CAROL HARVEY UNEDITED! HARD HITTING FREE SPEECH.

The Following Article is Printed by Permission;
©2008 Carol Harvey, all rights reserved.
carolharveysf@yahoo.com

This is to hot to print anywhere else!



UNHOUSED VOTING INDICATORS FOR NOVEMBER 4
I was a Chicago high school student. Black-suited men rapped on our door ordering my terrified father to “Name Names,” or lose his job. My parents, Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party unionists, joined writers and artists like Pete Seeger and Ring Lardner, in the Communist Party.
It wasn’t from bad civics classes that I blanked on my democratic rights under the first ten Constitutional amendments. For years, I avoided politics. I’m still in recovery from an irritating rash left behind by red diaper baby PTSD.
I learned realities of Fascist life early. Maxine Goldbarg said neighbors called her family “Those Jews who caused the War.” Mom warned me not to utter the word “communion.” As a teacher, I took loyalty oaths. I feared denial of a passport.
In The End of America – Letter of Warning to A Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf lists systematic steps by which, democratic rights are dismantled. Allende’s Chile, Bolivia, Indonesia, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Germany, East Germany, and Russia were converted from open to closed totalitarian states.
Like German Jews, the homeless are the Front Guard. During national conversion from Democracy to Fascism, they suffer first what we suffer last.
Neither Presidential candidate has outlined plans to resolve homelessness. But, which would preserve our democratic rights and which quick-step the country into the Bush-Cheney Fascist wetdream that Wolf’s book outlines below?
1. External and Internal Threats.
In the September Bay Guardian, [“What are safe streets? – Mayoral task force looks for ways to protect people in San Francisco from the homeless,”] Amanda Witherell described loss of tourism dollars, not from crime, but from “unpredictable” homeless behavior, reflecting the highest value of our Capitalist Republic – Money.
Honoring Sister Bernie Galvin’s retirement from Religious Witness with Homeless People, activist Richard Marquez quoted Brazilian educator, Paolo Friere asking a woman in a homeless shelter, “Are you American?” Tearfully, she answered, “No! I am poor.” Friere wrote, “That desolate woman expressed…the absence of citizenship. She had been expelled from existence itself.” We treat those without money and homeless as “non-people” without civil or human rights.
Like Hitler’s Jews or Bush’s Al Qaeda “evildoers” with their alleged 911 attempt to annihilate us, the internal threat endangering American capitalism most is the Poor’s public presence interferencing with commerce, bringing the nation down. The protofascist tactic is to scapegoat them as “Others” --- lazy, crazy, addicted, choosing to live on streets. These Dangerous Unsuccessful must suffer and die. Ignore these coalmine canaries at our peril. They foretell our fate.
In a recent SF Weekly article, “Homeless SF State students struggle to stay in school and stay loaded,” Trey Bundy undermines his stereotype of druggies’ deliberate street life. He quotes “Steve” describing depression resulting from an “abusive,”“dysfunctional” family. “That’s why we’re out here. No one in his right mind would be … [homeless].”
Supervisor Angela Alioto, with her strong record of helping the poor, once observed she never saw a homeless person refuse shelter.
By promoting stereotypic scapegoats, such articles skirt homelessness’ root causes which Nixon and Reagan accelerated by underfunding affordable housing. Workers and students in San Francisco’s high rent district, earn wages too meager for housing and quadruple up in apartments.
2. Secret prisons.
Mortgage meltdowns force families from homes. Secret Guantanamos are exposed. Media covered the New Orleans Superdome, showing “Average” citizens the emotional and physical abuse inflicted in homeless shelters.
3. A paramilitary force.
Security habitually harass homeless people.
We are numbed watching TV Cops brutalizing citizens. “Don’t taze me, Bro!” normalizes the presence of police and hired mercenaries waging war on us. In 2006, burly Blackwater guards protecting CEOs from CPMC hospital picketers told me they’d returned from Iraq through New Orleans where they shot people hip-deep in water “looting” food. Amy Goodman, and 14 Republican convention protesters, roughed up and tazed by police, were released from St. Paul jails picking copper wires from their skin.
4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens
Living on streets, homeless “citizens” are easily surveiled. Police Chief Heather Fong at Mayor Newsom’s Street and Neighborhoods workgroup, intended to make downtown “more uncomfortable for homeless and poor people” who “act strangely” and “talk to themselves” (though) “they haven’t committed a crime.” Police sweeps routinely confiscate homeless belongings, violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure.
The Mayor’s workgroup may request data about homeless vendors. Together with information stored in the computerized shelter reservation system “CHANGES,” this could be fed into the National Crime Information Computer Center downloadable to any officer’s laptop, criminalizing the unhoused.
Currently, “We”are experiencing a loss of fourth amendment rights of privacy of our papers. Writes Wolf, “According to the ACLU,” activists should assume “Your e-mail may be monitored and your phone calls tracked.”
5. Infiltrate Citizens’ Groups. “The next time you meet with your anti-war group,” (or a Street Sheet meeting), “…ask yourself if everyone present really is who you think he or she is.”
6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens.
First Amendment Constitutional rights of the unhoused to assemble --- to sleep, stand, or sit alone or together on sidewalks, under bridges, in encampments in order to secure mutual protection, clean beds, food, and facilities, are routinely violated by police water-cannon washdowns or illegal levy of tickets for “quality of life infractions.” When multiple fines become too high to pay, people are often jailed and released.
Liberal Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and singer Cat Stevens, now Usef Islam, were detained in airports, “on national security grounds,” according to Wolf.
7. Target Key Individuals.
“Job loss and career setbacks are the first kinds of pressure these people are likely to face.”
Advocates Sister Bernie Galvin, Supervisor Chris Daly and Coalition founder, Paul Boden have been misrepsented for years by the pro-Newsom ‘Chronicle.’
8. Restrict the Press.
“In dictatorships, targeting free press begins with political pressure.” Commentator, Keith Olberman, refers to Fox as “Fixed News.” Journalists know Americans get restricted inaccurate news, stunting our world view.
If you buy our paper, please read and take it seriously? Peer past the mainstream press’ negative PR and distorted homeless news. Coalition advocates offer through ‘Street Sheet’ well-researched documentation and solid reporting and are the City’s homelessness paper of record.
9. Cast Criticism as “Espionage” and Dissent as “Treason.”
Police distribute a photo depicting Chris Daly open-mouthed in an officer’s face, painting him a lawbreaker. Protesting Hastings’ threat to replace housing with parking structures, Daly grimaces painfully from the officer’s thumb lock.
10. Subvert the Rule of Law.
The unconstitutionality of quality of life “infractions” doesn’t stop City officials denying citizens without walls the right to rest, lie, or sit in the only place they can --- under the sky.
As of today, legendary Bush-Cheney subversions of Rule of Law evoke constant cries to “Impeach.”
A famous caution about our present political predicament is apt.
"In Germany, they came for Communists. I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Communist;

They came for trade unionists, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

They came for Jews, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

They came for me . . . By that time there was no one left to speak up."
Pastor Martin Niemoller
©

Ralph Nader is not a cartoon!

OK HERE IS AN UNREASONABLE MAN! OR IS HE?

Ralph Nader is truely a tragic hero. He is a constant reminder that we have a broken Democary in this country...whoops I meant to say Democracy didn't I? Well none the less here is a man who by shear will has marked our world in positive ways he himself may never quite be ever thanked for. Wonder how it is that cars are safe enough now that you can survive a crash ? Or labels on food? Many consumer laws that we take for granted are the result of Ralph Nader's work. He deserves to be President. He more than likely will never be. We don't live in a just world, if we did then he would get a chance to debate and if people heard him he might even get votes.

Sister Bernie Galvin

This is my rendition of a social activist NUN...that is right she is a woman of the cloth. If you are an advocate for the poor then you are my kind of people.

She retires from her work this year and we hope the best for her as she moves to a new chapter in her life.

Pork

IRS is criminal in its task to collect taxes for violence

IRS/US Government and all who are WAR mongers are in conflict with Peace and the prosperity of our species.

DPW Stealing from Poor People

Ok I thought this was totally ridiculous! DPW laughing at a guy and telling him that they couldn't give his stuff back. They straight up took a poor mans' few possessions! It is not only illegal, it is brutal! I wonder what they have to say for themselves. This story left me steaming at the ears! How could some one be so mean?

COPS STEALING FROM POOR PEOPLE

Federal Judge Rules City of Fresno Violated the Rights of Homeless Residents
Tue May 13 2008 (Updated 05/16/08) Destruction of property declared unlawful seizure
A U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of California has ruled that the City of Fresno's practice of immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of homeless residents violates the constitutional right of every person to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

"The question is no longer whether the City will have to pay damages to class members, but how much," said attorney Oren Sellstrom of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights. "Given that many homeless people lost everything they owned in these illegal sweeps - including their medicines and items of tremendous sentimental value - we believe the damage award will be significant."

"The Court's ruling in this class-action lawsuit makes it clear that our Constitution protects the rights of everybody, rich or poor," said attorney Michael Risher of the ACLU of Northern California. "It should send a strong message to other cities throughout our country that if they violate the rights of their most vulnerable residents, they will be held accountable."

Six plaintiffs provided testimony in the case, Kincaid v. City of Fresno, on behalf of the entire class, which includes all homeless people in Fresno who had their property seized and destroyed by the City or by the California Department of Transportation. The case was bought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and the firm of Heller, Ehrman, LLP. Read more here...

PIRATE FESTIVAL IN VALLEJO

VALLEJO IS A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE TOWN JUST SOUTH OF NAPA. IT HAS BEEN TREATED LIKE A WELFARE STATE AND THE PEOPLE THERE HAVE BEEN PAYING THE POLICE SUCH INCREDIBLE AMOUNTS OF MONEY THAT THE TOWN IS BROKE. THERE IS NO BOOK STORE IN VALLEJO. THEY NEED TO PUT THEIR MONEY INTO SERVICES AND EDUCATION. THEN YOU WILL BUILD A TOWN THAT EVERYONE CAN BE PROUD OF. POLICING IS A 100YR EXPERIMENTAL FAILURE.

THIS WEEK IS CRUCIAL FOR POOR PEOPLE IN SF!

THIS WEEK THE POOR ARE MADE EVEN MORE VULNERABLE AND COULD LOSE VITAL SERVICES THAT ARE STILL IN SHORT SUPPLY. GAVIN NEWSOM HAS DECIDED TO PULL IMPORTANT MONIES AWAY FROM THE MOST NEEDY IN OUR TOWN. WE CANNOT GO ON IN A CIVILIZATION THAT IS GOING TO CRIMINALIZE THE POOR AND MAKE THE LIVES OF THOSE LESS FORTUNATE EVEN HARDER BY TAKING HOPE FROM THEM.

DOG AND PONY SHOW AVOIDED IN SAN FRANCISCO

IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ON THIS STORY GO TO : www.cohsf.org/streetsheet

Pirates RRRR a Comin!

Prop 98 is crap. Don't do it! Vote yes on 99!

If rent control goes away then it will broaden the divide between the rich and poor, the middlish class will become poor and the poor will be poorer. A "Rascal Multitude may prevail".

Radical Illustration is not enough!

It is time to take off the gloves!....and hold hands? Yup, we need more love and healing in this world. I remember a time when I was young that people loved each other. I was loved and nurtured and given a good home despite possible circumstances that could have gone wrong. Love can really give us what we need to help us along the way. We should love each other liberally. Fear and prejudice are what makes for a society that has us feeling disconnected from our fellow man.

UNCLE EATS POOR!

Do we really understand poverty in this country? Do we know how to solve it? What are we doing as individuals to stop it?

UNCLE SAM EATS THE POOR

TJ Walkup Cartoons, the Homeless have every right to public space too!

Can you imagine that Bank of the West actually took a bench back after it was gifted to the public? Because people who were not "commercial enough" were sitting on it. That is the way the story that inspired this illustration goes. So some older folks , cute older folks sat at this bench "for years". So a sense of entitlement over the "public" space grew and they must have thought of it as theirs. Wrong. Then homeless also used the public space (tends to make homelessness visible), some one didn't like that because it is much easier to sweep the poor off the street than face poverty. Well when we look at this situation fairly we have to understand that although it is public space, not all people are given the same treatment in our society. Ok I love mature people, they usually have such wisdom and such wonderful experience to report and offer to their fellow man, this time they come off looking insensitive. If we are gonna work together in this world we have to get together. Bank of the West was the real culprit here. They need to serve the community better. Bring back the bench they took!

people should be better with the poor

People can be so cruel. Imagine if you were homeless and someone said "I'm Fine" when you were suffering? San Francisco can call itself "liberal", "Progressive" and some times even "compassionate". But come on! Next time some one offers you a Street Sheet you have to realize that that person is not begging, in fact they earn that little dollar by standing in the street and asking people to read this informative paper. I have to say the paper is getting better and I have found that it is a hot read on occasion. So buy it..it offers a man some dignity, and don't lose yours by snubbing the distributor wit a comment like "I'm Fine!"

SOON WE WILL BE RID OF THIS ADMINISTRATION!

OH THOSE EVIL DOERS!

IRAQ BUSH MESSAGE POLITICS CARTOONS DEMOCRACY

IT IS NOT OVER TILL IT"S OVER!

We as a people have to be proud of that fact that our "DEMOCKARY" is working. But BIAS because of money is a real threat to our ideal of how we see our selves. Some would say "love it or leave it" to my opinions of this country. I vote because I can and it is an act of faith. There is much to be fixed about our country and part of those fixes is a new president. Let us not forget the truth about what the Republican Party has put us through the past few years. We are poor, demoralizing and seen as an aggressive republic. We have a "War time President". What a miserable failure that we never removed him from office to save our democracy. Well there is new hope. The hope is far beyond just the vote. It is visible only from the hill of action. We must as a nation go there with healing in mind. We don't reach across the isle...we reach over to our brothers and sisters. No more lables...WE ARE THE PEOPLE! And guess what...we are in charge of this country. Not the Country Club "Good Old Boys" that we have in office now. We now need to protest the press when we think that they are doing something wrong. Show up at the places where the lies begin. The news stations. Ok this is dangerous for me I work in TV...but I believe in Democracy! I have no faith in the television business. I am not a "Rebel" I am a realist...a humanitarian.

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OH CW NEVIUS! HOW DEVIOUS!

Lack of concern..that is what is wrong with our world today. I think that the more success you have the better you should treat people. I don't feel disenfranchised. I have great friends. To me that is being rich. Truely. I remember times when my mother would work so hard just the crappy shifts. I have straight teeth because of that. I am working class. I work, and I love it. In my life I have made some money here and there on a project, but never enough to be considered "successful" by world standards. But when I think of real poverty...I have never experienced it. I was always fed, always house (well when I was 19 and I was taking graphic art classes, I didn't want to leave so I stayed in the car) but heck that never felt homless.

I have done so well in some ways since then. I continue to be published and paid for illustrations and cartoons. I also give them away. The punchier I get the more people like the cartooons. I am so afraid some times to offend people. Then again it is my art, my statement and I should never fear using my 1st amendment right.

I mean heck a right not used is a right not enjoyed!



LOVE YOUR DEMOCRACY!



CW is at it again..lack of any compassion.

GOVERNMENT MULE

GOVERNMENT MULE...

No Time for Your Whining!

I got no time for whining...I do have time for solutions. We are so tired of the party line around here, and my address is firmly placed in reality. Homeless, Drugs, HIV, Crime, and all the rest of SF woes.

Does it ever occur to anyone that we are snowballing problems and not immediately seeing these issues as "State of Emergency"?

What are you going to do today about any of these things? I am taking the bull by the horns today. I am making phone calls, collecting clothes, getting ready for a meeting tomorrow and doing my part. It is the moral thing to do. I don't care if Gavin Newsom is doing coke! I don't care if Brittany Spears is in rehab...The real news is on the street, in front of you San Francisco, do something today because you live here! And these folks are human.