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Daryl Hannah, up a tree…

Daryl Hannah was arrested yesterday for sitting in a tree, defending the South Central Farm, a community garden in Los Angeles scheduled for development by the property’s owner, Ralph Horowitz. The City of LA, which has most recently owned the land, had been kind enough to allow locals to use the acreage to grow tomatoes and corn whilst it lay fallow. Then it sold the land to Horowitz, who evily has decided to develop the property…

The kicker? Horowitz is the property’s rightful owner from away back – the city having seized the land from him in the first place in 1986, citing immanent domain, when it wanted to build an incinerator on the site. He’s now being accused of being an ‘evil developer’, and member of the LA Jewish Mafia.

Then along came the D-list celebrity activists, including Hannah and folk singer Joan Baez, who took up the ill-conceived cause, found a tree on the property, and started sitting in it.

Far from being a bleeding-heart shoe-in, the farm is so stinky a lefty effort that the local alt-weekly newspaper, the LA Weekly, ran an investigative expose about thuggery on the part of pro-farm organizers and their intimidation tactics in pressuring the ‘farmers’ to support the ’cause’.

The only net effect, of course, will be to prevent any landowner, including the government, from allowing community gardens anywhere, ever, or any other benevolent use of property, for fear of squatter confiscation.

A brutally ‘fair’ outcome, satisfactory only to those who fail to recognize that unfairness is the basis of benevolence – it is what we call charity.

36 comments to Daryl Hannah, up a tree…

  • ‘LA Jewish mafia’? No surprise there as the whole Aztlan movement is just old style fascism with a hispanic twist (in the whole sence, complete with the whole racist blood-and-soil schtick).

  • felix

    Completely off-topic. Deleted.

  • Julian Taylor

    Having been to a Hollywood charity ‘fundraiser’ before, and seeing how people turn up in a $100,000 auto, spend $2000 on a dinner and yet feel fgood for having donated $200 to saving some obscure South American indian, I wonder if Ms Hannah and [sex unknown] Baez might not have been better off clubbing together and buying the land themselves from Horowitz, rather than attacking someone who has already had the misfortune of suffering under eminent domain.

  • suntree

    About your logic…. I might agree, but if you are willing to go back to 1986 why not further? The land originally belonged to the Indian folks who might want to build a casino thereon.

  • Jussi Hämäläinen

    Let us not forget the opportunity cost for the celebrities involved in this pitiful affair.These people could have been involved in causing some serious harm,like trying to stop a nuclear power plant from being built (glbl wrmng,remember?).

    Think globally – act locally!Save your navel lint from extinction.

  • rosignol

    ‘LA Jewish mafia’? No surprise there as the whole Aztlan movement is just old style fascism with a hispanic twist […]

    There are some jewish developers in Seattle who are referred to by some as ‘the Jewish Mafia’, and the people who say it are niether hispanic or the least bit fascist- it’s just a (very impolite) reference to their clannishness and ethnicity.

    If you need a building put up, they’ll do it on time, under budget, and make a decent profit- the only kvetch (from an outsider’s POV) is that if you’re not jewish, your chances of joining the group and getting a piece of that sweet ROI are nil.

    I dunno if that’s what the Aztlan types mean, but I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about fascist leanings based only on their use of the term.

  • Pedant's Apprentice

    “eminent” domain?

  • I dunno if that’s what the Aztlan types mean, but I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about fascist leanings based only on their use of the term.

    I base my views of far more than that (entirely representative) use of the language by them. They are full fat non-diet ethnic fascists of the old school, complete with an absurd volk mythology.

  • toolkien

    How about we build a warehouse and employ people? No! Let’s leave the land the way it is and have subsistence squatting instead. A bright shining example of left-think in a nutshell.

  • You should really do more research on the Southern Poverty Law Center before using them as a source. Their infamous for their lack of credibility even among other leftists.

    I’ve never encountered an actual “Aztlan type,” in person or on the Internet. They apparently exist largely as a bogeyman for nativist bigots in America–sort of like Verity and company here, except they hate Mexicans instead of Muslims.

  • anonymous coward

    Ken,

    The Minister of Information at Atzlan.net must not be doing a good job if you think they don’t exist.

    Here is the URL, easily found via Google:
    http://www.aztlan.net/

  • Salsa Blanco

    These wackos sure are fascists (old school as the guy says), constantly talking about La Raza (The race). Just read it for yourself.

    These guys have mounted some fairly large demos in California. They sure do exist and in some numbers.

  • bigfire

    I listened to the local (Los Angeles) talk radio interview Horowitz on this matter:

    1. The original squatter were given another plot of land by the city of Los Angeles, and most of them have moved on to that land.

    2. The current occupiers are the ones charging rent to the homeless who farm there. Nevermind that they don’t own the place, don’t pay the property tax.

    3. They went after Horowitz with the usual anti-Zionist/Israeli tactic that we’ve all grown acustom from the left. Horowitz have basically stated that had he knew what he was dealing with the began with, he would’ve never sell.

    4. A foundation was supposed to raise $15 million to buy the land from Horowitz. They failed to raised the money.

    5. Oh, did I mentioned that Horowitz is still paying the property taxes on his land that is stolen by the occupiers?

  • Remarkable, Ken Hagler “and others”, Verity provokes an awful lot of commentary in her absence. I think some people need to move on (two words).

  • Tom Penn

    I was so hoping they would just leave her up there. Hannah wouldn’t have lasted long enough for her greasy- headed, dark-eyed photos to hit the Inquirer. The left could have organized a fund raiser to buy the property to “save” her crusty ass. I was really looking forward to the circus.

  • 13times

    The LA Weekly is pulling out all the stops.

    * Threaten to Cut Legally Protected Tree
    * Praying for a Miracle
    * Developer Ralph Horowitz Attacks the Poor
    * Attack on the south central farm

    Just need the obligatory:

    * Bulldozers rented from Haliburton
    * Children starving as crops are bulldozed
    * Daryl Hannah refuses bath for 20th consecutive day

  • veryretired

    It would have been a positive boon for the theatrical, movie, and acting worlds if they had just left Hannah up in the tree indefinitely.

    As for Baez, she’d show up at the opening of a new postal box if anyone would just listen to her meander through some forty year songs and tell her how relevant she still is.

    It’s like Jagger still doing concerts and collecting Social Security (or its equivalent) at the same time. Activists who consist of nothing more than a shadow of their former significance and some wrinkles.

    Having said that, I do admit there’s a germ of a new rallying cry for future protest in all this—

    “SAVE A TREE—HOIST A HANNAH”.

    Has a certain ring to it…

  • Seattle Man

    rosignol.
    You are talking nonsense.

  • Another Seattle resident

    No, rosignol is correct.

  • Ann

    Darryl Hannah could certainly afford to buy the land herself. She is a trustifarian who’s family made their fortune in pharmaceuticals. When she was engaged to JFK jr, her family insisted that he sign a pre-nupt…

  • Nate

    Wow…the most shocking aspect of this story is that Joan Baez is still alive. I had no idea. I thought she had aspyxiated on her own vomit or something. No…wait…that was Janice Joplin, wasn’t it? hmmm…anyway…

    I’m impressed Perry, I didn’t know that anyone knew about Aztlan, et al outside of the southwestern USA, let alone on the other side of the Atlantic.

    I’m amazed that those people can speak the way that they do and not be called for what they are. At the risk of being called out on Godwin’s Law…they certainly seem like the real thing.

    You might also be interested in what is effectively the young auxiliary of Aztlan, La Mecha.

  • RAB

    Just been reading the bit in the Times on this.
    The land in question is a mere 14 acres. I have a small park round the back of me about the same size.
    The Times says 250 “Subsitence farmers” are being evicted from the site.
    Duh 250 living off 14 acres? In a pigs eye!
    These are what we british call allotments. Hobby gardening. Indulged in by men of a certain age with pipes and string round their knees, and the biggest marrows in christendom.
    Besides—- When will the lefty moonbats ever learn tactics?
    All Joan Baez had to do was threaten to sing and she could have written her own terms!

  • Uain

    Re; Darryl Hannah and Joan Baez

    The problem with these two has-beens is that they just can’t go serenely into their twilight years. Matter of fact, not many of the self absorbed twits of that generation can, hell we still have Fat Teddy Kennedy and John F-ing Kerry thinking it’s 1969.

  • felix

    Duh 250 living off 14 acres? In a pigs eye!

    18 people an acre is doable for a vegetarian diet. One acre can produce 20,000 pounds of potatos a year, for example.

  • Pete_London

    I’m amazed that those people can speak the way that they do and not be called for what they are.

    I’m not. Jew-bashing, long indulged on the left, is spreading very rapidly.

  • RAB

    Wow that must be some magic field!
    My uncle Johnny Ty Vri couldn’t get yields anything like that, and he had 75 acres to play with.
    I thought these folk are Mexicans not Irish, what are they going to do with all those potatoes.
    “Spuds spuds, we dont need no steenking spuds!”

  • felix

    Wow that must be some magic field!

    Not really. One acre = 43560 square feet. So in approximate terms you would need to grow one half pound potato in each square foot of land.

    Sounds reasonable to me.

  • guy herbert

    “The X Mafia” is a cliché-ed jocularism for any cabal of people from a similar background who are powerful in some area, physical or professional. ‘the Jewish Mafia’ is a phrase I’ve heard Jews use too.

    I couldn’t name a prominent actual gangster who was Jewish since Bugsy Siegel, though.

    Never heard of the Atzlan movement before, so I’m grateful for the information. “Fascist” seems a bit mild as a description for someone who professes nostalgia for a culture centred on public torture and human sacrifice for centuries. Most genocides appear to be made with an attempt to dispose of the nominated racial enemies discreetly, or at least to get them out of the way and forget about them thereafter.

  • snide

    In my experience there is a pearson coefficient of damn close to 1 between a person being a gibbering idiot and the phase “The Jewish [lawyers/bankers/zionist conspirators/etc] are responsible for…!”

    That is not to say Jews cannot do profoundly evil things (Leon Trotsky spings to mind), but that is because the people in question are wicked, not because they are Jewish.

  • Simon Jester

    I couldn’t name a prominent actual gangster who was Jewish since Bugsy Siegel, though.

    The Kray twins were supposed to be part Jewish.

    Apart from them, neither can I.

  • guy herbert

    snide,

    Indeed, but pointing to a clique (and implicitily thumbing one’s nose at it) by such a familiar phrase is not the same as asserting conspiritorial control of the world, even if there are frightening numbers of people who do the latter. (I seem to get letters from half of them.)

  • guy herbert

    Speaking of which, it suddenly occurs to me virtually everyone I know in LA is Jewish, but I would never have thought to me to put them into a group thus. Not only do I know Jews from elsewhere, but they’d have been the Hollywood Mafia, at the back of my mind, because that’s the (fictitious) clique I feel they belong to, and I’m excluded from by my stolid English background.

  • RAB

    It sounds reasonable to you because you havent tried it.
    Factor in Longditude and latitude, soil nutrienets heat , cold, basic peasant stupidity and you may find that My uncle did well to make a living at all!
    But come, this is pure pedantry on both our parts. The problem is political rather than agricultural.
    If you think those people are seriously living off that land…. Well let’s see what their local benefits office has to say about it.

  • snide

    Indeed, but pointing to a clique (and implicitily thumbing one’s nose at it) by such a familiar phrase is not the same as asserting conspiritorial control of the world

    Then you clearly haven’t spent much time on the various Aztlan websites.

  • To refer to any “ruling clique” as an X Mafia is slanderous. If you call them a mafia, you are implying that they are an organized crime syndicate. If the Jewish Seattle Real Estate Development Mafia are perpetrating crimes, talk to the DA and get them charged with the crimes, under the RICO statute.

    To me, it stinks of envy, especially class (or capital) envy and the envy of those with the political, business, and networking skills to accomplish some seriously effective and profitable goals.

    I admit, I have some capital, but not enough to play around in real estate development. I have some basic enough business skill to be successful in my profession. I have enough political skills to survive and be a whiny citizen nagging my elected officials. I network okay. But none of this is anywhere near the skills and capital of the Seattle Real Estate Development Jews. Do I envy or curse them? No! I admire and applaud them. Well done!

    Instead of slandering them, go raise your own capital and network to form your own real estate development group. Compete. No whining allowed.

    BTW, thanks Jewish “Mafia” for providing jobs, contributing to the economy, and improving the community. Hat tip!!!

  • Alasdair

    Actually, when I hear/read “Jewish Mafia”, my first thought goes straight to the “Kosher Nostra” …

    guy herbert – June 16 @ 6:16 – actually, the Aztec tended towards the theologically liberal … now, the Spanish, on the other hand, they were a tad more deadly … if the Aztec conquered you, while you had to put up a temple or two to the main Aztec Gods, you didn’t have to give up your own gods … as a conquered people, you had to pay tribute, but, then again, that’s standard MO, is it not ?

    Yes, the Aztec sacrificed a lotta folk – they sacrificed ’em for losing wars, not just for worshipping the wrong gods …

    The current Aztlan reconquistas want a lot of the Southwest US ‘restored’ back to – are you ready for this – essentially country of Mexico – except that it’s a Mexico that was set up by the Spanish (white invaders) … so the Aztlan folk want the Southwest taken from one white invader entity to give it to another white invader entity (as long as the Aztlan folk get to rule it) even though the areas were *never* part of the Aztec Empire …

    Is it the year Ce Acatl yet ?