Comments
THE VIEW FROM HERE - Since Los Angeles’ structural corruptionism has been visible for well over a decade, it is a mystery why there is no Reform Movement. Los Angeles is not the world’s first society to succumb to Kleptocracy. Nor is it the first to adopt a compatible totalitarian form of government where the Kleptocrats make all the decisions.
In 2022, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) wrote a guide for other countries to combat Kleptocracy. See USAID Guide. It states: “The heroes of dekleptification are the civil society actors and other engaged citizens who risk it all to open windows of opportunity, make government work for the people, and lead their country toward a post-kleptocratic future.” Alas, the USAID’s entire deklepitification program presupposes that a society has actors who “open windows of opportunity.” (Bolds added) Los Angeles has no such actors.
Let’s look at USAID’s “civil society of actors”:
1) Entrepreneurs Who Get Fed up with Paying Bribes So They Take to the Streets
LA’s entrepreneurs do not take to the streets; they move away. Moving away is a classic way Americans deal with corruption. That is how the movie industry relocated to Hollywood. The early film industry in the East was controlled by the corrupt Motion Picture Patent Co It controlled film making the way Los Angeles City Council controls densification. The East was also anti-Semitic, as is DSA which is trying to take over the corrupt city council. As a result, in the early 1900's, independent film makers relocated to Los Angeles to escape the kleptocratic nature of the Motion Picture Co. In modern LA, Kleptocracy has made life for ordinary Angelenos so untenable that Millennials and now Gen Zer’s are also leaving the city. Corruptionism has made raising a family in single family area financially impossible, while Texas and many other states have tons of single family homes near high paying jobs. The exurbs are especially attractive. Moving to an exurb is like buying into Kodak in 1910. Just as it is now too late to buy Kodak stock, it is too late for a middle-class family to invest in Los Angeles.
2) Investigative Journalists Who Reveal the Criminal Dealings of “Untouchable” Oligarchs
Since its founding December 1881, The LA Times (Pravda West) has always been the mouthpiece for LA’ ruling class. It may have reached its worst under Patrick Soon-Shiong and his daughter Nika Soon-Shiong giving Los Angeles nepotism and woke corruption in a single package. Reportedly, Nika left in 2022 to return to as a student at University of Oxford. The elder Soon-Shiong’s shilling for corrupt developers did not benefit Pravda West’s bottom line so that Soon-Shiong announced massive layoffs in January 2024. What is one to expect when an untouchable oligarch owns the newspaper? Print the truth and be socially ostracized?
3) Honest Prosecutors Who Press Charges Against the Country’s Most Powerful Crooks
LA’s judicial system is a farce. The prime example are the faux prosecutions against Huizar, Englander, et alia in order to protect the One and Done Rule and the criminal Vote Trading System at city council. See Judicial Cover-up of Corruption In fact, LA Superior Court Judges protect the Kleptocrats. In December 2016, Judge Fruin in SaveValleyVillage v City of LA ruled that LA City Council’s unlawful actions are de facto “non-justiciable,” which means “above the law, may be not sued, immune.” In his years overseeing Los Angeles’ Homeless Crisis, federal judge David O. Carter has failed to discern anything amiss with nearly two decades of the city council’s openly violating Penal Code § 86 and how the One and Done Rule constitutes a criminal enterprise. Instead, he thinks white people who own single family homes are the cause of Black homeless. Right now, Judge Carter cannot figure out why there is no audit of the multi-billion dollar Help Homeless agencies. Duh! Is Judge Carter really that dumb?
4) Policy Advocates Who Push for Transparency and Accountability
What a laugh. Every so often some fool calls for a Transparency Commission. LA already has 100% transparency. How much more transparence do we need? Just look at the City Clerk’s page of all the city council votes where the One and Done Rule and the Vote Trading System prove the ubiquitous corruption.
5) Grassroots Organizers Who Get out the Vote in Record Numbers
Los Angeles grassroots organizers were doing a pretty good job via the courts. In January 2014, Judge Allan Goodman ruled that the city intentionally used fatally flawed data and wishful thinking to the extent it subverted the law. Before the year was out, Judge Goodman was removed from the trial court and temporarily placed on the Appellate Court where he could make no more rulings adverse to LA Kleptocrats.
LA’s history with organizers to vote the crooks out of office has been dismal. Again, that goes back to the structure of the city council, where grassroots organizers have to battle billionaire developers who can elect whomever they desire, e.g. Nythia Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez. It is not the large size of the districts which makes campaigns expensive. If LA had 100 council districts, multi-billionaire developers could still outspend any reformers. If LA decided to publicly fund all city council elections and each candidate got the same amount of money, that would decimate the developers’ advantage, but for the Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) which allows Kleptocrats to spend as much money as they desire.
6) Bold Reformers — in and out of Government — Who Dedicate Themselves to Delivering on Public Mandates for Dekleptification
Los Angeles has no bold reformers and there is no public mandate for defleptification.
One baby step Angelenos could take is to Vote Yes on Proposition 33 and vote No on Proposition 34. Prop 33 allows each city to fashion rent control to fit is needs. Some towns may chose no rent control.
Prop 34 appears to be an civil Bill of Attainder. Its purpose is to harm one entity, AIDS – Healthcare Foundation, which promotes rent control. AHF’s theory is that when people cannot afford a home and live on the street, their health is threatened. The Apartment Owners Association does not care how many people suffer and die on the street – their sole objective is to maximum profits by ill means or foul.
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected].)
