Thirty–Year Retrospective I believe that Random Lengths is in the great tradition of the independent journalism, absolutely essential for the existence of a humanistic and democratic society. I ask my many friends, known and unknown, to support this newspaper in every way possible as we continue our struggles against bureaucracy and barbarism. —Art Kunkin,
by: Paul Rosenberg & Erik Kongshaug
T
hirty years is an eternity in the news business. Thirty years ago, there was no cable news, no Internet, no text messaging “OMG Channel 533!” People were distracted the oldfashioned way: politicians lied to them, and newspapers printed the lies as fact. This is where Random Lengths came in, taking aim at those lies, one at a time. Thirty years ago, we had no idea we were overheating the planet, no idea how toxic our local air was and no idea that the Harbor Area could elect so many Democrats. It was impossible to know what to do with them all. The founders of Random Lengths might have been happy with just one…but it took a while. Still, it did happen, once, twice, and then over and over again, in part because Random Lengths came in.
Founder of LA Free Press
Today, anyone familiar with Random Lengths must agree that for all this time, Random Lengths has been true to its original mission statement that appeared in Vol. I, Issue. 1[see sidebar p. 6]. From its first quarterly appearance in winter of 1979 to its move to bi–weekly in 1981, to monthly in 1985, to its current twice-monthly format begun in 1988, Random Lengths has taken on the role of local watchdog over Port expansion, city government, land use and civil rights. Random Lengths’ analysis of larger global and political issues remains firmly attached to its local roots, so it has staunchly resisted the spin of the national corporate media. Things have changed a lot in thirty years. There are many more new ways to distract people now. But through it all, Random Lengths has defied the swiftly rising tide of disinformation and corporate plunder. It has been a fragile lifeline preserving the historic roots of the Harbor community through its determined focus on local issues. For the past thirty years, Random Lengths has provided the only consistent public forum informing the Harbor community of issues that encroach on its autonomy and integrity—and of opportunities to seize control and shape the future to fit our dreams, as hokey and Frank Capraesque as that may sound.
A Dream from the Southern– most Tip of Los Angeles
We couldn’t have done it without you, our readers, of course. More often than not, you made the news we wrote about—the good news, anyway. And, you did your job as citizens by getting angry enough to change things when we told you the bad news. But the odds were always against you, so it took some doing, some gumption and some guts. And, knowing that you were up to that task is what inspired us to inspire you. How did we know that? How did we know before publishing our first issue that the conservative culture of the 1979 Harbor Area could be stood on its head? We knew it because we knew history. We knew it had been done before. We knew it because we knew people who had done it. However uncertain things might look in the moment, we knew that radical change was possible—even, perhaps, inevitable, once people realized the power they had. Real People. Real News.
6
Today, in the year 2009, Random Lengths has evolved into a vital, under-the-radar contributor to the nation’s groundswell of Progressive ideas. It played a key role in informing and inspiring a new generation of globally savvy activists like those who made the historic journey to shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle a decade ago and it kept hope alive for eight long years under an un-elected president, who has damaged the country and the constitution almost beyond recognition. Random Lengths also holds unwaveringly to its first inspiration—the secret of the paper’s enduring success: to look to the past, as well as to the future. In the contents of that very first edition and in the name they chose for the paper (a pre-1940s shipping term), Random Lengths’ founders intentionally mirrored San Pedro’s very local ties to the Progressive movement of the 1930s. From the beginning, Random Lengths has stepped quite consciously in the footsteps of muckraking author Upton Sinclair and his populist paper Epic News. Sinclair funded and wrote that historic newspaper to wage his political campaign to “End Poverty in California” (EPIC); the founders of Random Lengths began with a $2,000 donation from liberal candidate Jim Stanbery, then a resident of Point Fermin. Stanbery was running to replace the powerful, conservative LA 15th District Councilmember John S. Gibson. Stanbery, a young liberal in the Kennedy mold, was a far cry from the more radical Sinclair (who was only narrowly defeated in the race for governor of California in 1934), but he forced Gibson’s only runoff race ever in 1977 and symbolized to the five original editors, the first real chance for a change from the political conservatism that dominated our district for decades. For decades more, however, the conservative climate