Bay Area Residents Begin Inauguration Day By Shutting Down Caltrain’s South Bay Service

Caltrain Blocked for #HellNawguration

San Francisco, CA – In the spirit of disruptive innovation, inspired by the Anti Police-Terror Project’s call for 120 hours of direct action to reclaim Martin Luther King, Jr.’s radical legacy, visionary Bay Area residents have begun celebrating Inauguration Day by taking Caltrain’s San Francisco-to-South Bay service entirely offline.

The shutdown occurred during morning commute hours as one among many indications that life will not go on as usual under the regime of Donald Trump.

In our current world, tech wields incredible power and the entire industry has a responsibility to, as they say, “Do no evil.” Instead, tech has been complicit in spreading fake news – the fuel for Donald Trump’s propaganda machine – and is now prepared to provide all the tools for a repressive police state like we have never seen before.

Heads of the industry’s largest companies have already begun working with Trump and publicly indicating support for him. The new politics of Silicon Valley are propping up Donald Trump, his illegitimate presidency and the obscene greed that we condemn and vow to continue working against.

* In particular, we call on the following companies – and their employees – to cease and desist and take a stand for what is right:

* Palantir Technologies: Chairman of the Board Peter Thiel was one of Trump’s largest donors. Palantir furnishes the government with surveillance software that directly contributes to state-sponsored terror, torture, and murder. In other words, they are killing us.

* Google, and Facebook, who profited from fake news and did nothing to stop it were also in the room, eager to work with Trump. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, purveyor of career advice for young women, is ironically leaning right into vagina-grabbing Trump’s fascist agenda.

* AirBnB has built a business empire by mischaracterizing the way its service is being used to keep long-term rental stock off the market in cities where the cost of living continues to rise.

Caltrain – whose ridership is 56% white, 60% male, and earns $117k/year on average * — caters to the tech industry. Organizers of the of the shutdown emphasize that today – dubbed #hellnawguration on social media channels – is not a typical work day for these riders.

Workers stranded by the rail shutdown are being encouraged to join the DumpTrump rally and march, beginning at 9 a.m. at Justin Herman Plaza and ending at noon at 555 California Street.

Additionally, four other shutdowns occurred in San Francisco as part of APTP's call for 120 hours of direct action in to build solidarity in preparation for the #HellNawguration - Wells Fargo, Uber, 555 California, Israeli Consulate. Photos and video of the event can be found here, and will be made available to the press and the public throughout the day at aptpreclaimmlk.org.

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Photo credit: Brooke Anderson
Photographer Contact info: http://www.movementphotographer.com/
pressjedi [at] gmail.com
#j20 #reclaimmlk #aptp #120hrs #hellnawguration