{"article":{"id":220255,"heading":"Fight Over Baldwin Hills Oilfield","author":"Alex Walker","created":"2008-09-08 01:28:05","modified":"2008-09-10 13:59:55","last_modified":"Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:59:55","article":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>\r\n<strong>The Fight Over the Baldwin Hills Oil Field<br>\r\nVisit Web Site at: www.baldwinhillsoil.org \r\n<\/strong>\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n<strong>Baldwin Hills<\/strong>, View Park, Windsor Hills, and Ladera Heights in Los Angeles, are\r\nsome of the most prominent middle-class African-American neighborhoods in the\r\nUnited States. Blacks are more than 70% of Baldwin Hills' population. After\r\nBlacks began moving there in the 1960s, it was nicknamed the \"Golden\r\nGhetto\" and the \"Black Beverly Hills.\" It has been home to\r\ncelebrities like Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Tina Turner and the late Los\r\nAngeles Mayor, Tom Bradley. Black Entertainment Television (BET) used the\r\nsetting for the \"Baldwin Hills\" television show.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>\r\n<strong>Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP)<\/strong> based in (where else?) Houston,\r\nTexas wants to drill up to <strong>1,000 new wells<\/strong> over the next 20 years. Next week\r\nthere will be what is expected to be a contentious public hearing\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>\r\n\r\n<strong>\r\nLos Angeles County Planning\r\nCommission<br>\r\nWednesday, September 10, 2008<br>\r\nHall of Administration, <br>\r\nRoom 381B<br>\r\n500 West Temple Street<br>\r\nLos Angeles, CA 90012\r\n<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nCorporate America is <i>sending a message<\/i> that for all the talk about \"change! change! change!\"\r\nfrom the one corporate party with two names, <i>ain't nothing gonna change<\/i> and it will be business as usual \r\non January 20th. \r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nState Sen. Ridley-Thomas and City Councilman Bernard Parks, both representing this area, are competing for an open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.  Ridley-Thomas backed Obama early when most of California's prominent Black Democrats were backing Sen. Hillary Clinton.  Blogger Ari L. Noonan wryly noted that Councilman Parks  <i>\"lives within sniffing distance of the Baldwin Hills oil field.\" <\/i>  Parks has been embarrassed by the disclosure that he accepted a campaign contribution from PXP in his last campaign for mayor.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nIn the California State Assembly, this area is represented by Karen Bass, another big Obama supporter and the first African-American woman to serve as speaker of a state assembly in the history of the United States. \r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nTwo points.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nFirst, this is exactly the sort of community all the Democratic and Republican hacks <i>pretend<\/i> to love whenever they rant and foam about the supposedly \"forgotten\" hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding, American middle class.  Second, this specific community is second only to the Hyde Park section of Chicago as the heart of Barack Obama Country. \r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nIn 2001, California was\r\nplunged into an unprecedented energy crisis: rolling blackouts, soaring power\r\nbills, a panicked state government. Turned out the Golden State was being\r\nsystematically ripped-off. Documents and audiotapes proved Houston-based Enron\r\nCorporation asked power companies to take plants offline - in order to make\r\nmore money. In one taped phone call, an Enron employee celebrated the fact that \r\na massive forest fire had shut down a transmission line:\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n\r\n<strong>ENRON EMPLOYEE 1:<\/strong> Yeah.<br>\r\n<strong>ENRON EMPLOYEE 2:<\/strong> Now, the magical word of the day is \"Burn, baby,\r\nburn.\"<br>\r\n<strong>ENRON EMPLOYEE 1:<\/strong> What's happening?<br>\r\n<strong>ENRON EMPLOYEE 2:<\/strong> There's a fire under the core line. This will delay us from\r\n45 to 2,100.<br>\r\n<strong>ENRON EMPLOYEE 1:<\/strong> Really. Burn, baby, burn!\r\n\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nWhen Michael Steele cried \"Drill, Baby, Drill!\" to the GOP faithful,\r\nmaybe he wasn't thinking about Watts in 1965. Maybe he was thinking about\r\nEnron's battle cry in 2001.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nLess than a decade later, thanks to the terrifying spike in oil prices, the energy greedheads and carbon pushers are trying to stampede Californians into accepting offshore oil drilling and new drilling in old wells even though all\r\nthe experts agree this will have no impact on the global marketplace for oil. As I write this, the \"Drill, Baby, Drill\" crowd is pushing hard for\r\noffshore drilling in Santa Barbara, Long Beach, Monterey Bay, and even off Point Reyes (see www.environmentcalifornia.org).\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nAnd always, always, they try to divide us and rule us by playing off class,\r\nreligious, and \"racial\" differences. \r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\nWill we let them get away with it?\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p>\r\n(Read More At: \r\ncagreening.blogspot.com\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"AlexCathy@aol.com","link":"http:\/\/cagreening.blogspot.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The two-square-mile Baldwin Hills Oil Field is the last large-scale undeveloped open space in South and West Los Angeles. The Oil Field has operated since 1924 and had almost played out. Now, Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP)  wants to drill up to 1,000 new wells.","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2008\/09\/220255.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":220319,"heading":"Water4Gas Tech Revolution","article":"just another way to create conflict while solving nothing.\r\nbetter idea....\r\nwe need a technological grassroots revolution.\r\nwhich is exactly what we have at www.help4gas.com\r\nfree yourself from corporate shackles\r\nvisit www.help4gas.com\r\nits about getting better gas mileage for a better healthier economy\r\nand clean emissions for a healthier environment.\r\nand it is in our hands to do something with it or not.","author":"Help4Gas","parent_id":220255,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-09-10 13:59:55","modified":"2008-09-10 13:59:55","fileurl":""}]}