Hello again Cloeystarr,

Thank you again for responding. This time it really did help me understand your reasoning. i’m sure that living in the Mission was much more dangerous and difficult than you had hoped. Perhaps that was all you could afford in S.F. That is a shame because S.F. was once such a friendly, approachable city, with free “Dead” concerts and everyone getting along. But that couldn’t last.

The problems of poverty, racism and addictions are long-standing and complex. The US has never been able to solve them, mostly because it involves paying for people who, in their current condition, can no longer take care of themselves. You have no money, so you don’t feel you can tackle that problem.

I also agree that many of the “elitists” in SF and Silicone Valley are assholes. They are spending the money they made developing technology on trying to find ways to live forever. They are making the housing in SF ridiculously expensive, and many of them clearly don’t know how to get along with women. This is not true of all of them, but enough so that their culture, when viewed from far away, seems pretty adolescent.

What troubles me about what you wrote is that even though you clearly are smart, skilled, and even entrepreneurial, you seem to believe several right-wing lies and conspiracy theories. The melt-down that your generation suffered was not Obama’s fault, it was the result of Bush/Cheney’s lifting all regulations on banks, the SEC, and other financial companies. Obama wanted a stimulus package more like the one that just got passed, but the Republicans wouldn’t give him the money.

The virus didn’t come from the lab, and it wasn’t weaponized by China. They are finding that there were cases of it here in the US last November, and probably even earlier. Trump handled the virus the way he has handled everything: he lies, dithers around, blames Obama, worries about the stock market, disrupts the supply chain so he can give what he wants to the people who “appreciate him,” and doesn’t care if people die. Half the people who have died or gotten really sick, including the medical people, would not have gotten sick if he knew how to be a leader and run a government. Instead, he worried about how it would affect his getting re-elected. Well, now I hope it will.

I believe that things could be better for all of us if we worked together, built some trust, and didn’t fight and blame each other. I know that it’s possible, but not with Trump’s kind of leadership. He is the worst person to have at this time. He is totally ignorant about science, business and international relations, yet he thinks he knows everything. He doesn’t take advice from anyone. He fires anyone who criticizes him, and all he worries about is money:HIS money. I don’t think he gives one twit about whether you get sick or not — you’re not rich enough to get on his list. I probably care about you more than he does because you took the time to respond to me.

Good luck to you. You are clearly trying your best to figure out how to live and support yourself in this country, in a strange time, without much support from anyone. That can’t be easy.

Take care,

Wash your hands,

DJB