http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Milgram_experiment
Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology. The experiment was first described by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University in an article titled Behavioral Study of Obedience published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, and later summarized in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.
The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974)
Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience" (Milgram 1974), writing:
"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."
Results
Milgram created a documentary film showing the experiment and its results, titled "Obedience", legitimate copies of which are hard to find today. He also produced a series of five other films on social psychology with Harry From, some of which touched on his experiments [1] (http://www.stanleymilgram.com/films.html). They may all be obtained from Penn State Media Services (http://www.mediasales.psu.edu/).
Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychologists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a few sadists would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent of experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so. No participant stopped before the 300-volt level. Variants of the experiment were later performed by Milgram himself and other psychologists around the world with similar results. Apart from confirming the original results the variations have tested variables in the experimental setup.
Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland (who is also the author of a biography of Milgram, called The Man who shocked the World) performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment (done at various times since, in the US and elsewhere). He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location (a popular account of Blass' results was published in Psychology Today, March/April 2002). The full results were published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. [Blass, 1999]
Reactions
The experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation itself because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants (even though it could be said that this stress was brought on by their own free actions). Most modern scientists would consider the experiment unethical today, though it resulted in valuable insights into human psychology.
In Milgram's defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated and 15 percent chose neutral (92% of all former participants responding). Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants.
Why so many former participants reported they were "glad" to have been involved despite the apparent levels of stress, one participant explained to Milgram in correspondence six years after he participated in the experiment, during the height of the Vietnam War:
"While I was a subject [participant] in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience..."
In contrast to the life-changing experience reported by some former participants, however, participants were not fully debriefed by modern standards and many seemed to never fully understand the nature of the experiment according to exit interviews.
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Variations
Milgram describes 19 variations of the experiment that he conducted in Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. In general, he found that when the immediacy of the victim was increased, compliance decreased, and when immediacy of the authority increased, compliance increased (Experiments 1-4). For instance, in one variation where participants received instructions from the experimenter only by telephone (Experiment 2), compliance greatly decreased; interestingly, a number of participants deceived the experimenter by pretending to continue the experiment. In the variation where immediacy of the "learner" was closest, participants had to physically hold the learner's arm onto a shock plate, which decreased compliance (Experiment 4). In this latter condition 30 percent still completed the experiment.
In Experiment 8, women were used as participants (all of Milgram's other experiments used only men). Obedience did not differ significantly, though they indicated experiencing higher levels of stress.
In one version (Experiment 10), Milgram rented a modest office in Bridgeport, Connecticut, purporting to be run by a commercial entity called "Research Associates of Bridgeport" with no apparent connection to Yale, in order to eliminate the prestige of the university as a possible factor influencing participants' behavior. The results of this experiment did not significantly differ from those conducted at the Yale campus.
Milgram also combined the power of authority with that of conformity. In these experiments, the participant was joined by one or two additional "teachers" (who were actually actors, like the "learner"). The behavior of the participants' apparent peers strongly affected results. When two additional teachers refused to comply (Experiment 17), only four participants of 40 continued the experiment. In another version, (Experiment 18) the participant performed a subsidiary task with another "teacher" who complied fully. In this variation only three of 40 defied the experimenter. [2] (http://www.stanleymilgram.com/oldanswers.html)
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External links and references
Blass, Thomas. The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1999, Vol. 25, pp. 955-978.
Blass, Thomas. (2002), "The Man Who Shocked the World", Psychology Today, Mar/Apr 2002, Vol. 35 Issue 2.
Blass, Thomas. (2004), The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. (ISBN 0738203998)
American Scientist book review Official site (http://www.stanleymilgram.com/main.html)
Milgram, Stanley. (1963). "Behavioral Study of Obedience (http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/gradsoc/obedience/Migram_Obedience.pdf)." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Milgram, Stanley. (1974), Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View (ISBN 006131983X)
Milgram, Stanley. (1974), "The Perils of Obedience" (http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html), Harper's Magazine
Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority
Miller, Arthur G., (1986). The obedience experiments : a case study of controversy in social science, New York : Praeger, 295 p.
Parker, Ian, Obedience, published in Granta magazine ( http://www.granta.com/ ), issue 71, Autumn 2000. Includes an interview with one of Milgram's volunteers, and discusses modern interest in, and scepticism about, the experiment.
Wu, William, (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/psychology/compliance.shtml) Practical Psychology: Compliance: The Milgram Experiment.
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Film
Obedience (http://tango.outreach.psu.edu/Tango/wpsx/medianew2.taf?function=detail&Layout1_uid1=43955), May 1962. (link broken 2005-04-29) Black-and-white film of the experiment, shot by Milgram. Distributed by The Pennsylvania State University Media Sales
The Milgram Reenactment (http://www.milgramreenactment.org), 2002. Colour, Exact reenactment of one condition of the obedience experiment. Created by conceptual UK artist Rod Dickinson
Friday, July 29, 2005
Saturday, July 23, 2005
ANOTHER VICTORY IN COURT!!!
ANOTHER VICTORY IN COURT!!!
Thursday, July 21, 2005
According to local Arcata man, Rasta John, the case against him was thrown out of court at the Humboldt County court house on Thursday. He was charged with having cannabis medicine.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
According to local Arcata man, Rasta John, the case against him was thrown out of court at the Humboldt County court house on Thursday. He was charged with having cannabis medicine.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
EARLY TARGETS of nazi persecution
The Early Targets
The first concentration camp in Germany opened in Dachau in 1933, at a time when the Nazi government was still consolidating its power. Accordingly, it focused on political prisoners—communists, social democrats, and dissidents who posed a threat to the new regime and were unpopular with most other Germans.
Soon Nazi authorities and the police began to consign members of other groups to the new camps: homosexual men arrested as criminal offenders; Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to obey demands to cease their activities; women accused of prostitution; people labeled "asocial" because they were homeless, begged, or for some other reason did not fit into Nazi society.
In 1936, in preparation for the Olympic Games in Berlin, German police "cleaned up" the city, arresting people deemed inappropriate—prostitutes, street people, petty thieves—and forcing hundreds of Gypsies (Sinti and Roma) into makeshift camps.
All of these early victims were easy targets, people whom other Germans did little or nothing to protect, and whose disappearance from the public scene they often welcomed.
Nazis Increase Power and Targeted Populations
Mass attacks on Nazi targets that included widely respected members of German society did not start until 1938, five years after Hitler was named chancellor. By then Nazis had firm control of all the instruments of state power—the police, courts, laws, civil service, military and press—so they could afford to be less cautious.
The "Euthanasia" Program
During the following year, 1939, Nazi authorities began deadly attacks on one of their major targets: people considered handicapped. Rather than sending them to concentration camps where they would have to be housed and fed along with people who were being held and then sometimes released, disabled people were taken from hospitals and other institutions and sent to designated locations for "special treatment." That "special treatment" was killing. In just a few years, with the cooperation of scores of doctors, social workers, hospital administrators, and others, Nazi officials organized and carried out the murder of at least 70,000 Germans deemed "unfit for life." To the extent possible, the authorities tried to hide these killings from the rest of the population, so that family members would not protest.
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html
All of these early victims were easy targets, people whom other Germans did little or nothing to protect, and whose disappearance from the public scene they often welcomed.
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html
“Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!”
from the first leaflet of the “White Rose.” The White Rose began distributing anti-government leaflets in mid 1942 protesting against the brutality and evil of the nazi government, and against the extermination of the Jews, which was beginning to become known to more and more people at this time.
http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leafoneeng.html
The first concentration camp in Germany opened in Dachau in 1933, at a time when the Nazi government was still consolidating its power. Accordingly, it focused on political prisoners—communists, social democrats, and dissidents who posed a threat to the new regime and were unpopular with most other Germans.
Soon Nazi authorities and the police began to consign members of other groups to the new camps: homosexual men arrested as criminal offenders; Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to obey demands to cease their activities; women accused of prostitution; people labeled "asocial" because they were homeless, begged, or for some other reason did not fit into Nazi society.
In 1936, in preparation for the Olympic Games in Berlin, German police "cleaned up" the city, arresting people deemed inappropriate—prostitutes, street people, petty thieves—and forcing hundreds of Gypsies (Sinti and Roma) into makeshift camps.
All of these early victims were easy targets, people whom other Germans did little or nothing to protect, and whose disappearance from the public scene they often welcomed.
Nazis Increase Power and Targeted Populations
Mass attacks on Nazi targets that included widely respected members of German society did not start until 1938, five years after Hitler was named chancellor. By then Nazis had firm control of all the instruments of state power—the police, courts, laws, civil service, military and press—so they could afford to be less cautious.
The "Euthanasia" Program
During the following year, 1939, Nazi authorities began deadly attacks on one of their major targets: people considered handicapped. Rather than sending them to concentration camps where they would have to be housed and fed along with people who were being held and then sometimes released, disabled people were taken from hospitals and other institutions and sent to designated locations for "special treatment." That "special treatment" was killing. In just a few years, with the cooperation of scores of doctors, social workers, hospital administrators, and others, Nazi officials organized and carried out the murder of at least 70,000 Germans deemed "unfit for life." To the extent possible, the authorities tried to hide these killings from the rest of the population, so that family members would not protest.
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html
All of these early victims were easy targets, people whom other Germans did little or nothing to protect, and whose disappearance from the public scene they often welcomed.
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html
“Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!”
from the first leaflet of the “White Rose.” The White Rose began distributing anti-government leaflets in mid 1942 protesting against the brutality and evil of the nazi government, and against the extermination of the Jews, which was beginning to become known to more and more people at this time.
http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leafoneeng.html
the Stanford Prison Experiment
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/970108prisonexp.html
The Stanford Prison Experiment
In the prison-conscious autumn of 1971, when George Jackson was killed at San Quentin and Attica erupted in even more deadly rebellion and retribution, the Stanford Prison Experiment made news in a big way. It offered the world a videotaped demonstration of how ordinary people middle-class college students can do things they would have never believed they were capable of doing. It seemed to say, as Hannah Arendt said of Adolf Eichmann, that normal people can take ghastly actions.
Details of the experiment are well known. They are included in most basic psychology texts and in a public television psychology course, "Discovering Psychology," that Zimbardo wrote and narrates. Movie rights have been optioned, "60 Minutes" has filmed a segment on the experiment, and even a punk rock band in Los Angeles calls itself Stanford Prison Experiment.
In summary:
On Sunday morning, Aug., 17, 1971, nine young men were "arrested" in their homes by Palo Alto police. At least one of those arrested vividly remembers the shock of having his neighbors come out to watch the commotion as TV cameras recorded his hand-cuffing for the nightly news.
The arrestees were among about 70 young men, mostly college students eager to earn $15 a day for two weeks, who volunteered as subjects for an experiment on prison life that had been advertised in the Palo Alto Times. After interviews and a battery of psychological tests, the two dozen judged to be the most normal, average and healthy were selected to participate, assigned randomly either to be guards or prisoners. Those who would be prisoners were booked at a real jail, then blindfolded and driven to campus where they were led into a makeshift prison in the basement of Jordan Hall.
Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms and instructed that they were not to use violence but that their job was to maintain control of the prison.
From the perspective of the researchers, the experiment became exciting on day two when the prisoners staged a revolt. Once the guards had crushed the rebellion, "they steadily increased their coercive aggression tactics, humiliation and dehumanization of the prisoners," Zimbardo recalls. "The staff had to frequently remind the guards to refrain from such tactics," he said, and the worst instances of abuse occurred in the middle of the night when the guards thought the staff was not watching. The guards' treatment of the prisoners such things as forcing them to clean out toilet bowls with their bare hands and act out degrading scenarios, or urging them to become snitches "resulted in extreme stress reactions that forced us to release five prisoners, one a day, prematurely."
Zimbardo's primary reason for conducting the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. "I had been conducting research for some years on deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization that illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," Zimbardo told the Toronto symposium in the summer of 1996.
"I wondered, along with my research associates Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Carlo Prescott, what would happen if we aggregated all of these processes, making some subjects feel deindividuated, others dehumanized within an anonymous environment in the same experimental setting, and where we could carefully document the process over time."
full article on the ineternet at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/970108prisonexp.html
The Stanford Prison Experiment
In the prison-conscious autumn of 1971, when George Jackson was killed at San Quentin and Attica erupted in even more deadly rebellion and retribution, the Stanford Prison Experiment made news in a big way. It offered the world a videotaped demonstration of how ordinary people middle-class college students can do things they would have never believed they were capable of doing. It seemed to say, as Hannah Arendt said of Adolf Eichmann, that normal people can take ghastly actions.
Details of the experiment are well known. They are included in most basic psychology texts and in a public television psychology course, "Discovering Psychology," that Zimbardo wrote and narrates. Movie rights have been optioned, "60 Minutes" has filmed a segment on the experiment, and even a punk rock band in Los Angeles calls itself Stanford Prison Experiment.
In summary:
On Sunday morning, Aug., 17, 1971, nine young men were "arrested" in their homes by Palo Alto police. At least one of those arrested vividly remembers the shock of having his neighbors come out to watch the commotion as TV cameras recorded his hand-cuffing for the nightly news.
The arrestees were among about 70 young men, mostly college students eager to earn $15 a day for two weeks, who volunteered as subjects for an experiment on prison life that had been advertised in the Palo Alto Times. After interviews and a battery of psychological tests, the two dozen judged to be the most normal, average and healthy were selected to participate, assigned randomly either to be guards or prisoners. Those who would be prisoners were booked at a real jail, then blindfolded and driven to campus where they were led into a makeshift prison in the basement of Jordan Hall.
Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms and instructed that they were not to use violence but that their job was to maintain control of the prison.
From the perspective of the researchers, the experiment became exciting on day two when the prisoners staged a revolt. Once the guards had crushed the rebellion, "they steadily increased their coercive aggression tactics, humiliation and dehumanization of the prisoners," Zimbardo recalls. "The staff had to frequently remind the guards to refrain from such tactics," he said, and the worst instances of abuse occurred in the middle of the night when the guards thought the staff was not watching. The guards' treatment of the prisoners such things as forcing them to clean out toilet bowls with their bare hands and act out degrading scenarios, or urging them to become snitches "resulted in extreme stress reactions that forced us to release five prisoners, one a day, prematurely."
Zimbardo's primary reason for conducting the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. "I had been conducting research for some years on deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization that illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," Zimbardo told the Toronto symposium in the summer of 1996.
"I wondered, along with my research associates Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Carlo Prescott, what would happen if we aggregated all of these processes, making some subjects feel deindividuated, others dehumanized within an anonymous environment in the same experimental setting, and where we could carefully document the process over time."
full article on the ineternet at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/relaged/970108prisonexp.html
Public Servants or SECRET POLICE?!?
ARCATA POLICE DEPARTMENT:
PUBLIC SERVANTS
OR
SECRET POLICE?
OR
SECRET POLICE?
One Saturday night, May 21 2005, Arcata police officer Ed Cashman shot James States with a taser stun-gun as he walked away from the officer on the plaza in downtown Arcata.
After public pressure, Arcata police captain Tom Chapman conducted an internal investigation. According to chief of Arcata police Randy Mendosa, the results of the investigation will NOT be disclosed to the public because the investigation into officer conduct is a personel matter.
(see the Arcata Eye, 7/5/05)
Don’t the people of Arcata deserve to know if their tax dollars are paying to commit assault with a deadly weapon against an innocent person?
right in front of everybody?
Is it ok NOT to know?
After public pressure, Arcata police captain Tom Chapman conducted an internal investigation. According to chief of Arcata police Randy Mendosa, the results of the investigation will NOT be disclosed to the public because the investigation into officer conduct is a personel matter.
(see the Arcata Eye, 7/5/05)
Don’t the people of Arcata deserve to know if their tax dollars are paying to commit assault with a deadly weapon against an innocent person?
right in front of everybody?
Is it ok NOT to know?
Sunday, July 17, 2005
letter from tad to Dr. Holschuh
July 14, 2005,
Dr. Jane Holschuh,
Professor of Social Sciences,
Department of BSS,
Humboldt State University,
Arcata, Ca. 95521
Dear Dr. Holschuh,
The elimination of campgrounds in subcommittee is of great concern, not only to the disenfranchised who suffer at the hands of faulty-policy decisions, but also to the entire political, social, economic, judicial and spiritual well-being of our fair town. Sleep is not only a human Right, but also an unavoidable fact of nature. The federal view is that shelter for the homeless should be a permanent and long range goal, even though the wait for most homeless (90%, “Homelessness: Programs and the PeopleThey Serve,” Urban Institute, 1999), does not even begin until the “chronic homeless” (10%) are finally housed - best estimates which are at least ten more years.
Many Arcata residents realize that shelter isurgently needed tonight. Though the costs of housing“chronic homeless,” with supportive services far exceed the cost of housing any other group in our society with the possible exception of prisoner housing, the creation of a chronic homeless bureaucracy promises to provide high-paying prison industry type career fields for HSU's department of BS2 graduates for many years to come. It would be one thing if these jobs were employing the homeless, thus curing the economic realities of some of the 90% of homeless persons, but the homeless are rarely considered even when gregarious grant jobs are being sought. Until you and all other so-called “experts”realize that every person on this planet has the right to life; including the right to sleep, food, shelter, education, job and hygiene opportunities, not just in ten years, but tonight, then the dream of everlasting peace will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained.
Diminishing job opportunities, both in numbers and wages, have directly led to increases in homelessness. As a matter of government policy, both worldwide and locally, homeless are managed rather than employed. The problem with hierarchal management systems is the false belief that there will be perceived value at all levels. Authoritarian dominance over the homeless is not mutually beneficial, in most cases, and leaves little recourse or alternative for those who decide upon their own choices for dealing with their homelessness.
“Chronic homeless” grants, being federally prioritized to communities who make the “Chronic Homeless Initiative's 'continuum of care'” their top priority, create a situation in which desperate homeless become forced by necessity to lie and violate laws in order to get life sustaining needs. To heap both the burden of desperation and guilt upon another human being in order to sway their decisions about their own self-worth and their resulting need for “chronic homeless initiative's 'continuum of care,” is inhumane in and of itself, but when pharmaceutical cures, distributed with the same coercion of basic human needs, are used to “modify” behavior of an economically depressed class, then it becomes a crime against Humanity. We as Americans have denounced the using of food and as in this case sleep, as a lure to dangle before the disenfranchised to entice coerced “solutions” (See Lenin's Soviet and Hitler's Reich). Leaving homeless people with no option to Bush's agenda seems designed for failure at best and a deliberate political stand by HSU, its President, Rollin Richmond, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BS2), its faculty, staff, and student body, especially Dr. Betsy Watson, and yourself.
Any law that excludes sleep is an assault on Human and Civil Rights, and is wrong! There can be no argument that sleep is consistent with healthy physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing. To have a law that forbids sleep to those who have no legal alternative is violation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a violation of the Eighth Amendment's “cruel and unusual punishment” clause, a violation of Ninth Article's “right to travel” clause, creates mental illness, alienates classes, and interrupts the “ . . . as you would do unto others” rule attributed to “God” in every major religion. Likewise, the right to shelter, along with the right to have life sustaining property to utilize, all fall under the umbrella of the aforementioned protections.
Through your expert guidance we now find the most attainable, economic, and fair accommodation to the afflicted non-chronic homeless, a place to camp, is not only being ignored but is being discouraged by you. Is it a very disconnected vantage from which we view those believed “less” then ourselves that produces a belief that hunger, sleep deprivation, and incessant police harassment will lead to anything other than resistance in the long term.
David Wright, a Michigan State University professor who has researched why scientists cheat, said there are four basic reasons: some sort of mental disorder; foreign nationals who learned somewhat different scientific standards; inadequate mentoring; and, most commonly, tremendous and increasing professional pressure to publish studies (Cases of faked medical research up 50% in last two years, San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 2005). I am at a complete loss as to why an “expert” homeless surveyor, like yourself, would ignore “conduct[ing] a survey, and assess[ing]the needs and solutions of the homeless community” (City Council Study Session, June 7, 2005, collective memory), while conducting a poll to find out how much hate for the homeless the housed, especially the business, community has. Your polling methods are faulty. With questionable polling procedures, bias questions, and bigoted solicitations, all we can expect is more of the corrupt data your team has already gathered.
The question of legalized camping in the city of Arcata is not a question of money. When ex-mayor Bob Ornelas first came to the city he was homeless and was allowed to sleep. Upon arriving for a second time again the former mayor was allowed to sleep. It has been done and can again be done. As the City is the title holder of over 2000 acres of land finding multiple sites for camps and safe zones would seem elementary to a true governance by the people, for the people. Immediate repeal of the camping ordinance, Arcata Municipal Code 10010, should be recommended as a first step in creating camp/safe zones. With the ordinance repealed effort should then be forthcoming to create zones, which attract campers away from congesting favorite city recreational sites. Many sustainable models should be explored, including but not limited to, resident-directed camps like Dignity Village, Educational camps, faith-based camps, alternative building single-room shelters, open city camps, and maybe even a CoC camp after adequate alternatives for those who choose not to have a case manager have been established.
The community and autonomy resulting from self-governed camps help camp residents better cope and even overcome the harsh realities of homelessness (“The faces of dignity: rethinking the politics of homelessness and poverty in America,” Dr. Susan Finley, QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION, JULY-AUGUST 2003 VOL. 16, NO. 4, 509–531” and “The power of space: constructing a dialog of resistance, transformation, and homelessness,” Susan Finley, Washington State University, Angela Calabrese Barton, Teachers College at Columbia University, QUALITATIVE STUDIES INEDUCATION, JULY-AUGUST 2003, VOL. 16, NO. 4, 483–487). Educational camps could encourage homeless to further their educations and better prepare them to compete for jobs once the economy recovers. Faith-based camps could take advantage of faith-based grants to shelter increased numbers of our homeless, who choose those kinds of environment. The Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT), once the show piece and major recruiting point of HSU, could work in conjunction with the city and its homeless to create alternative, temporary construction of single-room structures and communal facilities as both domiciles and examples of sustainable technology. Finally open places where those people who fit in no where else can stay is a must if you are not trying to divide even the homeless into their own version of haves and have-nots. Open places could be regularly visited by outreach and social workers and volunteers, to offer services, provide peer counseling and help teach healthy and clean camping. As you should know, creating and maintaining trusting relationships with mentally ill and chronic inebriates is very difficult when outreach can only contact chronic homeless when they surface for life sustaining homeless services or jail.
Many “policies” expected in your forthcoming Arcata Homeless Services Plan will surely drive more of the vulnerable segment of the chronic homeless further underground. Legal camping would save money in Police costs for the city. The City of Arcata hired a “park ranger” out of the wastewater fund. That fund became short and required another clear-cut of our community forest. Just prior to the drastic cuts in social spending, due two the enormous outlays in our defense spending, the City hired a total of two “park rangers” and two bicycle patrol officers to “rid” Arcata of homeless who sleep. These funds would be better spent creating peace from sleep rather than war against the poor.
A place to reach out to these individuals would more than outweigh its costs. I know most of the homeless who have been here for a while. These people for the most part are not counted in the point in time counts. They have learned how to fend for themselves, rarely use services and don't “hang out” on the Plaza. There are chronic homeless among them, but they have been frustrated, belittled, and fooled by the very structure your plan hopes to impose.
As people are allowed to create their own sustainable solutions, the benefits will constantly increase. New solutions and positive social ramifications will come from interaction between the housed segment and those with a newly acquired sense of home. I see new ways of doing things that support who we are in Arcata. Perhaps allowing homeless to grow, preserve and put away their own food; create sustainable, temporary shelter; have more autonomy and self-direction; participate in their community as equals and not servants; reduce the harm caused by being homeless; and create security for the entire community by having food and shelter options in place, in case of a worst-case scenario, will eventually put Costco and Coldwell reality out of business. But if this happens it is because the market demanded it, not because the poor united for mutual survival.
We looked forward to your arrival at HSU with fantasies of an expert on the realities of homelessness. We had envisioned a sharing of expertise between the academia and those actually immersed in the problem. Many researchers studied chimpanzees in laboratory situations, but Jane Goodall went and lived amongst them. Dr. Goodall was able to gain insight into aspects of chimp behavior and society that was previously unknown to the outside researchers. Likewise people living with the homeless, especially those who are the chosen homeless and already know they have the best of time and space, have valuable insight into social intricacies that are not available to researchers only viewing them in professional-client relationships. Many concepts could be presented and many myths could be dispelled by a more corporative relationship between yourself and those who have been directly involved with the homeless issue in this community and surrounding areas for years. You presented yourself to this community of truly homeless experts with an attitude of vast superiority and an apparent agenda. Since you are claiming superior insight into this problem your every move will be closely scrutinized and all its faults and misconceptions will be made public. To you this may be an “experiment,” but to those whom are affected by your actions it is life or death.
An autonomous camp ground is the first step towards alleviating perhaps one of the biggest problems in both homelessness and mental health, the mental illness caused by the social rejection felt by homeless. In order to help anyone we must lift the burdens we can, not heap more upon them. Help lift the burden of illegal sleeping, promote healing, and take a more inclusive consideration of the causes and social failures of homelessness, in your approaches and research. Do the right thing, if only because it's right.
love eternal
tad
Homeless representative
Arcata Homeless Task Force
Dr. Jane Holschuh,
Professor of Social Sciences,
Department of BSS,
Humboldt State University,
Arcata, Ca. 95521
Dear Dr. Holschuh,
The elimination of campgrounds in subcommittee is of great concern, not only to the disenfranchised who suffer at the hands of faulty-policy decisions, but also to the entire political, social, economic, judicial and spiritual well-being of our fair town. Sleep is not only a human Right, but also an unavoidable fact of nature. The federal view is that shelter for the homeless should be a permanent and long range goal, even though the wait for most homeless (90%, “Homelessness: Programs and the PeopleThey Serve,” Urban Institute, 1999), does not even begin until the “chronic homeless” (10%) are finally housed - best estimates which are at least ten more years.
Many Arcata residents realize that shelter isurgently needed tonight. Though the costs of housing“chronic homeless,” with supportive services far exceed the cost of housing any other group in our society with the possible exception of prisoner housing, the creation of a chronic homeless bureaucracy promises to provide high-paying prison industry type career fields for HSU's department of BS2 graduates for many years to come. It would be one thing if these jobs were employing the homeless, thus curing the economic realities of some of the 90% of homeless persons, but the homeless are rarely considered even when gregarious grant jobs are being sought. Until you and all other so-called “experts”realize that every person on this planet has the right to life; including the right to sleep, food, shelter, education, job and hygiene opportunities, not just in ten years, but tonight, then the dream of everlasting peace will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained.
Diminishing job opportunities, both in numbers and wages, have directly led to increases in homelessness. As a matter of government policy, both worldwide and locally, homeless are managed rather than employed. The problem with hierarchal management systems is the false belief that there will be perceived value at all levels. Authoritarian dominance over the homeless is not mutually beneficial, in most cases, and leaves little recourse or alternative for those who decide upon their own choices for dealing with their homelessness.
“Chronic homeless” grants, being federally prioritized to communities who make the “Chronic Homeless Initiative's 'continuum of care'” their top priority, create a situation in which desperate homeless become forced by necessity to lie and violate laws in order to get life sustaining needs. To heap both the burden of desperation and guilt upon another human being in order to sway their decisions about their own self-worth and their resulting need for “chronic homeless initiative's 'continuum of care,” is inhumane in and of itself, but when pharmaceutical cures, distributed with the same coercion of basic human needs, are used to “modify” behavior of an economically depressed class, then it becomes a crime against Humanity. We as Americans have denounced the using of food and as in this case sleep, as a lure to dangle before the disenfranchised to entice coerced “solutions” (See Lenin's Soviet and Hitler's Reich). Leaving homeless people with no option to Bush's agenda seems designed for failure at best and a deliberate political stand by HSU, its President, Rollin Richmond, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BS2), its faculty, staff, and student body, especially Dr. Betsy Watson, and yourself.
Any law that excludes sleep is an assault on Human and Civil Rights, and is wrong! There can be no argument that sleep is consistent with healthy physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing. To have a law that forbids sleep to those who have no legal alternative is violation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a violation of the Eighth Amendment's “cruel and unusual punishment” clause, a violation of Ninth Article's “right to travel” clause, creates mental illness, alienates classes, and interrupts the “ . . . as you would do unto others” rule attributed to “God” in every major religion. Likewise, the right to shelter, along with the right to have life sustaining property to utilize, all fall under the umbrella of the aforementioned protections.
Through your expert guidance we now find the most attainable, economic, and fair accommodation to the afflicted non-chronic homeless, a place to camp, is not only being ignored but is being discouraged by you. Is it a very disconnected vantage from which we view those believed “less” then ourselves that produces a belief that hunger, sleep deprivation, and incessant police harassment will lead to anything other than resistance in the long term.
David Wright, a Michigan State University professor who has researched why scientists cheat, said there are four basic reasons: some sort of mental disorder; foreign nationals who learned somewhat different scientific standards; inadequate mentoring; and, most commonly, tremendous and increasing professional pressure to publish studies (Cases of faked medical research up 50% in last two years, San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 2005). I am at a complete loss as to why an “expert” homeless surveyor, like yourself, would ignore “conduct[ing] a survey, and assess[ing]the needs and solutions of the homeless community” (City Council Study Session, June 7, 2005, collective memory), while conducting a poll to find out how much hate for the homeless the housed, especially the business, community has. Your polling methods are faulty. With questionable polling procedures, bias questions, and bigoted solicitations, all we can expect is more of the corrupt data your team has already gathered.
The question of legalized camping in the city of Arcata is not a question of money. When ex-mayor Bob Ornelas first came to the city he was homeless and was allowed to sleep. Upon arriving for a second time again the former mayor was allowed to sleep. It has been done and can again be done. As the City is the title holder of over 2000 acres of land finding multiple sites for camps and safe zones would seem elementary to a true governance by the people, for the people. Immediate repeal of the camping ordinance, Arcata Municipal Code 10010, should be recommended as a first step in creating camp/safe zones. With the ordinance repealed effort should then be forthcoming to create zones, which attract campers away from congesting favorite city recreational sites. Many sustainable models should be explored, including but not limited to, resident-directed camps like Dignity Village, Educational camps, faith-based camps, alternative building single-room shelters, open city camps, and maybe even a CoC camp after adequate alternatives for those who choose not to have a case manager have been established.
The community and autonomy resulting from self-governed camps help camp residents better cope and even overcome the harsh realities of homelessness (“The faces of dignity: rethinking the politics of homelessness and poverty in America,” Dr. Susan Finley, QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION, JULY-AUGUST 2003 VOL. 16, NO. 4, 509–531” and “The power of space: constructing a dialog of resistance, transformation, and homelessness,” Susan Finley, Washington State University, Angela Calabrese Barton, Teachers College at Columbia University, QUALITATIVE STUDIES INEDUCATION, JULY-AUGUST 2003, VOL. 16, NO. 4, 483–487). Educational camps could encourage homeless to further their educations and better prepare them to compete for jobs once the economy recovers. Faith-based camps could take advantage of faith-based grants to shelter increased numbers of our homeless, who choose those kinds of environment. The Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT), once the show piece and major recruiting point of HSU, could work in conjunction with the city and its homeless to create alternative, temporary construction of single-room structures and communal facilities as both domiciles and examples of sustainable technology. Finally open places where those people who fit in no where else can stay is a must if you are not trying to divide even the homeless into their own version of haves and have-nots. Open places could be regularly visited by outreach and social workers and volunteers, to offer services, provide peer counseling and help teach healthy and clean camping. As you should know, creating and maintaining trusting relationships with mentally ill and chronic inebriates is very difficult when outreach can only contact chronic homeless when they surface for life sustaining homeless services or jail.
Many “policies” expected in your forthcoming Arcata Homeless Services Plan will surely drive more of the vulnerable segment of the chronic homeless further underground. Legal camping would save money in Police costs for the city. The City of Arcata hired a “park ranger” out of the wastewater fund. That fund became short and required another clear-cut of our community forest. Just prior to the drastic cuts in social spending, due two the enormous outlays in our defense spending, the City hired a total of two “park rangers” and two bicycle patrol officers to “rid” Arcata of homeless who sleep. These funds would be better spent creating peace from sleep rather than war against the poor.
A place to reach out to these individuals would more than outweigh its costs. I know most of the homeless who have been here for a while. These people for the most part are not counted in the point in time counts. They have learned how to fend for themselves, rarely use services and don't “hang out” on the Plaza. There are chronic homeless among them, but they have been frustrated, belittled, and fooled by the very structure your plan hopes to impose.
As people are allowed to create their own sustainable solutions, the benefits will constantly increase. New solutions and positive social ramifications will come from interaction between the housed segment and those with a newly acquired sense of home. I see new ways of doing things that support who we are in Arcata. Perhaps allowing homeless to grow, preserve and put away their own food; create sustainable, temporary shelter; have more autonomy and self-direction; participate in their community as equals and not servants; reduce the harm caused by being homeless; and create security for the entire community by having food and shelter options in place, in case of a worst-case scenario, will eventually put Costco and Coldwell reality out of business. But if this happens it is because the market demanded it, not because the poor united for mutual survival.
We looked forward to your arrival at HSU with fantasies of an expert on the realities of homelessness. We had envisioned a sharing of expertise between the academia and those actually immersed in the problem. Many researchers studied chimpanzees in laboratory situations, but Jane Goodall went and lived amongst them. Dr. Goodall was able to gain insight into aspects of chimp behavior and society that was previously unknown to the outside researchers. Likewise people living with the homeless, especially those who are the chosen homeless and already know they have the best of time and space, have valuable insight into social intricacies that are not available to researchers only viewing them in professional-client relationships. Many concepts could be presented and many myths could be dispelled by a more corporative relationship between yourself and those who have been directly involved with the homeless issue in this community and surrounding areas for years. You presented yourself to this community of truly homeless experts with an attitude of vast superiority and an apparent agenda. Since you are claiming superior insight into this problem your every move will be closely scrutinized and all its faults and misconceptions will be made public. To you this may be an “experiment,” but to those whom are affected by your actions it is life or death.
An autonomous camp ground is the first step towards alleviating perhaps one of the biggest problems in both homelessness and mental health, the mental illness caused by the social rejection felt by homeless. In order to help anyone we must lift the burdens we can, not heap more upon them. Help lift the burden of illegal sleeping, promote healing, and take a more inclusive consideration of the causes and social failures of homelessness, in your approaches and research. Do the right thing, if only because it's right.
love eternal
tad
Homeless representative
Arcata Homeless Task Force
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Quote from Dr. Virgil Davis, Member of the Homeless Task Force, Arcata Eye June 7th, 2005.
Dr. Virgil Davis
Member of the Homeless Task Force
Arcata Eye June 7th, 2005
“The fundamental problem I see is that the homeless population that we serve in this community has a subset of people that create almost all of the negative impact on our community. This seems to be about 10 percent of the folks that access homeless services in town. They are homeless by choice either as “urban travelers” or “homeless activists” and are capable of working and paying their own way and are often not even homeless...
We’re conflicted because as caring progressively minded people we want to help those in need, we want to feel that what we do maximizes self-sufficiency so we don’t worsen the problem, and we want to set some limits on what we can and will do as a community. Finally we wouldn’t mind if those we help are thankful. On the other hand, we want to
run the 10 percent out of town!”
Member of the Homeless Task Force
Arcata Eye June 7th, 2005
“The fundamental problem I see is that the homeless population that we serve in this community has a subset of people that create almost all of the negative impact on our community. This seems to be about 10 percent of the folks that access homeless services in town. They are homeless by choice either as “urban travelers” or “homeless activists” and are capable of working and paying their own way and are often not even homeless...
We’re conflicted because as caring progressively minded people we want to help those in need, we want to feel that what we do maximizes self-sufficiency so we don’t worsen the problem, and we want to set some limits on what we can and will do as a community. Finally we wouldn’t mind if those we help are thankful. On the other hand, we want to
run the 10 percent out of town!”
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
National Lawyer's Guild: KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!!!
http://www.nlg.org/resources/kyr/kyr_english.htm
The National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!!!
NLG National OfficeHelp for people contacted by FBI, help finding criminal lawyers, and help for lawyers and organizers.143 Madison Ave, 4Fl, NY NY 10016212.679.5100, http://www.nlg.org
I. What rights do I have?
Whether or not you're a citizen, you have these constitutional rights:
The Right to Remain Silent. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives every person the right not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent.
The Right to be Free from "Unreasonable Searches and Seizures". The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect your privacy. Without a warrant, police or government agents may not search your home or office without your consent, and you have the right to refuse to let them in. They can enter and search without a warrant in an emergency. New laws have expanded the government's authority to conduct surveillance. It is possible that your e-mail, cell and other telephone calls, and conversations in your home, office, car or meeting place are being monitored without your knowledge.
The Right to Advocate for Change. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of groups and individuals who advocate changes in laws, government practices, and even the form of government. However, the INS can target non-citizens for deportation because of their First Amendment activities, as long as it could deport them for other reasons.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS CANNOT BE SUSPENDED– EVEN DURING A STATE OF EMERGENCY OR WARTIME-- AND THEY HAVE NOT BEEN SUSPENDED BY THE "USA PATRIOT ACT" OR OTHER RECENT LEGISLATION!
II. What if the police or FBI contact me?
What if agents come to question me?
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALK TO THE POLICE, FBI, INS, OR ANY OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT OR INVESTIGATOR. You can't lawfully be arrested for refusing to identify yourself on the street, although this may make the police suspicious, and police and other agents do not always follow the law. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license and registration. Otherwise, you do not have to talk to anyone: on the street, at your home or office, if you've been arrested, or even if you're in jail. Only a judge has the legal authority to order you to answer questions.
Do I need a lawyer?
IF YOU ARE CONTACTED, TELL THE AGENT YOU WANT TO TALK TO A LAWYER. Once you say this, they should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. You have the right to say that you want to talk to a lawyer even if you do not already have one. Remember to get the name, agency, and telephone number of any investigator who calls or visits you, and call the NLG, or a criminal or immigration lawyer, before deciding whether to answer questions. If you do agree to be interviewed, you have the right to have a lawyer present. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to find you a lawyer for free or a reduced rate.
If I refuse to answer questions or if I say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?
TALKING TO THE FBI OR OTHER AGENTS CAN BE DANGEROUS. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under our Constitution. The FBI is not just trying to find terrorists, but is gathering information on immigrants and activists who have done nothing wrong. And keep in mind that even though they are allowed to and do lie to you, lying to a federal agent is a crime. The safest things to say are "I am going to remain silent", "I want to speak to my lawyer", and "I do not consent to a search."
Can agents search my home, apartment or office?
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LET POLICE OR OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS INTO YOUR HOME OR OFFICE UNLESS THEY HAVE A SEARCH WARRANT. However, your roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent and your employer can consent to a search of your office. Do not try to physically interfere with the police or agents, even if the search is illegal, or you will likely be arrested. Say "I do not consent to a search." Do not answer any questions. Call the NLG or a criminal lawyer.
If agents come to arrest me in my home, can they search my home?
They can search the area near where you are arrested but not your entire house, unless they have a search warrant.
What if I am not at home?
Under the new "USA Patriot Act", under certain circumstances agents may surreptitiously search and not notify you until afterward, perhaps a long time afterward. It is uncertain whether this provision will stand up in light of the Fourth Amendment. If you suspect your home or office has been searched or that you are being surveilled, contact the NLG or a criminal lawyer.
What if they do have a search warrant?
DEMAND TO SEE THE WARRANT. The warrant must tell in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be seized. If the police have a warrant, you cannot stop them from entering and searching, but you should still tell them that you do not consent to a search. This will limit them to search only where the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search and if so, watch and take notes including names, badge numbers, and what agency the officers are from. Have friends act as witnesses. Give this information to your lawyer. If the officers ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. Even if they have a search warrant, you still do not have to answer any questions. Call the NLG for help getting a criminal lawyer.
What if the police stop me on the street?
ASK IF YOU ARE FREE TO GO. If they say yes, walk away. If you are not free to go, you are being detained, but this does not necessarily mean you will be arrested. They are entitled to frisk you. A frisk is a pat down on the outside of your clothing. Do not consent to any further search. But if they continue, or in some other way violate your rights, stay calm and don't physically resist police or agents. You will only be hurt and arrested. Stick to "I don't consent, I want to speak to my lawyer"; get the officer's name, badge number, and agency; and call a lawyer or the NLG at your first opportunity. You do not have to answer questions or give a statement if you are detained or even if you are arrested.
Do I have to give my name?
Legally, you do not have to give your name unless they suspect you of a crime, but refusing to give your name is likely to arouse suspicion. Be aware that police/ agents may be carrying a list of deportable aliens. Giving a false name could be a crime. If you are driving a car, you must show them your license, registration and proof of insurance, but you do not have to consent to a search, although the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway.
What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I refuse to talk?
A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. Don't be intimidated. This is frequently an empty threat, and if they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. Receiving a subpoena to testify before a grand jury doesn't mean that you are suspected of a crime. And you may have legal grounds to stop the subpoena or to refuse to answer questions before the grand jury. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG or a criminal lawyer right away.
What if I am treated badly by the police or FBI?
Try to remember the officer's badge number and/or name. You have the right to ask the officer to identify himself. Write down everything as soon as you can and try to find witnesses. If you are injured, see a doctor and take pictures of the injuries as soon as possible. Call the NLG or one of the other organizations listed on the front as soon as possible.
III. What if I am not a citizen and the INS contacts me?
Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the INS may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge.
Talk to a lawyer. Always carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer and who will take your calls. You must carry your immigration papers such as "green card", I-94, work authorization with you as well. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many changes since September 11. More changes are likely. INS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter an INS agent, call your attorney. If you can’t do it right away, keep trying.
Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents and applicants for LPR can be barred from returning.
Based on today's laws, non-citizens usually have the rights below, no matter what your immigration status. However, this information may change, which is why it's important to talk to an immigration lawyer. Also, foreign nationals trying to enter the U.S. at the border or airport do not have all of these same rights.
You usually have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any questions or signing any papers. You have the right to call an attorney or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by an attorney in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney, so you must hire one or find someone who will represent you for free. Call the numbers listed on the front for help finding an attorney.
You do not have to answer questions about your immigration status or any other questions. You are better off talking to a lawyer first.
If you are arrested or detained, the INS must decide in 48 hours whether to put you into immigration proceedings and whether to keep you in custody or to release you on bond. However, under new laws, the INS has an "additional reasonable period of time" past 48 hours in the event of "an emergency or other extraordinary circumstance" to decide whether to keep you in custody. Make sure your attorney talks to national immigration rights organizations if the INS is keeping you in detention on the basis of these new laws (see the contact numbers on the front.)
In most cases, you have the right to ask for release from detention by paying a bond, or to ask for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. You have these rights even if you have not been charged by the INS. The law does not say when an immigration judge must hear your case. The judge may order you to stay in detention if he or she finds that you are a danger to society or might try to get away. In some cases, the law says you can't be released if you are charged with terrorism or have certain criminal convictions.
In most cases, you have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge before you can be deported. But if you waive (give up) your rights or take "voluntary departure" (agree to leave), you could be deported without a hearing. If this happens, you may never be able to enter the U.S. legally again or get legal immigration status. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, or have been ordered deported in the past, you must talk to an attorney about whether you have this right and what other legal alternatives you might have.
If you are a foreign national arrested in the U.S., you have the right to call your consulate or to have the police inform the consulate of your arrest. The police must allow your consul to visit or speak with you. Your consul might assist you in finding a lawyer or offer other help, such as contacting your family. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.
IV. What are my rights at airports?
You gave airport personnel permission to scan you and your bags by buying a ticket and going to the airport. They can do additional random searches of persons and property regardless of whether the initial scan turns up anything suspicious. If the scan does disclose something that might be a weapon, the law is unclear whether you have the right to leave the airport rather than being searched. The airplane pilot can refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. And if you are entering the country, the U.S. Customs Service has the right to stop and search every person and item. But you should not be barred from flying or subjected to special searches or harassment on the basis of your race, sex, religion, national origin, or political beliefs. If you believe this is the case, call one of the organizations on the front.
V. What if I am under 18?
Do I have to answer questions?
No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You do not have to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials.
What if I am detained?
If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, you have the right to have a lawyer appointed to represent you at no cost.
Do I have rights at school?
Public school students have the First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, publishing independent newspapers, etc., just so long as those activities do not disrupt classes. Students can be suspended or expelled from school only if they violate the law or disrupt school activities. You have the right to a hearing, with your parents and an attorney present, before being suspended or expelled.
Students can have their backpacks and lockers searched by school officials without a warrant, if they suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges. Students can be stopped and questioned by school officials at school, for example if you are not in class. However, they should not stop and question you for engaging in political activity or because of your ethnicity or religion. If you think your rights have been violated, call one of the organizations on the front.
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This pamphlet was produced by the National Lawyers Guild, which is solely responsible for its content. Nothing herein is intended to interfere with any legitimate law enforcement investigation.
The National Lawyers Guild is a 65 year old membership organization of progressive lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers fighting for social justice. Donations for printing this pamphlet and to help those targeted in the wake of 9-11 can be made out to NLG, earmarked "Post-911 Project", and sent to NLG, 126 University Place, 5th fl., New York, NY 10003.
Revised January 8, 2002
Friday, June 24, 2005
Pharma-Psychological-Prison
The large scale, systematic use of psychiatric punishment began in the late 1930's in the Soviet Union, and greatly expanded under Khrushchev. No westerner was allowed to visit a Soviet Special Psychiatric Hospital, but reports from former prisoners showed a stark resemblance to the experimental prison-clinics run by Himmler's SS doctors, both in cruelties practiced and type of doctor in charge. As with most past systems of totalitarian control, psychiatric punishment of the homeless was a precursor to labeling political dissent as a mental illness. On May 24, 1959, Pravda, the official Soviet newspaper, quoted Khrushchev as saying “To those who might start calling for opposition to Communism . . . clearly the mental state of such people is not normal.” In Germany Hitler popularized eugenic psychiatry in his book “Mein Kampf.” And in the United States there is somewhere between 3 and 4 million American children that are on Ritalin!
These psychiatric drugs modify the brain and its neurotransmitters. The human brain is the most complicated and least understood organ in the human body and perhaps the most complicated organ on the earth. Anti-psychotics pollute the brain at far higher concentrations than anything on earth has ever been exposed to. These pharmaceuticals stop the brain from removing and destroying serotonin, and no research has ever been done to find out if this is reversible after the medication is discontinued. There are about 160 lawsuits out against Eli Lilly for murder or suicide, induced by Prozac use, and that is only one drug from one corporation.
Sometimes I don't see a homeless brother or sister for a long time. When finally I see them again, they don't want to talk about where they've been, they can no longer look me in the eye, and life seems to have left them somehow. This is how I expect my next encounter with my friend Jessy to be.
Tuesday I witnessed Jessy being rounded up and taken to “Simpervirens” (a mental detainment facility) to get a dose or two of some drug, made by a corporation, of which George Bush Sr. or Donald Rumsfeld was probably once the CEO (they chaired three pharmaceutical corporations). He was rounded up by the new mental health outreach team, called: “the police.” They claimed that somebody called and when they responded they did not know if they were responding to a 5150 “aide to sick,” or a crime. The police claim Jessy was “conversing with someone who wasn't there” and “wasn't making sense.” When Jessy asked “why am I was being arrested,” he was authoritatively reassured that he was merely being involuntarily institutionalized, drugged and detained for the next 72 hours and not arrested.
Using Police as mental health outreach goes a little beyond “law enforcement” when we authorize them to make psychiatric diagnoses on non-violent and non-suicidal people on the streets. According to AB1421, “Laura's law,” police can round up and detain a suspected mentally ill person for 72 hours if they “feel” that they are a danger to themselves or to society. This law was intended to protect us from the dangerously violent criminally insane. With policies designed to run homeless people out of the towns they reside in, police officers, like Arcata's Brent Chase use, these laws as “tools” to keep homeless numbers down.
Others and myself helped Jessy out quite a bit, taught him life skills, spent time with him, helped him with necessities and enjoyed his company. Anyone who knows Jessy knows that he talks to himself out loud. Jessy, who is actually quite nice, harmless and very introverted, is a victim of the whole neurosis caused by a system that rips your job, retirement, or freedom from you in a second, and then calls you a criminal when you become, the only option left to you, homeless. He keeps to himself, but when he asks me for something he starts to express an internally rationalized shame verbally. The shame poor Jessy must of felt, just because he was stopped and arrested, showed most after telling the homeless/mental health/police officers that he (a) knew what Simpervirens was and (b) that he “did not want to go there,” and then, looked at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Don't let them take me there.” Of course there wasn't anything I could do.
A 2004 report, subcontracted by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), written by the Urban Institute, called “Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness,” speaks of a “paradigm shift” because of a “trigger event.” I wont elaborate on how the Patriot Act was a paradigm shift because of a trigger event, but I will mention it. This, what is called “problem, reaction, solution” or the “Hegelian Dialect,” is a way for social engineers to incite, justify and implement policies to improve a situation within their culturally narrow bias. The cultural differences between well-paid and housed doctors, law-makers, professors and police, called “experts,” and poor homeless people, is wide enough of a chasm, but then the “experts” advocate creating or utilizing a “trigger event” to force a “paradigm shift” to create “innovative outreach programs developed by and located in the . . . Police Department” (italics mine, ch3, p21). Though the report claims, “Providers have to attract . . . the very resistant people they are trying to serve,” it also advocates to, “combine police and mental health expertise and authority” to be “the only outreach teams on the streets that have the ability to remove people either voluntarily or involuntarily” (italics, bold & underline mine, ch3, p21). A San Diego city policy praised in the report is: “San Diego Police Officers arrest chronic street alcoholics . . . offer treatment plus transitional housing as an alternative to six months in jail . . . they [chronic street alcoholics] may first serve a full jail sentence or even two before they are convinced to try” (italics mine, ch3, p22).
There are many good ideas in the Urban Institute’s report, but they are inter-dispersed with cruel, unconstitutional, and human rights violating ideas. If these programs were so damn good for the chronic homeless they are intended to serve, then they would be flooded with applicants, not forcing people against their will to participate. To involuntarily medicate, institutionalize, and case manage people, based on controversial psychology theories, methods and pharmaceuticals, is the real criminal insanity. Social control through medications and internment is no different today then in Stalin's, Hitler's or Khrushchev's days. The law clearly states that a victim of Laura's Law must be a threat to the safety of himself or others. The only threat to safety was the threat towards Jessy, of what the constitution and all pertinent resulting case law calls “the threat of loss of ones life, by loss of freedom.”
The round up is underway. Homeland Security Department round ups, like
Operation FALCON, round up the “fugitives” - remember fugitives are wanted, not necessarily guilty. The Chronic Homeless Initiative rounds up the mentally ill homeless with police using culturally biased standards and goals. Its not a question of whether they will ignore their promise to “just go after the fugitives and mentally ill” and go after the activists, the communists, the unions, the gays, the Jews, and the real Christians, but a question of when. Just as was done with the racketeering laws and the SWAT teams, the roles of the homeless/mentally ill policies will be revised to include social engineering of a fascist order.
I went to Jessy's hearing. The hearing was not to win his freedom, though 72 hours is all they are allowed to hold him (he has been held against his will for 6 days as of this writing). The hearing was about forced medication, whether Jessy should be court ordered to take pharmaceuticals, which he does not want. This, what I call the “bag 'em and tag em” policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the California Department of Mental Health, gives a better understanding of their logic – extremely evil logic, but their rationalization none the less.
As I have also already pointed out, Jessy was in no way, shape, or form , “5150. a danger to himself,” at the time of his non-arrest, apprehension and incarceration. In court it was testified that Jessy was sleeping at the initial contact with the police. A doctor from Simpervirens mental health detention center testified for the prosecution. I initially thought the extremely pale doctor with the thorazine shuffle and drug induced glazed eyes was just another defendant in a hearing of Jessy's type, so imagine my surprise when I discovered it was none other the Dr. John Sommers, the pill pushing Psychiatric Doctor of Simpervirens.
Dr. Sommers testified that when poor Jessy was brought to Sempervirons he was resistant. Asked if he witnessed the resistance he claimed, “No, I observed him resisting the restraints.” Jessy testified that he wasn't restrained. He said that the nurses and staff at Sempervirens threatened to, “Strap me [Jessy] down if I didn't take the medicines they were trying to give me.”
The doctor claimed that in his opinion, from less then half an hour talking to Jessy, Jessy suffered from what the DSM-IV (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, no. 4) calls “Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified or Psychosis NOS.” I was pretty sure that this “diagnosis” was really a classification, since Judge Wilson seemed very familiar with the term, though if it weren’t so sick, it would be funny. The DSM-IV is a book about 4 inches thick with a 10-page list of categories of mental disorders. Each category has mental disorder diagnosis within them. At the very end of the “Psychotic Disorders” category is this Psychosis NOS. Under the description for Psychosis NOS it reads: “[NOS] is included for classifying psychotic presentations that do not meet the criteria for any specific Psychotic Disorders defined in this section or psychotic symptomatology about which there is inadequate or contradictory information” (italics mine). Talk about a catchall law!
If I understand the professional opinion correctly, then a person who is not a danger to himself or others, but who denies a mental illness that is accused by a mental health “professional,” needs to have the court “make him feel better” by forced medication. The doctor authoritatively proclaimed, from the witness stand, as grounds for Jessy not knowing that he should be strapped down and force-fed anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, tranquilizers, anti-depression medication and a whole cocktail of drugs to combat the many potential side-effects, that Jessy's “thinking was not based on fact,” he showed “resistance to taking the medication,” he was “speaking in 'word-salad' (Sommers' word for incomplete sentences),” he “can't answer questions” and that Jessy “can't hold a rational conversation.” When Jessy took the stand he was perhaps even more articulate than the doctor wanting to experiment on him. He answered all of the questions asked of him as well as most I've seen in courts, and I've seen a lot. He figured days, times, and people involved when asked to. He did kind of confuse the court audience when he was asked if he knew why he was in court and he replied “to fight for my life.” Everyone seemed to understand him all right though when he said “I don't feel alive when taking those drugs.”
Here's the theory: A homeless person is reported sleeping in the bushes. Brent Chase, an Arcata police officer, ex-park ranger (a position created to prevent homeless from sleeping in Arcata), implementing a “run the bums out of town” policy, from the mayor and city manager, shows up on the scene. Statements by the police department indicate that Chase was not sure whether it was trespassing or “5150, a danger to him or her self,” call. The police made no indications that Jessy did not cooperate in any form. I showed up right after the initial contact, at about the same time as the second officer. Jessy was very coherent and articulate by the time I arrived. Chase having the “authority” to diagnose and take into custody someone he “believes” a danger to themselves, or any other behavior he deems “5150,” takes Jessy and incarcerates him into a mental detainment institution. Though an arrested person has to, by law, be brought before a judge in 72 hours of arrest, Jessy spent a week being threatened, coerced, intimidated, and pestered into voluntarily taking pharmaceuticals that he “didn't want to [voluntarily] take.” Dr. Sommers claimed to have for a week “tried several different tacks to try to get him to give informed consent.” Since Jessy was not crazy enough to fall for the pharmaceutical dope dealers manipulation, he was finally brought to court, not to secure his lawful release, but to try to force lifetime maintenance drugs on him. Even Judge Wilson was trying to get him to consider a pharmaceutical life.
If there is a moral to this story, it is Jessy was the victim of “rope 'em and dope 'em” terrorism that is happening right here, right now. He needs alternative, empowering mental health models and he needs the security to know he is safe in his own person. With anti-homeless police, implementing a whatever it takes policy to run the homeless out of town, how safe will any of us be when $800,000,000 of Prop 63 money is used to enforce procedures that don't require probable cause, speedy trials, and proof beyond a doubt? With so many ties between the current administration and the pharmaceutical corporations, and also the ties between the pill makers and the psychiatric professional organizations, profits and social control have become the obvious goal of forced medication.
love eternal
tad
These psychiatric drugs modify the brain and its neurotransmitters. The human brain is the most complicated and least understood organ in the human body and perhaps the most complicated organ on the earth. Anti-psychotics pollute the brain at far higher concentrations than anything on earth has ever been exposed to. These pharmaceuticals stop the brain from removing and destroying serotonin, and no research has ever been done to find out if this is reversible after the medication is discontinued. There are about 160 lawsuits out against Eli Lilly for murder or suicide, induced by Prozac use, and that is only one drug from one corporation.
Sometimes I don't see a homeless brother or sister for a long time. When finally I see them again, they don't want to talk about where they've been, they can no longer look me in the eye, and life seems to have left them somehow. This is how I expect my next encounter with my friend Jessy to be.
Tuesday I witnessed Jessy being rounded up and taken to “Simpervirens” (a mental detainment facility) to get a dose or two of some drug, made by a corporation, of which George Bush Sr. or Donald Rumsfeld was probably once the CEO (they chaired three pharmaceutical corporations). He was rounded up by the new mental health outreach team, called: “the police.” They claimed that somebody called and when they responded they did not know if they were responding to a 5150 “aide to sick,” or a crime. The police claim Jessy was “conversing with someone who wasn't there” and “wasn't making sense.” When Jessy asked “why am I was being arrested,” he was authoritatively reassured that he was merely being involuntarily institutionalized, drugged and detained for the next 72 hours and not arrested.
Using Police as mental health outreach goes a little beyond “law enforcement” when we authorize them to make psychiatric diagnoses on non-violent and non-suicidal people on the streets. According to AB1421, “Laura's law,” police can round up and detain a suspected mentally ill person for 72 hours if they “feel” that they are a danger to themselves or to society. This law was intended to protect us from the dangerously violent criminally insane. With policies designed to run homeless people out of the towns they reside in, police officers, like Arcata's Brent Chase use, these laws as “tools” to keep homeless numbers down.
Others and myself helped Jessy out quite a bit, taught him life skills, spent time with him, helped him with necessities and enjoyed his company. Anyone who knows Jessy knows that he talks to himself out loud. Jessy, who is actually quite nice, harmless and very introverted, is a victim of the whole neurosis caused by a system that rips your job, retirement, or freedom from you in a second, and then calls you a criminal when you become, the only option left to you, homeless. He keeps to himself, but when he asks me for something he starts to express an internally rationalized shame verbally. The shame poor Jessy must of felt, just because he was stopped and arrested, showed most after telling the homeless/mental health/police officers that he (a) knew what Simpervirens was and (b) that he “did not want to go there,” and then, looked at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Don't let them take me there.” Of course there wasn't anything I could do.
A 2004 report, subcontracted by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), written by the Urban Institute, called “Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness,” speaks of a “paradigm shift” because of a “trigger event.” I wont elaborate on how the Patriot Act was a paradigm shift because of a trigger event, but I will mention it. This, what is called “problem, reaction, solution” or the “Hegelian Dialect,” is a way for social engineers to incite, justify and implement policies to improve a situation within their culturally narrow bias. The cultural differences between well-paid and housed doctors, law-makers, professors and police, called “experts,” and poor homeless people, is wide enough of a chasm, but then the “experts” advocate creating or utilizing a “trigger event” to force a “paradigm shift” to create “innovative outreach programs developed by and located in the . . . Police Department” (italics mine, ch3, p21). Though the report claims, “Providers have to attract . . . the very resistant people they are trying to serve,” it also advocates to, “combine police and mental health expertise and authority” to be “the only outreach teams on the streets that have the ability to remove people either voluntarily or involuntarily” (italics, bold & underline mine, ch3, p21). A San Diego city policy praised in the report is: “San Diego Police Officers arrest chronic street alcoholics . . . offer treatment plus transitional housing as an alternative to six months in jail . . . they [chronic street alcoholics] may first serve a full jail sentence or even two before they are convinced to try” (italics mine, ch3, p22).
There are many good ideas in the Urban Institute’s report, but they are inter-dispersed with cruel, unconstitutional, and human rights violating ideas. If these programs were so damn good for the chronic homeless they are intended to serve, then they would be flooded with applicants, not forcing people against their will to participate. To involuntarily medicate, institutionalize, and case manage people, based on controversial psychology theories, methods and pharmaceuticals, is the real criminal insanity. Social control through medications and internment is no different today then in Stalin's, Hitler's or Khrushchev's days. The law clearly states that a victim of Laura's Law must be a threat to the safety of himself or others. The only threat to safety was the threat towards Jessy, of what the constitution and all pertinent resulting case law calls “the threat of loss of ones life, by loss of freedom.”
The round up is underway. Homeland Security Department round ups, like
Operation FALCON, round up the “fugitives” - remember fugitives are wanted, not necessarily guilty. The Chronic Homeless Initiative rounds up the mentally ill homeless with police using culturally biased standards and goals. Its not a question of whether they will ignore their promise to “just go after the fugitives and mentally ill” and go after the activists, the communists, the unions, the gays, the Jews, and the real Christians, but a question of when. Just as was done with the racketeering laws and the SWAT teams, the roles of the homeless/mentally ill policies will be revised to include social engineering of a fascist order.
I went to Jessy's hearing. The hearing was not to win his freedom, though 72 hours is all they are allowed to hold him (he has been held against his will for 6 days as of this writing). The hearing was about forced medication, whether Jessy should be court ordered to take pharmaceuticals, which he does not want. This, what I call the “bag 'em and tag em” policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the California Department of Mental Health, gives a better understanding of their logic – extremely evil logic, but their rationalization none the less.
As I have also already pointed out, Jessy was in no way, shape, or form , “5150. a danger to himself,” at the time of his non-arrest, apprehension and incarceration. In court it was testified that Jessy was sleeping at the initial contact with the police. A doctor from Simpervirens mental health detention center testified for the prosecution. I initially thought the extremely pale doctor with the thorazine shuffle and drug induced glazed eyes was just another defendant in a hearing of Jessy's type, so imagine my surprise when I discovered it was none other the Dr. John Sommers, the pill pushing Psychiatric Doctor of Simpervirens.
Dr. Sommers testified that when poor Jessy was brought to Sempervirons he was resistant. Asked if he witnessed the resistance he claimed, “No, I observed him resisting the restraints.” Jessy testified that he wasn't restrained. He said that the nurses and staff at Sempervirens threatened to, “Strap me [Jessy] down if I didn't take the medicines they were trying to give me.”
The doctor claimed that in his opinion, from less then half an hour talking to Jessy, Jessy suffered from what the DSM-IV (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, no. 4) calls “Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified or Psychosis NOS.” I was pretty sure that this “diagnosis” was really a classification, since Judge Wilson seemed very familiar with the term, though if it weren’t so sick, it would be funny. The DSM-IV is a book about 4 inches thick with a 10-page list of categories of mental disorders. Each category has mental disorder diagnosis within them. At the very end of the “Psychotic Disorders” category is this Psychosis NOS. Under the description for Psychosis NOS it reads: “[NOS] is included for classifying psychotic presentations that do not meet the criteria for any specific Psychotic Disorders defined in this section or psychotic symptomatology about which there is inadequate or contradictory information” (italics mine). Talk about a catchall law!
If I understand the professional opinion correctly, then a person who is not a danger to himself or others, but who denies a mental illness that is accused by a mental health “professional,” needs to have the court “make him feel better” by forced medication. The doctor authoritatively proclaimed, from the witness stand, as grounds for Jessy not knowing that he should be strapped down and force-fed anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, tranquilizers, anti-depression medication and a whole cocktail of drugs to combat the many potential side-effects, that Jessy's “thinking was not based on fact,” he showed “resistance to taking the medication,” he was “speaking in 'word-salad' (Sommers' word for incomplete sentences),” he “can't answer questions” and that Jessy “can't hold a rational conversation.” When Jessy took the stand he was perhaps even more articulate than the doctor wanting to experiment on him. He answered all of the questions asked of him as well as most I've seen in courts, and I've seen a lot. He figured days, times, and people involved when asked to. He did kind of confuse the court audience when he was asked if he knew why he was in court and he replied “to fight for my life.” Everyone seemed to understand him all right though when he said “I don't feel alive when taking those drugs.”
Here's the theory: A homeless person is reported sleeping in the bushes. Brent Chase, an Arcata police officer, ex-park ranger (a position created to prevent homeless from sleeping in Arcata), implementing a “run the bums out of town” policy, from the mayor and city manager, shows up on the scene. Statements by the police department indicate that Chase was not sure whether it was trespassing or “5150, a danger to him or her self,” call. The police made no indications that Jessy did not cooperate in any form. I showed up right after the initial contact, at about the same time as the second officer. Jessy was very coherent and articulate by the time I arrived. Chase having the “authority” to diagnose and take into custody someone he “believes” a danger to themselves, or any other behavior he deems “5150,” takes Jessy and incarcerates him into a mental detainment institution. Though an arrested person has to, by law, be brought before a judge in 72 hours of arrest, Jessy spent a week being threatened, coerced, intimidated, and pestered into voluntarily taking pharmaceuticals that he “didn't want to [voluntarily] take.” Dr. Sommers claimed to have for a week “tried several different tacks to try to get him to give informed consent.” Since Jessy was not crazy enough to fall for the pharmaceutical dope dealers manipulation, he was finally brought to court, not to secure his lawful release, but to try to force lifetime maintenance drugs on him. Even Judge Wilson was trying to get him to consider a pharmaceutical life.
If there is a moral to this story, it is Jessy was the victim of “rope 'em and dope 'em” terrorism that is happening right here, right now. He needs alternative, empowering mental health models and he needs the security to know he is safe in his own person. With anti-homeless police, implementing a whatever it takes policy to run the homeless out of town, how safe will any of us be when $800,000,000 of Prop 63 money is used to enforce procedures that don't require probable cause, speedy trials, and proof beyond a doubt? With so many ties between the current administration and the pharmaceutical corporations, and also the ties between the pill makers and the psychiatric professional organizations, profits and social control have become the obvious goal of forced medication.
love eternal
tad
Friday, June 17, 2005
comment from a Homeless Task Force member: Administrative Mandate Building
Interesting comments have recently been presented to the Arcata Homeless Task Force (HTF), since these comments were not all made publicly available, I thought it best to present a background on what is being said and done. Professor Jane Holschuh, a self-described “survey expert” (HTF-City Council-HSU Consultant Team planning meeting, June 7, 2005), Principal Investigator of the Humboldt State University's (HSU) Consultant Team to the task force, passed out a communique, she found “interesting,” at the HTF Meeting, June 2, 2005. It was subcommittee meeting minutes by the HTF sub-committee that was supposed, “to balance the rights of the homeless with the rights of the housed, to insure Arcata's quality of life for all citizens,” but it soon degraded into the community impact sub-committee. The meeting was between Arcata's chief of police Randy Mendosa and the sub-committee which included: Mark Leppanen, Dr. Virgil Davis; Business Owners: Kate Christensen and Julie Vaissade-Elcock; and Pastor Tim Doty- (HTF) chair. The meeting was held June 1, 2005.
The Mendosa report made many absurd accusations, but due to space restraints I only wish to touch on two and their implications for Arcata, the first is his coining the term “urban anarchists.” Prince Peter Kropotkin, an exiled Russian theoretical anarchist of the early 20th century, said; “Anarchism [is] the name giving to a principle of theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” We really have no way of knowing what Mendosa means by “urban anarchist”, but we do know from these minutes that: “they don't cause physical danger”, “Randy [Mendosa]” is not sure they're “all or even mostly homeless”, “they use services intended for homeless people in need”, “they create negative community backlash”, “decrease Arcata's economic base and quality of life”, and “make people angry” (italics mine). What Mendosa certainly doesn't say is that these “urban anarchists” are criminals. He does however, closely link the “urban anarchist” with the “urban traveler” and “homeless activist” and freely interchanges the terms.
Under the question on the minutes “Urban Travelers/Anarchists vs. Homeless People?”, he tells this sub-committee, “It would seem that many homeless people would want the Homeless Activists to leave because they just keep people from wanting to help them.” (italics mine). As a resident homeless activist, in Arcata, I believe that the tactic of implanting an idea as logical, by civil servant authorities, is really the act of politically lobbying the power base and those who wish to serve it. The Arcata Police Department regularly entices homeless to preform as informant/undercover/provocateurs in the villainization and arrest (primarily marijuana offenses and there resulting warrants) of other homeless. Why would I be surprised that the chief of police is advocating something that is easy for him to incite, especially when others who are closely associated with the desired outcome, “want[ing] the Homeless Activists to leave”, have advocated and offered support for this outcome?
Dr. Virgil Davis, a emergency room doctor, and a member of Arcata's economic development committee, at the time of his appointment to the HTF, repeated Mendosa's lobby in an editorial (Arcata Eye, June 7, 2005). The good doctor points out his belief that “almost all of the negative impact on our community” is done by “about 10 percent” of the homeless and they are either “urban travelers or homeless activists”. Though just this unqualified statement shows how Mendosa is inciting those from this sub-committee, Davis' explicative statement, in the above editorial, “we want to run the 10 percent out of town!”; this is a hate crime at best and if their lynch-mob rhetoric goes too far, it could be accessory to murder. Hate Crime is defined as: any act that is intent on bringing violence upon any minority group (e.g. homeless activists); running someone out of town is violence.
To further insinuate Mendosa's theory HSU, HTF consultant, Dr. Betsy Watson stated at the HTF/HSU/City Council planning session meeting, June 7, 2005, that she had been informed by “people at the night shelter” that I did not represent the homeless. As homeless activists, we have always been supportive of the night shelter. We always held the All Faith Partnership up as a model of efficiency, generosity, community and, at least to me, a good example of God's Love working through people. They are the people who opened their churches last winter during the coldest night. We did, however, have one problem with the rules of the night shelter, and that was - that nobody who stays at the night shelter is allowed to be absent after curfew and thus can't participate in government, at city council meetings and homeless task force meetings. This grievance has never been addressed, because only rarely does someone want to go to the meetings. Does Professor Watson want me, or maybe those who don't know the issue, to believe that people at the night shelter, who have only seen one task force meeting (Thursdays, 7:00 pm, channel 12) at best, think I don't represent them, and Mendosa does?
This community impact sub-committee has self-decided to tackle the task of stirring up contempt against those who live different lifestyles, (chosen or not). Mark Leppanen states (Arcata Eye, letters to the editor, May 25, 2005) that “environmental catastrophe”, “illegitimate government”, and the “status quo [being] not only 'non-sustainable' but inherently evil”, and those beliefs by the “homeless by choice” is “disillusioned[ment]” and “hyperbolic rhetoric” that “is patently hysterical and insidious”. The good doctor Davis suffers from the disillusionment that he “live[s] in a democracy”instead of a country that has a Bill of Rights, to protect the individual and from a majority rules, democratic, mob mentality. “Might” made “right” in fascist Germany, but, at least in theory, people here have liberties. This sub-committee, heavily representative of “Arcata's economic base,” decided they needed a survey to prove the democratic realities of their gentrification agenda.
Professor Holschuh, the self-proclaimed survey expert, came to the rescue. The task force gave Holschuh a list of questions to poll non-homeless people about how they perceive homeless problems. The statecraft of measuring the psyche is called psychometrics. Psychometrics is the think-tank imitation of what science calls quantum mechanics. As any first-year social science student can tell you, statistics can be used to appear to prove any psychometrics theorem. If I asked 10 dentists, “would you recommend some particular tooth-paste, which is basically the same as other tooth-pastes, and 9 out 10 said they would, then I could claim honestly, “9 out of 10 dentists surveyed recommend this particular tooth-paste”. If I target a group of downtown business owners and their proponents with a question like Holschuh's question in the original draft of the “community survey”:
“Should people who are homeless in Arcata be required to participate in a case management, social service, substance abuse treatment, or mental health treatment program (contingencies) to help them move out of homelessness in order to receive basic services such as: Food?, Showers/restrooms?, Emergency shelter?
I would be distorting the truth, planting seeds and inciting violence. To “require” “case management” “to help” in order “to receive” “food, restrooms and shelter” is violence! This question was eliminated by the next draft of the survey.
What ever the final version of this push-poll (a survey intended to propagandize) is, its repercussions will be harmful by planting the seeds of new forms of oppression and then justifying the policies made from the survey as “democratic” mandates. It further distorts the nature of homelessness and its main cause, lack of wage jobs, implying instead that irresponsibility, substance abuse, and mental illness are not just the cause of homelessness, but that the “contingencies” actually have been shown to work. For anyone, especially doctors, professors and city management personal to use their credentials to justify gentrification agendas (running homeless out of town) is what I would call insidious. At the time of this writing I don't know how this poll will be gathered. Printing it in the homeless bigoted Arcata Eye tabloid, mailed to water bill holders and surveying at grocery stores are methods that have been suggested. It seems that when spin-doctors work at the tabloid stage we can point to the reports, at the report stage we can point to the data, but at the data stage the “experts” rein supreme. If the survey is skewed, then it should be skewed in defense of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Please fill out the poll, remembering that if one person ends up involuntarily medicated, imprisoned, exiled or otherwise assaulted due to their homeless status, these policies are unacceptably costly and therefore “inherently evil”. When will we see that it is past time to dismantle a machine that doesn't work and grow an organism (community) that does?
love eternal
tad
The Mendosa report made many absurd accusations, but due to space restraints I only wish to touch on two and their implications for Arcata, the first is his coining the term “urban anarchists.” Prince Peter Kropotkin, an exiled Russian theoretical anarchist of the early 20th century, said; “Anarchism [is] the name giving to a principle of theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” We really have no way of knowing what Mendosa means by “urban anarchist”, but we do know from these minutes that: “they don't cause physical danger”, “Randy [Mendosa]” is not sure they're “all or even mostly homeless”, “they use services intended for homeless people in need”, “they create negative community backlash”, “decrease Arcata's economic base and quality of life”, and “make people angry” (italics mine). What Mendosa certainly doesn't say is that these “urban anarchists” are criminals. He does however, closely link the “urban anarchist” with the “urban traveler” and “homeless activist” and freely interchanges the terms.
Under the question on the minutes “Urban Travelers/Anarchists vs. Homeless People?”, he tells this sub-committee, “It would seem that many homeless people would want the Homeless Activists to leave because they just keep people from wanting to help them.” (italics mine). As a resident homeless activist, in Arcata, I believe that the tactic of implanting an idea as logical, by civil servant authorities, is really the act of politically lobbying the power base and those who wish to serve it. The Arcata Police Department regularly entices homeless to preform as informant/undercover/provocateurs in the villainization and arrest (primarily marijuana offenses and there resulting warrants) of other homeless. Why would I be surprised that the chief of police is advocating something that is easy for him to incite, especially when others who are closely associated with the desired outcome, “want[ing] the Homeless Activists to leave”, have advocated and offered support for this outcome?
Dr. Virgil Davis, a emergency room doctor, and a member of Arcata's economic development committee, at the time of his appointment to the HTF, repeated Mendosa's lobby in an editorial (Arcata Eye, June 7, 2005). The good doctor points out his belief that “almost all of the negative impact on our community” is done by “about 10 percent” of the homeless and they are either “urban travelers or homeless activists”. Though just this unqualified statement shows how Mendosa is inciting those from this sub-committee, Davis' explicative statement, in the above editorial, “we want to run the 10 percent out of town!”; this is a hate crime at best and if their lynch-mob rhetoric goes too far, it could be accessory to murder. Hate Crime is defined as: any act that is intent on bringing violence upon any minority group (e.g. homeless activists); running someone out of town is violence.
To further insinuate Mendosa's theory HSU, HTF consultant, Dr. Betsy Watson stated at the HTF/HSU/City Council planning session meeting, June 7, 2005, that she had been informed by “people at the night shelter” that I did not represent the homeless. As homeless activists, we have always been supportive of the night shelter. We always held the All Faith Partnership up as a model of efficiency, generosity, community and, at least to me, a good example of God's Love working through people. They are the people who opened their churches last winter during the coldest night. We did, however, have one problem with the rules of the night shelter, and that was - that nobody who stays at the night shelter is allowed to be absent after curfew and thus can't participate in government, at city council meetings and homeless task force meetings. This grievance has never been addressed, because only rarely does someone want to go to the meetings. Does Professor Watson want me, or maybe those who don't know the issue, to believe that people at the night shelter, who have only seen one task force meeting (Thursdays, 7:00 pm, channel 12) at best, think I don't represent them, and Mendosa does?
This community impact sub-committee has self-decided to tackle the task of stirring up contempt against those who live different lifestyles, (chosen or not). Mark Leppanen states (Arcata Eye, letters to the editor, May 25, 2005) that “environmental catastrophe”, “illegitimate government”, and the “status quo [being] not only 'non-sustainable' but inherently evil”, and those beliefs by the “homeless by choice” is “disillusioned[ment]” and “hyperbolic rhetoric” that “is patently hysterical and insidious”. The good doctor Davis suffers from the disillusionment that he “live[s] in a democracy”instead of a country that has a Bill of Rights, to protect the individual and from a majority rules, democratic, mob mentality. “Might” made “right” in fascist Germany, but, at least in theory, people here have liberties. This sub-committee, heavily representative of “Arcata's economic base,” decided they needed a survey to prove the democratic realities of their gentrification agenda.
Professor Holschuh, the self-proclaimed survey expert, came to the rescue. The task force gave Holschuh a list of questions to poll non-homeless people about how they perceive homeless problems. The statecraft of measuring the psyche is called psychometrics. Psychometrics is the think-tank imitation of what science calls quantum mechanics. As any first-year social science student can tell you, statistics can be used to appear to prove any psychometrics theorem. If I asked 10 dentists, “would you recommend some particular tooth-paste, which is basically the same as other tooth-pastes, and 9 out 10 said they would, then I could claim honestly, “9 out of 10 dentists surveyed recommend this particular tooth-paste”. If I target a group of downtown business owners and their proponents with a question like Holschuh's question in the original draft of the “community survey”:
“Should people who are homeless in Arcata be required to participate in a case management, social service, substance abuse treatment, or mental health treatment program (contingencies) to help them move out of homelessness in order to receive basic services such as: Food?, Showers/restrooms?, Emergency shelter?
I would be distorting the truth, planting seeds and inciting violence. To “require” “case management” “to help” in order “to receive” “food, restrooms and shelter” is violence! This question was eliminated by the next draft of the survey.
What ever the final version of this push-poll (a survey intended to propagandize) is, its repercussions will be harmful by planting the seeds of new forms of oppression and then justifying the policies made from the survey as “democratic” mandates. It further distorts the nature of homelessness and its main cause, lack of wage jobs, implying instead that irresponsibility, substance abuse, and mental illness are not just the cause of homelessness, but that the “contingencies” actually have been shown to work. For anyone, especially doctors, professors and city management personal to use their credentials to justify gentrification agendas (running homeless out of town) is what I would call insidious. At the time of this writing I don't know how this poll will be gathered. Printing it in the homeless bigoted Arcata Eye tabloid, mailed to water bill holders and surveying at grocery stores are methods that have been suggested. It seems that when spin-doctors work at the tabloid stage we can point to the reports, at the report stage we can point to the data, but at the data stage the “experts” rein supreme. If the survey is skewed, then it should be skewed in defense of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Please fill out the poll, remembering that if one person ends up involuntarily medicated, imprisoned, exiled or otherwise assaulted due to their homeless status, these policies are unacceptably costly and therefore “inherently evil”. When will we see that it is past time to dismantle a machine that doesn't work and grow an organism (community) that does?
love eternal
tad
Monday, June 13, 2005
Arcata's chief of police and McCarthyism
The chief of Arcata police, Randy Mendosa, recently met with a subcommittee of the Homeless Task Force.
Judging from the notes from the meeting (on the net at: http://www.geocities.com/solarimix/AHSPTF_arcata_police_chief.pdf), there was no discussion about lifting the anti-camping ordinance that has been found in court to be unconstitutional, nor any investigation to the many reported incidents of police abuse of homeless people.
Instead, the chief of police blames “urban anarchists” for much of the city’s problems and rates them as “the #2 public safety issue.”
“McCarthyism”
McCarthyism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
Since the time of the red scare led by Joseph McCarthy, the term McCarthyism has entered American speech as a general term for the phenomenon of mass pressure, harassment, or blacklisting used to pressure people to follow popular political beliefs. The act of making insufficiently supported accusations or engaging in unfair investigations against a person as an attempt to unfairly silence or discredit them is often referred to as McCarthyism.
The term has since become synonymous with any government activity which seeks to suppress unfavorable political or social views, often by limiting or suspending civil rights under the pretext of maintaining national security.
Judging from the notes from the meeting (on the net at: http://www.geocities.com/solarimix/AHSPTF_arcata_police_chief.pdf), there was no discussion about lifting the anti-camping ordinance that has been found in court to be unconstitutional, nor any investigation to the many reported incidents of police abuse of homeless people.
Instead, the chief of police blames “urban anarchists” for much of the city’s problems and rates them as “the #2 public safety issue.”
“McCarthyism”
McCarthyism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
Since the time of the red scare led by Joseph McCarthy, the term McCarthyism has entered American speech as a general term for the phenomenon of mass pressure, harassment, or blacklisting used to pressure people to follow popular political beliefs. The act of making insufficiently supported accusations or engaging in unfair investigations against a person as an attempt to unfairly silence or discredit them is often referred to as McCarthyism.
The term has since become synonymous with any government activity which seeks to suppress unfavorable political or social views, often by limiting or suspending civil rights under the pretext of maintaining national security.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Arcata's Homeless Task Force co-opted by anti-homeless Bigots
The 14-person homeless task force, of which 2 persons represent the unhoused, divided into sub-committees to take on the various issues at hand. Of particular interest is the sub-committee intended to address "human rights," including Arcata's unconstitutional anti-camping ordinance which has been recently defeated twice in court. Instead, the committee renamed themselves the "community impact" commmittee, and are working with Humboldt State University to distribute a survey proposing a change in the law to require CASE MANAGEMENT in exchange for services.
Arcata Communique
"The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission - founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller - and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens."
-- Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D., former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency...the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered."
--Thomas Jefferson
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
-- Frederick Douglass --
Monday, June 06, 2005
know your rights
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!!!
REMEMBER:
Cops are predators, just like any other predator, and they will prey on the most vulnerable.
You have rights, but many police will not respect your rights.
You have the right to be in a public place and to observe police activity.
If the police stop someone, you can STOP AND WATCH.
Maintain a reasonable distance, and if a cop threatens to arrest you, explain that you don't want to interfere, but that you have the right to observe their actions.
Write down officers names, badge numbers, and car number.
Cops should give you this information when asked.
You have the right to know their identity.
Write down the time, date, and place of the incident.
Ask if the person is being arrested, and on what charge.
Get names of witnesses and how to contact them.
Try to get the name of the arrestee, but only if they have already given it to the police.
Write down all the details as soon as possible.
In case of police violence, remain calm and urge the police to be calm and nonviolent.
Note: Police can arrest someone they believe is "interfering" with their actions.
Maintain a reasonable distance, and if a cop threatens to arrest you, explain that you don't want to interfere, but that you have the right to observe their actions.
If the police stop you:
Ask, "Am I free to go?”
If not, you are being detained.
If yes, walk away.
Ask, "Can you explain why you are detaining me?”
To stop you, the officer must have specific reasons to suspect your involvement in a specific crime (not just a guess or a stereotype).
It is recommeded that, for everyone’s safety, you do not resist physically.
Remember names and badge numbers of officers involved.
If a cop tries to search your home, your car, or your person, say repeatedly that you do not consent to the search.
It is recommeded that, for everyone’s safety, you do not resist physically.
If the police arrest you:
Say repeatedly, "I don't want to talk until my lawyer is present."
Even if your rights aren't read, refuse to talk until your lawyer/public defender arrives.
If the police abuse you or violate your rights, write down details of the incident immediately.
Photograph your injuries and get a medical report describing them.
REMEMBER:
Cops are predators, just like any other predator, and they will prey on the most vulnerable.
You have rights, but many police will not respect your rights.
You have the right to be in a public place and to observe police activity.
If the police stop someone, you can STOP AND WATCH.
Maintain a reasonable distance, and if a cop threatens to arrest you, explain that you don't want to interfere, but that you have the right to observe their actions.
Write down officers names, badge numbers, and car number.
Cops should give you this information when asked.
You have the right to know their identity.
Write down the time, date, and place of the incident.
Ask if the person is being arrested, and on what charge.
Get names of witnesses and how to contact them.
Try to get the name of the arrestee, but only if they have already given it to the police.
Write down all the details as soon as possible.
In case of police violence, remain calm and urge the police to be calm and nonviolent.
Note: Police can arrest someone they believe is "interfering" with their actions.
Maintain a reasonable distance, and if a cop threatens to arrest you, explain that you don't want to interfere, but that you have the right to observe their actions.
If the police stop you:
Ask, "Am I free to go?”
If not, you are being detained.
If yes, walk away.
Ask, "Can you explain why you are detaining me?”
To stop you, the officer must have specific reasons to suspect your involvement in a specific crime (not just a guess or a stereotype).
It is recommeded that, for everyone’s safety, you do not resist physically.
Remember names and badge numbers of officers involved.
If a cop tries to search your home, your car, or your person, say repeatedly that you do not consent to the search.
It is recommeded that, for everyone’s safety, you do not resist physically.
If the police arrest you:
Say repeatedly, "I don't want to talk until my lawyer is present."
Even if your rights aren't read, refuse to talk until your lawyer/public defender arrives.
If the police abuse you or violate your rights, write down details of the incident immediately.
Photograph your injuries and get a medical report describing them.
Psuedo-Science
PSUEDO-SCIENCE
Although the statistics recently collected by the government suggest that only 20% of “chronically homeless” people, which make up only 10% of the homeless population, have “serious mental illnesses,” Sandi Paris, former Executive Director of the Arcata Endeavor, asserts in her letter to the Homeless Task Farce that as much as 50% of Arcata’s “homeless” population are “struggling with mental illness.”
Why would she MISREPRESENT Arcata’s unhoused population as “mentally ill?” Well, it could mean big bucks for those who receive grant money based on how many “chronically homeless” and “mentally ill” people they report having in their community.
But how could someone pull off this grand illusion and fool the good people of Arcata into allowing their houseless neighbors to be labeled “mentally ill,” and possibly even forcibly detained and drugged by the “authorities?”
Well, all you have to do is get Arcata’s “friendly” institution of “higher learning,” meaning Humboldt State University, to conduct a “study” which finds out whatever you want it to! And thus HSU’s Homeless Service Plan is born...
Ending Chronic Homelessness Strategies for Action
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Report from the Secretary’s Work Group on Ending Chronic Homelessness
March 2003
This report is available on the Internet at:http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/
“Longitudinal analyses of the service users confirmed important distinctions among homeless persons that had first been noted by the Institute of Medicine in 1988. Specifically, the group is not homogeneous and three important subgroups regularly appear:
temporarily homeless — persons who experience only one spell of homelessness, usually short, and who are not seen again by the homeless assistance system;
episodically homeless — those who use the system with intermittent frequency, but usually for short periods; and
chronically homeless — those with a protracted homeless experience, often a year or longer, or whose spells in the homeless assistance system are both frequent and long.
chronically homeless — those with a protracted homeless experience, often a year or longer, or whose spells in the homeless assistance system are both frequent and long.
These subgroups emerge from actual utilization patterns in numerous cities and show relatively similar distributions: Approximately 80 percent of users are temporarily homeless, 10 percent are episodic, and 10 percent are chronic.”
Chapter 2, page 9.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/ch.htm#ch2
National Mental Health Information CenterArticle location: http://www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SMA04-3870/default.asp
“The estimated 200,000 people who experience chronic homelessness tend to have disabling health and behavioral health problems. Recent estimates suggest that at least 40 percent have substance use disorders, 25 percent have some form of physical disability or disabling health condition, and 20 percent have serious mental illnesses (Culhane, 2001).”
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/homelessness/strategies03/ch.htm#ch2
National Mental Health Information CenterArticle location: http://www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SMA04-3870/default.asp
“The estimated 200,000 people who experience chronic homelessness tend to have disabling health and behavioral health problems. Recent estimates suggest that at least 40 percent have substance use disorders, 25 percent have some form of physical disability or disabling health condition, and 20 percent have serious mental illnesses (Culhane, 2001).”
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
why does the Co-op still sell coke?
Why does the COOP still sell COKE?
by AP press (“Arcata Plazoid”)
Although the Co-op Affairs Committee has been repeatedly informed of Coca-Cola’s human rights violations (including murder) and environmental trespasses in Columbia and India, the Coop still sells COKE and ODWALLA (which is owned by Coca-Cola).
But, Why?
Well, I asked a Co-op representative, and he said that it was because people still buy it! He also said that if the AFL-CIO supported the boycott, then the Co-op would also. Doing a little research, I found out that the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council resolved to support the campaign to demand that Coca-Cola be held accountable for collusion with paramilitary terrorists in Columbia, and other human rights abuses (http://www.killercoke.org/pdf/sblcres.pdf).
Support the South Bay AFL-CIO and stand in solidarity for the rights of workers not to be tortured and murdered in Columbia or anywhere else, even if the Co-op won’t.
by AP press (“Arcata Plazoid”)
Although the Co-op Affairs Committee has been repeatedly informed of Coca-Cola’s human rights violations (including murder) and environmental trespasses in Columbia and India, the Coop still sells COKE and ODWALLA (which is owned by Coca-Cola).
But, Why?
Well, I asked a Co-op representative, and he said that it was because people still buy it! He also said that if the AFL-CIO supported the boycott, then the Co-op would also. Doing a little research, I found out that the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council resolved to support the campaign to demand that Coca-Cola be held accountable for collusion with paramilitary terrorists in Columbia, and other human rights abuses (http://www.killercoke.org/pdf/sblcres.pdf).
Support the South Bay AFL-CIO and stand in solidarity for the rights of workers not to be tortured and murdered in Columbia or anywhere else, even if the Co-op won’t.
Letter from tad
“I tramp a perpetual journey.” Walt Whitman, a bum who only wrote one book, wrote these words and nothing could ring more true in my heart. Was Whitman wrong, and therefore a fault in me? Henry David Thoreau wrote: “None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage of what we call voluntary poverty.” Is Thoreau deserving of our scorn? Am I? “The birds of the sky have their nests, the foxes their dens, but I the son of man, have no place to lay my head” Jesus the Nazarene said. Was Jesus guilty because of the path he chose? Am I?
I’ve always believed that the chosen non-participators are few in numbers – many are called, few are chosen. I also believe if it seemed righteous to dress like clowns, society would be pretty much the same with bright orange hair. Those who wish to minimize their footprint on this world, pursue a higher calling and resist the evil that always rears its ugly head, greed, are known by the fruit they bare. These people for whom they do not fight wars for oil, nor build nuclear power plants for, might provide a glimpse of solutions to the worlds problems.
The true spiritual wanderer in the 21st century is viewed the same as any run-away slave of human history. They won’t work to make any employer rich, nor will they buy property for the landlords, nor pay taxes for wars - wars for oil, wars on drugs, wars on the poor and wars on the homeless.
The peaceful make easy targets for those who wish to reprogram them, while using them as scapegoats. They wish to make the reprogramming as gentle as possible, they persuade, then they bribe, then they scare, then they medicate, then they torture, then they enslave, but if you don’t become the good citizens, they believe you’re not, then they genocide.
God made the earth for peoples to live on. Greed and fear took it away from them. All land, public as well as private, has been privatized. One man can live while another must make way? The right to sleep has been systematically stolen from those who need commons to sleep, at the same time that need is at its highest levels – ever! These people are not the cause of your problems; those are of a more systematic nature. These peoples are a benefit to the entire planet by reducing and non-use of what is already beginning to run out. We are not only losing our right to sleep, but also our very right to Be. The right to Be is protected under the Freedom of Religion clause, of the First Amendment, of the Bill of Rights, of the Constitution of the United States of America, and ordained by God as our birthright.
I mean no harm to any sentient being, in fact I have a theory: lets prosper together. If I did desire to “get a job”, as it has been suggested, I would start a business selling futons or computers or some other product. I know that a mere 10% of a million dollars is more then half of a hundred thousand, so I would make my money in volume. I would open in the least expensive part of town; but it would be worth the extra two-minute commute in savings. I could guarantee quality service, because I would pay living wages and health benefits to my co-workers. I would free up my time to do more useful things, like recycling, by building in self-sustainability leading to an employee buyout. I would be a philanthropist and give away every cent I earned to the poor and the hungry and the bruised. So if I know this about myself then why should I put Arcata businesses out just to end up outdoors doing what I do now? When it comes to the theory of climbing up my fellow brothers and sisters backs and shoving them under my feet to get to the top, I understand it all too well; for you see I would of sold my soul for wealth once, but for blessed redemption.
Please don’t pretend to know a book by its cover. Some have said; “judge not lest you be judged”. The only reason there is any semblance of freedom in this world is because there is a group, a peoples, who don’t believe in oppression at all. David also said my heart=song when he wrote; “Thou has heard the desires of the humble: thou will prepare their heart, thou will cause their ear to hear: to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth will no longer oppress”.
Love eternal
tad
I’ve always believed that the chosen non-participators are few in numbers – many are called, few are chosen. I also believe if it seemed righteous to dress like clowns, society would be pretty much the same with bright orange hair. Those who wish to minimize their footprint on this world, pursue a higher calling and resist the evil that always rears its ugly head, greed, are known by the fruit they bare. These people for whom they do not fight wars for oil, nor build nuclear power plants for, might provide a glimpse of solutions to the worlds problems.
The true spiritual wanderer in the 21st century is viewed the same as any run-away slave of human history. They won’t work to make any employer rich, nor will they buy property for the landlords, nor pay taxes for wars - wars for oil, wars on drugs, wars on the poor and wars on the homeless.
The peaceful make easy targets for those who wish to reprogram them, while using them as scapegoats. They wish to make the reprogramming as gentle as possible, they persuade, then they bribe, then they scare, then they medicate, then they torture, then they enslave, but if you don’t become the good citizens, they believe you’re not, then they genocide.
God made the earth for peoples to live on. Greed and fear took it away from them. All land, public as well as private, has been privatized. One man can live while another must make way? The right to sleep has been systematically stolen from those who need commons to sleep, at the same time that need is at its highest levels – ever! These people are not the cause of your problems; those are of a more systematic nature. These peoples are a benefit to the entire planet by reducing and non-use of what is already beginning to run out. We are not only losing our right to sleep, but also our very right to Be. The right to Be is protected under the Freedom of Religion clause, of the First Amendment, of the Bill of Rights, of the Constitution of the United States of America, and ordained by God as our birthright.
I mean no harm to any sentient being, in fact I have a theory: lets prosper together. If I did desire to “get a job”, as it has been suggested, I would start a business selling futons or computers or some other product. I know that a mere 10% of a million dollars is more then half of a hundred thousand, so I would make my money in volume. I would open in the least expensive part of town; but it would be worth the extra two-minute commute in savings. I could guarantee quality service, because I would pay living wages and health benefits to my co-workers. I would free up my time to do more useful things, like recycling, by building in self-sustainability leading to an employee buyout. I would be a philanthropist and give away every cent I earned to the poor and the hungry and the bruised. So if I know this about myself then why should I put Arcata businesses out just to end up outdoors doing what I do now? When it comes to the theory of climbing up my fellow brothers and sisters backs and shoving them under my feet to get to the top, I understand it all too well; for you see I would of sold my soul for wealth once, but for blessed redemption.
Please don’t pretend to know a book by its cover. Some have said; “judge not lest you be judged”. The only reason there is any semblance of freedom in this world is because there is a group, a peoples, who don’t believe in oppression at all. David also said my heart=song when he wrote; “Thou has heard the desires of the humble: thou will prepare their heart, thou will cause their ear to hear: to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth will no longer oppress”.
Love eternal
tad
Monday, May 30, 2005
you're TRESPASSING!!!
Many of us have been accused of trespassing at some time, and even punished by fine or imprisonment for being on someone's "private property."
..but what is "trespassing"?
Matthew 6:14
"For if ye forgive men their trespassses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."
To "trespass" (in the biblical usage) is to inflict harm on someone or some entity. If done respectfully, sleeping or camping can be done without harming the environment or other people, even if the camping spot is on land "owned" by some other individual, state agency, business, etc.
Conversely, the act of acquiring "ownership" of land from inhabitants unwilling to relinquish their inherent right to exist in place, is always violent and harmful, as exemplified by the genocidal war against indigenous populations world-wide, waged by war-profiteering and resource-extraction enterprises, with the aid of political entities such as "states" and "nations" and their militaries.
The destruction of healthy, living ecosystems in order to make a money-profit is a TRESPASS against the living planet and all life that lives here.
The destruction of goodwill between fellow human beings by means of violence and harassment is a TRESPASS against the spirit of love and unity that is the foundation of peaceful coexistence for humanity.
..but what is "trespassing"?
Matthew 6:14
"For if ye forgive men their trespassses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."
To "trespass" (in the biblical usage) is to inflict harm on someone or some entity. If done respectfully, sleeping or camping can be done without harming the environment or other people, even if the camping spot is on land "owned" by some other individual, state agency, business, etc.
Conversely, the act of acquiring "ownership" of land from inhabitants unwilling to relinquish their inherent right to exist in place, is always violent and harmful, as exemplified by the genocidal war against indigenous populations world-wide, waged by war-profiteering and resource-extraction enterprises, with the aid of political entities such as "states" and "nations" and their militaries.
The destruction of healthy, living ecosystems in order to make a money-profit is a TRESPASS against the living planet and all life that lives here.
The destruction of goodwill between fellow human beings by means of violence and harassment is a TRESPASS against the spirit of love and unity that is the foundation of peaceful coexistence for humanity.
Home is where the Heart is
Home is where the Heart is
“HOME” means more than just a place where you spend a lot of time. A home is a place where you feel safe…
- even when you don’t have money
- even when the fuel that runs the power plants and machines is no longer delivered
- even when the grocery stores, k-marts, coffee shops and liquor stores lock their doors
The false security of modern appliances and toxic inefficient temporary houses could never provide the sanctuary of “home.”
Neither can the bank accounts that hold the reins of this crippled monetary system, that seeks to withhold the basic necessities from people who need them.
Only faith in the love in one’s heart, and a healthy “environment,” meaning a healthy planet and healthy social relations, can provide the true sanctuary of HOME.
Are we HOME yet?
“HOME” means more than just a place where you spend a lot of time. A home is a place where you feel safe…
- even when you don’t have money
- even when the fuel that runs the power plants and machines is no longer delivered
- even when the grocery stores, k-marts, coffee shops and liquor stores lock their doors
The false security of modern appliances and toxic inefficient temporary houses could never provide the sanctuary of “home.”
Neither can the bank accounts that hold the reins of this crippled monetary system, that seeks to withhold the basic necessities from people who need them.
Only faith in the love in one’s heart, and a healthy “environment,” meaning a healthy planet and healthy social relations, can provide the true sanctuary of HOME.
Are we HOME yet?
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
EYE-WITNESS ARRESTED BY ARCATA COPS
An eye-witness to the tasering incident was arrested yesterday (Tuesday MAy 24, 2005) when he went to file a complaint at the police office.
The man asserted that he was assaulted on the night of the taser incident.
Upon going to the Arcata Police Department office, was told that he could file a complaint if he waited in the office. Two cops came into the office to talk to him, but refused to fill out a complaint form. They then asked him to go into a backroom for further questioning, which the man refused to do. The man was then told that he was under arrest by Officer Sligh, and several more cops suddenly burst into the room from where they had been waiting in ambush. The man was not allowed to pass on his possessions to witnesses who were accompanying him.
The man asserted that he was assaulted on the night of the taser incident.
Upon going to the Arcata Police Department office, was told that he could file a complaint if he waited in the office. Two cops came into the office to talk to him, but refused to fill out a complaint form. They then asked him to go into a backroom for further questioning, which the man refused to do. The man was then told that he was under arrest by Officer Sligh, and several more cops suddenly burst into the room from where they had been waiting in ambush. The man was not allowed to pass on his possessions to witnesses who were accompanying him.
VICTORY IN COURT!!!
On May 12, 2005, Humboldt Co. Superior Court ruled IN FAVOR of a [formerly] homeless man charged, in 2003, with violating two Arcata ordinances, commonly used against homeless/houseless people. The ordinances which establish 'no camping' and 'no obstructing traffic' inherently discriminate against people who have no place to rest and were adopted by the city in an apparent effort to disappear nomadic and homeless folks and/or discourage the presence of such people in Arcata.
Similar anti-camping ordinances have been successfully challenged in Arcata, California (People v. Porter T0310779M 2005 and People v. Theodore Lewis Robinson T0304959M 2003); Portland, Oregon (State of Oregon v. Wickes); Santa Ana, California (the “Eichorn decision”); Miami, Florida (“Potinger v. City of Miami”); and Austin, Texas (ruling by Magistrate Jim Coronado).
Similar anti-camping ordinances have been successfully challenged in Arcata, California (People v. Porter T0310779M 2005 and People v. Theodore Lewis Robinson T0304959M 2003); Portland, Oregon (State of Oregon v. Wickes); Santa Ana, California (the “Eichorn decision”); Miami, Florida (“Potinger v. City of Miami”); and Austin, Texas (ruling by Magistrate Jim Coronado).
Monday, May 23, 2005
DECRIMINALIZE HOMELESSNESS IN ARCATA
The criminalization of homelessness is both
IMMORAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Arcata’s Municipal Code contains ordinances that violate our
8th Amendement and 14th Amendment rights.
Arcata Municipal Code
TITLE X - PUBLIC PROPERTY
CHAPTER 1 - PARKS AND GROUNDS
SEC. 10004. Overnight use prohibited.(Amended by Ord. No. 1205)
Sleep is a human necessity, not a luxury or privilege. This ordinance prohibits sleeping outdoors in Arcata, thereby punishing the homeless with sleep deprivation. This violates the EIGHTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees us freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Similar anti-camping ordinances have been successfully challenged in Portland, Oregon (State of Oregon v. Wickes); Santa Ana, California (the “Eichorn decision”); Miami, Florida (“Potinger v. City of Miami”); and Austin, Texas (ruling by Magistrate Jim Coronado).
Arcata Municipal Code
SEC. 4560. Sitting or Lying on Public Sidewalks, Obstructing Movement
(ORDINANCE NO. 1320)
The FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “equal protection” to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States.” This law prohibits selective enforcement of the law against certain groups, such as the homeless.
Know Your Rights!!!
Trespassing:You cannot be given a trespassing ticket just for sitting, camping, or using a sidewalk or other public area. Trespassing tickets can only be issued for being on private property or state-owned property not open to the public. In the case of private property, you cannot be given a ticket without the property owner filing a complaint, except for properties that have a trespass agreement with the city. In either case, trespassing tickets cannot be given to anyone who hasn't been first given the opportunity to leave the area.
Park Exclusions:In public parks, you can only be excluded if you have violated a law or park rule.
—Karen GilmoreOregon Legal Aid Office
IMMORAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Arcata’s Municipal Code contains ordinances that violate our
8th Amendement and 14th Amendment rights.
Arcata Municipal Code
TITLE X - PUBLIC PROPERTY
CHAPTER 1 - PARKS AND GROUNDS
SEC. 10004. Overnight use prohibited.(Amended by Ord. No. 1205)
Sleep is a human necessity, not a luxury or privilege. This ordinance prohibits sleeping outdoors in Arcata, thereby punishing the homeless with sleep deprivation. This violates the EIGHTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees us freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Similar anti-camping ordinances have been successfully challenged in Portland, Oregon (State of Oregon v. Wickes); Santa Ana, California (the “Eichorn decision”); Miami, Florida (“Potinger v. City of Miami”); and Austin, Texas (ruling by Magistrate Jim Coronado).
Arcata Municipal Code
SEC. 4560. Sitting or Lying on Public Sidewalks, Obstructing Movement
(ORDINANCE NO. 1320)
The FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “equal protection” to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States.” This law prohibits selective enforcement of the law against certain groups, such as the homeless.
Know Your Rights!!!
Trespassing:You cannot be given a trespassing ticket just for sitting, camping, or using a sidewalk or other public area. Trespassing tickets can only be issued for being on private property or state-owned property not open to the public. In the case of private property, you cannot be given a ticket without the property owner filing a complaint, except for properties that have a trespass agreement with the city. In either case, trespassing tickets cannot be given to anyone who hasn't been first given the opportunity to leave the area.
Park Exclusions:In public parks, you can only be excluded if you have violated a law or park rule.
—Karen GilmoreOregon Legal Aid Office
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Arcata cop tazers man on the plaza
Last night, Saturday May 21 2005, Arcata police officer Ed Cashman tazered a young man on the plaza in downtown Arcata.
Ten eye-witnesses who all observed the attack all reported the same sequence of events:
- the cop orders the man to "come here"
- the man starts to walk away, displaying NO violent or aggressive behavior
- the cop tazers the man
Ten eye-witnesses who all observed the attack all reported the same sequence of events:
- the cop orders the man to "come here"
- the man starts to walk away, displaying NO violent or aggressive behavior
- the cop tazers the man
Monday, April 04, 2005
homeland security: thought police in Arcata
Homeland Security:
Thought Police in our Community
"We have to be alert to religious orders, gangs, animal rights activists, whatever group is making a statement."[emphasis added]
-Kent Bradshaw, police chief of Fortuna, quoted in the Times-Standard (2/27/05), "On Guard: Homeland Security specialists volunteer to help keep North Coast safe."
The first group listed as "identified" by "government documents," and insinuated to be engaged in "planned violence" is Earth First!, followed by the Earth Liberation Front, and the Animal Liberation Front. Of course, none of these groups EVER hurt anybody and all adhere to the philosophy of non-violence. What they all have in common is that they are making a statement that dissents against the dominant paradigm of violence and destruction.
North Coast Earth First! advocates non-violent direct action, the cornerstone of the foundation that democracy is built on. To criminalize civil disobedience is to attempt to silence the voice of the people.
"Everyone has an idea of what terrorism is, what a terrorist looks like."
-Enoch Ibarra, a counter-terrorism instructor
who volunteers with the Fortuna Police Department
quoted in same article
...of course we do, we’ve all seen images of Timothy McVeigh, clean-cut, military style; we’ve all seen images of American GI’s abusing Iraqis at Abu Gharab or shooting up vehicles full of unarmed families with children at checkpoints; we know what Henry Kissinger looks like, as do the authorities trying to press charges on him for human rights violations and war crimes in other countries; but how can we discern these terrorists from every other honest, well-meaning citizen that we see everyday?
Let us not be set upon each other like dogs in a dogfight, while politicians, militarists, and social engineers moderate the spectacle, all the while enriching themselves off the calamity and tragedy.
what the...???
What the ?!#%?
Amid all the hype about "the homeless problem" and the trashing of the plaza and downtown area, Arcata's economic development committee approved an application to sell alcohol at the Arcata Theater.
(Feb. 14, 2005) http://www.arcatacityhall.org/com_com/econ_dev_agendas/2005_02-14.pdf.
Who can deny that alcohol abuse is at the root of Arcata's problems with the trashing of public places and inappropriate behavior? What effect do committee members think that adding another drinking establishment downtown will have?
With city officials complaining that meeting the basic needs (food clothing and shelter) of those in need would attract more of the "wrong kind of people," the failure to acknowledge that another drinking establishment will attract more alcohol abuse and drunken behavior is pure hypocrisy.
Amid all the hype about "the homeless problem" and the trashing of the plaza and downtown area, Arcata's economic development committee approved an application to sell alcohol at the Arcata Theater.
(Feb. 14, 2005) http://www.arcatacityhall.org/com_com/econ_dev_agendas/2005_02-14.pdf.
Who can deny that alcohol abuse is at the root of Arcata's problems with the trashing of public places and inappropriate behavior? What effect do committee members think that adding another drinking establishment downtown will have?
With city officials complaining that meeting the basic needs (food clothing and shelter) of those in need would attract more of the "wrong kind of people," the failure to acknowledge that another drinking establishment will attract more alcohol abuse and drunken behavior is pure hypocrisy.
arcata's homeless task farce
Homelessness Task FARCE
On Feb. 2, 2005, the Arcata silly council appointed 14 people to the homelessness task farce. Included were 3 unhoused persons; Tad, Verbena and Paul. Excluded was ranger Bob( housed), by order of the mayor of Arcata, Michael Machi (housed).
Follow the Dollars
The $42000 that the city got from the federal government to help those in need was given to Humboldt State University, and the task farce was given no dollars. The goal of the grant is to eliminate homelessness in 10 years. Some "homeless" people don’t want to be "eliminated."
So where is the money to feed people? Where is the money to house people?
Arcata’s valiant branch of FOOD NOT BOMBS! (707-822-4014) continues to serve healthy and tasty vegetarian meals on Sundays around 5pm on the Plaza (or under the awning of the closed movie theater if it rains) and maybe also Saturdays, and do so on practically no budget. They are a perfect example of what just a small group of individuals can do to help out, spread the love, and bring people together in the spirit of harmonious solutions.
A note to accentuate the positive: there are 3 unhoused persons on the task farce, and so perhaps a broader audience will hear the voice of those who live outside the box.
Homelessness Task FARCE
On Feb. 2, 2005, the Arcata silly council appointed 14 people to the homelessness task farce. Included were 3 unhoused persons; Tad, Verbena and Paul. Excluded was ranger Bob( housed), by order of the mayor of Arcata, Michael Machi (housed).
Follow the Dollars
The $42000 that the city got from the federal government to help those in need was given to Humboldt State University, and the task farce was given no dollars. The goal of the grant is to eliminate homelessness in 10 years. Some "homeless" people don’t want to be "eliminated."
So where is the money to feed people? Where is the money to house people?
Arcata’s valiant branch of FOOD NOT BOMBS! (707-822-4014) continues to serve healthy and tasty vegetarian meals on Sundays around 5pm on the Plaza (or under the awning of the closed movie theater if it rains) and maybe also Saturdays, and do so on practically no budget. They are a perfect example of what just a small group of individuals can do to help out, spread the love, and bring people together in the spirit of harmonious solutions.
A note to accentuate the positive: there are 3 unhoused persons on the task farce, and so perhaps a broader audience will hear the voice of those who live outside the box.
On Feb. 2, 2005, the Arcata silly council appointed 14 people to the homelessness task farce. Included were 3 unhoused persons; Tad, Verbena and Paul. Excluded was ranger Bob( housed), by order of the mayor of Arcata, Michael Machi (housed).
Follow the Dollars
The $42000 that the city got from the federal government to help those in need was given to Humboldt State University, and the task farce was given no dollars. The goal of the grant is to eliminate homelessness in 10 years. Some "homeless" people don’t want to be "eliminated."
So where is the money to feed people? Where is the money to house people?
Arcata’s valiant branch of FOOD NOT BOMBS! (707-822-4014) continues to serve healthy and tasty vegetarian meals on Sundays around 5pm on the Plaza (or under the awning of the closed movie theater if it rains) and maybe also Saturdays, and do so on practically no budget. They are a perfect example of what just a small group of individuals can do to help out, spread the love, and bring people together in the spirit of harmonious solutions.
A note to accentuate the positive: there are 3 unhoused persons on the task farce, and so perhaps a broader audience will hear the voice of those who live outside the box.
Homelessness Task FARCE
On Feb. 2, 2005, the Arcata silly council appointed 14 people to the homelessness task farce. Included were 3 unhoused persons; Tad, Verbena and Paul. Excluded was ranger Bob( housed), by order of the mayor of Arcata, Michael Machi (housed).
Follow the Dollars
The $42000 that the city got from the federal government to help those in need was given to Humboldt State University, and the task farce was given no dollars. The goal of the grant is to eliminate homelessness in 10 years. Some "homeless" people don’t want to be "eliminated."
So where is the money to feed people? Where is the money to house people?
Arcata’s valiant branch of FOOD NOT BOMBS! (707-822-4014) continues to serve healthy and tasty vegetarian meals on Sundays around 5pm on the Plaza (or under the awning of the closed movie theater if it rains) and maybe also Saturdays, and do so on practically no budget. They are a perfect example of what just a small group of individuals can do to help out, spread the love, and bring people together in the spirit of harmonious solutions.
A note to accentuate the positive: there are 3 unhoused persons on the task farce, and so perhaps a broader audience will hear the voice of those who live outside the box.
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