Tomdispatch Interview: Mike Davis, Turning a Planet into a Slum

TomDispatch - Tomdispatch Interview: Mike Davis, Turning a Planet into a Slum:

"His short hair and mustache are heavily flecked with grey, but he still retains the stocky, powerful build of a butcher's son, who once, long ago, hauled animal carcasses for his father in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon. At a moment's notice, he puts you in his four-wheel drive and takes you out to San Diego's McMansion exurbs or down to the Mexican border and right up to the new, controversial triple fence just being erected (where you have a passing run-in with the Border Patrol). He is the tour guide of your dreams, a walking encyclopedia of whatever is strange and riveting about Southern California. No object on the landscape seems to escape comment, brief description, or analysis. The bridge on the Interstate you drive across somewhere in the desert lands far out of town is the highest poured-concrete one in the country. The military vessels of every sort that crisscross San Diego's blue harbor are identified and discussed, including the stealth landing craft of the Navy SEALs. ('The Navy has more toys out here!') "