South Central Farmers Civil Disobedience Training

2nd Civil Disobedience Training -longer-



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Friday, 04 November 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 4, 2005 For more info (909) 605-3136
10:34 PST

JOIN OUR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES, “STRIP-MALL” DEVELOPER RALPH HOROWITZ and THE LOS ANGELES SHERIFFS’ DEPT.

Who: The South Central Farmers and Cindy Anderson
For more info (909) 605-3136
What: 2nd Civil Disobedience Training
When: Nov. 6th 2005, @ 12:00 noon 41st and Alameda
Why: In preparation of the forceful removal of the by SCFs Strip Mall Developer Ralph Horowitz and the Los Angeles Sheriffs’ Dept.
Cindy Anderson is a long time political activist in the Los Angeles area. She is an active lawyer that specializes in police misconduct cases. She is also and past president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. She has been arrested on several occasions doing civil disobedience.


(Los Angeles, CA) 350 Families in South L.A.Defend Community Farm. For 13 years, 350 families have tended a 14-acre community farm in the middle of South L.A.’s gritty industrial belt. Growing their own cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes and other staples has helped make good nutrition affordable. Traditional crops like chipillin, alachi, quelite and pipicha have helped keep traditional cuisine and folk-medicine alive.

The City of L.A. acquired the land in the late 1980s, but abandoned plans to build a trash incinerator after community protests. In 1994, officials transferred title to the Harbor Department, which contracted with the L.A. Regional Food Bank to operate a community farm on the property. In 2003, the City Council agreed to sell the 14 acres back to the original owner, private strip-mall developer Ralph Horowitz, in a back-room deal, who wants to demolish the garden and build a warehouse.

The community is outraged by the comments that were made by Ralph Horowitz on the Los Angeles Times Oct 31, 2005 article (see http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-garden31oct31,1,7435458.story). These 19th century statements like, “"We have to throw them off," said Horowitz, of Brentwood”, and others like, “…They have to be thrown off by a sheriff.", remind the community of the historical injustices perpetrated on them by the historical occupation.

The 350 families – organized as South Central Farmers – have camped out in the field for weeks to prevent Horowitz from grabbing the land. A sneak attack can come at any time, though, and the group will hold a 2nd civil disobedience training in an effort to inform the community and its members of their constitutional rights.


Civil disobedience encompasses the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence. Civil disobedience has been used in nonviolent resistance movements in India in the fight against British colonialism, South Africa in the fight against apartheid and in the civil rights movement of the USA and Europe as well as in the Scandinavian resistance against Nazi occupation.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of the US civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s also adopted civil disobedience techniques, and antiwar activists both during and after the Vietnam War have done likewise. Since the 1970s, pro-life or anti-abortion groups have practiced civil disobedience against the U.S. government over the issue of legalized abortion. More recently, in the 2000s, people have used civil disobedience to protest the war on Iraq.

Many who practice civil disobedience do so out of religious faith, and clergy often participate in or lead actions of civil disobedience. A notable example is Philip Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest who was arrested dozens of times in acts of civil disobedience in antiwar protests.

In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally. Protesters practice this non-violent form of civil disorder with the expectation that they will be arrested, or even attacked or beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack, so that they will do so in a manner that quietly or limply resists without threatening the authorities. For example, Mahatma Gandhi outlined the following rules:
1. A civil resister (or satyagrahi) will harbour no anger.
2. He will suffer the anger of the opponent.
3. In so doing he will put up with assaults from the opponent, never retaliate; but he will not submit, out of fear of punishment or the like, to any order given in anger.
4. When any person in authority seeks to arrest a civil resister, he will voluntarily submit to the arrest, and he will not resist the attachment or removal of his own property, if any, when it is sought to be confiscated by authorities.
5. If a civil resister has any property in his possession as a trustee, he will refuse to surrender it, even though in defending it he might lose his life. He will, however, never retaliate.
6. Retaliation includes swearing and cursing.
7. Therefore a civil resister will never insult his opponent, and therefore also not take part in many of the newly coined cries which are contrary to the spirit of ahimsa.
8. A civil resister will not salute the Union Jack, nor will he insult it or officials, English or Indian.
9. In the course of the struggle if anyone insults an official or commits an assault upon him, a civil resister will protect such official or officials from the insult or attack even at the risk of his life.
2nd Civil Disobedience Training
Who: The South Central Farmers
For more info (909) 605-3136
What: 2nd Civil Disobedience Training
When: Nov. 6th 2005, @ 12:00 noon 41st and Alameda
Why: In preparation of the forceful removal of the SCFs by "Strip Mall" Developer Ralph Horowitz and the Los Angeles Sheriffs Dept.