On a recent road trip that
took me from north of Las Vegas where I had travelled to Creech AFB to protest assassination warfare by drone, I
was able to check out nearly 700 miles of highway between Nevada and home in
the Bay Area.
Travelling south from Indian
Springs, soon we found our eyes assaulted by the forest of giant signs that
clutter both sides of the roadway through the architectural aberrations of Las
Vegas, signs that obliterate the skyline, vying for the custom of
passersby eager for cheap thrills. “The Largest Chevron in the World,” screams
one sign, followed by “Size Really Matters.”
Sprung from its commercial
clutches, we continued on our way past hundreds of miles of Nevada
desert, edged by purple and sand-colored hills and mountains, and mile upon
mile of trailers, hundreds and thousands of them, whole trailer towns, some in
decay, their doors gaping empty, their windows smashed. A stranger passing
through these lands might conclude all America (except the super-rich) lives in trailers.
The hills and mountains of
the Tehachapi Pass gave way to a view as far as eye’s reach of California’s
Central Valley, mile upon flat mile of Kern country farmland, studded here and
there with empty corporation yards, spilling over with rusting farm machinery, row upon row of porta potties, and orchards check by jowl
with endless furrows, and more orchards and the occasional vineyard. No people.
No people anywhere. Come to a small town, I spotted one human being, not a
convenience store or gas station employee, or a tourist merely passing through,
but a human being at last, a sighting rare as glimpsing a desert fox. “Look!” I
found myself exclaiming, “there’s a human being.”
I found my eyes straining,
trying to find the occasional family picnicking between the endless rows of
fruit and almond trees, sharing wine perhaps, or perhaps telling stories. Nothing. Where are the folk festivals and
celebrations, the libraries, or the theaters, or the schools or the
universities? No where to be seen. Kern County doesn’t need people anymore. Now
what was once farming has become agribusiness, conducted by machine, plowing,
seeding, watering, weeding; with a possible exception when the harvest rolls
around.
But this eerily depopulated
landscape didn’t just get that way by accident. With the 1902 formation of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, the state began to work with the feds, sorting out the complex legal
fights over water rights. These battles were drawn out but mostly settled
during the New Deal and Truman administration. Activists together with
California cities tried to push through a public power and water system in 1922
but at least $1 million was spent by PG&E and allies to kill that statewide
initiative. In 1933 the state passed new legislation for a $170 million
central valley project that was meant to build dams in the north and construct
canals to ship water south, eventually to Kern county. After a two-year delay
caused by PG&E’s attempts to block the public power project, the US Bureau
of Reclamation took charge, using federal funding to start constructing the
canals and necessary power to pump the water south into San Joaquin Valley, setting
water access levels with 160-acre limitation on all land owners (320 acres for
farms owned jointly by man and wife). PG&E used its massive lobbying
operations to stop most of the project until after the war, but continued to
block power that was needed to pump the water south. According to an article in Zocalo, “an irony of the water projects is that they
killed off half of the smaller family farms…, while helping bigger and richer
corporate “farmers” like Standard Oil, Prudential Financial, Southern Pacific,
Getty Oil and Shell. With the recent seven-year drought, farmers had to let
millions of acres go unplanted.
In 1948 San Joaquin Valley (which includes Kern), there were
around 13,000 farmers with 20 large ones holding over 50% of the land. Over time, other corporations stepped in, bankrupted
the family farms, and bought them up for pennies on the dollar, consolidating their
strangle hold over the Central Valley, impoverishing and polluting the soil,
and significantly contributing to global warming with its heavydependence on plowing
and fossil fuels, pesticides and fertilizers, and establishing a style of
farming that is unsustainable. Today, according to a 2012 article in the San Jose Mercury News, The Central Valley is among the poorest areas in
California and the US, with the Bakersfield area ranking fourth poorest in the
nation. Students who aim for a college degree face many obstacles, and public
education funding is in decline. Many who graduate migrate elsewhere to find
work.
Unrepresented Souls, Depleted Soils
Not only the soils have been
despoiled, but, from the county’s first Indian inhabitants, the people who once
lived and worked there have been displaced. These are the people the US government
has long ago abandoned and left to rot, people who came to recognize that neither corporate party, Democratic or
Republican, represents them or their interests any longer if they ever did.
And it’s this decades-long Republican and
Democrat unresponsiveness that has helped the orange hair revolution come
about.
Where have all the people
displaced by agribusiness gone? On the right of way between Fresno and Hanford,
the train passes through miles of tent cities lining the tracks.
The fare is just $5.00.
Demand big polluters like Exxon and Shell pay up at
Donate to block William Pendley’s appointment to the Bureau
of Land Management where he wants to put all BLM lands East of the Mississippi
up for sale at
Oppose the EPA’s changes regulating the release of methane
gas at
Stressing that money is not speech and corporations are not people, Sanders unveils plan to get corporate $$ out of politics .
Sanders cops key endorsements from AOC, Omar, and Tlaib .
U.S. backed Moreno flees Quito as thousands of indigenous
people enter the city in opposition to IMF-imposed austerity measures. Moreno is
forced to repeal austerity decree and end violence.
Nuclear ban treaty nearly two-thirds of way into entry into
force.
A new website, “QuitICE launches career change program for
ICE agents looking for change.
Abolish ICE, Denver and Denver Communists march through
quiet suburb to home of Johnny Choate to confront the warden of immigrant and
detention facility in Aurora, CO.
California moves to ban for-profit prisons, including
immigrant jails.
Federal judge declares #45 border proclamation unlawful.
#45 public charge rule against immigrants declared unlawful
in the State of California.
Series of rulings in federal courts in New York, California
and Washington State indicate that #45 and senior policy adviser Miller’s
anti-immigrant policy may have struck its limits.
Honduras holds hearing for military intelligence office for
the murder of indigenous and social movement leader, Berta Cáceres.
Thanks to California’s SB 394, eligible parents and
caregivers won’t have to be separated from the children who depend on them,
enabling them to be diverted to rehabilitative programs and counseling.
California’s Gov. Newsom sigs bills to limit the role of
money in elections, make voting more accessible, and enable fairer
representation.
Federal court overrules Pai’s ban on states passing the own
Net Neutrality laws.
Labor wins big time as California passes AB5 securing the
rights for over a million workers misclassified and cheated out of minimum
wages, overtime, workers comp, and other protections.
Federal appeals court upholds House subpoena for #45
financial records — which show discrepancies amounting to fraud.
Appeals Court orders stay of Mountain Valley Pipeline permit.
Citing ‘moral duty to take radical action’ more than 700
scientists endorse mass civil disobedience to fight climate crisis.
Ahead of mass protest on Capitol Hill, doctors demand #45
close ‘inherently immoral’ immigrant detention centers.
Trading information, over 12 different utilities figure out
how to deliver fresh drinking water to over 50 million consumers nationwide.
Chlorpyrifos banned in California.
By unanimous vote, Berkeley becomes 4th US
city to ban face recognition.
Texas cop arrested and charged with murder for shooting
woman in her home.
Police-exonerating Gascon resigns as San Francisco DA.
#45 impeachment barricade crumbles as Fiona Hill cooperates
with Dem’s investigation.
Groups offer to deliver 50,000 comments that Election Assistance
Commission Staff did not allow decision=makers to see.
Earth Justice announces it has repeatedly won court cases
against the #45 administration barring pipelines through the Mojave Desert,
opening up public lands for coal leasing, removing permanent protections from
oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic sea board, and stripping the
Endangered Species Act over the past 1000 days.
