Public Comment

Thank you Becky O’Malley for calling out the old people vs. young people gambit that is being fomented to discourage opposition to the urban density machine that has taken over Berkeley’s planning. The classic false argument, ad hominem attack, is often used in the absence of reasonable argument by those who stand to benefit. 

In liberal progressive Berkeley circles the main stream media is scoffed at and scorned. But our local media are proving to be reliable handmaidens to the power elite who want to change the character of our town and others without consultation. These forces have infiltrated our media and our civic organizations, and created numerous astroturf green lobby groups to propagate their vision of our future reality. 

“Berkeleyside”, self described as “Berkeley’s independent news site”, might be better spelled Berkeleycide. The comments section allows anonymous jeerers and cheerers, as needed, to join in the corporate developer chorus as pretend regular people. If you have ever commented disagreeing with the their prevailing wind, the pouncing comes hard and fast from nicknamed trolls. The latest in manufactured consent. 

At a recent Berkeley City Council meeting a young man made a speech using the argument that “frankly’ the people opposing the Harold Way project were old. Turning to the audience he added meaningfully, “and privileged”. So he is throwing in his lot with the corporate developers to build a 300 unit high rise with apartments going for $3000 to $4000 that he will need several roommates to afford, and that will be managed by corporate managers like the ones who don’t give a damn at Library Gardens? Sorry, that doesn’t make sense. He is either 1)being paid, 2))the son of a developer, or 3)seriously duped about who his real friends are. 

Once upon a time buying a home or renting was affordable in Berkeley to those who made a modest honest living. If the youth of today had been alive then they would have taken advantage of the same opportunities. Most who have lived here for decades could never afford what houses sell or rent for now in their own neighborhoods. We are not the ones who have ruined it for the next generations. 

Who has speculated, fooled and foreclosed on homeowners, destroyed old neighborhoods and gentrified? It is the same banker, developer, elite UC urban planner political class who are now using every trick to poison minds and point blame at those who critique the nonsense of their phony self enriching, land grabbing climate change remediation scam.