Today at approximately 1:00 PM outside agitators took over a peaceful gathering of Berkeley save-the-post-office sing-a-long protesters. It wasn't the Postal Police. No, it was a group of four marauders single-mindedly intent on one and only one thing: to chalk up the sidewalk outside the Berkeley Post Office!
These hooligans from Oakland and other nether regions stopped at nothing, taking piece after piece from their chalk box; making threatening gestures to passersby - by rubbing said chalk on the sidewalk!
Heedless of the music, heedless of the throngs of dancing older ladies and gentlemen rocking to the beat of "The Union Makes Us Strong" they completed their pornographic imagery in record time and vanished back into the BART tunnels from whence they came.
Who would dare to deface the Post Office's sidewalk?
Who would risk the wrath of stepping on a crack and breaking their grandmother's back?
Who were these unmasked people?
Fresh Juice Party, they call themselves.
Some call them Chalkupy. I call them things best left unsaid.
Let's get right to the point. Chalkers are a menace to society. I cannot conceive of how a jury found Jeff Olson "not guilty" (but far from innocent, IMHO!) when he heinously defaced the sidewalk outside of Bank of America in San Diego.
These Juice Partiers, like their graffiti-mongering counterparts in Las Vegas, should be facing up to a year in prison (far more, if I had my druthers. Maybe a firing squad with rubber bullets?)
Look, chalk is indelible. It can't be washed off, or brushed away. Rain, snow, and sleet have no effect. You want proof? Chalk art is ALL OVER THE INTERNET!! Five thousand years from now alien intelligences probing our civilization's downfall will stumble across the ruins of NSA strongholds in the Utah desert and what will they find - chalk art and porn!
Fortunately FJP did not get their wish. The sing-a-long continued. The tents and tables remained. People savored the day and the slight breeze. As long as the crowd did not have to sight the horrible message drawn in indelible chalk on the sidewalk in front of the Berkeley Post Office this 17th day of August, 2013, they were happy.
It remains to be determined just how unhappy the Post Office powers-that-be are.
Awesome work indeed.
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Background
Protesters Live in a Tent City to Oppose Post Office Closure
Those Damned Hippies. They're Saving the Post Office.
Selling Off the Post Office: Berkeley Calls Out Richard Blum.
How to Privatize the Post Office Piece by Piece, Step By Step.
Killing the Post Office on the Altar of Privatization.
Other Postal Occupation Diaries:
C'Mon Deliver the Letter, the Sooner the Better.
Enter the Postal Police: Day 10 of the Berkeley Post Office Occupation.
Civil Disobedience in an Age of Insanity. Taking a Stand, A Song and a Tent.
References:
Save the Berkeley Post Office Web Site
Strike Debt Bay Area Web Site
Strike Debt Bay Area Facebook
Save the Post Office Website
Credits:
Alyssa (@alyssa011968, Kossack allie123) provided some of the photos.
@Fresh Juice Party provided others from this gallery