Sunday, November 27, 2011

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

Friday, November 25, 2011

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.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

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.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Occupation Illustrated

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

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

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

Monday, November 21, 2011

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

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

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.

Monday, November 14, 2011

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.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

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.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

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.

Monday, November 7, 2011

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

Saturday, November 5, 2011

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.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Oakland Port shut down

The night shift workers were sent home with pay.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

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!