"Yes, I'm Jesus. No, I'm not a socialist. And what the hell is a socialist?" Charles Mudede

Comments

4

There’s a long, sad history of that guy in SF dealing with this woman, who apparently was persistently in crisis, screaming, using the front of his gallery as a bathroom. It went on for months and months. SFPD, social workers, outreach specialists…none of it worked. His business was struggling, and by his own admission, he had a bad moment.

But if you want to blame something for this, blame the systemic failure that allowed the situation to degrade to this level, not the human beings, the white man and the Black woman, who have human weaknesses. Isn’t that the true heart of socialism? The idea that the collective can, and indeed must, improve the lives of inevitably flawed individuals?

8

Regardless of your feelings about the incident I have no doubt if the police weren’t protecting the property our friends at Antifa would totally burn it to the ground cause you know that’s the appropriate response for his transgression.

10

just another day
in Paradise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt2mbGP6vFI&ab_channel=PhilCollins

12

The Foster Gwin Gallery - right near Columbus St, and a block north of the famous Transamerica building.
Yup, we’ve gone full Calcutta - the stock traders on cocaine, stepping over the bodies of people in doorways.
I was in SF 2 years ago by Union Square, and much of the shit on the sidewalks wasn’t dog crap. No longer just a few random homeless folks at Civic Center.

13

@10 kristofarian: Thank you and Phil Collins for beating me to it.

@4 schmacky and @12 pat L: It really is sad. And largely because RepubliKKKans and their tax free corporations have gone full criminal.

14

What were Jesus's actual thoughts on women and girls, provided he truly existed? I have trouble believing in Christianity and any religion based on a supposedly "holy" book written solely by men for men ("Peace on Earth, good will to men."). Has anyone besides me seen and read all the cruel misogyny expressed in The Bible, particularly in reference to Apostle Paul?
Jesus allegedly "exists" because a married woman got gang raped and forcibly impregnated under the hideous veil of "immaculate conception" and was "chosen" to bear a "savior"? Then when she was made to bear and give birth she had to under the most painfully primitive of conditions, and her husband just had to stand by and accept it? This is supposed to be "what Christmas is all about"? All I see is a centuries old plot, enforced by seriously deranged white men with hideous Malibu Ken doll toupees and dressed in stiff suits to own women as if we're helpless farm animals forced to give birth. Shit like this is why I am glad to be an atheist. All I see of religion is hypocrisy and corruption at its worst.
And before any shaming, blaming RWNJs come after me with pitchforks and flaming torches, threatening violence and angrily claiming I'll "go to hell for that one", consider this: I have a wealthy, successful older brother who's an atheist, too, and neither he nor I have been struck down by lightning.

15

@6: "Why not blame the woman?" You don't even know this individual and yet you cast harsh sexist judgments. Is that why your avatar image depicts a typically misogynist religious zealot?
Take your "biblical" quotes and shove them up your ass.

16

BBC: California’s homeless battle floods and storms

Few are feeling the rage of California's unrelenting storms as much as the state's 170,000 homeless people.

Up and down the coast, they have endured torrential rain, flood waters, mudslides, lighting strikes, and downed trees, often with little more than tents or bridges for shelter.

"The water backed up to my tent, it's still going," said Maurice, who lives in San Francisco and who declined to provide his last name. "Ninety percent of my stuff is still wet. I'm trying to salvage the stuff I do need to keep on going."

"I can't do anything to change it," he added. "The only thing I can do is make the best of a bad situation."

The storm has placed a spotlight on the Golden State's staggering inequality, and its decades-long failure to adequately shelter and support its homeless residents.

"People are already living in very unsafe conditions. People do not have appropriate access to sanitation, to clean drinking water, to electricity.

--by Kayla Epstein, James Clayton & Ben Derico

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64257449

these are our some of our more recent victims of late-stage unbridled Capitalism/housing a Comodity. hell, as the Citizenry as harvestable commodities, victims of Man's -- innate? see tS's commentariat -- inhumanity to human beings who aren't immediate family. which is supposedly why we have 'Society.'

how do we rid ourselves of the Reptilican?

perhaps the answer
lies in Ukraine.

Thanks, auntie Gee.
Well put.

17

Last Saturday morning at about 4am, a deranged woman - and I mean deranged, speaking in tongues, etc - drove a rental e-scooter into the back of our truck, which was parked in our driveway, with enough force to dent the fender. She then proceeded to pull everything out of the bed and throw it in the street. Then she rooted through the neighbor's carport, and broke into one of the new townhomes that are under construction. Eventually someone in a van came and picked her up. 911 told the neighbor that they wouldn't respond. I told the neighbor that if this happens again, tell them that you think she's going to set the construction site on fire.

She picked the right house - another place, and she might have been shot. But it stands as a textbook example of how a few social workers with a net might have been able to coral her and figure out what her deal was.

18

Buy that gallery owner a beer!

And give that vagrant woman some hot chocolate!

19

Raindrop, she took the neighbor's bowl of water that he puts out for cats and drank it down. I don't think she would have appreciated hot chocolate ;-)

Our elderly female mini dachshund - who is a real bitch, if you'll pardon the pun - was snarling at her from behind the fence and she snarled back. But I think if they had come to physical confrontation. Barbara (the dachshund) would have prevailed.

20

Charles saying that socialism in ancient Rome is a total crock. Socialism was in it's early stages but it ddi exist; dictator Julius Caesar routinely doled out grain to the plebian (proletariate) population of Rome. There also was plenty of mass entertainment available to keep the masses occupied. over the centuries Rome totally deteriorated; the pagan religion morphed into the Catholic church which later deteriorated into a variety of other churches. Socialism continued to evolve and became a de facto religion itself and we all know that socialism eventually devolves into fascism.

21

Cm, I don't agree with much of what you say but we share the same tastes in music. Thanks for reminding me to revisit Gus Gus, Believe and Polyesterday were a couple bangers in 95.

22

"... and we all know that socialism
eventually devolves into fascism."
--@birtha

oh don't we all

Reich Wing Fascists
love Socialism but
solely for the al-
Ready Wealthy

the rest of us
can fuck the
fuck off.

which Team're
You on?

see also:
Fascist Scandinavia

though with Capitalism's
Answer to Global Warming
being -- what? us Worry? nah
& w/catastrophic climate suicide
rapidly approaching BILLIONS're
gonna be looking for New Homes
or just a place to fucking Exist, who
knows? it may come to WMDs - specially
w/those in a deadly search for The Rapture
doing their damndest to make it all be a Reality

what a Sad Experiment
humanity's turning
out to Be.

23

@1 Turning a hose on a Black person has serious racial undertones due to the history of that practice, which would not be pertinent if the person on the sidewalk had been white.

24

Didn’t take long for the resident MAGA dipshits torn one AntiFa. You know. The “real” villains!

25

“To invoke”

26

speaking of Fascists:

nyt: Sweden
Says It Has Un-
covered a Rare Earth Bonanza

A state-owned mining company announced it had found Europe’s largest deposit of the vital minerals used in electric vehicles and other green technology.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/business/sweden-rare-earth-minerals.html

will Sweden Invest their new-found
Profits in their War Machine?
nah. they don't prop up
Capitalism World-wide
proving they're Vastly
Smarter than We are.

27

I recall socialism/capitalism debates on Slog long before Trump and they actually were interesting. Now any disparaging remarks on socialism are taken as MAGA, and extrapolated up to fascism.

God help us.

28

@22: Scandinavian fascism indeed. Up until fairly recently Scandinavia has had it pretty good; a nice homogeneous population. But lately they have been hit with more and more masses of immigrants or different languages, races, colours, and religions. Immigrants coming in the name of inclusivity yet when the arrive they remain separatist. A total recipe for disaster.

29

@28:

coming solely for the inclusivity
or merely just to Survive?

'though with Capitalism's
Answer to Global Warming
being -- what? us Worry? nah
& w/catastrophic climate suicide
rapidly approaching BILLIONS're
gonna be looking for New Homes
or just a place to fucking Exist, who
knows?'

--from above, somewhere

the fourth Reich is
well-Schooled in pitting
Immigrants vs. Citizenries

they'll be Tools
in Fascist's hands
so who knows?

oh & so True dew when the
Fascists take Over -- and make
no Mistake they're working time
and-a-Half to do so -- how do think
they're gonna Include LGBTQs in their Fu-
ture Plans for the Fatherland? with wide open arms?

or with Loaded ones?
I'm betting you'll be
more Interested then.

30

forgive me:
Immigrants
& Refugees

31

The video is hard to watch, but what do you expect when west coast city governments refuse to maintain a civil society? After a decade of virtue-signaling and policies that grow chaos, violence and despair, many people have had reached the end of their rope.

32

Before you complain too much about the Fed trying to control inflation, think back to the 1970s when working people were getting absolutely killed by double-digit price rises. Not to mention how it affects retirees. And there's no indication that the rate hikes last year did much to the unemployment rate. Businesses are still screaming they can't get staff.

33

@17 Catalina, Mr. Vel-DuRay, and Barbara (your mini Dachshund): Yikes! I'm sorry that happened to you, and about the damage done to your parked truck in your driveway. That is glaring further proof of how the needs of those with serious mental health issues are not being sufficiently addressed.
Ronald Reagan, when he was Governor of California, did the people of The Golden State no favors in 1967 (in his first gubernatorial year, until 1975) by signing the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act into state law. To exacerbate things nationally, Reagan went on in 1981 as 40th President of the U.S. to almost entirely repeal his Democratic predecessor, Jimmy Carter's Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, which provided grants and funding for mental health centers. What we have now is a deeply flawed mess at both the state and national levels.

@32 dvs99: I hear you. What I am reading about U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's dire warning about the U.S being forecast to hit our debt ceiling by January 19, 2023--this upcoming Thursday--(!!!!!!)--and could default as early as June scares me shitless. I have no outstanding debts, but not a lot in savings, either. I remember inflation in the 1970s. But average U.S. citizens were equipped with plenty of social safety nets back then, most of which RepubliKKKans have since willfully stripped away. One thing about Social Security retirement benefits--once paid into they were meant by the federal government to be supplemental sources of monthly income, at best. Retirees living solely on Social Security month-to-month are in real financial trouble if there is a household emergency, major surgery, or incident requiring a hospital stay.
How does one "pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" once those bootstraps have been permanently yanked away by greedy profit-lusting corporate bigwigs who have no taxes to report, and who are largely not being held accountable?
How many businesses screaming because they can't get staff are really pissed that if nobody is applying it's due to unhealthy, unsafe working conditions, no benefits (i.e., company healthcare, retirement savings plans, paid overtime and vacations, etc.), and unsustainable slave wages? Economist Paul Krugman had recently commented in The Seattle Times that the United States is far behind developed countries in allowing people sufficient time off.


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