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occupy california 
19 January 2010 at 11:13 am |
We would like to transmit your evening events on our station. It would be very simple to do: just set up a shoutcast stream line that connects to our radio station and have that line open while you conduct the open mic… let us know what you think. We will provide you with all the information on logging in to our stream.
Solidaridad,
The Rebel Crew.
28 January 2010 at 6:26 pm |
Two articles on the recent occupations in Santa Cruz appear in the new issue of this Fire to the Prisons.
A link to a free pdf download is included here.
Plus ways to become a distributor of the publication.
Fire to the Prisons
An Insurrectionary Quarterly
Issue #8 Out Now
Winter 2010
Download at:
http://zinelibrary.info/files/firetotheprisons8.pdf (8.16 mb)
Glossy print copies are available for re-distribution by contacting us at:
firetotheprisons (at) gmail (dot) com
or
Fire to the Prisons
c/o Shoelacetown ABC
P.O Box 8085
Paramus, NJ
07652, USA
If you are a project that distributes free literature to prisoners or a not-for-profit project that feels as if it shares the outlook of this magazine, please contact us to find out information on getting free copies to re-distribute.
For bookstores and other types of distributors, please contact us for payment information (paypal and money order are both options). All money made from copies sold goes either to our postage or print fees.
Issue #8 Table of Contents
WHAT AND WHY:
A quick briefing – Pg. 3
TURNING THE TABLES
IN DEFENSE OF THE EXCEPTIONS:
Advocating a revolutionary voice in defense of the “cop-killer”.
By Another Delinquent – Pg. 10
WE’LL GET WHAT WE CAN TAKE:
A brief chronology of recent events in the
California Student-Worker Movement. – Pg. 17
THE BRICKS WE THROW AT POLICE TODAY WILL BUILD THE LIBERATION SCHOOLS OF TOMORROW
By Three Non-Matriculating Proletarians – Pg. 23
BLAST FROM THE PAST:
BLACK MASK AND
UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER
The story of a small underground 1960’s
Revolutionary group in New York City. – Pg. 28
OUR TEARS MAKE THE FLOWERS GROW
On the situation in greece. – Pg. 37
RIOT:
The Olympics are coming. – Pg. 41
WE DID NOT HAVE OUR “BROKENHAGEN”
On the actions against the climate summit “Cop15” in Copenhagen.
By Some Unwanted Children of Capitalism – Pg. 46
REPRESSION:
Updates on the legal cases or situations of those enemy to the state. – Pg. 48
REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY
Actions claimed in solidarity with other struggles, arrested individuals, or unrest. – Pg. 73
A CHRONOLOGY:
Of North American Prisoner Resistance. – Pg. 80
ANARCHIST RESISTANCE
Attacks claimed by Anarchists. – Pg. 84
NATIVE CONFLICT:
Under reported actions of Indigenous and “Third” World struggles. – Pg. 87
REMEMBERING IVAN KHUTORSKOY
+ RESISTING FASCISM – Pg. 90
ETC:
Shout Outs, Further Reading, News. – Pg. 94
11 February 2010 at 7:46 pm |
Hi, sorry I haven’t find an email adress to contact you… so I’ll post the invitation here. We host weekly anarchists discussions, debats and presentation at L’Agitée in Quebec city. We would be very interested to have a presentation about the Occupations in the US… if you are interested to discuss a possible invitation for a conference here ( we know it’s far, but we can raise funds, find places to sleep, and contact other city’s that would host such conferance)
Revolutionnairy greetings
lesmardidelanarchie ( at ) yahoo.com
11 February 2010 at 11:04 pm |
UCI banner drop!…….
16 February 2010 at 6:38 pm |
DOCUMENTARY SEEKS UC STUDENT INTERVIEW
My name is Kim and I’m the Associate Producer on Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project. We’re doing a video that contrasts war spending with the budget crisis here in California. We’re highlighting the effects of the UC tuition hike and trying to find a student to interview on this topic who has been forced to leave a UC college because of the increased fees (not just graduate early, but leave the UC system). If you know anyone who fits this description, please e-mail me at kimh@bravenewfoundation.org thanks!
19 February 2010 at 3:39 pm |
Please check out this new blog and zine generated by some of us in the CSU and community college systems:
http://gatheringtempest.blogspot.com/
25 February 2010 at 2:05 am |
Thou Shall Not Censor Our Movement!!
Thou Shall Not Censor Art!!
Download the UC Bill of Rights!!
Click to access protectyoureducation1of12.pdf
25 February 2010 at 10:46 am |
UCSC Humanities 2 Banner Drop!
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/02/25/18638744.php
1 March 2010 at 1:44 pm |
Our tactics at UCSC are not achieving their aim. Students who could stand with us in solidarity are left feeling alienated and resentful. Blocking intersection, pulling fire alarms, and mobbing lectures make us seem like aimless rabble-rousers who are just in it for a good riot
This is not true, but if the majority of students believe it, it might as well be. Civil disobedience is important, imperative! but our tool belt only holds a crowbar. We need new ideas new angles. WE need credibility, or else we WILL be dissmissed
1 March 2010 at 4:31 pm |
A little bit Soli wit Cali
A lota bit reppin boston
http://occupyboston.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/umass-boston-banner-drop-to-kick-off-march/
1 March 2010 at 6:54 pm |
A hate crime is an act that deliberately provokes discrimination and stirs up violence against a group that’s discriminated against. The noose hung at the library at UC San Diego was a death threat to the black population at UC San Diego and the noose painted right here on the Earth and Marine Science building was a death threat to the black population at UC Santa Cruz.
A lynching is a thing of pure hatred. Don’t believe otherwise. A noose hung from a tree, on a door, painted on a wall, anywhere, is a symbol of hatred and control. It is a threat. It’s statement is a snarled hiss of “I hate you, I hate who you are, and I am using this noose to tell you so.” No one who sees a noose should ever believe otherwise. We know what those who leave the noose are saying. There is no way to argue that it was a joke or that they didn’t know what it really meant. No matter how you look at it, the noose still means hatred and death to black people. And death threats have to be taken seriously at all times. Some kids grow up knowing that death threats have to be taken seriously. Jewish kids grow up knowing this. Black kids grow up knowing this. Gay kids grow up knowing this, a lot of them stay in the closet because they know this and hear the hate language. I think we can all agree that acts like this cannot be tolerated at all, especially on a campus of a public university that claims to take pride in its diversity. However, UC administration has shown that acts of hatred are indeed to be tolerated. The students that confessed to hanging the noose in the library at UC San Diego have only been suspended, while numerous student protesters at all UCs have been fined, expelled, and arrested. For what? Fighting for a better University?
In the UC system only 5% of the undergrads are African American, and with all the recent raises in cost of attendance that number is projected to become even more pathetic. So instead of protecting the students that are out there fighting for an affordable education, UC instead choose to protect these racists? The administration cannot be allowed to continue this blatant racism. They may not have hung the noose themselves, but through their actions they have endorsed it.
2 March 2010 at 11:23 am |
—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Statement of UC President Mark Yudof regarding the future of
public education in California
From: “University of California Office of the President”
Date: Tue, March 2, 2010 5:43 am
————————————————————————–
Date: 2010-03-02
Contact: University of California Office of the President
Phone: (510) 987-9200
Email: president@ucop.edu
Statement of UC President Mark Yudof regarding the future of public
education in California, March 3, 2010
Today I am publicly announcing my resignation as president of the
University of California. A letter to the U.C. community is posted at my
website: http://markyudof.com/
I first would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the members of my
staff who have worked tirelessly on behalf of public education. It has
been a privilege to work with such an exceptional group of individuals. I
would also like to thank the Board of Regents for allowing me to serve the
University of California and the staff, faculty and students of the entire
University system for their dedication, perseverance and commitment to the
ideals of excellence in higher education.
There are no doubt many questions about my decision to step down. I would
simply refer people to the letter I have posted on my website and urge the
public to respect my decision. I should say that this decision was
entirely my own and I was not pressured by any individual or institution.
The crisis we are facing is not only a budget crisis. This much is clear.
It is a structural and systemic crisis. It is my hope that outside of my
role as president of the U.C. that I will be able to do more to address
the systemic nature of the crisis we are all facing.
Respectfully yours,
Mark Yudof, ex-president, University of California
2 March 2010 at 3:42 pm |
FIVE STUDENTS ARRESTED DURING SIT IN AT STATE CAPITOL
http://www.dailycal.org/article/108482/students_lobbying_in_capitol_arrested
http://oaklandnorth.net/2010/03/01/exclusive-video-state-senate-leader-sits-down-with-unannounced-student-protesters/
3 March 2010 at 1:59 am |
We, the autonomous students of CSU Monterey Bay, would like to share with you some of what is happening at CSUMB.
Walk Out – CSUMB – Guerrilla Theater
Please spread this around and utilize Guerrilla Theater as a means in which to either open a dialogue or make a statement. keep in mind that we scripted the event but it was in front of an unsuspecting group of students.
We wanted to let our brothers up north at UCSC and UCB and elsewhere that CSUMB is having a huge walk-out/teach-in which may lead into more dramatic events.
There was a banner dropped from the library tonight (Tuesday March 2nd) and pics will be up tomorrow on a new blog, which we will notify you of.
3 March 2010 at 5:45 am |
visit freeucr.org
check this out. http://www.flickr.com/photos/48063100@N04/
working on some vids.
Keep the PEACE and UNITY
4 March 2010 at 10:47 am |
The “Mark Yudof” who claims he has not resigned is an imposter. The illusion of power at the head of the U.C. has been unmasked. The movement is in control of it’s own destiny. The university is currently under anti-capital reconstruction. The magical powers of the institution have evaporated under the cynicism that gets promoted as growth. The terms of the crisis are unstable.
We are the crisis and the crisis is in a state of becoming.
4 March 2010 at 2:10 pm |
Campus Progress has been running a lot of content about the UC protests this week, including this investigative piece about what happened those who protested back in December:
http://www.campusprogress.org/fieldreport/5135/above-the-law
4 March 2010 at 4:43 pm |
Scores of students have occupied the Joyal Administration Building at CSU Fresno following a march and rally that consisted of many hundreds in protest of the continual privatization of public education in California. The students plan to rename the building Marvin X Hall in lieu of the fact that it is currently named after a former Nazi sympathizer: former president Joyal.
4 March 2010 at 7:07 pm |
How do I get video to you guys!!! We have awesome clips from CSU Montery Bay. One of them is currently in santa cruz indymedia
4 March 2010 at 7:40 pm |
I just received a text from a protester on the streets of Santa Cruz: THEY HAVE OCCUPIED THE CLOCKTOWER. Dance party in the intersection is imminent.
4 March 2010 at 8:11 pm |
These pictures are from the University of Oklahoma solidarity demonstration:
http://omploader.org/vM3FsMw
http://omploader.org/vM3FsNA
4 March 2010 at 11:23 pm |
Warren Wilson College shows some Cali-Love! (Sunrise March 4th)
http://picfront.org/d/7sNw
http://picfront.org/d/7sNx
http://picfront.org/d/7sNv
<3
5 March 2010 at 12:53 pm |
Photos from Sacramento March 4:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050074&id=1015508616&l=b6dc19051d
5 March 2010 at 1:29 pm |
Video of UC Irvine students and workers taking the streets of Irvine to defend public education:
5 March 2010 at 6:28 pm |
For the article and pictures go to: http://uvafightsback.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/banner-drop-on-emmett-st/
This morning, Friday March 5th, a small group of students and Charlottesville folk dropped banners in UVA and the Corner that read “Public Education is Under Attack STAND UP FIGHT BACK!” and “Take Back Your Classroom, Your Workplace, YOUR LIFE.” This is in solidarity with the students, workers, faculty, parents, and the wider community that acted out all over the nation as part of the “National Day to Defend Public Education.” This is also a small step in mobilizing and organizing right here in UVA.
The movement around the nation is happening in response to increasing budget cuts, privatization, tuition hikes, and layoffs. We also fight against the false promises of college degrees and the university system that commodifies students for the capitalist system. A growing number of students and those within the university community in the US have given up hope that spending thousands of dollars and working endless shifts for bad pay is supposed to give them a better chance in life. The debt we amass indentures our life and autonomy so as the cost is too high for us to buy into this capitalist dream of “success” anymore.
And so we decided to live. This means we are taking the spaces necessary to regain autonomy and share what we can while we dismantle the ascribed structures and roles that keep us passive and silent, all while we laugh, dance, and cry. This means that we won’t ask for permission to act or base our actions on reform. If we are to live without the roles we serve, then only we are capable of taking them down, not through laws written on paper or through police and authorities that are set on protecting wealth. This is a systemic problem with a systemic solution. The more we spread revolt and liberated spaces and the more we stop the flows of this modern society, the better we will share our spaces and the better we will live our own dreams (those dreams that don’t involve artificial and false promises). People all the way from California to New York are taking part in this. Charlottesville is as capable of action as any other…
To further this, there will be a general assembly meeting first in front of the Rotunda on Friday the 19th at 6pm after the John Yoo protest and all pissed-off workers, students and faculty are invited. As are any seeking to piece together the current and ongoing education crises. This is a space for everyone to share tools and ideas to spread the movement and find each other so that we can take spaces back and use them like the word “public” actually meant something.
Love,
The UVAFB Anti-Debt Committee http://www.uvafightsback.wordpress.com
5 March 2010 at 7:37 pm |
Banner drop from CSUMB. and pictures in the album
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030784&id=1384009119&l=ae05270ef0#!/photo.php?pid=30521401&id=1384009119&fbid=1226338463627
5 March 2010 at 11:50 pm |
When writing about the March 4th protests for public education, the mainstream media views students as violent radicals and the independent media views students as victims reacting to oppression and theft. I disagree with both of these generalized perspectives and would like to bring a more moderate point of view to our debates. I will look at the negative and the positive moments of March 4th to try and balance out the reporting.
To begin, I will address the complaints about the protests since they seem to gain the most attention. I can see why students would be angry about a blockade of campus and disagree with these tactics, but it is important to remember that while this protest ended access to campus for a day, the fee hikes reduces access to UC on a permanent basis.
Also, I think those advocating violence and spray-painting “Off the Pigs!” are not sensible in their actions. I hope that people do not regard a handful of radical individuals as representatives of the public education movement. UCSC and mainstream media try to discredit the protest because of the actions of a few individuals, but please do not accept these gross generalizations as the whole story of March 4th.
Two windshields were broken at UCSC on March 4th and this has been used to deem the entire protest a violent act. These windshields were broken in clashes that occurred as cars attempted to ram through lines of people. The breaking of windshields is not a tactic of the movement, but is the regrettable consequence of violent aggression by angry motorists.
The UCSC administration reported seeing students with clubs and knives. This is just not true. The “clubs” were PVC pipes used to hold up the giant banana slug and I saw no weapons of any sort. It was not a dangerous event, it was an event full of professors and children and workers. It’s sad to see the positivity drowned out in the administration’s anti-protest perspective.
Now that I have addressed some of the complaints about the protests, I would like to talk about some of the beautiful things that happened on March 4th.
During the day of action, I saw so many inspiring and positive acts by professors, workers, and students that will likely not be reported by the extremes of the mainstream media and the radical media. These moments deserve to be heard about. Here are a few:
Professors, workers, and students played music together and sang songs for education and equality.
Students marched with workers chanting for justice in both English and Spanish. The sense of solidarity was strong.
Some students performed a play at the base of campus with characters like Higher Education, Undocumented Students, Workers, and other people effected by cuts to public education. The play showed the perspective of different groups on campus in an informative and hilarious way. It was incredible to see what they did.
Some students set up a table to spray-paint stencils on to shirts at the event. Seeing people produce art together in an act of protest was inspiring and fun.
This and so much more happened. Young children danced at the base of campus to student bands, people cooked food for each other, and people played soccer in the street. It was a day full of much positivity and joy.
The extreme perspectives of the administration and the radical media both overlook the beauty of this event as they push their perspective on people. Their reporting comes from a pre-formed narrative. The struggle to preserve public education is full of a variety of perspectives and tactics, yet the news we receive is generalized.
The administration and mainstream media say that any protest is irrational and wrong. The radical media says that any protest is rational and justified.
Please don’t be divided and conquered by these generalized points of view. The movement for public education is struggling for a better future and needs your help.
6 March 2010 at 12:46 am |
While I agree that the administration is wrongfully claiming violence, I disagree with your critique of the situation. I agree that any violence that occurred that day was clearly instigated on the part of motorists, but I disagree with this critique’s explanation of what violence is and the assumption that violence is inherently something to shy away from.
When students were hit with cars that were driven by belligerent people, they retaliated by kicking those cars. Their anger and rage is completely justified (obviously), and to even discuss their retaliation as a “bad” thing places the ‘assault with vehicle’ on the same plane of judgment and focus as the damaging or destruction of property. One argument not only supersedes the other chronologically (1st assault, 2nd retaliation), but also supersedes the other politically and substantively. One could argue that the strikers presented a situation that had a higher likelihood of hostile confrontation, but that doesn’t justify the assaults caused by an irrational, illogical, and quite frankly heartless individuals that value going to campus or immediately traveling down High st. over the lives of people regardless of their differences. Not to mention that access through was permitted for emergencies or other instances of dire need (such as child supervision) anyway, eliminating any discussion of the needs of the motorist. Arguing about the strikers being present invited assault’ is a red herring not only because ‘the motorist should value a human life over their time schedule, but also because the politics of the strike justify blocking the road just as property destruction, if done correctly, destroys some capital and can be thus justified with anti-capitalist analysis.
Violence in the form of self-defense is always justified. Individuals that regularly and as a part of their job description exercise unjust authority and legally monopolized violence create a paradox, reinforcing injustice, and is thus a force that is the active arm of oppression. This justifies retaliation against them (i.e. “death to the pigs”) and is only suggested when possible.
The point is that your critique simply falls short of providing a moderate analysis when the values that govern “moderation” is manipulated by a cabal of administrators. This is the pitfall of arguing violence; violence is the principle form of control over the masses, but is also a readily available tool to fight back.
6 March 2010 at 8:28 am |
Video of the UCLA campus rally speeches.
http://sheddinghistory.com/2010/03/ucla-rallies-to-protest-fee-hikes-workers-wage-cuts/
http://sheddinghistory.com/2010/03/video-ucla-day-of-action-for-public-education-rally/
6 March 2010 at 9:17 am |
[…] page where the public can upload their own photos, videos and write ups of what they saw at heard here. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Video: UCLA “Day of Action for Public Education” […]
6 March 2010 at 12:51 pm |
march 4th action at UMass Boston:
http://occupyboston.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/pics-from-thursday/
Also, banner drops leading up to thursday:
http://occupyboston.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/umass-boston-banner-drop-to-kick-off-march/
http://occupyboston.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/umb-committee-to-have-fun-gives-another-reminder/
6 March 2010 at 8:23 pm |
How I upload pictures here. I have pics from March 4th Mass Rally
7 March 2010 at 8:33 am |
So much solidarity from Purchase. Best wishes friends.. we won’t stop.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=344566106645&oid=331879526900
7 March 2010 at 7:32 pm |
New Blog out of CSU Monterey Bay:
http://guerrillathink.wordpress.com/
8 March 2010 at 11:42 am |
The Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego expresses its staunch support and solidarity with the students, faculty, and workers at K-12 schools, community colleges, and California State University and University of California campuses. We stand with them in their call for a democratic and accessible educational system for all students. We stand with them in their actions that shine light on the debilitating budget cuts and damaging campus climates that highlight not only the decline of public education in California and across the country, but also the ways that low-income students, students of color, and non-traditional students are disproportionately affected and further disenfranchised.
No campus – private or public, secular or religious, working-class or upper-class, urban or suburban – is immune from these overt attempts to dismantle public education. We are all directly impacted by these unwise assaults. Community colleges, public universities, and private universities such as the University of San Diego rely on public high school students who comprise the majority of incoming freshmen. Almost all college students rely on state-subsidized financial aid packages, especially those that include Cal Grants, in order to attend college at all. Budget cuts weaken already marginalized academic programs and student services, such as Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, LGBT centers, student retention and recruitment services, increased class size, and increased loans in financial aid packages. Weakened infrastructures also mean weaker departments and student organizations with which local communities can partner and collaborate.
We stand with our colleagues in defense of public education, not its privatization. We stand with them in protecting the integrity of education as a site for the regeneration and redistribution of intellectual, economic, and social resources, not increased socio-economic and racial stratification and terror. In light of this year’s 40th anniversary of the formation of Ethnic Studies, we stand together to honor the determination of our communities to transform public education into a means of liberation and sovereignty. We invite you to join us us in this important movement.
Department of Ethnic Studies
University of San Diego
8 March 2010 at 4:46 pm |
http://reoccupied.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/if-only-there-was-such-a-thing-as-outside/
9 March 2010 at 6:34 am |
For an analysis of how and why college has gotten so expensive, what it does to access, and how little it would cost to make it free:
http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/College.html
10 March 2010 at 11:09 pm |
An article has just been released on the crimethinc.com website with an account of the M4 happenings in Berkeley and Oakland. This article is seeking to create a dialogue about some of the strategic implications of the organizing effort. We are hoping that some occupyca readers may be interested in contributing.
http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2010/03/09/march-4-anarchists-in-the-student-movement/
11 March 2010 at 9:15 am |
The regents will meet in SF on March 23-25 to raise the fees for students in the “professional” schools who study medicine, law etc. Should we try organize against this, at least a militant demo? We have less than two weeks, but I feel strongly that should not just let them do it.
Dov
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/11/BA551CE2I6.DTL
14 March 2010 at 11:20 pm |
Dov,
There is organizing going on around this, please check out this Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=357289963230#!/event.php?eid=357289963230&ref=mf
I have tried to post this event on OccupyCA but no one seems to be listening to my comments and spreading the word!
to the moderators of this blog: please promote this rally, it is a time with incredible leverage to call out the Regents and show them what students and allies thing.
18 March 2010 at 8:42 am |
I’ve added your site to as a live RSS feed on mine to reinforce and promote global resistance.
I’ve declared war on UCLA and would appreciate any support in this struggle.
I hope you have some interest in our latest move:
http://negotiationisover.com/2010/03/17/an-angel-for-j-david-jentsch/
In solidarity, Camille
19 March 2010 at 3:35 am |
Cheres amis,
Finest from Anglo-Normandy, where we really hit the nail on the head in the last week. We invite you to spread the word of our little victory, and word of our little sadnesses at what’s lost for the moment, and of our pride and hope for the future too.
There’ll be some good writing coming up soon, I think.
Comunique below.
—
Victory – a leaving statement
After eight days of occupation, management have conceded to our demands. We have seen a mass movement spring up around the occupation – staff, students and faculty have come out in strength this last week to fiercely oppose the summary suspensions of six students, and the continued threat to Sussex.
Yesterday an 850-strong Emergency general meeting proved that we, the students, have no confidence in the VCEG. We, the students, have spoken.
The occupation became far more than a symbolic opposition; it was a positive and exciting space in its own right – which has embodied our vision of what Sussex can, what Sussex should be, and of what we want from our education.
The strike today, the Senate meeting yesterday; these ratify our position – we the sussex community are united against management and their ‘proposals for change’. This result proves that a sustained movement; built with a diversity of tactics, skills and perspectives, can achieve concrete results.
We will not stop here.
This has been the first of a series of victories to come at Sussex – the first of a series of victories nationally, internationally.
We have left A2 in perfect condition, and are now going out to join the UCU strike rally. Next term will see more action, more fighting cuts; management on the run.
We leave for the holidays in a position of strength. There is much work yet to do.
Till next term,
Stop the Cuts
20 March 2010 at 3:03 pm |
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2010/3/17/gainesville-students-protest-police-shooting
29 March 2010 at 12:58 pm |
The Nimitz 150 (150 people arrested March 4 in Oakland for freeway action) will be arraigned Friday, April 2 and Monday, April 5.
They could use support, I’m sure.
11 April 2010 at 7:13 am |
Will you pimp this? It’s great.
http://defendsussex.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/new-critical-article-on-the-occupations-last-term/
11 April 2010 at 11:52 pm |
Daily Calfornian reports that the UC Movement for Efficient Privatization (UCMeP) has swept the Berkeley student government (ASUC) elections:
http://www.dailycalifornian.org/article/1567/ucmep_sweeps_asuc_elections.html
21 April 2010 at 4:10 pm |
The Chicago Conspiracy West Coast Tour 2010
Social struggles, reclamation, occupation, and combatant youth culture in Chile
http://www.subversiveactionfilms.org/the-chicago-conspiracy/
The Chicago Conspiracy begins on March 29, 1985. On this day, two young
brothers and militants of the MIR, Rafael and Eduardo Vergara, were gunned
down by police as they walked through the politically active community
Villa Francia. The Chicago Conspiracy is about today. Following a
national plebiscite in 1988, the dictator Pinochet ended his rule in 1990,
yet the struggle against both dictatorship and democracy continue.
The Chicago Conspiracy is about the Day of the Youth Combatant. March 29
is not only about the Vergara brothers–it is a day to remember all youth
combatants who have died under the dictatorship and current democratic
regime. The Chicago Conspiracy is about the students who fight a
dictatorship-era educational law put into place on the last day of
military rule. The Chicago Conspiracy is about the neighborhoods on the
outskirts of Santiago. Originally land occupations, they became centers of
armed resistance to the military dictatorship. A number of them, such as
la Victoria and Villa Francia, continue as areas of confrontational
discontent to this day. The Chicago Conspiracy is about the Mapuche
conflict. The Mapuche people valiantly resisted Spanish occupation, and
continue to resist the Chilean state and the multinational corporations
who strip Mapuche territory for forestry plantations, mines, dams, and
farming plantations.
The Chicago Conspiracy is about combatant youth culture and
intergenerational struggles, revolutionary hip-hop and militant
traditions. The showing will be accompanied by a photo exhibit on social
struggle and social war in Chile.
FRIDAY, APRIL 23 at 8 PM
Murray Board Room University of Puget Sound
Tacoma WA
MONDAY, APRIL 26 at 7 PM
Red and Black Cafe
Portland, OR
TUESDAY, APRIL 27 at 8:30 PM
Lewis and Clark
0615 SW Palatine Hill Road
Portland, OR
The Bay
FRIDAY, APRIL 30 at 7 PM
Station 40 in San Francisco
SATURDAY, MAY 1 at 8 PM
Long Haul in Berkeley
MONDAY, MAY 3
Santa Cruz, CA
TUESDAY, MAY 4 at 7 PM
Firehouse 51
410 James Street
Modesto, CA
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5
Fresno, CA
THURSDAY, MAY 6 at 6:00PM
UCLA campus, Public Affairs Room 1234
Parking Info: Hilgard Ave/ Westholme Ave.
Los Angeles, CA
FRIDAY, MAY 7 at 3:00PM
Dolores Huerta Room (in the Gold Student Center) at Pitzer College.
1050 North Mills Avenue
Claremont, CA
FRIDAY, MAY 7 at 8:30PM
12520 Long Beach Blvd.
Lynwood, CA
SATURDAY, MAY 8
Orange Co.
SUNDAY, MAY 9
San Diego, CA
You can write us at contact(at)subversiveactionfilms.org to find
details about planned showings or to add more dates.
21 April 2010 at 4:44 pm |
link exchange, please!
http://roblosricos.wordpress.com
27 April 2010 at 1:49 pm |
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/students_across_nj_protest_gov.html
7 May 2010 at 12:10 pm |
May 7th, 2010
To the Hunger Strikers at UC Berkeley
In the spring quarter of 2009, students at UC Santa Cruz went on a hunger strike lasting four days. We had a long list of demands because the promise for a better future, for an accessible higher education, is still a privilege reserved for a class of people that can afford it. The UC still remains out of reach for swathes of communities throughout California, and inequality at the university continues to marginalize students, communities of color, students with children, the undocumented community, and workers. I was one of the hunger strikers then and so I would like to send a message to you: that myself and undoubtedly many others at UCSC stand in solidarity with you.
The struggle at the UC and the student movement at large is bittersweet. It unites us and pushes us to grow and expand the possibilities we see for the future; simultaneously it’s a struggle that extends beyond returning the university to the status quo, a struggle entrenched with superficially contradictory thoughts and ideas. It’s not an appeal to edit the university, but one to re-imagine and recreate it. Don’t let the administrators, the politicians, the media, or anyone else convince you to end your fight with promises of reform. As you know, the end of your hunger strike, with our without victories in hand, is far from the end of the struggle. So we shouldn’t call for reform, but instead call for a revolution; we shouldn’t call for a university, but a movement of education to expand consciousness.
Our triumph has always been the ability to find each other and to discover new means to relate with one another beyond the limitations of this alienating system. The most profound experience of our hunger strike was breaking the day-to-day routine in order to build a community. In the space where we organized the hunger strike, in the spaces we’ve occupied—in these fleeting spaces, we have, for a moment in time, developed a new experience of social relations that words fail to describe.
Indeed, we are the crisis. We are the power to realize our needs. We do what we can to create a brighter future.
In solidarity,
MG
8 May 2010 at 3:25 am |
Middlesex University Students extended their occupation from the admin area of the university to the entire Mansion House on Wednesday evening.
See here for information and picture: http://savemdxphil.com/
12 May 2010 at 9:38 am |
News from France: riots and school blockade in Paris suburbs
Monday 10th, Villiers-le-bel and val-d‘Oise: schools and high-schools are blocked after a supiscious speech of Nicolas Sarkozy
So they learnt the President would like to suppress the summer vacations. No needs to confirm the information: it wouldn‘t be a big deal for that president to take this kind of decisions. The text message reached all the mobiles phones, all the ears.
Friends and and sisters started to block the entrance of the schools: Léon-Blum at first, and then Bezons, Louvres, and Goussainville and the Val-d‘Oise department.
Several garbages have been put on fire, and several Molotov cocktails thrown against some lost pigs, called to reestablish the Republican Order. Indeed, Luc Chatel, the re-education Minister proposed to organized the vacations geographically, and to plan again the school timetable. The managers of those school had to quickly spread the idea that these news were false, to calm down the youth.
It’s like cutting the promenade of a life-sentenced. Twelve years in school, and no holidays? our holidays? you‘ll see…
http://polisson.blogsport.de/2010/05/12/161/
13 May 2010 at 3:09 am |
I couldn’t find any definite links from other sources to it that had positive info, but Arizona Indymedia has a good little story about a spontaneous walkout and occupation by (mostly?) middle and high school kids over HB2281 that happened yesterday.
http://arizona.indymedia.org/
17 May 2010 at 5:01 pm |
View On Black
18 June 2010 at 9:03 pm |
banner drop in san diego.
http://img193.imageshack.us/i/dsc07072y.jpg/
http://img64.imageshack.us/i/dsc07082s.jpg/
http://img15.imageshack.us/i/dsc07086ln.jpg/
http://occupyuci.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/banner-drops-in-north-sd-county/
1 September 2010 at 8:40 pm |
http://www.edu-factory.org/edu15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=378:solidarity-with-students-for-autonomy-epa-san-carlos-university-guatemala&catid=34:struggles&Itemid=53
That’s not actually my email address, just the one for Edu-Factory.
9 September 2010 at 11:34 am |
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/07/18658176.php?show_comments=1#18658244
the latest feminist offensive
Not so long ago, some young women in Santa Cruz slashed the tires of the hated parking enforcement vehicles in the night, as nothing could better exemplify the slightly matriarchal character of authority under Empire. Masculinized women and feminized men are all that are left to us of the once eternal “gender roles”. In this the police, sensing their emasculation, have tried to hush it up, but that won’t work! A dying capitalism assumes the form of femininity as a last ruse, like the specialized female anti-insurgency squads in Afghanistan today. No matter! We have here turned the stereotypical assumptions concerning women into an offensive ground, the better to take the attack to capital and the state. No one ever suspects a lady. . .
“This action sets a precedent”. Indeed, a different precedent, a different target, and a different action, for an-other type of feminism.
much love,
some ecstatic feminists
23 September 2010 at 9:10 am |
Banners dropped on first day of school at UC Davis:
http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/banners-on-1st-day-uc-davis/
24 September 2010 at 1:21 pm |
Hey there – we’ve been following California up here in Quebec (McGill University) – the Anglophone student movement has never been as militant as the Francophone student movement but we took a big step toward changing that on Wednesday with a big noise demo protesting the closing of the last student-run cafeteria on campus – this is the endgame of the Administration’s 10 year campaign to corporatize food services on campus – pushing student-run spaces out. Arch Cafe was a comfortable, Fair Trade, queer-friendly place that just got in the way of Aramark food services (unethical corporate provider that has been exploiting immigrant labor). Hopefully, now that students have seen that the Administration does not have their best interests at heart, we will continue moving against the Administration’s moves to make students, professors, and workers into desperate little “entrepreneurs” and intimidate anyone who gets in their way. Not to mention our President (Heather Munroe-Blum) being one of the main ideologues of neoliberalism in Quebec. Needless to say, we have a lot of work to do.
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/archcafe
http://www.tvmcgill.com/2010/09/24/save-the-arch-cafe-rally-september-22-2010/
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2010/09/24/students-furious-over-closing-of-mcgill-cafe/
http://mcgilldaily.com/articles/32582
14 October 2010 at 9:07 pm |
Banner drop @ UCB:
http://thosewhouseit.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/let-the-banner-war-commence/
20 October 2010 at 7:51 am |
Humanities Dept. in UPR reoccupied!
Before the warmth of the morning sun came, the students of the Humanities Action Committee (CAH) of the University of Puerto Rico – Rio Piedras campus, blocked passage to the classrooms of the Humanities Department with trash cans, desks, chairs and even plant pots to interrupt administrative labor and give way to humanistic and educational expression against the $800 fee that will be implemented on January 2011.
As the sun came up, and the physical occupation and paralization of the administration was guaranteed, some classes were given outside at Antonia Plaza, meanwhile the cultural activities of the day began with a web of strings, experimental music and an open microphone for students that wished to express themselves against the fee. The activities of the day included a dialogue about the fee’s impact and tactics for struggle, flute workshops, among other things. These activities would go on all day.
A giant web that extends across the Plaza calls attention to the students and demonstrators. From this web hang quotes from famous humanists with the purpose of continuing the student struggle for an accessible university of excellence and a better country, said the demonstrators.
For their part, the Fine Arts Department, which is also within Humanities, woke up barricaded with a sign that said “Closed due to bad administration”.
The occupation of the Humanities Department responds to an unanimous vote favoring the occupation at the Student’s Assembly celebrated this past October 14th.
Organizers of the CAH confirmed that this fee presents an imminent threat to the educational access for thousands of students of the university system and have begun delineating further actions that will revert this administrative policy.
Next Thursday the Social Sciences and Education departments will be occupied, after having both approved in the assembly.
Original Spanish article written by Gamelyn Oduardo with many great pictures: http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2010/10/45337.php
Translator’s note: Both the rhetoric and the organizing methods of the UPR students since April seem interesting provided the conversations, splits, and frustrations that have come up in California, NYC, etc. Many of their tools (assemblies, call for reforms, etc.) are tools that some people in the US would say are in direct contradiction with what radical ends are which is at the same time what the UPR students are doing on the ground: shutting down departments, opening space for free unmanaged expression, widening struggle. Does this mean that “liberal” forms of organizing actually can come out as radical gestures? Or is the UPR students’ form of organizing gonna be absorbed in the future as would be expected? Or is their context too different from the context in the US to answer such questions?
In any case, one point I’d like to make is that UPR students are not homogeneous in their stance, and there are many different approaches and stances, and I’d imagine, disagreements that have come up among their mostly successful occupations.
22 October 2010 at 7:28 am |
On early Thursday morning, October 21st, there was no class at the Social Sciences and Education Departments of the University of Puerto Rico as protest against the $800 fee that the administration pretends to impose on the students. The fee implicates an almost 100% increase of tuition costs and that around 11,000 students would have to stop attending studies due to lack of enough money.
At the Education Department claims were also made against the cuts on courses offered and the rise in class capacity. According to the Action Committee for Education, “their plan is evident. They want to make the University smaller, sacrificing the public and social interest that is assumed of a State university and adopted the model of the university-business. They want to tear apart our university to eventually give it to the private sector.”
At the Social Sciences Dept., they put together community claims from the department through their first multi-sectional assembly celebrated on October 14th. At the assembly, staff employees denounced the administration’s plans to pretend to change the Medical Plan to a private one, more expensive and of lower quality. The professors reclaimed protection over their retirement and better conditions for contracted faculty.
It’s the first time that during a department strike, other annexes are also paralyzed outside of the main buildings. At the University Plaza, the Worker, Rehabilitation, and Cooperativism building(s) of Social Ciences were paralyzed. At the Sports Complex the PE classrooms gates remained closed since they belong to the Education Department. Aside from that, various forums, painting, documentary screening, and other artistic activities took place.
Translator edit: The photo article contains some little events and details unmentioned in the written article:
– Dialogue between the students and an informal administrative body was kept throughout the actions. This is part of the UPR’s “non-confrontational” policy. Still, a couple cops showed up but did nothing.
– One professor pushed through the barricades because he insisted he must get to class on time and then gave class to a total attendance of zero.
– People from the island’s teacher federation showed up to discuss parallels in struggle. The federation has been very active organizing strikes since the beginning of the school year and they have had much cooperation with UPR students.
– A big empty banner was hung that students filled up with vents and claims to the administration
Original Spanish article with many great pictures: http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2010/10/45370.php
11 November 2010 at 11:48 pm |
UC Davis TEACH OUT for Public Education
http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/solidarity-teach-out-at-ucdavis-nov-16th/
25 November 2010 at 10:27 am |
thanks for sterling uk coverage,
but…italy dudes ITALY!!
http://www.uniriot.org/uniriotII/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2161:stop-the-country-take-back-the-future&catid=132:euniriot&Itemid=324
a brit
25 November 2010 at 1:00 pm |
thanks for the submission!
26 November 2010 at 5:52 pm |
__UK OCCUPATION__
Hello, Occupiers. OccupiedLeeds just wanted to send a couple of updates for posting:
(1) We, along with several other UK occupied campuses, are still standing strong! Our university, combined with local schools, colleges, and other nearby unis, have held successful sleep-ins 3 nights in a row–hundreds occupying our lecture theatre this evening alone.
(2) Tomorrow, Saturday 27 Nov, our uni will hold a General Assembly for all–everyone is welcome to attend for Q&A, discussions, food, and continuing occupation and sleep-in.
(3) Our occupation has an official site, if you could please update this on your site(s): http://occupiedleeds.wordpress.com/ … This page also directs to our Twitter account and Facebook group.
Cheers in solidarity,
OccupiedLeeds
OccupiedLeeds@gmail.com
6 December 2010 at 10:37 pm |
A revealing audio and photographic documentary on the Budget Cuts at UC (and other universities that are being privatized)
please watch and comment!
11 December 2010 at 6:08 pm |
Government establishes siege following successful strike at UPR
by IMC-Puerto Rico Friday, Dec. 10, 2010 at 11:59 PM
pr@indymedia.org
Photo-article and videos of the second day of the 48-hour strike at the UPR- Río Piedras and the response from the administration the following day: December 8th and 9th, 2010.
Having achieved student control over the campus during the early morning on December 7th, the second day of the strike flowed with relative calm. By then, students were not going to wait on the rumors about a potential eviction by police. To spice up the rumor, the police dispersed hundreds of fliers from their helicopter around 6:30 in the morning around the whole campus warning their intervention on the strike. This old military tactic was the beginning of the current siege on the campus.
As part of the coordinated repression, a leaflet was distributed in schools neighboring the UPR: Barbosa, Muñoz Rivera and Vilamayo. It contained a security “contingency plan” and was placed next to the teacher’s time punchers since they had to pass there before going to class. As you can see, the leaflet doesn’t have a signature or letterhead. An university student on strike whose mother is a teacher at one of these schools made sure to copy and distribute the leaflet at the gates in UPR.
The rest of the day was marked by events filled with strong emotions. At mid-morning, the student leader Giovanni Roberto offered a one-on-one conversation with some employees of the private security company. With this, he managed to get empathy from the young guards by identifying affinity between the working-class students and them as marginalized groups that the system pretends to pit against each other. Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXzpbYB7Ndo&feature=player_embedded
But the surprise of the day was the demonstration by the UPR High School students. Contrary to past events, the school remained open with some teachers unaffiliated with the APPU giving classes. Even then, the school cafeteria was closed due to the fact that it’s operated by the Worker Syndicate of the UPR who have a policy of not crossing picket lines. At noon, a group of students asked for permission to go eat lunch outside and demonstrate in solidarity with the strike at the Education dept. gate. They were denied but even then, the students decided to demonstrate in front of the closed gate. Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtAPVA3YkFc&feature=player_embedded
The afternoon came and the barricades were taken down to put everything where it was before. Once the paths were cleared, the closing activity was a march through the main road of the campus until they reched the Tower. A group of students prepared a 70-foot-long banner that said “Venceremos Siempre” (loosely “We’ll Always Win”) to be hung at the top of the historic building. Unfortunately, the rotunda steps were occupied by the Capitol Security riot squad blocking access for the action. That day, the university administration gave the campus tower away to Chicky Starr (Note for gringos: Chicky Starr is a famous PR wrestler known for his cocky antics. UPR students dubbed the private security guards the “Chicky Starr Squad” throughout the strike). Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAxD3IhOXcc&feature=player_embedded
The group decided to hang the banner from the top of scaffolding in a nearby building. Afterwards, the students exited through the main gate in a victorious march.
But the story did not end there. After the effective paralization for two days by the students against the orders of the regent, the administration played its card. At midnight, the state police came into the university campus effectively breaking with the “non-confrontation” policy and declaring a siege. Up until now, the declared intentions are to remain in the campus to avoid the students coming back to take control of the campus for the Tuesday strike. The police have already chosen the nightstick over dialogue.
The indignation of the university community did not wait passively. The Ponce de Leon Ave. was occupied for more than 24 hours in spite of the police presence in the campus. The activities that took place on Thursday Dec. 9th outside of the campus will be in our next report.
Police leaflet: http://puertorico.media.indypgh.org/uploads/2010/12/2hojapiso.jpg
Leaflet Content: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/3.jpgrizioy.jpg
University High School gate demo: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/4uhs2.jpgmid.jpg
Police Contingency Plan: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/6.jpgtkh1tt.jpgmid.jpg
Taking down barricades: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/7barri.jpgmid.jpg
March through campus: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/9.jpgzbt0zh.jpgmid.jpg
Occupied Tower: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/11.jpgpvfv0g.jpgmid.jpg
Banner: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/14.jpggzzr0k.jpgmid.jpg
Exit through the main gate: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/15.jpgfbmr6a.jpgmid.jpg
Ponce de León Occupation: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/18.jpgi8q0rk.jpgmid.jpg
A common sight at the campus now: http://pr.indymedia.org/uploads/2010/12/19.jpgbqrobc.jpgmid.jpg
6 January 2011 at 11:55 am |
The End of American Studies at UCSC.
See link for more information.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/notes/shawn-freeman/the-end-of-american-studies-at-ucsc/477734972723
18 February 2011 at 7:15 am |
24 February 2011 at 1:48 am |
General Strike in Wisconsin?
http://socialistworker.org/2011/02/22/madison-labor-raises-the-stakes
28 February 2011 at 12:57 pm |
Thought you might be interested to hear about an occupation that started today at Indiana University, against a proposed Arizona-style anti-immigrant law. Check out http://www.stopsb590.wordpress.com for more information.
2 March 2011 at 4:01 pm |
March 2 at UC Davis
http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/march-2-day-of-action-uc-davis/
3 March 2011 at 1:09 am |
30+ students sit-in at CSUMB
http://guerrillathink.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/sit-in-csu-monterey-bay/
5 March 2011 at 8:26 am |
Comrades,
Please link our wordpress. We are Georgia Students for Public Higher Education organizing around the budget cuts and tuition increases in the state of Georgia, and ALSO combating the ACTIVE effort to RE-SEGREGATE our schools! Keep up the good work.
In solidarity,
SHM
5 March 2011 at 8:27 am |
http://www.georgiastudents.wordpress.com
:-)
5 June 2011 at 9:37 pm |
Hope you guys get a chance to check out our film about the student loan crisis.
http://Twitter.com/DefaultMovie
27 September 2011 at 3:32 pm |
in solidarity:
http://georgiastudents.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/gsphe-in-solidarity-with-the-irvine-11/
28 September 2011 at 10:27 pm |
Occupy San Jose Event:
First General Assembly on October 2nd!
FB Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=236683559715269
Solidarity!
3 October 2011 at 5:02 pm |
Occupy Santa Clarita Valley Ca
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Santa-Clarita-Valley-Ca/279012608784087?sk=wall
Occupy Together
love light peace
~namaste~
13 November 2011 at 9:04 am |
Students at McGill University occupy, get beat, riot cops are deployed.
Here is their statement:
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2011/11/letter-from-the-5th-floor-occupiers/
Here is some background:
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2011/11/mcgill-students-violently-forced-off-campus/
14 November 2011 at 4:49 pm |
We need to Occupy Unions! Teachers unions, construction unions, etc. are making hand over fist. Union representative make over 150K-200K. This is our money! Give it back!
17 November 2011 at 10:54 pm |
http://occupytheatre.wordpress.com/ – Providing a forum for theatre artists to react to the Occupy Movement and share their responses. Occupy these plays.
19 November 2011 at 11:59 am |
filmed a video of the occupycal encampment before it was raided!
would really appreciate if you checked it out!
thanks!
19 November 2011 at 9:05 pm |
The UC Regents have rescheduled their meeting for Monday, November 28th! http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov28.html Are we going to let them meet and have the chance to increase our tuition again??
20 November 2011 at 2:56 am |
http://www.occupyucdavis.org/ is now up and running!
27 November 2011 at 2:16 pm |
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/11/26/linda-katehi-and-the-neoliberal-reform-of-greek-higher-education/
dang.
4 January 2012 at 6:51 am |
FORWARD THIS (and get on the call)- The success of this call depends on you helping to get the right people on the phone! We have room for 500 voices.
Sunday 1/8/12 – 11AM PST
Occupy Education California #J19UC Conference Call
FOR WHO: Open to anyone interested in non-violent direct action targeting public university education.
PURPOSE: This call is for those who want to coordinate actions for the Jan 19th UC Regents meeting at UC Riverside or is planning an action at their local UC in solidarity.
… CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THIS CALL:
http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/6Z0K0SXT784YFSH5
Proposed agenda:
Introductions
1. Do we know the exact location of the Regents meeting on UCR campus?
2. Discuss diversity of tactics on UCR campus and other campuses for Jan 19
3. Messages/Slogans/Signs for the events
4. OUTREACH Strategies
5. Transportation to UCR from other UC campuses
http://www.interoccupy.org
23 September 2012 at 9:29 pm |
I’m an anthropology student at San Jose State University and some peers and I created an ethnographic pamphlet entitled “Occupying in California: Voices and Contexts” based on participant observation and interviews. The pamphlet was written to provide Occupiers and those who would like to know more about the Occupy movement with a juxtaposition of three sites of Occupation in California. We explore how the particular context of each location led to site-specific manifestations of strategy, action and narrative as reflected in activist practice.
I’m wondering if it’s possible to post the link on the Occupy California site? This is the link: http://blogs.sjsu.edu/anthropology/files/2012/03/Occupy-Pamphlet-Final-1mv67zb.pdf. We just want to try to disseminate it to as many place as possible so that Occupiers can get a broader feel for the diversity within the movement.
4 October 2012 at 2:17 pm |
In San Francisco’s Mission District, the Black Bloc Breaks Windows and Fails to Make an Impact
From the new issue (#111) of Berkeley’s ‘Slingshot’
Gentrification is a process where a working class, low-income neighborhood is colonized by the affluent and transformed into a bourgeois area. The ’embourgeosification’ of a formerly proletarian quarter often begins when authentically impoverished low-income artists and bohemians move in. Minimum-toil-culture types are drawn to a low-income area by cheap rents, and are also often animated by an authentic antipathy for the larger homogenous corporatized society around us. Their marginal presence is followed by a proliferation of artsy enterprises: high-end galleries, shops, bars and restaurants drawing mainstream prosperous types to shop and consume in an area once thought to be too dark, dirty and (usually) non-white for upper middle class tastes. The gentry come to shop and party, and end up moving in, driving up the cost of rental housing, annexing affordable housing altogether, helping to drive hardcore wage slaves and the poor out of their homes and remaking an area in the image of the gentry’s grasping, conspicuously consuming, conformist selves.
Gentrification is all about private property and the primacy of property rights over human needs in a market society. Vandalism of the property of wealthy invaders is an organic automatic response to the threat of dispossession gentrification brings. But sometimes a brick through a window is only a brick in a window. In fact, in most cases a broken window is just a broken window, a mere expression of atomized powerless rage. Context is everything.
A one-night-only mass vandalism spree that occurred several months ago in San Francisco’s rapidly gentrifying Mission District shows how a successful episode of mass property destruction can in fact be a complete failure in terms of authentic subversive social struggle.
On the night of Monday, April 30th, a rally associated with the Occupy movement was held in the Mission District’s Dolores Park. As the rally ended, a march departed from the park and headed down 18th street, which is now a hyper-gentrified corridor of expensive restaurants and stores. Marchers vandalized a number of highly appropriate targets and eventually turned onto a particularly loathsome stretch of Valencia Street. Valencia is ground zero in the negative class transformation of the formerly working class Mission and on Valencia, more high-end eateries and stores were paint-bombed and had their windows broken. Expensive cars were also trashed. The Mission District police station was paint-bombed and some of its windows were broken as well. According to the capitalist news media, more than 30 stores and restaurants were vandalized. Only one person was arrested, and this person was quickly released.
This event was an excellent first step.
Unfortunately there was no second step:
The people who did the April 30th action made no subsequent effort to communicate their reasons for indulging in mass vandalism, thus robbing their efforts of all credibility. Evidently they said nothing because they had nothing to say. Their mass vandalism spree could have been a foot in the door for a larger message against the gentrification of the Mission in particular and against capitalist society in general, but nothing more was heard from them. With this lapse into characteristic complacency and silence, in their passivity and juvenile ineptitude the wannabe insurrectionary vandals handed a huge propaganda victory to both the Mission’s bourgeois invaders and to the corporate news media, who were able to portray the event as an exercise in self-indulgent adolescent nihilism.
This silence of the lambs also left an opening for the event to be denounced by obnoxious liberalish elements in the local Occupy movement, who were given center stage by the dumb vandals to decry the vandalism in any way they choose. In fact, people I spoke with at random, both around the neighborhood and at Occupy Oakland events at Oscar Grant Plaza surmised that the police themselves were behind the April 30th vandalism action. This seems absurd, but the silence of the vandals and their abject social ineptitude led to this.
In an anti-gentrification fight, time is of the essence in all things. In a larger sense, public high-profile anti-gentrification actions have to begin before the transformation of an area has become irreversible. And in an action like April 30th, the larger objectives that motivated the action’s authors — if indeed they had any motivations beyond providing themselves with entertainment — have to be communicated while the event is still fresh in people’s minds. This would have meant some kind of transparently clear public statement within a few days of April 30th. No such statement was forthcoming.
As I write this, in mid-September, it’s been four and a half months since the April 30th nocturnal vandalism spree, and there has been no subsequent noticeable public action against the gentrification of the Mission. The vandalism spree did not lead to any new resistance. Forms that public collective resistance could still take include rowdy demos on Valencia Street during the dinner hour on Friday and Saturday nights to disrupt the pleasures of the table for the bourgies, and big public neighborhood meetings, and sustained picket lines outside of the business offices and home addresses of egregious gentrifiers — all of these in combination would be best.
An article in the ‘New York Times’ about the current tech-boom-generated gentrification of San Francisco compares the tech boom of the late 1990’s and the tech boom of today, saying,
“…Back then, antigentrification posters appeared in the Mission urging people to vandalize luxury cars parked in the area…few marks of protest have occurred this time…”
(‘New Tech Boom Brings Jobs But Also Worries,’ NYT, June 4)
Barely a month after the April 30th vandalism spree, the event was completely forgotten, and not perceived as a credible threat to the galloping gentrification of one of San Francisco’s last remaining working class areas. Indeed, April 30th compares poorly to the much smaller but sustained effort of the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project of the late 1990’s. The MYEP, with fewer than a handful of people in a long-term effort, did more to publicize gentrification as a class-conflict issue than did a hoard of one-night-standers in April. A useful critique of the MYEP can be found at: (http://www.infoshop.org/myep/love_index.html)
In a period of relative social peace, authentic revolutionary extremist action is all about communication. It is about communication to the virtual complete exclusion of all else. If an action or event fails to communicate, then it has failed completely — and it doesn’t matter how much fun it was for the people doing it. Subjectively radical individuals have to try to communicate an uncompromising subversive message, on as wide a scale as possible, of direct relevance to the mundane everyday life concerns of mainstream working people. By this measure the April 30th Mission District vandalism event was an abject failure. To some degree, it even represented a brief ‘colonization’ of a real world problem by the 100% American/consumer society/all-entertainment-all-the-time ethos of the Black Bloc.
Black Bloc tactics are solely for the fleeting entertainment of the people who take part in them. They communicate nothing to the world at large. They lead nowhere. They offer nothing to build on. Mainstream working people aren’t going to adopt Black Bloc tactics, or join the Black Bloc at protest ghetto events. The lack of credibility and commitment and failure of imagination seen in the April 30th Mission District vandalism spree is a symptom of the fact that a society gets the dissidents that it deserves. A society that proclaims that being entertained is the highest possible form of human aspiration gets a brand of ersatz radicalism that loyally mirrors this.
Max Crosby
17 May 2013 at 10:28 am |
###Event Notice###
Fight Back against Police Brutality
Students and activists are holding A demonstration to call for an end to
police brutality and harassment of students and visitors.
Meet on SF State campus at Malcolm X plaza
at 2pm today, Friday May 17.
36 hours after being violently evicted from their home by the San
Francisco Police Department, former SFC residents were beaten, harassed,
and arrested again by Police. On Thursday, May 16th, a few members of the
collective were visiting friends at a SF State dorm. SFSU police first
began harassing individuals while they where outside of the dorm and
proceeded to follow them back to their friend’s room. Within minutes,
campus PD and SFPD invaded, beat, and arrested many of those
inside. Six former residents of the squatted home and social center known
as the SFCommune were arrested. During the altercation, one person was
repeatedly struck in the ribs by a police baton while he was face down and
another person was tazed. Three individuals
were hospitalized for injuries by police. Some of those arrested are
currently facing charges of: battery, trespassing, conspiracy and,
lynching. It is still unclear when they will be released.
The SFCommune located at 200 Broad st. was a vacant building transformed
into a squatted social center. activists, who cleaned the dilapidated
building, making it habitable for the first time in years and
planted a blooming community garden, maintained an active community
kitchen, and offered emergency shelter to those in the city who needed it.
Welcomed by the community for their efforts in cleaning the neglected
space, during its 13 month existence, they were met by riot police with
lethal weapons Wednesday morning; 28 residents were forcibly removed and
briefly detained, while three were arrested.
Heres some Links
http://www.goldengatexpress.org/2013/05/16/arrest-at-sf-state/