On November 14th the commune was raided once again and someone with a megaphone insisted that we take 14th and Broadway. I screamed “No! We need to stay to defend the commune!” and tried to hold a vote that was again derailed by this same man with the megaphone…
If we are going to make any major tactical decision we should not do so without consensus!
As a result the 800-1000 people that were there that morning went to 14th and Broadway and abandoned 33 people including a homeless man in a wheelchair. Then the 1000 people were quickly corralled by the police, 33 people were arrested and the commune was destroyed. Luckily it’s very hard for the oppressor to destroy our community we have already created. So if we can learn from our mistakes we can build a commune thats reflective of our passion and our ideas. A commune that is invincible.
From the beginning we declared the camp a police free zone! Even in the face of a raid we must do our best to uphold this policy!
Yeah it may be intense to face off with the police but with even 500 people the police would have had a really hard time dismantling the camp if we were disruptive to their operation. When you all left the commune the police came in and destroyed our property and hard work once again.
Occupy Oakland is made up of poor and working class people who cannot afford to have our resources depleted by police actions.
Resources and moral are two very important things to any revolutionary movement. With the time and energy that we put into the last commune we were abundant in both. We must think about how to respond to repression without depleting either. What could we have done differently to protect our resources and dignity in the event of a raid?
Why is a commune so important to the movement?
Our camp becomes our community. Our comrades become our family. Our life becomes a revolution. When we live together, eat together, play together, and fight together we become a culture of resistance. In any revolutionary movement a culture of resistance is vital. Our example of communal living has inspired the world. In our commune we live by the fair and just guidelines rather than the strict and oppressive laws of the state. We can secede from capitalism completely and become self-sufficient. We can decolonize together and relearn our ancestral traditions. We can live in harmony with the earth if we stop relying on dirty energy. We can live a life free of money, free of scarcity, and free of oppression.
Our commune is our path to freedom and true freedom is worth defending with your life.
Long live the Oakland Commune!
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