Just a word to end the week about the L.A. fires. Although they’re 400 miles south, I’ve been glued to the T.V. and streaming radio for days. I have family down there and know the area pretty well. My dear cousin Ellen had to evacuate her home in the Big Rock neighborhood of Malibu. Her home was one of just 17 that survived on her hill, out of hundreds.
We here in Oakland went through our own wildfire nightmare on Oct. 19-20, 1991, which at the time was the worst urban-wildland fire in California history. Anyone who lived here back then remembers the horror, even if they didn’t live in the hills. For a while the fire threatened to take out Montclair and Piedmont and then roar down Broadway. An O.F.D. battalion chief told me it would have destroyed downtown Oakland and there wasn’t a damn thing the thousands of firefighters could do, but at around 5 p.m. the wind shifted from offshore to onshore and the fire was halted.
It just sickens me to see MAGA Republicans blaming Gavin Newsom or Biden or Democrats for the situation in L.A. Democrats never blamed Republicans for our disasters, but these Republicans are so crass, so insensitive, so vicious. You’d think they’d leave politics aside for a little while to help the victims, but no. The dumpster of misinformation and hatred on Twitter is unbearable. Now, Facebook has done away with fact-checking. As a student of World War II, all this reminds me strongly of the rise of the Nazis in the period 1933-1935, when they really consolidated their power, and the German media rolled over and collaborated. Elon Musk is turning into Josef Goebbels in real time. And, yes, you know what that makes Trump in this macabre comedy. I know some of you voted for him, and I mean no offense, but he really is a scumbag.
Look, I’d hate to see Oakland turn into a MAGA bastion (not that I think it will), but I also hate the thought of Barbara Lee and her woke crowd running things. I despise both extremes. Both are cancers eating away at our body politic.
Have a wonderful weekend. May God protect Southern California from the fires.
Steve Heimoff