The following excerpts are from the December 14,2021 Sonoma Weekly Update [Sonoma, California.] For more information e-mail: sonomaweeklyupdates@gmail.com
Photo / Sarah-Ji Rhee
CHILLING! — In a past life, I have seen how this works out. When I visited kin on Orcas Island (Wash.) for Christmas 60 years ago, the main drag had a church, a grocery and general store, a diner, and the island’s one stop light. Now it’s an avenue of tourist restaurants and boutiques. Rich folks have long since bought up the housing, driving working folks off the island.
Today, many of the workers for Orcas’s hotels and restaurants come from the mainland, taking an hour-long ferry ride each way. Young folks and even longtime retirees have left for cheaper climes. What was my great-uncle’s sheep farm is going for $28 million. (High-end rentals have replaced the house, but the barn is still there.) Chilling! You can’t go home again.
CONSTITUTION — Our 1787 Constitution was written by the era’s merchant, banker, and land-owning class to defend their large-scale private property, when individual states were being taken over by the small farmers who had fought the Revolution. The Constitution enshrined their power to amass as much wealth as their exploitation of labor would allow.
That process is in overdrive. A recently released UN report reveals that the wealthiest 10% of Americans hold more than 13 times the wealth of half of the nation — and rising. It reports that the pandemic saw the steepest increase in billionaires’ wealth in history. Takeaway: Great holdings of private wealth can’t be sanctified if Sonoma County is to be for Sonomans.
