It’s a tragedy! It’s a comedy! It’s Crazifornia!
By Wayne Lusvardi
In 2050, after California was hit with a 6.9 Richter scale earthquake on the Hayward Fault, the city of Vallejo didn’t suffer much because it already was a ghost town. California no longer had enough families to populate suburban Vallejo.
The Sacramento Delta, however, nearly instantly became an inland saltwater sea. Most of urban and agricultural California had lost its access to fresh water supplies overnight. California’s civilization hadn’t collapsed after all; it dissolved.
Democracy didn’t collapse, either. That is because democracy had already been replaced long before “the Little Big One” had destroyed much of the state’s water and transport infrastructure. Instead, unelected regional government committees that had merged cities and suburbs for tax sharing had supplanted it.
In the ruins, however, they found a book, “Crazifornia! Tales from the Tarnished State — How California is Destroying Itself and Why It Matters to America.” The author: Laer Pearce, a former war diplomat in the civil wars in California. The book had predicted the disaster that had just happened.
The above science fiction scenario is where author Laer Pearce takes you at the end of his prophetic book of tales of how California destroyed itself.
Like all classic literature, the book tells tales rather than boring with sophisticated public policy analysis, the dryness of a history book, or the escapism of a novel. Pearce’s stories are real life. Why write a novel when real life is more unbelievable than a novel? Pearce was involved as a participant in most of the tales he tells. He didn’t just read about them on the Internet.
What Crazifornia proves is Machiavelli’s dictum, “Nothing good occurs except by necessity.” And through some 15 decades of Progressive rule by both Democrats and Republicans in California there never had been any necessity to change.
I have worked in many capacities in several levels of California government. Pearce provides one of the most accurate descriptions of what ails California that I have ever read:
“A key factor in the demise of California is the state Legislature’s determination to dodge accountability for the negative effects its progressive actions have on the state’s residents and businesses. To do this, the Senate and Assembly have effectively turned California into a technocracy — a government ruled by educated elites who know what’s best for the people. It is these technocrats in the state’s many large and powerful regulatory agencies, commissions, and boards who actually impose the will of the Legislature through obtrusive and costly regulations and fines that were at best approved only in vague concept by California’s elected representatives.”
Progressive policies
Pearce describes how much of Progressive public policy is geared to take away choice from people and replace it with government mandates. But choice is what defines modernity.
As far back as 1893, California fought against the social change that came with modern society with the coming of the Southern Pacific Railroad. California’s counter-modernization has continued to this day with 16th-century energy technologies (windmills, solar energy mirrors), 19th-century modes of transit (light rail and the bullet train), dam removals and nuclear power plant building moratoriums and shut downs.
California has also embraced a de-modernizing worldview that rejects the Protestant work ethic and market capitalism for environmental ideology and social-movement unionism. It can only be called “crazy” for California to embrace “Progressivism” while wanting to go backward.
Pearce’s book is chock full of stories you likely never heard of. In Chapter 4 on California’s cultural revolution of the 1960’s Pearce describes how the C.I.A. program MKULTRA in San Francisco birthed the Hippie Movement. MKULTRA researched mind-altering drugs and two of its volunteer test subjects were Ken Kesey and Stuart Brand.
Kesey was the author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Brand authored “The Whole Earth Catalog” — the manual of the Hippie Movement. It wasn’t hallucinogenic drugs that made “Crazifornia” crazy, however. It was Progressivism.
Jerry Brown’s blood money
In Chapter 3 on “Progressivism’s Legacy,” Pearce tells how Gov. Jerry Brown’s inherited wealth came from the blood-soaked Indonesian dictator Sukarno. Jerry’s father, former Gov. Pat Brown, brokered a loan for Indonesian junta generals to set up two oil trading firms. In return, Brown’s dad was given one of the trading firms.
Pearce writes that it was a lucrative deal because only Indonesian crude oil could meet California’s low-sulfur clean-air standards. It is implied that environmentalism serves as a pretense for elites to make mega-bucks from quasi-monopolistic enterprises. Only in “Crazifornia” could the greenest governor of any state have the political split personality of a closet oilman.
Pearce describes how the California’s “Brown-Shirt” unions tag team with environmental regulators to force businesses to unionize. One holdout company got inundated with 144 legal requests for data and another company got 143 data requests pursuant to a threatened lawsuit alleging non-compliance with environmental laws.
Another company that had relented to unionize received no such harassment or investigation from the California Energy Commission. In an event that could probably only occur in “Crazifornia,” the unions ended up brokering a settlement between the companies and environmental groups that the unions had funded.
Then there is the question that has to be asked: How did Pearce come up with the title “Crazifornia” for his book? Pearce says he was using the term on his old blog, “Cheat Seeking Missiles,” way before the book was written. But it was Pat Mulroy, the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, who perhaps validated Pearce’s characterization of California: “It’s hard being next to California. You’re so big, so powerful…and so crazy.”
Pearce was apparently a stand up comic in another life. He can’t help but dot his book with laughable stories such as how Brown was going to cut 3,000 jobs out of a state work force of over a quarter million bureaucrats. Pearce writes that this would be “like a small business with 10 employees, facing a prolonged recession and continuing massive losses, laying off one employee’s arm.” That’s becasuse, 3,000 employees comprise about 1 percent of the work force. But the state Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded that Caltrans was 15 percent overstaffed.
Read his book for the treasure trove of unforgettable stories you won’t find anywhere else.
The book deserves an Amazon.com five-star rating. It’s a quick, fun read. Buy it and hold on for a zany ride. But until the apocalypse, perhaps all you can do is laugh and then cry.
It’s a tragedy! It’s a comedy! It’s Crazifornia!
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LOL!
http://crazifornia.com/
Today’s fiction is tomorrow’s fact. California is well on it’s way to becoming Crazifornia. We’re well past the fiction of can it happen and now into the fact of when it happens.
The doomers are out early. Had their Grape Nuts and imported prunes….ready to expel the usual negativity!
I prefer Kalifornsky… I believe Comrade Uhaul prefers that too.
Nationally, no state government pays its employees on par or below what the private sector pays its employees, despite identical occupations in both sectors
Teddy gets B-SLAPPED by the Rotti once more!
Bottom of P.1
http://www.cagw.org/assets/cagw-compensation-report-web-copy.pdf
Poodle grow up!
Teddy, bring back Queeg 😉
The high desert dwellers are doomy today—- hey trolls— do you lads keep old tires on the lids of your single wides to keep them on in the wind?
Teddy Steals Estates;
🙂
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4pqlGkhO4j0/UC6lKyRqv7I/AAAAAAAADCU/12a0vIf30ng/s1600/rv+cxondos.jpg
Poodle’s House…..
http://www.pbase.com/image/25121637
0 for 13 ™
and how did your lawsuit prediction go Poody? lol
88-0 BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
89-0 Nov 6… 😉
How were those lawsuit predictions little buddy? Cat got your hmmmmmmmmm???? lol
Ulysses Uhaul:
Give us your reasons why we shouldn’t be all so gloomy about California’s future. Not all of us owned a pair of rose colored glasses you know.
BobA
Get a check up. It can be as simple as not enough sunlight from hunkering down in your collective doom bunker up close with buds Poodle and Hondo.
Ulysses Uhaul:
As I expected you won’t answered the question. You exhibit all the signs of what’s known as the Dunning & Kruger Effect.
BobA– he probably does not answer you question because…what’s the point? You’ll mock his answer and respond with your usual doomsday Faux news talking points. I mean– be real. I could name many things great about Calif.– easy— but you’ll mock them,,,,
here goes.
Great University system
Cal Dept of Forestry– great
Freedom
Good law enforcement
Good wages
improving housing market
wonderful weather
best surfing this side of the mid pac
beautiful women
etc
Now– as I suspected— that was a waste of time. See? Now you know why you didn’t get a response.
here goes.
Great University system- Harvard is CHEAPER TODAY!!!
Cal Dept of Forestry– great- Dept of Forestry….Oh brother. Yes, We need a GREAT forest 🙂
Freedom- Wow, did you come up wit this one on your own????
Good law enforcement- Hahahahahahahahhaa…GED idiots, ask Kelly Thomas.
Good wages- Median CA wage is $29K, down form $31K 10 years ago. You kill em Teddy Steals 😉
improving housing market- LOL…another whopper lie. We still have 2 MILLION homes underwater in CA, and will never see the home rpices form 2006 again in out lifetime.
wonderful weather- Yes, the public unions brought us the weather 🙂
best surfing this side of the mid pac- LOL again, we have 50 states with only 3 that have surf on the west coast. Idiot Teddy 😉
beautiful women- Teddy, you think Rosanne Barr is “beautiful”.
Man, that was so easy 😉
Just when I was reovering from all the CWD beat ups.
Frankly…..don’t care what the topic may be….the same doomers…the same posters…same insults….slurs…ignorance….and stupidity.
So why answer when there are no answers. CWD posters are frozen in place by culture, age, unfilled careers and fat egos…
Being drawn into debate with negative doomers is unproductive……so……levity….if you cannot laugh at lots of these articles and posts you’ll go mad!
Poodle your front and center a doomer……enjoy life and the quips…lots of Teddy’s stuff is funny!
Your recent post…hmmmmm
Hi Teddy! 🙂
Bring Queeg back.
I missed all 3 of you when you were on vaca!
Harvard And Yale Now Less Costly Than Public California Universities
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/harvard-now-cheaper-than-california-schools_n_1321195.html
BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Poodle—- How were your predictions on the cops lawsuit rolling back pensions in OC again? You don’t seem to want to quip about that one do you?
lol
0 for 13 ™ !
Poodle– you debate like a child.
Ted Steele:
That’s like saying you like the the mayonnaise and pickles on you crap sandwich.
Great University system? yeah. For those who can afford it. (I graduated from CSULB and there’s no way I could afford it today!)
Cal Dept of Forestry: A moron could do that job.
Good law enforcement: Rodney Kind, et al, would beg to differ. (Yeah yeah I know, Rodney King has assumed room temperature.)
Good wages: High cost of housing, high food and gas prices and high income taxes. You need a good wage to afford to live in California.
Pretty girls? Most of these money grubbing anorexic sluts are lesbians with serious mental issues and you know it.
You might also want to look into what the Dunning & Kruger Effect is all about. Don’t be shocked when it defines you and your ilk to a tee. It’s just a personality study.
BTW: California will be a Golden state once again once you and your ilk are no longer in the majority.
Teddie, you debate like a moron, so there 😉
Poodle….juvie tantrums are not CWD PC
Wow Bob A– How did I know that all you’d do is mock the list?
Your comments about women reveal alot about your personal strangeness, all projection.
csUlb— lol— figures.
CDF — morons? Hmmm you seem angry at the 47%
A few bad cops and you toss out the lot– typical and dull.
Wow– you’re easy amigo.
Teddy, go back to your sock puppets. You suck 🙂
Another juvie slur…..ask foregiveness
Ted Steele:
Come on now, Have a sense of humor!! I get just as much fun kicking you around as you do from kicking me around. I don’t take it seriously and I hope you don’t either. This is what makes America great.
Now about them anorexic sluts that you find so interesting. Ever been to Hollywood?
I have a San Diego Peace Officers Association decal in my home window and have donated generously to that organization over the years. Does that tell you what I think of police officers? I was being facetious so put on a fresh pair of panties and chill out dude.
As to the CDF being morons, well, it doesn’t take a genius to do that job but I’m glad they’re there. Someone’s got to keep the intentional and unintentional firebugs out of the forests.
And it might surprise you to know that I’m strongly against chopping down the forests just for the sake of building more homes. There’s a symbiotic relationship between man and trees. We are throwing that relationship out of balance. Denuding the forests has serious consequences for all air breathers down the road if we don’t stop.
He’s a child UH—- it’s all they got!
BobA— what a relief—- I thought you were just a moron. Thanks for clearing that all up. Phew!
Still not convinced. He is mean. CWD is disinformation. Beware Teddy.
Tedy Steals— what a relief—- I thought you were just a moron….OH WAIT you are a moron, my bad. Thanks for clearing that all up. Phew 😉
Teddy. I told you….
U haul– watch this—-
Hey Poodle— no comment yet on the lawsuit predictions you lost in the pension roll back Supreme Court case?
Ted Steele:
Only my wife gets to call me a moron and all I dare say is: ” what did I do?”
Anybody else calls me a moron and they get an ear full. I owe you one but I’ll save it for the next time when I have to kick you around a bit to adjust your outlook on life!!
BoBA
Your a hurting pussey cat!
Boba— Read my answer again—#32—-I said I “thought” (past tense) u were a moron, based on your first stupid answer….now that you cleared it up and repudiated it I am relieved. You’re no moron, well, at least based on your repudiating post, but I’ll be watching.
Teddy = MORON 😉
Teddy. This may be another bad boy….
Ulysses Uhaul:
Never argue with the person who has the key to the lock box with your family jewels in it. Life is so better when you let her think she is always right.
“Bad boy” is better than gimmick account 😉
The poor lad thinks I am you.
But he still does not want to explain his multiple prediction failures on the county’s pension roll back lawsuit…..hmmmm…..weak