“Every year we see the same pictures on television, of homes being destroyed and peoples’ lives ruined by fire,” said Joseph Mebillingsworth a leading political commentator in Ethiopia. “No matter how much money is spent the same thing happens every year.”Many political commentators point to California, and Los Angeles in particular, as having a history of chronic water shortages and wildfires as evidence that the land is unable to sustain the current demands placed on it by ten of millions of immigrants over the last 200 years.
“It is clear that the population explosion in California is now unsustainable, forcing people to live close to deadly, dry woodland that can only burst into flames,” said MeBillingsworth. “There are just too many people for the Fire Department of Los Angeles to support. Every year millions of dollars is pumped into LA fire prevention, and yet every year we see the same images – people returning to the wreckage of homes only recently rebuilt from the ashes of previous houses. Clearly giving the area money is not the answer.”
Those that wish to leave California to the flames as the only long-term solution insist that California is rich enough to sustain itself and provide for future generations of Fire-fighters to work the land, but that the state is constantly dragged down by unbearable waste, greed and corruption.
“It is the people at the bottom that suffer, not the ruling elite,” said MeBillingsworth. “Even while the people struggle and the State is apparently bankrupted into selling off anything it can on EBay, the ruling elite have enough to buy the finest clothes from their exclusive shops in Beverly Hills and drive around in limousines.”
Others though believe that leaving the people of California to die in the thousands is morally repugnant in the 21st century.
“California is a fabulous land, it is endowed with enormous natural resources and its people are hard-working and skilled enough to be able to come home to a house that is not on fire,” said one aid worker. “They just need some training in the basics. Such as how to draw maps of those areas that have persistent wildfires. And then learning not to build houses in them.”
As the old investment aid saying goes – “Give a man a fire-truck and his house won’t burn down today. Teach him about sensible urban planning and his town will be out of reach of fires for a lifetime.”
Both left and right of the political spectrum in Africa are in agreement about the plight facing the residents of Los Angeles as they try to once again recover from a vicious circle that many believe is of their own making.
“It is difficult for us, sitting in Africa watching the news, to understand the difficulties of the people of California should they be injured or become ill from the effects of the fires, " said MeBillingsworth. “Their health system really is appalling.”
