August 19, 2026 • 38 mins
As Los Angeles folk, we look longingly out west at the new mayor of New York, and we are also on the verge of electing our own progressive, Neythia Raman. But we must acknowledge that, the way our city is set up in its charter, we ain't gonna see the type of motion that Zohran has.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm about to go into a diatribe of ways for
which you know who I am to explain what I'm
about to explain, But I will say this using the
hood politics as a comparison, there are some.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Things that just weren't transferable. The way that our gang.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Maps are set up where they're you know, cribs and bloods,
stuff like that, and different neighborhoods. Cribs fighting against cribs
has a lot to do with our geography and how
we were set up. We don't have the legacy of
crime bosses that New York does. A lot of the
(00:51):
New York street stuff was influenced by the Italians, right
the the lawsuits and all that. Like even talking like this,
like you know, you know New York dude, we're doing
this is they're doing the Italian thing.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You rep your buildings over there, you rep your projects
over there. They give you a buck fifty because you
shouldn't be on this side of town because that's the projects.
We just don't work that way now. It's not like
because the cribs and bloods have been exported everywhere, but
our rules are different because we are not New York,
(01:30):
and New York is not LA. A lot of times
New York dudes who from the streets they get out
here and they get really messed up because the lay
of the land is different. It's just not the same.
There are things that are will always be the same,
you know, like the street code and all it's good stuff,
snitch and stuff like that. Like if you understand a hood, due,
(01:51):
you understand a hood dude. But in LA we wear Chucks,
not Bally's, which I still don't.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Know what that means.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
If there is anything you know about me anything, there's
my love for coffee. Some people may or may not know.
I keep running into people that didn't know I did
music in poetry a whole Lass Award winning poetry book.
(02:21):
But maybe y'all don't know. It's people that don't know
I do this podcast. They still think we're doing the
Red Couch podcast, which I haven't done since before twenty
twenty with my wife. But there's one thing that is
never a question about who I am. I'm from the
(02:42):
West Coast, West West Los Angeles, born and raised Tony when.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I started rap show, my name is Propaganda.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I'm from the sixth to sixth, Listen, I was born
on the east side of South Central.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You have heard this so many.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Times, sixty seventh in San Pedro, east side sixties. Now
I'm not a gangbanger, so I say that in the
sense that the block of streets were the sixty eighth blocks,
Granny House, seventy third and San Pedro.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You understand what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Shortly thereafter, twenty minutes east of South Central, right below
West Covina, in the city of Industry, was a little
enclave called Welinda, right next to Lapente. I grew up
with them, Vothos, a gang of thressay essays full of
chest pain, young stam talking about family. Moved out to
the Inland Empire for about an hour. I went back,
(04:02):
went to school in the II, came back, moved a
wittier Nigga. Didn't with the College of cal State. Fuller
to Nigga. I lived in Long Beach, like listen, West
Coast Los Angeles. But the reality is as an LA
native who fell in love with Hipop, you have your
New York era, you have your time when you was
(04:23):
because listen, like I said on the Icons episode when they.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Talked about b York.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I come from the backpacker world, and in the backpacker
world that meant you love you some New York rap
that I was having running around.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Here in hoodies and ten boots.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
You understand I'm saying, pulling one sweat pant leg up
like like dog on ll cool J, falling in love
with Wou Tang, having your dress, having your braids half
done because method man did it.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
You understand what I'm talking about. You have this.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
If you loved hipop, some some boot camp, you understand
what I'm saying. Some Helter Skelter, Buckshot, Smith and Wesson,
some Dos Effects, Nigga, some REDMN.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You love you that New York rap.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Burroughs, you ain't stound saying the first time I went
to New York, I was able to navigate.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
It because of rap music.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Q Tip saying, back in the days on the Bulevard
all my OG's Alendon, we used to kick routines and
the presence was fit and it was the abstract and
me the five foot I kicked the mass style.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
S uf about the frank food listen.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I knew that Flatbush was in Brooklyn because of special
Ed and Shorty Buckshot Franklin Avenue projects. I knew because
of the Crookland Dodgers song. I'm really in another part
of reality hit me wanting to represent the FAP like
(05:55):
I only knew that you understand what I'm saying Queen's
Bridge because of freaking mob deep I knew how I
knew Queens.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Was above or the Bronx was up there.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I knew that Uptown was next to wash Heights was
it was where Washed Heights was, which was near Harlem,
which was Uptown. I only knew that because of rap music,
the Marsi projects, and I only knew that I knew
Queens because of Pharaoh manch.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Listen hip hop, you you fall in love with it.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And even with the Biggie and Tupac Beef, Listen you
act like listen, you act like we wasn't runing around
here banging ready to die like Nigga. We we loved Biggie,
like don't we loved him? There was no like did
did we? Of course we're gonna choose the side, just
like he said, if I got to choose the coast,
I got to choose the East.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I live out there, so don't go there.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It was the same I mean, I'm gonna choose the
West because nigga, I'm from the West.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm gonna be loyal to my soil. But I'm also
not delusional.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
New York Baby concrete jungle where James are rayed from
and one of the most frustrating things Listen Kelli is
not short of anthems, whether it's Los Angeles or the
Bay Area. Cause I can say, right now, what's my
favorite word? Sorry guys West Coast, you understand what I'm saying.
(07:27):
So there's we are not short of anthems. But I
tell you what, when the Knicks won this year, even
though I was pulling for San Antonio, I wanted to
see when we get one. It's just good for basketball,
for the Knicks to be good. When he said, but
as soon as you hear that piano break, do do do.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I got a hundred guns, one hundred clips.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hard niggad from New Yok, New Yok. Nigga asks hard
like I can't front. I got a hundred guns, one
hundred clips. I got an automatic bits that spits.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
That spits when you talk, and it's jaw rule, which
makes it even more corny. But the fact is the
song is a banger. I got a hundred guns and
one hundred clips. Nigga from New York. There's only when
they did de Luxe and Dipset Battle. When that song
came on, was I like, listen Primo Pete Rock who
(08:31):
a weirdo now? But all that you can't it is undeniable.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Like this like you.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Shook ones. If shook ones, come on, like got me
flipping my hoodie up. You understand what I'm saying, Like
I get it. The power of Wu Tang put overdid
the power of Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You understand what I'm saying, Like the the raisel hit
it with a laser. I get it. The y'all running
around here saying my mayor is Muslim, my Bagel's a
Jewish hard but I don't want to be you. It's
la online.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
But there was one time recently when we was like, yo,
can we get.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
One of those?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
And that's Zora, Mom, Donnie NIGGI. There is there a
tupac to this biggie, can we get like? And then
we elected nith or we no, no, now we elected
Nythia won the primary or it was second in the primary.
So it's setting us up with a very similar situation,
(09:41):
only a female one. We got Karen Bass versus Nythia Ramen.
Y'all had Andrew Cuomo versus.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Zora Mom Donnie. Now, now it's.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
The same in the sense that you got two establishment
dudes in the situation. Now, listen, ain't nowhere in the world.
And Cuomo had a single chance, a single chance. It
wasn't an ice. Listen, that brother did not have a
chance at all because he trash like bruh. Now Karen
(10:15):
got a chance. So it's a little different. It's hard
because that's still a black woman, and you gotta understand
the way our black is set up, you know. And
also black people generally as a people were not really progressives,
you feel me. Just that's not as on on the
as a as a collective, won't really fall under the
(10:36):
progressive things. There's things that make sense. Part of that
is part of that is honestly racism. You know, we
wasn't allowed into the unions. Y'all put together these progressive
unions for workers rights, and y'all wouldn't let niggas in.
So we was like, well, okay, well even y'all like
(10:57):
bleeding the hard bedstide you know, living with the Black
Lives Matter poster air all are welcome into a home
that was price that you own because black people was
priced out of it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It was like, oh, nigga, we get it, we get it.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's like those memes about like, uh, the Republicans dropping
bombs on a country and then the Democrats dropping bombs
but the but the bomb.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Got a rainbow on it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
You understand what I'm saying, Like with a Black Lives
Matter flag, it's like, nigga, y'all ain't no different. Like,
so I get that Black people are very as a whole.
We just transactional when it comes to politics.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
We're very like you.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
We understand that you will never love us like we
understand that this this system is designed to lock us out.
We like, we have an understanding of that.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So just leave me alone.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
And as far as black people like as a whole,
like I said, we're not progressive. So even a transitsue
is really hard for black people, Like just don't tell
my son, Hey a girl, it like, I'm just telling
you the way they stand. That's not I am a progressive,
So I'm different, you know, don't know what I'm saying.
But we understand solidarity, we understand all that, but at
(12:16):
the same time, we like, look, nigga, like, I'm just
trying to pay for our groceries, cause like I ain't needed.
We've been at the bottom of the barrel for the
for the whole time, So I ain't trying to hear
nobody else's as a tradition anyway, so we're not necessarily
so somebody like a Karen Bass just off the fact that,
like I said, forgive me, I'm cheering for everybody.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Black, I'm gonna be cheering for the black one. I'm saying.
If even if you.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Look at the map of who voted for who in
our primary, the west side was for the white boy.
The northeast side where I live was the nitia world.
And that's your your silver legs, your echo parks. These
are rather highland parks, These are rather trified areas that
(13:02):
are Latino and hipster. But then South and South Central LA,
which is still black as hell. They went for Karen
because Nigga, I don't vote for the black women. But
the frustration is over the fact that, like a lot
of times, if you really pay attention to politics, Karen
(13:24):
Bass ain't delivered Nigga like, what the hell? Because she though,
could La get where's our zoron? Is Cannythia be our zoron?
And let me tell you something now, And that's by
design hood politics, y'all. All right, y'all to live and
(14:17):
die in La Yo? Can we get a zoron? And
the answer is no, I'm just gonna ruin the pod
right now.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And it's by design.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But it's by design not usually in the most like
gross manner. It's more like Nigga We not New York
Nigga's West Coast on ours. In La we wear Chucks,
not Bally's, which I still don't know what that means.
It's a Tupac line that I still don't understand. In La,
(14:53):
we wear Chucks, not Bali's.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, that's right. I don't know who wears Bally's. I
don't know Chucks, It LOAKSI khaki suits and ride is
what we do. But La could never. And I'm gonna
explain to you why now.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
At first, here's the thing. Zorn cooking like the nigga
getting there. He cooking breuh rent Freeze two year rent
Freeze got a well tach on the second second homes
of the wealthy, potholes, universal health care, the nigga cooking
all the shit we need done, and we are as
(15:27):
a whole, I mean, we just as progressive and financially,
you know, wealth disparages, all the shit that New York got,
we got right. So one would think in these two
bastions of you know, Carrider's Corridor, like the dude from Louise,
(15:50):
Louisiana kept saying about New York, you would think that,
like nobody hate California, Like somebody who lived two thousand
miles away from California.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
They convinced, we don't know what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
You would think that, like it is a no brainer,
like Chicago got a progressive.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Mayor, nigga, like what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And I'm gonna argue as a reason for that, And
it's because we ain't wanted to be New York since
day one. The rivalry the equivalent opposite of New York
in La go all the way back to our founding,
which is crazy how it keeps manifesting now.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Granted, arch rivals.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
In basketball is still Boston, but Yankees versus Dodgers.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The Dodgers being from Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Now they't here like just our just mirrored images of
New York versus LA. Goes all the way back to
the establishing of our charter.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Ain't that crazy? All right?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Why can't we get a Zoran. I'm gonna give you
three reasons right now. So when LA was founded as
(17:23):
a charter, LA got flooded with migrants, not immigrants, because
you got to remember, the shit was Mexico. Niggas was
already here. The Latinos was already here, so they didn't
cross the border. The border across them, so they was
already here. But as people came from the east, and
at least for black people, because of the great migration.
(17:45):
You have to remember, black people came from Texas with
you was in the Deep South. They went north, them
foods went to Detroit, Chicago, up there, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Black people they went west.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
One is closer and two that's just more like our steeds, right,
So we ended up west. That's why almost everybody who
like an LA native, they family is from the South,
but they from like Texas, Arkansas South right anyway, That's
why our accent sounds the way like that LA black accent.
Why it sounds it's got a little twang to it.
(18:22):
Families are from the South. Anyway, I need to take
you back to the Gilded Age. That's the John d Rockefellers,
like the big Carnegie Halls and all these these these
big titans of industry that built these high rises that
just this this this golden age of New York and Chicago.
(18:44):
And how these men were be able to become like
super super super wealthy. Well you know how they was
able to do that was they were kings. They became kings.
They created an oligarchy. Niggas ran the city. Why's why
the mob works so well, because all you had to
do was buy a politician, right, And then what came
(19:08):
after that was the Progressive era. The progressive era was
a response to that, right there was like that's when
you had all kind of unions being formed and people
being like, look, man, y'all can't just keep concentrating power
in one person, because that's how corruption becomes so easy,
because all you got to do is buy that dude.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
That's how the East was ran. So people was coming
west to get get away from that. So as we
built the La Charter, it was purposeful to decentralize the power,
because we saw what happens if one dude has all
(19:54):
that power.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
The clock's ticking, you just count the hours. That's a problem.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So by design, the powers got decentralized. Now I want
you to remember that, and let's come back to it.
But let's fast forward to now, why can't we get
a mayor to start cooking the way that Zorn cooking,
even if we elect a very progressive Joint.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Number one is the budget.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
So the New York budget, the New York mayor's budget,
the budget that the mayor has to work with is
one hundred and twenty five billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
LA's budget is fifteen.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You would say, is not Los Angeles three times the
size of New York? Well New York, And the answer
is no. I know it may seem like it, but
it's not. Let me lay this out for you. New
York is essentially a city state. It's the five boroughs,
(20:59):
which I again only know because of hip hop, all
the five boroughs, right, and they're a concentrated of people.
That's about eight point five million folks within those five boroughs,
and the mayor pretty much runs that budget. Now you
have to remember when people think of Los Angeles, you
(21:19):
think in most of the time of Los Angeles County, right,
which is not the city of Los Angeles, the actual
city limits. It's eighty eight cities inside of LA County.
But there's a lot of cities that you would think
are just neighborhoods, right, But they aren't the LA mayors,
(21:40):
they aren't under the LA Mayor's control. Santa Monica is
its own city, bel air, that's its own city. It's
this weird where you could literally like there's a section
over there on the west side in Westwood where the
LA City in the LA County.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's literally across the street. There's one side of the street.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
With this pristine mode beautiful grass right with a stop
sign and the carved out fire hydrant. All said, if
it's beautiful, literally across the street, it looks like a
homeless encampment. Grass ain't cut graffiti everywhere.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
You know why.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's not because the people on that side don't love
a neighborhood. It's because that side's ran by LA County
and this side's ran by LA City.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You could, like you, I'm telling you, you can stumble.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You could walk across the street and enter and them
out of the city limits into the county jurisdiction, and
then across the next street and you back into LA.
It's just the map don't make no sense. Now I'm
explaining to you why the map don't make sense.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Okay, why the.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Map don't make sense is because when La started growing,
one thing that we had that.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
The New York don't have, Nigga is space.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Like it's just there's just more land, right, And as
more land started spreading out, some of these neighborhoods became
more affluent than others, and then they decided to make
their own city charters. They was like, well, one really
gotta like so if we make our own city char charters,
then that means I ain't gonna pay taxes. I'mna pay
(23:23):
taxes to my neighborhood because we just incorporated ourselves as
a city inside of what used to just be a
neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
So now the mayor ain't got no control over that,
you follow me. So the first problem is is budget.
Some of that some of that just don't The budget
don't make no sense because they don't have control over that.
Because part of the things that look like the city
is really the county and part of the county is
(23:57):
really the city, and THEMS is totally differ different people
that run that thing, which gets me to the next part,
which is who control the money now in New York,
Like let's just say we just talk about housing or
just public safety. So the public safety budget, the social
(24:20):
services budget, the mental health budget, and the housing budget,
all those things are needed if you're gonna tackle like
homelessness and prices and stuff like that, like all of
those because you can't just be like, well, let's just
build a house, Okay, So if you build the houses,
my nigga, what about the people they need.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Mental health services? Like how I'm gonna keep the houses? Okay?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Well some of the people on social security and social
services like okay, So all of these things they all
work together, Like what like I need my EPT check,
you know what I'm saying to come in so I
could pay for the apartment that the city like all
this stuff gotta work together. The mayor in charge of
all of it in New York, he get it say
(25:02):
in all that. In Los Angeles, public safety that's the mayor,
Social services that's the county mental health, that's the county
housing is it's three departments, my nigga, Like, let's talk
about this. Education in Los Angeles. Education is ran by
(25:27):
the Los Angeles Districts School District the Unify School District,
which are elected by voters. The mayor don't control that.
The water and power is ran by the Department of
Water and Power, which is a board appointed by the
mayor but confirmed by the city council. Nigga, The airport
is ran by its own department. The mayor ain't gonna
saying none of that. If you wanted to clean up
(25:50):
one corner in Los Angeles, you'd have to talk to
six different departments because the people that make the sidewalk
are different than the city zoning people, which are different
than the health department that takes care of the homeless situation.
But the homeless situation can't even work with the health
department because they ran by two different programs.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Now that sounds ridiculous, don't it.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
But we did it on purpose, because we were trying
to decentralize power.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Is one of the things.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's like your iPhone one. It was a great idea,
nig get in you feel me. It's all ran by
different things. New York don't have a county, there is
no They don't have to talk to the county people LA.
The city of Los Angeles is smack dab in the
middle of the greater Los Angeles area. But all of
(26:40):
those gets counted when we start talking about numbers in
Los Angeles. But the mayor don't even control the shit.
So even if the mayor wanted to, you gotta talk
to seven different people.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Now, who are those seven different people? Now?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
A few years back, there was this tape that came
out of the like Latino Caucus. Daniel Weizar an these
uh not Daniel Weezar, My bad. Daniel Weezar was a
student I taught. Sorry about that, Daniel, what a dog?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Uh But these.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Collection of these Latino people that sat on the city
council that were discussing sort of strategy and they said
a lot of racist stuff, right, and then the city
got together and was like, we don't play that shit
and demanded their resignation. You would think that something like
(28:01):
that would not make national would make yeah, wouldn't make
national news. It made national news because of how Los
Angeles set up the real power in Los Angeles is
in the city council. Now we're set up with fifteen
city council members, and each of those council members are
(28:24):
in charge of a particular commission, the water commission, the power,
the airport, all of those things. So they're all again
this was by design at first, was to again decentralize
power so that no one person can get corrupted.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Right now, these fifteen people got.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Their own plans, They make their own situations, they figure out.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Their own ways.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
The broker power, right, and if they don't really mess
with the mayor, I don't care what the mayor promises.
You got to convince fifteen other people to let go
of the money. So when we protesting at a particular
corner on some like, whys you being you know, inhumane
(29:16):
about this situation? You complaining about a street light, the
mayor got to convince fifteen other council members. Because to
fit again to fix the street light, to clean up
the trash, and to find a way to make affordable
housing for these people, you got to talk to seven
different departments and you only got it. You only in
charge of one of them budgets, right, and then on
(29:38):
top of that, you got the County Board supervisors. There's
five county Board supervisors and we electing them in twenty
twenty eight. Now what happens if some of the outskirt
cities of Los Angeles County decide they want somebody a
(29:58):
little more spencer pratty. So now you got in a
complete progressive which I'm still calling that we vote in
nitia and in this you know, very conservative, a little
more representing the northwest side of it all. If them
niggas don't get along, shit don't happen, because the mayor
(30:22):
only control what the mayor controls. Right, here's a perfect
example of this. In nineteen seventy eight Prop thirteen pasted.
It was about our property taxes.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The city was becoming so big that most of the
time our property taxes went towards like schools and parks
and services so that we could live a really nice life.
Them niggas flipped the script and incentivize your property tax
to go towards building shopping malls. We was becoming a
(30:58):
car city, y'all may remember this. We used to have
Los Angeles used to have an entire electric trolley system.
You could still see the tracks in downtown. We used
to not be a car town. But since corruption is
(31:19):
impossible to avoid, lobbying started happening. The car lobbyists came
through and was like, Uh, I'm gonna need you all
to shut that shit down.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
We need to sell some cars out here. And how
they were able to do that was because remember we
had space.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
The city sprawled out and we could have went the
europe route and just okay, well we'll build our trains.
But this is part of why we don't have like
or we're just now getting a good mass transit system,
is because our council got lobbied and they made us
(31:54):
a car town, and here we are today. So I
say all that to say, I don't know if there's
a savior coming for us, if we got a democratic
socialist savior coming for us, because of the way that
Los Angeles is set up now.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I say that to not let any of these jokers
off the hook.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Okay, I think that there's a way that if you
get somebody at the helm that is so popular, like Anitia,
then that means one by one the city council people
who really want to keep that power, which again, Loki,
those are the folks that really got the power in
our cities. If you out here vote for them the
(32:39):
city council, that's what you need to pay attention to.
But if we get somebody on the helm and then
when you start looking at the county board supervisors, like
do the homework on nim.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Fools, the other stuff is easy.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
But if we could, I don't think we ever going
to change our charter because, for example, Chicago got forty
four city council they just call them aldermens.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
We got sixteen.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Why because you concentrate power Again, So it's not that
we're above corruption. It's not that we're not progressive enough.
It's that our city's just designed different. It's been it's
been fuck New York since day one. But that being said,
(33:40):
I do believe things can be better. I do believe
as the people, if we push towards these particular things,
we could force our mayor's office and councilmen in the
county office to.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Work for our good.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
We just got to show up and keep our foot
on their necks the way that we put our foot
on their necks. When the council members tape came out
and the city came through, it was like you about
to lose your job. You were about to lose your job.
Let's do that. Okay, none of that trash Spencer Platt
shit that where he blaming the homeless for being homeless.
(34:16):
You understand what I'm saying. We're just La built different,
all right. So I don't have an answer to this.
I'm just saying it's probably not a Zoran coming to
save us. Hell A quick update here about LA County.
(34:57):
So turns out we voted two years ago about the
way that the LA County runs right where, Remember, like
I said, they had six commissioners, so we moved that
to nine. And then we also created an oversight committee
(35:17):
that's like a truly independent oversight committee that was open
to the public to see one how this committee is
supposed to look what they wanted to represent and to
make sure that it is truly truly independent. So depending
on who you ask, maybe going into this next cycle
(35:43):
of you know, political powers that be in Los Angeles,
maybe don't move a little smoother, you know, maybe having
an oversight committee that's actually made up of activist business owners,
very diverse that it's for the county. Like I said, Like,
so remember the marriage between La City and La county
is so like, you know, e messed with each other,
(36:06):
Like it's you can't you can't drive through the city
and kind of like not, it's hard to tell, you
know what I'm saying, what city and what's county until
you get out the city limits.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
But even within the city limits you're like, wait, wait,
did I just leave La City? Yeah? Even trying to
get a library car because.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Like you, it's hard to tell whether something's a city
or a county library. Like you, you got to double check,
you feel me. Anyway, The point is we've made some
changes and hopefully this will make the effectiveness of any
actual true.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Change in the city go a little better. Anyway, just
wanted to add that politics, y'all.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in Eastlows, Boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in
with me at prop hip hop dot com. If you're
(37:17):
in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You can
go there dot com and use promo code hood get
twenty percent off, get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited,
and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski Killing the Beast Softly.
Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I'm a speller for you because I know M A T.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
T O s O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
The heat Politics is a member of cool Zone.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia
podcast network. Your thememusic and scoring is also by the
one and nobly mattow Sowski. Still killing the beats softly,
So listen, don't let nobody lie to you. If you
understand urban living, you understand politics. These people is not
smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.
All media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm about to go into a diatribe of ways for
which you know who I am to explain what I'm
about to explain, But I will say this using the
hood politics as a comparison, there are some.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Things that just weren't transferable. The way that our gang.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Maps are set up where they're you know, cribs and bloods,
stuff like that, and different neighborhoods. Cribs fighting against cribs
has a lot to do with our geography and how
we were set up. We don't have the legacy of
crime bosses that New York does. A lot of the
(00:51):
New York street stuff was influenced by the Italians, right
the the lawsuits and all that. Like even talking like this,
like you know, you know New York dude, we're doing
this is they're doing the Italian thing.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You rep your buildings over there, you rep your projects
over there. They give you a buck fifty because you
shouldn't be on this side of town because that's the projects.
We just don't work that way now. It's not like
because the cribs and bloods have been exported everywhere, but
our rules are different because we are not New York,
(01:30):
and New York is not LA. A lot of times
New York dudes who from the streets they get out
here and they get really messed up because the lay
of the land is different. It's just not the same.
There are things that are will always be the same,
you know, like the street code and all it's good stuff,
snitch and stuff like that. Like if you understand a hood, due,
(01:51):
you understand a hood dude. But in LA we wear Chucks,
not Bally's, which I still don't.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Know what that means.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
If there is anything you know about me anything, there's
my love for coffee. Some people may or may not know.
I keep running into people that didn't know I did
music in poetry a whole Lass Award winning poetry book.
(02:21):
But maybe y'all don't know. It's people that don't know
I do this podcast. They still think we're doing the
Red Couch podcast, which I haven't done since before twenty
twenty with my wife. But there's one thing that is
never a question about who I am. I'm from the
(02:42):
West Coast, West West Los Angeles, born and raised Tony when.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I started rap show, my name is Propaganda.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I'm from the sixth to sixth, Listen, I was born
on the east side of South Central.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You have heard this so many.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Times, sixty seventh in San Pedro, east side sixties. Now
I'm not a gangbanger, so I say that in the
sense that the block of streets were the sixty eighth blocks,
Granny House, seventy third and San Pedro.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You understand what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Shortly thereafter, twenty minutes east of South Central, right below
West Covina, in the city of Industry, was a little
enclave called Welinda, right next to Lapente. I grew up
with them, Vothos, a gang of thressay essays full of
chest pain, young stam talking about family. Moved out to
the Inland Empire for about an hour. I went back,
(04:02):
went to school in the II, came back, moved a
wittier Nigga. Didn't with the College of cal State. Fuller
to Nigga. I lived in Long Beach, like listen, West
Coast Los Angeles. But the reality is as an LA
native who fell in love with Hipop, you have your
New York era, you have your time when you was
(04:23):
because listen, like I said on the Icons episode when they.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Talked about b York.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I come from the backpacker world, and in the backpacker
world that meant you love you some New York rap
that I was having running around.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Here in hoodies and ten boots.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
You understand I'm saying, pulling one sweat pant leg up
like like dog on ll cool J, falling in love
with Wou Tang, having your dress, having your braids half
done because method man did it.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
You understand what I'm talking about. You have this.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
If you loved hipop, some some boot camp, you understand
what I'm saying. Some Helter Skelter, Buckshot, Smith and Wesson,
some Dos Effects, Nigga, some REDMN.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You love you that New York rap.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Burroughs, you ain't stound saying the first time I went
to New York, I was able to navigate.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
It because of rap music.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Q Tip saying, back in the days on the Bulevard
all my OG's Alendon, we used to kick routines and
the presence was fit and it was the abstract and
me the five foot I kicked the mass style.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
S uf about the frank food listen.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I knew that Flatbush was in Brooklyn because of special
Ed and Shorty Buckshot Franklin Avenue projects. I knew because
of the Crookland Dodgers song. I'm really in another part
of reality hit me wanting to represent the FAP like
(05:55):
I only knew that you understand what I'm saying Queen's
Bridge because of freaking mob deep I knew how I
knew Queens.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Was above or the Bronx was up there.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I knew that Uptown was next to wash Heights was
it was where Washed Heights was, which was near Harlem,
which was Uptown. I only knew that because of rap music,
the Marsi projects, and I only knew that I knew
Queens because of Pharaoh manch.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Listen hip hop, you you fall in love with it.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And even with the Biggie and Tupac Beef, Listen you
act like listen, you act like we wasn't runing around
here banging ready to die like Nigga. We we loved Biggie,
like don't we loved him? There was no like did
did we? Of course we're gonna choose the side, just
like he said, if I got to choose the coast,
I got to choose the East.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I live out there, so don't go there.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It was the same I mean, I'm gonna choose the
West because nigga, I'm from the West.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm gonna be loyal to my soil. But I'm also
not delusional.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
New York Baby concrete jungle where James are rayed from
and one of the most frustrating things Listen Kelli is
not short of anthems, whether it's Los Angeles or the
Bay Area. Cause I can say, right now, what's my
favorite word? Sorry guys West Coast, you understand what I'm saying.
(07:27):
So there's we are not short of anthems. But I
tell you what, when the Knicks won this year, even
though I was pulling for San Antonio, I wanted to
see when we get one. It's just good for basketball,
for the Knicks to be good. When he said, but
as soon as you hear that piano break, do do do.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I got a hundred guns, one hundred clips.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hard niggad from New Yok, New Yok. Nigga asks hard
like I can't front. I got a hundred guns, one
hundred clips. I got an automatic bits that spits.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
That spits when you talk, and it's jaw rule, which
makes it even more corny. But the fact is the
song is a banger. I got a hundred guns and
one hundred clips. Nigga from New York. There's only when
they did de Luxe and Dipset Battle. When that song
came on, was I like, listen Primo Pete Rock who
(08:31):
a weirdo now? But all that you can't it is undeniable.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Like this like you.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Shook ones. If shook ones, come on, like got me
flipping my hoodie up. You understand what I'm saying, Like
I get it. The power of Wu Tang put overdid
the power of Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You understand what I'm saying, Like the the raisel hit
it with a laser. I get it. The y'all running
around here saying my mayor is Muslim, my Bagel's a
Jewish hard but I don't want to be you. It's
la online.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
But there was one time recently when we was like, yo,
can we get.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
One of those?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
And that's Zora, Mom, Donnie NIGGI. There is there a
tupac to this biggie, can we get like? And then
we elected nith or we no, no, now we elected
Nythia won the primary or it was second in the primary.
So it's setting us up with a very similar situation,
(09:41):
only a female one. We got Karen Bass versus Nythia Ramen.
Y'all had Andrew Cuomo versus.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Zora Mom Donnie. Now, now it's.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
The same in the sense that you got two establishment
dudes in the situation. Now, listen, ain't nowhere in the world.
And Cuomo had a single chance, a single chance. It
wasn't an ice. Listen, that brother did not have a
chance at all because he trash like bruh. Now Karen
(10:15):
got a chance. So it's a little different. It's hard
because that's still a black woman, and you gotta understand
the way our black is set up, you know. And
also black people generally as a people were not really progressives,
you feel me. Just that's not as on on the
as a as a collective, won't really fall under the
(10:36):
progressive things. There's things that make sense. Part of that
is part of that is honestly racism. You know, we
wasn't allowed into the unions. Y'all put together these progressive
unions for workers rights, and y'all wouldn't let niggas in.
So we was like, well, okay, well even y'all like
(10:57):
bleeding the hard bedstide you know, living with the Black
Lives Matter poster air all are welcome into a home
that was price that you own because black people was
priced out of it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It was like, oh, nigga, we get it, we get it.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's like those memes about like, uh, the Republicans dropping
bombs on a country and then the Democrats dropping bombs
but the but the bomb.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Got a rainbow on it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
You understand what I'm saying, Like with a Black Lives
Matter flag, it's like, nigga, y'all ain't no different. Like,
so I get that Black people are very as a whole.
We just transactional when it comes to politics.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
We're very like you.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
We understand that you will never love us like we
understand that this this system is designed to lock us out.
We like, we have an understanding of that.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So just leave me alone.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
And as far as black people like as a whole,
like I said, we're not progressive. So even a transitsue
is really hard for black people, Like just don't tell
my son, Hey a girl, it like, I'm just telling
you the way they stand. That's not I am a progressive,
So I'm different, you know, don't know what I'm saying.
But we understand solidarity, we understand all that, but at
(12:16):
the same time, we like, look, nigga, like, I'm just
trying to pay for our groceries, cause like I ain't needed.
We've been at the bottom of the barrel for the
for the whole time, So I ain't trying to hear
nobody else's as a tradition anyway, so we're not necessarily
so somebody like a Karen Bass just off the fact that,
like I said, forgive me, I'm cheering for everybody.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Black, I'm gonna be cheering for the black one. I'm saying.
If even if you.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Look at the map of who voted for who in
our primary, the west side was for the white boy.
The northeast side where I live was the nitia world.
And that's your your silver legs, your echo parks. These
are rather highland parks, These are rather trified areas that
(13:02):
are Latino and hipster. But then South and South Central LA,
which is still black as hell. They went for Karen
because Nigga, I don't vote for the black women. But
the frustration is over the fact that, like a lot
of times, if you really pay attention to politics, Karen
(13:24):
Bass ain't delivered Nigga like, what the hell? Because she though,
could La get where's our zoron? Is Cannythia be our zoron?
And let me tell you something now, And that's by
design hood politics, y'all. All right, y'all to live and
(14:17):
die in La Yo? Can we get a zoron? And
the answer is no, I'm just gonna ruin the pod
right now.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And it's by design.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But it's by design not usually in the most like
gross manner. It's more like Nigga We not New York
Nigga's West Coast on ours. In La we wear Chucks,
not Bally's, which I still don't know what that means.
It's a Tupac line that I still don't understand. In La,
(14:53):
we wear Chucks, not Bali's.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, that's right. I don't know who wears Bally's. I
don't know Chucks, It LOAKSI khaki suits and ride is
what we do. But La could never. And I'm gonna
explain to you why now.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
At first, here's the thing. Zorn cooking like the nigga
getting there. He cooking breuh rent Freeze two year rent
Freeze got a well tach on the second second homes
of the wealthy, potholes, universal health care, the nigga cooking
all the shit we need done, and we are as
(15:27):
a whole, I mean, we just as progressive and financially,
you know, wealth disparages, all the shit that New York got,
we got right. So one would think in these two
bastions of you know, Carrider's Corridor, like the dude from Louise,
(15:50):
Louisiana kept saying about New York, you would think that,
like nobody hate California, Like somebody who lived two thousand
miles away from California.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
They convinced, we don't know what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
You would think that, like it is a no brainer,
like Chicago got a progressive.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Mayor, nigga, like what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And I'm gonna argue as a reason for that, And
it's because we ain't wanted to be New York since
day one. The rivalry the equivalent opposite of New York
in La go all the way back to our founding,
which is crazy how it keeps manifesting now.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Granted, arch rivals.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
In basketball is still Boston, but Yankees versus Dodgers.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The Dodgers being from Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Now they't here like just our just mirrored images of
New York versus LA. Goes all the way back to
the establishing of our charter.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Ain't that crazy? All right?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Why can't we get a Zoran. I'm gonna give you
three reasons right now. So when LA was founded as
(17:23):
a charter, LA got flooded with migrants, not immigrants, because
you got to remember, the shit was Mexico. Niggas was
already here. The Latinos was already here, so they didn't
cross the border. The border across them, so they was
already here. But as people came from the east, and
at least for black people, because of the great migration.
(17:45):
You have to remember, black people came from Texas with
you was in the Deep South. They went north, them
foods went to Detroit, Chicago, up there, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Black people they went west.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
One is closer and two that's just more like our steeds, right,
So we ended up west. That's why almost everybody who
like an LA native, they family is from the South,
but they from like Texas, Arkansas South right anyway, That's
why our accent sounds the way like that LA black accent.
Why it sounds it's got a little twang to it.
(18:22):
Families are from the South. Anyway, I need to take
you back to the Gilded Age. That's the John d Rockefellers,
like the big Carnegie Halls and all these these these
big titans of industry that built these high rises that
just this this this golden age of New York and Chicago.
(18:44):
And how these men were be able to become like
super super super wealthy. Well you know how they was
able to do that was they were kings. They became kings.
They created an oligarchy. Niggas ran the city. Why's why
the mob works so well, because all you had to
do was buy a politician, right, And then what came
(19:08):
after that was the Progressive era. The progressive era was
a response to that, right there was like that's when
you had all kind of unions being formed and people
being like, look, man, y'all can't just keep concentrating power
in one person, because that's how corruption becomes so easy,
because all you got to do is buy that dude.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
That's how the East was ran. So people was coming
west to get get away from that. So as we
built the La Charter, it was purposeful to decentralize the power,
because we saw what happens if one dude has all
(19:54):
that power.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
The clock's ticking, you just count the hours. That's a problem.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So by design, the powers got decentralized. Now I want
you to remember that, and let's come back to it.
But let's fast forward to now, why can't we get
a mayor to start cooking the way that Zorn cooking,
even if we elect a very progressive Joint.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Number one is the budget.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
So the New York budget, the New York mayor's budget,
the budget that the mayor has to work with is
one hundred and twenty five billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
LA's budget is fifteen.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You would say, is not Los Angeles three times the
size of New York? Well New York, And the answer
is no. I know it may seem like it, but
it's not. Let me lay this out for you. New
York is essentially a city state. It's the five boroughs,
(20:59):
which I again only know because of hip hop, all
the five boroughs, right, and they're a concentrated of people.
That's about eight point five million folks within those five boroughs,
and the mayor pretty much runs that budget. Now you
have to remember when people think of Los Angeles, you
(21:19):
think in most of the time of Los Angeles County, right,
which is not the city of Los Angeles, the actual
city limits. It's eighty eight cities inside of LA County.
But there's a lot of cities that you would think
are just neighborhoods, right, But they aren't the LA mayors,
(21:40):
they aren't under the LA Mayor's control. Santa Monica is
its own city, bel air, that's its own city. It's
this weird where you could literally like there's a section
over there on the west side in Westwood where the
LA City in the LA County.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's literally across the street. There's one side of the street.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
With this pristine mode beautiful grass right with a stop
sign and the carved out fire hydrant. All said, if
it's beautiful, literally across the street, it looks like a
homeless encampment. Grass ain't cut graffiti everywhere.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
You know why.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's not because the people on that side don't love
a neighborhood. It's because that side's ran by LA County
and this side's ran by LA City.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You could, like you, I'm telling you, you can stumble.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You could walk across the street and enter and them
out of the city limits into the county jurisdiction, and
then across the next street and you back into LA.
It's just the map don't make no sense. Now I'm
explaining to you why the map don't make sense.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Okay, why the.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Map don't make sense is because when La started growing,
one thing that we had that.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
The New York don't have, Nigga is space.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Like it's just there's just more land, right, And as
more land started spreading out, some of these neighborhoods became
more affluent than others, and then they decided to make
their own city charters. They was like, well, one really
gotta like so if we make our own city char charters,
then that means I ain't gonna pay taxes. I'mna pay
(23:23):
taxes to my neighborhood because we just incorporated ourselves as
a city inside of what used to just be a
neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
So now the mayor ain't got no control over that,
you follow me. So the first problem is is budget.
Some of that some of that just don't The budget
don't make no sense because they don't have control over that.
Because part of the things that look like the city
is really the county and part of the county is
(23:57):
really the city, and THEMS is totally differ different people
that run that thing, which gets me to the next part,
which is who control the money now in New York,
Like let's just say we just talk about housing or
just public safety. So the public safety budget, the social
(24:20):
services budget, the mental health budget, and the housing budget,
all those things are needed if you're gonna tackle like
homelessness and prices and stuff like that, like all of
those because you can't just be like, well, let's just
build a house, Okay, So if you build the houses,
my nigga, what about the people they need.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Mental health services? Like how I'm gonna keep the houses? Okay?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Well some of the people on social security and social
services like okay, So all of these things they all
work together, Like what like I need my EPT check,
you know what I'm saying to come in so I
could pay for the apartment that the city like all
this stuff gotta work together. The mayor in charge of
all of it in New York, he get it say
(25:02):
in all that. In Los Angeles, public safety that's the mayor,
Social services that's the county mental health, that's the county
housing is it's three departments, my nigga, Like, let's talk
about this. Education in Los Angeles. Education is ran by
(25:27):
the Los Angeles Districts School District the Unify School District,
which are elected by voters. The mayor don't control that.
The water and power is ran by the Department of
Water and Power, which is a board appointed by the
mayor but confirmed by the city council. Nigga, The airport
is ran by its own department. The mayor ain't gonna
saying none of that. If you wanted to clean up
(25:50):
one corner in Los Angeles, you'd have to talk to
six different departments because the people that make the sidewalk
are different than the city zoning people, which are different
than the health department that takes care of the homeless situation.
But the homeless situation can't even work with the health
department because they ran by two different programs.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Now that sounds ridiculous, don't it.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
But we did it on purpose, because we were trying
to decentralize power.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Is one of the things.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's like your iPhone one. It was a great idea,
nig get in you feel me. It's all ran by
different things. New York don't have a county, there is
no They don't have to talk to the county people LA.
The city of Los Angeles is smack dab in the
middle of the greater Los Angeles area. But all of
(26:40):
those gets counted when we start talking about numbers in
Los Angeles. But the mayor don't even control the shit.
So even if the mayor wanted to, you gotta talk
to seven different people.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Now, who are those seven different people? Now?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
A few years back, there was this tape that came
out of the like Latino Caucus. Daniel Weizar an these
uh not Daniel Weezar, My bad. Daniel Weezar was a
student I taught. Sorry about that, Daniel, what a dog?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Uh But these.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Collection of these Latino people that sat on the city
council that were discussing sort of strategy and they said
a lot of racist stuff, right, and then the city
got together and was like, we don't play that shit
and demanded their resignation. You would think that something like
(28:01):
that would not make national would make yeah, wouldn't make
national news. It made national news because of how Los
Angeles set up the real power in Los Angeles is
in the city council. Now we're set up with fifteen
city council members, and each of those council members are
(28:24):
in charge of a particular commission, the water commission, the power,
the airport, all of those things. So they're all again
this was by design at first, was to again decentralize
power so that no one person can get corrupted.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Right now, these fifteen people got.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Their own plans, They make their own situations, they figure out.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Their own ways.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
The broker power, right, and if they don't really mess
with the mayor, I don't care what the mayor promises.
You got to convince fifteen other people to let go
of the money. So when we protesting at a particular
corner on some like, whys you being you know, inhumane
(29:16):
about this situation? You complaining about a street light, the
mayor got to convince fifteen other council members. Because to
fit again to fix the street light, to clean up
the trash, and to find a way to make affordable
housing for these people, you got to talk to seven
different departments and you only got it. You only in
charge of one of them budgets, right, and then on
(29:38):
top of that, you got the County Board supervisors. There's
five county Board supervisors and we electing them in twenty
twenty eight. Now what happens if some of the outskirt
cities of Los Angeles County decide they want somebody a
(29:58):
little more spencer pratty. So now you got in a
complete progressive which I'm still calling that we vote in
nitia and in this you know, very conservative, a little
more representing the northwest side of it all. If them
niggas don't get along, shit don't happen, because the mayor
(30:22):
only control what the mayor controls. Right, here's a perfect
example of this. In nineteen seventy eight Prop thirteen pasted.
It was about our property taxes.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The city was becoming so big that most of the
time our property taxes went towards like schools and parks
and services so that we could live a really nice life.
Them niggas flipped the script and incentivize your property tax
to go towards building shopping malls. We was becoming a
(30:58):
car city, y'all may remember this. We used to have
Los Angeles used to have an entire electric trolley system.
You could still see the tracks in downtown. We used
to not be a car town. But since corruption is
(31:19):
impossible to avoid, lobbying started happening. The car lobbyists came
through and was like, Uh, I'm gonna need you all
to shut that shit down.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
We need to sell some cars out here. And how
they were able to do that was because remember we
had space.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
The city sprawled out and we could have went the
europe route and just okay, well we'll build our trains.
But this is part of why we don't have like
or we're just now getting a good mass transit system,
is because our council got lobbied and they made us
(31:54):
a car town, and here we are today. So I
say all that to say, I don't know if there's
a savior coming for us, if we got a democratic
socialist savior coming for us, because of the way that
Los Angeles is set up now.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I say that to not let any of these jokers
off the hook.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Okay, I think that there's a way that if you
get somebody at the helm that is so popular, like Anitia,
then that means one by one the city council people
who really want to keep that power, which again, Loki,
those are the folks that really got the power in
our cities. If you out here vote for them the
(32:39):
city council, that's what you need to pay attention to.
But if we get somebody on the helm and then
when you start looking at the county board supervisors, like
do the homework on nim.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Fools, the other stuff is easy.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
But if we could, I don't think we ever going
to change our charter because, for example, Chicago got forty
four city council they just call them aldermens.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
We got sixteen.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Why because you concentrate power Again, So it's not that
we're above corruption. It's not that we're not progressive enough.
It's that our city's just designed different. It's been it's
been fuck New York since day one. But that being said,
(33:40):
I do believe things can be better. I do believe
as the people, if we push towards these particular things,
we could force our mayor's office and councilmen in the
county office to.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Work for our good.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
We just got to show up and keep our foot
on their necks the way that we put our foot
on their necks. When the council members tape came out
and the city came through, it was like you about
to lose your job. You were about to lose your job.
Let's do that. Okay, none of that trash Spencer Platt
shit that where he blaming the homeless for being homeless.
(34:16):
You understand what I'm saying. We're just La built different,
all right. So I don't have an answer to this.
I'm just saying it's probably not a Zoran coming to
save us. Hell A quick update here about LA County.
(34:57):
So turns out we voted two years ago about the
way that the LA County runs right where, Remember, like
I said, they had six commissioners, so we moved that
to nine. And then we also created an oversight committee
(35:17):
that's like a truly independent oversight committee that was open
to the public to see one how this committee is
supposed to look what they wanted to represent and to
make sure that it is truly truly independent. So depending
on who you ask, maybe going into this next cycle
(35:43):
of you know, political powers that be in Los Angeles,
maybe don't move a little smoother, you know, maybe having
an oversight committee that's actually made up of activist business owners,
very diverse that it's for the county. Like I said, Like,
so remember the marriage between La City and La county
is so like, you know, e messed with each other,
(36:06):
Like it's you can't you can't drive through the city
and kind of like not, it's hard to tell, you
know what I'm saying, what city and what's county until
you get out the city limits.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
But even within the city limits you're like, wait, wait,
did I just leave La City? Yeah? Even trying to
get a library car because.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Like you, it's hard to tell whether something's a city
or a county library. Like you, you got to double check,
you feel me. Anyway, The point is we've made some
changes and hopefully this will make the effectiveness of any
actual true.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Change in the city go a little better. Anyway, just
wanted to add that politics, y'all.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in Eastlows, Boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in
with me at prop hip hop dot com. If you're
(37:17):
in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You can
go there dot com and use promo code hood get
twenty percent off, get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited,
and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski Killing the Beast Softly.
Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I'm a speller for you because I know M A T.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
T O s O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
The heat Politics is a member of cool Zone.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia
podcast network. Your thememusic and scoring is also by the
one and nobly mattow Sowski. Still killing the beats softly,
So listen, don't let nobody lie to you. If you
understand urban living, you understand politics. These people is not
smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.
Host
Prop
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