King of California (unedited)
Very easy, fun and satisfying… and necessary
by O’Xman

“Today, the leading cause of death isn’t the police or firearms. It’s heart disease.”
– Raj Patel addressing death in West Oakland, California

“You’ve got to believe in treasure to find it,” says the promo for King of California, the new Alexander Payne/Michael London film starring Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood.

At one point in the film, Miranda, the teenage daughter of Charlie, Douglas’ “mad, obsessed, recently released” character, characterizes her father’s behavior, reprimanding him: “You act as if the world is here for your amusement!” There’s a pregnant pause, and then Charlie responds, shrugging: “Well, look at the world.”

Our next Governor of California — since it will be someone who genuinely cares about the state’s citizens, souls — will begin to seriously reduce the leading causes of death in West Oakland and elsewhere.

That’ll be an easy no-brainer to accomplish, and it will scare the hell out of the powers-that-be, in part, because The Guv’s first steps in that direction will follow close on the heels of her/his placing a permanent moratorium on the death penalty AND releasing thousands of incarcerated souls*. And helping people to get back to legit work.

*Anyone who has a viscerally negative reaction immediately to this plan should NOT recoil in horror. Not unless they’re willing to insist upon the biggest thieves in the world — our Wall Street speculators dabbling in derivatives — be taxed at least 1% or 2% — on all of their billion dollar transactions. The kind of money to be derived by that little, legalistic lateral step would lasso in more than enough to solve all the financial problems of all of our West Oaklands, AND make for a level playing field in the process. I could address the justice of releasing murderers too vis-a-vis our elite abominations at home and abroad, but….

Raj Patel’s “In the Garden of the Black Panthers” section of Chapter Eight in STUFFED AND STARVED makes it easier to understand how we can fight the powers-that-be successfully respecting our food system… which, as it stands, is killing us on several counts. Contact me, and I’ll get a copy for you right away. But feel free to skip over all the Patel-related blah blah if you get bored with the details (or put off by my positive Black Panther take) ’cause my punch line below is worthwhile in and of itself.

To summarize:

~ Supermarkets have to, and WILL go.

~ A relationship with producers that is more direct and engaged will substitute.

~ Community Supported Agriculture systems (CSAs) will provide delivery of whatever happens to be in season.

~ Fewer miles will be traveled between grower and eater, AND energy and resources used for refrigeration/transportation will be saved too.

~ Labor rights will be secured by following the model of a San Francisco Bay Area group of shops inspired by a local Basque priest… where everyone is a truly equal member, making decisions together, etc. …with a strong commitment to self-government, social transformation and education. Working conditions, benefits and pay are already — at the Arizmendi Bakery in Oakland — far, far superior to what’s offered by, say, Wal-Mart.

~ Cooperativism will surpass, not replace, capitalism… assimilating capitalism’s methods and dynamism.

~ Markets will be put under the control of workers/consumers rather than those people being controlled by markets… which is what we have with supermarkets.

Here I need to quote directly from Patel:

“Arizmendi isn’t the only group that has risen to meet the challenge of finding food, and employment, in the city. Oakland itself is a community with a memory of struggle. The last struggle, fought against institutionalized racism within the police and the government, summoned the full fury of the state. The struggle was that of the Black Panthers. Most of the community leaders were imprisoned or killed, and the community was subsequently torn apart by urban development projects and transportation links. But from the ashes of the old struggle come important lessons for the new.”

Given what we know — what I hope the reader knows — about redlining, and the quality of food available to people of color in the U.S., we must fall to our knees in grateful thanks for the CSAs, AND beg forgiveness to the scenarios we permitted vis-a-vis the well-intentioned Black Panthers. Make true amends for those who continue to suffer from the ripples of that history.

Back to summarizing that section of Patel’s:

~ Oakland abuts the very plush Emeryville, home to Pixar Animation’s campus… which has supermarkets and huge retail space up the kazoo, whilst West Oakland (with 30,000 strong) has 36 convenience/liquor stores and ONE supermarket.

~ West Oakland’s People’s Grocery is showing the way out by devoting itself to the business of education, logistics and transformation… growing its own food — a skill, I might add, which is ESSENTIAL to our survival in the face of today’s ecocidal momentum — and dealing in organic fresh fruits and veggies, for the most part.

It’s time for comfortable caucasians — A very good title for a future article! — to acknowledge the invaluable contribution made by the likes of People’s Grocery and Black Panthers… publicly announcing that they now see through the mean-spirited, misleading imagery the remains with us still. Which — to this day — encourages stillborn births, unfruitful futures.

Again, I am moved to quote Patel directly:

“The grocery takes its educational activities seriously. At the local YMCA, residents can attend nutritional classes organized by the People’s Grocery to learn what to do with locally grown food. The People’s Grocery is also in the education biz, developing a holistic understanding of community change, by providing the services to the local community that no one else will. They are, in some ways, walking in the footsteps of the Black Panthers. The Panthers dealt with life-and-death issues facing the community, saw access to food as a community concern (setting up food giveaways and community breakfasts) and using the energy and savvy within the community feel they ought.”

Now… read what follows very slowly:

“The danger in this kind of activism lies in the differences between the People’s Grocery (and the many similar groups around the world which direct their energies towards community hunger) and the Panthers. Unlike the latter, the former tend to be popular with governments and donors.”

The powers-that-be are happy to sponsor organizations founded on a self-help ethos, using only small resources… without having to acknowledge the existence of poverty.

Everyone on the High Ground in West Oakland acknowledges that they’re involved in something which has a deep political dimension. As Patel notes, “The raised fist on their [the People's Grocery] logo is more than a genuflection to the ghost of Black Power.”

Yes, we must be aware that there’s CONFRONTATION ahead. If we want to save people, save ourselves… since we are now bonded at our common, cancerous community bone. That’s why I’m writing this. And as I write… fights are being waged over the use of public lands and role of food education in the schools. And more, of course.

As Patel underscores, however: “So far, the People’s Grocery has succeeded through wit, hard work, inspiration and a great deal of community goodwill. The moment it succeeds too far, and starts to change the environment for business, is the moment it can expect a bigger fight. And that’s because what’s at stake isn’t only the dominion of the supermarket, but the stability of an entire matrix of living, working and consumption, one that shapes not only our choices but… our very selves.”

When people defend our way of life, they often invoke the factor of choice… a word which is used in the paragraph directly above this one. Our “choices” are dictated by environment, customs, our routine. Habit, as Beckett said (and I often note) is The Great Deadener. And if anyone’s The Walking Dead it’s your Everyday Shopper on Automatic.

We pick this box instead of that one. Choice. It’s the word we’re taught to choose… in defending the status quo. In virtually all of our schools of choice, by the way.

Yes, no one pointed a gun at your head when you chose Brand A over Brand ZZ. However, coercion is not necessarily the opposite of CHOICE, is it?

How ’bout INSTINCT? Yes, much more spot-on-target here.

And, as Patel sums up, “our instincts have been so thoroughly captured by forces beyond our control that they’re suspect to the core.”

No one has managed to corrupt the core of Michael Douglas’ Charlie. He’s kept the courage of his convictions. He HAS convictions. Sweet ones… that feed us all.

What CSAs save people and the environment — the degree to which they SAVE people — is an indication of the resource profligacy of the way we expect to eat, with foods from around the world, on tap, all the time.

That cannot go on, obviously. The status quo.

Like Charlie says, “Look at the world.”

You don’t have to become The Savior. You can simply have some fun, like Charlie. And, in the process, do much more good than harm.

I’m quite tired of my White friends who either don’t know or don’t care about The Slavery. Also tired of the way in which the explain it all away. And/or the way in which they say they can’t do anything about what’s coming down… when I’ve put a no money/no time/no problem proposal on the table for their consideration… only requiring imagination.

Yes, I’m now fully ready for my Black, Brown and True Blue friends (of any color) to join hands in making a difference along the lines of http://oxtogrind.org/archive/268, http://oxtogrind.org/archive/265, http://oxtogrind.org/archive/264, http://oxtogrind.org/archive/263, http://oxtogrind.org/archive/262, and http://oxtogrind.org/archive/261, among many, many others.

What Whites-in-Charge and/or Too Much Comfort (unexamined) take for granted is a function of what’s been essentially White Arrogance/Power. What Blacks (and all immiserated souls) experience is a function of horrid history and resignation at present.

That will change.

And I don’t have to be or appoint a King of California to force that change. In fact, I rather prefer the notion of Queen of California. Better yet… Queen Bee of California.

Best scenario would be The People of California, as opposed to The Gangsters, the protected, insensitive murderers who run the state. Sad, stupid, suicidal specimens.

Loafing drones would do a better job for all of us… in Sacramento.

For just as the South’s emancipated slaves would have, in many instances, been better off with NO GOVERNMENT rather than what they got during Reconstruction… today’s citizens, slaving away or not, would benefit from the absence of orchestrated abominations and the horror of what our present momentum guarantees. Ignorance compounding ignorance.

There’s a scene in King of California where — in a flashback — we see Miranda being called on the carpet by her grade school teacher over a replica of an early 19th-century Mission which she’s brought to school. The teacher is absolutely flabbergasted at the depiction of dead Native Americans slaughtered by the Christians… lying on the Mission floor. As per Charlie’s advice. “If they question you,” says Charlie, “tell ‘em to look it up.”

Well, I looked it up long ago. And now I’m ready to go with it.

California now ranks 50th in the nation in education, I believe. And there’s a lot of hunger outside the Mission walls.

It’s time for a new King of California. The People… with their truth.

O’Xman can be reached at headburg@yahoo.com. Michael Douglas told the author that King of California was his favorite script ever! That’s saying a lot from someone who’s looked at the scripts he’s looked at in the past several decades, yes?