Yes, California is neoliberal hell. Yes, California is part of the United States and the US is evil, so by extension so is California. The state was built on stolen land and genocide, just like the other 49.
But I've been in the weird position of defending California on this site not because it's "good", but just because I think for those of us who have no choice but to live in the US, it's the least bad option.
I think the issues around homelessness are a good microcosm to look at. Yeah, CA is really shitty towards our homeless population, no doubt. But at the same time there are quite a few people here who actually want solutions that help homeless people and there are programs at the state and local level - feeble as they may be - that try to do this. Meanwhile, since I'm a transplant I can compare CA to my native Midwestern state. Back there, they are only a couple steps below "just fucking shoot homeless people we don't care". Literally every person I know back home sees homelessness as a "problem" that just needs to go away. If I was homeless I would never even consider going back to where I grew up, I'd stay here.
So yeah, I would sorta defend CA here. And now I feel like over the last year you've seen how absolutely christofascist the red states are going w/r/t abortion, trans issues, even gay marriage, you all are starting to see just how awful most of the US can be for anyone who isn't a well-off cishet white guy.
Fun CA fact: if you can land a job in CA state or local govt (including in the massive UC system), your health insurance is required by law to cover all gender affirming care, including expensive surgeries.
I despise California. I’m planning my escape route. Everyone here (outside of concerned individuals picking around the edges) does, in fact, just want to see the homeless population put in a concentration camp in the Mojave.
I guess I would rather have Gavin Newsom saying all the right words about abortion and trans rights compared to the Nazi governors of the South. But that’s the liberal trick! Better than today’s fascism is the lowest possible bar
I think that's OP's point, CA clears the lowest possible bar and then 40+ of the rest of the states don't
It’s only made me more angry at the state, not less, but I’m built different
This is the best and most correct take in this thread, death to America.
The world's a racist shithole, at least South America doesn't export that racism and guarantee the continued hegemony of the worst and most violent system of "world order" history has ever seen. To even remotely compare the United States to South America and say "it's really not much better" is a massively uninformed take.
Ah yes, 100% of all South America is racist as hell and America isn't, ok bud. Life in a "poorer" country is almost always going to be not as good as life inside the empire, I'm not debating that. It's not South America's fault that they're vastly poorer than the United States. What I'm trying to say is that on the whole, for the entire world, if all of South America blipped off the map and disappeared nothing much changes for everybody else. If the United States blipped off the map and disappeared the world is suddenly a vastly better place, where the potential for political change and sovereignty is totally transformed. That's why saying they're virtually the same is not a fair take.
A state where every city has grossly unaffordable rent can't be "least bad."
LA, SF, and San Diego are certainly not "every city". Check rent in Bakersfield/Redding/Fresno. Probably higher than average but probably also less than half of the average rent of the name-brand CA cities
would anyone in their right mind want to live in those places? I mean, I don't want to live where I am but i'm trapped or whatever.
if it means gender affirming healthcare guaranteed, it beats the hell out of Houston/Orlando/Cincinnati
Hey, like, you can live in Eugene or Arcata if you want a small cheap town with a liberal government and unionized gov't/university/hospital jobs that'll have trans healthcare. You don't have to subject yourself to 100+ degree summers, driving anytime you leave the house and weird glares from rednecks.
I would so much rather live in a micro-studio or shared housing in the East Bay than live in a nice ass 3 bedroom in Redding. There's a reason the rent's low in Redding and it's because it's a deeply unpleasant place to exist.
No culture, no diversity, hillbillies everywhere, no kindness to homeless, the Waffle House is their idea of a great meal.
Is there a state where rent isn't grossly unaffordable in relation to minimum wage?
yea but we're talking about a state where double the minimum wage still leaves rent unaffordable. or hell, 3x in most of the metros.
California shows the limits of liberalism. Over a decade of Democrat super majority rule and very little to show. No universal health care, expensive tuition, ridiculous cost of living, still no HSR, crowded classrooms, horrific traffic, largest prison population, homeless criminalized, etc. When libs talk about their stupid platform, point to California. They're fine with status quo
But I feel like most of what you covered here is exactly what I'm talking about. It's ridiculous to have to pay for college at all but CA has some of the most affordable in-state tuition in the US. No one in the US has HSR but at least CA will have it in the next 10-15 years. Homelessness isn't any more criminalized here than elsewhere. Etc etc
Edit: yeah I get why people are skeptical but I'm very tangentially involved in this project and the state is basically already committed Intl finishing it. Might take an insanely long time but at this point it would be more difficult to stop it than to finish it from an administrative standpoint.
Do you really think they're just going to abandon all the new track bed they've built in the Central Valley? Merced to Bakersfield will happen.
And whenever they say "but the money is not enough" show them that if California was it's own country it would be like the 6th largest economy in the world.
I think you wildly
overestimateunderestimate the degree to which California is ready to go :frothingfash: over the homeless.While yes it is not a fascist hellscape for queer people and there are some good things, the real estate interests are what run the show. Hence why there aren't real solutions, because to actually address homelessness you would need to fundamentally challenge the muh property value crowd. These people might be cool with trans people and diversity, but are basically one step away from throwing the homeless in a wood chipper.
the real estate interests are what run the show
But this is just as true everywhere else in the US, it's just the problem feels more acute here due to real estate prices / rental costs (IMO).
My chief problems with California are: endless freeways plus inexcusably bad pizza.
California Pizza kitchen couldn't lie to me, could it?
I visited California once for like two days. I have some friends who live there, but all of us are originally from the east coast. One of them announced that he had finally found a pizza place with decent pizza. We got it for takeout and tried it. It was seriously, no exaggeration, like burnt cardboard. I've eaten pizza all over the world. California has the worst pizza by far. Nothing else comes close.
It is ALL CALIFORNIA and it must ALL sink into the sea because of Californians’ FUNDAMENTAL INHERENT GENETIC INABILITY to manufacture DECENT PIZZA! /s
It was near Palo Alto and just funny that I’d heard the pizza sucks, my friends said the pizza sucks, and then we tried some pizza which was supposed to be good, and it sucked.
The east coast should sink into the sea too btw even if the pizza is superior.
I have never seen one of those outside an airport.
I remember seeing people complain on Reddit about Austin airport. It has all these local eateries instead of the chains they're used to. Apparently that's hostile to travelers because when people travel they don't want any local flavor, they want the same restaurants they always see in airports. CPK was mentioned by name.
I hate California but I also hate all these Texan chuds who think California is a legitimate socialist state doing a secret insurrection by sending transplants everywhere. They make me defend California to their faces just because I hate these white Texan fascist idiots. This is such a one sided rivalry too. I really doubt Californians spend any seconds of their day complaining about Texas.
What makes this extra dumb is that Californians are moving to places like Texas because California is expensive and Texas is cheap, essentially the capitalist market forces chuds love so much. Californians are literally following the rATioNaLiSt advice of "if you can't afford to to live where you do, it's your personal responsibility to move somewhere affordable, :debate-me-debate-me: :very-intelligent: :jordan-eboy-peterson: trying to make things better through BiG gOveRnmEnT is tyranny!"
All these gaddamn commieFORNIANS coming here making Texas like the place they LEFT! Even tho Texas is gerrymandered to shit and at no point has there not been a strong gop control of the vast majority of the state.
The grid failed again? Ercot? WELCOME TO THE GREEN NEW DEAL 🤣🤣🤣
I really doubt Californians spend any seconds of their day complaining about Texas.
On the contrary, it gets old being told how great California is by Californians living in Texas.
Nah, that happens too. Texas is a stand in for red states and so it's an easy layup in liberal discourse.
This is such a one sided rivalry too. I really doubt Californians spend any seconds of their day complaining about Texas.
You really underestimate coastal contempt for the south.
I had thought that contempt manifested as pretending the south doesn't exist unless it's time to make a joke about all the hicks living out in swampland. Whereas southerners never shut up about California being the cause of all problems.
I'm biased, since I don't know many people from the coasts
The folks I know use Texas as California's foil to boast about how enlightened we are
Because Texans aren't flooding California after messing their own nest. Then, after arriving in their new home, they begin advocating for the same policies that drove them away in the first place.
I just wish that Commiefornia was half as cool as chuds think it is. Through things like auto emissions standards history has shown that the biggest state in the country can swing its weight around in a way that makes life better for everyone else too, imagine if we had some politicians worth a damn what you could do. You could nationalize the electric companies and build out a shitload of green energy, then sell it to neighboring states at prices targeted at undercutting fossil fuels and make the entire country west of the Mississippi finally drop them. You could build out a ton of desalinization plants along the coast in areas where people don't live, increasing the water supply enough that all of the problems with the Colorado River drying up go away. You could actually build high speed fucking rail instead of talking about it for thirty years.
Remember when they fell for every trick Enron could come up with and got price gouged on electricity, despite clearly being able to avoid it?
I think the issue is that people act like California is the only progressive state in the country, and those of us who live in other areas get annoyed because it comes across as a superiority complex.
Like, you say
Meanwhile, since I’m a transplant I can compare CA to my native Midwestern state.
But by doing this you're lumping in states like Iowa and Indiana with much more progressive states like Minnesota and Illinois. I would argue the latter have comparable protections for minorities as California, and can even be more progressive in some areas.
And obviously there are massive issues with those two states, but the same can be said of California. I just think there's a level of resentment that comes naturally from asshole Californians acting like everything east of Nevada is a homogeneous blob and the vitriol towards California comes from that.
And not at all saying you're engaging in said asshole behavior OP, I think your post is totally reasonable. Just giving my perspective.
there’s a level of resentment that comes naturally from asshole Californians acting like everything east of Nevada is a homogeneous blob and the vitriol towards California comes from that.
As a Texan, every California transplant here in Texas I have spoken to for more than five minutes ends up telling me about how fucking great California is. Why the are you here, then? Fuck off already.
Why the are you here, then?
Saving on rent, probably
They sure fucked up in that case, the "low" rent in Houston isn't so low any more and they get the joys of nine months of aggressively hot and humid weather with mosquitoes the size of gumballs and some of the worst drivers on the planet
We desperately need a :mao-aggro-shining: to end the vicious American urban cycle of high rents making people move to low rent areas, driving the rents there right up to the level they left behind.
I sure as hell wouldn't move to Texas, for all the reasons you said.
There's a lot of disparate environments in Texas, so the sweaty, unbearably hot life experience is mostly an East Texas thing. If you want to live like an Oklahoman, check out Dallas, and if you like desert scrubland West Texas seems nice. I really need to get the fuck out of the humidity zone.
edit: but in all those places you're only a couple of white guys away from hearing chud shit, so... :deeper-sadness:
Right, like Oregon's Union movement grew way faster than California's in the past few years, has the strongest IWW chapter in thee country, legalized psychedelics, went hard for George Floyd, kept anarchism alive in the US between the New Left and WTO, and has a strong permaculture scene. Like, even in the suburbs you can find yards covered with dead-fall, cedar leaves, and huckleberry.
Oh, and the rent's cheaper in Portland than either the Bay or Seattle. If we're having a progressive clit-swinging contest, Oregon wins.
(please don't look at the Nazis)
Right, fair point about those upper Midwest states. I was giving the geography just for a sense of orienting to what I was talking about. My home state is much more like Indiana than Minneapolis (not trying to be too doxxy).
the least shitty states are the ones that guarantee abortion. And arent targeting trans people for no reason. Other than that there isn't too much of a difference.
California? You mean the state that's draining the Colorado river so the Resnicks can have their nut empire?
I mean, they're better than nothing, but so's a ham sandwich.
California seems so fixable but the issues are deeply rooted I feel. There are so many cops and people in prison.
The governor literally recently refused to remove prisoner slavery from the California constitution. He didn't even have to make up shit like "it's for their own good". He literally just said "the state can't afford not having that labor."
:top-cop:
Like caltrans evicting hundreds of people from the overpass in Oakland. Yes we know the constitution doesn't recognize a right to housing, exactly, maybe we should change that
that state is a great example of liberals ignoring the environment every chance they get. People whinge about forest fires while living in the middle of a forest that regularly catches fire. What do they expect? Farmers live in the middle of a desert and complain there isn't enough water. People live right on top of a fault line and then get annoyed and scared by it. All of these problems they bring on themselves.
Kind of sounds like the apotheosis of settler colonialism. People have lived in those forests for millennia but it's only recently that the US state has forced them off the land and to stop maintaining the forests with small burns and other traditional ecological knowledge. Farmers, well the central valley used to be a wetland but that biome was supplanted by agriculture, and the ground is sucked dry to where it has subsided several meters in many places. The earthquake thing.... Yeah can't really fault that criticism, lol
I can fault the earthquake. Don't build a city on a fault plane then freak out about it.
Yes exactly, I'm agreeing with this criticism, can't really fault it
If I have to eat some of the shit sundae sure I'm going to pick the cherry on top.
I'm not going to say it's delicious, it's still covered in shit.
The real problem is the existence of the shit sundae, and why I am being forced to eat the cherry in the first place.
