THE ANNUAL hypocrisy defaming the memory of Martin Luther King kicks in Monday, an orgy of media self-congratulation on the reverence Americans now have, thanks to King, for non-violent political progress when in living fact King would be appalled at who and how his memory has been hijacked. I happened to be alive and more or less cognizant in 1968 when King was murdered, alive and more or less cognizant in what has since magically become synonymous with, of all delusions, “progressive” civic policy in that adult playground known as San Francisco.
I REMEMBER widespread jubilation among white people, men especially, at King's murder, and I remember most vividly that it was the national media that had whipped up public opinion against King, the bravest kind of man there is because he wasn't naturally courageous according to his biographers, the kind of guy who got up every morning not knowing if he'd be alive at the end of the day. Prominent as he was, King, most places, had no police protection. His house with his wife and kids in it was fire bombed with impunity and J. Edgar Hoover, arguably America's greatest nutball until Trump, a cop who spent his down time prancing around in a cocktail dress, bugged King's hotel rooms and passed the tapes of King's robust private life around to Washington big shots. When King started denouncing the Vietnam War and the U.S. as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and saying “maybe there's something wrong with capitalism,” well, here was a man walking around with a neon bull's eye on his chest. And sure enough, King didn't live to be 40. A few people reading this will remember the lefty hall south of Market from where many Bay Area protests were launched beginning in the early 1960s. Something Alley. I've forgotten the address although I was a habitue. So, the night of King's murder I headed to Troublemaker Central to see what we were going to do about it, which turned out to be a big march, a very big march but not so large that it intimidated into silence a lot of race baiters shouting insults from the sidewalk. I wound up leafleting on Market Street near Powell in preparation for that event. A totally unhinged guy went at me verbally so intensely I had to warn him that I was not a non-violent person and bluster blah-blah mothafucka get away from me or I'll Gandhi your nose for you. That was the worst of it that day for me, and not any kind of a big deal over a lifetime of unpleasant political encounters. But I can still see that fool's red face screaming foul insults at me and MLK. And I can remember the tenor of the editorial comment in area papers that King, just prior to his assassination, had “gone too far” and ought to confine his efforts to civil rights, about which he'd also gone too far before he became too famous to go too far on that one. King was always going too far, and if he were around today he'd be going wayyyyyyy too far for the idiot cadres of the DNC with their wars on the poor, their giveaways to the banks, their phony healthcare reform, their eager support for mass murder in Gaza, their bland collaboration with everything gone terribly wrong in this doomed country. King’s real legacy has turned out to be an intensification of everything he gave up his life to prevent. King's birthday ought to be a national day of mourning for missed messages. (The best book on the man remains the little Penguin bio by Marshall Frady.)
BUMPERSTICKER spotted in San Rafael: “Say hello to your pooch for me,” me concluding that the anthromorphs are crazier than I thought. And this personalized license plate: “Ulyanov.” A descendent perhaps? Doctors waiting room. 9 sufferers including me, 8 of whom are buried in their cell phones, motel-quality art on the walls, untouched travel mags on a glass table, the whole of it a picture of sterility.
PD HEADLINE: Santa Rosa City Council Member Stripped of her committee assignments after censure.
Mark Scaramella Notes: Is that supposed to be a punishment? Sounds like they gave the woman a perk.
TAKING A BREAK from the rampaging Orange Plague, I watched two Netflix docs I can safely recommend to AVA readers, the most sophisticated and knowledgeable people between here and Covelo. (1) ‘1994’ is about that pivotal year in Mexican history. Kinda slow unless you’re interested in the subject, and if you’re not you should be given the givens of recent Gringolandia history. (2) ‘The Last Czars.' As a fervid outback book reader and youthful commie, I thought I knew a lot about Russian history, but having had no interest in Russia’s last monarchy I skipped that crucial part. Turns out, I didn’t know the half of it, and certainly had no idea that the Czar, and especially the Czarina, had been taken over by a charismatic, perpetually priapic monk called Rasputin. The evidence is, at least by this fascinating film, this Mad Monk was running the whole Russian show as the Czar's curtain came down. Of course both the Czar and his drug-addicted wife were oblivious to the Revolution rising everywhere beyond the palace gates. As we know, the Bolsheviks simply moved into the power vacuum left by the fleeing monarch, whose entire family was soon murdered, probably on Lenin’s direct order, in the basement of a dacha where they’d been held prisoner as they tried to get out of the country.
HANK SIMS:
This guy Toby Ball made a really good podcast about the Judi Bari bombing and Redwood Summer. Through most of it he wisely focused on interviews with Mike Geniella and Larry Livermore and Mark Scaramella and Andy Caffrey and others, but here's the episode with the most me.
https://www.ripcurrentpod.com/all-episodes/episode/265c8872/s2-e11-headwaters
Mark Scaramella Notes: Mr. Ball also interviewed KQED Reporter Steve Talbot and his investigator David Helvarg, plus Greg King, and AVA contributor Crawdad Nelson and others. In his last episode Mr. Ball notes that Darryl Cherney and his accolytes refused to talk to him after they heard that Ball was talking to these and others who don’t buy Cherney’s version of events surrounding the bombing of Judy Bari. Then, at the last minute, apparently Cherney changed his mind and agreed to be interviewed in a “bonus episode” scheduled for next week.
R.D. BEACON: The Elk Creek Beach, is now available for sale, about 160 acres+. Cash only, $12 million, take in a small amount of Timberland, southeast of the beach area, on a side hill, and a quarter-mile Creek frontage, state highway, has an easement through the property, but does not own, that the right, to the underlying ground, natural runs steelhead salmon, up the river, original property had about nine buildings, and have photographs of some of them, according to coastal commission regulations, the combined, square footage of all nine structures could be used in one building, like a residence or several buildings, original property, with a small ranch, in the 1800s, good power access, and telephone lines available, and abundant water coming out of springs on the property, property has been under one family's control for over 100 years, serious, inquiries only, no access to the property, except by appointment, all requests to enter the property, must be made in writing, send email to, [email protected]. Absolutely no realtors, no second party sellers, interested parties must be buyers only.
A READER WRITES: Years ago we had a child in a traveling soccer league. Our first experience with Rohnert Park was an eye opener. The parents there would not let us sit on the same side of the field with them. Had their officials physically move us. Everywhere else we traveled, all parents shared the same side. Then in the game, our girls stationed on the Rohnert Park side of the field had the PARENTS hurling horrible trash talk at them, including cuss words. These kids were like 12-13 years old. WHO does that? When our coach protested the behavior, the refs drew a chalk box on our side of the field and put our coach in it. If he stepped out, we got punished. WHO THE HELL does this? Rohnert Park does. HORRIBLE experience. I’m proud of our coach and kids, not one of them stooped to the level of their opponents. They played fair and hard despite how they were treated on and off the field. No skirmishes from our side at all, no police required. But we thought twice about playing in that city ever again. Horrible experience!
A READER WRITES: In the spirit of protecting each other and resistance please make note that the number to report sightings of ICE go bots in our county is 707-621-8220. There are trained folks ready to answer your call so that collectively we can ensure that our community is safe from harassment.
EVER WONDER why Petrolia is called PETROLia? In 1865, the first commercial oil well in California was drilled on the North Fork of the Mattole River, near what would become Petrolia. It was owned by the Union Mattole Oil Company and produced coal oil that, at the time, was primarily used in lighting.
The first shipment of crude oil was sent to the Stanford Brothers in San Francisco for refinement on June 12th, 1865, and consisted of about 6 packages of 15-20 gallons each. It was then sold for $1.40 per gallon. This was the first oil from a Californian well to be distilled and sold.
This marked the start of California's first oil boom. Between 1865 and 1866, several wells were drilled in and around Humboldt County. Like the Union Well at the North Fork Mattole, the Joel Flat well, and the Brown & Knowles well, at the Junction of the North Fork, were drilled by hand. Each were between 300 and 500ft deep. There were three wells in Oil Creek, two at Bear River, one at McNutt Gulch, one at Petrolia, and one at Buckeye. Bear River, Oil Creek, and Joel Flat had the heaviest gas flow. While Joel Flat, Buckeye, McNutt, and Brown & Knowles were the best oil producers.
The oil boom would not last long - all the producing wells faced issues. The wells had trouble with caving, water, crooked holes, low production, and the difficulty of transporting it out of the county. The Union Mattole well only produced only a few thousand gallons in total. This all led to the oil boom officially dying in 1866, though this was not California's last attempt at mining for oil. There were other booms in 1894, 1899, 1900, 1907, 1921, and 1935 but they did not have much success.
ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] Bottom line fact is that Greenland doesn't belong to us. There probably is an upside to annexing it, just at the cost of any morals or ethics we might say we have.
Yesterday Venezuela. Today Greenland. Tomorrow Mexico. Sounds like an expansionist country to me. And if so, why shouldn't other countries expand their empires at the point of a gun? Which takes us back to the days of Great Power competition, with all the risks of world war that entails. And now the Great Powers have nukes. Sounds like a bad idea.
[2] The shooting in Minneapolis has generated a great deal of interest, far and wide.
I just got a message from a friend who is currently on a fishing boat in the south Pacific and he heard about the shooting from locals in a drinking establishment after he got ino port a few days ago. Apparently it's been the talk of the village. A few hours ago he sent me this unsolicited comment:
"I had independently formulated the view from analysing the footage from multiple angles and cameras that Ross had positioned himself (just) in front of the vehicle as it moved back so that he could shoot the driver as soon as it started to move forwards. He is drawing (but not aiming) his gun as he steps in front of the reversing vehicle. The trajectory of the car is of course towards him as it begins to move but moving forward from a reverse means that the actually velocity of the (accelerating) car is quite low.
At this point he does the classic matador footwork firing down and at an angle through the windscreen. He then completes this classic footwork pivot (I have trained and used this many times with non projectile weapons - technically this is a 'nice' application) and fires twice into the drivers side window as the (now faster) car moves by. He then yells "fucking bitch" at the woman who he has shot and walks down after the car to check the outcome. His team then prevents immediate medical help from a passing doctor ensuring that the victim will bleed out before anyone else gets close to her.
[3] Trump: “It was my Great Honor to meet María Corina Machado, of Venezuela, today. She is a wonderful woman who has been through so much. María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”
No Donald, she did not give you her Nobel Peace Prize. She gave you the medal she received. Which is as close to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize as you will ever get.
[4] Goodbye to the amber waves of grain, the gleaming, healing hospitals, the concert halls, our elders filling their shopping baskets without worry, young couples in their own homes with cradles to fill. America used to be Thanksgiving every day, so no problem welcoming folks in for fellowship and a full plate of food. But now that it is 3 days after thanksgiving and our elders and children are scraping the plates, we are less welcoming to strangers, especially strangers who hate us, harm us and steal the silverware on their way out the door.
[5] I was raised in a Christian family.
Read the Bible every day and prayed to "God" every morning and night.
With as much humility as I could muster.
Went to Church every Sunday. Taught kids Sunday School.
Attended many adult Bible Classes. Went to Bible camps.
Betcha I know the New Testament better than 90% of Christians.
Looking over my shoulder, every day worrying I was pleasing God. Being forced to love someone I feared. The very essence of sadomasochism. And being aware as I got older that my "mentors" were sexually abusing little kids. And being forced to keep my mouth shut.
[6] A call for unity and grace from the mountains high, to the wave crashed coasts:
"The person down the street who votes differently than you is not your enemy. They are your neighbor. They worry about the same things you worry about. They want their kids to be safe and their bills to be paid and their country to be a place worth living in. They have been manipulated just like you have been manipulated, fed a different flavor of the same poison, sorted into a different tribe by the same algorithm, pointed at you as the enemy by the same people who point you at them.
The working class Republican and the working class Democrat have more in common with each other than either of them has with the billionaire class that funds both parties.
You share the same struggles. You face the same rigged systems. You are being crushed by the same economic forces that have transferred more wealth upward in the last fifty years than at any point in human history. And instead of uniting against the people doing this to you, you are screaming at each other on the internet about pronouns and flags and whatever fresh outrage the algorithm served up this morning.
This is exactly what they want. A nation at war with itself cannot resist a takeover. A people consumed by mutual hatred will accept any authority that promises to protect them from the manufactured enemy. Every empire that fell was divided before it was conquered. Every free people who lost their freedom were set against each other first.
The red versus blue war is not real. It is a show put on by people who own both teams. It is professional wrestling and you think it is a real fight. The wrestlers go backstage after the match and laugh together while you are still screaming at the guy in the other section who was rooting for the wrong character.
This Is Our Country, Not Theirs
[7] What we have is a lawfully elected President who doesn't mind shooting himself in the foot every day before lunch. That does not make us a banana republic. Check your definitions.
Biden was a POTUS without a brain. Unelected officials were in locum praesidis. Not sure where you'd put that on the scale of banana republics.
One hopes we could do better if we put our minds to it. Good lord, the energy smart people waste on venom…
[8] The violence just seems to expand, as violence so often does. Daily, now, there are videos of tear gas and physical aggression from the foot soldiers of ICE. I watched another video of a woman trying to tell the men who are dragging her, face down, through the street that she has a brain injury and was on her way to a medical appointment. She is detained by federal agents and forced into their car, for what we do not know. Think back to April, when one of the first broken car windows in an ICE arrest made national news. It was in a town in Massachusetts. A couple sat calmly in the car, on the phone with their immigration lawyer. Think how normal it’s become now to see ICE agents shattering car windows.
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