The Danish Peace Academy
Letter from Califonia
By Kurt Singer
There are now 135 candidates for the governorship of California. You need 50 signatures of support and pay $3.500. None of them mentioned the homelss .Only one of the 135 candidates offered a solution how to repay the state's $38.6 Billion debt. Larry Flynt the porno king suggested that slot machines the one armed bandits should be put all over the state in clubs, restaurants, gas stations, motels and where ever you find open space. With these profits you could repay the state's debts within 5-10 years. A striptease dancer and club owner is another candidate and a surprise sex bomb exploded when the media produced an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Oui Magazine 26 years ago.
He was then 29 years old and single. His film PUMPIMG IRON was playing in the theatres. In the interview Arnie said: "Bodybuilders party a lot and once at Gold's the gym in Venice, California where all the top guys train-there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs where we all got together.". " A bang bang" asked the OUI interviewer.
"Yes" said Schwarzenegger" but not everybody." At another point Arnie admitted he had used drugs and estroids " but only grass and hash." He also mentioned that he harbored no prejudices against gays but called them "fags".
Will these youthful sins hurt Schwarzenegger? probably not nor the fact that his father was a member of the Nazi SA stormtroopers. What could hurt in the election is his heavy Steiermark accent when he debates and makes election speeches. His films have always a well manicured and well trained English. Actually Schwarzenegger has a fairly liberal program. He defends a woman's right to decide about her own body, he wants gays to have equal rights but not same sex marriages. He is for health insurance for all children and is opposed to the death sentence. Both his 2 Republican rivals hold opposite neo conservative views. Arnold has 4 children and is married for 17 years to Maria Kennedy Shriver a Democrat and a televion hostess and Kennedy family member. Arnie's wealth is astonishing with over 200 million invested in real estate and stocks and bonds including large amounts of Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and General Electric stocks.His advisors includ Warren Buffet the billionaire who wants to raise real estate taxes and donated money to Hillary Rodham Clinton's election. He opposes the Bush tax refund policies.
The New York Times reports that a reporter asked him about his role in the last Predator III movie. Arnie replied:"It's not often that you can put a woman's head in a toilet bowl." The NY Times believes it may cost him the women's vote. The Mexican vote he had already lost.
Governor Gray Davis was unlucky in his administration when the large utilities gave California a giant blackout and electricity prices were sky rocketing and increased the state's debt to 38,6 billion dollars. His trippling of car plate fees was hurting him also his refusal to give the illegal undocunented Mexican immigrant a driver's license. A point of advantage to Lt. Governor Cruz Busamente's candidacy. He is of Mexican decent. All 3 major candidates are extremely well financed by differen interest groups. Bustamente received not only large sums from the labor unions of California but also from the native Indians and their gambling palaces.
Most Californians say this election is a 3 Ring Circus or a Zoo where all cages had been opened. Some say smilingly this is just another bad Hollywood B Movie script. My grandson Josh a post graduate student at the University of California wrote to me: "Nothing will change the Uni tuitions are incredibly high and so are our text books and there is no health insurance for poor people."
Another controversy is plaguing this golden sunshine state. Mel Gibson produced a highly provocative movie, THE PASSION, about the last hours of Jesus life. Both Jewish and Cathlic critics claim the film could have a cinderbox effect producing bigotry and anti semitism on a global scale. It shows how some Jews helped with the Crucifiction of Jesus. A scene which had been eliminated decades ago by the world famous Passion Play in Oberammergau. Gibson belong to a break way splinter group who opposed the Vatican and reinstated services in Latin. It openly opposed the Vatican. Gibson's father Hutton wrote many essays about the faults of the mother church and denied the existence of the Holocaust in a New York Times Magazine article. Now the 20th Century Fox, a Ruppert Murdoch organzation refused to distribute the 25 million dollar movie and so did all major film distributors. It's a controversial issue and Mel Gibson still refuses to make changes.
On the more positive side school classes visit now the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles whichj celebrated its 10th year of creating multi cultural understanding. It celebrated Martin Luther King's Birthday and Jacky Robinson's Black History Month. Some of the Mexican school or college students admitted they never knew much about the Holocaust and the millions of Poles who were killed by Hitler and Stalin's hordes.
Officially there are 33 million people living in California and ptobably 2 million illegal Mexicans, Latinos and Asians.
Only 3 % are Jewish but hate crimes against them in California rose 42.2% of the 1.957reported hate crimes. Gays, Hispanics and Asians are victims but Afro Americans count the largest number of victims.
The anti war protests are growing particularly in San Francisco.
The recallelection will also be a testing ground for the presidential votes in 2004. One wonders if California is still the melting port of many cultures or a pressure cooker in the hands of political candidates.
 |
 |