SIG-HEIL, MUTHUH-FUKUH


By Carol Fondiller

In the 70’s I was involved with several women’s groups and the Free Venice Organizing Committee.
At one time in one of the women’s movement’s the subject of discussion and the touchstone of how committed one was was signified by what clothes you wore and whom you slept with.
I remember one woman reduced to tears because she wore a brassiere.


No matter that this woman believed in a woman’s right of control over her own body, that she pioneered in a “nontraditional” occupation that was deemed “unfeminine.” (Higher pay? more prestige?)
The fact that she wore a brassiere and high heels, proved to the true believers that she wasn’t a real Feminist. Now in my naivete, I believed that the women’s movement meant that if one had the ability, one could be anything one wanted to be.

If you decided to be a police officer, and you had the chops for it, cool. Ditto bass player, saxophonist, ballet dancer, or telephone repairman--excuse me, telephone repair PERSON! I remember when there were no fire fighters, only fireMEN, no police officers only policeMEN.

I was chastised by one of the “leaders” because I didn’t wear army fatigues. The woman who chastised me really looked good in fatigues. The Sam Browne belt tucked just so accented her small waist. Her khaki shirt unbuttoned at the neck accented the firm vibrant flesh. The military shirt called attention to her perky breasts, etc., etc. She looked, in short, like Jane Fonda, girl guerrilla. When I tried on the approved feminist attire I looked like Marjorie Main, girl gorilla.

There was a lot of oppression in the very groups that supposedly opposed oppression.
Recently, I was at a meeting that was supposed to deal with the ongoing problems on the Ocean Front Walk, i.e., commercial vending, amplified music, etc.

I was one of the few residents at the meeting. The other attendees were either shopkeepers, business people or “free expressionists” from the westside of the O.F. W.

It was supposed to be a working group. This was not the first group or committee I’d gone to about the Ocean Front Walk.

At other meetings I was also out-numbered, and at one meeting I was rebuked because I
wasn’t thinking of Afghanistan, just talking about noise. Of course the name of the group was the Boardwalk Committee, and at that meeting world-shaking subjects were whether the city should be sued because the sprinklers went on and sprayed the products -- whoops – artistic output of the “free expressionists.”

At this particular meeting, we went around the room, limited to two minutes to speak . Jerry Rubin spoke first. Like developers and architects, who build on the fertile soil of Venice, managing to grow 40-foot height limits into 50-foot height limits, Jerry, as he has in the past, managed to expand his two minutes into five. I know. I timed him.

After several other speakers, it was my turn. I started speaking about the noise. From behind me, I heard the chant “Move, Move, Move.” from several people, along with shrill voices denouncing me for writing mean things about them in the Beachhead. I tried to continue, but I was shouted down. I was so angry that I lost Control. The intimidation shouldn’t have surprised me, since these same people used the same tactics on me and other people who didn’t agree with the “free expressionists” at previous meetings. I was so angry that I left the meeting, realizing that I would only be destructive and negative. I left the meeting and went out on the Ocean Front Walk to sit on one of the few remaining benches on the Ocean Front Walk.

It was only 9 a.m. on a weekday. Not many people were out. I screamed and yelled. If I were more agile and could pass for two years old, I would have flung myself on the ground, kicked my heels and held my breath. As it was, I tantrumed for about 15 minutes until I ran out of breath, only to hear one of the shopkeepers who was opening his store, say to one of his helpers, “Oh my God, another schizophrenic.” At this point, people were coming out of the meeting onto the Ocean Front Walk. I spotted the people who had heckled and shouted me down--Ibrahim Butler and his family--the same free expressionists who had shouted and intimidated anyone who disagreed with them at previous hearings and meetings.

I went up to Ibrahim Butler, head sensitive artistic soul, and I sez to him, I sez “Sig Heil, Muthuh Fukuh!”
Ibrahim, with “LOVE” painted on his hat and hate in his heart muttered under his breath about “getting even” with the Beachhead, while his wife mewled about how mean I was.

About another week later at a town hall meeting cosponsored by the Grass Roots Venice Neighborhood Council and Councilman Bill Rosendahl, the players were again assembled.

Now, I’ve gone to meetings and been rowdy. Scores of us used to show up at City Hall to oppose the Master Plan for Venice, which was get rid of low-income people and the folks in Oakwood. We made a racket, we made noise because we were at that time prohibited from speaking at City Hall because we were not property owners.

Shortly after, it was decided that we would be allowed to speak because of something called the Bill of Rights.

We did speak, we were rowdy, but we did interrupt the opposition because we were not allowed to speak. We hissed and booed while they spoke, and we were threatened with arrest. And some of us were arrested. By the way, some property owners attempted to shut us up, using the same tactics that Ibrahim et. cie. used to shut up dissenters.

At the Venice Town Hall meeting, anyone who disagreed with the free expressionists was shouted down, as usual. So it struck me as peculiar that a proposal for peacekeepers was put forward, that involved self-policing, since these thugs couldn’t even control themselves at a meeting. They couldn’t even control themselves when they got into fights over spaces on the Ocean Front Walk.

These so-called free spirits displayed the same mentality that they have accused developers, business people, landlords, the Gov’t., of having--Greed, lack of consideration for diversity of opinion. Their behavior had little to do with the right of free expression, and more to do with protection of their turf, so they could make their profits in good ol’ capitalist style--just like the shopkeepers and landlords on the east side of the O.F.W.

So, it was with a feeling of dread, frustration and hopelessness that I attended the most recent Town Hall meeting to discuss the proposed ordinance regarding the Ocean Front Walk.

Councilman Rosendahl & various officials from the Police Dept., Recreation and Parks, Los Angeles City Attorney’s office and a representative from the Grass Roots Venice Neighborhood Council were present.
Several people representing nonprofit organizations claimed they would be unable to function if they were not allowed to sell T-shirts. They managed to equate the prohibition against selling anything “that has any utility other than communication or art,” as being against homeless people.

Performers, artists, free expressionists, henna artists (an oxymoron if there ever was one), vendors masquerading as artists, etc., spoke and were wildly applauded by their brethren.

When residents, shopkeepers, homeowners, etc., spoke, they were interrupted and booed by the “free expressionists.” Free speech for the artistic sensitive sociopathic thugs on the westside of the Ocean Front Walk, but none for anyone who might disagree with them--FREE SPEECH FOR ME BUT NOT FOR THEE.

As a group of Korean shopkeepers spoke, there was laughter. “Free expressionists” made fun of their accents.

These free expressionists who have such trouble with regulations, seem also to have trouble with courtesy. The Free Expressionists slanted their eyes, bucked their teeth in their mockery of Asians. If anyone had done the same thing as black people were speaking, there would have been outrage expressed by the audience.

Some of the people who were ridiculing the Koreans were the same ones who were accusing people who were for the ordinance in principle, of racism.

They were demanding “Repatriation.”

I would have been happy to repatriate them to Outer Thule, but they meant restitution. Not one of the officials stopped this nasty racist attack.

To my everlasting embarrassment, I did not speak out.

Marta Evry, yes MARTA EVRY, she who attempted to invalidate a legitimate election of the Grass Roots Venice Neighborhood Council and succeeded in highjacking the Progressive Slate in the last GRVNC election. She stated that she had no dog in this fight. (A reference to the attempt to register her dog as a Stakeholder in a previous GRVNC election?) But, she said she had to speak out about the blatant racism displayed.

The sensitive artistic neo-fascist souls--those people making their last stand against the machine, those people who can police themselves, outed themselves as the tyrannical fascist bullying greedy sociopathic creeps they really are.

And it is a deep shame that not one “Progressive” not one antiwar activist, not one free speecher got up to rebuke these self-styled representatives of the true free Spirit of Venice.

It took a person who has opposed low-income units in favor of parking lots, who has aligned herself with pro-condo development, to unmask those people who have no trouble crying racism when they don’t get their way, practice it when they think they can get away with it.

These people shout down and bully anyone who doesn’t march in goose step with them.

There are many things I find fault with in the proposed ordinance. But because these sociopathic bullies drown me out, I can only play one string on my theme before I am shouted down. I have been accosted by these Auditory Rapists accusing me of insulting them. Look-Listen you Auditory Rapists, you don’t have to read my stuff. I’m not forcing your eyes open with toothpicks forcing you to read my stuff. You can toss it. Make a paper hat out of it. (But read the other articles in the ‘Head!) But I am forced to listen to your sound whether I like it or not. Thus, Auditory Rape.

And since these people bully people out of their spaces, stop people from speaking and now make racist remarks under the flag of free speech, anti-violence except when someone disagrees with you free spirits, I say unto you fascism comes in all colours and it appears in all politics left or right, and I say to you

SIG HEIL, MUTHUH FUKUHS

Posted: Wed - February 1, 2006 at 08:13 PM          

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