Political fires are burning even before the firestorm in Southern California has been contained. As usual it comes from the mouthy right, opening their yappy poodle traps once again to exploit this tragedy before it has even ended. But the Right should shut up for a minute and take notice of the different results in Democratic stronghold, Los Angeles and Republican, stronghold San Diego.
This is no surprise to me. I remember in the Northridge Earthquake of ’94, the Right wing evangelicals jumped all over us as being evil and receiving God’s “just†punishment. Well I was just a kid at the time, but I couldn’t help but feel how petty that argument was. Don’t forget 9-11 as well. Falwell and Robertson’s little hate filled speech said we had it coming for harboring homosexuals. No one had given them a copy of the Project for a New American Century playbook yet, you know, exploiting natural disasters is all part of the job.
The Hate Mongers Again
I know what you’re thinking. What is it this time? Oh nothing, their just spreading 100% baseless rumors around that the Al Qaeda started the fires in Iraq, no seriously, high up too. FOX News (of course) reported this as fact, mistakenly citing an FBI memo from 2003.
It gets better too. There are calls from all over the Right, including Rush “to judgment†Limbaugh, who blames the fires on the Sierra Club. I don’t know if you’ve had the displeasure, but his writings are quite funny. His logic is all over the map (whatever suits him at the time) and his science tends to be junior high school hypothesis at best, after all their side doesn’t believe in Science, just using it to make money, fatten their guts and of course, in Rush’s case, broadcast to millions each day (not to mention Oxycotten). Lesser bloggers too, jumped on the Sierra Club bully wagon. One lady claimed that fires are natural and the idiots at the Sierra Club don’t get it, despite the fact that arson has been found as the cause so far in many of the prominent fires. So what’s her solution? Deforestation. Of course, what genius! If there are no forests, there are no forest fires.
As always, there is no coherent philosophy, just a mean spirited lunge at anything they don’t like. Since they don’t like much of anything (except Bush, greed and money) it was the run-of-the-mill torrent of lies and mud that has become synonymous with the ugly right.
While the Right launches attacks, the Sierra Club offers it’s help. The Right should be ashamed for pointing the finger at one of the few agencies that has been consistently talking about forest fires in the first place. They have proven their efforts are genuine in preserving our forests. They are not perfect, and I don’t always agree with the Sierra Club, but I think they deserve more credit when it comes to Southern California forests when they are actually involved in forest work, and not in Palm Beach, Florida like the Rash, working on, wait, what is it that he does again?
The Right never misses an opportunity to exploit hard working decent people to further their pocket books.
Home Fires
Growing up in Southern California, natural disasters are second nature to us. We get a mixed bag of earth, fire and water disasters that seem to occur at least once a year and really bad every few years. These recent fires are literally right down the street. It’s something we’ve gotten used to here, especially in Los Angeles County. It seems so rare that any structures are actually lost that spectators show up by the busload to watch Mother Nature ravage the land with destructive force.
Quite a show too, I might add, in the fires two years ago, less than a mile from my house I watched a fire sweep across a landscape of hills and dry brush in a matter of 15 minutes. I got so close, the fire-copters swooped directly overhead by no more than a few hundred meters and mist from the helicopter’s water tank trickled out and landed atop my face, as I marveled at seeing a helicopter so close.
It was thrilling, until a home-owner came out and yelled at some teenagers who were trampling the brush just outside her fence. She was deeply worried about losing her house, and reminded everyone there to go watch it on the news. It was a grim reminder that the stakes were real, and somehow, I couldn’t watch it any longer.
What I did enjoy was seeing the amazing work of LA County fire-fighters. They worked tirelessly chasing the rapidly moving flames, back and forth from cul-de-sac to cul-de-sac. They dug in there trenches and combated the blaze with true courage. Intelligence too, as at the end of the day there was not one lost home.
I like to think we have the best fire-fighters in the country here, a testament I know many would agree with. Every year L.A. county fire-fighters not only fight the routine fires, they get a couple forest fire fronts that span miles, and every couple years they get a fire to end all fires, then go back to work the next day and start the process all over again.
I remember thinking a few years back, in the Cedar Fire of 2003, San Diego lost more than 2,000 homes while similar fires in Los Angeles County left almost no homes lost. Granted, the land is different, San Diego County is 5 times the size and San Diego has more developments that are newer, more exploratory developments in land that 10 years ago was brush and forest.
Still I felt there must be some other reason for the drastic differences. I refused to believe that San Diego’s fire fighters are responsible, so it must have something to do with resources.
Turns out there are financial reasons. Los Angeles County has five times the fire fighting helicopters and spends a significantly higher amount of money on its fire department. San Diego has been lambasted in the past for not spending enough, even after the Cedar Fire left a trail of destruction. The right leaning county just refused to spend money on it’s own fire-fighters, even after 9-11 left the Right manipulating our nation’s heroes to get tax cuts for the rich.
Turns out, with leaders like crooked Randy Duke Cunningham, famous for taking a yacht with his name on it as a bribe, San Diego opted to spend their money on other things, rather than protect their citizens from fire, which, after all contains a high amount of retired military personnel.
San Diego is a wealthy county; they just have that Republican spirit. They don’t want to pay for socialized fire service. Maybe they can privatize their fire department like they did all the utilities. Why not pretend fire departments are security so they can spend endlessly on it?
Just imagine a father cutting corners on the structural foundation of his child’s room, but he went out and bought 3 large automatic riffles. What would you say about a father like that? Is this any different?
Security is not just a military problem. It’s about keeping people safe.