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(hit play for soundtrack)
The wave of populist, democratic revolutions across the Middle East began in Tunisia,
and THAT began with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi,
the 28-year-old university student who burned himself alive
when the corrupt Tunisian authorities
confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was selling to feed his family.
What would a democratic revolution starting in Costa Mesa look like?
29-year-old Huy Pham loved his job, and did it outstandingly.
At the candlelight vigil his co-workers raved to me
of his tireless good energy, his resourcefulness,
how he could fix anything, his original solutions to any problems that arose,
how when there didn’t seem to be any work to do he’d find some,
how he’d bring eggrolls he’d made for his co-workers
who were a family to him
– just as much as the family at home he worked so hard to support.
Huy’s co-workers sat in shock and despondent.
Most of them also had pink slips.
(The few who didn’t felt guilty about that.)
Jim Righeimer, in his boundless ambition, wanted his name in the paper, and so it is.
The slaughterer of public employees.
The War of the Rich against the rest of us
– against workers –
has become impossible to escape this year, and way too big to ignore.
And Costa Mesa Council’s latest assault on Costa Mesa’s Workers
– this week’s indiscriminate pinkslipping –
is the OC’s own Boston Massacre.
Their war on us is based on lies.
(Lies amplified unquestioningly by media from the Washington Post to the OC Weekly.)
There is no $16 million budget deficit.
The budget is essentially balanced.
Their claim that pension costs will rise to $25 million in a few years is outrageously exaggerated.
The City’s revenue has been rebounding,
and the firefighters and police already agreed last year to major givebacks.
This Boston Massacre of Righeimer was utterly unnecessary
and nothing but POLITICS.
Huy’s broken bones are not an argument against wholesale outsourcing of the city’s workforce.
The argument against that is it’s unnecessary and hasn’t been shown to save anything.
Huy’s bruised flesh is not an argument against balancing Costa Mesa’s budget.
It’s already been balanced with Measure L, employee givebacks, and the rebounding economy.
Huy’s stopped heart is not an argument for exorbitant pensions.
Those have been in the process of being negotiated down, in Costa Mesa and everywhere.
Huy’s death is more a reminder that there are PEOPLE,
hundreds of them,
millions of them,
millions of us,
under fire in these ideologues’ games.
How do we make Huy’s sacrifice not a waste?
The good Tunisians knew how to respond to Mohamad Bouazizi’s sacrifice.
What would a revolution starting in Costa Mesa look like?
It would have to at least begin with the awakening of the 9 out of 10 adult CM citizens
who didn’t bother voting last November,
and will at the very LEAST entail a RECALL of the four irresponsible, bloody-handed ideologues
on the Costa Mesa City Council.
These are things to think about as we all meet today at noon,
at Costa Mesa City Hall, to “encircle” it,
– wearing “white for hope” – not red –
to honor Huy’s sacrifice.
Circle The City
OC for OC – One Church for Our City, are inviting our brothers and sisters to come together as one body for a prayer vigil at City Hall on Monday March 21st from 12-12:45.
Come join others from churches across Costa Mesa to surround our ‘City’ in prayer. We will encircle the building of City Hall and seek God’s will for our city at this challenging time of change, unrest and grief.
This is a call to prayer, a call to lament, a call to ask God to heal our City and to hold out hope for our community.
– We are asking that you wear something white as a sign of hope (no red please out of cultural respect)
– Your presence will communicate a gesture of support and love for the whole city of Costa Mesa
Also today, a memorial will take place at City hall for City Employees and anyone from the public wishing to attend. The Moment of Silence will occur @ 3:17 . The exact time of Huy’s death. Be there before then.
Vern,
Self-immolation, OC’s own Boston Massacre? It’s too shameful an exploitation of a tragic death to even warrant a response. Berardino must be so proud.
I expected this kind of reaction. But interviewing lots of people who knew Huy, and considering the timing and the place where he died, I decided this was how he would have wanted to be remembered.
Naturally, people who support what Righeimer’s council is doing to Costa Mesa workers, people who support the war on workers in general, would like Huy’s death to be sad, pointless, and quickly forgotten.
Boston Massacre – maybe not everybody is as close a student of the American Revolution as I. I chose that because I know it was accidental and unintentional, but the inevitable result of bad policies, and also because it led to a Revolution.
The comparison to the Tunisia self-immolation is just a no-brainer.
Well Vern, I hope you don’t ban someone from the Juice who then commits suicide because, by your logic, you’ll be responsible.
Why did he jump? Millions of people have lost jobs, but there are not millions of jumpers.
Why did he jump?
Suicide rates trend upward during economic periods of job losses as do other non-fatal health problems. The ratio clearly isn’t 1:1. We may never know what multifaceted reasons lead to the decision, but we do know the pink slip was one of them. Pham made that dramatically known.
$45k a year public employee salaries are not the problem. Anyone who suggests such, in these times of unabashed greed, should be ashamed of themselves.
Of course you must have noticed, Gabriel – what’s going on is not just an “economic period of job losses,” a period that’s beginning to pass by the way. It’s definite and unnecessary ACTIONS by people in power who want to break the working class.
Huy Pham was a smart dedicated talented young service employee. He was universally liked and respected. He was a gifted skilled tradesman. Studying at OCC for his contractors liscence. His $45,000 a year salary w/out overtime allowances was not excessive for his skill sets or job description.He provided for an extended family including a sick mother.
He was villified as part of the problem. I can’t help but feel that we , as a community, failed this young man. I equate it , to the stories you hear of a young girl hanging herself because of school bullying. He couldn’t take it anymore. He snapped.
Huy was young , and earnest, and his death made a statement. To ignore who he was, and how and when he chose to end his own life is wrong. I for one refuse to turn my head away.
Wow, Huy Pham was smart, so smart that he didn’t know that he could get another job! Suicide is the ULTIMATE in SELFISHNESS. Huy didn’t care whom he hurt, how deeply he hurt them or what long term problems his actions would create. You guys want to make him a martyr. He is just as greedy as those corporate goons and government administrators.
I was laid off due to corporate greed, as a matter of fact, 12 of us, in a department of 20, were laid off the same morning without any prior notice or even hint. And within three months, 12 more were hired to take our place, at a much lower wage. OH WELL. I got unemployment for 4 months and then got a higher paying job.
I can read your minds, you all think I am just a heartless SOB. Maybe I am and maybe I am not. My heart goes out to Huy’s family, they are the one’s suffering the most from his actions. A new job can be obtained, but Huy is gone forever due solely to his own selfish actions.
We all have to go through hard times. My brother died of Leukemia. My mother died of breast cancer last year. While in High School, I had a girlfriend die in a car accident. Job losses, IRS audits, financial hardships, medical problems, etc…. happen. But we don’t murder ourselves over it. We grieve the loss, fix the problem or accept that it cannot be fixed.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo
The enemy is not corporations, unions, governments, or even pink slips. The enemy is us.
I don’t know Mike, that’s YOUR strong opinion about suicide, and probably the opinion of a lot of people in our culture. In many other cultures there is a tradition of using suicide as a strong political or social statement. I brought up the Tunisian guy, and of course all of us of a certain age remember the Buddhist monks in Vietnam.
I’m not calling you a heartless SOB. Sorry to hear about your brother and mom. It’s interesting that this incident pisses you off so much, at Huy. Things like this are a Rorschach test for all of us.
Bravo! for calling it what it is: SELFISHNESS.
There was a time when such people were denied burial — and I wish it were still so.
Pham, 27, plunged from the roof of the five-story Civic Center on Thursday about an hour after he was called in to work to receive the layoff notice. His brother and others have said that he did not appear to be suicidal in recent weeks.
Retired city worker Mike Moran, 57, said he worked with Pham for more than four years and he never saw any signs of depression in his fellow building technician, who had been off work for three weeks with a broken ankle he suffered while training for his lifelong dream of climbing Mt. Everest, Moran said.
“He loved life. He loved his family. I don’t get it,” Moran said.
Pham was one of 213 city employees — nearly half the city’s work force of 472 — who were to be notified of layoffs on Thursday. His death heightened the strain over the City Council’s decision earlier this month to outsource 18 city services to other government or private agencies.
“We’re trying to understand the circumstances that led to it,” Glass said.
Pham also had received his contractor’s license and had future plans of entering the building trade.
His city job “was just a stepping stone for him,” Moran said. “He was preparing himself to move on.”
Crisis counsellors were brought in to help Pham’s co-workers deal with their shock, and a makeshift shrine of candles and flowers appeared at the spot where he died.
Moran, who was among those at the shrine, said he could not imagine Pham’s feelings but speculated that the loss of his job and poor prospects in private industry might have affected him.
“You know, it’s bad times and construction is down and then you get your pink slip … what’s waiting for you, you know?” Moran asked.
I would go but it seems like this is being spun that those in attendance are against what the Costa Mesa council is trying to achieve. Is there actually room there for two different opinions? What color to wear if you support the council and support the deceased and his family? Too political for me, I will just send in a check, no make that cash (don’t want my name on a list that will be spun against their council) for the memorial fund..
Just come, I somewhat misrepresented the event – it is for unity and healing.
Great post, Vern. It seems like the City is being run like a corporation instead of a municipal entity and this is one of the many consequences of that line of thinking. The politicians will only absolve responsibility more as time goes on, even as their decisions affect the lives and safety of those who put them into power.
Such a terrible tragedy. My heart goes out to his family and friends.
“City run like a corporation” – that’s funny, that’s exactly what Riggy says he’s trying to do.
And terrible tragedy yes. But I’m hoping that it becomes more than just a tragedy.
Pham was NOT selfish. He was selfLESS. We’ll never know for sure why he destroyed his body, but it’s not difficult to see it was the ultimate protest. Selflessness is a special characteristic that promotes the well-being of the species. He was impulsive. Passionate. And much too generous. His spirit is intact. We are humans and deserve respect from those who (cough!) serve us. Elections sure do have consequences!
Rest in peace Huy Pham.
Toss and turn Righeimer!!!
Just Mike…I agree with your way of thinking. Although I have zero respect for the men on the council, they did not make Huy jump. That was HIS choice. Life is hard and painful. We all have choices as to how we are going to handle our challenges. Sorry to hear about your loss. I just got through breast cancer.Your mom is my hero.
Righeimer’s Corporation went bankrupt. No one runs a business like this. You don’t raise the city deficit by $200,000, hiring consultants, then don’t wait for the consultants to even be hired before you lay off all your workers. They had to hire grief counsellors, because they went and got human resource specialists AFTER the layoffs and Huys death. Then they had to hire a PR person to help with their message of Transperancy. This isn’t a business like approach. This is inexperienced political idealogues ruining a city , by invoking the nuclear option for political gain.
It actually reminds me of the many small businesses I’ve worked for that are on their way out. The symptoms are all there: lay-offs, short sighted thinking and big investments in a poor attempt to try to regain some traction. Recent developments remind me of when I was laid off by a small business only days after the bosses bought new luxury cars on the company’s dime. They felt image was more important than their “low-skilled” labor. They went out of business about one year after that.
Sounds like the West Side Improver Gang is on an alias mission!
Several West Side Improver members both past & present have criminal records.
I think it’s a shame that Pham likely did not realize the value he held among those who love him. It’s sad that he is so largely celebrated upon his death and was not appreciated enough in his life to continue on. I understand what Just Mike is saying, although I wouldn’t pose it so harshly. Pham’s death has caused tremendous pain to his friends and family, but it likely does not parallel the pain he was feeling when he made his fatal decision.
The absurdity of these comparisons is striking.
Obviously, the man was deranged before he was even hired. At 29, this was no case of David taking away his only lamb…
Perpetrators of Suicide are NOT victims, NOR are they Martyrs in cases such as these. He was not defending the innocent, he was not acting to stave off some crime or crisis…
He was deranged, and mired in self-hate.
A jump of despair a Martyr doth not make.
Let’s step gently OFF our high-horses, people… good grief…
OH ENZO!
WHY DIDN’T EVERYONE CHECK WITH YOU FIRST?
I GUESS THE AIR WAS SO THIN UP THERE ON OUR HIGH HORSES WE COULDN’T JUDGE OTHERS AS WELL AS YOU.
Yes, Steven, I didn’t have time to sink to the depths of your perfidy to question whether what is OBvious is actually real.
Yes yes, so far as things aren’t the way your special interest groups wants them, we have to “question all things”, but when it’s YOUR spin, a normal, hard working person who has to bust their back every day to feed their family and provide for a stable life has to take words like “martyr” and “victim” and “sacrifice” on YOUR definition, on YOUR terms, without questioning anything.
Your demagoguery is so evident. Get a life, hypocrite.