Salon.com > Occupy Oakland

What to expect on May Day

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:36:00 +0000

With just one day to go until May Day, the Occupy-planned general strike remains a largely unknown quantity. How many people will skip work to take to the streets? The Occupy call, which has gained support from numerous labor and immigrant justice groups, reads "No Work, No School, No Housework, No Shopping. Take the Streets!" It's just a matter of hours before we see whether and how it will be answered.

I have written here at some length against judging this May Day by standards of traditional general strikes -- not seen in the U.S. since the 1940s -- or contemporary mass strikes in Europe, where unions have not been politically pummeled into weakness, as they have in this country. And although pundits are looking at May Day as a referendum on Occupy's relevance, it's unclear what success in this case means or would look like. Marches (both permitted and un-permitted), free meals, teach-ins, college student and high-school walkouts and roving dance parties have been scheduled in 115 cities around the country. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and other well-known musicians will be joining a "guitarmy" -- 1,000 guitarists marching (and strumming) from New York City's midtown to Union Square. Clearly, the general strike organizers in New York are less interested in affirming the strength or relevance of a movement than they are in experimenting with new tactics. Still, there's a feeling that somehow, and in some bold way, it's got to be big.

The truth about violence at Occupy

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:04:00 +0000

When you fall in love, it’s all about what you have in common, and you can hardly imagine that there are differences, let alone that you will quarrel over them, or weep about them, or be torn apart by them -- or if all goes well, struggle, learn, and bond more strongly because of, rather than despite, them. The Occupy movement had its glorious honeymoon when old and young, liberal and radical, comfortable and desperate, homeless and tenured all found that what they had in common was so compelling the differences hardly seemed to matter.

Until they did.

Revolutions are always like this: at first all men are brothers and anything is possible, and then, if you’re lucky, the romance of that heady moment ripens into a relationship, instead of a breakup, an abusive marriage, or a murder-suicide. Occupy had its golden age, when those who never before imagined living side-by-side with homeless people found themselves in adjoining tents in public squares.

Occupy Oakland protesters denied medication in jail

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:30:00 +0000

The Alameda County Sheriff's Department in California has earned itself a reputation for heavy-handed responses to Occupy Oakland. Since Tuesday, allegations of abusive treatment by officers have escalated as arrestees detained during Saturday's mass Occupy actions in Oakland were released after up to three-day stints in holding cells at the department's Santa Rita Jail.

Salon has received three firsthand accounts, corroborated by reports from Occupy Oakland's media team and the National Lawyers Guild, that ill and injured inmates were denied medication including anti-retroviral treatments for HIV-positive detainees.

"I am a person living with HIV and I was held for over 30 hours in Santa Rita and denied my prescription medications on multiple occasions by jail staff," one 28-year-old arrestee told Salon via email, asking to remain anonymous as his family are currently unaware of his HIV status. "I know three others with HIV and many others with psychiatric prescriptions who were also held without being given their meds," he added.

“It looked like a trap”

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

On Saturday, Occupy Oakland held their largest action since the Port Shutdown in December. It was “Move In Day,” and the goal was to Occupy a vacant building. I wasn't really sure how I felt about this action, in part because the Occupiers had to keep the identity of the building secret. I wasn't necessarily against, but let's just say I was undecided.

When I'd first started visiting the camp back in October, I hadn't been sure about it either, but after I'd been there several times, I saw something beautiful grow that I'd never expected. So, I've learned to give Occupy Oakland the benefit of the doubt.

The day began with a rally at noon at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza. I asked many people if they were planning to enter the building. Almost everyone said they were uncertain, they would wait and see how things were going. There were about 500 people gathered.

The case for making a storm in the ports

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:47:00 +0000

The Occupy movement is sailing into murky waters. The coordinated West Coast port shutdown wasn’t just risky because of police violence against occupiers. Shutting down the ports of Longview, Wash., Portland, Ore., and Oakland, Calif., as the protesters did (along with more limited shut-downs in Vancouver, Seattle, Bellingham, Wash., San Diego, Los Angeles, and at a Walmart distribution center in Colorado), has had the result of taking some work hours away from port and shipping laborers who are in a very precarious situation. Actions in Ventura, Calif., Tacoma, Wash., Houston and Anchorage targeted the ports as well, but for this reason did not actually attempt to shut them down.

Port of Oakland shut down

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:46:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Monday’s 5:30 a.m. march to shut down the Port of Oakland was cold, wet and dark, but adrenaline was high for the day of action coordinated over the past few weeks with hours of debate, outreach and planning. More than Occupy Wall Street camps — mostly between Anchorage and San Diego, but also in Denver, Houston, New York City and others -- demonstrated in solidarity with the Longview, Wash., longshoremen’s six-month battle with multinational grain transporter EGT and L.A. port truck workers who suffer low wages and union-busting practices.

The crowd was mostly, but not limited to, the young core organizers who have been involved since the beginning. There were also a mother strapped with a child, a clergyman, workers and teachers. While union leaders had voiced opposition to the action, there were plenty of union members in the crowd. At around 10 a.m., protesters got word that the port was officially closed after the arbiter had deemed it an unsafe workplace. Marchers left the port, many holing up for afternoon naps and meals. Those who still had energy, along with day workers who couldn’t make the “morning shift,” rallied at Occupy Oakland's original site, Frank Ogawa Plaza, to hear organizers, union leaders and veteran activist Angela Davis speak.

The costs of a port shutdown

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:45:00 +0000

Why did the Occupy movement attempt to shut down West Coast shipping ports on Monday? In their own words, the goal was to strike at the 1 percent. From the San Jose Mercury News:

Barucha Peller, a member of the Occupy Oakland blockade assembly... said. "When we withdraw our labor, we make a (dent) in the 1 percent. Economic boycotts are very effective. The occupation movement is moving into a larger and more coherent strategy of how to disrupt the profits of the 1 percent."

From US News & World Report:

"By shutting down work at the ports this [is] one more day that Goldman Sachs and Wall Street firms are unable to create profit," said Occupy Portland spokeswoman Kari Koch, according to the Portland Tribune.

Occupy vs. Big Labor

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:20:00 +0000

As Occupy Wall Street groups stretching from San Diego to Anchorage mobilize for a multi-port shutdown of the North American West Coast, union members are finding the mobilization offers more than just support against union busting and unfair contracts. Activists and rank-and-file workers say the movement is teaching them what the bureaucratic infrastructure of organized labor has made them forget: collective power.

On Dec. 12, general assemblies (the decentralized governing bodies of OWS) in Los Angeles, Oakland, Calif., Tacoma, Wash., Santa Barbara, Calif., Portland, Ore., Seattle, Longview, Wash., San Diego, Anchorage, California's Port Hueneme region, and dozens of smaller camps plan to blockade ports and halt commerce for a day. There is a combined Dallas-Houston effort to demonstrate at the port in Houston. Japanese rail workers, who are sympathetic to longshoremen, who work a partner company of Bunge -- the company Occupy is protesting -- will be demonstrating in Japan.

A teepee grows in Oakland

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:10:00 +0000

OAKLAND -- As evicted Occupy groups around the country suffer further dispossession (L.A. and Philadelphia camps were raided by police last night) the press release from Occupy Oakland read like a signal flare. At noon Tuesday, it announced, activists would retake Frank Ogawa Plaza and "create a model for a new wave of 'Occupation' protest throughout the United States."

What actually happened was a little more ambiguous, to say nothing of strange. Also, it revolved around a teepee.

To invest in the high-volume, low-boil soap opera that seized a tiny corner of downtown Oakland today, one must trace Occupy's strange evolution in recent weeks, and then one must throw all that out because Oakland's its own weird thing. Militant, politically shrewd, economically screwed, energized, immature, determined, obsessive, scarred or none of the above, the Bay Area city has a proud history of inspiring passionate ambivalence. Occupy Oakland, for its part, is either a can of Jolt for a flagging international movement, or an embarrassment to a steadier one. Depends whom you ask is often as true about Oakland as it is about Occupy.

Scott Olsen to cops, protesters: “Stay peaceful”

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:38:00 +0000

Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran and Occupy protester who was critically wounded by a police projectile in Oakland in October, has given his first on-camera interview since being released from the hospital.

"Right now I'm kind of waiting to see what [the police] are going to say about themselves in their own investigation, and to see if they have the integrity required of them," he told Indybay at Oscar Grant Plaza Sunday. He added he has not yet been interviewed as part of the investigation.

He wears a neck brace and speaks haltingly, presumably because of the lingering effects of his head injury.

Asked if he had any message for Occupy protesters and police, Olsen responded:

"To all of them, I would have to say, 'Stay peaceful,' because that's what this is about. Working together, working with one another. And it's about being open with each other. That's how we can solve our problems. "

Watch:

Pancho’s Message to the 100%

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:54:00 +0000

An undocumented Oakland occupier arrested earlier this week was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Thursday after his supporters bombarded ICE, local officials and Rep. Barbara Lee with demands for his release. Francisco "Pancho" Ramos-Stierle, a Mexican-born former graduate student in astrophysics turned community activist, became a cause celebre among his fellow demonstrators after he was arrested Monday while meditating during the police dismantling of the Occupy Oakland Camp in Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza.

"This is totally the revolution of the human spirit," he told friends in a conference call after his release, "and this is such a pleasure to be surrounded with all of you."

ICE can still recall Ramos-Stierle for a deportation hearing at any time but supporters are claiming victory for the man they call Pancho and vindication for the message of "restorative justice." While critics may wonder what the immigration issue has to do with Occupy Wall Street’s over-arching message of political and economic inequality, Pancho’s friends have no trouble connecting the dots.

On the eve of destruction

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Without tear gas or rubber bullets this time, police broke up the Occupy Oakland encampment in the hours before dawn Monday morning. City officials served a fourth eviction notice Sunday evening, after a murder at the camp's borders Thursday night validated worries about crime and safety even among some camp supporters. Some Occupy Oakland leaders insisted the victim had nothing to do with the protest, but once police announced Sunday night that the 25-year-old man, Kayode Ola Foster, had been camping there, and so had at least one of the suspects, it seemed it could only be a matter of hours before cops moved in to close the camp. And it was – about seven hours, to be exact. Most of the crowd dispersed peacefully; 32 people were arrested.

I made my first trip to Occupy Oakland midday Sunday, and I wasn't going to write about it without returning, because the movement is too complicated for a drive-by report. Several people I admire, including Alternet's Joshua Holland, have been doing day-in, day-out shoe-leather reporting. But now that Foster and at least one murder suspect have been tied to the camp, and now that it's gone, at least in its present form, I'm going to try to make sense of what I saw.

Report from the Occupy Oakland raid

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:20:00 +0000

Have you ever spent time waiting for someone close to you to die? Then you know the feeling of being mired in an unknown void, where one doesn't know if it will be that weekend, that afternoon, that hour. That sickened feeling in your gut, the premonition that something very bad will happen, an imminent threat staring you in the face, mixing up all your thoughts and emotions, holding you hostage, stealing the hours spent waiting and waiting.

I think the Oakland Police department and city officials understand those feelings well, and spent this holiday weekend exploiting them fairly effectively. At least on me. A feeling of dread crept in as I read the items that were leaked out, like the following email that was circulated on Sunday:

A highly coordinated law enforcement raid to clear out OO is planned to take place Monday morning early. Significant public safety mutual aid is being called in from neighboring jurisdictions. The goal is to permanently clear out the OO encampment of illegal activities. Expect to see overwhelming use of force by police directed to occupiers who refuse to comply.

Peaceful protesters are advised by police to stand down until the situation stabilizes. The general public is advised to stay away from the area during the action to avoid potential personal injury from incidental contact with conflicts.

Spiritual leaders arrested at Occupy Oakland

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:11:00 +0000

At least a dozen spiritual leaders were arrested in the evacuation of Occupy Oakland on Monday morning as they sat in a candlelit circle in front of the camp's interfaith tent. They were among 32 people arrested by riot police, according to news reports.

"They wanted to hold the sacred space and be a peaceful presence," said Jon Jackson, deacon at the First Congregational Church of Oakland, a camp participant who chose not to be arrested. According to witnesses, the arrested included Kurt Khuwald, a professor at the Starr King seminary in Berkeley, Father Joseph Vitale, who has been arrested many times before, and Marcus Leifert, a seminary student at Starr King.

“The Occupy movement wants to make people aware of the gross disparity, which is what Jesus and many other religious leaders want,” Jackson said. Jesus, he noted, “was opposed to government hierarchy” and was always talking about the oppression of the poor.