"Letter From A Friend: The Morning After the Attack on the Oakland Occupiers"

[sabrina 1]

Oakland was among several occupied cities to be attacked in an almost military style operation last night.

In Baltimore, also attacked last night, protesters noticed four men who, they believed, were Federal Agents. They followed them at a distance and saw them enter the Federal Building:

Liveblogging Occupy Wall Street

Re Baltimore, MD:

BaltoSpectator Baltimore Spectator
by OccupyBaltimore
2 hrs
Several members of #OccupyBaltimore quitely followed the 4 men at a distance after they left.All entered the federal building using keycards
9:41 PM Oct 25th

Baltimore Spectator
BaltoSpectator Baltimore Spectator
by OccupyBaltimore
2 hrs
Folks telling of the 4 federal agents in jeans & t-shirts attempted to infiltrate group tonight…

It is heart-breaking to see such violence by Civilian Police against peaceful, unarmed protesters among whom, witnesses say, were children, elderly and disabled people.

The following letter is one blogger's feelings after receiving a letter from a friend who was there:



Letter from an Anonymous Friend: The Morning After the Attack on the Oakland Commune

Letter from an Anonymous Friend: The Morning After the Attack on the Oakland Commune

We knew that it would happen.

If you live with others in a public space in a city, if you set up shelters in which people can live without owning or renting property, if you set up an outdoor kitchen with which to feed anyone who wants food, if you establish a free school at which anyone can read and learn, if you set up bathroom facilities provided by organizations supporting your activities, if you show solidarity with struggles against police killings and police violence against people of color, against the poor, against women, against queers and transpeople, if you state your determination to defend the space you have created against the threat of eviction, in short—if you work toward organizing ways of living and relating to one another that might challenge those mandated by capitalism, your efforts will eventually be crushed by the police.

We know this because we know that the question is not whether the police are “part of the 99%,” on the basis of their salary. What is called the 99% is ruptured by many divisions. Among these is the dividing line that runs between those who want to change the world and those who uphold the status quo, between those who work to undermine the brutal order of property and those who work to enforce it. For those who transform the world by challenging capitalist economic and social relations, working to displace and overturn them, the police are one among many enemies. We know it is their job to destroy what we create, and it is no surprise when they do that.

At 4:30 am on October 25, Occupy Oakland was raided by more than 500 police from multiple counties. From a comrade who was there:

At the time of this writing I am filled with rage. Occupy Oakland, on its second week, was raided by an overwhelming force of approximately 800 police in riot gear. I was there, ready to defend when police from all entrances to Oscar Grant Plaza rushed in with sticks and began beating people. Their tactics were simple but effective: rush in with overwhelming numbers and push out those that intended to stay for a fight, slowly crush resilience of those who took up the tactic of civil disobedience by linking arms and protecting the camp. They beat people with sticks, shot people with rubber bullets, obliterated ear-drums with flash-bang grenades, and choked them with tear gas.

What wrenches on these mornings (so many, for so many of us), what presses out on our temples, constricts our chests, fills our throats so that it can’t be properly spoken is a contradiction: we knew that this would happen; we can’t accept that it has happened. We know, insofar as we struggle, that our struggle will be repressed. But no amount of knowing can fortify against the sickness that we feel every time an army of cops rolls in to brutalize and arrest our friends and comrades.

All the tents are down, pots are strewn everywhere, the library scattered, the garden stomped, the Commune is in ruins. “Though it fed thousands for free and welcomed the city’s desperately poor homeless population, this public park can hopefully now return to its natural state of being completely empty.” Dozens of smug assholes and their batons surround the emptiness they prefer to the fragile possibilities that were created, getting paid overtime to chat across their barricades with idiots who think the cops are on the same side as those they just attacked and threw in jail, while others hurl insults against dead ears.

MORE It's worth reading the whole post.

They are the dishonorable tools of the brutal destroyers of all that is good in this world who know only one way to get what they want, violence.

They intend to crush this movement, that is clear.

http://twitpic.com/73djoh



Protester says he was hit with tear gas cannister

More photos of injuries to protesters

http://twitpic.com/75wrpb



Police denied using rubber bullets. Protesters find proof they lied!



A close-up of another CS grenade, and what looks like the remnants of a flash bang. #OccupyOakland

They hurt people last night, deliberately. Several people were injured, and according to twitter, one was critically injured and taken to the hospital.

Occupy Oakland Encampment trashed by City, Police


The Occupiers were providing free medical care to those who needed it and who are not getting it from the City. That officer should ask himself why he is following orders to destroy something like that?


How long before they use those weapons on civilians I wonder?



Land of the Free

A message from Egypt

Tahrir Square protesters send message of solidarity to Occupy Wall Street

A message of solidarity issued by a collective of Cairo-based campaigners declared: "We are now in many ways involved in the same struggle," adding: "What most pundits call 'The Arab Spring' has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world."

Critics of the Occupy movement have dismissed suggestions that they share many similarities with protests in the Middle East, arguing that the latter have been about liberation from tyranny while the former are focused on economic reform. But the solidarity statement explicitly rejects that division, claiming that the Egyptian struggle is against "systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism" and highlighting the social and economic damage caused by the implementation of neoliberal free market policies under the Mubarak regime.

"As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme," reads the statement. "An entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things."

When Mubarak unleashed his brutal police force on the protesters killing several of them, it only increased the numbers who came out. I remember how many of them described how they felt when asked if they were afraid. They said that they were no longer afraid. That a 'wall of fear has been broken'. Over 800 protesters died during those 18 days. Mubarak is now on trial for those crimes.

Our Elected Officials should learn from Tunisia and Egypt. Peaceful protesters can, without guns or clubs or weapons of any kind overcome powerful forces IF they have the support of a majority of the people. The OccupyWallStreet Movement is more popular, according to polls, than both Political Parties put together. And each time the Authorities abuse the protesters, they become even more popular.

Our government attacked peaceful citizens in Atlanta, Baltimore, San Francisco and Oakland last. Oakland arrestees are being held on $10,000 bail until Thursday. 175 are the last reports I saw of Oakland arrests, but that may not be accurate.

It is reported that The Brooklyn Bridge Arrestees' attorneys were offered a deal to drop all charges against the hundreds who were arrested on the Bridge. They are considering turning it down and demanding jury trials for the hundreds who were arrested.

Five of the Brooklyn Bridge arrestees have already filed lawsuits against the Mayor, the City and the NYPD.

These elected officials are creating a dangerous environment for citizens and costing the tax-payers a fortune they cannot afford. But all it will get for them is an even bigger movement.

Edited to add this video http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18100259#utm_campaign=synclickback&source=http://ows.bylinebeat.com/post/11933577103/video-occupyoakland-live-steam&medium=18100259

It was recorded by one of the protesters during the attacks. His job was to get the helmet numbers of the cops. It's about one hour long. He was tear-gassed half-way through but kept on reporting and taking down numbers.

He said about three or four minutes into the video that the cops were using something called 'sound cannon'. He said that was developed fo use by the military and is not supposed to be used by cops.

He also witnessed them throwing a journalist to the ground. You can hear people screaming, sounds like a woman or child. Very good reporting by him.

They had choppers in the air also he says.