Pix: A Million Hoodies March for Trayvon Martin #OSF #OO

San Francisco, March 21, 2012

Two Parks Were Just Occupied. In One, People Were Beaten. In the Other, Ice Cream.

Reblogged from Occupied Oakland Tribune

March 17, 2012

by jpmassar

It was a day-long festival in Zuccotti Park / Liberty Square today in New York City yesterday, 3/17/12. Occupiers re-occupied the park, celebrating the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street’s founding. A large number of people stayed in Zuccotti for the evening, but about 11:30 PM were ordered out and were beaten by NYPD…

A different kind of Park Occupation took place in Oakland, CA the same day. Some three hundred Occupy Oaklanders and Oakland residents got together and held a barbeque / speakout / talk-fest at Arroyo Park in East Oakland this afternoon…

You probably won’t read anything about the Oakland event anywhere but here. Of course, that’s because there were no arrests. No shields. No tear gas. No violence. That’s for one very good reason: no police. Just a bunch of happy campers gourmands stuffing their faces with incredible bbq-ed chicken and awesome deserts, talking shit is fucked up and stuff…

You’d almost think that, for today, Oakland was New York, and New York was Oakland.

Read the much more detailed original article at Daily Kos, posted as the beatings in NYC were happening, complete with tweets about the police brutality as it was happening.

Code Pink & Occupy’s Musical Occupation of BofA

Produced by OakFoSho

[embedded video: Code Pink & Occupy Shut Down BofA!]

Annotation:

Code Pink & Occupy activists got together to shut down the BofA at 300 Lakeside in Oakland CA on International Women’s Day. They sang, gave out flyers, and encouraged people to move their money to credit unions.

Audio is a little off, but that sometimes happens in downloads of live internet broadcasts. If you would like to see the action in its entirety, you can see it here….

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20972030

Occupy Education: 99 Mile March for Education and Social Justice

“Student Protests Seek to Breathe New Life Into Occupy,” Josh Harkinson, MoJo, Mar. 1, 2012.

Art on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza on March 1, National Day of Action.

Watch This Video: The Battle of Oakland

Produced by Brandon Jourdan and David Martinez

On January 28th, 2012, Occupy Oakland moved to take a vacant building to use as a social center and a new place to continue organizing. This is the story of what happened that day as told by those who were a part of it. it features rare footage and interviews with Boots Riley, David Graeber, Maria Lewis, and several other witnesses to key events.

TRT: 20:16  February 2012.

Note:  This Thursday (today 2/9/12) at 6pm, Occupy Oakland is hosting a Citizens Police Review Board and Open Forum on Oakland Police Department Actions at the Grand Lake Theater.

Last week, Oakland’s Citizens Police Review Board (CPRB) announced they had indefinitely postponed a forum which had been planned for months. This forum had been intended to allow the community to discuss the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) handling of Occupy Oakland.

In actions against Occupy Oakland, OPD has consistently broken with their own crowd control policies and procedures, while brutalizing those they have arrested. Journalists have been arrested and detained, crowds have been tear gassed with no path of escape, and 409 people were trapped, assaulted, and arrested with no dispersal orders given. Let us not forget the most egregious action of OPD misconduct when Scott Olsen was shot in the head with a tear gas canister and nearly killed. All of these actions, and many others, on the part of OPD are proof that the department has a long way to go in the implementation of reforms mandated by federal courts stemming from the Rider Case almost a decade ago.

That the Oakland CPRB would choose to cancel its forum at such a critical time is appalling. As a result, Occupy Oakland is hosting its own CPRB to address these issues and instances of misconduct and brutality. The community, press, and city officials are all invited to attend and listen. There will be a public speaking section at the end of the forum for all to voice their opinions, concerns, and experiences.

Thursday, February 9, 6:00pm
Grand Lake Theater

Full Agenda here.

Choose Your Shield

Which do you like better?

Climate Camp's "Face Shields" in 2007, precursor to the Occupy movement

Or would you consider to be more effective?

Shields in Oakland on #J28 (via SF Weekly)

The answer may depend on one’s intentions, but consider this about the former:

The Face Shields were used as part of a mass action at Heathrow against the proposed third runway. The shields featured large-scale pictures of real people whose lives had been affected by climate change. These images were put on cardboard boxes, and handles were attached to the backside. Inside the cardboard boxes was not only stuffing to protect protester from police batons, but pop up tents. In this fashion the tents were able to sneak past police lines and once at the targeted destination, British Airport Authority, they were used to camp overnight forming a blockade. Such occupations by Climate Camp are a precursor to the occupy movement.  (more on Face Shields here)

Versus the headline that goes with the latter:

Occupy Oakland: Judge Issues Restraining Order Against Protesters

Here’s what the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination‘s brilliant A User’s Guide to Demanding the Impossible has to offer (our emphasis):

During recent demonstrations in Rome, students brought out shields to defend against police batons, with book covers painted onto them. Culture itself appeared to be resisting the cuts. During the 2007 Climate Camp protests in London, shields appeared with huge haunting photographic portraits of the faces of climate refugees upon them. The TV cameras caught the police striking these faces with their batons to contain the crowd. Such re-engineering can be directly functional as well as symbolically powerful.  (Link to download book here)

Again, it all gets back to the question of the movement’s intention, now and for the future, and how much of that is about growth.  In the context of the battle for hearts and minds taking place via the mainstream media, it’s something to seriously consider on a tactical level.

Additional links and free publications produced in the midst of student uprisings:

We Demand The Impossible: An Interview with John Jordan and Gavin Grindon. – 19 July 2011.  Marc Garrett interviews John Jordan and Gavin Grindon about their collaborative publication, A User’s Guide to Demanding the Impossible.

Occupy Everything! Reflections on why it’s kicking off everywhere – 28 Jan 2012.  Ed. Alessio Lunghi & Seth Wheeler

Penned after the 2010 European student unrest and before what is now commonly referred to as the “Arab spring” began to escalate, BBC Newsnight economist Paul Mason’s “20 Reasons Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere” sought to establish an understanding of the motivations behind these globally disparate, yet somehow connected struggles.

What roles do the “graduate with no future,” the “digital native” or the “remainder of capital” play in the current wave of unrest? What are the ideas, ideologies, motivations or demands driving these movements? How is struggle organized and coordinated in the age of memetic politics and viral ad campaigns?

This collection of essays seeks to further explore Paul Mason’s original 20 Reasons in an attempt to better understand our turbulent present.

(Link to Scribd and free download).

#J28 Truths coming out on OPD Misconduct and Quan’s broadbrush

Updated 5X (2/3/12)

"OH MY GOD NOT THE SNACKS" – @jeanquan surveying @occupyoakland damage in city hall. LOL! #oo #ows #osf #j28 #opd http://t.co/ta41foOy—
Scott Anansi Rossi (@scottanansi) January 31, 2012

CNN: Occupy Oakland demonstrations, arrests inject new life into movement

Bay Citizen:  Many Arrested, But Few to Face Charges

Out of 409 arrests made, only twelve people (3%) face actual charges.

Nearly 400 innocent people jailed, including journalists, and as reported below many held for three days and mistreated by police and jailers, for the crime of peaceful protest.

Huffington Post: Occupy Oakland Activists Report Inhumane Conditions In Santa Rita, Glenn Dyer Jails

Oakland Tribune: Occupy Oakland supporters claim authorities used excessive force and violated their rights

Salon.com:  Occupy Oakland protesters denied medication in jail

SF Bay Guardian: Occupy Oakland inmates at Santa Rita attacked- developing story

Daily Kos: Oakland Arrestees Tortured

Oakland North: Journalists arrested at Saturday Occupy Oakland Protest

KQED News:  Newspaper Guild wants meeting with Quan

The KQED report includes tweets from journalists, including this one which reports widespread police violation of CA Penal Code 830.10

Yael Chanoff, SF Bay Guardian

-No cops have badge numbers showing and they are refusing to tell protesters

(Apparently with impunity, despite the example made of the only two OPD officers who happened to be caught on video by a citizen journalist.  Why isn’t there wider enforcement?)

Newspaper Guild president Bernie Lunzer sent a letter to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and Police Chief Howard Jordan, requesting a meeting and clearly calling them out on OPD’s violation of its own guidelines:

Although several journalists were released quickly on the scene, others were held for long periods of time, making it impossible for them to do their jobs. Numerous reports from the scene document officers ignoring reporters presenting their press credentials and admonishing them for not following orders to disperse.

This despite the OPD’s own guidelines, which state, “Even after a dispersal order has been given, clearly identified media shall be permitted to carry out their professional duties in any area where arrests are being made unless their presence would unduly interfere with the enforcement action.”

You may have heard (as reported in the SF Chronicle) that Mayor Quan plans to call OWS “leadership” to ask them to denounce #OO, showing the laughable scale of her cluelessness on multiple levels.  Here is a response from a member of the leaderless movement known as OWS.

Daily Kos:  Dear Oakland Mayor Quan, you do not need to call me, here is MY response to YOUR demands

Lastly, let’s not forget to keep in perspective the city’s priorities in light of the #J28 OPD brutality that triggered over two dozen solidarity actions around the globe:

• Oakland recently closed 5 public elementary schools in order to save $2 million
• City of Oakland has by now vastly exceeded that spending in policing Occupy Oakland
• Crime in Oakland was down 19% during #OO encampment
• OPD Police misconduct has cost the city $57 million over the past decade
• OPD was stripped of power just last week over its failure to mend its ways, and the misconduct that went down on Saturday only moves them closer to federal receivership.

Note:  this doesn’t include all of the lawsuits that are pending since #OO began.

#AQUApy 2.0! The #AQUApation is BACK!

UPDATED:

#Aquapy 2.0 received eviction notice for tonight!! Come support! Chant against forclosures! #oo #ows #osf #RT @OakFoSho @punkboyinsf—
  (@worthoftheworld) February 01, 2012

Original Post

Only two days after tear gas, rubber bullets, flash bang grenades, smoke bombs, and over 400 arrests, the #AQUApation is back at Oakland’s Lake Merritt.  (Recall the first Aquapy).  Only in Oakland.

Watch the #AQUApation on @OakFoSho's ustream!

As OakFoSho streams the boat house party, he says:  “I guess this is what Jean Quan meant by Occupy using Oakland as its playground.”  Hilarious.

"there is a boat sitting on lake merritt right this moment for something called aquapy oakland." (Photo: aegies)

"Aquapy on Lake Merrit #oo #occupyoakland" (via @nicklally)

"Holy moley! Right now on Lake Merritt: AQUA-PY OAKLAND! #oo" (via @Kevin_Seal) (Photo by Erin Allin, according to commenter)

And finally, this is the only pic we’re reproducing from #OO #J28 Move-In Day:

"Amazing photo from #Oakland today ~ a young girl in a gas mask with her mom: #OccupyOakland #oo #J28 #ows #MoveInDay" (via Tommy @MagicZoetrope)

OPD Stripped of Power & Other Policing News

Via The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/15nJN)

Judge Strips Power from Oakland Police
Decisions must now go through court monitors, as department steps closer to federal takeover”:

“A federal judge has granted significant decision-making powers to the monitors charged with overseeing court-ordered reforms at the Oakland Police Department, a move that brings the department one step closer to a federal takeover.

“In an order issued late Tuesday, Judge Thelton Henderson wrote that he was in ‘disbelief’ that the department had yet to finish the reforms, adding that the department remains ‘woefully behind its peers around the state and nation,’ and that ‘words and promises are not enough.’”

“If the department has not finished implementing the reforms by July, Henderson said he would consider the possibility of receivership proceedings, during which he could decide whether to place the department under federal authority.”

Full Story

Other Oakland News:

• Weekend of Action: #OO Move-In Day and Rise Up Festival, 1/28-29
• Oakland Police Chief Lied to Discredit Occupy Oakland. (Daily Kos 1/14/12)

SFPD Brutality picked up by NBC news

Police Encounter With Occupy Wall Street West Protesters — Alleged Violence

The above MSM coverage is based on citizen journalism of #J20 Occupy Wall Street West in San Francisco such as this:

@pfailblog  SFPD Attacks Innocent Protesters; Officer M. Ali #619 Breaks My Cam

@punkboyinsf  http://www.ustream.tv/occupysf

More from Occupy Wall Street West #J20

• Photo Gallery
• Summary of all that went down
• Play-by-play News

While earlier MSM coverage of OWSWest sensationalized black bloc destruction, it completely ignored the wonder of the black blob (video by jaspergregory)

“. . . a powerful neoliberal economic order dedicated to eliminating all forms of collective or public resistance to the primacy of capital. . . “

Tightening the Screws: Rahm Emanuel passes “Sit Down, Shut Up” in  Chicago

Obama's former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel passes draconian protest-squashing measure in Chicago

Via Truthout

“Critics say the “sit down and shut up” ordinance, as it has been called, seeks to chill protest and civil liberties in Chicago through measures including mandatory $1 million liability insurance for protests, a heightened police presence and more difficulty getting a permit. . . .

“When the ordinance was first introduced, it was said to be only a measure for the NATO/G8 conference to be held in Chicago in May, but it was later revealed that the ordinance change is expected to be permanent.”

Sets a chilling precedent:

Chicago Independent Media Center reports that the ordinance, as it stood the day before the vote, contains the following:

• Virtually every street protest in the downtown would be designated a “large parade,” requiring $1 million liability insurance and for organizers to “agree to reimburse the city for any damage to the public way or to city property arising out of or caused by the parade”;
• Large parade or not, organizers would be required to provide the city with “a description of any recording equipment, sound amplification equipment, banners, signs, or other attention-getting devices to be used in connection with the parade” at least a week in advance of the march;
• Every contingent in the march and the order in which they would appear would have to be registered at least a week in advance with the City; and,
• Demonstration organizers would be required to have one marshal for every 100 participants.
• Under a wholly new section of the municipal code (10-8-334), even gatherings on sidewalks, with no presence in the streets, would now be subject to demands that they get permits, giving the City extraordinary latitude to dictate what union and other pickets occur or get shut down by police action.
• Allow the police Superintendent to deputize FBI, DHS, ATF, and DOJ employees as Chicago police officers.

That last point means Mayor Emanuel can have his own personal army, when the time comes.

Police Tech: “Why do Police douse Protestors with Colored Water?”

Via Foreign Policy

In what appears to be a growing trend around the globe, police are spraying crowds with semi-permanent dye.

As Egypt prepares to mark the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution on Wednesday, with activists mapping out protest routes and the ruling military council partially lifting the country’s emergency laws and releasing prisoners in apparent goodwill gestures, Al-Masry Al-Youm is reporting something rather odd. Anonymous security sources tell the Egyptian newspaper that security forces are planning to use batons, loudspeakers, and “colored chemicals that will stain one’s skin for six months” against “those perceived to be violating the law . . .”

Full story here.

“. . . It is a sign of the uncertainty of the moment—the unresolved play of cultural, economic, and political forces currently unfolding before us . . .“

Occupy Oakland rally and press conference on the US Coast Guard

Two of a Kind: Obama administration engages in the “first known use of the US military to intervene in a labor dispute on the side of management in 40 years.”

Via OccupyEverything.org

Jan. 23 Demonstration Called to Defend Washington Dock Workers

Protest Use of U.S. Coast Guard for Union-Busting