Recalling Democracy Newsom recall effort: It’s something we’ve seen before By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Chris Pierce, aka Rev. Tall Tree’s, latest album, American Silence, testifies trauma through grace p. 9
By James Preston Allen, Publisher
On March 24, I watched as the Los Angeles Police Department ordered a citywide tactical alert after hundreds of protesters and officers faced off at Echo Park Lake over the city’s plan to close the park and remove the homeless encampment that had been growing there for months. This comes as Los Angeles County reaches the milestone of 23,000 COVID-19 deaths and both the city and county continue to grapple with the dual crises. I received the LAPD press release that explained that they had issued a dispersal order calling the demonstration in support of the homeless campers an “unlawful assembly,” but did not explain why a “citywide
tactical alert” was needed. Council District 13 Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who represents this area of Los Angeles, used the “rehabilitation of the park” as a thin excuse to evict the unsheltered residents, which brought out defenders of the homeless from various community groups. By the end of the next day, after a long standoff, Echo Park Lake was fenced off and some 182 protestors and a few journalists were arrested, detained and cited. This is just one of the latest incidents in the battle over homelessness in neighborhoods all over Los Angeles. Various media outlets reported that over a dozen journalists were arrested in this action to oust the home-
less encampment. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild are up in arms over these arrests. “Taking militarized police action to displace people who are already displaced is cruel and does nothing to bolster public safety,” the ACLU stated. “Mass arrests of protesters, legal observers and journalists will not keep the city’s brutal, ill-conceived actions from being known. The city leaders who approved this approach should be held accountable.” CD15 Councilman Joe Buscaino criticized activists who urged people to “fight back” against police. Mean-
April 1 - 14, 2021
Chris Pierce
[See Recalling, p. 13]
Dine Out LB launches fund to support culinary workers with imaginary food p. 10
Tiny Homes Come Full Circle
Real People, Real News, Really Effective
Graphic by Suzanne Matsumiya
LAHSA State of Homelessness addresses pandemic’s impact p. 3
G
avin Newsom was barely two months in office when the first effort to recall him was launched. The current effort isn’t all that different: He stands accused of being a Democrat. But democracy itself is really what’s under attack. Democracy is under attack across the country and around the world. California might seem immune, but it’s not. Its most seemingly democratic features — the initiative and the recall — have been hacked before and are being hacked again in the attempted recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. He stands accused of being a Democrat, according to the text of the recall petition, which makes no mention of the pandemic, because it was filed before the pandemic began. Internationally, the V-Dem Institute recently reported that “The global decline [in democracy] during the past 10 years is steep and continues in 2020,” with a two-thirds majority of the world population living under autocratic rule. Most notable is the rise of “electoral autocracies,” where elections continue to be held, but with very little chance of power changing hands. “Electoral autocracy remains the most common regime type,” V-Dem’s report stated. “The world’s largest democracy turned into an electoral autocracy: India with 1.37 billion citizens.” The U.S. is far from being like India on a national level, but the GOP has introduced more than 250 voter suppression bills in 43 states just in the first few months of this year—a wave of activities that indicates a serious state-level threat of moving in that same direction. A new paper, “Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding” analyzes 61 “indicators of democratic performance” from 2000 to 2018 to create a “State Democracy Index.” It tested a range of theories to explain democratic backsliding, and found only minimal evidence for any of them, except for “Republican control of state government, which dramatically reduces states’ democratic performance during this period.” Thus, the current wave of voter suppression laws furthers a broader pattern that was already under way. In California, Republicans have very little power, so — aside from dreaming of secession, or breaking the state into pieces — what we see instead are largely acts of rebellion, disruption or sabotage meant to make the system more dysfunctional, in hopes of fueling discontent and generating opportunities to gain power. A recall effort with shifting and deceptive rationales fits well within this pattern. What appear to be the most robust expressions of our democracy — the initiative, referendum and recall powers — are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, as Richard J. Ellis argues in
[See Full Circle, p. 4]
COVID-19 Deaths in the U.S. as of March 31, 2021: 564,806 • COVID-19 Deaths in Califrornia: 58,789 COVID-19 Deaths in LA County: 23,110 • For up-to-date stats: www.randomlengthsnews.com
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