What happened to Pacific Palisades this week is emblematic of what has happened to California.  Pacific Palisades was a place that embodied the natural beauty, societal achievement, and middle class growth in post-WW2 California.  Now, it's gone like so much of that golden era of California.  And we all wonder when, let alone if, we can bring it all back and reverse the decades of decline caused by the policies of the one party state.