Posted by Jack
Greg Gopman, tech CEO in the bay area writes,
Just got back to SF. I’ve traveled around the world and I gotta say there is nothing more grotesque than walking down market st in San Francisco. Why the heart of our city has to be overrun by crazy, homeless, drug dealers, dropouts, and trash I have no clue. Each time I pass it my love affair with SF dies a little.
… The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, the lower part of society keep to themselves. They sell small trinkets, beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way. They realize it’s a privilege to be in the civilized part of town and view themselves as guests. And that’s okay.
In downtown SF the degenerates gather like hyenas, spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy, they act like they own the center of the city. Like it’s their place of leisure… In actuality it’s the business district for one of the wealthiest cities in the USA. It a disgrace. I don’t even feel safe walking down the sidewalk without planning out my walking path.
Another Tech founder, Peter Shih, writes,
San Francisco has some of the craziest homeless people I have ever seen in my life. Stop giving them money, you know they just buy alcohol and drugs with it right? Next time just hand them a handle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes, it’ll save everyone some trouble. I’m seriously tempted to start f-g with people and pay for homeless guys to ride the Powell street cable cars in the middle of the day, that ought to get the city’s attention.
What these two young millionaires and CEO’s had to say about the bums, drug dealers and pan handlers is not as important as what followed. Almost miraculously, both these men suddenly had a change of heart and recanted their public statement within 48 hours! Somebody got to them and they were forced into making a false public statement and apologize for telling the truth. This reminds me of another bay area resident that was forced to apologize before being released by North Korea. These CEO’s were telling the truth, but some people, especially in San Fransicko can’t handle the truth. And that’s the main point of this story. It’s is these blatant communists and anarchists that now occupy San Francisco that have no tolerance for free speech.
Apparently they hate a lot of things, like successful people who bring jobs to San Francisco. Of course they (as a group) bring very little to the City. They are takers and professional complainers, but they see themselves as better than you, champions, because they stick up for the downtrodden! For the most part, these are the people trodden down by their own devices ; but they not the people that keep San Francisco economically viable and pay for the homeless shelters and all the safety nets for the low and no income types. These folks are just the angry mob that is always fighting against the man. Today they are ranting against successful people and companies with all the emotion and vigor of an evangelist in a rival tent. Because of their new found riches,start up tech companies are a big target for their jealous anger.
A few days ago Google’s private commuter bus in San Francisco was attacked by a pack of raggedy protesters that loudly complained these successful types are driving up the rent! Really? In a rare kickback, the young people on the bus yelled back and told them and I’m paraphrasing, then they should get a better job or in many cases just get A job or get out of SF! It was a strange paring of two groups, both young and idealistic but polars apart. I wonder if the bus occupants will be coerced into false confessions and apologies next?
Yer just jealous. Our vagrants make yours look positively genteel. I should have taken you a picture of the bundle lump next to the vomit puddle from yesterday.
From Slate:
This morning in San Francisco, anti-eviction protesters surrounded one of the private buses that Google uses to shuttle its San Francisco-based employees to the company’s headquarters in Mountain View every day. The protest was part of a large and growing backlash against the city’s “techies,” who are accused by various parties of ruining the city’s freewheeling culture, driving up local rents, gentrifying diverse neighborhoods, undermining public infrastructure, and generally being lame. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Ellen Huet reports:
A group of protesters surrounded and blocked a Google employee commuter bus for more than a half hour Monday morning at a Muni bus stop at 24th and Valencia streets in San Francisco’s Mission District. The buses have, for some, become a symbol of tech-fueled gentrification, economic inequality and soaring housing prices in the city. The bus, which was headed to Google’s Mountain View campus, had riders on board. A dozen protesters stood around the bus with signs saying “Public $$$$, Private Gains,” “Stop Displacement Now,” “Fine $271, Total Fine $1 Billion,” and “Warning: Two-Tier System.”
San Francisco police told Huet the protest lasted half an hour and ended at around 9:50 a.m. Presumably, the bus went on its way.
But the fallout continued. This afternoon, the Bay Guardian posted on its website a video of an alleged Google employee shouting down the protesters in the most obnoxious possible way. “This is a city for the right people who can afford it,” the bearded, hipster-glasses-wearing guy screeched. “You can’t afford it? You can leave. I’m sorry, get a better job.”
The video (embedded below) quickly went viral, so much so that it appeared to have taken down the Bay Guardian website for a time. Several other outlets ran with it, including ValleyWag’s scourge of the techies, Sam Biddle, who opined that the Google employee in question “personifies almost every single thing worth protesting.”
One problem: As some quickly suspected, including New York Magazine’s Kevin Roose, it now appears the guy wasn’t a real Google employee. Instead, Fitzgerald Rodriguez reports in an update to his story, he was a union organizer posing as a Google employee in order to make Google employees look bad. Suffice it to say that, whatever you think of Google employees and their impact on the San Francisco housing market, they were not the ones who came out of this particular exchange looking bad.
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Ooopsie. But no matter. You found Messrs Gopman and Shih to authentically voice similar sentiments. You do, frequently, make my day. Thank you.
I knew the techies were rousing ire. I did not know that they’re running 200 buses through the Mission District every day, parking in places they shouldn’t, and snarling traffic … which is already filthy.
Nope. The techies will have to relocate to Cupertino, uncool though it be.
I wish they would relocate to Chico. We’ve got a lot of room by the airport. Sure would love to see that money come to Chico, yes indeed.
Please San Francisco, give us your wise, your fully employed,
Your educated masses, yearning to be free of you,
Those wretched rich, of your teeming shore,
Send these, the best and brightest, tempest tost to us!
We lift our lamp beside the golden door,
Come to Chico where we want you more!
LOL Chico? What a way to kill creativity
Excellent jack…how about, “Come to Chico, Jefferson (JF?…JE?) a business friendly city that welcomes you with low taxes and plenty of space to dream and create”?