Author Archives: jens

After the successful national day of action and general strike in Oakland, naturally, we see the topic of violence and non-violence growing within our movement and within the voices of corporate media networks. Obviously this is a result of certain actions that individuals and groups within the movement decided to partake in. Unfortunately we are hearing a great deal of slander, and nonsense at the forefront of this discussion. As someone who has been with the occupation as much as possible, I feel it’s necessary to confront this.Isolating people based … Continued

from salon.com Massive peaceful protests end with a late-night clash and arrests By Emily Loftis A woman marches with Occupy Oakland protesters on Wednesday.  (Credit: AP Photo/Ben Margot) Topics:Occupy Wall Street, Oakland What began as a relatively peaceful day of demonstrations in Oakland on Wednesday ended in tear gas, rubber bullets and sound grenades being fired on occupiers. The Oakland Police Department arrested dozens of protesters who had taken over an abandoned building near the Oscar Grant plaza where the occupiers have an encampment. The confrontation came at the end … Continued

by magpie http://www.birdsbeforethestorm.net/   Holy shit. More things will be confirmed later, and i’ll post more photos ASAP, but I just want to get my thoughts down about today while they’re fresh. I arrived in Oscar Grant Plaza a bit after 9am. On some level, it felt like any big, NGO-sponsored demonstration: a sound truck, portapotties, people under canopies promoting whatever this-or-that cause. And then I remembered: this wasn’t a top-down organized event. This wasn’t something that we requested from the authorities. This was something we organized ourselves, for us. … Continued

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Jaime Omar Yassin   http://hyphenatedrepublic.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/the-general-strike-of-november-2nd-and-how-occupy-oakland-occupied-oakland/ The essence of the current transformation of Occupy Oakland, from a hard-working and misunderstood sudden-cadre of politically-evolving activists, to a broad based popular movement was encapsulated for me by a conversation I recently had with someone who lives in an apartment building at the edge of the plaza. I’ll call him Bill. I introduced myself to Bill one evening several days before the first iteration of the camp was destroyed by riot police on Tuesday, October 25. I’d seen … Continued

An open letter from an Anarchist with Occupy Oakland. by Anonymouse After the successful national day of action and general strike in Oakland, naturally, we see the topic of violence and non-violence growing within our movement and within the voices of corporate media networks. Obviously this is a result of certain actions that individuals and groups within the movement decided to partake in. Unfortunately we are hearing a great deal of slander, and nonsense at the forefront of this discussion. As someone who has been with the occupation as much … Continued

by some friends of OO Last night, after one of the most remarkable days of resistance in recent history, some of us within Occupy Oakland took an important next step: we extended the occupation to an unused building near Oscar Grant Plaza. We did this, first off, in order to secure the shelter and space from which to continue organizing during the coming winter months. But we also hoped to use the national spotlight on Oakland to encourage other occupations in colder, more northern climates to consider claiming spaces and … Continued