Bigdog (05-23-2018)
Members banned from this thread: evince, canceled.2021.1 and CFM |
This will get the partisan juices following. This young gay progressive Pastor in Palo Alto was just fired for his twitter comments about tech workers and Palo Alto residents. He does not hold back.
'Elitist den of hate': Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals
Gregory Stevens resigns after tweets about Palo Alto, slamming tech industry greed and empty social justice promises
A Silicon Valley pastor has resigned from his church after calling the city of Palo Alto an “elitist shit den of hate” and criticizing the hypocrisy of “social justice” activism in the region.
Gregory Stevens confirmed on Monday that he had stepped down from the First Baptist church of Palo Alto, an LGBT-inclusive congregation, after his personal tweets calling out the contradictions of wealthy liberals in northern California surfaced at a recent council hearing.
In emails to the Guardian, the 28-year-old minister detailed his “exasperation” with Palo Alto, a city in the heart of the technology industry, surrounded by severe income inequality and poverty.
“I believe Palo Alto is a ghetto of wealth, power, and elitist liberalism by proxy, meaning that many community members claim to want to fight for social justice issues, but that desire doesn’t translate into action,” Stevens wrote, lamenting that it was impossible for low-income people to live in the city. “The insane wealth inequality and the ignorance toward actual social justice is absolutely terrifying.”
He later added: “The tech industry is motivated by endless profit, elite status, rampant greed, and the myth that their technologies are somehow always improving the world.”
Local headlines about Stevens, who has faced intense backlash from residents and city leaders, labeled his tweets “nasty”, “vile”, “unsavory” and “unholy”, highlighting posts in which he called Palo Alto “disgusting” and said: “I hate ‘social justice’ in Palo Alto. What a fucking joke.”
Local critics had brought up Stevens’ tweets while opposing an effort by the church to get permits to allow new community activities in the space. His old tweets were geared to “small group of progressive ministers and leftist political activists”, he said, adding that he had vented his frustrations in “an unprofessional and often hurtful way” and was resigning to “minimize the negativity” facing the church.
But, he later added, “I think rage and anger toward oppression and injustice is a biblical calling on our lives.”
The underlying messages to Stevens’ tweets, however, touched on continuing tension in Silicon Valley, where some of the world’s wealthiest companies and entrepreneurs have pledged to better the world through innovations, yet working-class families and poor residents struggle to afford the most basic necessities. The region has one of the worst homelessness crises in the country and a huge shortage of affordable housing, forcing tens of thousands of low-income workers to commute more than 50 miles to work.
Stevens, who is queer and has lived in Palo Alto for nearly three years, noted that his church was located in one of the richest neighborhoods in the city, with houses worth anywhere from $5m to $15m.
“Jesus was a homeless Jew who said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle,” he wrote, adding: “It is very difficult to do Christian ministry, a ministry that calls us to fight with and for the poor and marginalized among us, in the midst of an enclave of wealth and power.”
He argued that the church’s rich neighbors could afford to “feed and house” all the homeless people in Palo Alto and surrounding cities, but instead focused on passing laws that further criminalized this population, encouraging police to harass those sleeping outside or in cars. The city had also made it hard for the church to provide meals for the homeless by requiring costly permits, he said.
In his email to the Guardian, Stevens was also outspoken about the harms of the tech sector, accusing Facebook of “completely destroying (through rapid gentrification) the historical black and brown East Palo Alto neighborhood”, which is adjacent to the tech company’s Menlo Park headquarters and not far from his church.
“The working class does not benefit from these ‘advances’, but cook, clean, and baby sit rich babies before heading off to home on long hours of public transit.”
Stevens said he was originally drawn to the church because of its “progressive Baptist theology”, noting historical Baptist figures such as Nat Turner, who led a slave revolt, and Martin Luther King Jr. He said he was also inspired by the local pastor, a gay man who had fought for years to be ordained.
But Palo Alto, he said, “wanted nothing to do with actual justice and was more interested in guarding their enclave of power and wealth”, adding: “If the wealth inequalities are not addressed, any talk about climate change, homelessness, and migrant rights is in vain.”
https://amp.theguardian.com/technolo...mpression=true
Last edited by cawacko; 05-23-2018 at 12:36 PM.
Bigdog (05-23-2018)
These wealthy white elitist libs want to place the responsibility for helping the poor on the gov't, ... that way ... they don't have to.
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
— Joe Biden on Obama.
Socialism is just the modern word for monarchy.
D.C. has become a Guild System with an hierarchy and line of accession much like the Royal Court or priestly classes.
Private citizens are perfectly able of doing a better job without "apprenticing".
Truth Detector (05-25-2018)
I'm liberal. If this story and the reported words of the minister are true, I agree with him. This bit in particular rings true, as the wife of a man who spent his entire career in IT: "He later added: “The tech industry is motivated by endless profit, elite status, rampant greed, and the myth that their technologies are somehow always improving the world.”"
I don't agree with the myth part, but the rest is spot on. I decided to comment on this because of the tech/IT aspect. In very red and conservative Missouri, the attitude was the same -- the same elitist, superior-than-thou outlook among the very well-paid IT/tech people -- and the same disdain for the blue-collar, under-educated (by their lights), lower-income ppl. Unlike their California counterparts though (if that part of the pastor's story is true), the St. Louis area tech ppl tended to be extremely conservative politically. They wanted *nothing* to rock their wealth attainment boat. The consistently vote for politicians who will maintain that status quo.
The common denominator to me seems to be the wealth and status conferred by that wealth. Wealth is not the enemy though. The enemy is that person who has wealth and who believes that it places him/her above others. Their political flavor doesn't matter.
Cypress (05-23-2018)
I can't claim to be all that familiar with the IT/tech scene of Missouri. And I don't mean to put the state down but I'm guessing it's nowhere close to Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley. The median home price in Palo Alto right now is about $3.3m. I know Missouri has nice areas and people with money but I would be shocked if they have something that pricey or have dozens of billionaires living in close proximity. So the amount of wealth here is staggering. And they refuse to allow new housing because they don't want more people (i.e. - people with less money) moving in.
Arrogance comes in all shape, sizes, colors and political preferences no question. We just happen to be so heavily politically blue out here the actions don't match the rhetoric as the Pastor stated.
Missouri's cost of living is far lower than California's. But if you go by ratios, it comes out the same. The C-O-L isn't the point I was making. The point I was making is that massive wealth creates insecurity in the owner and the desire to maintain it no matter what. Whether it's allegiance to the blue flag or the red flag, the end is the same: Keep those unwashed dirty masses away from us. The Blues pay lip service to liberal ideals and want the poor to have more so they can live elsewhere out of sight; the Reds want to pray for them and give their employers tax breaks so that "they" can have more. Because it trickles down. LOL
We definitely have those divisions. The blue collar workers come in from 30 to 90 miles away because they can't afford to live in these wealthy communities and the wealthy communities don't want to build new housing. Then the wealthy communities have good public schools and the others don't. And when the wealthy communities have public schools that have lower income students who can also attend they said their kids to private schools that cost $40K - $50K/yr. It's a whole other level. I had lunch with a good friend last week who said he's paying $200K, in after tax dollars, to send his four kids to private school because his wife doesn't think the public school in their uber rich neighborhood is good enough. Crazy.
At this point in the discussion I believe that it's safe to say that you all are so fucked up. lol
This kind of thing makes me somewhat sympathetic towards the Communists of the early 20th century. At least your wealthy elites have learned that it's good to at least pay lip service to appeasing the peons so that they don't revolt by pretending to vote for their interests -- as in, call themselves liberals. They are not liberals, let me assure you of that.
On one hand its like no other place in the world. I heard a guy recently say you can smell the entrepreneurial spirit in the air. Lol. It's what makes some of the smartest and most innovative people in the world want to be here. But with that comes this crazy divide. So middle and lower middle class move out because they can't afford it and are replace by the high earners and low skilled/lowly paid immigrants. You're right, at times it does make you wonder how long it can last.
Truth Detector (05-25-2018)
The Bay Area has always had people with money but it was nothing close to what it is today when I was growing up here. A person has to make over $300K in SF to afford the medium priced home. People making up to $125K can be eligible for below market rent units! It's a literal playground for the rich
Back in the late 90s/early 20s I belonged to a parrot fan group that included many ppl from your area. A lot of us have fallen by the waysides of time and death, but many abide. One bird-fan I loved so much lived in the SF area and was a teacher. She confirmed what you say about living costs and commuting costs... and her last post that I call was in maybe 2004-2005. She said that teachers wanting to teach in the SF area had to commute more than an hour each way.
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
— Joe Biden on Obama.
Socialism is just the modern word for monarchy.
D.C. has become a Guild System with an hierarchy and line of accession much like the Royal Court or priestly classes.
Private citizens are perfectly able of doing a better job without "apprenticing".
Truth Detector (05-25-2018)
Teachers here are paid among the highest in the nation yet most can't afford to live here or even close by like your friend said. The big fear out here is always the next big earthquake and the real fear is most first responders can't afford to live here either so what happens if a bridge goes out of service and they can't get here?
In a strange way it's like the Biggie Smalls rap song "Mo' Money Mo' Problems". So much wealth yet it creates these very real problems.
ThatOwlWoman (05-24-2018)
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