If you haven't heard, Dimitris Christoulas killed himself on Tuesday evening in protest of the policies of austerity that are brutalizing the people of Greece:

An elderly man who took his life outside the Greek parliament in Athens , in apparent desperation over his debts, has highlighted the human cost of an economic crisis that has not only brought the country to the brink financially, but also seen suicides soar.

As Greeks digested the news, with politicians clearly as shocked as society at large, mourners made their way to Syntagma square, where the retired pharmacist shot himself with a handgun.

The 77-year-old pensioner pulled the trigger as people were emerging from a nearby metro station in the morning rush hour. One witness told state TV that before shooting himself he had shouted, I'm leaving because I don't want to pass on my debts.

As the YouTube video report indicates, Christoulas isn't the only person who has recently killed themselves because of their personal and economic distress. In his handwritten statement, he concluded:

. . . . One day, I believe, the youth with no future will take up arms and hang the national traitors at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 (at Milan’s Piazzale Loreto).

According to the Guardian:

A picture of the man who has come to embody the inequities of Greece's financial crisis has begun to emerge, with friends and neighbours shedding light on the life of the elderly pensioner who killed himself in Athens on Wednesday.

Named as Dimitris Christoulas by the Greek media, the retired pharmacist was described as decent, law-abiding, meticulous and dignified.

The 77-year-old had written in his one-page, three-paragraph suicide note that it would be better to have a decent end than be forced to scavenge in the rubbish to feed myself.

With his suicide he wanted to send a political message, Antonis Skarmoutsos, a friend and neighbour was quoted as saying in the mass-selling Ta Nea newspaper. He was deeply politicised but also enraged.

Until 1994 Christoulas was a local chemist in the central Athens neighbourhood of Ambelokipoi. A committed leftist, he was active in citizens' groups such as I won't pay, which started as a one-off protest against toll fees but quickly turned into an anti-austerity movement.

Christoulas planned his action so meticulously that he paid all of his debts in advance. Meanwhile, suicides continue to skyrocket in Greece, and so many children are going hungry that some of them are fainting in class:

The serious economic crisis that has gripped Greece for the last four years could have serious repercussions for even the youngest swathes of the population. The physical and psychological development of youngsters in the country is at risk because of malnutrition caused by poverty, and so, therefore is their very future. The alarm has been raised in a report on the situation of young people in Greece drafted by Unicef's Greek committee and by the University of Athens. The report, entitled The condition of youth in Greece, 2012 says that 439,000 children in the country are currently living below the poverty line - underfed and in insalubrious conditions - in families that represent 20.1% of Greek households

. . . . The report also cites a number of cases of children fainting in class because of malnutrition. These cases were given significant media coverage in December when the director of the Athens orphanage, Maria Iliopoulou, complained that around 200 cases of malnourished newborns had been registered in the space of a few weeks because their parents had been unable to feed them appropriately. Iliopoulou also claimed that teachers from schools close to her institution would queue up every day for a plate of food for their neediest pupils. In many schools in Athens the situation is even more dramatic, Iliopoulou said at the time, because some children have fainted from hunger in classrooms. The Ministry of Public Education, which initially dismissed the claims as propaganda, was forced to recognise the seriousness of the problem and subsequently decided to hand out to pupils from the poorest families meal vouchers with which to buy breakfast from the school canteen. The Unicef report ends with an estimate from the Ombudsman for children, who says that there are around 100,000 minors working in Greece to contribute to the meagre and often non-existent family budget.

No wonder Christoulas believed that the young are going to hang the politicians.

Hat tip to Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist.

Labels: Activism, Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Europe, Greece, Neoliberalism, Sub-Proletarianization of America

UPDATE: There is a predictable symmetry between those who finance presidential campaigns and those who benefit from government economic policy:

The aftermaths of the Great Recession and the Great Depression produced sharply different changes in U.S. incomes that tell us a lot about tax and economic policy.

The 1934 economic rebound was widely shared, with strong income gains for the vast majority, the bottom 90 percent.

In 2010, we saw the opposite as the vast majority lost ground.

National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent. Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent.

Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain.

And, as you might have guessed, the concentration has intensified in recent decades:

The top one percent enjoyed 45 percent of Clinton-era income growth, 65 percent of Bush-era growth and 93 percent of Obama-era growth, though that is only through 2010.

A more damning indictment of the domestic policies of the Obama administration is hard to imagine.

INITIAL POST: Like many of you, I have pretty much tuned out the 2012 presidential campaign. From the fragments of media coverage that I have encountered, the Republican candidates are fighting about which one is this most militaristic and willing to transfer the most wealth to the top 1%. Meanwhile, President Obama is strategically counterpunching, taking advantage of the nascent economic recovery and opportunities to look reasonable in comparison to the religious right lunacy that periodically erupts during the Republican primaries.

But the real story, the one with the most importance, is the extent of the corruption of the US electoral process, as related by the indefatiguable David Dayen. 5 people are responsible for 25% of all SuperPAC contributions, political action committees that may raise and spend money independent of the candidates, with 200 people are responsible for 80% of them. Through the end of January, SuperPACs have spent nearly as much money on the Republican primary campaign as the candidates themeselves. It is fair to say that Newt Gingrinch would be out of the race if not for the open checkbook of Sheldon Abelson and his wife. Of course, President Obama, unopposed on the Democratic side, has no need for such expenditures at this time, but has endorsed SuperPAC efforts on his behalf.

For a good summary of the tentacular strangulation of the electoral process by SuperPACs, and the relationship of the wealthy donors who finance them to specific Republican candidates, go to this post at I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists. Based upon the most recent information, OpenSecrets.org has determined that 379 SuperPACs have raised over $130 million dollars and spent over $77 million of it in this election cycle, with some of it directed outside of the presidential campaign. At this rate, SuperPAC spending for the entire campaign could exceed $400 million, and this is a conservative estimate, given the explosion of spending that will take place after the Republican and Democratic nominees are selected.

Why, you ask, am I walking through all this reported campaign finance data generated by well meaning journalists and liberal sunshine organizations? I am doing so because it should induce us to ponder whether we can bring about any meaningful change in this country through any participation in the electoral process. Preliminarily, it is essential to observe that this data conclusively pulls down the curtain on that brief period of progressive optimism during 2008, an unwarranted optimism based upon the utopian notion that presidential candidates, like Obama, could fund their campaigns independent of wealthy donors through small donations over the Internet. As reported just after the 2008 campaign by the Campaign Finance Institute, Obama received 74% of his contributions from people who contributed over $200, with large donors, defined as people who contributed over $1,000, providing 80% more funding than small donors, defined as people who contributed $200 or less.

Michael Malbin, the executive director of the Institute, reached the following conclusions from his evaluation of 2004 and 2008 campaign finance data:

. . . While the large donors thus were responsible for much more of Obama's money than either his small or middle range group, he received somewhat less proportionally from large donors than did his rivals or predecessors. Forty-seven percent of Obama's money came from large donors compared to 56% for Kerry and 60% for both Bush and McCain. However, because Obama's 47% is based on a larger total, that means he also raised significantly more large-donor money in absolute terms than any of his rivals or predecessors.

Much of this money was raised the old fashioned way. Since only about 13,000 of those who started out small for Obama ended up crossing the $1,000 threshold, that means the bulk of Obama's $213 million in large-donor contributions during the primaries came from about 85,000 people who started out giving big and stayed there. Much of this large-donor money – perhaps close to a majority – came to the campaign through bundling methods initially perfected by Bush.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) – which in the absence of legally mandated disclosure had to use information provided by the campaigns – 561 bundlers had raised a minimum of $63 million for Obama by mid-August and 534 people had raised a minimum of $75 million for McCain. The bundlers undoubtedly were responsible for more than these amounts because the campaigns reported the bundlers in ranges and CRP's minimum totals were based conservatively on the low end of each range. A reasonable guess might estimate the real amount at about 50% above the minimum – the mid-point for each range – yielding a total of perhaps about $90 million for Obama as of mid-August and more than $100 million for McCain.

It is important to go through this recent history because it provides some insight as to why the Obama presidency adopted a neoliberal, militaristic course instead of a progressive one. Contrary to the public relations associated with the 2008 campaign, Obama was as dependent upon contributions from wealthy donors as past candidates, he was merely able to supplement them more effectively with a large, aggregate amount of small donations because of the enthusiasm generated by the prospect of electing a charismatic, young, potentially progressive, African American president. Obama revealed the true course of his presidency shortly after his election through his appointments of people like Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gates and Timothy Geithner. The naivete of Obama's supporters at the time, still intoxicated with the euphoria of his victory, was almost heartrending. I still remember my KDVS radio program co-host saying, with a straight face, as if were entirely plausible, that Robert Reich would be an excellent choice for Secretary of the Treasury.

Now, the situation, as documented by groups like OpenSecrets.org, is more transparent. Not necessarily worse, but more easily understood. The US electoral process remains dominated by people able to contribute large sums of money, but much of it is received from a shockingly small number of people, as explained by Dayen. Given that the 2008 progressive effort to transform the US socioeconomic system through participation in the Obama campaign has failed, an effort proselytized by an array of people ranging from Bill Fletcher to Barbara Ehrenreich to Tom Hayden to Jesse Jackson to Melissa Harris-Perry to the late Howard Zinn, among others, what is the alternative to another such failed effort? Can we really expect to incrementally democratize the US political system through political and legal reformist endeavors in the face of such concentrated financial power? With the participants of Occupy struggling with internal conflict and police repression, such questions retain their difficulty and their urgency. Difficult, because the possibility of a mass confrontation with US and transnational elites still appears unlikely, urgent, because the distress associated with their violent, rapacious practices shows no sign of abatement.

Labels: Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Liberals, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Republicans, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Vote or Die

One of the most striking aspects of the 2012 electoral process is the fact that much of the public has realized that it has nothing to do with real issues of concern. It is now generally recognized as a form of social entertainment. It is, in short, a spectacle, one designed to give a facade of legitimacy to the governance of a country under the control of transnational elites. One pays attention to candidates like Obama, Romney and Gingrich, if at all, as another form of televised sports. And, just as one tunes out the World Series if you don't care about baseball, a lot of people are tuning out the 2012 election because they don't, for good reason, care about mainstream politics.

Spectacles like this are costly, especially when the producers are facing a headwind of indifference, so it comes as no surprise that President Obama will raise an amount of money close to the $770 million he raised for his 2008 campaign. By the early part of January, Romney has raised more than $56 million, an amount that is likely to increase substantially if it becomes likely that he will be the Republican nominee. Gingrich is receiving generous SuperPAC support from right wing, anti-union, arch Zionist Sheldon Abelson and his wife, Miriam, a reward for appalling, ill-informed political positions that he has expressed for decades. Gingrich can also expect an acceleration of contributions if it appears that he will be the nominee.

But this is background noise for most people, because they have already seen through the charade, the self-referentiality of a process whereby the same people who obsess over the debt and Iran enthusiastically promote candidates who mirror their beliefs. I know a number of people involved in partisan politics who follow it closely, including people involved in unions, and I rarely hear them say anything about the campaign. Sacramento, as the capital of California, is a political place, and yet those who one would expect to talk about it avidly are, by and large, silent. On the Internet, I have noticed that the number of comments in response to 2012 campaign posts over at firedoglake are down in comparison to the number of comments in response to 2008 ones, which is to be expected, I guess, but not this much. I should visit DailyKos to confirm, but I don't have the stomach for it. These are expressions of the post-partisan Obama legacy: the recognition that participation in the electoral process is useless.

Political protest strategies have evolved accordingly. Back in the early to mid-1990s, protest organizers worked on the assumption that elected officials could be influenced through public pressure. Hence, the effort against NAFTA. By the late 1990s, people were beginning to question this assumption. The protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1998 announced the introduction of disruptive direct action methods into the mainstream. Radical environmentalists had already discovered the futility of the conventional practices of protest marches, letter writing campaigns and visits to the offices of elected representatives, and they played a prominent role in the shutdown of downtown Seattle. Trade unionists, on the other hand, played the traditional march and rally game, consciously distancing themeselves, with some exceptions, from the police assaults upon locked down protesters in the central city.

Organizers of the protests against the impending Iraq war in February 2003 took the later approach, and, predictably, failed. Direct action undertaken immediately after the start of the war quickly fizzled out. More recently, there was a tremendous effort to push Congress towards the implementation of a meaningful health care reform. Contrary to Obama apologists who blame the victims by saying that we didn't do enough to make it pass a progressive measure, there was a tremendous, broad based effort to pressure the Congress and the White House. Beyond requiring the President and the Democrats in Congress to adopt public relations strategies to conceal their complicity in the bill as passed and adopted, it failed, too.

In the aftermath of the intransigence of the political system, we are now seeing people gravitate towards more confrontational and amorphous methods of protest. In California, UC students, angry over fee increases, dismiss the importunings of UC administrators to lobby the legislature, and instead seize campus buildings, call general strikes and attempt to storm meetings of the regents. Implicit within these actions is a condemnation of the hierarchies of privilege and access that are interwoven within the modernist university. Likewise, people in the East Bay angry over killings by the BART police sought to disrupt transit service, although they have made some effort to address the BART board in an attempt to get rid of these cops entirely.

Of course, Occupy has been the inevitable extension of these protest tactics in the face of the hostility of elected officials. By refusing to make demands, people involved in Occupy have expressed their contempt for the corrupted political process. Nihilism is the consequence of such an entrenched, corrupted elite, and the refusal to make demands is an obvious manifestation of it. Direct action, such as assisting people against threatened foreclosures (an activity that, admittedly, predates Occupy), is another one, as the participants have decided that they must help people themselves because the government will not do otherwise do so. Similarly, the seizures of abandoned buildings and properties undertaken by OWS, Occupy Oakland, and, possibly, Occupy SF, for the purpose of providing shelter and services (again, an activity that predates Occupy), highlight how the government and the economic system rely upon artificially imposed scarcity to generate poverty.

Occupy therefore represents the extent of the accumulated despair experienced by those who have suffered over the course of the ongoing recession, and the willingness of some of the victims to undertake actions that would have been imcomprehensible to them just a few years before. Consistent with this, there is, within Occupy, primarily among its younger participants, an emotional, philosophical rejection of contemporary capitalist society itself, one with echoes of May '68, social movements in South America, and violent protests in Greece and Algeria. It is but a thread, but a logical one in light of the refusal of those in power to address the concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands and the desperation that results from it. But it remains to be seen whether a nihilistic combination of enforced disassocation from the political process and the performance of direct action will provide a way forward to create a new, more humane, more egalitarian society.

Labels: Activism, Democrats, Elections, Neoliberalism, Republicans, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions, Vote or Die

UPDATE 3 (2:03PM PST): There have been 5 arrests. The police have gotten out of the alley, and taken the arrestees to the nearby police station. Protesters are now in front of the station and demanding their release.

UPDATE 2 (1:55PM PST): Protesters have blocked the police paddy wagon trying to take away the arrestees in an alley.

UPDATE 1 (1:43 PM PST): Several cops have climbed up a fire truck ladder onto the roof, and taken the banners away. First arrests. Chants of let the people go, arrest the CEO!

INITIAL POST (1:02 PM PST): At 1:02 PM, California time, OccupySF is currently protesting foreclosures and evictions by Wells Fargo at the Wells Fargo branch right by the 16h Street and Mission BART station. Banners have been dropped and there are tents on the roof. he police have closed the parking lot with tape and tried to persuade activists to leave the roof without being arrested. For video, go here. Justin Beck, the public affairs director at KDVS in 1998 who put me on the radio, is the ustreamer. For twitter updates, go here.

OccupySF has described the purpose of this action as follows:

Thousands of renters and homeowners in San Francisco are being evicted by banks each year. San Francisco’s Mission District has been especially hard hit by the 1% banks preying on the 99% working class. Join Occupy SF Housing at Noon on January 14 to protest evictions of renters for condo conversions, which are being done by real estate speculators working with Wells Fargo Bank. We will demand that Wells Fargo stop all pending evictions which they are financing and to stop financing any more evictions for profit, where low & moderate income renters are evicted so affordable apartments can be converted into luxury condominiums for the wealthy.

Today's action is the first of what OccupySF has described as the Occupy Wall Street West campaign, which will culminate with planned mass occupations in the financial district on this upcoming Friday, January 20th.

Labels: Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America

On Tuesday, participants in Occupy Oakland joined workers from Baker's Workers Union 125 on the picket line at American Licorice, the manufacturer of Red Vines, in Union City. They had been striking for about 36 days over American Licorice's new contract proposal to increase the share of the employee heath care contribution for the coverage of their families in 2013 and 2014. According to OakFoSho, the plant is turning out Red Vines around the clock.

Noah Zimmerman described his experience:

The picket looked strong. Hundreds of people I guessed, stretching along Whipple and around the corner to their mailbox at 2477 Liston Way (American Licorice’s phone number is 510-487-5500 if you want to call and confirm the address). Food, tables and chairs were set up. The workers on strike were members of Bakery Workers Union Local 125. They were mostly Latino. I spotted Occupy Oakland picketing the main entrance. It looked like the two groups were self-segregating.

Union City police were out in force. So were Hayward, Fremont and Newark police. A mutual aid agreement between the departments. Everything looked heavy but at least the riot gear wasn’t out.

Then, I saw them behind the main gate where the Oakland Occupiers were on a moving picket. Goons. Hired goons. Three of them, observing the picketers from behind the gate. The Huffmaster Security Crisis Team. Red Vines, which everyone eats at the movie theater (if anyone can still afford to go out) not only pull fillings out of your teeth but make factory bosses to pull out their checkbooks for present-day Pinkertons.

One of them was built like a brickhouse. He looked like a creation of Vince McMahon’s steroid-addled imagination. Asshole #1, one of the workers said, gesturing to him. No name? I asked. Asshole #1. He shoves people. Interesting.

One fellow in a Carhartt jacket told me that American Licorice was hiring scabs through a temp agency in Emeryville. They had Huffmaster ferry them in a white van. I heard the workers hadn’t tried to block the scabs up until that day.

So workers and occupiers blocked them.

The Huffmasters used a manuever where they put their hands on the hood of the vehicle and backed into the crowd. Someone sat down in front of the vehicle. There was nothing they could do, especially with dozens of cell cameras witnessing everything, live, versus Huffmaster’s one puny Sony Handicam without an Internet connection. The vehicle was repulsed. Back to the American Licorice lot, scab wagon.

A win. It’s happening. Now.

Again, with another vehicle, a Sentra with a Huffmaster logo on the dash, trying to get in. Some goon squad middle manager. Sit down in front of the car. Asshole #1 is clearly the ringleader on the ground of this union-busting wrecking crew. He looks like ex-military, which Huffmaster brags about hiring on their website. He cracks a bit. His latern jaw twitches as he tries to back into the crowd. How about no? We rejected the last vehicle and we reject this one, too.

I'd like to be able to say that the workers at American Licorice prevailed, that the community support provided by Occupy Oakland turned the tide. But it didn't. The workers at American Licorice decided to accept the company's offer. Again, according to Zimmerman:

Personally, I more surprised than disappointed that this happened so quickly at the federal negotiation table in Oakland. Rene Castillo was disappointed but the union voted democratically to accept the offer. I agree with Rene that if they had voted to stay on the picket line a little longer, based on what I saw on the line yesterday, the workers had the momentum.

At the same time, one month in the middle of winter is an incredibly long time to hold down a nonstop picket. It’s costly to families to not have a normal income. It’s cold out. Food is expensive, gas is expensive, housing is expensive. Strike funds get drained, especially with 178 workers. The tenaciousness and reserve of the workers was difficult to put into words and I only saw second to last day of the strike. They’d been out there since December 5th.

I think that this experience working in solidarity with Local 125 is a learning process for both Occupy Oakland, Occupy as a whole and unions who ask for our support. The biggest lesson to me is that time is of the essence. I heard rumors about Local 125 asking for support perhaps a week ago yet it took until yesterday for us to get organized enough to get down there and support them. This isn’t to point fingers. I should have done something earlier instead of passively waiting for instructions or a committee. So should have you if you felt passionate about it.

Our tactics were effective. Occupy can do things that union members can’t, like sit down in front of vehicles crossing the picket line.

The biggest lesson that I took away from this is we absolutely cannot dawdle when workers’ rights are under attack and our brothers and sisters put a call out for our help. Our goal should be to be able to deploy ourselves and our resources the next day within the Bay Area to any union that requests support in a labor struggle.

This is the first time Occupy Oakland or any Occupation as far as I know of was specifically asked for help in a labor dispute. Despite the settlement agreement, I consider yesterday a success. We are learning and adapting. This movement is fluid, evolving and its many moving parts are becoming finely tuned. Our network and connections with others in the 99% are growing stronger. I liked the people on a personal level on the picket lines. I won’t forget Yolanda, Maria, Juana, Maria and Rene Jr. or Sr. I met new people from Occupy Oakland and the labor community. I broke bread with them. The humor and conversations I had with others with will stay with me. I live in Richmond and have only driven through Union City before yesterday. I have a feeling I’ll cross paths with these comrades again sometime soon.

I hope that Zimmerman's cautious optimism is justifed. Certainly, any successful attempt to transform American society requires the kind of mutual aid provided for the benefit of the American Licorice workers in Union City.

Labels: Activism, Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions

As noted here last month, Pham Binh posted an insightful examination of Occupy as a social movement, acknowledging its achievements while identifying potential weaknesses. For example, consider the following observation:

One of the most important elements that makes Occupy an uprising and not merely a mass movement is its alleged leaderlessness. Of course as Marxists we know that every struggle requires leadership in some form, and Occupy is no exception. The leaders of Occupy are those who put their bodies on the line at the encampments and get deeply involved in the complex, Byzantine decision-making process Occupy uses known as modified consensus. Occupy’s leaders are those who make the proposals at planning meetings, working groups, and General Assemblies (GAs) that attract enough support to determine the uprising’s course of action.

The people leading the uprising are those who are willing to make the biggest sacrifices for it.

Since Occupy is self-organizing and self-led by its most dedicated participants, attempts to make its decision-making process more accessible to those who are not willing or able to dedicate themselves to Occupy 24 hours a day, seven days a week will fall flat. All day, all week, occupy Wall Street! is not just a chant, it is a way of life for Occupy’s de facto leadership.

This reality has affected the class character of encampment participants, who tend to be either what Karl Marx called lumpenproletariat (long-term homeless, hustlers, drug addicts, and others who have fallen through the cracks of the capitalist edifice) or highly educated (white) students, ex-students, and graduate students. The former joined the encampments not just to eat and sleep in a relatively safe place but also because they hope the uprising will win real, meaningful change. The latter tend to dominate Occupy’s convoluted decision-making process and what motivates them is identical to what motivates the lumpenproletarian elements: hope that Occupy will win real, meaningful change. Many of these people are saddled with tremendous amounts of personal debt, have worked two or three part-time jobs simultaneously, or were unable to find work in their field despite their expensive, extensive educations. They were destined to be secure petty bourgeois or well-paid white-collar workers before the ongoing fallout from the 2008 crisis claimed their futures and put their backs against the wall. This is the material reality underpinning the determination of Occupy participants to keep coming back despite repeated arrests, beatings, and setbacks. Their determination is the stuff revolutions are made of.

In other words, Occupy is a social movement that purports to give expression to working class concerns in the absence of working class participation, with the limited exception of Occupy Oakland. Tiny of POOR Magazine in San Francisco describes the ambiguity of the movement for people whose lives are seemingly beyond the comprehension of those involved in Occupy:

Four sets of human arms shot out of the revolving doors of Wells Fargo Bank in downtown San Francisco, while 6 bodies hugged the sides of the building. Po’Lice officers stood at confused attention while customers and downtown workers skirted the perimeter of the Foreclose on Wall Street Rally which included over 2000 people in attendence. Wells Fargo employees stood on the other side of the glass in a collective freeze frame. Every chant by the people sitting at the mouth of the bank was matched with hundreds of echoes repeated by the huge crowd in front of them.

Co-editor of POOR Magazine, Tony Robles and me, both the children of poor workers of color, who never even had enough money to apply, qualify or think of getting a mortgage, much-less any kind of a bank loan, stood there in witness, mouths agape. My mother always joked that our indigenous family was lucky to stay in the cardboard hotels when we traveled and were so poor and herstorically landless that we would have to squat our burial place just to have somewhere to die.

And yet, the power of that moment, even if it wasn’t us or other always landless peoples they were speaking for, I know they were speaking truth to domination. Corporate, Racist, Exclusionary domination that is and has always oppressed so many poor peoples, indigenous peoples and communities of color since the beginning of the Other Occupation of all of the indigenous lands on Turtle Island that continues today.

After today, I am taking all of my money out of Wells Fargo, said Jessie, 81 an elder who stood quietly on the perimeter of the huge crowd with a sign that said simply I am the 99%.

POOR Magazine was in the march on this day, sadly with only three members, we did have four family members but several of our poor parents are houseless and jobless and so our fourth member had his phone cut off the night before and so we couldn’t find each other in the masses of people, and all of our other family members were working one of several jobs and hustles and so they didn’t even have the privilege to be there at all.

At first I was taken by the almost flawless organizing by Bay Area non-profit organizations. From the emcee to the turn-out from group after group, the whole event was wound tightly as a rope on a drum. Each act of civil disobedience, set-off at the mouths of Wells Fargo bank branches, were beautifully orchestrated stages of theatre and action. It was obvious that funded organizations with time and paid staff had organized this event down to the last balloon, slightly like a party we at POOR Magazine had never received an invitation to.

As we left the protest to get our young kids to school on time, Tony and I spoke about the power of the resistance that we had just been part of. I brought up how although I am excited and about all of the issues peoples were speaking and acting on I remain vexed by the fact that as poor peoples of color and indigenous peoples we are constantly in battle, in protest about the genocide and violence perpetrated on us and yet it is a struggle for us to get 50 people to show up for protests, so what is the difference? and what really is our role in all of these resistance occupations as poor peoples of color in struggle who are also in struggle with the occupation of our time due to no-wage and low-wage work, system abuse and ongoing criminalization and why do our resistance movements stay at the margins of what is important to show up for?

For many poor and working class people, Occupy remains on the other side of a window that they can only peer through, much like the Christmas toys and displays at a Union Square department store. So, how can Occupy reach them? How can Occupy provide a place for them that recognizes their experience and empowers them to participate in the creation of a new world? Such questions imply a social enterprise beyond the spectacular successes of Occupy like the Day of Action in Manhattan and the general strike and port shutdown in Oakland. Indeed, the port shutdown on December 12th was a classic instance of the glass being either half empty or half full, depending on one's perspective. The participation of many union members was impressive, and yet, there remains a tension between those associated with the bureaucratized methods of trade unionism and the spontaneity of Occupy activists, as touched upon here and here and here and here.

I have no answers for these questions, except to say that I hope that those involved in Occupy emphasize a flexible, inclusive method of activism, as they have successfully done in many instances, over one that exalts organizational forms. As correctly noted by Pham, Occupy has evolved into a form of organization that effectively excludes many who might otherwise participate, and, even worse, may ultimately result in a predominately middle class orientation over time. One hears echoes of such an outcome from some participants in occupations that see the problem primarily in terms of the need to reimpose the restrictions of the Glass-Steagall Act upon the financial sector, reverse the Citizens United decision so as to curtail the influence of corporate political contributions and get the police under control. It is the willingness of those involved in Occupy Oakland to recognize that there is a material basis for our current distress that makes it so politically appealing, rough edges, missteps and all.

While the port shutdown exposed tensions between unions and Occupy, many of the organizers understood how to effectively overcome them:

By reaching out to and including the voices of rank-and-filers and labor activists, we collaborated with them to build the community picket line, rather than scheming in secret about how to blockade them from going to work. As a result, we were able to weather the attacks in the weeks leading up to the action--a barrage that came not only from the 1 percent and the media, but from union leaders who repeatedly tried to stifle participation in December 12.

The port action committee had a well-organized plan in place for December 12. People in the committee organized picket teams, communications and food distribution. There were teams to plan for speakers and rallies, and to make sure signs and banners were printed and brought to the gates. Organizers were also in close communication with port workers about which terminals had ships and which did not, so we knew which gates to picket.

There was also explicit outreach to talk to self-identified anti-capitalist forces who had declared a march at the same time as the port action--to ask them to agree to the tactics decided for the day.

Ultimately, the proof of these preparations lies in the success of the event itself. Hundreds of people showed up before dawn to put up community pickets before the first shift, and even larger numbers came in the evening. No ILWU members crossed picket lines. Teamsters didn't show up that day, and hundreds of non-unionized truckers stayed away. As for truckers who were at the docks, many showed their support in various ways.

None of that could have been accomplished without the support of workers at the Port of Oakland.

Beyond this, there is the problem of the 24/7 activists. As explained by Bifo in After the Future, there is only one psychological destination for them: burnout and depression. In this, the 24/7 activists of Occupy are mirroring the capitalist, corporate world that they are rebelling against. Just as those who are willing to dedicate their lives in the service of the corporation rise to the highest rungs, to positions like Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive Officer, those willing to spend their time almost exclusively upon Occupy attain the most influence. Corporate executives are treated by psychiatrists who prescribe them psychotropic medications, while activists probably self-medicate. In both instances, there is the risk of serious impairment of judgment. Bifo asserts that the financial catastrophes of last twenty years may have been partially caused by executives addicted to inhibition reducing drugs like Prozac and Zoloft, drugs that induced them to believe that any risk could be overcome. One wonders if the combination of self-medication and depression among activists is a contributing factor towards selecting confrontation with the police as a political strategy.

Of course, none of this should be construed as a criticism of those who have committed themselves to Occupy and released its revolutionary potential. Rather, it should be considered a warning as to what might happen if the movement does not successfully engage people like Tiny, her husband and others like them who possess an intense desire to change the world in which they live even as they struggle to survive from day to day. Only through such participation can we move beyond a social model that replicates the obsessive, representational qualities of capitalism in a disguised form. Such a utopian aspiration is no easy task, but is worth recalling that capitalism itself was a utopian enterprise, albeit a perverse one, for many centuries. An intensified emphasis upon the daily suffering of people, and an insistence that it be immediately addressed, as opposed to one centered around legalistic agendas based upon the regulation of financial capital and the electoral process, strikes me as essential to such an endeavor. Along these lines, it is worth noting that participants in Occupy Oakland walked the picket line in support of American Licorice workers in Union City.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Bay Area, California, Occupy Wall Street, Poverty, Racism, Sub-Proletarianization of America

People may not realize it, but California Governor Jerry Brown was a trust fund kid before the term became commonly known. Son of former Governor Pat Brown, a man who should rightly be praised for his defense of leftists like Harry Bridges, his opposition to the internment and his commutation of death sentences, the world was open to him, the seminary, UC Berkeley, Yale Law School, studies in Central America and a clerkship with California Supreme Court Justice Matthew Tobriner. He was certainly talented, as he has demonstrated, but as a son of social and financial privilege, he was able to take advantage of opportunities that the rest of us can only imagine.

Furthermore, Brown cultivated an austere demeanor in marked contrast to the profligate stereotype associated with trust fund kids. Paradoxically, it has been this ascetic nature, the reverse side of the trust fund kid coin, that reveals his commonality with his spendthrift brethren, as both are expressions of the freedom from scarcity that defines trust fund status. Accordingly, he has always displayed an insensitivity towards those who depend upon the assistance of others, including the government, for their day to day survival and possible social advancement.

We first encountered it when Brown cynically criticized the Great Society when he ran for governor in 1974, and, then, upon his election, engaged in the small is beautiful exhibitionism of driving a Plymouth and living in a small apartment across for the capital. If everyone lived like me, he seemed to say, they would recognize that poverty is merely a state of mind that can be easily exorcised. Such was the implication of his notorious statement that public sector workers, suffering from the stagflation of the 1970s, should be satisfied with psychic income instead of real material improvements in their lives through collective bargaining.

Now, it is obvious that Jerry Brown 2.0 is merely a variation of the original release. He has balanced the budget on the backs of the poor and education, carrying out the Schwarzenegger blueprint more effectively by eschewing financial public relations gimmicks. He coerced public sector unions to agree to new collective bargaining agreements by and large on terms proposed by Schwarzenegger, and he is now proposing a pension reform substantially based upon increasing the age of retirement for full benefits for new hires to 67 and opening the door to private fund management of some employee contributions. Not surprisingly, prison guards and police officers are exempted from this essentially Republican inspired proposal.

And then, today, Brown released his proposed state budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year:

Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday proposed more deep cuts to state welfare programs and Medi-Cal next fiscal year, and warned that spending on schools, universities and courts will be reduced by billions if California voters refuse to pass his tax plan in November.

Assuming the tax plan is passed, funding for higher education and courts would remain steady while K-12 schools would get an increase. But if lawmakers approve Brown's plan, spending on the state's welfare-to-work program would be slashed by nearly $1 billion, child care subsidies would be eliminated for 71,000 children and there would be deep reductions to publicly-funded health care.

These are painful reductions - mothers and kids will be getting same welfare check in real dollars that they got in 80's, and the same for the elderly, blind and disabled, Brown said. These are not nice cuts, but that's what it takes to balance the budget.

Jerry Brown has never had kids, never had to rely upon the public educational system for his education, never had to worry about getting retrained in order to reenter the workforce and never had to confront being sick with little or no money. No wonder he displays such a lack of understanding about the struggle of millions of people in this state to stay off the streets, feed themselves and educate their children. He remains, as he has always been, a self-absorbed trust fund kid incapable of maintaining any personal bond with the lived experience of the majority of people in this state. As for the rest of us, there are the haunting words of that prescient Sex Pistols song, No Future.

Labels: California, Neoliberalism, Sub-Proletarianization of America

I went out with this group on Monday morning. I'm the bearded guy in a black raincoat, with a red backpack on his back, holding a sign in the background at 53:21 through 53:26. I should have included this video with my post about the shutdown earlier this week, but just now came across it. OakFoSho was the ustreamer.

Labels: Activism, Bay Area, California, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions, Ustream

Leaving aside the fact that I include anarchists among socialists, Pham Binh has written a provocative, insightful evaluation of Occupy from a Marxist perspective. Here is the introductory paragraph:

Occupy is a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-merge the socialist and working class movements and create a viable broad-based party of radicals, two prospects that have not been on the cards in the United States since the late 1960s and early 1970s. The socialist left has not begun to think through these big picture implications of Occupy, nor has it fully adjusted to the new tasks that Occupy’s outbreak has created for socialists. In practice, the socialist left follows Occupy’s lead rather than Occupy follow the socialist left’s lead. As a result, we struggle to keep pace with Occupy’s rapid evolution.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) mobilized more workers and oppressed people in four weeks than the entire socialist left combined has in four decades. We would benefit by coming to grips with how and why other forces (namely anarchists) accomplished this historic feat.

The following is an attempt to understand Occupy, review the socialist response, and draw some practical conclusions aimed at helping the socialist left become central rather than remain marginal to Occupy’s overall direction.

Please visit The Unrepentent Marxist and read it in its entirety, as Binh addresses many of the practical issues that have emerged since the movement began.

If anything, Binh may have underestimated the extent to which the old divisions among socialists, between anarchists, Marxists and social democrats, have already begun to wither away. For example, consider my post yesterday about my experience during the West Coast port blockade in this light. Given the prominent role of young people and poor people in the movement, it is not surprising that they are less confined by ideological doctrine, and more influenced by their personal experiences. Hence, an analysis based upon considering Marxists (which is what I believe he really means by use of the term socialist left) and anarchists mutually exclusive, competing left perspectives is dubious. Even so, his practical insights into the operation of the movement are essential to forming an understanding of it.

Binh advocates for the creation of a revolutionary party as a means of carrying the struggle forward. Unfortunately, to the extent that such a proposal originates among Marxists, and is expressed by reference to Marxist language and experience, it is probably likely to be dismissed. But, if presented as a means of coordinating the actions of semi-autonomous groups nationally, centered around an explicitly anti-capitalist perspective, it might get a better reception. Clearly, the proposal for a Joint Committee of Revolutionary Socialists put forward by Socialist Viewpoint is problematic, especially as the proponents seem oblivious to the essential role of anti-authoritarians within the movement. But it does provide a good starting point for discussion of both ideological and practical issues. For example, would increased centralization assist the movement or impair it? Along these lines, recall that the adoption of Leninist forms of organization in both the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers were turned against them with success by law enforcement. Furthermore, it also had the practical effect of suppressing debate that might have allowed both to survive. So, the problem becomes, how does the movement organize itself effectively while retaining much of the openness and spontaneity that has been so integral to its success?

Labels: Activism, Anarchism, Marxism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America

Yesterday morning, I got up at 3:45am, quickly got dressed, and traveled to the West Oakland BART station for the 5:30am march to the Port of Oakland. I exited the station about five minutes late, along with about 30 to 40 other people, which was just in time, because this was an action that required that we cover the approximately two and a half mile distance from the station to the port gates as quickly as possible. As I looked around, I was surprised by the large number of people that had congregated at such an early hour of the day.

The march began shortly thereafter, and I've heard estimates that there were about 1500 and 2000 people walking briskly down the wide boulevard towards the port, accompanied by the screeching woosh of BART trains entering and exiting the Transbay Tube, but around 800 to 1000 seems more likely to me, but then again, the science of estimating the size of crowds is notoriously imprecise. Given that the weather was dank, mid-40s and drizzle, I was impressed. We arrived at one of the gates at about 6:15am, after having another group go to another gate. I'd say about 200 to 300 of us marched in a picket line, while another 100 or so watched and pondered the police presence, which was mild. Shortly thereafter, a couple with a young boy, probably about 4 years old, gave out some raisin cookies to us.

There was a wide array of participaton among the left: the International Socialist Organization, anarchists (including some people from AK Press, naturally), the Industrial Workers of the World Food and Retail Workers Union (also anarchist, from what I have heard), teachers from the Oakland Education Association that endorsed the call, young gays and lesbians (the young radical contingent Feminists & Queers Against Capitalism, plus others upset about the torture of Bradley Manning, with one wearing a Free Bradley Manning sticker on his jacket). As this suggests, there were a lot of young people, a multiracial group of young African Americans, Latinos, whites, gays, lesbians and some Asian Americans, with the young people of color and the anarchists connecting the port shutdown to the killing of Oscar Grant, as it is becoming more and more obvious that his death was a seminal event in the intensified radicalization of young people in Oakland. And, of course, there was Clarence Thomas and some others from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, as well as someone from the Alameda Central Labor Council, along with some older radicals, such as, for example, David Solnit, one of the anti-authoritarian, anti-globalization organizers of Direct Action to Stop the War in 2003. I'm guessing that there were some California Nurses Association people there, too.

Thomas played a prominent role in making sure that everyone remained focused on the purpose of the action. Initially, when we first arrived and set up the picket, some young male anarchists with bandannas got up in the face of the cops and yelled typically insulting, inane things at them. Thomas and other ILWU people got on that right away, telling the organizers that these guys were doing stupid bullshit and needed to stop. They did. My impression was that the ISO participated in the planning and organization for the event instead of limiting themselves to proselytizing from the outside. The ISO people, along with others, communicated information and told people what needed to done (please touch the curb, we have to do that for it to be a legal picket). So, the anarchists and the ISO must be getting along. There's a lot of cross-pollination associated with Occupy Oakland, as the young organizers come from a variety of groups.

I can't say this from personal knowledge, but it looks like the ILWU workers in the port supported the action, if you measure it by the fact that it was reported that none crossed the community picket. The more challenging issue is the extent to which the blockade required truck drivers, employed as independent contractors, to sacrifice for the possibility of better wages and working conditions in the future as well as for other workers, like the ILWU ones in Longview. Predictably, the commercial media made much of the displeasure of drivers not being able to enter the port, but there were other organizations of drivers that expressed support for the action by reference to their demeaning working conditions, such as, for example, their low pay and lack of any rest room facilities.

As the sun rose, the mood in front of the gate was festive. We are unstoppable, another world is possible. Someone brought a speaker in a carriage attached to their bike, and Bloq Capital cranked up some hip hop, power pop and funk in the center of the circular picket line. Along with a young lesbian flag team, they set up an impromptu dance club. I know Louis Proyect over at The Unrepentant Marxist looks askance at this sort of thing, but, when you are walking around slowly in a circle in cold weather, as we were yesterday, it really picks up your spirit, which it did in this instance. Humorously, the line went crazy over their energetic dancing to The Go-Gos We've Got the Beat, and joined in. A few of the cops smiled. I suspect that I will always think of this protest whenever I hear that song again. It was all part of a cultural effort to subvert the power and authority of the police, a subject that I may post a brief blog entry about if I find the time. And then We've Got the Beat faded into the ferocity of Le Tigre's New Kicks, a powerful, now nostalgic 2003 anthem given a new importance by yet another manifestation of the same struggle, and the dancers chanted in unison with the lyrics, This is What Democracy Looks Like! This is What Democracy Sounds Like! And as the song wound down, everyone yelled, We say no to war! No war! We say no to war! No war! It was one of those epiphanies when, for the briefest of moments, our most fervent dreams became real.

At around 10:30am, the organizers announced that the arbitrator had determined that the picket made it unsafe for ILWU wokers to enter the port, effectively closing the port for the morning shift, and we thereafter departed. As you probably already know, the ILWU could not endorse the blockade, but can refuse to cross a community picket line. For me, the striking aspect of the blockade was the participation of so many young people and their organizational skills. Of course, one should avoid exaggeration, an action like this is going to primarily attract leftists, but the mere fact that they are willing to publicly engage in such militant political activity is significant. There is something important happening here generationally, a willingness of some people under 30 to embrace anti-capitalist social perspectives and act upon them.

Beyond the more common chants of the We are the 99% kind, here are a few of the more distinctive ones specific to Oakland that rippled through the crowd as we returned to the West Oakland BART station:

Labor, Black and Brown, Oakland is a Union Town

Fuck the Police, From Oakland to Greece

We are the Proletariat

Oscar Grant Didn't Have to Die, Shot Him in the Back, Wouldn't Look Him in the Eye

All of them reflect the multiethnic working class synergy that is emerging in Oakland, a synergy generated from concrete social conditions, such as, obviously, the brutality of the Oakland Police Department and the BART police, and the harshness of their economic distress. At a small rally upon our return to Oscar Grant Plaza, Jessica Hollie, an Occupy Oakland activist and ustreamer from East Oakland, gave a brief, passionate speech about how the 1% is impoverishing everyone by separating us through fear, fear of places like West Oakland, East Oakland and Richmond. For them, she said, we are all the same, all they care about is how they enrich themselves at our expense. She emphasized the urgency of working together, declaring I care about you, and I hope you care about me. In this, she touched upon the essential need for collective organization and emotional support as an alternative to the current predatory economic system. Earlier, on the way back from the port, I saw a man poignantly express something similar with a poignant sign that said, After the Banks Fail, We Still Have Each Other. Leftists must engage this need for mutual support during a time of crisis that if we are to have any future relevance.

Labels: Activism, Anarchism, Marxism, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions, YouTube

On Monday, the first march to the Port of Oakland will start at 5:30am from the nearby West Oakland BART station, with subsequent afternoon marches to the port at 4:00pm and 5:00pm. In Long Beach, people will meet at Harry Bridges Park at 5:00am and march to the SSA Marine terminal. In Portland, people will congregate at Kelley Point Park for a 6:00am rally and 7:00am blockade. In Seattle, people will meet at Westlake Park at 1:00pm and march to the Port of Seattle. In San Diego, people will gather at Chicano Park at 6am for a march to the port. And these are just some of the planned actions.

In the Bay Area, the organizing efforts for the blockade have been extraordinary:

Shrugging off tent removal, tear gas and rubber bullets, Occupy Oakland has become the nucleus of coordination, holding inter-Occupy conference calls; brainstorming budgets to provide camps with everything from porta-potties to bullhorns; and using union networks to connect rank-and-file members with general assemblies on the West Coast.

Hundreds of Oakland citizens are leafletting commuter trains, staging rush-hour banner drops, reaching out to non-unionized workers, and sending out bilingual teams to ethnic boroughs to help populate the blockade. Other local organizations are independently working for the event. For example, the International Socialist Organization immediately began contacting branches in relevant cities while the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice will be hosting a pre-march teach-in about the plight of longshoremen and port truckers.

And, one of the consequences of this effort has been pressure within unions to respond to this radical current:

Barucha says the democratization paradigm of the leaderless occupation movement is proving to be a model for workers unhappy with the status quo.

This is the first time there has been an exemplary movement that is encouraging and teaching people to self-organize. The occupation, she said, allows union members to act as individual community participants and create community pickets, alongside the unemployed, the non-unionized working class, the homeless and any other supportive neighbors that share the same material needs.

One Bay Area couple who belong to another big local union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, said they and some other grocers chose to organize after watching their contracts being written up behind closed doors. The couple, who asked not to be identified, said the UFCW leaders negotiated a pension concession that they could opt out of by accepting other concessions.

No wonder Democratic mayors across the country have cracked down on Occupy Together. Effective organizing from the bottom up is the most serious threat to the Labor/Democratic Party/Corporate triumvirate in many years. For example, consider this effort by Occupy Oakland tomorrow in the impoverished neighborhood adjacent to the port:

10:00 am-11:00am: Activists and community members from across West Oakland and beyond will gather in DeFremery park for outreach training about the Port Blockade Action.

11:00 am-1:00 pm: Groups will disperse from the park to engage Oakland community members in real conversation around why the West Coast Port Blockade is crucial to achieving solidarity with the working class who live next to and work in the Port of Oakland.

Of course, people have participated in such efforts for decades. The novelty lies in the number of people involved this time and the intensity of their motivation. For more information about the blockade, go here.

Labels: Activism, Bay Area, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions, YouTube

From the Occupy Oakland website:

As of November 27, 2011, the Occupy movement in every major West Coast port city: Occupy LA, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Portland, Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Seattle have joined Occupy Oakland in calling for and organizing a coordinated West Coast Port Blockade and Shutdown on December 12, 2011. Other West Coast Occupies, including Occupy Anchorage and Vancouver, Canada are planning to join the economic blockade and disruption of the 1% on that date, according to organizers.

We’re shutting down these ports because of the union busting and attacks on the working class by the 1%: the firing of Port truckers organizing at SSA terminals in LA; the attempt to rupture ILWU union jurisdiction in Longview, WA by EGT. EGT includes Bunge LTD, a company which reported 2.5 billion dollars in profit last year and has economically devastated poor people in Argentina and Brazil. SSA is responsible for inhumane working conditions and gross exploitation of port truckers and is owned by Goldman Sachs. EGT and Goldman Sachs is Wallstreet on the Waterfront stated Barucha Peller of the West Coast Port Blockade Assembly of Occupy Oakland.

It is important to understand that the port blockade, like the last one in Oakland on November 2nd, has been predominately called for the express purpose of supporting the struggles of workers involved in transport. Occupy Oakland has provided an exemplary example in regard to recognizing the interrelationship between race, poverty and the exploitation of workers.

Labels: Activism, Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions

As someone who has unapologetically appreciated minimalism, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Philip Glass addressed Occupy Wall Street on Thursday:

If my memory serves me correctly, Glass has lived on the Lower East Side, one of the most socially and politically radical neighborhoods in the US, for many years.

Labels: Activism, American Culture, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, YouTube

55 people have been arrested during an occupation which is ongoing at the Bank of America building in San Francisco. Most of the participants are from UC Santa Cruz, with others from the occupations in Oakland and San Francisco. ABC 7 in San Francisco has live video of the police arresting protesters inside the bank on the first floor, which is also a high rise office building. For a ustream of the rally outside in their support, go here.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, Bay Area, California, Mainstream Media, Neoliberalism, Police, Sub-Proletarianization of America

UPDATE: This is why there is such urgency towards suppressing manifestations of Occupy Together like Occupy Oakland. Fred Shavies, the officer interviewed in this video, was, amazingly, one of the undercover Oakland Police Department officers exposed about a couple of weeks ago:

INITIAL POST: A press conference today by Oakland Chamber of Commerce President Joe Haraburda concluded about two hours ago:

susie_c Susie Cagle
"What if #OccupyOakland continues?" pres: "it better not... It better not."
17 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland "we believe the police acted appropriately..." pres just said Scott Olsen might've actually been injured by a baseball bat??
18 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland saying now the raid was "handled very professionally."
19 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland "our concentration at this point in time is ending the encampment." rising frustration in presidents voice.
20 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland "fights, fire hazards." "it's an illegal occupation -- that's OUR property." "end the occupation NOW."
21 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland now chamber pres complaining about Quan more. They met last week but "the mayor wasn't really listening."
22 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
Chamber survey results: 76% agree with #ows goals but 49% disapprove of #OccupyOakland and only 33% agree w camping in plaza
23 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland tenants pulling out of leases. "we haven't heard anything that seems like Quan is moving forcefully in any direction"
27 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland Chamber of commerce releasing stats on local biz. 30-40% biz down @ restaurants. "the camp must go" "downward spiral"
29 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
New perspective -- overhearing other press here making fun of #OccupyOakland
32 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
@ @beingtherewith yep
34 minutes ago »

susie_c Susie Cagle
#occupyoakland At chamber of commerce press conference. Nearly didn't get in because I look too radical?
39 minutes ago »

Influential people within the Oakland political and economic establishment are not hiding their intentions. I don't recall a situation in recent years where publicly prominent people within a community like some members of the Oakland City Council yesterday and the Oakland Chamber of Commerce today have openly advocated the use of force against people that almost guarantees more incidents of police brutality, if not a violent eruption in downtown Oakland. Amazingly, even the Oakland Police Officer's Association recognizes it. It is a high risk approach, given that only 49% of chamber members surveyed disapprove of the encampment, with a surprisingly high number of 33% in support of it.

Of course, it is doubtful that the such an assault will help the businesses of downtown Oakland. Instead, it is likely to indelibly stain the area as the site of some of most intense police violence inflicted upon the populace in recent American history. It will be remembered as emblematic of the paramilitarization of the police in this country. Accordingly, it would accelerate a gentrification process that has taken place in fits and starts over the last 20 years, except that there is no capital to finance such a transformation, at least not now, so it will have the immediate effect to turning the area into even more of a social and economic desert, potentially, ironically enough, creating more opportunitites for alternative social organization like Occupy Oakland.

Haraburda is revealing when he emphasizes the loss of business for restaurants. His emphasis is probably duplicitous, as discretionary spending has declined precipitously since the late summer, so Occupy Oakland may be a convenient scapegoat. For example, the notion that someone is not going to go to an Oakland Chinatown restaurant 6 or 7 blocks to the south of the encampment is ludicrous. Consistent with this, many of these restaurants are a feature of upper middle class entertainment that characterizes American cities. Hence, the truly frightening aspect of Occupy Oakland is that it points towards a prefigurative alternative of urban life.

Labels: Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Police, Sub-Proletarianization of America, YouTube

For more information about the arrest of Carlos, go here. It was probably around 40 degrees outside at the time. Of course, if you hadn't guessed, he was arrested for sitting in Cesar Chavez Park, the park occupied by Occupy Sacramento during the day.

Labels: California, Occupy Wall Street, Sacramento, Sub-Proletarianization of America

UPDATE 2: A late night squat of an abandoned building that had housed a provider of services to the homeless was apparently a bridge too far:

UPDATE 1: Bank closures were a prominent feature of protests during the day:

In addition to the port, where an average of $8.5 million in business is done each day, banks were a particular focus of Wednesday's action — and of its vandals. City officials said four branches were closed because of demonstrators.

David Solnit, a 47-year-old San Francisco resident, was among the protesters who strung yellow tape across the door of the downtown Wells Fargo branch and refused to budge. A few young people sat down in front of the door, and within an hour, 25 people had joined them, Solnit said.

Vandals smashed windows at the Bank of America branch near Lake Merritt and spray painted Class War, Shut It Down and 1946, the latter a historical reference to the general strike that shuttered Oakland for two days 65 years ago.

INITIAL POST:

A march of approximately 5,000 to 10,000 people, and perhaps, significantly more, reached the Port of Oakland and prevented trucks and the 7pm night shift from entering it, effectively closing it until the next shifts at 3am and 6am. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union wants to keep the port closed for 24 hours, undoubtedly for the reason for which the march and port closure were called, to support workers resisting a bitter lockout in Longview, Washington. Occupy Oakland is undertaking efforts to keep the gates closed during the early morning hours to stop the next shifts from entering the port.

Labels: Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions

Indybay coverage has been excellent. For updates, go here (see the Twitter feed on the right side of the page) and here and here and here.

Labels: Activism, Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America

UPDATE 3: More on Denver:

After a peaceful and spirited march by an estimated 1,000 protesters, most in from the suburbs, the Denver Police apparently tried to take down a food distribution stand and were met with resistance by some OccupyDenver people. As Congressman Perlmutter, and eyewitnesses that I talked to later, tell it, the DPD used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and large batons to gas, spray and beat bystanders.

Congressman Perlmutter, who had been attending a Colorado Woman’s Summit meeting in Denver, featuring Congresswoman Diana DeGette, when he got word of the confrontation right down the street, rushed down to the Civic Center Park and attempted to mediate between police and protesters. Unsuccessful in de-escalating the violence, he told us of the protesters being tear gassed, pepper sprayed and beaten. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved. He looked down at his immaculate brown suit, shirt and tie. And I really wasn’t dressed for the occasion.

While on a much smaller scale, these are Chicago '68 kinds of experiences, where even prominent social and political figures discover that they are powerless in the face of the police onslaught. Many participants in the Occupy Together effort haven't had confrontational encounters with the police like people from poorer neighborhoods and communities of color, and they are now discovering that police officers aren't necessarily your friends. Are we living through a similar process of radicalization as a result?

UPDATE 2: There is now a guest post at naked capitalism (!) describing police brutality in Denver similar to what transpired in Oakland, replete with pictures of officers pointing non-lethal weapons at protesters and reporters, rubber bullet wounds inflicted upon protesters and a report that the police fired upon protesters seeking to assist the injured.

UPDATE 1: Oakland, Nashville, San Diego and, now, Denver. Contrary to what I said yesterday, it appears that the persistence of the protests and increasing grassroots liberal support has necessitated aggressive police action. All this, plus the fact that substantial numbers of people are participating in protests in cities not commonly known for dissidence. In Denver, the police provoked a confrontation by attacking protesters who ascended the capital steps without a permit.

INITIAL POST: Undoubtedly, you are aware of what transpired in Oakland earlier this week, especially late Wednesday afternoon, but, even so, you may be shocked by detailed reports such as this one:

Protesters were surrounded by police on 8th and Broadway, some of them being chased by police and dragged down to the ground and beaten. A protester was who was falling down was kicked by a police officer and pulled back to be beaten more and eventually zip tied and arrested. A group of protesters surrounded police and chanted, let them go! as police continued to beat protesters on the ground and jab those around with their billy clubs. The people who surrounded police attempted to grab the fallen protesters, but the force of the clubs was too much.

Screams filled the air, street signs rattled, horns and whistles blew and drums banged everywhere. The violent police officers that had beaten the fallen protesters were officially surrounded and fear could be seen in their eyes as hundreds yelled and screamed at them as there was no where for them to run or hide their faces.

After about ten minutes, police reinforcements ran on the scene, swinging at protesters with clubs and tackling some to the ground. Violence continued as protesters were scrambled throughout the intersection of 8th and Broadway. People were screaming and running everywhere in order to protect themselves from the forceful raid.

Please consider reading this report, posted on a promising new blog, The Resistance is Online, in its entirety. Beyond this, there is the atrocity perpetrated against Scott Olsen, seriously injured by a projectile fired by the police. An officer prevented people from coming to his assistance by firing a tear gas canister at close range at them. Even now, he cannot speak. Naturally, the mayor, Jean Quan, and the police chief, Howard Jordan, expressed remorse even though they were responsible for ordering the police assault. Amazingly, Jordan was shameless enough to visit Olsen in the hospital.

Events in Oakland are a cautionary story about the relationship between Occupy Together and the police around the country. Protesters have rightly sought to cultivate a positive relationship with law enforcement by emphasizing that the police are part of the 99%, as they have done in Sacramento, for example. By doing so, they have probably succeeded in preventing an earlier, more aggressive crackdown on the movement, as there has been public revulsion against highly publicized instances of police violence, as first occurred when a NYPD officer, Anthony Bologna, maced a group of penned protesters last month. Bologna actually reenergized a movement that was showing signs of exhaustion.

But have no doubt. If the police are ordered to clear out an encampment, they will do it. If they are ordered to do so aggressively, they will do so. If they are told to promptly resort to tear gas and flash grenades upon the emergence of any resistance, they will not hesitate. Similarly, if corporations, the federal government or wealthy campaign contributors complain loudly enough (in private, naturally), mayors will order the police into action. It doesn't matter if they are conservative, moderate or liberal, they will do as they are told, as Jean Quan did this week, and as Jerry Brown did in 2003, when he ordered the Oakland Police Department to suppress a protest against the invasion of Iraq at the Port of Oakland. Officers fired sting balls, concussion grenades and wooden dowels to clear the gates to the docks, inflicting numerous injuries.

For now, there has been no nationwide repression of the Occupy Together effort, probably because of fears that such an attempt would merely intensify it. Better to intimidate the participants through a calculated crackdown as occurred in Oakland. Interestingly, one can perceive the hidden hand of the Department of Homeland Security through the manner in which the earlier, pre-dawn arrests of those participating in the occupation was conducted. Streets all around the encampment were closed, BART service was delayed and AC Transit buses were re-routed around the area. Planning for the raid took a week, and Quan was fully informed and agreed with the decision to close the encampment. As with the peculiar police response to the BART protests in San Francisco during the summer, the Bay Area is apparently a training ground for the implementation of crowd control measures to suppress domestic unrest.

Labels: Activism, Bay Area, California, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Police, Sub-Proletarianization of America

Actually, as the excerpt from this article by masaccio indicates, the fraud predictably involves not just Bank of America, but all the usual suspects as well, such as J. P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and, drum roll please . . . Goldman Sachs:

The Bank of America (BAC) recently moved derivatives out of its Merrill Lynch subsidiary into a subsidiary plump with FDIC insured deposits. Bloomberg says the Fed wants to protect the bank holding company without increasing its own obligations. The FDIC opposes the transfer because it increases their risk.

Three of the five biggest derivatives players have already done this. The OCC Quarterly Report on Bank Derivatives Activities gives information about derivatives held by banks, and by bank holding companies, separately. AS of June 30, 2011, the numbers are nearly identical for JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Only Morgan Stanley and BAC had a significant part of their derivatives outside the warm embrace of the FDIC.

BAC apparently held $21.7 trillion in notional value outside of banking subsidiaries at June 30, and it has now moved that into FDIC insured institutions. The Bloomberg article doesn’t say exactly how much, and it isn’t reported in BAC’s earnings release for the third quarter. A reporter asked about this in the earnings call. Bruce Thompson, the Chief Financial Officer of BAC, said he was surprised by the article, and that the move was in the normal course of business.

The OCC Report gives some idea of the increase in risk. It uses a measure of risk called Total Credit Exposure, which is equal to the sum of Net Current Credit Exposure and Potential Future Exposure. The first is the net amount owed to the bank if all contracts were suddenly liquidated. The second is an attempt to estimate the potential future losses, using a formula developed by regulators. This number is compared to the Total Risk-Based Capital, which is the sum of Tier One Capital and Tier Two Capital. This calculation effectively excludes Tier Three Capital, the assets for which there is no liquid market and no clear method of calculating value.

According to the OCC Report dated 6/30/11, the ratio of Total Credit Exposure to Total Risk-Based Capital at BAC was 182%, meaning that regulators calculated the potential losses from derivatives at nearly double the total of the assets subject to valuation in liquid markets.

The global economy is stalling out again, possibly entering another recession as severe as 2008, and the largest US financial institutions have already carried out their escape plan so that can live to speculate another day.

Yves Smith of naked capitalism explains the brazenness of this action in relation to Bank of America:

The reason that commentators like Chris Whalen were relatively sanguine about Bank of America likely becoming insolvent as a result of eventual mortgage and other litigation losses is that it would be a holding company bankruptcy. The operating units, most importantly, the banks, would not be affected and could be spun out to a new entity or sold. Shareholders would be wiped out and holding company creditors (most important, bondholders) would take a hit by having their debt haircut and partly converted to equity.

This changes the picture completely. This move reflects either criminal incompetence or abject corruption by the Fed. Even though I’ve expressed my doubts as to whether Dodd Frank resolutions will work, dumping derivatives into depositaries pretty much guarantees a Dodd Frank resolution will fail. Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. So this move amounts to a direct transfer from derivatives counterparties of Merrill to the taxpayer, via the FDIC, which would have to make depositors whole after derivatives counterparties grabbed collateral. It’s well nigh impossible to have an orderly wind down in this scenario. You have a derivatives counterparty land grab and an abrupt insolvency. Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral.

But it’s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. No Congressman would dare vote against that. This move is Machiavellian, and just plain evil.

So, for any of you out there planning to attend a general assembly at OWS or any other Occupy Together location, please bring this matter to the attention of the participants if they are unaware of it.

Labels: Activism, Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Sub-Proletarianization of America