From the various comments I get concerning this blog, I have to conclude that we all have different opinions about what to do to fix Oakland. People mostly agree with me, but now and then there are criticisms. That’s fine. Never bothers me, and I rather enjoy reading them. But I do want to take the opportunity to explain something about my blogging.
First, I feel a sense of obligation to post every day. It’s true that our readership is not overwhelmingly large. But they’re out there, and enough of them have commented that they look forward to reading me in the mornings. That’s incredibly incentivizing. I don’t want to let people down.
On the other hand, there’s not always a ton of news every day. Sometimes very little in Oakland occurs that’s worth writing about. On those days I usually find something to opine about because, lord knows, there’s always something. Yesterday for instance it was the illegal vending at the Lake. Somebody wrote in and said, in effect, that this is an awfully petty thing to write about, since there are so many bigger problems. But yesterday I was not aware of any “bigger problems” and besides, there’s nothing petty about this city’s official tolerance of the illegal sale of massive quantities of stolen goods on public property while the cops look the other way.
It gets to an underlying problem: Oakland has tolerated bad behavior for so long that all sorts of bad behaviors have become normalized. Sideshows, for instance, or retail theft itself, which has sort of become the official pastime for certain segments of the population. There are people in this town who actually say that retail theft isn’t a problem because (a) store owners are just greedy pigs or (b) they have insurance or (c) theft is simply the justified redistribution of wealth by another name. By the same token, lots of people claim that paying rent is theft because housing is a human right and besides, landlords (like store owners) are just greedy pigs looking to fleece the most vulnerable among us. I don’t think I have to point out how stupid and incorrect these rationalizations are. People who think like that aren’t normal. They’re part of the problem.
Another reason I try to write every day is to let my fellow Oaklanders know they’re not alone—to encourage and inspire them. One of the main reasons Jack, Rich and I began the Coalition for a Better Oakland is that we felt so isolated, as voters, taxpayers and citizens. Speaking for myself, I strongly, passionately objected to the direction the city had taken under Libby Schaaf and the City Council of five years ago. But I heard no voices that echoed mine. I thought, Can I really be the only one in Oakland who knows how bad things are? I doubted it then (2020) and now, post-Recalls, I realize that, no, I was not alone. A lot of people felt the same way. They just needed to know that they weren’t alone. When you realize you’re part of a movement, it has a galvanizing effect. But getting there takes time. We started behind the eight ball and now, wow! We recalled Sheng Thao and Pamela Price! That ain’t chopped liver! But we still need to encourage each other, and I take that job seriously.
Rich DeLeo, our co-founder, who died about three years ago, fervently believed that we’d have thousands of members by now. I feel bad that we don’t, for his sake. He was so inspirational to me and to Jack. He was so optimistic. He didn’t want to take a visible role in leadership; already ill, he was content to support Jack and me (and we needed all the support we could get). Well, we don’t have thousands of members, but I believe we’ve helped turn things around in Oakland—away from the madness of wokeism and towards reason, sanity and fairness.
So please, keep the comments coming. I learn from them. And realize that, with my own illness, it’s sometimes hard for me to write, which is why every so often I miss a day. It makes me smile when I do miss a day and people write in asking if I’m okay. But that’s an example of how personal this blogging business is. I feel a deep spiritual connection with all my readers: it’s for you I write.
Steve Heimoff