Poor Communities Cope with Poor Economy

Just noticed the photo there. That photo was actually taken on the morning of a huge (and expensive) police raid on a peaceful and clean and loving encampment demonstration in Arcata, CA in the Spring of 2007. The family who was in that tent, and was leaving at the startling early morning presence of MANY cops- after a long night of rain- had just moved to California for a job which fell through. By the time they got to the PEOPLE PROJECT encampment demonstration, they had used all the gas in their car looking for a place to bed down for the night.

The encampment protest, which had been there for 4 nights already, was the only place they could do that for free- and have a hot meal too! Then the cops came...

CO-OPERATION seems to be ILLEGAL, unless it is part of a particular money-making scheme (i.e. prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, business of WAR)

Of course, the photo is not copyrighted, but I thought it important to talk about the context. There is little point talking about or attempting to address poverty without acknowledging the tremendous (and again expensive) role of the State and its Police in repressing the simplest of life-sustaining actions for poor folks- i.e. SLEEP. And the State's CAMPAIGNS which day and night include, stealing peoples' belongings, hunting houseless people down while sleeping or walking or sitting, beating people up who have no walls to protect them, targetting poor youth, grabbing immigrant people from thier homes and workplaces , etc.

One other note: In the photo, to the left of the Mom and sweet baby getting out of the tent, there is a little t-shirt that got wet in the rain, and was taken by the cops. It has a design on it by Art As Resistance. a woman with her fist in the air, city hall crumbling in the background, hands like roots pushing up through the concrete into a tree... the words "POWER FROM THE STREETS" and "Sleep Deprivation Is Torture."

Check out the PEOPLE PROJECT website

Power From the Streets!
ALL Power To The PEOPLE!

This is barbaric, having lived in Ukia, I have known first hand what it had been like to live there being homeless, I had camped out by Lake Mendocino, lived in a motel room in Willets, Ca., And after months of searching for a place to live, wound up in Ft. Bragg, on the other side of Ukiah, twenty years ago, whatever, and in July 2010, same as it ever was and worse. As it is in other cities, the tent cities are growing rapidly. Hooray for the young people going to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, and the others who care about the poor, growing poor, and the now poor, as the billionaires, and the bankers get richer.