Feature Archives

Women have not only acted as participants in the ongoing popular movement in Oaxaca, but have also profoundly shaped the course of its history. They have created some of the most powerful stories and moments in the past nine months, and have helped tell them. Stories of women who have built the movement are everywhere in Oaxaca.

On February 16th, 2007, a protest targeting Sam Farr, Representative for the 17th Congressional District, was held at the Santa Cruz County Building to demand, "Cut Off The War Funds!" Sam Farr has voted a number of times for the billions of dollars that have been used to wage war and murder hundreds of thousands in Iraq. He has promised to vote against the $93 billion emergency war appropriations bill that Bush has forwarded to congress, but Farr still consistently supports and votes for massive general appropriations for the military budget. These are votes for war.

Scott Kennedy of the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz co-led a delegation to Israel and the West Bank of Palestine from November 4–18, 2006. Ken Carlson of Santa Cruz was also on the delegation which was cosponsored by the Washington, DC based Interfaith PeaceBuilders and the Middle East Program of the national American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Audio

Two years ago this spring, Free Skool Santa Cruz started as an idea between friends. It was a resuscitation of an old idea: interactive and informal learning in a non-institutional, non-hierarchical setting outside of the monetary economy. And in two years, Free Skool has offered over 260 different classes on everything from DIY-philosophy such as bike repair and knitting to more academic subjects such as local and radical history.

On January 21st, Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz hosted a benefit show for the Oakland-based hip hop group The Coup. It was an all star line up of musicians and MC's with a common cause of helping The Coup after their tragic bus accident. Listen to the live recording. Audio

The Santa Cruz City Council passed a resolution on January 24 declaring Santa Cruz a pro-choice city. Cynthia Mathews, a Santa Cruz City Council member and co-founder of Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz, co-sponsored the resolution dubbing Santa Cruz a pro-choice city. "...We thought it was important for the city to go on the record" says Mathews.

Resisting the Police State: A Free Skool Santa Cruz Workshop

Know your “rights” before you find yourself in hot water. Keep yourself safe from police repression. Take the Know Your Rights Quiz and see how much you know. Detentions, arrest, searches, interrogation, jail, warrants, and police infiltration.

Our system of laws exists to maintain the dominance of those in power, and the police are its armed enforcers. If you doubt this for a minute, look at who are the selective targets of local laws: The homeless, the young, the poor, dissenters. Globally, look at who dies and who gets rich from our wars and other disasters.

For 250 years in this country, the government and their enforcers have consistently fought against people working for liberation: Indigenous resistance, land reformers, slave revolts, abolitionists, labor organizers & workers, free-speech advocates, women and civil rights workers, anti-war and anti-globalization protesters, and recently, animal rights and environmental activists. Read more, download a poster and handbill