MIDDLE EAST POLITICS-The California State legislature is about to adopt a bill heavily promoted by Santa Monica’s Assemblymember Richard Bloom to penalize criticism of Israel. Based on the false allegation that criticisms of the Israeli government are anti-Semitic (i.e. anti-Jewish), Bloom’s bill would forbid State of California contracts to private companies that subscribe to any tenets of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Bloom’s opponents have pointed out these criticisms, such as Israel’s construction of apartheid in occupied territories, are commonplace among Israeli Jews. They also point out that many American Jews criticize the Israeli government’s racist practices and support various consumer boycotts. 

What Bloom is promoting in Sacramento mirrors similar actions in many other states and in Washington DC. In fact, U.S. government policy toward Israel will swerve further to the right on January 20, 2017, when either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is inaugurated President of the United States. Massive military aid and unquestioning diplomatic support of Israel will continue, and relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will become more cordial as Israeli and American policies become more closely aligned. 

Israel’s Likud political party and its American proxy, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), will still be in the driver’s seat. As the greater Middle East further unravels, Israel and its U.S. advocates will argue that Israel deserves still more U.S. government support because it is a rock solid, stable U.S. ally in a region filled with shaky authoritarian regimes. 

But, for the reasons we outline below, either presidential administration will eventually discover that its pro-Likud position – similar to Richard Bloom’s -- is extremely counterproductive. President Clinton or President Trump will reap few benefits and many setbacks by doubling down on U.S. government support for the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, including the construction of an apartheid state in these areas. This is because the U.S. government has little to gain and much to lose from this continued approach. 

As of 2016-17, AIPAC can still sway U.S. policy toward Israel, including in the California legislature, but AIPAC, like its Israeli puppet master, is a 97-pound weakling when it comes to stopping many long-term trends in the Middle East at odds with perceived U.S. and Israeli government interests. This is, in part, because Israel’s enormous military power, much of built through U.S. aid, has become irrelevant to U.S. concerns in the greater Middle East. For example:

• In Syria, Israel cannot directly attack the Assad regime or its enemies from the Islamic State (IS). Its participation would only sharpen the conflict and expose rifts within Israel and between Israel and the United States. This is because Israel discreetly supports jihadists in Syria to cement its backdoor alliance with Saudi Arabia, while the U.S., in contrast, is bombing these same jihadists. 

• In Iraq, Israel cannot attack the IS for the same reasons. If it were to do so, it would jeopardize its hush-hush relationship with the Gulf monarchies and find itself in an awkward alliance with Iran, whose goal is to attack IS in order to prop up the pro-Iranian Shiite regime of Iraq. 

• In the Sinai Peninsula, a hotbed of IS activity on Israel’s southern flank, the situation is no different. Even though IS is a sworn enemy of the U.S., Israel, and Egypt, another Israeli invasion of the Sinai Peninsula would undermine, not strengthen, Egypt’s pro-U.S. autocrat, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. An Israeli attack in Sinai could also draw in Hamas from the adjacent Gaza strip, resulting in a level of Israeli casualties that would again undermine the Netanyahu government. 

• In Lebanon, another enemy of the U.S. and Israel, Hezbollah, has 50,000 missiles aimed at Israel. Even though Hezbollah has moved the bulk of its forces into neighboring Syria to fight jihadists and U.S.-supported secular forces attacking the Assad regime, it could still fire its missiles at Israel. While Israel has the military power to again attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, it does not have the military technology to block all Hezbollah rockets fired at Israel, or the political strength to absorb the many dozens of Israelis who would be killed in combat or by rockets destroying civilian targets. 

• Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia are other Middle East hotspots where U.S. interests are militarily challenged and where Israel has the military power to intercede, but could not tolerate the blowback. Israeli intervention in those conflicts would inflame local jihadists and increase the flow of refugees northward, some of who would breach border fences to join other “infiltrators” already living in Israel. Furthermore, any casualties from these military adventures would jeopardize Netanyahu’s Knesset alliance. 

If it were not initially clear, either Presidential administration would slowly realize that U.S. military aid and diplomatic support for Israel was restricted to the following: 

• Quell Palestinian opposition to the construction of an apartheid state in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, including potential future Palestinian expulsions under the cover of a regional war. 

• “Mow the lawn” in Gaza to periodically hobble a Palestinian force that could, at some distant point, challenge an apartheid state by going off their reservation/open-air prison. 

• Attack Iran using F-35 stealth and other first-strike weapons the U.S. is supplying Israel. While such a neo-con inspired attack would unleash a tsunami of counterattacks against the U.S. and its regional protectorates, including Israel, such unintended consequences are of little concern to neo-cons, whether they reside in Washington, Riyadh, or Jerusalem.     

Future U.S. Government Role in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict 

With so many local conflicts weakening the overall U.S. military position in the Middle East, and with Israel of no help in these conflicts, we have a vantage point to foresee the future U.S. role in this critical geo-political region. Although we can expect more rounds of neo-con inspired military interventions throughout the Middle East, such as confrontations with Iran, they will not improve the situation of U.S., only drain the country’s economic and political resources further. It has already happened in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, where there is no light at the end of these tunnels. Furthermore, the one-sided U.S. alliance with Israel can only jeopardize its declining position throughout the greater Middle East. 

This is one of reasons we can predict how, but not when, the Israeli government experiment to construct an apartheid state will eventually collapse. At some point the United States government either cannot or will not shield Israel from further international pressure, including sanctions, as well as local mass movements. This loss of critical external support from the U.S. will usher in swift changes, for either the better or worse. 

That moment is now on the horizon due to three other political trends that are converging with declining U.S. military and political influence in the Middle East.

Foreign protection: The first trend is Israel’s increasing need for direct military support and diplomatic protection, especially at international forums, like the United Nations Security Council. 

Israel’s transformation of its 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem into a full-on apartheid state requires greater, not less, shoring up from the United States to deflect growing domestic and international opposition. Despite one public relations offensive after another, Israel is increasingly isolated. It has now reached the point where the country has becoming a pariah state in many parts of the world.

Israel’s frantic pushback against this growing resistance now appears on a daily basis, such as ever more draconian undemocratic laws aimed at weakening Israeli, Palestinian, and foreign anti-occupation movements, even non-violent middle class ones, like Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). 

American Jewish Disenchantment with Israel: The second trend is the weakening of the organized American Jewish community’s dedication to Israel. As a younger generation of Jewish American leaders comes to power, unlike Assemblymember Bloom, they are repulsed by Israel’s never-ending occupation, religious fanaticism, extreme nationalism, overt racism, repressive political climate, and alliance with the U.S. Republican Party. Furthermore, unlike Bloom, they do not easily confuse opposition to Israeli racism with opposition to Jews as Jews. 

As the Jewish American community gets further removed from its immigrant roots, which directly witnessed the fate of powerless Jews during the Holocaust, and it becomes more integrated into the American intellectual, political, and financial elite, the more Jews question the need for a refuge in one of the most dangerous corners of the world. 

In fact, Jewish elites have become well integrated into this American academic, economic, and political circles. In this process, anti-Semitism has effectively disappeared, and the need for a hasty mass exodus from the United States to Israel strikes most of them as ludicrous. 

Weakening Israel Lobby: The stranglehold that the Israeli lobby has had on the U.S. government is weakening. Congress and all Presidential administrations since the 1960s complied with nearly all of Israel’s requests. But the cumulative efforts of the Israel government and the Israel lobby could not stop the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, finalized in 2015 and already mostly implemented. Recently, the Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign brought the plight of Palestinians and Israel’s 50-year occupation into the national spotlight for the first time. 

These three political trends together mean that Israel’s need for protection from accountability and opposition, such as BDS, will eventually exceed the United States’ capacity or commitment. 

Like the nationalist government in South Africa, Israel will then have to adjust to a new reality, and that will usher in dramatic political changes. There are more and less desirable possibilities. The most likely non-violent path is that moribund Israeli peace forces regain strength and, together with Palestinian movements, find a way to end the occupation and establish a viable, sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The other options almost surely will involve violence. On one side, the formation of a South African-style, single democratic state with equal rights for all or a bi-national state could trigger a Jewish civil war. On the other side, if an American exit nevertheless leads to a full apartheid state and/or a massive expulsion of Palestinians, it will further isolate Israel, confront it with a massive Intifada, and finally trigger a regional war that could involve nuclear weapons.

A non-violent response to the fallout from an eventual U.S. departure must be the international goal.

(Victor Rothman is a California-based political analyst. Jeff Warner is the Action Coordinator of LA Jews for Peace. Please send any comments to i[email protected].  Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GELFAND’S WORLD--When Donald Trump argued that the only way he could lose Pennsylvania was by being cheated out of it, he was essentially conceding defeat in the presidential election. Competitive candidates try to turn the tide. Losers make excuses. It's not even a good excuse. We are barely into the middle of August, and Trump is already explaining away his eventual loss. 

Trump has been building the excuse for the past couple of weeks. Think of all the whiney statements he has been making about the election being rigged. This is a substantial reversal from when he bragged incessantly about how well he was going to do (remember even 3 months ago?). 

Usually, the candidate who goes into the middle of August down by 7 points is introduced at his rallies as "the next president of the United States." Leaders in the polls and second placers alike are supposed to keep up a brave front, particularly because there are occasional turnarounds. But Trump doesn't seem to understand either history or how to play the game. 

When it looks like you're about to lose in historic proportions, likely giving up Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida -- a solid bloc of once-confederate states -- it must really smart. Over the past 16 presidential elections (starting with 1952) Florida voted for the Republican 11 times, taking time off to vote against Goldwater and to vote for Bill Clinton's reelection before the modern realignment as a swing state. Virginia has a similar history. and North Carolina has voted for the Republican candidate 10 times out of the past 12 elections. 

The post-convention polling must have been devastating to The Donald. He gave a flamboyant speech at the RNC that has been compared to some of Mussolini's best efforts, and he even got to celebrate a short bounce in the polls. But two weeks later, his lead in the polls evaporated, and suddenly Hillary Clinton is leading by historic percentages. 

It must be frustrating beyond belief to Trump that his message is not only being ignored, it is being laughed at. 

The part that I find interesting is that Trump has become boring. Like really, really boring. 

Trump made his mark by taking a series of outrageous positions. He started his campaign by challenging the president's birthplace. It was a shameful display of racism, but it got him recognized. He continued with his attacks on immigrants, Moslems, and all of his primary opponents. His approach was fairly unique in our modern presidential history. Most candidates try to create at least an image of adulthood, but Trump turned it all over by throwing infantile tantrums. 

The more outrageous he got, the more attention he drew. But neither Trump nor the media seemed to sense that eventually this approach would get old. 

Perhaps it's the fact that Trump is using his patented approach of calling names (crooked Hillary) but didn't see that when the victim is not on stage with him, the name calling falls flat. 

Perhaps it's the fact that in the post-convention period, the press finally has time to practice the craft of the high school essay: compare and contrast. They have a lot of material and the comparison has become easy. 

But did we predict that the press and most voters would suddenly get bored with Trump? If the rest of the reporters haven't yet caught on, allow me to state the obvious fact. 

A few days ago, an increasingly desperate Trump accused the president of founding Isis. You know, Isis, the terrorist organization that took over a large part of Iraq? It's interesting to look at the media's reactions. Yes, there were the obligatory attempts to ask if Trump meant something else, and there were the now reflexive attempts by his staff and supporters to make his statement into something else. In response to the question -- "Did you mean that?" -- Trump said Yes, then he said No (it was sarcasm) and then he went back to a qualified Yes. 

The press and the public just yawned. 

It wasn't new and entertaining anymore. Everyone was wondering what Trump would come up with next. The reaction was, in essence, Is that all you've got? 

At this point, Trump has become predictable. Oh so predictable. We've come to understand that he will make up just about anything. We're not sure whether it's carefully crafted deception by a master of the craft, or whether it's done on the fly. But the notable point is that the press and the public don't buy into the game anymore. We're not paying much attention because it's been sooooo overdone. 

"Hey, did you hear what Trump did today?" 

"No (stifling yawning noises). "What did he do this time? 

While Trump was in the ascendancy during the primaries, he was considered to be an object of fascination by political scientists and reporters alike. It was a truly unexpected win streak. But now that his numbers are falling and Hillary Clinton has been pronounced 89% likely to win the presidency, he is just one more loser. Reporters and editors are a lot less likely to get all worked up about the desperate gyrations of the guy coming in second.

●●

Short Takes -Is it the end of a sporting era? Women's Soccer became an Olympic sport in 1996. The U.S. women's team finished second in 2000, and took the gold every other time. That's four golds out of five Olympics. This year's team came into the Olympics as Women's World Cup champions. And then the floor collapsed under them. It's true that they won their opening two games in the group round, but showed worrisome instability in the final group game against Colombia. The two-time loser Colombia managed to tie the game in what was literally the last second. Then the U.S. went to the knockout round and lost in the quarterfinals to Sweden. Sweden is good, but the U.S. is supposed to defeat them when it counts. 

After the game, the American goalie Hope Solo created a small international incident when she referred to the Swedish strategy as cowardly, referring to the Swede's tactics of playing defense well. Nobody took it too seriously, but one wonders whether Solo is on the downswing of a once spectacular career. 

It was certainly the end of the Michael Phelps era in swimming, unless it isn't. He says he's retiring (skipping out with a mere 23 gold medals?). 

The U.S. men's rugby team beat Brazil and Spain in the Olympics, while suffering close losses to Argentina and to eventual Olympic champion Fiji (by a score of 24-19). Think of rugby scores as fairly analogous to scores in American football. In the championship game, Fiji beat Great Britain by 43-7. With its 9th place finish, the U.S. team showed that it can play world-class rugby, but not necessarily championship level rugby. 

Save the Olympics-- Kevin Drum has been floating a pretty good idea for saving the Olympics. Why do they need saving? Because most modern Olympic games have been budget busters for the host countries. Greece and Brazil are particularly good examples of the bad effects of hosting the games. 

Some people have suggested that there be a permanent site for the games in Greece, the country of their origin. Drum took the idea and changed Greece to Los Angeles. It makes sense in a way, because Los Angeles has hosted the games twice and avoided bankruptcy. Most of the facilities are in place. I suspect that the one negative would be air quality, but we've survived it before. Drum points out that he didn't get a lot of support for making Los Angeles the permanent home (I think it's still a reasonable idea) and now suggests that the games could be spread among several countries in each Olympics. 

May I suggest that Drum combine the two suggestions to include Los Angeles as the main host with negotiated subordinate hosts for various sports. How about Chicago or Boston for basketball, England for rugby, and India for cricket? 

NCEPA--The neighborhood council emergency preparedness alliance (NCEPA): The group has been meeting and has developed a committee structure to recommend communications methodology (this refers to the use of radios in emergency situations rather than putting out a newsletter), outreach, and an overall plan. We will keep everyone in the loop using City Watch. 

What's with Scott Adams?--Adams is the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, author of lots of books, and self-proclaimed expert on what motivates people. He also writes a blog.  At the start of the presidential campaign season, he talked about Trump as the master persuader. In recent months, he predicted that Trump would win the presidency in a landslide. His argument seems to come down to the assertion that people make decisions based less on reason, and more on emotion. OK so far, but it is a bit presumptuous to think that the majority of voters share the same emotions as Trump voters. 

More recently, he stated that he was endorsing Hillary Clinton, but not because he supports either candidate; rather, he says he is making the endorsement because in Northern California, where he lives, it would be personally dangerous to do otherwise. Ignoring the huge insult to the people in his region, this is also one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in a long time. Perhaps this is Adams' attempt to make himself into a real-life version of a Dilbert cartoon, or perhaps his lampoon of Trump himself. 

Whatever the reality, people seem to be noticing the Adams touch and becoming irritated. Recently, Adams is hedging his bets by arguing that Hillary has learned to use Trump's own measures against him.

(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected])  

BILLBOARD WATCH-Earlier this summer, the bus shelter pictured above displayed an ad for the movie, “Central Intelligence,” which depicted two men brandishing and blasting away with guns. But after complaints were raised about the bus shelter’s proximity to nearby schools, the ad was changed to a public service message featuring Smokey the Bear. 

It’s probable that the city’s street furniture contractor, a joint venture of billboard giants Outfront Media and JC Decaux, gets considerably more revenue from movie ads than public service messages. That may explain the very temporary hiatus between the offending “Central Intelligence” ad and the gun-displaying ad for the movie, “Suicide Squad” in the bus shelter less than 300 ft. from the grounds of an elementary school and charter high school. 

In fact, despite an ongoing debate about gun violence in the U.S., it’s business as usual for billboard companies and the marketing departments of companies like Warner Bros., which produced Suicide Squad.  Bus shelters, billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising display often-menacing figures armed to the teeth with pistols, assault rifles, and even more extreme forms of weaponry. These displays of violence, both explicit and implied, can be found near schools, libraries, playgrounds, and other places children and young people congregate. 

Violence, and especially, gun violence, obviously sells tickets, or so media companies like Warner Bros. and Universal apparently believe. However, not everyone in the entertainment business agrees that such ad campaigns are appropriate. Lena Dunham, creator and star of the popular HBO series, “Girls”, recently objected to ads for the movie, “Jason Bourne,” calling on people to alter the ads in New York City subways. And closer to home, Venice neighbors and their children recently altered a construction fence plastered with “Jason Bourne” ads by covering the gun images with flowers. 

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight Coalition and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CALIFORNIA FORWARD--Lawyers, public servants, students, academics, good government reform groups, and concerned citizens made Los Angeles City Hall on Thursday the center of a statewide discussion to modernize California's landmark political ethics law and encourage more people to participate in the political process.

They joined the Fair Political Practices Commission, California Forward and the University of California Berkeley School of Law yesterday for the first of three small discussions being held throughout the state regarding the Political Reform Act Revision Project.

"This is our best shot at cleaning up the law after 40 years," said Jodi Remke, Chair of the FPPC. "We’re trying to get the act into a shape where it’s easier to read, easier to understand and easier for you to make further suggestions and comments."

The Political Reform Act was approved by voters in 1974 and governs political activity in California like campaign finance, lobbying, and governmental ethics. Since then it has been amended numerous times. That's made the rules harder to understand and navigate, placing a hurdle in front of people who might want to seek public office and making it more time-consuming to enforce.

To give act more clarity, the FPPC has partnered with CA Fwd and the law schools at UC Berkeley and UC Davis for a comprehensive revision of the law. 

One of the co-authors of the original version of the Act, Robert Stern, participated in the discussion and congratulated the project's partners on taking on such an important task.

"This [act] should not be locked in stone," said Stern, former president at the Center for Governmental Studies and former General Counsel of the FPPC. "We thought it was very important for this act to be a living act. Clearly it needs to be easier and consolidated."

The gathering served to call attention to the first of two public comment periods and to empower interested individuals to voice their perspectives regarding updating the more than four-decade-old act.

"If we can encourage and empower the public to understand how to engage in this process we will end up with a better product," said Jim Mayer, president and CEO of CA Fwd.

Before beginning the project, the FPPC and CA Fwd recognized four important goals in order to achieve a robust public process: 1) to provide practitioners, public servants and citizens an opportunity to understand the vitality of the law, 2) to incorporate and include parties who deal with the law on a regular basis, as their feedback would only serve to strengthen the revision, 3) to model what an inclusive and transparent process is, and 4) to apply a high level of rigor to the comments received.  

"We wanted some qualitative understanding -- how are people feeling about the law and the project so that when we look at these comments we have context," said Mayer.

The first phase of the project spanning nearly eight months was for the UC Berkeley and UC Davis Law Schools to clean, re-organize and simplify the language without making substantive changes and create a revised draft for review. According to Remke, this is only the first of multiple steps to engage the public and only the beginning of a process that will take several months.

To help with the process, Remke said additional tools to assist the public with understanding proposed revisions will be made available on the FPPC website soon. 

There are two more discussions scheduled for August. To register, visit the event registration page.

NEED TO KNOW

Tuesday, August 16 at 1-2:30 p.m.
Fair Political Practices Commission, 8th floor hearing room
428 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Thursday, August 25 at 1-2:30 p.m.
Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 4 (2nd floor)
1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA 94612

For more information about the project including an introductory webinar, a packet of materials with the latest draft of the act, and to learn how to submit a comment, please visit www.cafwd.org/pra. 

The California Political Reform Act Revision project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

(Jania Palacios writes for California Forward whose mission is to restore the California Dream, we must create more middle class jobs, promote cost effective public services and encourage accountability for results.)

-cw

LA WATCHDOG--If approved by a majority of the voters, Proposition 53, the Stop Blank Checks Initiative, “all revenue bonds issued or sold by the State in an amount singly or in the aggregate over $2 billion for any single project owned, operated, or managed by the State must first be approved by the voters at a statewide election.” 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Whether it involves initiatives ranging from the Expo Line to the Green Line/LAX connection to local Planning and Transportation issues, being fair and honest and credible is everything.  When someone does good, they deserve credit...and vice versa.  Hence, for the benefit of all Angelenos, we have to pass a Neighborhood Integrity Initiative (LINK: http://2preservela.org/) this spring. 

All ethnicities, all regions, and all socioeconomic groups of fair-minded, open-minded, and civic-minded Angelenos are being attacked.  Our services are lower than ever, our economy is producing a two-tiered rich/poor divide that no minimum wage diversion can prevent, and a wealthy and connected few are thriving while most of us who (gasp!) want to play by the rules and laws of LA are being told that WE are the problem. 

Maybe it's "affordable housing", and maybe it's "transit-oriented development", or maybe it's "urban infill", but Los Angeles has the ability to perform the "elegant densification" of Former-Mayor Villaraigosa without shredding environmental laws that were passed for a reason (actually a lot of reasons, but livability is at the center of them all). 

Angelenos are all about REAL affordable housing, transit-oriented development and urban infill--but they're also into sustainable, neighborhood-preserving and neighborhood-enhancing rules that are the hallmark of a modern, civilized, and kind-hearted society. 

The former mayor of Los Angeles, by the end of his tenure, was rightfully-perceived as bought out, a sell-out, and corrupt to the core.  Our current mayor is more affable and friendly...but Mayor Eric Garcetti and his Planning Politburo are killing Los Angeles in the same way his predecessor is doing, and it gives me no joy in saying that. 

As a human being, I kind of like Mr. Garcetti--but his actions are really turning LA into a Wild Wild West, whether they were under his watch as LA City Council President or under his watch as a man who really has the ability to rev up the City Bylaws and the Community Plan effort.   

As fellow CityWatch editor and transit advocate Damien Goodmon posted recently, there is just NO reason why we need a Cumulus skyscraper at Jefferson/La Cienega. 

Damien Goodmon and the Crenshaw Subway Coalition are rightfully, along with the Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, filing a lawsuit to stop this 320-foot skyscraper...which raises a host of issues and talking points that are as timely as we could ever hope for. 

It's no secret that Mr. Goodmon and myself (and a host of others) had different visions of the Expo Line--he wanted more of it to be a subway, while others (like myself) recognized the costs and need for the Expo Line to be at-grade or elevated for a light-rail trolley of 100,000 passengers maximum.  

But we both wanted an Expo Line. 

And neither of us wanted bad planning and neighborhood destruction throughout Los Angeles as a result of the transportation initiatives we fought for.  Adhering to the law is something that African-Americans in the Mid-City, Latinos in the Eastside, and Whites in the Westside all want.  And it's pretty darned tough to be pro-transit when there's all sorts of people who will use that effort, and other venerable ideas like affordable housing to ... 

... BREAK ... THE ... LAW! 

There are plenty of ways we can have lower and slightly-densifying building throughout the City, but if we create Downtowns here, and there, and everywhere, we'll end up with the same disjointed traffic problem that the Expo Line and other lines were built to mitigate. 

There already IS a Downtown, and the Downtown Light Rail Connector offers a host of new options for high-rise residential and business endeavours.  Another "Downtown" is Wilshire Blvd., and maybe another is Century Blvd.   

There ARE places for high-rises, but otherwise it's just it's just a battle against Common Sense, Common Decency, and Common Cause, as I recently opined to make Los Angeles one big Downtown and a new, 21st-Century traffic hellhole.

But let's be honest, Mr. Mayor--you may smile while the rest of us rule-abiding taxpayers are getting hurt, and threatened, and name-called when we call out law-breaking for what it is--we're still being hurt.  If you're going to be Antonio Villariagosa with a smile and kind-hearted face, then why wouldn't threatened citizens push back? 

Hence we have the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, with all sorts of volunteer neighborhood advocates like Dick Platkin and others weighing in. 

I also again call for a new part of LA City government where LA citizens can go to inquire as to whether they can take legal action against any Downtown efforts that violate the bylaws and policies of our City.  My guess is that it should be part of the Neighborhood Councils, or a change in the rules of what the City Attorney is with respect to the job description of that office. 

There is no legal office to protect citizens against their elected officials when that latter group goes rogue--the City Attorney is for the City Council, and NOT for the rest of us ... especially those of us who don't have tons of money and time to sue for our rights. 

But for now, we've got a City to take back.  And if THIS Mayor is going to behave like our LAST Mayor, then we've got no choice but to slam through a Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.

(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.

-cw