Pacific Palisades Was One Of America's Wealthiest Communities. Now It Doesn't Exist...
If rich neighborhoods aren't protected, what does that mean for the rest of us?
You know that money that comes out of your paycheck every month? That piece of the action that the government gets for providing services to you that we call taxes. You know the ones I’m talking about: roads, public parks, general infrastructure, and emergency response services. Ya’ know, that type of shit?
Well, what if, even in America’s wealthiest communities — places that typically pay higher property taxes to logically be more prepared to deal with sudden disaster, don’t even receive proper protection. If that is the case, the question becomes what the fuck are any of us paying for?
A viral video has been circling around social media that depicts a distressed Pacific Palisades resident confronting California Governor, Gavin Newsom. In the video, she pleads with him to let her listen to him call President Joe Biden, which he told the woman he was trying to do. Even though, considering where she lived, I assume she is rich, or potentially was rich considering the circumstances, and I’ve always suffered from a type of empathy resistance to the wealthy that I’m actually not proud of, she asked Gavin Newsom a question that stunned me.
“Why wasn’t there any water in the fire hydrants?”
Which Gavin didn’t deny. He subtly acknowledged that the fire hydrants in one of Los Angeles’ most exclusive communities, in an area prone to wildfires, didn’t have access to water to fight such a blaze in the event that one occurred.
This is a fuck up of astronomical proportions. This is a fuck up that means that even the most privileged among us are now susceptible to public neglect. I know that it is popular to regurgitate “eat the rich,” as I myself have been prone to do, but unlike wealth, civic neglect does trickle down. This isn’t just a wildfire, it’s a breakdown in the fabric California, and American society itself.
One has to wonder, if the fires took place in LA’s less privileged communities, would the firetrucks even have come at all? If it was Compton on fire instead of the Palisades, would there have been any response?
What about middle class communities? If the Palisades don’t have water in their hydrants, does Glendale? How about Hawthorne? Would we allow Wittier to succumb to wildfires. Turnbull Canyon could easily catch, and I assure you, Los Angeles’ elites would gladly sacrifice Wittier or nearly any other community in Los Angeles County to ensure the safety of the wealthy west side.
John Locke is a philosopher that was foundational in constructing the ideology of the political identity of the United States. He proposed that idea that citizens exist in accordance to a social contract with their government. The idea is fairly simple: citizens give up some of their freedoms, or more appropriately in modern terms, their money, in exchange for safety and protection. But the people of Los Angeles, one of the most important cities in the world, didn’t receive either.
Is that not a violation of the social contract? I think it is. And this effects all of us. Our government is taking from all of us, which under ideal circumstances would be totally fine. This isn’t some libertarian rant. Americans should pay taxes, and should receive services from the taxes that they pay. But it is becoming increasingly clear that our taxes aren’t being used for what we think they’re being used for. This isn’t limited to coastal elites in Los Angeles County. This grift effects all of us.
And quite frankly, if they’d let the Palisades fire hydrants go dry, do you really think they give a fuck about you?
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Abe, 80 years ago the residents of the Pacific Palisades, along with Calistoga and the wine country were rounded up in trucks and sent to concentration camps, Manzanar. When they were released, they weren’t allowed to get their homes back. 80 years later those houses burned. If you were to dig into the corporations that are now buying up all that land, the head of one of those corporations is the great-grand nephew of someone who lost their life in that concentration camp and didn’t get their home back. Karma. Dude, I think you’re now on the middle-age side of social media. Welcome!
I didn't realize the hydrants were empty I thought it was a water pressure issue