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Letters
Design paranoia
Dear ER:
It appears that Redondo's own "good taste committee" has surrendered to the paranoia surrounding the world's recent terrorist attacks. Why else would they select for Redondo Beach's new logo one that looks like a semiautomatic rifle? Is the city council, which recently approved it thinking it will subliminally send those feared terrorists (and possibly gang members too) a warning about what they'll encounter if they try to mess with Redondo Beach?
And what's with the youthful lower-case type used for the word Redondo.
Is Mayor pro ten John Parsons right in suspecting that perhaps it's a bit trendy and in a few years will look out of style?
Also, won't the use of tinted screens make the logo difficult to reproduce. Not making a basic solid black image available could prove an expensive reproduction hardship for many of the City's organizations and events that will want to use the logo in their often tight-budgeted promotions.
Finally, why would a Pasadena design firm be selected to create the logo as opposed to one of the many capable firms located in our very own city?
Before the city spends the estimated $597,210 to proliferate this image throughout our peaceful city, please, give it a second thought as to what the long-term and "half-second" impression this new city logo will make.
One of Some
Redondo Beach
Supermajority rule
Dear ER:
Bob Pinzler makes a common mistake in his analysis of Manhattan Beach’s election (On Local Government, ER Nov. 22, 2001). He forgets that ours is not a simple democracy but in fact a liberal one (liberal democracy in the classic sense of the term, i.e., a government which balances the desires of the majority with respect of individual and minority rights). The need to maintain this difficult balance is why certain important, enduring laws such as Constitutional changes and often the power of the purse require a two-thirds majority or greater. The will of the majority is not absolute, nor should it be. Even a 60 percent requirement is weak protection against unwise policy. For example, should all people named Bob be put in jail because 61 percent wish it so? Of course not. That would be not only unjust but just plain silly. Likewise, one might suggest that paying $600 dollars-a-square-foot for a public facility in a small town is unjust and silly. Perhaps this is not so, but obviously there is some serious doubt in the matter. It is plausible to see the election results as a general questioning of the city council’s grandiose plans. The 39 percent who voted against Y are quite justified in being skeptical.
Their concerns should be respected rather than the subject of arrogant aspersions from a city council which has yet to prove its case. The principle of a two-thirds supermajority thus remains a solid precaution against unwise government. Perhaps Pinzler would find more fertile ground for his column in asking why our elected representatives have so callously dismissed the opinions of 39 percent of the citizens they claim to represent.
Jim Potter
Manhattan Beach
Wilson’s words
Dear ER:
Manhattan Beach residents, wake up. The city should not continue with the Metlox shopping mall, especially when the city council plans to subsidize the developers with $9.5 million of our tax dollars for an underground parking structure that we don’t need. The councilmembers also have admitted that they do not have a solution for the traffic quagmire that will result from a shopping mall on the Metlox site. After councilmember Linda Wilson voted no on the Metlox development, she offered some sobering, thoughts as follows: "The residents of Manhattan Beach don’t need any more traffic in our downtown areas." "Combining a negative environmental report, a negative economic report and a price tag of $9.5 million to subsidize a developer, there is nothing good for the residents of Manhattan Beach." "The project is not a win-win, it is a no-win for the residents." "Yes, the funds being used on this project could be used to finance our new police and fire building."
Doesn’t it make sense to apply the $9.5 million towards the priority of police and fire and scratch Metlox, which has too many unanswered problems? The Metlox site would be an ideal adjunct to the civic center development where you could have beautiful surface parking along with gardens and paths to enhance our civic center and save $9.5 million at the same time.
Robert Caldwell
Manhattan Beach
Small is beautiful
Dear ER:
On behalf of the members of Residents for a Small Town Downtown, we restate our position that the public safety facility should be the city’s top priority. However, we feel that appropriate development of the Metlox site is also important to the community. Over the past three years working together, this community has made great progress in identifying a suitable size and scope of use for the property, although that work is certainly not complete. The current circumstances will require changes in how the development is handled, but we feel that the community can and should continue to work together to find the creative solutions to move forward.
Marika Bergsund
Residents for a Small Town Downtown
Orwellian attack
Dear ER:
As I wait for hours at LAX, being warned prior to search that any objects with a sharp edge will be confiscated, "including tweezers," I can only conclude that America is home of the wimps. Surely, travelers by now realize the problems with docile acquiescence of their aircraft by thugs wielding knives, (let alone tweezers). But judging by the absurd quest of airport security "to make traveling absolutely safe," the American public has devolved into spineless wonders. It's no wonder. The national hysteria about 17 cases of anthrax is more a testament to the yuppie fear of germs than a credible threat. The constant barrage of politicians warning of future terrorist activity has created a run on parachutes, gas masks and other paranoid paraphernalia, even though one is more likely to meet his or her fate on the freeway. The Post Master General was recently lambasted by a generation of coddled Americans for suggesting that "life has its risks."
The latest pronouncement by George W, "enemies will use liberty to attack liberty," to justify the erosion of certain rights suggests that Orwell was off by 17 years. If as polls suggest, Americans are willing to sacrifice liberties for the sake of safety, then despite what happens in Afghanistan, the terrorists have won. Thomas Jefferson warned, "Those who trade liberty for safety will eventually lose both."
Robert Benz
Hermosa Beach
Hidden potential
Dear ER:
It was with great interest that I read about former Polish President Lech Walesa's recent speech at the Redondo Performing Arts Center ("No Political Potential," ER Nov. 29, 2001).
Contrary to popular belief Lech Walesa is not the founder of Solidarity. That honor goes to Anna Walentanowicz (Walen-TEN-owitz), who delegated a certain level of authority to Walesa only a few days after Solidarity's founding. Walesa then used it to accrue power to himself and boot Walentanowicz out of the top position. From then on he began a history of cutting deals with the Communists, including allowing Party members to become Solidarity members, causing Walentanowicz and others to break off and form their own splinter organization, "Fighting Solidarity." Fighting Solidarity attempted to field candidates for political spots in the 1989 elections but was harassed and financially suppressed by the authorities. The how and why of this is one of the greatest little told stories of the 20th Century.
After Stalin's death in 1953 the KGB began a significant restructuring of itself. It shed the Stalin cult paranoia, which had short-circuited primitive yet effective offensive operations of the Lenin era in favor of a program of long-term "disinformation," a program whose goal was to sow confusion in Western circles about the evolution of the Soviet bloc. This restructuring crystallized under the leadership of KGB chairman Alexander Shelepin (1958-60) with official adoption of this long-range policy, a policy which would employ engineered splits between Communist nations, false internal political struggles, exaggerations of military strength, controlled reform programs, and false opposition movements.
The first known Soviet false opposition movement was one of the early Lenin successes, the Monarchist Association of Central Russia, commonly known as "The Trust." Composed in part by former White Russian and Tsarist military officers, it really was the creation of the KGB's forerunner, the Cheka, and its leader Felix Dzerzhinsky. The purpose of such movements, in both the USSR and other Communist nations, was to draw genuine political opposition out into the open to be crushed and to sow false hope in Western circles about the evolution of Communist regimes into freer states in order to gain their financial support.
The history of Solidarity's development after Walentanowicz's departure is the history of just such a false opposition. One expert on the subject, former KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn, who defected to the West after being involved in the initial planning stages of the long-range policy, wrote of this extensively in his 1984 book "New Lies for Old." A generally dry and highly technical work on the history of Soviet disinformation, in the second to last chapter Golitsyn wrote that Solidarity would in a few years actually come to power in a new, post-Communist coalition government, but would still be controlled by the Party and KGB from behind the scenes. Indeed, post-election Poland in 1989 still had the Party in control of the military, the courts, the police, and the parliament. Golitsyn was able to accurately forecast this as a part of a larger set of predictions in which he foretold the imminent rise of a reformist Soviet leader (Gorbachev) and Soviet reforms that would spill over into Eastern Europe, resulting in dramatic changes that would make the Communist economic system collapse but leave the Communists in power, even if only from behind the scenes. This collapse was considered necessary by the KGB in order to make possible European unification, long a KGB political goal and a desired goal for power-seekers who do not care under which label power is accrued. This is not an exaggerated account. In fact, Golitsyn's book is freely available within the Los Angeles public library system, an account that would devastate with its high detail all other academic theories on the collapse of Communism, freely available yet tucked away and forgotten.
Who is in control in Russia today is a matter of debate, though it is safe to say that instead of disappearing the Soviet Communist Party morphed itself into a powerful underground alliance with the Russian Mafia. This is backed up by the testimony of several former Soviet intelligence officers, including former military intelligence Colonel Stanislav Lunev.
As for Walesa, one can only speculate as to whether he is still serving others today or just himself. His calls for greater internationalism may indicate the former, though it was interesting to see him criticize Gorbachev. He is a clever, skilled manipulator. His betrayal and ignoring of Walentanowicz all these years, especially with statements that he alone had "10 million supporters" after the Pope's visit, is disgustingly immoral. Unfortunately, it was a safe bet that not one listener in the audience at Walesa's speech had ever heard of Anna Walentanowicz, the true and uncompromising founder of Poland's Solidarity.
John Weldon
Playa Del Rey
Injustice articulated
Dear ER:
For at least the 100th time, John A. Jackson has taken my scattered thoughts and beliefs and masterfully put them into eloquent words ("Injustice for all," ER Nov. 29, 2001). His last paragraph, "If you want to protect freedom for yourself you cannot begin by stealing it from others" cuts straight through mounds of rhetorical Bushit. There are also no truer words when he writes (referring to George W. Bush) "Does he know that in purporting to defend liberty he is dealing liberty a mortal blow."
Not only is Jackson one of the finest writers of our time, he’s also a great patriot. We in the South Bay are lucky to have Shadow Government as a voice of reason during these disturbing times.
Dawn Clifton
Manhattan Beach