For over five months, I attended every Occupy Oakland General Assembly, made an audio recording of the proceedings, and uploaded them on to an open source archive with links on my General Assembly Audio page. As time went on, however, I became lazier about uploading the recordings, as it takes about two hours from device… [Read more…]
May 24, 2012
It’s been quite a week for the alternately repressive and inept institutions of the City of Oakland. Last Tuesday, City Council members heard the emotional testimony of the Blueford family, whose son Alan, an eighteen year old senior about to graduate from Skyline High School, was shot by a still undisclosed Oakland police officer. The… [Read more…]
May 21, 2012
In one of the District Attorney O’Malley’s first sane acts in years, her office this morning agreed to drop charges on the so-called ‘Ice Cream 3′. These three activists were charged with criminal acts, and, incredibly with a “hate crimes” enhancement, stemming from a non-physical and non-violent altercation with a bystander during a bank-closing action.… [Read more…]
May 19, 2012
Part 1: to plant, you must supplant On an overcast and damp Earth Day 2012, a small but boisterous group of activists made their way to a rusting gate off of San Pablo Avenue, at the Berkeley-Albany border. Led by a marching band, carrying a shiny red soil tiller and trailers full of tools, the… [Read more…]
May 16, 2012
Michael Siegel, a champion of Occupy who’s done tons of pro bono work, including the initial defense for Kali, was kicked off the civil service commission last night via a proposal introduced by Libby Shaaf. While most mayoral appointments are simply rubberstamped by city council people, Shaf introduced a proposal to “bifurcate” Siegel’s name from… [Read more…]
May 14, 2012
UCPD from across California arrived in several police and chartered vans today, just after 6am. UCPD then gave a ten minute dispersal order, before Dear Ocean View Parents: I want to thank our families for getting students to school on time today. Despite the presence of helicopters and TV crews, school started as usual. UC… [Read more…]
May 9, 2012
I and other farmers were awakened this morning to the sound of police bullhorns, informing us that UCPD were barricading the West entrance of the Gill Tract on Jackson St. and that they were deploying at the East entrance on San Pablo. In response, occupiers have moved some of their tools and infrastructure off site,… [Read more…]
May 7, 2012
Part 1: As the electoral cycle begins both locally and nationally, it’s not surprising to find various formulations of the increasingly toxic 99-meme spreading virulently. At its heart, the Occupy movement has been characterized by a rejection of status-quo organizing, electoral end-runs and “progressive” establishment institutions. A decades-long frustration with illusory gains from orderly city-certified… [Read more…]
April 29, 2012
I was horribly misquoted in an article in an SF Chronicle article by Kevin Fagan and Carolyn Jones. In my twenty or so minute phone interview with Jones, I never once mentioned the word violence, and neither did Jones. She did at one point, ask me, in a vague formulation, about Occupy Oakland’s “aggressive” actions,… [Read more…]
April 28, 2012
Josh Harkinson’s recent Nation article on the new and murky 99% Movement–a traditional top-down institutional organizing campaign dressed in Occupy meme-ery–ironically and unintionally states many of the issues that are at stake this May Day for Occupy and Americans. For months, the original set of Occupy movements that have survived repeated cullings by local authorities,… [Read more…]
April 20, 2012
The FBI seized a server from an office jointly shared by May/First People link and Riseup, two radical collectives of information activists providing internet services for the activist community around the country and world, on Wednesday. Riseup provides a crucial anonymous email service, which masks the identities of the sender and receiver, allowing for activists… [Read more…]
April 9, 2012
Part 1: Yesterday was the first contentious General Assembly in a long while for Occupy Oakland. In the camp days, months ago, heated discourse was the norm for GA’s. The on-going need of sharing the camp, and the simmering stew of perspectives, experiences and ideologies that went into that process, created a vibrant, often antagonistic,… [Read more…]
March 26, 2012
I began this blog eight years ago as a response to my feelings of powerlessness over the duopoly that controls our country. Throughout that time, I was constantly depressed that most of my political activity had become electronically based, because of the lack of a viable mass movement in the US. Over the past year,… [Read more…]
March 15, 2012
As I’m doing the sound check for our interview, I ask Adalberto Castellon the perfunctory question designed to elicit a few seconds of continuous speech—it’s the usual, “what did you have for lunch” question. Adalberto, who goes by Adal, tells me that he had a protein shake, and then explains that it’s all he can… [Read more…]
March 9, 2012
The story of American law enforcement has always been that of once-private protection firms for 1% elites in search of a social mandate. Despite the obvious primary role that police have in protecting the property of the richest and most powerful, life in a democracy is tough for elite guards—they must grow and assume forms… [Read more…]
March 3, 2012
Months ago, District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, in collusion with Mayor Jean Quan’s office and the direction of Deanna Santana, began a series of strategies designed to silence free speech—that is, from their perspective, the wrong kinds of speech directed at powerful local actors. As a recent dump of emails show, Quan was quite keen to… [Read more…]
February 24, 2012
On Sunday, while Occupy Oakland prepared for a mass day of action protesting the prison/industrial complex, Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley published a torrent of disinformation in the form of an Op-Ed in the SF Chronicle. O’Malley’s obvious intention was to justify the city’s use of constitution-violating “stay away orders” from city government, city hall,… [Read more…]
February 21, 2012
An ugly set of rumors, innuendo and apparently purposed disinformation from media and the Berkeley Police Department have risen out of the murder of Peter Cukor outside of his home in Berkeley on Friday, February 17 . The narrative meme—that police busy monitoring Occupy Oakland protests are somehow prevented from stopping such crimes—is the same… [Read more…]
February 19, 2012
Violence has always been a useful term for governments and their allied establishment figures in media and punditry. Key to that utility is a very specialised use of the term as a descriptor for actions that don’t originate with the establishment or authorities. Police, armies, presidents and city administrators do not engage in violence. They… [Read more…]
February 17, 2012
I grew up within two very beautiful, but guilt-ridden cultures, so its always difficult to ask for support for my blog. It seems the height of arrogance and privilege to ask for money for something that, as arduous as its been, is also something I love doing. When I started my first kickstarter, I was… [Read more…]
February 14, 2012
I began to be radicalized in my twenties by my experiences as an Arab American traveling in Spain, the ugly racism and blood-thirst of the first US invasion of Iraq, and police repression during the protests that erupted after the Rodney King verdict in California. When I lived in Barcelona I was arrested in a… [Read more…]
February 4, 2012
I had a frustrating interview on Voice of Russia radio earlier this week. I’ve been on the show a couple of times before, and I’ve found the hosts to be level-headed and fair. So I was deeply shocked and surprised, when, after this last weekend’s events, they kept coming back, again and again, to the… [Read more…]
January 30, 2012
The Stop the Injunctions Coalition rightly sees the parallel between the free speech issues of Occupy Oakland activists and those of targeted community members resisting “gang injunctions”. They’ve sent this press release to highlight the OPD/City’s continued misuse of resources into preventing freedom of speech and assembly instead of funding homes, schools and jobs for… [Read more…]
January 22, 2012
Last week, I wrote about an Occupier whose charges—previously not pursued—were suddenly resurrected at an unannounced hearing. Had it not been for the fact that several other occupiers happened to be in the courtroom on the day of the unscheduled hearing when they heard their friend’s name called, that Occupier would now be facing several… [Read more…]
January 21, 2012
On December 28, in the midst of Occupy Oakland’s continuing battle against the city and OPD at Oscar Grant Plaza, another kind of Occupation battle was taking place in Sacramento, largely out of sight of both activists and media. Homeless campers were experiencing another raid, as police cleared out their encampment. Despite the fact that… [Read more…]
January 17, 2012
Stay Away Orders: At least two Occupiers have, or have been told they will receive, stay away orders from Oscar Grant Plaza. Ironically, these 300 yrd. stay orders given as condition of release on bail for protesters arrested for expressing their freedom of speech rights, also bar them from engaging in city hall, visiting their… [Read more…]
January 13, 2012
A week or so ago, many people were horrified by video of riot-gear clad Oakland police rushing a woman fleeing on a bike, and then beating her as she fell off her bicycle. That woman was Leila, and that bicycle with its trailer has brought countless meals and supplies to Oscar Grant plaza in the… [Read more…]
January 12, 2012
A lot of Occupiers who went out to support the strikers of Baker’s Union Local 125 were excited to be in the picket line, working toward an achievable short-term goal with that long-mythologized Occupy-hating community, “working folks”. The excitement was mutual. The striking workers, –many of them Latinos–were happy, if not curious, about their new… [Read more…]
January 8, 2012
There was a lot of bullshit at the “fuck the police march”. I think throwing bottles from behind, and doing other childish hijinks and disappearing into the crowd is the height of immaturity. What’s more, its difficult to believe that with all the antagonisms people of color in our group rightly have against police after… [Read more…]
January 6, 2012
Several news sources and articles, as well as the OPD Press Release dated January 3rd, 2012, have misstated the facts surrounding recent city and police actions at Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa plaza. For the record, here are some facts to counter some misinformation caused by lazy mainstream media reporting: 1. The Tipi Vigil was the product… [Read more…]
January 5, 2012
An UPDATE on OO Arrestees: Naomi, Svend, Knowledge, Dominic, Adam, Bunny, Stephanie, Diana & Nneka have all been charged with misdemeanor obstruction (148) [they’ve added a second misdemeanor for Stephanie] and will be arraigned tomorrow morning at 9am in Dept 107. Bail is set at $5000 for all of them except Stephanie whose bail is… [Read more…]
January 5, 2012
Enthralled with the beauty and community of the new 247vigil at Oscar Grant Plaza last night, I let go of all worry of a police raid. There was an almost holiday spirit of giving and sharing; everywhere you turned in the South End of the plaza people were laughing warmly or having intense political and… [Read more…]
January 4, 2012
Now that many of the arrestees from December 30th have been released, we’re hearing disturbing stories of targeted harassment against Occupy Oakland activists. Occupiers have all shared similar details; they have had the letters OK put on their wristbands, a practice apparently not being done to other detainees. According to several detainees, they were held… [Read more…]
January 3, 2012
Shortly after police raided Oscar Grant Plaza for the second time, an intrepid, but disparate group of campers began to organize themselves autonomously to maintain a presence in Oscar Grant Plaza. On the night of the raid itself, some OGP campers scaled a tree and—over the next week or so—erected a series of platforms that… [Read more…]
May 25, 2012
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