Frank, what’s the “they” all about?  We are they, they are us.  Don’t you yet see than both they and we will suffer if and when they are run out and the Plaza is sold for billions of bucks to corporate interests who are already stinking rich?

You may say you didn’t mean this, but your comment sounds discriminatory, like “they are so shiftless that they don’t deserve Olvera Street,” or words to that effect.  Again, they are us, we are them, now and forever, amen.

Right, because in the midst of the worst economic crisis in memory, and in a
state nearly bankrupt due to government spending, it is a priority to maintain a
public funded area devoted to a single culture where tourists and locals can
buy taquitos. Unreal.

Does this place serve the vital public service needs of all the taxpayers who
fund it?  Is it a priority compared to roads, emergency services, education, etc? 
No, of course not.

How confused some of you are in thinking that things run by government
bureaucrats are ‘controlled by the citizens’, whereas local businesses owned
and patronized by private citizens is not. It’s like something out of Bizarro
World in the DC comics universe.

Nearly half the population of Los Angeles is Hispanic or Latino. If they don’t
have the initiative to maintain a place like this through their own private
enterprise, then they they shouldn’t expect the taxpayers to do it for them. Not
at a time like this.

Right, because is the midst of the worse economic crisis in memory, and in a state nearly bankrupt due to government spending, it is a priority to maintain a public funded area devoted to a single culture where tourists and locals can buy taquitos. Unreal.

Does this place serve the vital public service needs of all the taxpayers who fund it?  Is it a priority compared to roads, emergency services, education, etc?  No, of course not.

How confused some of you are in thinking that things run by government
bureaucrats are ‘controlled by the citizens’, whereas local businesses owned
and patronized by private citizens is not. It’s like something out of Bizarro
World in the DC comics universe.

Nearly half the population of Los Angeles is Hispanic or Latino. If they don’t have the initiative to maintain a place like this through their own private enterprise, then they they shouldn’t expect the taxpayers to do it for them. Not at a time like this.

This is exactly why the Republicans spent 12 years deliberately and systematically
dismantling our economy: to force everything that is still controlled by the
citizenry to become privatized and run for corporate profit. EVERYTHING. Schools,
prisons, libraries, parks, police, fire departments. Everything. Right wing think
tanks planned it out 20 years ago to deliberately destroy our economy through
tax cutting and free trade and then save it through privatization. Their plan was to
provoke a new depression and save us with a right wing new deal. They are
succeeding….

So much could be said:  Overwhelming nostalgia.  The cruelty of relentless Time.  Awareness of cultural differences and the way they are being amalgamated by commercialism. There is much reason to mourn.

Knowing the way time and greed are moving the world, can we turn toward the future,  concentrate all our energies together, and save what can be saved of human feelings and human skills?