The privileged 1 percent of the Bay Area have been cajoling their servants in local government and law enforcement to crush the local Occupy movements. In the space of one week, the three biggest occupations in the Bay have been threatened with raids. The raids that have taken place were conducted by not one but numerous police departments working in tandem.
On Nov. 11, occupiers in Oakland were distributed an “eviction” notice by the police, informing them that they were breaking city laws by inhabiting public space. The occupiers were to leave and collect all of their things or there would be consequences.
The occupiers stayed in place.
Raids on Oakland and UC Berkeley
By the evening of Nov. 13, word had leaked that there was to be a police raid on the Oakland camp early the following morning. Liberation News reporter William West and several other members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation joined hundreds of people from the Bay Area in surrounding the camp that night.
It was a particularly cold evening, and even with the crowd of supporters, there were fewer people around Oscar Grant park, the site of the occupation, than usual. Perhaps 700 filled the streets by four a.m., when the police surrounded the encampment and started marching in upon it.
An exceptionally large gang of cops with grenade launchers, around 1,000, set up barricades around Oscar Grant Plaza, blocking off protesters in the streets.
PSL members leaned against the cops’ barricades and taunted the police, often by name. We also participated in colorful chants with other protesters, including, “Cops of the world, you should be shakin’, today’s pig is tomorrow’s bacon!”
The cops destroyed the occupiers’ tents and property, arresting many, including an interfaith group that had built a makeshift worship area, which the cops destroyed in front of the worshipers.
The attackers were composed of cops from nine different police departments, which shows just how much coordination between the 1 percent of different cities went into the attack.
The next day, there was a protest march through downtown Oakland of more than 1,000 people.
On Nov. 16, Occupy San Francisco organizers attended a meeting with newly elected Mayor Ed Lee, despite the fact that San Francisco cops had stolen occupiers’ property just that morning. Lee abandoned the negotiations and told the press that Occupy SF, which had been mushrooming in recent days, must desist in growing … or there would be consequences.
That night it was decided at Occupy SF’s General Assembly that the camp should make an effort to be more sanitary, but continue to grow, despite Lee’s admonitions. Many at the camp believed the cops would raid the camp that night. The police did not raid, at least not in San Francisco.
But in Berkeley, around 100 cops from different towns banded together to attack sleeping students in their newly built tent city. The encampment was destroyed, and two students were arrested. Less than 48 hours earlier, a massive General Assembly had voted overwhelmingly to build the encampment.
Solidarity prevents raid on Occupy SF
On the morning of Nov. 17, San Francisco occupiers were issued eviction notices similar to those earlier distributed to Occupy Oakland. Word spread throughout the city that the cops would raid the camp that night. By noon, many organizations, including the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), of which the PSL is a member, had sent out e-mails to their supporters encouraging them to come out at 10 p.m. and defend the camp.
On Oct. 26, a large group of Occupy supporters had surrounded the San Francisco camp and prevented an already orchestrated police raid. On Nov. 17, the San Francisco community once again came out to support the occupation in large numbers. Well over 1,000 people came out to defend a camp of 300 occupiers. There was an impressive union presence, with labor leaders such as Mike Casey, Connie Ford and Tim Paulsen of the San Francisco Labor Council, and members of UNITE HERE Local 2, Teamsters, International Longshore Workers Union 6 and 10, American Federation of Teachers 2121, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 6 staying until late at night to protect the camp. Many members of the PSL again joined in defending the camp.
The community was successful in dissuading the police from raiding the camp. Because so many people showed up so early, the police never even mobilized for a raid. Many new visitors to the camp danced to the sounds of the Occupy SF orchestra until late into the evening.
Saturday marches in Oakland and San Francisco
The weekly Saturday march in support of Occupy SF, was joined by a large march in support of the Occupy movement in the East Bay on Nov 19.
At 2 p.m., marchers gathered in Oakland, at Oscar Grant Plaza, the site of the former Occupy Oakland site. Over 5,000 people, including a contingent of PSL members, marched to Lakeview school, one of a number of facilities to be closed by the Oakland Unified School District. Interspersed with marchers carrying homemade signs and grassroots organizations demanding an end to the rule of the 1 percent were union T-shirts, placards and banners.
Unions mobilized with contingents of teachers demanding funding for schools, and postal workers defending their jobs against the corporate-backed congressional attempt to steal their retirement fund. ILWU members carried a banner in support of their sisters and brothers who have been fighting a union-busting campaign in Longview, Wash.
The march left the Lakeview school and marched back downtown and established a new Occupy encampment in a vacant lot at the corner of 19th Street and Telegraph Avenue. The march and re-establishment of the Oakland encampment showed that state-sponsored repression by the police will not deter the OWS movement.
However, the police raided the camp the next morning.
SF march focuses on defending education
The weekly marches in San Francisco have become more topically pointed. The Nov. 12 march was in solidarity with Egypt. The Nov. 19 march was devoted to defending public education.
Joined by teachers and students, Occupy activists marched down Market Street chanting, “Banks got bailed out, schools got sold out,” “Education should be free, not just for the bourgeoisie” and “Money for jobs and education, not for banks and corporations.”
The rally that took place on the steps of City Hall included students and teachers as well as LGBT activists and others. PSL member and public school teacher Nathalie Hrizi spoke to the crowd. Hrizi said that the state of California’s plan for more budget cuts this school year expanded the yearly threat to the jobs of teachers, paraprofessionals, janitors, secretaries and other education workers.
As a member of United Educators of San Francisco, Hrizi announced her union’s recent vote to support the Occupy movement. After criticizing the rich’s attempt to deny our children education for the purpose of their own profits, she led the crowd in a rousing cry to “Seize the banks!” The march then returned to the encampment, at Justin Herman Plaza, for a closing rally.
By 9:30 p.m., severe wind and rain had set in. Nonetheless, 100 demonstrators, including this reporter, participated in a late-night march from Union Square to the Occupy SF encampment. The march was organized by the American Academy of Religion, a group of progressive religious scholars and leaders, and UNITE HERE Local 2, which represents San Francisco hotel workers.
Roses for the workers
Before marching, protesters took roses to give to the striking hotel workers at the Hyatt Regency. Hyatt management has been trying to divide the workers by giving benefits to veteran workers but denying them to new hires. The divide-and-conquer tactics of Hyatt have been unsuccessful, however, as Local 2 continues to demand equally comprehensive benefits for all of its members. The roses carried historic weight. The 1912 textile workers strike in Lexington, Mass., was known as the “Bread and Roses” strike. Bread represented fair wages, roses represented human dignity.
When the march passed the Hyatt Regency, the marchers bestowed their roses on the union representative present, a night-porter at the hotel. The crowd chanted, “Boycott Hyatt!”
As the march continued and approached the Occupy camp, one occupier told the demonstrators, “It’s support like this that’s stopping the cops from raiding us!” Occupy SF, despite weekly threatened police raids, has continued to attract increased support.
The occupiers had set up a large tent to shelter the demonstrators, and offered the visitors food from their meager kitchen. The marchers, however, were content to stand out in the rain with the general occupation.
Andrea Smith, Native American rights activist and professor of Media and Cultural Studies at University of California, Riverside, said: “The struggle is not only against capitalism. This movement must confront not just economic inequality, but the violence that is inherent in the culture of any settler state, such as the United States.”
The Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, director of Faith Voices for the Common Good, told the crowd: “The Occupy movement is profoundly moral. We are horrified at the harm suffered by people and the planet at the hands of the 1 percent who control the military-industrial complex.”
In two weeks, the weekly pro-Occupy march in San Francisco will support housing activists in neighborhoods being gentrified as they occupy foreclosed homes.
Anne Gamboni, Saul Kanowitz, William West and Paul Greenberg contributed to this report.
