Original Your Bravest Children letter...
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First, let's review non-violent protest:
1) They ignore you.
2) They laugh at you.
3) They fight you.
4) You win.
--Gandhi
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This is a crucial phase for the Occupy Movement--the 1% would like you to believe, as they set baton-wielding police on protestors, that Occupy (wherever) is a source of violence (even in communities, such as Oakland, where gun violence has been given free reign for years). Well, violence and, uh, the scourge of bad hygiene.
Absurdity, recrimination, anger, and fear are in the air. Some empathetic people are wavering, concerned by corporate media reports on violence. Yet, as this strikingly clear piece I was handed by the author at the Occupy Cal general assembly says (in the last sentence), “there are more reasons to be excited than to be scared.”
That is surely true.
Now we have mostly fear to confront, in ourselves and others. I felt it myself, strongly, on Wednesday, when I accidentally joined the front line of an arm-linked group defending the tents set up in front of Sproul Hall. Wait...uh, isn't there another line to be formed in front of us? Though I had mentally prepared on the walk down, as best I could, to be arrested (it would be a first), after I linked in and a handful of photographers crouched to take pictures of the hapless souls on the front line who would soon be cuffed or clubbed, I thought, "hmm...mistake."
But I couldn't slip away as my instincts demanded, even when the Alameda County goons arrived (these "Blue Meanies" have for decades been called in to "physically remove," or beat, protesting Cal students. Why couldn't I just release and work back to the periphery? Because I had linked in between two females half my size (I am a large-bodied male, let's say), ten years younger, and they were not leaving. So how could I?
These two, and the people like them behind us, were the "bravest children" I write about in these essays. I am not one of them. The idea of putting my body and brain in the path of a really hard baton (some swung by manifestly brutal people) goes against my best instincts. I am not ashamed to admit that I felt relief when a flying group of protestors ran in at the last minute, forming an additional line in front of us as the cops advanced--or when our line finally broke down and we had no reason to hold in front of the advancing cops, jabbing and swinging, some viciously.
We could read their names. I will never forget you, Officer SD McMillan, as you stepped forward from behind the police line and raised your baton high twice and brought it down on someone's arm, then head. I will never forget the hand raised in front of my face, caught in the light for a moment, that had blood running down it, wiped from a wound you or your fellows inflicted on its owner, as young girls struggled to breathe in the line behind us.
You are not anonymous in my book. This violence in our society cannot be tolerated any longer. Not against peaceful protestors. We need to read these badge names and we need to call them out. A riot suit is not a cloak of invisibility or inhumanity.
There is a sweet relief in retreat from real danger, but we cannot indulge in it, we have to regroup, greater in number, resolve, and tactical skill, and do it again.
Word comes from the Cal-Berkeley chancellor and the head of the UCPD police department that linking arms in a human chain is “not non-violent civil disobedience.” This blogger beat me to the punch in linking up some photos that help supply the ridicule for this statement. (Of course, the ones with MLK are the best--Obama and friends also.) They will regret this statement; it is a crack in the armor of the usually circumspect chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who voices gentile solidarity in most cases.
Occupy is on the move, winning all across the world, as Keith Olbermann shows in this clip that also displays some of the Cal brutality. (It's truly bizarre that Alameda Co. Sheriff denies its officers were the brutalizers--you can see their shoulder patches clearly in nearly every video of the event. When will people realize new media is making lying and covering things up much, much harder?) Further, if you have any doubt that Occupy Together is making a huge difference in the US conversation, see the recent Keystone victory (huge!) or Bowers on income inequality mentions. This movement is already paying dividends for the US public welfare.
Yet there are miles to go, as we all know.
Aside from the big issues of winter (how to sustain the camps) and violence (how to deal with those bent on violence and the provocateurs here in Oakland-Berkeley), there are more pressing concerns--an abstract and a concrete.
First the concrete. Oakland police are gearing up to shut down the very important Oakland camp, possibly tonight. Everyone who wants to do something from far away should call the Oakland police and the Oakland city council and tell them "the whole world is watching."
Oakland Police: (510) 777-3333
Oakland City Council: 510-444-CITY
Larry Reid: (510) 238-7007
President Larry Reid and his police chief may want to make Oakland's downtown safe again for the "retailers and restaurants" (how little does this guy get it?), but we have to help him understand that there is something larger at stake, that the 1% plunder is the reason Oakland had to shut down five schools in the past two weeks and is in dire trouble outside its pleasant little business pockets (those restaurants and retailers have been struggling and shutting, folks--don't be scared by the "hurting business" meme/tactic, business is already knocked the F out). Let the chamber of commerce here in Oakland say what they will--domination of government by such business chambers and associations at all scales is exactly what Occupy is fighting against. So. Sorry about that.
The more abstract thing we have to deal with is fear. I read a lot of pieces here on Daily Kos, many well-meaning, that only seem to amplify the message of "run for the hills" we get ad nauseum from the mainstream media. Keeping us believing the sky is falling is a method of control. It is not falling. No matter what happens, the key is to remain calm. I see this dynamic at general assemblies and rallies, too--lots of frantic messages about what the cops may or may not be doing. Okay to take stock and prepare, but keep it level. We are in this together, for the long haul.
Don't go in with the "sky is falling" memes about how camps are dangerous and a threat to us all. In this country we are most threatened by a legalized system of bribery, corruption and undemocratic control of our institutions. We are threatened by the destruction of our national infrastructure--physical, educational, welfare, financial, etc. Risk and fear are threatening the well-being of 99/100 families. Living under these conditions in such a rich country is no kind of life. We need to renew our democracy.
We need to keep pushing to turn this boat around.
Occupy Oakland
Occupy Cal
Occupy Together