They paved People’s Park and put up a high-rise, Berkeley 2026.

I just returned from a journey to the West Coast of the United States.  The weather was mostly warm and sunny.  The outlook was less so.  Coming into San Francisco on the BART train from San Francisco airport, I was besieged by advertisements regarding the upcoming elections across the United States.  I couldn’t help but notice the number of pleas demanding California voters reject the one-time extra taxation of billionaires—pleas paid for by the very billionaires who would remain billionaires should this nominal extra tax be approved.  Taking a glance at the daily news, I couldn’t help but notice that Gavin Newsom—the rich Democrats’ latest pretender to the White House—opposed the tax.

As a person who’s been following the slimy trail of Mr. Newsom since his time as mayor of San Francisco—a trail that has made the lives many working-class people worse off in its wake and garnered Mr. Newsom a hefty bank account—I won’t pretend his opposition to the tax surprised me.  I will note that some of his supporters claiming to be surprised at his opposition to the measure seemed to think that Newsom has their best interests in mind, when in fact it’s his portfolio that matters most.  I mean, Newsom is the guy who called for homeless camps to be destroyed while he closed on a multimillion-dollar home. Taxing the rich versus eating them is becoming less of a joke in 2026.

The news over the weekend was all about the gang rape of a woman a few years ago at Cornell University.  Let’s be clear, frat boys........

© CounterPunch