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Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

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Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#221

Post by negamax »

null_ptr wrote: post #202
negamax wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts on this are, techies are generally nice and intelligent people. Last thing they will do is to harm someone or get to a physical fight. Unionised autoworkers wouldn't be a soft target. I really hope that this is a one off incident and not beginning of some demonifying of tech sector. Incidences like this could be shocking to some people and may change their perception about poor and helpless. In this threa…

Being a soft and easy target has to be part of it. It stands to reason that people who smash bus windows are the same people who used to beat up nerds at school when they were children. Some people set themselves up for a life of shit from the get go and never bother to change course.

I fully agree with you. But I think grown up nerds are far more successful and powerful than their highschool bullies counterparts. I am more afraid of good people turning into vendetta seekers because of this (your comment kind of resonates to what I am foreseeing as plausible outcome).

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#222

Post by 9999 »

api wrote: post #132
wavesounds wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten into some 'debates' with friends on facebook who are are in the 'anarchist/burner/hipster' persuasion. And It's mostly scape-goating programmers for rents going up. But I do think the Startup community in particular could do a better job interacting with the communities we live in. Especially as more and more people jump on the startup bandwagon and don't really understand the hacker/nerd ethos of protect…

I think the rent issue is definitely real, but isn't the fault of techies. It's the fault of several interacting factors: (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…

I agree with everything you've said there. The skyrocketing rents are a product of inflated tech salaries (which will deflate eventually) and greedy landlords that can ask for whatever they want and find people to pay it for the time being.

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.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#223

Post by firstOrder »

"Someone threw fliers with a smiley face logo and the message disrupt google into the air."

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.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#224

Post by drhayes9 »

squigs25 wrote: post #186

Things change. Neighborhoods get gentrified. Neighborhoods get bombed. You adapt, or you die. Protesting progressive change is futile. 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.

"Chose not to move" is an interesting angle. I'm pretty sure I don't support these protesters, but you're targeting the poor with your comments and I don't think that's fair.

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)?

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#225

Post by api »

9999 wrote: post #222
api wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rent issue is definitely real, but isn't the fault of techies. It's the fault of several interacting factors: (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…

I agree with everything you've said there. The skyrocketing rents are a product of inflated tech salaries (which will deflate eventually) and greedy landlords that can ask for whatever they want and find people to pay it for the time being. 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 represe…

It's likely that they do show up to city hall meetings and zoning boards... to block construction of new properties in order to save the Earth and stick it to capitalism or whatever.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#226

Post by mtdewcmu »

bilbo0s wrote: post #117
jessedhillon wrote: post #48

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…

This is the general arc of "gentrification". 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 attracti…

I've noticed that the truly down-and-out seem to take further misfortune in stride. They expect it.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#227

Post by gress »

angersock wrote: post #3

First against the wall, it would appear. All of us doing tech work should be paying very, very close attention to this sentiment. That said, why can't these folks find more constructive ways of trying to change the system and address their grievances?

The tech companies, and Google in particular have far more power and resources at their disposal and are actively trying to change society in numerous different ways. They choose not to use this power to improve the local community, instead insulating themselves from the problems by providing their employees with a way to ignore the lack of infrastructure around them.

What 'constructive ways' would you suggest people without money or power use to change the system?

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#228

Post by nknighthb »

gress wrote: post #211
nknighthb wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "top earner" wants more tax increases. I'm not alone. What I do not want is to be subject to violent attacks for getting up and going to work in the morning, nor to be compared to Glenn Beck for having no sympathy for the violent criminals doing so.

Perhaps you should do something about income inequality then.

Like smash bus windows? There are other ways to solve problems. I help with some of them. Do you assume I don't, or do you just think violence is always the answer?

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#230

Post by gress »

nknighthb wrote: post #228
gress wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you should do something about income inequality then.

Like smash bus windows? There are other ways to solve problems. I help with some of them. Do you assume I don't, or do you just think violence is always the answer?

What are your suggestions?
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