Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Sep 8, 2015

• FB Parade Photos
• Birthday Litzin
• New KZYX Manager
• Craven Midgets
• Trump Word Salad
• EU Open Borders
• Programmers Union
• Catch of the Day
• Hendy Freedays
• To Kill a Legacy
• Citizenship Class
• Big Oil Brown

THE PAUL BUNYAN LABOR DAY PARADE, FORT BRAGG

With photographer Susie de Castro

FREQUENT FLYER BIRTHDAY WISHES go out to Kevin Litzin, who was born September 8, 1971. Kevin -- a Native American residing in Ukiah -- has been arrested 16 times over the past year, either for "drunk in public," "probation revocation," or a combination of the two. Happy birthday, Kevin!

STUART CAMPBELL will appoint himself station manager at KZYX at tonight's (Monday) meeting of the station's board of directors at the Philo Grange. Campbell, a programmer at the station and currently president of its board of directors. From here, Campbell looks like a lateral move, in every sense, from previous station manager, John Coate. The managerial style at the Philo bunker under Coate was a haughty arrogance combined with a snarling reaction to even the slightest criticism. This guy, a teacher at Santa Rosa Jr. College is likely to be in the grand tradition. From here, station finances look wobbly, but try getting the real numbers.

AMONG OTHER CONFUSIONS OF POLICY AND INTENTION, the public “debate” so far does not make any distinction between true political refugees fleeing for their lives or economic migrants seeking to improve their prospects elsewhere. It is surely easy to empathize with both categories of persons, but that doesn’t mean you give up the control of your borders just to make yourself feel better. That is pretty much what has happened in the USA, where the Left, for political expediency, has deemed it indecent to call “illegal” immigrants what they are, and the Right has just been pusillanimous and hypocritical about it. Hence the unfiltered persona of Trump who, for all his titanic shortcomings, has at least managed to make his rivals look like the craven midgets they are. — James Kunstler

DONALD TRUMP & THE NIKITA

Donald Trump earns Herb Caen's Nikita---ostensibly English sentences that seem like translations from Ukrainian---for this word salad:

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

Trump was especially "smart" to inherit $40 million at the beginning of his business career.

— Rob Anderson, District 5 Diary

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

“I am happy that Germany has become a country that many people outside of Germany now associate with hope. This is something to cherish when you look back at our history.” –Angela Merkel

God bless Germany for opening their hearts to so many 16 to 30 year old immigrants who want to work, marry, raise children, and contribute to make Germany even greater than it is now as Europe’s shining star.

And congratulations to Europe as a whole for developing a rational plan to accept new immigrants. Germany is taking more than 40,000 and France 30,000, with rational plans to relocate immigrants from Italy, Greece and Hungary, to other parts of Europe.

This open borders policy is a defeat for fearful xenophobia and will only make for a more diverse Europe… a more formidable, a much stronger multicultural European union.

I am so impressed that Germany is giving immediate citizenship so the immigrants can begin to work and contribute immediately. None of the USA’s vindictive “pathway to citizenship” which takes years and makes immigrants jump through so many hoops… all the while exploiting them for their labor and accepting their tax payments into the national treasury. We need to learn from Germany.

Legalize the Mexican immigrants now!

Immediate amnesty and immediate full citizenship for the 11 million in the USA, without the bullshit “pathway to citizenship requirements”!

CALLING MR. INSIDE

Editor,

I already know Stuart Campbell won't comply, so this is an open letter to anyone else at KZYX who can and will:

So Stuart Campbell, presiding over the board for which he presided over the elections, picker of all committees, information goalie, and so on, after pissing away $575,000 just last year alone, including the six-figure CPB grant of tax money — enough money to start from scratch and house and fully equip and run for a year ten radio stations with the reach and better than the scope of KZYX, were the frequencies available — finally got all his ducks in a row to have himself installed as general manager and skim off for himself as well as the rest of the gang in the office every penny brought in through every membership drive, and then some.

As a member and so part owner of KZYX, I want the email address of every programmer. I intend to try to unionize the programmers and see that they're compensated fairly. Granted, many of them are slacking just as obviously as the bosses, but they show up to work, and they put in the time, and they should be paid.

There are many words for a system where the people on top are paid well to wield power over the people who do all the work and are paid nothing. I'm sure you can think of a few.

Really, insider, spend 30 seconds and three mouse clicks and forward me the programmers' email address list. Do it right now while you're thinking about it.

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 7, 2015

DELBERT ALFORD, Ukiah. Parole violation.

FEDRICO ARVIZU, San Pablo/Ukiah. Drunk in public, possession of controlled substance.

WALTER BABB, Susanville/Ukiah. DUI.

TONY MAPLES, Redwood Valley. Drunk in public.

HEATHER MARSH, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

GARY MORRIS, Clearlake Oaks/Westport. Drunk in public.

RAMON NIETO, Willits. Trespassing, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

MICHAEL NOBLE, Laytonville. DUI.

TAMI TUCKER, Clearlake Oaks. Making a loud and unreasonable noise.

SECOND SUNDAY SEPT 13 FREE AT HENDY WOODS

No cost to local residents to enjoy Hendy Woods State Park this Sunday, September 13 and every Second Sunday of the month for the rest of 2015. Hendy Woods Community will pay the Day Use fee for those who live in Yorkville, Boonville, Philo, Navarro, Comptche, and Elk: Know Your Zip Code! We are doing this to ensure that cost does not prevent local people from enjoying the only large public open space in Anderson Valley and its beautiful old growth redwood groves, lovely meadows, and access to the Navarro River.

HARPER LEE’S ‘GO SET A WATCHMAN’

Reviewed by Paul Jorgensen

Propaganda.

The motivation for this book is obviously Ms. Lee's desire to ameliorate the national media clamor against the southern states brought on by the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. A national condemnation was rising against the social conditions in states which had been the Confederate States of America and for social change. So Ms. Lee wrote a propaganda book in an attempt to counter the waterfall of negative comments about the South in the media.

Early in the book Atticus Finch derisively says the Supreme Court has a bid for immortality and asks his daughter, 26-year-old Jean Louise (Scout) who is back home in Maycomb, Alabama for a vacation from her job in New York City, what's in the news in New York about us here? Atticus in this book is what we now call a conservative Republican. The book is set in the mid-1950s when there was still quite a lot of segregation all across the United States. However, it was strongest and most rigid in the south and the NAACP sent some members to help get black people registered to vote.

Ms. Lee wrote flashbacks to when Scout was six years old telling how life was from the girl's viewpoint and those parts are lively, entertaining and well written. Her editor recognized that. More on the editor later. This book begins with heavy-handed questions and answers them in the end. Here's an excerpt between Atticus Finch and his daughter Jean Louise (Scout) Finch who is "the liberal" in this book.

"Let's look at it this way," said her father. "You realize that our Negro population is backward, don't you? You will concede that? You realize the full implications of the word 'backward,' don't you?"

"Yes sir."

"You realize that the vast majority of them here in the South are unable to share fully in the responsibilities of citizenship and why?"

"Yes sir."

"But you want them to have all its privileges?"

"God damn it, you are twisting it up!"

"There's no point in being profane. Think this over: Abbott County, across the river is in bad trouble. The population is almost 3/4 Negro. The voting population is almost half and half now because of that big normal school over there. If the scales were tipped over what would you have? The county won't keep a full board of registrars because if the Negro vote edged out the white you'd have Negroes in every county office."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Honey," he said. "Use your head. When they vote, they vote in blocs."

Taking that last line first. Were not the whites voting in a bloc for white candidates? So if these Negroes do the same and all vote for Negro candidates then that is unfair?

The line just before that where Jean Louise says, "What makes you so sure?" is bogus because if she were truly a liberal her response should have been, "So you all should have been educating the Negroes and preparing them for responsible citizenship since the end of the Civil War. You have had 90 years with little progress. The Supreme Court had to act as nothing short of Supreme Court orders would get the social integration ball rolling. Your separate but equal system was not producing equality."

Atticus goes on to use an example of blacks not being ready to assume the role of responsible citizenship by bringing into the argument a black man named Zeebo who has had many marital problems and is looked upon as comical. By doing that he overlooks the obvious choice of a responsible citizen in Mr. Chester Sumpter, a black man and professor and principal of the Mount Sinai Trade Institute, Macon County's largest Negro school.

Citizens councils are given some space in the book. They were all white male meetings of the County's most socially powerful citizens. In the book a Mr. Willoughby who was not elected or appointed is head honcho of Macon County. They meet at the county courthouse every Sunday to discuss ways and means of keeping the Negro in his place and maintaining their own way of life, the same as always. Talk about backward! These citizens councils were an anchor to the past.

Ms. Lee however attempts to justify them through Atticus Finch who gives an example of the council's democracy by allowing a straight up bigot, and in Atticus's words a sadist, the opportunity to speak at the last meeting just because he asked. At one point Atticus and his paralegal admit to being hypocrites which Atticus defends with, "Hypocrites have just as much right to live in this world as anybody." A non sequitur as they were not talking about euthanasia but about improving morals and integrity.

Propaganda obviates critical thinking by asking and answering questions that lead to a predetermined biased conclusion. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Ms. Lee tells the story excellently. In this Watchman book she has characters asking and answering a lot of questions which leads the reader to favorable conclusion's about that south, that they were doing fine in their slow way and there are some white people in the south whod think and act with equality and justice. We may grant the last half of that sentence, but the first is absurd. I mean, How slow can you go?

The integrity of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a impugned by this Watchman book with Atticus present at all the power meetings including the KKK and just watching. (He's the Watchman.) Why did not Atticus propose better education for blacks back in 1935? In the Watchman book why is there no black representative sitting at the citizens counsel such as Professor Sumpter? If the bigot, Mr. O'Hanlon, is allowed to address the council, then where is the liberal view?

Ms. Lee's editor recognized her potential and adroitly co-opted her into writing a great book which condemned the social conditions she was trying to justify in her Watchman book. One may call it a more sophisticated example of propaganda on the surface, but one can think through it critically and know Mockingbird to be true. The editor back then was very good and we need to know who he was. But the editor who published Watchman was thinking only of money.

Ms. Lee tries to make this a coming-of-age book for 26-year-old Jean Louise and everybody in the white community is happy at the end with each other's prejudice, being hypocrites and going along to get along. In the black community there is sadness and a very young man is charged with manslaughter as Atticus plans to plead him guilty even before investigating the case.

The book is short and seems to have been written too fast. Ms. Lee has a knack for writing about kids and growing and she should have written more about just that in subsequent books. They'd have been good.

Remember that she did write "To Kill a Mockingbird" with prompting and advice and deserves all the credit she received for that. This other propaganda book should have stayed in the box.

CARRIE DURKEE WRITES:

"Citizenship & Corporate Power" college class on the coast starts this Thursday

This is just a reminder to anyone who might have intended to sign up. Michael St. John and I are teaching "Citizenship in an Age of Corporate Power.” Class starts this Thursday, Sept 10th, from 6:00-8:00PM at the Fort Bragg Mendocino College campus. Please call or e-mail if you have questions.

Carrie, 937-2554, CDurkee@mcn.org

* * *

Fall Semester Community Workshop:

CITIZENSHIP IN AN AGE OF CORPORATE POWER

Mendocino College, Fort Bragg Campus

The class, in addressing citizenship in an age of corporate power, will cover a range of sub-topics including elections, activism, the commons, globalization, localization, climate change, public banking, the “new economy”, the rights of nature, and policy making. The class links to, supports, and is supported by the work of Paul Cienfuegos, Jim Hightower, Move to Amend, David Korten, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Democracy School, Global Exchange, Jim Tarbell, the Alliance for Democracy, and the many other people, programs, and institutions working to counter the anti-democratic elite and corporate forces at work in our government and economy.

The only prerequisite for this course is an open mind. There is a $25 facilities fee, payable to Mendocino College. Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Rule, edited by Jim Tarbell and published by the Alliance for Democracy, will be the principal resource material. Other reading materials will be distributed at class. The relevant issues of Justice Rising can be downloaded online free from www.thealliancefordemocracy.org or purchased at the first class for the cost of reproduction. The class begins September 10, 2015 and continues for 14 sessions (skipping Thanksgiving) until December 17, 2015.

To sign up, or if you have questions, call or write Michael St. John at 937-3711 (msjetal@pacbell.net) or Carrie Durkee at 937-2554 (cdurkee@mcn.org) and register for the class by calling Patti Gulyas at Mendocino College, 707-468-3236 or go on line to www.mendocino.edu/workshop-registration.

GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN UNDER FIRE FOR FIRING STATE OIL REGULATORS

by Dan Bacher

Jerry Brown continually attempts to portray himself as a "climate leader" and "green Governor" at environmental conferences and photo opportunities across the globe, but new court documents obtained by the Associated Press bolster the claims by many anti-fracking activists that the California Governor is in reality "Big Oil Brown."

In these documents, two former senior level officials in California Governor Jerry Brown’s administration reveal that they were fired on November 3, 2011, one day after warning the governor that oil drilling would imperil the state’s groundwater.

In a declaration, Derek Chernow, Brown's fired acting director of the state Department of Conservation, told the Brown Administration that granting permits to oil companies for oilfield injection wells would violate safety provisions of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, reported Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press.

"Chernow's declaration, obtained by The Associated Press, was contained in an Aug. 21 court filing in a lawsuit brought by a group of Central Valley farmers who allege that oil production approved by Brown's administration has contaminated their water wells. The lawsuit also cites at least $750,000 in contributions that oil companies made within months of the firings to Brown's campaign for a state income tax increase," according to Knickmeyer.

You can read the full story here: http://www.fox23.com/ap/ap/top-news/fired-regulator-brown-pushed-to-waive-oil-safeguar/nnYB7/

The Committee to Protect Agricultural Water filed their civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit in Federal Court on June 3, 2015. On the following day, Mark Nechodom, the controversial director of the California Department of Conservation that replaced Chernow, resigned.

The RICO Complaint by the Committee, a citizen organization comprised of Central Valley farmers and "individuals concerned about California's drinking water," claims that Governor Brown's office ordered the DOGGR to approve permits to inject contaminated water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. (http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/06/03/741916/10137097/en/Kern-County-Group-Files-RICO-Lawsuit-Against-Governor-and-Oil-Companies.html#sthash.9gqriFwS.dpuf_ )

The lawsuit alleges that "The Oil Companies, Governor's Office, Director of Conservation Mark Nechodom, State Oil & Gas Supervisor Tim Kustic, Director of the Kern County Planning and Development Department Lorelei Oviatt, DOGGR, WSPA, CIPA, and others known and unknown, formed an "enterprise" ("the Enterprise") to achieve through illegal means the goal of increasing oil production and maximizing profits and tax revenue by allowing the Oil Companies to inject salt water into fresh water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act."

In a memo to David Albright of the EPA obtained by AP, Elena Miller, the fired Supervisor at the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), points out how draft regulations proposed by the Brown administration - a "proposed interim solution" to the "timely issuance of individual well permits" - resembled documents created by the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA).

"This (referring to the draft regulations) was provided to us during a meeting at the Governor's Office on 10/28/11 - prepared by Lianne Randolph of the CA Natural Resources Agency. I agree with your point that this has similarities to what was prepared by WSPA late September/ early October," wrote Miller.

For those not familiar with the WSPA, it is the trade association for the oil industry and the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in Sacramento. Last year the Western States Petroleum Association spent a record $8.9 million on lobbying, double what it spent in the previous year. (http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/02/06/big-oil-group-spent-89-million-last-year-lobbing-jerry-brown-and-california-officials ).

The WSPA is deeply embedded in California politics. In one of the biggest conflicts of interest in recent California history, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create marine protected areas on the South Coast, as well as serving on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast from 2004 to 2012. Her husband, James Boyd, also served on the California Energy Commission from 2002 to 2012 and was appointed Vice Chair in 2006. (http://www.energy.ca.gov/commissioners/boyd.html )

Since 2011 the Brown administration, which has become increasingly subservient to the Western States Petroleum Association and Big Oil, has come under fire from the U.S. EPA for failing to protect groundwater under the federal law. In addition, after the two officials were fired, oil companies made at least $750,000 in contributions to Brown’s campaign to increase state taxes, according to Californians Against Fracking.

Brown's spokesman, Evan Westrup, told the Associated Press that the allegations in the documents obtained by AP are "baseless."

"The expectation — clearly communicated — was and always has been full compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act," Westrup claimed Thursday.

Anti-fracking activists disagreed with Brown administration claims that the allegations are "baseless." Following the relevation, Californians Against Fracking issued a statement from Adam Scow, California Director for Food and Water Watch

“Gov. Jerry Brown intentionally allowed California’s groundwater to be contaminated, and subsequently accepted financial backing from the oil industry for his political efforts," said Scow. "The cracks in Jerry Brown’s leadership on climate change, already demonstrated by his support for fracking, now go beyond hypocrisy. Firing two watchdogs in order to allow irresponsible and illegal dumping of toxic oil wastewater in California takes the state back to pay-to-play politics as usual."

As I have documented in article after article, Jerry Brown is one of the worst governors for fish, water and the environment in California history. With his constant subservience to the oil industry, as demonstrated in this case and many others, he has definitely earned himself the nickname of "Big Oil Brown." (http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/30452-the-extinction-governor-rips-the-green-mask-off-his-tunnels-plan )

The documents obtained in the RICO lawsuit reveal, once again, how the regulated have captured the regulatory apparatus in California. Just as Big Oil has captured the Department of Conservation, agribusiness tycoons, the Metropolitan Water District and the State Water Contractors have also captured the California Department of Water Resources.