The Beloved German Shepherd―Scott

Boutique Puppy Palo Alto Activism and The Tragedy of Bay Area Poverty

By: Christopher Maffei

In a photo published by an online journal in Palo Alto. Stands a woman by the name of Carolina. She owns ‘Scott’ a beautiful Brazilian German Shepherd. In this photo, Carolina is standing with a picture of her dog, whom a trainer allegedly dog-napped for breeding purposes.

Anyway, when looking very closely at Carolina and what can’t be hidden about her, is the (ever-so-slight) condescending smirk that she has a difficult time hiding. There is no doubt, Caroline knows this is her time to ‘hitch her wagon’ to the canine woke agenda and ‘virtue signal’ to her small California community. A community that loves to elevate animals over humanity―especially dogs.

Of course, the more adorable the better.

And the way the media is serving this up is (as) a classic example of ‘manufacturing consent’ and the worthy victim being the animal.

To put this into perspective, in America, ‘Scott’ is a name that is generally given to people. In many ways, by humanizing these animals you can simultaneously dehumanize the less-fortunate members of American society, and virtue signal the opposite moral pretense.

In the case of Palo Alto, by elevating adorable animals that have no economic or civil rights, you can give the false impression of mercy and kindness where none really exists. And generally, when sympathy for human needs does surface in this region, it is synthetic and completely superficial — from my experience.

But, who are California people and how do they think and feel, anyway?

The vast majority of the 40 million Californians support the death penalty. Whereas in Switzerland, support for capital punishment is in the single digits, and in Norway, it’s less than one percent.

In other words, the typical Norwegian would think Californians are far-right-wing extremists that have gone bananas for dogs.

To obscure this savagery, many middle-class Californians use the symbol of caring for helpless animals as a way to obscure the reality of the poor. These are people in the Bay Area living in grinding poverty.

We can never forget, cities such as Palo Alto are flanked by ghettos.

And instead of the Palo Alto people uplifting the less fortunate people in their community. They choose to spend millions uplifting animals that have no human rights. In this way, you can seed the pretense of morality without lifting a finger to help.

What do I mean? Just a 10-minute walk from Palo Alto is (East) Palo Alto.

This is simply one of the worst examples of California hypocrisy and brutality — sadly this is nothing unusual in California. To put East Palo Alto in historical perspective, many of the families of this small community were refugees from the Southern States. In reality, many of these families were escaping violence from the Klan between 1916 to 1930.

The Klu Klux Klan is a terrorist group that still exists in the United States to this day. And at least from my perspective, the Klan should have been wiped out long ago― (yet) these savages still remain.

Many of the people in East Palo Alto are descendants of those displaced people. Quite frankly, the violence and persecution against these American citizens were unspeakable. From segregation to lynchings to apartheid legal structures or simply just being burned alive.

Nothing was too violent or extreme for these American people

Unfortunately for these families that were fleeing Southern violence, one of the places where they found themselves was San Mateo California.

And once these displaced people arrived in San Mateo County. They received anything but a warm welcome. Instead, these people were thrown headlong into a pitiless ideology.

Where they were segregated, excluded from the normal economy, socially excluded, exploited, and redlined. Make no mistake, this appalling system still exists within San Mateo County today.

It simply takes a different form under a charter county system. Where the county can define the local legal structures at their own whims. Where the urban poor can be set up to fail and at the same time obscure the county's true intent through the obfuscation of a charter. That is precisely why the local police are obsessive about keeping cameras out of the courtrooms and meetings.

---

In many ways, Scott is the quintessential example of Boutique activism. Boutique activism is a way to give the illusion of morality through supporting causes that have no political or economic meaning. The perfect example of this would be a middle-class obsession of saving sheltered animals and puppies. And as we now know, Californians give vast amounts of money and resources to this cause.

Of course, I love puppies, everyone loves puppies. Who wouldn’t?

But puppies are not going to build a better society. Puppies are not going to solve social problems or build better roads. Puppies have no political or economic rights. Most importantly puppies are not going to uplift humanity or create economic prosperity.

In other words, caring for sheltered animals is the illusion of morality. Just as identity politics is a way to focus on the narcissism of minor differences. In this way, middle-class Californians can use identity issues to deflect away from real-world economic concerns. Like a living wage. Especially for the urban and rural poor; you don’t focus on real people you focus on animals. One of the most extreme forms of moral identity in the sunshine state.

In Palo Alto, the puppy issue makes front-page news. However, disgracefully, without even the slightest hint of irony, If you walk 20 minutes to the east, In East Palo Alto, the children are food insecure and living in poverty.

And to help mitigate and distract from this blatant hypocrisy. The logic is, if a person is sympathetic to a dog, they must be sympathetic to a man or woman. This is simply not the case.

But, where is the leadership to expose these blatant differences?

In San Francisco, the current mayor is London Breed and she is a protege of Willie Brown. As we know, Brown has a long history in California and there are many books written about him. But, we can never forget, he is allowed to exist in California because he represents the least radical demands of the American Civil Rights Movement.

And in return, for subservience, he gets overpriced book deals and stratospherically priced speaking engagements with his benefactors.

Just as California residents are using animals for superficial sympathy. They use people like Brown and Breed as tokenizing figures to ―hold up systems of power― over the urban poor.

This is how economic interests within the courts can mollify any (real) leadership trying to uplift the urban poor. In many ways, this is the reason why the poor exist in great numbers within the Bay Area and can expect no mercy from the bureaucracies there.

In the end, the California government is displacing the poor, systematically marginalizing, killing, and exploiting them through market forces — exploited by the economic interest surrounding the courts.

And, for whatever reason, ―Scott― (the Shepherd) is front-page news.

— Chris