Becoming a zealot

What I like to do is make an argument clear and incisive and simple.
         
Parity has me beat.  While it seems to me obvious that it is not at all equal for my insurance to pay out for treatments I refuse, I am not unable to communicate that simply and easily and well enough to get an "A Ha" of comprehension.
         
Every time I befuddle and don't convince, my formulation of the issue gets more strident.
         
When simple language doesn't convince, I begin to speak in headlines:

          Board approves more dollars for force over user objection.
         
When I can't adequately rally my peers I speak in bolder terms:
         
          Civil rights denied. 
         
          Parity discriminates.
         
And I watch this in myself and see the beginnings of zealotry. 
         
And I wonder is this how it starts.  When rational discourse doesn't work, and when one believes strongly in a cause, does one then turn to the irrational, the yellow journalism and shrill language of a DJ Jaffe, the tyranny of the worst case that AMI uses so effectively.  Are AMI arguments so irrational and emotional and skewed because those families can't convince anyone that they are indeed innocent and their kids are indeed diseased.  So they turn to emotional evangelizing, and at that they are effective.  But their arguments are intellectually transparent.  Why are they so easily able to fool the legislators.  What need are they filling?

1997
         
         

Rights and Duties

Humans have rights; states have responsibilities. If humans had responsibilities, states could use non-performance to deprive citizens of rights. If states had rights protection could confiscation.

people who aren't housed have become a Santa Cruz focus.  I've been thinking about some vision/mission/goal language:

All In – every county resident in a bed, under a roof

or Monica Martinez' words:

… use Smart Solutions to end homelessness in our county

          Smart Solutions are evidence-based, cost effective, create measurable results while valuing the equity, dignity and respect of the person.

… the immense cost of responding to every challenge ...

A life is an asset

Aaron Swartz chose to hang himself two years after his felony indictments. He had exhausted his technical skills, his skills of persuasion, and his dollars. His life was his last asset. It is disrespectful and undermining to impose a more palatable world view on his action, to pathologize his hanging as illness, depression that could have been treated. And what might treatment have done? Still his passion; soothe his dismay. Let us not corrupt his last message.

worldview

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. 

Max Planck

A police officer testified to expectations of hostility, aggression, a superbowl-like atmosphere, that vandalism was inevitable. I wonder locally what events he based that on, what crowds, what rallies, what demonstrations at the Town Clock that turned negative. Even trained observers can see what they expect to see. Disorder was expected; police arrived in riot gear and had tear gas on call. Local activists were expected; police identified and charged one person – she was only on the grass. The judge believes vandalism is a 'natural and inevitable consequence' of trespass. 

Social change is about changing the historic consequences, setting new expectations and results. The police looked at the bandanna masks and saw attempts to evade identification. I saw the bandannas as symbols of cohesion and support, like the pink ribbons, yellow ribbons, other cause identifiers. Law enforcement seems to be looking for leaders, individuals to blame and punish -- a leaderless group doesn't fit the structure: the success or blame goes to the project. 

There had been federally orchestrated enforcement and suppression - this lens created the view. Santa Cruz Police Department was compliant -- not only did it find what it expected, it helped create it. 

Assembly as Terrorism

Just as with Secure Communities, Santa Cruz is spending local dollars to implement another federal mandate. Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation positioned the Occupy movement as anarchist before the first gathering in New York in 2011, and mobilized local mayors and through them local law enforcement. Kamila Harris states that local enforcement of Secure Communities is optional and discretionary. Here in Santa Cruz, Bob Lee keeps prosecuting the 75 River St sleep-in. January 22 will be the 30th court date I've noted.

A lavish deployment of resources. Think judge, bailiff, reporter, district attorney, defense attorneys times 30 court dates ; add staff preparation time, hard drives and disks, Rebekah Young has been sanctioned for the delays, and fined. And add social costs to supporters and the weakening of social cohesion.