Category: Los Angeles, CA

WTFIRGO

February 8, 2012: J. Rosencrantz

I’ve been active in other domains, and so its been a while since I’ve posted here.  Weekly posts are migrating to the Freshjive Website, as part of the newly formed WTFIRGO Foundation which is raising money for social and economic justice organizations through the sale of limited edition agitprop tees. 50% of the proceeds from each months shirts will go to a different organization each month, starting with the Los Angeles Community Action Network, which focuses on the struggles of Skid Row locals. 

Cross posted here is the inaugural WTFIRGO post, with  Rick Klotz’ sketch of the first graphic:

FUCK POLITICS: Apathy and its Opposite

Our political and economic order is in crisis. Powerful corporate institutions have superseded democratic institutions in wealth and power, to the extent, for example, that nobody can reach high political office without corporate sponsorship. This puts private wealth and power in a position to dictate legislation to the legislators they sponsor, against the interests of the people they are supposed to represent.

The rich get richer, but the rest of us get buried in debt. Banks are bailed out, but families are threatened with foreclosure. Non-violent drug offenders are locked up for years, but financial and political elites are immune from prosecution for their crimes.

Merely recognizing these problems, however, does nothing to address them.

And since, despite cynical campaign rhetoric to the contrary, politicians in “both parties” are beholden to the same cluster of interests, voting for this or that corporate shill will never present any significant challenge to the system.

Establishment media’s portrayal of political campaigns as a years long horse race between fully housebroken elephants and jackasses is a distraction from the true arenas of struggle for social and economic justice.

Challenges to the status quo from within the system are safely defanged — third parties, for example, are blocked from power by way of ballot access rules, media blackouts and a winner take all system which promotes a timid “lesser of two evils” mentality.

Even the difference between these two relative evils are largely illusory — “conservative” administrations throw vast amounts of money into imperial wars while “liberal” administrations promote indefinite detention and the assassination of citizens without a hint of due process.

So fuck politics.

But to come to this conclusion is not necessarily to succumb to apathy. Recognizing the insanity of delegating one’s own political power to distant, compromised liars is at the same time to recognize one’s own responsibility.

That is why the World’s Got Problems blog is joining with Freshjive to create the WTFIRGO foundation, which will seek to bring attention to and raise money for organizations working to unfuck the world.

So starting February 8th, Freshjive will be releasing one new t-shirt graphic twice a month under the WTFIRGO label to correspond with a World’s Got Problems post. The tees will come in limited quantities and be available for purchase through the ReserveLA.net web store. 50% of the proceeds from these shirts will be donated to a different social or economic justice organization each month.

We decided to begin close to home, by raising money for an organization struggling for justice in some of the harshest conditions in the country.

Just blocks away from the Freshjive offices in downtown L.A. is the Central City East Community, better known “Skid Row”, home to one of the most heavily policed and dispossessed populations of the country.

For years the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) has been organizing Skid Row locals in the struggle for social and economic justice. If anybody can teach us a thing about taking responsibility in the struggle, it is them — and maybe we can raise a few bucks for the cause.

T-shirt available exclusively at Reserve Online.

Brookfield’s Patch of Grass

November 22, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

Here is a picture I took looking up at the Downtown L.A. Bank of America building from a patch of grass owned by Brookfield Properties, the same owners of Zuccotti Park in NYC.  This picture was taken just before my arrest defending an encampment in a solidarity action on November 17.

I wrote about the action an my arrest experience here.

Consensus

October 14, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

8th Anniversary of Supreme International Crime

March 21, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

Nothing symbolizes more acutely the dark matrix of corporate hegemony, war, lies, unaccountability, torture and secrecy than the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 8 years ago.

This weekend, as the U.S. Executive Branch (without Congressional approval) began bombarding yet another oil rich predominantly Muslim country, Los Angeles joined other cities in protest to mark the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a “supreme international crime” according to principles laid out by the International Tribunal at Nuremberg after World War II.

As I did last year, I documented the event in video.  This year the most compelling speaker was Mike Prysner, an Iraq War Vet and co-founder of March Forward!, a anti-war veterans group.  Here is a recording I made of his speech at the rally, edited with time lapse video of the protest march:

The AP reported that “hundreds” of people marched, but the time lapse sequences seem to indicate more. Looks like at least a few thousand to me.

Meanwhile, in D.C., Daniel Ellsberg and about 100 others were arrested in protests outside the White House.

Illegal Plants (But not for long?)

November 1, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

I never thought that I would see the day when Peter Tosh’s anthem would become a reality, but it looks like it might happen if enough people go to the polls tomorrow.

If anybody knows of any compelling reasons why marijauna should not be legalized, please let me know – I can’t find any.

By increasing the legality of this particular plant, CA Prop 19 would eliminate a disproportionately applied (i.e. racist) law that puts people in cages for the possession of a plant that grows from the earth. (Last year, CA police made 60,000 marijuana possession arrests, mostly of “young men of color”, even though “white” people use it more. )

Other benefits: It will increases tax revenue for a cash strapped state, and (possibly, hopefully) reduce the violence of the drug wars in Mexico, which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives.

But if all of this isn’t enough, just listen to Snoop:

No surprise, but Peter Tosh’s son Dave is also down. He makes his plea here.

CA Prop 23 (2010)

October 20, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Prop 23, initially and primarily funded by two Texas oil corporations (Valero and Tesoro), would suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32) until unemployment drops to 5.5% for four quarters.

If it passes, Prop 23 will require that the State of California abandon the implementation of comprehensive greenhouse-gas-reduction program, and drop the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Proponents argue that the measure will help preserve jobs, and that preserving jobs should take precedence over addressing the climate crisis. Opponents say that overturning AB32 will result in more air pollution, undermine the burgeoning clean clean energy sector, and reduce incentives to find alternatives to oil.  Also, there is mistrust of the motives of the measure’s sponsors, who happen to be among California’s worst polluters.

Here is an argument against Prop 23 in action-movie format, written and directed by respected acquaintance M. Cooke:

Smelling the Trees

October 10, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

If Los Angeles has a future, it will include much more of this:

CicLAvia was the shit! Biking around the city without fearing for your life? No exhaust in your face and you can actually smell the trees!

I often imagine a car-free L.A., and this is the closest I’ve come to actually seeing it. It’s beautiful.

So great, that I am creating a new post category called “Solutions”.

Do It Yourself

June 17, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Tuesday night’s blathering address from the Oval Office about the disaster in the Gulf has been widely panned for its timidity in the face of what could be the world’s worst ecological disaster - a disaster for which the President clearly bears some responsibility.  And meanwhile Obama has just approved 400 new leases for oil companies to operate in the gulf.

Since it seems like people are starting to realize, finally and begrudgingly, that their boy is a pro-war, anti-civil libertarian, corporatist spokesliar, I’m starting to feel like there is less of an urgent need to propagate that particular piece of increasingly obvious information.

So I thought I’d turn attention to some locals who are doing it for themselves – and, unlike the federal government, successfully fighting to address our culture’s addiction to the vile substance at the heart of many of the world’s problems.

Several months ago, these “Caution: Please Pass With Care” signs started popping up all over L.A.  They are the work of a group of guerrilla citizen-artists who call themselves the Department of D.Y.I.  Here is a video of them walking the walk:

L.A. Streets Blog covered an earlier guerrilla campain by D.I.Y. here, andThe LA.ist published the group’s manifesto here.  Their work can be seen all around the city:

Now it turns out that these guerrilla art campaigns – in conjunction with a sustained lobbying effort by the biking community — prepped the way for actual, official civic change: The LADOT has finally started to install “Sharrows,” which are an essential, although imperfect, piece of biking infrastructure.

Other things are afoot, as well: Only a few weeks after police harassment of a BP protest ride in Hollywood organized by Critical Mass, the L.A.P.D. is going to join Critical Mass as participants of a ride scheduled for June 25.

The la.ist hopes it is a game changer of cyclist/police relations in Los Angeles.

(BTW: If you are interested in following bike news, I recommend these feeds: Bike Commute News, L.A. Bike Coalition, L.A. Critical Mass, L.A. Streets Blog.)

Two Wheels Better Than Four

June 2, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Over the weekend the BP’s “Green Curve” gas station at Olympic and Robertson was once again the target of a collective protest, this time by a Critical Mass of Los Angeles bike riders.

After the demonstration, certain dickless piglets harassed the bike riders as they passed through Hollywood, and then tackled a videographer who caught an incident on tape:

WeHo Daily first covered the story here, the laist picked it up here, KPCC here.  The LAPD met with an LA bicycle advisory committee yesterday to discuss the incident, which the LA.streets blog covers here.

Los Angeles Critical Mass has a twitter feed here, where you can get updates on the story and info about future rides, etc.

Meanwhile the ecocide in the gulf will continue to unfold over the next decades.  Google has tool that can be used to compare the current size of the oil spill to the size of your own city.  Here is ours:

BP, cont.

May 18, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Here is a short video document I produced of the collective action at BP’s “Green Curve” station in Los Angeles last Wednesday:

The sad story of the Deepwater Horizon spill continues, of course. 60 Minutes has some decent coverage here, including an interview with a survivor of the initial blast.

Firedoglake has a page devoted to developments here, as does the UK Guardian here.