Chris Sacca gives us a chilling insight into the mindset of San Francisco city administrators in a series of tweets. The summary below is taken from Threadreader, which cuts out extraneous graphics and gets to the meat of the matter.
15 years ago, I co-led a team trying to give 100% free Internet access to all of San Francisco starting with the poorest neighborhoods first. The network would be anonymous, with no ads, no cookies, etc. Approximately a $20-25 million gift. The result? We were chased out of town.
One SF Supervisor told us she would vote against it unless we promised to fund quarterly field trips (eg to the zoo) for the kids in her district. Another promised to vote against it because we wouldn’t give free laptops to all of SF.
One Supe rejected it because poor people needed “training to use the Net.” Countless low/no-income residents spoke at hearings about how they had computers and knew how to use the web, but couldn’t afford Comcast. Supes mansplained back to those very people that they were wrong.
We built a demonstration network in a public housing project in Hunters Point. It was saturated with use. Those residents testified that laptops and phones weren’t expensive, cable and data plans were the problem. The Supes just couldn’t accept that those people were Net savvy.
Ultimately, one Supervisor told us straight up: He didn’t care what this meant for the people of his district, he was blocking it because it would give the mayor a win in a political year. He was the deciding vote and I will never forget what he said...
“Stop lecturing me about the digital divide, because I don’t give a ****. Now get the hell out of my office.” Our team walked out stunned, sat in the lobby of City Hall, and realized it was over.
My partners and I had done Q&A sessions in every Supe’s district and in community and senior centers all over town. Support for the network was off the charts, particularly among those who needed it most. But it was clear that the Supes didn’t care about poor San Franciscans.
They wouldn’t listen to their own constituents. They perpetuated racist tropes and demeaning stereotypes about their poorest residents. And for what? It was all a big game to the politicians. The winners were the Supes’ egos and the losers were the people they supposedly served.
San Francisco is a wonderful city that I was lucky to call home for years. But I’ve never seen any place in the world better at cutting off its nose to spite its face. My heart aches for what that city was and could be. Cheers to those of you still trying to help.
Epilogue: After SF rejected our offer, we built a free, city-wide network in Mountain View, CA. About 12-15,000 people used it every day for years. The majority of them spoke Spanish as their primary language and told us they couldn’t afford regular Internet access.
We know San Francisco isn't alone in its administrators' attitudes. Look at what's happened over the past year in Los Angeles, CA; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Minneapolis, MN; and many others. Whenever and wherever a Democratic party administration entrenches itself in power, we find similar attitudes among local leaders. They no longer seem to care about what their people need or want - only about what's good for them, and their policies, and their "vision", and their party.
What astonishes me is that the residents of those cities haven't thrown out their politically correct administrations long ago. Can they truly be so brainwashed as not to see reality when it bites them?
Sheesh . . .
Peter
People vote for the government they deserve.
ReplyDeleteIf the last election was any indication, it doesn't matter how they vote.
ReplyDeleteI came here to post what the Wraith said.
ReplyDeleteWhat if they can't vote them out?
They probably have Dominion on speed dial.
ReplyDeleteWhat Wraith said. Nothing else makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the truth is that Comcast makes big contributions to the reelection committees.
ReplyDelete"Can they truly be so brainwashed as not to see reality when it bites them?"
ReplyDeleteYes. I live in Minneapolis, and know that many don't see what's in front of them. Though to be fair, most of the non-poor are somewhat insulated from harsh realities.
As I keep saying, if your mayor is a Dem, and your governor is a Dem, you are well and truly screwed.
ReplyDeleteCan they truly be so brainwashed as not to see reality when it bites them?
ReplyDelete--I'm coming to the conclusion, that whenever sensible people ask why they keep voting for so and so, it's fraud, not votes.
They've been doing it forever. The mechanism is in place, and most of those races don't need much to nudge them one way or the other. "OF COURSE Sheila Jackson Lee's constituents are ignorant racists who keep voting for her, just look at them."
It's fraud. And no one on the deep state side WANTS committed geniuses to run.
n
Ditto Wraith. It isn't who votes or how many vote, it's who counts the votes.
ReplyDeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteSo how has their positions of destroying the city and treating their constituents like serfs and peasants ever hurt them?
Seriously, once a Dem gets in office, the only way usually to unseat him/her/it is by waiting for the Dem to go against the Party, then the DNC will unfund the current Dem, run someone with 10 times the money spent on the current Dem ever, and cut him/her/it out. With the message to the rest of the Dem politicians that, "Hey, see what happens when you fail to be assimilated by the Borg?"
Dems don't officiate, or whatever politicians are supposed to do (like, yaknow, follow what their constituents want or what's good for them.) Dems rule, like, well, in a very feudal manner. Or feudal manor, depending on how you look at it.
Wraith is correct...sad but true.
ReplyDeleteWhy no names?
ReplyDeleteSounds like politicians everywhere, no matter what the colour they are; Red, blue, left, right; there's nothing to choose between any of them. You'd get a similar tale in any town in the whole damned world
ReplyDeleteStephen
I think Churchill was the one that said "Democracy is the worst political system except for all the others" in an exercise of frustration over petty political interest standing against common sense measures. In the end you guys in the US seem to have lost even this democracy to the political elite while we in Europe lost it to the EU bureaucrats...
ReplyDeleteIf this group, when stymied by city hall, had launched an election campaign where the electorate was made aware of the council's attitude, and made its interwebs project a campaign issue,they might...MIGHT have gotten somewhere. But I kinda doubt it...
ReplyDelete