A large sign is posted in the window of a shop on Telegraph Avenue. It reads:
1. FREE THEM ALL FROM PRISONS, JAILS AND DETENTION CENTERS
2. RESIST POLICING
3. HEALTHCARE FOR ALL
4. FOOD AND HOUSING FOR ALL NO DEBT
5. END MILITARISM AND U.S. IMPERIALISM
I don’t know if it was Pamela Price who put the sign up, but it might as well have been because it’s her kind of woke politics. Now, can we talk about whoever did put the sign up? What mental illness are they suffering from? The truth is, it could have been written by thousands of Oaklanders, because these weird beliefs are shared by the people who voted for Price, Carroll Fife, Nikki Bas, Dan Kalb and Sheng Thao. In The People’s Socialist Fantasy Republic of Oakland, nothing costs anything. Everything is free. If you want something, then the City should give it to you, and if they don’t, you can steal it with no repercussions, because guess what? It’s yours! What a wonderful town this would be if no one had to pay rent or buy food or pay for healthcare anymore—Utopia! And it would be even more wonderful if we had a few thousand murderers, rapists, muggers, carjackers, fentanyl dealers and burglars running around free.
People who believe in these fever dreams are incapable of rational thinking. You’ll never be able to convince them how dumb they are, which is why I no longer even try. If you ask them, “Where’s the money supposed to come from?” they answer, “Billionaires!” If you ask them if they really want all the prisoners released, they answer that they’re in jail because of racism. There’s no fixing stupid, someone once said, so why waste your time and energy? It’s like trying to explain algebra to a doorknob.
Unfortunately, Alameda County has too many of these simpletons, and it also has too many unscrupulous politicians who cater to them, the way Trump caters to his evangelicals. He knows they’re fools, and they know he knows it, but he pretends to like them and they pretend to believe him. In this circle-jerk both sides enable each other. We have exactly the same thing happening with the progressives in Oakland and the voters who elect them. I should think a reckoning would happen one of these days, but it may take Oakland sinking even deeper into the muck before woke voters wake up, rub their eyes, and wonder how Oakland got into this mess, and what part they played in reaching it.
Steve Heimoff