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Aug. 30, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
33:32
Sunset in the Golden State - Ep 6: Corrupt Government
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Time Text
The End
The End We've come out to a community meeting because we're going to be interviewing one of the mayoral candidates for San Francisco.
And we're at a community meeting where they're talking about policing in a neighborhood where it is very Chinese, Japanese, I assume.
There is a lot of African Americans.
There's a lot of Hispanics.
I didn't hear any percentages for whites, but it would be very low.
And the challenges of policing in a very diverse community.
So we're going to listen in, and then we're going to talk to the mayoral candidate afterwards.
So as hard as we are working for this community, you have to help us help you.
And what that means is, for example, with all of the burglaries that are happening, there are people that come from other cities that drive around neighborhoods looking for homes to break into, particularly Asian homes.
And they drive by and they look at the home and if you have ornamental things or anything out front that indicates that there may be Asian residents in this home, they will break into that home.
They target that home.
And then the last couple things I want to talk about is cell phone safety.
Please do not walk around with your cell phone out on the buses, on BART, even on the street.
When I get on BART, I keep my phone put up.
And when you have it out, it's like walking around saying, I have $500 or $1,000 in my hand.
And you just make yourself a great target for someone to snatch it.
So you have to be careful about protecting your items.
We know that the police have many problems, but it has nothing to do with the police itself.
It's the law that does not allow the police to reinforce.
And we recognize that.
And this is Lunar New Year.
We have a lot of crime targeted, specifically for Asian people.
They know that we have red envelope.
And as you said, many people from other cities, it's because our law does not allow the police to take charge.
There's nothing the police can do.
I would rather you be frank and be honest with us than telling us what to do when we know try everything, did what we're supposed to do.
But what I will tell you is we cannot control the laws.
But in terms of the police and our response, it's a partnership.
So number one, I ask you all to please contact SAFE and give site assessments if you have a concern about your business and or your resident.
Number two, don't have your phone out unless absolutely necessary.
Even with Uber, you can order an Uber in advance and put in the time you want it so that you don't have to pull it out.
And I say that to say, as Officer Ng talked about situational awareness, so you're going to do your part to help us help you.
That's for starters. You, the city officials, you have to be very, you know, work for us.
I mean, this is very, very important that, you know, They're saying that they can't put cameras on,
you see, because there's a federal law against surveillance and putting cameras on public property.
Of course, it seems that the city regularly ignores federal law regarding immigration and ICE detainment and turning over information to ICE, so they seem to be just a little bit selective on the federal laws that they wish to enforce or not enforce.
That was quite a passionate speech that you gave there.
What is it? You said three years they've been trying to get these cameras?
Yes. I'm one of the community centers here in San Bono Avenue.
And we have been working diligently with the supervisor of the city regarding, you know, safety.
And we have been fighting for the Asian-speaking people.
And we finally have a few officers, but at the same time, the elderly and that, you know, has been robbed, have been problem.
And it seems that the city doesn't, you know, really that kind of concern.
But look at all this.
They are spending billions, billions of dollars towards the homeless people.
That's what really struck me. You're saying, well, we're the taxpayers, and we can't get our concerns met, but they're dumping truckloads of money at the homeless issue, right?
Right. And then suddenly, they say, oh, we have money here, we have money here.
But where's the money going?
Where's the money going?
Where's the concern? All right.
We're with Ellen Lee Chow.
You are going to be running for the mayoral candidacy here in San Francisco just this year.
Is that right? Yes. November 5th, 2019 election.
November 5th. Mark it in your calendars.
And what is it that drove you or provoked you into wanting to run for mayor?
Well, I have been living as a resident in San Francisco for the last 33 years.
I have never seen such a deteriorate government until 2017.
All Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, we have 11 districts, 11 Board of Supervisors plus the mayor before he passed away, Mayor Ed Lee, they were making legislations lucidly, purposely to help the recreational cannabis Industry disregard the people strongly opposed that we do not want any recreational cannabis stores next to preschool,
next to after school program, next to any minor that serve The minors.
Any places that serve minors.
But yet, when we are fighting at City Hall with all those public hearings, you're talking about hundreds of people, up to a thousand people, with doctors, nurses, social workers, and people who are highly educated, people who are highly understood that recreational cannabis is not going to be helping our kids and our neighbors who are strongly opposed.
They still approve them.
So from that on, The people stood up.
I was nominated to run for mayor.
Now, there is, we were just talking about this before the interview started, a huge drug issue in San Francisco, and it seems to be somewhat enabled by the local government.
Let's hear a bit about that.
Yes. The number as of today is 2,000, let's say 24,500 drug abusers that the needles and the lower drug users The supplies that is paid by the city and county government,
which is the taxpayers. And to my knowledge, the drug dealers who are selling the drugs to the people, the 24,000 drug users, The police passing by, nothing.
We pass by, nothing.
They are just selling drugs, legally, openly, and it looks like nobody cares.
And hard drugs too, not just recreational cannabis as we talked about before.
Right, right. Really hard drugs. Hard drugs like heroin, cracks, cocaine, and it's all over the news.
What does the mayor, Landen Briggs, do?
She has been talking about to open a safe site injection to host the drug abusers so they can have a safe place for them to suit drugs.
So I'm a social worker.
I'm a mental health worker.
I work with people who abuse drugs.
In the entire world, there's no safe site injection.
The drugs never safe.
Drugs are drugs.
They're just talking about like diseases or AIDS or something else that could be transmitted through the safe needles.
That's kind of what they're talking about, right?
Well, first of all, drugs are illegal.
According to federal law, Schedule 1 or any drugs, they could be confiscated any properties that is related to Serving the drug abusers or anything related to the drugs.
It is illegal. As a government, we should not support any illegal activities.
I think our government has been so corrupted and is so abusive and up to the point that we the people and say no longer.
It's about time for the people who should stand up and take back the government and operate by the people.
Almost like there's an industry for homelessness that focuses in California as a whole and in San Francisco in particular, because there's such a huge population of America's homelessness is concentrated in California and disproportionately in San Francisco.
How do they get here?
What's the incentive? I mean, everyone thinks, oh, it's nice weather, but there's more to it than that, right?
I have done some of the data research myself because I'm a candidate and I'm a social worker.
I have been for the last 20 years in San Francisco.
I am a therapist.
When I do research, I talk to people, I interview people, I talk to homeless people.
The government itself has data and 60% of these people, they are Sorry to interrupt, but even if they stop using the drugs, they may have got brain damage from the drug use to the point where independence is not very possible.
Yes. To answer your question earlier, like, why does so many come to San Francisco?
If you think about 60% of people, 60% of the people, that they depend on something.
But we have other 15 to 20% people they call professional homeless people.
They are coming from other places.
Because when I talk to the homeless people, I said, dude, how do you come to San Francisco?
They said, well, my social worker bought me a ticket.
Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no.
What do you mean? Their social worker in another state said, here's a Greyhound to San Francisco.
Take it to San Francisco!
So their numbers look better and they're offloading the homeless onto San Francisco taxpayers.
You talk to them. If you have a chance, go talk to some of the homeless people.
Especially, we call them the career or the professional homeless people.
They will live here for a little bit and they don't like that and then they group the people and go to other states or other cities because the law itself Provide free air tickets, free Greyhound, free bus tickets, and plus, minimum, $16 cash a day when they go travel.
And it's all covered by tax money.
So you're attracted to 15 to 20% of people in San Francisco, they're professional homeless.
And the other 15% people, They are working people.
They really have a job, they work, but because they cannot afford an apartment, so they either temporarily live on the street, they live inside the tent, they go to work, they pay fitness membership, they go inside to take shower, they eat lower free, so they manage them. How do I know?
I talk to them. I talk to many of the homeless.
If you go to Tandalloy, Tandalloy is about half block across from City Hall.
On the left side, you see drug dealers, drug abusers.
We have 16 cannabis stores, the most cannabis stores.
50% and more homeless people accounted for from Tenderloin areas.
Insane. So we're going to go to this section of town.
Just on the way there, though, you were telling me something just sort of in between the interview and this, which is around California getting fruit ninja'd into two states.
Oh, California right now, we have approximately 58 counties.
Of all the big counties, there's only a few of them.
San Motel, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, you know, the major big counties.
But you have a lot of small counties.
The small counties, they're traditional people.
They want what's...
Conservative, you would say.
Conservative and family value.
And what they've seen and what we experience, the high taxes.
So talking back, there's a California state.
It's called newcaliforniastate.com.
You can go inside and see.
I have joined a few events that they are organizing.
I learned so much about Constitution, property rights, Constitution rights, First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, that the United States, our forefathers, you know, founders, that want us to have a quality of life, good education, and take care of this land, and take care of our children, take care of our family.
But California has been abusive, taking the public money to do what the politicians want to do, but not the people can really enjoy what we have.
California, the educational system has been going downhill.
Oh, it's terrible. And dangerous.
Yes. Last in America for safety.
That's right. I personally believe our public education has been poisoning our young generation.
More than 40 counties in California, they joined the New California movement already.
And not only that, there's more other states joining the movement that we do not want communism or socialist government that operate our life.
But it's a good movement.
I joined it. I went there, and I believe the New California declared the 51st state in the United States in January...
20th, 2018.
Last year. On Martin Luther King's birthday.
To remember that freedom is not free.
So this is, we're going to the heart of Tenderloin right now.
You go two more blocks.
Go two more, yeah.
This is this person, chose to sit in a disability.
Oh, we're sleeping in a wheelchair, right?
Yes, people. This is when the pizza people come.
Maybe we can ask them.
What are they doing? Is there people coming here that just go pee and poo?
Can they take a shower?
No, this is the restroom. The restroom.
And people also shoot drugs in there.
You don't know. No.
And this is America.
This is the heart of Tenderloin.
The San Francisco government spent between $3,900 to $12,000 a month for homeless.
The more we spend on homeless, the more homeless we will have.
It's because we attract the 15 to 20% new homeless to come.
It is all on data.
Let's go down to the lights and we'll cross there.
We don't want to jaywalk.
Oh. Because I bet you that's the law and law they might enforce, right?
Oh, in here they don't enforce. Yeah, all right.
I'm a white guy, we obey the law.
That's what we do. You know the white guy gets discriminated?
I'm sorry? The white guys get discriminated nowadays.
Oh, I know, I know. Look, the white guy is called racist.
The people who are illegal coming in, they're dreamers.
They're dreaming. They're the dreamers.
I know. And there's laws against hiring white men.
I mean, it's really crazy.
It's straight up discrimination.
That's low-income housing.
It's 30% of people's income.
And you know what's amazing, right?
So this is the contrast, right?
So we've got people sleeping rough here.
And we've got this giant crane of construction going on up there.
And City Hall is only one block.
And City Hall is only one block from here.
It's pretty eye-opening.
I've only slept rough twice in my life.
Hey! We're trying to find out what happened to you guys.
You okay? Yeah.
Do you guys have dinner yet?
I'm not sure if they recognize me at all, because I do provide different services.
I say hi to them. And the city itself has a lot of resources for them, but sometimes people chose to be in here.
Because if you live in a shelter, you have to obey the law, you have to be in a certain time, you have to be kicked out in the morning so early.
You can't be drunk, you can't be on drugs.
No pets, no drugs, no alcohol in here.
You hang out with people. You see?
That's the heart of San Francisco.
This is the tourist area.
At the same time, we have a lot of poor people here.
Hi, guys. So now that you're recording these people out here, what do you want to do?
We want the mayor to help you.
We want the mayor to give us jobs.
That's exactly it. We got it.
You see that? What would you like to work at?
Yes. What kind of job? I'm a German carpenter and I'm a veteran.
You are a veteran.
Yes. And you are a carpenter and you want jobs.
You should go to City Hall and look for the mayor.
Do you know how many cutting times I've been there?
Yes. How many times?
I love the count.
Look, I participated on this thing called City Build and all this crap.
But you didn't get a job, right?
No, the only thing, the only guys that helped me out was source to plushers.
They just helped me pay the union on October or November.
And I can show you my union card that every month I go and pay.
I just went and paid. How long have you been homeless in here?
Jesus Christ, for quite a while.
For a long time? Yeah.
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
You were a veteran. You fought for our country.
You tried to look for a job.
How do you think I feel?
Oh, I'm so sorry. Well, I'm a social worker, so I'm trying to...
Oh my God, you know, and...
Well, you know, but I don't have to lose the hope.
I know that this is a better society, but...
Let me show you my... You should personally go to City Hall and ask for a job because you're a veteran, okay?
I've been to City Hall, been to Van Ness, Juan Van Ness.
I've been trying to get a job with the city, with the county, everything.
What do they say? What do they say?
I just keep filling up the application, do it online.
And that's it? I mean, yeah.
I have a hard time...
We're trying to study how people become homeless and we try to work with the mayor to really use resources.
Because right now we understand a lot of people are dying on this.
This is my union card.
I'll give it right back. Look, it's dated.
It's up to date.
And I'm just living on my non-service connection pension, which is nothing.
What are you getting a month?
$1,067.
And there are guys who did not even serve a single day in combat.
But they make money. Oh, but they got, you know, they got 100% disability because the drill sergeant screamed at them.
And how long were you in service for?
Five years. I went to Korea, Panama.
I got seriously bad PTSD, man.
Sometimes I even get angry.
It is very frustrating.
Did you see a lot of combat?
I don't want to probe if you don't want to talk about it.
You know, I saw ugly things.
Things that I did that I was proud of back then.
But, you know, when you are...
I was young. I was 20.
I was on my 20s. Now I'm 54.
I don't even got fucking teeth, and I cannot even get my teeth.
Man, it is...
This is a veteran, sleeping on the street with no job.
You know, it is so fucking personal.
What do you mean that? We try to let people know that they are helping us.
They are doing a documentary and see why the homeless continue to be homeless when the government spends so much money, but not giving to the homeless.
I had an apartment. I lost my apartment in the account of this veteran advocate.
It's not an advocate. It's a social worker, guys.
Because I have a wife.
I have a wife, right? Or I have a loved one.
And my landlord that I had, he would not fix a place.
We came to court.
I had an excellent social worker.
Her name was Janine Kwon. She was a great social worker.
She helped me out all the way.
And then I lost my...
I had a one-bedroom apartment, but she noticed that I have a really bad PTSD. And then she asked me, where do you go?
To be like coherent because their apartment was just very small.
And I told her that I had nowhere to go.
And then she talked to one of my doctors.
They gave me a two-bedroom voucher.
I came to a guy right here on Market.
There is another office at the VA. And this guy, from the get going, he says, why do you have a two-bedroom voucher?
I said, because I even explained it to him, because my doctor says I need this.
He makes sure that I will not get anything.
It's been a year that I've been homeless on the count of that guy.
I went and looked for apartments.
I got their apartments, and all he had to do was set up the inspection, and he never did that.
You know, and I ended up, I did not even know that on six months, you lose it.
So I ended up now homeless.
Wait, so you had a one-bedroom?
Yeah. And they said you got to upgrade because you need more space for the PTSD. So you lost the one bedroom, you never got the two bedroom.
I only got the paper, the voucher.
But because this guy didn't like me to have a two bed, why do you have it?
I mean, it's not coming out of his pocket.
He says, I'm a veteran too, but I doubted if he ever saw a fucking dating come.
But, you know, to be a veteran, I mean, I'm not trying to belittle anybody who serves, I mean, but it's very different when you are in the infantry, in the artillery.
We don't come the same.
No, it's a different world.
It's a different world. And those guys who work clerks, and they're never experienced, you know, they never saw the ugliness of what we do.
They come the same.
Not us. You know the only place that I go and find me right between the veterans memorial building or whatever there is this uh there is this um a little bit of a monument it says we were soldiers once and we were young I swear to god I go in there man and How many of the people up and down here do you know or do you think are veterans or have told you their stories?
Do you have anything to look forward to at the moment?
Any hope for this ending?
Well, I don't want to lose the hope, to tell you the truth, because once you lose hope, you lose everything, man.
And in the past, I was so full of anger that I learned to kill people.
In the army, you mean? Of course, in the army.
And, I mean, the VA has helped me with a lot of therapy, right?
Did it help the therapy?
Yeah, oh, the therapy, yeah, it did help.
But at the same time...
Today is 2019 February.
You know, at the same time, I don't understand it.
You know, I don't understand it.
I was a four-mile going to therapy.
I asked my doctor that I needed a letter so that I can submit my claim.
And they tell me they don't do that when another veteran got the same letter that I requested just a week before.
And I couldn't control my frustration, and I kicked a door.
Because they tried to treat me like a child.
Man, I'm a grown-up man. You know, they've given me all kinds of crap.
I have another doctor right here in Franklin.
There is another vet center.
So from there they sent me here and like right now, man, I'm lost or I'm so frustrated.
I stopped drinking so many years ago and now I'm kind of beginning to drink.
You know, but when I get drunk a little bit, I'm like, oh, but this is going to live to nowhere.
Yeah. You know, or I ended up using drugs and I was clean and now fuck, I'm using drugs again.
So let me just ask you something.
This is something I've heard from other veterans, that it's partly, you know, when they went to go fight the Nazis, it was like a clear war.
You know, like, I mean, it was taking lives, but it was like, there are bad guys who are good guys who are defending, you know, you don't fight because you hate what's in front of you, but because you love what's behind you.
Were the wars that you were in, did they make sense to you?
Do you think that you were clear about what you were doing or the lives that were taken?
Of course. Of course I was clear what I was doing.
No, but I mean, did the wars make sense, like, when you look back at them?
Just like, well, that was a good idea, that made sense.
When I was in the service, you were in a bubble.
You don't question. The soldiers do not question orders.
You can, that's right. You can, but you don't question it.
I mean, you're so brainwashed.
Because now that I'm outside for quite a long, now I see a different.
What do you see now? The reality.
What's the reality?
The reality is that war's our fault because of the industrialists.
People don't make money. We didn't go out there to help the poor Iraqi people.
They don't need us. But those who make money through oil and those who make money through making tanks and all these industries, they don't care about us.
They don't care about your son.
If your son goes to combat, And he comes back now.
I have, you know, I have saved lives from some young veterans that came 12 years ago, 5 years ago, and I see them where I used to be 20 years ago.
And I mean, there was a kid living on the...
There was this young, young, young American kid.
I mean, he was totally different when he was in the service.
Compared to the guy who was out here.
This guy was about to commit suicide when I met him.
And I helped him.
I took him to my home. I used to have my apartment, so I took him there.
You know, I had a nice Harley Davidson motorcycle, and I used it for therapy, you know.
And now I'm losing everything because the only thing that keeps me kind of insane is my girlfriend.
And she's at work right now.
I was born and raised in Mexico.
I came here when I was 17, right?
I married an American citizen.
I got my green card. The first thing I did, I went and joined the service.
And this is one thing that I would like to ask the mayor...
You want to talk to the camera like you're talking to them?
Or, you know, to the mayor or somebody higher up in the government.
Why is it that...
Any person who is not born in America, they come out here like myself.
And then we get our permanent residence.
And in five years' time, you can become a citizen.
All you have to do is just pledge allegiance to the, you know, pledge allegiance.
If this country needs you, whatever, whatever, oh, I do.
Well, I did that and I went to combat.
And I'm not a citizen.
Why do I have to do that twice?
And a person who has never seen a single fucking native uniform, they just did it once.
And they enjoy better benefits than me.
And I'm on the streets.
And it's so embarrassing to say that you're on GA, that you're on low income.
And being a journeyman carpenter.
And I can see a lot of fucking construction going on around us.
That's what's saying. There's people living hard on the street.
And you get this giant crane of stuff going up here.
And 99% of the construction workers that work in the city, they don't even live in the city.
They don't. They don't.
And there is a law that says that they're supposed to have at least 25% of locals.
And I'm a goddamn journeyman carpenter.
I've been through the...
City build first.
I fill up all kinds of paperwork.
We call you.
Okay. And what?
Will you follow up? Nothing.
If you can? He has resources and he has social workers.
Okay, all right. Well, listen, I really appreciate your story, man.
Okay, see? We want people to know the story.
I don't have nothing. You should say, yeah, you should help me.
If you are in a position to help, help.
You know what? I help a lot of people out here.
I save a lot of lives here.
A minute ago, I just called the ambulance for a guy around the corner.
What happens? The poor guy is over there dying and no fucking body people just passes by and he's like he's nobody.
I guess the cold or something, his food was...
There was something wrong with the guy, but the guy was taken to the hospital about a week ago.
There was a lady around the corner too.
I saved her.
You know, she came back and she says, thank you for saving my life.
About last year, there was a guy, Odin, around the corner.
You want to put your name and phone number?
I'll call you. Sure.
All I need is a job.
Yes.
Do you know one?
The other one.
So you think about the people who live in San Francisco for a long time, Their housing is very low.
So here comes the sad part.
Oh, wait, wait. Let me tell you. Sorry.
Sorry. Talked to a guy today on the street.
Yes. His rent was controlled.
Yes. $640 a month.
Now, just give me a ballpark.
What are you paying? Oh, I'm paying $650.
You're paying $650. What's your square footage?
I have a one bedroom.
It's a big place.
I can walk around.
$650. Wow.
So for you it's good because the government will put people in jail who want to raise your rent, right?
Like they can't do it. Yeah, right.
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