Category: Articles

The Revolution will Not be Motorized – Celebrate Bike Summer in San Francisco

Summer is a season of celebration — a time of intense energy when people gather under the sun and ideas bloom. There is no better time to effect social change and inaugurate a new era than summer. At the end of July, Bike Summer will consume San Francisco for one month as people pedal in from points far and wide to celebrate the glories of the bicycle, advocate for a sustainable transportation balance, and educate the greater community and other cyclists about how to bring about this velorution (velo=bike in French; velox is Latin for swift). Bike Summer is one of the most important environmental grassroots gatherings of the decade. By focusing the intense global momentum of the bicycle movement in one place, Bike Summer will raise the visibility of bicycling and transportation concerns, and it cannot come too soon. We must live the velorution.

Why Bicycles? Why Now? One of the pivotal environmental battles at the turn of the millennium is being waged over transportation. Transportation is more than an individual choice of how we decide to get from point A to point B — it is integrally tied to land use, air and water quality, habitat and wilderness loss, public health and safety, and even the rise of political and social apathy. We have built interstate rivers of concrete that emptied out our once-vibrant, compact urban centers and spilled humanity and our waste across the landscape in unending sprawling waves of auto-oriented subdivisions and mega-malls. As our metropolitan areas grow several times faster than do their populations, we are consuming vast tracts of wilderness, farmland, and open space and replacing them with oceanic parking lots, strip malls, and single-use isolated pods of tract housing and office “parks.” The low-density world designed around the needs of the automobile — its space demands, fuel demands, economic demands, psychological demands — leave room for little else in our communities and our lives. Consider these stark statistics:

• Every year over 300 million gallons of used oil from road runoff, leaks and oil changes pour directly into our rivers and oceans — that’s 33 times as much oil as spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
• 43,000 people die in the U.S. every single year from auto collisions. Add to that 2 million less-than-fatal motor vehicle injuries annually. o 107 million Americans live in counties that fail to meet one or more air quality standards.
• 30,000 Americans die each year from respiratory illness stemming from auto-related airborne toxins.
• The taxpayers paid $1 billion for construction of the 4.5-mile Cypress Freeway in Oakland, CA, or $3,500 per inch.
• It costs $30,000 to the cost of a new housing unit in San Francisco: to add one off-street parking space.
• Federal and local governments nationwide spend $185 million per day on highways and major roads.
• Number of bicycles that can park in the space of one SUV: 16 – 20

We have subdued all other needs — of safety, of equity, of community, of health, of environment — to ensure that the automobile can chug along unfettered. And the irony of the whole system is that we have paralyzed our movement in unending gridlock. Our current transportation superstructure focuses on only the movement of the greatest volume of cars at the greatest speeds possible. All the while we have disassembled, underfunded, and neglected mass transit and marginalized any form of non-motorized transportation, including walking. We have made the corner grocery store, the pedestrian, the public town square, the bicycle commuter, and the blue sky all endangered species. We have forgotten how to move people.

The bicycle is the ultimate vehicle of liberation, of sustainability, of efficiency, of community, and of social equity. The environmental benefits of bicycling are unquestionable. Zero-emission human-powered transport is the ultimate tool of sustainability. Bicycles are inexpensive to manufacture and are affordable to families even on the most meager budgets. Bicycles require very little space in an urban setting to maneuver and park, they take up little room in movement and in place. In tandem with mass transit, bicycles permit a city to keep itself confined to less area, keeping wild lands and open space unpaved, intact, and nearby. Bicycling fosters an ethos of living locally — supporting local business, relying on local agriculture, appreciating local ecosystems.

We cannot forget the human ecology of the bicycle. Community, cultural activity and political discourse need physical and public places to foment and grow, they require entropy and human contact. Public squares, neighborhood parks, sidewalks, marketplaces — these are the places where people mingle, ideas grow, and culture and community germinate. All of this requires a human-scaled built environment. The human spirit needs contact with others to grow and flourish. The bicycle is ideal transportation to travel this compact, traditional urban landscape. Bicycling fosters community and gathering. It promotes social interaction at every turn. It fits in perfectly in a human-scaled city.

Cycling keeps the body fit and the mind and reflexes sharp. In this age of super convenience and drive-thrus, we have let our health and vigor deteriorate. Cycling as everyday transportation is a simple solution to regular exercise. And of course, the simple acts of bicycling lifts the human spirit and revives our connection with air, land, and water.

What is Bike Summer?

Bike Summer will be a month of intensive advocacy and celebration with daily events. Events will kick off on Friday, July 30, with the largest Critical Mass ride ever (we’re hoping to double the 5,000+ rider Mass of July 1997), and continue with daily events until the August 27 Critical Mass. Events will include film festivals, activist trainings, art exhibits, daily mass rides, political strategy workshops, cultural and natural history bike tours, street theatre, camping excursions, guerrilla bike rack installations, lectures and teach-ins, bike rodeos, family rides, street parties, and many direct action events aimed at raising consciousness and demanding change (as well as having fun!).

San Francisco is the birthplace of Critical Mass and the epicenter of the bicycling movement. Often looked to as a trend-setting capital, this city, grappling with its transportation and land-use future at this millennial crossroads, is the natural stage for intensifying the global struggle against automobile domination. Bicycling has been making slow incremental progress, but we need to take the campaign to the next level, strengthen the web of global activists, and begin to turn the wheels toward sustainability. Bike Summer 1999 in San Francisco is the first monumental wave of the velorution. Be a part of history and help pedal toward a greener, more livable future.

Bike Summer organizers are expecting large packs of cyclists and activists from all over the country to descend on San Francisco. If you want publicity material (press kits, stickers, flyers, full-color posters, logistical information, audio public service announcements), or want to help plan a Bike Summer event, please call (415) 431-2453 ext.9, send an email to bike_summer_sf@hotmail.com, or visit the official Bike Summer website at www.bikesummer.org.

Bicycling fosters an ethos of living locally — supporting local business, relying on local agriculture, appreciating local ecosystems. Bicycling fosters an ethos of living locally — supporting local business, relying on local agriculture, appreciating local ecosystems.

Bicycling fosters an ethos of living locally — supporting local business, relying on local agriculture, appreciating local ecosystems.

Dear Slingshot:

I’m in a pretty, secluded, scenic park in Lausanne, Switzerland right now. I’m enjoying all the privilege a white-American male can have here (shoplifting, dumpstering, scamming. . . ) and staying in mansion-type houses that are being squatted. Pretty easy livin’ here, which is partly why I came here many months ago.

In this time I’ve been slowly forgetting about the average, everyday life of the US. While reading the Spring, 1999 issue of Slingshot, it all came back to me like a boot in the head. I just broke down and started bawling my eyes out about the fucked-up conditions the poor and working class have to deal with there. This is not a usual thing I blubber about, for I’m pretty used to reading contents like this, but being away has really softened me up. Actually, I can’t picture myself going back to the friendly-fascist US anytime in the next years, for I’m not strong enough to lvie there anymore, which is a cop-out, I realized, but I must think of sanity first.

And that is why I’m writing this letter–to commend you on continuing the ever so important struggle against the sick, inhumane, capitalist machine known as the US government. This is the best issue of Slingshot I’ve ever read, and it’s always getting better. Thank you so much for putting this paper out. Stay strong, folx, and keep doing what you’re doing

Love, Stuart

Revolutionary greetings to all at Slingshot!

I’m writing to ask that you extend my subscription. Your paper is good for contacting a lot of other prisoners who wouldn’t normally engage in any conversation about this rotten-ass system. But give ’em your paper, and they’re sure to come back with some pro or con on some issue that’s in the paper! So keep it coming, please!

On another note: there was a squib on page 2 of issue #64 that proposed an anarchist bloc at the rally for Mumia in Philly on April 24. That event will have already taken place by the time you get this, but check this. Everybody that’s serious about getting rid of this rotten-ass system should have no reservations about attending an event such as the Millions for Mumia march. For one thing, to help save the life of any freedom fighter, whether you agree with his or her so-called ideology or not, is a worthy effort! A victory for Mumia is a victory for everyone opposed to this fascist state! The same way the government was rocked by the liberation of Assata Shakur is the same way we can shake up these demons by freeing Mumia. So I urge all freedom fighters, revolutionaries, activists, anarchists, Black nationalists, rebels, whatever, not to let any divisional b.s. get in the way of striking a blow for freedom! Be serious about what you’re doing, for revolution is not a game! As MOVE’s founder, John Africa, taught: People are not to be played with like a game. Life is not a game. Life is a need; when games are allowed to be played with people’s lives, people’s lives are reduced to a game, and history will show that the game players are reduced to ashes when the people truly realize they are being played with.

Alright now, everybody keep up the fight against this corrupt system! We can win! We will win! Ona Move!

Dear Slingshot:

I wanted to tell you all a little bit about how much we love our Slingshot Organizers. You know by now that they are totally ubiquitous in the scene; when they arrive we all cut out pictures from magazines and stuff and glue them on, and then cover them with packing tape because, let’s face it, those covers don’t last. Then a few weeks later we compare how each of our Slingshots conforms to the shape of our butts .

Did you know there is a really cool mountain bike called a Slingshot? Many consider it the first “full suspension” bike. Instead of a downtube it had a steel cable on a spring, and there was a fiberglass “joint” just in front of the seat post on the top tube, so it could flex. I guess they climb like demons, tho the joint bends in all directions, so they tend to walk around sideways a bit too. They still make them – it might be a neat illustration for a future issue.

I’d also like to thank you on a more personal level with the following unsolicited testimonial, which you may use as you wish. Maybe just call me Chris C. or something if you want to print it. It’s just a little story about love and revolution and my Slingshot organizer.

A bunch of us from Firecracker [Infoshop – in Worcester, Mass] went to Worcester Polytechnic to see Amiri Baraka speak. He was great, but through the whole thing I couldn’t take my eyes off this cool looking punk rock girl. You know how it is when you just kind of see someone like that – you’re all trying to figure out stuff about them. So all these things are going through my head, like that she’s alone, so probably isn’t there just for a class, and that she’s really into it and laughing at Mr. Baraka’s jokes at the expense of the government and such, so she’s probably clued in. So anyway, I say fuck it, I’m going to pass her a note. You only live once, right? So I’m all giddy and trying to figure out what to say, and make it so that my offer – to have tea with me is irresistible. So I pull out my Slingshot and rip out the previous week’s page (January 8-14 if you’re wondering) and ask her to tea and give my name and number. And then I have to sit through the talk all nervous, not nearly giving Amiri the attention he deserves.

So finally it ends, and I go over to near where she’s sitting, and see her bag which has an Avail patch on it. So now I’m totally sold, but when she gets up she goes to move around me and I look her right in her eyes (well, glasses) and say “Excuse me,” but all loaded with meaning and ready to give her the note, but there’s no flicker of recognition or lust or anything in her eyes, which was what I was hoping for, so I lose my nerve, and out she walks.

So now my friends are around me talking about the talk and what to do next and all, and I’m just like “Fuck this, I am such an asshole.” So I run around and chase her down outside and say “Excuse me, I think you dropped this . . .” and she says “I’m sorry?” and I say it again, and she is all confused because she has never seen that piece of paper before in her life, but she takes it and I walk away.

A week later I’m in the middle of cooking dinner for my house and entertaining an old family friend who is now a Unitarian minister, and the food is burning and the phone rings and it’s for me and guess what, it’s her. And it kills me to do it but I have to ask her to call me back, but she does and a couple of weeks later we go out for Indian food. There she tells me her side of the story, like how she was totally spaced out when I gave her the note and had no idea what was going on, and was going to throw it out but she didn’t pass a garbage can. And then she read it later and saw that it was from (I quote) “some sort of revolutionary datebook” and that was one of the reasons she called. So anyway that was a few weeks ago and we’re hanging out a lot and I just wanted to say “thank you, Slingshot,” and if anyone is lovesick I tell them “get yourself a Slingshot Organizer and be ready, because you just never know.”

Come visit us in Worcester if you’re on the coast. Thanks again. –Chris C.

p.s. Her name is Sue.

Dear Slingshot:

In regards to Rob Anderson’s article in the Spring Issue of Slingshot # 64 “The Left’s Betrayal of the Homeless,” many people are homeless because they want to be. For many runaway teens as well as other social outcasts, being homeless is the middle finger response to the system which caters to the rich and upper-class establishment of America. To many homeless, “we fight just by living, our existence is resistance.” Squatters Rights!

Food Not Bombs supports this way of life and so what? Who’s “status quo” are we challenging now? When homeless people take over abandoned houses and buildings, they challenge the status quo. These government funded shelters are just like anything else operated or funded by the American government: money making schemes pretending to “help the needy.”

Most of these shelters are revolving doors (I was in Innvision in Santa Clara County). These programs offer no type of rehabilitation or ways for these people to move forward in their life, but to stay in these government funded shelters. The shelters in return make more money. Often, the few programs that do help the homeless have such intense regulations that only a handful qualify, such as Housing, Social Security, Unemployment.. and other smaller programs, per “When Housing Disappears,” by Michael Radding, Spring issue #64.

Rob Anderson wrote, “The fact that these people find themselves living on the streets is evidence that their lives are out of control.” I think it is evidence that our government is out of control. Some people are homeless because they can’t find a decent paying job to survive on. Some people are homeless because they are addicted to drugs and alcohol, but not all homeless people are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Most of the homeless youth are runaways because they’ve had tough family lives and when the Child Welfare System (the counties legal kidnapping ring) intervenes, they take these children out of their homes, place them into institutions, like shelters and juvenile halls that fail to give the love these kids need and deserve. What do you think these kids do? They reflect and become a reflection and rebel. There are plenty of circumstances where our current system status quo needs to be challenged.

When San Francisco’s Mayor Willie Brown got a pie in his face, he got just what he deserved, if not more. Part of being a radical is direct action in any shape or form. The Biotic Baking Brigade’s pieing of Mayor Brown was a crafty, artistic political statement; like throwing a pie at a clown. Willie Brown is a joke; a bad joke and he just got what he deserves. The BBB should do their time proudly.

Of course, there are those situations as well, where there are the elderly, the sick, the mentally ill, drug abusers, people that want a change of life, but can’t find a place to fit their special needs. At least they can go get a warm meal at a Food Not Bombs serving.

If homelessness is such a problem for the working people, renters, homeowners, and small business owners, help them out! Offer a homeless person a job, organize within your community, take over abandoned buildings that could house these people. United we stand, divided we fall. What ever happened to the Presidio? Mr. Rob Anderson, you are complaining about people complaining about homelessness with no real action. What are your actions? Have you ever been homeless? Have you ever been involved with Food Not Bombs? While some of the homeless stay homeless and others join the struggle to rise from homelessness, at least FNB gives these people a warm meal. Would you rather see them starve or eat out of trash cans? We challenge the System’s status quo much more than your article in Slingshot does.

We also fight by living, our existence is resistance.

With rents all over the Bay Area reaching heights that property owners in most parts of the country can only dream about, the pressure has come down hard on working class renters. For people who want to live in the vibrant city of Berkeley, proximity to the university means rents that are incredibly expensive. As prices rise, Berkeley’s famed economic and ethnic diversity is steadily disappearing.

Now that landlords can set rents for vacant properties to any level the market will bear, they have a high incentive to evict tenants. Take the case of Lisette Jones. Lisette is a single mother on Section Eight, (a federal housing subsidy) living in a Berkeley apartment owned by millionaire landlord Andrew Lipnosky. Lipnosky has evicted Lisette and two other Section Eight tenants in the same building. The building is in downtown Berkeley, not far from the university, and Lipnosky must be licking his chops at the thought of a couple of wealthy students taking Lisette’s place.

The Campaign for Renters’ Rights (CRR) has taken up the case and has been fighting to force Lipnosky to let Lisette stay. In April, a group of 20 marched to Lipnosky’s residence in the hills of El Cerrito and staged a mock trial of the absentee landlord. Not only is Lipnosky guilty of greed in kicking out Lisette Jones, he has repeatedly shown a callous disregard for his tenants’ rights. Tenants in many of his 45 Alameda County buildings have reported that their requests for maintenance have gone unanswered for months and even years. When tenants do get a response from Lipnosky, it is generally through manager John Yancy, a man who has been charged with physically assaulting a tenant and who has verbally threatened many of Lipnosky’s renters.

At a meeting of the CRR in May, Lipnosky tenants from Berkeley and Oakland came and shared stories about mold-infested drapes and carpets, broken stoves, and bathrooms without any working lights. People are sick and tired of living in substandard housing and getting abused by the manager who is supposed to fix their apartments. The meeting voted to take up the case of two single mothers sharing an Oakland apartment owned by Lipnosky who are also facing eviction.

The fight against Lipnosky’s poor treatment of his tenants will continue with the Campaign for Renters’ Rights staging an Open House where the public can come and see how neglected his buildings really are.

If you want to get involved with the Campaign for Renters’ Rights, or if you’re having problems with your landlord, call CRR’s hotline: (510) 595-5545.

S.F. Anti-Gentrification Activist Arrested, House Searched

Although some claim that it is futile to resist gentrification and almost impossible to go against the force of the market economy, many groups have formed to resist rising rents, especially in San Francisco’s Mission district. Groups like the Eviction Defense Network (E.D.N.), Mission Agenda, and Mission Artists Gentrification Insurrection Coalition (M.A.G.I.C.), are still fighting. One group, the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project (M.Y.E.P.), has been on the forefront of resistance by creating propaganda, through a poster campaign that probes the outer boundaries of conventional decorum, and calling for direct action, in the hopes of dissuading yuppies from settling in the Mission.

Recently, the person accused of being Nestor Makhno, the MYEP spokesperson, was arrested and held incommunicado, chained to a bench at the Mission police station for over 12 hours while being jeered at by police complaining about damage to their Jeep Cherokees. A felony, “making terrorist threats”, and misdemeanor “malicious mischief” and vandalism charges have since been dropped. But his girlfriend had to hustle $1,060 dollars (which they aren’t getting back) to get him out on bail, over 24 hours later, from the 850 Bryant police station.

While he was in custody, his house was raided by six S.F.P.D. gang members. His computer, house keys, phone-address book, writings, radical literature, posters, documents, a Coup hip-hop tape (with an song called Kill My Landlord), and a nearly complete 16mm film project were all confiscated. They also wanted to grab a bag of what they mistakenly presumed was fertilizer but, as his girlfriend pointed out to them, was just a bag of organic black beans! Apparently they were really out to bust ‘Nestor’ and tried to blame an unsolved landlord arson on him. Thought crime is punishable in this society in which private property is more sacred than people’s lives. The pen is a formidable weapon, indeed.

Rents have never been higher in the city. According to the May issue of the New Mission News, because of the passing of Proposition G, owner move in evictions are now down to about 60 a month; as compared to the 180 OMI evictions a month, last year. However, Ellis evictions, in which the landlord withdraws rental units from the market, have increased to about 20 evictions a month. Local newspapers also claimed that there were about 168 homeless deaths in the city streets in 1998, one of the highest rates since they’ve been supposedly keeping count.

Individuals like ‘Nestor’ need our full support even if you don’t 100% agree with ‘his’ provocative posters. At least someone is making a stink! Most people are evicted and quietly pushed out without a fight or fuss. A local illegal move-in eviction, by the Cort family, who had previously white-washed a huge mural on 17th and Harrison St., was exposed by the posters. The Corts got a little too greedy. In 1996, they evicted, among others, residents who were in their 70’s and who had been living there for 20-30 years. The house, at 3257 20th St., is still unoccupied.

The Mission Yuppie Eradication Project posters have definitely sparked debate and discussions about the issue of gentrification. Complaints about the posters are not coming from Latino residents on the verge of eviction (the last posters were also translated into Spanish) but mostly from new white residents who, although they claim they are not yuppies, can still afford expensive cars and high rents.

The real issue is clear. We have to decide which side we are on: with those who want to perpetuate this destructive, oppressive status quo, or with those who want to make positive social change for all, towards a society where at least the basics, such as housing and food are free to all.

UC Berkeley saw the largest student protests in more than a decade this spring as hundreds of students successfully used direct action tactics to defend the Ethnic Studies Department from a slow, institutional starvation. The multi-racial coalition of students, faculty and community members won a number of limited concessions from the UCB administration after a brief but intense struggle that was designed around attainable goals in order to virtually ensure that victory could be declared.

The victory at UCB demonstrates that when students organize, they can win. The struggle was a positive example of a multiracial alliance with strong participation and leadership by women activists. It was a proactive struggle that not only defended past gains, but pushed forward with new demands. Finally, the victory creates institutionalized change.

Ethnic Studies, along with Women’s Studies, Labor Studies and (where they have it) Queer Studies represent institutional challenges to power structures based on white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism and authoritarianism. These departments have been catalysts in developing new theories and concepts of race, gender, class and power, as well as providing new generations of activists and organizers with skills and knowledge. The survival and success of these departments contributes to the survival and success of movements for social change.

The first Ethnic Studies Departments in the United States were created at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University after long and courageous student strikes in 1968-69. Students from both campuses formed the Third World Liberation Front and completely closed down the schools in a demonstration of multiracial power supported by teachers, employees and community members. While the strikers were met with fierce police brutality and repeatedly denounced by then Governor Ronald Reagan, the demands were won. Ethnic Studies (ES) Departments and courses have been developed on campuses across the US, but since the day they were created they have been contested, denounced and attacked by defenders of the traditional canons of Western Civilization ” conservatives and liberals alike.

Thirty years after the creation of Ethnic Studies at UCB, students this spring re-formed the Third World Liberation Front to ensure the future of the ES department. An action alert by graduate students K. Liao and K. Yep stated: “The administration has derailed departmental efforts to fill empty tenured track faculty positions. As a result, there are NO full-time tenured Native American Studies professors, only ONE full-time Chicano studies professor… with the expected retirement of faculty in the new decade, the future existence of ES is in question.”

A student flyer titled “Welcome to UC Berkeley of the 21st Century” gave further evidence that ES is under attack: “ES has the smallest budget in the College of Letters and Science ” across the board cuts affect its programs disproportionately; One-third of the overall Ethnic Studies budget has been cut, forcing the department to cut eight classes next semester; The department has lost four to five faculty members that the University has not allowed the department to replace.” Student actions to defend and extend Ethnic Studies began on April 14 with an occupation of Barrows Hall, home of the ES department. The students, organized under the banner of the TWLF, held the building for over 10 hours. Campus police, suited up for a riot, used pain compliance techniques to remove and arrest 46 students for trespassing. Several days after the occupation, the TWLF protested at the annual “Cal Day.” Student activists disrupted speeches by UC Chancellor Berdahl and Provost Carol Christ. The students challenged the UC leadership to explain what was happening to Ethnic Studies. Student protesters articulated the connections between attacks on ES and the voter approved Proposition 209 which further dismantled affirmative action programs and lead to a sharp decline in the number of people of color accepted into the UC system. On April 29, hundreds of students held a protest vigil in front of the offices of the Chancellor and the Provost. At the vigil, six students announced they were beginning a hunger strike to increase pressure on the administration to accept the demands of the TWLF. The hunger strikers, who maintained a liquid diet, and dozens of other protesters set up a tent city in front of the administration’s office in California Hall, where they would stay until the demands had been won. Over the next few days, more and more students and people from the community joined the protest, creating a massive encampment on the Chancellor’s doorstep, reminiscent of the anti-apartheid shantytown established on the same spot in 1986.

Early on May 4, police arrested 104 protesters, including all 6 hunger strikers. Campus police from UC Davis, UCLA and other campuses were brought in to assist in the arrests. The protesters returned immediately and news of the police action increased both media attention and community support. Activities around the tent city increased. Protest signs and messages of solidarity from students around the country decorated California Hall. More and more students and community activists joined the occupation. The student government passed a resolution to support the TWLF’s demands

The administration was put in an impossible situation as the encampment grew and their act of repression backfired. Any further mass arrest would make them look like brutes, but the hundreds of students in sleeping bags just couldn’t be ignored.

On May 8, negotiations between students, faculty and the Chancellor led to an agreement which included the following provisions: 8 faculty ladder positions over the next 5 years, 3 of which will be filled this coming year; a budget sufficient to maintain the department ” no more cut backs on classes; a research center on “Race & Gender Studies”; additional office space; a Multicultural Center for students; funds for recruiting qualified transfer students who are interested in ES; a mural in the building that houses ES; dropping all criminal charges against student protesters (although disciplinary letters will be

Write the FCC – they do not want to hear from you.

In the last issue of Slingshot, we reported extensively on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal to 65legalize65 forms of micro-powered radio broadcasting. The FCC action came after 10 years of civil disobedience by thousands of micro-powered broadcasters around the country, who started free radio stations to protest the FCC’s current ban on accessible community radio access. The FCC’s deadline for public comment has now been extended to August 2, so there is still time for your or your organization to file a comment!

Public comment on the FCC proposal is essential since the proposal is a series of questions about how the 65legalized65 radio service should be organized. One set of answers to these questions would make the new Low Power FM service an extension of corporate control, and another set of answers could make low power FM available to communities and individuals who are currently excluded from the public airwaves.

Powerful corporate radio stations, represented by their trade group the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and other entrenched powers like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, have been working hard to make sure that the FCC’s proposal is either an impotent failure or unavailable to excluded people. The NAB requested, and was granted by the FCC, two extensions of the deadline to file comments, so the NAB could rally corporate support for the status quo and finish their 65scientific65 research on how LPFM would cause chaos on the airwaves. While these extensions are a dangerous opportunity for the powers of corporate control, they also give free radio supporters and all those who favor democratic communication additional time to file comments with the FCC.

A full description of the FCC’s proposal (known as the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)) and an analysis of the points to include in comments you might file is far beyond the scope of this update. For details, write Slingshot (see page 2 for address) for a copy of issue #64 and a copy of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s Committee for Democratic Communications (CDC) newsletter on the subject. Last issues article is at our website too, www.tao.ca/~slingshot. Or, check out the materials at the CDC’s website: www.nlgcdc.org. The CDC has a detailed response to the FCC’s proposal, and you and/or any organization you are associated with can sign on in support of the CDC’s detailed comments, while adding your own supplemental comments. The CDC is actively working to get unions, churches, and other civic groups to file comments. Contact them if you have access to any union, church etc. decision making bodies: Committee on Democratic Communications, 558 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 522-9814.

To file a comment directly, do it by computer at www.fcc.gov. Head for the Electronic Comment Filing System where you can make your comment in only a few minutes. The number of the proceeding is MM Docket No. 99-25. Electronic filing is almost required. You can also see the hundreds of the pro and con comments already filed at the FCC’s website (Some of the comments already filed, by the way, recite word by word the 10 points for comment printed in the last issue of Slingshot!)

The groundswell of support for democratic access to the radio dial is growing, and a number of important groups, including numerous unions and churches, have already signed on in support the CDC comments. Check this stuff out!

Punk lives elsewhere

That’s right. It wasn’t a rumor. Epicenter Zone is going under at the end of June. Hats off to all the volunteers who kept it sailin’ for nine years. Thanks to Tim Yohannan and Maximum Rock n’ Roll (MRR) radio show and magazine staff for starting the much needed space which served the community of punx, activists, artists, pirates, bikers, losers, vagrants, and outcasts.

Epicenter Zone was more than just an all-volunteer collective record store. It was the closest we had to an infoshop in this windy city by the bay. It also housed many projects, such as a community switchboard, a Food Not Bombs meeting place, Prisoner Literature Project meeting and library space, a punk zine library, artist studios and displays, musical performances, zine fests, a free box, community bulletin boards, Black-list punk record distribution mail order (which also folded a few years ago) and a general gathering space.

I last saw co-founder Tim YoMama at Epicenter Zone, with his usual smile and greetings, before his death by cancer over a year ago. He and the MRR staff put money down to help the space get started, after also helping start the Gilman Street Project in 1987 ” a much needed all ages venue in Berkeley (which is also threatened and needs our support).

Why the Ship Sank

Basically, we were in a big hole and couldn’t pay rent anymore. Why we got to that point has many reasons, but one thing is certain it is a great loss to the community (or what is left of the community since rents are now so high in central locations close to subway and bus lines).

Although I’d been involved with the Prisoner Literature Project for a while, I only got involved with the record store the past year. As with many collectives, there were a few people doing most of the work. There was a new wave of volunteers, but we weren’t being trained too well and tasks were not being distributed. A lot of the people who had run the store burnt out and left without spreading that knowledge. The few who had it running, were too busy, really, to train others.

New volunteers seemed too overwhelmed, apathetic, or nervous to always seek out answers. If you wanted to know how to do something you had to ask around. We weren’t being spoon-fed, and that was good, but there was definitely a lack of communication even though we were trying to have regular monthly meetings. Most volunteers knew we were in trouble, for example, but not how deep. The few dedicated volunteers who knew the seriousness of the situation decided to fold so they could go out with some respect and try to pay people back, because that’s how Epicenter started ” with dignity.

A lot of people had been expressing the need to reach out beyond the punk ghetto. Many feel that punk ideology has become stagnant and narrow-minded, contradicting what it originally stood for, and bringing only a limited sector of society into the store (those with the right patches and tattoos). That, coupled with competition in the record business and higher bills, were also reasons for folding.

So go out there before it goes under and buy some cheap records and CDs at 475 Valencia (at 16th), 2nd floor. Hours are 3-8 p.m. weekdays and noon-8 p.m. on weekends.

Mission Records, on Mission between 19th and 20th, is still around for shows and benefits. Cell-Space is also a huge community-oriented center, with many projx going on, and is worth checking out. (On Bryant St., between 18th and 19th.)

For years we have been talking amongst friends about the need for a new infoshop/venue/ community space. So one good thing coming out of Epicenter’s closing is that we’re forced to look.

Running a collective smoothly can be very difficult. My suggestion is to work in a small tight-knit cohesive group of friends and remember, as always, that communication is the key. It would be wise to start by talking about the meaning of a collective, how it should be run, and arrive at a common vision.

Nothing is perfect, but it is worth striving for. From my experience with collectives, it is difficult to work or live with everyone or just whoever. Some Epicenter members have started a temporary office drop-in info-center garage nearby, at the former Starcleaners on Sycamore alley (between 18th and 19th), until a new space is found.

Stay tuned. For more info, you can contact Janice Flux at PO Box 16651 S.F., CA 94116-0651, magdalene@jesusshaves.com, or call Todd at 415-776-4654. Let’s hope the new space learns from past experiences.

Another good idea is to follow the example of our European comrades by occupying an abandoned building and turning it into a social center/infoshop. SQUAT DA CASTLE!