Hundreds of unsheltered people living in tent encampments in the blocks surrounding the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco have been forced to leave by city outreach workers and police as part of an attempted “clean up the house” ahead of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s annual free trade conference.
The action, which housing advocates allege violated a court injunction, was celebrated by right-wing figures and the tech crowd, who have long been convinced that the city is in terminal decline because of an increase in encampments in the downtown area.
The X account End Wokness wrote that the displacement was proof the “government can easily fix our cities overnight. It just doesn’t want to” (the post received 77,000 likes). “Queer Eye but it’s just Xi visiting troubled US cities then they get a makeover,” joked Packy McCormick, the founder of Not Boring Capital and advisor to Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto VC team. The New York Post celebrated the action, saying that residents had “miraculously disappeared.”
While I agree we should be solving the root problem of homelessness equitably, the headline is misleading as I know many people on the left were also happy to have clean streets for a while.
And there is no mention in the article about who ordered and carried out the sweep.
Who cheers about something is secondary to who actually does it. This article doesn’t address who actually did it.
At this point the homeless ought to try staging a camp in at the city hall. Get the headlines all over them being dragged out of there.
Housing needs to be a right. Every citizen should be able to go to a housing authority and have a roof over their head if they are unable to afford it.
Agreed. I’d go a bit further. Anything regarding sustenance should be a right:
Housing, healthcare, access to clean water, clean air, at least one hot meal a day, and emergency services should be a right.
I’ll even go as far as arguing that internet access should be included in that list.
Better yet, college
Modern society has really fucked us up. Only 200 years ago we could have all built our own houses and worked on improving our own properties rather than slaving away for a corporation’s profit.
Even if you want out you’re kinda screwed with the price of land most places. My wife and I have good careers, make pretty good money, and yet we still aren’t sure we could afford to start a simple homestead.
That’s okay. A lot of people consider cops to be like dog shit on a soiled shoe.
The only thing they are doing is growing terrorists that are getting ready to piss on the American flag and the broken bodies that are going to be defending their bullshit.
(Dramatization)
Can’t wait to see the army of natural law abiders wreck em.
Seriously treat cops like shit for being naive or just plain crooked while they fuck up lives for money.
The resistance is growing but it’s already seen they are going to treat the people that live for humanity like terrorists.
But it was the Democrats who orchestrated and approved it.
That’s what makes it illegal, Republican crimes aren’t real crimes, remember?
No
We shouldn’t decide the morality of things based on it being legal or illegal. The law is at best an after thought around morality.
A philosophical argument that goes all the way back to Socrates.
The law is a essentially the enforceable moral code of the state that enforces it. Most criminal laws were created to penalise acts that are considered morally reprehensible. I wouldn’t say the law is an afterthought around morality but a reflection of the morality of the state. The laws are largely written by the capitalistic class and are a reflection of what they consider right and wrong.
Yeah but the problem with this sentiment is that it eschews responsibility for the state its self, a responsibility for which a people always ultimately are. A state legislature makes laws. City councils create rules. Dog catchers have policies. At any point you can work to take responsibility for those positions. Its not an abstract theoretical thing. These are real material positions.
We are responsible for the society we live in.
Yes. Laws can be changed but in reality but don’t really have that much say nor do they even pay that much attention. Let me ask how much people really vote with the homeless on their mind? How much people voted for Biden because they were genuinely excited for him or because he just was the only way to prevent Trump from coming back? The laws of the state are a reflection of what it deems to be moral and just there’s no way around that.
I totally agree. Point is that a people are ultimately responsible for the state.
Yes. So what is the disagreement about then? Laws are essentially the enforceable moral code of the state. I do believe that people are ultimately responsible for their own laws but because of propaganda and misinformation by the capitalistic class they are rarely fully informed of the laws they vote for. The capitalistic class ensures to public are constantly misled so their candidates and lawmakers get picked. This ultimately sees the ruling 1% in control of the law and deciding what the state or country considers right or wrong. How much people do you think Biden really represents?
of the State
Right there is where the disagreement is. My argument is that laws are ultimately a moral code of a people, because a people are ultimately responsible for their state. It’s a false dichotomy that misrepresents where states and laws ultimately come from. It ‘others’ the state as some kind of inaccessible agent that our actions don’t contribute to. It removes the moral responsibility of state actions from a people, which is not ok. My argument is that individuals are and need to take responsibility for the state and the codification of its moral because they are us. The state is not a separate entity from its people, when it is a state of the people. This thinking of the state as separate from the people is deeply problematic.
Old joke:
Politician 1: We should half the homeless people in our city!
Politician 2: Great idea! Do we cut them in half horizontally or vertically?Too bad if it was illegal, this literal shit was allowed to go on for too long.
Just wait until the homeless start finding themselves with weapons and pointing them at the rich.
That’s what it’s going to have to take. People need to become so angry that they do something to take it back, and they aren’t going to do that until they have nothing left to lose
I hate wokness.
Getting ready for the Bell Riots
The city does seem to be in terminal decline, and the homeless encampments sure aren’t helping.
But just pushing them around isn’t helping.
I just do not understand why we are not addressing homelessness in more productive ways. We know it can be better managed as some countries have figured it out. Really crazy that we are not all on board with just doing the right thing and having a win win for all. We choose to suffer and we choose to sweep our suffering under the rug when guests come over.
Yeah, the best solution I’ve seen is lots of small, private housing. Basically, give people a bed and a locking door, and they have a way better chance of turning their life around. Let people stay as long as they’re not violating the rules, and don’t violate their privacy.
A private room is far better than shoving everyone in multiple rooms. It needs to be a stream that directs people to the correct support system.
Just lost job - Okay, you go into the program that has employment support. Dealing with mental health issues - Into the program with mental health support. Addiction issues - Into the program with addiction supports. etc.
Have multiple issues, then we get the support needed for those issues.
For this kind of system, it needs to be well funded. Maybe take some away form the bloated police budget.
Because that would involve “giving someone something for free that they DiDn’T WoRk FoR!” You can’t give anything to anyone except billionaires because it’s “not fair to meeeee. I work, I don’t get free stuff. They should just Get A Job!™©®”
Because solving homelessness is counter-productive to running a capitalist society.
That is one of the common excuses but countless studies show it is cheaper to just deal with it.
I’m as liberal as the next guy, and i know this will definitely not be a popular opinion here, but honestly we need to stop giving homeless people a free pass and I’m fucking serious. A lot of these people do it only because they can get away with it. They need to know that what they are doing isn’t OK. It’s not the answer, there really isn’t a single answer, but we also can’t just keep enabling them. I say this as a person with a homeless meth addict sister, a brother in law who’s been on drugs his whole life and is currently in section 8, and a sister in law who got her shit together after being a homeless addict. I also have family who have volunteered full time at shelters and food banks
Most of these homeless there are either addicts or severely mentally ill and need help. Of course I’m just referring to the addicts here, the mentally ill need help. Homeless families down on their luck aren’t included here, they typically know where support is and are using it.
Historically, study after study has shown that most people are not homeless due to addiction. So either there’s been a drastic shift in the data since COVID-19, or you’re repeating a false narrative that liberals and progressives have been widely aware of and discussed for ages.
The homeless where they are booting people in downtown SF are 100%. I live 10 miles from there and see it. I agree with your claim, but location has a lot to do with the type of homeless. Oakland for example has a lot of people you’re talking about. Also read my second paragraph
Wow that sure is a shitty thing to do to humans…
Right-wing: “yay” on all shitty things.
Right wingers might have cheered this on (I believe one individual and one news publication were mentioned cheering in the article), but who actually ordered and carried out the sweep?
All the article says is that the operation is a “black box”.
Who ordered this?
