textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000339.txt

THE SERF CITY BLACK BANNER         SECOND ISSUE         JANUARY 10, 1994
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Following are selections from the second issue of the Serf City Black 
Banner, an anarchist rag from Santa Cruz, CA.  Our scene here is small 
and readily intermixes with the San Francisco and the East Bay 
communities an hour and a half north of here.  First a note on our town 
to provide some context.

Santa Cruz sits at the mouth of the San Lorenzo watershed as it flows to 
the Pacific ocean into Monterry Bay from the Santa Cruz Mountains.  The 
bay cut's a deep 'U' into the coastline and hides one of the deepest 
underwater cavern systems in the world.  It is also home to an incredible 
array of marine life, otters, sea lions, migrating whales and dolphins, 
tide pools and more.  Just yesterday I came across an elephant seal 12 ft 
long maybe 2500 pounds who had beached herself at Blow Job Beach.  I 
guess she was sick and came there to die.  Some agency gave her a shot 
and she was looking better the next day.

The mountains are the southern most expression of the former Redwood 
Empire, now Redwood Scattered Outposts.  The geology and topography 
create an incredibly rich habitat that includes redwood flora, live oak 
and manzanita forest, grassy fields, chapparal scrub, and coastal strand.
In short this place is amazing.  

Santa cruz the town grew up as a playground for the rich of San 
Francisco.  We are accessable to getaway traffic from the whole fucking bay 
area.  Thus as you can imagine, tourism is the major local industry, and 
thus the town is dominated by a handful of incredibly powerful real 
estate interests.  The Seaside company is perhaps foremost among these, 
they operate the Santa Cruz Boardwalk--a hideous amusement park 
disgracing the beach at the mouth of the river.  Just behind the 
boardwalk lies Beach Flats a mainly Poor Chicano neighborhood which the 
seaside company maintains as a ghetto, and cheap labor pool.  They use 
the S.C.P.D and the INS to terrorize Chicano communities, keep the drugs 
flowing in and the citizenry terrorized.

Also dominant in town is the University of California at Santa Cruz, the 
UC campus with the wealthiest student population.  Known as 'City on a 
Hill' for it's ivory tower attitude and location in the redwoods, UCSC 
provides thousands of students to fill low wage jobs that require nice 
looking kids who are willing to do anything for bucks.  Consequently, 
rent's are outrageous, jobs are next to impossible to find, the 
population (between students and tourists) is transient, and the 
community quite fragmented.  

The town is incredibly white, incredibly white supremacist, incredibly 
'liberal' (a word for me drenched in pejorative connotations), full of 
pseudo-political "alternative" attitude, and perched at the top of the 
wave of kinder, gentler white backlash.  The town's city council is made 
up of 'progressives', socialists and the like, who are utterly 
incompetent at challenging the established real estate interests.  In 
fact in Santa Cruz (S'cruz if you wish), to be 'progressive' seems to 
mean that you endeavor to make life under capitalist colonialism 
'progressively' worse.  Santa Cruz liberals architected one of the 
countries worst set of anti-homeless laws, and somehow have the gall to 
pat themselves on the back.  

Culturally, S'Cruz is a floor full of broken shards.  We got Hyperrich 
families in they little houses with they little committees, you got the 
liberal landowners who read Marx in college and smoked pot and feel this 
exempts them from any critiques for the rest of their lives, we got 
boatloads of hippies who swirl into town for 'dead' shows (whatever they 
are), rich new agers who hold 'workshops' in beautiful mountain 'retreat 
centers', and we got students who are rich and privileged and 'accepting 
of diversity'... In the rural communities mostly in south county toward 
Watsonville (an agricultural center with a Mexican/Chicano majority) there 
are farmworkers who get exploited in unimaginable ways.  Migrant workers move 
around working the agrobusiness masters plantations, getting pesticide 
sprayed on them, etc.  South county is a center of Chicano culture,
organizing and activism.  The Beach Flats neighborhood in S'Cruz proper 
is much more fragmented and wracked by drug and violence problems. 
And of course they don't let unassimilated Chicanos out of their 
neighborhoods if we can help it.  

This gives you a bit of an understanding of the context in which Santa 
Cruz anarchists work.  Most of us are white college educated kids, and 
houseless folks who stopped off in S'Cruz on our journeys about.  We tend 
to be in poor communication with each other, with a high degree of 
alienation.  Many struggle against our liberal upbringing and tendencies, 
and for those like me, our class privilege.  But given these parameters, 
what fragments of anarchist community we do have are enriching and 
rewarding, and gaining momentum.

And now our feature presentation ....

THE SERF CITY BLACK BANNER:  Newsletter of the S.C. Anarchist Movement (SCAM)
(Mostly news selections, whatever i wanted to type) 

WELCOME TO THE SECOND ISSUE OF THE BLACK BANNER, AND HAVE A NICE GLOBAL 
ANTI-FASCIST STRUGGLE.

Starting with this issue, the Serf City Black Banner, intends to provide 
Santa Cruz with a source of news and commentary (both local and global) 
edited by and for anarchists.  Thanks to the wonders of electronic mail 
we have access to news all over the world.  We can keep in contact with 
anti-authoritarians in all sorts of locations.  Not only can we find out 
wha's going on there, but we can MAKE NEWS so others can know what's 
happening here--the latest on anti-logging struggle or Food not Bombs' 
activities for example.

Speaking for myself, I wish this publication to be used as a forum for 
local anarchists to dialogue about our lives and revolutionary 
stratgies.  I see it as a sort of kitchen table around which we can share 
our stories.  Where we can work toward envisioning collective responses 
to the genocidal forces which largely control the globe.

The elite interests with the power to set social priorities are 
increasingly becoming supra-national (literally 'above nations') in 
nature.  Mega-corporations which are not centered within national 
boundaries are ascending in importance over state governments and 
military apparatuses with which they formerly shared power [C.Wright 
Mills, The Power Elite].  These corporations have an increasing control 
over the agendas of national governments and militaries around the 
world.  Therefore, global coordination of anarchist movement is 
imperative if we are to effectively repel the beast.  The Black Banner 
and other alternative media projects can help link anarchist struggles 
across the globe.  This is a small but important first step toward 
engendering solidarity among activists in different societies and the 
co-ordination of global anti-fascist strategy.

-newt. (me)

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NEW YEARS REBELLION IN SERF CITY

The new year was brought in right properly here in Santa Cruz, a little 
beach town about 75 miles south of San Francisco.  Rebellion rocked the 
downtown.  The new years eve party started at the town clock promptly at 
midnight.  At 12:10 the pigs decided the party was over, according to 
police chief Bassett.  Lt. Sapone, from her vantage point on the bluff 
overlooking the town clock, ordered 40 pigs to dispers the crowd as the 
celebration 'got violent'.  Not!!

"The celebration was pretty mellow, I didn't even see much liquor,"  said 
one young dude.  Repeatedly the people who fought the police testified.  
"We were having a good time til the cops moved.  It's our town, why can't 
we have a party on New Years?"

Chief Bassett whined to the San Jose Mercury News, "There were out of 
town gangs down there, and skin-heads.  These were not your 
run-of-the-mill Santa Cruz citizens."  The head porker is incapable of 
telling the truth.  One young person said, "It was everybody, punks, 
Mexicans, all kinds of youth."  Another, a junior college student said, 
"It was a really young crowd, I saw all my friends from Harbor, Souqel, and 
Santa Cruz high schools, and a lot of people that graduated last year."  
To Bassett and a good many of these uppified shop keepers that got their 
windows broken, we are not people.  We are "looters, scraggly 
panhandlers, and abusive teenagers not to be tolerated," the Santa Cruz 
Sentinel [which sucks -ed] editorialized.  These gentrified, blue-nosed, 
hypocritical scumbags.

As the pig line moved on folks, the celebration changed it's tone.  A 
line of cops, across one line of traffic, moved up Water St. towards the 
celebration.  "You ar ordered to disperse," came over the megaphone.  
These fools in their robocop riot gear figured if they'd flash a club, 
issue a few orders, intimidate some people, we would scatter like 
leaves.  Yeah Right!

When the cops goose stepped up, they just provided targets for the 
youth.  One bottle, then two, then many rained on the cops.  "I hate 
cops, that's why I did it."  Another says, "They could stop the drums, 
but they couldn't stop the people."  Sgt. Howard Sanderson said they 
brought in 40 pigs.  Hey man, it's your army, but there wasn't any where 
near 40 pigs coming up that street.  Even if there had been, you'd been 
outnumbered 100 to 1.  Custer woulda been proud.  I like those odds; 
attack the people and pigs go to the hospital.  Dominican hospital in 
Santa Cruz is where the casualties went.

The Downtown Business Association is afraid their image of Santa Cruz is 
going to change.  It's about time.  An add is run in Thrasher magazine 
about a S.C. skateboarder who gets his face tore off by a police dog.  
The pig then stands over him and laughs.  The Sentinel runs an article 
where the pigs blame the youth cause he resisted the dog.  Santa Cruz 
gets national coverage on CNNwhen all kinds of local pork on the 
'anti-drug crime unit' beat the shit out of some Latino "drug peddlers" 
after they had surrendered and were lying on the ground.  Pig Butch Baker 
is called out for sexual harassment and abuse by nine separate women at 
a city council meeting.  He's given a raise and named pig of the year.  
Pigs and rent-a-pigs repeaedly beat people senseless at the bus station.  
Pigs and Dept. of Parks and Rec. "rangers" hunt homeless campers in the 
bush on horseback.  This is the county where they lynched 3 immigrant 
farmworkers accused of raping a white woman.  No, we got no reason to 
hate cops.  Didn't we see Rodney King get beat and then the cops go 
free?  Yes we did, and didn't we march to attack the Santa Cruz pig sty?  
Yes we did.

Down on the Pacific Garden Mall [the shopping district in the middle of 
downtown] you'll find coffee from Guatemala, ponchos from Peru, statues 
from East Africa, and Native American art from Arizona.  These downtown 
business people selling their trinkets, cashing in on what's cute and on 
the misery of the people of the world should consider that us nobodies 
can see whose side they are on.  The situation is just gearing up.  Well, 
it's a new year and so to the Indians of Chiapas, Mexico, to the peasants 
of Peru, to the people of the whole world who hate this shit, We, of the 
Santa Cruz Nobody Set , say "It's Right to Rebel!"

by B.D. a member of Refuse and Resist!

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"SLEEPCRIME IN PROGRESS" WORLD PEACE VIGIL HELD ON PACIFIC GARDEN MALL

It so happened one day that WonTon Dave asked me Robert Flory, if I 
would participate in a two week long World Peace Vigil on Pacific Avenue 
during the Christmas to New Years holidays.  He explained that it seemed 
like the time was right for another vigil and it had been nearly two 
years since the Town Clock World Peace Vigil during and after the bombing 
of Iraq.  I agreed almost immediately...I did almost nothing in 
preparation except make a flyer that was never used and tell several 
people that it was going to happen, and encourage them to participate....

And so Wednesday the 22 of December arrived, I found WonTon Dave at the 
Coffee Roasting Co.  in the afternoon and we went to the Law Library to 
check on the non-commercial display ordinance....  [WonTon] constructed 
a cardboard box not more than 3 feet by 6, I carefully made signs which 
read, "World Peace Vigil--Sleepcrime in Progress", as this was to be the 
focus of the vigil: that it is illegal for people without houses to sleep 
at night in Santa Cruz outside or in a vehicle.  This is only one of the 
many hate-laws used by the city's political-economic powers to oppress 
'undesirables'.  This law infringes on individual liberty to live as one 
chooses--one should have the liverty to choose to live outdoors.  This 
law is genocidal because it criminalizes an activity necessary for life, 
namely sleep.  We will not have peace in Santa Cruz while it is illegal 
to sleep and we will not have peace in the world unless we first have 
peace in Santa Cruz.  The only way to achieve world peace is to work for 
peace where we are.

The box being completed, the signs affixed,, Paul carried a box of 
sweaters while WonTon and I carried the display.  We had already scoped 
out a location near Pacific and Cooper streets that met all the display 
ordinance requirements:  10 ft. away from intersections, six feet away 
from cafe entrances, and other distances from benches, vending carts, 
drinking fountains, and property lines.  The only law we intended to 
break was the sleeping ban.  Just after 8:00 pm the vigil began.

THE FIRST NIGHT

After spending a few hours explaining to the curious, including the 
occupants of a police cruiser, what we were doing and questioning others, 
"Is it illegal for people without houses to sleep in Santa Cruz?  How can 
we have world peace if we can't sleep?", the avenue quieted down to 
distant rumblings and occasional pedestrians.  WonTon and I decided to 
keep each other awake all night so that we would be ready if the police 
came.  We were prepared to be arrested, have all of our property stolen, 
and return with a new display over and over again.  We were both used to 
sleeping out doors, but concrete, even with cardboard on it, is not only 
uncomfortable but cold.  Each hour seemed longer as the Town Clock tolled 
out one, then two, then three.  We were reading to keep from getting 
bored, occasionally exchanging brief conversation, and I had time to think 
about questions whose answers would grow clearer in the days ahead or 
remain unanswered.  I looked forward to the coming day with 
apprehension.  I was here to communicate a message and felt a certain 
amount of righteousness about that message, but I was also here to vigil 
for peace, to make sure that I remained peaceful and tried to encourage 
those with whom I had contact to foster peace within themselves.  I knew 
it would be hard to live life on display 24 hours a day for two weeks.  I 
knew there would be literally thousands of different reactions ranging 
from whole hearted sympathy to venomous hatred, and I knew that this was 
the season of peace and tomorrow (today?) would be a good day.  Sometime 
in the early morning Crazy George a self-proclaimed 'homeless' and 
alcoholic wandered by.  He knew what we were doing "protesting" and he 
was with us.  In the days ahead he would use the vigil as a base to detox 
from alcohol.  And so three people stayed over that night--the fewest of 
any night.

WHAT HAPPENED NEW YEARS MORNING?

We had to explain to people who said "six-up" when the police drove by 
that thre was no such thing as six-ups at the vigil [six-up is a police 
warning call].  We also encouraged people to take illegal activities 
other than sleep elsewhere to preserve focus.  Never was the vigil more 
peaceful than new years morning when Pacific avenue was a war zone.  It 
all started normally enough--hundreds upon hundreds of jubilant people 
streamed past on their way to the Town Clock.  The air was filled with 
shouts of, "Happy New Year", which only days before had been, "Merry 
Christmas".  Thre wre kazoos and confetti.  Although I was not at the 
clock, people who were there told me that at 12:15 am the police declared 
the traditional new years celebration an "illegal assembly", saying that, 
"the party is over, go home".  25-40 police with batons drawn and face 
shields down moved in a wedge to the drum circle at the clock fountain 
pushing and hitting people with their batons.  People became upset and 
began throwing bottles at the police, the police became more aggressive, 
pushing several dozens of people down Pacific.  Storefront windows were 
broken.  I watched people take merchandise from a store for 30-40 minutes 
and did not see one police officer that whole time.  Some people, cousins 
of the owner of the business, stood in front of the broken window to stop 
the looting.  Others, believing in the rightness of looting argued with 
them and fighting broke out.  About half a dozen people form the pace 
vigil went to prevent violence.  Even as this was happening the police 
made their appearance, sweeping the street.  Walking six abreast down 
both sidewalks with batons drawn they were ordering people off the 
street.  WonTon stood next to the display and responded with forceful 
no's when told to leave.  After pushing two people to the cement and 
pushing WonTon into the sleepcrime display a sergeant told the officers 
to, "pass it by."  ... 15 people stayed over that night, the most of any 
night.

SO MUCH MORE TO TELL...

Even though our display constituted a 24 hour continuous violation of the 
[sleeping ban]...the police only gave tickets three mornings. ... Police 
seemed to not want to give tickets to the full-time vigilers, only to our 
supporters and those who slept at the vigil for lack of any other place.

And then there was Christmas...with donations showering down on us 
constantly, so many clothes we had to build a Free Box, and enough food to 
warrant a food box.  Strangely, a compost bucket is not legally 
indicative of an established campsite.

We recieved unprecedented, unsolicited media coverage including a 
front-page color photograph in the Sentinel [hiss.]. The coverage 
provided a forum for expression of anger and outrage toward the vigil.  
One of the best effects of the vigil was to bring this conflict out in 
the open.  the night after that article, high-school students ran by 
throwing water balloons and bob was hit in the head with a half consumed 
can of beer--it could have been a lot worse.

...

[Bob was a strong supporter, Mike and Anya build their own vigils a few 
feet away, we kept busy protecting the display from rain which never 
came], a couple of drum circles, and conversations with police, 
customers, tourists, and local on many topics but mainly peace and social 
justice.  We swept the sidewalk every morning and watched people sleep, 
an average of 8 a night.  There were too many different experiences to 
even remember.  All in all, it was an incredible sucess, and much more 
fulfilling than working or paying rent, and as WonTon said, this was a 
"prototype vigil" to demonstrate "proof of the concept."  That done, we 
will have more.  Look for us trying to create a new way of life on 
Pacific Avenue.

by Robert Flory

Robert is a scruffy hippie activist who is part of the core of Food Not 
Bombs Santa Cruz.  He can be reached by writing to me or any of the Santa 
Cruz anarchist contacts, or through Food Not Bombs S.C. at (408) 425-3345.

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DOWNTOWN "HOST" PROGRAM

In Santa Cruz, the sugar-coated [version of San Francisco's 
anti-homeless] Matrix program is the "Downtown Host Program"--a 
police-state creation courtesy of the Downtown Assoc.  and City Hall.  
Low paid law enforcement students from Cabrillo will be hired to deter 
panhandling and serve as "extra eyes and ears fro the police 
department."  Street art forms of resistence will be deterred by a 
proposed youth curfew.  Most recently, the only basketball hoop in the 
Beach Flats has been removed to make way for a proposed mini-police 
station complete with spy cameras.  No joke folks!  Houseless people, 
youth, and gangs will continue to be police/govt./corporate targets 
unless we do something about it.

To stop the host program, show up at City Council, Tuesday Feb. 8 at 7:00 pm.

To get more involved-call Food Not Bombs at 425-3345

by Kim Arguela

Another high powered activist from Food Not Bombs Santa Cruz.

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AN ECO-ANARCHIST CALL TO (LINK UP) ARMS

Folks it's time for eco-anarchists of all stripes to get into the forest 
and fight for the last remaining, unprotected old-growth redwood forest 
of the Santa Cruz mountains. 

The Upper Butano Creek watershed, an area of residual old-groth redwood 
forest located near Big Basin State Park is currently being chopped down 
by the Big Creek Lumber Maxxam machine.  Friends of Butano, an 
association of concerned activists, has filed a lawsuit to stop logging 
in part of the watershed and plans to file immediately for a preliminary 
injunction to stop logging during the winter months before a March 24th 
trial date.

If the injunction is not granted or the court takes months to rule on the 
injunction, many of the issues that could be raised at the march 24 
hearing will be moot.  The last legal opportunity to protect some of this 
old-growth ecosystem (home to the endangered marbled murrelets and 
downstream steelhead trout) will have been lost before the case can even 
be heard in Court.  However, if Big Creek Lumber is contested, in the 
woods, the streets and the stores, it can be slowed down; it may lose 
money; it might even be persuaded to stop logging the Butano for awhile.

The Butano unit was the focus of an Earth First/IWW direct action 
campaign back in the summer of 1992.  The campaign has continued on with 
periodic spurts of bannering and public outreach and is now revving up 
for action.  The campaign welcomes wobblies, refuse and resistors, 
camping ban violators, and anyone else interested in exploring the 
problems and opportunities in conducting a three month holding (delay) 
action.  

Contact S.C. Earth First! (408) 427-4436

Author unknown to me.

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That's all i'm gonna type of this fucking issue.  I hope somebody reads 
the M.F.  If you want your own copy, you have to work, cause were broke 
and flaky.  So send us a mailing envelope suitable for an 8 1/2 by 11 
zine with 9 double sided pages, stamp it, and self address it.  Oh yeah, 
a dollar for printing costs would be nice, or a trade 'zine.  Write to 

Matt Shyka
Collective Member of the S.C. Black Banner
135 Belmont St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

That's all for now...