{"id":39703,"date":"2025-02-21T12:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T20:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=39703"},"modified":"2025-02-21T12:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T20:23:12","slug":"protest-at-tesla-says-musks-policies-arent-welcome-in-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/02\/21\/protest-at-tesla-says-musks-policies-arent-welcome-in-sf\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest at Tesla says Musk\u2019s policies aren\u2019t welcome in SF"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There’s still a Tesla dealership in SF. It’s a target for protests against the unelected czar of government destruction<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By CHRISTOPHER D. COOK<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FEBRUARY 20, 2025 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elon Musk may have shut down his \u201cTwitter\/X\u201d building and fled San Francisco for Texas tax havens and unprecedented power in Trump\u2019s White House, but on Wednesday evening outside his Tesla showroom on Van Ness Avenue, a few hundred protesters vociferously denounced Musk\u2019s assault on public services and democratic government in a boisterous \u201cSave Our Services\u201d rally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man wearing a Musk mask and an office suit reprised the tech mogul\u2019s infamous Nazi salute<\/a>, while others foisted banners and signs proclaiming, \u201cDeport Elon Immediately (DEI);\u201d \u201cWe Love Federal Workers, They Protect Food, Water, Children;\u201d \u201cFederal Trans Lives Matter;\u201d and \u201cStop the Coup, Join Us!\u201d A group stationed in the median near the Muni bus lane held up a long black banner urging, \u201c#DefendDemocracy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
More than 100 people protested outside the HQ of Musk\u2019s company (does anyone buy those cars here anymore?) Photo by Steve Rhodes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Organized by the Federal Unionists Network<\/a> (FUN), the protest included federal workers and local labor leaders decrying the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on democracy, public services, and workers. Protest organizer Mark Smith, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1 in San Francisco, described FUN as a \u201ccross-union, cross-agency organization of rank-and-file activists\u201d that\u2019s working to \u201cbuild a fighting federal-sector labor movement that can really fight back against these attacks on the public sector and build a government that works for working people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith, an occupational therapist who treats veterans for the VA, said the Musk\/Trump slashing of government \u201cis not just an attack on federal workers, it really is an attack on public services that everybody relies on, social services, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all these things that help people just get by, worker protections, all those things.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s massive cuts of thousands of federal workers\u2014including VA workers who staff the veterans\u2019 crisis line, data management, and safety and emergency management\u2014are \u201charmful to the people that we serve. I\u2019m a healthcare provider. When you go to your health care provider, you don\u2019t want them thinking about whether they\u2019re going to have a job next week. You want them laser focused on your care.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe worry about our patients, and we want to make sure that we\u2019re able to take the best care possible of our nation\u2019s veterans, and this kind of chaotic administration by a billionaire is not something that we signed up for and it\u2019s not something that we\u2019re going to put up with.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith described \u201cemails going out telling people that they should resign, kind of trying to pressure them into it, telling people that they\u2019re low productivity, public sector workers. These are physicians and highly skilled nurses and rehabilitation professionals, you know, who can make more money in the private sector, but they come to the VA because they can do public service, take care of veterans. Our folks are there for the mission.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olga Miranda, president of the Service Employees International Union local 87, lambasted \u201cThe arrogance of a billionaire saying he is here to clean up our country, but he is also taking advantage of the beautiful open arms this country has, but only for a few\u2026 Elon Musk came to the Twitter building a few years back to say he was going to clean up everything, and I never saw the son of a bitch pick up a broom or a vacuum,\u201d she said as the crowd cheered loudly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk isn\u2019t just coming for federal workers, Miranda warned. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the luxury to wait \u2018til someone comes for us, this is the moment that you were warned about. They are coming for every single one of us,\u201d she told the crowd, adding, \u201cWe gotta organize the ones that were never represented by the community, the ones that thought a Trump vote was going to make them win, when they were never part of the plan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Trump\u2019s crackdown on immigrants, many union members \u201care feeling, should I leave my home today or not?\u201d Miranda said. \u201cIt\u2019s important that we all stand up, not just contemplate, the wounds of this administration\u2014we have to act.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hai Binh Nguyen, an enforcement attorney with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, described how her agency was \u201ccompletely shut down\u201d by Musk, hit by rounds of mass layoffs, the cancelling of $100 million contracts. Consumer complaint call centers that receive 500,000 complaints a month were shuttered, too, she told us. All her investigations are on hold.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nguyen told us, \u201cI love my job and I love what we do, I am very proud of the work that we do, and it makes me very angry that we don\u2019t get to do that anymore. It\u2019s not just because it\u2019s about our job, but because what we do is for the public good and we are the wall against the scammers out there, and we don\u2019t get to do that anymore.\u201d  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s still a Tesla dealership in SF. It’s a target for protests against the unelected czar of government destruction By CHRISTOPHER D. COOK FEBRUARY 20, 2025 (48hills.org) Elon Musk may have shut down his \u201cTwitter\/X\u201d building and fled San Francisco for Texas tax havens and unprecedented power in Trump\u2019s White… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39704,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39703\/revisions\/39704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}