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Google Bus Blocked @ MacArthur BART, Oakland!!!!
At 7:45am, over 50 protesters swarmed a Google bus picking up highly-paid tech workers at MacArthur BART station in Oakland. They successfully blocked it for over half an hour before OPD arrived and cleared the street, allowing the bus to continue on to the Google HQ in Mountainview as it does every day. An Apple bus was also temporarily blocked during the action and hundreds of flyers were passed out to those on the street who were overwhelmingly supportive. The action was planned to coincide with other Google Bus blockades across the Bay this morning as an escalation in the fight against gentrification and the rapid transformation of our cities into playgrounds for the super rich. Photos and the flyer handed out at the action are below:
Dismantle the Infrastructure of Gentrification:
BLOCK THE BUS! (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, etc)
MAKE TECH PAY!
• Rents across the Bay Area are increasing astronomically. This is being driven in large part by the invasion of highly-paid tech workers, who can easily pay the absurd asking prices of landlords, displacing people with modest and low incomes. But few of us benefit from these jobs; instead we work in low-paying service jobs that support these wealthy workers, if we can find any work at all. As this process accelerates and San Francisco becomes inhospitable to all but the super-rich, the competition for housing increasingly spreads to Oakland.
• Highly-profitable corporations like Google, Yahoo and Facebook make it easy for their employees to gentrify places like Oakland by creating a private, express transit system for their employees -- buses that travel directly from Macarthur and West Oakland to Silicon Valley. All of his happens while the public transit system we ride to work becomes less reliable and more expensive.
• We’re blockading these buses today as a small step toward stopping these companies from transforming our cities into playgrounds for the elite. We encourage you to do the same.
BLOCK THE BUS! (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, etc)
MAKE TECH PAY!
• Rents across the Bay Area are increasing astronomically. This is being driven in large part by the invasion of highly-paid tech workers, who can easily pay the absurd asking prices of landlords, displacing people with modest and low incomes. But few of us benefit from these jobs; instead we work in low-paying service jobs that support these wealthy workers, if we can find any work at all. As this process accelerates and San Francisco becomes inhospitable to all but the super-rich, the competition for housing increasingly spreads to Oakland.
• Highly-profitable corporations like Google, Yahoo and Facebook make it easy for their employees to gentrify places like Oakland by creating a private, express transit system for their employees -- buses that travel directly from Macarthur and West Oakland to Silicon Valley. All of his happens while the public transit system we ride to work becomes less reliable and more expensive.
• We’re blockading these buses today as a small step toward stopping these companies from transforming our cities into playgrounds for the elite. We encourage you to do the same.
For more information:
http://www.google.com
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Great -- keep at it! Block them again and again!
I get it but why aren't these people out blocking the freeway ramps in Oakland that allow the people of piedmont to drive alone in their Ferraris to their jobs in Palo Alto? After all if you are looking for the "super rich" and their oppressive transportation regimes you need look no further than Piedmont, the most wealthy city in America by several measures. People riding buses to day jobs at Google are I have to tell you not super rich by any reasonable standards.
I commute from the East Bay to my highly paid finance job in San Francisco by Bart, are you "protestors" going to smash Bart windows too?
When the police arrived to move the protesters, did they also cite the bus driver for illegally parking at a bus stop? As far as I can tell, bus stops are only allowed to be used by common carriers and the tech company buses don't offer their services to the general public and so wouldn't qualify. Of course, the police generally have better things to do than sit at bus stops and issue tickets to tech company buses, but if the police had to arrive to remove protesters, I would think that would be a reasonable opportunity to issue a parking ticket as well.
Dear jwb and "Sam:" please try to refrain from being complete idiots. We have to choose our battles and right now the Google buses are an excellent choice.
anyone who has that kind of job is super rich compared to those who can't afford to replace a radio!
These people are workers. 99% are not "super rich." Even for tech workers, believe it or not, rent is hard to afford.
This is a very poor choice of target. You'll notice the media picks up the "tech workers are to blame" narrative. That should be your first clue that narrative is false.
This is a very poor choice of target. You'll notice the media picks up the "tech workers are to blame" narrative. That should be your first clue that narrative is false.
I wonder if the workers on the tech buses, who probably lean left, are going to rethink their politics after this.
Yeah, right. The tech "workers" are all actually Rosa Luxemburg and Makhno and Durruti in disguise and were all reading "The Proletariat as Subject and Representation" in "Society of the Spectacle" when their vibe was most unrighteously harshed by the bus blockade meanies...
The role of the tech "workers" in the contemporary SF Bay Area is directly analogous to that of scabs in a conventional labor dispute. And nobody owes any solidarity to their exclusive shuttle buses. KEEP AT IT!
The role of the tech "workers" in the contemporary SF Bay Area is directly analogous to that of scabs in a conventional labor dispute. And nobody owes any solidarity to their exclusive shuttle buses. KEEP AT IT!
I just read the post where ""recently evicted ''Labels the tens of thousands of people working for Apple, HP , Google and others as ''scabs '' !! That slander is Insane in the membrane ! In the real world ''scabs ''are those who cross striker's picket lines . Not those who may be (or may not ) be making a salary in the high 5 figures or low six figures and thus maybe can afford the soaring rents in much of Oakland or SF. To equate greatly over charged tenants , middle class professionals or not , with Multi Millionaire real estate hustlers is crazy and shows a real ignorance of how the capitalist system works .
Oh yeah How would "recently evicted ''descibe people like Kayvan Sabegi who is a technie and smalll businessman who was almost beaten to death by the OPD after the "'general strike ''in 2011 ? I doubt if Kayvan considers himself a ""revolutionary '' (whatever exactly that means in this very Non revolutionary period ) but he sure isn't a ''class enemy "' !
Not to mention many other ""techies''who played a major Role in occupy .
i am very sorry that anyone has been foreclosed upon or evicted from their homes . I would join any pickets, rallies against the big realtors . I would also support Depression era tactics of blocking evictions ,
But i damn sure aren't going to harass workers , even relatively high paid ones , who been been fortunate enough to use theri degrees for something other than making Lattes at starbucks !
Oh yeah How would "recently evicted ''descibe people like Kayvan Sabegi who is a technie and smalll businessman who was almost beaten to death by the OPD after the "'general strike ''in 2011 ? I doubt if Kayvan considers himself a ""revolutionary '' (whatever exactly that means in this very Non revolutionary period ) but he sure isn't a ''class enemy "' !
Not to mention many other ""techies''who played a major Role in occupy .
i am very sorry that anyone has been foreclosed upon or evicted from their homes . I would join any pickets, rallies against the big realtors . I would also support Depression era tactics of blocking evictions ,
But i damn sure aren't going to harass workers , even relatively high paid ones , who been been fortunate enough to use theri degrees for something other than making Lattes at starbucks !
Not everyone on these buses are engineers earning top-dollar. And, further, not all of them are even full-time employees. Many are contractors, who do not get the perks afforded to full-timers. For instance, the contractors have to pay for use of the shuttle. Many contractors who ride the shuttles are in sales, policy, or customer support and earn between 50-70k per year, which, in the Bay Area, is close to the poverty line. They receive no benefits or equity and now they get your "stop the super rich" rhetoric and not just threats of violence but actual violence.
Go ahead and block the buses. Threaten violence with your uneducated references to "revolution" and "disruption." Make no mistake, though: YOU are little more than thugs and terrorists in hoodies and bike gear.
Go ahead and block the buses. Threaten violence with your uneducated references to "revolution" and "disruption." Make no mistake, though: YOU are little more than thugs and terrorists in hoodies and bike gear.
if you use the word ''terrorist'' you are using catchphrase of the very fascists that high tech represents. the 'leaders'' are brainwashing people with this fear of ''terrorists'',so if you use their terminology it makes you look like a police america reactionary. negates your ''concern'' about bus actions. also ,no one can compare ''BART'' to a ''google bus''. google bus is an ''in group'' thing. BART is public trans.
It is a perk that some workers have gotten from their company. I use the word worker because everyone who is employed at Google, etc. except for the actual owners and very high level people are workers (some are more highly paid than others). Sergie Bryn and Mark Zuckerberg do not ride these buses. If you want to stop capitalism and gentrification, find out where they live and stop them.
If you have to wait until you find some absolutely perfect context in which to act, you are going to be quietly waiting a long time.
It's the quote-unquote "workers" on the Google buses who have something to prove to the rest of the world in general here, and to working people in the Bay Area in particular, not the people blocking the buses. The over-the-top responses here show that many Americans are just coddled bourgeois wimps. In a society where the ultimate human aspiration is convenience any inconvenience gets willfully construed to be a horrific crime.
It's the quote-unquote "workers" on the Google buses who have something to prove to the rest of the world in general here, and to working people in the Bay Area in particular, not the people blocking the buses. The over-the-top responses here show that many Americans are just coddled bourgeois wimps. In a society where the ultimate human aspiration is convenience any inconvenience gets willfully construed to be a horrific crime.
I found the perfect solution - all S.F. and Oakland Techies are now to wear a yellow David's star with the letters TECH. They are to live in specially designated ghettos in the Mountain View area. There businesses, busses, etc., should be defaced with graffiti stating "Achtung, Techie", or, "Don't buy Techie".
Sounds familiar? The tactics of the Oakland "protestors" is in no way different than those of the SA in Nazi Germany.
Sounds familiar? The tactics of the Oakland "protestors" is in no way different than those of the SA in Nazi Germany.
some say you gotta treat nazis like nazis. and technology is being used to bring the very nazism you claim is ''protestors''. if you act like a nazi nazi tactics will come your way.
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