The New San Francisco is not The City it used to be, which should please the conservatives since they’ve enjoyed hating on San Francisco for decades. Their problem, however, is that they haven’t kept up. They’re living in the past. They think that San Francisco is The City they used to hate on. That City is long gone.

As a longtime resident of San Francisco, I can say that San Francisco is nothing like it was when I moved here during the height of the “radical” gay mecca years where “anything goes.” And I don’t hear the phrase “anything goes” here anymore. Instead, conformity is what goes, not “anything goes.” As an acquaintance of mine said who has lived here longer than myself, “The things that we got away with then we would not get away with today.” 

The City has become a playground for the super wealthy with the wealthy and non-wealthy living right next door to each other. The last I heard, the Bay Area was called “Billionaire Bay.” And many people (conservatives) who can’t afford to live here love to hate on The City. But their hate is often based in the past, on The City of decades ago, and not the current San Francisco. I think the haters would like the New San Francisco — if they could afford to live here — since it’s become more conservative.

“Free Gaza” was removed by The City

My friend and I expected this, but we didn’t expect it to happen so soon. There’s this rather obscure tall cement wall in San Francisco that some public transit passengers see — when they look up from their phones and look out the window — and some motorists see. My friend and I see this cement wall every day. Well, we noticed a few days ago that someone had spray-painted, “Free Gaza” on it. They did a good job of writing it I must say. They used white paint. I said to my friend: That’s what I would expect the Old City to do, The City before the Tech Industrial Complex took over The City and San Francisco became the Tech Capital. During that time, San Francisco became rather conservative and that’s still the case. Also, during that time, The City put in place an anti-nudity ban because of a few nudist guys in The Castro — a city-wide ban was needed for something happening in The Castro? WTF? – even though The Castro has long had a history of public nudity which most seem to forget, and The City also approved the anti-homeless law known as Sit-Lie. At the time these laws were passed, some of us pointed out that neither of these laws are what a genuine liberal or genuine progressive city would put in place. In fact, just the opposite. It was then and because of some other things that were happening, that we knew San Francisco had changed and was shifting to the right, something I didn’t think would ever happen. And both of these laws were authored by a conservative — charading as “moderate” — gay politician from New Jersey who was seen as “boy wonder.” He became a messiah figure for many people, especially older, conservative white guys. They stopped short of genuflecting to him when they saw him on Castro Street. But I would hear them say to him, “How are you doing today, my boy?”

We saw the “Free Gaza” message spray-painted on the wall. It wasn’t there the day before when we came by the wall. The next day we came by the wall and The City had removed the message.

In the Old City, that message would have been on the wall for years or until it faded away. But in the New conservative San Francisco, the officials — being pro-Israel? — made sure that pro-Gaza message was removed within a 12-24 hour period. It was gone. I saw no signs that it was ever there. I’m not sure how they removed it. 

There have been a couple of large pro-Palestinian demonstrations in San Francisco, but to my knowledge no City officials have taken part in any of them. I wouldn’t expect the mayor to.

We’ve never seen The City move so fast on removing “graffiti” which really had no bearing on anyone. I suppose seeing “Free Gaza” pissed off those who support the #2 terrorist nation on the planet: Israel, which essentially has a dictatorship. And of course the US is the #1 terrorist nation on the planet, and they reside in Israel’s upper colon.

So in response to San Francisco’s disappointing (but expected) actions, we would like to say: “Free Gaza.”