November 2, 1011, Day 23, Dia De Los Muertos and General Strike: Camp flourishes, people are fed, clothed, sheltered (not in houses but in tents), transformed. Thousands march on the banks. As I ride my bike around and watch the march go by, a long-time Oakland resident says to me, "It looks like the white folks finally figured out what's going on."
The phrase "Citizens United" takes on a different meaning.
The storefronts and automated teller machines of Big Banks are blocked, barricaded, taped off, and redecorated with checks demanding payment in restitution for the crimes they have committed, and imploring bank customers to take their business elsewhere.
The inevitable debate "Is non-violence a tactic or is it a way of life?" ensues. Astute observers note that buildings, like corporations, are not actually people; that predatory lending and foreclosure are forms of violence; that police killing countless unarmed black and brown people in Oakland (Oscar Grant), San Francisco (Sheila Detoy, Idriss Stelley), and elsewhere is violence; that police lobbing projectiles at Scott Olsen's head after his friends had rushed to help him is violence; and that Black Bloc as a tactic puts bystanders at risk for arrest who may not be guaranteed a quick "cite and release" if they are undocumented or have warrants, something for Black Bloc folks to consider when employing property destruction under cover of a larger march.
Despite the disagreement about the appropriate range in a "diversity of tactics," later that evening, more than 10,000 people march on the Port of Oakland in support of the General Strike. The view around the curve of the bridge and at sundown is stunning.
...and reminds me of images from Egypt and, further back, the 1936 Spanish Civil War.
(Josh MacPhee, www.justseeds.org, please support this art collective!)
Around midnight, at Oscar Grant Plaza, altars honor people whose lives were lost due to a lack of healthcare. Clotheslines are put up along with scraps of paper and pens and any and all are welcomed to speak their truth. For the first time, many are questioning consumerism.
November 5, 2011, Day 26, National Bank Transfer Day: An estimated 650,000 people (including me) join credit unions in just over a month, protesting Bank of America's proposed $5 monthly fee for ATM card use-- the latest sign of hubris from one of the world's largest banks-- and grabbing an opportunity for personal action to divest from the 1%.
November 27, 2011, (Who's counting?), Squatting rights and foreclosure activism teach-in: Punks and self-study law nerds and African-American youth share detailed and practical information on property law in California. Important connections are made between punks and long-time housing rights activists from organizations like Causa Justa :: Just Cause and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, who join forces to protest in front of the homes of people in Oakland whose houses are being foreclosed.
December 12, 2011: Another shutdown of the Oakland port is planned. Who knows what will happen next?
November 27, 2011, (Who's counting?), Squatting rights and foreclosure activism teach-in: Punks and self-study law nerds and African-American youth share detailed and practical information on property law in California. Important connections are made between punks and long-time housing rights activists from organizations like Causa Justa :: Just Cause and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, who join forces to protest in front of the homes of people in Oakland whose houses are being foreclosed.
December 12, 2011: Another shutdown of the Oakland port is planned. Who knows what will happen next?
It's too soon to tell where this Occupy Together movement will lead and I'm not entirely sure it matters. The financial crisis demonstrated the flaws of the current political and economic system, which many of us already knew. What's exciting is the visibility not only of the critique -- media outlets suddenly using terms like "income inequality" and "corporate greed"-- but the visibility of the alternative. While the trauma of chronic homelessness and being kicked by landlords and police from camp to camp is not something I want to emulate, I do think the Occupy encampments have demonstrated that people are capable of creating spontaneous spaces in which we share food, clothing, comfort, information, opinions, solidarity, and decision-making with each other. As we said during the anti-war protests in San Francisco in 2003...
"It's not just the war, it's the way we live."
