I noticed on Saturday that the block of Grand Avenue underneath the 580 Freeway, by Splash Pad Park, has been cleared of the tents and garbage that had plagued it for months, as so many of us had been requesting.
I’m assuming the city finally cleared it, not because people asked it to, but because the management of the Grand Lake Farmers Market demanded it. They told Oakland, in essence, “If you don’t clean this crap up, we’re out of here.”
That’s the only language the city of Oakland understands: hardball. They couldn’t care less if residents are appalled by these dirty encampments. But when precious tax dollars are involved, City Hall finally gets the message. It’s great that Grand Avenue is clear, but the bad news is that most of those homeless people simply hauled their tents and garbage into the parking lot, a few yards away, which is now starting to look like Wood Street. I don’t have a car, but if I did, I wouldn’t park there. And I’ll tell you something else: how long do you think that block will stay clear? I guarantee you that, within 48 hours of when you read this, the tents will be back. It’s all so predictable. Oakland has never been serious about cleaning itself up. The Mayors and City Council have always lied about it, dragging their feet every step of the way, pretending to hear the voices of the people begging them to clear encampments, but then flipping us off. The city even violated its own Encampment Management Policy, which—we now know—was a joke. Hopefully Ken Houston’s Encampment Abatement Policy will actually fulfill its mission, but you know the old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Oakland will never clear the encampments as long as this bought-and-paid for City Council remains owned by SEIU and the other rogue unions who want the camps to stay.
And on a related topic: on my walk around the Lake yesterday I passed the Camron Stanford house. The consensus is that homeless people set it on fire. It’s badly burned and boarded up. While I was there a dude approached me and said, “That’s an atrocity.” I agreed. He said he was Mexican, from Texas but now living in Oakland. We looked at the damage and were silent for a while. What those homeless people did was an atrocity, for sure. The Camron Stanford house probably will not be repaired because of Oakland’s financial situation. It’s a damned shame. “In El Paso, where I’m from, the cops would have caught the people who started the fire,” he declared, “and they would have dealt with them.” “Not in Oakland,” I replied.
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On anarchy as a political philosophy
You can always depend on the lampposts of Oakland to provide comic relief. Most of the flyers that anonymous people put up make me laugh or cringe. Yesterday, on my way home from the Farmers Market, I saw one I’d never seen before. It advertised an “Anarchist-Utopia Potluck Picnic,” to be held by the Lake Merritt Pergola next Saturday, at 2 p.m., for those interested in going.
I’m always interested in fringe groups, so I checked out their website. If you know anything about old-fashioned Russian anarchism, this group is a modern version. Their acknowledged godfathers/mothers include Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) and Emma Goldman (1869-1940). Both were Communist-inspired anarchists who basically wanted Communism without any government.
The notion of anarchism always has attracted a certain intellectual interest in America. Noam Chomsky, Daniel Berrigan (the anti-Vietnam War priest), Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber), Valerie Solanas (who shot Andy Warhol), Howard Zinn (the leftist historian), Leon Csolgosz (who assassinated William McKinley), Judith Bari (the anti-logging activist) all were said to be anarchists or associated with anarchist causes. I remember in the Sixties “anarchism”—or what was believed to be anarchism--was very popular. Why not do away with government, with laws and outdated codes of conduct, so that all people can share the Earth’s bounty and be equal? The hippies loved it; John Lennon’s “Imagine” is the essence of anarchism.
Anarchism, in fact, underlies much of the woke-progressive notion of equity. The Occupy movement was anarchist. So-called “anarcho-punk bands” are anarchist. I would call Carroll Fife an anarchist. After all, she stole that house she squatted in because she doesn’t believe in obeying laws. She would love for all the laws to be struck down, so she and her supporters can ransack the rest of us and not be held accountable—because, with no government, there’d be no one to hold them accountable.
Anarchism is at the heart of wokeness, in the sense that it is “a principled opposition to unjust and oppressive power relations,” according to the Institute for Social Ecology, an anarchist group that arose in the early 1980s on leftist college campuses. Anarchism has a long, rich intellectual history and is by no means meaningless babble. Much can be learned from reading its tracts. But to my way of thinking, anarchism is about as realistic as Marxist Communism. Both have their roots in nineteenth-century idealism—a noble philosophy—but can never succeed in real life, because they go against human nature. Not having government also means not having police, and while Pamela Price may love that, the vast majority of Americans understand how ridiculous, and dangerous, that would be. We know that some people are violent, and unless they are controlled one way or another, they threaten our safety and that of our loved ones.
So the Anarchist-Utopian people are really fooling themselves if they believe their ideology has any future in America. I’m sure they’re nice, decent, sweet people. I’d like to meet their leader, Hank Pellessier (although he probably doesn’t call himself their leader because he’s, well, an anarchist). I believe he’s an Oaklander. Seems like an interesting guy; it would be great to have one of my coffee chats with him. Hank, if you read this, please reach out to me.
Steve Heimoff