Demilitarize, Disarm, Disband: If the Leaders Support the Police Then They Are Part of the Problem

We have a serious problem in this country (many, actually) that is police terrorism against black communities and POC. You know, it’d be one thing if the system was set up to protect people from unaccountable violence from people in positions of authority. But that’s not the case.

In support of this deeply embedded and terrifying problem of racialized police violence, is the representative political process of managers to whom people appeal for nominal changes and reforms to at very least, please and thank you, *hold accountable* killer police.

Mainstream organizations who want status, recognition, funding or negotiating power for those “accountability reforms” tend to shy away from more structural changes like demilitarization, disarming the police, abolishing the police or banning them from particular communities pending structural changes toward restorative “justus”. Because we might have to discuss what that actually means if the power structure does not “choose” to disarm, demilitarize or disband a failed strategy (for non-whites) of organized policing and occupation. But while this debate happens, and the people in power pay lip service to the oppressed rising tide of black power, we should look at the meaningful effects of reform as it is practiced.

In Los Angeles the police union just successfully negotiated a 8.2% pay increase over the next 3 years including over-time. Forget the lawsuit pending over a brutal sexual attack by Olympic Division police against a woman of color in Koreatown who was thrown from a police vehicle trying to escape and suffered major injuries. Or the murder of a man in Pomona just last week at the hands of an LAPD officer now fired to save the department from having to address it’s institutionalized violence.

In Arizona this week the Senate approved a bill to protect the identities of police involved in executions and serious shootings for at least 60 days meaning that we will need to investigate the police OURSELVES and determine justus OURSELVES.

This is not a power structure that is levying pressure against the police to take seriously the cries of the oppressed, surviving family members of executed people at the hands of cops or victims of police brutality and state repressive violence.

Again, the people in power are in support of the problem (which is POLICING of poor communities of color most targeted by white supremacy, anti blackness, capitalism and so many other violently enforced hierarchies). The organization of the police and the local city and national government are intertwined to an inseparable degree. So let’s be clear, when we are asking for reform how does that reform actually comes down. If they won’t actually reform away from institutionalized interests of police power, then they must be disarmed (at least). Either way the casualties of this white supremacist for-profit property-over-black-life system has got to stop.

If they don’t disarm, what does our own ‘intervention’ to stop police violence actually look like? If they don’t demilitarize, what does organizing for self defense actually look like? If they don’t disband, what do we need to do to organize a force capable of keeping our comrades and extended communities from their prisons and early graves?

Would this mass unrest and support of black rebellion and self defense result in anything other than catastrophic violence at the hands of the state and it’s police agents? If there is such a period of heightened conflict and violence, is that not also a reason to prepare for revolutionary war?

LA Times Runs PR for LAPD: Solidifies Police Surveillance

Anyone in Los Angeles, and especially poor non white communities of color, will tell you that police choppers flying or hovering incessantly over your heads is not news.

So imagine the surprise when I read the LA Times recent article, which might as well have been featured in Minority Report, a popular dystopic fiction movie. 

Gone are the days fearing government overreach targeting "thought crime" criminalizing areas or people before an incident occurs. Now, we are in the era of "predictive policing" where technology is utilized for organized violent groups like the police, which systemically murder non white life while the conditions of violence and poverty remain the same, or get worse.

Even more troubling is the undoubted credibility given to mainstream "known by name" publications like the LA Times who conspire with the LAPD to bottom line pro-cop anti-poor narratives that invisiblize the structural and racial violence of the police.

But the article is much more dangerous than it seems. While impacted (as opposed to benefiting) communities have organized tirelessly for alternative strategies to prevent crime, resourcelessness, violence and poverty in their communities the LAPD is opposed to all of it choosing instead to use a "hammer" approach of structural violence against youth of color.

Instead of more resources to prevent the conditions that create crime, resources take the form of funding for police, who just reached a negotiated settlement with the city for a 7% pay increase over the next three years. (also uncritically written about by the LA Times)

But the story isn't that we have uncritical media or lack of investigative journalism, it's that these tactics are used by the police for a long period of time before they are ever mentioned by the media. They are experienced long before they are "represented" in a palatable form for the consuming audience. When they are mentioned, it's done in a way that legitimizes the policy almost like the police called the Times and asked them to run a story because their ready to finally acknowledge what poor hyper patrolled people have known all along.

What's troubling is the framing of the article, despite the evidence presented.

Which means that while being marketed to the middle class aspiring populace, the increase in police helicopters probably has more to do with control and power for police and prisons than it does with "crime".

Especially given that it is not proven to prevent crime, but is likely to displace crime to other areas. A side effect we've seen again with "gang injunctions" which also rely on "hot spots", faulty profiling and police databases to create a restraining order in certain neighborhoods but likely has more to do with property value, development and ultimately the displacement of working class black and brown families.

While air patrols are frequent, the frequency has increased without much formal acknowledgement (until now) let alone input by the communities made to suffer the consequences. These disturbances have rather been a non-debatable aspect of increased militarization and surveillance culture "pioneered" by LAPD.

A few years back there was discussion from local activist communities about how to track the growing number of air-ships and map out the surveillance tactics of the police. In Echo Park for example, an area reeling from the influx of redevelopment, displacement and increased police harassment to effect gentrification- there were air-ships at all hours of the night sometimes for hours on end.

One night, a few of us meddling as we might in the affairs of the unaccountable police, decided to review the actions of police and investigate the situation. We found the established perimeter and began questioning why the police had shut down a block between 3rd and Beverly on Lucas.

We were told it was unsafe, that there was an armed gunman and to move away from the situation. We kept a distance and filmed, and as the chopper lingered for 5 hours we realized that the urgency and demeanor of the police was off. They were not moving cautiously, from building to building as people were trapped inside of their homes. In fact, in one lot an officer who had a higher rank modeled and illustrated to the group of officers running tactics how to use bolt cutters to get through a lot gate that was not locked.

It became apparent that not only were the police using poor neighborhoods heavily populated with people of color and migrants for training purposes but the prolonged use of the chopper at night was also designed to lay out the groundwork for increased air occupation and gauge how people respond. Just two weeks later we experienced a similar situation near Elysian Park where police locked down an entire neighborhood for 3 hours and went door to door and house to house unlawfully searching and occupying the street.

So while the LA Times and other mainstream propaganda rags are serving as the mouthpiece of the LAPD, communities are still left to deal with the fall out. Though there is rising movement against the execution of black life by law enforcement, the system that legitimizes collateral damage by the police runs smoothly through the mechanisms of institutional media. While we investigate the police in our own neighborhoods, the dominant narrative and apologists alike tell us that authority demands trust. The LAPD has proven that it deserves neither.

US Police Have Off-Record 'White Site' to Detain, Torture and Disappear

In a twist of non fictionalized domestic terror, the Guardian has gone on the record breaking news of a Chicago warehouse, known as Homan Square, used for non-legal detention of people captured by police. The secret-prison has been used by CPD for off-the-books interrogation often with abusive methods.

As the story unfolds more persons have come forward with experiences of abuse while being detained at the site. Stories range from detainees being beaten, shackled for long periods of time without food or water, no access to phone calls or lawyers, and possibly one account of someone who was found unresponsive and died.

While waiting for a politician to accompany them on a tour outside the Homan Square facility, a reporter and photographer for the Guardian were encircled twice by a masked man in an SUV (pictured) who said, "You can take a picture,” and then offered what he considered a joke: “We are all CIA, right?” (Thursday, February 26)

The story broke with accounts of protesters being held at the site in the case of the NATO-3 who were eventually moved to a booking station and charged with terrorism, mob action and arson. 

But as usual with police terrorism, it's not news until it happens to people with privilege or people with privilege begin to care about it. So that begs the question, why did it take us so long to find out about it if this site has been in operation since the late 1990's?

The brunt of police terrorism is not on protesters but on black, brown and poor communities targeted for criminalization for their very existence in the white supremacist economy. The warehouse, which "disappears" people usually making it impossible to find them in any police databases, has been used as a compound in the war-on-the-poor for drug raids and to detain people profiled in street organizations or "gangs" for decades.

These communities are not only targeted by law enforcement for state violence, but the violence against these communities is both legitimized and invisiblized by even the most progressive of liberals, extending from black and brown poor communities to the treatment of undocumented and migrant communities the world over.

Not only is there no data on police harassment, stop-and-frisks, brutality or detainment that doesn't result in arrest or charges, but the communities most targeted by the police (and most likely to be executed) are less than likely to come forward about instances of police abuse. 

This is because most talk about "accountability" is designed to protect law enforcement, and contain any concerns that may threaten the credibility of law enforcement making it severely unsafe for people to come forward. 

Which leads me to this conclusion: the unquestionable credibility surrounding the actions of police is why we haven't heard about this warehouse used for illegal detainment till now. It's why it took the Guardian UK to come and break a real story about police terrorism, because that's what it is.

It's also time for us to talk more about how police are not only individuals subject to their own racism, but participants and beneficiaries of an organization that operates on the methodology of racism. This site, if anything, can be seen as an extra-legal method of practicing violence and applying racism to achieve the objectives officers felt would be delayed by working within the already non-transparent mechanisms of policing.

This should not be seen as vigilantism. That would presume there is something to be restored about the practice of policing, ignoring how policing works within a larger framework of racism, social control and various other enforcement agencies in an agenda to use terrorism to achieve political objectives that preserve profit and authority. It should also call into question our reliance on the 'law" which is not neutral, but founded on violence and colonialism, and left up to the interpretation of those who practice it such as police and politicians. 

People elected to positions of authority have since been reacting to the news of the Chicago "white site", some calling for an investigation by the Department of Justice, others fearing this will affect their credibility in calling for improved police and community relations in the wake of the Ferguson insurrection and growing tide of black resistance and solidarity globally. Which is true, you can't improve your relationship with an organization intent on terrorizing you.

Whatever the lip service paid by people with positions in the governmental hierarchy, the actions taken by the Chicago police in using this site are not limited to the site itself. The practices and mentality that goes into the creation of an intentional site like this are present in the logic of policing and occupation everywhere. 

The representatives stepping forward with outrage would be better served by making this an anomaly, a one-time-thing, a sore-spot soon to be covered up with a town hall or press conference. This is why accountability (and justice) cannot be in their hands. 

How many people passed through the bars of Homan Square, shackled for days? Both violated and erased by a system that systematically incarcerates and devalues or executes lives of color. How many people felt that their suffering was invisible because of the untouchable credibility of policing? in a world that entraps, punishes and shames peoples response to an out of touch competitive economy that deprives people of resources and the means to live.

It is not up to the police to reform themselves or accept the reforms pushed on them by the politicians and DA's who are essentially collaborators in policing on a mass level.

This is why we have to collect the data. We have to research and expose the "white sites" used by the state (both locally and federally) to invisiblize its own methodology of violence. We have to be the investigative journalists, the whistleblowers, the agitators- not to use this information to petition for reform of a power structure that exists to affirm itself, but to create centers of trust to open up space for people to come forward with their own experiences about systematic racism and policing. 

To pressure for abolition of these systems of power that make state violence acceptable and profitable.

Where are the LAPD off-record "white sites"?

Statement on Repression of Anarchist and Socialist Activity in Long Beach, CA

In late 2014, local autonomous participants, anarchists and members of Socialist Praxis at Long Beach City College began working together to host a discussion on police, prisons, and capitalism. This event was planned for January 10th and is now postponed after drawing the targeted attention of the Long Beach Police.

LBPD intimidated the owner of our chosen venue, Cultural Alliance Long Beach, into withdrawing their support less than a week before the scheduled date by citing inapplicable permitting requirements.

In this statement, we will seek to explain the substance of our event, detail the police repression of our political speech, and outline our next steps in gathering despite LBPD manipulating their position and the law to restrict our access to a community space.

While the event includes zines and literature, an open mic, DJ set, free burritos from Food not Bombs, and live performances from local bands, participatory discussions remain the main focus of our event. Our plan was to feature five speakers, each talking for 10-15 minutes, with open discussion amongst all participants between each talk. In this way, sitting in a circle facing one another, we hope to subvert the power dynamics of a traditional "panel", in which speakers drone from a lectern and others feel discouraged from participating. The planned topics were promoted as follows:

"The History of Policing (A Marxist Perspective)"

"Prison-Industrial Complex and Minority Communities"

"Hierarchy or Liberation"

"Why Riot? Anti-Police Struggles in Perspective"

"Opposition and BlackQueer TRANS*formation"

Our event drew support not only from anarchists and socialists, but various groups from the area, including a local chapter of Black Lives Matter, Food Not Bombs, Mission Solidarity, Fight for 15, and "Housing, Justice, and Equality Long Beach". In the days leading up to the 10th, excitement was building and we had high hopes for a smooth event at The Bungalow, a venue of Cultural Alliance Long Beach (CALB).

That's when the police chose to make their surveillance known. Five days prior to the event date, the manager of CALB was contacted by LBPD, who called the event "incendiary" and warned that it would "attract the wrong crowd." They went on to insist that the event lacked the proper permits and should be cancelled.

Unfortunately, CALB's owner caved into this pressure with seemingly little awareness of political repression or thought to the consequences of chilling our political speech. This came after we had paid a membership fee to CALB, which supposedly permitted us to plan and host events in their space. In addition, a Space Reservation Form had been submitted for the event to CALB in December and was approved by their manager. CALB has also been notified they will now be required to obtain permits for other community events in their space, extending our repression onto them by association. They have since stopped returning our phone calls, despite our efforts to maintain communication with them.

After pressuring to have the event cancelled, a police detective made repeated phone calls to the event organizer who booked the space. Thankfully, he declined to speak with them, and we commend him and the other members of Socialist Praxis for refusing to validate the disruptive tactics of the Long Beach police.

The Long Beach police have committed numerous violations and misapplications of the law in their attempts to repress our political activity, raising serious issues of selective enforcement and political discrimination. This is especially suspect given the nature of our event, which was to critically discuss the role of the police and their abuse of the law.

There is no such “gathering permit" we know of. The "Occasional Event Permit" knowingly misused by Law Enforcement to intimidate CALB holds no bearing on a free event centered around political speech, and is specifically intended for business related events involving their clientele for the sole purpose of entertainment.

We want to be as clear as we possibly can: our event is an expression of radical political speech and is not aimed to entertain anyone. There is nothing entertaining about police violence, and the structural violence of prisons and capitalism.

A lawyer has also advised the organizers that these permit requirements, even if legally applicable, have yet to be proven constitutional, especially if being used by the LBPD to restrict political activity that calls their own legitimacy into question. In the coming days and weeks, the State may well answer for these missteps in their own courts.

The police want to divide us from one another by raising issues of permission and legality: a traditional point of contention between anarchist and socialist groups. However, in response to police intimidation, we have decided to go forward without permit and open up a space for dialogue at a new location. If the police choose to continue their harassment, we will be prepared with CopWatch on stand by to film them. Lawyers and legal observers will be on hand to witness their actions.

We feel it would undermine the intent of our event and the growing movement against police terrorism to comply with a group (LBPD) that organizes itself on violence and intimidation. This repression is relevant to all movement people and community organizing in general because it exposes how dissent against State sanctioned violence is being targeted or coercively managed by those in established positions of power.

IN TIMES OF TENSION:

If the cops think they can shut us up, they need to think again. We say "Fire to the Prisons!" because so many are still locked in cages. We say "Fuck the Police!" because the institutional white supremacist violence of the state continues unabated. And we say "Open the Borders!" with our thoughts towards those deported, or locked in the open-air jails of repressive powers. In times of tension we choose not to be silent.

In response to police repression, we see cause for increased participation, collaboration and solidarity. The event is going forward, on Saturday January 31st. Keep an eye out for location and time updates.

Signed,

Local Anarchists Socialist Praxis

If you would like to extend your support and add your name please message this blog. The event is yet to be updated but can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/893316767366238/

After a Week, Police Raid #blacklivesmatter #occupylapd Encampment and Arrest Two Mothers

For seven days, organizers with the regional Black Lives Matter movement camped peacefully outside Los Angeles police headquarters downtown, calling their protest “Occupy LAPD.”

They had a set of demands centered on Ezell Ford and wanted an audience with Police Chief Charlie Beck. But Monday morning, they were forced to pack up tents, blankets, pots and pans and get off the sidewalk.

Then two women in the group were arrested as they tried to take a letter to Beck.

Activists demand charges in Ezell Ford, Omar Abrego shootings

The group had been camped outside LAPD headquarters on 1st Street since Tuesday after the release of the autopsy report on Ford, the South Los Angeles man shot and killed in August during a confrontation with police. For the most part, the camp-in was peaceful despite some heckling from passersby and what protesters called police intimidation.  

After loading their belongings into cars Monday, organizers began a planned news conference to go over their demands — the firing of the two LAPD officers involved in Ford’s death and a request that the district attorney file murder charges against the pair.

But the scene turned chaotic as two of the movement’s most vocal proponents were arrested.

The women — Melina Abdullah and Sha Dixon — had tried to pass barricades outside police headquarters to deliver letters with their list of demands to Beck, but they were blocked by officers. They then tried another entrance and were arrested on suspicion of trespassing.

“We are not a threat to anyone’s safety,” Abdullah told reporters as she gripped a large manila envelope and prepared to face the first barricade by police. “We are two women who are armed with letters.”

Protesters said actions Monday by police were due in part to the attention the group was getting from the media.

Organizers said police had previously been tolerant of their overnight sidewalk stays. They said they had even received unsolicited support from people who donated tents, a generator and food.

“All it is, is intimidation,” said Damon Turner as he gathered sleeping bags and blankets.

But police said the protesters had become a nuisance, blocking a public right-of-way.

LAPD Sgt. Barry Montgomery said the protesters was blocking the sidewalk and refusing to leave as a worker tried to steam-clean the area, where there were colorful chalk markings on the sidewalk.

Capt. Donald Graham said police would be looking at the markings, which an officer photographed, to see if they carried any specific threats against police.

“Your 1st Amendment rights are absolutely guaranteed,” Graham said. “We have done our best to facilitate that since the Ferguson decision. However, time, place and manner is the purview of the regulatory agency.”

Anya Slaughter, mother of Kendrec McDade, was among the protesters. McDade, 19, was unarmed when he was killed by Pasadena police in 2012. Slaughter said police were “killing our kids.”

She called on Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey to reopen the investigation into McDade’s death: “I want to know what happened to my baby.”

One of the group’s youngest protesters, 11-year-old Thandiwe Abdullah of Los Angeles, said she feared for her own future given the recent police killings.

“I have a target on my back everywhere I go to,” she said. “There is nothing I can do about it and age doesn’t matter anymore. I can be killed at 11.”

Fuck LA TIMES.

Mural Depicting Police being Policed Causes Anxiety and Apologism

Found painted on the side of a Detroit school was a mural of an all black angelic figure (with a halo and wings) pointing a gun at a police officer with their hands up against the wall.

The school is located a block away from a police station, and the graphic is thought to have gone up Monday night. It was immediately taken down by Tuesday evening, with the mainstream news ABC 7 calling it "a shocking image that has a community stunned, disgusted, and sickened."

Even a spokesperson for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Ron Scott, came out against the mural, while investigators are searching to criminalize the street artist that shared it. Scott went on to say that defacing property to spread that kind of message reflects a mentality 'we don't need'.

Nevermind that police officers routinely harass, profile, detain or arrest youth of color and particularly black youth in that same exact manner.

Guns drawn and hands up- why doesn't this same (but normalized) practice stun, disgust or sicken the public when it's black youth against the wall? When even a minor offense can get you the death penalty if your black and in the line of sight of a cop.

The fallen angel, one could argue, represents the victims of racist state violent police executions who will never enjoy the same power and privilege as the police. Or be treated with the same compassion and outrage.

The police and communities of color are in a war. One side, weaponized and murdering with no consequences, sometimes even rewarded. The other 'side' criminalized, where even the slightest twitch or noncompliance can get you killed.

Black communities are attacked over 'property' and resources at the expense of black life all the time. A little bit of street art is the least that can be done. 

Los Angeles "Policy Change": Controlling and Criminalizing Poor Populations

Los Angeles, CA December 19, 2013

TOOLS OF DISPLACEMENT

1. Restrictions on association – gang injunctions

2. Restrictions on providing services on the street to those in need

3. Restrictions on shared housing

4. Restrictions on occupying your automobile

5. Bonus: Bicycle Licensing

Source: http://edendalesolid.com/2013/12/the-bums-rush/

These are all laws that would further restrict the quality of life of poor, resource-less or houseless people. These laws would further empower the City Attorney to prosecute those most impacted by them. They would give the police more license to stop, harass, detain, arrest and/or brutalize those impacted.

The City Council seems to believe that police, enforcement, fines and punishment are practical solution-oriented ways to keep poor people safe. Never mind that it won't keep them out of the clutches of the factory-like court system and our ever expanding for-profit Prison Industrial Complex.

The “Food Ban” and a Tale-of-Two-Realities in the War on the Poor

Los Angeles, CA December 19th, 2013

Protesters, non-profits and local autonomous groups have been challenging an upcoming motion by two politicians that called for “City Departments [to] come together to determine a solution that addresses non-commercial feeding in the public rights of way”.  A measure that targets the houseless, vendors and community groups while pretending to create solutions about health and public safety.

The motion was brought forward by Councilmembers Tom LaBonge and Mitch O’Farrel, whose track-record this year favors business improvement districts rather than community voices. It clearly requests the city council give the City Attorney Mike Feuer and the LAPD more authority to enforce restrictions on feeding people for free in public.

Critics pointed out that it doesn’t actually include the language of a ban. Autonomous groups feel differently, saying this would mean more permitting limitations restricting use of space and more barriers or red tape while giving police more power to harass and arrest. Whether clearly expressed in the language or not, this would effectively ban community self-organization around food without city/police control.

Others are bringing up “good” intentions of the ordinance, saying sidewalk feedings and assemblies restrict space for the dis-abled and are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Autonomous groups and communities who operate without permission from the city or police, wonder why more space and bigger sidewalks are not made available to the public?  And, why not encourage real community dialogue and involvement surrounding the issue, instead of state intervention and police enforcement? But these questions are rhetorical, when just last year legislation passed criminalizing and restricting access to parks, granting more authority to the police with funding from Department of Homeland Security.  Community alternatives won’t make anyone money, but I digress.

Despite the responses and damage control by LaBonge and O’Farrel, the motion awaiting city council approval shifts the blame of crime and poverty from the economic system onto impacted individuals, while simultaneously escalating against poor communities organizing themselves.

In fact, these motions — as well as injunction policies used by the city and police — show a trend in legislation indicative of a larger political agenda against the poor on the behalf of property owners and developers who wish to keep capital moving, growing and exploiting. It is an agenda — of fascism — that resorts to criminalization, police abuse, entrapment in the courts, ignoring hunger and basic needs to target and displace the poor while protecting profit, regardless of whether it results in imprisonment or death.

You don’t have to look too far to see the kind of inequality, selective representation and enforcement being talked about.

On Saturday, Dec. 14, there was a protest against the proposed food ban on Hollywood and Vine. Organizers with Monday Night Mission, who called for the protest, avoided food distribution in public as part of their protest to “maintain order” and keep their message under control. Instead, the goal appeared to be to get-the-media and build support and visibility for the homeless on Hollywood Boulevard, as a message to the Hollywood BID (Business Improvement District) that originally inspired the proposed legislation. This included an organizer-police controlled sidewalk-march and candlelight vigil.

Just a few blocks away, on the cul-de-sac at the end of Glen Tower just off Beachwood in the Hollywood Hills nestled quaintly in LaBonge’s district, another candle lit soirée was holding space. This event, a Holiday Trombone party was co-hosted by the Hollywood Orchard and the Beachwood Canyon Neighborhood Association.

[Culdesac, Glen Tower]

Upon asking one of the volunteers, they explained that though a permit had been obtained to shut off the street and use the cul-de-sac, they did not require a food permit because the food was free. They also had alcoholic drinks available for free.

[Free food and drinks table at the Trombone Holiday Party]

I don’t think it’s unlikely or unfair to put forward that particular communities in the Hollywood Hills, and their activist groups, might enjoy a less-than-hostile relationship with the city or police. They might feel more comfortable working within established institutions, which have proven themselves inaccessible, bureaucratic, often racist and exclusionary or have access to capital or space to meet indoors without experiencing discrimination.

At the very least, they probably aren’t considered suspect when they request a permit to shut down a street, and in this event, there was absolutely no visible police presence for their public event. If they hadn’t requested a permit — the reason they did was to get a lamp post turned off — it is highly unlikely they would have met any repression by the police. Double standards to say the least.

Such stark contradictions show these measures for what they really are: actions to restrict accessibility based on the community you are in, whether you are deemed a nuisance or an asset to those in power and with capital. It shows that it does matter who your neighbors are, whether they are house-less, whether you feed your community for holiday entertainment or to meet basic-needs. And it demonstrates the agenda of selective enforcement by politicians and special interests against particular communities restricting their right to assembly regardless of their health or safety (or whether or not they will be fed).

What nobody seems to want to discuss is how the priorities of developers, the BID, private industry lobbyists like the Central City Association, and their politicians to restrict food accessibility, push out the poor and privatize space are the very same factors that create homelessness through “urban renewal,” raising the rent and pushing people out of their homes. Often utilizing hyper-policing, such as “Safer Cities Initiative” impacting Skid Row, to get their way.

[Protest Encampment at the site of the Central City Association (626 Wilshire) who lobbies City Council on behalf of banksters and developers to create favorable legislation] Politicians and business lobbyists prioritize the effects of homelessness on property value, rarely looking at homelessness as an effect of this economic system.  Homelessness is the logical extension of a poverty-profit based system and the deprivation of resources. Who are the home-less except for those deprived of a home who do not fit within a predatory capitalist system?

“Thus capitalism is marked by homeless people living next to empty housing and hungry people seeing food exported or destroyed in order to maximise profit,” wrote The (A)narchist FAQ Editorial Collective. “Ultimately, if the capitalist does not make a profit then it is a bad investment — regardless of whether it could be used to meet people’s needs and so make their lives better.”

While charity based organizations are taking the argument back to basics trying to “humanize” the homeless, others feel as though we need to stop these cycles of blaming the victim and draw pointed criticism at such dehumanizing rhetoric. Choosing instead, to call out the “class war” that keeps under represented people constantly playing defense against targeted legislation by the political, and upper, class.

After all, our political system tends to consistently favor those with wealth, who are given space and whose voices are valued while the voices of the poor mean little to nothing. The politicians, regardless of which for-profit party they wear on their lapel, tend to be administrators for “key stakeholders” and the upper crust of the economic system while completely ignoring the experience and needs of the poor.

What does this mean about the role of law, prejudice, targeting and power? Who has the authority to speak to these issues and why are elected officials responding to the needs of business-lobby-groups by further privatizing space?

Whatever the case, the political system appears incapable of addressing inequality in any meaningful way.   Instead of listening to the voices of oppressed peoples, or using their authority to carve out time and space for community-run forums, these “representatives” manage poor communities by usually manipulating their needs for political gain. In the long term, they are only interested in maintaining their position, whatever the immediate effects upon people experiencing the fallout impact of their policy change.

For example, during the organizing against the gang injunction in Echo Park, some of these same politicians, who often times have conflicts of interests, did not appear interested in hearing how increased criminalization affects poor communities. They continuously reaffirmed expanding power for the police, which isn’t really a practical or effective solution, unless you’re in support of the for-profit-prison-system-rape-culture-targeting of these communities.

[Early on the Gang Injunction struggle brought together different neighborhoods educating themselves to fight the expansion of DTLA via criminalizing injunctions which often just racially profile youth and displace long-term residents]

Since most of these politicians tend to profit from their positions with power, it isn’t a far cry from reality to put forward that the poor underclasses are not represented under the current political system. Their experience is often ignored or silenced.

But while it makes sense to view the opportunist political class as disconnected from the working class and poor, it’s practically unimaginable to believe that these individuals could disconnect themselves from their own career interests. This illustrates that their representation is not just a positional individual problem in need of replacement, but a structural and collective problem in need of transformative change.

Especially when elected officials time and time again would rather empower developers and corporations, with their lobby fronts and private security-police, enabling their agenda of displacement and policing of “undesirables” in gentrified high-rising communities.

In fact, at this point, it appears more likely the political system and its representatives are helping to facilitate mass targeting of our poor and under resourced communities.

[JR]