Marc Ash: A Witness To The Violence In Oakland

[Hissyspit]

http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/316-20/8096-focus-a-witness-to-the-violence-in-oakland

A Witness to the Violence in Oakland

Photos and Story By Marc Ash, Founder of Truthout and Reader Supported News
26 October 11

Reader Supported News | Report

The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response
and we will continue to provoke until they respond or
change the law. They are not in control; we are.
-- Gandhi

- snip -

As the march began I remained out in front of the crowd with about two dozen other independent cameramen and women. We tried to stay in position to film any potential confrontation between the police, who were everywhere, and the protesters who were on the march. The refrain of "Keep it non-violent!" was heard as often as "Our streets!"

Perhaps not surprisingly, media reports have chronically underestimated the size of the crowd.

- snip-

The marchers took the blows, overwhelmed the police and kept on marching. The police, however, were not to be outdone and singled out one of the marchers for arrest, quickly throwing him to the ground and forming a circle around the conspicuous incident in the middle of the march. A melee ensued. The demonstrators encircled the police, shouting "Shame!" and "Let him go!" Again the police attacked with truncheons and the demonstrators pushed back with their hands. The crowd began to pelt the police with water bottles and paint ... red and blue paint.


- snip -

Yesterday the police, the city fathers and the commercial media saw Oakland and made their decisions based on that. But they did not see the movement within its "world-wide" context. This is big ... very big, and spreading rapidly across the United States and around the world. And there is no indication that police violence can stop it.

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[Fire Walk With Me]

1. K&R!

[leveymg]

2. Police violence only waters the seeds of wider rebellion. Don't they know that?