Ideas Journal | Woman on the Los Feliz

Jonny Sharples
Document specialising in the story developments of a Woman on the Los Feliz Looking at music, environment, character analysis and other item on the agenda.

Undisclosed UCA Rochester Campus 07549634737 9/21/2011

Research | Charles Manson

The Manson murders are key element to my synopsis. The narrative will have a Film Noir approach and will have one foot in the past and one foot in the future. With the Manson murders it will be ideal to promote a copycat approach to the synopsis. In terms of an overview the murders at first appeared like irregular murders but where actually part of a sinister plot to accomplish a bigger plan.

Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934) is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracys object. Manson is associated with Helter Skelter, a term he took from the song Helter Skelter, written and recorded by The Beatles. Manson misconstrued the lyrics to be about an apocalyptic race war he believed the murders were intended to precipitate. From the beginning of his notoriety, this connection with rock music linked him with a pop culture in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence and the macabre. At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict, who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson, founding member and drummer of The Beach Boys. After Manson was charged with the crimes he was later convicted of, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially. Artists, including Guns N Roses, White Zombie and Marilyn Manson, have covered his songs.

Manson Family
On his release day, Manson received permission to move to San Francisco, where, with the help of a prison acquaintance, he moved into an apartment in Berkeley. Now, living mostly by panhandling, he soon got to know Mary Brunner, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of WisconsinMadison. Brunner was working as an assistant librarian at University of California, Berkeley, and Manson moved in with her. According to a secondhand account, he overcame her resistance to his bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunners residence with 18 other women. Before the summer ended, Manson and eight or nine of his enthusiasts piled into an old school bus they had re-wrought in hippie style, with coloured rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. They roamed as far north as Washington state, then southward through Los Angeles, Mexico, and the southwest. Returning to the Los Angeles area, they lived in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, and Venicewestern parts of the city and county. In an alternative account, Manson acquired Family members during some months of travels that were undertaken, in part, in a Volkswagen van. He was apparently accompanied by Brunner. It was November when the school bus set out from San Francisco with the enlarged group.

Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al.

In Manson in His Own Words, the account is that Manson first met Wilson at a friends San Francisco house where Manson had gone to obtain cannabis. The drummer supposedly gave Manson his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he would be in Los Angeles. The events that would culminate in the murders were set in motion in late spring 1968, when, by some accounts, Dennis Wilson, of The Beach Boys, picked up two hitchhiking Manson women and brought them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. Returning home in the early hours of the following morning from a night recording session, Wilson was greeted in the driveway of his own residence by Manson, who emerged from the house. Uncomfortable, Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Assuring him he had no such intent, Manson began kissing Wilsons feet. Inside the house, Wilson discovered 12 strangers, mostly women. Over the next few months, as their number doubled, the Family members who had made themselves part of Wilsons Sunset Boulevard household cost him approximately $100,000. This included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhoea and $21,000 for the accidental destruction of his uninsured car, which they borrowed. Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, whose women were treated as servants to them both
Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson, and he introduced Manson to acquaintances of his with roles in the entertainment business. These included Gregg Jakobson, Terry Melcher, and Rudi Altobelli (the last of whom owned a house he would soon rent to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski). Jakobson, who was impressed by the whole Charlie Manson package of artist/lifestylist/philosopher, also paid to record Manson material

Helter Skelter
The murders perpetrated by members of Charles Mansons Family were inspired in part by Mansons prediction of Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic war he believed would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites. The scenario had Manson as not only the wars ultimate beneficiary but its musical cause. He and the Family would create an album with songs whose messages concerning the war would be as subtle as those he had heard in songs of The Beatles. More than merely foretell the conflict, this would trigger it; for, in instructing the young love. Americas white youth, to join the Family, it would draw the young, white female hippies out of San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury. Black men, thus deprived of the white women whom the political changes of the 1960s had made sexually available to them, would be without an outlet for their frustrations and would lash out in violent crimes against whites. A resultant murderous rampage against blacks by frightened whites would then be exploited by militant blacks to provoke an internecine war of near-extermination between racist and non-racist whites over blacks treatment. Then the militant blacks would arise to sneakily finish off

the few whites they would know to have survived; indeed, they would kill off all non-blacks. In this holocaust, the members of the enlarged Family would have little to fear; they would wait out the war in a secret city that was underneath Death Valley that they would reach through a hole in the ground. As the only actual remaining whites upon the race wars true conclusion, they would emerge from underground to rule the now-satisfied blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running the world; Manson would scratch [the black mans] fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick the cotton and go be a good nigger.... The term Helter Skelter was from the so-named Beatles song, which involved apparent reference to the British amusement-park ride of that name and was interpreted by Manson as concerned with the war. The song was on the so-called White Album (formal name, The Beatles), first heard by Manson within a month or so of its November 1968 release: Helter Skelter Lyric: When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide/ Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride Significance: A reference to the Familys emergence from the Bottomless Pit, the underground Death Valley hideaway where the group will escape the violence of Helter Skelter[ Lyric: Look out... Helter Skelter... Shes coming down fast... Yes she is. Meaning: The upcoming explosion of race-based violence is imminent. These are the last few months, weeks, perhaps days, of the old order. Even to someone unaware that helter-skelter is the name of a slide, the songs mention of a slide might have indicated that the she in this part of the lyrics is someone who, literally or otherwise, is riding on a slide and coming down fast (i.e., helter-skelter, or out of control). In My Life with Charles Manson, Paul Watkins makes clear Manson construed she as a reference to the words helter skelter themselves. It is Helter Skelter which, in America, at least, can be the noun confusion that is coming down fast, i.e., is imminent.

Murders Associated With Helter Skelter

Tate Murders
10050 Cielo Drive, was Melchers residence. This was Rudi Altobellis property, where Melcher was no longer the tenant. As of that February, the tenants were Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.

Figure 1 | Tate/Polanski House

When the murder team arrived at the entrance to the Cielo Drive property, Watson, who had been to the house on at least one other occasion, climbed a telephone pole near the gate and cut the phone line. It was now around midnight and into August 9, 1969.

Figure 2 | Roman Polanski At The Aftermath

Backing their car down to the bottom of the hill that led up to the place, the group parked there and walked back up to the house. Thinking the gate might be electrified or rigged with an alarm; they climbed a brushy embankment at its right and dropped onto the grounds. Just then, headlights came their way from farther within the angled property. Watson ordered the women to lie in the bushes. He then stepped out and ordered the approaching driver, 18-year-old student and hi-fi enthusiast Steven Parent, to halt. As Watson 5evelled a 22-caliber revolver at Parent, the frightened youth begged Watson not to hurt him, claiming that he wouldnt say anything. Watson first slashed at Parent with a knife, giving him a defensive slash wound on the palm of his hand (severing tendons and tearing the boys watch off his wrist), then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen. Watson then ordered the women to help push the car further up the driveway After traversing the front lawn and having Kasabian search for an open window of the main house, Watson cut the screen of a window. Watson told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate; she walked over to Steven Parents Rambler and waited. He then removed the screen, entered through the window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door. As Watson whispered to Atkins, Frykowski awoke on the living-room couch; Watson kicked him in the head. On Watsons direction, Atkins found the three other occupants and, with Krenwinkels help, brought them to the living room.

Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with rope hed brought and slung up over a beam. Sebrings protest his second of rough treatment of the pregnant Tate prompted Watson to shoot him. Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, out of which she gave the intruders $70. After that, Watson stabbed the groaning Sebring seven times. Frykowskis hands had been bound with a towel. Freeing himself, Frykowski began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs. As he fought his way toward and out the front door, onto the porch, Watson joined in against him. Watson struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice. Watson broke the guns right grip in the process.

Figure 3 | Sebrings Body At The Murder Scene

Inside the house, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area. Folger was pursued to the front lawn by Krenwinkel, who stabbed and finally, tackled her. She was dispatched by Watson; her two assailants had stabbed her 28 times. As Frykowski struggled across the lawn, Watson murdered him with a final flurry of stabbing. Frykowski was stabbed a total of 51 times.

Figure 4 | Folger Murder Scene

Back in the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby, and even offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child; her killers would have none of it, as either Atkins, Watson, or both killed Tate, who was stabbed 16 times. Watson later wrote that Tate cried, Mother... mother... as she was being killed.

Figure 5 | Tate and Sebring Crime Scene

Earlier, as the four Family members had headed out from Spahn Ranch, Manson had told the women to leave a sign... something witchy. Using the towel that had bound Frykowskis hands, Atkins wrote pig on the houses front door, in Tates blood. En route home, the killers changed out of bloody clothes, which were ditched in the hills, along with their weapons.

Figure 6 | Pig Written On The Door With Tates Blood

Figure 7 | Pig Written On The Door With Tates Blood

Other Notable Reference Images

Figure 8 | Atkins Footprint In The Blood

Figure 9 | Blood At The Front Door

Figure 10 | Blood In Tates Bedroom

LaBianca Murders
The next night, six Family membersLeslie Van Houten, Steve Clem Grogan, and the four from the previous nightrode out at Mansons instruction. Displeased by the panic of the victims at Cielo Drive, Manson accompanied the six, to show them how to do it. After a few hours ride, in which he considered a number of murders and even attempted one of them, Manson gave Kasabian directions that brought the group to 3301 Waverly Drive. This was the home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, a dress shop co-owner. Located in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, it was next door to a house at which Manson and Family members had attended a party the previous year. Watson stated that, having gone up alone, Manson returned to take him up to the house with him. After Manson pointed out a sleeping man through a window, the two of them entered through the unlocked back door. As Watson tells it, Manson roused the sleeping Leno LaBianca from the couch at gunpoint and had Watson bind his hands with a leather thong. After Rosemary LaBianca was brought briefly into the living room from the bedroom, Watson followed Mansons instructions to cover the couples heads with pillowcases. He bound these in place with lamp cords. Manson left, sending Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten into the house with instructions that the couple be killed.

Figure 11 | Leno Autopsy

Before leaving Spahn Ranch, Watson had complained to Manson of the inadequacy of the previous nights weapons. Now, sending the women from the kitchen to the bedroom, to which Rosemary LaBianca had been returned, he went to the living room and began stabbing Leno LaBianca with a chrome-plated bayonet. The first thrust went into the mans throat.

Figure 12 | Leno Crime Scene

Figure 13 | Leno Crime Scene

Sounds of a scuffle in the bedroom drew Watson there to discover Mrs. LaBianca keeping the women at bay by swinging the lamp tied to her neck. After subduing her with several stabs of the bayonet, he returned to the living room and resumed attacking Leno, whom he stabbed a total of 12 times with the bayonet. When he had finished, Watson carved WAR on the mans exposed abdomen.

Returning to the bedroom, Watson found Krenwinkel stabbing Rosemary LaBianca with a knife from the LaBianca kitchen. Heeding Mansons instruction to make sure each of the women played a part, Watson told Van Houten to stab Mrs. LaBianca too. She did, stabbing her approximately 16 times in the back and the exposed buttocks.

Figure 14 | Rosemary Autopsy

Figure 15 | Rosemary Crime Scene

Figure 16 | Rosmary Crime Scene

While Watson cleaned off the bayonet and showered, Krenwinkel wrote Rise and Death to pigs on the walls and Healter [sic] Skelter on the refrigerator door, all in LaBianca blood. She gave Leno LaBianca 14 puncture wounds with an ivory-handled, two-tined

carving fork, which she left jutting out of his stomach. She also planted a steak knife in his throat.

Figure 17 | Healter Skelter Written In LaBianca Blood

Figure 18 | Leno Autopsy with War carved into his abdomen

Gangs
The link for my synopsis will be the link with the notorious gangs of L.A. which evolves from Manson trying to frame the Black Panthers during the 60s to promote. Although the founding member refuted claims that the Crips or more commonly associated with their previous name Cribs where descendants from the Black Panther Party. It seem a lead in the way to take the synopsis and copycat link into Manson Murders.

Crips
The Crips are a primarily, but not exclusively, African American gang. They were founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969 mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams. What was once a single alliance between two autonomous gangs is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another.

Figure 19 | Crips Hand Signal

The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States, with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members. The gang is known to be involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing, among many other criminal pursuits. The gang is known for its gang members' use of the colour blue in their clothing. However, this practice has waned due to police crackdowns on gang members.

Figure 20 | Crips Gang

Figure 21| Crips Gang

Crips are publicly known to have an intense and bitter rivalry with the Bloods and lesser feuds with some Chicano gangs. Cribs were chosen to reflect the young age of the majority of the gang members. The name "Cribs" generated into the name "Crips" when gang members began carrying around canes to display their "pimp" status. People in the neighbourhood then began calling them cripples, or "Crips" for short. A Los Angeles Sentinel article in February 1972 referred to some members as "Crips" (for cripples). The name had no political, organizational, cryptic, or acronymic meaning, though some have suggested it stands for Common Revolution In Progress. Williams, in his memoir, further refuted claims that the group was a spin-off of the Black Panther Party or formed for a community agenda, the name "depicted a fighting alliance against street gangsnothing more, nothing less." Washington, who attended Fremont High School, was the leader of the East Side Crips, and Williams, who attended Washington High School, led the West Side Crips. Williams recalled that a blue bandanna was first worn by Crips founding member Buddha, as a part of his colour-coordinated clothing of blue Levi's, a blue shirt, and dark blue suspenders. A blue bandanna was worn in tribute to Buddha after he was shot and killed on February 23, 1973, which eventually became the colour of blue associated with Crips. By the early 1980s the gang was heavily involved with drug trade. Some of these Crips sets began to produce and distribute PCP (phencyclidine) within the city. They also began to distribute marijuana and amphetamine in Los Angeles. In the early 1980s Crips sets began distributing crack cocaine in Los Angeles. The huge profits resulting from crack cocaine distribution induced many Crips members to establish new markets in other cities and states. In addition, many young men in other states adopted the Crips name and lifestyle. As a result of these two factors, Crips membership increased throughout the 1980s, making it one of the largest street gang associations in the country. In 1999, there were at least 600 Crips sets with more than 30,000 members transporting drugs in the United States.

Membership

Crips has over 800 sets with 30,000 to 35,000 members and associate members, including more than 13,000 members in Los Angeles. The states with the highest estimated number of Crips sets are California, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. Members typically consist of young African American men, with some members being white, Hispanic and Asian.[1] Famous former gang members or those suspected to associate with the crips include Snoop Dogg, Eazy-E and Ice-T. Ice-T began his rapping career for Crip audiences, and is addressed by his Crip friends and acquaintances as Tray or Tracy.

Crip on Crip violence

By 1971, a gang on Piru Street in Compton, California, known as the Piru Street Boys was formed and associated themselves with the Crips as a set. After two years of peace, a feud began between the Piru Street Boys and the other Crip sets. It would later turn violent as gang warfare ensued between former allies. This battle continued and by 1973, the Piru Street Boys wanted to end the violence and called a meeting with other gangs that were targeted by the Crips. After a long discussion, the Pirus broke all connections to the Crips and started an organization that would later be called the Bloods, a street gang infamous for its rivalry with the Crips. Since then, other conflicts and feuds were started between many of the remaining sets of the Crips gang. It is a popular misconception that Crips sets feud only with Bloods. In reality, they fight each other for example, the Rollin' 60s and 83rd Street Gangster Crips have been rivals since 1979. In Watts, Los Angeles, the Grape Street Watts Crips and the P Jay Crips have feuded so much that the P Jay Crips even teamed up with the local Bloods set, the Bounty Hunter Bloods, to fight against the Grape Street Crips.[18]

Practices
The literacy practices of Crip's gang life generally include rapping, graffiti and substitutions and deletions of particular letters of the alphabet. The letter "b" in the word "blood" will be "disrespected" among certain sets and written with a cross inside it because of its association with the enemy. The letters "CK", which stand for "Crip killer", will be avoided and substituted with a double "cc", and the letter "b" will be replaced. The words "kick back" will instead be written as "kicc bkacc". Many other letters are also altered due to symbolic associations. Crips traditionally refer to each other as "Cuzz", which itself is sometimes used as a moniker for Crip. "Crab" is the most disrespectful epithet to call a Crip, and can warrant fatal retaliation. Crips in prison modules during the 1970s and 80's would communicate verbally with Kiswahili to maintain privacy among guards and rival gangs

Bloods

The Bloods are a separatist organization from the Crips and grew to be the main rivals of the Crips. This plays a nice role into the real killer or even the people who framed the gang. They also could have joined the Crips to create a bigger organization.
The Bloods gang was formed initially to compete against the influence of the Crips in Los Angeles. The origin of the Bloods and their rivalry with the Crips dates to the 1970s, where the Pirus street gang, originally a set, or faction, of the Crips, broke off during an internal gang war, and allied with other smaller gangs to found the gang that would eventually become known as the Bloods. At the time, Crips sets outnumbered Bloods sets by three to one. To assert their power despite this difference in numbers, Bloods sets became increasingly violent, especially against rival Crips members. The Pirus are therefore considered to be the original founders of the Bloods.

Figure 22 | Bloods Hand Signal

The United Blood Nation, simply called the Bloods, formed in 1993, within the New York City jail system on Rikers Island's GMDC (George Mochen Detention Center), sometimes called C 73. GMDC was used to segregate problem inmates from the rest of the detention center. Prior to this time period, the Latin Kings were the most prevalent and organized gang in the NYC jail system. The Latin Kings, with mostly Hispanic members, were targeting African American inmates with violence. These African American inmates, organized by some of the more violent and charismatic inmates, formed a protection group which they called the United Blood Nation. This United Blood Nation, which was actually a prison gang, was emulating the Bloods street gangs in Los Angeles. Several of the leaders of this recently created prison gang formed eight original Blood sets to recruit in their neighborhoods across New York City.

Figure 23 | Bloods Gang

Figure 24 | Bloods Gang

By 1996, thousands of members of the Blood street gang were establishing themselves as a formidable force among gangs and continued a steady drive for recruitment. At this time, the Bloods were more violent than other gangs but much less organized. Numerous slashings (razor blade or knife attacks) were reported during robberies and discovered to be initiations into the Bloods. This Blood in ritual became the trademark for the Bloods. Bloods recruited throughout the East Coast.

18th Street gangs

Interestingly, the Crips have been in a smaller feud with Chicano gangs. The 38 th street gang fit that specification and could be a good antagonist for the story/narrative. Even possible to be the reason for the racial divide between the community or country. Hence their bigger plans to eradicate the blacks.

18th Street gang is considered to be the largest transnational criminal gang in Los Angeles, California. It is estimated that there are thousands of members in Los Angeles County alone. There are approximately 200 separate individual autonomous gangs operating under the same label within separate barrios in the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, the South Bay, South Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, Pico Union, Inglewood, Cudahy, and Orange County 18th Street gang members are required to abide by a strict set of rules. Failure to obey the word of a gang leader, or to show proper respect to a fellow gang member, may result in an 18-second beating, or even execution for more serious offenses 18th Street gang members often identify themselves with the number 18 on their jerseys and clothing. 18th Street will use the symbols XV3, XVIII, 666, 99,(9+9=18), and 3-dots in their graffiti and tattoos. 18th Street colours are black and blue. Blue is to represent Sureos/Southern California and black is to represent the original colours for the gang. 18th Street cliques have been identified in 32 states and the District of Columbia in the United States, as well as foreign countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Canada. Some cliques are 54th Tiny Locos, Hollywood Gangsters, Tiny Diablos, Pico Gangsters, BellFlower, 106th Block, Grand View, Hoover, Mac Arthur Park, Smile Drive, Shatto Park, South Central, Rancho Park, Cudahi, Baby Locas (A Females Clique) and the Malditos in Orange County.

Latin Kings
The Latin Kings originated in the Chicago area however have expanded to many state of the USA. Theyre also another contender of the cribs and other gangs in the L.A. In fact they have such a big following they could rival the Crips in the present day. In result they are another possible enemy of black and a group to frame the murder on the Crips.

Figure 25 | Latin Kings Gangs

The Latin Kings street gang was formed in Chicago in the 1940s and consisted predominantly of Mexican and Puerto Rican males. Originally created with the philosophy of overcoming racial prejudice and creating an organization of "Kings," the Latin Kings evolved into a criminal enterprise operating throughout the United States.

Figure 26 | Latin Kings Hand Signal

The Latin King colors are black and gold; gang markings consist of a 5 or 3-point crown, writings of LK, ALK, ALKN, ALKQN abbreviations (or the whole words); and drawings of the Lion and/or the King Master. Latin King symbolism is usually accompanied with the name and number of the chapter, region or city of the gang. The Latin Kings are of the People Nation, and therefore, represent everything to the "left" in opposition to the "right", which is representative of the Folk Nation.

Figure 27 | Hand Signal

Kingism The Latin Kings operate under strict codes and guidelines that are conveyed in a lengthy constitution, known internally as the Manifesto. According to the Latin King Manifesto, there are three stages or cycles of Nation life that constitute Kingism. They are:
1. The Primitive Stage: wherein the neophyte member is expected to be immature and to be involved in such activities as gang-banging and being a street warrior without the full consciousness of Kingism. 2. The Conservative or Mummy Stage: which is where a member tires of the street gang life but is still accepting of life as it has been taught to him by the existing system that exploits all people of color, dehumanizes them, and maintains them under the conditions and social yoke of slavery. 3. The New King Stage: where the member "learns that his ills lie at the roots of a system completely alien to his train of thought and his natural development, due to the components of dehumanization that exist therein".

According to the Manifesto, "The New King is the end product of complete awareness, perceiving three-hundred and sixty degrees of enlightenment; his observations are free and independent; his thoughts are not clouded by any form of prejudice...For him there are no horizons between races, sexes and senseless labels", including gang labels for recognition. The New King no longer views the rival warrior as the cause of his ills; instead, he fights

against the Anti-King System (social injustices and inequality), a system which seeks to deny and oppress his people: the Oppressed Third World Peoples.

Economic Climate In The USA

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama's watch. The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion. It's the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president. The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama's four-year term. Mr. Obama blames policies inherited from his predecessor's administration for the soaring debt. He singles out:

"two wars we didn't pay for" "a prescription drug program for seniors...we didn't pay for." "tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for."

He goes on to blame the recession, and its resulting decrease in tax revenue on businesses, for making fewer sales, and more employees being laid off. He says the recession also resulted in more government spending due to increased unemployment insurance payments, subsidies to farms and funding of infrastructure programs that were part of his stimulus program. At the first town hall meeting of his Midwestern bus trip last week, Mr. Obama told an audience in Minnesota that "the debt problem is real and the deficit problem is real." But he also called in "a manageable problem." The Gross National Debt now stands at 97.6 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product - the total value of goods and services produced by labor and property in the U.S.

Obama announces debt plan built on taxes on rich

By JIM KUHNHENN

In a blunt rejoinder to congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama called for $1.5 trillion in new taxes Monday, part of a total 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion. He vowed to veto any deficit reduction package that cuts benefits to Medicare recipients but does not raise new revenues. "We can't just cut our way out of this hole," the president said. The president's proposal would predominantly hit upper income taxpayers but would also reduce spending in mandatory benefit programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, by $580 billion. It also counts savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The deficit reduction plan represents an economic bookend to the $447 billion in tax cuts and new public works spending that Obama has proposed as a short-term measure to stimulate the economy and create jobs. And it gives the president a voice in a process that will be dominated by a joint congressional committee charged with recommending deficit reductions of up to $1.5 trillion. His plan served as a sharp counterpoint to Republican lawmakers, who have insisted that tax increases should play no part in taming the nation's escalating national debt. Obama's plan would end Bush-era tax cuts for top earners and would limit their deductions. "It's only right we ask everyone to pay their fair share," Obama said from the Rose Garden at the White House. In issuing his threat to veto any Medicare benefits that aren't paired with tax increases on upper-income people, Obama said: "I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans." Responding to a complaint from Republicans about his proposed tax on the wealthy, Obama added: "This is not class warfare. It's math." The Republican reaction was swift and derisive. "Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings, and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth--or even meaningful deficit reduction," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement issued minutes after the president's announcement. "The good news is that the Joint Committee is taking this issue far more seriously than the White House." Obama's proposal comes amid Democratic demands that Obama take a tougher stance against Republicans. And while the plan stands little chance of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support. The core of the president's plan totals just over $2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. It would let Bush-era tax cuts for upper income earners expire, limit deductions for wealthier filers and close loopholes and end some corporate tax breaks. It also would cut

$580 billion from mandatory programs, including $248 billion from Medicare. It also targets subsidies to farmers and benefits programs for federal employees. Officials cast Obama's plan as his vision for deficit reduction, and distinguished it from the negotiations he had with House Speaker John Boehner in July as Obama sought to avoid a government default. As a result, Obama's proposal includes no changes in Social Security and no increase in the Medicare eligibility age, which the president had been willing to accept this summer. Administration officials also said that Obama's $1.5 trillion in new taxes is a goal that Congress could achieve through a broad overhaul of the tax code. They said the president's specific proposals represent one way to get to that goal under the existing tax code. Coupled with about $1 trillion in cuts already approved by Congress and signed by the president, overall deficit reduction would total more than $4 trillion, a number many economists cite as a minimum threshold to bring the nation's debt under control. Key features of Obama's plan: --$1.5 trillion in new revenue, which would include about $800 billion realized over 10 years from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. It also would place limits on deductions for wealthy filers and end certain corporate loopholes and subsidies for oil and gas companies. --$580 billion in cuts in mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion in Medicare and $72 billion in Medicaid and other health programs. Other mandatory benefit programs include farm subsidies and federal employee benefits. Administration officials said 90 percent of the $248 billion in 10-year Medicare cuts would be squeezed from service providers. The plan does shift some additional costs to beneficiaries, but those changes would not start until 2017. --$430 billion in savings from lower interest payment on the national debt. -- $1 trillion in savings from drawing down military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans have ridiculed the war savings as gimmicky, but House Republicans included them in their budget proposal this year and Boehner had agreed to count them as savings during debt ceiling negotiations with the president this summer. Illustrating Obama's populist pitch on tax revenue, he suggested that Congress establish a minimum tax on taxpayers making $1 million or more in income. The measure -- the White House calls it the "Buffett Rule" for billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- is designed to prevent millionaires from taking advantage of lower tax rates on investment earnings than what middle-income taxpayers pay on their wages.

That minimum rate, however, is not included in the White House revenue projections. Officials said it was a suggestion for Congress if it were to undertake an overhaul of the tax code. .At issue is the difference between a taxpayer's tax bracket and the effective tax rate that taxpayer pays. Millionaires face a 35 percent tax bracket, while middle income filers fall in the 15 or 25 percent bracket. But investment income is taxed at 15 percent and Buffett has complained that he and other wealthy people have been "coddled long enough" and shouldn't be paying a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers.

The 1930s Great Depression

The Depression is a key event as it promoted chaos and destabilization in the government and promotes extremism. This can range of thing but mainly associated closely with race and pinning the blame on different ethnicities. The biggest and most prominent ideology of this was German culture during the depression, which sprung a hatred for Jews and blacks even in some way anything not Aryan. If putting this type of slant on the future of America who would be to blame?

America in the Depression

After nearly a decade of optimism and prosperity, the United States was thrown into despair on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed and the official beginning of the Great Depression. As stock prices plummeted with no hope of recovery, panic struck. Masses and masses of people tried to sell their stock, but no one was buying. The stock market, which had appeared to be the surest way to become rich, quickly became the path to bankruptcy. And yet, the Stock Market Crash was just the beginning. Since many banks had also invested large portions of their clients' savings in the stock market, these banks were forced to close when the stock market crashed. Seeing a few banks close caused another panic across the country. Afraid they would lose their own savings, people rushed to banks that were still open to withdraw their money. This massive withdrawal of cash caused additional banks to close. Since there was no way for a bank's clients to recover any of their savings once the bank had closed, those who didn't reach the bank in time also became bankrupt. Businesses and industry were also affected. Having lost much of their own capital in either the Stock Market Crash or the bank closures, many businesses started cutting back their workers' hours or wages. In turn, consumers began to curb their spending, refraining from purchasing such things as luxury goods. This lack of consumer spending caused additional businesses to cut back wages or, more drastically, to lay off some of their workers. Some businesses couldn't stay open even with these cuts and soon closed their doors, leaving all their workers

The Dust Bowl In previous depressions, farmers were usually safe from the severe effects of a depression because they could at least feed themselves. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression, the Great Plains were hit hard with both a drought and horrendous dust storms. Years and years of overgrazing combined with the effects of a drought caused the grass to disappear. With just topsoil exposed, high winds picked up the loose dirt and whirled it for miles. The dust storms destroyed everything in their paths, leaving farmers without their crops. Small farmers were hit especially hard. Even before the dust storms hit, the invention of the tractor drastically cut the need for manpower on farms. These small farmers were usually already in debt, borrowing money for seed and paying it back when their crops came in. When the dust storms damaged the crops, not only could the small farmer not feed himself and his family, he could not pay back his debt. Banks would then foreclose on the small farms and the farmer's family would be both homeless and unemployed. Riding the Rails During the Great Depression, millions of people were out of work across the United States. Unable to find another job locally, many unemployed people hit the road, traveling from place to place, hoping to find some work. A few of these people had cars, but most hitchhiked or "rode the rails." A large portion of the people who rode the rails were teenagers, but there were also older men, women, and entire families who traveled in this manner. They would board freight trains and crisscross the country, hoping to find a job in one of the towns along the way. When there was a job opening, there were often literally a thousand people applying for the same job. Those who weren't lucky enough to get the job would perhaps stay in a shantytown (known as "Hoovervilles") outside of town. Housing in the shantytown was built out of any material that could be found freely, like driftwood, cardboard, or even newspapers. The farmers who had lost their homes and land usually headed west to California, where they heard rumors of agricultural jobs. Unfortunately, although there was some seasonal work, the conditions for these families were transient and hostile. Since many of these farmers came from Oklahoma and Arkansas, they were called the derogatory names of "Okies" and "Arkies." (The stories of these migrants to California were immortalized in the fictional book, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.) Roosevelt and the New Deal The U.S. economy broke down and entered the Great Depression during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. Although President Hoover repeatedly spoke of optimism, the people blamed him for the Great Depression. Just as the shantytowns were named Hoovervilles after him, newspapers became known as "Hoover blankets," pockets of pants turned inside

out (to show they were empty) were called "Hoover flags," and broken-down cars pulled by horses were known as "Hoover wagons." During the 1932 presidential election, Hoover did not stand a chance at reelection and Franklin D. Roosevelt won in a landslide. People of the United States had high hopes that President Roosevelt would be able to solve all their woes. As soon as Roosevelt took office, he closed all the banks and only let them reopen once they were stabilized. Next, Roosevelt began to establish programs that became known as the New Deal. These New Deal programs were most commonly known by their initials, which reminded some people of alphabet soup. Some of these programs were aimed at helping farmers, like the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration). While other programs, such as the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration), attempted to help curb unemployment by hiring people for various projects. The End of the Great Depression To many at the time, President Roosevelt was a hero. They believed that he cared deeply for the common man and that he was doing his best to end the Great Depression. Looking back, however, it is uncertain as to how much Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped to end the Great Depression. By all accounts, the New Deal programs eased the hardships of the Great Depression; however, the U.S. economy was still extremely bad by the end of the 1930s. The major turn-around for the U.S. economy occurred after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II. Once the U.S. was involved in the war, both people and industry became essential to the war effort. Weapons, artillery, ships, and airplanes were needed quickly. Men were trained to become soldiers and the women were kept on the homefront to keep the factories going. Food needed to be grown for both the homefront and to send overseas. It was ultimately the entrance of the U.S. into World War II that ended the Great Depression in the United States.

Germany Depression And Rise Of Adolf

When the stock market collapsed on Wall Street on Tuesday, October 29, 1929, it sent financial markets worldwide into a tailspin with disastrous effects. The German economy was especially vulnerable since it was built upon foreign capital, mostly loans from America and was very dependent on foreign trade. When those loans suddenly came due and when the world market for German exports dried up, the well oiled German industrial machine quickly ground to a halt. As production levels fell, German workers were laid off. Along with this, banks failed throughout Germany. Savings accounts, the result of years of hard work, were instantly

wiped out. Inflation soon followed making it hard for families to purchase expensive necessities with devalued money. Overnight, the middle class standard of living so many German families enjoyed was ruined by events outside of Germany, beyond their control. The Great Depression began and they were cast into poverty and deep misery and began looking for a solution, any solution. Adolf Hitler knew his opportunity had arrived. In the good times before the Great Depression the Nazi Party experienced slow growth, barely reaching 100,000 members in a country of over sixty million. But the Party, despite its tiny size, was a tightly controlled, highly disciplined organization of fanatics poised to spring into action. Since the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Hitler had changed tactics and was for the most part playing by the rules of democracy. Hitler had gambled in 1923, attempting to overthrow the young German democracy by force, and lost. Now he was determined to overthrow it legally by getting elected while at the same time building a Nazi shadow government that would one day replace the democracy. Hitler had begun his career in politics as a street brawling revolutionary appealing to disgruntled World War I veterans predisposed to violence. By 1930 he was quite different, or so it seemed. Hitler counted among his supporters a number of German industrialists, and upper middle class socialites, a far cry from the semi-literate toughs he started out with. He intentionally broadened his appeal because it was necessary. Now he needed to broaden his appeal to the great mass of voting Germans. His chief assets were his speech making ability and a keen sense of what the people wanted to hear. By mid-1930, amid the economic pressures of the Great Depression, the German democratic government was beginning to unravel. Gustav Stresemann, the outstanding German Foreign Minister, had died in October 1929, just before the Wall Street crash. He had spent years working to restore the German economy and stabilize the republic and died, having exhausted himself in the process. The crisis of the Great Depression brought disunity to the political parties in the Reichstag. Instead of forging an alliance to enact desperately need legislation, they broke up into squabbling, uncompromising groups. In March of 1930, Heinrich Bruening, a member of the Catholic Center Party, became Chancellor. Despite the overwhelming need for a financial program to help the German people, Chancellor Bruening encountered stubborn opposition to his plans. To break the bitter stalemate, he went to President Hindenburg and asked the Old Gentleman to invoke Article 48 of the German constitution which gave emergency powers to the president to rule by decree. This provoked a huge outcry from the opposition, demanding withdrawal of the decree.

As a measure of last resort, Bruening asked Hindenburg in July 1930 to dissolve the Reichstag according to parliamentary rules and call for new elections. The elections were set for September 14th. Hitler and the Nazis sprang into action. Their time for campaigning had arrived. The German people were tired of the political haggling in Berlin. They were tired of misery, tired of suffering, tired of weakness. These were desperate times and they were willing to listen to anyone, even Adolf Hitler.

My Ideas So Far
My Idea | What If What if the Deficit Plan Obama set fails and sends the world again into a spiralling into a depression. With history as a back up I would presume chaos would hit the street like a wild California forest fire and the crime rate will hit an all time high. This will in no doubt cause a up rise in gang membership from all ethnicities but such groups as the Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings. The crime will become overwhelming and the power of the gangs will overwhelm the Law. This could suggest that the gangs will start controlling areas they occupy in a similar way to the mafia and any other organized crime. The idea of protection money and other mafia-affiliated practices will resume while police will be bribed to lay low. Once more the public will look to blame and as the first black president it will unnerve the public in to extremist thought blaming blacks however not act upon their notions. This could then lead to an up rise from a fascist party similar to the German depression. They speak to the public and begin to get followers as the current climate will get people to think irrational and in extremist ways. In turn the population will begin to segregate once again although not politically but social. The gangs will begin to disperse into gangs of same ethnic backgrounds the Bloods and Crips may form together to create a bigger front. The Chicano will band together and other will do much the same. Now the American society will be on edge. The ethnicity would be in a cold wars as such waiting for a reason to attack each other. The fascist party would therefore try to provoke this by framing the minority group, which in this case would be Blacks; due to the failure of Obama time in office. The outbreak definitely is a retaliatory response of a community hero or in this case seen seen as the area so close to Hollywood it would be a famous local actor/(more effectively) actress. The more inhuman the better to get a response so like the Tate Murders it would be a actress that would be pregnant or in sometime type of physical disability. The outcry will come from the murder if framed by a logo or symbol in some case be a body of a gang member near the scene. The fascist party will use this to rally the other ethnicities and promote violence against the blacks. Sparks a civil unrest close to 1945 Genocide. In these terms a lot of history has been brought in and repeated and can achieve the one foot in the past one foot in the future. The next bit is to bring this backstory in to a narrative by using the detective of the case to assemble the truth and uncover the final major plan be it like the Manson Helter Skelter.

My Narrative So Far
2015 Obama policy fails and the world again goes into an economical meltdown. The American society crumble as crime rises from the rubble. Gangs infect the street and gain control of their areas across L.A. Nobody likes the night. Its symbolism for the end, the finale, it cold bitter winds eroding the hit from the day. Once more the rain acted like a depressant, leaving the team vacant of emotion, zombified as they parade around the crime scene. Charles Benson stood at the door his face showing more than he would like share with the rest. A shiver rattled through his core as he stared. PIGGY the words smeared across the door crimson in part, brown in others it was no doubt blood. As he creaked past the door the sear velocity of the violence left him winded. Splatter of crimson surround the motionless body on the floor. Coming to the centre he knelt beside the corpse, like dj vu images pop into his head a previous case. The case he evaded from conversation, from his conscious. He thought only would linger seldomly on the topic but the clarity of correlation was horrifying. The puncture wounds, the bulging of the stomach as it houses her un-born child. How could this be? His eyes were drawn to a blue handkerchief caught under her arm. Its symbolism evident and it impact on the community obvious. Yet whilst all others appeared to convinced, Benson new there was more. The crime was a stage for something, what? He didnt know, but the case of Julia Swanson was bigger than a gang inflicted crime. As he looked down on the Sweetheart of Los Angeles a sharp pain stabbed at his heart. He knew if solved this murder he would solve the murder of Sophia Benson...His wife.