There she is, folks. The land of milk and honey – California. The Grapes of Wrath 1940 starring Henry Fonda & Jane Darwell & Charley Grapewin & Dorris Bowdon & John Carradine & Russell Simpson & O Z Whitehead & John Qualen & Eddie Quillan & Zefie Tilbury et al, director John Ford
The California Reich was filmed in 1974 and 1975. Its subject is the rebirth of the Nazi movement in America. The California Reich, caption, 1975
It is estimated that the Nazi Party in America – National Socialist White People’s Party – has approximately 2,000 members. Nazi units exist in 25 cities across the country. Four are in California. ibid.
White men, white women, the swastika is calling you … The National Socialist White People’s Party – an organisation of decent, law-abiding white folks, just like you. ibid. telephone answering service
I would classify myself as a victim. ibid. Nazi with long criminal record
The summer of 1973 was one of the roughest we’ve had. Two of our strikers were killed. Dozens of our people were beaten. Thousands were arrested and thrown in jail. And all because we dared to stand up to the growers when they made one more desperate attempt to crush our union. Fighting for Our Lives, 1975
Some of the complaints the workers were making … forcing workers to sign cards … ‘We believe in justice for farmworkers’ … Our union was the United Farm Workers. ibid.
The effort of farmworkers to unionise themselves is not a recent effort – it’s been going on for 85 years in this state. ibid.
When we tried to reach the workers from outside the fields they drowned out our loudspeakers … Once we were in the labour camps they’d kick us out. ibid.
The growers called in the Teamsters … A whole group of Teamsters attacked our picket line. ibid.
58 different court orders … the arrest of 3,538 of our brothers and sisters. ibid.
They [police] beat the hell out of them. ibid. union guy
And take our cause to the people. ibid.
In California a genocidal campaign had reduced the indigenous population from 150,000 in 1846 to 30,000 by 1870. Plutocracy: Political Repression in the USA I: Divide and Rule, 2015
So this is it: Silicon Valley … There’s Goggle just down here, Tesla, Apple’s headquarters, Facebook, and over there in the distance you’ve got San Francisco … The tech gods here are selling us all a brighter future. But Silicon Valley’s promise to build a better world relies on tearing up the world as it is: they call it disruption. Secrets of Silicon Valley I: The Disruptors, BBC 2017
Start-ups are drawn to Silicon Valley because of another vast industry: venture capital. ibid.
Disruption mean what it says. Around the world traditional taxi drivers have protested about Uber undercutting their prices … The reality has been far less liberating. ibid.
There’s a quite brutal form of capitalism unfolding. ibid.
The constant hum of mild paranoia is never far away in Silicon Valley. ibid.
Apple Park will be a modern-day Coliseum … more than $5 billion. ibid.
This is the story of how Silicon Valley’s mission to connect all of us is disrupting politics, plunging us into a world of political turbulence that no-one can control. Secrets of Silicon Valley II
Section 230: ‘No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.’ ibid.
The tech gods suck in all this data about how we use their technologies to build their vast fortunes. ibid.
The Earth’s crust slashes across seven hundred miles of California: the San Andreas Fault – it borders both San Francisco and Los Angeles, and creates one of the world’s most dangerous earthquake zones. Scientists are racing to find ways of predicting the next disastrous movement of the Fault. When will the Great Earthquake strike California? In Search of s4e14 … The San Andreas Fault, 1979
Santa Monica California 7th June 2013: ‘A call came into the computer: it was a shots-fired call. And then we got a fire call which was right where the initial shots-fired call came.’ Active Shooter: America. Under Fire s1e6: Santa Monica, California, rozzer
‘And then he opened the door. I just remember a white man in all black with a squared-off chest in SWAT gear, and he just raised his rifle and starting shooting through the window.’ ibid. bus driver
Library: ‘Numerous shots fired! Sounds like an automatic weapon.’ ibid. rozzer’s emergency call
The gunman is declared dead at the scene. ibid.
One of the richest places on Earth … northern California … This is the land of the redwoods, some of the oldest trees on the planet. The Americas with Simon Reeve III, BBC 2019
Half a million Americans are homeless, and the problem can often be seen at its starkest in the shadows and backstreets of the City of Angels. ibid.
Air conditioning has probably had a huge influence on gardens. Monty Don’s American Gardens III, BBC 2020
Barry Manilow’s old house … The house and garden dominated by the pool represent Californian life as a kind of perpetual holiday … One of the most iconic images of 1960s America. ibid.
A side street in Beverley Hills to visit a garden that promises to take me back to Hollywood’s heyday: when the designer Tony Duquette and his wife Elizabeth bought this house in 1949 it was a thirty-by-thirty-foot doll’s house of a building … The setting for a series of flamboyant parties … This is a theatrical set. ibid.
The Sheats Goldstein residence … LA has the capacity to surprise. ibid.
I’ve come just outside LA to visit a school, because they have a garden and they grow food and cook it and eat it, all as part of the curriculum. The Odyssey Charter School has converted a section of its playing fields to a plot with a raised bed for vegetables and lots of fruit trees. ibid.
Lotus Land is a garden that in many ways captures the essence of California. ibid.
Henry Cowell Redwoods Park, just outside San Jose, California, and I’ve come to immerse myself in these redwoods … about 1,500 years old. ibid.
The year-long energy crisis would cost the state of California thirty billion dollars. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, 2005
In California, there are huge problems because of dams. I’m against big dams, per se, because I think that they are economically unfeasible. They’re ecologically unsustainable. And they’re hugely undemocratic. Arundhati Roy
An outlaw no-one would ever forget. A 1,500-mile manhunt that pushes investigators to their limits. In late 2003 ranchers and campers around the tiny outpost of Ballarat, California have begun seeing a strange man alone in the mountains. Soon after, local law enforcement start getting reports of minor robberies around town. Crime Stories: Lone Fugitive, 2008
The bandit continues to allude capture. ibid.
After committing thirty burglaries over a two hundred mile stretch through Death Valley, the Bandit presses on widening his territory. ibid.
After six months and numerous sightings the Bandit’s identity remains a mystery. ibid.
He has several camp-sites on the outskirts of the notorious Area 51. ibid.
He pushes north stealing three vehicles and robbing three ranches. ibid.
John Doe #39 = George Robert Johnston (Canadian). ibid.
The story they uncover is stranger than anyone could have predicted. ibid.
An itinerant lifestyle ... Rob began growing marijuana but the plan backfired. ibid.
Barsow, California 2009 UFO crash: a UFO skimming over their rooftops in the clear dawn sky … and touched down in a desert … the residents quickly find that the strange craft is not the only unusual arrival that day… a fleet of SUVs barrel right past them toward the scene … UFOs: Top Secret Alien Files, History 2021
California is the epicentre of a massive social experiment – legalised marijuana … No-one could have predicted that legalisation would have the opposite effect, energizing the elicit trade that’s now three times larger than the legal one. Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s2e3, Black Market Marijuana, National Geographic 2022
Underground shops: many of them wanted to go legal but the path to licensing is fraught with problems. ibid.
Enron ... Bush takes office: just three days later he signs an executive order that raises the price of electricity in California. Greg Palast, Bush Family Fortunes
Bush forms a secret task force including Enron’s Ken Lay to re-write American energy and environmental laws. ibid.