MEDIA ROOTS – On Wednesday, November 2, 2011, Abby
Martin of Media Roots was on the front lines of the bedlam in the streets of
Oakland providing unembedded coverage during the aftermath of the Occupy Oakland general strike and shutdown
of the Port of Oakland.
Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters successfully shut down the Port of
Oakland, the nation’s fifth largest port, at 8pm earlier that evening. About two hours later, so-called “Black
Bloc” ‘anarchists,’ or opportunists, arrived in downtown Oakland, smashing
windows of banks and setting trash cans on fire.
In full riot gear, the Oakland PD lined up at about 11:30 pm and marched toward the rally, now tainted by masked “Black Bloc” saboteurs. Police started
firing smoke grenades and tear gas into the crowd of people, provoking some, particularly the masked “Black Bloc” individuals, to respond
by throwing bottles and other objects back at the police. Rather than detaining the individuals engaging in property destruction, the police advanced on everyone in sight.
After the crowd scattered, the police lined up in apparent hammer-and-anvil
formation to close in and arrest the remaining protesters at the Occupy Oakland
encampment.
MR
***
Abby Martin, Media Roots Founder, catches a dose of tear gas reporting from the front lines.
MEDIA ROOTS— On Thursday, November 3, 2011, Abby
Martin of Media Roots spoke with Russia Today TV (RT) about the Occupy
Movement, Occupy Oakland, the police-state response, and the historic general
strike called by Occupy Oakland, which drew tens of thousands of supporters to
shut down banks and the Port of Oakland, the nation’s fifth largest port.
Abby Martin, Media Roots founder, is interviewed in this RT segment.
***
RUSSIA TODAY— Occupy protesters demonstrate resilience to crackdowns and cynicism
in the media but it is still unclear what lies ahead for the
movement. Abby Martin, founder of Mediaroots.org, says that Occupy can
become a real political force.
While camping out and singing songs is one thing, getting the right
politicians elected quite another. Martin says that the movement is
unified and people are waking up to the two-party dictatorship, and
realizing that the political system does not represent them anymore.
”A
lot of people tried to paint this movement as not unified and we do not
have a cohesive message, but as far as I can see we have one message
and it is corporate greed and we are not standing for it anymore,” she declared. “No matter what your sign says, it all stems from the same source and that is corporate greed running amok.”
Martin
believes it was a huge success for the movement when up to 20,000
people peacefully marched and successfully shut down the Port of
Oakland. She says that getting their point across justifies shutting
down America’s fifth largest port.
“It was almost necessary to
get the point across, no-one is really listening to us. Mainstream
media is trying to marginalize this movement. So maybe it will take
something like that to really get people to recognize our force,” she said.
The
mainstream media in US accuses the Occupy movement of being envious of
the rich. Martin laughs it off arguing that it is about
disenfranchisement and the extreme desperation that people are seeing.
”The
rich keep getting richer. We are talking about corporations not paying
taxes. Why should we? It is a two-tier justice system. We are held to a
different sort of justice system in America. We are not standing for it
anymore,” she says.
Allan Rivlin, co-editor of
CenteredPolitics.com, says there is an explanation why people are
demanding a change in the rules that have been in effect for decades.
“I think the success of the movement is the simplicity of the message,” he says. “They
got it down to four words: ‘We are the 99%’. And that message, as
simple as it is, really cuts to the heart of what a lot of people are
experiencing, which is a tremendous inequality that has been growing for
years. They are also seeing a system that is out of balance with
respect to too much corporate influence over politicians and over
Congress.”
MEDIA ROOTS— As
people in the U.S. and abroad endeavour to exercise their rights and civil
liberties, such as the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, the
state and its police forces continue finding methods to repress such civic activity. An important component of social control and repression of dissent has
been the curtailment of telecommunications.
Earlier this year, when San Francisco Bay Area Rapid
Transit (BART) police killings spurred groups, such as ‘No Justice, No Bart!,’ to call for critical mass demonstrations, BART officials
attempted to thwart communication among activists by cutting mobile phone
service entirely to transit stations targeted by demonstrators.
Not to be outdone in the U.K., the Metropolitan Police Service of Greater London
has been “operating covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a
mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off
phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of
users in a targeted area.”
Messina
***
THE GUARDIAN– The surveillance system has been
procured by the Metropolitan police
from Leeds-based company Datong plc, which counts the US Secret Service, the
Ministry of Defence and regimes in the Middle East among its customers.
Strictly classified under government protocol as “Listed X”, it can
emit a signal over an area of up to an estimated 10 sq km, forcing hundreds of mobile phones per minute
to release their unique IMSI and IMEI identity codes, which can be used to
track a person’s movements in real time.
The disclosure has caused concern
among lawyers and privacy groups that large numbers of innocent people could be
unwittingly implicated in covert intelligence gathering. The Met has refused to
confirm whether the system is used in public order situations, such as during
large protests or demonstrations.
Nick Pickles, director of privacy
and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, warned the technology
could give police the ability to conduct “blanket and indiscriminate”
monitoring: “It raises a number of serious civil liberties concerns and
clarification is urgently needed on when and where this technology has been
deployed, and what data has been gathered,” he said. “Such invasive
surveillance must be tightly regulated, authorised at the highest level and
only used in the most serious of investigations. It should be absolutely clear
that only data directly relating to targets of investigations is monitored or
stored,” he said.
The company’s systems, showcased
at the DSEi arms fair in east London last month, allow
authorities to intercept SMS messages and phone calls by secretly duping mobile
phones within range into operating on a false network, where they can be
subjected to “intelligent denial of service”. This function is
designed to cut off a phone used as a trigger for an explosive device.
A transceiver around the size of
a suitcase can be placed in a vehicle or at another static location and
operated remotely by officers wirelessly. Datong also offers clandestine
portable transceivers with “covered antennae options available”.
Datong sells its products to nearly 40 countries around the world, including in
Eastern Europe, South America, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. In 2009 it was
refused an export licence to ship technology worth £0.8m to an unnamed Asia
Pacific country, after the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
judged it could be used to commit human rights abuses.
MEDIA ROOTS- Abby and Robbie Martin broadcast a live episode of Media Roots Radio at the center of Occupy Oakland’s historic general strike from Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland on .
They discuss the police brutality that occurred last week during the initial raid of Occupy Oakland, the police assault on the crowd during the protests that followed and the Occupy Wall Street movement in general. The broadcast features interviews with strike participants and gives real time coverage and analysis of the events.
The above timeline is interactive. Scroll through it to find out more about the show’s music and to resources mentioned during the broadcast. To see a larger version of the timeline with clickable resources go to the soundcloud link below the player.
If you would like to directly download the podcast click the down arrow icon on the right of the soundcloud display. To hide the comments to enable easier rewind and fast forward, click on the icon on the very bottom right.
This Media Roots podcast is the product of many long hours of hard work and love. If you want to encourage our voice, please consider supporting us as we continue to speak from outside party lines. If you donate, we want to thank you with your choice of art from AbbyMartin.org as well as music from RecordLabelRecords.org. Much of the music you hear on our podcasts comes from Robbie’s imprint Record Label Records, and Abby’s art reflects the passion and perspective that lead her to create Media Roots.org.
$40 donation: One 8×10 art print and one RLR release (You choose! Tell us in the Paypal notes.)
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Even the smallest donations are appreciated and help us with our operating costs.
MEDIA ROOTS— In 1946, Oakland was the last city in the U.S. to have a
general strike. Now, 65 years later, the people are going to shut the city
down again in another historic strike taking place tomorrow, November 2, 2011. Tomorrow’s strike was voted on last week at the Occupy Oakland General Assembly, where over 1,600 people voted in favor to “liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.”
Media Roots will be on site in downtown Oakland during the strike doing real time coverage of the events and interviews with the participants.
Abby
***
SFIST– The proposed strike intends to close all banks and corporations for the
day, while calling on laborers, teachers and students to join mass gatherings at 14th and Broadway at 9 a.m, 12 noon and 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Support for the general strike extends beyond the protesters at Frank Ogawa Plaza, as the strike has also been endorsed by labor union SEIU Local 1021 and the the teachers of the Oakland Educational Association.
In addition to staging a walkout of businesses and schools, the protest intends to shut down the Port of Oakland by forming a picket line before the 7 p.m. night shift.
While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for
much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools,
community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are
encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in
shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and
capable of.
The whole world is watching Oakland. Let’s show them what is possible.
***
Occupy
Oakland held a press conference yesterday at Latham Square, the historic site of the
Oakland General Strike of 1946 at Telegraph & Broadway, to discuss the strike.
Occupy
Oakland General Strike Press Conference October 31, 2011
Among the speakers, Boots Riley (Oakland resident and
member of “The Coup” and “Street Sweeper Social Club”) read from an inter-office
memo from Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana agreeing to SEIU’s call to
shield Oakland City workers from retaliation should they participate in
tomorrow’s historic Oakland general strike.
Clarence Thomas (of ILWU Local 10 and Million Worker
March Movement) is “a third-generation longshore worker” from the S.F. Bay
Area. Clarence Thomas spoke “as the Co-Chair
of the Million Worker March Movement:”
“The reason why I and other workers will be standing in
solidarity on Wednesday for the call for the general strike by the Occupy
Oakland Movement is because this is a movement about fighting corporate rule with
worker power. I’ll say it again, fighting
corporate rule with worker power, the 99%.
For the last 30 years, with the introduction of computer and othe
technology, American workers have been providing their employer with increased
production. At the same time, workers’
wages have remained stagnant. It looks
like this. That gap represents corporate
profits. The profits that the 1% have
been living off of, and participating in, to the detriment of the 99%. Today, only 7.2% of workers in the private
sector belong to a union. That is the
lowest percentage since the year 1900.
And one of the reasons for that is because of corporate rule run
amok. But we must be very clear about
something. This is not about a crisis on
Wall Street. This is capitalism run
amok. Capitalism has failed us.”
Elaine Brown (former Chair of the Black Panther Party,
now with SEUI/United Health Care Workers), Cat Brooks (of the Onyx Organizing
Committee), and School Teacher Javier Armas all joined Occupy Oakland occupiers
and others in this historic press conference.
Occupy Oakland features a growing list of endorsements
and statements of solidarity, including:
MEDIA ROOTS— As
people in the U.S. and abroad endeavour to exercise their rights and civil
liberties, such as the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, the
state and its police forces continue finding methods to repress such civic activity. An important component of social control and repression of dissent has
been the curtailment of telecommunications.
MEDIA ROOTS— In 1946, Oakland was the last city in the U.S. 