Gore Vidal Installs Solar Power System, City of Los Angeles Makes Up an Excuse and then Starts Ripping Out Wire
July 9th, 2007I had initially passed on this story, but four of you submitted it. First of all, being from Orange County and going to college in Los Angeles, I witnessed the madness first hand. In my opinion, anyone who is able to leave Los Angeles or Orange County, but doesn’t, is insane. I’ve written the place off entirely. It’s a crowded, polluted, dry, hot death trap; a vague and distant nightmare to me now. It’s difficult for any news of the madness in that place to cross the threshold of significance in my book anymore. (See Grass Under Renovation and Building a Clothes Line.)
Additionally, I just don’t see bogus crackdowns by criminal local authorities as worth mentioning now. (Do you also want to see stories about cops beating up old ladies for not maintaining their lawns to Nazi specifications?) This crap is the order of the day in the U.S. They just happened to drop the bomb on a famous limousine liberal author this time.
I’m refusing to look at the base level of the meat grinder. Why? That level of analysis isn’t useful anymore for the U.S. If you don’t get it by now, you’ll never get it. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t report these things, but, after reading this shit for 20 years, I’m here to tell ya’: Stories about fascism do nothing to stop fascists.
Only you can stop fascism. And reading/writing about it doesn’t count. (See Defunding Fascists.)
Finally, with regard to this Gore Vidal situation, his total ignorance on electricity generation in California really put me off this story. It makes me sad when so-called dissidents are so clueless. Someone like Gore Vidal should know better. Saying that California is burning oil to produce electricity makes anyone with anything to do with alternative power look like an idiot.
Vidal says, “Utility companies have no intention for anyone to use solar power so long as there’s a drop of oil anywhere in the world.”
For the record, these are the electricity generation methods in California:
Natural Gas 41.5%
Nuclear 12.9%
Large Hydro 19.0%
Coal 15.7%
Renewable 10.9%
I assume Vidal isn’t using BP solar panels… * sigh * And, of course, humans will never extract the last drop of oil from the earth, but we might soon be approaching the point where supplies of economically viable oil are depleted. Yes. Details, details.
In summary, the issue isn’t that local authorities are clueless, fascist goons—for f#*@s sake, tell me something I don’t know—but rather, what you’re going to do about it.
When your only response to fascism is strong words, that equals complicity in my book. (Members of the U.S. Congress, I know you’re reading this…)
Via: Truthdig:
Note to public utility companies: Do not cross Gore Vidal. A week after representatives from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power came to his Hollywood Hills home to inspect (and then shut down) his newly installed solar power system, Vidal is still “on the grid,†unable to use solar until the system is fully re-inspected. As his fans would expect, the puissant author and tough customer has let fly with some strong words about the utility company, the state of California and the state of the country at large.
