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The problem with California is that while they have a massive Democratic majority, they have absolutely no intent of acting like the social welfare alternative Democrats are nationally claiming to be.
Democrats have full power in California, yet it’s a place full of poverty and homelessness, where poor people are screwed over hard, where housing initiatives are literally destroyed, and “undesirables” are soft-quarantined in Skid Row.
California is a place where the rich benefit and the poor suffer. Democrats chose to make that happen, and they choose to perpetuate it. Progressive efforts in California amount to nothing but lip-service, it’s a blue-painted right-wing state. The only conservative things it rejects is religion.
Your problem is that the parties have shifted so far right, most of the democratic support in California would actually be centrist republicans.
California is overwhelmingly not super liberal, though there are notable exceptions.
There is no easy fix for poverty and homelessness in CA. It should legitimately be a national level issue given that the homeless populations here are near to small size city.
CA has grown all it could in the last 6 decades and now is contracting. I moved here 20 years ago and the grown is absolutely staggering.
The biggest problem CA has with housing is that it’s housing and zoning policies cater to people who (or whose grandparents) moved to Cali in the 50s and 60s. “Neighborhood character” is defended by even nominally left-wing demagogues in California.
You fix housing costs by creating more places to live. Californians rejected this to such an extent that Newsom had to take a nuke, statewide, to local zoning ordinances.
I moved where I am 4 years ago. I was able to afford it by working hard as fuck and saving every penny. I didn’t inherit shit from my parents and we came to US in late 90s.
Am I a shitty person for not wanting a homeless housing anywhere near my neighborhood? Fuck it, I’ll take it one further - I don’t even want apartment buildings anywhere near me.
I’m not an exception. Vast majority of people around me are immigrants with similar stories.
I worked my ass off to get my degrees and professional license plus getting a foothold in the industry and so on. I barely made it - and I have all the advantages in the world. It’s really really hard to succeed even if you have everything going for you. The “make your own luck” and bootstraps mentality is pure hubris IMO. They want to pretend they are special and didn’t have any support I guess.
Republicans will give you all the social conservatism capital will tolerate, while Democrats will give you all the social progress that capital will tolerate. It’s a very fuckin’ narrow window.
Any time capital is “right” from the point of view of human well-being, it is a coincidence. Our needs are secondary and only important to the degree that they affect capital. Capital will never provide adequate housing on its own because it depends on the realistic threat of homelessness to exploit the working class and extract vastly more value could be obtained without coercion.
Some capital does. Some capital opposes building in Cali. I mean, it’d (rightfully) destroy the value of a lot of beautiful homes used in part as investment vehicles. Otherwise, why would anyone be concerned with property values?
I’m sick of hearing these sweeping generalizations from people who have never lived here. We have amazing social welfare programs when compared with the rest of the US. We have state grants for college, tuition waivers, scholarships and programs for different populations including the most disdvantaged. We have Medi-Cal, which improved so much since the Obama admin that it covers ten times more than my parents’ private insurance did when I was a kid. This includes addiction treatment and mental health. (This is actually a federal requirement so not sure why CA should be any different). Methadone, suboxone (again, federal, as Biden just increased access to suboxone doctors), rehab, ER, ambulance, derm, psychiatry, inpatient psych, birth control, reproductive care, etc. However, the city/county you live in needs to have that healthcare infrastructure before Medi-Cal can pay for it, and geographically, much of this state is pretty conservative. To your “point” about progressivism being “lip service,” our metro areas have large enough populations to counter that. I mean, idk if you ever paid attention in high school civics, but geography and population density are two different things. The San Juaquin valley is pretty red, but it consists of…Fresno. The advantages we have here are astronomical compared to Medicaid in other states, especially red states. Not to mention housing, food programs, K-12 and pre-K education, reproductive rights. The way we handled covid was far better than most of the country, but Pelosi got her hair done when she shouldn’t have so I guess it doesn’t count. Oh, and homeless people exist, so I guess all the rest of it is invalid too. Which is exactly why education is so important. Decent higher education teaches you to think for yourself and identify what’s true and what’s not, instead of buying into rhetoric. They call it “media literacy” and it’s taught in our state subsidized colleges. Good luck with all those book bans though.
But no one can convince someone of reality when they’d rather believe clickbait. This is America - no state is going to have social welfare that is anywhere near as extensive as it should be, and no state in the union is “progressive.” California is only doing the absolute bare minimum of what a decent direct democracy should be doing for it’s people, and even that is just so fucking radical that the rest of the country seems to think we’re Sodom and Gomorrah (while simultaneously arguing about how we’re not liberal enough. Hmmm.) So it’s just disingenuous to argue that it’s “not progressive enough” when that’s just…not even a thing in the US. But if whining about someplace they’ve never been, that has such a high GDP that it probably subsidizes their own state, is so much fun for people then who am I to try to stop their bitching. If you want to have perfection be the enemy of progress, then I guess that’s on you.
I’ve visited. Your state is a shithole with some walled gardens and towers of gold. Your streets smell of piss and worse, there are tents everywhere people can get one up without the cops immediately coming over to throw them out. And that’s how you intend to keep it, because you have no interest in housing the unworthy.
What you have are a lot of programs with a lot of names that are supposed to sound like they do something. You have a lot of things to mention.
What you don’t have are results, or an interest in getting results.
I live in Norway. I know what a democracy with solid welfare should look like, even when it’s never perfect.
I also know why you’re not getting the results you should:
You don’t believe you should make it THAT easy to just not be homeless. You simply don’t believe in just paying to build the buildings and handing out the keys. It’s not the way you want to solve it.
So, when all is said and done, and another decade has passed; You stilll won’t have solved it and you likely still won’t want to solve it.
California is only doing the absolute bare minimum…
You’re from fucking Norway, of course your standard of living is way better than anywhere in the US. It all sucks over here, but California is marginally better, which to Americans is leagues better than other states. It’s sad, we are forced to fight for Breadcrumbs. The town I live in in Oregon has the highest amount of homeless people per capita. Other states and cities may not because they bus homeless people to partocular cities in California and in Oregon, or throw them in jail. Homelessness is a US issue.
This is your daily reminder that no politicians have your best interest at heart. You can say one party is better than the other but they’re both bought and owned and you didn’t get to put in a bid.
One side actively tries to take basic human rights from people, and the other doesn’t. They both may have been bought, but only one is actively trying to make sure groups of people don’t exist
That’s not necessarily true. The good cop isn’t really trying to look out for you, he’s just there to make the bad cop more effective, but they both want the same thing from you.
What you said is true, but let’s not do mental gymnastics to get to the conclusion. Actually giving a damn about the people, means actively opposing the bad guys. You pointed out 1 good thing about the dems: being passive. Is that all they’ve got?
I have basically the same problem in my country, the quality of life for the average person here got worse more or less constantly in the past 20 years, with any major party in power
The problem with California is that while they have a massive Democratic majority, they have absolutely no intent of acting like the social welfare alternative Democrats are nationally claiming to be.
Democrats have full power in California, yet it’s a place full of poverty and homelessness, where poor people are screwed over hard, where housing initiatives are literally destroyed, and “undesirables” are soft-quarantined in Skid Row.
California is a place where the rich benefit and the poor suffer. Democrats chose to make that happen, and they choose to perpetuate it. Progressive efforts in California amount to nothing but lip-service, it’s a blue-painted right-wing state. The only conservative things it rejects is religion.
Your problem is that the parties have shifted so far right, most of the democratic support in California would actually be centrist republicans.
California is overwhelmingly not super liberal, though there are notable exceptions.
There is no easy fix for poverty and homelessness in CA. It should legitimately be a national level issue given that the homeless populations here are near to small size city.
CA has grown all it could in the last 6 decades and now is contracting. I moved here 20 years ago and the grown is absolutely staggering.
The biggest problem CA has with housing is that it’s housing and zoning policies cater to people who (or whose grandparents) moved to Cali in the 50s and 60s. “Neighborhood character” is defended by even nominally left-wing demagogues in California.
You fix housing costs by creating more places to live. Californians rejected this to such an extent that Newsom had to take a nuke, statewide, to local zoning ordinances.
I moved where I am 4 years ago. I was able to afford it by working hard as fuck and saving every penny. I didn’t inherit shit from my parents and we came to US in late 90s.
Am I a shitty person for not wanting a homeless housing anywhere near my neighborhood? Fuck it, I’ll take it one further - I don’t even want apartment buildings anywhere near me.
I’m not an exception. Vast majority of people around me are immigrants with similar stories.
The shittiness stems from the motivation.
I don’t want homeless people because nobody should be homeless. You don’t want homeless people because you think they’re gross.
We are not the same.
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I worked my ass off to get my degrees and professional license plus getting a foothold in the industry and so on. I barely made it - and I have all the advantages in the world. It’s really really hard to succeed even if you have everything going for you. The “make your own luck” and bootstraps mentality is pure hubris IMO. They want to pretend they are special and didn’t have any support I guess.
Yes
Republicans will give you all the social conservatism capital will tolerate, while Democrats will give you all the social progress that capital will tolerate. It’s a very fuckin’ narrow window.
Capital wants to build more in Cali. Residents don’t.
Capital is right, again.
Any time capital is “right” from the point of view of human well-being, it is a coincidence. Our needs are secondary and only important to the degree that they affect capital. Capital will never provide adequate housing on its own because it depends on the realistic threat of homelessness to exploit the working class and extract vastly more value could be obtained without coercion.
Capital would provide adequate housing right now but zoning laws prevent it
Some capital does. Some capital opposes building in Cali. I mean, it’d (rightfully) destroy the value of a lot of beautiful homes used in part as investment vehicles. Otherwise, why would anyone be concerned with property values?
Am i crazy or is real estate an asset but not generally considered capital colloquially?
I get your take, that people use homes a investments, strongly oppose the icept that homes should appreciate in value
Depends on who you’re talking to, I think. I don’t know that there’s a colloquial consensus.
As an LA resident this is only like half true.
How long have you lived in California?
I’m sick of hearing these sweeping generalizations from people who have never lived here. We have amazing social welfare programs when compared with the rest of the US. We have state grants for college, tuition waivers, scholarships and programs for different populations including the most disdvantaged. We have Medi-Cal, which improved so much since the Obama admin that it covers ten times more than my parents’ private insurance did when I was a kid. This includes addiction treatment and mental health. (This is actually a federal requirement so not sure why CA should be any different). Methadone, suboxone (again, federal, as Biden just increased access to suboxone doctors), rehab, ER, ambulance, derm, psychiatry, inpatient psych, birth control, reproductive care, etc. However, the city/county you live in needs to have that healthcare infrastructure before Medi-Cal can pay for it, and geographically, much of this state is pretty conservative. To your “point” about progressivism being “lip service,” our metro areas have large enough populations to counter that. I mean, idk if you ever paid attention in high school civics, but geography and population density are two different things. The San Juaquin valley is pretty red, but it consists of…Fresno. The advantages we have here are astronomical compared to Medicaid in other states, especially red states. Not to mention housing, food programs, K-12 and pre-K education, reproductive rights. The way we handled covid was far better than most of the country, but Pelosi got her hair done when she shouldn’t have so I guess it doesn’t count. Oh, and homeless people exist, so I guess all the rest of it is invalid too. Which is exactly why education is so important. Decent higher education teaches you to think for yourself and identify what’s true and what’s not, instead of buying into rhetoric. They call it “media literacy” and it’s taught in our state subsidized colleges. Good luck with all those book bans though.
But no one can convince someone of reality when they’d rather believe clickbait. This is America - no state is going to have social welfare that is anywhere near as extensive as it should be, and no state in the union is “progressive.” California is only doing the absolute bare minimum of what a decent direct democracy should be doing for it’s people, and even that is just so fucking radical that the rest of the country seems to think we’re Sodom and Gomorrah (while simultaneously arguing about how we’re not liberal enough. Hmmm.) So it’s just disingenuous to argue that it’s “not progressive enough” when that’s just…not even a thing in the US. But if whining about someplace they’ve never been, that has such a high GDP that it probably subsidizes their own state, is so much fun for people then who am I to try to stop their bitching. If you want to have perfection be the enemy of progress, then I guess that’s on you.
I’ve visited. Your state is a shithole with some walled gardens and towers of gold. Your streets smell of piss and worse, there are tents everywhere people can get one up without the cops immediately coming over to throw them out. And that’s how you intend to keep it, because you have no interest in housing the unworthy.
What you have are a lot of programs with a lot of names that are supposed to sound like they do something. You have a lot of things to mention.
What you don’t have are results, or an interest in getting results.
I live in Norway. I know what a democracy with solid welfare should look like, even when it’s never perfect.
I also know why you’re not getting the results you should:
You don’t believe you should make it THAT easy to just not be homeless. You simply don’t believe in just paying to build the buildings and handing out the keys. It’s not the way you want to solve it.
So, when all is said and done, and another decade has passed; You stilll won’t have solved it and you likely still won’t want to solve it.
You said it yourself.
You’re from fucking Norway, of course your standard of living is way better than anywhere in the US. It all sucks over here, but California is marginally better, which to Americans is leagues better than other states. It’s sad, we are forced to fight for Breadcrumbs. The town I live in in Oregon has the highest amount of homeless people per capita. Other states and cities may not because they bus homeless people to partocular cities in California and in Oregon, or throw them in jail. Homelessness is a US issue.
This is your daily reminder that no politicians have your best interest at heart. You can say one party is better than the other but they’re both bought and owned and you didn’t get to put in a bid.
No both sides on this. The right has made serious and consequential moves to eliminate rule of law. It will not return once removed.
One side actively tries to take basic human rights from people, and the other doesn’t. They both may have been bought, but only one is actively trying to make sure groups of people don’t exist
Right. The republicans are like the cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while democrats are like the cop standing to the side watching.
That’s not necessarily true. The good cop isn’t really trying to look out for you, he’s just there to make the bad cop more effective, but they both want the same thing from you.
What you said is true, but let’s not do mental gymnastics to get to the conclusion. Actually giving a damn about the people, means actively opposing the bad guys. You pointed out 1 good thing about the dems: being passive. Is that all they’ve got? I have basically the same problem in my country, the quality of life for the average person here got worse more or less constantly in the past 20 years, with any major party in power