We all have to duck when the shit hits the fan
The fires and other disasters are our reality. Don’t look for conspiracies or ulterior motives, look for solutions.
Parts of Los Angeles are burning down. It’s Friday evening, the fourth day of wildfires in Los Angeles County following heavy Santa Ana winds and red flag warnings. The two largest fires remain uncontained and smaller fires are popping up. It’s bad. People are struggling. Thousands of homes and buildings have been destroyed, roughly 200,000 people have received evacuation notices and at least 10 people are dead, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. And before I go any further I want to share this link from Mutual Aid L.A. with resources ranging from where to get free food to evacuation sites to mutual aid and community groups to donate to or get help from. If you can donate, do. If you need help, check this out once you’re out of danger.
Bad shit happens. That’s part of reality. It sucks but it happens. Sometimes bad things happen to people without any motive or plot. That’s what’s happening right now in Los Angeles. It seems simple enough, but some people are having trouble grasping it.
The fires tearing through Los Angeles have spread so far because of extremely bad conditions. It’s unclear what the cause of the fires is, and we might not know for some time. One person detained for alleged arson was not charged and right now it appears that many of the accusations of arson or looting are unfounded (and in the latter, at least anecdotally, is people trying to get things from their damaged homes). A random spark might have done this. And coupled with a drought, unusually dry conditions in winter and 80-100 mph winds, small burns turned into neighborhood destroying blazes. It’s awful, it’s horrifying and hard to grasp and unfortunately it happens. That's not excusing it or saying it isn’t important — again, please donate to any mutual aid group if you can — it’s about acknowledging that bad things happen.
Unfortunately a lot of people don’t seem to get that. Looking to make excuses or put motive on something or try to explain it. Because the real explanation, that climate change has made natural disasters worse and there’s no easy fix or simple one-easy-trick move to put out the fires, is something people struggle to accept. Try telling that to people both scared and malicious. Since the fires started, several people, from right-wing pundits and conspiracy theorists to prominent Los Angeles area figures have spread misinformation, rushed to attach blame, tried to get private firefighters to save their homes and not anyone else’s or tried to find some narrative to map this onto. The fires were caused by unhoused people! It was to somehow cover up evidence in the Diddy scandal! It’s part of a “larger globalist plot to wage economic warfare and deindustrialize the United States before triggering total collapse” as Alex Jones tweeted, prompting X’s owner to reply “true.” Ah yes, the noted industrial heartland of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, California….Noted conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf (who infamously thought Belfast was “peaceful” in the 1970s) suggested that all Angelenos might have been sprayed with a mood stabilizer, or that the fires were caused by weather manipulation. Not, you know, the well-documented Santa Ana winds, but by weather manipulation done by some shadowy group.
These are some far-fetched examples, but that desire to ascribe some plan or plot to these fires is there, and it’s common. Things are going bad, there has to be someone to blame, someone who did this intentionally. Take the issue with fire hydrants. On Wednesday, firefighters reported low water pressure and “dry” hydrants as they fought the flames. There were claims that the water had run out. Conservative billionaire developer, Pacific Palisades property owner, conservative and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso decried “mismanagement,” prompting a string of accusations that the water was out and reservoirs were unfilled. In fact, as experts and officials have said, water supplies were fine but the sheer amount of demand to fight two giant fires and many smaller ones put so much strain on the system some pressure at higher altitudes was lost. Which is bad, the system isn’t built for these kinds of disasters, but it’s not as if there’s something to blame.
Others have looked at some breaking news or half-reported details and taken things as a bizarre zero-sum situation. Debates over cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget had many Angelenos (for the most part rightly) calling out the city’s prioritization of boosting the LAPD’s already inflated budget despite the annual threat of wildfires. Some on the right took a particularly bizarre turn and said LAFD got budget cuts to give money to homelessness program. That’s not how that works and it is the latest in an insidious lie that Los Angeles is both actually prioritizing helping unhoused people and that people are coming from around the country to mooch off those programs (they aren’t, that’s been debunked over and over).
An aside on the LAFD notice. It’s something that’s become a flashpoint topic. Many people, progressives in particular, were angry from initial reporting that LAFD got cuts while the Los Angeles Police Department got a boost. Some later reporting tried to debunk that, but also took a bitter tone and derided “far left” people. Turns out both sides were kind of wrong, thanks to a complicated, multi-stage issue involving the LAFD budget. Here’s what is clear: The overall budget has gone up but it appears some funding for specific operations got cut. Read more from the Los Angeles Public Press (a great, local nonprofit newsroom) and the Los Angeles Times (paywall should be down).
The problem with this — beyond the insane conspiracy theories and racism and classism that feed them — is that it doesn’t help. It doesn’t take the issue seriously, nor does it focus on solutions. Right now hundreds are fighting the fires and thousands have fled. It’s not going to be over by the morning. It might not be over for many days. Winds are expected to pick back up on Sunday night, which could be a nightmare. Climate change is making disasters worse and Los Angeles got hit by a perfect storm of factors contributing to the danger. What matters is how we respond.
These kinds of crises aren’t going away. As climate change gets worse, they’re going to happen more frequently. Spreading misinformation, selfishly trying to hoard resources or trying to ascribe some conspiracy to people in shock and need isn’t going to help anyone. These disasters will eventually catch up to you that way. Your money and power and privilege won’t save you when the disasters pile up and reach your front steps. Cash burns just as easily as flesh.
And as the Circle Jerks sang, we all have to duck when the shit hits the fan.
Again, if you can donate supplies or funds, check out this list from Mutual Aid L.A. If you need help, please check the list. Reach out to your friends and loved ones in Los Angeles. Reach out to me if you’re in need. We’ll get through this.
Editor’s note: I mentioned in the previous newsletter that Let’s Do the Panic Again is moving off Substack. That’s still the plan. The move plus planned articles for this newsletter have been delayed due to the emergency in Los Angeles. Hope to have this sorted once the situation gets better here.