🚀 go-pugleaf

From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomas@thomasleavittremovethis.org>
Date:	 Mon, 15 Jan 2007 02:29:31 -0800
Subject: Re: Before the Big Freeze Takes More LIves: Resistance Cries
from Tenderfoot Tim

Everyone,

There are enough radicals in this town to do as Tim suggests (hurrah
for
all Tim's work), more than enough - hundreds of us, if not several
thousand (look at how many votes Steve Argue, myself, and Simba got the

last few election cycles). If a broad enough group of us organize
something, these folks will turn out, participate, and provide support.

I think I speak for a lot of us when I say I'm willing to stick my neck

out and take a risk... but there has to be a point to doing so - I have

to be doing it with enough people to make a real stand, a real
difference, have a chance at driving substantive change. It can't be
just four or five people... there need to be enough of us directly
involved, and enough folks standing behind us, to make it politically
infeasible to just send the cops in to arrest us all and shut us down.

If Camp Paradise was able to generate that kind of support, if DIY
First
Night is, if Guerrilla Drive-In is, then we should be able to do so as
well. Santa Cruz has a vibrant, broad and engaged radical community
willing to pick up the torch and run with it, if someone lights a
flame.

We need to agree on a process by which a large scale act of resistance
would be organized and supported, and figure out a way to peaceably and

non-destructively disagree with each other on various lesser topics,
while still supporting the central point of the action. Someone,
somewhere, has to pull a trigger (maybe Tim has done that), and
initiate
the process. It's a chicken and egg problem... but maybe it can be
solved by a 100th monkey approach. I'm in, if everyone else is in. :)

We all know that our "progressive" "leadership" won't every do diddly
on
this issue... even though it is within their power to change the nature

of the dialog on this issue, even though it is within the power of the
City Council, without even spending a lot of money, to make a huge
difference in the lives of homeless (and near homeless) people in this
town by providing a SAFE and LEGAL place to SLEEP at NIGHT, and to make

doing so politically credible (and the money issue is bogus too - sure,

the city isn't flush, but budgets are an expression of priorities -
make
dealing with the issue of homelessness a priority, and the money will
be
found).

The "fear" of a backlash expressed by this town's political class is
just an excuse to avoid doing the hard work necessary to convince the
public that they're doing the right thing, and to spend the political
capital necessary to move the issue forward (and free up money). Not to

single Bruce Van Allen out, but his comments to the Sentinel about
"vigilantes" taking to the streets were flat out incoherent - he did a
slightly better job of expressing himself during a radio interview with

me, but I still didn't find his arguments convincing. Not to be "Mr.
Santa Monica" again, but I find it utterly bizarre that the most
conservative City Councilperson in that town, Herb Katz, can advocate
safe-sleeping zones in the local media, but "liberals" on our City
Council can't.

The Sleeping Ban is just the tip of the political iceberg, the broader
mass of which is the whole range of issues that our city's current
"middle class progressive" elite refuse to address... civilian
oversight
of the police (and police resistance to this), law enforcement
priorities and the disproportionate impact of financial and other
penalties and sanctions on lower-income people, criminalization of a
range of behavior that is better dealt with in other ways, lack of
legal
emergency shelter and affordable short term transitional housing /
campgrounds, rebuilding the bottom end of the housing market... and I'm

sure I'm missing all sorts of other issues as well, because even though

my standard of living is rather spartan, my mental frame of reference
is
middle class.

The career of Donna Springs in Berkeley (and the recent victory of a
grassroots Green woman as mayor of Richmond) demonstrates that if you
stand up and fight, and are honest and consistent, then the voters will

respect and reward that.

Now, to deal with the elephant in the room on this issue... my friend
Robert Norse. Here's my sense: on the sleeping ban / homelessness, for
some people, everything else is a side issue. One of the major reasons
why nothing has moved on this issue for years is that a significant
portion of this town's political class just can't stand Robert Norse,
and want nothing to do with any issue he's involved in, regardless of
the merits of the issue. The issue is radioactive, as far as they're
concerned, as long as he's involved. I'm sure other folks on this list
have had this sentiment expressed to them.

Here's my honest opinion - this is a chickenshit attitude. People are
dying, a lot more people are being hurt and damaged and having their
lives shortened (read the list of people who died while homeless every
year, and it is full of people between forty and sixty at the time of
death), and this town's policies towards poor and homeless people (and
a
lot of other folks caught in the fallout of stupid and shortsighted
laws, rules and regulations) are completely fucked in many ways (and
setting horrible precedents) - and our political class is totally
unaccountable on this issue, because Robert often lacks tact and
political sense in his approach to this issue? What bullshit. Why are
folks in politics, if they have skins this thin ... if they can't
figure
out a way to cope with Robert's presence? There are "difficult" people
involved in every issue -- Robert is hardly unique.

If Robert is the "face" of this issue, the "spokesperson", this is by
default, by virtue of the abdication of everyone else who should take
responsibility and speak up -- and by virtue of the fact that he's
willing to put the time and energy into the issue.

... and let me say this: Robert puts a lot of time and energy into this

issue. He goes out there and talks to people on the street, gives them
a
voice, lets them be heard, and uncovers injustices and irrationalities
almost every week. Where is the rest of this city's political class on
this issue? Why is it that the most dedicated activists I know, the
ones
out on the street talking to people on their own terms, taking them
where they are at, are almost all poor and low income people,
struggling
to survive, struggling with disabilities...

People say Robert makes himself the issue, well that's b.s. People make

Robert the issue - he's just one person, with one vote in any meeting,
and subject to the same rules of conduct and participation that
everyone
else is, when he's not running the meeting.

Folks should just get over themselves, and get involved... and the more

folks who do so, the less excuse everyone else, and the power
structure,
will have to not make a difference on this issue, because of him.

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt

P.S. Feel free to forward this on.



--
Thomas Leavitt - thomas@thomasleavitt.org - 831-295-3917 (cell)

*** Independent Systems and Network Consultant, Santa Cruz, CA ***



--
Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom - Santa Cruz

w. http://www.huffsantacruz.org/
e. info@huffsantacruz.org
p. 831-423-HUFF