West coast port blockade on Monday

westcoastportshutdown.org

Oakland and Alameda County cops trained by Middle Eastern occupation forces to violently repress Occupy Oakland

A month before riot police violently raided the Occupy Oakland camp using chemical weapons, rubber bullets and flash grenades – a raid which led to a protest where riot police critically injured Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen when they shot him in the face with a tear gas grenade launcher gun – the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department trained alongside a military unit from Bahrain and an Israeli Border Police unit.

The occasion was Urban Shield 2011, an annual training competition which gathers heavily militarized police from the United States and across the globe to explore the latest in tactical responses and to promote collaboration. It’s a training that northern California police departments credited for their “effective teamwork” in dealing repressively with Occupy Oakland.
-AlterNet

The Iraeli goon squad, the Yamam, specializes in extra-judicial assassinations, while the Bahraini soldiers were from a unit that recently shot live rounds at unarmed, peaceful protestors in that country.
You can bet that this isn't just cops in Oakland, and police forces across the United States will only increasingly become more militarized and more brutal...they are learning from the most experienced assassins and thugs in the world.

Cops are banksta lapdogs...duh.

1033 Program

“It’s totally contrary to what we think is good policing”
-Joseph McNamara
Former Police Chief in Kansas City, Mo., and San Jose, CA

The 1033 program, passed by Congress in 1997, was created to provide law-enforcement agencies with tools to fight drugs and terrorism. Since then, more than 17,000 agencies have taken in $2.6 billion worth of free equipment, paying only the cost of delivery. This year alone, more than $500 million of military gear was given to U.S. police forces, and next year’s orders are up 400%.
The hand-me-downs are supposed to help law-enforcement fight terrorism and drugs, but amidst a 40-year low in violent crime, what are they really being used for?

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers?” he asked.
“If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”
-Arthur Rizer
Lawyer who has served as both a military and civilian police officer

Mehserle on trial for police brutality

The former BART cop who was caught on multiple cell phone cameras murdering Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale train station on New Year's morning in 2009 is once again on trial for excessive force.

Less than two months before he executed Grant at pointblank range in an Oakland, California train station, the ex-officer allegedly used excessive force and violated the constitutional rights of Kenneth Carrethers at a separate Bay Area Rapid Transit hub.
Carrethers’ attorneys say that on November 15 2008, their client was angry over the BART cops’ lack of help in a case of vandalism that targeted his car. Carrethers says that he called the police force “useless,” and from there Mehserle and a handful of other offices became irate. According to court filings, Mehserle used a leg sweep to take Carrethers to the ground, then punched and kicked him while he was on the pavement.
The complaint continues that cops tied up Carrethers’ arms and legs before hauling him away.
"Well, have you learned not to mess with police officers?" Mehserle allegedly asked him.
-Russia Today

Democracy is dead

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (S. 1867, Levin), which passed the Senate late Thursday night by a vote of 93-7, declares the entire United States of America a battleground. The bill, or a companion one similar to it, is now being debated in the House.
If passed out of the House and signed into law, the U.S. Military would be allowed to operate with impunity, having been granted the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate, and even assassinate United States citizens (or anyone else in the world) with impunity.
In a nutshell, almost every right under the Bill of Rights would be stripped away from American citizens.
Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) said that the act "denigrates the very foundations of this country."
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) added, "it puts every single American citizen at risk."
Although authored by Senator Carl Levin, Sentors John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and Joe Liebermann have been major supporters.

Recall Quan campaign update

A third draft of the petition to recall Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is "almost" ready to be signed by City Clerk LaTonda Simmons. After that, petition author Gene Hazzard will have 160 days to gather 19,109 valid signatures (10% of the residents who voted in the last election) to qualify the measure for the November 2012 ballot.
Just 11 months into her first term, Quan is being blamed by conservatives for layoffs in the Oakland Police Department at a time when the crime rate is rising. She is also being criticized from all sides regarding her handling of the Occupy Oakland movement.
In a nutshell, Quan is being scapegoated for the inevitable collapse of the global infinite-growth paradigm.

"It's so unfair," she said. "I'm the first Asian-American mayor of a major American city. They are not going to take me out without a fight."
-Inside Bay Area

December 12

As of November 27, 2011, the Occupy movement in every major West Coast port city: Occupy LA, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Portland, Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Seattle have joined Occupy Oakland in calling for and organizing a coordinated West Coast Port Blockade and Shutdown on December 12, 2011. Other West Coast Occupies, including Occupy Anchorage and Vancouver, Canada are planning to join the economic blockade and disruption of the 1% on that date, according to organizers.

“We’re shutting down these ports because of the union busting and attacks on the working class by the 1%: the firing of Port truckers organizing at SSA terminals in LA; the attempt to rupture ILWU union jurisdiction in Longview, WA by EGT. EGT includes Bunge LTD, a company which reported 2.5 billion dollars in profit last year and has economically devastated poor people in Argentina and Brazil. SSA is responsible for inhumane working conditions and gross exploitation of port truckers and is owned by Goldman Sachs. EGT and Goldman Sachs is Wallstreet on the Waterfront” stated Barucha Peller of the West Coast Port Blockade Assembly of Occupy Oakland.

“We are also striking back against the nationally’ coordinated attack on the Occupy movement. In response to the police violence and camp evictions against the Occupy movement- This is our coordinated response against the 1%. On December 12th we will show are collective power through pinpointed economic blockade of the 1%.”

Each Occupy is organizing plans for a mass mobilization and community pickets to shut down their local Port. The mobilization of over 60,000 people that shut down the Port of Oakland during the general strike on November 2, 2011 is the model for the West Coast efforts. Organizers state that a police attempt to disrupt the port blockade or police violence against any city participating will extend duration of the blockade on the entire coast.

“These Ports are public. People have a right to come to the Port and protest. The ILWU has historically honored picket lines at the Port.” stated Clarence Thomas, a member of ILWU Local 10.

ILWU longshore workers are involved as individuals in the planning of the Shutdown. “I am a longshoreman and I support the December 12th Blockade against EGT. EGT is a threat to the survival of the ILWU,” stated Anthony Leviege, a member of Local 10. Dan Coffman, the president of Local 21 in Longview, has publicly thanked the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland for its actions on November 2nd.

Further interviews and details can be obtained through local Port Blockade committees and the Oakland West Coast Port Blockade Assembly.

http://westcoastportshutdown.org/

World Revolution Update

God turning His back on the bankstas

First veterans, now churches too.
Traditional bases of support are turning.

A small but growing number of religious communities across the country are removing their money from Wall Street banks to protest what they see as unfair mortgage foreclosures and unwillingness to lend to small businesses.

The New Bottom Line (NBL) coalition of congregations, community organizations, labor unions and individuals is promoting a "Move Our Money" campaign with the goal of shifting $1 billion from big banks to community banks and credit unions.
-Huffington Post

OPD thugs terrorize people serving free turkey dinners on Thanksgiving Day

OPD flipped out when port-a-potties arrived at Oscar Grant Plaza while people were serving free turkey dinners. Then they started assaulting people. If that wasn't enough, as you can see at the end of this video, one officer tried to tase an unarmed man, but a woman pushes his arm down and ruins the officer's shot.
OBVIOUSLY, if the intended tasee had committed ANY kind of crime, the officer would not tolerate a bystander preventing him from getting his tasing on. Instead, a woman physically intervenes (with alleged "police work", which is allegedly a crime in itself), but the officer simply shrugs it off and allows the intended victim to continue mouthing off (which is not a crime).
This is OPD folks.

Happy Thingstaken Day

Today, I’m thankful for the validation.
The world really is watching. This really is the future, and though the revolution may not necessarily be televised, it is being streamed and youtubed and tweeted and facebooked.
Joblessness, homelessness, shootings, starvation, mental illness, professional motherfuckery, rats in City Hall, undas, cops, pigs and shit…none of this is new to us. This is how we roll. They killed Lil Bobby, Judy Bari, Oscar Grant, and countless others. Each time, we came back stronger than before, letting them know that we would not be intimidated.
This is why I built a life here, planted a garden and joined the community. Oakland keeps it real.
I’m not a pacifist. Because I grew up in Nazi territory during the 80s, I strongly believe in everyone’s right to defend themselves, but I’m also trying to raise a son in a world where people use their words before their fists. The strong commitment to non-violence in Oakland, a place where people are not afraid to fight by any means necessary, is incredibly encouraging, and we should all be proud.
People in Oakland get it, and have gotten it for a long time. This is the best place to experience the collapse, because people have been preparing for it, people have been organizing around it, and most importantly, people are willing to work together to survive it. All 99.99% of us.
Oakland really is a commune. It was before the Occupy movement, and it will be after. That’s how we roll. People who don’t know don’t know, and they can judge from that position of ignorance all they want. We don’t need anyone else’s validation, especially if their perspectives are rooted in the old played-out infinite growth paradigm. They are the dinosaurs, and we are the birds.
Even if the Occupy movement died tomorrow, hella people still got an unprecedented sensitivity training for free. They didn’t have to go off to some foreign land in search of meaning, as they had a convenient excuse to come to Oakland as part of some sort of urban domestic peace corps minus the fees and bureaucracy. No passport was needed for this trip. They served the people here in this country, and I highly doubt that they’ll be satisfied going back to a meaningless life of endless consumption. I doubt that anyone will really have that choice to be honest.
Besides, the movement ain’t dyin tomorrow anyway. It was never just about the camp. The camp, which was unlike any other camp anywhere else in the country, was but one protest out of many in Oakland. The camp was merely a symbol that could be replicated elsewhere, like the mouse ears of the movement. It was important for the homeless people, but it wasn’t the end goal.
The end goal was, and still is, a better world. The path to that goal is the process, and that still lives on.
Inclusiveness.
Everyone in, no one left out.
Judgement is the bankstas’ way. Mutual respect is the only way we can learn from one another, and if we can’t learn from each other, we can’t learn.
We have a lot to learn if we want to survive, and there really isn’t a better place to learn than right here, right now.
So I have to also be thankful for the bankstas’ predictable greediness. They couldn’t possibly save themselves from themselves, and they partied like it was 1999…for an extra decade.
And now the collapse is here. It was inevitable to us, and that’s why we have been preparing: dreaming and planning, learning and sharing, organizing and working to make a better world. Now, thanks to the teargas and the pepperspray, more people have a reason to notice, and be curious. They are all welcome to join the movement towards a better world, and they can do so in their own home towns. Oakland isn’t just a place, it’s a way of life, one that the overwhelming majority of us have chosen.
We aren’t where we need to be yet, but we are still ahead of the curve, and it’s being noted. For those of us committed to the struggle, who have been screaming for years/decades hoping to be heard, it is nice to know that the tide has shifted away from willful ignorance and towards curiosity. That’s actually more than we realistically hoped for, and it is a call to action for us to step it up and continue building on the momentum.
The whole world is watching.

The Occupation Illustrated

#OO in-house documentarian Susie_C has posted a great Illustrated History of Occupy Oakland. Check it out here.

18th & Linden

A vacant lot facing foreclosure in West Oakland was occupied yesterday.

Surrounded by a chain-link fence, the lot at 18th and Linden streets has food and water for anyone who asks, about a dozen tents, tarps, protest signs and even entertainment -- a man belting out a raspy, undecipherable tune on a weedy knoll outside the camp.
-Inside Bay Area

They are being raided as I write this.
Very intresting.
This is the first occupation in the hood. People in West Oakland are acting like people from West Oakland, but the cops are treating this like Snow Park by the lake.
And now the cops are leaving because they realized that it isn't Snow Park.
It wasn't the occupiers who ran the cops off either.
It was the neighborhood.

Or maybe the cops didn't really have authorization from the property owner to evict?
Who knows.

Some people tried in vain to organize a march to Oscar Grant Plaza after the cops left. Eventually though, the group was gone after slowly dwindling down throughout the night.

Here's the official story:

OAKLAND -- A confrontation between police and a diverse group of Occupy Oakland protesters ended late Tuesday, when campers moved out of a vacant lot that they had taken over a day earlier.

About 100 people gathered on the sidewalk outside the lot after police issued a 30-minute warning to vacate the lot inside a chain-link fence that surrounds 18th and Linden streets. The displaced campers were scrambling to figure out a new plan late Tuesday, and it was unclear if they planned to camp overnight.

A lot owner must file a complaint with police before officers can clear the premises.

Earlier Tuesday night, police appeared ready to move in on the group. About 30 police officers were at the scene, most of them in riot gear.

About 20 people set up tents on the lot late Monday night, and Tuesday afternoon the camp was bustling with people. Food and water were available for anyone who asked.

Police gave the protesters a 30-minute warning about 8:30 p.m. to leave the camp or be arrested. But at 9:50 p.m., police surprised protesters and observers alike when several of them removed their riot gear and all the officers promptly drove away. Police helicopters remained in the area and it was unclear what the department's next move would be.

It was not immediately clear whether they left because they did not have authority to evict the protesters.
-Inside Bay Area

Occupy Oakland Update

Watch live streaming video from occupyoakland at livestream.com

On Saturday, a rally and march and new occupation took place in Oakland. A victory garden was planted at Oscar Grant Plaza during a long rally. A march through downtown Oakland followed, ending at a new location in the heart of Uppity Uptown at 19th & Telegraph. True to form, a huge dance party ensued. Police raided the new camp at 19th & Broadway and destroyed the victory garden early Sunday morning. They then raided Snow Park early Monday morning.

During the GA on Friday, a resoution calling for a December 12 West Coast Port Shutdown was approved unanimously.

Occupy Oakland calls for the blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12th. The 1% has disrupted the lives of longshoremen and port truckers and the workers who create their wealth, just as coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement.

We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.

Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of the working class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.
-Occupy Oakland

World Revolution Update

Linton Johnson demoted

OAKLAND, Calif.—Longtime Bay Area Rapid Transit spokesman Linton Johnson has been removed from that position at the agency.
BART Board President Bob Franklin said this week that Johnson has been assigned to a new role and will develop large-scale communications strategies for major agency programs.
Johnson had come under fire after taking credit for an August decision to shut down cell phone service in BART stations. The goal was to hinder protests that began after the fatal shooting of a transient by BART police.
Johnson also reportedly tried to stock a news conference with supporters angry about the protests.
-Inside Bay ARea

Occupy Oakland Inspires Moral Courage

This guy gets it.


It's annoying that the MSM demands to know what the demands are, and they act like no clear message has ever been voiced. In fact, the primary demand has long been articulated very succinctly: Join us.

We have so many varied fronts, all united in the common purposes of getting along, learning from one another, and creating a better world together.
The MSM wants to poke and prod and identify divisions in the movement, and hence the "demands" wedge. They want something to attack, and it needs to be something more tangible than illegal camping. The camp highlights the very important issue of homelessness, but that is just one of many issues. There are too many to list.
The revolutionary aspect of the occupy oakland movement is it's process, and the dialog that results.
That's what this is really about. Dialog.
Everyone has a voice, because we'll only make it together.
Today, Oakland was Berkeley and Berkeley was Oakland.
The dialog continued.
Tomorrow, the movement will grow even more.
We'll find more space and continue the dialog and we'll make a better world.

So to the haters tryin to divide us, I have this to say:
Sit yo ass down, and let us handle this.

Occupy Oakland lives!

Well the bankstas wanted us gone, and they got rid of us...for one morning.
They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to arrest 32 people and clear a park for part of one day.


They failed to clear everyone though.
Zachary Running Wolf managed to avoid forced dispersal by sitting in a tree along 14th street. He's still there too.
So is the General Assembly.
Occupy Oakland lives.
We retook Oscar Grant Plaza shortly before 6pm, slightly over 12 hours after several hundred riot cops cleared out the 32 remaining campers and stole everything that was left.
They watered the lawn too.
Over the sounds of three helicopters circling overhead, a packed General Assembly celebrated a very important homecoming, and got back to business as usual.

The stakes have been raised

So on Thursday, right before the start of the Raiders/Chargers nationally televised prime time game, a man known as "Alex" was murdered in front of Tully's coffee house near the Occupy Oakland encampment in Oscar Grant Plaza. He was allegedly a resident of the camp, and had gotten into an argument with another camper. Other Occupy Oaklanders intervened and the argument ended. The other camper called some of his homies (allegedly) who showed up and attacked Alex. Once again, Occupy Oakland security forces intervened, and one of the attackers resorted to gun play and fatally shot Alex. None of the attackers were campers, and Oakland Police still have not identified nor caught any of them.
Machine politician Larry Reid and Howard Jordan had to leave the football viewing parties they were attending to come down and capitalize on the tragedy by blaming the month-old protest and calling for its end. Never mind that councilmember Reid's district has NEVER gone a month without a shooting.
Please don't believe the hype.
The violence was not a result of the Ocupy Oakland movement, it was a result of the unjust and corrupt society that the bankstas have created. Violence is an everyday reality on Oakland's streets, a reality that Chief Jordan and Councilmember Reid and Mayor Quan and countless other banksta lapdogs before them have FAILED to address for generations. Let's be honest here, it is a reality that they rely on in order to stay in power.
Another reality is that the Occupy Oakland camp has handled its own security internally for a month without any fatalities, something that the city can not claim. We don't know whom the assailants were, because the police have failed to catch them. We do know that members of Occupy Oakland stopped two altercations that night before one of the outside agitators resorted to gun violence. Further, Alex was not left to die alone and anonymous on the streets like thousands of others have in Oakland. Occupy Oakland medics were immediately on the scene trying to save his life. Even in failure, they provided much more to Alex than the city ever has for one of its citizens.
That is the real story here.
Violence happens in an unjust and corrupt society. At least we care, and at least we tried to do something about. Even more, we are trying to change the conditions that promote lawlessness and callousness.

As the banksta stooges were screaming for an end to the Occupy Oakland camp, someone was shot nearby White House in Washington, DC. Hypocritically, none of them blamed the White House for the violence.

In other news, the city has decided to evict the camp, but an affinity group in the camp had already started making plans to move into an abandoned building. We'll see which move happens first.

Outside agitators demand "forceful action" to oust Occupy Oakland

The Downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt/Uptown District Community Benefit District Boards of Directors called on Mayor Quan to evict the Occupy Oakland camp. They take credit for making the Downtown area the cool hipster place it is, and they claim that the protests are ruining their little multi-cultural Neverland.

It is extremely frustrating, then, to see that our efforts to fund improvements and improve
parks and public spaces, all designed to attract new businesses and create opportunities for new entrepreneurs and employees in Uptown and Downtown, have been threatened by weak, confusing and inconsistent messages from the City in addressing the ramifications of the Occupy Oakland protest.
-The Downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt/Uptown District Community Benefit District Boards of
Directors

Business is all about buzz, and Oakland got more Buzz now than it ever has. There have always been protests, riots, rats and drug abuse. Every real Oaklander knows that this city has long had major problems with police brutality, homelessness, and mental illness. The Occupy Oakland movement hasn’t created any of these problems. In fact, we’re talking about how to address them, and we’ve called international attention to them. Apparently, the business community is really clueless about the city that they are trying to exploit.
I for one can say that I don’t hang out in downtown Oakland at night very often anymore. I’m a parent, not a hipster. The skyrocketing rents forced me to move my family even further East as the business community turned downtown Oakland into East Emeryville.
Don’t get me wrong, I like that downtown and the lake areas are now bustling with newcomers who have both disposable income and cool places to spend it. However, the business community needs to understand that Jerryfication may have gotten a lot of shiny new buildings constructed, but the real character of Oakland (diverse, multicultural, conscious, radical, futuristic, easily mobilized) is what filled up those buildings with people who were willing to flood the streets the night after we got shot and teargassed. It’s the business community, not the city, that has learned nothing from past riots. Riots happen, and we move on, and people still flock to come here and be a part of this community.
It is true that I didn’t spend any money downtown on the night of the 25th when the city was blowing $1 million brutalizing its own citizens in defense of a patch of dead grass, but I did get my wife to come out the next night to the GA, and afterwards we went and had a beer and some food at a downtown establishment. That’s something we haven’t done together in years.
Duh.
Every smart business person knows that you need to create a market more than you need to create a product, and Occupy Oakland has IN FACT created a bustling market in Oakland. Maybe not IN the camp itself, but certainly the restaurants surrounding the city center who have something interesting to offer are doing all right considering the economic collapse that triggered the occupy everything movement (the business community also conveniently forgets to address the fact that the collapse came first, not the other way around).
The business community needs to look into its own city’s history to learn that none of this is anything new. It’s just bigger, more organized, and more focused.

Or is that what they’re truly afraid of?

It’s time for bold leadership and forceful action, not unending social experimentation. We call upon the Oakland City Council and the Mayor of Oakland to step up and provide cohesive, common sense leadership ‐ before it really is too late.
-The Downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt/Uptown District Community Benefit District Boards of
Directors

Oakland is alive and thriving.
It’s too late for the old paradigm (infinite growth Ponzi). If you want to cater to lamos, then maybe Oakland isn’t the best market for you.
We’re headed into the future. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.
Otherwise, stay out of our way.

Shot while holding a peace sign

Even "experts" on police brutality are shocked.

"It looks terrible," agreed Sam Walker, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who consulted with Oakland police on the federal consent decree emerging from the Riders scandal. "It certainly looks like they singled him out to be shot ... and there does not appear to have been any sort of attack by the protester. Clearly, the camera is not approaching the officers, so they couldn't claim that he posed a threat."

Paul Chevigny, professor emeritus at the New York University School of Law, said it looks like "a violation of his First Amendment rights apart from being a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. He has a right to take a film of what the police do -- we've been over this thousands of times -- unless he's interfering in some way.

"The basic problem of police retaliating against people who are trying to record what's going on is perennial," said Chevigny, adding this occurs all over the nation. "They (officers) consider it a kind of 'contempt of cop.' It's an expression of the fact that people do not trust the police. The police read it as a criticism of them. It's not even necessarily that they're trying to prevent people from seeing what they're doing.

"But this extreme version (of retaliation) is very unfamiliar to me," he added. "I can't imagine what they're going to say about shooting this guy. Sounds like the Oakland police need a little brush-up on their training."

There have been other allegations of excessive force against Occupy Oakland participants. Best known is the case of Scott Olsen, 24, an ex-Marine and Iraq War veteran struck in the head by what witnesses said was a police projectile Oct. 25. He suffered a fractured skull but is expected to recover.

Another veteran, Kayvan Sabeghi, 32, of Oakland, claims officers beat him with batons and tackled him early Thursday, then denied him medical care for hours. He underwent surgery Friday to repair a lacerated spleen.
-Inside Bay Area

Social media at its best

Here's a pretty good read about a guy who does the Occupy Oakland live video feed.

Few people would know the name Spencer Mills or be able to identify his face.

But tens of thousands of online viewers around the world would recognize his online alias, OakFoSho. Nearly 60,000 have tuned into his video stream of the violence that erupted after Wednesday's Occupy Oakland general strike. Many heard Mills narrating in the early hours of Thursday while tear gas filled the middle of the city's downtown district.

That the images appeared jerky and blurry dissuaded no one. They could see the flames, the police, the protesters and the boom of the tear gas canisters exploding, all live. The experience provided a new twist to the old Gil Scott-Heron political song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

Mills live-streamed with nothing more than a Motorola Droid X smartphone equipped with an 8-megapixel camera and Web access.

"It was intense. I was just standing there with a camera," Mills said.

"It was social media at its best," he said Thursday, sitting on the stairs of City Hall plaza shortly before midnight.
-Inside Bay Area

Mike Ruppert addresses cops

A Message to All Police Officers From Occupy Wall Street from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.

Mike brings it in this video. It's a lengthy one, but well worth the view.
He breaks down the warrior mentality, and challenges cops to be warriors, not cowards who abuse their authority in exchange for the crumbs that fall off the bankstas table.

"When the budget cuts come, you can bet that the first to be let go will be those showing any signs of honor, of compassion, of remorse...showing any signs of humanity, because the only ones that the infinite growth monetary paradigm can afford to pay will be the most ruthless, the most brutal, the sociopathic, the psychotic.

Another vet injured by riot police in Oakland

First Scott Olsen, now this:

A former U.S. Army Ranger and Occupy Oakland protester was in intensive care on Friday after a veterans' group said he was beaten by police during clashes with anti-Wall Street demonstrators this week.

Kayvan Sabeghi, 32, was arrested and hospitalized about a week after another U.S. military veteran, former Marine Scott Olsen, was badly injured in a confrontation with police that helped spark the latest round of unrest.

The group Iraq Veterans Against the War said Sabeghi was detained during disturbances that erupted late on Wednesday in downtown Oakland and was charged with resisting arrest and remaining present at the place of a riot.
-Reuters

Kayvan was seen in news footage talking peacefully with with riot police prior to his arrest/beatdown. News footage also showed him face-down at the bottom of a pile of baton-wielding riot police. He suffered a ruptured spleen, but police denied him medical treatment for 18 hours.

A man who said he shared a cell with Sabeghi at Glenn Dyer jail in Oakland said Sabeghi showed his wounds, which looked like baton bruises mainly to his torso.

(Sabeghi's friend David) Goodstal said they posted bail about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, but the partner who made the trip down there did not see Sabeghi. The next time they heard from him, he was calling from Highland Hospital.

"I didn't know he was going to take part in the protest; I heard about it when he called me and said he was seriously injured," Goodstal said. "He said he went to the port, and then he and a friend had dinner and he was leaving and was confronted by the police."

Goodstal said his friend told him that he was not part of the group that took over the building or fought with police.

He told him that he was in tremendous pain while he was in jail and asked for help, but none came.

"He said he was throwing up bile," Goodstal said. "He told me one of the cops said, 'You need to get off heroin.' That's what Kayvan told me; I wasn't there. I'm sure the police will have a different story.

"He went by ambulance to the hospital. He couldn't get up himself and walk out so he said they just locked the cell," Goodstal said.
-Inside Bay Area

Protestors had occupied the former Traveler's Aid Society building, and as or beeven before Mayor Quan was offering to negotiate the return of Traveler's Aid Society, Oakland Police and Alameda Sheriffs were posse-ing up for a riot. And then there was a riot.
At a city council meeting the next night, Mayor Quan warned Occupy Oakland to start talking with the city or else...even though she clearly isn't in charge anyway.

It's been interesting to see how the movement has addressed the black bloc issue. Many people are physically intervening. Others are merely calling them out for what they are. The issue, which has been a hot topic over over the past 36 hours, is far from being resolved, but it is good to see the movement majority clearly not fully endorsing such behavior.

World Revolution Update

Oakland Port shut down

The night shift workers were sent home with pay.

Oakland General Strike

How YOU can Participate in the General Strike!
November 1, 2011

WAYS TO PARTICIPATE ON NOVEMBER 2 GENERAL STRIKE & DAY OF ACTION
called for by Occupy Oakland

Occupy Oakland is calling for no work and no school on November 2 as part of the general strike. We are asking that all workers go on strike, call in sick, take a vacation day or simply walk off the job with their co-workers. We are also asking that all students walk out of school and join workers and community members in downtown Oakland. All banks and large corporations must close down for the day or demonstrators will march on them.

The Occupy Oakland Strike Assembly has vowed to picket and or occupy any business or school which disciplines employees or students in any way for participating in the Nov 2 General Strike. Please email OccupyOaklandLaborSolidarity@gmail.com if you are the subject of any disciplinary action.

Occupy Oakland recognizes that not all workers, students and community members will feel able to strike all day long on November 2, and we welcome any form of participation which they feel is appropriate. We urge them to join us before or after work or during their lunch hours.

Below are some action ideas for strike participants to consider:

Gather in Downtown Oakland to help Shut Down the City

Join the Mass Gatherings at 14th & Broadway 9:00am, 12:00pm, 5:00pm. Strike Rallies will be held at these times with political speakers as well as time for open mic so that everyone can make their voices heard. There will also be action announcements made from the stage on this intersection for those who are interested in participating in pickets and shut downs of banks and large corporations.
Lead a march from your neighborhood, workplace, school, community center, place of worship etc into downtown Oakland to join one of these three mass gatherings. Have fun and be loud along the way to let people know why you are marching downtown!
Form a mobile blockade or flying picket that can take over important intersections in downtown with street parties and other creative ways to make our voices heard and shut the city down.
There will be numerous pickets and actions at banks and corporations across downtown but we need more! Get a group of friends, family members, co-workers or fellow students together to form an affinity group and make your voice heard and your presence felt at any of these locations in downtown. Let the stage on 14th & Broadway know about your action so they can announce it to the crowd.
There are many other autonomous actions planned for the day that will be occurring throughout downtown. One of them is the anti-capitalist march at 2pm meeting at the intersection of Telegraph & Broadway and another is the Feminist & Queer bloc against capitalism that will meet at 4:30 at 14th & Broadway.
Join the marches from downtown to shut down the Port of Oakland. These marches will be leaving at 4pm and another will be leaving at 5pm for the 2 mile march out to the port to stand in solidarity with the longshore workers and shut down the evening shift of the port.
Join the 4pm Critical Mass ride from 14th & Broadway out to the Port to join the shut down
Best not to drive into downtown: It is likely that many streets will be blocked to traffic so please bike or take public transportation if possible. It will also be useful to have a bicycle to move between actions or to march to the port.
Take Action in Your Own Neighborhoods and Communities

Gather neighbors, co-workers, or fellow students together and organize group walks and small marches around the neighborhood to have fun, raise awareness and encourage others to join you in the streets! Bring noise makers, signs, banners and let your community know why your are participating in the strike.
Stop at banks, large businesses, chain stores, gas stations, corporate headquarters, large commercial media outlets, etc. to protest and picket
Gather in neighborhood centers and on the corners of main intersections to hold speak outs, BBQs and street parties – make your voice heard and raise awareness by reclaiming space where fellow community members can join you and talk about the issues that affect them most and how we can organize together to build a powerful movement
If you must shop, only spend money at locally owned stores and as much as possible purchase locally-produced goods
Nonprofit and Community Organizations

Use your personal and organizational social media accounts (websites, facebook, linked-in, electronic newsletters, etc) to support the actions and keep your constituencies updated about what is going on in the streets of Oakland.
In the event of police violence, use your organization to denounce police repression and call for the release of all arrested strikers.
Provide resources for your staff to participate: allow time away to participate in direct actions; encourage work on projects aligned with general strike and occupy goals, host sign and banner making parties!
Be Prepared

Bring materials to make signs: Banner material. cardboard, poster paper, markers, paint, spray paint tape, dowels, etc
Bring food and water to share!
Bring noise makers, instruments, sound systems and other ways that we can transform downtown into a celebration of our collective power
Write this legal number down on your body in case of arrest: 415.285.1011 The number will be staffed al day long and will coordinate legal support for those arrested in the strike.
Remember these four common points that the General Strike Assembly has agreed upon:
Solidarity with the world-wide Occupy movement!
End police attacks on our communities!
Defend Oakland schools and libraries!
Against an economic system built on colonialism, inequality and corporate power that perpetuates all forms of oppression and the destruction of the environment!
A Few Chants For the Strike

“Strike, Occupy, Shut it Down! Oakland is the People’s Town”
“Every Hour, Every Day! The occupation is here to stay!”
“Occupy Everything! Liberate Oakland”
“Politicians & Bankers, Liars & Thieves, We’re taking it back! We’re not saying please!”
“No more cops, we don’t need ‘em! All we want is total freedom”
“Shut Down OPD! Not the Public Library!”
“Let’s Go Oakland! Let’s Go!” [clap] [clap]
SEE YOU IN THE STREETS! MAKE OAKLAND PROUD!

Occupy Oakland 2.0

So, along with Mayor Quan's seachange regarding the Occupy Oakland movement (she even officially announced tomorrow's historic General Strike), the mainstream press seems to be less focused on myths about rats and sexual assaults, and more on what is actually happening inside the camp.
It helps that a better camp has been built with input from City Hall and labor unions taken account, but I believe that Quan's reversal has everything to do with her realizing that WE the grassroots got her into office. The political machine, which tried its hardest to prevent her from getting elected, were the people who wanted the PEOPLE evicted from the public park in front of City Hall. She'll never appease those people (The Ignacio de la Fuentes and Larry Reids of the world), and it seems like she is taking less direction from them....for now.
Thankfully, the media has changed course with her, and they are beginning to wake up to the fact that, like the city itself, Occupy Oakland is one of a kind, and the best of the best.

A view is taking shape that while New York was the genesis of the movement, Oakland has become, as one Oakland resident tweeted, the "front line of the revolution."

From the beginning, in fact, the protesters in Oakland set their sights high. They organized and planned for a full week before setting up their camp in the plaza. Once there, they made a point of trying to serve the needs of residents they felt the city had largely neglected -- mostly the poor and homeless. But it was about more than that.

"This is a base camp for a lot of different struggles," said John Reimann, 65, a retired Oakland carpenter and longtime union organizer who helped call for the general strike this week. "We're trying to unite a lot of struggles that people see as separate."

Now, that sense of collective purpose is continuing to draw in people from many sectors of society.

"There's a radicalism in Oakland. The working people, they're not coming to protest and then going home to watch themselves on the news; that makes it special," said Harry Brass, 71, a self-described former radical from Berkeley. "If it stays like this, it could be the leader, Oakland could take over from New York."

Others said Oakland, with its high unemployment rate, violent crime problems, health care disparities and foreclosure scandals, was a convenient and appropriate symbol for what was happening elsewhere in the country, and the world.

"Every community has its own Oakland," said Marco Dondero, 61, a schoolteacher from San Mateo who had come to see Michael Moore on Friday. "The hurt and anger is all over the country. People are here for a reason. They are not going away."
-Inside Bay Area

It was refreshing to see so many "tourists" coming around this weekend to check out the camp. There was so much excitement and energy of the good kind, where people were trying to show off how great the camp is rather than trying to keep outsiders out. I ran in to a lot of people who were coming around for the first time, and they were all amazed at how organized and communal it is.
Don't take my word for it, come on down and see for yourself.

Occupy Oakland Lives!

Wow, I don't really know where to begin.
This was a crazy fuckin week.
On Sunday, my wife performed her music at the Occupy Oakland Children's Village, and my son decided to take home a piece of lego home with him. When I saw it, I said that I'd have to return it to the camp on Monday.
Unfortunately, I was feeling sick on Monday, and worked from home. By the time I woke up on Tuesday morning, it was already too late to return the piece of lego.
The camp had been destroyed.
I went downtown and saw the damage.
It was horrible.
Riot cops surrounded Oscar Grant Plaza, which looked like a tornado had ripped through it. Banners had been torn down, tents had been trampled, and almost everything was covered in tear gas residue. It was a truly depressing site.
I thought to myself that this was the saddest day in American history.
Somehow, I went to work for a couple of hours, but came back to 14th and Broadway at midday. The scene was even more tense than it had been in the morning. Many campers who hadn't been arrested were there, as were many others who disapproved of the cops' presence.
After work, I joined the march leaving the main library on its way downtown.
The scene when the march first squared off against the police line at 14th & Broadway and chanted "Oscar Grant! Oscar Grant!" can only be described as amazing.
Then later in the night, this happened.

The cops shot some guy in the face with a tear gas cannister, and then when people came to help him, another cop threw a grenade at them.
That pretty much guaranteed that that was the saddest day in American history. Not just because of Scott Olsen, but because of Occupy Oakland. Scott was the cherry bomb on top.
Occupy Oakland, just like its hometown, is like no other in the world.
Diverse.
Conscious.
Organized.
Wired and amplified even.
It provided services for the city's neediest residents that the city was unable/unwilling to provide. Jobs, food, shelter, heath care, community, and electricity. More importantly, it provided meaning for the city's neediest.
It had to be destroyed, because it represented something completely new and radically different.
It represented the future.
Everyone in, no one left out.
This is what democracy looks like.

Mayor Jean Quan really did have a grass roots background, and she really did betray it. She let someone else do her job for her. She is an Oaklander who kept it real, and it was a horrible mistake, but she has a chance to make things right and make history in the process. We'll see where she goes from here.
The day after her police force shot and teargassed and grenaded a thousand of her constituents, three thousand showed up the next night to reclaim Oscar Grant Plaza. There were no cops, and the fence surrounding the grassy area was easily dismantled and made into geometric sculptures. A general strike was agreed upon for November 2. Mayor Quan waited to speak, but was booed back into the confines of the building.
The Occupation continued.

World Revolution Update

OPD says protestors teargassed them

This is the kind of outright lying coming out of cops' these days.
They showed up with about 500 cops in gas masks at 3:30 in the morning, started shooting rubber bullets and bean bag rounds, hurled grenades, and yet claim that they got teargassed....even though the protestors didn't have gas masks.
Logic tells you that the people who showed up in gas masks were most likely the ones who used the tear gas.
Duh.

Does this look "peaceful"?

Pic above from http://twitpic.com/75mjjh/full

Early this morning, sometime around 5am, the rumored and expected police raid came in swiftly and violently. As protestors chanted "You are the 99%!" to the police, their cries were silenced with tear gas, flash bang grenades, batons, rubber bullets, several hundred cops in riot gear and gas masks....the cops trashed the camp and aggressively arrested 75 some people, perhaps more.
The camp now looks like a tornado swept through it....i.e. it now looks how the mainstream media has been presenting it all along.
Protestors who are returning to the camp to get their belongings are allegedly being arrested.
This is one of the saddest days in American history.

More pics here.


Here are two nice before-and-after shots of the camp.

Quan recall effort officially underway

Gene Hazzard, of the Oakland Black Caucus, filed an official notice of intent to circulate a recall petition against Mayor Jean Quan today .

"She has willfully ignored the City's most pressing issue: public safety," the filing states. "She ignored the call of Oakland residents to significantly increase the number of police officers and instead supported a regressive $11 million parcel tax."

Charles Pine, of the group Oakland Residents of Peaceful Neighborhoods, signed the petition and echoed the complaint, criticizing Quan for her vote in June 2010 to lay off 80 police officers. Quan was then on the City Council, which was facing tense police union negotiations and a huge budget deficit, and the layoffs won by a 5-3 vote of the council.
-Inside Bay Area

Interestingly, rumors are circulating around the Occupy Oakland camp about a raid early tomorrow morning.

Occupy Oakland hits the streets

#occupyoakland protestors fill the streets after tent city eviction notice from Oakland North on Vimeo.

And apparently, they mobbed a Chase bank down by the lake and shut it down.

Occupy Oakland lives

Second night after getting their first eviction notice, Occupy Oakland is still going strong.
Here's a surprisingly good video from the msm on Occupy Oakland.

Cops in Utah pepper spray haka dancers

Police in Roosevelt, Utah pepper sprayed a group of haka dancers at a high school football game.

The group in Roosevelt, a town of 8,000, had traveled about 125 miles east from the Salt Lake City area to watch a relative play his final game for Union, which lost to rival Uintah and finished the season without a victory.

The group reportedly was trying to boost Union's morale with the Haka as the players left the field.

Spectators, coaches and players told police that everything was fine and they should let the men perform, Jessica Rasmussen said, but officers asked them to make room and started using pepper spray.

Rasmussen said she and other bystanders also got spray in their eyes, ears and mouths.

Union fan Jason Kelly said the way police reacted was an embarrassment to the community of Roosevelt.

"I've never seen anything like it," Kelly said. "It was totally unprovoked."
-Associated Press

Cops got evicted from Occupy Oakland

So this week, the mainstream media and Oakland City Hall ramped up their campaign against the Occupy Oakland encampment with stories about rats, drug use, sexual harassment, graffiti, yadda yadda yadda...
They claim that the protestors don't have any demands, but the protestors have been unified in their main demand: "Join us."
Please don't believe the lies.
Occupy Oakland, like the city itself, is unlike any other. It is diverse, political, organized, and a little crackhead-y too (You can't win them all).
The most notable thing about the now two-week-old protest is that it is an unparalleled experiment in human civilization. They have toilets, food, shelter, roads, educational workshops,informational booths, political discussions, a full entertainment schedule, a family zone, and a first-aid tent too. They even have their own pedal-powered media tent. Every night, the general assemblies are vibrant and chaotic....and somehow effective. Last night, under the threat of eviction from the city, they approved a no-smoking no-drinking policy. Oh yeah, and they collectively thumbed their noses at the eviction notice.
This ain't no burning man. This is democracy at its best/worst.
Everything is free, and everyone is welcome in this utopia.
Well, everyone but the mainstream media and the cops.


Since the City has sent out an eviction notice, this link might be useful to anyone hanging around the camp over the next few days.

Also, here's a good read from the Huffington Post which lists 10 ways you can suport the Occupy Everywhere movement wherever you might be.

The real rats are in city hall, not Frank Ogawa Plaza

An interesting piece that clairifies the rat situation at Occupy Oakland:

The fact that the journalist “reporting” the story simply repeats, at length, what a single city spokesman tells him should be seen as the gift from the newspaper to City Hall that it is. I’ve underlined the main verbs in the first six sentences to make that as clear as possible; that story is almost literally nothing but variations on “what City Hall told us [about the people protesting against it].” And so, the “objective” reporting just happens to repeat exactly the narrative that city hall wants to tell — things were under control before, but now the demonstrators are “attracting rats, alcohol and illegal drug use” — and imagine out of existence any possible counter-narratives which might be told.[1]

But the story that city hall wants to tell is preposterous. There are rats there at night because there are always rats there at night. I’m sure the smell of food does attract more vermin than usual — even as the presence of people also repels them — but the bottom line should still be obvious to anyone with a brain: you don’t normally have a rat “problem” in the park at night because you don’t normally have any people there (or at least not any people the city cares to notice). Even during the day, the only people that use this (quite unused) park are on their lunch break, eating their sandwiches or whatever, and then at night the rats eat their leavings. And no one cares. But now that there are people there — people creating a political headache for city hall — now, suddenly, the rats are an important problem. Suddenly, coincidentally, the city is very concerned about “rats.”

I invite you, by the way, to take a stroll through any part of the adjacent downtown Oakland at two in the morning and observe the rats which have been living off Oakland’s messy humans for many decades, and who will for many more. They’re not hidden, or even particularly shy; you’re just not there to see them and have your sensibilities offended by their presence. But that entire area is a filthy fast-food ridden stretch of a typical dirty downtown, well and truly “marred” by the fact that day-time human leave their waste everywhere for the night janitors to feast on, and who are the real causes of whatever vermin problem it has. It would be truer, in fact, to say that Oakland’s rats are invading the Occupation’s camp.
-Zunguzungu

World Revolution Update

Mayor Quan has issued an eviction notice to Occupy Oakland camp

View the livestream here.

Less than 1 in 4 have faith in financial institutions

According to the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index, 23% of people surveyed trusted US financial institutions.
What do the bottom 22% of those people not get?

Trust in banks has experienced an even steeper decline, falling from 39% in June to 33% in October. Notably, people were much more inclined to trust local banks and credit unions: More than half of those surveyed said they still had faith in those institutions.

The survey also revealed that nearly 60% of respondents were either angry or very angry about the current economic situation -- the highest level of anger measured since the earliest months of the financial crisis.
-Daily Finance

And that is why tent cities are springing up everywhere.

Irishman tries to make gold out of poo

I shit you not.

A man from Northern Ireland has been jailed after an experiment in which he attempted to turn his own faeces into gold went wrong and started a fire in a block of flats.

Paul Moran will now serve three months in jail and a further 12 months on license after the failed experiment caused a fire at his Housing Executive home in Derrin Park, Enniskillen.

Moran admitted arson and endangering the lives of others in the fire, which reportedly caused over £3,000 worth of damage.

It is thought that as part of the bizarre experiment Moran left his faeces, along with other waste products such as fertiliser, on a heater.

In his ruling Judge McFarland told Moran: “Rather bizarrely you were attempting to make gold from human faeces and waste products.

“It was an interesting experiment to fulfil the alchemist’s dream, but wasn’t going to succeed.”

Moran’s barrister mentioned that his client was a man of ‘considerable intellectual ability’ but that he had problems battling drug abuse.
-Yahoo! News

Murder is terror

2003: "Hey, you're Al Qaeda, we're gonna kill you and steal your oil."
2011: "Hey Al Qaeda, can you help us kill this other guy and steal his oil?"

Moral of the story: If you get in bed with the CIA, you'll prolly end up dead.

Jerry Amaro's family wins $1.7 million settlement

Today, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously to approve a $1.7 million settlement to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Jerry Amaro, who was beaten to death by as many as five Oakland police officers in 2000.

Amaro, 36, died on April 21, 2000, from pneumonia caused by multiple rib fractures and a collapsed lung. He had told his mother and several other people that he had been beaten by police officers who arrested him during a drug sting on March 23, 2000. The police report of the arrest made no mention of use of force.

Amaro was jailed for five days and repeatedly complained of pain in his ribs, which jail officials noted. On April 18, Amaro saw a doctor who took X-rays that revealed five rib fractures and a collapsed lung. The doctor recommended that Amaro seek emergency medical treatment to drain fluid from his lung. Amaro did not seek further treatment and died in his friend's basement three days later.

Attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin filed the federal wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Amaro's mother, Geraldine Montoya, in March 2009, shortly after the details of the internal police investigation were leaked to the press.

Investigators found that Amaro had been "severely injured" during his arrest, and at least five officers had used "some form of physical prowess" on Amaro without noting the reason for such force or mentioning the use of force at all.

The report also concluded that the reporting officer falsified his supervisor's signature on the police report and the commanding officer, Lt. Edward Poulson, inappropriately met with the arresting officers before the interviews with Internal Affairs investigators.

The investigation also found that the officers were "derelict" in not seeking medical attention for Amaro.
-Inside Bay Area

SFPD gets their canopies

Shortly before midnight last night, 50 SFPD officers marched into the Occupy SF encampment. The officers aggressively removed the camp's two canopies. Then, they trashed and seized the belongings and supplies of the camp. The 150 camp members and supporters attempted to block the streets to prevent the DPW trucks filled with their belongings from driving away.
A number of participants tried asking the SFPD to end this intimidation and asking the truck drivers to show their support. Instead they were met with swinging batons and were nearly run over as the first truck filled with supplies was leaving. Protesters who laid down in the street to block the police vans from leaving with those arrested were beaten with nightsticks and thrown to the curbs.
The results of the night were five arrests, one injury, one serious injury, and a vivid reminder of who's side the police stand on.
The SFPD tore-down and trashed many of the personal belongings of the camp. They need our support to rebuild. Go to occupysf.com for a list of items required.

Join today's General Assembly meeting at 6pm at Justin Hermann Plaza (Embarcadero BART Station) to show your solidarity.

World Revolution Update

Glenn Beck < A Nazi propagandist

Glenn Beck is a douche bag, and that isn't news to anyone.
But wow, on his Monday show, he called the Occupy Wall Street Movement (Americans gathering in a public space and exercising their freedoms peacefully) a bunch of murderers.

"Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you...they're Marxist radicals...these guys are worse than Robespierre from the French Revolution...they'll kill everybody."

He also warns that getting into bed with the "Michael Moores of the world" will result in your death, even though Michael Moore has never been accused of murder by anyone. I highly doubt that anyone on this planet would ever openly admit to thinking that Michael Moore was in any way intimidating even...other than Glenn Beck that is.
Disturbingly, Beck cites a Nazi political assassination campaign as his dream end to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"It will be the Night of Long Knives. It will be a purging of this country."

At the risk of sounding mysogynistic, Glenn Beck is the epitome of some clueless person having their panties in a twist. Is he afraid of real democracy, or is this just more of the same from Beck (i.e. blind lapdogging for his corporate pimps)?
Either way, he is being dangerously immature once again, especially given the lower IQs of his followers.

RIP Coach

"You don't adjust. You just dominate."

So everybody is saying nice things about Al Davis now that he is dead.
Steve Sabol often had nice things to say about Al while he was still alive, so check out this great video tribute by Sabol.

The thing that strikes me the most about Coach Davis is that, not unlike Steve Jobs, for better or worse, he always did it his own way.
No one is perfect.
But few people have the courage to truly be themselves. Fewer have the drive to relentlessly push themselves to be the best that they can be...and then still lust for more.
Al was a character indeed, but he was mostly a good person. The media has portrayed him otherwise though, and that is a testament to his disdain for the status quo. He didn't care about being popular, or even likable. He knew what he was doing, and he was gonna do it his way.
He wasn't just likable though, he was lovable. Every owner, player and fan has him to thank for the lucrative spectacle that is professional sports.
He wasn't just a billiant evaluator of talent, he also had a knack for bringing the best out of people, especially those who had previously been cast off onto the scrap heap. He let his players be who they were, and they kept themselves in line for him...to some degree. His motley crew of America's worst nightmares delivered on Sunday, that's for sure.
Al was so comfortable with diversity (he was instrumental in opening the doors to professional sports for black athletes, and he hired the first Latino coach, the first black coach, and the first female CEO) that he openly admitted that he studied and admired Hitler...and he didn't care if you thought less of him for it.
He was who he was, and the people who knew him loved him because he was a good person who championed the little man and judged people by their commitment, not by anything else.
And he was human and had his faults.
He was about as Oakland as you could possibly get.

He was also the greatest mind in the history of professional sports, and Coach Davis lived and breathed the Raiders, in a way that no other professional sports franchise owner has ever or will ever.
Al has missed on his share of occasions, and it seemed for a while there that he had completely lost it, but in 2009, he started making a series of decisions that can only be described as clutch.
The current team is 100% his, both those who are on it, and not on it, and they have an opportunity to be special. Now that they have some motivation, we'll see.

Coach Davis will be missed by many.

Davis, who died Saturday, wasn't an only-in-America success story. He was an especially-in-America success story, with his abiding appreciation of hard work, wealth, confrontation and litigation. He loved victory, mystery and standing on the outside looking in.

He inspired awe, disdain, blind loyalty, blind rage, imitators, sycophants, friends and enemies. He was so much to so many for so long that he defies a complete and fitting eulogy.

He would have liked that.
-Inside Bay Area

World Revolution Update

The Second Front

Al Jazeera has a bunch of great pics along with this article:

The 'War on Terror' rages in the Philippines
In 2002, the US launched Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines; nine years later, the campaign there continues.

As violence between insurgent groups, local governments and American troops still rages in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States continues to sponsor local military missions to combat "terrorism" in dozens of countries encompassing every major region of the world. The so-called Global War on Terror, now entering its tenth year, has become a military behemoth that accounts for the majority of US defense spending.

In the Philippines, a staunch US ally that receives most of its military funding and training from the US, the Pentagon launched Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines - part of a military effort linked with the main Operation Enduring Freedom mission in Afghanistan - to fight "terrorist insurgent groups" in 2002.

Although the military describes its mission in the Philippines as a success, nearly ten years later, the results are devastating. All-out wars against the Muslim separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the communist guerilla group New People's Army (NPA) and the Islamist insurgent group Abu Sayyaf have left a trail of destruction across rural areas of the country.

While the American military argues that its presence has been a stabilising factor in the southern Philippines, wars between the government and insurgents continue with killings on a near-daily basis. And although the Philippine constitution prohibits foreign troops from participating in combat operations in the country, joint operations in war zones are often labeled military "exercises" to avoid controversy.

Nearly ten years after the initial troop deployment some 600 American special operations forces remain in the country, and will likely stay there for the foreseeable future.
-Al Jazeera

We face a "Worldwide Banking Meltdown"

IMF advisor Robert Shapiro warns of a meltdown worse than 2008.
So what’s a country to do when faced with sovereign default?
Well in the birthplace of democracy, as the Greek government circles ever-increasingly down the toilet of fiscal insolvency, it apparently has found enough money to purchase 400 M1A1 Abrams tanks from the United States.
Well, I guess if they can’t afford to provide the Greek people with good governance, I guess they will NEED 400 tanks to keep the Greek people in line.

To the west, Spain tops that by offering Uncle Sam a navy base.

Under the agreement, four U.S. Aegis ships will be based at the Rota naval base near Cadiz in Spain. The agreement is part of U.S. President Barack Obama's phased adaptive approach to missile defense, under which ship-based, anti-ballistic missiles are being deployed in the eastern Mediterranean followed by ground-based systems in Romania and Poland.
The agreement "reflects a commitment of both countries to the alliance" and marks "an important step forward to protect NATO territories against missile threats," Rasmussen said. "It is smart defense at its best," he said, describing it as "countries working together and sharing together to provide something that benefits us all."
-Defense News

Come to think of it, considering that 169,000 Americans lost their job in September, Uncle Sam might need some more tanks and missile boats too.

Oakland OKs small urban farms

On Tuesday, the Oakland City Council voted to lift an outdated ban on selling home-grown produce within city limits.

"It's the first step in legitimizing urban agriculture in Oakland," said Esperanza Pallana, 37, who has a 1,200 foot backyard plot in the Grand Lake neighborhood and has been pushing for the change. "It's also preserving our right to grow our own food for ourselves and our community."

The code change altered the definition of "home-based businesses," which previously mandated that it had to be indoors. The new code allows outdoor vegetables as long as it didn't need farm equipment to produce it. Previously, all it took was one phone call from a neighbor to bring down the city's wrath on someone selling backyard carrots.

Eric Angstadt, the city's deputy planning and zoning director, said he estimates that anywhere from a half to three-quarters of urban farmers in Oakland will be protected by this change.

"These are people for whom urban farming is not a primary, money-making occupation," he said. "These are maybe people who are just trying to recover their own costs of growing, or maybe people who are trying to see if it can be a possible commercial occupation."
-SF Gate

The code change won't allow large commercial farms to operate within Oakland, and it doesn't address the issue of farm animals. It simply allows residents to sell produce that they grow in their own yard.

Occupy Oakland

People are pissed

Good ol Paul Farrell.

Occupy Wall Street is a virus spreading rapidly as Occupy Everything, a reform movement that will overshadow the GOP/Tea Party as the voice of the people, leading to an Occupy America.
-MarketWatch

And Jesse La Greca explains it another way:

Linton Johnson still MIA

Oh brotha, where art thou?

Linton Johnson, the all-purpose public voice of BART, remains on leave more than a month since his public relations war with protesters put him even more under the spotlight. BART officials said Wednesday they don’t know when he will return. Johnson’s response to email messages says that he is on a two-month leave for family reasons and he will return around Oct. 17.

His previous email message had him returning Sept. 19, but that was amended with the later return time.

Johnson, the chief media spokesman for an agency often in the news, made news in the last month during the continuing tensions between BART and protesters and hackers upset with shootings by BART police officers.
-Inside Bay Area

Family reasons?
More like he has been shamed into submission by anonymous hackers who posted a picture of him exposing his family jewels while embracing a shirtless man.
His incompetence on the job, which is detailed in the Inside Bay Area article quoted above, pales in comparison to the damage done by this.
Even though Anonymous gets accused of being immature and unfocused, I call this brilliant move very strategic and very targeted, and apparently, extremely effective.
Immature, maybe, but effective as well.
When you're paid a helluva lot of money to be a public persona, don't be surprised if your persona is made public.

China: Don’t electioneer at our expense

Yesterday, the US Senate voted 79-19 to open a week-long debate on a bill that calls for U.S. tariffs on imports from countries with deliberately undervalued currencies.
(Ahem)
Naturally, the move prompted an angry rebuke from China, which holds down the value of its yuan currency to give its exporters an edge in global markets. China claims it is committed to gradual currency reform, noting that the yuan has risen 30 percent against the dollar since 2005, and warned that passage of such legislation will spark a trade war.

Supporters of the legislation say it would create new jobs and boost the U.S. economy, but China, and some in the United States, say it could trigger a damaging trade war.
The Chinese central bank warned the proposed law would not fix the economic problems in the United States and could cause more serious problems.
If the bill passes, it "cannot resolve insufficient saving, the high trade deficit and the high unemployment rate in the U.S., and it may seriously affect the progress of China's exchange rate reform and may lead to a trade war, which we do not want to see," the bank said.
-Yahoo! News

Top Republican legislators in the US agree.

The strong misgivings of House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner were the first clear sign the currency legislation might fizzle out, as similar bills have done since lawmakers began targeting China's yuan policy in 2005.
"I think it's pretty dangerous to be moving legislation through the United States Congress forcing someone to deal with the value of their currency," Boehner told reporters.
"While I've got concerns about how the Chinese have dealt with their currency, I'm not sure this is the way to fix it."
-Reuters

So Democrats want to, Repulicans don't want to...no news there.
What is news though, is that China is pissed off at the rhetoric flyin around inside the beltway...and that's actually pretty big news.

The men who crashed the world

Meltdown is a four-part investigation that takes a closer look at the people who brought down the financial world. It can be seen on Al Jazeera English from Tuesday, September 20, at the following times GMT: Tuesday: 2000; Wednesday: 1200; Thursday: 0100; Friday: 0600; Saturday: 2000; Sunday: 1200; Monday: 0100; Tuesday: 0600.

In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.

World Revolution Update

Feds give Oakland $10 mil for more cops targeting youth

Oakland has won a $10.7 million grant from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, and will be able to hire 25 more cops.
The city intends to use the federal money to put more cops in middle schools and hookers.

The officers will be focused on a community-policing effort at four middle schools in high-crime neighborhoods, as well as working on the twin problems of human trafficking and the prostitution of teenage girls, police Chief Anthony Batts said.
-Inside Bay Area

China claims Asia

The Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily has warned its Asian neighbors to be on guard against the “danger” of feeling they can “do whatever they want” in the region because of the financial support and physical presence of Uncle Sam.

The U.S. set off China’s ire in 2010 when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at a regional summit in Hanoi, called resolving the competing claims to the sea “a leading diplomatic priority.” That drew a rebuke from Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who said internationalizing the incident with U.S. involvement “can only make matters worse and more difficult to solve.”
-Bloomberg

Basically, in response to a US military spending spree in region, the China has claimed Southeast Asia as its bitches.

"I dream of another moment like this."

Goldman Sachs rules the world, and they know the market is toast. Lol.
A trader was on the BBC, speaking the truth, and apparently it was news to the talking heads and the people who aren't plastic-looking-enough-to-be-talking-heads.

Speaking of news vs. the not news, I remember seeing a video from the occupation of Wall Street, and reading some commenter who said that the women were over-reacting to simply being corralled. I thought to myself, they're reacting as if they just got maced. Well, apparently they got peppersprayed, and some dude has posted this great slo-mo breakdown of the incident.