Potemkin San Francisco sweeps its bums out of sight ahead of China potentate Xi Jinping's APEC visit

So the City of San Francisco can clean up its act ... when it wants to.

And now that it's going to be hosting luminaries such as China's Xi Jinping, suddenly, the place isn't homeless, drug-addicted, shoplifting-plagued, assault-and-robbery dump any more.

Funny how that happens.

https://t.co/Cbr4rU8I9e

So San Francisco decides to roll out the red carpet for Pres Xi Jinping by cleaning up years of crime and grime in a matter of days. If it’s that freaking easy to do, why not do it for American citizens and taxpayers instead of a communist Chinese… — Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) November 10, 2023

So they could have cleaned it up all along, but they didn't -- because the only people who were affected by the disaster were mere taxpayers who lived there, major retailers and restaurants, and ordinary tourists who just wanted to give the city their money so they could see the place.

That was too much to ask. But let China's Chairman of the Community Party of China, Xi Jinping, with all his communist-regime police-state security apparat drop by, and all of a sudden, the place has become Potemkin Village II.

You remember the story of that, don't you?

According to Wikipedia:

The term comes from stories of a fake portable village built by Grigory Potemkin, former lover of Empress Catherine II, solely to impress the Empress during her journey to Crimea in 1787.^[1] Modern historians agree that accounts of this portable village are exaggerated. The original story was that Potemkin erected phony portable settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the Russian Empress and foreign guests.

Just like being back in China.

Grant Avenue
(from Flower Drum Song by Rodgers & Hammerstein)

A western street with eastern manners,
Tall pagodas and golden banners
Throw their shadows through the lantern glow.

We call it
Grant Avenue, San Francisco,
California, U.S.A.
Looks down from Chinatown
Over a foggy bay.

You travel there in a trolley,
In a trolley up you climb,
Dong! Dong! You’re in Hong Kong,
Having yourself a time.

You can eat, if you are in the mood,
Shark-fin soup, bean cake fish.
The girl who serves you all your food
Is another tasty dish!

On Grant Avenue.
San Francisco,
California U.S.A.

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