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California Doing California Things


Whatever, dude. California laws hurt the small fish and help the big fish , you happy now? I don’t give a damn about defending Newsom, and none of my posts were meant to. Every one of your replies seems to assume that. Newsom’s laws don’t scare Wall Street, they scare the little guy. And when the little guy sells, who do you think is standing there with cash in hand? That’s the feature of the current market structure I’m talking about. Maybe I wasn’t clear before: politicians tiptoe around the real enemy to affordable housing. They’ll talk about landlords, tenants, and zoning, but they avoid naming Wall Street, which distorts markets by concentrating in certain neighborhoods, buying in bulk, and treating housing as financial assets.
You have not demonstrated that this is in any way a cause, it sounds like more of the rich = automatically evil position.

From what I understand, Wall Street’s role is secondary. The bigger driver of California’s housing crisis is decades of underbuilding, fueled by residents blocking anything but single-family homes in many areas. But I can’t even get to that part of the conversation without first cutting through all the reflexive defenses of Wall Street to get at Newsom. Fuck Newsom. :rolleyes:
I agree about the underbuilding, but I do not see how Wall Street is remotely relevant.

A place is desirable, people move there, land is inherently fixed, so the cost to live there goes up. It's inevitable. The taller the building the higher the cost per square foot, you can't solve the problem by building up. Building up happens when the additional cost of building up is less than the cost of being far enough away not to need to build up.
Desirability of location shouldn't be a consideration with respect to low cost housing proposals. It's a They Get What They Get thing. There are tens of millions of acres to build on in California. The high desert in San Bernardino county is a good example. All the infrastructure is there to allow it to happen and there's tons of land owned by private sellers that the state could purchase.

If some of those who need affordable housing don't want it, they don't have to move there.

Another thing is the policing/security that would be required. Idealists can argue against this all they want, but low income areas are rife with crime. There would need to be a selection process that weeds out the law abiding from those with criminal records. There's no sense in spending 10s of billions of dollars to create the American version of Kowloon Walled City.
 
The movement had already begun, so seminole events could be happen.
What was the movement asking for? The one that had already begin? What were the people in the movement asking for? What did they believe in?
Stop with this game. It's tedious and unproductive.

My assumption is that you know the answers to your own questions, but if you don't, then you have a lot of catching up to do.
 
The movement had already begun, so seminole events could be happen.
What was the movement asking for? The one that had already begin? What were the people in the movement asking for? What did they believe in?
Stop with this game. It's tedious and unproductive.

My assumption is that you know the answers to your own questions, but if you don't, then you have a lot of catching up to do.
Oh, I know exactly what the goals of the Civil Rights Movement were. Full and equal treatment under the law for all citizens, and the dismantling of white supremacy in the United States without condition.

Not "incremental change". Not "as long as no one is offended".
 
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Whatever, dude. California laws hurt the small fish and help the big fish , you happy now? I don’t give a damn about defending Newsom, and none of my posts were meant to. Every one of your replies seems to assume that. Newsom’s laws don’t scare Wall Street, they scare the little guy. And when the little guy sells, who do you think is standing there with cash in hand? That’s the feature of the current market structure I’m talking about. Maybe I wasn’t clear before: politicians tiptoe around the real enemy to affordable housing. They’ll talk about landlords, tenants, and zoning, but they avoid naming Wall Street, which distorts markets by concentrating in certain neighborhoods, buying in bulk, and treating housing as financial assets.
You have not demonstrated that this is in any way a cause, it sounds like more of the rich = automatically evil position.

From what I understand, Wall Street’s role is secondary. The bigger driver of California’s housing crisis is decades of underbuilding, fueled by residents blocking anything but single-family homes in many areas. But I can’t even get to that part of the conversation without first cutting through all the reflexive defenses of Wall Street to get at Newsom. Fuck Newsom. :rolleyes:
I agree about the underbuilding, but I do not see how Wall Street is remotely relevant.

A place is desirable, people move there, land is inherently fixed, so the cost to live there goes up. It's inevitable. The taller the building the higher the cost per square foot, you can't solve the problem by building up. Building up happens when the additional cost of building up is less than the cost of being far enough away not to need to build up.
Desirability of location shouldn't be a consideration with respect to low cost housing proposals. It's a They Get What They Get thing. There are tens of millions of acres to build on in California. The high desert in San Bernardino county is a good example. All the infrastructure is there to allow it to happen and there's tons of land owned by private sellers that the state could purchase.

If some of those who need affordable housing don't want it, they don't have to move there.

Another thing is the policing/security that would be required. Idealists can argue against this all they want, but low income areas are rife with crime. There would need to be a selection process that weeds out the law abiding from those with criminal records. There's no sense in spending 10s of billions of dollars to create the American version of Kowloon Walled City.

Housing isn’t like cans of beans though, location matters. People need to live near jobs, schools, transit, and healthcare, not an empty patch of land hours away. And on the crime point, poverty and lack of opportunity drive crime, not affordable housing itself. As for Loren screaming full steam ahead away from my Wall Street argument, dismissing them like they’re irrelevant is silly. They don’t have to own all homes to distort markets. Concentrated buying, bulk purchases, and algorithm-driven rent hikes already raise costs in neighborhoods they target. Pretending that has ZERO effect just because underbuilding exists is like pretending scalpers don’t drive up ticket prices just because a concert was already sold out.
 
The movement had already begun, so seminole events could be happen.
What was the movement asking for? The one that had already begin? What were the people in the movement asking for? What did they believe in?
Stop with this game. It's tedious and unproductive.

My assumption is that you know the answers to your own questions, but if you don't, then you have a lot of catching up to do.
Oh, I know exactly what the goals of the Civil Rights Movement were. Full and equal treatment under the law for all citizens, and the dismantling of white supremacy in the United States without condition.

Not "incremental change". Not "as long as no one is offended".

I think you’re reading Sanders’ (and Loren’s before him) point as if they’re saying Rosa Parks was fine with less, like she wasn’t really pushing for equality, just asking for a softer seat in the “colored” section. Seen that way, yeah, it sells Parks short, making it look like she only wanted a halfway concession instead of calling out the whole rotten system.


I don’t take Sanders that way, though. He’s not saying she “accepted less,” he’s saying her move was smart because it was precisely calibrated for that moment. It wasn’t about settling, it was about picking the fight the country was barely ready to confront. I get why you’d interpret it differently; I almost did too, because there’s not enough clear acknowledgment in his phrasing that the goal was always the whole damn pie from the jump.
 
Did you forget that you're the one trying to police my opinions

You’re fucking entitled to YOUR opinions.
I have no interest in “policing” them. Criticizing your rhetoric is not “policing your opinions”.
In fact that is another misrepresentation of the sort that I AM trying to discourage you from indulging in.
Also strawmen like “Not "as long as no one is offended" as if someone here was trying to keep racist assholes from being offended. Rude and dishonest. Just stop.
 
The movement had already begun, so seminole events could be happen.
What was the movement asking for? The one that had already begin? What were the people in the movement asking for? What did they believe in?
Stop with this game. It's tedious and unproductive.

My assumption is that you know the answers to your own questions, but if you don't, then you have a lot of catching up to do.
Oh, I know exactly what the goals of the Civil Rights Movement were. Full and equal treatment under the law for all citizens, and the dismantling of white supremacy in the United States without condition.

Not "incremental change". Not "as long as no one is offended".

I think you’re reading Sanders’ (and Loren’s before him) point as if they’re saying Rosa Parks was fine with less, like she wasn’t really pushing for equality, just asking for a softer seat in the “colored” section. Seen that way, yeah, it sells Parks short, making it look like she only wanted a halfway concession instead of calling out the whole rotten system.


I don’t take Sanders that way, though. He’s not saying she “accepted less,” he’s saying her move was smart because it was precisely calibrated for that moment. It wasn’t about settling, it was about picking the fight the country was barely ready to confront. I get why you’d interpret it differently; I almost did too, because there’s not enough clear acknowledgment in his phrasing that the goal was always the whole damn pie from the jump.
Then their criticism of me makes no sense. I've committed no crime except to give my honest opinion of the governor. I've not joined the Black Panthers or the Weather Underground. I Just gave my honest answer to Tswizzles question of whether I'd prefer to have Gavin Newsom as president. I said that I did not think he was the best choice, and why, but that would vote for him if he was the option that was not Trump or one of his cronies. And everyone jumped down my throat. Because my reasons for disliking Gavin Newsom included disagreeing with him, and clearly, some of the posters here, about the situation in Gaza.
 
Fair enough. I think Bomb#20’s ‘reverse UNO on the genocide’ bit was mainly pointing out the irony of calling Newsom a supporter of genocide and then saying you’d vote for him anyway. Fair point, even if the delivery was about as clear as Pluto seen with the naked eye. To me, it felt more like he was criticizing your word choices than your actual opinion. At least that’s how I saw it. Not that Bomb#20 needs or wants me in his corner, but just to be clear, I’m not saying any of this to defend him. Believe that. 😁
 
So, if this is the thread we're talking about Newsom in, I really think that people need to think twice about jumping on his dick. He's Hillary with a penis, another corporate weathervane that cannot ever really align to the energy he would need to win people over.

The quality people want is not aggression but genuine-ness. Newsome does not have that. Of course, genuine people tend to get aggressive/assertive, but being aggressive is like "cargo-culting": it puts the cart before the horse and just ends up making everyone involved look like jackasses.

Yes, Newsom is doing the right thing (or at least the politically well-informed thing, gerrymandering the hell out of California in response to Republican attempts to do as much in Texas and elsewhere) now that it's apparent that this polls well.

Newsom was groomed as clearly as Trump was for a run at the presidency. Frankly, I think that more than ever should disqualify people from the position in the eyes of the informed electorate, when monied interests strongly support and align a person to a seat of high power.

Such people can never really broadly represent the people, because for much of their lives and careers they have had the voices of a vanishing minority whispering in their ear that the politician can just reach out and have the world, and so many others have that fighting the tide of them will be impossible anyway, and this is what they must accede to if they wish for support in reaching for a higher seat.

If they can be swayed to and fro by polls, what is to say this even motivates their work, and that they may not be anchored by money? It certainly says their values are not directly in what they are supporting, and having solidity behind what you vote for matters to a lot of people.

And for many people, they realize that there is solidity behind Trump: Trump is for Trump, always and entirely. His followers read between the lines and get the "second layer" communications just fine. Even if we also clearly can decode those communications and say that "quiet part" out loud, enough folks will either not get it or still be down with the parts said put loud or lean on the thinnest ever "plausible deniability" to those who don't get it at all that the people who enjoy the burning can broadly move with inpugnity.

There is solidity there, much more so than there is behind corporate Democrat strategies of "shift with the wind until something polls well".

We should have always been first trying to figure out what is most right, and then figuring out strategies that achieve that, and then working to implement exactly those strategies.

I wouldn't vote for Newsom. It would be like voting for Pelosi. I think he deserves to be primaried.

I'm telling y'all right now if y'all are going to be pushing Newsom for challenging the Trump regime, you're picking a non-starter.

Walz would be a good pick, or AOC, or any of a number of senators, but Newsom has too much clear corporate baggage and trying to ram him down the electorate's throats even if a lot of people are holding their mouths open wide is a classic Democrat "Defeat From The Jaws of Victory" energy right there.
 
Fair enough. I think Bomb#20’s ‘reverse UNO on the genocide’ bit was mainly pointing out the irony of calling Newsom a supporter of genocide and then saying you’d vote for him anyway. Fair point, even if the delivery was about as clear as Pluto seen with the naked eye. To me, it felt more like he was criticizing your word choices than your actual opinion. At least that’s how I saw it. Not that Bomb#20 needs or wants me in his corner, but just to be clear, I’m not saying any of this to defend him. Believe that.
I certainly do not love the idea of voting for someone whose ideals may be in opposition to mine, but that's politics. I have never met a politician who agreed with me on every point of policy, and do not expect to. Despite what people keep saying in this and many other threads, I am well aware of the necessity of compromise in political life.

And in this specific case, I note that Newsom has since attempted to walk back his actions and statements in support of the genocidal actions in Gaza. Unlike Trump, he does not currently support the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip. This is not true of Mr Trump. Unless Newsom flip-flops again sometime before the general election, it would not make sense to withhold my vote because of a position that he no longer holds, especially if his only credible opponent has no such commitment.

I do think that it speaks to Gavin Newsom's character, though, that he was going so far out of his way to try and get on camera with Netanyahu and Biden in support of the actions in Gaza when he thought it was going to be popular, and abruptly reversed his position the second he realized that it was in fact unpopular. I don't think a person's perspective on any alleged genocidal action, valid or otherwise, should be based solely on popularity polling, and I think it is a huge liability for any left-leaning party to have a candidate who is so quick to vacillate on issues of great importance. I note that this very incident was a major factor in the case of Joe Biden, who retracted his bid for the presidency very soon after the events in question, leaving his vice president in an incredibly untenable position and all of us in considerable danger from Trump and his allies, who now control much of the government and may be very difficult to remove.
 
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So, if this is the thread we're talking about Newsom in, I really think that people need to think twice about jumping on his dick. He's Hillary with a penis, another corporate weathervane that cannot ever really align to the energy he would need to win people over.

The quality people want is not aggression but genuine-ness. Newsome does not have that. Of course, genuine people tend to get aggressive/assertive, but being aggressive is like "cargo-culting": it puts the cart before the horse and just ends up making everyone involved look like jackasses.

Yes, Newsom is doing the right thing (or at least the politically well-informed thing, gerrymandering the hell out of California in response to Republican attempts to do as much in Texas and elsewhere) now that it's apparent that this polls well.

Newsom was groomed as clearly as Trump was for a run at the presidency. Frankly, I think that more than ever should disqualify people from the position in the eyes of the informed electorate, when monied interests strongly support and align a person to a seat of high power.

Such people can never really broadly represent the people, because for much of their lives and careers they have had the voices of a vanishing minority whispering in their ear that the politician can just reach out and have the world, and so many others have that fighting the tide of them will be impossible anyway, and this is what they must accede to if they wish for support in reaching for a higher seat.

If they can be swayed to and fro by polls, what is to say this even motivates their work, and that they may not be anchored by money? It certainly says their values are not directly in what they are supporting, and having solidity behind what you vote for matters to a lot of people.

And for many people, they realize that there is solidity behind Trump: Trump is for Trump, always and entirely. His followers read between the lines and get the "second layer" communications just fine. Even if we also clearly can decode those communications and say that "quiet part" out loud, enough folks will either not get it or still be down with the parts said put loud or lean on the thinnest ever "plausible deniability" to those who don't get it at all that the people who enjoy the burning can broadly move with inpugnity.

There is solidity there, much more so than there is behind corporate Democrat strategies of "shift with the wind until something polls well".

We should have always been first trying to figure out what is most right, and then figuring out strategies that achieve that, and then working to implement exactly those strategies.

I wouldn't vote for Newsom. It would be like voting for Pelosi. I think he deserves to be primaried.

I'm telling y'all right now if y'all are going to be pushing Newsom for challenging the Trump regime, you're picking a non-starter.

Walz would be a good pick, or AOC, or any of a number of senators, but Newsom has too much clear corporate baggage and trying to ram him down the electorate's throats even if a lot of people are holding their mouths open wide is a classic Democrat "Defeat From The Jaws of Victory" energy right there.
You've got the man dead to rights. But I'm very concerned about what South Carolina's Democrats are going to decide for us this time around. I don't think the public mood on the left is tending toward being critical of our candidates in any respect other than "can he/she beat Trump", yet the party also caves to unreasonable ideologues like myself who are going to vote for a "Progressive" in the primary, dividing the vote and giving the advantage to whoever has the most name recognition. Hence why I am gritting my teeth and preparing to cast a vote for Newsom or Harris in the general. Even the most undecided of swing voters recognizes their names from the news, and that can break a tie when things are close. And I'm not abstaining. Not in what may well be our last election.

Honestly when it comes to corruption and the likelihood of compromise, no California politician should ever be allowed to wreak havoc in DC. The road to Sacramento leads through the real estate and oil lobbies. A billion dollars in campaign money doesn't just show up out of nowhere, with no entailments. I love my state, i hope that has been clear from this thread, but that love does not reach above the lobby level of the Capitol. There's just too much damn money in this state.
 
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He's Hillary with a penis

Almost fell outta my seat. :ROFLMAO:
To be fair, it's unclear whether he has an actual dick or whether it moved out with his spine. Apparently, he's back in an "on, again" phase with his spine, but going dickless tends to be a bit more long-term condition.

Spines never seem to come back in straight, anyway.

So, if this is the thread we're talking about Newsom in, I really think that people need to think twice about jumping on his dick. He's Hillary with a penis, another corporate weathervane that cannot ever really align to the energy he would need to win people over.

The quality people want is not aggression but genuine-ness. Newsome does not have that. Of course, genuine people tend to get aggressive/assertive, but being aggressive is like "cargo-culting": it puts the cart before the horse and just ends up making everyone involved look like jackasses.

Yes, Newsom is doing the right thing (or at least the politically well-informed thing, gerrymandering the hell out of California in response to Republican attempts to do as much in Texas and elsewhere) now that it's apparent that this polls well.

Newsom was groomed as clearly as Trump was for a run at the presidency. Frankly, I think that more than ever should disqualify people from the position in the eyes of the informed electorate, when monied interests strongly support and align a person to a seat of high power.

Such people can never really broadly represent the people, because for much of their lives and careers they have had the voices of a vanishing minority whispering in their ear that the politician can just reach out and have the world, and so many others have that fighting the tide of them will be impossible anyway, and this is what they must accede to if they wish for support in reaching for a higher seat.

If they can be swayed to and fro by polls, what is to say this even motivates their work, and that they may not be anchored by money? It certainly says their values are not directly in what they are supporting, and having solidity behind what you vote for matters to a lot of people.

And for many people, they realize that there is solidity behind Trump: Trump is for Trump, always and entirely. His followers read between the lines and get the "second layer" communications just fine. Even if we also clearly can decode those communications and say that "quiet part" out loud, enough folks will either not get it or still be down with the parts said put loud or lean on the thinnest ever "plausible deniability" to those who don't get it at all that the people who enjoy the burning can broadly move with inpugnity.

There is solidity there, much more so than there is behind corporate Democrat strategies of "shift with the wind until something polls well".

We should have always been first trying to figure out what is most right, and then figuring out strategies that achieve that, and then working to implement exactly those strategies.

I wouldn't vote for Newsom. It would be like voting for Pelosi. I think he deserves to be primaried.

I'm telling y'all right now if y'all are going to be pushing Newsom for challenging the Trump regime, you're picking a non-starter.

Walz would be a good pick, or AOC, or any of a number of senators, but Newsom has too much clear corporate baggage and trying to ram him down the electorate's throats even if a lot of people are holding their mouths open wide is a classic Democrat "Defeat From The Jaws of Victory" energy right there.
You've got the man dead to rights. But I'm very concerned about what South Carolina's Democrats are going to decide for us this time around. I don't think the public mood on the left is tending toward being critical of our candidates in any respect other than "can he/she beat Trump", yet the party also caves to unreasonable ideologues like myself who are going to vote for a "Progressive" in the primary, dividing the vote and giving the advantage to whoever has the most name recognition. Hence why I am gritting my teeth and preparing to cast a vote for Newsom or Harris in the general. Even the most undecided of swing voters recognizes their names ftom the news, and that can break a tie when things are close. And I'm not abstaining. Not in what may well be our last election.

Honestly when it comes to corruption and the likelihood of compromise, no California politician should ever be allowed to wreak havoc in DC. The road to Sacramento leads through the real estate and oil lobbies. A billion dollars in campaign money doesn't just show up out of nowhere, with no entailments. I love my state, i hope that has been clear from this thread, but that love does not reach above the lobby level of the Capitol. There's just too much damn money in this state.
I will, sadly, be coerced into voting for this piece of shit, myself.

Something will happen in this election cycle.

Progressives will seek power and influence through the running of a primary candidate, and if the party cannot cede these people some power and influence, granting them the ability to set some direction on the formation and execution of policies... Well, of that doesn't happen, the Trump regime will win, again.

Nobody is going to elect Pinocchio the moment after he smashes the cricket.
 
I doubt that Newsome will win in the primaries and I strongly doubt that either AOC or Walz could win in the primaries or in the general. There were lots of people who said that Harris was too liberal so they didn't vote. And, don't worry about voting for her again, as she has clearly stated she has no plans to run for any further political position. She is trying to find something else to do like campaign for a candidate or maybe help get out the vote etc.

My closest black friends feel that AOC is far too left and far too young and inexperienced to be president and they felt that Walz lacked charisma. I liked him better than they did. I think AOC is far too inexperienced and I don't see our country electing a woman in the near future, neither do most of my female friends. Still, they as well as all of my white friends, atheist friends and other assorted friends, will vote for whoever the Dem candidate turns out to be. So will I.

I've voted for people who I wasn't excited about since the 1970s, so I'm not expecting some perfect, charismatic all knowing, totally honest candidate who agrees with me on all positions. I just want the autocrats who have no problem taking away the rights of women, LBGTQ, minorities, non Christians etc. away. I want someone who believes in science and at least supports progressive taxes, some sort of UHC, and things like that, but if I have to settle for less to rid the air of the stink of the MAGA cult, so be it.

Plus, we could get a decent president and still have a far right Congress which will make it close to impossible to make much progress. Trump is a dictator who has owned Congress and SCOTUS, but I don't expect a president from the other side to attempt to be a full fledged dictator. All presidents push their power as far as they can without bringing us a total autocracy, but tRump has taken the country off the rails and we may not ever get back on the tracks. Still, we shouldn't give up the fight.

And, speaking of primaries, maybe in California, young people vote in primaries. I really don't know, but in Georgia, it's mostly mature adults who vote in primaries although I'd love to see more people of all ages get out and vote in all elections. Most of the people who I know personally who are my age never miss a single election, not even if it's for a tiny local position, law or tax that's the only thing on the ballot. We vote. Everyone should vote. Oh well. That's just my two cents for now.
 
@Politesse & @Bomb#20 It's both. I don’t think these two perspectives are in conflict. Parks refusing to move in the Black section was a 'click of the ratchet' that carried the force of the larger fight for humanity itself.
Right. I think maybe the reason Poli was spatting with Elixir over this point was their different understandings of the distinction between "demanding" and "advocating".
 
@Politesse & @Bomb#20 It's both. I don’t think these two perspectives are in conflict. Parks refusing to move in the Black section was a 'click of the ratchet' that carried the force of the larger fight for humanity itself.
Right. I think maybe the reason Poli was spatting with Elixir over this point was their different understandings of the distinction between "demanding" and "advocating".
What is the distinction between those things? I mean, I know what the difference is to me, but I definitely see the Montgomery Bus Boycott as an event that had very clearly defined demands, so if the boycotters were "advocating" not "demanding" according to Elixir and yourself, then we must have different definitions of a demand. Indeed, as the incident progressed, their demands became more... demanding. In the end, the matter was settled in the Supreme Court, and that was most certainly a question of demanding legal rights, not asking for a voluntary concession.

Merriam Webster suggests "something claimed as due or owed", which fits my own sense of what constitutes a demand in the context of social action.

What is a demand, to you?
 
I note that at least one of the boycotters' demands, the immediate hiring of Black bus drivers within the Montgomery transit system, would be seen as abominable to today's conservatives, no less than they were to the conservatives of the time. Trump and his friends are currently trying go purge the government of anyone hired on the basis of their race, and they are unembarrassed to do so. It seems weird to me to claim that society was "ready for change" when Rosa Parks made her gesture, when no changes happened for some time actually, and none voluntarily. On a small level, she was arrested and fined. On the larger level, Montgomery never fully agreed to integrate the bus system until the federal goveenment forced them to.
 
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