ALPERN AT LARGE-Ours is a society that is collectively plagued with "attention-deficit syndrome". We are so easily distracted, and so easily gulled and lulled into doing anything but keeping our eye on the ball, and so easily put on the defensive in our politically-correct culture, that getting anything done is well-nigh impossible at times.
We're more interested in Donald Sterling's stupid, racist comments than the issue of how a federal redevelopment grant did NOT go to South LA but to Hollywood.
We're more interested in the latest celebrity gossip than how and why our education funding doesn't go to schools in East and South LA (and when it is spent, it is spent poorly).
We're more interested in the latest fun You Tube videos about cuddly cats, celebrity wardrobe malfunctions or red carpet sightings than children and families dying horrible deaths in Libya, Ukraine or Syria.
We're more interested in smacking around Christians than we are asking ourselves whether Islam is as tolerant towards us as we strive to be more tolerant of Islam, unless "spokesman" Bill Maher has the courage to raise up the issue.
We're more interested in defending or attacking one political side or another, and not so interested in why the heck we took so long to care about the Boko Haram issue, and why we ignored the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian Christian schoolgirls for so long.
We're more interested in labeling Israel as an apartheid state than we are asking why its neighbors, such as Hamas, still want Israel completely wiped off the map as well as its residents dead ... yet how many of us are prepared to vacation and travel to Israel, but not with its neighbors?
In Sacramento, those raising the point about pension and budget reform are shouted down as anti-teacher, anti-police officer, anti-firefighter, etc. Those raising the point about having and enforcing a federal immigration system are shouted down as anti-Latino or anti-immigrant when no such sentiments exist among the overwhelming majority of those raising the point ... and who are trying to come up with a fair compromise solution.
In Los Angeles, it's a looky-here, looky-there series of distractions to everything from plastic bags to carbon emissions to racial issues when the roads, economy, parks, utilities and police/fire services are hideously underfunded and ignored (and if you're ready to presume I don't give a rip about the environment, you're proving my point).
We get a horrible bait-and-switch with the California High-Speed Rail train that's NOT going to do much about our economy, mobility and environment as its backers said it would...but those who complain about it are demonized as anti-jobs, anti-progress, anti-environment...and "crazy", to boot.
Former Mayor Villaraigosa successfully pushes for the Wilshire Subway and the Expo Line, and a wonderfully-written Measure R ... and then we get a bunch of creepazoid developers who want to change every Westside station into an environmentally-awful, mobility-destroying overdevelopment that makes many (if not most) of us wonder if we didn't make a mistake supporting transportation projects.
We put our hopes and dreams into a slew of fees, taxes and bond measures, only to see our school, sanitation, utility and property tax monies misdirected and misspent into oblivion...and told there's nothing we can do about it, and that we're mean-spirited and crazy to oppose what's been done.
Certainly things AREN'T all bad--believe it or not, one of the nation's great infrastructure projects, the 405 widening project, is coming to an end earlier than anticipated. The Expo Line is scheduled for completion to the Westside in December 2014, with pre-revenue operations potentially starting by April 2015.
Consensus for a LAX/Metro Rail linkage plan is coming together with numerous governmental organizations performing an amazing show of cooperation.
The economy is slowly reviving, but its recovery is anything but helpful to the middle and lower socioeconomic classes...but any recovery is welcome and sorely overdue so long as we spare a thought for those who are still miserable, without hope and without benefit as others pick their lives back up after years of economic turmoil.
And words DO matter--whether it's old man Sterling shaking up the NBA, whether it's old man Alan Casden telling a bunch of Westside representatives that they just don't want black and brown residents living near them, or whether it's gubernatorial candidate Donnelly saying things that are shoving numerous Republicans away from him and into the Neel Kashkari camp ... words DO matter.
But distractions are distractions. Some distractions make sense in that they're a temporary relief from the misery that is our struggling economic and family lives, overwrought with obligations that keep us from enjoying what otherwise should be a pretty happy life.
Yet most distractions keep us from being able to fix the problems plaguing our personal and family lives, and plaguing the existence of our communities, cities and state.
Those of us screaming at us to do what they say or tell us we're crazy, hate children, hate minorities, hate immigrants, hate police/firefighters/teachers, hate the environment, etc. are probably the ones that maybe have those sentiments themselves...or are just pulling an Orwellian trick to control what we can say, and what we can do (and, if they could get away with it, what we can think).
It's human nature to be distracted, but once we recognize the smell of media and societal brimstone it's also our human nature to demand our society put all that in our collective rear-view mirror Keep It Simple, Keep It Real, and Keep It Focused on fixing the everyday problems that are our real challenges and everyday threats.
We're still looking for that champion from City Hall, from Sacramento, or from Washington to save us and keep us focused--but maybe that, too, is a distraction from finding the Real Hero who can save us:
Perhaps empowered by the Divine, perhaps empowered by an Innate Will, that Real Hero is probably the bewildered, exhausted yet always-potentially-indomitable person we see in the mirror every day of our waking lives.
If only we can stay focused on who that Real Hero is, and what he/she has the power to do.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us . The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 39
Pub: May 13, 2014