Where Ferguson and Occupy Meet...

I watched the coverage of the Ferguson uprising on MSNBC and a lot of what I saw the police doing looked disturbingly familiar to the police riots I experienced when I participated in Occupy Oakland. There were flash-bang grenades, bean-bag projectiles, rubber bullets and plenty of tear gas. The sound cannons were new “toys,”  for our militarized boys in blue.

When I was arrested, as part of a mass arrest in 1991 following the Rodney King excessive police force incident, the cops had little access to all this weaponry. They simply surrounded around the 400 people peacefully participating in the protest, handcuffed us and hauled us away. Today what cops are engaged in is more like a live staging of World of Warcraft.

Let me state unequivocally that racism plays a huge role in out-of-control policing in this country. There exists a rampant, unbridled fear of young, black males in our society. Beyond that, the government and its enforcement arm are tremendously afraid of resistance of any kind and invest everything they have in crushing rebellions before they can spread and take hold. This has been of utmost importance since the economic collapse of 2008.

Sure, the NSA and its defenders will say that heightened security dates back to the September 11^th attacks of 2001. But why then has the collection of metadata increased to a loud crescendo at this point in time. Why are racism and all forms of ethnic hatred being constantly and continually promoted just as labor unions, job security and workers’ rights and the right to a living wage are being hammered into non-existence?

It's a simple divide and conquer tactic to perpetuate capitalism. The existence of a cheap, disposable underclass is the foundation that buttresses the wealth of the one percent. Those in power are especially afraid of young, black males but they are afraid of all of us. They know they are sapping our life-blood both as low-wage workers and as an unemployed poverty class.With the highest incarceration rate in the world, the USA is now rounding up folks who can't pay their bills, thus reinstituting debtors' prisons. Economic inequality here has reached an all-time high and that's not going to change anytime soon. The bottom line is:  as long as WE are at each other’s throats, THEY are safe. The second we begin to rise up, they beat us down with ten times the force required to do so.

Racism is a real problem but it is not a "black" issue. It is an American issue that affects all of us. “We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” That quote is from Ben Franklin at the signing of the declaration of independence. And he wasn’t including women, everyone considered "non-white," immigrants, non-landowners and a whole host of others. But he still has a point. We can all learn from his mistakes and try to do it right this time!

Mass Arrests and Free Speech

Occupy Wall Street
Protesters on Bridge

The main feature that distinguishes a democracy from a totalitarian regime is freedom of speech. The first amendment guarantees our right to demonstrate and protest against what we perceive as wrongs against us. This includes the crazy dude with the sign warning about the fast-approaching world's end as well as the 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters who were systematically handcuffed with those plastic, twist-tie restraints and detained for hours.

Of course this action, along with the macing of peaceful, women demonstrators was blatantly illegal and designed for one purpose only: to frighten people and quell dissent. If the cops can make ordinary folks afraid to even stand on the sidewalk watching or holding a sign, they have succeeded in suppressing or at the very least, putting a damper on free speech.

Those affected by these actions have expressed no desire to cease and desist, but those who watch them on TV from home may feel otherwise. They may feel like the risk is not worth the reward. And when the media all but boycotts the protest it is hard to justify that something is being accomplished. But it is. A movement is being born and although birth can be a painful process, it is usually worth it.

In April of 1992 the Rodney King verdict came down and there were riots in the streets of  Los Angeles. In San Francisco some windows were broken and a police motorcycle was burned but, other than that, the protests were basically peaceful. The week after the primary demonstration there was a protest in the Mission District. Before any illegal action could even cross the minds of demonstrators, all of them were rounded up, manacled with twist-tie handcuffs, and hauled off in buses to Santa Rita jail. They were set free on their own recognizance the following day. My partner was among them.

The following weekend I was so angry at this flagrant violation of the law (as well as the King verdict) that I showed up with her in Dolores Park for another rally. It was a long day in early May. After the rally the group began marching down Market Street towards downtown SF. Just past the Castro District, in front of Safeway, the cops moved in and surrounded us. They didn't say a word and they didn't have that fancy orange mesh for in those days either. They just locked arms in a big circle and began cuffing our hands behind our backs and loading us into buses. There were over 350 of us so it took a while.

We were then bused to an empty warehouse that had been set up with makeshift pens constructed with police barricades. There was a port-a-potty and a water dispensers with paper cups and a very dirty concrete floor. They took identification information and fingerprinted us and kept us there for around eight hours. At approximately 3:30 am they began releasing us in small groups.

Needless to say, this police action was totally illegal. Both my partner and I joined a class action suit that netted us around one-hundred dollars per hour for our time served. Supposedly, as part of our settlement, they destroyed the records as well. It still stands as the best money I've ever earned, but that's beside the point. Free speech and dissent are the basic elements of a democracy. They are not bargaining chips to be traded away in the name of "law and order."