To those outside of the bay area, a quick description of the past weeks of revolt here: Oakland in the week of the ferguson decision saw many burning barricades in the streets, mass looting, highway takeovers, targeting of corporations and wealthy neighborhoods, thousands of participants night after night after night, resting only on thanksgiving and resuming the next night in san francisco where people largely fought police. In Berkeley we have been hearing helicopters over our houses beginning in the afternoon to well past midnight for five days now. A police riot on saturday night in which people were injured led to protests on every night since then, the night after three cops cars were destroyed and every bank downtown destroyed, other nights included the epic highway takeover you have likely seen pictures of, other nights have led to more looting, or fires in the streets. Trains were also blockaded on the night of the takeover of 1-80- this night we saw 260 people arrested and many injured from rubber bullets. Last night highway patrol shot people with bean bag rounds from an over pass and there was more looting.At the same time, the Berkeley dynamic has led to a large continent of white peace-policing, of white people participating in die ins early on in the evenings... rioting is usually occurring later at night. BART stations are routinely shut down with signs that say the shutdowns are due to civil unrest, many stores across the east bay are boarded up either pre-emptively or in the case of corporate stores, because they have been vandalized or looted. There is a vast diversity of the people participating, but this means that there are politics emerging in the marches which pretend towards a universalism of who is victimized by the state and that peaceful protest, chanted mostly by Cal students and white folks, is an axiom that should go unchallenged and suggests that even soft barricades on highways are forms of violence. We have had massive problems with a group named BAMN that has been attempting to co-opt and pacify the marches, and occasional problems with the RCP. Despite the problems they cause, people have been aware enough to breakaway from them from time to time. Today Berkeley high walked out and are joining in the marches tonight. The bay area has literally been in the streets every single night for weeks, without pause. A movement without pause that is seeing daily shifts in its own politics and tactics, as well as the police tactics of the various departments that have been deployed. We have seen tons of arrests and urge people to donate to the anti-repression committee bail fund. All of this occurring the week after building occupations took place on UC campuses across the state. All in all, people have not had much time to rest and asses everything, but are pulling together pretty strongly on the fly, going with the momentum, not sleeping, doing jail and court support, and seeing each other in the streets, night after night after night.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 01:11:52 +0000
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