When it comes to absolute blithering rubbish, these 24 words take the cake. They manage to be offensive, stupid and funny, all at the same time.
The sign is taped in the front window of a storefront in downtown Oakland. Now, I happen to know the owner of the business, and I can tell you he doesn’t have brain damage, nor is he mentally ill. If he actually did suffer from some kind of cognitive impediment, that might excuse him putting it up. But he doesn’t. Nor does he believe a word of it. He’s a pretty conservative white guy; were his store to be broken into, I guarantee you his first phone call would be to 911. So there can be only one conceivable reason why he would post the sign.
Insurance.
It’s insurance against getting his windows smashed during the next big downtown riot. From the owner’s point of view, it’s better to put up a stupid sign than to risk having his storefront wrecked and his stuff stolen.
Let’s break the sign’s wording down. “We don’t need cops” is the mantra of the radical ideologues who want to abolish the Oakland Police Department and steer all that money into the “community.” Nobody in their right mind believes that Oakland doesn’t need cops—especially the folks in crime-plagued neighborhoods of the Flatlands. But that doesn’t stop the sloganeers.
Then there’s “We can build a better world than that.” Well, who doesn’t want “a better world”? It’s a nice thing to say. The radical ideologues want you to believe that, at heart, they’re just misty-eyed idealists, dreaming about a day when “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers” and sing songs under a golden sun. But the defunders are not idealists. Take a close look at them, and you see the seed corn of fascism and authoritarianism.
And then there’s the fetishizing of “women of color and multi-spirited indigenous people.” These two groups have lately become the sheroes of the “defund the police” crowd. Women of color and indigenous people are obviously a treasured part of our rainbow-flag city, as is everyone else, from every race, ethnicity and country. We’re all equal in America. No one group is elevated above others. A democracy couldn’t function otherwise. We see what happens when one or two groups are elevated above all others in dictatorships like Russia, where everybody is equal, but Communist Party members are more equal than anyone else; in the emerging Taliban theocracy in Afghanistan; in Nazi Germany; in certain Red states, where evangelicals enjoy privileged status; and in fact in any grouping where ideology favors an elite while crushing the leftovers.
We don’t want Oakland to turn into Afghanistan. Let’s preserve our vibrant democracy and stop demonizing men, or white people in general. As Rodney King once asked, “Can’t we all get along?”
BREAKING NEWS! We’ve just gotten word that Gov. Newsom ordered the California Highway Patrol to deploy to Oakland to help the fight against out-of-control crime. Here’s the complete announcement from the Oakland Police Officers’ Association:
August 12, 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Welcome California Highway Patrol But Shame That Oakland’s Crime Weary Residents Had To Plead For Outside Help After Being Ignored By The Majority Of Their Own City Council.
OAKLAND – The dedicated but overworked women and men of the Oakland Police Department welcome Governor Newsom’s decision yesterday to deploy California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers to Oakland to help combat out of control crime.
Oakland has seen a 50% increase in homicides and shootings this year, over 1600 robberies and a 97% increase in carjackings. As Oakland residents face a crime wave, the Oakland Police Department faces a staffing crisis. There are now only 704 Oakland Police Officers at all ranks to protect the city. That is down from 750 officers in 2019. Oakland Police Department’s staffing levels are at their lowest level in six years due to attrition and defund the police policies promulgated by the majority of the City Council.
“Every Oakland cop welcomes help from the CHP. But it's a shame that it took Oakland’s crime weary residents pleading to the state for help because the majority of Oakland’s City Council abandoned crime victims and embraced a dangerous defund the police ideology.” said Oakland Police Officers' Association President Barry Donelan.
The Oakland City Council voted 6 - 2 to defund the police. That included freezing 55 vacant police officer positions, disbanding traffic enforcement units, reducing the number of crime reduction team and community resource officers, and ending neighborhood walking details.
CHP Officers will likely be deployed to major Oakland thoroughfares to conduct traffic enforcement, as Oakland’s traffic enforcement units are defunded. The goal; reduced traffic fatalities, deter sideshows and interdicted illegal firearms.
Steve Heimoff