The Oakland Commune

Reportback from #J20

From an anonymous friend...


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This narrative of January 20th 2012 mostly follows the big sound bus brought by the Occupy Oakland Reclaim the Streets party. It ends during the building takeover, so there's more to the story if someone wants to add.

The morning's actions began before the sun came up, but not before the rain. Bechtel was quickly militarized (pun intended) with barricades and security guards, but people had already managed to get inside and squat the lobby. There were banks locked down or shut down all over the financial district. The sound bus gathered people and energy until the first Reclaim the Streets. It snaked around, visiting and supporting each lockdown or action and brought the music, dancing, and other ruckus with it. Bechtel was the first stop; shaking collective asses, blocking traffic to one of the world's most insidious military industrial leaders seemed to set a tone for the RtS. There was a move-in house party in front of Citibank to oppose foreclosures that included a Christmas tree, couch and TV. Code Pink was outside of Goldman Sachs with a person-sized squid to call attention to GS's slimy and sucky business dealings.

The intersection of California and Montgomery became a very important place at which to continue causing trouble all day long. Wells Fargo on one side with badass queer folks locked down and Bank of America on the other side with more lockdowns made it an ideal spot to park the bus and party and block traffic. When the police spastically arrested one person and the crowd surrounded them, many more cops showed up and the bus moved on.

Back at the Bank of America one block from B. Manning Plaza (aka Justin Herman) some folks had renamed BofA the “People's Food Bank of America” and served some delicious food to anyone walking by hungry. The bus crew was happy to partake when they arrived back at Embarcadero in time for the noon march.

The noon march was led by folks against ICE and was more regulated, but it in some ways it resembled the RtS. Although there were the ubiquitous orange-vest-people keeping the march on one side of the street, it also went to visit and support other actions before it arrived at ICE. Once ICE had been shut down, the march more or less dispersed and the RtS continued where the march left off (but without orange-vest-people of course.) Back to California and Montgomery, where the cops cut off the bus so it couldn't park again in front of the lockdown. There was one more stop before meeting up with the big evening march at BM Plaza. Unite Here Local 2 was picketing outside the Hyatt by Union Square. The union folks seemed a little less excited about being innundated with clowns, jugglers and other miscreants than the other actions, but when some bus folk joined the picket they got more into it. Suddenly it became apparent that the fountain outside the hotel had been filled with soap, because bubbles started flying in the wind, covering anyone in their path.


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Real trouble started right before the bus was about to leave the Hyatt. One especially friendly officer threatened the bus driver with 15 points on his driving record and suggested that he take the bus and leave town, though in different words. With threats still fresh, the bus left without the RtS and they marched back to BM Plaza. About 15 minutes before the march started, word went around that the bus was pulled over for something having to do with the taillight. About 50 people ran over to support, but were surprised to see the whole march come up the street and surround the bus and all the cops on the scene chanting “Whose bus? Our bus!” and “Cops go home!” 10 or so minutes later, the cops let the bus leave. Not sure exactly the end of the bus story, whether it got back to Oakland or not, but hope to find out soon.

The building occupation crew waited for a while at their meetup spot for the rest of the big march to arrive. They double-checked their banners and some masked up for the action ahead. Spirits were rowdy and high on the way to the building. The anti-capitalist bloc shouted at the police riding their motorcycles on the sidewalk and prevented cars from driving through the crowd. The building itself was huge – really, really huge. It was unbelievable at first that it could be empty. There were already police barricades set up, but the march was told that there were already occupiers inside. The cops started forming lines on either side of the block filled with people, and the fear of a kettle situation was real. Folks started walking down the block, and surprise! The Bentley dealership got its windows smashed by a couple of people. After an announcement that people were inside and wanted support, the march turned back toward the building.



However, this author did not. If anyone knows the rest of the story, please contribute!

First Building Occupation Assembly

On December 21, the Occupy Oakland GA voted to approve a proposal to occupy a building that would serve as "a social center, convergence center, and headquarters of the Occupy Oakland movement":

We propose to occupy and hold a large building that will serve the purpose of becoming a social center, convergence center and headquarters of the Occupy Oakland movement on Saturday, January 28th, 2012. The building will have sufficient office space for all of the Occupy Oakland committees and an auditorium large enough to hold Occupy Oakland general assemblies and adequate sleeping space. It will be a vacant building owned either by a bank, a large corporation of the 1% or already public. The occupation of the building will take place in daylight and on a weekend to ensure more safety and aim for maximum participation. The building will be the destination of a mass march, promoted as a “Move-In Day March” starting at Oscar Grant Plaza at 1pm and finishing up in the new building. Together we will enter the space, clean it, set it up and occupy it.

Having learned from the previous attempts at occupying spaces or buildings where we weren’t able to hold space because of police crack-downs and/or poor planning we know that the only way for this to work is having massive participation and when the time comes, effective defense of the building. To work out numerous details we propose having Building Occupation Assemblies that meet at Oscar Grant Plaza on Wednesdays at 5pm and on Sundays at 1pm with representatives from the Occupy Oakland committees and individuals. The working groups of this assembly will meet to discuss the plans necessary to make the move-in successful and create a vibrant social center. The strategies for the defense of the building will be decided collectively in these meetings.

We further propose a 2-day festival at the start of the occupation which would include cultural events, workshops and strategy sessions to generate community support and participation to further the occupy movement. The Building Occupation Assembly will coordinate this weekend festival. They will plan a full schedule of events, as well as coordinate outreach.

Those writing this proposal are in full agreement that keeping the address of the building a surprise is necessary when planning an action of this scale, so that the building proposed doesn’t have a preemptive shutdown by the city. On the other hand, to make this an all-inclusive action by Occupy Oakland, the authors of this proposal have been in touch with various individuals from committees regarding the particular address of the building. These include: the Kitchen Committee, Events Committee, Supply Committee, Sound Committee, Medics, Free School, Library, Finance Committee, Occupy Legal, Anti-Repression Committee and the Facilitation Committee yet we hope to expand this list. These individuals know the exact address of the building in order to help organize this action in a coordinated yet decentralized manner.

To conclude, in talking to members of our community and upon consulting committee members, many feel strongly that it is time to get Occupy Oakland indoors. The winter and rainy season is upon us and has taken its toll on our numbers, our strength, and our will to continue. We know there is much more to do, and we are excited to see our projects and political endeavors through by fighting for a new space seized from the 1% without permission that will suit our needs, and become something cherished by Occupy Oakland, residents of the Bay Area, and beyond.

As expected, the first meeting to start planning for the occupation will take place at 5pm on Wednesday, December 28th at the North Steps of Oscar Grant Plaza. The invitation we received via email reads as follows:

Recently, the GA passed a proposal to take a large building as a social center for Occupy Oakland. The date for this action is January 28, 2012. The intention is that this space will become the new home for Occupy Oakland, providing ample space for all of our committees and activities, room for assemblies, and sleeping space. (It must be added, however, for those who are concerned about it, that there was much support at the GA for retaining a presence at Oscar Grant Plaza, and even re-encamping at the plaza at a later date, projects which many in attendance at the GA did not think were in opposition to each other). This is a huge, exciting and important step for Occupy Oakland, one that many have been talking about for a very long time -- at least since November 2 -- and we expect that success in this regard will likely be very inspiring for other cities. In order to succeed, we will need this building to be as vibrant and full of activity as the camp was. Therefore, we want to have the full participation of all the committees, groups and individuals who have so far made this experiment so powerful. The first meeting will be on Wednesday December 28 at 5pm on the north steps of Oscar Grant Plaza, and we strongly encourage everyone who can to attend.

Future Meeting Schedule: Until January 7th, the Building Occupation Assembly will meet Mondays and Wednesdays at 5pm (in accordance with the modified GA schedule). Starting Sunday January 7th we will meet Sundays at 1pm and Wednesdays at 5pm. If needed the frequency of these meetings will be increased by the assembly.

Mass Rally and March, Oakland, 11/19

Call for Open University Strike and Solidarity Actions on November 15th

Adopted by the Occupy Cal General Assembly

After a mass rally and march of over 3,000 people, and repeated police assaults on the Occupy Cal encampment, the general assembly at UC Berkeley decided on the night of November 9th -- with over 500 votes, 95% of the assembly -- to organize and call for a strike and day of action on Tuesday, November 15. We ask that all classes be cancelled or held at Sproul Plaza.

The Open University strike is both a response to the University’s violent raid on the encampment, and an action against the defunding and privatization of public education in California.

We will strike to reassert our collective right to freely assemble, both at the University and elsewhere, so that we are able to build public spaces where we can discuss and counter the various crises affecting our communities. We stand in solidarity with the Occupy movement, and especially with Occupy Oakland, which has been, and may again soon be, repressed by the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department.

We will also strike to reaffirm our determination to fight for a truly public and free University, and for the refunding of all levels of public education and public services. Since the crisis of 2008, the UC Regents have accelerated their push to privatize the University, subjecting students to unsustainable levels of debt, excluding increasing numbers of students, and further resegregating public education in California. The policy of privatization also subjects workers to layoffs, work speedups, and drastic benefits reductions. All these regressive transformations are forms of structural violence, which the police enforced against the assembled students, faculty, and workers on November 9th.

We call upon all sectors of public higher education in California to take actions on Tuesday, November 15th, up to and including strike actions, and to join the mass convergences on November 16th at the UC Regents meeting and the CSU Trustees meeting. We also call upon workplaces and K-12 schools to join us, either by taking actions at their sites or by converging on UC Berkeley and helping us to open up and transform the University from which most Californians have been systematically excluded.

We do not think that property destruction is a useful tactic and we ask those who join the Open University to respect this sentiment. At the same time, we do not think that it is a good strategy to use physical force against those who might engage in such acts.

Please join us on November 15th as we stop business as usual at our University in order to open up and transform our campus, and as we reestablish the Occupy Cal encampment.

Schedule for November 15 Open University:

8am-5pm: All day open university activities (teach-outs, workshops, public readings, installations, etc.) at Sproul Plaza and surrounding areas.
Noon: Mass convergence at Sproul Hall and formal inauguration of day-long open university.
Noon – 2pm: Teach-outs in Sproul Plaza.
2pm: Rally against police violence and other, related forms of violence, including dispossession, privatization, and debt.
2:30pm: March to Berkeley High and Berkeley City College.
5pm: General Assembly at Sproul Plaza.

Occupy Cal’s Demands:

Local Demands
- Respect Free Speech, Including the Right to Set Up Tents.
- Immediate Resignation of Robert Birgeneau, George Breslauer, Harry LeGrande, and Mitch Celaya. Democratic Election of their Replacements by Students, Faculty, and Staff.
- Charge the Police Responsible for Brutalizing Protesters. No Use of Force Against Protests on Campus.
- Amnesty for All Protesters.
- Make UC Berkeley a Sanctuary Campus for Undocumented People. Pass the UC-wide Dream Act.
- Equal Benefits and Retirement Security for UC Union Workers.

Statewide Demands
- Reverse the Fee Hikes, Cuts, and Layoffs To At Least Their 2009 Levels.
- Refund Public Education and Public Services: Tax the Banks and Billionaires. Repeal Prop 13.
- Full Implementation of Affirmative Action. Overturn Prop 209.

Nationwide Demands
- Stop the Privatization of Public Education.
- Bail Out Schools and Public Services. Redirect Military Funding to Education.
- Immediate Forgiveness of All Student Debt.
- Repeal Race to the Top.
- Stop the Attacks on Teachers Unions.

Endorsing Groups:
Occupy Cal, UC Berkeley Faculty Association, UCSF Faculty Association, UC Davis Faculty Association, UC San Diego Faculty Association, UC Council of Faculty Associations, AFSCME 3299, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, California Nurses Association, Communities for a New California, UAW Local 2865 (UC), UAW 4123 (CSU), UC-AFT.

Occupy Oakland March to Support the Strike at UC Berkeley

Support Occupy Cal and its fight against police brutality and the privatization of the UC system.

After their attempted encampment was brutally attacked by police November 9, thousands of UC Berkeley students, faculty and staff gathered for a general assembly and called for a university strike on November 15. Tuition at Berkeley has doubled in recent years. In calling for a strike, activists realize that the university’s function in society is to create a division between haves and have-nots. Therefore, this is meant as a special kind of strike, one where all those who have been excluded from the UC system converge on the campus and help occupy it. At the same time as we shut the university down, we open it up to all who have been excluded from it.

We must recognize that the very same OPD officers and Sheriffs who attacked us here were sent only a few days later to brutalize people at Berkeley. And, once they are finished at Berkeley, they will return to attack us again. Furthermore, in one of its very first decisions, Occupy Oakland agreed to support all strikes in the Bay Area, including student strikes.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=259797034071707

Contextualizing Certain Actions that Took Place during the General Strike

Last Wednesday, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in the streets of Oakland, shut down the center of the city, and paralyzed the Port of Oakland. With so many people, affinity groups, and organizations involved, things are bound to happen that not everybody agrees with. In the aftermath of the day of action, many folks have stepped up on Facebook, Twitter, and even the Occupy Oakland website to criticize and condemn a couple of these actions: the property destruction at banks and a Whole Foods that took place during an anticapitalist march in the afternoon; and the occupation of the former Traveler's Aid Society, which occurred late Wednesday night and was violently repressed by hundreds of riot police with tear gas, flashbang grenades, rubber bullets, and arrests (including a number of journalists and legal observers). What we want to do here is to provide a few important pieces of background as a way of helping to contextualize Wednesday's actions.

To begin with, one of the very first decisions the GA made was to approve a statement on diversity of tactics. As of October 30, it was collected with a series of other decisions (including a statement to the media which we mentioned and started to discuss here), formatted into a single document, and distributed at the GA as the "Occupy Oakland General Assembly Decisions and Practices":

Occupy Oakland encourages diversity of tactics for actions that occur outside the camp. For example, during marches:

• when confronted by police, some people may want to attempt to have calm conversations with them, urging them to be non-violent
• some people may want to sit down in front of lines of police
• some people may want to express their anger by yelling at the police
• some people may want to attempt to remove police barriers
• some people may want to disrupt traffic or banks
• some people may prefer to remain on the sidewalk

We should be tolerant of each other’s approaches and respect different forms of protest, while being aware of our privilege or lack of it, especially when engaging with the police.

The second decision we wanted to share has to do specifically with the building occupation. Many have criticized the occupation for being "secretive," for purposefully "provoking" the police, for circumventing the General Assembly and therefore constituting an "undemocratic" form. Most of these attacks strike us as simplistic and moralistic, although some have laid out much more thoughtful critiques that are worth seriously reflecting on (e.g. zunguzungu). In any case, what is missing in the majority of cases is any reference to the GA's declaration explicitly endorsing and offering material support for autonomous building occupations. It was approved by the GA with a vote of about 95 percent prior to the general strike:

Declaration of Solidarity with Neighborhood Reclamations

Occupy Oakland, in solidarity with the Occupy movement and with the local community, has established the principle of claiming for open use the open space that has been kept from us. We are committed to helping this practice continue and grow. Here in Oakland, thousands of buildings owned by city, banks, and corporations stand idle and abandoned. At the same time social services such as child and healthcare, education, libraries and community spaces are being defunded and eliminated.

Occupy Oakland supports the efforts of people in all Oakland neighborhoods to reclaim abandoned properties for use to meet their own immediate needs. Such spaces are already being occupied and squatted unofficially by the dispossessed, the marginalized, by many of the very people who have joined together here in Oscar Grant Plaza to make this a powerful and diverse movement.

We commit to providing political and material support to neighborhood reclamations, and supporting them in the face of eviction threats or police harassment. In solidarity with the global occupation movement, we encourage the transformation of abandoned spaces into resource centers toward meeting urgent community needs that the current economic system cannot and will not provide.

The occupation of the former Traveler's Aid Society building fits very well into these guidelines. A quick look at the half-sheet that was distributed in the moment, as well as the full statement that was posted later on, is all it takes to understand that the occupation was meant to "transform[] abandoned spaces into resource centers toward meeting urgent community needs."



An interesting question has been raised about the meaning of "neighborhood" or "autonomous" building occupations and likewise what "community" is being referred to in the context of "community needs." Who is this collective "we"? Who falls outside of that category? For an action to be "autonomous" or be associated with a "neighborhood" does that mean it can't be an official part of the GA or of the so-called Occupy movement? That seems absurd, especially given how the movement is framed as one of the "99 percent." Furthermore, even in the overall context of the general strike, much of what took place was organized autonomously. As Jaime Omar Yassin put it, "Even the migration to the port, some two miles away, was a puzzle of pieces of self-directed groups." The march from UC Berkeley to Oscar Grant Plaza, the critical mass out to the port, the anticapitalist march, the flying pickets that shut down various banks, the feminist bloc in the march -- were each and every one of these actions voted on individually by the full general assembly? No. And for good reason. First, there's an issue of effectiveness. From early on the GA has been based on autonomously organized actions. Here's another chunk from the GA's decisions and practices:

3. Encourage autonomous actions.
In order to keep the GA from being bogged down, and in order to allow for diversity of tactics, actions other than major events (like the General Strike) should be announced as actions rather than brought forward as proposals to be voted on.

Second, there's an issue of safety. Zunguzungu writes, "We do things in the open, or I’m not part of that 'we.'" That certainly makes sense for a lot of actions. For example, the general strike would have been impossible to organize in a closed forum. In large part, that's because of the nature of the action itself -- you can't shut down the Port of Oakland with an affinity group of, say, ten people. On the other hand, a small affinity group can do other things that can be very useful and effective. If those things are illegal and require the element of surprise, it becomes very dangerous and counterproductive for people to propose them in a large, open general assembly. There are often undercover cops in the camp and the media often reports on and records the GAs. The idea that every single action has to be planned "in the open" effectively means taking a large set of actions off the table.

Hopefully these statements will help contextualize what went down on the day of the general strike. We aren't trying to present these as absolute answers and agree on the need for some serious discussions of tactics and strategies (though we also think these specific discussions should happen in the context of the GA and not on social media). Overall, it's important to remember that what we organized -- over the course of a single week! -- was amazing, an incredibly powerful show of force, and we shouldn't lose sight of that in the face of internal divisions.

Finally, as a postscript, here are a few more links that we've found helpful for thinking about questions of "violence," property destruction, tactics, and strategies. These interventions are valuable and to some extent model the kind of conversations we need to be having (and are in fact starting to have -- last night's GA was in this respect very useful).

- Statement on the Occupation of the former Traveler's Aid Society at 520 16th Street
- An Open Letter from an Anarchist Participant in Occupy Oakland
- No-one Cares about Property Damage
- For the Fracture of Good Order
- A Night of Violence... against Oakland Protesters
- The General Strike of November 2nd, and How Occupy Oakland Occupied Oakland
- Notes on Oakland 2011
- The Black Bloc, A Hopefully More Interesting Critique
- An Open Letter to the Black Bloc and Others Concerning Wednesday's Tactics in Oakland

UCOP Shuts Down for General Strike [Update: Has UCOP Been Handed Over to OPD?]

[Update 3, Wednesday 9:54am]: Reports from the ground: people have been spotted on the roof of the UCOP building. As reported below, the building has been shut down due to the general strike. So who are the people on the roof? "They must be police."

[Update 2, Wednesday 7:22am]: I just spoke with Diane Klein, a spokesperson for UCOP, who flatly denied the story. "That is not true," she said. "The building will not be used as a staging site for the Oakland Police."

[Update Tuesday 9:22pm]: We have not been able to independently confirm this as of yet, but we just received this report from a comrade:

I was just told by the receptionist at the UC Office of the President that they are lending the UCOP conference room near 19th and Franklin to the Oakland Police Department to be a Command Center. I even called back to double-check. I suggest we all email and call the UCOP and demand that they do not lend UC space to the OPD after the level of police violence last week against citizens of Oakland (including many UC faculty, staff, and students). Is there a way for us to send this word around to other students, faculty and staff?

From a friend on the inside:

November 1, 2011
3:15pm

Dear Oakland-based UCOP employees:

As a follow up to my message this morning, we have decided to operate Oakland UCOP offices in weekend mode tomorrow, meaning all employees should work from home as best they can.

Essential operations personnel who must be in the office tomorrow will need their employee badges for access.

Please continue to monitor local news and your UC email for updates.

All employees should plan to come to work on Thursday as scheduled.

Sincerely,

Nathan

Couldn't have had anything to do with this...

Occupy Oakland Press Conference: General Strike

March Against the Police State: Saturday, 8pm

The following statement was made at last night's Occupy Oakland general assembly. It went over really well:

I want to preface by saying that many of you are new to Occupy Oakland, many of you are white and middle class. This means you have most likely not experienced police violence in the same manner as those who are queer, people of color or poor. As this movement grows, we ask for respect of our lifelong experiences and the recognition that self defense is not violent.

This Saturday evening, nearly a year after the murderous pig Johannes Mehserle was sentenced with a slap on the wrist and just days after police beat, gassed, shot, kidnapped and hospitalized our fellow occupiers, we are calling for a march against the police state. We encourage everyone to wear black in memory of all those who have been murdered by the police. In the name of Oscar Grant, Raheim Brown, Kenneth Harding, Charles Hill and our countless martyrs, we will march this Saturday, immediately after the Speak out from 6-8pm.

March against the police state.
Justice for Scott Olsen.

Oakland Book Bloc Strikes Again

Declaration of Support for Strikes from Occupy Oakland

The following statement was approved by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly:

1. From this point forward, we offer our support for all strikes taking place in the Bay Area and specifically within Oakland.

2. We commit to offer practical and creative support to those who walk out from union or non-union work places, with or without union leadership.

3. This statement also applies to student strikes.

By issuing this statement, we wish to send a message to everyone in this city, that if you are fighting back, then we got your back. Talk to your co-workers and fellow students. Every grievance against this system is worthy of a collective response.

We encourage everyone, ourselves included, to no longer let our discontent boil beneath the surface. We believe the time to act is now.

First Official Action from Occupy Oakland, 10/22

All out for the very first official Occupy Oakland action

Occupy Everything! Liberate Oakland!
Mass Rally & March

Saturday October 22 2011

11am Rally
Amphitheater of Oscar Grant Plaza (formerly Frank Ogawa Plaza)
14th and Broadway, Downtown Oakland

12 noon March
Through Downtown & around the north side of Lake

We live in a world where unemployment and staggering levels of debt are the new normal, where poverty and homelessness are met by police violence and incarceration. The entire global economy is broken, and politicians in the US and elsewhere remain powerless to do anything about it. It's time to take power into our own hands, to occupy the spaces from which we have been excluded and reclaim everything that has been stolen from us.
- Solidarity with the worldwide Occupy movement
- Opposition to an economic system that has never worked for us
- No gang injunctions, no youth curfews
- Keep Oakland schools and libraries open

Please note that this is not a permitted march but is being organized to encourage maximum participation

#occupyoakland
facebook: Occupy Oakland
OCCUPYOAKLAND.ORG

March agreed upon by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on October 19, 2011

On OWS, and what it means to 'make connections'

The following statement in support of the wall street occupation is currently circulating amongst UC faculty. At the moment, it has more than 600 signatures:

We, members of the faculty of the University of California, write in solidarity with and in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement now underway in our city and elsewhere. Many observers claim that the movement has no specific goals; this is not our understanding. The movement aims to bring attention to the various forms of inequality – economic, political, and social – that characterize our times, that block opportunities for the young and strangle the hopes for better futures for the majority while generating vast profits for a very few.

The demonstrators are demanding substantive change that redresses the many inequitable features of our society, which have been exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2009 and the subsequent recession. Among these are: the lack of accountability on the part of the bankers and Wall Street firms that drove the economy to disaster; rising economic inequality in the United States; the intimate relationship between the corporate power and government at all levels, which has made genuine change impossible; the need for dramatic action to provide employment for the jobless and protect programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in part by requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes; and the disastrous effects of the costly wars that the United States has been conducting.

Only by identifying the complex interconnections between repressive economic, social and political regimes can social and economic justice prevail in this country and around the globe. It is this identification that we applaud, and we call on all members of the University of California community to lend their support to the peaceful and potentially transformative movement.

A question this statement raises, and partially addresses, is how the occupy wall street movement could give way to large-scale social transformations. The petition suggests that a commitment to make connections between particular moments of social antagonism is a precondition of such transformative force, and it commends the wall street protesters for "identifying the complex interconnections between repressive economic, social and political regimes."

This seems right to me, as far as it goes (even if it's perhaps overly-optimistic about the politics of many OWS encampments). But we'd want to ask what the signatories and authors of this statement mean by "making connections." Is this merely a matter of slogans and speeches (i.e. the relatively public and programmatic acts of speech and writing associated with the movement)? Or does it also involve connecting the bodies and psyches of those fighting different forms of oppression, those caught up in previously discrete spheres of antagonism? Does it mean, for instance, enabling students to recognize their ties to those engaged in exploitative service/care work, and to realize forms of mutual solidarity with such workers? Or might it mean taking inspiration from dock workers who've often acted against police violence, mass incarceration, and the colonial occupation of Palestine?

It's worth proposing then a slightly expanded account of what it would take, in our moment, for the wall street protests to give way to large-scale, emancipatory transformations.

Three preconditions for such transformations are: the spread of Wall Street-style plaza occupations to new locations; the linking up of such occupations with mass strikes, seizures, and mutual aid efforts carried out across a range of social sites, including universities and other workplaces; and the undoing of repressive state forces. Not only are these preconditions for broader, emancipatory transformations, but also for the survival of the occupy wall street movement itself. As we saw this week, city and state governments will temporarily call off their armed agents only if they are afraid of an intensification and expansion of plaza occupations.

If stasis sets in, the state will move against us.

Oscar Grant Plaza

Some Videos from Occupy Oakland

Be sure to check out the new Occupy Oakland website. And some great pictures (including the one above) are over at Indybay. Now for some videos.

Invitation and Statement from the Oakland General Assembly

From the blog of the occupation:

To the people (aka the 99%):  Our only demand is an invitation: Join Us!

We are reclaiming public space to use as a forum for the people to come together, meet one another, listen to each other, and build power for ourselves.  Occupy Oakland is more than just a speak-out or a camp out.  The purpose of our gathering here is to plan actions, to mobilize real resistance, to defend ourselves from the economic and physical war that is being waged against our communities.

We look forward to making this occupation a space that is welcoming and inclusive of the diverse communities of Oakland (and the bay area).   We will acknowledge and learn from each other’s histories of struggle.  And we commit to challenging oppressive ideas, behaviors, and politics, even – or especially – when they come from ourselves or our comrades.

Oakland represent!

To the Politicians and the 1%:  This occupation is its own demand.

Since we don’t need permission to claim what is already ours, we do not have a list of demands to give you.  There is no specific thing you can do in order to make us “go away”.  And the last thing we want is for you to preserve your power, to reinforce your role as the ruling classes in our society.

It may not be obvious to you, but the decisions you make daily, as well as this system you are a part of, these things are not working for us.  Our goal is bring power back where it belongs, with the people, so we can fix what politicians and corporations have screwed up.

Stand aside!

To the Media: Our struggle won’t fit in a 15 second soundbite.

This occupation is a beginning, and we have a long way to go.  And while we have much in common, we believe the people are stronger united behind many banners, rather than a single one.   We want to make it very clear that Occupy Oakland is not putting forward leaders, tactical or strategic directives, or a uniform message or political platform.

- October 8th, 2011 Message from the Oakland General Assembly in preparation for Occupy Oakland!

Occupy Oakland Today

4pm. Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza. 14th and Broadway. Be there.

More info here. Posters and images here. Read the OEA's endorsement here.

Everything You Need to Know About Occupy Oakland

Occupy Oakland will begin at 4 pm on Oct 10th, in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street and the dozens of other occupations taking place across US, as well as indigenous resistance day. A delegation from the Glen Cove encampment will be present at the opening of the occupation.

The organizers of this encampment want to link up Oakland with a growing social movement, but also adapt it to the realities and needs of our city with its rich and powerful political history.

There will be a final meeting to prepare for the occupation on Saturday, October 8 at 4pm in Mosswood Park.

For more information:

On the web: http://occupyoakland.wordpress.com/
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=290818544264175&ref=ts
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/occupyoakland

Download flyers and other propaganda here: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/07/18692504.php