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:
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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 Black Bloc violence against SF Mission District and police
This is incredible video of the craziness of an Occupy Black Bloc action on April 30, 2012 in the Mission District in San Francisco. It was made by anarchists, and meant to be an inducement for others to join.
Citizen Journalist previously posted about this incident here with a video taken surreptiously from the middle of the black bloc. This video however is much clearer. This action grew out of an Occupy event at a local park. The event was called a “ruckus party” to protest “gentrification” in the neighborhood. At various points you can hear “all cops are bastards, ACAB”, “a anti anti capitalista”, “No more pigs in our community-Off the pigs!”, “The system has got to die, Hella, Hella, Occupy!” “Occupy will not be stopped, especially by some fucking cop”. ”The revolution has come!”
Black bloc is a tactic, it is not a group. Occupiers have used the black bloc tactic (dressing in black to make it harder to id them) in many cities. It was used prior to Occupy and since by other anarchists.
Many Occupiers claimed that they were not involved, that this was “infiltrators”. But tweets on the evening show the presence of regular occupiers. There were some who were not approving. There were others, like the man you see on the video, who thought destruction was ok, as long as it was only “specific people”, i.e. the rich.
This violence included attacking a police station, local small businesses, cars(including a beat up van) and homes. Yes, homes as well. One infamous tweet from the night noted rocks being thrown through someone’s window and children crying in response. They attack a police car at ~ 1:30 and try to set it on fire.
We noted how Sparrow Media, who does media for Occupy, celebrated the attack on the police station calling it “glorious destruction”
Update: Vandals also hit Union Square area of San Francisco
Via ABC News in San Francisco:
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) –
Dozens of vandals attacked Union Square late Friday night, smashing windows at some of the nicest stores in the city. Grant Street was hit hard with seven stores suffering damage.
A few other stores on the adjacent streets were also hit, including Macy’s department store.
According to police and witnesses, a group of about 50 protesters, believed to be anarchists, tossed around fake $100 bills, shot paint balls, and broke several windows. They were decrying capitalism.
Police and witnesses say they were all dressed in black, hid their faces with black bandanas and many of them were wearing wigs.
Among the stores vandalized: Debeers, Longchamp, Prada, Armani, Tumi, Guess and Montblanc.
And stores managers say with the economy the way it’s been, this is the last thing they need to be dealing with. So far, there have been no arrests.
Police plan to provide security overnight as these stores work on getting things cleaned up.
See video here
Occupy Oopsie
As the violence began in San Francisco tonight pre MayDay, some Occupy members professed suprise, others shock, some disgust, others disavowed the actions, calling them by “provocateurs”.
After hearing it many times at Occupy associated events, the denial when the criminal actions happen becomes a bit doubtful, although I do believe many were in fact suprised at the level of violence unleashed, because it was not restricted to “state approved” targets. Problem is once you let the genie out of the bottle it has a hard time getting back in. You can’t say to some people, only mess up area A and not Area B.
The Sparrow Media Project, a major part of Occupy Media, the producer of the OWS media pamphlet “Declaration Of Occupation of NYC” among other media efforts, seemed to drop its media face just a bit in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty, noting “Gorgeous Photo of Mission Police Station destruction” at the paint bombed and damaged building:
Sparrow Media has been known for telling people to delete tweets that might be legally harmful to Occupy, as was noted by Foolish Reporter. As Foolish Reporter also noted, Sparrow Media is known for its head, Andrew Stepanian, convicted felon activist.
