Is San Francisco a Cesspool?

IS SAN FRANCISCO A CESSPOOL?
ACTUALLY, HERE ARE THE REAL HELLHOLES OF AMERICA

My friend Patti Beadles posted something very interesting yesterday that caught my attention.

I’ll let her post speak for itself:

“I had to go to San Francisco for an appointment, this afternoon. The right-wing media always talks about how horrible San Francisco is and you know…they’re right. It was really rough. I had to walk past sooooooo many homes that had charm and character. There were these huge colorful murals everywhere I looked…it was like the whole city was a giant art gallery. It took me more than five minutes to find a parking space near my favorite artisan chocolate shop, and the biscotti that came with my drinking chocolate was slightly crumblier than I would prefer. (Then) when I came out of the chocolate shop I heard music. Can you believe that a brass band had the audacity to set up in a parking lot and play music for anyone who wanted to stop and listen?! I can’t believe that they would dare to be both entertaining and quite good. Will the horrors never stop?”

[Photos by Patti Beadles, Aug. 26, 2024]

I loved her sarcasm on the “horrors” of San Francisco.

Of course, if your prism is narrow, you might think differently. If your consumption of news and current events is restricted to far-right-wing media, San Francisco (and most other big cities) are in flames overrun by crime and illegal immigrants. Do these cities have their problems? Sure they do — all cities do. However, there’s a lot of wonderful things happening in American cities and other places, which aren’t newsworthy. Normal everyday activity doesn’t make the news.

This all got me to do some serious thinking about PERCEPTION versus REALITY.

Those of you who think San Francisco and other big cities are cesspools might want to get a dose of reality. If you REALLY want to see widespread poverty, despair, hopelessness, and an appalling lack of upward mobility then do the following:

Assuming you aren’t unfortunate enough to live there, visit the deepest center of any RED STATE in America. Travel to rural counties in the middle of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia, Arkansas, etc. THESE are the places where you will find the highest rates of teen pregnancy, domestic violence, per capita most gun deaths, rampant drug abuse and alcoholism, crippling poverty, multi-generational racism, ruthless intolerance, limited access to health care, anti-gay bigotry, anti-intellectualism, severely limited educational opportunities, suffocating restrictions on abortion and reproductive rights on girls and women, and cringeworthy ignorance about the rest of the world.
Virtually all of these communities with the very WORST problems in America are conservative Republican-run counties, with plenty of Bibles and churches.

Fact: The deepest Red counties are the real hellholes of America. Almost any statistic and data point proves this, and if you don’t trust facts, then just open your eyes. By any metric, Republicans have a horrific record of repression, poverty, small-mindedness, and failure. Just look at where they live and who they vote for.

READ: AMERICA’S 40 WORST COUNTIES TO LIVE IN