@chema@sanfranciscan.org
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

chema

@chema@sanfranciscan.org

A prieto colorado from a former Indian Republic, but in SF a while. Vegan and lifelong vegetarian. Often kicking it with @luna 🐕🐾 along the Embarcadero.

Opinions expressed are my own, but they could be yours too.

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chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

It's a shame I won't be around to see Western cities empty out as populations decline over the next couple hundred years. I imagine quite a few will become villages or even ghost towns.

skinnylatte, to random
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

Tired of the SF Downtown is dying stories when (1) downtown has always been dead (2) it was planned that way (3) most of the businesses complaining about crime and poor sales are simply not relevant (4) no SF resident goes downtown for fun or voluntarily (even me, and I'm only a mile away)

It's so easy to blame homeless people, when imho it's much clearer to blame poor planning and poor business people for most of it

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Word. Downtown is what I have to cross to go into the rest of the city. I only go there to go to a store a few times a year or to go to the dentist. I go to Polk St or Valencia St much more often.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

In just three months time, on June 2, Mexicans go to the polls on to elect the President and both houses of the Mexican congress.

So naturally the registration period for Mexicans living abroad closed a week ago, on February 25.

According to the National Electoral Institute (INE in Spanish), only 226,661 applications were received.

There are at least 12 million Mexican living abroad, mostly in the USA, and potentially twice or three times as many, if we count people eligible for Mexican citizenship through their parents.

https://centralelectoral.ine.mx/2024/02/26/cierra-registro-para-votar-desde-el-extranjero-con-mas-de-220-mil-solicitudes/

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I think that the gap between tech-oriented folks in the Bay and the lower- and middle-income class is widening very quickly.

The former is positively enthralled by new tech like autonomous vehicles and generative AI toys, while the latter remains focused on getting the basics like a living wage and better working conditions.

What's worse, many of these new technologies will end up aggravating the conditions of the working class since they all promise to accelerate the accumulation of wealth.

ChatGPT and Sora are really worthless to communities that can't make the rent or feed their kids properly because many of their jobs are now obsolete.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

San Francisco taxpayers are helping make a few nonprofit leaders very wealthy. Nearly $800k a year in compensation for the CEO of the "Low Income Investment Fund"? Seriously?

Now watch them overwork and underpay their front-line workers.

Nonprofit industrial complex indeed.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/nonprofit-ceo-contract-pay-18667516.php

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Oh, no doubt. Management gets paid very well. Even some non-management workers get paid very well, although it often because of engineered under-staffing and vacancies they have no control over.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/san-francisco-employee-pay/

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

So Amazon and Elon Musk's SpaceX are trying to kill the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Despite what these corporations may think, the NLRB is far, far from worker-friendly. It is an imperfect compromise, existing in large part because the largely working class uprisings of the 1930's forced Congress to pass the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

Corporations can attack the NLRB and even successfully kill it, but all they would get is an already agitated working class with little national protection AND the ability to organize with 21st century technology. It would be terrible for workers, who would have no choice but to push back.

Tech barons need to learn their history.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

WTF! The monied political class in San Francisco have so much money they don't even know what they're donating to.

Former Twitch and OpenAI CEO Emmett Shear gave $49,000 in support of the police surveillance Prop E but told Mission Local @MLNow "he was not familiar" with the measure. He would not tell them whether he supported the measure or not.

Imagine having so much money you can just throw $49k around to random ballot measures.

Vote No on Prop E

https://missionlocal.org/2024/02/prop-e-police-ballot-measure-silver-bullet-sf-crime/

chema, to SanFrancisco
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

This is the problem with the absurd wealth inequality that billionaires and centi-millionaires represent. Anyone is welcome to have political opinions; some will be good, some will be bad. But these folks can leverage their wealth to project their ideas across the voting population. They can effectively drown out other opinions and perspectives because money buys ad time and mailer after mailer and armies of canvassers and paid staff that others cannot match.

What is also crazy to me is how they’ve persuaded so many politically-naive individuals that they’re the ones that are challenging the status quo.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

As I tell our members at the labor union I work for: When San Francisco's largest labor union can be regularly outspent by just a handful of individuals, then something is broken in our political system.

The sort of political power that comes with money means most candidates and elected officials pay attention to the needs and the wishes of the wealthy, while the needs of the rank and file working class become secondary.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I do have to admit that the fantasy of the all-powerful Board of Supervisors is masterful. They have turned some of the supervisors into veritable boogeymen, falsely responsible for hundred of millions of dollars being poured into the nonprofit industrial complex, when in reality it is often city departments, overseen directly by the mayor, that are actually the ones overseeing this neoliberal social entrepreneurship reality.

chema, to SanFrancisco
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

How things are going in San Francisco: Garry Tan of fame and a local edgelord/centi-millionare/near-billionaire got drunk last night and wished for the "slow death" of a supermajority of our county's 11-person legislative body on Twitter by name.

It is a bad sign when anyone with the wealth equivalent to the GDP of small countries decides to get so emotionally involved in local politics. These folks can drop hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent campaigns like it's going out of style AND persuade their crew to do the same.

https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/garry-tan-death-wish-sf-supervisors/

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I was speaking with one of our state legislators last night, who mentioned how sleepy Sacramento (state!) politics were compared to San Francisco's, something I have heard many times before.

Imagine wanting to get elected to local office here and all of a sudden get slammed by some of the wealthiest people the planet has ever seen. No wonder our local politics attracts some tough-skinned individuals.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

And this, of course, leads to a corollary of San Francisco politics: if you aren't a tough-skinned, bare-knuckle-brawling type of politician, you're unlikely to get into local politics. The stress is too high for most people and that means a lot of good people, who in other places would make great politicians, never even consider the possibility.

chema, to SanFrancisco
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

The San Francisco Campaign Finance Dashboards for the upcoming March election are wild. We have Chris Larsen, Ripple CEO and one-time wealthiest crypto king, dropping a cool $500,000 on two ballot measures: Prop E will further empower and equip the police department and Prop F will force welfare recipients to be tested for drugs.

San Francisco, 2024: Tough on crime policies brought to you by crypto billionaires.

https://sfethics.org/ethics/2023/12/campaign-finance-dashboards-march-5-2024.html

ct_bergstrom, to random
@ct_bergstrom@fediscience.org avatar

My daughters and I are feeding cows 10,000 pounds of macadamia nuts each and that's what makes us so relatable and makes it so clear we don't need to be taxed at 95+ percent of our income.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Someone should lend him Cattle Colonialism: An Environmental History of the Conquest of California and Hawai’i.

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636061/cattle-colonialism/

chema, to SanFrancisco
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

2024 is a bargaining year for the thousands of people that work for the City and County of San Francisco and provide critically important public services. Most City departments have been facing a staffing crisis since before the pandemic, leading to overworked staff struggling to make ends meet on an income that just isn't enough. Add to this mix a terrible budget in a mayoral election year and you've got all the ingredients for a tense labor environment. Solidarity is needed now more than ever, so join workers this upcoming Wednesday, January 17 at noon at City Hall for their kickoff rally.

chema, to fediverse
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I created my instance back in November 2022, and I still love my decision. It encourages me to spend just the right amount of time on social media—by which I mean, not a lot. I scroll for a few minutes a day, check out what interesting people are up to, maybe post an update or two myself, and then, satisfied, I go about my day. No algorithms, no ads, no compelled scrolling and no prioritized content. It is an upgrade over other social networks in every way for me.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

These next twelve months are going to be one long electoral season, aren't they?

And I am not only talking about the presidential election. Local candidates, local ballot measures, regional, state. It's going to come every which way.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Yes, I've heard similar sentiments before. Makes me feel fortunate that I can focus on local races and tune out national elections a bit.

chema, to SanFrancisco
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Protestors have blocked the 5th and Mission St intersection, preventing delegates from accessing the red zone here in .

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Riot police of Minna St ready to advance on protesters here in the South of Market. Organized labor holding it down.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Blockade ended about an hour ago with only a handful of scuffles with police or delegates. Folks were energized and motivated.

Next action today is the rally for workers' rights and economic and social justice at 4 PM at Union Square.

Action wrapping up at 5th and mission

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Short program has started in Union Square, centering workers and how trade deals sideline them and abuse them.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Walking down by Market Street feels surreal tonight. Huddled riot cops watching motorcades drive by in the rain under rainbow lasers.

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