I’m watching a feed from Occupy Boston and it looks like there is an imminent/ensuing raid in NYC. Please watch and do anything you can to witness and aid and spread information about this political violence. Thanks Occupy Oakland. I know we are all in solidarity with New York City and Occupy Wall Street. 6031
I don’t want to speak for anybody else here…. but I’ve felt compelled lately to offer a lot of criticism about how things are going at Occupy Oakland, the direction we are going in right now which I think is alienating and self-defeating. As a gesture towards our common grievances and our common goals, and towards the end of focusing the positive energy of Occupy Oakland a bit more in the direction I personally think we should be going in, I would like to offer the general online community here … Continued
Of course I try not to be too much of a cynical guy, but I’m always a bit dubious whenever somebody from the leftist establishment like Danny Glover or Michael Moore comes to speak to us. Even though I know that they have accomplished a lot over the years for progressive movements, obviously their doctrine didn’t result in the kind of radical change we’d like to see. But tonight there was something interesting in that drenched General Assembly of 170 or so die-hard Occupy Oaklanders including myself tonight. One guy … Continued
From SF Gate/Chron “James Vann, one of Quan’s most active campaigners, has been regularly attending the encampment’s general assembly meetings. Vann said that a group of 150 people advocating for violence has embedded itself in the encampment and its meetings. “It’s a destructive force that I think has the potential of destroying the organization and certainly of losing a lot of credibility with the community and public officials,” said Vann, an affordable housing and renter’s activist who was on Quan’s mayoral transition committee. When people advocate for nonviolence, Vann said, … Continued
Just a few thoughts, since I see that the movement to recall the mayor Jean Quan has some traction here. We have to think about this seriously for a second. We very well might end up with Ignacio De LaFuente as the mayor if we got rid of Jean Quan. That would be kind of like impeaching George W. Bush so that we could have Dick Cheney as President. Remember that conundrum? Also, we should keep in mind that the group of people who started this official Recall movement were … Continued
I didn’t particularly like marching under that banner. I believe in capitalism as a practical science, not as a system of morals. Just because we have lived our entire lives under corrupt capitalism, doesn’t mean we should automatically reject it in principle. I just want to register my voice, outside the GA and here in this forum, because some have told me this is an inherently anti-capitalist movement. I believe in radical reform, not in trashing the whole concept of working for what you enjoy. We definitely have placed too … Continued
I’m in New Mexico visiting relatives for the weekend; I wanted to check out the Occupy movement here, offer solidarity from Oakland (one woman asked me, “what’s solidarity?” But I don’t think she was one of the people camping out), and to show my relatives that the Occupy people are not anything scary. How surprised was I to meet another Oaklander from Occupy Oakland down there? Fun, hope I run into him when we’re back in Oakland for the rally and strike on Wednesday. The Occupy Santa Fe site is … Continued
I was looking for information about the Occupy movement in New Mexico, and I was hoping to visit them and talk with them because I’m going to be out there this weekend. I found this wonderful article that had some inspiring advice for us here in Oakland in the New Mexican Independent, great paper, and the piece is by Mikhail Zinshteyn: Before protestors were placed under arrest and escorted by police through the University of New Mexico, they shoutedto their future apprehenders “Cops are the 99 percent!” More than a glib rhetorical … Continued
OK, I made a more controversial kind of post earlier tonight so let me put something more positive out there…. I was just at the plaza a couple hours ago and there were no porta potties. I think we can all agree we need porta potties. I don’t know the details of how or why the cops removed what we had there, and I don’t know who was responsible for setting them up, but we need to get that back pronto. Please if anybody knows anything that will help with … Continued
I have seen and heard many eloquent speeches and essays talking about how we need to refrain from violence against OPD. However, this is not working to stop the violence from our own people and it is not going to work. They are part of our movement, but they believe violence is necessary and somehow they imagine that the mass of Americans is going to rally behind it. Instead they will make us all appear to be extremists and hateful people. The time to end this is now. People like … Continued