As a California who lives in SF and has family in LA, I know the Central Valley and the 5 as a kind of non-place, five hours of jostling with semis interrupted by lunch, gas, and restrooms. Levine takes us on a guided tour of the real Central Valley, and the real oligarchs of California. These are not your johnny-come lately tech bros. The Central Valley is almost entirely owned by a handful of old and wealthy family companies with control over land, water, and the courts.

For example, the Chandler family of the LA Times have a massive ranch along Tejon Pass, which will eventually be yet another subdivision when the real estate market is right, and damn the lack of water. Speaking of water, relative newcomers the Resnicks have a massive water-hungry agricultural empire of pistachios and pomegranates, the profits of which go to ensuring that Iran remains an international pariah, since California pistachios can't compete with the Persian real deal. Harris Ranch is the largest feedlot in the country, a Cowschwitz of manure. The city of LA dumps its own shit along the 5 in a sewage solids recompressing plant that is its own toxic disaster. And a family of ex-Georgia planters drained Tulare Lake to turn into cotton and tomato fields.

The valley as a whole is California's own internal colony, where a handful of masters become incredibly rich, and the mostly Hispanic inhabitant do the hard work, get sick, and get paid very little. And of course all these rich families are getting millions in federal farm subsidies annually, along with preferential water rights of inestimable value.

Oligarch Valley is a short and informative read, with a breezy internet journalism style. Though written in 2013, the basic ownership structure of the Central Valley hasn't changed. Though I get the sense that other people did the heavy lifting, LA historian Mike Davis, Michael Gross in Unreal Estate, Reisner's monumental Cadillac Desert, and hardworking reporters at the Sacramento Bee. Still, for all that we'd rather not think about what's along the 5, aside from which exits have In-n-Out (beef sourced from Harris Ranch), if we want realistic politics we owe it ourself. 2021 non-fiction politics2 s Meredith Avila14 1 follower

Depressingly funny and unfortunately informative, Levine got me wishing I could go vegan and grow all my own food and, oh yeah, wheel out the guillotine. It's a one hour read that will make you never see pistachios, beef, dam projects or California in the same way again.2019 fluttershy (real)63

Autor del comentario:
=================================