Posts tagged "occupy oakland"
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Notes: 7 / 3 weeks ago
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Notes: 81 / 3 months ago from facingreality
To Be Fair, He Is a Journalist: A Short Response to Chris Hedges on the Black Bloc
Read it all. You’ll thank yourself later when you’re the only person in the room who has any idea what a black bloc actually is or what it does. Just think of all the sweet fact-based ownage you’re going to be doling out. Doling out the harshness.
By Don Gato
It was a little weird to wake up today to an article by Chris Hedges on a website called “Truth-Out” when “truth” is in such short supply in the piece. Hedges was trained as a journalist and worked for years at such luminaries of lies like the New York Times, so it shouldn’t be a secret where he’s gotten his sensationalism, his tendency to lie, his hyperbole, and, most of all, his seeming inability to do rudimentary research. Nonetheless, when activist celebrities like Hedges (and his friend here, Derrick Jensen) write even complete nonsense like this, it tends to have a certain conceptual currency with people. And though I’d much rather be visiting with friends today (who promised me peanut butter cookies, no less!), I figured I’d take a few minutes to point out some of the more egregious distortions in Hedges’ terrible piece.
Definitions
First, we need to clear up some definitional problems. Now, as a journalist, I really don’t expect Hedges to be able to “research,”—it does seem to go against the prime directives of the profession, but let’s be clear: There’s no such thing as “The Black Bloc movement.” The black bloc is a tactic. It’s also not just a tactic used by anarchists, so “black bloc anarchists” is a bit of a misnomer—particularly because Hedges doesn’t know the identities of the people under those sexy, black masks. In fact, it was autonomists in the 80s who came up with the (often quite brilliant) idea in Germany. Protecting themselves against the repression of what Hedges calls “the security and surveillance state,” squatters, protesters, and other rabble rousers would dress in all black, covering up tattoos, their faces, and any other identifying features so they could act against this miserable world and, with some smarts and a sharp style, not get pinched by the pigs. This was true of resisters who were protecting marches (because the state never needs an excuse to incite violence and police are wont to riot and attack people), destroying property, or sometimes just marching en masse. That is, the black bloc has all kinds of uses. And in Oakland, where Hedges seems particularly upset by people actually having the gall to defend themselves against insane violent police thugs instead of just sit there idly by getting beaten, on Move-In Day the bloc looked mostly defensive—shielding themselves and other protesters from flash grenades and police mob violence with make-shift shields (and even one armchair). So, to be clear: The black bloc is a tactic used by lots of people, not just anarchists, and it has all kinds of uses. It’s not a “movement.”
Who Is This Straw Fankenstein?
And, importantly, people in black blocs don’t have “unity” with one another about politics. This is another bizarre part of Hedges’ hatchet job. He goes on this long diatribe about what “The Black Bloc Movement” (this weird straw Frankenstein he’s created) believes. We learn in his piece that this Frankenstein is “against organization” when members of the black bloc, anarchists included, have all kinds of ideas about organization (none of which are “against organization”). If Chris did a little research, he’d find that “The Black Bloc Papers,” for example, were edited and compiled by two members of a formal political organization. And while many anarchists do reject formal political organizations, no anarchists oppose “organization” as such. Rather, we have disagreements over organizational form, duration, formality, purpose, and so on. Not to state the obvious, but considering our collective failure to smash capitalism, the state, and all other manifestations of coercive power over others, uh, shouldn’t we be building those kinds of critiques? If Hedges were interested in honesty, he might know that’s also why many anarchists are critical of the Left (I imagine dishonest and divisive hatchet jobs by Leftist celebrities like this one is another reason why more and more anarchists reject the Left—among its many other shortcomings and failures).
He goes on to state that this Frankenstein he’s created is universally under the influence of John Zerzan, then attacks Zerzan. Again, this just shows how out of touch Hedges is and how he’s fooled himself into believing he knows what he’s talking about when he doesn’t (a very common trait for celebrity journalists). Apparently it needs repeating, the black bloc is not a unified “movement”—it’s a bunch of folks dressed similarly so they can’t be identified by the popo. There are all kinds of thoughts on Zerzan in such a grouping, some supportive, some not, some who, no doubt, have no idea who he is. But Zerzan doesn’t speak for the bloc—no one does. And so there’s this weird “guilt-by-association” in this piece which ends in blaming criticisms of the Zapatistas on this “Black Bloc Movement” that he’s created.
Gender Essentialism! It’s Not Just For the 70s Anymore!
Hedges also critiques the black bloc for its supposed “hypermasculinity,” engaging in a gender essentialism that belies his inability to keep up with contemporary radicalism. In Oakland, part of the militant march on Move-In Day was the “Feminist and Queer Bloc.” I’m sure they would be quite surprised to learn that self-defense against violent police thugs and petty vandalism is actually a man’s activity! Why, those poor, beleaguered women and queers are probably alienated from such militancy, along with the befuddled masses that Hedges seems to be writing for! Rather than a lengthy critique of this already-disposed-of pseudo objection, I’ll let Harsha Walia enlighten Hedges on the problems of wealthy white, men like himself attempting to speak for the alienated and frightened “victims” of such “masculine” activities as building a confrontational and militant movement against capitalism and the state. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oesjegD1-Vg
The Personal Is Antipolitical
Some of this is personal to me, in the interest of full disclosure. I have friends in Oakland. They’re brave and awesome. Seeing them stand up to police repression and attempt to take an empty building while people sleep in the streets was exciting and invigorating for me. It was a welcome sight in today’s age of non-violent fundamentalism, where so many are beset with the crippling belief that if we just get beat up badly enough we’ll attract “the masses” with our moral superiority and somehow the wealthy and powerful will recognize the error of their ways and give us the world back that they’ve so successfully turned into their nightmarish, authoritarian, and wasted playground. My friends were gassed, beaten, given broken faces, broken dreams, and locked in cages for their bravery. And now they’re being denounced by a comfortable journalist who wasn’t there who refers to them as a “cancer”.
I don’t want to suggest that they shouldn’t be critiqued. Self-critique is important for any improvement of practice—if it’s honest.
But here I feel betrayed. When Hedges wrote about the Greeks, notorious for their black blocs, he praised them for “getting it.” Indeed, according to Hedges, they knew what to do. In Hedges own words:
They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
Apparently for Hedges, that’s good enough for the Greeks. But, by God, don’t you dare bring this filthy resistance to his home! You might accidentally (horror of horrors!) break a window! Perhaps it might belong to Hedges! Well, I passed around his piece on Greece thinking that perhaps there was, in fact, a journalist that “gets it.” I was wrong and I feel betrayed.
So I am angry at Hedges. I know it shows and it will look ugly to some people, but at one point, I trusted his work. And now, I have broken and brave friends that he is denouncing in a movement that he is dividing and presuming to speak for.
After the Move-In Day, the Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, asked the Occupy movement to “disown” Oakland because they were militant, uncompromising, and because they were willing to engage in the kinds of “class warfare” that Hedges once praised in Greece. Occupy groups quickly dismissed this as a divisive tactic, but Hedges and Derrick Jensen seem all too eager to help Mayor Quan out. We live in interesting times, but we need to see these kinds of attacks for what they are—forms of recuperating needed and justified rage. When rigid ideologues who think they have some kind of special access to “Truth” come in swinging like this, particularly right after being politely asked to by liberal Mayors like Quan to do so, it’s time to do some quick disowning. We should reject the attempts to divide us by the likes of Quan, Jensen, and Hedges and, more importantly, reject the lies and distortions embedded in these facile “critiques.” Shame on you, Chris. If you want to denounce “violence,” you might use your time to target the police and Mayor Quan instead of doing the work they’ve asked Occupy “leaders” to do for them.
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Notes: 5 / 3 months ago from bookmarklet"Such actions may be undertaken for a variety of reasons: As a protest against a country’s foreign policy. To distance oneself from the foreign or domestic policies of one’s home country. As a protest at the very laws prohibiting the actions in question. As a protest against nationalism. As a protest against the government in power in the country, or against the country’s form of government. A symbolic insult to the people of that country. In common usage, the phrase ‘flag burning’ refers only to burning a flag as an act of protest."
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Notes: 83 / 3 months ago from ectoplasmosis
Extraordinary portraits of the human beings who make up Occupy Oakland by photographer JR, who says:
Let’s use art to turn OCCUPY OAKLAND inside out. The strength of Occupy lies in the fact that a professor, a laborer, a student, an immigrant, the unemployed, and a business owner can stand together demanding change. We will line the streets of Oakland with large scale portraits that highlight the diversity of Occupy.
I am particularly struck by the intensity of each subject’s personality, which is something I have noticed in other photographs from Occupations: it is as if these people are most truly themselves when gazing out from a principled position, which is really no surprise, I guess. I have to fight the urge to romanticize and fictionalize them—they are not concept art, nor are they plucky rebel fighters from a post-apocalyptic film. They are really doing it—they are really going out and breathing tear gas and catching rubber bullets, batons and grenades, and they’re doing it to prove a point.
It’s a good point, too.
Inside Out Project [Facebook]
Inside Occupy Oakland [Flickr | more photos here]
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Notes: 15 / 3 months ago from bookmarklet"There are people in this world who kill and torture innocent people, and they won’t listen to reason. They are the bad guys. The only thing they will listen to is a kick in the fucking teeth. Pacifists love to use Gandhi as an example of how nonviolent protest works, but they forget that Gandhi was effective because Britain was a civlized democracy with a lot of press access. If Gandhi had tried his approach under Stalin, or Mao Tse Tung - or even, yes, Saddam Hussein - then we never would have heard of him. He’d be buried deep in a ditch with a bullethole through one lens of his glasses."-
The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett’s Journal - A Love Letter To Those Who Kill
Yeah. Those people are called “the police”.
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Notes: 69 / 3 months ago from collaterlysisters
“Protect the Person Behind You”
Masked shield corps protester at Occupy Oakland on January 28th with homemade shield and sign. A group of these people protected unarmed and legally-assembled civilian marchers during the Oakland Police Department attack on the action, including catching rubber bullets, baton blows, flashbang and teargas grenades, pepper balls, and beanbag weapons on their shields.
Her Ya Basta sign signals her membership in a long-running leftist group of the same name, who often take it upon themselves to protect vulnerable protesters at actions in this way.
Edit: on a personal note, it’s fascinating to see this kind of brilliant “character design” manifesting in real life. She’s the Space Marine of her time—customized armor, personal touches everywhere, absolutely hardassed and reliable in the face of an overwhelming, alien, indefatigable foe.
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Notes: 6 / 3 months ago from bookmarklet"Cognitech, Inc. has announced the recent donation of it’s forensic video enhancement Tri-Suite 11 software system to the Oakland Police Department, at the request of the Oakland Law Enforcement, and in the interest of the City of Oakland, CA, community at large with the purpose of forensically enhancing and analyzing video footage from the Occupy Oakland protests in order to “find the forensic truth” in the recorded incidents/events footage."-
Cognitech, Inc. Announces Donation of Software to the Oakland Police Department
I told you it was the grim cyberpunk future, and you didn’t fucking believe me. Why didn’t you believe me?
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Notes: 8 / 3 months ago
Another video from Saturday’s Occupy Oakland march.
0:40 - Oakland PD officers grab an unarmed, non-violent protester, throw him onto the ground, and as he lies there unresisting, beat him with batons. At the end of the video, one pig points to the cameraman (who has been doing absolutely nothing) and says, “Perez, this guy goes to jail.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the Oakland Police Department.
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Notes: 15 / 3 months ago
Aerial video of Saturday evening when the Occupy Oakland march was kettled in a public park by the Oakland Police, ordered to disperse, and then not allowed to do so. Anarchists knocked down a cyclone fence to allow the trapped civilians to escape.
1. A march was stopped at Telegraph Ave and William St.
2. All park exists were blocked off
3. The crowed was ordered to leave without being allowed any exit
4. Gas / Chemicals, projectiles, batons, and explosives were used on the public
I was not sure during the filming, but gas was definitely used on this residential area. I definitely felt sick later as the gas reached my apartment.
Protesters did not destroy any personal property. Building windows and cars remained untouched (in this area at least).
I have no doubt that the number of marchers will increase next time. This group started with camping - The city’s responses seem to be slowly turning them into some kind of militia.
See related video from earlier the same day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46UeXGhvaTI -
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.
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Notes: 77 / 3 months ago from mrdominos (originally from 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:
- http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/oakland_leaders_assess_damage.html
- http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-738326?hpt=hp_bn1
- http://occupyoakland.org/2011/10/general-strike-mass-day-of-action/
- http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/30/us/california-occupy/?hpt=ibu_c2
(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.
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Notes: 77 / 3 months ago from 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:
- http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/oakland_leaders_assess_damage.html
- http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-738326?hpt=hp_bn1
- http://occupyoakland.org/2011/10/general-strike-mass-day-of-action/
- http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/30/us/california-occupy/?hpt=ibu_c2
(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.
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Notes: 120 / 3 months ago from idealkomsomolet
(Source: idealkomsomolet)
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Notes: 15 / 3 months ago from collaterlysisters
Oakland Police firing flashbang grenades at protesters during the J28 march yesterday.
(Source: collaterlysisters)
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Notes: 18 / 4 months ago from anonmedics (originally from susie-c)
An Extrajudicial Execution
Fourteen Occupy Oakland protesters were arrested yesterday in a series of scuffles following police harassment at Occupy’s sustained vigil in Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant plaza. Most of those people remain in jail as of this writing on a variety of heavy charges, including in at least one case: 405a. “lynching.”
California’s 1933 anti-lynching law was largely aimed at preventing racist crowds from overtaking police attempting arrests of black people and enacting their own version of murderous “justice.”
405. Every person who participates in any riot is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
405a. The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer is a lynching.
405b. Every person who participates in any lynching is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for two, three or four years.
Since 1933, the law has been used broadly against those seeking to stop what they perceive to be unjust arrests of all kinds.
It appears that the definition of “lynching” was further broadened in the First District Court of Appeal’s 1999 decision in the People v. Anthony J:
Under California law, “lynching” includes not only the notorious form of lynch mob behavior that aims to take vengeance on the victim, but also any participation in riotous conduct aimed at freeing a person from the custody of a peace officer. Accordingly, we conclude that a person who takes part in a riot leading to his escape from custody can be convicted of his own lynching.
This is how Gabe Meyers was charged following his arrest at a protest in San Francisco in 2005. (Update: Charges were later dropped.)
The arrests of occupiers at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant plaza Friday afternoon were not a mass arrest situation, but “surgical” arrests aimed at targeting individuals. The Oakland Police Department has been holding the lynching charge in their back pocket to deal with Occupy Oakland since planning for the first raid on October 25.
Logistically, the arrested occupier charged with lynching is relatively physically small; regardless of the legality of an alleged unarrest action, the arrestee was likely not capable of being effective against the physically large Oakland police officers they allegedly wronged. As in most of the national police actions against occupiers nationwide, this arrest seemed not to be aimed at maintaining the peace or diffusing a high-stakes and arguably violent situation, but at punishing individuals.
And as in most if not all of the national police actions against occupiers, the legality of these arrests and the resulting charges appears to rest on law enforcement’s own seemingly subjective definitions of “lawful.”
Following
