Posts tagged "OWS"
  1. Notes: 1057 / 2 weeks ago  from anonmedics
    anonmedics: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/david-graeber-new-police-strategy-in-new-york-sexual-assault-against-peaceful-protestors.html A few weeks ago I was with a few companions from Occupy Wall Street in Union Square when an old friend — I’ll call her Eileen — passed through, her hand in a cast. “What happened to you?” I asked. “Oh, this?” she held it up. “I was in Liberty Park on the 17th [the Six Month Anniversary of the Occupation]. When the cops were pushing us out the park, one of them yanked at my breast.” “Again?” someone said. We had all been hearing stories like this. In fact, there had been continual reports of police officers groping women during the nightly evictions from Union Square itself over the previous two weeks. “Yeah so I screamed at the guy, I said, ‘you grabbed my boob! what are you, some kind of fucking pervert?’ So they took me behind the lines and broke my wrists.” Actually, she quickly clarified, only one wrist was literally broken. She proceeded to launch into a careful, well-nigh clinical blow-by-blow description of what had happened. An experienced activist, she knew to go limp when police seized her, and how to do nothing that could possibly be described as resisting arrest. Police dragged her, partly by the hair, behind their lines and threw her to the ground, periodically shouting “stop resisting!” as she shouted back “I’m not resisting!” At one point though, she said, she did tell them her glasses had fallen to the sidewalk next to her, and announced she was going to reach over to retrieve them. That apparently gave them all the excuse they needed. One seized her right arm and bent her wrist backwards in what she said appeared to be some kind of marshal-arts move, leaving it not broken, but seriously damaged. “I don’t know exactly what they did to my left wrist—at that point I was too busy screaming at the top of my lungs in pain. But they broke it. After that they put me in plastic cuffs, as tightly as they possibly could, and wouldn’t loosen them for at least an hour no matter how loud I screamed or how much the other prisoners begged them to help me. For a while everyone in the arrest van was chanting ‘take them off, take them off’ but they just ignored them…”

    anonmedics:

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/david-graeber-new-police-strategy-in-new-york-sexual-assault-against-peaceful-protestors.html

    A few weeks ago I was with a few companions from Occupy Wall Street in Union Square when an old friend — I’ll call her Eileen — passed through, her hand in a cast.

    “What happened to you?” I asked.

    “Oh, this?” she held it up. “I was in Liberty Park on the 17th [the Six Month Anniversary of the Occupation]. When the cops were pushing us out the park, one of them yanked at my breast.”

    “Again?” someone said.

    We had all been hearing stories like this. In fact, there had been continual reports of police officers groping women during the nightly evictions from Union Square itself over the previous two weeks.

    “Yeah so I screamed at the guy, I said, ‘you grabbed my boob! what are you, some kind of fucking pervert?’ So they took me behind the lines and broke my wrists.”

    Actually, she quickly clarified, only one wrist was literally broken. She proceeded to launch into a careful, well-nigh clinical blow-by-blow description of what had happened. An experienced activist, she knew to go limp when police seized her, and how to do nothing that could possibly be described as resisting arrest. Police dragged her, partly by the hair, behind their lines and threw her to the ground, periodically shouting “stop resisting!” as she shouted back “I’m not resisting!” At one point though, she said, she did tell them her glasses had fallen to the sidewalk next to her, and announced she was going to reach over to retrieve them. That apparently gave them all the excuse they needed. One seized her right arm and bent her wrist backwards in what she said appeared to be some kind of marshal-arts move, leaving it not broken, but seriously damaged. “I don’t know exactly what they did to my left wrist—at that point I was too busy screaming at the top of my lungs in pain. But they broke it. After that they put me in plastic cuffs, as tightly as they possibly could, and wouldn’t loosen them for at least an hour no matter how loud I screamed or how much the other prisoners begged them to help me. For a while everyone in the arrest van was chanting ‘take them off, take them off’ but they just ignored them…”

     
  2. Notes: 628 / 2 weeks ago  from anonmedics
    anonmedics: An extremely disturbing report on the emerging police tactic of employing brutal sexual assault against Occupation protesters as an intimidation and provocation tactic.  Police have engaged in rape and sexual assault against civilians since time immemorial, but the use of such tactics against Occupy may finally serve to bring some light to the intrinsic evil, exploitation, and misogyny of the United States law enforcement industrial complex. Read the full article here. Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy. For obvious reasons, most of the women who have been victims of such assaults have been hesitant to come forward. Suing the city is a miserable and time-consuming task and if a woman brings any charge involving sexual misconduct, they can expect to have their own history and reputations—no matter how obviously irrelevant—raked over the coals, usually causing immense damage to their personal and professional life. The threat of doing so operates as a very effective form of intimidation. One exception is Cecily McMillan, who was not only groped but suffered a broken rib and seizures during her arrest on March 17, and held incommunicado, denied constant requests to see her lawyer, for over 24 hours thereafter. Shortly after release from the hospital she appeared on Democracy Now! And showed part of a handprint, replete with scratch-marks, that police had left directly over her right breast. (She is currently pursuing civil charges against the police department)

    anonmedics:

    An extremely disturbing report on the emerging police tactic of employing brutal sexual assault against Occupation protesters as an intimidation and provocation tactic.  Police have engaged in rape and sexual assault against civilians since time immemorial, but the use of such tactics against Occupy may finally serve to bring some light to the intrinsic evil, exploitation, and misogyny of the United States law enforcement industrial complex.

    Read the full article here.

    Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy.

    For obvious reasons, most of the women who have been victims of such assaults have been hesitant to come forward. Suing the city is a miserable and time-consuming task and if a woman brings any charge involving sexual misconduct, they can expect to have their own history and reputations—no matter how obviously irrelevant—raked over the coals, usually causing immense damage to their personal and professional life. The threat of doing so operates as a very effective form of intimidation. One exception is Cecily McMillan, who was not only groped but suffered a broken rib and seizures during her arrest on March 17, and held incommunicado, denied constant requests to see her lawyer, for over 24 hours thereafter. Shortly after release from the hospital she appeared on Democracy Now! And showed part of a handprint, replete with scratch-marks, that police had left directly over her right breast. (She is currently pursuing civil charges against the police department)

     
  3. Notes: 29 / 2 weeks ago  from collaterlysisters

    collaterlysisters:

    Ready for May Day?

    Gaze upon my protest buddy, ye mighty, and despair.

    Even if you aren’t going to a march tomorrow, cut class or call in sick.  General strikes own.  Catch up on your video game and feel righteous doing it.

  4. Notes: 37 / 3 months ago 
    Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland (subject to an ongoing recall campaign), mourns the fall of one of City Hall’s fine vending machines, after anarchist violence on Saturday.

    Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland (subject to an ongoing recall campaign), mourns the fall of one of City Hall’s fine vending machines, after anarchist violence on Saturday.

     
  5. Notes: 77 / 3 months ago  from mrdominos (originally from fuckyescalifornia)

    mrdominos:

    3liza:

    fuckyescalifornia:

    Occupy Oakland Saturday movement update

    Occupy Oakland protestors vandalize City Hall and burn an American flag. Nearly up to 400 people were arrested, at least three officers and one protestor were injured. Apparently the occupiers are planning more actions.

    Info and photos from:

    (Sorry for the late update)

    Your Occupy Oakland post is inaccurate and at best, a half-truth.  OPD are on film agitating violence, beating unarmed protesters, firing rubber bullets, beanbags, CS gas and flashbangs. They arrested hundreds, after ordering them to disperse and then NOT ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO.  They injured people, waited for medics to respond, then attacked the medics. Claims of police “injuries” are not backed up with records or evidence, while police-injured protesters number in the dozens, at least.

     I saw this and all it said to me was:

    “I’m an asshat who claims the original post is inaccurate despite them only stating recorded facts from respected news sources. Here is what really happened. Also, I am a hypocrite as I have no source.

    Hahaha here’s your source, dipshit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFaviIoy4rg

    In this video you get graphic closeups of unarmed protesters being held down and beaten by police, screaming for help or to be released: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNrCDDPrUcs

    Also here: http://oakfosho.com/

    And here: http://www.ustream.tv/occupysf

    Note in the first video that the OPD injure a protester by shooting them unconscious with a headshot, wait for the medics to gather, then shoot the medics, just as they did with veteran Scott Olsen. This is OPD standard procedure now.  Targeting medics, who are defined as non-combatants, is a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

    The objects that you see the protesters throwing at police are grenade canisters that had been shot by police at the march.  There are no records of police injury during the Occupy protests yet.  Claims by the police departments to the contrary are never, ever backed up with records or evidence.  Occupy, on the other hand, has dozens of photos from every event of police brutality injuries.  Here are a few just from my own records.  Hundreds of others can be found online (flickr, google images, picasa, etc).



    Rubber bullet contusion on October 25th


    Different rubber bullet contusion, same night.

    CS gas (“tear gas”) victim, 10/25/11.  OPD claimed they “did not use tear gas or rubber bullets” that night.


    Flesh wound caused by baton to the face, 12/22/11, 1:57AM.  This protester was injured, then lured into the Berkeley Police station with promises of medical treatment.  They did not treat him, but instead detained him and attempted to book him, which ultimately they were unable to do.  He was released without treatment and was treated on the street by Occupy medics.


    1/28/12 - Serious burn to the hand, through protective gloves, by a tear gas canister.  Why was this guy picking up a hot tear gas canister?  Because the police had fired it into a crowd containing children and other vulnerable citizens, and this guy had the sack to toss it back where it belonged—with the people who’re wearing gas masks.

    The OPD told the press that protesters were “throwing flares and pipes” on Saturday, and also that several officers were “injured”.  The police also claimed that they “did not use tear gas” and “did not use rubber bullets” and that “there were no injured protesters”.  You can clearly see that they are lying, in both cases.  The entire march, from start to finish, is on film from multiple angles and can be watched several times in its entirety on the live video channels of the streamers who were there, several of whom I linked to above.

    The police also claimed that activists on Saturday were “throwing IEDs”, which echoes an earlier farcical claim that marchers in a different action were “arrested with sticks of dynamite”, dynamite which mysteriously vanished at the arraignment.  Reminder that OPD has been under court supervision since 2003, when they were found to have planted evidence on a suspect.

    Oh, and this happened:

    One occupier known as Ali had become a clear target for repression due to his visibility, and even those arrested on the 30th had overheard officers discussing how the hoped to get their hands on him. On Wednesday the 4th, OPD seemed determined to do just that, chasing Ali across the street to arrest him. When they did so, he explained to me, officer Phan reached into his back pocket before feigning surprise and insisting that he was “going away for a long time” because they had found him to be in possession of ecstasy. Some in the Anti-Repression Committee believe that it was only the presence of the Livestream camera, and the fact that Ali immediately began to shout about the attempt to plant drugs, that prevented the charges from being successfully fabricated. Ali was later charged with misdemeanor obstruction.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/09/oakland%E2%80%99s-dirty-war/

    As for your laughable little assertion that CNN—or any mainstream media outlet—only deals in “recorded facts”, I refer you to the sources of their “facts”: police press releases.  All major media outlets are owned by the specific mega-corporations who are the target of these actions in the first place, mega-corporations that have every reason to paint Occupy as a bloodthirsty terrorist cell.  There is also the little matter of the police refusing to play nice-nice with any mainstream news outlet that doesn’t make them look good to Joe Sixpacks like yourself.

    Mainstream media also parroted—without investigation—the police claims that “Occupy camps had caused a severe increase in local crime”, an assertion that the police knew was false:

    When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan’s advisers. “Not sure how you want to share this good news,” he wrote. “It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland.”

    [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/14/1054602/-No-Surprise-Oakland-Police-Chief-Lied-to-Discredit-Occupy-Oakland]


    Additionally, Oakland Police Department has been under court monitoring since 2003 due to “a civil suit over the Riders case, in which several officers were accused of planting drugs on suspects in East Oakland. As a result of the settlement agreement, the department agreed to implement a series of misconduct-related reforms, including an overhaul of disciplinary procedures and use-of-force reporting. But two missed deadlines later, the department has yet to complete the tasks.”

    The court monitoring is due to brutality and corruption, in other words.  Brutality and corruption which has so far gone totally unaddressed, to the extent that on the 24th of January this year (four days before the protest on Saturday), a federal judge stripped even more power from OPD, bringing them even closer to being taken over by feds entirely.

    The real shitter of your whole riposte, though, is that you’re taking the word of the Oakland Police Department over unedited eyewitness video, photographs, and written accounts of what actually happened.

    EDIT: But I’m not writing this to engage you, o shirtless cretin. I’m using your dumb post as an effigy to burn, just so I can address all the same dumb arguments I see over and over, being drooled out by doughy goons who think they’d recognize politics or logic if it backed over them in a brand spanking new, Alameda County Sheriff Department, taxpayer-purchased, armored APC.

  6. Notes: 71 / 6 months ago 

    MEET THE 99%

    Based on press and civilian photographs of the real people who are fighting for you, me, and everyone else, modeled on the famous This Man Is Your Friend campaign from WWII.  This is the first release of several I have planned, illustrating the vast array of different people in our movement, each warring against corruption, brutality, exploitation and oppression in their own way.  These people are my friends—I see them at marches and occupations, I walk beside them, I read their signs and I listen to and human mic their speeches.  This is the best way I can think of to honor them.

    Feminist: Nawal El Saadawi
    Iraq Veteran: Sergeant Shamar Thomas
    Anonymous: Anonymous

    You should download the zip file with full-size JPG and PSD files, plus blank templates (with “this man/woman/person is our friend” respectively) and layout fonts, here: www.filehosting.org/file/details/286126/ourfriend.zip

    Remix, print, distribute, and make your own as you see fit.  Keep it noncommercial. Credit is nice because we all need work, but no sweat if you can’t swing it.

    All of these are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

  7. Notes: 10 / 6 months ago 
     
  8. Notes: 10 / 6 months ago  from bookmarklet
    "the biggest change all the insta-video and coverage of the cops has wrought is that people can scream FUCK YOU at cops and not be beaten/shot to death on the spot. I never realized how (rightfully) cowed people have been by police brutality till I saw the shouting at police and tensed up waiting for a fusillade of bullets in response"
    - OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTEST! It’s actually happening! - wddp.org - Page 111
  9. Notes: 2768 / 7 months ago  from complex-brown
    This shit is happening at Occupy SF as well—the White Male Bloc is apparently driving shit into the ground. complex-brown:  BLACK OUT! At Occupy Philadelphia We had a Black Out! at Occupy Philadelphia. Why? Saturday,  two sisters were called Niggers by two of the volunteers at Occupy Philadelphia at the cell-phone charging stations.  They were also told to go back to Africa, and that each white man should own a slave. When the sista’s called security, security asked them to leave the premises because they thought they were apart of the UHURU movement.  Even if they were a part of that movement, they should not have been asked to leave. Especially  without any mention of their verbal and spiritual abuse. So a small collective formed a drummer’s circle on Sunday and started a rally, only to be met with on-lookers who didn’t understand why there was a Pan-African flag at an “American” event.  We were called racist.  Many of the people there to support Occupy Philadelphia came to us to tell us that all of us are people and that race is behind us! They told us that we were being divisive. Bullshit. When we circled up to come up with a constructive way to address the people, we were constantly interrupted by white people who could not respect our safe space. These people said that it was a public space, and we couldn’t have a group that excuded them. Why is it when black people want to get together to work out our issues in our community we are called out? Sadly, one of the black women who came up to our group suggested we move to another location away from city hall, since we were having a private group. What?!! When we wanted to address the people at the people’s assembly, we had to beg to get a spot on the program.  They wanted us to wait until afterwards and get on the open mic.  Also, we had  two people come up to the group and ask if we were going to be violent.  Why would be violent?? Because we are black? We eventually told the gate-keepers that we were going to be given the mic, or we were going to take the mic. We eventually got our spot. As the sister was talking about her experience, there were some members in support, and there were even members who came up to us afterwards to show support. But many of the people were asking us to hurry up, calm down and finish. One white guy used signals to get us to hurry up. We spoke out about RACISM IN THE 99 percent. We spoke out about how nobody was talking about the racist foundation of corporate greed. How do we talk about classim without taking about racism? American wealth can not be discussed without mention of free African slave labor, the rice, tobacco, sugar and cotton industry. We were called racist because we empowered ourselves and stood up for what was right.

    This shit is happening at Occupy SF as well—the White Male Bloc is apparently driving shit into the ground.

    complex-brown:

     BLACK OUT! At Occupy Philadelphia

    We had a Black Out! at Occupy Philadelphia. Why?

    Saturday,  two sisters were called Niggers by two of the volunteers at Occupy Philadelphia at the cell-phone charging stations.  They were also told to go back to Africa, and that each white man should own a slave. When the sista’s called security, security asked them to leave the premises because they thought they were apart of the UHURU movement.  Even if they were a part of that movement, they should not have been asked to leave. Especially  without any mention of their verbal and spiritual abuse.

    So a small collective formed a drummer’s circle on Sunday and started a rally, only to be met with on-lookers who didn’t understand why there was a Pan-African flag at an “American” event.  We were called racist.  Many of the people there to support Occupy Philadelphia came to us to tell us that all of us are people and that race is behind us! They told us that we were being divisive.

    Bullshit.

    When we circled up to come up with a constructive way to address the people, we were constantly interrupted by white people who could not respect our safe space. These people said that it was a public space, and we couldn’t have a group that excuded them. Why is it when black people want to get together to work out our issues in our community we are called out? Sadly, one of the black women who came up to our group suggested we move to another location away from city hall, since we were having a private group. What?!!

    When we wanted to address the people at the people’s assembly, we had to beg to get a spot on the program.  They wanted us to wait until afterwards and get on the open mic.  Also, we had  two people come up to the group and ask if we were going to be violent.  Why would be violent?? Because we are black? We eventually told the gate-keepers that we were going to be given the mic, or we were going to take the mic. We eventually got our spot.

    As the sister was talking about her experience, there were some members in support, and there were even members who came up to us afterwards to show support. But many of the people were asking us to hurry up, calm down and finish. One white guy used signals to get us to hurry up.

    We spoke out about RACISM IN THE 99 percent.

    We spoke out about how nobody was talking about the racist foundation of corporate greed.

    How do we talk about classim without taking about racism?

    American wealth can not be discussed without mention of free African slave labor, the rice, tobacco, sugar and cotton industry.

    We were called racist because we empowered ourselves and stood up for what was right.

     
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Prime cuts, previously frozen.
 
 

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