Missing from the S.C. Weekly Puff Piece on Take Back Santa Cruz Co-Founder Analicia Cube

Analicia Cube is a high-spirited,strong-voiced, effective activist whose TBSC agenda and actions menace poor and homeless people in Santa Cruz and empower the darkest elements of our community.

Missing from G. Perry’s article are some key accomplishments of her Take Back Santa Cruz and allied or infiltrated groups, now grown in power with their leaders in significant government positions.

TBSC accomplishments: They and their needle-rattling allies have closed down the only Needle Exchange in Santa Cruz—doing so without public hearings or evidence of any real problems at the Barson St. site. They have stopped a second marijuana club from opening in the Harvey West in another medieval anti-mariuana move. They’ mobbed a court to keep the innocent Ken Maffei in jail for three weeks (the guy who brought his own flowers to the SCPD memorial and was then falsely accused of stealing posies).

They raised the temperature of anti-homeless sentiment, serving as a forum for those who want to defund the very limited homeless shelter services that currently exist. Their clean-up’s for years have not advised their participants to respect homeless campsites (the only shelter Santa Cruz’s 1500-2000 homeless have).

They have spread the hateful and false broadside that sleeping and camping are crimes (something currently being entrenched in the Public Safety Citizens Task Farce). This has resulted in harassment and assault against homeless people, as documented in the famous (but frequently suppressed) video of Clean Team activists bullying a homeless camper (See https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/15/18736901.php ).

They have colluded with and encouraged the most reactionary and dangerous higher-up’s in the SCPD (such as Deputy Chief Steve Clark—notorious for his ceaseless attacks on activists, homeless people, and “liberalism” in Santa Cruz).

Additionally they have driven previously sympathetic critics who disagree with their obsessive and futile Drug War posture from their website. T.J. Magallanes, the founder of The Clean Team website, has repeatedly noted that TBSC activists kidnapped his site and their hostility made his presence in town uncomfortable. (See https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/22/18737249.php )

Those who come out for medical rather than police solutions to social problems created by the illegal status of methedrine, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs are reportedly removed from their website and discussions. The futile enforcement of these laws, of course, funds police departments nationwide and gives politicians a boogeyman to intimidate and coopt politicians. The toll in ruined lives and wasted money is immense here—yet that is one of their main “law and order” selling points.

What’s really depressing is how these clear issues are ignored not only in Perry’s article but in the mainstream media generally. In response liberals like Lane, Posner, and Pleich surf this sick tide and buy into the Public Safety mythology in order to ride the wave of groundless hysteria that Cube’s group and related ones have created.