Food Drive Recap

🥰Thank you to everyone who donated to our food drive last weekend for Salvation Army.  They were very grateful for the generosity that our community has shown. 

📅Our next food drive will be in February as a joint effort between many food banks in our community.  Representatives for each church and non-profit will work together to sort the food between each resource.  We look forward to being a vehicle to make participating in community support more accessible to everyone.

DeFlock Ridgecrest

Over the last year, a half a dozen residents of Ridgecrest have brought their concerns about the Flock camera system to City Council meetings.  We have been listening to the comments and have been watch to see how this would unfold.  People who work on base have legitimate personal security concerns with the information possibly being leaked to adversaries, but as we understood it- there weren’t any known security vulnerabilities.  

As supporters of the Ridgecrest Police department, we have refrained from public comment objecting to the Flock system until recently.  Before we’ve our questions seemed to be given reasonable answers about its use and purpose.

🤯However, with the release of the white paper by Jon Gaines and Joseph Cohen, we have now changed our opinion from mildly concerned to outright horrified and alarmed.

The cameras run off of an Android operating system that was discontinued in 2019 and which Google no longer supports.  It has over 900 security vulnerabilities.  The cameras and entire system can be easily hacked in several different ways. 

👀 Details about these issues are detailed in this 45 minute YouTube.  Please take the time to watch it.

Cities all across the country are now suspending their contracts with Flock to protect their residents.  We have presented these findings to City Council last Wednesday.  Councilmen Skip Gorman showed concern and said that he hopes someone on the council can look into these findings and contact Flock about them.  This should be evidence enough to shutdown the system but we know that it is going to need more public objection for action to be taken.

This is a bipartisan issue, please share this information with everyone.  Take Action and sign our petition on Change.org for DeFlock Ridgecrest.

The next City Council meeting is December 3rd at 6pm 100 W California Ave.  Please join us to make your concerns known to the council during the public comment section for items not on the agenda.  Council members are not required to respond immediately afterwards but may say something in their closing remarks at the end.

📣Our next protest will be surrounding the Flock system on Saturday December 6th from 10am-Noon.

We Ain’t Buying It

There is a national boycott surrounding Black Friday thru Cyber Week to put pressure on corporations in the only way they understand, their bottom line.  20% of annual retail sales happen during the winter holiday season.

🛑Home Depot had been silent about the ICE raids happening in their parking lots and stores up until they heard that there would be a boycott of their stores during Black Friday.  Their statement is that they do not coordinate with ICE.  We expect a stronger statement and action to support the people who make Home Depot’s business of home improvement possible.  Let’s make sure they know being complicit isn’t acceptable.

🛑Amazon has funded this administration to secure their own corporate tax cuts and Bezos has purchased the Washington Post making it his own personal mouthpiece.

🛑Target was among the first to comply in advance to dismantle their DEI to gain favor with the administration.

Pressure for this boycott will be on 3 companies that will send a message to all of cooperate America that if they cause harm to the people in our community, a national consumer boycott could be coming their way.

The joint coalition for this includes Indivisible, 50501, No Kings and many more associations.  We are not boycotting Walmart because when you tell people to do that, you’re asking people to put less food on their table which is not our objective.  At Ridgecrest 50501, we also understand how the limited resources in our community make it hard to participate in these kinds of boycotts.  We’d just like you to simply make some mindful choices when making purchases this holiday season and join the boycott to the best of your ability.  

Let’s be real, times are tough. And that might mean Black Friday is the only time you can afford to buy something.  I understand. When I was young, I couldn’t afford good shoes or clothing and bought things at Ross every year just to get by.  After passing a certain cost of living threshold, I was finally able to buy good quality shirts for work.  I have worn them every week for the last 8 years and they look perfectly fine.  I recently got a compliment on my Columbia jacket and then it struck me; I’ve had it for 15 years.  The paradox.  Once you make enough money to invest in good clothing and household items, you save money in the long run and can build wealth. The people who have less are caught in a system where they must spend more over a lifetime on similar items.  It’s these little things that keep people struggling to get by and some may never break through that cost of living threshold. If you’re unable to afford to join the boycott, don’t feel bad, I understand that it can be a privilege in some cases to do so.

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From Ridgecrest 50501, we wish everyone a safe, healthy, and peaceful Thanksgiving 💗