Those are not mutually exclusive.
True, but when rent is involved I think we can remove "abandoned" from the equation. We should also then be able to add building and fire codes which have nothing to do with the war on drugs.
And we're talking about an "artist community" in California here, which I'm certain means drugs was very much a large part of whatever was going on. I'll accept that the drug war was not a primary cause, but it's a part of why these people were involved in shady dealings.
Yes, they were "artist community" folk, and drugs do go along with that, but so does a lot of bullshit thinking. I'll accept that the party wasn't being held at police HQs because of drugs, but I'd argue that stupidity was the primary factor in everything about this tragic event.
Sometimes, just sometimes, people die because they ignored the rules (fire code). This is one of those times.
In other news, Malcolm's video link is hilarious. How dumb do you have to be to film that and not think about consequences? Where the fuck are the neighbors? There's 20 people outside pointing guns at each other and nobody called the cops then? Fuck that neighborhood.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”