Six Degrees of Alienation: And I am Right, and You are Right, and All is Right as Right can Be!
By Red Emma
I couldn’t help but overhear Rebel Girl in the next room last week, chatting telephonically with yet another puzzled LA Times reporter. The poor, confused fellow, apparently new to the SOCCCD “beat,” couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the unlikely story we call everyday life at IVC and Saddleback.
His incredulity was due partly, I later learned, to his residence and normal beat assignment in Los Angeles County. Meanwhile, the Rebellious One kept repeating, a la “Chinatown,” one of my favorite films, “It’s Orange County, Jake, it’s Orange County.”
Certainly Los Angeles County education politics has its own bizarre cast of characters, but people seem to deal with it up there. They know what’s going on. They are momentarily distracted by the sexy widow, but, eventually, they notice the broken eyeglasses in the fish pond.
Which reminded me, as I read the most recent (and much awaited!) Dissent, of a funny story, and by that I don’t mean ha-ha funny, or isn’t it funny how Raghu is the chancellor, but I do mean completely true funny.
Some background might help. As it happens, Red Emma spent his youth collecting signatures, signing petitions, yelling on street corners, raising money, protesting, and occasionally getting arrested as a result of politely objecting to the policies of exactly the asshole whose photograph hangs in the office of our new chancellor. I mean the other asshole, the one shaking hands with Raghu.
And in those heady days of objecting to nuclear weapons, state murder in Central America, attacks on education and poor people’s programs, support for apartheid and Zionism and racism and militarism and all the rest of the Reagan Revolution, Red often found standing opposite himself and the other lefties on Wilshire Boulevard a small group of nuts, including (depending on the cause) pro-Shah Iranian nationals, right-wing Roman Catholics, Young Americans for Freedom, Born-again fascists and, indeed, the Jewish Defense League.
Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. Maybe you do—and maybe, no, comrade, you do not.
Yes, JDL head goof Irv Rubin was recently arrested for allegedly threatening to kill people. (See the 12/21/01 OC Weekly article.) Well, no, threatening was his previous arrest. Oops. This time Irv was arrested for planning to actually blow up a mosque or an institute or something with the word “Arab” in it—or even real, live Arabs-Americans or Muslims.
He and his Brown Shirts hate Palestinians, Arabs and non-Zionist Jews almost as much as they hate Peace Now, peaceniks, and lefties. Friends, you have not seen or heard a louder, more obnoxious ambassador of twisted national chauvinism and cultural-religious imperialism than ol’ Irv when he’s hot.
But what, you ask, does that have to do with us, here in the Land that Time Forgot?
Here’s the funny part. After not seeing him for a couple of years, Red Emma helped set up a Saturday morning Signature Gathering Drive for the Frogue Recall. Remember that nifty campaign? I’m gonna review for those of you from LA County: A group of moderate Republicans and a few brave, conservative Democrats (plus a couple of weirdoes like me) tried to remove a certifiable loon from office who was using—and being used by—a cadre of perhaps conservative but mostly just plain opportunistic other Republicans.
Consequently, many people here in South OC who had never in their entire adult lives done more than vote (and some even less) were learning to organize a campaign, set up phone banks, get out the vote, and mobilize for what, even in L.A., would be a pretty darn hard job in a district set up to prevent exactly this kind of recall. Imagine having to gather signatures representing a percentage of voters not from the targeted official’s area, but an entire “at-large” college district the size of two and a half congressional districts! Some trick by that darned Board Majority, huh? To further mess with W.S. Gilbert: “Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”
It was a lot of fun that Saturday morning for this small minority of IVC & Saddleback friends, faculty, students and staff—about 60 of us, as I recall—who worked hard to try to get rid of Nazi Boy. There was a terrific spread of brunch treats, and a raffle. We played Twister, I think, and sang a few choruses from H.M.S. Pinafore. (I was Little Buttercup, though I never learned why.)
At some point in the morning, when most of the clipboards, ironing boards, signs, and their new owners had gone out to libraries, Trader Joe’s, Costco, and all those other arenas of civic discourse to gather signatures, into the Irvine city park rec room walks, yes, Mr. JDL, Irv Rubin.
Now, as far as I could tell, nobody except Red and Rebel Girl (stalwart sidewalk protester of the 1980’s, too) recognized the guy. I was confident he wouldn’t recognize us (too egotistical to care), despite the many unhappy hours we’d spent marching on opposite sides of Wilshire Boulevard (Red Emma’s sign: “Stop Apartheid.” Irv’s sign: “Hang Nelson Mandela”) and so I sidled up to watch, learn, and be amazed.
Irv went around introducing himself to the other event organizers, taking advantage of unlearned peoples’ confusion of his organization with the Anti Defamation League or the League of Nations, La Leche League, The Red-Headed League, National Baseball League, and League of Superheros. (People get confused by that “league” deal. Remind me to name our next recall effort, the League to Recall Tom Fuentes.)
Der Irver was shaking hands, giving out cards (I got one, which I still have in my rolodex!) and, at one point, pulling out $100 and contributing it to our Recall Frogue Campaign. I remembered then that, yes, one of Irv’s henchmen (hench-mensch?) had famously stood up a few months earlier and yelled at “Froguey” at an open-to-the-public SOCCCD Board Meeting. It was kind of fun.
(His name was Barry. He was a bulldog. He barked.)
Finally, in a cloud of dust and a mighty Hi-Ho Irv-o!, Mr. R. departed, leaving me and Rebel Girl shaking our heads and trying, pointlessly, to explain to a few colleagues just how weird was this right-wing nut’s appearance at our little gathering that morning, and the complete and beautiful logic of it. Irv goes anywhere to spread his message of nationalism and state religion—even Irvine! We soon gave up, feeling happy to have gotten the dough and not engaged Irv Rubin on the further dimensions (dementia) of his politics. But, no, that’s not why this is funny.
Currently, Irv Rubin of the JDL and the brother of the loud, angry Zionist guy—Barry—who hollered at Frogue are in jail, suspects in a murder conspiracy. The FB of I is no doubt going through their stuff (at least that’s what they do on “The X-Files”). And, yes, friends, among all their dismal and greasy appointment books and personal calendars, Rolodex and computer files, I am confident that our fine federal agents will discover a listing for The Committee to Recall Steven Frogue.
Mulder: “Look at this, Scully. Irv in Irvine.”
Scully: “No. Are you saying...”
Mulder: “It’s too obvious to be random.”
Scully: “You’re right. I-r-v. In Irvine.
Mulder: “The truth is out there.”
Scully: “In Irvine?”
And soon, I suspect (remember that word!), some guy in dark glasses and a bad suit is going to show up at the home or office of one of our fine Recall organizers wanting to know about their connections, if any, to a couple of “Zionist” murder guys.
Nobody will know what the nice G-men are talking about. They will have forgotten about the weirdly enthusiastic contributor to our Recall donations coffee can that day and the confusing narrative offered by Red and Rebel Girl.
When a tree like this falls in your neck of the woods and only a few people see or hear it, did it ever really fall? I wonder.
And when the aliens do arrive, dontcha think they are gonna be smart enough not to look like aliens? Well? (I, Red Emma, will deny all of this if you fink to the feds.)
No, the ironies of life in the world at large are only magnified, it seems, by the ironies of our strange lives in SOCCCDland. Yes, a murder suspect contributed money to the anti-Frogue campaign. No, nobody even knew who he was (except Red and Rebel).
Yes, a group of well-meaning neophyte democratic activists tried, against considerable odds, to make a difference on behalf of shared governance in a community which does not believe in shared governance. They fought a good fight against elected public education officials who don’t even believe in public education.
It doesn’t get any weirder than that, Jake. It’s Orange County.
—RE
