Looking Back on 2018

As we head on into 2019 and look back at 2018, there is no doubt we had lots of challenges, hardships and triumphs with lots more work to do…

2018 was a year where we saw institutions ratch up strategy of Fear and Blame… Sadly some of us got caught up in the rhetoric and added to to it…

We saw close to 2000 children snatched from their parents as families sought asylum at the border, with two of them Jakelin Caal (7) and Felipe Gómez Alonzo (8) dying while in the custody of ICE and Homeland Security..

There were huge outcries and condemnation, but we saw homeland security director Kirstjen Nielsen along with this president pretty much blame the parents for these tragic deaths.. They said the parents should’ve never tried to seek asylum…Sadly what was overlooked was brutal US foreign policy which lead to mass displacement..

All of this bashing on immigrants is centered around a desire to appeal to the racist xenophobic attitudes of supporters and do serious money grab to ‘build a border wall’…We should never forget that…

While some brought into the simplistic rhetoric of insisting we close the borders and not worry about the plight of other people’s kids, many others astutely connected the dots and reminded us that the taking of children from oppressed peoples is an American past time..

From the days of African enslavement and Indian boarding schools up to today where we see parents who can’t afford water bills in Flint, Michigan or parents who have been made homeless thanks to gentrification having their kids snatched…We have got to improve these horrific conditions in 2019

Speaking of gentrification in 2018 we saw an increase in homelessness..Many who work with the homeless estimate we have 4-5k homeless folks on the streets of Oakland alone..

It was just 5 or 6 years ago we saw tent cities sprout up all over the country during the Occupy Movement. At that time we saw folks call out income disparity with the framework of 99 vs 1%..

Fast forward to 2018 and the amount of tent cities and encampments we see have exploded, making the Occupy Movement seem miniscule. Tent cities and homeless encampments are now the norm with so many of us just a paycheck away or natural disaster away from joining the ranks.. What’s even more frustrating is seeing the brutal way in which Occupy encampments were broken up, continue with this increased homeless population. Folks are treated like crap and blamed for their dire predicaments.

It was in 2018 we saw gentrification accelerate all over the country. Here in Oakland we saw apartment buildings spring up and start charging 8k a month rent..(pictured below) We saw more and more folks forced to leave Oakland and move to far off places like Stockton, Modesto, Tracy etc and have to endure 3 hour commutes to work. These super commuters are now being hit with expensive highway tolls that via surge pricing can hit as much as 10-13 dollars a day..

In 2018 we saw all sorts of natural disaster all over the world. Here in Cali it was massive wildfires, that have resulted in scores of people dying and thousands losing their homes. All of us in the state were subjected to breathing contaminated air with no full understanding of its long term impacts..Rocking gas masks and driving for hours to places that have clean air is now the norm.

Its interesting to note, that in the middle of the horrific Campfire of Northern Cali that decimated the City of Paradise, a place that’s long been known for being conservative and racially hostile, President Trump quickly hoped on a plane and made his way out there to ‘inspect the damage’. It was a perfect photo op as we saw enthusiastic families cheering him on.. Only problem is during his remarks he got the name of the city wrong. He called it ‘Pleasure’ instead of Paradise…

Now granted many folks who dislike the president got their clown on, but many overlooked the real villains in this fiasco.. In Sacramento we had a bunch of chumps as legislators and an outgoing punk azz governor in the form of Jerry Brown who signed bills that would shield and limit PG&E’s liability from lawsuits even though in some of these key fires it was their negligence and ‘cost cutting’ measures that led to all this destruction.

Even worse we saw these bills give PG&E permission to raise rates to help pay for the billions of dollars in damages and lawsuit settlements.

in 2018 we saw the selling out of average folks as the Supreme Court ruled against unions, saying they can’t collect dues from non union members even as those non dues payers may enjoy the benefits of union benefits. That ruling happened in June and came on the heals of another death blow by the Supreme Court which basically said employers are protected from class action law suits.. That ruling happened in March…

Lastly we had this massive tax cut which completely upends everything.. One trend that we will see continue with these tax cuts will be workers no longer being employees of a company but being a contractor.. We that taking place throughout Silicon Valley.. It’s is most highlighted with the practices of ride share companies like Lyft and Uber… This means workers can’t collectively bargain, have no healthcare benefits, pensions, seniority, no workers compensation etc.. When all is said and done many find themselves holding down 2 or 3 gig jobs and make less than minimum wage..

After witnessing the circus around the Brett Kavanaugh hearings for the vacated seat Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, we can expect more drama to unfold in 2019..

Mad Skillz give a year end Rap Up.. End Joy

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