Altadena on Fire: What Loss Does to You

Let’s use Anger as a fuel for Change.

Almost the whole city of Altadena is gone. North Lake Ave is on fire. Historical buildings and shops gone. I don’t know if the house in Alameda Street where I lived for a few years before coming to The Netherlands is still there or not. A beautiful casita. The best of all the houses I ever lived in my life. (Update: I looked at the fire maps, I still recieve updates from the County of Los Angeles, and it looks like it is gone)

My casita in Alameda St, Altadena, CA

But if I believe the fires map, it looks like it’s gone. And looking at the video below, taken exactly at the corner of Alameda Street and Lake Ave, I don’t have much hope.

I used to teach piano in that house, left the door unlocked and the students simply came in, took over the kitchen, the patio, the living room. I used to say that my house was like a train station, always full of people. Where are those kids, those families now?

If I had stayed there, I would be homeless now, my piano just a pile of ashes.

Politicians are uselessly throwing arrows at each other using this for political gain (Trump specially). Who cut the budget of the fire department by 17 million dollars? Were the reservoirs dry? And I wonder, were most of the firefighters too busy in the Pacific Palisades saving the homes of superstars and billionaires instead of this quaint and middle-class neighborhood? Or am I just falling down the conspiracy theories rabbit hole?

Whatever the reason, it’s not important. What is important is that it happened. A city burned down. Like Hurricane Katrina happened. Like Valencia floods happened.

The people are losing everything, the whole city is in ashes and the fire is only 3 percent contained at this point. Can you fathom that? Can you imagine a whole city gone in three days?

LA_Altadena_Eaton Fire. inArticle_620 GUARDIAN GRAPHIC IMAGE MAXAR

Altadena before and after the Eaton fire.

250110VisualGuideLoops ALTADENA FROM THE GUARDIAN

Can you imagine if it was your city, or your childhood town, gone up in flames? Read this opinion piece in the New York Times from a climate scientist who moved out of Altadena two years ago exactly for this reason. It is illuminating.

Thousands of people were left homeless overnight. Thousands of insurance claims that will probably be denied because it will be described as a “wind event” (see this video about the predatory nature of the insurance companies, and this Substack post ). Los Angeles Supervisor Kathryn Barger said that “many FEMA applications for assistance have been denied -- she said she is looking into it.”

People report calling 911 and nobody showing up, no firefighters. And when they showed up, there was no water to throw. Fire hydrants were dry. People died waiting for an ambulance.

Heads have to roll.

This is not only a natural disaster created and exacerbated by climate change. This is Supreme Human Fuckup and lack of leadership.

And it fills me with rage.

But this anger is fuel for action. Has to be. We have to act.

Governments are forgetting their duties towards their citizens. They are letting us down.

People evacuating, in panic, running for their lives, had to leave behind their cars and walk, because the roads were totally blocked, which brings to mind the images of streets with piles of cars left behind by the floods in Valencia last October.

Don’t you connect the dots????

They don’t care about us, we are just a number for them, a tax payer, a consumer, a vote.

We are nothing.

Why do we pay taxes for? So they can put it in their pockets or on measures we don’t approve of or were not consulted about?

What about our lives? The rising price of everything, the deterioration of all services, costs cut from every social service left still standing???!!!

NO.

Governments don’t give a dam about us.

If there is a flood here in The Netherlands, 6 meters below sea level, nobody is going to come to save us, to evacuate us, to warn us. Do you know why?

Because I am sure that it is cheaper to let it happen and then rescue the survivors than to organize mass evacuations. It’s more cost efficient – godly words for the neo-liberals capitalist fanatics.

So, be aware.

You are next.

Papa State is not going to save you, or me, or any of us.

You know, The Netherlands has the highest prices for gas in Europe because we pay the highest tax on it, 60 %. What is that money being used for? To buy weapons from Israel? To pay for the nice salaries of the government officials or the monarchy subsidies?

Sure, all very important things.

More important than our miserable little lives.

Vaffanculo!

Let’s stop paying taxes! Stop paying the excesive gas bill (or pay only 40 % of it), stop buying things because everything you buy donates 21 % in taxes to the mafia government.

This post is a Call to Action from the guts, the fear, the anxiety, the anger.

We need to unite and organize!

Against the “Divide and Conquer” let’s try “Unite and Rise.”

Against the inaction of governments. What are they doing to stop climate change? Nothing!

The ineptitude of all the useless apparatus of the state that cannot solve any of the huge problems and crisis we are facing, is jaw dropping.

We cannot lower our arms. We must rise to the occasion; history is asking that from us.

We cannot stay and watch the house burn, like the sheep we are.

Wake up!

It’s time to act!

Today is Altadena,

Yesterday and forever, Palestina,

Tomorrow is your town, be it in the USA, in Europe, in South America, or wherever.

We are all together on this.

We have to unite.

We need to loudly ask more from our governments and leaders to take Action to protect us from the disasters of climate change or

GET OUT OF THE WAY AND LET US ORGANIZE OURSELVES!

Let us build a different world where kindness and compassion are possible.

Too idealistic?

Well, maybe, but, hey!

I am The Nasty Woman!

I know hell.

I know evil.

I felt it in my body.

I am not innocent

I am not a saint.

But I believe in human beings, and I believe we can do better.

Some actions you can take:

Join your local activist group, whatever color or flag, there’s always something you can find to defend yourself against the unfairness of the state and join others in LA LUCHA.

Protests and marches, I said before in a note, don’t bring much change, but now I see that they have another function: they get people together IN PERSON, they stir the flames of awareness, they mobilize and unite people in the real world.

Recently I wrote this in response to someone who argued that writing reaches more people than marches: Yes, the thing is, I now realize, a march puts us in the real world, outside of this digital fantasy, we meet people in the flesh, we talk to each other face to face. And I think we underestimate the power of bodies together.

I think we need both. We need to write but also to put our bodies behind the words and yell in the streets.

We desperately need to get back to the real world and out of the digital distractions to mobilize people for the COMMON GOOD.

Don’t just sit and wait.

Nobody is coming to save you.

Don’t be a slave.

Revolt.

We deserve better.

PS: Check out The Surge: https://thesurgeinternational.net/.

They are organizing a march in different cities for the weekend of the 18^th and 19^th of January uniting causes: against fascism, climate change inaction, genocides and wars. Here in Amsterdam will be on Sunday, 19^th January, 14:00 in the Dam. I see you there.

https://www.instagram.com/thesurge2025/