Maybe you, like me, have been intending to read Joe Biden’s statement of his position, in the Washington Post OPINION piece?
I finally read it just now, and it was worth the 5 minutes it took to read the whole thing. We probably all guessed that Biden was pissed when he called David Axelrod a prick. After reading this, I’m pretty sure it’s not just Axelrod the he’s pissed at.
*Are there really people who don’t know that Joe Biden is President of the United States?
Joe Biden is president of the United States.
Today, the world faces an inflection point, where the choices we make — including in the crises in Europe and the Middle East — will determine the direction of our future for generations to come.
What will our world look like on the other side of these conflicts?
Will we deny Hamas the ability to carry out pure, unadulterated evil? Will Israelis and Palestinians one day live side by side in peace, with two states for two peoples?
Will we hold Vladimir Putin accountable for his aggression, so the people of Ukraine can live free and Europe remains an anchor for global peace and security?
And the overarching question: Will we relentlessly pursue our positive vision for the future, or will we allow those who do not share our values to drag the world to a more dangerous and divided place?
Both Putin and Hamas are fighting to wipe a neighboring democracy off the map. And both Putin and Hamas hope to collapse broader regional stability and integration and take advantage of the ensuing disorder. America cannot, and will not, let that happen. For our own national security interests — and for the good of the entire world.
The United States is the essential nation. We rally allies and partners to stand up to aggressors and make progress toward a brighter, more peaceful future. The world looks to us to solve the problems of our time. That is the duty of leadership, and America will lead. For if we walk away from the challenges of today, the risk of conflict could spread, and the costs to address them will only rise. We will not let that happen.
That conviction is at the root of my approach to supporting the people of Ukraine as they continue to defend their freedom against Putin’s brutal war.
We know from two world wars in the past century that when aggression in Europe goes unanswered, the crisis does not burn itself out. It draws America in directly. That’s why our commitment to Ukraine today is an investment in our own security. It prevents a broader conflict tomorrow.
We are keeping American troops out of this war by supporting the brave Ukrainians defending their freedom and homeland. We are providing them with weapons and economic assistance to stop Putin’s drive for conquest, before the conflict spreads farther.
The United States is not doing this alone. More than 50 nations have joined us to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself. Our partners are shouldering much of the economic responsibility for supporting Ukraine. We have also built a stronger and more united NATO, which enhances our security through the strength of our allies, while making clear that we will defend every inch of NATO territory to deter further Russian aggression. Our allies in Asia are standing with us as well to support Ukraine and hold Putin accountable, because they understand that stability in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific are inherently connected.
We have also seen throughout history how conflicts in the Middle East can unleash consequences around the globe.
We stand firmly with the Israeli people as they defend themselves against the murderous nihilism of Hamas. On Oct. 7, Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people, including 35 American citizens, in the worst atrocity committed against the Jewish people in a single day since the Holocaust. Infants and toddlers, mothers and fathers, grandparents, people with disabilities, even Holocaust survivors were maimed and murdered. Entire families were massacred in their homes. Young people were gunned down at a music festival. Bodies riddled with bullets and burned beyond recognition. And for over a month, the families of more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas, including babies and Americans, have been living in hell, anxiously waiting to discover whether their loved ones are alive or dead. At the time of this writing, my team and I are working hour by hour, doing everything we can to get the hostages released.
And while Israelis are still in shock and suffering the trauma of this attack, Hamas has promised that it will relentlessly try torepeat Oct. 7. It has said very clearly that it will not stop.
The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own and a future free from Hamas. I, too, am heartbroken by the images out of Gaza and the deaths of many thousands of civilians, including children. Palestinian children are crying for lost parents. Parents are writing their child’s name on their hand or leg so they can be identified if the worst happens. Palestinian nurses and doctors are trying desperately to save every precious life they possibly can, with little to no resources. Every innocent Palestinian life lost is a tragedy that rips apart families and communities.
Our goal should not be simply to stop the war for today — it should be to end the war forever, break the cycle of unceasing violence, and build something stronger in Gaza and across the Middle East so that history does not keep repeating itself.
Just weeks before Oct. 7, I met in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The main subject of that conversation was a set of substantial commitments that would help both Israel and the Palestinian territories better integrate into the broader Middle East. That is also the idea behind the innovative economic corridor that will connect India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, which I announced together with partners at the Group of 20 summit in India in early September. Stronger integration between countries creates predictable markets and draws greater investment. Better regional connection — including physical and economic infrastructure — supports higher employment and more opportunities for young people. That’s what we have been working to realize in the Middle East. It is a future that has no place for Hamas’s violence and hate, and I believe that attempting to destroy the hope for that future is one reason that Hamas instigated this crisis.
This much is clear: A two-state solution is the only way to ensure the long-term security of both the Israeli and Palestinian people. Though right now it may seem like that future has never been further away, this crisis has made it more imperative than ever.
A two-state solution — two peoples living side by side with equal measures of freedom, opportunity and dignity — is where the road to peace must lead. Reaching it will take commitments from Israelis and Palestinians, as well as from the United States and our allies and partners. That work must start now.
To that end, the United States has proposed basic principles for how to move forward from this crisis, to give the world a foundation on which to build.
To start, Gaza must never again be used as a platform for terrorism. There must be no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, and no reduction in territory. And after this war is over, the voices of Palestinian people and their aspirations must be at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza.
As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution. I have been emphatic with Israel’s leaders that extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and that those committing the violence must be held accountable. The United States is prepared to take our own steps, including issuing visa bans against extremists attacking civilians in the West Bank.
The international community must commit resources to support the people of Gaza in the immediate aftermath of this crisis, including interim security measures, and establish a reconstruction mechanism to sustainably meet Gaza’s long-term needs. And it is imperative that no terrorist threats ever again emanate from Gaza or the West Bank.
If we can agree on these first steps, and take them together, we can begin to imagine a different future. In the months ahead, the United States will redouble our efforts to establish a more peaceful, integrated and prosperous Middle East — a region where a day like Oct. 7 is unthinkable.
Open thread.
Baud
I just assumed it was Hunter Biden given all the interest in his laptop.
Bill Arnold
“Who is president” is a question often asked by EMTs of people; an incorrect answer is a good indicator of cognitively impairment.
Which is to say, Donald J. Trump should be asked this question during at least one broadcast interview.
p.a.
Well this will certainly get the Israeli right’s attention. //s
Alison Rose
@Bill Arnold: One time during TIFG’s term, a woman in an apartment near mine fell while walking down the hall and hit her head badly. When the EMTs got here, they first asked her for her name and what year it was. Then they asked “who is the president” and another tenant standing nearby said “Oh God, don’t ask her that!” The woman answered correctly and then said, “I must be okay because I still hate him.” Hero.
Old Man Shadow
I know there are many things going on between Washington and Tel Aviv that we are not privy to yet. I am hoping the President has taken a stronger position against Palestinian civilian deaths in private than he is expressing in public.
steve g
I’m not usually cynical, but the Israel-Palestine situation has been the way it is since I first became aware of it in 1972, when Israeli athletes were kidnapped at the Munich Olympic Games. It does not seem possible to me that it will resolve in my life time. I can only hope that my grand nephew Miko, who is 3, will live to see the day when Israel and Palestine live in harmony.
Brachiator
@Alison Rose:
Love it. That’s one feisty woman.
Brachiator
@steve g:
There have been a number of intractable international problems. Cyprus, Kashmir, Tibet, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Israel and Palestine.
Some of these problems have been resolved. Others still remain.
We do the best that we can.
Bill Arnold
@Old Man Shadow:
When the Gaza health ministry released a list Oct 26 with the
name, age, gender and ID number of each person killed to that point in Gaza[1], that was a serious stake in the ground. That list can and will be checked, if not completely, at least with large statistical samples. (The total is now pushing 12000, plus thousands more missing.)
[1] 6,747, of them 2,665 children, through October 26. (The death numbers do not include Israeli soldiers, AFAIK.)
Geminid
@Old Man Shadow: Sure President Biden is taking a stronger position about Palestinian deaths in private than he is in public. So are Defense Secretary Austin, Secretary of State Blinken and CIA Director Burns when they talk to their Israeli counterparts.
But one important aspect of this situation is that rightly or wrongly, President Biden and administration officials are in agreement with Israel’s basic war aim: ending Hamas’s control of Gaza. Their disagreements center on ways and means, not the goal.
japa21
@Geminid:
As they should be. Hopefully they are also in agreement with the aims of, perhaps, most Israelis: ending Bibi’s control of Israel.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: These numbers for Gaza also do not seperate out deaths caused by Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that land in Gaza, and also do not state how many of of the dead were combatants.Those are smaller but still relevant numbers.
Betty Cracker
@japa21: The worrisome thing is there’s no plausible mechanism to get rid of Netanyahu anytime soon. It’s good that there’s a unity government prosecuting the war. I think a center-left government would share the aim of dismantling Hamas. But with Netanyahu entrenched in his position (with the extremist cabinet members), it’s hard to see a way the government addresses the all-important question of what comes after Hamas in a rational way.
suzanne
@Bill Arnold:
SuzMom has had a couple of cognitive medical events. One was during TFG’s maladministration. When she was getting triaged at the ED, they asked her a battery of questions. Some she knew, some she struggled with. When they asked her the president was, she turned straight to the doctor and glared, and she absolutely snarled “TRUMP”. The doctor was like, “Uh, well, she got that right”.
SiubhanDuinne
Yeah, probably — and not just people with dementia or brain injury. I can’t prove this, but I suspect there’s a not insignificant number of adults in this country who are so politically
ignorantdisengaged they are unable to identify Joe Biden.Mind you, these people are unlikely in the extreme to read foreign policy opinion pieces in the Washington Post.
japa21
@Betty Cracker: Don’t disagree. I have a strong feeling that, except for a lot of Pressure from the Biden administration, we would have seen a lot worse than we have. As long as Bibi and his ilk are in charge, long term peace is an impossibility.
Ohio Mom
@p.a.: A lot of the settlers in the West Bank are (or were originally) Americans over-full of Zionist fervor.
I don’t know if the ones with dual citizenship would need a visa to visit their folks in U.S. though.
p.a.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-ever-receding-day-after
oy…
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
And the problem with that is that Bibi, like Dubya twenty years before him, is going to prosecute this war at every turn with his eye first and foremost on the question “how does this help me politically,” rather than “how does this defeat Hamas” or “how does this stop 10/7 from happening again.”
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker:
Cement shoes and the Mediterranean would be a pair of mechanisms. BJ thermometer to raise funds for goon payments.
Bill Arnold
@Chris:
Not his to prosecute. He is one member of three in a war cabinet.
He can be outvoted by the other two, and probably has been already.
Anonymous At Work
@Alison Rose: My dad had that happen. He was “Do I really have to say it?” Which was taken as a correct answer. They did make a special note in his chart about his pedantic refusal to give straight answers to simple questions, which he is proud of (and his family thought “Yup, that’s him.”)
sab
@Ohio Mom: I don’t think they would, because they retain their American citizenship so of course they can visit.
I’m sure you know this but maybe some jackals don’t: Israel has structured it’s immigration laws so that American Jews wanting to immigrate to Israel can obtain Israeli citizenship without on any way rejecting their American citizenship. So Israeli/Americans are among the few dual national American citizens who weren’t born with dual nationality (born in one country with parents from other countries etc.)
I assume but don’t know that Israel has similar rules for immigrants from other countries.
gene108
The last Israeli PM to really try to make peace with the Palestinians was assassinated by a conservative Israeli citizen for his trouble.
I just can’t picture anyone risking their safety, on either side, to be the first one to extend an offer of reconciliation, while the other side still has the ability to fight back.
I just don’t see how this ends without one side’s unconditional surrender.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Actually easier to get rid of him than it is to get rid of a US president. But it does require at least one of the right wing parties in his coalition to fear sticking with him for the long term more than they fear the aftermath of his ouster.
Alison Rose
@Anonymous At Work: I’d go with one of John Oliver’s descriptions of him. “A sentient circus peanut”, “A racist voodoo doll made of cat hair”, “A clown made of mummified foreskin and cotton candy”.
Baud
@sab:
I wonder how many have renounced their US citizenship to get out of paying US taxes.
beckya57
@Betty Cracker: Josh Marshall has a piece about this on TPM this am. He too doesn’t see a way forward as long as Bibi is in charge.
Chris
@Ohio Mom:
Been a dual citizen all my life, and even when I was living abroad, I never needed a visa to visit the U.S. So I would assume not. (And I’d be very leery of doing anything that might change that, even for as gross an activity as going over to the West Bank to become a settler).
@sab:
I’ve never had to do this or known anyone who’d done it before, but according to some quick googling, it seems that it is possible to naturalize into another country without losing your U.S. citizenship? In which case this would be normal. In any case, whether you can immigrate to another country without risking your U.S. citizenship would be a decision for the American authorities, not the Israeli ones.
sab
@Ohio Mom: A lot of sabra Israelis are in the West Bank because housing in the settlements is heavily subsidized while housing in Israel proper is like buying or renting in urban California (i. e. unaffordable.) Israel could change that, but Bibi wants them in the West Bank.
My guess is that a high proportion of the Israeli goons in the West B Bank are dual citizens.
beckya57
@p.a.: that’s the piece I mentioned to Betty in my comment. Sobering reading.
Timill
@Chris: Marcia and I are both US/UK dual nationals, and neither of us started out that way.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: Maybe what we’re seeing now is an attempt to get to “unconditional surrender.” I read somewhere there are approximately 30K Hamas fighters in Gaza, and then there’s PIJ and other anti-Israel militias that may have participated in the 10/7 attacks or earlier actions. It looks like the Israelis mean to occupy the entire territory and root them out. I don’t know if that’s possible or not, but maybe that’s the objective.
sab
@Chris: If you have to take a vow to renounce prior loyalty or citizenship (as immigrants to America have to do) then US authorities can use that to revoke the your American citizenship (on the grounds that you have already revoked it.) It’s unusual, but it has happened to people that the US government authorities disapprove of. I remember that we did it the American born wife of a
latin AmericanatinMexican lefty.Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Like I said, the numbers will be checked, and rechecked many times. The eventual reckoning will be a very bad look for Israel. This is an order of magnitude larger than 2014 (including the Oct 7 murderous pogrom by Hamas), and this time Israel dropped a lot of large explosive ordinance (e.g. many 500/1000 kg bombs, many kilotons total explosives) on the area.
Geminid
@japa21: Netanyahu is not in charge the way he was before Gantz joined the government and Netanyahu was forced to accept his terms: placing power over major decisions in a 3-man War Cabinet of Netanyahu, Gantz and Defense Minister Gallant, the guy Netanyahu tried and failed to fire a few months ago.
This was 5 days into the war, and resulted from pressure both from the US and from within the Knesset. Another time, Netanyahu might try to bully his way past this arrangement but it was ratified by the Knesset and has the force of law. Also, the PMs reputation is shot, and Gantz and Gallant won’t be bullied.
The agreement also provides for two “Observers,” Likud politician Ron Dermer and Gantz ally Gadi Esenkot, who like Gantz is a former IDF Chief of Staff. They are there to advise, but also to keep Netanyahu from lying too much.
This arrangement is one reason the Netanyahu problem is not seen as so acute, at least not as acute as the Smotrich and Ben-Gvir problem. Those two political arsonists and their Kahanist followers will probably have to be kicked out of the government before this war ends.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid is working on a deal to do that. He’s proposing to bring his 26-MK Yesh Atid party into a broader unity government on condition that Netanyahu be replaced by another Likud member and Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and their parties be excluded.
There were reports that the PM was stunned by by the events of October 7, and took some days to recover. I can believe it; when I saw a picture of him after the attack I had to look twice to see if it was Netanyahu. He looked like he’d aged years in one week. I think it was consciousness of guilt.
Netanyahu has evidently regained his equilibrium now and is trying salvage his political position, but I don’t think he can. A poll released last week found that only 4% of Jewish Israelis trusted Netanyahu as a source for information on this war; the number rose to 6.7% among right-wing voters. By contrast, the Israeli admiral who is the IDF’s top spokesman was trusted by 74% of those polled.
lamh36
Good afternoon BJ!
This is Not political at all, just asking for a bit of advice. I’ve got tentative federal job offer for a position with fed agency regional office in San Francisco.
The job is telework eligible, which means I would be required to live withing 50 miles of the regional office where I will need to report at least 2 days each pay period (i.e. 2week period)
I’m thinking I will focus on Oakland. TBH, I hate commuting, I tend to like to live closer to work, I mean barely any traffic, and closer to 15min.
So, any bay area BJers want to give me some ideas on where to look for housing in Oakland. If we go by 30% of my tentative salary (which is the suggested % to use and not exceed) the monthly shouldn’t exeed $3000k and TBH I don’t want to think about paying that much anyway. So, I’d like to range $1900-$2500k for rent. My car is an old Hyundai Sonata, fully paid for and with great gas mileage.
Now, if you think I should try some place other than Oakland, let me know that too. Again, telework eligible and within 50 miles from regional office is San Francisco. As ya’ll know, the federal hiring process can be long so I’m likely looking at a move next year the earliest maybe January, but could even be February. Either way, I’d like to already have some idea of where I want to be and ready to apply for housing.
Ok…please help a sista out!
TeezySkeezy
@Old Man Shadow: same, but if i look back at all my political wishes…seems one of my hands is still filling up faster than the other, and it isnt the wish hand.
sab
@Betty Cracker: According to what I saw on Lawrence O’Donnell interviewing Ben Rhodes, Biden is trying to insist that Israel not even think about somehow governing Gaza after this, but instead once again work seriously towards a two state solution. That cannot be done with Hamas still being a factor.
Biden has been at this a long time and he does understand the concept of incremental. Israel’s governments for the whole 21st century have been moving incrementally away from a two state solution. Biden is trying to shift back
ETA But the PA is sort of a corrpt political wet noodle. The Palestinians need a viable political option to step in and they never really have had that.
Chris
@Geminid:
Did you see the book he was “reading?” He was holding My Pet Goat upside down!
… wait, sorry, wrong terrorist attack.
Baud
@lamh36:
No advice, but congrats on the job!
Tom Levenson
@lamh36:Don’t know what the price situation is, but Alameda is often overlooked. It’s an island just off Oakland. It used to be a major naval base, with little or no civilian residential. Now it’s become a nice smaller city, with good access to the East Bay and adequate connection to SF. (There’s no escaping The Maze anywhere in that general area, alas.)
Depending on where the federal office is, BART is a decent option for a twice a week commute, btw. Much less stressful than navigating the Bay Bridge twice a day.
Kay
This is the backlash, where people are now “do NOT go NEAR her- don’t even think about it” :)
Martin
You know, a lot of the settlers in the West Bank are Americans (estimated at about 60,000). They’re still subject to US laws and can be charged while out of the country. Returning to the US would result in arrest. This can be set as an ultimatum for at least some of them. I wonder if the visa threat is a precursor to this.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: Well, wasn’t saying the numbers aren’t a bad look for Israel, just that there are two categories that are still relevant to the question of Israeli culpability
I’m just glad the US’s actions in the Second World War are not judged by modern standards. Our air force firebombed Japanese cities for weeks on end. If we killed less than 12,000 civilians in one night’s bombing the mission planner might have been transferred to a logistics job.
sab
@lamh36: @Tom Levenson: I haven’t been there for 30 years, but I agree that the best options will be in the East Bay, especially with BART. Bay area traffic really sucks and parking near work will always be difficult and expensive.
Alison Rose
@lamh36: As Tom notes, Alameda would be a great option. Close by and probably a bit more affordable (though…take that with a Bay Area-sized grain of salt). In Oakland, some of the neighborhoods east of Lake Merritt might be a place to look. It was where my first apartment was, though that was a long time ago so I can’t speak to what it’s like there now. Piedmont is nice but might be pricey. (It’s kind of Oakland but not really Oakland??? For a long time, it was more of a large neighborhood within Oakland but I think sometime recently it officially became its own city, though fully enveloped within the city of Oakland.) Emeryville, which is between Berkeley and Oakland, may also be an option for you.
And congrats!
sab
@Martin: That is an interesting thought.
Martin
@lamh36: Sub $2500 isn’t easy, ngl. 1BR rents are falling in some cities now, and Oakland is a likely one of them since the folks gentrifying the place aren’t probably looking at 1BR.
You can also look out towards Pittsburg where I think rents tend to be okay. The are rough daily commutes, but if you only need to go in periodically, it’s probably tolerable.
Baud
@Kay:
Hopefully those numbers will keep going up, up, up.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I read a JPost article about a Knesset hearing today (I think) where families of Israelis currently being held hostage were pleading with the far-right extremists in the government to NOT debate or forward legislation for a vote to allow death sentences for Hamas terrorists. The families are worried this could derail any negotiations and put their loved ones at greater risk. A far-right MK, Almog Cohen, shouted down the families:
Lapid is right. I wish him luck in his attempt to dislodge Netanyahu and his arsonists.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It is a universal rule that woe be literally anyone that stands between a far right official and their sacred far right agenda.
Emily B.
@Alison Rose: In January 2018, my partner fell while ice skating and suffered a pretty bad concession. When he came to, the EMT asked him who was president. “Barack Obama,” my partner said. I figured it would be kinder not to tell him the truth. (He remembered later on his own.)
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, I don’t think so. I bet 55% who think women are full fledged people is our ceiling right now. I’ll take it.
This made me smile though:
What I found in Ohio is there is a whole large group of people who just don’t want to decide. They want the woman to decide because they don’t want to. This seems sensible and understandabe to me. Why DO so many people want to make this decision for other people? It’s nuts.
Alison Rose
@Alison Rose: Oh, and I didn’t notice the $2500 desired cap. Hmm. As Martin says, that might get tricky in Oakland or neighboring areas if you’re looking for a one-bedroom. You’d be able to find studios under that price point, but they might be snug. A true one-bedroom in most of the inner Bay Area is gonna run more than that, probably. However, if you’re okay with being a bit further out, somewhere like San Leandro, about 10 or so miles SE of Oakland, might be an option, or even Hayward a bit further away, but that might be pushing the commute length beyond your ability to want to deal with, considering the tenth circle of hell that is Bay Area traffic.
Baud
@Kay:
Should be higher, but maybe the qualification made a few people pause.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: There are also some very appalling stories about October 7 surfacing now in the Iraeli press, about the women soldiers in the IDF’s observer units. They manned observation posts along the border that were overun early in the attack, and many were killed. Survivors say that they had warned for weeks that they thought an attack was being prepared, but their superiors scoffed at them because they were women.
Martin
@Geminid: The standards have changed because the capabilities have changed. There was no precision ordinance in WWII. There is now. In WWII only 16% of bombs landed within a quarter mile of their target. Even the shittier HIMARs rockets we’re sending Ukraine have median miss distances of like 2m. In WWII you’d have to drop hundreds of bombs to ensure you hit something the size of a tank, and most of those would land nowhere near the target – maybe in a home, etc. Now you could send 2 and be sure you hit it, and if you miss, you missed by like 20m.
This is why I’m fairly critical of Israels work in Gaza. Israel has precision weapons – like really good ones. They don’t need to be blowing up apartment blocks left and right. They have options. The more powerful parties always have more options.
rikyrah
This is a man who has seen a few things. Has the advantage of the world view and a long view of history.
Martin
@Alison Rose: My son is paying $2800 for a 1BR in Scotts Valley. It’s not the cheapest there, but it’s definitely at the low end of the market.
Chris
@Martin:
TBF, isn’t the historical consensus that World War Two style bombings on enemy cities was, in fact, largely ineffective, both at destroying the German war production capabilities and at breaking the German population’s morale/resolve? Which means that even without bringing the precision of the weapons into it, it still ends up being questionable as hell.
Alison Rose
@Martin: I have a friend in SV, and he and his wife are fortunate enough to have been able to afford to buy a home, but he said part of what made them do so was that their mortgage payment would be less than rent on a similar-sized place. My friend in Felton rents a small house and she can barely afford it anymore.
And then here I am in Santa Rosa paying a little over $1900 for a little dump of a pseudo-one-bedroom. I love the Bay Area but I also hate the Bay Area.
sab
@Alison Rose: I rented a barely one room in Woodacre, Marin for $700 per month in 1990. In Ohio I could have had an urban house and some bedrooms for that. Marin is out of the question, plus non
@Martin: Isn’t Scotts Valley peripheral Silicon Valley? I know it’s Santa Cruz mountains, but they have some pricy tech companies up there, pricing out everyone else.
Bill Arnold
@Chris:
In the Japanese theater, the most militarily-effective operation, for the resources devoted to it, was arguably Operation Starvation, which used B-29s to drop mines in harbors and straits. The disruption of inter-island logistics was effective, and only affected ships.
The broader points, though, are that the rules of armed conflict got a lot tighter after WWII, and also, sadly, that winners are seldom prosecuted.
Tom Levenson
@Alison Rose:
@lamh36:
Don’t sleep on Albany either–between Berkeley and Richmond. Nie town, pretty accessible, and good starting point for adventures in Marin County (via the Richmand-San Rafael bridge.
Martin
@Alison Rose: Really hoping we can get this fixed, because it’s beyond unsustainable. I’m at the other end of the spectrum – the $210K house we bought way back when is now worth $1.6M. Replacement cost on the structure is $240K, the rest is just scarcity for land to build on – and my city builds a LOT. But neighboring cities block everything. And the Bay Area just has the worst NIMBYism I’ve seen. There’s money to build, but the cities have to stop protecting equity holders.
Tom Levenson
@Alison Rose: I miss the Bay Area — I grew up in Berkeley. But what we’ve got now ain’t what I grew up with.
I had a semester long gig at Stanford a couple of years ago. I got extraordinarily lucky in my rental (traded cat sitting an elderly and needy feline for a break on the price), but I can’t say I loved the Peninsula.
Martin
@sab: Yeah, he’s in tech (which is how he affords it). But there’s no transit to speak of to the Valley and the 17 is not for the faint of heart to commute on. You’d expect it to be cheaper than the valley itself but it’s really not. Felton, that Allison Rose mentioned is a couple miles up the road from him. Really nice little town. Pretty bad flooding there last winter.
It’s absolutely feast or famine, though. If you got in early like me, you’re loaded. If you didn’t, you’re struggling. And it’s super clear when I speak to the zoning board or the city council who shows up to those meetings and who doesn’t.
sab
East Bay is less expensive and a lot of what makes it les expensive is racially diverse, and also BART. Both would be a plus for you.
Geminid
@Martin: I thought much of Israel’s bombing in the first week of the war was motivated by veangeance and punishment, and was basically criminal. I think the toll in recent weeks shows they are being more careful, but clearluly not careful enough.
But I do not think carpet bombing of civilian areas became unacceptable because weapons are more precise. That is a development of this century, but I think that it was after the Second World War that “strategic” bombing of civilians came to be seen as barbaric.
And also wasteful in military terms; US Army commanders who saw the destruction of German cities remarked believed it was a misapplication of resources that contributed relatively little to the conquest of Germany.
The Strategic Bombing Survey carried out at war’s end identified about twenty Japanese rail tunnels and bridges that if destroyed would have stopped coal shipments, bringing Japanese industry to a halt. Instead the Air Force spent its resources killing civilians for no effective purpose.
These people had no say in what that government did. If you asked one of them if they would vote for Prime Minister Togo, they might ask you what “vote” meant.
sab
@Tom Levenson: When I lived in Marin they had only started the San Rafael Bridge. If it had been built I might still be there.
Still glad to be in Ohio ( Water! Seasons!)
sab
@Geminid: I think Biden and crew are the only reason they are being more careful.
Martin
@Chris: I don’t think that’s quite the case. It didn’t stop the war effort, but it did change its course quite a lot. Germany had to move weapon production underground in a lot of cases. Interviews after the war revealed that Hitler thought Germany might need to end the war because of how devastating the bombing of Hamburg was. These attacks didn’t stop their industrial base, but some of them slowed the German war production substantially and forced them to spend resources in more secure ways to build.
That doesn’t mean there maybe weren’t better bang-for-buck approaches than bombing cities, but bombing cities did work, and we didn’t really have a framework for how a conflict like that might end. WWI was mostly confined to remote areas – they didn’t have the means to do widespread urban destruction, but two decades of aircraft development changed that in a big way.
So in hindsight, yeah, I think modern strategists, with the benefit of what really created domestic problems or become economically damaging would point to different approaches, but at the time all parties were using more or less the same approach.
sab
@Martin: I used to commute on the 17 and I remembered every car that cut me off and hadn’t let me in and I damn well made them pay next time. Not a healthy driving environment.
Badgetoon
@lamh36:
Oakland is nice Adams Point around Lake Merritt is good for social life and coming back alive after the pandemic, but Fruitvale may get you more space. Alameda if you can get near the ferry stations is a wonderful way to commute too
Chris
@Tom Levenson:
A few months ago when my roommate was considering a job on the West Coast, I read a couple Reddit threads with people comparing life in different Californian cities. They had quite a few San-Franciscans-turned-Los-Angelenos who said that they liked their new city because it reminded them of what the old one used to be like.
Which is interesting, because Los Angeles isn’t that much cheaper than San Francisco. I got the impression that it was cultural as much as economic, and that they hadn’t been fans of their city being increasingly a bedroom community for Silicon Valley, with the tech-monoculture pricing everybody else out.
Lifelong East Coaster, so I had no frame of reference for how true any of it was. I just found it interesting to read a “this isn’t the city I grew up in” conversation that wasn’t just covering the usual right-wing beats about The Homeless, Out Of Control Crime, and Sanctuary Cities.
sab
All we have learned from this thread is that Bay area housing is insanely expensive, whether you rent or buy.
lamh36
@Tom Levenson: Thx Tom, I’ll check out alameda too!
lamh36
@Alison Rose: I’ll def look into all 3 of the ones you mentioned.
Thx
lamh36
@Martin: Gotcha…thx!
kindness
I love Oakland. It’s where I moved to when I moved to CA. Having said that, I haven’t lived in Oakland in a long time. Worked in downtown for 12 years though. Then Kaiser transferred me out to the valley where I lived anyhow. San Rafael is really nice. It’s more suburban than urban but cheaper than other parts of Marin. Not sure if that is saying much though…
lamh36
@Alison Rose: where exactly is Santa Rosa?
I know that I am limiting myself with that cap, but I could go up $500 more if it’s just a perfect place.
lamh36
@Martin: where is Scotts Valley exactly?
lamh36
@sab: thanks…I def am looking or diversity. I mean I don’t have to be a majority, but I also don’t to be like the sole brown face is a sea of white, if ya understand what I mean.
So diversity isn’t my “number 1” but it can DEF be the deciding factor when choosing a place to settle
lamh36
@Badgetoon: Thx.
I’m gonna plan a couple of scouting trips next month since I might be able to find some frugal flights out.
Marc
We’ve lived in Oakland for nearly 30 years, we have a daughter who rents a basement studio nearby for about $2000/month. Apartments are fairly available at this point, for $2500 you can get a large studio or a 1 bedroom (2 and 3 bedrooms are much more expensive). Just about anywhere in Oakland is reasonably safe, there are parts of East and West Oakland I’d avoid late at night, but that’s about it. There are a lot of new apartments downtown and near Jack London Square, these tend to be on the pricey side. I’d look around Adams Point, Lake Merritt and a few blocks away, the Rose Garden area (where we live), and Temescal. Apartments near Piedmont Ave., North Oakland, Montclair, and the Oakland Hills will be mostly priced on the high end, as these are considered “desirable” areas and are less diverse.
You will likely get tired of driving to/from SF during commute hours very quickly. Don’t worry about being near a BART station, there are plenty of Transbay bus routes that will take you to the Financial District in SF. Berkeley and Alameda are generally more expensive, I’d look in San Leandro if you can’t find anything in your desired price range in Oakland.
El Cruzado
@lamh36: Whatever you do, get yourself something close to BART so you can avoid having to suffer Bay Area commute traffic (especially if it involves the Bay Bridge).
Alison Rose
@sab: I lived in Santa Cruz for a few years nearly two decades ago, and memories of 17 still make me want to screech in frustration.
Alison Rose
@lamh36: Oh, if you’re commuting to San Francisco, you don’t wanna be in Santa Rosa :P It’s in the North Bay, about 55-60 miles north of SF. But traffic at any daylight hour between here and there means the drive takes twice as long, at least, as you’d expect.
Marin County is the one just north of the City, but you’d need to win the lotto first.
Alison Rose
@lamh36: It’s in the Santa Cruz mountains, way too far from the City.
Geminid
@sab: EU countries like France and Germany also have influence here. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and so far most EU countries have basically sided Israel in this war and in general. That can change though, and Israelis know it.
Gulf Arab countries like Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia also have influence. The first two normalized relations with Israel three years ago, with Saudi Arabia’s approval. These three countries and Israel have cooperated on intelligence matters for many years, and now have established established mutual air defense cooperation as well. Most Israeli politicians do not want to make enemies out of their nation’s new friends. Israel needs to maintain a cooperative relationship with Egypt as well.
Turkiye counts some too. That country recognized Israel in 1948, and while their relations have been rocky lately Israel is much better off without a hostile Turkiye. I thought it was a good sign that while Turkish President Erdogan complained bitterly about the civilian toll in Gaza during his recent joint press conference with German Chanceller Scholz, Erdogan emphasized that he still supports a Two-state resolution to the Palestine question, and that he believes that anti-Semitism is not to be tolerated .
The testy Turk did take a shot at his host, though. Turkiye did not persecute Jewish people in the last century, Erdogan noted, but rather gave them refuge, so Turkiye does not share Germany’s obligations towards Israel. Erdogan was probably clapping back at Scholz because he’d called Erdogan’s Gaza policy “absurd” a few days before.
And Turkiye has not interrupted the flow of Azerbaijani oil to Israel. Cartoons on iranian news sites lampoon Erdogan for this, but he doesn’t care what Persians think of him.
CarolPW
@Alison Rose: When I was 16 (1966) I took a trip with a teacher and a few other students to look at U.C. Santa Cruz. There were no center dividers then. On the way back we saw the aftermath of a head-on collision between a VW bug and a bus. A bloody dead young woman was being covered up with a blanket and a guy was puking over the roadside. I went to U.C.S.C so drove 17 a lot and it scared the shit out of me every time.
Alison Rose
@CarolPW: Yeah, I saw numerous accidents on that road. One time I got stuck near the summit for a couple of hours because some jackass had tried to speed up to beat a big rig trying to cross over and he got wedged underneath it. Took forever for them to get a lane open so traffic could pass.
YY_Sima Qian
The India-ME-Israel-EU economic corridor that Biden mentioned is DOA under the current geopolitical circumstance, and has little discernible economic rationale even in the best case. India is not yet the kind of manufacturing juggernaut that could anchor one end of such a corridor to supply the EU market at the other end. Transiting corridor requires multiple transfers from ship to dock to train (on currently nonexistent railroads) & back again, across multiple customs & duty checks, all of which slows down the transit & adds cost, undermining the point of the corridor. An actual land corridor from India to the EU is best laid over Pakistan, Iran, Türkiye & Greece, a geopolitical nonstarter.
The reason the China-Europe Railways could work is because the gargantuan Sino-EU trade needed a 3rd option beyond the cheap but very slow ocean shipping & the fast but very expensive air freight. It leverages existing rail networks in the fUSSR & CEE, & the Russian dominated Eurasian Economic Union meant there are only two customs/duty checks: China-Kazakhstan & Belarus-Poland.
Intermodal complexity is one of the main reasons that the alternative route that crosses the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to the Causasus & crosses the Black Sea from the Caucasus to Bulgaria has not gotten off the ground. The Azeri-Armenian war is not helping either.
Economic development for Gaza & the WB needs duty free access for goods produced there to markets in Israel & the EU, so that they can start w/ light industrial manufacturing that is not as capital or resource intensive, taking advantage of the the lower end/lower value manufacturing that is being priced out of the PRC (& being pushed out by Chinese industrial policy).
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: I think the French & German governments are catching a lot more flak domestically over their support for Israel & weak concerns for Palestinian plight than the Biden Administration. Muslim & MENA immigrants make up a much larger percentage of their citizens than Arab Americans in the U.S. The EU’s credibility in the Global South is shot, like the U.S.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Armenia and Azerbaijan seem close to a peace treaty that will finally end their 30 years of war. That could help conditions in the Caucasus area. Smd Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan has rolled out a “Crossroads of Peace” plan that would reconnect roads and railroads crossing the region.
This is about the only good international news I’ve seen lately. The situation in Yemen was getting better, but now the Houthis have been firing missiles and drones at Israel, and they just hijacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea because an Israeli is part owner.
Darkrose
@lamh36: Hey there and congratulations!! I have to say that after 19 years, I’m happy to be in Norcal and I don’t really want to go anwhere else.
That said, Oakland is pretty pricey these days, and a lot of people I know have been priced out. You may want to try Fairfield (47 miles from SF) or Vallejo (32 miles). One of my co-workers here in the Sacramento area lives in Fairfield; she likes it there. It’s a bit of a long commute (~an hour per Google Maps) but if you’re only going in twice a week, that may be manageable.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Azeri-Armenian peace does not improve the logistical/customs mess that is the Kazakhstan-Caspian Sea-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Black Sea-Bulgaria corridor. It had circumvented Armenia precisely because of the Azeri-Armenian hostilities.
Given the actual values/priorities demonstrated by countries in this world large & small, from their actions & inactions, one has to come to the dark conclusion that ethnic cleansing is indeed the surest path to lasting peace, because few (if any) countries can be truly bothered to do something about such crimes against humanity. I think even a genocide will only result in a generation of censure, if that. It is a common human failing that we all share to different extents. Israel’s problem is that there is no Palestine for the Palestinians to be cleansed to.
WaterGirl
@Martin: To me, the visa thing seemed like a shot over the bow, a definite message.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: From reporting I’ve read from journalist Onnik Krikorian, the recent evacuation of Armenians from the Artsakh enclave did not have to happen. The ceasefire agreement that ended the 2020 war recognized Artsakh as Azerbaijani territory, to be disarmed and returned to Azeri sovereignity with safeguards for the Armenian citizens. That would allow the over 600,000 Azeris who had been forced out of the surrounding districts in 1993 to return home.
According to Krikorian, the Artsakh government dug in its heels and rejected an offer of autonomy made in June. They were encouraged in this by the Armenian diaspora, which even got California Congressman Adam Schiff to sponsor a bill calling on the US to recognize Artsakh’s independence.
Schiff should not have done this; the bill would never have passed and it only made Artakh officials more obstinate. The Azeris got fed up and invaded in September, quickly overcoming Armenian Army and Artakhi defenders. Then the Azeris ceased fire and again tried to negotiate a peaceful handover, but they couldn’t make the Artakhis stay, and all 100,000 of them drove out the Lachin corridor to Armenia in cars and buses.
A UN body says that the Artsakhis must be allowed to return and the Azeri government says it wants them back, but Artsakh’s government in exile says their people will never live under Azeri sovereignity. That might change after a peace treaty.
Meanwhile, Azeris have started to return to the 7 districts surrounding Artsakh that have been depopulated since 1993. First they have to clean up the landmines the Armenians spread to keep them out. The oil-rich Azeri government has even hired a fancy Swiss architect to help turn the ruined ruined town of Lachin into a model 21st century city.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: The limited Western coverage that I have read on the “evacuation” of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh did not paint such a benign picture of Azeri actions or intentions. It could be slanted Western MSM coverage, but I think Azerbaijan also wants to avoid charges of ethnic cleansing so its rhetoric reflects that.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: The Azeris have what tbey need with Artsakh disarmed. It’s just a 30 by 30 mile upland plateau with no special economic or strategic value. Armenia could never take it back; Azerbaijan is now an oil-rich country of over 10 million people, while Armenia has 2.7 million people, a few 60 year-old Soviet era factories, and an export-import sector based on Russian sanctions circumvention.
Plus, a large and loud diaspora that tries hard to persuade the world that the Turckic Azeris live to massacre people just like their cousins in Turkey do, and that Armenians didn’t actually kill a lot of Azeris (and Kurds) in 1993 and make 600,000 more walk out of Karabakh in the winter time.
Azerbaijan tried to settle this matter peacefully after they won the second war in 2020. I am inclined to believe the Azeris would have treated the Armenians fairly if they had stayed and will do likewise if and when they return, if only to impress the EU and prove the Armenian National Council of America wrong. The Armenians have been part of the local evonomy and society for centuries.
Armenian PM Pashinyan might have to put all the Artsakh political leaders under arrest first, but he may have to do that anyway.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Thanks for the response! I will have to read up more on the subject.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Onnik Krikorian seems to be an informed source on thIs conflict. He is a photographer and reporter based in London, but he operated out of Geogia for much of the past year. I ran into Krikorian’s work from Middle East Eye Istanbul bureau chief Ragip Soylu.
Krikorian saw the Artsakh problem differently from the common Western framing of Azeri aggression vs. Artsakh victimization. He placed a lot of blame on Artsakh’s leaders and the irredentist Armenian diaspora. Also, he thought that NGOs operating in Artsakh were too partisan in favor of the Artsakhi, and effectively encouraged resistance instead of negotiation.
After Artsakh fell, Krikorian reported on an interview with its former Defense Minister, a Mr. Babayan. He said his team negotiated an autonomy deal this summer that the civilian government rejected. Babayan gave the impression that he thought it should have been accepted.
Paul in KY
@lamh36: Hope job is great and you get a great deal wherever you want to live!