What part of the US Constitution says that shutting down ports and small businesses, vandalism and occupying private property such as banks or empty buildings are included in the rights of free speech peacefully or to peacefully assembly?

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all. G. K. Chesterton

Anarchists are opposed to violence; everyone knows that. The main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations. It is life based on freedom of the individual, without the intervention of the gendarme. For this reason we are the enemies of capitalism which depends on the protection of the gendarme to oblige workers to allow themselves to be exploited--or even to remain idle and go hungry when it is not in the interest of the bosses to exploit them. We are therefore enemies of the State which is the coercive violent organization of society. --Errico Malatesta

I might "joke" that Jean Quan should move to Syria where her tactics and SWAT team thuggery would be better appreciated, but this isn't a joking matter. Calling in heavily armed gangs of troublemakers (Alameda County Sheriff SWATs) to shoot Bay Citizen journalists in the stomach and elderly homeless men in the knee seems an odd way to run a re-election campaign.

Perhaps Empress Jean and Generalissimo Jordan should take a trip across the bay and observe how to keep a demonstration from getting out of hand while at the same time preserving people's rights to protest.

Everyone on the City council "supports the goals" of Occupy Oakland BUT some imagine everyone not camping out is opposed to the camp out.

What was clear from public testimony is that the encampment community process is key to raising consciousness of what can be in democracy if the people stay in one place and interact.

The thousands of demonstrators walking to the port were there because of and can be assumed to support Occupy with its tent city process.

Saying those citizens not in the council room also have rights does not equate to the idea they do not support Occupy.

We need a two pronged approach (1) to affect capitalistic abuse (2) to adress local needs. THESE ARE RELATED.

I find it interesting that Jean Quan says that the costs of these protests must be taking away from services. The costs could be taken away from other areas and not just from services. I think this is a concern, Jean's way of punishing the public for their need to demonstrate because she is not listening to what is wrong. Please Oakland tell me why you elected her? Will you also re elect her?

I have wondered if the smashing of windows later was done after the police started brutality or before the police started. The government should wake up and realize this is what they have created. People want to be heard and listened to by their government.

I believe in maximum freedom for individuals including choices people make starting with kids choices to ask and learn about what interests them (of course basic literacy needs to be taught) I believe in entreprenureship of individuals using creative capacity to enhance quality of life from healthier food to simple technologies to beautiful and otherwise meaningful art

BUT sitting on the edge of Occupy I had to ask myself if the infrastructure of banking and large corporate projects shouldn't be there for the benefit of humans, not so some can profit by taking advantage of others labor or investments.

Capitalistic imperialism is oppressing most of the human population. Moat of the top 20% are more stressed than happy. The idea that we all have to be forever richer and buying more stuff is suicidal ... the root problem "concern for public health and safety" fails to address

Black Bloc is Cointelpro controlled,

These are the guys who come in at the end of a peaceful demonstration with 3 goals in place. Start a fire somewhere (makes for great media shots). Then break a couple of corporate windows. Finally, break windows on a couple of small businesses.

Then, run around the corner and get into the unmarked cop vans waiting for them. They're not all cops but the leaders are and they certainly never get booked. They move from City to City repeating this process in demonstration after demonstration and they began long before the 'Occupy' movement.

It's to make all activist reformers look bad and your law enforcement cooperates on every level to serve the super wealthy in this way.

Let's see OPD release a list of the 60 or so arrested Tuesday night so we can start interviewing them.

Here's a fabulous video of SF's newest candidate for theme song.

It's Pat Monahan and Train with 'Save me San Francisco'.

The thing is a tribute to Dustin Hoffman's role in 'The Graduate' and the ending will have you rolling in the floor.

Go Niners!

h.

Ahhh, the video ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zftcZYdOl3Y&ob=av2n

Used to smoke pot with Monahan in Tenderloin way back when.

h.

occupy oakland is finally meeting with the city council, they need a bit of structure. In Wounded Knee it was quite clear the tribal elders, Pedro Bissonette--the local organizer, along with AIMS Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt and Carter Camp would do all negotiating with the govt. my task in that occupation was to be in the security bldg, manning the ham/cb radio system and running across the road to get one of the AIM 4 if anything serious happened. i also distributed the bullets, ran the printing press, and even got to pat down a group of FBI agents. i was there for 7 weeks, what a time! and tho undercover agents were inside, provacateurs were not permitted as they would be asked to leave or shamed.
i also ran food to folks tied down in bunkers by heavy gunfire for 24 hours with no food or water, what a thrill to have us army bullets hit the ground six inches from me. i sorta got treated like royalty by the elders after i did that, and now i am a tribal elder at Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. Alan Berkman, founder of HealthGap, was a nedic there for a week. We agreed that Pedro Bissonette was the most soulful and incredible organizer we had ever met. He was murdered 4 months after the occupation, Anita Orozco and i hitch-hiked the 500 miles to his funeral from Madison to Pine Ridge and got there just in time. I spent the nite in the Pine Ridge jail and my fine was the $35 i had and i was dropped atthe reservation edge in the wind and rain. luckily the first car that stopped was Pedro's aunt, Gladys Bissomette, who smiled and said "We thought we'd find you here. Would you like a ride ti Rapid City?"

remember i am always available for lefty benefits, but went carless 3 yrs ago you tube john iversen or www.myspace.com/tangojohniversen

sent this to michael moore:

11 hours agoJohn Iversen
the recall quan movement is the brainchild of don perata who was backed by the oakland pd. one must remember jean quan and rebecca kaplan were in the front line trying to hold police back when they were both running for mayor. the first police attack was no doubt engineered by perata and opd to stage a coup and get ignacio de la fuente as the new developers' tool. idlf was behind the arson of the needle xchange bldg 10 yrs ago. take it from one who knows perata and idlf are evil and mean. quan made mistakes but is on our side. john iversen, internationally known aids activist and wounded knee 73 occupation veteran who grew uo in a union household in two harbors, minn, now in berkeley. if you don't believe me check with long time oakland activist pam drake or rebecca kaplan.

Mayor Quan and City Council, I appeared before you at the council meeting to say it is up to you to define for the world what is happening in Oakland. Not only were there "good citizens" peacefully occupying the port, but there were some who stayed on into the night to occupy the travelers aid building. This is a vacant unused building. The intent of Occupy Oakland was to put the building to use as a winter headquarters for classes and workshops, perhaps to cook for the heathy spending winter in the encampment,perhaps to provide showers and laundry, and to house those with medical conditions who cannot bear witness by remaining in the plaza through the winter. The city could have waited for daylight to perhaps facilitate in one way or another use of the space. Instead the police started a riot with exhausted marchers in the middle of the night. Since I went home at around midnight I was not there to watch developments, but I know most were not looking for trouble as your police say. The fires and vandalism were provoked by 14 police agencies co-operating to close in on a few weary workers in the fight for justice. This was not any abandoned building. It was a building formerly the travellers aid society. The attempt to use what was unused was not different from the action to build People's Park in Berkeley. Again, the response of police to instigate violence was inappropriate. If in fact there were violence instigators (not plants) among the Occupiers they should have been individually removed or tolerated at least until morning. The spin you put out (including in the power point presentation) is what damages our city, not people who are working for a fundamental changes with which you say you agree. I recall working for civil rights, peace, and curriculum reform while a Berkeley student in the 60s. One night the march was headed down Telegraph. When we reached the Oakland boundary we were met with police in riot gear, same as we are seeing now. We turned around and did our speaking in front of the city hall in Berkeley. Those of us who had not demonstrated in the South had never encountered anything like the Oakland police. Unfortunately, the OPD has not evolved. Individually I have found the officers on occasions I have been around them to be friendly and helpful. But when they getin a situation where they feel called upon to control the people they present as something else. There were a dozen who came to the council meeting fully armed. Do they not know that in civil society people leave their weapons outside when they meet? Do they not realize the stance they take makes a visual of a society and culture threatening force to control its people? Is it beyond imagining that they would come in to listen to the Occupiers and speak their own situation? The council cannot say they support the goals of Occupy Oakland while pretending the means of the young movement are not galvanizing the city in a way that is otherwise not happening. It was clear from people's testimony that the encampment for those who stay and those who drop through is providing the opportunity for an invaluable experience of the possibilities of a people initiated and people centered way of being. Be proud of your citizens and bless what we are creating in your own front yard. The right business for a new Oakland will be drawn and come to Oakland, while businesses seeking a submissive labor force fearful of not hoding onto one of the all too few available jobs in order to survive will go elsewhere. That's as well. I believe there are foundations who will provide grants for this promising and necessary experiment. Let Occupy continue nationally as we also work with the city to provide dignity and opportunity locally. Allow the people time and space to figure it out. A squelched and angry grass roots, a fearful grass roots is not the answer. Continue your local plan to serve the 100 most dangerous blocks, at the same time realizing that without fundamental change there will be 200, then 400 frustrated and angry blocks ... and then a whole city that is more like the impression given by the photos you display so righteously of the morning after justifying the violence the police claim was needed. Couldn't the needs of the movement for a home be discussed in the morning? As one of the council members pointed out, the grassy area will soon be soggy. Some like marines and soldiers will stay in the cold to bear witness, but the movement needs another close by home. Yes we honor private property rights, but as is all too obvious this sacred mantra has gone too far. Marla

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I read the headline, that Mayor Quan 'joked' about Occupy Oakland. I don't care what the attempt at humor actually involved. It defies belief that Mayor Quan would be so stupid as to make any attempt at humor after the way her administration has bungled Occupy Oakland.

I know Mayors of major cities don't have all the same savvy political consultants of, for example, a U.S. senate campaign or the presidency, but, geez, she can't be a moron if she has lasted so long in politics. How could she be so tone deaf?

Surely Quan would be better off keeping her mouth shut for awhile?

As far as the arguments in these comments, mostly unrelated to Quan and most making stupid, uninformed declarations about Occupy WS, comparing the Occupy movement to communism, etc. .. . . shame on those comments. I sure wish public discourse in this country would be limited to intelligent, unemotional, fact-bssed assertions. There is nothing but illogical emotion when someone makes the leap from a little bit of vandalism in a cowd of many thousands with communism or anarchy. Where do you people get such baloney? Don't you care about our shared future? Tap down the inflammatory rhetoric and rationally discuss. It is still, more or less, a free country.

It is not a constitutional right to vandalize: that is a crime but to paint the huge demonstration with a handful of troublemakers unconnected to the movement is absurd. And maybe, just maybe, the same forces that maniulated to have the Oakland police attack the camp last week encouraged rabble-rousers to engage in that vandalism. I can believe that, although I have no facts to support it. I also have read no facts that show the vandals were part of the occupy movement. Often troublemakers use crowds and excitement as a cover to cause trouble. Duh.

Three hundred police arriving in battle gear and beginning to close in on the people can be expected to provoke a reaction, like setting a baricade on fire to keep them away. The young and hot tempered broke some windows.

Many left their messages and tags as they retreated from the violence. There were severe burns from tear gas and from those struck by the canisters including a ten year old girl with severe burns on her leg and a journalist hit in the stomach. Wasn't Scott Olson having his skull fractured enough to show the police throwing cannisters of tear gas into a crowd is dangerous. Don't they realize the panic and anger their own violence provokes?

I wonder if many police, like many of the soldiers in Vietnam, don't realize they are attacking innocent non combatants in an unpopular cause?
I hope some start to speak out as they have in other countries when ordered to harm their own citizens. Do we need an anonymous line for police to call in where they can speak without losing their jobs?

I am sick of saying this, but check IndyBay or talk to most people at the camp, and Wed night is generally considered to be a huge screw-up, a sloppy, undemocratic action surrounded by all sorts of stupid behavior

if two vets weren't in hospital, people being charged, small business losing out and the community sector being ripped off twice, first by the big end of town, second by the selfish riot porn behavior of a few hundred day trippers

as the weather gets worse, the general assembly will become smaller and chances are the radicals will win out, and I can't see many in the community coming to their rescue this time round

we need democracy, and its up to OO to decide if thats what they are really about

as soon as they got into control, they lost the plot

Regardless of how you or Quan thinks the City's money sb spent, there is no "extra" money. Zilch, nada.

The city's own projects show over 75mill deficits indefinitely.

-len raphael
recallquan.com