties children like Jordan Hiller have been overdosing on doorways and fours. Others discovered pleasure in bashing their heads in. Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris captured the aesthetic within the documentary, The Decline of Western Civilization.
The delusion of California Dreamin’ through the years has most faithfully emanated from Los Angeles – LALA Land. In the course of the pre-World Conflict II days, earlier than the mania to splatter each sq. foot of its floor with concrete took maintain of the native spirits, the place was already a magnet for eccentrics, pyromaniacs, and hucksters galore.
Howard Hughes, a complete madman, would dream up his newest flying machine after which crash it into Beverly Hills. There was additionally Griffith J. Griffith, who amassed a fortune within the mining trade.
Later Griffith shot his spouse within the face in a Santa Monica Resort after which commuted his time in San Quentin to only two years by donating the land for Griffith Park to Los Angeles. He additionally funded town’s observatory. With out Griffith’s non-public act of preservation, town wouldn’t have any open area left to get misplaced in.
Rigorous Flexibility
In terms of immigration standing, many Southern California cities have had a modus operandi of rigorous flexibility. Not having correct documentation has been a pesky element to be readily ignored. Over many a long time, issues have gotten fully out of hand.
Your lowly editor was a middling scholar at Encanto Elementary faculty on sixty fifth Road and Broadway in San Diego within the late-Eighties. That is about 14 miles from the worldwide border with Tijuana, Mexico. A few of his classmates crossed the border with their dad and mom every morning on commuter inexperienced playing cards to attend faculty.
He later moved to the massive dangerous LA Basin within the mid-Nineties. There he met his fetching bride who’d immigrated from Mexico Metropolis to LA as a baby, gaining citizenship beneath Ronald Reagan’s amnesty program.
When the Mayflower disembarked at Plymouth Rock in 1620, John Smith and his fellow Pilgrims didn’t care in the event that they have been residents of the New World. We doubt the thought even crossed the thoughts. Their focus was on carving out a brand new life in a brand new land that was free from the spiritual persecution they fled in England.
The Ten Commandments given to Moses make no point out of citizenship. That’s to not say current day immigration legal guidelines are vetoed by the Outdated Testomony. We’re merely recognizing that the highway to citizenship doesn’t at all times comply with a path — or a morality – that’s straight and slim.
Guidelines, by definition, are made to be damaged. For a lot of a long time, America has had porous borders. On the identical time, immigration legal guidelines have been by no means reformed to handle this actuality.
Individuals have been allowed to enter the nation illegally. But nothing was executed to account for or incorporate them. Finally, this disconnect led to what’s now an absolute cluster.
No Papers
President Trump was voted into workplace to scrub home on unlawful immigration. Tightening up border safety after the failure of the Biden administration was important. However the ship for wholesale deportation sailed way back. Issues have been so uncontrolled for therefore lengthy that it’s solely unworkable.
The Metropolis of LA is broad and expansive. There are various prosperous areas with trophy properties and property properties on the west aspect, cloistered within the hills. Brentwood, Westwood, Pacific Palisades, Holmby Hills, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Beverly Glen, Hancock Park, and others. These areas are in stark distinction with the areas of town within the east and south, that are so hideous they lacerate the attention.
What’s extra, there are numerous unpleasant cities that span east by way of the San Gabriel Valley and south to Lengthy Seaside. These are cities you’ve by no means heard of and would by no means go to, that are mixed in like delivery containers on Terminal Island.
East LA, Temple Metropolis, El Monte, South El Monte, La Puente, Pomona, Vernon, Maywood, Commerce, Huntington Park, Bell, Cudahy, Bell Gardens, South Gate, Lynwood, Paramount, Compton, Gardena, Lawndale, Hawthorne, and lots of, many extra. These cities are massively populated with unlawful immigrants.
We don’t know what the demographic breakdown of Huntington Park was when our grandparents lived there in the course of the darkish despair days of the Nineteen Thirties. However we suppose it was far totally different than the 97 p.c Hispanic inhabitants recorded in 2024 census knowledge. Of this, about half have been born outdoors of the USA.
It’s not a stretch to say that almost all of this foreign-born inhabitants doesn’t have papers exhibiting them to be of authorized standing. Actually, a decade in the past, Huntington Park swore in metropolis commissioners with out authorized immigration standing.
The town’s inhabitants density is estimated to be 18,000 folks per sq. mile. At this density you’d count on an abundance of high-rise flats. As a substitute, town’s housing is characterised by single story dwellings and two-story infill developments. What this implies is a number of households are frequently crowded into 800 square-foot housing models.
The encompassing cities famous above have comparable demographic and density traits.
LALA Land is Coming to a City Close to You
The Trump administration’s latest ICE raids and the next counter protests have shined a lightweight on a insanity that has lengthy been ignored.
The protestors, for his or her half, appear to be unclear about what they’re after. Many are seen waving flags from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and elsewhere, as symbols of defiance. However on the identical time, they’re protesting deportation to the international locations of which flags they wave. Shouldn’t they be waving American flags in the event that they wish to keep in America?
Generally in life errors are made that may by no means be reversed. When left to run wild over many a long time they’re unattainable to return and proper.
Concentrating on Dwelling Depot parking tons and restaurant kitchens with the aim of wholesale deportation could also be perceived as an answer within the eyes of MAGA. However so is reducing off your head as an answer to a headache. Furthermore, is ICE actually ready to deport near a million folks from simply LA County alone and upwards of 15 million folks from the U.S.?
The present circumstances are a complete mess. Politicians, nonetheless, refuse to understand them or work to handle them in a constructive and constructive means.
Former California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as soon as had a secret love little one with the Guatemalan housekeeper of his Brentwood property, just lately pointed his finger on the failures of political hacks:
“That is the results of Democrats and Republicans not with the ability to come collectively on this immigration reform. And in order that’s what must be executed so that you simply don’t must go and begin arresting folks within the first place, so we all know who’s on this nation and who’s working right here, who has the momentary working allow, who has the everlasting working allow.
“We don’t even know who’s in right here. For many years now, they’ve been avoiding the topic as a result of it’s a bonus to each events to not do it. So that they’re all political hacks, occasion hacks, reasonably than public servants.”
We don’t count on the political hacks will get their act collectively anytime quickly. What this implies is, LALA Land is coming to a city close to you.
[Editor’s note: Have you ever heard of Henry Ford’s dream city of the South? Chances are you haven’t. That’s why I’ve recently published an important special report called, “Utility Payment Wealth – Profit from Henry Ford’s Dream City Business Model.” If discovering how this little-known aspect of American history can make you rich is of interest to you, then I encourage you to pick up a copy. It will cost you less than a penny.]
Sincerely,
MN Gordon
for Financial Prism
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