I went down to City Hall today to check out “Bastille Day.”  It was an event that was organized by a blogger named Ron Kaye.  Ron used to be the editor at the L.A. Daily News and has since taken up writing about Los Angeles at RonKayeLA.com.  Ron’s liberation from the newsroom has not only allowed him to become more of an activist but, oddly enough, has given him a better ability to understand the issues and problems the city faces.  This has led him to start the Saving LA Project. 

    The Saving LA Project believes that Los Angeles is losing its hold as a great city and this “Bastille Day” was for people who feel frustrated with City Hall to come down and let “the man” know.  It featured all of the charms and annoyances of grass roots populism, including a wide swath of issues people were upset about, from “The schools should be better” to “more bike lanes.”  I was hoping to get a word with Ron (maybe another time) but I did meet up with Doug McIntyre.  Doug is a local talk show host and a friend of mine.  I put up his speech

on the podcast page.  The speech would only have been better if he was speaking from the bed of a pick up truck.  It had that kind of feel to it and  I think it’s a fine articulation of some of the frustrations many people feel in this country right now.  A feeling that while we have our differences, there are some things that surely we must all agree on, and if we agree on them then what’s preventing us from accomplishing them? 

    For Doug and many of the people in attendance (maybe 150 non-media?) the answer in part is that L.A.’s City Hall is not of, by, and for the people.  The city is so divided culturally, geographically, and economically that it’s easy for moneyed interests to influence the process and control those decision makers who do not so much represent their areas as rule them like fiefdoms.

    Of course it’s a fine line between that and simple pluralism.  Everyone there seemed comfortable enough being a part of one big, happy mob so long as no one got specific.  Who could be against making LA more bike friendly after all, so long as we don’t have to discuss how to do it?  Throw several million dollars at it though and close a few road lanes around the city and see how quickly the people - the other people - start making noise. 

   

That’s what made today so interesting to me.  This was not a rally for a cause.  This was not a rally for a plan.  This was a rally to get people to congregate and while that sounds a little ridiculous at first I wonder if it isn’t actually a very modern American desire.  As I described above, Los Angeles is particularly divided into all sorts of subcategories and in the end, what is more divisive then the computer itself?  At our computer we’re all just one portal with our  own political, economic, and entertainment profile.  The Saving LA Project would not happen during an earlier time in history, say for example the 1930s, because people were always out mingling and giving speeches. 

    In America we rarely seem to think much about history and when we do, we tend to think of history as something that’s political.  But history is cultural and economic and environmental and more.  Looking at today’s event I got the sense I was watching something disguised as political that was really social.  There’s a part of McIntyre’s speech in the beginning where he talks about how people who do care are made to feel like they’re the crazy ones.  The audience responded to that as much as any other line the whole day.  In essence, Ron Kaye threw out a “message in a bottle” from his computer to see if people still cared, about the city and about each other.  That was really the only qualification for joining.  Over a hundred people got Ron’s message and showed up in a public space to show that they did care, and perhaps to throw their own message in a bottle.