[Sosfbay-discuss] Baldwin Hills Oil: 'Drill, Baby, Drill' -- Through the Heart of Obama Country

[alexcathy at aol.com]

Dear
Green Friends,







I can’t believe the way my life works. Cathy Deppe and I only moved to Los Angeles from San Jose a few years
ago. Now comes the kind of fight that ought to be issue #1 for California Greens and it’s happening in an inner-city,
nearly all-black community walking distance from my house.







What was that business about why in the world a Black Man would join the Green Party?
The Powers That Be are here sending a message that for all the talk about "change! change! change!"
from the one corporate party with two names, ain't nothing gonna change and it will be business as usual on January 20th.





Alex Walker 

Los Angeles Greens




= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =






Baldwin Hills Oil: 'Drill, Baby, Drill' -- Through the Heart of Obama Country 





by Alex Walker 







"Drill, baby, drill!" - was a popular cheer at the 2008 Republican National
Convention. It's a parody of "Burn, baby, burn," the infamous cry
during the 1965 Watts rebellion in Los Angeles. Ironically, it was former
Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, one of the Republican Party's very few
prominent black politicians, leading the cheer for the riot of the privileged:




So, do you want to put your country first? Then let's reduce our dependency on
foreign sources of oil and promote oil and gas production at home. In other
words: Drill, baby, drill!20And drill now!





Baldwin Hills, View Park, Windsor Hills, and Ladera Heights in Los Angeles, are
some of the most prominent middle-class African-American neighborhoods in the
United States. Blacks are more than 70% of Baldwin Hills' population. After
Blacks began moving there in the 1960s, it was nicknamed the "Golden
Ghetto" and the "Black Beverly Hills." It has been home to
celebrities like Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Tina Turner and the late Los
Angeles Mayor, Tom Bradley. Black Entertainment Television (BET) used the
setting for the "Baldwin Hills" television show.







The Fight Over the Baldwin Hills Oil Field

Visit Web Site at: www.baldwinhillsoil.org 

Watch Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bSWaMlOxXQ









The two-square-mile Baldwin Hills Oil Field is the last large-scale undeveloped
open space in South and West Los Angeles. The Oil Field has operated since
1924. Over time, it naturally becomes harder to extract oil for old wells until
at some point they become unprofitable. In recent years the field had almost
played out. As the oil companies have left, a large area has been designated
the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. For years, the old field and the
surrounding nice residential neighborhoods coexisted. But this is the era when
everything you ever thought you could rely on from American business - job
security, health care, pensions, or even honest accounting - is old fashioned.







Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP) based in (where else?) Ho
uston,
Texas wants to drill up to 1,000 new wells over the next 20 years. Next week
there'll be what's expected to be a contentious public hearing









Los Angeles County Planning
Commission

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Hall of Administration, 

Room 381B

500 West Temple Street

Los Angeles, CA 90012





. . . 



Corporate America is sending a message that for all the talk about "change! change! change!"
from the one corporate party with two names, ain't nothing gonna change and it will be business as usual 
on January 20th. 





. . . 







In 2001, California was
plunged into an unprecedented energy crisis: rolling blackouts, soaring power
bills, a panicked state government. Turned out the Golden State was being
systematically ripped-off. Documents and audiotapes proved Houston-based Enron
Corporation asked power companies to take plants offline - in order to make
more money. In one taped phone call, an Enron employee celebrated the fact that 
a massive forest fire had shut down a transmission line:











ENRON EMPLOYEE 1: Yeah.

ENRON EMPLOYEE 2: Now, the magical word of the day is "Burn, baby,
burn."

ENRON EMPLOYEE 1: What's happening?

ENRON EMPLOYEE 2: There's a fire under the core line. This will delay us from
45 to 2,100.

ENRON EMPLOYEE 1: Really. Burn, baby, burn!









When Michael Steele cried "Drill, Baby, Drill!" to the GOP faithful,
maybe he wasn't thinking about Watts in 1965. Maybe he was th
inking about
Enron's battle cry in 2001.







Less than a decade later, thanks to the terrifying spike in oil prices, the
energy greedheads and carbon pushers are trying to stampede Californians into
accepting offshore oil drilling and new drilling in old wells even though all
the experts agree this will have no impact on the global marketplace for oil.
As I write this, the "Drill, Baby, Drill" crowd is pushing hard for
offshore drilling in Santa Barbara, Long Beach, Monterey Bay, and even off
Point Reyes (see www.environmentcalifornia.org).







And always, always, they try to divide us and rule us by playing off class,
religious, and "racial" differences. 







(Read More At: 
cagreening.blogspot.com






Check Out These Articles: 





Expanded Drilling May Imperil Park Master Plan
 by Arin Mikailian, Los Angeles WAVE, September 4, 2008. 








Backyard Bonanza or Environmental Time Bomb? by Gregg Reese, Our Weekly, July 3 - 6, 2008.








Oil Field's Neighbors Aren't Gushing Over Expansion Plan
 by Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2008. 




= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =






-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cagreens.org/pipermail/sosfbay-discuss_lists.cagreens.org/attachments/20080906/0828b7f4/attachment.html>