Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
indybay.org
indybay.org
Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks.
There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively know who these protesters were (although there are no "traditional" blacks in those photos) -- but I know (I have a strong suspicion, I don't factually know) that the protesters were not drawn from the group mentioned above. These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families.
The actual, working, poor people in West Oakland were at their first of the two or three jobs they hold. Or they were spending a few rare moments resting, or with their kids. Or they were lining up to get a meal at community kitchen. Actual black people were not part of this protest, because a mob of black people attacking a bus would be getting wall-to-wall coverage on every channel. It would have been responded to with a swift and overwhelming police presence.
The same thing happened a few years ago when these same non-workers shut down the Port of Oakland in the name of workers. The people who actually work the port asked that they not disrupt the port, but in the end these dreadlocked, shiftless complainers cost those longshoremen a day in wages -- Viva El Proletariado!
What we have today is a group of young, electively poor white kids who are upset that the price of unheated lofts and dingy Victorians are being driven up by people who have the means and motivation to actually own and improve them. That they wrap themselves up in the image of the poor (and yes, mostly black) -- whom they themselves displaced by rushing in to bid up rents with mom and dad's money -- makes this appeal all the more ludicrous. At least the tech gentrifiers will actually improve the fucking place, unlike these leeches!
(Source: I live and own property in Oakland)
Edited as suggested below by bonemachine.
The longshoremen's union supported the Occupy shutdown, but were contractually obligated not to participate in the protest. Source:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-oakland-shuts-down-port/
Since almost everything else you said is anecdotal, it's hard for me to respond to, but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong.
In general, the people that you are deriding and caricaturing represent the first wave of gentrification, and those people actually do make meaningful contributions to the areas they move into. Think of the excellent restaurants, concert venues, boutiques, bars, etc. that exist in Oakland now--that's first wave gentrification. Those people are also historically more aware of their surroundings and the culture that they are moving into and tend to show solidarity with the lower income residents that they are paving the way towards displacement for. On the other hand, the second wave of gentrifiers tends to dramatically increase the cost of living, rate of displacement, and tends to care very little about the plight of their fellow citizens.
The Google buses are a convenient symbol for economic disparity though, and I often wonder why Google doesn't try to do a real public works project instead of simply creating a segregated system of buses. Why not add wi-fi to public buses? Why not extend the light rail system into the valley? Why not donate a whole lot of money to a public mental health project so there aren't so many deranged lunatics screaming on public transit? If they did that, then they will have created a more comfortable environment not only for their own employees, but for the entire community.
No, it's right. ILWU (the union) leadership has made statements such as
"Organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another and one that is destructive to our democratic process and jeopardizes our over two year struggle in Longview." [1]
So I may not have been right about them speaking out specifically against the Oakland shut down, but in general the union leadership is against strikes. Although, of course, they take great pains to not alienate potential ideological allies while rejecting calls to shut down ports.
The sentiment is at least mixed, as you can see from other coverage: [2]
"Leaders of the ILWU, which represents thousands of longshoremen, spoke out in recent weeks against the coordinated effort by Occupy protesters to blockade ports from Anchorage to San Diego"
"This is joke. What are they protesting?" Christian Vega, 32, who sat in his truck carrying a load of recycled paper from Pittsburg said Monday morning. He said the delay was costing him $600.
"It only hurts me and the other drivers. We have jobs and families to support and feed. Most of them don't," Vega said.
[1] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/occupy-oakland-west-...
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/occupy-oakland-port...
EDIT:
I was mistaken regarding the comment coming from the Longview rep, it's actually from the Union President. When viewed in full, his opinion seems to be more nuanced than simply "closing the port is bad."
The mere fact that we can point to two statements, one expressing support for Occupy, and one denouncing a specific Occupy action, by definition means that there is a conflict in strategy and tactics.
Now, I will grant that this is all based on my opinion and observation -- none of it is empirical or measured. So what? Supply some measurements if you think that my opinion is illegitimate. Tell me what percentage of Occupiers are actually from traditionally poor background -- those who suffer systemic disenfranchisement, a lack of role models, have insufficient access to education -- you know, the people who they claim to represent. If this is such a diverse movement of the working poor, go ahead and let me know how the demographics of self-identified Occupiers compares to that of East Oakland (the poorest neighborhood in Oakland.) Shit, speaking of diversity: I would be surprised to learn if even a single percentage of them were multilingual!
I'm all for advocating on behalf of those who have been systematically locked out of opportunity, who have never been able to access the things we all take for granted, which have made it possible for us to be so successful. The people I see at Occupy events are poor, but it doesn't seem to me that it's for a for lack of access. They are bitching, basically, because the opportunities for very well privileged slackers to get by decently without putting in too much effort have all dried up. The rest of us -- poor and working rich -- are busting our asses off.
Happy to be proven wrong, but these are my observations, and yes my biases too.
Let's assume that they are all shiftless, white, dreadlocked, trustafarians. They are not representing themselves as being OF that population of poor minorities but rather are advocating FOR the population of underrepresented, poor minorities. How then are they different than wealthy benefactors donating to AIDS relief or anti-malarial programs in Africa? Well, they are donating their time, not their money, but if they do have so much money one wonders why they wouldn't simply donate that... You also make the observation that the individuals that are actually being negatively effected by gentrification in West Oakland are off working on their second or third jobs at that hour of the day, then wouldn't they need someone that is in a more comfortable position to advocate on their behalf?
It's interesting that you ask me for some empirical, measured data on the ethnic and class background of Occupiers. Because of the nature of that movement, it's nearly impossible to pin them down on anything. I was an observer at many Occupy events elsewhere, however, and what I found was very deep suspicion of anyone not directly involved in planning, so I'm afraid that it would be basically impossible to conduct the kind of research you're talking about. I was not involved with Occupy Oakland, but I know a few people who were, and interestingly enough, they had some of the same problems with other activists that you have. I do not think you are entirely wrong there. Certainly, some of the people that got involved just wanted to smoke weed, make idiotic signs, chant slogans and get laid, but it's ludicrous to suggest that the majority of activists involved there were of that ilk. It would also be ludicrous to suggest that there weren't any pseudo-activists. They were certainly there.
Personally, I found the Occupy movement's organizational non-structure to be self-defeating and it's no surprise that it has almost completely fizzled out. I also find the tactics being used by these particular protesters to be somewhat wrong-headed. In your original post though, you showed absolute disgust for these people and and in my own experience, they don't all deserve it. It will be interesting to find out more about what actually happened at this protest.
The truckers are not allowed to unionize, are employed as "independent contractors", sometimes have to sit with their engines running, idle, trying to get into the port for hours without being able to pee. They are treated as if they operate a small business while they are in actuality an employee with none of the rights of a typical employee.
The ILWU also doesn't oppose the city or state government interfering with a port shutdown because without the ability to shut down a port, they would not exist.
Which is why I call the IndyMedia LARPing crowd "independent volunteer agents of Cointelpro."
First wave? Only if you define "first wave" to coincide with the current discussion. There was a wave of bio-tech (e.g Genentech) shortly before the "tech" (e.g Google) wave.
This goes back all the way to the founding of California, the state. The '49ers were the first wave. Since then there has been a sadly repeating history of picking on a group to blame for any ill in society - usually racist - but it appears this time around it's a soft target.
On the other hand, the second-wave and later are callous Scrooges who just take what they can get, and thus deserve to be vilified.
This is special pleading at its most naked. I've heard the saying that you pull up the drawbridge just after you enter the castle, but you seem to want to scrape out a privileged little Goldilocks zone on both sides, where first-wavers are each an embodiment of a noble Jake Sully, fighting to save the Na'vi against the invading hordes.
NIMBYs, that's why.
First, a few places in the neighborhood are rehabbed by developers.
Next the "...Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the ... overprivileged..." move in to the rehabbed areas and the (usually) blacks have to move out.
These hippy - artist types make the neighborhood more attractive to people even further up the food chain. (Read techies). And soon the time comes for the hippy - artists to move out.
The hippy - artists are unhappy... but the reality is... this is no more than what they did to the blacks.
Soon the time will come for the techies to move out... and, I'm sure, they will be unhappy as well when their time comes.
This same progression happens all over. I think Harlem is probably one of the best examples. (It's WAY ahead of SF area in that regard). Blacks had to move when the artists showed up because they could no longer afford it. Then, when the techies and yuppies showed up... the hippies, artists and teachers hit the roof, because it was their turn to move. Harlem is at the stage now where the celebrities and bankers are showing up ... and like clockwork ... the techies are hitting the roof because it's their turn to move.
The thing is ... in the end ... they all moved. They didn't engage in violence.
That people are upset should be expected... but I would point out that places like Harlem have gone through this process with multiple populations without violence. It can be done.
Maybe it would have been more clear if I had used the normal real estate divisions of "workforce", "upscale" and "exclusive". I just thought artists, teachers, techies and celebrities would illustrate the differences a little better for the purposes of making the point against violence.
At any rate... these are just two of several projects throughout Harlem. If you live in an area of Harlem that developers have not encroached on... buy more property around you and sit on it. You are right in the middle of what will be a golden opportunity. (But the prices may already be reflecting that. Wouldn't hurt to check though would be my advice.)
I seriously doubt the displaced techies and hospital administrators can afford to go buy in those areas. I think it's off to Brooklyn (or maybe queens???) with them... at least until the bankers show up there.
Oh, get off it, man.
All that we "know" about the perpetrators at this point is that they were apparently (1) young and (2) non-black. As to the rest the attributes you impute to them -- as of yet we don't "know" any of these to be fact. At best all you can honestly say at this point would be:
Now I don't know for a fact, but ya know, I have a hunch these are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, etc etc ...
This is not nit-picking. The fact that you're saying that you "know" everything about their demographic / psychographic makeup when in fact you are merely speculating is what's part of the broader problem here: rather than elucidating the problem, you're subverting the discourse.
And more to the point: you're pushing people's buttons, by appealing to stereotypes and their own identity- and privilege-based insecurities.
In so many words: you're placing the race card.
b) I'm reacting to the race card being employed by people who are tokenizing and mascotifying (to coin phrase) the same people who they themselves pushed out!
But overall, fair enough, and thanks for the clarifying edit.
That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.
The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population.
It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1].
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...
What these people are doing is basically LARPing. IndyMedia is their big LARPing portal site where they pretend to be radicals. Fuck these people.
Is it their fault they thought about the future and picked tough but useful majors?
Is it their fault that hipsters chose art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff, just because that's what they liked to do?
Is it their fault that hipsters feel entitled to a high paying job?
Too many young people are fed "you're a special snowflake, you can be whatever you want to be" bullsh*t for years, and most fall for it.
The average salary expectation for someone who does calligraphy for four years is much lower than a CS major. On the other hand, I can name several large companies in the area that succeeded by not dismissing the humanities as useless.
http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Apple-Tech...
My problem is with the entitlement and the attacks on the people who chose financially more successful professions.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE art. I just don't think our society has so many gifted artists. I've taken many art classes in college and most art students sucked, truly sucked at art. There were objectively great artists among them, but I'd say fewer than 10%.
I never once saw them protesting for higher wages for the underprivileged, health care, or anything else that actually matters to poor people.
They were for the most part not poor. They were white middle class pseudo-artists engaged in an entertainment activity. I love the phrase "poverty tourism."
I realize that you were just giving examples, and I'm not doubting that these poverty tourists exist. I am just saying that we (and many others) agree that there are enough things in the world that suck, including the state of the issues that you mentioned, like healthcare for the poor. So, my question is: if we find the current crop of activists to be lacking, then why aren't we doing better or more ourselves? Where is the "true" activism?
Reminds me of the response to Occupy. Everyone stood back and criticized their lack of organization, cleanliness, etc. Yet, nearly everyone agreed that things sucked (including banksters, bailouts, etc.). How is it that an entire potential movement was derailed by such trivial matters as where these guys were pooping? How did the collective energy of so many end up redirected away from "better" activism and into criticism of the activists?
So they either don't exist or don't really matter to anyone.
My point is that these and some of the other examples I gave are clueless bullshit LARPing issues of the faux-left and are not relevant to actual disadvantaged people, poor people, or minorities. The faux-left does these groups harm by stealing the spotlight and bogarting the discussion, drowning out any actual protest from people who are really struggling with issues that matter to them.
A rather untenable assertion, based on my own lengthy and up-close observation of e.g. Occupy at its peak.
Silicon Valley technology, this is Manhattan finance with a word of advice. We know the roots of the problem are housing supply restrictions and a lack of mass transit. In essence, City Hall problems. So why are they able to pin the blame on you?
Because you're painting a target on your back. Ducking your heads makes you a low-risk scapegoat. Scoffing at the less fortunate, regardless of whether they "deserve" it, makes you a juicy red political filet.
I'm not saying you need to up volunteering incentives for technology workers or visibly join hands with your foes and fight City Hall for more housing including, yes, the affordable kind. But don't throw daggers when you're down. As it stands, you're right but you're down.
Edit: I do realize more programmers moving to the bay means higher rents I just think its the fault of SF for not building enough housing http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...
(1) Anti-development mentality on the part of city councils, zoning boards, etc.
(2) Geographic containment of the area.
(3) Shitty public transit and overcrowded roads.
(4) Foreign investors driving up the price of RE.
... in roughly that order.
#1 is largely the fault of this same stereotypical bunch of braindead trustafarian hippies, since they tend to oppose building pretty much anything because it destroys the Earth, man. In so doing they play their role in the gentrification cycle, constraining supply to drive up rents and drive out the genuinely underprivileged.
As I said elsewhere: fuck these people.
I would much rather see these protesters target the real source of the housing crisis in the bay area rather than the much more convenient target that large tech companies represent. Although I do think Google's Eloy buses are pretty repugnant and they would be viewed more favorably if they contributed something to public transit. So why don't these protesters start showing up to city council meetings, or at property management companies, etc.? Target the landlords and the politicians. It's obviously not in the tech companies' best interests to have to pay their workers inflated wages just because the greedy landlords keep jacking up rent prices.
"Improving" the houses in a neighborhood almost always increases the value of other houses in the area.
Whether this creates a class disadvantage through displacement or a reduction of affordable housing is another issue, but blaming conservative property owners is not an accurate motivation. The transfer taxes[1] on housing turnover supplied a great portion of Oakland's revenue during the bubble. Given that Oakland has a weak retail (and therefore, sales tax) market, it really needs real estate to pick up.
The question seems to be, if you have your own distinct infrastructure and shared spaces, are you really living in your community?
Not even joking. If the imposter protestors make it acceptable for "civilized" folk to have a reactionary attitude against equality concerns, they will become a (perhaps unwitting) tool of oppression of the poor, who do have valid (if unvoiced) concerns.
Like I said elsewhere I used to live in a "trendy" place that had a huge contingent of these obnoxious faux-radicals. They would organize this silly clownish protests of GMO foods, "chemtrails," free this, liberate that, whatever, and they'd march around looking like clowns in front of all kinds of trendy businesses catering to hippie-tourists and retired old white people.
These businesses in turn paid their workers shit wages with no benefits. How do I know? Because I was good friends with a number of these workers, who never had anything to do with the IndyMedia traustafarian clown show.
I never saw a single one of these outrage-er-tainment fuckups protests unfair wages or lack of benefits. They only protested trendy issues of no relevance to the actually underprivileged.
I propose national trustafarian beat-down day.
but they're not angry. In fact... it's a pretty good bet that the average "traditional" resident of that area is not even aware of the fight. The original poster was right, the "traditional" residents in Oakland are just struggling to make ends meet. They're not going to look up from their grind because some upper-middle class kids want to fight each other.
Those who are aware... probably think about it in the same light as the Samuel L Jackson character "Zeus" in the Die Hard movie... "THAT'S A WHITE MAN!!! WITH WHITE PROBLEMS!!!" And just like "Zeus", that's how they will perceive it, since they feel it doesn't affect them. (And they are probably right... they won't get anything out of that fight anyway. I mean, we say they will get a worse reputation... but the reality is... the law abiding "traditional" residents don't care about reputation... you can't pay rent with it.)
Other parts of Oakland, sure. Not the core part of West Oakland though.
But you are also right, this wasn't West Oakland, or even lower class vs. Google. This was "activism class" vs Google. Which tends to describe hippies and burners.
Source: I've spent inordinate amounts of time near Willow Park.
EDIT: removed some of my own frothing
I don't see any point in making this into a long spiraling subthread that only the two of us will read, so let me stop here by asking you to consider some other interpretations of the original comment besides the worst one. It might have been worded a bit better but as a fellow resident of Oakland I share the writer's frustration with the local 'revolutionaries.'
b) Nothing's inherently wrong with Burners or their culture. Those traits listed are singled out because they (to me) uniquely identify a group which floats by on privilege while simultaneously claiming to be deep in the struggle of poverty. Almost by definition, anyone who can skip work for a week in summer and spend $300 on a BM ticket (plus associated costs) is not impoverished. To the extent that they are poor, I submit to you that they elect it, and thus to claim that they are victims of the same forces which keep the working poor down is ludicrous.
I am actually fairly liberal on these issues. What I resent here is the employment of race and class language to dress up what this really is: one group of overprivileged slackers angry that they now are on the receiving end of a gentrification wave, when they rode in on exactly such a wave!
The complete denial of their own privileged status, the pretension that they are in solidarity with the actual poor and disadvantaged (who are largely peaceful and hard-working) -- that's what gets to me. Nothing specific against Burners or the humanities.
This is such a stupid position to take. First of all, do you realize that those "Burning Man Hippies" are, uh, literally the people who started google? Do you realize that google has made enormous donations to those "burning man hippies"?
And yes, "uesless degrees". History, art, literature, these are all "useless" of course, the only valid degrees are either hard science and hard engineering, I'm sure?
What aspects of life do you enjoy, man? A good design aesthetic? Cause that's art...
Or, perhaps good food? That's also art.
Maybe a good book, wait...
Architecture?
Beauty? Something? Possibly something that poets and artists have given you a context for, or study?
--
This is such a stupid lazy attitude to take. Come out of your hole sometime and you'll find a whole world out here full of things that you can enjoy. Just try to steer clear of those pesky "artists" who got useless degrees.
--
The people who are crying about google's buses are idiots. Don't group them together with artists or "burning man hippies".
Somehow, I doubt it.
As for "useless" degrees -- I majored in Political Science so I know what a useless degree is. The point is not to denigrate them for having an economically useless degree. The point is to expose what I think is the real motivation here, that slackers have found it increasingly difficult to float without having any real contribution to make back. It used to be that you could graduate with a soft humanities degree, rent a shitty loft in a neighborhood like West Oakland and still live pretty well. Now, you're gonna have to move out to the suburbs unless you can contribute, generate and capture substantial, financial value.
Certainly engineering is not the only field worth a damn. My comment was an allusion to a strategy employed by a certain class of privileged people, which is essentially to find a local minimum of effort/reward even though they typically come from a background which affords much greater opportunity. I contend that it's the demands of these people on display today, being presented as if it were aligned with the needs of Oakland's truly poor.
In short, the people protesting today are poor for different reasons than the people whose struggle they are claiming in the passage I quoted.
My experience is that people who actually can do stuff with their life (degree or not) don't go around smashing windows. They are too busy doing their thing to spend time on breaking other's things.
Blame the protesters for throwing bricks into a bus window, but don't blame their majors.
If you cannot leverage your degree, then your degree is worthless (at least in your hands).
1. Humanities degrees aren't monetarily worthless. They're quite valuable (measured in dollars) to people who are passionate about the user experience, because they help those people land and hold onto design jobs. I mentioned Apple because it has historically been really supportive of the liberal arts, but it's certainly not the only one.
http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Apple-Tech...
2. The claim that the vandals have humanities or art degrees was (as far as I can tell) invented by HN because they think these guys (https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2013/12/20/800_gbus.jpg) look like hipsters. There's no evidence to support it.
Anyone that can be spun into an "outsider".
A standard of living paid for, in part, by the very same taxes they manage to avoid, along with several other big corporations. Not to mention they are no stranger to the US government, and probably might have helped the very development of those formerly secret and hated programs, also with direct knowledge transfer http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm
The couple billion in taxes Google is managing to dodge is not what enables them to pay their employees so well.
Google earned $10.7b in profit last year. Go ahead and take the 20% they 'dodged' in taxes. How exactly does that alter what they can pay their employees (you know, only making $8.x billion)? I'd love to see an explanation for that.
I don't think today's action will magically end the displacement, but I think people should have some compassion and show several orders of magnitude more concern for groups like the elderly on fixed income and the working poor facing Ellis Act evictions than for a group of techies who will be OK even after a disrupted commute. The issues being raised here are important, and I think it's more important to identify real solutions to the problems rather than focus on evading blame.
This is not to say it's either/or but I do want a world where the concerns about displacement and mass evictions are prioritized and addressed far more concern and resources than the kinds of 0th and 1st world problems that googlers (as a group - many of us have real world problems as well, of course) have.
If you want to attack Google over Google's practices, be my guest. But attacking commuters on a bus? What the hell? Heck, the bus doesn't even seem like it was owned by Google.
It is one thing to protest unethical Corporate Practices, unfair tax rules that they're abusing, etc. etc. But its another thing entirely to attack the innocent workers on a bus.
They actually hate the people. Why? Because they think that they are different and this is a form of entertainment for them.
That said, let's not allow laziness on the part of the reporter who filed this story, and elective poor dreadlocked white kids to distract us from the real problem that is class disparity in the west. The elite live under different rules than the rest and the middle class is dwindling. That's way more important than bad reporting, which is just a footnote.
New name for them: Hipstervists
Recently, a few businesses have been cropping up; one of them, Save on Meats, opened a butcher shop and a diner; more accurately, re-opened, as Save on Meats was a cornerstone of the neighbourhood for decades before the previous owners closed it. The current owner bought the building, renovated it (or, more accurately, refurbished and restored it), began hiring the homeless and poor of the neighbourhood, and began a series of social programs aimed at benefitting the area. Their sandwich counter, a street-facing breakfast sandwich dispensary, introduced 'sandwich tokens', which can be bought from them in quantity and traded in by anyone for a warm meal. It's a convenient way to give someone something that you know will be traded in for food, without having to go out of your way to purchase it. Everyone loves it, and even the police who patrol the DTES will give out tokens to people in the neighbourhood.
Another restaurant opened lately, called Pidgin, across from a location called Pigeon Park, a common area of congregation for the DTES's residents, homeless or otherwise. On occasions, it's blocked off and turned into a giant street market, where individuals sell whatever items they've managed to scrounge up, trade, for, buy, or sell. Pidgin is a nice restaurant, it's the upper end of midrange, a place you could certainly go to in jeans and a button-down, but you might fit in better in a suit and tie.
Then came the protesters. The protesters came, spurred on by a feeling that Pidgin was making fun of the homeless people across the street, like a slap in the face. Ignoring the fact that Pidgin also hires people from the neighbourhood, the protesters congregated outside of the restaurant every day, shouting and harassing the restaurant, the staff, and the patrons. All this despite the fact that the people who actually live in the area disagree with them; both the homeless and jobless poor and the more well-to-do people who live, work, and own businesses in the area.
The other facet that the protesters seem to ignore is that part of the problem with the homeless population in Vancouver is a problem of perception; many people, especially those from the suburbs, see the DTES as full of dirty violent criminals, where you'll get knifed for your sneakers before you know it, Canada's Detroit. The reality is that these are just normal people in awful circumstances, making the best of what they have. The more people who see that, and who see how wrong their horrible misconceptions about the poor are, the easier it will be to gain support from the voting populace to improve conditions there, and the less uphill the fight will be to convince others that these people aren't lost causes cluttering up the streets of Vancouver's history.
The protesters never cared though. Even after being told by police to stop harassing people, even after being told off by people who've run businesses in the DTES for years, and working against the needs and wishes of the community in the DTES, they kept protesting.
And what population of them even live in the area? What population knows anything about the homeless that they're white-knighting? None of them. They're largely comprised of people from the suburbs, people who commute from all over the region to tell everyone how these people feel without ever asking them. Some leaders of the protest were even forced to give up their allegiances with organizations who actually aim to help the homeless populations, because their missions were so at odds and they were giving these charitable organizations such a bad name.
So the idea that trust-fund hipsters and well-meaning interlopers will thrust themselves violently and unnecessarily into a 'class warfare' which didn't exist (or wasn't as heated or unpleasant) before their interference isn't a strictly Oakland issue either. This behaviour, which focusses on driving people apart and creating open conflict where none existed, contrasts directly with what is necessary, which is for people to understand one another and interact.
It's pretty sad.
"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families."
..because this is all obvious evidence of the article.
edit: Since when is political vitriol acceptable for HN? If I wanted to hear bullshit political rants with gems like "traditional blacks" or "fuck you and your dreadlocks", then I'd turn on Fox News or MSNBC. Seriously, traditional blacks with weasely scare quotes? That comment could not be less informative, disingenuous, or falsely provocative. It's like reading something by a slightly racist college freshman.
It is non-standard in your particular dialect of English. It is common and accepted in others.
See the discussion on the use of quotes in this HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6446077
How does "fuck you and your dreadlocks" do anything to help people? Should I use that next time I'm volunteering at the soup kitchen? Really, there must be no hope for American politics, because this is probably the most idiotic exchange I'll have today.
I presume you have made some assumptions about me, like perhaps I helped to attack this bus? That's funny stuff.
Reddit is leaking.
As you have made assumptions. Many of us are quite left-wing. I would be at home in a European socialist party.
However, the escalation to violence against people like me leaves me disinclined to do anything to help you. Giving you more resources would seem to be aiding dangerous criminals.
I'm glad that you'd fit in with the European socialists, but your thinking is just so remarkably confused that it's comical. Actually, this strongly qualifies you to be a European socialist, replete with broken populist social initiatives and all, so good on you.
Clearly a man with inside knowledge. Which BM hippies was it? Larry Page and Sergey Brin perhaps?
Or maybe because it was a crime scene?
Of course relative comfort had little to do with why the bus did not continue on it's route unphased. Even city buses would stop for that sort of thing.
I find it hard to sympathize with a bunch of lazy thugs who do nothing to improve their situation. Engineering and white collar jobs in general have always paid well. Industries who are in demand even more so, and for just reason. Did similar protests happen in Detroit 50 years ago during the auto boom? Did unskilled rubes that do nothing all day put up banners saying "Auto boys not welcome"?
This is absurd. Take control of your own damn life. Educate yourself and learn relevant skills. The resources are out there and more accessible than ever. Spend a few good hours in your public library every day for a year and walk out of there a changed person with valuable skills to offer.
And mind you I don't support these protests and the general animosity towards the techies.
Otherwise, your comment is out of line. Provide light, not heat.
The noblesse oblige is to demonstrate leadership by creating opportunities for honest workers.
Edit for clarity: null_ptr implied that the alternative to this behavior is "going to work". Other possibilities are "try to find work", or "be stuck because there is no work avaialable".
In general, there was much more opportunity to pull one's self up by the bootstraps, more even income distribution, and true mechanisms that allowed a rising tide to lift all boats.
'Auto boys' are/were unskilled rubes.
Whites weren't holding up signs saying 'blacks not welcome'. They just left. It was 50 years ago, after all.
edit: They were, up to a point.
You need a lot more skill to work in an auto plant than you need for serving up fast food. 50 years ago, auto production wasn't nearly as automated as it is today, so the guys on the assembly lines needed to know how to do welding and other skilled trades. Robots do a lot more of that stuff today.
The racial distribution of the US is neither an accident or the result of voluntary actions by individuals.
Let's say they win this quixotic crusade and actually manage to force everyone with an income above $N to flee the area. What is the next step toward a better Oakland?
Off the top of my head: - Massive taxes on "teardown" or size exploding renovations. - Zoning laws that require at least 1 (or a % based) Section 8 unit per multi-unit development/renovation. - Massive subsidies on empty lot development that implement affordable housing practices.
It would be even better if you implemented these changes throughout the entire metro area, not just the areas currently under development. But if you think protests by the poor for rich folks moving into their neighborhood are bad, wait until you see the inverse.
Really, though, allowing them to put up a high rise where there are currently single family homes reduces the overall pressure everywhere.
Of course, SF will never subsidize empty lot development, even if there were any empty lots to build on; the right to build in SF is far higher than in any other US city - double that of (as of 2007) Los Angeles or New York:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o...
I don't know what you mean by "affordable housing practices", but the reality of it is building lots of housing units. You can subsidize the poor, but that will just push out those just rich enough not to qualify for the subsidies; it's a supply/demand problem, and the only solution is more supply or less demand.
I'd agree the entire metro could benefit.
Yes, because people are looking for hard targets. Cops don't carry guns because if they confront someone they want the odds to be "even steven". The US doesn't use drones and bombers and machine guns in Afghanistan, because they want it to be a fair fight between the soldiers and the native population.
Wow, you figured out that they did something where they wouldn't all be immediately arrested and tossed in jail, that's a brilliant observation. Now explain how the people who would arrest them, with their guns and radios and SWAT teams and helicopters don't work things so that they don't go after soft targets as well?
Fact is these people all have much more massive balls than 90% of the effete whiners and snivelers here and everyone knows it. I'd love to see rich liberatarian fairies like Keith Rabois or Peter Thiel go to Oakland public housing and get up in people's faces and tell them what they think should be done with them.
Many of us, myself included, support strongly progressive economic policies, but there is no real conversation to be had with people who will resort to violence like this. Sadly, use of violent and illegal methods to convey a message seems to be somewhat common in these parts.
I suspect that these "protesting" groups are acting out some sort of imagined war between rich and poor, and since the real 1% don't take a bus of any kind to work, we're their next best target.
Would really like to see a real news article - or at least several other sources discussing the incident.
Damn Google employees. Causing poverty.
“Bus driver, what are you gonna do, man? What are you gonna do?”
“Don’t worry. It’s freedom of speech, freedom of speech.”
The kind young man then walked to the rear of the bus, saying,
“Oh my god! What’s gonna happen next?”
The same female passenger took out her phone and began filming the blockade.
“At least we’re warm in here and they’re cold out there,” she said.
But for people who have seen their rents go up while working the same jobs at roughly the same pay, you can see that a larger percentage of their pay goes to rent.
I'm not convinced that "gentrification" is always a problem. Must prices always remain the same? Am I entitled to be protected from competing as a buyer with other buyers who can put scarce housing resources to more valuable alternative uses, for example allowing someone else to commute to a job at Google, rather than allowing me to work a pizza place? This is not condescending, I have, and I wasn't surprised that I couldn't afford housing near the private university, or fancy corporate campuses at that time.
Furthermore, if we think housing prices are a problem, perhaps we should look at zoning and density. If entrenched interests prevent a majority consensus from altering zoning laws, then try throwing some bricks.
Has that happened in SF and I just don't know about it?
> "While they took their seats, several people unfurled two giant banners reading “TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here” and “FUCK OFF GOOGLE.”
People holding banners that were laser printed with materials synthesized by complex machines. People with cell phones tucked away in their pockets. People who have used Google a million times.
Because Google makes a useful product, they are above any kind of criticism.
No, only those protesting modern technology.
Protest Gitmo with modern technology all you want. Nothing wrong with that.
It's not particularly surprising that most people use Google, given that it has a monopoly in search.
That is irrelevant to the possibility that the influx of Googlers - aided by private infrastructure from the corporation - may be destructive to the community that is protesting.
There is no irony to be had when you manufacture the story.
edit - Not to mention, many of the people who find this article are going to come through...you guessed it! Google.
As for laser printers, exactly how much of the printer industry is Google involved in? These people are targetting Google. Google doesn't make or promote printers. Yourself and the OP are creating a strawman just so you can burn them.
So, like I said, your bias is showing. There is no irony here, and certainly none 'at an all time high'.
The protesters don't care about the state of rush hour. They care about what the corporate buses represent: large tech corporations increasing the wealth gap and raising rent in SF/Oakland. It's a fact that each stalled bus will have a bottom-line impact on Google or one of its partners.
That said, smashing windows is not an effective way to win allies. It just makes it a little bit easier to dismiss opponents of gentrification as supporters of vandalism. These "activists" are alienating the very public officials who would otherwise support measures that favor existing residents (e.g. rent control and stabilization).
NB: I have no stake in this, I like in Ireland.
2. Angry mob or your opinions should not dictate where people choose to live.
I could offer many suggestions as to how you should live YOUR life to better suit MY goal and ideas, but I don't because that would be stupid.
You should choose a place to live that suits YOU the best and you should offer the same curtesy to others.
The "occupy Google bus" movement is straight-up bullying.
Google employees are competing with all the other big companies in the South Bay(EBay/Apple/Facebook amongst others) plus the yearly influx of interns that takes a bunch of apartments off the market for 6 months at a time.
Google isn't trying to encourage people who work at Google to live in San Francisco: they are trying to encourage people who live in San Francisco to work at Google.
It's the same reason they have such a honkin' big office in the middle of Manhattan. They could much more cheaply have an office park out in western New Jersey, but having the office in Manhattan captures a large number of employees who want to live in New York City, and would end up working at a hedge fund to support their NYC-habit.
Likewise, they probably found themselves interviewing a lot of great people who turned down the job because they lived in San Francisco and couldn't deal with the commute, and would rather find a different job than leave San Francisco. (Or employees who were commuting by car/rail and were quitting because they couldn't handle it any more.) The buses were probably a cheaper / more satisfactory solution than setting up a new office.
It is a bit funny to hear people say that the lives of Google employees do not revolve around their employer enough already.
People get on the backs of companies like Foxconn for corporate housing, but that is essentially what they are proposing that Google employees endure. And why? Because as "non-natives", Google employees somehow become some sort of second class citizen in the minds of these fools. They have as much right to live in those neighborhoods as anybody else.
1) Maybe they got the job at Google half way through their year lease in SF and are relying on the bus to get to work for 6 months until they can move.
2) Maybe they are fresh out of college and still live in their family home in SF and are only using the bus to get to their new job while they save up enough to move closer.
3) Maybe they live in SF because it is equal distance from their job south and their partner's job north or east.
4) Maybe they are in that group of people that thinks jobs come and go but your home is your home. These people don't move closer to their job.
That said, nobody HAS to live in SF. A fair number of people actually commute INTO SF.
Those who live in the city proper have plenty of financial incentives to not live there; I can't imagine that they'd suddenly move en masse to the suburbs just because Google took their double-decker WiFi-enabled buses away.
This is because in a free market, housing is like any other good. Some people happen to be particularly affected when competition drives up the price of a given good. But it is not for individuals to try to mitigate this effect. The most efficient and fair outcome is for the government to redistribute money, and for the poor to spend their money however they feel is best.
This is not libertarianism, it is basic economic theory that is shared by moderates on the left and right.
So Google has no moral obligation, or indeed any good reason, to discourage their workers from living in SF.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6549063
Short version: build a lot more, and put a regulation in place to keep the "look" of the new buildings similar/the same to the current neighborhood/buildings being replaced.
People want to live in these places. People need to be near jobs. People will avoid commuting if they can. People want to be near cultural institutions. Many people want to be near lots of other people. Look at the housing shortage in North Dakota - before the energy boom, no shortage. People move in because of jobs - shortage, and very high prices. In that case, building, rather than policies did not keep up (there are answers here as well, particularly prefab / modular housing.)
The number of people in cities (particularly large ones, but smaller ones as well) continues to grow (again, see link.) Our policies (in particular) need to adjust.
Would be interesting to get the coords of the cameras when they go up on iSee[0], so people can take the necessary action to avoid them. It would be interesting in general if someone made a mobile app where people can stand where cameras are (and take a photo of it for some spacial awareness) and submit the coords to a public database where people can take the data and plot their own paths away from a central server.
Holy shit, the hyperbole that hurts my heart!
That said, why can't these folks find more constructive ways of trying to change the system and address their grievances?
It's the same pattern one sees in anti-immigration efforts - outsiders competing for a limited resource (jobs, housing) reduces the consumer surplus of the in-group. The traditional response to this throughout most of human history is along the lines of "attack the encroaching tribe", so we're actually doing better than the historical baseline.
Of course, the much-better-response - "let's respond to an increase in demand with an increase in supply by lifting zoning restrictions and allowing for more housing" - isn't intuitive enough or emotionally evocative enough to get a crowd.
The "obvious target" would be to do this in the middle of the city, to raise better awareness of their anger and their message. As it is, this is simply an unknown attack on a bus. Even the spin-propaganda blog post is very unclear on what the problem is...
And yet look at all this discussion here on a forum that caters to the demographic they're targetting.
What 'constructive ways' would you suggest people without money or power use to change the system?
These mega-corps grew from nothing in only ~20 years. The new rich of America is NOT like the "old rich" of Wall Street. Basically any no-name nobody with 5 guys working in a basement can become the next Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Groupon, Zynga or whatever.
I'm starting to think it's more likely that you meant it sarcastically.
There was a recent study on the "new upper class" of the USA. Most of it is "new money": first-generation millionares and first-generation billionares.
Edit: Yeah, this actually did happen. Picture of the broken window: https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414121201754468352/ph...
I'd really like to see some more verification - especially after the way the last Google Bus "incident" turned out. (A guy who at first appeared to be an employee trying to shout down the protesters... was actually a guy there to support the protesters, and make an artificial 'scene')
Edit: The SF Chronicle is currently reaching out to the witnesses to get a better feel for the story. I'd expect something to come out in the mainstream news real soon.
Hilarious! Disrupt Google!
Lots of posts here "there's more constructive ways to deal with this". How constructive is a bunch of pigs evicting a family because their landlord is jacking up the rent because a bunch of Google hipster yuppies want to slum it in Oakland?
Then there's the usual "these people weren't the poorest people in Oakland" posts. The police shoot people like Oscar Grant dead over nothing in Oakland, I could imagine if a swarm of young black men started throwing rocks at Google buses. The whiners here win either way - either they would get a Fox News story about how apolitical young black thugs are harrassing Google workers, or we get the comments here complaining that this is not what they were confronted with.
It's not like the moneyed classes aren't pulling the political strings in the Bay Area now, like Ron Conman getting his boy Ed Lee in as San Francisco mayor. Which goes to other inane comments of the "why don't they do this outside the mansions in Altadena, instead of to us poor six-figure Google employees?" Well the Altadena people aren't the ones gentrifying Oakland and driving rents up. Some people here claim that Oakland residents like that gentrifiers are coming in and driving up rents, which shows how out of touch they are.
People here are so out of touch they forget (perhaps excepting people like Ben Horowitz) that the Black Panthers were born in Oakland. I suppose almost all don't remember the 1934 waterfront strike. These actions are harbingers of these things coming about again.
That seems perfectly reasonable to me, assuming the eviction is legal.
This is a nation of laws. People like you who don't believe in rule of law need to find a country of your own.
Call me a libertarian, but I believe I have the right to be safe and not be attacked. In the twisted mindset of the author, I imagine that the impact that tech employees have on house prices is morally equivalent to violence. However people who believe in rule of law rather than mob rule should be able to see through this.
People bringing their protests to Oakland is nothing new (like the black bloc protests during Occupy). I've been living in my Oakland neighborhood for about 9 years. On my block, that makes me the newcomer. I don't speak for Oakland and neither do these protestors or whoever contributed that article.
We have plenty of ideas on how to solve it, but they involve the buyin of people entrenched in power who have other power bases. The solution is more housing, more dense housing, and more cultural activities closer to the places of employment. However, nobody's digging up Mountain view for skyscrapers anytime soon. Subways aren't being built in San Mateo county that link to BART anytime soon, outside of Milbrae.
I've said that if Colma would just move the cemetaries and and build skyscrapers, a few museums, another symphony hall, and an entertainment district, our problems would be solved. (We'd probably also have to give the residents there a good deal, all 1700 of them. The big shopping center might need a buyout too, we could rebuild that union square-style.)
It's quick to SF, well connected by car, we could probably bring a bunch of industry in with mixed-use, we could do it well. Of course, it would probably hasten the gentrification of Daly City, but a 2 square mile city could be done, and the land would be a fraction of the cost of almost anywhere else.
The secure wifi network used by the employees to check email, do work, push code, etc. make it a satellite office on wheels. Ask anyone who works for Google.
You're not homeless because rents went up in your little neighborhood in Oakland. You're homeless because you chose not to move when rents went up.
People need to take responsibility for their actions. I would like to protest the protests of today.
Here are some hypotheticals:
* I live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford to pay the application fees, deposit, or moving costs to move to a new place.
* My child attends a good school nearby and I'm investing in their long-term future; moving would save me money, sure, but there aren't other good schools in new neighborhoods I can afford that give me the same commute time.
* My commute to work is bad enough as it is and moving farther away from the city center makes it worse. Higher commute times are long-term stressors to the human body: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...
* My blue-collar wage has stayed the same over the last thirty years while the prices of everything else have gone up. I am, thus, poorer. Moving doesn't solve that.
* If I move away from my low-cost childcare, who takes care of my kid while I go to work long hours (especially with, say, a longer commute)?
When you introduce private busing, you plop gentrification down in strange places that may lack public transportation and you're giving the gentry exclusive access to an incredible convenience.
This convenience is conspicuously not shared by their neighbors who have long walks, bike rides, buses to other buses to trains, to take them to their often much less remunerative work.
The convenience also allows a certain economic class to enjoy more geographic options while not forcing the city to have appropriate taxation to build real infrastructure that can be shared by everyone.
It does kinda suck.
Someone very dear to me takes a Google bus daily and I fear for their happiness.
Yeah, a neutral article for sure. The employees actually took the effort of collecting the fliers off the street, but after a violent attack, would you feel like going to work, or are they to blame if they didn't?
You can draw your own conclusions. I don't feel either way about this but it's been fun reading the comments here.
j/k, but seriously, you want good relations with the community. You can't win with security guards.
Uber/Lyft/cars would have a much bigger impact on traffic on 101, which is already terrible congested during rush hour. The buses help to minimize the impact of commuters.
Public commuter options eliminate some of the convenience for two reasons. First, Google has a single destination for everyone which reduces commute times. As you increase the number of destinations, you increase the possible routes exponentially, making it much less feasible to have direct routes everywhere. Second, you can't do confidential work when on public transportation. So you would be much more limited in what you can accomplish during the commute.
They could call it a tax!
I thought it was called "law enforcement"...
For all of you bitching about the "burning man" types. The bay area is full of runaways that look just like those kids and are easily radicalized. San Francisco is a "libro-cryt" city. Its very liberal, but they treat the poor like shit.
Apple and Goolge should stop sheltering their taxes.