" West Berkeley Air Quality meeting," January 15, 2015

This is a report on a neighborhood meeting of environmental activists, discussing how to deal with the on-going pollaution in Berkeley. There is lead in the water, EMF from Smartmeters, toxic gases from the steel plant and the asphalt plant, and a city that refuses to do anything about it. (April 23, 2015)
This article is here.

"Housing Development: Causes and Problems," April 23, 2015

This article outlines the proposed development that is planned for Berkeley, its size, extent, and what PDA means. It describes why and how ABAG has allotted a certain amount of housing to Berkeley, and how that will in turn produce a gentrification of the city. It concludes with the inevitable fate of low income families to move out, dislocation associated with the rise in cost of living that is the core of gentrification.
This article is here.

"Affordable Housing? Affordable for Whom?" April 30, 2015

Affordable housing has become an issue because of ABAG's development requirement for Berkeley and other bay area cities. This article describes the way "affordable housing" is defined by HUD, as well as "cost burdened"living. It describes the morass of relations marked out by permits, mitigation fees, financial schemes, ABAG requirements and loopholes for developers given by the laws, and the use by developers of the slogan "affordable housing." On the other hand, the affordable housing built by the Housing Trust Fund will also include monitoring (aka surveillence) of the tenants by the city.
This article is here.

"ABAG and its 'Footprint'," May 14, 2015

This article describes the Catch-22 of setting affordable housng goals as part of development projects building market rate housing. It goes over some of ABAG's history, the concretization of its plans in Plan Bay Area, and what its political purposes are. ABAG now constitutes an important element in the disconnect between the people and the government.
This article is here.

"Housing and Justice," June 5, 2015

This article ties together three movements that are addressing three separate issues that are nevertheless interwoven: the issue of affordable housing, the issue of harassment and criminalization of the homeless, and the process of city gentrification. Each is an issue of justice, which reveals an inequality when justice is not served. Because market rate has become a high income rent level, it is injustice toward low income families. Because the homeless are produced by market operations, it is unjust to criminalize their poverty or to use them as a political tool to benefit developers, and becaue gentrification is imposed from the top (the rich), it is anti-democratic.
This article is here.

"Gentrification and the Corporate Structure," July 7, 2015

In the face of movements to try to win affordable housing from city government, this article outlines some of the major economic factors and structures that lead development corporations (and the city) to focus only on building market rate housing. It reveals how urban racialization and the representative (as opposed to direct democracy) system collude to advance corporate interests.
This article is here.

"To Plan or Be Planned: A Conflict of Interests," August 2, 2015

How corporate interests (for recapitalization) work their way through the city planning process, and how the neighborhoods to be affected are excluded from that process at every turn. It discusses how community interests stand in diametric opposition to corporate interests, and how community interests are blocked by the representationist system.
This article is here.

" On the relation between economics and political structures," Sept. 19, 2015

An introduction to the machinations of ABAG and the Plan Bay Area with respect to changes to be imposed on this area. Priority Development Areas are defined, so that richer people in the suburbs can move back to the dity, and not have to commute. The article enumerates the different conflicts of interest between neighborhoods and developers. Democracy, for instance. Neighborhood interests in presesrving affordable housing and low income businesses conflict with developer needs for high prices businesses and market rate housing. Input is called for, the people are scammed by it, and gentrification is the result. It has been planned. Neighborhoods are to have no right to sit at the planning tables with the developers. Neighborhoods must organize to force these conditions to change in their own interest. A new meaning to protest has to be invented.
This article is here.

"Critique of the BNC Forum of Sept. 12, 2015," Sept. 26, 2015

In the face of rising neighborhood movements demanding affordable housing and protection against dislocation through changes in property and rent levels, this Forum, organized by the Berkeley Neighborhood Council, addressed the facts of the problem without dealing with organizational responses. Indeed, it maintained the old "let the leaders and officials do it" ideology rather than espouse local neighborhood organizing, self-determination, and political power. Thus, the Forum was essentially useless.
This article is here.

"Corporate Economics and Development," October 9, 2015

A critique of the notion of "market rate" housing, tying that critique to corporate economics, and the fact that the corporate structure determines that one cannot resolve the housing crisis by building market rate housing. Only by building affordable housing will the housing crisis be resolved. The corporate structure, in jettisoning the law of supply and demand through financial operations, insures that the simplistic use of trickle-down with respect to housing will not work.
This article is here.

"Report on City Council, Oct. 27, 2015

This is a report on how city council addressed a ridiculous proposal by Droste to allow developers to omit on-site parking. It was a perfect example, in the face of the corporate structure and Plan Bay Area's requirement for thousands of new housing units, of how city council has become useless.
This article is here.

"City Council's Double Bind," November 6, 2015

Though the city is organizing teach-ins on affordable housing, it cannot produce because it is stuck in a bind between several economic and political forces. These are Plan Bay Area, which is pushing property values and rent levels up through speculation, the corporate structure's need to build recapitalizable buildings, the legal prohibition against requiring affordable units in new developments, and the prohibition against rent control or any moratorium on rent increases. Thus, massive dislocation and gentrification are assured.
This article is here.

"Linda's Laws," November 11, 2015

On the relation between the attacks on the homeless and the drive to gentrify Berkeley. This is an analysis of the relation between criminalizing attacks on the homeless and the drive to gentrify Berkeley. Both those attacks and the primary permitting of market rate housing are violations of human rights. They represent a failure on the part of the city government to protect its citizens against impoverishment by processes set in motion by corporate development. The criminalization of the homeless is actually a tactic used to further the interests of real estate profitability and gentrification.
This article is here.

State of Emergency 101, November 18, 2015

The city's teach-in on affordable housing, "Affordable Housing 101," actually served to inform the residents that there is nothing that they or the city council can do to stem the housing crisis in rent increases, no market rate development, and no dislocation, these were absent in the teach-in. And this article explains why, and why a moratorium on rent increases is the only way to insure that even building affordable housing will resolve the housing crisis.
This article is here.

Scenes of Corruption - the city council, January 8, 2016.

This is the first of two articles critiquing the structure of representationism, commonly understood as "representative democracy," but which is hardly democratic at all. This article examines the behavior of city council in acting to create crises by conscious inaction, and then holding the problem of the crises against those who are beset and victimized by them. The major issues are housing and the homeless, and a similar structure of disconnect, a bridgeless gap between the governing body and the people becomes clearly evident in these instances.
This article is here.

The Structure of Our Political Disconnect, January 15, 2016.

This is the second article in the critique of representationism. In it, the various dimensions of structure are analysed, in order to show how they participate in creating and maintaining the gap or disconnect between governmental institutions and the people, which affects itself as a conflict between institutions and constituencies. In particular, it looks at how representatives are structurally separated from the ability to represent, how they must turn to the assembly to which they are elected for their real constituency, and how hearings, which are touted as the public's ability to participate and influence political decisions, act against any such influence or participation.
This article is here.

Berkeley City Politics and the Denial of Due Process, February 16, 2016

This article takes the institutionality of representation, as analyzed in the previous articles, as its context, and looks at an equalizing mechanism, namely, due process as a legal concept. The right to due process is described, and the fact that it is violated continuously and routinely in the US is shown through examples. But it is not only violated legally (or legalistically). It is also violated politically - in particular, by city council. The article then examines how this happens, the effect it has in creating privilege and a difference of political class. And finally, suggests what urban government might look like if due process were provided politically, and guaranteed.
This article is here.

Housing Economics, or the Strange Failure of Supply and Demand, March 10, 2016

This article is a refutation of the idea that supply and demand works in a simple fashion with respect to housing. It does so using standard economic categories set in a hypothetical situation to reduce the number of variables. It proves that it is a focus on constructing market rate housing that has produced the housing crisis, and argues that to continue to build market rate housing will continue the housing crisis. The only way the crisis can be alleviated is by building low income affordable housing.
This article is here.

Why Neighborhood Assemblies can Win Against Corporate Developers, April 8,2016

The thrust of this article is how neighborhoods can defend themselves against impending gentrification. And the article proposes the idea of neighborhood assemblies as one way. The neighborhood assembly is at once a forum for the vast variety of residents’ ideas, a local legislative body, and an organizing center for the neighborhood. The question is where a neighborhood assembly would get the power to bring developers to negotiate, rather than simply seek "input." And the answer lies in the economics of land values, and the corporate dependence on surrounding social inertia to preserve land values within the limits of profitability.
This article is here.

The Class Nature of the Density Bonus, May 12, 2016

This article begins with an outline of corporate economics involved in housing development, and why developers and their financing banks desire all market rate housing. Affordable housing stands in opposition, because based on income and not on a rental "market." It is a schema originating with HUD to protect low and very low income people. Another thing, at the city level, designed to protect the residents, is zoning. The density bonus, imposed at the state level, allow developers, if they meet certain requirement, to ignore city zoning. Thus, it is an anti-democratic policy imposed on cities by the state. It is not the only one.
This article is here.

Euphemism and Autocracy, May 26, 2016

The city has been using an officially funded “Idea Center” to poll and speak to the residents of South Berkeley, ostensibly to get their "input" in impending development of the “Adeline Corridor.” In its "workshop," it throws around words like "vision" and "planning," as if the neighbors are participating in all that. But the real needs of the neighborhood (affordable housing) are covered up with other euphemisms, so that it is difficult to see that those needs will not be met. And the elephant in the room, that no one talks about, is the Costa-Hawkins Act, that prevents cities from protecting their people from dislocation and dispossession. The city doesn’t talk about the need to repeal Costa-Hawkins.
This article is here.

Ideology vs Housing, June 10, 2016

This is a critique of the application of the law of supply and demand to the housing situation, and in particular, to the crisis in affordable housing. There are two forms of demand, one which pushes rent levels up, and the other which looks for rentals it can afford, and fails because rent levels have been pushed up. That is the crisis. It was brought about through ABAG projects to bring those living in the suburbs back into town. Some simple suggestions are made as to how to resolve the crisis, suggestions that will fly in the face of all economic ideology concerning housing and state law.
This article is here.

The Economic Priority of Job Creation, Small Businesses, and Artisans, June 16, 2016

A critique of the culture of big box stores, and their detrimental effect on a local neighborhood economic infrastructure. The article becomes an acvocacy of a vacancy tax and a raised minimum wage to a living wage as beneficial to small local businesses, and not detrimental as the opponents of a living wage have argued.
This article is here.

Three Little Scams: Manipulating the Housing Crisis, June 17, 2016

The first scam is “inclusionary housing,” which seems egalitarian, but is class biased toward the wealthy. The second scam is the notion that building market rate housing will resolve the housing crisis. The crisis is not one of supply and demand, but of speculation, disruption of land values upward, and massive dislocation of low income families. The third scam is hiding the issue of affordability behind talk about markets. To resolve the crisis, real democracy will have to be restored, which means repealing Costa-Hawkins and the density bonus laws.
This article is here.

The Surreality of the Actual, September 24,2016

There is a plan afoot to normalize Berkeley, because there was just too much democracy. The founding of ABAG, its take-over by the MTC, the passage of Costa-Hawkins, the impending closure of Alta-Bates, the closure of the free schools, and now the creation of a housing crisis, with the population turned against a criminalized homeless community, are all part of the design. The effect is the drawing of lines of skirmish between corporate developers and neighborhoods that are now on the defensive against gentrification.
This article is here.

In Sickness and in Health ..., December 11, 2016

A health practicianer has written a report on the health conditions of people in one of the homeless encampments in Berkeley. The list is so long it overshadows the fact that it is about only a dozen people. Knowing the health conditions, the Berkeley police nevertheless keep evicting these people from their encampment, an encampment that provides community that allows them to survive. Their illness is used as an excuse to assault them, and the police use the presence of insulin needles to accuse them of drug use.
This article is here.

The Word on the Street ..., December 22,2016

The city of Berkeley has started taking a few measures to provide shelter for the homeless as the winter months arrive. After much fanfare, two sholters with 130 beds total were opened, with a homeless population of over 900. Many of the homeless will not go to these shelters because the "employees" of the shelters (guards) discriminate against LGBT, black people, and others, and have been known to get violent. The community called “First They Came for the Homeless” has been targetted for repression instead of being included in the dialogues seeking solutions for the problem.
This article is here.

The Play’s the Thing … (aka Capoeira Politics), December 27, 2016

On December 13, 2016, the new Berkeley Council met for the first time since new members had been elected, and attempted to deal with the crisis of the homeless. Though scores of people attended the meeting, called for City Council to stop the police raids on a particular homeless encampment, one that was leading a political campaign to get the homeless treated as humans, the Council could not quite get it together to do so. This article is a dramatic presentation of what happened.
This article is here.

A Critique of the draft West Berkeley (San Pablo Avenue) Plan, February 2,2017

The Planning Dept is constructing a plan for the San Pablo Avenue area (a Priority Development Area). Many large apartment buildings are already planned and even permitted. They will provide market rate housing, out of range for most people in Berkeley, where affordable housing is needed. The plan’s draft fails to include the interests of the neighborhoods on some important issues, such as employment, average salaries, and maintenance of economic infrastructure against gentrification.
This article is here.

Berkeley's New Ideology, February 26,2017

The city staff has proposed a Strategic Plan for Berkeley. The Plan occurs in the midst of severe crises besetting Berkeley, distracting from their resoluton. It promotes the interests of the staff as a seemingly autonomous "organization" within city government, rather than an instrument of local democracy. Reducing the people to political consumers, and limiting them to non-participant “input,” it enlarges the structural chasm between the people and the government that is one of the sources of the present crises.
This article is here.

The Alchemy of Community Action, March 4, 2017

A proposed apartment complex for the corner of Russell St. and Adeline has brought the neighborhood together in attempts to negotiate with the developer, and get a project that meets the community’s needs as well as the developers. There has been little attention given the neighbors by either the developer or the city commissions. In coming together, the neighborhood has reached the point of mutual interaction where they start to collectively make policy for themselves as a neighborhood.
This article is here.

The meaning of "deadpan" government, May 22, 2017

On May 16, 2017, after over a hundred people waited 5 hours to speak on Urban Shield and Berkeley’s relation to the federal Fusion Centers, the Mayor announced that, because of the lateness of the hour, there would be no vote taken on the issue that night. The audience erupted in outrage, marched out of the council chambers. The council admitted that public "input" was just an obstruction. Militarization of the police, and the autonomy of city government are the issues. And the eventual vote on this issue will be the Litmust Test as to what this City Council is.
This article is here.

The Sins of the Mayor, June 23, 2017

At a special meeting in a larged auditorium, called to discuss the city’s relation to Urban Shield and the federal Fusion Centers (NCRIC), the Mayor comported himself in a manner that showed him in opposition to the feelings of the people in attendance. He did this in many ways, whch eventually led to extreme hostility on the part of the over 500 people who had come to speak. When the council voted for its linkages to the federal agencies (understood by most as a surveillence state), the meeting erupted and people stormed the stage.
This article is here.

A Celebratory Note on Sunday’s People, August 29, 2017

This article is a celebration of the thousands of people who came out on August 27, 2017, to stand opposed to the fascist, white supremacist and neo-nazi people and organizations that promised to come to Berkeley to eliminate the "leftism" of Berkeley’s populace. The result was a beautiful party in the street that lasted all day, and in which the right-wing invaders could find neither space nor support. And an awareness of the extent to which even Berkeley is part of a police state, based on militarist violence. We partied anyway, and it was the last we saw of the fascists from out of town.
This article is here.

Its time to drive away the developers, October 30, 2017

With some references to Alex Vitale’s new book, “The End of Policing,” this article is about how Berkeley politics succeeds in turning the issues of homelessness and low income family displacement against each other, though both would be resolved by the building of affordable housing. Instead of turning the police on the homeless, and letting the displaced fade away to other towns, the city needs to take a radical stance on affordable housing and get it built. Some suggestions of how to do that are included.
This article is here.

Twisted Thinking , November 30, 2017

Though it proclaims itself against police militarization, Berkeley City Council has renewed three militarizing federal relationships: the Fusion Center (NCRIC), urban surveillence technology, and Project 1033. It apparently does not see how these projects work together, nor that they are pro-militarist. And in its conceit, it thinks it can control them each separately. That is a mistake. The council thinks that it can hide behind the seeming harmlessness of the license plate readers, control what datat actually gets sent to the federal government (though it has no control over the police), and need take no measures to insure the the future will reflect the present the council thinks it is managing.
This article is here.

Force and Violence in a Can, January 2, 2018

Pepper Spray (Oleoresin Capsicum) is an instrument of torture. The Berkeley City Council affirmed police carrying it back in the 1990s. At the end of 2017, it grants the police the right to use it in crowd situations. With resapect to militiarism, and the development of a police department that forces obedience through torture, the City Council is moving in the wrong direction. The paradoxes are that the City Council passed a resolution against fascism during this (Dec. 19) session, and affirmed that the pepper spray would only be used against violent people, without defining who would be defining violence when it was used, which means it is given wholly over to the police to so determine.
This article is here.

The ideology of Silencing, January 14, 2018

This article is a critique of the notion of “public comment” as used in council and commission meetings. It argues that, because there is a strict time limit to how long a person can speak, thereby determining the language that one can use to fit in that small time-space, the structure is essentially controlling thought rather than allowing participation. The structure of alleged participation forces people into monologue where policy requires dialogue, and is thus anti-democratic.
This article is here.

A discrimination of discriminations, February 1, 2018

Rony Rolnizky wants to build a 6 story building with 62 units and 12 affordable housing units, and use the building to provide a community for IDD people, whose families would get residence in the affordable units. He gets his permits from the ZAB, but other organizations that deal with other disabled people appeal that he is discriminating against those with physical or emotional disabilities. His lawyers send arguments to the council that are strangely reminiscent of anti-black racism. His project reveals a tunnel vision in the council and a short attention span to the real (affordable) housing crisis, which they could have taken steps toward resolving using his project.
This article is here.

The Properties of Property, Feb. 28, 2018

A discussion of how small properties, such as owning one’s home, function in this society. Property in the sense of property rights, is the cause of economic crises, of homelessness, and thus of forms of oppression. Small property ownership also serves as a protection against the power and profit-intentions of large property. Sometimes owning a home also provides an increase in asset value. But it is difficult to realize that wealth without becoming a renter. However, housing is a human right, and that stands in direction contradiction to the rights of property. The latter has negemony in the US, which means it is not a democracy. Ultimately, the issue, both with property and against it, but in defense of human rights, is community autonomy.
This article is here.

Housing as a Human Right, March 19, 2018

An article about Berkeley government policy toward the homeless. It references a case in Boise where the homeless sued the city to leave them alone on public property, because there were not sufficient shelters. The US gov stepped in in favor of the homeless. It articulated the principle of city responsibility, based on the 8th Amenment. Other issues, such as sidewalk codes, dealing with mental illness, and the circularities of political logic in not dealing with the issue because of the priority of property rights.
This article is here.

Oh hypocrisies, oh city government, April 30, 2018

This article is about the ordinances the city is passing to harass and torture the homeless – in the name of maintaining order and health in the city. 150 showed up at the hearing, and spoke against what the city was doing, giving good reasons why it was wrong, unnecessary, and unwarranted. It names the hypocrisies in each of the city’s proposals. And offers alternatives. The city passed all these ordinances anyway.
This article is here.

Berkeley: City with a Heart … of Stone, May 16, 2018

This is a report on the situation that Leonard Powell is facing. He was wrongly raided by the police, he was inspected by Housing Code Enforcement. He was refused assistance by the city. He was taken to court. And a receiver was appointed against his wishes. He is being taken to the cleaners by the receiver, whose expenses in repairing the code violations are far beyond what is necessary. The aim seems to be to put Mr. Powell in debt to the point where he has to sell the house and move out of town.
This article is here.

No Country for Old Women, June 22, 2018

This article is about the condition of the homeless, and how the police, when they confiscate the possessions of a homeless person, condemn that person to illness or death from exposure. It is related to a Japanese movie about a tribe that would take its elderly people, who could no longer contribute, up into the mountains to be left to die.In the US, they left on a sidewalk, sitting there and being harassed by the police and other people.
This article is here.

It Happened Again, August 6, 2018

This is an analysis of the real actions of the Berkeley City Council with respect to the homeless, and how they actually (and hypocritically) make the homeless situation worse. In towing RV from the Marina, the cops put a number of people out on the street. In following procedures in Council, they prvent the homeless from making their case. One lone woman stand up in Council and accuses them of their inaction and cowardice. And not one councilmember stands up and says, “we can’t let this happen.”
This article is here.

The Constitution and Homelessness, September 20, 2018

This article analyses how the city of Berkeley violates the Constitution of the US in dealing with the homeless. It starts out with the argument given in Martin vs. Boise, recently affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court. This dovetails with how the police torture and violate people in the name of law enforcement. It also goes into the violation by the police of due process. And finally, it contrasts this with the constitutional guarantee of property rights, which is contained in a single phrase.
This article is here.

Berkeley’s Corporate Comportment, October 1, 2018

This article is an argument for the idea that the people of the city become nothing more than the raw material which the corporation called city government uses to produce the city as a product. In other words, it is an analysis of the city as a corporate structure, and what that means for the people. It makes this argument by going over the different components of council procedure, revealing their corporate structure, and offering a structural alternative that would make them democratic.
This article is here.

Fraudulence, Housing, and the City, October 26, 2018

This is a letter addressed to the City Manager, but also sent to the City Council, outlining the injustices committed through receivership on Leonard Powell. It also enumerates and describes seven instance of fraud committed by the city through the City Attorney in convincing the court to appoint a receiver in the face of Mr. Powell’s willingness to fix the house (given is low income level) and his opposition to receivership.
This article is here.

Amazin’ Disgrace, October 26, 2018

This article is about how two important issues got railroaded through council. One was about the police substitution of their myth of danger and their use of law enforcement technology for dealing with their actual racial profiling. And the other was about the substitution of clearcutting trees for sensible fire abatement procedures in the hills. In both, a technological solution was substituted for a political resolution of an important political issue. (November 3, 2018)
This article is here.

Political Impoverishment, October 26, 2018

A tiff over a housing development proposal for a very unlikely spot demonstrates just how undemocratic and out of touch with the needs of the residents of Berkeley the City Council really is. It is known that the majority of Berkeley residents are renters, yet City Council has no power to regulate rent levels – or thinks it doesn’t. It has allowed a glut of market rate housing to occur, and then takes it out on the homeless, who can’t afford market rate in the first place. The discriminatory attitude, and blind affirmation of corporate developers, implies that the structure of city politics needs to be changed. Some suggestions are given. (December 8, 2018)
This article is here.

“Beware the Jabberwock,” January 15, 2019

This is an article about the city’s attitude toward housing development, and how it is designed not to resolve the affordable housing crisis. Different aspects of the problem of development are evinced in five different cases of development proposal. They include land and infrastructure, landscape views, the ethics of zoning loopholes, neighborhood integrity, and rent levels. When we put these "problems" together, we find ourselves facing a monster, for which only miraculous resolutions seem possible.
This article is here.

Charlottesville, Berkeley Style, January 25, 2019

This article is about an incident that occurred around a demonstration in Berkeley. A march in support of People’s Park was menaced by a car that drove up behind it. The car turned the wrong way on a one way street, drove on the sidewalk, and ran over the feet of a homeless black man. No charges were filed against the driver, but the police charged the demonstrators with damaging the car. The city’s discrimination against this demonstration has not been resolved.
This article is here.

A Single Use Council, February 7, 2019

This is the story of an unusual City Council meeting. Usually people go to oppose an issue. But when the issue of single use plastic utensils and containers came up, many dozens of people cam to speak. And when they did, they showed themselves to be way beyond the Council. They had analyses of the industrialism, the planetary despoliation, the human pollution, and the corporate economics that facilitated it all. What was said in "public comment" in that meeting would have made a powerful treatise against plastics and their industries.
This article is here.

Jim Crow Economics in Berkeley, March 2, 2019

The main way that Jim Crow compensated for the abolition of slavery was through a form of debt servitude. Black farmers and farm workers were put in debt, and put on a chaingang if they sought to escape. Today, black families are moved out of their homes through a process of receivership that is used to put them into debt, often so much debt that they have to sell the house and live in another town. This article describes one example of this that has been unfolding for a number of years. The city is intimately involved in this process, and needs to be called to account for it.
This article is here.

Cruelty, the Subtle and Gratuitous Kind, April 7, 2019

In the midst of a crisis of homelessness, with over a thousand homeless people living in Berkeley, it was discovered that there were a bunch of sailboats in the Marina that had not been bought at auction, and were going to be destroyed. Some even had rigging on them. Not all would be inhabitable, but some might. Destroying them is an act of cruelty toward any homeless person who would be willing to use an old fiberglass boat for shelter. The cruelty extends to the homeless RV dwellers, who will be prevented from sleeping in their RV between 2am and 5am by law (a new ordinance). It is as if the Council does not know that torture is wrong.
This article is here.

The Police and the Right to Due Process, May 1, 2019

There are two different kinds of rights, natural human rights, and the right to due process. The deprivation of liberty or property without due process is unconstitutional. It is done routinely by the police, and people have to go and apply to get their property back. Appeal is not due process. Due process is a relation between individuals and institutions. For the police, they have a “commanding officer” relation to individuals, which warps civil society into a form of involuntary military structure. Against this, the article discusses a number of ways that due process could be integrated into policing that would democratize it.
This article is here.

On Working With and Working Against, May 20, 2019

This article is about the hypocrisy of the City Council saying, “don’t work against us, work with us,” to people who attempt to be whistleblowers or muckrakers about possible corruption of mismanagement of city facilities. That hypocrisy is shown by the refusal of the sity to work with the homeless, who have been saying for a decade, work with us. It is also shown by the years of demands by low income neighborhoods for affordable housing to step the displacement of neighborhood people, to which the city responded by zoning 20% of nes development, a drop in the bucket. Finally, there is Marina mismanagement, and the attacks on the homeless RV dwellers. The article then advocates for the people be able to participate in making policy along with the Council in dialogue.
This article is here.

Discretionary Despotics – the Failure of the Brown Act, June 16, 2019

This article begins with references to transparency and the experience of Leonard Powell with receivership at the city’s hands. Looking at the basic purposes of the Brown Act, it examines a few imbalances that the Act produces, such as decorum rules. Because a Council has a certain discretionary power, it becomes a form of elite. It then discusses the ethics of these imbalances, and in particular, the inability of people from the floor to enter into dialogue with the Council. As a step toward rectifying these imbalances, it proposes a “Council Oversight Body” and a “Council Review Commission” that would both ride herd on unethical acts by the Mayor or the Council, and provide a venue for people to gather and propose changes to Council procedures.
This article is here.

There is no Law, July 7, 2019

This is a critique of the ordinances that the city of Berkeley has passed with respect to the homeless, and the way in which they violate the US Constitution. Police actions against the homeless have traditionally violated due process, as well as the 8th Amendment. But what the article outlines is how the city acts in a discriminatory manner in four different domains of homeless people’s existence. To violate the fundamental law of the land is to render oneself, as an urgan entity, lawless. One has violated the foundation of one’s own attempts at writing law. The article calls on the homeless to write their own law, and then live by that.
This article is here.