Blog: Measure A: Political Lessons From Dante's Inferno (and a Path to the Future)

MEASURE A:  LESSONS FROM DANTE’S INFERNO

After midnight I saw the tortured expressions and heard the muttered, unanswered questions: “Why?”  “How?”  “Huh?”  I had no answers.  It felt like hell.  So I pulled out my dog-eared copy of Dante’s Inferno to help me get my head straight and my life back on track. The Inferno (Italian for "Hell") is the first part of the Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem “Divine Comedy.”  The Inferno is a graphic tale of Dante’s journey through the Nine Circles of Hell.  Dante’s Inferno serves as a Christian allegory for the soul seeing and rejecting the true nature of sin and ultimately moving closer to God. Each sin’s punishment in Dante’s hell is a symbol of poetic justice. The sinners get what they deserve.  The punishments are gross-outs. If you can imagine a mash-up of Mad Magazine, “The Walking Dead” TV show, and the graphic novel The Watchmen, you would appreciate Dante’s punishment of sin.  Dante would have had a field day on the key players responsible for Measure A's outcome.   

The Sin of the Uncommitted:  Voter Turnout = 25%

Before entering Hell, Dante sees the eternal sufferings of the Uncommitted -- those souls who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil, except to pursue their own banner of self-interest.  The Uncommitted suffer never-ending stings of wasps and hornets, while maggots and other insects drink their blood and tears.  By this poetic justice, Dante bears witness to the “sting of conscience” and the repugnance of the sin of doing nothing. Dante sends us a strong message from the get-go. Immediately he puts us on notice that we better “strap it up” tight if we want to confront the wages of sin, because he is not pulling any punches on his journey of sin and redemption.

Redondo Beach turned out 25% of voters on the most important moral and political choice confronting each resident in the last 50 years and the next 50 years.  I won’t repeat what my wife said this morning when she read about this low voter turnout.  If you want a more graphic description of poetic justice for the Uncommitted who chose not vote, read the Inferno.  Dante’s poetic justice serves not so much as a form of divine revenge but as the fulfillment of a destiny freely chosen by each soul.  In other words, we get what we deserve.   Don’t tell me you forgot to mail in your absentee ballot, or you were busy taking your kid to dance lessons or soccer practice, or you did not know where to find your polling place.  If 75% of Redondo Beach voters to take a stand on Measure A, one way or another, the City of Redondo Beach has freely chose to suffer whatever invisible particulate pollution the power plant can inject in our lungs, and whatever congestion and commerce the power plant’s developer pals can cram in the Harbor area.  

Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell --Treachery: The Sin of the Political Traitor

The Gates of Hell bear the famous inscription:  “Abandon Hope all Ye Who Enter Here.”   Each measure of sin grows progressively worse as Dante makes his way through the Nice Circles of Hell. Spoiler alert:  More than a representative share of politicians, popes, and other treacherous leaders suffer their life choices in the first Eight Circles of Hell (Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud). Since I do have a day job, we move straight to the Ninth Circle:  Treachery.  Dante reserves the harshest poetic justice for the Traitors, as distinguished from the "merely" Fraudulent, because the sins of the Traitors involved betrayal of a special relationship of some kind.  Now it is here, in the Ninth Circle, that Dante goes “medieval” on the sin of political treachery.  Dante describes, to our horror, the gruesome eternal suffering of Traitors who killed or betrayed their kinsmen for political power and financial gain.  Political traitors, trapped in ice, faces on top of one another, chew on another, for all eternity.  Dante kicks and beats and pulls the hair out of these wretched souls of Traitors until they confess their sins of political treachery.  He kicks one political traitor as hard as he can, smack dab in the face and teeth, and remars to the reader that he feels no remorse whatsoever.  All of the political traitors get their poetic justice in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell.

Here in Redondo Beach, we let our political traitors off easy -- way too easy.  Our political traitors get to to run for Mayor.  We trust our City Councilmen to tell us the truth and represent the interests of the people as well as the commercial interests of their political base.  This time we were betrayed.  Where was our Dante when we needed someone to give Councilman Pat Aust a “literary” kick in the face when he would pal around with Eric Pendergraft on local radio shows and repeat AES talking points as the gospel truth?  Where was our Dante when we were “pulling our own hair out” while Councilman Steve Diels made “robo-calls” for the power plant that contributed handsomely to his political war chest?  Where was soon to be ex-Mayor Gin?  Don’t even get me started.  (I could carve a stronger Mayor out of a banana).

Sweet Jesus I can just hear the slings and arrows coming my way from the blogosphere: “Mallen has gone off the deep end. Mallen is advocating violence. Mallen is in it for the money, blah blah blah.”  No. I’m not.  I am talking about political courage and political treachery as a literary allegory.  Dante did not write the Bible, but he is one of the greatest poets, politicians, and renaissance men of all time.   Don’t like what I have to say?  Bring it on.  Tell me I’m wrong. Take your best shot.  Just don’t sit there and be an Uncommitted Soul and do nothing.

Where Was “Dante” When Redondo Beach Needed Him?

Let me give you an example of the politics I am talking about.  Here is what an AES paid spokesperson that calls himself/herself “Kelly Sarkisian” wrote to me after my most recent blog urging the City to use free Community Facilitation services to help the neighbors heal and foster better decision-making. After I had offered to buy lunch for the no on Measure A” paid political spokespersons and media relations consultants, “Kelly Sarkisian” wrote back: 

“I would rather eat with Hitler than you. I'm not afraid of you as you are not tough. "Lawyer" types are book worms and generally can't pose a threat even to a young girl like me. I'm not going to date you David stop sparking a conversation with me, I'm sure your wife would be pissed if she knew your online activity! You have played your cards, lost your temper and ran your mouth, go back to your rock.”

Awesome.  That is how big boys fight political opponents.  (And then they cry that you are rude or impolite or "homophobic" or "stalking" when you respond in kind, haha.) Surely “Kelly Sarkisian” has read Dante.  She/he/it stays online night and day, blogs relentlessly, and “kicks” political opponents in the teeth with no remorse.  She/he/it has a special place reserved in Dante’s Hell but is sure having a good time on the way there. And "she" is dangerously effective. 

The “Yes on Measure A” volunteers are some fine neighbors.  While I am not affiliated with Measure A or any other group, it is my honor to have volunteered my time to talk with lawyers, land use experts, zoning experts and developers to understand Measure A and share what I learned.   I spoke up.  I told the truth. I got attacked, and I fought back.  My only regret is that I did not follow the example set by my hero Dante.  I knowingly entered the Gates of Hell with one fist tied behind my back, out of respect for my neighbors. I did not confront sin as forcefully as Dante, kicking and scratching and pulling hair in a literary way, until it was too late. Instead, at the urging of friends and neighbors,  I tried to be more civil and polite even as AES was spending upwards of $500,000 in fear ads and my neighbors were getting kicked in the teeth every day by political traitors on City Council.

I say, polite "civil discourse" is for neighbor-to-neighbor discussions, book clubs and tea parties.  Politics is full-contact and bare knuckles. Politics is looking at your opponent and understanding the wages of your opponent's sin, then calling it out.   "Yes on Measure A" lost, because one side was spending half a million on electioneering and engineering multiple sins of political treachery, while the poor souls on the other side were fighting with facts, charts, U.S. Supreme Court cases, zoning explanations, and PowerPoint presentations.  Nice stuff. True stuff.  Weak and ineffectual stuff.  This was not a fair fight, and thank God for the small miracle that gave Measure A a prayer of a chance.

The minute Bill Brand, Jim Light, and those wonderful Redondo Beach Moms did an end-run around City Council and gave AES 60-40 open space to commercial space instead of 60-40 commercial to open space, with no buy-in from the real estate folks, they opened Dante’s Gates of Political Hell. They were not prepared to understand and respond to the true nature of sin we would all encounter.  I say this, with all due respect and sincerity: if the “Yes on Measure A” folks had more “Kelly Sarkisian” personas on their side, more folks willing to speak as neighbors among neighbor AND dish out a literary “kick in the head”, without remorse, to the political traitors among us, Measure A would have won 55-45%.

To Bill Brand I say: "Have courage.  You face a hellish second term, and you will need to take the gloves off."  But don't give up hope, yet.  We need you.

Steve Aspel:  Now is Your Time. 

To Steve Aspel I say: "Now is your time."  Steve Aspel has an historic opportunity to stamp his name on this city as a hero and a legend of Redondo Beach for the next 50 years, but only if he is willing to take up the mantle of the people for a change (as well as his well-heeled backers, all decent folks I am sure).  In the old days, Redondo Beach got built with 20-minute open City Council sessions and closed back-room deals where the real action happened.  We are suffering for those choices right now. Aspel has a chance to redeem this City.  Aspel can be the Dante to lead us out of power-plant hell, or he can be the Clint Eastwood “Dirty Harry” Mayor if you prefer:  “Make my day, AES!”  Don’t even bring up Kilroy – a nice enough, smart enough guy who could not negotiate his way out of a paper bag and who would be firmly entrenched in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell as a political traitor.   (Aspel will “smoke” Kilroy in the run-off). 

Or, Aspel can remain one of those Uncommitted souls who talk a good game but does nothing except pursue his own self-interest. If that is the way this is going down, may Aspel suffer the stings of the wasps and hornets of his conscience in old age while wishing for another 30 years to spend all the money he made through hard work and political connections. If Aspel will take a stand against sin, then I stand with Steve Aspel. I stand with Bill Brand.  I stand with any other person willing to confront AES Southland, negotiate with the Devil, and cut the best deal possible to get it the hell out of our Harbor. – by any legal means necessary.

Am I mad?  No.  Disappointed as hell? Damn straight.  I grew up in the shadows of a steel mill town.  I breathed in that shit every day of my childhood and will never know what it feels like to breathe the air as nature provided it. Now it is a power plant all over again. Capitalism is generally the best system to allocate market resources, but not in the case of energy.  Power plants and oil companies hijack democracy and manipulate markets to become the richest entities in the entire history of civilization.  Their business model is perfect: monopolize the industry, destroy our earth’s natural resources, and spew their shit and their trash in the air, for free, without paying a dime for the harm.  Don’t call that capitalism. Call it out for what it is:  a sin; a perversion of democracy; blight on our land; a threat to the climate crisis that is happening right before our eyes.   Don’t agree?  Then you may suffer the poetic justice that you (and your children and grandchildren) have freely chosen.    

Now is the time to re-enter Dante’s political gates of hell before we have this Beast in our backyard for another 50 years.  Now is the time to tell the political traitors among us to “go to hell” as Dante imagined it.  I am not talking about the thousands of good, decent hardworking neighbors who made a choice and voted their conscience as best they could.  I am talking about political traitors and Astroturf “political action committees” who pretend to stand with the people while they repeat the talking points of a power plant that spent $500,000 to blight our Harbor and foul our air for the next 50 years.  

This is a wake-up call. This is a call to action.  This is Democracy in action.  Who will stand with us?