Crime sells — that’s the verdict of a new analysis of local TV newscasts that lead their broadcasts one-third of the time with hyped-up reports of rape, murder and mayhem of one sort or another.
News about local government tops the news 2.5 percent of the time, according to USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s Norman Lear Center
Actually, it’s not crime they are selling but fear. Crime goes up and crime goes down, but fear of crime stays nearly constant.
It’s why a guy like Antonio Villaraigosa can triple the trash fee with the promise the money will go in a lockbox to hire more cops and then use two-thirds of the money for other things.
It’s why a street cop like LAPD Chief Charlie Beck can dismantle Bill Bratton’s crime-stopping strategy to pull hundreds of cops out of specialized details like Metropolitan Division.Gang and Narcotics Division and Crime Reduction and Enforcement of Warrants Task Force and put them on routine patrol duty. .
It’s why a guy like Paul Koretz in all seriousness in these times of dire financial troubles can put a priority on calling for Starbucks to ban customers from carrying guns even when allowed by local laws.
“Allowing handguns to be carried into places where guns are not now found has potentially deadly implications,” Koretz told Rick Orlov. “Nothing has happened in Los Angeles yet, but I’m concerned about what could happen. “It is a frightening thought in terms of public safety of having people walking around armed.”
It’s all about fear and our belief we can somehow live in a world without risk.
It’s why we spend trillions on wars and missile defense systems that achieve nothing. It’s why we put public safety as the one and only priority and let our schools, parks and libraries go to hell.
What are we afraid of? Do we really think we can live forever, that we can put a prophylactic armed force around us and be immune from all intrusion?
Healthy societies don’t spawn terrorists or gangs that take control of whole neighborhoods or violent drug wars or so much criminality that the prisons are overflowing to the point that dangerous felons are thrown onto the streets without parole supervision.
We are at the point of no return in LA where we have to decide what kind of society we are, what kind we will be years from now.
Where the leadership of our city is taking us with there decisions in this crisis is to a city of rich and poor, a “Blade Runner City” where police have no choice but to suppress and oppress the poor while the rich live in guarded enclaves
That’s a vision that ought to cause a shudder of fear in everyone. A city without a healthy middle class and real opportunities to reach the middle class is a city like Detroit and Cleveland, empty shells of urban life with luxury entertainment zones surrounded by poverty.
Savage DWP rate hikes on homeowners combined with a wide array of other “tax” increases and sharp cuts in public services, the slashing of school budgets, expanding policies of buying jobs and developments with massive subsidies and cuts in taxes at DWP rates — all assault the middle class and inevitably will speed up the long-term flight of people that can afford to leave town.
There is another way as I have repeatedly argued. But it will take an uprising of the community and an awakening of the labor and business communities to where the long-term self-interest lies.
What the mayor and City Council are doing will created conflict and controversy continuously in the weeks and months and even years ahead.
It is clear they are incapable of change. So we must change them, replacing them people who represent the interests of their communities and the city as a whole — and not just the special interests who finance their campaigns.
Seven seats in the even-numbered districts are up for election a year from now and credible candidates who can raise enough money to mount serious challenges. In 2013, eight seats are up with seven Council members termed out.
Think about: Soaring charges to residents, shrinking services, failure of leadership, growing grassroots organization –sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.
So don’t let the media or the politicians play to your fears. The tide of history, the story of LA, is driving real change. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
We are a city of several great educational insitutions and smart people. The problem is not our society but the low-lives we continue to elect. Look around, in cities that have part time Council members and honorary Mayors, the representatives are smart, hardworking individuals who dedicate their evening free time to contribute to their cities. Meanwhile, we have musical chair politicians who are here for one reason only-MONEY-and they will sell the city to the highest bidder. They have no soul, morality, ethics or caring for the city.
This is a moment in time. We need the energies of all our upright citizens to make drastic changes to the entire structure of this city. Just electing a few in even districts is not going to do it. Most won’t win without big money, and all you’ll get is a slightly less compromised soul. It will be business as usual, only slightly better.
Wait, you’re blaming Beck here for “dismantling Bill Bratton’s crime-fighting strategy” by pulling cops out of specialized gang and other units to fill posts in local stations that otherwise would go unfilled, because of budget cuts. You had it in for him from the start, making a big deal out of the deal with cars from Australia as though it were a sign of corruption somehow – and blamed Bratton for that too, no?
BUT you hated Bill Bratton! Couldn’t attack him enough because he had the good sense to support the expansion of the LAPD to the 10,000 number the mayor’s pushed for (with an ideal of 12,000), the SAME plan Beck advocates and said so from the time he was inaugurated – but he’s got budget realities to deal with. The same Bill Bratton you hated because he had the basic good sense to support Jack Weiss who was the strongest voice on City Council for public safety as he saw it. Instead of some guy from Long Beach who’s been a rightwing criminal defense attorney for accused rapists and thugs like the USC football players where he was on “speed dial,” demeaning female victims to get them off – whatever it took, touting his “juice” with the DA Cooley’s office to get clients. Like major environmental toxic polluters, some marine boat operator who shot endangered sea lions for “fun” then got the Times to write up Trutanich’s claims that the guy magically became a “born again environmentalist” when forced to do community service caring for other endangered sea animals as part of his verbal shenanigans he was known for. Clients and big financial and political supporters like extreme faction of the NRA which has made Starbucks a place they can pack weapons (just in case some barista serves up the wrong kind of latte or someone bumps into them?).
At least please be consistent in your criticisms as befits a former old-school newsman. We see time and again why you felt the “corporate burden” of at least pretending to be balanced was more than you could bear – but please, those of us who read you for a conservative, suburban take on everything, expect better from you.
As for the trash fee hikes: not that I’m a defender of this mayor, but again to be fair, he’s the one along with Wendy Gruel and a few others, pushing for them to be used for public safety instead of just being swept into the general fund. (Though to the extent that those fees in the general fund can still be used for public safety and cops and firefighters, it’s still available but needs to become a priority for all the councilmembers, not just a few.)
Can Beck or the Mayor explain why 10,000 is an optimum number for police in LA. Every neighborhood should also be within a quarter mile of neighborhood parks and an “x” number of parks and open space required for the population density, measures always ignored. Why certain matrices more important than others that affect quality of life?
1:06 PM went off her medication again.
Sorry that 1:06p isn’t me. I was one of those naive Bratton supporters but finally found out the truth and don’t like what I’m hearing. WE all know the Chief selection was a scam. Now they are all in bed with the corrupt Mayor. LA is going to get as bad as Mexico if the politicans don’t start putting forth solutions instead of wasting council meetings doing nothing. For years they’ve sat and talked and all the while keep increasing the deficit instead of decreasing it. The reason they have to pull specialized units off is because the dumb ass Police Protective League did a crapy job of negoiating with the corrupt politicans and now cops are paying for their mistakes. Why is it that DWP morons the highest paid in the city GOT A RAISE AND NOT THE COPS? PPL spent more money on trying to get the wrong candidates elected then doing the best for the rank and file. 10,000 is an idiotic figure because LAPD is so far behind at this point anything is better. The Mayor and Bratton made it a political issue. THe Mayor LIED AND SO DID ALL CITY COUNCIL ON THE TRASH FEE HIKE.
Actually 1:06 has a point
Ron is pretty inconsistent when he calls people out. Sometimes it feels like he has no platform other than it’s this person’s turn to get smeared today and he’ll smear him good, even if it means contradicting previous articles.
What’s sad about him slamming Bratton is that Bratton was actually a good chief, turning the LAPD around even though he had 1/3 the number of cops he had in NY. Ron couldn’t smear his leadership skills so he tried to make the guy guilty by association (Weiss) and corrupt based on circumstantial ad hominems.
PLEASSSEEEEEEE Bratton people are now learning was as corrupt as the Mayor. To have an idiot like Gerald Chaleff as second in command, a guy who defended murderers and criminals all the well slamming cops is beyond appallling. AND why hasn’t BECK told the rank and file who this guy Chaleff is and his position. Ask any patrol officer and they don’t have a clue. How much is Gerald Chaleff getting paid and how many sworn lapdogs does Beck have around him. The fact he didn’t get rid of Paysinger in itself is corrupt.
3:40 – You’re arguing anyone who’s a criminal defense attorney is corrupt and by association, anyone who supports a criminal defense attorney is corrupt also. So because Chaleff was a criminal defense attorney and Bratton worked with Chaleff, you insinuate Bratton must be corrupt.
Meanwhile as 1:06 pointed out, Trutanich was also a criminal defense attorney. Based on your argument, anyone who supports Trutanich must also be corrupt.
And there’s the association fallacy hard at work
1:06 and 2:51, same person off their rocker.
I understand the catharsis of rage and the desire to demonize “other” people as “low lives” or villains. I just wish there was less table-pounding rage and more collaborative solution-making among the commentariat here.
On Andrew Sullivan’s blog today a correspondent made some cogent points regarding the calumny and destructiveness of today’s political debate. While it was not directed here, it has relevance to many who come here:
“We have a world in serious trouble, and a country that’s become almost ungovernable. We need people now who are constructive, not destructive: sane adults who are fueled by a sense of responsibility, by courage and by love, not adolescents looking for the next excuse to throw a neurotic tantrum. Rage can be very satisfying — temporarily. But what gets ‘satisfied’? The whole man or woman, the adult? Or the fearful, angry child? Or the neurosis itself?
“…Our entire political discourse, national and international, now seems swamped by this kind of displaced fear and rage. We need to get a grip.
“We need to start calling out those — left, right or middle — who are ‘crazy and numb’, and make their living (and perpetuate their ‘horrific buttresses of self-protection’) by ‘drinking our blood’.
“We do not have to live lives, and govern a world, based on the mental illnesses of the most angry, the most fearful, the most self-absorbed.
“There are alternatives — and we’d better start finding them, or we will all pay the price. The ‘satisfaction’ of rage is not free.”
Would you guys PLEASE start USING PSEUDONYMS/HANDLES/CODE NAMES…anything but Anonymous time stamps. It makes it so hard to keep track of the players, especially when more than one person is involved in a conversation.
People should be very enraged. We, the people, are being conned into allowing our society to change for the worse. Only the elites will enjoy this change. It won’t benefit the current residents of L.A. BTW, Mayor Villaraigosa, the Council, the Newspaper reporters, and Ron Kaye envision themselves as elites, using false facades.
I’m sorry. Actually, I think Ron Kaye is a good guy. Just, his viewpoint was one way, once, and then is another way, now. Again, truly sorry about that… your reporting is pretty good, Ron.
Those of the middle class currently living in L.A. will be financial arm, will be squeezed monetarily to finance a certain elite’s vision, their vision of the future L.A. We are going to pay for, and live this vision, of high rise apartments along major transit lines, of crowded bus transportation replacing freeway daily commutes, of crime statistics magically going down while actual crime goes up, of increased reliance on poorly run government services, and poor responses by same. This is what we have to look forward to. Of course we do. And, the newspapers will lie to us, and tell us the opposite has occurred.
You don’t get it. The elites don’t want a “Los Angeles style” urban middle class. Large, suburban backyards are a no, no. The elites want a “Mumbai or Tokyo style” urban middle class. They envision people crammed into a small space, always monitored, eating and drinking recycled matter, recreating in a cyber, synthetic world, shrinking their energy usage, homogeneous and ever similar.
If ever there were a pattern for the individual to follow, it is one of a robot.
What’s the solution. Well, you either take the Billionaire Boys’ solution, which is to mold L.A. into a generic, robot society, or else you encourage Local Control and Conviction of Community as the solution. Each community must rise up and take control of their community. Forget what the Councilperson tells you. It’s usually a lie. People must look within, to their community. They must stand for something, a pride of being. Do something to help your neighborhood, now.
We’re not Angelenos. That’s a disaster. Trying to save a city like L.A. is impossible. Why associate ourselves with a lost cause. To the politicians, the image of L.A. is glitz, more glitz, more Downtown Grand Avenue High Rises. What a hoax. No. You can only hope to save and help your neighborhood… locally… that which is in front of you. That’s where you start, neighborhoods, boroughs. Politically, put more control into the neighborhoods and abolish the City Council, and leave the Mayor as a figurehead… There… something to hope and strive for.
Mayor Villaraigosa and Chief Beck want a reduced, less effective gang enforcement police force. Gang members are just misunderstood people!!!
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/lapd-gang-units-thin-out/
Last week we told you how Los Angeles Police Department Chief was taking 130 officers off of specialized enforcement duties, including gang enforcement operations. The department straight-up lied about the “reorganization,” spinning it on its blog as a move that “puts 130 police officers back in the field.”
…
…the change actually disbands the Crime Reduction and Enforcement Reduction of Warrants Task Force, a quick-hit team of street cops that was able to look at crime-stat hot-spots and target specific gangs with hours’ notice.
regarding 1:06 – I can’t comment on some of what you say about Trutanich, just on what I know about Weiss – I live in CD 5 and he did residents no favors – favors were for the developers and the private school in the valley, so his kids and chief deputy could and will get free and/or reduced tuition. The only thing I can say about Weiss is that he was better than Feuer – and that definitely isn’t saying much.
Would you guys PLEASE start USING PSEUDONYMS/HANDLES/CODE NAMES…anything but Anonymous time stamps. It makes it so hard to keep track of the players, especially when more than one person is involved in a conversation
I’d do it the board required people to register. Handles are meaningless when you can pretend you’re other people.