Occupy Santa Barbara is a peaceful, non-violent organization comprised of community members from points as disparate as Ojai and Santa Maria, Isla Vista and Orcutt, Vandenburg and Montecito. We are electricians and web developers, teachers and retail workers, baristas and lawyers, union organizers, students, fashion consultants. Some of us are unemployed and destitute. Some of us have achieved material success and earned great respect in the community. We share a deep and abiding affection for Santa Barbara, and we welcome the input of, seek to engage participation from, and offer mutual support to all of its citizens.
Our message is positive. We strongly advocate investment in local businesses, involvement in community organizations, and healthy participation in the political system of Santa Barbara at the city and county levels. Our local concerns range from income disparity, rising property taxes, and the displacement of workers in both the public and private sectors who provide essential services to our community-such as our police and firefighters, our postal workers and letter carriers, our nurses and teachers, our laborers and tradesmen-to unemployment, gang violence and the rising tide of homelessness. We seek an open and positive dialogue, with each other and with our local government, to more fully understand these issues and to work together in finding a mutually beneficial solution.
Our position is nonpartisan. We are Democrats and Republicans, we are radical Socialists and free-market Capitalists, we are limited government, we are welfare supporters, we are woodcrafters and survivalists, we are technophiles and urbanites, we are city mice and country mice. It is not our intent to campaign for or otherwise endorse candidates running for political office-but we do encourage council members, county officials, candidates, and other interested parties in government to join in our discussion, to support our cause, and to reach out to the growing section of the community for whom government appears increasingly incomprehensible and disinterested.
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