Category Archives: Joint Security Committee

Somebody at HPOA Is at Least as Good at Public Relations as Heinrich Himmler

January 9, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Odilo Globocnik, a guy who was very proud of his work and prone to boast about it in public although not, so far as we know, in poetry. Globus, as his SS buddies called him, had to be told by his boss Heinrich Himmler to shush up because his antics were interfering with the mission. — Odilo Globocnik, “the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known,”¹ master architect of mass murder and a guy who was very proud of his work, enough so to boast about it in public although not, so far as we know, in poetry. Globus, as his SS buddies called him, had to be told by his boss Heinrich Himmler to shush up because his antics were interfering with the mission.

Odilo Globocnik first came to the attention of SS bossman Heinrich Himmler because of his relentless antisemitism and his willingness to murder the Jews of Vienna on a freelance basis even before such practices were sanctioned by German law. Consequently, in 1939 Himmler promoted Globocnik and moved him to occupied Poland. In 1941 Himmler directed Globocnik to oversee one of the most enormous instances of genocide in the history of the world: Aktion Reinhardt.

This was a big step up for Globus, as Odilo was affectionately known to his buddies in the Schutzstaffel, “the vilest organization ever known.”¹ In localized modern terms, it’s like being moved from the suburban backwater of Inglewood to the big-time bright-lights-big-city cosmopolis of Hollywood! Globus took to his new surroundings like Samson to the Philistines, and, by late 1943 when he wound up operations, more than 2,000,000 Jews were dead. The organizational aspects of this accomplishment were overwhelmingly intricate, so Globus felt understandably proud of his masterful work and wanted to crow about it.

STOP digging any more mass graves and clear up the old ones. Any form of publicity will be harmful. AND STOP WRITING POETRY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!! — STOP digging any more mass graves and clear up the old ones. Any form of publicity will be harmful. AND STOP WRITING POETRY, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

However, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and Globocnik’s boss, had begun to notice that the rest of the world, and even a significant number of German citizens, weren’t too happy about the systematic deportation and gassing of human beings on this scale. As historian Bettina Stangneth has it:

The Nazis might have kept telling themselves that the extermination of the Jews was the only means for their survival, but they lacked sufficient faith in this view to share it with the rest of the world. The Nazi police state was born of the fear that not even its own population would understand its campaign of murder. Himmler guessed early on that this “glorious chapter of our history” could never be written, and he prevented Odilo Globocnik from sinking a memorial plaque into the earth for the heroes of Operation Reinhard…In summer 1942 [Himmler] ordered his commanders to find a way to avoid digging any more mass graves and to clear up the old ones. Any form of publicity would be harmful.²

Meanwhile, back on the home front, on December 11, 2014, the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID held its monthly meeting.
Continue reading Somebody at HPOA Is at Least as Good at Public Relations as Heinrich Himmler →

Announcements, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Joint Security Committee

October 1, 2014 through November 12, 2014 Emails between A/I and HPOA

December 16, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

How email works...in Italian — How email works…in Italian!

While my literarily profligate colleagues lounge around MK.org secret headquarters drinking cheap wine and writing reams of nonsense about the antic shenanigans of the HPOA I, at least, am working hard to provide actual documentary evidence to you, dear reader. I am pleased to announce the availability of the first fruits of a recent Public Records request to HPOA, faithfully fulfilled by the ever-helpful Kerry Morrison. This set of documents consists of all disclosable emails between HPOA and A/I for the dates October 1, 2014 through November 12, 2014.

They are available through the menu structure in the header, or here, or from our static file storage either as a 7.7 MB zip archive or as individual PDFs. There is more to come.

Image by Massimo Barbieri, released under the CC BY-SA 3.0 and available via Wikimedia.

Hollywood BID Patrol, Joint Security Committee

Steve Seyler, Hitherto Unknown Poet Laureate of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams

December 5, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Steve Seyler composing poetry on his employer's time. — Steve Seyler composing poetry on his employer’s time.

Aristotle once said that “poetry needs either a sympathetic nature or a madman.”¹ We’ll leave it up to you, our beloved reader, to decide, after you read the following little gem (the line breaks of which we’ve inserted for your convenience), which branch of that dichotomy is most applicable to the case of Steve Seyler, poet laureate of the BID patrol:
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Announcements, Joint Security Committee

Unredacted Seyler Reports Now Available

December 5, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

After a number of requests and a few lengthy meetings of the MichaelKohlhaas.org ethics committee we have decided to make unredacted copies of Steve Seyler’s reports to the HPOA/CHC Joint Security Committee available to our readers. They are currently available via the menu in the header (direct link here). As we’ve mentioned on a number of occasions, these reports are not pretty. We feel, however, that exposing their ugliness to the world is more important than protecting the already-violated privacy of their subjects.

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy, Joint Security Committee

In Characteristically Cynical Move, Corporate Scofflaw CIM Group Infiltrates Minion Monica Yamada Onto BID Security Committee

November 18, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Monica Yamada, minion of corporate scofflaw CIM Group, reports to HPOA on continuing efforts to criminalize all aspects of lives of non-rich people — Monica Yamada, minion of corporate scofflaw CIM Group, reports to HPOA on continuing efforts to criminalize all aspects of the lives of non-rich people

CIM Group, widely known for sending out demolition teams in the dark of night to tear shit down in violation of their building permits,¹ leading a judge to invalidate those permits after tenants had already moved in to the building, deputes minion Monica Yamada to serve as its representative to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID.

The purpose of the Joint Security Committee is, we suppose, to oversee the operations of Andrews International Security, with whom the BIDs contract to provide patrol services. The mission the BIDs have given to A/I² is explained in the 2014-15-WORK-PLAN-FINAL-VERSION1-1:
Continue reading In Characteristically Cynical Move, Corporate Scofflaw CIM Group Infiltrates Minion Monica Yamada Onto BID Security Committee →

Joint Security Committee

A Shameful Thing

November 1, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

Hollywood, November 1, 2014, 8:15 a.m. P.D.T.

The second redacted report from Steve Seyler to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID is available here. I don’t actually feel equal to the task of describing in serious terms how upsetting this material is, but I’m going to try my best to match the gravity of the subject.

Steve’s narratives of the homeless people of Hollywood lack any consciousness of the fact that these are human beings with human lives that he’s dealing with. They have no power, no voice, no property, they have nothing. They are harried and tormented by Steve’s Andrews International Security guards. It’s not enough that Steve’s guards scream at and arrest the homeless for activities which are not only lawful but completely normal if done in a house: sleeping, sitting, urination, defecation, but he mocks them with epithets and has them photographed like trophy animals in the process.

His reports betray no evidence of compassion or even a basic understanding of the fact that these people are homeless as the result of social processes beyond anyone’s control. Instead he fills his reports with self-serving anecdotes about his horror-movie-boyscout guards helping blind men across the street and buying hungry people pizza interspersed with immature jokes about shit on the streets and illicit vodka. Is he unaware that his ordained purpose is not helping and saving but moving homeless people out of the steamroller path of businessmen and their plans for tourism and development? He can’t possibly be, which makes his pretense and his weird antics even more disturbing.

And the members of the Joint Security Committee, who have evidently received these reports for years without either seeing how disgusting they are or putting an end to them (if only for the sake of public image) are as guilty or more so. It’s plausible that Steve can’t help the fact that he’s a bully-boy who ended up with too much power for anyone’s good, but Kerry Morrison at least seems like a decent, kind person. I can’t believe she hasn’t seen how bad this is. Certainly the LAPD, LASD, and City Attorney’s Office liasons to the BID ought to know better; they’re professionals. Real police don’t act like this (at least not in public). It’s a shameful thing.
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Joint Security Committee

Seyler: Arrest ’em all to send a message (updated)

October 10, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

Steve Seyler, high muckamuck of security at Andrews International, gave a lengthy report at yesterday morning’s meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID and Hollywood Entertainment District Joint Security Committee meeting.

Continue reading Seyler: Arrest ’em all to send a message (updated) →

Hypocrisy, Joint Security Committee

Hollywood BIDs flout the Brown Act (updated)

October 9, 2014 Mike Leave a comment

I attended my first meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID and Hollywood Entertainment District Joint Security Committee meeting this morning. It was held in a restaurant called “Cleo” located in The Redbury Hotel. I’ll have more to say about the actual content of the meeting later. For now I’ll just talk about scandalous violations of the Brown Act, a California law regulating public meetings.
Continue reading Hollywood BIDs flout the Brown Act (updated) →