180 lines
9.2 KiB
Plaintext
180 lines
9.2 KiB
Plaintext
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF POVERTY IN SANTA CRUZ: MANAGING SOCIAL DISSENT
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A Statement From:
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Industrial Workers of the World
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Santa Cruz General Membership Branch
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1994
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Santa Cruz Camping Ban/Conduct Ordinances:
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The Criminalization of Dissent
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We of the Santa Cruz I.W.W. hold that recent attacks on the poor,
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homeless and activist street communities are not merely the result of a
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local aberration. These attacks are part of a national effort to manage
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the radicalization and social protest of an increasing number of people
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experiencing poverty.
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A Brief Introduction
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Gentrification, meaning redevelopment, increasing rent, and costly
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`beautification,' (efforts aimed at attracting a more upper-class tourist
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base) provides the backdrop and justification for intensified social
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control. With the creation of several new categories of petty crime, such
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as sitting, asking for spare change or sleeping in public, a powerful
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City-Business-Developer alliance is emerging to ensconse police
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harassment in the necessary judicial legitimation. Explicit use of
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selective enforcement, condoned police brutality, the absence of jury
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trials and the imposition of costly fines for convicted offenders are all
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elements of the recently reworked public "conduct ordinances."
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Criminalization of the "Lifestyle Choice;" Managing Social Dissent
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While proponents argue that the new legislation targets behavior and not
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specific classes or communities of people, we of the I.W.W. maintain that
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the targeted "behaviors" are those which *characterize* certain social
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classes. Sitting on the sidewalk, peacefully asking for spare change, or
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sleeping in public are all aspects of a social *condition.* Yet city
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power players and the capitalist press have been very successful in their
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unrelenting portrayal of homelessness and poverty as an individual
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"lifestyle choice." In Santa Cruz this assertion functions as the
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linchpin of moral justification for ever-increasing criminalization of
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homelessness. We charge that it is extremely false to assert that any
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majority of the nation's homeless are "homeless by choice." Yet the
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disgust and hatred that is exhibited towards those *perceived* as
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choosing not to participate in the current economic system seems telling.
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Why should the assertion that a particular "lifestyle" was *chosen* be
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valid grounds for its subsequent suppression? Perhaps because that
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"choice" is perceived as a tremendous threat to the current status quo in
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Santa Cruz, a status quo predicated upon cheap, available, very low paid
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labor bound to the second highest rents in the nation. What would happen
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if the option to avoid rent and wage slavery by sleeping outdoors were to
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become more desirable and/or possible for a large number of people? The
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bosses and landlords in town however "progressive" they may claim to be
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would then have to face the level to which their privileges and comfort
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depend on the subordination of others. Thus we assert that criminalizing
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a certain social condition because it is perceived as a choice,
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demonstrates the purposeful effort to manufacture consent and enforce
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bondage to the highly exploitative work/rent system. The criminalization
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of the "choice" not to participate in "the system," demonstrates the
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fascist strategy of current anti-homeless campaigns; to attack, manage,
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regulate and ultimately destroy perceived or actual social dissent.
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Anti-Poor Campaigns and Class Struggle
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The Camping Ban, the "conduct" ordinances and the surrounding neo-liberal
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discourse about "behavior" and `right-to-be-rich' are targeted not only
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at street populations but also those who are currently housed and
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employed. All low paid waged laborers; copy/coffee/food service workers,
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retail laborers, office workers, temporaries, light industry
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productionists etc. are essentially being warned by anti-homeless
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legislation to "play it safe" on the job so as not to end up on the
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street. The effort to stigmatize and outright vilify an economic
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circumstance that all waged workers must constantly struggle to avoid is
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a very useful strategy for keeping labor in line. In Santa Cruz a
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worker's existence is primarily *defined by* the constant struggle to
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maintain legal housing where over half of one's monthly wages may go
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towards rent. The criminalization of the condition of being unable to pay
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rent functions as a very real demand that workers remain ever-grateful
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for current employment, regardless of conditions or pay. By securing
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access to a subdued and fearful service-industry workforce supporters of
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anti-homeless legislation (almost entirely bosses) seek to simultaneously
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*sweep the streets* of the homeless while assuring that there will always
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be a willing employee to hold the broom.
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To fully accomplish this indirect threat to the working class the current
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pro-ordinance campaign must completely segregate those who might have
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common interests, such as waged workers and the unemployed, as well as
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different communities of homeless people. To criminalize the
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disenfranchised without garnering sympathy or outrage from similarly
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situated groups, pro-ordinance discourse has cast the homeless into two
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predictable categories; "hapless (passive) victims" and the
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`life-stylists,' the aggressive, ugly, dirty and thoroughly unworthy. The
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"good" homeless go to the (very few) shelter spaces while the "bad"
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lifestylists "choose" to put their poverty in the public eye. In this way
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it becomes obnoxious and indeed "aggressive" merely to exist as poor,
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dirty, ugly etc. in public. These undeserving "aggressive" poor are then
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found to be quite at odds with the sought after "nice-ness" of an
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upper-class *pacific* garden mall, replete with wide "unmarred"
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sidewalks, costly decorations, and smiling ever-replaceable service.
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Homelessness is then successfully re-defined as a "public nuisance" and
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even a danger to "public safety." This re-definition makes explicit the
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class assumptions at play in the current use of the word "public." It
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also clarifies the position that any good employee who serves "the
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(upper-class) public" should occupy. Divisions like these operate as an
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ideological stigmatization and indeed a material threat against any
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alliance or organization between those who are currently on the streets
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and those who are one paycheck away.
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For this reason the I.W.W. intends to organize right over the ruling
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class division of "producer" vs. "derelict." In the IWW we understand
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that the employed and the unemployed are both part of the same labor pool
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subject to the tides of the capitalist economy and other webs of
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exploitation regardless of whether we currently have a job. Solidarity
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between employed and unemployed workers means the difference between an
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employed class with teeth, and an expendable work force easily replaced
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by unorganized labor. This sort of solidarity can also mean the
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difference between ineffective short-term resistance and more sustainable
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revolutionary movement. We will only be effective against those in power
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when we have built our solidarity between those that the ruling elite
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depends on, as well as those it is willing to discard.
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The Santa Cruz Camping Ban
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Thus our goal in the upcoming months is the abolishment of the SC Camping
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Ban. Like the conduct ordinances the SC Camping Ban criminalizes
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homelessness by making illegal that which largely defines it; sleeping
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without a shelter. This law, while older and less present in the media
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than the newly-passed six "conduct" ordinances, was the very law under
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contestation (via public sleeping Peace Vigil demonstrations) when the
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new ordinances began to be seriously considered. The new "conduct" laws
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are in large part a reaction to legal protest and freedom of speech
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against the older more established Camping Ban. Yet rather than be
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admonished through freedoms of speech protected under the constitution,
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the City Council, with the forceful backing of the Downtown Business
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Association and the Santa Cruz Police Department decided *to pre-empt the
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ability* to protest this particular law by criminalizing the various
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elements of such protest. This was accomplished with the outlawing of
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signs on the sidewalk after dark and the re-definition of shelter
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materials, backpacks or sleeping bags as obstructions, or "public nuisance."
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While we do not intend to ignore the current "conduct" ordinances the IWW
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would like to advocate a shift in focus and a renewal of activism aimed
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at the Camping Ban in particular as well as the entirety of
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gentrification and social regulation underway in Santa Cruz. So let's get
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organized! Let's beat the bosses with a solidarity the likes of which
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they've never seen!
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A Message from the Santa Cruz, CA General Membership Branch of
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the Industrial Workers of the World
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--original pamphlet produced by I.U. 450, Santa Cruz Local--
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IF YOU WOULD LIKE more information regarding these issues or the I.W.W.
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in general, please contact us at:
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Santa Cruz G.M.B., IWW
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P.O. Box 534
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Santa Cruz, CA 95061
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e-mail: sciww@fido.wps.com
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--OR--
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I.W.W. General Headquarters
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1095 Market St., Ste. #204
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San Francisco, CA 94103
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Tel.: (415) 863-WOBS
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e-mail: iww@igc.apc.org
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"The weather is beautiful..."
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--The only words spoken by a Wobbly before his arrest in a 1921
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San Pedro free speech fight.
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