Blogs For Victory

Over the past few days I did a bit of driving around. The Mrs wanted to pick up some things at some pretty widely separated locations – so, off on the road we went. First down to Los Angeles, then turning around and up to St George, Utah. It was an instructive trip on the state of our nation.

Los Angeles was dirtier than I remember. I hadn’t been there in a couple years. The roads – including Interstate 10 – were in bad shape. The streets of the city were filthy. Graffiti, which has always been bad in Los Angeles, is much worse and has spread to outlying areas. It appears that no one is even making an attempt at cleaning it up. Lots of empty store fronts. Our particular destination in Los Angeles was the shopping district known as Santee Alley.

Santee Alley, for those who have never been, has always been a rather flea market sort of place – just about everything for sale at rock bottom prices. It, at least, seems to have been recently refurbished – but also just as swiftly allowed to become quite dirty. There were far fewer vendors than a I recall – and whereas you once could barely move in the alley, it was at best only about half filled with shoppers.

It is almost entirely immigrants who make up the store owners – and I only qualify that on the theory there may be a native-born American running a store there, but I’ve never seen one. Hard working and trying to get ahead, these are the good people we want in our nation. In spite of all the hoopla about Arizona’s immigration law, I only saw one sign advocating a boycott of Arizona – and it wasn’t in the Alley, proper, but in one of the higher-end stores on the main street…I suspect that in there I might find an American-born proprietor.

But one could not help but notice the lack of spirit – the fact that things are far from well. As I said, the place was quite dirty – and not just the sort of dirt one is used to in a large city, but the sort of dirt which accumulates when the people running the place simply don’t care that some of their citizens are wallowing in squalor. The place was also quite worn down – outside of the recently refurbished Alley, the streets and sidewalks are crumbling.

I was witnessing the death of a city – and the death of a State. An American city is becoming a Third World backwater. A place where the poor attempt to scratch out an ever more difficult living, while everyone who can leave has already left. California is bankrupt – and the little people are being left behind in a crumbling, filthy sewer…of course, the governing class is still taking care of itself, as we can see in the intense fights the public sector unions are putting up against any attempt to bring economic sense to government.

Ah, but isn’t this all just the economy? You know – things are bad all around and so its bound to get a bit worn down. It isn’t indifference – its just the hard reality. But then I drove to St George, Utah.

The first thing you notice when you get to St George is that its all very clean. Even the construction sites are tidy. Vacant lots are not left to become overgrown, but are carefully cleared and kept in order. No graffiti. The streets and sidewalks are in good repair – and the whole place exudes the sense that those who live there have secured for themselves a government which figures its job is to make life as good as possible for the people.

Over in Los Angeles, you’ve got departments for Aging, Housing, Cultural Affairs, El Pueblo (whatever that is, exactly), Disability, Environmental Affairs, Information Technology, Neighborhood Empowerment, Community Development, Community Re-Development (in case Development doesn’t work out, I guess), Cultural Affairs…none of which, I guess, can be spared to provide some money to clean up graffiti and repair the side walks. Meanwhile, St George seems to get by with far fewer departments – but the sidewalks are in good shape, and the city is tidy as a parade ground.

Of course, Los Angeles is a lot bigger than St George – but it also, then, has vastly more people to do actual work, as well as far more funds for getting the work done. Running a city – or, indeed, any government – isn’t rocket science. All it takes is a reasonable degree of public involvement and this creates the sort of political class who will sit down and decide that its time to get those sidewalks fixed…in Los Angeles, you have public apathy leading to an entrenched class of political looters who see no upside in actually taking care of the city.

To fix what is wrong with America will take direct action on the part of the American people to clear out the current Ruling Class. The people who have run Los Angeles, California and, to a large extent, America in to the ground must be replaced by the sort of people who have kept St George in good shape even in a down economy. Our first step in this task comes in November – but it is only a first step. From top to bottom, government must be overturned – the corrupt Ruling Class must give way to new men and women who will do the right thing, and they must in their turn be watched by an aroused people, who will not let things slip again.

I was depressed by what I saw in Los Angeles (as I have been by what I’ve seen increasingly in Las Vegas which mirrors Los Angeles’ destruction), but encouraged by what I saw in St George. We can fix this – we can restore our nation. All we have to do is make the effort.