Communique from an anarchist in Oakland (with video)

Last night, Bay Area Occupiers from San Francisco, Oakland and surrounding environs held a “Hoodies & Hijabs” anti imperialist anti war march on the 11th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan.  The march was billed as being organized by  ”Afghans for Peace”.   As we noted in our prior article, after a few minutes of brief speeches at Frank Ogawa Plaza, they then spent  under an hour smashing and vandalizing businesses, homes and cars in the downtown area. There were no arrests. More on the story here.

An old SDS (Students For a Democratic Society) poster that read, “Bring the war home” was used as a propaganda tool online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organizers urged marchers to wear hoodies or hijabs. During the march, chants included “Allahu Akbar”,  ”Free Afghanistan” “Free Palestine”.

Here is a post from Anarchist News from an anarchist who participated in this action:

The only tears tonight will be for the countless lives that have been stolen. Comrades when I looked into your eyes this weekend I saw a little bit of your pain fade. Somewhere in between the celebratory feminist vigilante march and the little pieces of civilization that were layed to rest on the ground as the hammers were swung at who knows how many parasitic shops tonight I found something. Joyful violence against the state is the sanity to the everyday misery. A misery so deep and so widespread. Countless lives contained, controlled, reduced, stolen, and destroyed by civilization, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism. 11 years of war in Afghanistan, hundreds of years of colonization and my entire life of being socialized, categorized, identified…

Tonight was an intimate experience with the direct confrontation between what is wild and what is the negation of life. It was a little release from the choke of politics, of representation, and order. It’s a peek into a proper response to what we face as contained life.

Our symbiotic relationship between each other, our kenesis, chaos, and our ebb and flow outran the law. Our bodies are equipped with joy and it may be our most valuable weapon when under attack. In this most impersonal world where one can fly a drone and drop a bomb killing untold amounts of life, our intimate bonds of life—our animal nature unleashes. Of course The Oakland Scientific Facility got some of our rage.

Yesterday the state took 25 friends away from us. The destruction tonight was in part our response—the struggle continues. Whether staffing the legal call-in center, covering imprisoned friends work shifts, smashing police recruitment stations, raising bail, or etch bathing the Community Policing Centre in East Vancouver we take care of one another. Every day agents of the state take people away and imprison them, and while 25 of our friends were nabbed, about 35,948 other people were arrested and carted off to jail yesterday.

It didn’t start with Chase Bank and it doesn’t end with City Hall or the Police recruitment station. It all must go, every last vestige of this wretched earth, and it is always a violent phenomenon.

An incomplete list of some of the attacks:
The last big window of the old Obama office on telegraph (The office has since moved because Oakland is to real for ‘em)
The disgusting new Chase bank on 14th and Broadway
The whole side of California Bank.
Bank of the West
Some ATM’s here and there
Some condos here and there
Sears
Oakland Tribune
Kaiser Permanente Office
AC Transit
Rudys can’t fail
“Die yuppie scum” & “Gentry” were scrawled on some yuppie condos around 19th and Telegraph
OPD recruitment station
Oakland City Hall
Several BMW’s and some other posh cars
The Oakland Scientific Facility, which houses computers and data storage for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

With love and dedication,

for myself
for the silent ones
for the revolutionary comrades behind bars
for the survivors and victims of US imperialism, colonialism, and war in Afghanistan, Palestine, and throughout the Muslim world.

Fight Genocide, Destroy what is civilized.

Here is video of the event. The video is edited by a participant live steamer, PFailblog,  with faces deliberately blurred to make recognition difficult.

Occupy vandalizes Oakland again, calls for “class war”

City Hall doors damaged. Credit ABC KGO News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the second day in a row, Occupiers in the Bay Area conducted a disruptive march, last night causing damage to several businesses in Oakland.

On Saturday, 22 were arrested during a “Fuck Columbus” anti-colonialism anti capitalist march in San Francisco.  Around 3 pm in broad daylight, they threw paint bombs with rocks in them at cops and vandalized cars and businesses yesterday.  After several of the paint attacks, police made the arrests. Charges ranged from conspiracy to assault on a police officer.

Last night was billed as an “Afghan led” anti imperialist anti war protest, “Hoodies and Hijabs” march,  commemorating the start of the war in Afghanistan 11 years ago.  They started out around 7 pm with a few speeches in front of city hall, but then went on an hour run of vandalizing businesses in Oakland.  About 200 people marched through the downtown area smashing windows and throwing paint along the way.  According to KGO 810 News, they broke large plate glass windows of three banks along Franklin Street. Six windows were attacked at the Chase Bank on Franklin. Doors and windows of the City Hall were damaged, as was the AC Transit office and the police recruiting office. The group also broke windows at the Oakland Tribune.  KTVU noted several businesses were damaged including Kaiser Permanente and that cars were vandalized as well.

There were no arrests last night.

In a rambling statement posted on the Occupy Oakland website, the “Afghans for Peace” accuse US soldiers of atrocities and multiple instances of desecration of the ‘Holy Quran”. They also claim the military has “Kill teams”. They call for US soldiers to “go AWOL, refuse to fight and start a revolt amongst your ranks”. They closed their statement with “say no to all wars, except class war”.

Code Pink: “We want to be loved as Americans”

Around 30 members of Code Pink and Veterans for Peace traveled to Pakistan to  allegedly protest drone use by the US in the area. They were trying to join locals in a protest in South Waziristan.

Anyone see Jane Fonda analogies when you look at this? If you can’t make it through the whole going to a foreign country and speaking against our government thing, skip ahead to Medea Benjamin at around 2:50 where she says, “We want to be loved as Americans”.   Because all that is needed for everyone to love us is for us just to love everyone.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for them) the government wouldn’t let them into South Waziristan.

The Taliban were there hoping to show them lots of love, threatening to bomb the protest:

On Saturday, a statement from a Taliban faction said to be based in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province warned that militants would welcome the protesters with suicide bombings.

“We ask the brave people of Waziristan not to side with the gang of Jews and Christians – otherwise their fate will be terrible,” the Punjabi Taliban said in the statement.

My guess is that Medea Benjamin’s expressions of love really wouldn’t have stopped the Taliban from blowing her up.

Owl speaks out!

We’ve been deficient in our cute animal posts, in favor of more serious news of late.  But here is an owl who has a lot to say.

Occupy anti colonial anti capitalist “F–k Columbus” march results in 22 arrests

Police arrested 22 people during an ‘anti colonial, anti capitalist” “F–k Columbus Day” march in San Francisco. The march, which was advertised over the traditional Bay Area Occupy hashtags on Twitter and streamed on Occupy livestream, is part of a weekend of activities which included a call for a march against Mexican, Canadian,  US embassies worldwide yesterday

The march today began from Justin Herman Plaza shortly before 3 and snaked through the financial district, disrupting traffic as they walked in the streets.  The marchers were attired as a black bloc, dressed in black and carrying black anarchist flags.

As they marched, they vandalized cars, slashing the tires of one car and breaking the window of another. They also smashed a Starbucks window.  About 15 minutes into the march, they began to throw flares and bags of paint with rocks in them at the police who were accompanying the march.

Updated video  We’ve updated the video showing clearer shots of the action. At around :40 you can see a female throwing something at the police following by flipping them off.  Something else is thrown at police at :51 causing one of the cops to have to wipe his eyes. At :54 you can see the paint bomb thrown against the building. 1;21 more paint thrown at police. and at 1:24 they hit a cop pretty hard and all over with a paint bomb. More is thrown at 2:02. Then at 2:06, a cop on bicycle appears to fall over or be knocked over, and is surrounded by marchers. That is when police move in and start making arrests.

You can still see full raw live stream recording here.

According to ABC News, a search of the arrested suspects’ backpacks revealed many were armed with weapons including:  hammers, an ice pick, flares, more bags of paint containing rocks, and other weapons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 22 people were arrested on one or more of the following charges: conspiracy, riot, refusing to obey a lawful order from a peace officer and resisting, delaying and obstructing a peace officer, and assault and battery on a peace officer.

The marchers posted their intentions on Indy Bay calling for a “rowdy march” through the financial district to fight colonialism and capitalism.  In addition they noted it was the 20th anniversary of the first black bloc march disrupting the Columbus Day parade in 1992.

Tomorrow, the group plans to march in Oakland commemorating the  11th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan.  Their statement accuses the military of having “Kill teams”, American soldiers of atrocities and  ”burning hundreds of copies of the Holy Quran”. It calls for American troops to rise up and “start a revolt in your ranks”.  They have also called elsewhere for “autonomous creative disruptions of the Columbus Day parade” tomorrow.

Posters advertising the events and photos (by Steve Rhodes) of action today:

Occupy “Illuminator” van is repossessed by Ben of “Ben and Jerry’s”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Occupy just had their “Illuminator” van repossessed by Ben Cohen of “Ben and Jerry’s” fame.

A year ago, Ben and Jerry’s formed a group, the “Movement Resource Group”,  designed to help underwrite Occupy projects of which the group approved. Ben Cohen was an instrumental part of leading the group.

One project to come out of the relationship with Occupy was “The Illuminator”.   In a February meeting, Mark Read, an adjunct professor of media studies at NYU, was discussing the idea of putting a projector on a movable van to help illuminate Occupy messages on buildings at various actions.  Ben Cohen, who led the MRG,  agreed to fund the idea and came to an agreement with the Occupiers.

The agreement discussed the Illuminator and another vehicle which was later abandoned. Cohen agreed to contribute as much as  $65,000 toward the development of the cars. This included paying Read $250 per day to launch the operation. The vehicles would be owned by MRG.

According to DNA Info,  a separate document which set forth goals for the Illuminator,  stated that the purpose was

to “put a friendly non threatening face” on the Occupy movement and “generate good will” with the public by slowly cruising the city, projecting the “99%” signal, playing “family friendly music,” and stopping occasionally to serve hot chocolate and pass out Occupy-themed comic books.

After the Illuminator started in March, problems quickly developed.  Read and a team of volunteers were running it three times a week. Cohen expected that they would do it 5-6 days a week, for six hours a day, as was set forth in the agreement.

Read and the crew of volunteers that were involved came to feel that this was unfair, despite the fact that they had agreed to it. According to them, Cohen wanted more control over use of the van and wanted it to be focused on being a “mobile billboard for Occupy”, whereas the Illuminator team felt it should be used for any progressive cause. They had even used it in a fight over expansion at NYU.

According to DNA Info:

After a “full-out custody battle” in May, the two sides agreed to share the van until the end of September, after which Cohen and the Movement Resource Group would gain full control of it, Read said. “To a person, I think we all feel kind of betrayed and disappointed,” he said.  “He didn’t want to have to bother with the messy part of being in a democracy”.  ”He’s a 1 percenter,” Read, 46, added, “telling the 99 percent, ‘I’m your boss.’”

The Illuminator team released a statement, thanking him for his support, but expressing their disappointment. They also stated that they will continue with the idea of using illumination, but seek more “crowd funding” to support their endeavors in the future.

Adbusters tries one more time but does anyone actually care?

Adbusters  has announced another Occupy action. Based off the effort in Spain to surround the Congress there, they are trying, one more time to get folks to DC to protest.

Alright occupiers, trick or treat,

Let’s all go to Washington, DC, and have a Halloween night party!

Let’s celebrate the wonderful Coke/Pepsi presidential election now in progress … and the honest, feisty way our elected reps in Congress have conducted our nation’s business … pay tribute to the bold visions they’ve put forward.

At dusk on October 31, let’s gather on Capitol Hill, trick or treat Congress and party like we’ve never partied before.

Bring mask!

CJ HQ

PS And if you cannot make it to DC then party in front of the Bank of America in your community… outside your city hall… or in the squares.

Of course, their efforts to have “a million on the mall” turned out to be no more than a thousand, and the efforts for NATO in Chicago were dismal at best. The left has actually had more people out for things like the G20 even before Occupy started.

Of course, wearing a mask around the capitol is going to go over so well. Not.

So after you have another few hundred people out, yelling blocking traffic and getting arrested one more time, then what?  Ah, let’s have a Christmas action!

Seems like some are getting the futility of all this from the comments to the Adbusters’ announcement. When you try to harness anarchistic tendencies, sometimes you may find, well, they don’t like the pointless organization.

-Please, please, PLEASE stop calling for actions that you have no intention on doing any work for in cities that you do not live in. It’s really annoying when REAL activists who do REAL work have to put up with planning these idiotic convergences with a month’s notice because Adbusters says so. We will not be planning anything around this stupid call to action. Let everyone know that they are not welcomed to come trash our city for your stupid publicity stunts.

-”Let’s have a Halloween party!” Really phoning it in this week, huh Adbusters?

-Nobody is going to be in town on Halloween.

Oops, at least one Occupier DID meet with Ahmadinejad.

Citizen Journalist ran a piece three days ago on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly planning a meeting with Occupy members during the time he is in NYC to speak at the United Nations.

The announcement, which was met by revulsion, even from some supporters of OWS, pushed some in OWS to take to the media to denounce it.  ”Nobody in their right mind would meet with a fascist dictator like Ahmadenijad,” said Shawn Carrié, a longtime Occupy activist, in a direct message to Rosie Gray at Buzz Feed.

According to NY Magazine,  another spokesperson also denied it.  ”No, none,” said Occupy Wall Street spokesperson Dana Balicki when asked by Daily Intel if there was any truth to the report. However, Ms. Balicki noted Code Pink members had previously met with Ahmadinejad. Code Pink is one of the founding groups of Occupy.

I was working with the group CODEPINK several years ago when Ahmadinejad came to [New York] and held a meeting to discuss global issues. I imagine this is the same. We have no idea who is organizing the meeting and how they came up with this story.

I’ve been trying to reach someone from Fars to ask them who they are talking about. Anyone going is doing so as an individual,” Balicki said. “There is no organized effort on behalf of OWS to meet with Ahmadinejad. This smells like a propaganda effort to me.

Except now we know at least one of the people that actually met with him was in fact an Occupier from Occupy DC, again according to Fars.  Occupier Leah Bolger is also president of Veterans for Peace, one of the groups in the left anti-war coalition which also includes Code Pink. When queried for confirmation of the meeting, Ms. Bolger failed to respond.

Here is Leah with Occupy DC on Day 4 of their occupation

Fars printed a long statement from Ms. Bolger, speaking on behalf of Veterans for Peace, which basically translates to Israel and US want war, Iran is just an innocent.  Of course, meeting with these people only serves Ahmadinejad. It is too bad they fail to realize they are just propaganda bait.

Apparently Mr. Carrié will have to have a conversation with Leah Bolger about the state of her mind.

Update:

Mr. Carrie may have to wait before talking with Leah Bolger. She is off to Pakistan with others of Veterans for Peace and Code Pink to protest drones.  If one protests US use of drones, the logical place to protest would be here, as both groups have done.  There is no reason to go to Pakistan other than being a propaganda puppet.

 

Welcome to our site, Iranian state media- “Press TV”

Please steal this picture, Press TV. Credit NYDN.

Looks like we have some interesting readers.

Citizen Journalist ran a piece three days ago. Our piece referenced a Fars News report that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was set to meet with members of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement during his current New York City visit for the UN General Assembly gathering.   See our piece here.

The announcement, which was met by revulsion, even from some supporters of OWS, pushed some in OWS to take to the media to denounce it.  ”Nobody in their right mind would meet with a fascist dictator like Ahmadenijad,” said Shawn Carrié, a longtime Occupy activist, in a direct message.

According to NY Magazine,  another spokesperson also denied it.  ”No, none,” said Occupy Wall Street spokesperson Dana Balicki when asked by Daily Intel if there was any truth to the report.

Except that in response, Dana Balicki then notes that she, as part of Code Pink (which is one of the groups involved with Occupy), did meet with Ahmadinejad ‘several years ago” (actually 2008). 

“I was working with the group CODEPINK several years ago when Ahmadinejad came to [New York] and held a meeting to discuss global issues. I imagine this is the same. We have no idea who is organizing the meeting and how they came up with this story.”

“I’ve been trying to reach someone from Fars to ask them who they are talking about. Anyone going is doing so as an individual,” Balicki said. “There is no organized effort on behalf of OWS to meet with Ahmadinejad. This smells like a propaganda effort to me.”

As we noted in our prior report, Occupy members, most notably, Imam Musa, went to Iran for an Occupy conference over the winter.

They have also had a cosy relationship with Press TV, Iranian government TV, which has promoted them in its media. Press TV is state run, by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). Its headquarters are located in Tehran, Iran.

Yesterday, Press TV ran an interesting report talking about the alleged visit and alleged meeting with Ahmadinejad. We wouldn’t be linking to it, because we don’t like to link to propaganda, so if you’d like to see it, be our guest, we will quote the relevant parts.

They noted:

Analysts see Iran as “just one example of the connection between OWS movement and the Middle East, which is based on a common enemy, the governments of the United States and Israel”.

This quoted part was taken straight out of our prior article, of course, excerpted and used for their own purposes.

Press TV then goes on:

Occupy protesters stormed an Israeli consulate in Boston on November 2011, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Long Live the Intifadah!” and “not another nickel, not another dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes”.

Taken from our story, but adding the line “No more money for Israel’s crimes” (which Occupiers did in fact chant).

More:

Participants made clear that they are not anti-Semites, but anti-Zionists, critical of the Israeli government’s current policies.

Well, now, no they didn’t. They never said any such thing. so we’re curious as to how Press TV came to this conclusion. But it makes them sound nicer, so I guess rewriting truth is Press TV’s inclination.

But it’s nice to know that Ahmadinejad can have “journalist” propagandists to help his agenda.

Press TV’s report was then picked up by another propaganda arm, RT (Russia Today) the Kremlin run media outfit. They ran the following, in pertinent part:

Iran’s Press-TV have also picked up the story and quotes unnamed analysts who say Iran is “just one example of the connection between OWS movement and the Middle East, which is based on a common enemy, the governments of the United States and Israel.”

We want to welcome Press TV to our readership. But when you steal our stuff, try to get it right. You may actually learn something.

Occupy Smashy “FTP” march in the Mission District of San Francisco

Here is video from the attack on the Mission District on Friday night. In it you can see Occupiers  in black bloc, attacking the local police station and as well as other businesses. More on the story here. ”FTP” stand for “F–k the Police”.