The Unstoppable Power of the Small

The Banquet of Life

The power of the small and numerous over the few and mighty has been the stuff of legend since the Liliputians first organized to overpower Gulliver in 1726. Today this saga is playing at towns and cities everywhere thanks to the Occupy Movement.

This past Wednesday, November 16th a few hundred protesters stormed a Bank of America in the San Francisco Financial District and began their occupation. They even put up a tent. When the police came they arrested 95 people and had to lead them out individually to the cheers of the crowd outside. After all, if you're willing to face arrest why not go out with a bang instead of a whimper.

Yes, tent cities can be dismantled and people can be hurt and arrested. But those facts don't tend to deter folks from exercising their right to free speech. In almost all cases what they accomplish is the polar opposite: a larger more determined army willing to put their own personal safety on the line for a greater cause.

Think of the 1% and their lackeys as a stately group of picnickers settling in on a manicured lawn. A bountiful spread of elegant food is spread out a lovely blanket before them. Then imagine an ant colony beneath that blanket. Once the trail is laid to that food those pesky little creatures keep on coming. You can brush them away, spray them, even crush a few but there are more colonies and nests all over the property. And their communication is sure and fast.

It's true, the 1% retain the option of moving their picnic indoors. But the power of the small can cause significant and perpetual inconvenience and disruption. Because there are always more where we came from. All we have to do is simply keep on coming.

Increased Repression Just Means We're Winning

Meditating in Oakland

The Occupy Oakland camp in Oscar Grant Plaza camp was dismantled by police at 1am Monday morning prompting the immediate resignation of two Jean Quan staffers who disagreed with the decision to dismantle and destroy. They are Dan Seigel, legal adviser and Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu. Occupiers have fled to Snow Park and re-established a camp there.

Zuccotti Park, also known as Liberty Park, the Wall Street encampment, where the Occupy Movement was born, was attacked Tuesday morning, November15th in much the same way. Today, in the Bay Area Occupy focus is on a strike and teach-in at UC Berkeley. This evening a speech by Robert Reich, professor and people's economist extraordinaire, has been relocated from Wheeler Hall to Sproul Plaza. The topic is class warfare and it is part of the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture series of talks. Supposedly, the Occupy Cal camp will try to reinstate itself there.

The fact that repressive tactics are increasing nationwide signals that we are gaining ground. With or without tarps and tents, this movement has reached a point of no return.Chris Hedges' article, "This is What Revolution Looks Like," is a must read for everyone in this struggle.

One truly amazing part of this heavy-handed approach is not the fact that police defend the interests of the rich and powerful, it is the equanimity of protestors who are being treated to this violence. Bricks, bottles are not being thrown. I haven't even seen a lot of insults hurled. Many people are dragged off to arrest from yoga postures. I have seen people meditating on concrete in the midst of teargas and flashbang grenades. The non-violence is a stirring spectacle for those of us raised on street war.

When I heard Graham Nash and David Crosby singing in Zucotti Park (on video) singing"Teach Your Parents Well," I was genuinely moved. This is the beginning of a protracted struggle. We all are bracing for a sustained fight that must be run like a marathon, not a 50 yard dash. When Che Guevara said, "A true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love," he had it right. Some lessons are never too late for learning.

Police Brutality is Violence

Oakland Police Up to No Good

The Oakland Police Department continues their reign of terror upon demonstrators with the total of moderately to seriously injured folks now at three, two Iraq vets: Scott Olsen and Kayvan Sabehgi  and one videographer, Scott Campbell. The Berkeley Police have joined in the brutality by violently evicting a student group attempting to Occupy U.C. Berkeley. Their tents were trampled and they were forcibly removed from Sproul Plaza.

Meanwhile right-leaning propaganda rags like the San Francisco Chronicle are trying to paint actions like the General Strike Day with the broad brush of  "violence" because a small group of angry protesters broke some things sometime towards midnight on a day when 50,000 to 100,000 people closed big banks and the Port of Oakland without incident.

It is important to note a couple of things about this smear campaign. One, it is being used as an unsuccessful attempt to discredit the entire Occupy Movement. Two, people are justifiably angry at the economic crimes that have been perpetrated upon us. And three, vandalism and violence are not synonymous. While understanding that breaking windows or spray painting on them may not be the best way to win supporters and unite the movement, crimes against property are not equal to the harm the police are inflicting with clubs, teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.

The city of Oakland is preparing for another raid on the Occupy Oakland camp. I commend the occupiers for open discussion with various proponents of aggressive action in a serious attempt to resolve differences and stay united. All power to the people!

Occupy Foreclosures!

Winter is coming. The mainstream media is predicting the end of the occupy movement. The tents at Zucotti  Park are covered with snow. Even if folks took shelter inside, I wouldn't see that as the end of anything. It isn't necessary to live outside to build a movement. But it does constitute an opportunity.

The USA is now saturated with foreclosed, bank-owned properties that are just sitting vacant attracting vermin and crime. These residences were stolen by corrupt banksters, often with not even so much as possession of the mortgage note of origin. In cities all over the country the occupiers are trying to take back some of these properties for use by the growing homeless (houseless) population. In Oakland, the cops moved in around midnight on strike day, November 2nd, when a small group entered and attempted to take possession of a warehouse. In San Francisco, some distressed properties in the Tenderloin are being considered for the same thing.

In hard-hit cities like Detroit and Cleveland, homes are being razed en masse or sold for a dollar a piece to anyone willing to take them off the bank's hands. Urban centers are being literally overgrown by vines and weeds. As Robert Frost said, "Something, there is that doesn't  love a wall." Or a ceiling or a floor.

It is too late to give back these homes to the victims of this massive scam. But we are able to do the next best thing. We can provide shelter for those who have none. One of my favorite signs on marches is one that reads, "Robin Hood was Right." But, in this case, giving back doesn't require stealing from anyone, just the repossessing of ill-gotten  loot that was expropriated from its rightful owners.

A Personal Take on a General Strike

Coming into Port:
Oakland Strike

The tents in Oscar Grant Plaza are back up and yesterday, at least during the daytime hours, the streets belonged to the people with hardly a cop in sight. I  had the opportunity to march with some peaceful and angry folks who made the big banks shudder and lock their doors and who brought all business at the 5th largest port in the USA, the Port of Oakland to a screeching halt.

The noon march was enthusiastic and militant. Outside of Chase Bank, protesters clogged the street as two people climbed poles and strung a huge banner that said, "Occupy the Banks." Back at the plaza a speakers were speaking from a stage, In the round arena area poets read, rappers rapped, activists acted, union members railed, it was a general free-for-all in the best, most sincere sense of the term. I saw amazing diversity in all the people passing by: old folks with walkers and canes, hip-hoppers from the hood, queers and feminists, teamsters, agricultural workers, teachers and other librarians. Most people were covered with signs or wearing T-shirts that served the same function. I was wearing a great one that I had purchased at the Dia de los Muertos celebration in Fruitvale a few days before. It reads: "We the People are 99%. People Before Profits."

I also noticed that many people, like myself, were there solo. My partner had joined me for the noon march, but ran out of steam early on. Alone, I automatically go into writers mode, which involves finding a central place to sit, taking out a pen and paper and doing some serious observation. The dude behind me had a guitar and was playing and singing, "The Gates of Eden," one of my favorites of the lesser known Bob Dylan songs. I'd grabbed a wonderful gala apple from the food table. Ahh, revolution was in the air and life was good!

For the march out to the port I was planning on the 5 pm shift. The group that left at 4 was huge, it looked like over 5,000 people. By the time 5pm rolled around workers were out of their jobs and our numbers were at least that big, possibly bigger. I waited in front of Walgreen's near the "Queer and Feminist Resistance," banner but none of my friends showed. Instead Vera, a thirty-something woman from Moscow began a conversation with me. She said that nothing comparable to this could happen in Russia where the government suppresses this kind of expression. In spite of all that, she would be returning to her home country next week, loaded with memories.

Her friends were also no shows. As we marched together toward the port, she asked me if I'd like some wine...turned out that the huge coffee cup with a cover and sip hole on top was full of red wine. "I drink about a bottle a day," she confessed. "I don't know if I have a problem or not."

"Blame it on the economy," I said. I have felt that the alcohol industry has been making a killing during the recession. She handed me the cup and we passed it back and forth like a joint as we marched through the West Oakland neighborhoods at sunset.

Vera is an artist who was passing out postcards of her work. The acrylic painting shows a woman in a skirt that looks like a lotus sending beams of light from the chakra points on her body. On the back of the card in stead of her name she had hand-written the figure 99% in red magic marker. "Don't you want to put your name on your art?" I'd asked her.

"No, I know that I painted it, and that's all that matters," she answered. Next to her painting is a quote, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love." --Mother Teresa

Best wishes, Vera, on your return to Russia, your art and your life!

The Militarization of the Police

Police Riot in Oakland 10/25/2011

I watched Michael Moore's rousing and informative speech at Occupy Oakland Wednesday afternoon. Not only is the encampment reforming and blossoming, according to Moore and the enthusiastic crowd we have reached the end of apathy and despair. But we are in the throes of something else, totally predictable but frightening and potentially devastating nonetheless: the militarization of the police.

Moore mentioned this specifically in his speech. This situation in the USA has developed and worsened in the years since anti Vietnam war protests . When I was a protester at Ohio State University in the early seventies, the National Guard served alongside the police in order to "keep the peace." Yes, the tanks, or "armored personnel carriers rolled down High Street and we carried signs like" Welcome to Prague," referring to 1968 when the Soviet tanks rolled into that city to crush the people's movement that included more freedom of speech, ability to travel and access to information from independent media sources.

In those days, the US Military functioned as the military and the police played a subservient, more localized role. Today, the police function like a mercenary army organized to keep the people in line. The fact that the rate of incarceration in the USA exceeds that of all other countries in the civilized world is no accident. And here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the fact that even the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police are murdering citizens (Oscar Grant at Fruitvale station, Charles Hill near Civic Center), is a new low in the annals of law enforcement.

The governors, mayors, police departments and transit agencies now possess the ability to band together in order to determine the freedom, or lack thereof, of a city's citizens. This was readily apparent on the night of Wednesday, October 25th at around 11pm when, on rumors of an impending police raid of the Occupy SF camp, the authorities closed the two downtown Oakland BART stations along with the Embarcadero station, where the encampment was located solely to prevent citizens from getting there to provide support for the occupiers. Fortunately, Mayor Ed Lee changed his mind and the raid of the SF camp was called off.

Then They Fight You...

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi

Here in Oakland the fighting stage is definitely underway. It began with the early morning police raid of the Occupy Oakland camp, with rampaging blue meanies demonstrating the use of excessive force by dismantling, steamrollering and making off with tents, food, equipment, personal effects and medical supplies leaving the occupiers homeless and Oscar Grant Plaza under military siege and in ruins.

At 4 pm Tuesday, around a thousand 99 per-centers who were enraged at the abridgment of free speech rights, gathered in front of the Oakland Main Library on 14th Street where the head librarian, Carmen Martinez, refused to close down for the protest as the police department requested. Librarians, like other public sector workers, remember all those threatened closings, reduction in hours and and cuts in pay, health benefits and pensions. Go librarians, my people of the book!

Now, Oscar Grant Plaza has been fenced off and drenched it with chemicals in order to "grow new grass." The police in their true colors have delivered excessive violence and brutality with their barrage of rubber bullets, flash bang grenades and massive clouds of tear gas. And the mainstream media is not far behind with a propaganda war of its own bringing the staples of fear and intimidation directed at the occupiers and all the 99 percent. Funny though, how the ridicule has diminished.

So we are officially in the fight portion of Gandhi's formula.Yesterday, a canister hit and injured an American veteran of the Iraq war, Scott Olsen of Daly City. He is now in Highland Hospital in critical but stable condition suffering swelling of the brain. Ironic, to survive combat only to come home to this.

This brutal response is echoing around the country in San Jose, Denver, Chicago and cities too numerous to mention, the class war is on. Now Occupy San Francisco is issuing ultimatums to the protesters in Justin Herman Plaza. SF Mayor, Ed Lee like Oakland Mayor Jean Quan before him has now issued an edict declaring food, rats and self-government are keeping these sacred "public" parks from being used by the people. Gosh, it's almost like this is a coordinated effort or something. So what are the protesters and the 99 percent, chopped liver? Who exactly are the people anyway?

We must find our footing under stress. With any new movement there will be growing pains. In an increasing repressive society we will make sacrifices and there will inevitably be casualties. We must run this like a marathon, not a fifty yard dash. As we used to say in the lesbian community of the old days, "we ain't got it easy but we got it."