City files nearly two-dozen criminal charges against casual longshore worker for satirical picket signs; Port of Los Angeles faces likely civil suit after dismissal of charges By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
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LA City Council votes 13-2 to resume cleanups at local homeless encampments p. 3
Project Censored Part III
Top Under Reported Stories Show Missing Patterns in Corporate News By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Every year since 1976, Project Censored has identified the most significant stories that most Americans never heard about. Most are stories of wrongdoing by those with power, taking advantage of those without. As noted in our last issue, “Despite journalism’s call to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, it is primarily the inequalities of race, class and gender that serve to stifle stories across the years.” Although those patterns are the dominant ones shaping which stories are stifled, they aren’t the only ones, because scattered throughout the
lists of censored stories over the years another kind of story can also be found: positive stories about signs of hope, opportunities to make a better world and people working to realize that possibility. As we turn to the last three stories in Project Censored’s top 10 stories this year, we find that two of them fall into this less common, but vitally important category. First, #8 “The Public Banking Revolution,” deals with a new wave of interest in replicating North Dakota’s 100-year-old publicly-owned state bank, the Bank of North Dakota. A new California law will
enable 10 such publicly-owned banks to be opened by cities or counties in the next few years, and other states are poised to follow. The difference BND has made in North Dakota and the potential similar banks hold in California and elsewhere does not fit well into the landscape of most existing stories about banking, finance, or economic inequality, although it is relevant to all of them and more. That’s because its very existence enables things that just aren’t possible otherwise, such as green investments whose “profits slowly accumulate
December 10 - 23, 2020
Winter is the season for red chile enchilada sauce p. 10
[See Fight, p. 8]
Shakespeare by the Sea decides the show must go on … virtually p. 9
Real News, Real People, Really Effective
Casual longshoreman Carlos Saldana poses with a longshoreman’s hook and a satirical picket sign of Harbor Commision Vice President Edward Renwick, who voted against the appeal of the automation of Pier 400 at the Port of Los Angeles. Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala
ast month, a 20 charge criminal case against 39-year-old casual longshoreman, Carlos Saldana, was quietly dismissed nearly a year after the charges were originally filed. Saldana’s crime? Making satirical picket signs depicting the Los Angeles harbor commissioners who voted July 11, 2019 to allow Pier 400 to become fully automated. Photos of anti-automation protesters carrying the picket signs were shared on social media. According to court documents, the date of the offense was July 14, three days after the highly charged harbor commission meeting at which the board approved the automation of Pier 400 with a 3-2 vote. Saldana was charged with 20 counts of cyber harassment of the three harbor commissioners whose votes approved the Pier 400 automation permit . He didn’t know criminal charges were filed against him until December 2019. “There was no warning,” Saldana said. “All of sudden the Port of LA [police] were coming to my house. A couple of days later, I got a letter in the mail stating criminal charges had been filed against me.”
[See Censored, p. 12]
COVID-19 Cases in the U.S. as of Dec. 8, 2020: 15,426,531 • U.S. Deaths: 291,495; Deaths California: 20,052; Deaths LA County: 7,936 • For up-to-date local stats: www.randomlengthsnews.com
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