Murdering Good

Keep Prologis’ Amazon truck hub out of Bayview Hunters Point 

Watching the following video will immeasurably enhance your enjoyment and understanding of the story and will notify you of a followup press conference on Medicare for All at Harry Bridges Plaza (Ferry Building) on Saturday, Jan. 31, at noon:

The ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti 

On Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, at 9:02 a.m. in San Francisco, it was a balmy 47 degrees. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they were holding off ICE agents in the streets, it was minus 3. Their biggest problem was staying alive. Ours was that we elected a mayor who “favors the filthy rich,” according to political analyst Francisco Da Costa, speaking at a recent press conference.

I grew up in Saint Paul and walked to school on many winter days at 50 below. The teacher peeled snow suits off us kids. We wore so many layers, our arms stuck out at the sides. Our parents were mostly of Norwegian, Swedish and German descent — solid hardworking, democratic, progressive members of a middle class community. 

We were taught the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and the Declaration of Independence, “All men are created equal” (which immediately disqualifies itself by omitting women. But, let’s not quibble. Let’s just say “men” is the old moldy term for “people.” It should include people of color, but it doesn’t.)

So, in Minneapolis that day, 50,000 protestors who were the children and grandchildren of my classmates marched undeterred by the bone-chilling cold. One group gathered at a park near where an ICE agent fatally shot Alex Pretti, 37, a VA nurse who was videoed with one hand protecting a woman from the agent’s pepper spray and the other gripping a cell phone. Head of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, said it was a gun and he was a terrorist. 

A sign said, “That’s fine, Dude, I’m not mad at you,” referring to Renee Good’s friendly greeting through her car window three weeks earlier when ICE agent Jonathan Ross pumped four gunshots into this white mother of three — two to her chest, one to her left forearm and one to the left side of her head. 

In refusing to open her door, Good was acting “uppity,” equal to a man. “Uppity” is a trigger word well known by Black people who were hung from trees for asserting themselves.

Ross yelled angrily, “Fucking Bitch” as Renee Good careened away dying in her car. How dare she challenge the pecking order in the White Supremacist United States of Money — white men, then white women — (not sure where gay women fit in his muddled head) — Black men then Black women. (I know! I know! Black men speak proudly of their moms as forces of nature raising them up. Keep in mind, this is a white delusion.) 

At the bottom of the classist-racist pile are “Illegal Aliens,” Mexicans who crossed the border or thousands of tribes of Indigenous people – Hopi, Apache, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Comanche, Pueblo and Muwekma Ohlone – who pre-owned the continent peacefully for thousand of years before whites set foot here. 

We never achieved equality

Humans have utterly failed to extend equal treatment to each other — people of other races, national origins, beliefs, religions, sex or sexual orientation.

For melanated Americans, it is ancient news that the United States of Money has championed this goal without ever reaching it. Thomas Jefferson, a founding father who helped write the Declaration of Independence, owned slaves. 

Inner and outer power

The inability to treat each other equally begins with confusion about whether personal power comes from inside or outside. 

Next, isolation makes us fear people who aren’t like us. 

Last, inherited wealth creates a social chasm that can’t be breached. Disconnected rich people don’t come into contact with the world of “the masses” in a real way. They tend to avoid our neighborhoods. Their chauffeurs drive through in SUVs with blackened windows. As, a result, they literally do not know how we live. They’ve never lived here, and in many cases, they’ve never been here. 

People who inherit money and power are protected. They don’t feel “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” On Dec. 4, 2025, before the press conference at Prologis headquarters at Pier One, Francisco Da Costa pointed out, “You have to go through suffering, and … through overcoming something. (Then) you learn to have empathy.” 

Children who feel loved know the difference between inner and outer power. They feel the power of their spirit in their heart. They see that power can also come from “stuff” in the outer world. 

When abuse damages the spirit of an unloved child, they don’t feel inner strength. They feel weak and empty. They fear that if they don’t fill the hole inside, their outer shell will crumble. They will disappear and be dead. 

They suffer a gnawing hunger that longs to be fed. To satiate their craving, they hoard kid stuff like marbles or eat too much and get fat. In adulthood, they become addicts who need more and more of whatever they crave to fill that bottomless pit. Often, this is money. Sometimes it’s drugs. 

The object of their addiction can become money which gains them status in a hierarchy where they feel superior holding power over others.

Clearly, I’m describing Donald Trump. Chew on that while you wait for ICE to bang on your door.

Trump has been called a grown up “manchild.” In this president, we are not dealing with a person who thinks like you and me. This is a guy with a BIG inner hole dating back from when Daddy Trump told him he was worthless and stupid and sent him off to military school. For his entire life, he’s been trying to fill that bottomless pit with money and power. His psychologist niece, Mary, wrote a profile describing Trump as traumatized and unfit to be president.

Our global problem

Trump is plunging us into worldwide chaos as he gobbles up everything in sight. His voter base — a cult — handed this soulless bully the keys to the most powerful office on earth, and he’s now trying to rule it. Shrinks diagnose him as a “malignant narcissist.” Political analysts warn we’re in serious trouble. He’ll never stop trying to fill the hole he’s nursed for 79 years. The only way he’ll stop is with enforcement from local courts. 

He took Venezuela and threatened to grab Greenland but changed his mind after assuring us he could have done it with guns. He’s going into Canada, then Mexico. He’ll take back the Panama Canal. With his delusions of grandeur, he may steal the Vatican and make himself Pope.

Trump took an entire body of water from a large country. The geographical proclamation that irritates me most is Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. I liked when Mexico owned it. I almost got stung by a jellyfish running along a Galveston beach when I was eight. This memory of escaping danger near where my dad’s family lived in Houston, endears the Gulf of Mexico to me. Sorry, Trump, I’m not giving up the Gulf of Mexico.

The mechanism: How it works: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Unholy Trinity’

At Riverside Church in New York City in his April 4, 1967, speech “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence,” Dr. Martin Luther King stated that orderly, stable, thriving societies collapse when they fall victim to the three-part “Unholy Trinity” — the interconnected systems of classicism, racism and militarism employed by the wealthy and powerful to separate, divide, conquer and control “the masses” — that’s us.

Classicism is hierarchy based on money. Today, our classist society where wealth has no country and no borders is producing a “superior” cult of superrich white supremacist global leaders. Billionaire Elon Musk, at the top, makes $200 to $400 billion annually with Tesla, SpaceX and X. Mark Zuckerberg earns $216 to $264 billion with Meta Platforms. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, makes $200 billion.

Racism and ‘otherism’ 

Discrimination on the basis of difference — “The Other”— is the force that gives power to the white wealthy leaders at the top. Groups are separated on the basis of race but also by national origin, beliefs, religion, sex and sexual orientation. As long as the cult of top power brokers keeps us disconnected, fearing each other, pitted against each other, opposing and scapegoating each other, they can divide, conquer, control and exploit us. 

Militarism 

In hierarchical societies, armed forces with weapons provide the violence needed to maintain control over nation states and individuals and cause them to battle each other. 

Our national problem

Our simmering national problem exploded when a Trump-appointed ICE agent murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis less than a mile from where Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in 2020 and a few miles from where I lived. 

Our local problem cascades down from global and national levels

Trump counterparts in the corrupt City and County of San Francisco born into white supremacist wealth are our local problem. We are “blessed” with two Trump-like counterparts, millionaire Mayor Daniel Lurie and ultra-wealthy Iranian Prologis CEO Hamid Mogadham. 

We don’t know if, like Trump, Lurie or Mogadham acquired a hunger for wealth through child abuse. However, both seem to lack empathy, which probably means they have never suffered — gone through “the fire.” 

They are certainly in the same club. In October 2025, Lurie told Trump on the phone that an ICE surge would inhibit San Francisco’s “recovery.” Trump said some friends called him asking him to refrain.

A money-making project

With Lurie’s support, Mogadham plans to build a 2.16 million square foot e-commerce truck delivery hub for Amazon’s diesel-fueled trucks in a toxically overburdened, largely African-American district of San Francisco — Bayview Hunters Point. The Gateway, two buildings bracketing Interstate 280 would rise over 100 feet tall to accommodate trucks on every level with thousands of parking spaces. 

This industrial facility will run roughshod over the Bayview Hunters Point community, spewing toxic diesel fumes that could shorten lives and cause more deaths in that mixed-race neighborhood. In addition to choking pollution from cement and chemical plants, Bayview already suffers far more than its fair share of radioactive waste from years as a Naval base. 

Art Persyko, union activist, said, “I’m a Teamster, retired … Michael Lyon and I are here to support the community from the environmental racism … they have suffered from in Bayview Hunters Point for so many years. 

“And it’s a shame and a crime, really, that this situation is … piled on by this other industrial polluting project.

“So, I think it’s something that we have to stand up against. It’s a violation of human rights!”

Said Kamillah Ealom, community activist, “Bayview-Hunters Point is surrounded by some of the largest standing and mobile sources of pollution.”

Recently, the Navy admitted it withheld the news for 11 months that Bayview air is full of plutonium. 

Apparently, millionaire Mogadham, who follows the White Supremacist playbook even though he is an Iranian immigrant, doesn’t know or care about the nationwide pattern of environmental racism where industry coalesces in Black neighborhoods. His wealth shields him at his tony Pacific Heights home. This leaves him blind to the fact that Bayview residents are choking on pollution from cement and chemical plants and an animal rendering operation. 

The suffering there is immediate and real. A beloved community member lost his twin brother, his sister, both parents and recently his son in this over-industrialized polluted community. 

Francisco Da Costa asked, “Can you imagine people coming into our community and not telling us what they are going to do?!”

Prologis advocates argue the project will help the economy in the Bayview community. Ealom countered, “If they want to help the economy in the community, you don’t need to build and develop another polluting site in the community. Why don’t you provide livable wages in the existing workforce development (or) higher education for students in Bayview Hunters Point?” … or, “build bridges for the short-time gigs to be long-term careers? And why don’t you provide health education so folks can know exactly what they’re surrounded by?”

If Lurie or Mogadham had descended from Pacific Heights on Dec. 4, they would have heard Ealom say, “We are here on behalf of residents who are discouraged — who do feel the impacts of systemic racism EV-ER-Y day!” 

They would have seen people who literally cannot breathe. 

“We will hold the City and County of San Francisco and the Board of Supervisors accountable for not acknowledging the Bayview residents’ concerns.” 

Said Rachelle Holmes, “I’m having issues with my asthma. You can see this week I’m on both … a rescue inhaler (and) my regular one. 

“I’ve been dealing with this all week. Last week we were out there helping the community. As a result of breathing in the toxic air in Bayview, this is what I have to deal with. 

“But, it’s okay because, you know what? I’ve made it a mission regardless of how I’m feeling to come out here and stand for the people of Bayview.” 

Are these two millionaires able to imagine what life would be like if they couldn’t breathe from asthma, COPD, or lung cancer and know their lives are shortened by 15 to 20 years? 

People that rich tend to live in rarified air where money protects them from suffering. Their shocks are buffered by staffs. Us moderate income and poor folks cannot pay staffs to protect us from our “little hurts.” 

Though Mogadham is an Iranian immigrant, his wealth will safeguard him from ICE. He was born 70 years ago on Aug. 26, 1956, in Tehran. His father was a businessman. After college in Switzerland, he received a Masters in engineering at MIT in Boston and an MBA in California from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Somewhere in there, he became an American citizen. After a profoundly successful business career, he is set to retire. 

He is just a millionaire. His estimated net worth is over $121 million. By contrast, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are billionaires. 

According to The Economist, Mogadham’s business strategy focuses on developing warehouses located near huge urban areas where land is tight. Referred to as “Amazon’s landlord,” Mogadham has built Prologis into an industry giant which in 2022 owned 5,495 buildings in 19 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

On Dec. 4, Hamid certainly did not emerge from his office and talk to “Us People” protesting outside. I’m told that his mouthpiece, Courtney Bell, chats on occasion with individuals in the Bayview community.

Does he realize that all of San Francisco will be affected?  

I asked the crowd to look at the sky. “Do you see how gray-blue that is!? That is called particulate matter. Those are little pieces of dust floating in the air. A lot of that comes from the traffic here. 

“Folks, we share the air! Gateway wants to pull (in?) all these Amazon trucks and trucks from all over the country. Trucks are going to flood across the Bay Bridge — across the Golden Gate Bridge — and clog the streets. All of that diesel fuel is going to pollute the air. Diesel fuel is highly toxic. It contains cancer-causing benzene and deadly chemicals called PAHs (Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons). 

“Air moves! It’s going to be all over San Francisco, and we’re all going to breathe it.” That includes the plutonium.

Rachelle Holmes pointed out to the people of San Francisco, “Guess what! We all breathe the same air. I don’t understand why people don’t get that! OK, over here, yeah, you are not directly hit like we are. But, you are getting the spores. They are getting in your lungs. And, eventually, you will see that. 

“So, my plea to you, Prologis: It would be nice If you stop thinking about your dollars and start thinking about our health!”

How Democracy and White Supremacist Capitalism cancelled each other out and morphed into Corporatocracy

Capitalism eats Democracy alive. The United States of Money was doomed to fail the minute white men did not observe their own democratic rule that all men are created equal — when they bought slaves in the slave trade, then based their capitalist economy on slave labor. You cannot run a true democracy next to a capitalist society that began 400 years ago as a slave-based culture. They canceled each other out. 

Thomas Jefferson, a founding father who helped write the Declaration of Independence, was a slaveholding capitalist who made money from his plantation. His slaves cultivated the tobacco and wheat as the primary cash crops at Monticello. Jefferson also profited from the value of the slaves themselves.

The failure of our capitalist society is the reason San Francisco Gray Panther Michael Lyon, speaking in the press conference video accompanying this article, says, “Whether it’s fighting environmental racism, getting good schools, getting jobs, any kind of fight is about getting rid of capitalism.” 

Later, Francisco Da Costa pronounced: “Capitalism is dead. Amen.” Da Costa meant a less predatory, earlier, gentler form of capitalism under which President Franklin Roosevelt created the world’s first large middle class. Then, a series of greedy presidents, starting with Nixon and Reagan progressively shrank and disappeared American suburbia by handing over the country to their wealthy friends and not forcing them to pay their fair share of taxes.

White Supremacist Capitalism 

During the Prologis protest on Monday, Dec. 4, 2025, Da Costa said about Daniel Lurie, “This mayor is not for the people. This mayor favors the filthy rich!” 

In The United States of Money, we have built our failed society on rich white men’s capital. 

White supremacist capitalism is a classist-racist-militaristic caste system in which money holds ultimate power.

Corporatocracy 

Operate a capitalist society and a corporatocracy will follow.

Capitalism is the gateway drug to corporatocracy, an economic, political and judicial system created when mergers morph into consolidated power. 

This dire warning is credited to no less than Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War. Lincoln saw the capitalist love of money morphing into Corporatocracy. In 1864, he wrote, “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. … Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” 

Folks, that’s exactly what happened. Shouldn’t we have learned better in 162 years?!! 

That’s us, folks! The United States of Corporate Money has spread across the world.

The entire global community is now running on a model of Corporatocracy — white supremacy based on capital. 

Steve Zeltzer, event organizer, made clear that this is global. “Prologis, Amazon’s landlord, builds warehouses for Amazon, not just in the United States, but all over the world.”

We spawned international corporate wealth: Elon Musk of Tesla, SpaceX and X. Jeff Bezos, Amazon; Larry Ellison, Oracle; Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and Meta platforms; Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway and other companies; Bill Gates, Microsoft; Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Steve Ballmer, Google.

Some of these corporate leaders are thugs. Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX with Trump’s permission recently ran roughshod over the United States government killing a program that provides food to starving African children. 

Zeltzer declared, “Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, is a racist. He treats Black and Brown people like rubbish. 

“Prologis’ Gateway Project is going to bring 6,000 trucks a day into the Bayview.” This parking lot for Amazon trucks, “is a racist attack on the working people — the residents of Bayview and Hunters Point. It’s going to further pollute the Bayview. Why don’t they build it in Pacific Heights? Why don’t they build it in a rich district in San Francisco? No! They build it in a poor working class Black, white, Brown neighborhood. … It’s an outrage!”

What do we do?

Internationally, we debunk Donald Trump’s lies and let the world see we reject him. 

Nationally, decondition our racism, band together, support and care for each other, refuse to fall into a trap where the powerbrokers scapegoat us. As they are doing in Minneapolis, we take to the streets and flex our muscle, remembering,“They have the guns (but) we have the numbers.”

Locally, we do what Holmes urged, “San Francisco, wise up! Let’s stop letting people have to suffer behind this stuff!! Don’t set up here and sign onto Prologis! 

“Let them know it’s not OK with you!! It’s going to take us as a people to stand together to let these billionaires know that it’s not OK to just build in our neighborhoods. Because we’re suffering. 

“You may live somewhere else — in Marin, or wherever — but It’s not OK for you to come here and kill us! Because that’s what you’re ultimately doing.” 

Carol Harvey is a San Francisco political journalist specializing in human rights and civil rights. She can be reached at carolharvey1111@gmail.com.

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