Shaenah brings up an important point about fire management. I live in N. California, close to the Oregon border and we have fires yearly for the same reason. Indigenous peoples have used fire as a tool to manage the land for thousands of years. Cultural burning by the indigenous was halted in 1836 even as settlers clear-cut the forests, but the healthy burning has begun again here on BLM and private lands. We are happy that our communities are working together to restore balance to the land even as they tear down the dams to restore the health of our rivers.
The timing of the LA fires is suspect. I grew up in So Cal and only moved here 15 years ago. The Santa Ana winds are usually not this early in the new year nor as strong. Add in that the water tanks were not full enough to produce the pressure needed to work properly, that the copters and water planes could not fly early on because Biden was supposed to be coming to town and that the insurance companies (many of them) pulled out again recently, and that it is said salt water from the ocean is hard on the fire plane equipment so not used (even if it could have saved homes and livestock) and there is much to raise suspicions.
there have been six fires, with santa ana winds, since 1984, in january. Not common but not really unusual either. These were very UNUSUALLY strong winds, though. I cant remember ever seeing those desert winds at 100mph. Not ever. But there are always suspectf aspects to such catastrophes. The lack of water is partly just corruption at the state level (Newsome and almond growing dynasties)....plus water is always an issue in so. cal. But the main factor, in the end, is what mike davis highlighted.....the western end of LA ...straight through to malibu, were thickly populated by the wealthy as enclaves of privacy, of exclusion, of distance from the poor. Those PCH houses were on beaches that only THEY could access. The general population were never allowed there. These symbolically gated communities were the very fuel for fires that davis warned against.
True, although media is calling these hurricane force winds a once-in-40-year event, I have never heard of winds at that velocity coming off the desert in California. But my entire life I remember the homes along PCH in Malibu being destroyed by fire or the ocean waves during winter storms. I keep hearing people talk about land grabs, but what happened in places like New Orleans after Katrina and even on Maui are dissimilar in that the homes were not owned by the uber wealthy, whereas in Malibu and Calabasas and other LA locations burning, the inhabitants have the money to rebuild and usually don't lose their land to the banks afterwards. I have heard that some of the fires were arson-suspected.
One matter which I don’t believe you mention is Elon Musk’s decision to highlight the “Muslim rape gang” meme. This is admittedly a UK matter though it will probably have parallels elsewhere. The story goes that Arab men have been grooming white girls in Britain and the police are too frightened to do anything about it for fear of being called racist.
It is an amalgam of two of the most oft repeated memes in imperialist propaganda: that brown men are raping white women (as astonishingly resurrected in those images given in the German press after the alleged sex abuses in Cologne) and the old “enemy within” I.e. those lily livered Left liberals are weakening us by making allowances for “savages”. (,And as we all know, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”.)
One curious thing is that the media is stoking up this topic from both sides. Channel 4 has run articles that uphold the rape gang story and others calling it fake news.
Also, the UK Muslim rape gang meme follows the same leering prurience as the tales of rape from Oct 7. One such tells us how a girl was “prepared” for anal sex by use of a pump. (The Western fixation with all things anal.) Another tells how a child ended up as kebab meat sold in a takeaway. Note the stereotypical linking of Arabs with kebab shops. Musk and the media are stirring up an ugly brew.
A key element of the current wildfires is all the water California received last winter into spring. This allowed excessive growth of quick growing vegetation that once dry could quickly feed initial sparks from electric wires etc.
But southern Cali didn't get excessive rainfall in 2024 and hasn't had rain in eight months. While I understand cloud seeding only works if there are existing clouds, one would think there were enough cloudy days to help produce rain in LA throughout the year. This is not to say I am all for spraying stuff in our atmosphere, just that I know it is done regularly, why was it not done preemptively in drought conditions?
Shaenah brings up an important point about fire management. I live in N. California, close to the Oregon border and we have fires yearly for the same reason. Indigenous peoples have used fire as a tool to manage the land for thousands of years. Cultural burning by the indigenous was halted in 1836 even as settlers clear-cut the forests, but the healthy burning has begun again here on BLM and private lands. We are happy that our communities are working together to restore balance to the land even as they tear down the dams to restore the health of our rivers.
The timing of the LA fires is suspect. I grew up in So Cal and only moved here 15 years ago. The Santa Ana winds are usually not this early in the new year nor as strong. Add in that the water tanks were not full enough to produce the pressure needed to work properly, that the copters and water planes could not fly early on because Biden was supposed to be coming to town and that the insurance companies (many of them) pulled out again recently, and that it is said salt water from the ocean is hard on the fire plane equipment so not used (even if it could have saved homes and livestock) and there is much to raise suspicions.
there have been six fires, with santa ana winds, since 1984, in january. Not common but not really unusual either. These were very UNUSUALLY strong winds, though. I cant remember ever seeing those desert winds at 100mph. Not ever. But there are always suspectf aspects to such catastrophes. The lack of water is partly just corruption at the state level (Newsome and almond growing dynasties)....plus water is always an issue in so. cal. But the main factor, in the end, is what mike davis highlighted.....the western end of LA ...straight through to malibu, were thickly populated by the wealthy as enclaves of privacy, of exclusion, of distance from the poor. Those PCH houses were on beaches that only THEY could access. The general population were never allowed there. These symbolically gated communities were the very fuel for fires that davis warned against.
True, although media is calling these hurricane force winds a once-in-40-year event, I have never heard of winds at that velocity coming off the desert in California. But my entire life I remember the homes along PCH in Malibu being destroyed by fire or the ocean waves during winter storms. I keep hearing people talk about land grabs, but what happened in places like New Orleans after Katrina and even on Maui are dissimilar in that the homes were not owned by the uber wealthy, whereas in Malibu and Calabasas and other LA locations burning, the inhabitants have the money to rebuild and usually don't lose their land to the banks afterwards. I have heard that some of the fires were arson-suspected.
One matter which I don’t believe you mention is Elon Musk’s decision to highlight the “Muslim rape gang” meme. This is admittedly a UK matter though it will probably have parallels elsewhere. The story goes that Arab men have been grooming white girls in Britain and the police are too frightened to do anything about it for fear of being called racist.
It is an amalgam of two of the most oft repeated memes in imperialist propaganda: that brown men are raping white women (as astonishingly resurrected in those images given in the German press after the alleged sex abuses in Cologne) and the old “enemy within” I.e. those lily livered Left liberals are weakening us by making allowances for “savages”. (,And as we all know, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”.)
One curious thing is that the media is stoking up this topic from both sides. Channel 4 has run articles that uphold the rape gang story and others calling it fake news.
Also, the UK Muslim rape gang meme follows the same leering prurience as the tales of rape from Oct 7. One such tells us how a girl was “prepared” for anal sex by use of a pump. (The Western fixation with all things anal.) Another tells how a child ended up as kebab meat sold in a takeaway. Note the stereotypical linking of Arabs with kebab shops. Musk and the media are stirring up an ugly brew.
A key element of the current wildfires is all the water California received last winter into spring. This allowed excessive growth of quick growing vegetation that once dry could quickly feed initial sparks from electric wires etc.
But southern Cali didn't get excessive rainfall in 2024 and hasn't had rain in eight months. While I understand cloud seeding only works if there are existing clouds, one would think there were enough cloudy days to help produce rain in LA throughout the year. This is not to say I am all for spraying stuff in our atmosphere, just that I know it is done regularly, why was it not done preemptively in drought conditions?