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December 17th is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

December 17th, 2008 is the 6th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

From GT 2005-12-17: December 17th is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

The commemoration began from the Sex Workers' Outreach Project's memorial and vigil for the victims of the Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Since then its purpose has expanded to a memorial for, and protest against, all forms of violence against women in prostitution and elsewhere in the sex industry.

I'm opposed to prostitution as an industry, on radical feminist grounds. I frankly have very deep and sharp differences with the organizers of the event, and I'm iffy at best towards the rhetorical framework of sex work as a whole, for reasons that are way beyond the point of this post). But so what? The day is an important one no matter what differences I may have with the organizers. Real steps towards ending the ongoing daily violence against women in prostitution and elsewhere in the sex industry are more important than that; here as much as anywhere — probably more than anywhere else — women's lives are at stake.

You can read the rest at the original post. Any serious commitment to freedom for, and an end to violence against, women, means a serious commitment to ending violence against women who work in the sex industry. All of it. And that means any kind of violence, whether rape, or assault, or robbery, or abduction, or confinement against her will, or murder. No matter who does it. The one image of violence against sex workers that the malestream media never tires of repeating is the roving madman, cutting women down in the streets. But roving madmen come in a lot of shapes and sizes and uniforms. It may be a serial killer. But it may be a pimp. Or a trafficker. Or a john who imagines that paying for sex means he owns a woman’s body. Or, lest we forget, it may be a cop who believes that his badge, and his victim’s status in the system of patriarchal sex-class, makes absolutely any kind of sexual predation or physical torture a cop’s prerogative and nothing better than what the victim deserves. Or, lest we forget, a cop or a prosecutor or an immigration control freak, who calls the violence of an assault, restraint, and involuntary confinement an arrest or a sentence under the color of The Law. The Law has no more right than anyone else to hurt women or shove them around.

No matter who does it, this kind of violence — violence against peaceful people whose work, whatever you think of it, is honest work for willing customers, and is a way to get by, and doesn’t do one thing to threaten or violate the rights of a single living soul — violence against women who are made vulnerable by the violence and the killing indifference of the State — violence against women practiced in the name of enforcing patriarchal sex-class and misogynistic hatred for overtly sexual women — is wrong, absolutely wrong, and it has to stop. Immediately, completely, and forever.

In Las Vegas tonight, SWOP-Las Vegas is holding a vigil:

Reminder! TONIGHT in Las Vegas…

Join SWOP-Las Vegas to commemorate December 17th, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers!!

Las Vegas
Wed, December 17th

7:00 pm:

Meet at The Center: 953 E. Sahara Ave., Suite B-31, Las Vegas, NV, 89104. (In the Commercial Center) Phone at The Center: 702-733-9800

We will memorialize those sex workers who have lost their lives, and honor those who are missing. We’ll also make signs for the vigil.

8:15 pm:

We will hold a vigil in The Center parking lot with candles and then take our signs and red umbrellas to Sahara, where we will walk towards the strip. We will have masks for those who wish to use them. Afterward, we will return to Commercial Center to eat Thai food! Yum!

For more information, email us at info(at)swop-lv.org or call us toll-free at 1-866-525-7967, ext. 701.

In Washington, D.C., sex workers’ freedom and harm-reduction groups are coming together for a National March for Sex Workers’ Rights:

Advocates from across the nation will converge to mark the 6th Annual Internatinal Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (IDEVASW). We are calling for an end to the unjust laws, policing, shaming and stigma that oppress our communities and make us targets for violence. We will both honor the lives of sex workers whose lives have passed and celebrate our vital movement. SWOP-USA, Different Avenues, HIPS, SWANK, Desiree Alliance, and many allies in harm reduction and social justice welcome your support. Join us as we march on Washington to demand human rights!

I wish that I could attend an event tonight but I will be away, traveling. In commemoration of the day, in memory of the 48 women murdered by Ridgway, and in solidarity with the living, I have contributed $120.00 tonight to Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive, a harm reduction group that provides counseling, safety resources, clothing, and food to prostitutes on the streets of the Washington, D.C. area, and $120.00 to Alternatives for Girls, whose Street Outreach Project provides similar services out of a van along the Cass Corridor in downtown Detroit. For other groups that provide similar resources and mutual aid, you can check out the links at the end of my original post.

May we all live free in the glory and joy of life that every human being deserves.

—Daisy Anarchy, I deserve to be safe

Remember. Mourn. Act.

See also:

On Blaming the Victim, Part II

From Frances Vanderploeg, Las Vegas Sun (2008-12-04): Henderson students discuss controversial issues during event

Part of the problem may be attendance, some students said. Schools are trying out different policies to encourage students to be in class and on time, such as forcing parents to sign in a student who was late the morning before.

They’re trying to fix the attendance policy, but they’re going about it the wrong way, Josh Rivera of Canyon Springs High School said.

The requirement to have parents sign in late students, for example, encouraged students to just skip the entire period, because the penalties were less harsh that way.

For the students with chronic truancies, however, students thought it was about time their peers answered up.

Shouldn’t there be harsher punishment because they’re wasting our time and money? Nick Rattigan of Green Valley High School said. They’re wasting the teachers’ time.

Actually, seeing as how the students are being made to go to class against their will, and the government schools seem unable to give them any reason to go other than the threat of harsher punishment, it seems to me like it would be more to the point to complain about the teachers wasting the students’ time than vice versa.

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The edict of Gary Reese, Mayor Pro Tempore and Vaquero Supreme of the Vegas Valley

As you may recall, Ted Marshall owns a warehouse in downtown Las Vegas. Like many buildings in downtown Las Vegas, Ted Marshall’s warehouse has been repeatedly vandalized by taggers. Like many property-owners in downtown Las Vegas, he covered up the graffiti several times, only to have new taggers come by and paint more on. Then, one day, he found some graffiti on his wall that he kind of liked, and he decided that he wanted to leave that design up on his own building’s wall. So the city of Las Vegas fined him $930 for having graffiti he wanted up on a wall he owns.

Ted Marshall thought this was bull crap: the city government shouldn’t force him to pay to get rid of a design that vandals put up without his permission, and, while we’re at it, the city government shouldn’t force him to pay fines for leaving designs he wants to leave up on his own building. Ted Marshall’s representative on the city council, Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese, replies:

I don’t want graffiti on any buildings in the city of Las Vegas. He said it was artistic or something, but for me, it’s a crime. For him to stand there and say he’s sick and tired and he’s going to leave it how it is — that’s bull crap.

Please remember that in the view of the Las Vegas city council, what matters is what Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese does or does not want on buildings in the city of Las Vegas — certainly not what the mere owners of those buildings want or do not want on them.

Mary Price, falsely identified as a spokeswoman for the city of Las Vegas (actually, she speaks for the government, not for the city), adds:

It’s like any other situation where you have property damage, city spokeswoman Mary Ann Price explains. If you had a burned-out building … it creates a hazard. You as the property owner would be responsible for it.

She’s right that this is just like any other situation where you have property damage. As long as a burned-out building, no matter how hazardous, doesn’t actually threaten to damage anybody else’s property, the city government has absolutely no business forcing the property owner to fix that up, either, if she would rather not do so. Why should they?

The Review-Journal‘s editorial board informs us that The whole issue is surprisingly simple, once viewed through the lens of property rights. Indeed it is. The issue here is that Mary Ann Price and Gary Reese — by the grace of Law Mayor Pro Tempore, Defender of Order, and Vaquero Supreme of the Vegas Valley — believe that the whole city of Las Vegas is their own rightful property, by concession of the sovereign state and federal governments, which the supposed owners of land and buildings really only lease on Gary Reese’s terms and at his pleasure. They believe that they have the right to tell you what they do or don’t want to see, how they do or don’t want it used, and who you can or cannot invite to use it, in the name of maintaining what they see as good taste, or good business, or protecting the property values in their personal domains. If you’re not interested in helping them maintain a touch of class with the land or the buildings that you were foolish enough to think you owned, then they tell you that your claim is bull crap, that their opinions about the proper disposal of your building matter far more than yours, and they will send professional busybodies and armed thugs to inform you of your responsibilities, then to harass you, shove you around, fine you, and ultimately to jail you or kill you if you should resist their efforts to collect.

Well, thank God #11: Paint It Black edition

As part of its ongoing campaign of socio-economic cleansing, the city government of Las Vegas has taken a bold step against vandalism and graffiti. The problem with graffiti, you’ll remember, is that no matter how artistic it may be, it defaces somebody’s private property without their permission. So now the city of Las Vegas will force you to paint over the graffiti, without your permission, and fine you $900 and up if you choose to leave it up on your own wall.

Well, thank God, says I. If the city government weren’t sending around a bunch of professional busybodies and armed thugs to make sure that Ted Marshall’s walls stay painted the way he wanted them painted — even if he doesn’t want to pant them that way anymore — well, who would? Not Ted Marshall, that’s for sure. Why, it’d be sheer– well, you know.

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How the local government in Las Vegas deals with the worst housing crisis in the United States

Here's a photo of a back-hoe and the rubble of a demolished building. That's what the government calls...

Neighborhood stabilization.

  1. First, destroy existing housing. Stick your hands in workers’ pockets and take about $42,000,000 out. ($39,537,838 here, $2,000,000 there, and soon you’re talking about real money.) Pocket $2,842,399 of the money for Administration and Planning Costs. Then take $3,000,000 of the money you tok and use it to bulldoze 252 existing homes in North Las Vegas, to be replaced with non-residential development and a 50-unit old folks’ home. Use another $2,000,000+ to demolish another 76 families’ homes. Use another $75,000 to demolish 3 more houses in eligible targeted [sic!] communities.

  2. Next, artificially force up the cost of housing. After forcing about 300 families out of their homes, then take another $24,148,447 of the money and use it to buy up foreclosed or abandoned houses and apartments at artificially high prices, thus forcing squatters out into the street and making it more expensive for people to find new housing. (This artificially expensive housing will of course be rehabilitated according to the usual close enough for government work standards.) While you’re at it, inflict exorbitant $500/day fines in order to force the title-holders on foreclosed properties to maintain unused property according to completely arbitrary standards imposed by the city government, rather than simply lowering the price or abandoning the property. These fines are inflicted with the explicit purpose of making it more expensive for people to find new housing. None of these policies will do anything at all to keep a single Vegas valley resident from losing her home, but they will make it much more expensive for anyone who has lost her home to find a new one.

  3. Call this aggressively stupid policy — a response to a housing crisis that consists of a five-year package of destroying existing housing, inflating housing prices through government subsidies, and using those government subsidies to keep squatters homeless and to keep working poor families captive to politically subsidized slum-lords or mortgage usurers in order to get access to the housing which the government keeps artificially expensive — call it, I say, neighborhood stabilization (since that sounds better than socioeconomic cleansing or government gentrification) and then clap yourself on the back for how you’re helping people find homes.

  4. Celebrate your successful state-capitalist screwjob by digging several million dollars more out of workers’ pockets to build a multimillion dollar new city hall complex.

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