When the tangerine Mussolini began unleashing his thugs on “the illegals” (a term I despise and don’t ever use), he began with Los Angeles. Having lived in LA for 15 years, I knew when I saw the coverage of what was happening in downtown LA that this was overkill!
Los Angeles is a sprawling “city”. It’s actually LA County which is made up of many small cities and towns. When I lived there, downtown LA was a part of LA that we rarely went. Since then it’s become a hot neighborhood. But if you live on the westside (Santa Monica, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, West LA) or the Hollywood Hills, or the San Fernando Valley or the South Bay, you have no idea what’s going on downtown!
In fact, the area where the protests were transformed into “riots” was, I believe, about 1 square mile out of the 502 square miles that make up Los Angeles. And the thing that riled up the protesters were the masked “agents” in unmarked cars who were firing “less lethal” weapons at the protesters WHO HAD BEEN PEACEFUL until those so-called agents arrived.
It’s all for show. That’s the way DonOld likes it I guess.
David Dayen, the executive editor for The American Prospect still lives in LA, and he was out in the thick of it. His coverage at Prospect.org was some of the best I had read, so I reached out and asked him to join me on the show. It was June 11 when he wrote, “ICE Kidnappings Stoke Fear and Outrage Across Los Angeles” and when he joined me on the air to talk about it.
I share that conversation in the first half of today’s show.
Now that a second Dump term is reality and much worse than the first, and his threats of mass deportations are no longer just threats, AND his promises to just go after “the bad guys… the murderers, rapists and criminals, the worst of the worst” have been proved to be bullshit, like everything else he says, I’m despondent over how low he’s taken our nation.
I was never a great student; I was called a “daydreamer” … Today I’d be saddled with an ADHD label. But through my daydreams I do remember one thing we were taught in elementary school, that America was a great melting pot. That imagery cut through my childhood fog and stayed with me through the years as a wonderful combination of people from all over the world who were welcomed here for a better life to make up our population.
I’m pretty sure they don’t teach kids about the American Melting Pot in grade school any more, but their assault on our education system is a topic for another day. I still take pride in the Melting Pot but, sadly, I just googled the term and what showed up were a bunch of links to fondue restaurants… nothing about the metaphor used to describe a society where different cultures blend together… Sad.
So, for our second interview today we’ll go back to the before times when we still had hope for the future.
In August of last year, I spoke with Jessica Goudeau, who told her own personal story and family history in her book, We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family’s Mythmaking and Migration. It’s not what you think it’s going to be.
Two more days of vacation… tomorrow, everything you need to know about how the big ugly law will affect your healthcare, social security and life in general with Alex Lawson, and a surprise phone call from an icon!
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