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 Friday, October 28, 2011, filmmaker Michael
Moore paid a visit to Occupy Oakland. He flew from Occupy Wall Street in New York to join in
solidarity with the current epicentre of the Occupy Movement in the wake of the brutal police-state
rioting on Tuesday night, which left 24-year-old Marine, Scott Olsen, in critical
condition after being shot in the head by a projectile fired by an officer of the
Alameda Sheriffs Department.
The Alameda County PD was just one of 17 police agencies involved in the
coordinated, riot-gear-equipped, raids against Occupy Oakland. In a press conference following the assaults, Oakland Police Chief Jordan has announced having taken unprovoked preemptive actions against the
peaceful protesters, which left Olsen in critical condition, left others with
broken bones, and terrorised the masses of Oakland with the tear gas laden shock-and-awe police-state tactics.
Michael
Moore calls attention to the militarisation of local police agencies, the
courageousness of Occupy Oakland protesters to peacefully assemble in the face
of police-state repression, and announces his hope of speaking with the
beleaguered Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who, at presstime, has had a “change of
heart,” after authorising the police raids against Occupy Oakland and then
conveniently skipping town. Mayor Quan
has announced her sincere (or insincere) support for Occupy Oakland’s call for a
general strike November 2, 2011 in response to the police-state repression of Occupy Oakland’s
First Amendment rights.
“We’re
out there. We’ve been watching. Millions have watched it. And millions have been inspired by you
because the next night you didn’t go away!
You came back!!” – Michael Moore
After his speech, Michael
Moore made sure to speak with Pacifica Radio for a 15-minute interview (full
transcript below). Moore spoke in-depth
with Hard Knock Radio’s Davey D and Flashpoints’ Dennis Bernstein about a range
of topics, including Occupy Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan, the militarisation of
local police agencies, the brutal projectile-shooting of Scott Olsen (with
testimony from an eyewitness account), and the importance of a general strike
to the overall goals of the Occupy Movement spreading across the nation.
–Messina
***
Occupy Oakland Host: “ Mic
check one two. Can everyone, even in the
back, can hear me?”
Crowd:
“Yeah!!”
Host: “Okay,
great. It’s my pleasure to introduce
Michael Moore.”
Michael Moore: “Greetings,
Oakland! Occupy Oakland! Occupy Oakland! Occupy Oakland! Occupy everywhere!! I, I am honoured to be here, to be part of
this. Uh, to the media who are present, uh, let me stress to you, this movement has no spokesperson. Everyone here is a spokesperson. Everyone here, everyone here has a story to
tell. There are people here who have no
health insurance. There are people here
who do not have a job. There are people
here who are living in poverty. There
are people here who have jobs, but have been told to take less. And I invite you to interview the thousands
of other spokespeople who are here at Occupy Oakland. Someone asked me, ‘Who is the leader of this
organisation?’ [Guffaws] And I said, ‘We are all the leaders! Everyone here!’ We are all leaders. And we are all followers. We are all doing this together. The media and the power establishment is
having a hard time figuring this out. So,
be patient with them. They are used to
just a few people showing up with a few signs and then they go away and have a
meeting in the basement of the Unitarian Church. God bless the Unitarians, by the way. Those in charge in this country and the media
arm of Wall Street and corporate America were not prepared for this to be
happening in hundreds, hundreds of cities across this country right now! Hundreds! And it has, it has happened with no leaders, no organisation, no dues pay,
no dues to pay. It’s happened
organically from the grassroots, the true grassroots. And in my lifetime, I have never seen a movement
like this take hold this fast with this many people all across the
country. Thank you, everyone, all of us
for doing this. And there’s no turning
back, is there?”
Crowd: “No!!!”
Michael Moore:
“There’s no turning back!!”
Crowd: “No!!!”
Michael Moore: “I was
at Occupy Wall Street last night, in Zuccotti Park, Liberty Plaza, and I am
here to bring greetings from the original Occupy Wall Street. Thank you, Oakland! Thank you, Oakland!”
Audience Member (male):
“Power to the people! Power to
the people!”
Michael Moore: “I said,
I said, ‘What are we gonna do with winter coming?’ It was almost a freezing rain last night in
New York City. I said, ‘What are we gonna do with winter coming?’ And they
said, ‘There’s two guys over there right now who have flown in from Occupy
Anchorage.”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Michael Moore: “And
they are here to consult with us on how to make it through the winter!”
Crowd:
[Laughs Cheers]
Michael Moore: “They
said there’s even an ice company in New Jersey that has offered large blocks of
ice to build igloos in Zuccotti Park.
The Mayor, and the Police, and Wall Street are hoping that the winter
will kill the movement in the same way that they don’t understand that this is
a leaderless organisation with tens of millions of spokespeople. They also don’t understand that weather is
not the problem facing us right now.
Climate change is facing us. But
the weather in New York City is not going to stop this incredible
movement. Let me just give you an idea,
uh, because I’ve been travelling the country, what I’ve seen. Uh, there’s a town about, maybe a hundred and
fifty miles east of here called Grass Valley, California. Are you familiar with it?”
Crowd:
“Yeah!!!” [Cheers]
Michael Moore: “Where
the hell is Grass Valley, right? No,
I know where it is. Nobody across the
country knows Grass Valley. And, of
course, the media doesn’t know Grass Valley.
But last weekend, in Grass Valley, there were 400 people participating in
Occupy Grass Valley. 400 people! There’s, there’s only a few thousand people
in the town. Alright? And, and everyone was there, old, young, out
of work, people with work, the spread of American society is at each of
these. You could see it right now. I can see it. I am sitting here looking at the mosaic that
this country is right now, right here in Oakland. This is—”
Audience Member (male):
“Hey cameraman, turn around and take a picture.”
Michael Moore: “We’ll
get the cameras to turn around here, just a sec-, you know, I don’t understand
it either. I’ve wondered this for a long
time. Uh, and I’ve tried to explain to
them that this is not what people want to be looking at while they’re eating
dinner and watching the six o’clock news.
So, I’m sorry. But I’m getting
healthy. And I’m now in my tenth month with
no red meat. [Guffaws]”
Crowd:
“Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “And
that will be the sound bite on the evening news.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Now,
this is the first of these that I’ve spoken at where there’s an amplified sound
system. Um, what laws are we breaking
here?”
Audience Member (male):
“A lot.”
Michael Moore: “A lot
of laws? [Chuckles] Um—”
Audience Member (male):
“We set it up just for you!”
Michael Moore: “Thank
you! Thank you. Um, Mayor Quan is having a press conference
right now. Uh—”
Crowd:
“Boo!!!”
Michael Moore: “—upstairs. I sent her an email asking if we could, uh,
speak, um, while I was here. Uh, but I
have to tell you the other night, uh, both Tuesday and Wednesday night, um, not
being here and watching from afar, uh, what took place here, um, was really
horrifying, uh, to see this in this country.
Um, it made, it made, it made the rest of the people in the United
States aware of something that maybe many of you had been aware of for the last
decade and that is the militarisation of our local police departments.”
Crowd:
“Yeah!! [Cheers Applause]
Fuck the police!”
Michael Moore: “The
Congress is not allowed to tell the public how much is spent on Homeland
Security, but these local police departments all across the country over the
last ten years have sucked up, literally, billions of dollars to buy
sophisticated equipment, to buy armaments that you use in a warzone—”
Crowd: “Boo!”
Michael Moore: “—to buy
tanks, to set up spying systems.”
Audience Member (male):
“On our tax dollars.”
Michael Moore: “Yes, we
paid for this. And, um, and to prepare
for what they believe is the inevitable, which is the people, sooner or later,
aren’t going to take it any longer.”
Crowd:
“Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “Ten
years—”
Audience Member (male):
“Don’t protect the corporations!!!”
Audience Member (male):
“Fuck them!”
Crowd:
“Shhh. Shhh.”
Michael Moore: “Ten
years after 9/11, the majority of Americans realise who the real terrorists
are. They are the people who, who create
policies and who do things that literally do kill people. For instance, a Congressional Committee last
month released these figures. They wanted
to find out how many Americans die every year because, simply from the fact, that they
don’t have health insurance. They didn’t
go to the doctor ‘cos they didn’t have insurance. Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year simply
because they don’t have health insurance.
My friends, that is fifteen 9/11s every single year! A system, a system that is set up to harm our
own citizens! A profit-making insurance
system! Who said that it is morally
correct to make a profit off people when they get sick? Do ya, how, how sick is that? I can tell you—”
Audience Member (male):
“Neocolonialism!”
Michael Moore: “How
much money—”
Audience Member (male):
“Free America!”
Michael Moore: “—has
corporate America made from these two wars?
These two illegal, immoral wars?
How much have they made? We are
still spending over $2 billion dollars a week on these wars. What could we do with that money if it was
here in Oakland and Flint, Michigan and across the country? Somebody asked me, coming in here, ‘Who
organised this?’
Scattered Members of Crowd:
“We did!!”
Michael Moore: “Who
organised this? I know, I know, I know
you think we, the people, organised it, right.
[Laughs] Where is Wells
Fargo? I just passed it on the
street. If you want to know who
organised this, they organised it! The
people on Wall Street organised this!
Bank of America organised this! ExxonMobil,
BP organised this! They did more by
simply putting their boot on the necks of millions of Americans. And like any human being, like any human being,
how long can you keep a boot on your neck?”
Audience Member (male):
“Not one more second, we ain’t takin’ it no more!!!!”
Michael Moore: “Not
for one second with the boot on the neck.”
Crowd:
“Whoo!!!”
Audience Member (male):
“Go, ‘head, Mike.”
Audience Member (male):
“Oakland style, brotha.”
Michael Moore: “[Laughs] I know. He said, ‘It’s Oakland style. We’re doing this Oakland style.’”
Audience Member (male):
“Occupy!”
Michael Moore: “Let me
tell you something else I’ve discovered across the country. Um, and that is, um, America, contrary to
what maybe many here believe and the way it’s portrayed to us in the media,
America is not a conservative country.
Most Americans are actually quite liberal in their beliefs. They may not call themselves liberals, but if
you look at any of the polls, the majority of Americans, come down on the
liberal side of the issue on just about every single issue. The majority of Americans are against these
wars. The majority of Americans want
universal health care. The majority of
Americans believe women should be paid the same as men. The majority of Americans—”
Audience Member (female):
“That’s because they are the majority!”
Michael Moore: “—want
stronger environmental laws, not weaker ones.”
Audience Member (male):
“School closures! School
closures!”
Michael Moore: “And for
the first time last month, in a poll that was taken, for the first time 54%,
the majority of Americans, say they believe gay marriage should be the law of
the land.”
Audience Member (male):
“…legalise marijuana!”
Michael Moore: “That’s the country you live in. That’s
the, that’s the country you live in. And
I know to people in the Bay Area it may seem to get a little scary as you head
toward Richmond.”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Did I
pick the right town?”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Michael Moore: “I need another town. What? As
you head towards Walnut Creek!”
Crowd:
“Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “I was,
I was just trying to remember BART stops.
Um. Can I just put that down
there? (‘Yeah. I got you.’)
Um, but as you go, as you go across this country you see that that’s the
country you share, the people out there.
That’s why they’re int-, that’s why 72% last week said they believe
taxes should be raised on the rich, 72%.
So—“
Crowd: “Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “So, to
the media who are here, um, this is a few thousand people. But everybody here represents a few thousand
more, or a few ten thousand more, everybody here. That’s how large this is. That’s why it can’t be stopped. Too many people have been thrown out of their
homes. Too many people have had their schools
decimated to where their kids aren’t getting a proper education.”
Audience Member (male):
“Five schools are being shut down in Oakland!”
Michael Moore: “We now
live in a country with 40 million adults who are functional illiterates. How did that happen?”
Audience Member (male):
“We’re being oppressed!”
Michael Moore: “It
benefits, it benefits those in charge to have an ignorant population. To have a population with 40 million people
in it that cannot read and write above a fourth-grade level. Who benefits from that? It’s like they’ve set up the schools now to make
sure that you can operate the cash register at McDonald’s and you know how to
greet someone in a sentence with a noun and a verb in it as they come into
Walmart. Let me tell you, let me tell ya
who does know that this, that the people of this country have had it and that there’s
a very progressive thread and vein going through this country right now. That’s the other side, Wall Street, corporate
America, the right-wing, they know, they know this is a liberal country! All you have to do is turn on talk radio or
Fox News, they’re so angry, they’re so angry aren’t they? Let me ask you this. If this was a conservative, right-wing
country, wouldn’t, if you turned on Fox News every night, wouldn’t they just be,
‘Yip-a-dee-do-da, Yip-a-dee-day?’
They’re not that way, are they?
They’re like, ‘Aargh!’ Every
night, it’s ‘Raargh! Raargh!’ They’re, they’re just, they, there’s a reason
why they wanna suppress the vote next year.
There’s a reason why they’re passing laws throughout the country to make
it harder for poor people, for senior citizens, for people of colour to
vote. There’s a reason they’re doing
that. What’s the reason? They know, they know, no, it’s very simple, they
can do math. They know they’re in the
minority. They know they’re in the
minority. Otherwise, really, why would
you wanna suppress the vote if you thought America agreed with you? You wouldn’t do that, would you? No! If
you believed, if you believed that America was with you, you’d be setting up
voting booths in every aisle of every Walmart all across the country!”
Crowd: “Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “That’s
not what they’re doing. Um, I also want
to tell you, especially those of you who have been camping out here, um, thank
you for doing that. You are better; you
are better men and women than I am. Give
me another year without the red meat. ‘Wait, we’ve got our second sound bite.’ Um, but watching the other night, um,
[long pause] Scott Olsen.”
Crowd:
[Applause]
Michael Moore: “It is
absolutely criminal that this young man was willing to go and risk his life in
a war that he, once over there, didn’t agree with, that he would risk his life like
this and the only place he had to worry about was here in his own country, in
Oakland, California. Um, I think, um,
well one thing we can do for the media who are here is to let them know that we
are all Scott Olsen. We are all with Scott
Olsen! And we are all Scott Olsens! And we will not tolerate our fellow citizens
being treated that way by the people that we fund with our tax dollars. I don’t, I don’t pay people, I don’t pay
people to take a gun, or a tear gas gun and point it at me and hit me in the
head with their ammunition or their tear gas canister. That would be as crazy as me coming up to you
right now and saying to you, ‘Oh, by the way, would you just punch me in the
face?’ Why would I do that? Um, I think all of us want to send our best
wishes, our prayers, our good karma, everything that we could muster to Scott,
so that he is better and well. And,
yeah, and I think, I think that, uh, let’s have 30 seconds of silence in honour
of Scott Olsen and our hope that he will recover quickly from his
injuries. Um, I’m goin’ on too long here
and, uh, I—”
Crowd:
“Nah!!!”
Michael Moore: “Well,
well, yeah, but. No, no, but I—”
Audience Member (male):
“You gotta get to Richmond!”
Michael Moore: “I
know. Now that I’ve, now that I’ve
singled out Richmond, I’m going to have to go and participate in Occupy
Richmond.”
Crowd:
“Yeah! Whoo!!”
Michael Moore: “Or
Walnut Creek.”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Walnut
Creek is where we need to be, right?
Isn’t that where the money is?
Alright.”
Crowd:
[Scattered shouts and appeals]
Audience Member (male):
“What would you tell Mayor Quan if you could talk to her?”
Michael Moore: “Um, I,
I, I understand that Mayor Quan is, uh, she’s finishing up her press
conference.”
Crowd: “Boo!”
Michael Moore: “And I am gonna try and, uh,
see if I can, uh, talk to her. Uh, you
know, I saw her—”
Audience Member (female): “Shes
gotta come out here and talk to us!”
Michael Moore: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry that when she came yesterday to talk that
she didn’t wait to speak at the General Assembly because I, I think—”
Audience Member (female):
“Let her speak.”
Michael Moore: “— the, uh—”
Audience Member (female):
“She tried to.”
Audience Member (male, standing next to Michael
Moore): “No, she didn’t. She left.”
Michael Moore: “Well, there’s a, there’s a process, we’re not in a General Assembly right now. But there’s a process at the General Assembly—”
Audience Member (male, standing next to Michael
Moore): “Be correct.
That’s right. That’s right. [Pats Michael Moore on the shoulder]
Michael Moore: “—where you sign up to speak and we’re all equals. And so—”
Audience Member (male, standing next to Michael
Moore): “That’s right! Whoo!”
Audience Member (male, standing behind Michael
Moore): “And she didn’t wanna wait in line.”
Audience Member (male, standing next to Michael
Moore): “No, she didn’t.”
Michael Moore: “—when I’ve, when I’ve been down, you know, I’ve been at New York, so I’ve
been at Occupy Wall Street and if I’m number 17 to speak, I’m number 17 to
speak. And it doesn’t matter if I’m
Michael Moore or Michael Schmoe. You
know. It doesn’t, and, and it’s the
spirit, that’s why this movement has built because it is a movement of
equals. Everybody has something to give
to this. We’re all in this together. We’re gonna sink or swim together. That’s our choice right now.”
Audience Member (female):
“The media is a propaganda control.
The media is a propaganda control.”
Michael Moore: “When, when they, when I was there last night,
somebody asked one of the people in the media tent, ‘What are the goals? What are you trying to accomplish?’ And he said, well, he said, ‘Our mission is
in our name, Occupy Wall Street,’ and then he said, ‘Period.’ I thought about that for a second. Occupy Wall Street, period. In other words, it isn’t just about these encampments;
it’s that we’re not stopping until we, the people, occupy our economy that runs
this country! This is our economy! It’s our country! We’re the ones that have
a say.”
Crowd: “Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “And, and when somebody says to me, ‘Well,’
you know, ‘What’s the goal? What’s the
end-game?’ And I say, ‘Well, let me tell
you somethin’ first of all, we’ve already had a number of victories in our
first six weeks. And let’s acknowledge
those victories. Alright? Number one, number one, we have killed
despair across the country. The despair that
people were feeling, that despair is dissipating right now. This movement has killed apathy. People have got up off the sofa! They’ve turned off Dancing with the Stars! And they’re out in the streets!”
Crowd: “Whoo!! Yeah!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “This is
a victory! There’s something very important we’ve
done. Six weeks ago, what was all the
media talking about? All the politicians
in Washington? All the pundits? What was the, what was the national
discussion that we weren’t part of that they determined? What were they talking about? The debt ceiling. The debt!
The debt ceiling!! The
deficit! We gotta reduce the
deficit!! We gotta reduce the
deficit!! Over and over and over all
summer long! The debt ceiling! The deficit!
The debt ceiling! The
deficit! Can I ask you, honestly? When’s the last time in the last few weeks
you heard them talkin’ about the debt ceiling?
Or the deficit? This movement has shook down that
bullshit discussion.”
Crowd: “Yeah!! Whoo!!!
[Applause]”
Michael Moore: “That
is a huge victory. You have altered the
national discussion. You have altered
it! This is what people are talking
about in every town and city and village across America. Occupy Oakland!! Occupy New York!! Occupy San Francisco!! Occupy Grass Valley!! Occupy Walnut Creek!! Occupy Flint, Michigan!!”
Audience Member (male, standing next to Michael
Moore): “Occupy the world!!”
Michael Moore: “Occupy
everywhere!!! This is the discussion we’re
gonna have!!! And we’re not ceding the
discussion to anybody else!!!”
Crowd:
“Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, in
conclusion, in conclusion, um, I am—”
Audience Member (male):
“Move your seat!”
Michael Moore: “—did
you just yell at a disabled guy to move his cane?”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Michael Moore: “They
told me there were plants here from the police.
Plain-clothes, plain-clothes officer, let me just remind you, when you yell
too loud at a disabled person, ‘Put down the cane,’ we know who you are. But welcome!
Welcome! Because police officers,
you’re part of the 99%, too! They’ll be
coming after you! They’ll be coming after
you and your home and your health care and your children. There’s a number of towns, there’s a number
of towns across this country, there’s a number of towns across this country
that are behaving differently than Oakland.
There are police departments and police unions, hang on, there are
police departments and police unions across the country supporting the Occupy
movements in their towns. Albany, New
York, a beautiful example, the Governor told them to remove the people and the
police said, ‘We don’t consider that part of police work.’”
Crowd:
“Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So,
the police do have a choice, even in Oakland.
It’s still America, Oakland P.D.
It’s a free country. You can join
us. You can join us. You don’t have to join them. You don’t have to be here defending Wells
Fargo and Bank of America and BP and everybody else! You can stand up for yourselves and everybody
else! Alright. Um, so, please keep this alive here. I know there’s gonna be a lot of snow this
winter.”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Audience Member (male):
“Not here!”
Michael Moore: “I
wanna say one more thing about something I saw last week. Pete Seeger was, he had a conferen-, he did a
concert up on the corner, it was up in a theatre, and Arlo and Tom Chapin and a
few others. Um, he did a concert up at
the corner of 95th and Broadway at Symphony Space in New York. And afterwards, they decided to march from
Symphony Space down to Columbus Circle.
That’s 36 blocks. Pete is 92
years old on, on two canes. On two canes
he walked the entire way.”
Crowd:
[Applause]
Michael Moore: “And
when we got to Columbus Circle and he was leading everyone, thousands of
people, singing ‘This Land is Your Land.’
And he looked over and there were two New York City policemen singing
along.”
Audience Member (male):
“Fuck the police!”
Audience Member (male, with foreign accent):
“Fuck the police!”
Michael Moore: “Um,
right—[Michael Moore passes the microphone to man behind him: “There’s good and bad police just like
there’s good and bad people.]
Audience Member (male):
“Hey, you tell that to the SWAT team!?”
Crowd:
[Applause]
Michael Moore: “We are
stronger than any rubber bullet or bean bag or tear gas canister. There’s too many of us. And what are they defending in the first
place? A broken system in a country that
has benefited the few at the expense of the many. The time for that to end is right now. And when the history of
this—”
Background: [A
blast is heard in the distance, as Michael Moore flinches and turns around]
Audience Member (male):
“There go yo’ police right there.”
Michael Moore: “—when
the history—”
Audience Member: “We’re from Oakland!”
Michael Moore:
“[Laughs] You know how sad it is? He says, ‘We’re from Oakland we’re used to
that.’”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “You
shouldn’t be used to it. You know if you
lived in any of the Weste-, other democracies, the one to the north of us, you
know, you would never say a statement like that, ‘Oh, we’re used to that.’ You know, other people in other countries have
decided to organise themselves differently.
We can do that, too. And, don’t worry. For those of you who aren’t quite sure, who
may just have stopped by to see this today and you’re wondering, ‘Yeah, but where’s
this goin?’ Or, ‘I need to know more. I gotta figure this out.’ Don’t, don’t approach this like other
movements from the past. Don’t approach
it like a term paper. Um, just join in
because the group itself, something will come out of this and it will be
good. It will be good and generous to
each other. So, everybody’s gotta come
into this on some level. And we could
make this happen. So, I just, the thing
I want to say, before the, uh, sound effects truck, um, was that when the
history of this movement, uh, is written about these first few weeks where—”
Audience Member (male):
“Or filmed.”
Michael Moore: “No,
it’s not going to fail.”
Crowd: “No,
filmed.”
Michael Moore: “The
what?”
Audience Member (female):
“Just let him talk.”
Michael Moore: “What
film? Oh, or filmed? Yes.”
Crowd:
[Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Yeah. Are you making a film? No, I’m not mak-, no, no, no, no. No way. No. No,
no. I’m sorry.”
Crowd:
“[Applause] Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “I’m
here as a citizen. By the way, haven’t I
made those films? I was, uh—”
Crowd:
“Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “I’ll
tell you what I’m happy about and I have been a bit giddy and overjoyed these
past few weeks because at the end of my last film I was pretty dejected, uh, if
you did happen to see it. And I, and I
didn’t, and I said at the end of the film as I was wrappin’ the crime scene
tape around the New York Stock Exchange, um, that, uh, I just, really, I don’t
know if I could keep doing this. I don’t
know if I wanna make another film ‘cos I keep making these films and it’s, you
know, you wonder when’s this gonna happen? When’s
this gonna happen? And I said at the end
of the film, ‘Let me know, audience, or people, when you wanna, when you wanna
do something and I’ll do it with you.’ Um
because, um, it, uh, it’s a little rough being the poster boy on Rush
Limbaugh or Fox News, uh, everyday. And
they can get away with it when it’s just the Michael Moore and Naomi Klein or even
a number of great people that have been busy on this issue for many years. Um, but when there are a million Naomi Kleins
or ten million Michael Moores they won’t know what the eff to do.”
Crowd:
“Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So,
and that’s why they’re confused right now.
So, when the history of this movement is written this week in Oakland,
California will go down as a watershed moment.
People, people across America were disgusted by what they saw here, when
average Americans trying to stand up and peacefully assemble, to be brutally
savaged and attacked by the police department that they pay for! That, that, let me tell you, the footage,
you’re here. Okay? You’re here.
We’re out there. We’ve been
watching. Millions have watched it. And millions have been inspired by you
because the next night you didn’t go away!
You came back!!”
Crowd:
“Yay!! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “You
came back!! You were supposed to go
away!!! You were supposed to go
away!!! What are you still doing
here??!! And then you came back
today!!! And you’ll be here tomorrow!!! And I’ll be with you!!! Thank you very much!!! Occupy Oakland, thank you!!!!
***
Following his speech to the Occupy Oakland crowd, Michael Moore made some comments to the press. Abby Martin of Media Roots was there to capture a minute with the filmmaker.
Michael Moore on Mayor Jean Quan’s resignation and his support for Obama.
Davey D: “Well,
right now we just heard the speech from Michael Moore. We’re gonna try and catch him, as he’s movin’
over here.”
[Organisers deliberate]
Davey D: “For
Pacifica. Michael—”
[Michael Moore moves through the crush-and-rush
of the crowd at Occupy Oakland]
[Organisers, to the crowd:
“Go ahead, give him some room.”]
Davey D: “Michael! (Hey, wussup, boss.) Michael, what do you wanna say to the
Pacifica audience right now?”
Michael Moore (circa 11:09 or 16:11 PDT): “I wish everybody, I wish everybody here,
listening to this, could be here. This
is an incredible moment. It’s an
incredible movement. And I am just
overwhelmed and overjoyed.”
Davey D: “Um,
last thing, where are you gonna go next?”
Michael Moore: “San
Francisco tomorrow, then later this week, we’ll go to Portland, Denver, Houston,
across the country.”
Davey D: “Are
you surprised at how resilient people in Oakland were?”
Michael Moore: “This
is an incredible moment that’s happening.
And this is an incredible movement.
And it’s amazing. And it’s only
going to spread.”
Unidentified Establishment Journalist:
“What’s your plan now? Are you
trying to meet with the Mayor?”
Michael Moore: “Yes,
I’m gonna, well, I emailed and I don’t want to interrupt her press conference. So, I’m gonna see if she’ll talk to me later
tonight, maybe tomorrow. I’ll be here.”
[Organisers, to the crowd:
“Let the man through. Let the man
through.”]
Michael Moore: “Um,
you know, I’m gonna trust that she has a good heart. I’m hoping that she does.”
[Organisers, to the crowd:
“Let the man through. Back up.”]
Davey D: “So,
there you have it. Michael Moore,
looking like he’s gettin’ ready to head towards City Hall.”
Dennis Bernstein: “This
is Dennis here with Davey D. It’s a bit
of a crush and a rush here, but hundreds of people just stood here, Michael
Moore. If you’re listening to the
broadcast, uh, you can understand that there are hundreds of people here in
Frank Ogawa Plaza [renamed Oscar Grant Plaza by Occupy Oakland] following
Michael out. And we wanna see if we can
come around the other edge and see what’s going on.”
[Organisers, to the crowd:
“Get back.”]
Dennis Bernstein: “ … And
I can tell you that is a very excited crowd.
And they are, hundreds of people, are following Michael Moore, uh, down
the walkway, out of the park, he’s on his way to City Hall. And we’re gonna have to leave it right there
for now. This is Dennis Bernstein and we
will, sort of, sit ourselves down at our [KPFA/Pacifica Radio] table, our KPFA
table here. And it is an extraordinary
scene here in Frank Ogawa Plaza [renamed Oscar Grant Plaza by Occupy Oakland],
as I said, I don’t know how many people do you think were here?”
Anita Johnson: “Well,
we’re looking at maybe, what, based on, based on the crowds, I would say
hundreds, maybe even a thousand people that have gathered here today.”
[KPFA/Pacifica speaks with various people at Occupy
Oakland following Michael Moore’s speech]
MICHAEL MOORE RETURNS TO THE KPFA/PACIFICA
RADIO TABLE AFTER DOING THE ROUNDS
Dennis Bernstein (circa 39:00 or 16:39 PDT): “Michael Moore, welcome.”
Michael Moore: “Sorry
about that, they just kind of, uh, lifted me over the crowd.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Not a
problem. We appreciate you coming down
and spending the time. Last time when
you just spoke here about a half-hour ago, there were no helicopters. Now, there are about four circling around
over head. This is, sort of, the, uh, a
regular part of the operation, so I think maybe they’re here to cheer for you
as well. I wanna say, here with Davey D—”
Michael Moore: “They’re
up, they’re up in the sky. They’re part
of the Occupy Helicopter Movement.”
Dennis Bernstein: “I’m
here, with Davey D—”
Michael Moore: “This
thing is not only happening on Earth.
It’s also happening up in the, uh, atmosphere.”
Dennis Bernstein: “In
space, on land, sea, space. Um, the
Mayor of Oakland said an amazing thing the other day. The Mayor of Oakland said that 99% of the police
were attacked, [‘took a lot of abuse’], she used that 99% [terminology]. Now, Davey, knows. He was at the press conference when the [Oakland]
Police Chief [Jordan] admitted that they actually opened fired on the
demonstrators.”
Davey D: “Not
even on the demonstrators, they were asleep, to, to catch him off guard. But with that being said, I guess, um, first
of all, how do you feel about those types of remarks? And are you seeing this type of pattern
everywhere, you know, in New York and other places with this militarised, um,
brutal police tactics against ordinary folks?”
Michael Moore: “I think,
uh, one thing that Oakland has got a lot of people talking about across the
country, is how since 9/11, um, untold billions of dollars have been spent on
so-called Homeland Security. We don’t
know how much because, by law, they don’t have to tell us how much. But what we do know is that local police
forces across the country have applied for, and received, an enormous amount of
money to buy armaments, tanks, uh, um, spying apparatuses, equipment, things we
don’t even know about. Um, and it is, on
some level, frightening, uh, that we have allowed this to get out of hand. And they’ve all done it under the guise of
9/11. You know, I, I, if I had had a loved
one die that day. And I did have a
friend in one of the planes, one of the, the plane from Boston was a producer
we worked with. Um, the fact that he and
the others who died, their deaths, their names have been used to create so much
harm, um, across, of the country, it’s really disgusting.”
Davey D:
“Definitely. You know, what about
the whole thing with New York? You have
the white-shirts police that are now being paid—”
Michael Moore: “M-hm.”
Davey D: “—by
Wall Street financial banks and institutions—”
Michael Moore:
“Right.”
Davey D: “—we’re
seeing a privatisation of police—“
Michael Moore: “Yes.”
Davey
D: “—and do you see that maybe
spreading, going to, uh, other cities.”
Michael Moore: “No,
actually, well, uh, it has spread. But
the spreading has stopped, is gonna stop because this movement is growing so
fast, so wide, so far, um, it is amazing.
If, and I’ve had the good fortune of being able to travel the country in
the last few weeks, so I have seen it with my own eyes. It would blow your mind if you just got on a
bus now or got in a car and just drove across the l-, the smallest of towns
having little Occupy Movements. There’s
a little town where I live called Niles [in Michigan], there’s only like 10,000 or
11,000 people who live there. They’ve
got a hundred people camping out there, demonstrating in Occupy Niles. Now, a hundred may not seem a lot here in
Oakland. But a hundred is one percent of
the population there. If one percent of
America showed up on the National Mall to a demonstration that would be over three
million people. So, a hundred people in
Niles is the equivalent of three million people showing up for a national
demonstration on the mall there in D.C. Now,
that’s never happened.”
Davey D: “Right.”
Michael Moore (circa 42:54 or 16:42 PDT): “Uh, just to give you an idea. And, again, there’s nobody organising at
Niles. Uh, there’s no, uh, uh, national
organisation that the belong to, they don’t pay dues. There’s no leaders, uh, it is just happening
organically. And it is just, it is an
amazing thing to see. It has, it has
lifted my spirits. Uh, it almost feels
like drugs. If I knew what drugs felt
like.”
Davey D: “Boots,
Boots Riley [of The Coup, Street Sweeper Social Club, and long-time
Oakland-based activist] just hit me up and he wants me to, uh, talk to you about
some sanitation workers and for you to accompany him tomorrow, if you’re in
town. But, also, the other thing that
Boots is reminding us of is that there’s a general strike going on in Oakland
next Wednesday [11/2/11]. And then on
the 5th, I guess there’s a national effort for people to start
switching banks. Your thoughts on that,
the fact that the City of Oakland is calling for a national strike.”
Michael Moore: “I
think that’s great. Ultimately, you
know, that’s what’s gonna have to happen.
Ultimately, people are just gonna have to say, ‘Sorry, we’re not
participating in this system any longer.
We’re, I, we are no longer cogs in this wheel. We are, we are resigning from that.’ And I think that, you know, I think,
eventually, this is one of the things that will happen. Um, and I don’t know when it’s gonna happen. I don’t know how it’s gonna happen, but—”
Davey D: “Well,
I know for us [in Oakland], next Wednesday we—”
Michael Moore: “Sounds
like in Oakland here, it’s gonna start here—”
Sellasie: “It’s goin’ on right now.”
Michael Moore: “—on
Wednesday”
Dennis Bernstein: “Michael
Moore, Dennis Bernstein here, with Davey D, a special on Pacifica Radio,
KPFA. Can I ask you, what was your gut
reaction when you heard, uh, this young, really very peaceful vet, Scott Olsen,
was hit hard at close range and, uh, sent to the hospital in critical condition
by a police action, in which 17 police departments were sent to arrest a
hundred sleeping people, with children, in the camp? What’s your response to that kind of
violence?”
Michael Moore: “Well,
at the level, at that level, obviously, apalling. But, it, it’s not just me. I mean, they, they, again, overplayed their
hand, just like Wall Street has overplayed their greed hand, the police here
overplayed their brutal fascistic hand because people, all kinds of people,
across the country saw what happened here in Oakland.”
Sellasie: “They did.”
Michael Moore: “And
were horrified by it. Nobody wants to
live in that country. Nobody wants to,
to see the police, that they pay taxes for, do this to fellow citizens. Uh, I mean, um, I think it, it, what happened
here, I’m, I feel really bad for the
harm that happened to those that were injured, and certainly to Scott Olsen,
who is sitting in a hospital here, um, who’s gonna probably take a long time
for him to go back to being normal, if ever.
Um, I just think about two, you know, these kids that, uh, you know, he
and his roommate were, or his roommate was talking on the TV the other night
about how when they were both in Iraq, they turned against the war. They saw first hand how wrong this war
was. And, um, that’s a very brave thing
to do when you’re a soldier, when you’re in the war zone and you become
anti-war.”
Sellasie: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “Um,
man, that’s, um, and, it, it’s already, you know, to be a soldier, first of
all, in a volunteer army, um, the implication is, is that if you sign up to go
into the army, you’re basically saying, ‘I am willing to give my life, so that
others can live.’”
Dennis Bernstein: “That’s
right.”
Michael Moore: “Assuming,
you know, if the military was actually used for what it should be used for, which
is pure self-defence.”
Unidentified
Man 1: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “Um,
you’re willing to die. What greater gift
can a human give to another human, than to be willing to give their life for another? So, that’s what these kids are. And to have had two tours over there. And to come back and want to tell his fellow
Americans, ‘I’ve been there. This war is
wrong.’ That takes a lot of courage on
top of the courage he already had. And
to find that the only people that were gonna harm him were the people here where
he lived in Oakland, California. And the
difference between Oakland and Iraq, in terms of what Scott Olsen had to face,
is this. In Iraq, uh, there, you’re
biggest threat driving down the road is in what they call an improvised
explosive device, an IED. Okay? Scott Olsen is in the hospital tonight
suffering from an un-improvised
explosive device. There was no
improvisation going on.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Yes,
that’s right.”
Michael Moore: “This,
these devices that were being fired are meant to control the people. This is really what Homeland Security is
about. They’re not worried about Al
Qaeda. Al Qaeda is just a, it’s a joke
right now. Even our own, our own CIA
says there’s only 50 Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. Okay?
Alright, this is the bogeyman.
That’s the bogeyman that they want to create to try and get everybody
afraid, so that everybody will back a huge military budget and the
militarisation of the police forces.”
Dennis Bernstein: “17
police forces, 17 in the [S.F.] Bay Area.
But we don’t know who shot Scott Olsen because they’re all wearing the
same uniform.”
Sellasie: “I remember.”
Davey D: “Well,
they’re saying now it’s the Alameda Sheriffs that did.”
Sellasie: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “Well,
you know—”
Sellasie: “I remember what he looked
like. I was on the front line.”
Michael Moore: “Yeah.”
Dennis Bernstein: “But
they were all wearing Federal equipment.”
Michael Moore: “The
officer in New York who put the pepper spray in those girls eyes. They were able to find out who that was and
he’s had to go through a suspension and now he’s been removed to Staten
Island. Um, they will find who did
this.”
Sellasie: “Scott was next to me and the other
guy with the, with the hat that was the Marine.
And they hit him just a couple of minutes after we were all standing
there. You know what I’m saying? ‘Cos we was there, it was goin’ down. They shot three tear gas things. Boom!
Then they waited like another 30 seconds. Boom!
And then they did another one.
Boom! It was crazy! It was like we were in a war zone. There was old women, there was, the media
didn’t even report this! There was
people that were there—”
Michael Moore: “There
were children there.”
Sellasie: “—that couldn’t breathe! I’m a little bit healthy, so I was able to
run about three blocks up to 11th or 10th. But it was people that was on the ground that
was, aach, acch, that was to’ up!”
Michael Moore: “Right.”
Davey D: “And
those are the stories that aren’t being told.”
Michael Moore: ““Well,
they’re gonna get told. Well, they’re
being told here on Pacifica Radio.”
Sellasie: “Exactly.”
Michael Moore: “This
is where it starts. And then others will
start to cover it and, eventually, justice is going to start to happen. And the people that made the decisions to do
this to unarmed citizens who were acting peacefully—”
Sellasie: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “—they’re
going to have, there’s going to be justice here. And, um, ultimately, the buck does stop at
the Mayor’s desk, no matter how progressive she is, no matter how nice she is,
no matter how broken-hearted she is over what happened, or no matter how much
she had to interrupt her vacation, or whereever the hell she was, and had to
come back. The bottom line is the buck
does stop with her. And, uh, look, the
people of Oakland have had to suffer for long enough. For crying out loud, how
many years, how many times have I come to Oakland over the decades of what this
town has had to go through? And talk
about a town that’s been abused by the policies of corporate America and Wall
Street. It, it is amazing, though, the
life that is still here. And the
resistance that is still here, tht people are not giving up. And that, in some ways, I’m not surprised
that this watershed moment in this movement happened here in Oakland this
week.”
Sellasie: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “And,
and, and if it had to be here, then it was here. And, uh, it has inspired people all across
the country.”
Davey D: “Michael,
I know you have to go, so we appreciate you comin’ in. Is their any last words that you wanna pass
along before you leave?”
Michael Moore: “Yes. Um, everyone listening to this, who has been
participating in the Occupy Movement, please know that you have already changed
the national debate and discourse. We
have already a number of victories here.
You have killed apathy across the country. You have removed despair from people’s
hearts. So, many people sitting at home,
thinking they were all alone, ‘What can I do, I live in Dubuque? What can I do, I live in Boise? I live in Salt Lake. I live in Grass Valley, California. What can I do? What can I do? I can’t do anything. So, I’ll just sit here on the sofa.’ Well, ain’t no sittin’ anymore. No more sofa.
People’s ears are, are wide open, as are their eyes. And they are participating. This is gonna grow.”
Sellasie: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “And
you, Dennis, me, we don’t have to, nobody really has to do anything. We just have to just watch it happen. This is, these seeds have been planted by the
abuse of corporate America on its own people and, and it is just sprouting out,
no way to stop it. They, I, they must
rue the day they overplayed their hand and decided to kill the middle-class of
this country and give no hope to the poor.”
Sellasie: “Mm.”
Michael Moore: “They
must just completely rue that day. So,
have heart everyone that’s listening.
Uh, this is a movement. Uh,
already with a number of victories. And
there’s only going to be more to come because this thing is going to blossom
throughout the winter.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Michael
Moore, we wanna thank you very much for stopping by the Pacifica table, for
coming to Oakland, California. Davey D
and I, here, for Pacifica, appreciate the time.
And, uh, we hope you’ll come back soon.”
Michael Moore: “I
will. And, uh, thank you very much. This is amazing. I wish, I’m sorry we’re on the radio. No, I’m not sorry about radio.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Ha!”
Michael Moore: “But, if
you could see—”
Dennis Bernstein: “Pretty
good radio—”
Michael Moore: “No, we’re,
we’re sitting, we’ve got a little card table here set up in the middle of
Occupy Oakland, uh, there’s the Wells Fargo Bank over there—”
Sellasie: “Yeah.”
Michael Moore: “—and there
are thousands of people, all kinds of people, all kinds of people are here, um,
and this is the America we wanna live in, you know, what we see here right
now. This is, this is the democracy, as
the way it should be. And so, I’m very
hopeful, um—”
Dennis Bernstein: “It’s a
bit different of a thing than the peace marches of the ‘60s, isn’t it?”
Michael
Moore: “No—”
Dennis Bernstein: “It’s a
bit of a different crowd here.”
Michael Moore: “It’s,
it’s differenet and it’s, but, again, those things were well-organised. This wasn’t organised.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Ah! Yes.”
Michael Moore: “And,
and, and it’s so counter-intuitive that out of disorganisation [or anarchy]
came already one of the best movements I’ve seen in my lifetime, with no
structure, no discipline, no organisation.
And I’m sayin’ that, I mean, I’m not, I’m not like an anarchist or
anything. But there is something that it
does, it just appeals to my inner core of, of, and I think we’re probably all
this way. We wish that, you know, I said
at the end of my last movie. I refuse to
live in a country like this. And I’m not
leaving. So, I think that is shared by
millions of people. We refuse to live in
the way that they have constructed our America.
We’re not going anywhere.”
Sellasie: “M-hm.”
Michael Moore: “So,
that means it’s gotta change, end of story.
Thank you so much for having me on.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Thank
you, Michael Moore.”
Audience:
“Woo-hoo! [Applause]
Dennis Bernstein: “Uh,
you are listening to KPFA in Berkeley, KFCF in Fresno. Dennis Bernstein here with Davey D of Hard Knock
Radio. Michael Moore comes to visit us
here in Oakland, spoke earlier to a crowd of, probably, over a thousand, mayb two
thousand in Frank Ogawa Plaza [which Occupy Oakland has renamed Oscar Grant
Plaza]. You can hear the helicopters
circling overhead, wasting more fuel.
But we appreciate your time.
Thanks, Michael. Be careful.”
Davey D: “Thank
you. I just wanna remind everybody, um,
before we come back to you, Brooke, we appreciate you being patient wit’
us. Um, there will be a speak-out
against police brutality, um, or police violence right here at Oscar Grant
Plaza [a.k.a. Frank Ogawa Plaza] starting tomorrow, at six o’clock. It’s gonna be an open mic. Everybody’s invited to come down to speak,
listen, and act. So, again, there will
be a speak-out tomorrow at six o’clock against police violence in Oakland. And that is going on tomorrow night here at
Oscar Grant Plaza starting at six o’clock.”
[Davey D continues the prior interview with
Brooke Anderson, “one of the Occupiers who was arrested…”]
Davey D: “And we
got a lot more people comin’ up.”
Dennis Bernstein: “We got
a whole other hour of coverage, a collaboration with Hard Knock Radio. That’s Davey D. I’m Dennis Bernstein. We’re gonna break in at five, take a musical
break and then we’re gonna continue the dialogue here at, what did I say? Oscar Grant Plaza. Oscar Grant Plaza. It is Pacifica Radio, KPFA, again, Hard Knock
Radio, Flashpoints, in collaboration, bringing you live coverage of, among
other things, Michael Moore’s visit here to Oscar Grant Plaza, helicopters
flying above, some music from our good buddy, Francisco Herrera.”
MEDIA ROOTS — KPFA’s
Dennis Bernstein and Davey D broadcast their
analysis of the Occupy Oakland aftermath following the brutal police-state assaults
on Tuesday, October 25, 2011.
In this edition of KPFA’s “The Morning Mix,” we hear radical commentary of the ongoing Occupy Oakland sit-in and
encampment begun on 10/10/11 in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement,
which blossomed in response to the economic terrorism and general class-warfare
facing the U.S. people.
The burgeoning OWS movement has been focusing
international attention upon the increasingly totalitarian, corporatocratic,
nature of our current state-repressed capacity for popular dissent in the U.S. Through direct action and popular horizontal
general assemblies, people in Oakland, as in San Francisco, New York City, and
elsewhere have been taking a cue from Egypt’s Tahrir Square and inspiring the
U.S. people to take their destiny into their own hands toward socioeconomic
justice. And, this week, this seems to
have made the ruling-class nervous, as they’ve launched brutal crackdowns
across the U.S. in an apparent coordinated national security operation in line
with the notorious P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.
On Tuesday night (10/25/11), rioting police shot Iraq War veteran and Occupy Oakland-supporter Scott Olsen in the head with a tear gas projectile at point blank range during this
anti-democratic, unconstitutional drama of police terrorism. Olsen was
hospitalised and initially reported to be in serious condition with a fractured
skull. At presstime, it’s being reported
his condition is improving, with Olsen regaining the ability to breathe on his
own. This is the response of the state
against the democratic exercise and expression of First Amendment rights.
While the corporate media, and even much of the public
media, are reporting the Occupy Oakland crackdowns by police as reasonable
police responses to violent protesters throwing bottles and rocks, we must look
to independent and citizen journalist sources to get the real story. Check out this excellent coverage of Occupy
Oakland, the OWS movement, the independent and citizen journalist perspectives,
the corporate-media distortions, and the police-state terrorism trying to crush
popular dissent and the spirit of the people uniting to take back the public
square.
[KPFA,
94.1 fm, Berkeley, CA, Free Speech Radio, Pacifica]
INTRODUCTION
Dennis Bernstein (circa 1:38):
“And you are listening to KPFA, KPFB in Berkeley, KFCF in Fresno. I’m Dennis Bernstein here with Davey D and a
crew of folks who are monitoring the situation on the ground in Oakland. We’re gonna be joined with, by Davey. He’s got some interviews fresh from the
street. We’re gonna be joined by a
lawyer who was there for the busts the night before, there last night and has
been a part of Occupy Oakland from the beginning, very interesting perspective there. And the most interesting perspective is gonna
come from you ‘cos we’re gonna open up the phone calls. We wanna know what you’re thinking about all
this, as Oakland goes on the national map with a police riot. Again, I’m Dennis Bernstein with Davey
D. Stay tuned for the KPFA News
Headlines and then we’ll be back.”
News
Headlines read by Aileen Alfandary.
AUDIO FROM THE AFTERMATH OF BRUTAL POLICE-STATE
ASSAULTS ON OCCUPY OAKLAND
Davey D (8:00): “Davey
D, hangin’ out wit’ you. We are down
here. It’s probably about 7:15 in the
morning. Um, people are still out
here. The only difference is now, if you
look at, uh, what was Occupy Oakland, you see that the tents are all gone. And they’re steam-cleaning it. Last night, um, a lot of tear gas was lobbed
out here. You don’t smell it as
much. But we wanted to talk with people
that are still out here this morning.
How you doin’?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Not too bad.”
Davey D: “What
do you think about, uh, what do you think about what took place last
night? And what do you anticipate
today?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Um, it was great, like, I, you know, I was in jail yesterday when they
were protesting in front of it. And I
could hear it from my jail cell. It was
real inspirational. And then when I got
out. I came straight down here and, um,
it was great. But every time it got
gassed, um, less, you know, more and more people stopped regrouping and just started
goin’ home. Um, I think it would have
been a lot better, we would have had a lot better turn out and lot more people
would come out if these rogue guys, um, would stop, you know, just throwing
bottles at the cops. Because, you know,
I understand your frustration with the police.
But, you know, what’s throwing a bottle gonna solve? Nothin.’
The only thing that it does is, as soon as it’s thrown, they gas
everybody. And, you know what, if we
could go one afternoon without gassing, we could fill up this three block
radius here.”
Davey D: “Let
me ask you this. You know, look around
this block. What do you notice?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“News, media everywhere.” [Chuckles]
Davey D: “Well,
none of the windows are broken.”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Yeah. There’s one over there,
but that was from a rubber bullet.”
Davey D:
“Right. And I bring this up only
to say that in the past the excuse used was that there were quote-unquote
anarchist people against the system and they were looting and destroying
Oakland. But I noticed that, and I’ve
been driving around this morning, that that has not been the case. And from talking with Occupiers, there was an
attempt, and a very good one, to, uh, break bread with the businesses. In fact, many of you all were supported by
that. Can you speak to that?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Um, yeah, I’ve been camping, I camped out for about seven, eight days
before it got raided. And, you know, we,
we were definitely frowning upon people who were vandal-, you know, tagging,
um, people who were doing da-, you know, vandalising, in general because, you
know, that’s not what we’re about. You
know? You’re vandalising against the
99%, the same people we are fighting for.”
Davey D:
“Right. And that’s a good thing.
So, I just wanted to bring that up because, as you said, if there were
rogue folks, we know that yesterday there was a known police informant that was
out here, um, who was around during the Oscar Grant thing that was trying to
move people and lead them into, uh, a place where the police were in wait. And so we understand that those things are
happening. How are you all protecting
yourselves against that so that you don’t get, uh, you don’t get unfairly
blamed for something that you all, obviously, don’t have an intent on doing?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Well, as of this morning, like, uh, I was talking to all the people
that were here all night. And as people
start showin’ up. We’re just gonna start
informin’ everybody, you know, just spread it, if you see people showin’ up,
keep an eye out for these guys that are out there to just start a riot. And when you see it confront them and
confront them with other people. Do it
peacefully. But make sure they know that
is not welcome. Just get that across.”
Davey D: “Do
you think the police are getting a message of any sort? Or do you think that they are knee-deep in
the kool-aid in supporting the state, the government, and seeing themselves
against the 99%?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Uh, they—“
Davey D: “I
mean these are the people that have been losing their jobs.”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Yeah.”
Davey D: “What,
how do you, wha-, what’s your take on them being what they’re doing?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Again, nothing against them, individually, for the most part. [Chuckles]
But, um, yeah, like, you said, you know, they’re just doing their jobs. Uh, they are part of the 99%. And, eventually, they are gonna see it that
way. Like in New York, I’m sure you
heard, there was a group of cops that refused to move on a crowd, despite
orders from their superior officer.”
Davey D: “Well,
many of them haven’t. But then they have
those white-shirts that have been out there.
I wonder if Oakland will get that.”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“We’ll just sift through ‘em.”
Davey D: “And,
you know, lastly, you know, um, what lessons did you pick up from your eight
days of staying in Occupy Oakland. And
what, and what sort of lessons that you learned would you wanna impart on
people that are listening that may have not been talked about?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male) (circa 12:33): “Be the change that you wanna see.”
Davey D:
“That’s real talk. And what
change do you wanna see?”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“I wanna see equal taxation among everybody. I mean, there’s no reason that some people
who are making the most money, who can have the biggest effect on the, on, I
mean, the biggest impact on this deficit that we’re in, uh, you know, they’re
not paying anything. I’m sick of favouritism
in the social, I mean, in the justice system.
And, you know, I don’t know if you heard about Iceland? Iceland is a success. They’re officially rewriting their Constitution. And people who were formerly above the law
are being brought to justice.”
Davey D: “And
that’s what needs to happen here. We
appreciate it, man. Thank you so
much. Good luck to you.”
Occupy Oakland Observer (male):
“Thank you.”
Davey D: “[Turning
to another observer.] What’s, what’s
your name, man?”
Davey D (circa 13:20): “Anson.
Were you out here last night?
“Anson,” Occupy Oakland Observer (male 2):
“Um, no I was not.”
Davey D: “What’s
your thoughts on what’s goin’ on?”
“Anson,” Occupy Oakland Observer (male 2):
“Um, I think that people wanted to have a dialogue. This, this country, there’s too much of a,
um, big business running this country.
And there’s, all the government, there’s not enough transparency. For example, our mayor conveniently not be
here. And it’s part of not being transparency
of our government at a local level. And,
uh, I think of that, accumulates many people’s resentment of this injustice
system that’s shielded by not enough transparency. When there’s no transparency there’s no
democracy.”
Davey D: “I
think that’s real talk. What do you
think has led to us not being transparent?”
“Anson,” Occupy Oakland Observer (male 2):
“Oh, because the big money wanted to, just benefit few. Inherently, it has this non-transparency
built into it. And they have to in order
for them to scoop their huge amount of appetite for the profit. And, therefore, they need a government that
shield them. And, uh, government needed
them to shield themself, so they can continue ‘round the system that benefits a
few.”
Davey D: “What do
you think is the next step from here?”
“Anson,” Occupy Oakland Observer (male 2):
“Um, I’m from China. That reminds
me of the Cultural Revolution. The time
that everyone just write their opinion in a big, what they call the [Chinese
phrase: ???], which means big poster. They
just post it up all the public place.
Anyone, everyone have a right, have a Constitutional right, to express
their opinion. If that can happen here
in this very square, allow anyone, everyone to put their opinion. That will start a conversation or a dialogue
that maybe can do something about this non-transparency.”
Davey D: “You
know, oftentimes people look at China and in this country and they point to
China as, uh, being a violator of human rights and free speech. But it seems like, wit’ each passing day,
we’ve moved in that direction even more.
What’s your thoughts when you compare the two countries?”
“Anson,” Occupy Oakland Observer (male 2):
“Oh, you know, when I hear the airline to say they are, the world becomes
smaller, I sure agree the world becomes smaller. So, therefore, the people have money
certainly exchange their idea, meaning the Chinese government are more and more
look like the American government. And
my, the American government, vice versa, learning lots, experience from the
Chinese government. But until we break
down this transparency, there’s no amount of government where the, I don’t care
how good intentioned they are, they will have power. And, therefore, they will corrupt.”
Davey D (circa 16:34): “Well, that is, good words to live by. And remember, thank you so much. We appreciate it.”
Dennis Bernstein (circa 16:42): “And thank you, Davey D. You are, no doubt, listening to KPFA, the people’s
radio station, here in the [S.F.] Bay Area, Pacifica Radio. I’m Dennis Bernstein with Davey D [in the
studio]. [KPFA General Manager] Andrew
Phillips is in the studio. He’s been
rippin’ off Facebook and watchin’ the wires all night. Uh, Davey, amazing series of interviews. Let me just say, one of the things that I
think we’re seeing now in the way Oakland is being used. It’s a national story. And it’s a, it’s a national experiment
because what we saw with these 17 police departments is right out of the
P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act—“
Davey D: “Yeah.”
Dennis Bernstein: “—in which, local police departments agreed to collaborate with the Feds. And, for that, they have unify meetings,
where they all come together and they get special equipment if they agree to
the programme. We saw that programme
being tested on a major city.”
Davey D (circa 17:39): “Right.
And for people who are just tuning in and don’t know, it’s The Morning
Mix. This is Davey D and Dennis
Bernstein and Andrew Phillips in the building.
Um, Dennis is referring to the fact that yesterday Chief [Howard] Jordan from the Oakland Police
Department counted off 17 different police agencies that were used to remove
less than 200 people at Occupy Oakland.
Not 17 people for the thousands that were out last night, but 17
different police agencies from as far away as San Jose and Vacaville (which is
a good, what, 15 minutes from here?), uh were used to remove folks. And I think it’s important to understand
what’s goin’ on because a narrative is being painted. When you sit up there and say, ‘We needed 17
police [agencies] and three helicopters and tear gas,’ and he admitted that
they shot tear gas without being provoked, um, in the press conference, then it
creates the situation where people start to believe that folks that are down
there are unruly. I thought it was real
important. Last night I drove
around. I was there. You know?
And I talked to a lot of people. None
of the buildings were boarded up. And
none of the buildings, none of the buildings, the businesses down there, were
broken. And that’s very key because in
the past that was always the excuse for having multiple police departments
there. ‘They are rioting in
Oakland.’ No, folks. There was no rioting in Oakland. What you saw were police tossing tear gas at
people over and over again. The last
batch of tear gas that I experienced came as people were actually dancing in
front of the police line saying, ‘Our streets, our streets.’ So, you know, all of a sudden you get these
tear gas that keeps coming so people disperse, they come back, they disperse,
they come back. They weren’t dispersing
and shooting. They weren’t dispersing
and fighting. They weren’t dispersing
and breaking businesses. They were
dispersing and coming back and saying, ‘We’re gonna take back the Occupy
Oakland site.’ And the big story was not
the sensationalism around what was goin’ on in terms of all this negative
stuff. It was the community that was
being built. It was the merging of the
homeless population and the activists.
It was the folks that didn’t have any sort of resource because of budget
cuts that were now getting fed, that were now getting clothes, that were now
getting put in tents. And then, the last
point, because people don’t really understand.
There was a children’s village there.
And what really got folks in Oakland upset was they shot that tear gas
into the Occupy Oakland [encampment] in the early morning hours at 4:30 in the
morning. And it, it shot it towards the
kids! Now folks are goin’, ‘Well, why
would you bring kids out there?’ [The]
people who say that don’t understand that kids are already down on 17th
and 14th and in Downtown Oakland because they’re homeless! There are homeless families out there.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Yeah. That’s it.”
Davey D: “So,
once again, folks who keep saying, ‘Why did they bring kids?’ kids are down
there in your cities. They’ve been down
there. They’ve been down there because
they’re homeless. In our population,
both the government and many of us who ask that question fail to realise that
when you drive around the City folks are living in cars! Why are they living in cars? Because many of the banks have foreclosed on
people’s homes and they have no place to go!
So, when, so the Occupy Oakland site was a welcomed change. It means you got food! You have a tent! I can put my kids in some sort of structured
activity. That’s why kids were down
there. And those kids are still down
there. I talked to a lo-, other people
and it’s like, folks is like, I, I’m still talkin’ to people, they’re like,
‘I’m still here.’ Like, we, one guy I
talked to, he’s crying! He doesn’t know
what he’s gonna do, because he had for two weeks a place to stay. And, so, I think folks really need to
understand that story. And then I’ll
just conclude by saying many of the corporate media ignored that was the story.”
Dennis Bernstein: “They
cheerleaded.”
Davey D: “They,
they cheerleaded the police and they ignored the fact that there was a sizeable
number of people out in Oakland that didn’t have a place just like in San
Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area where there are homeless folks living
in cars. Not everybody’s a drugged-out
schizophrenic, you know, uh, um, doesn’t know, out-of-their-mind type of
person. You have families that lost
everything and there’s no safety net.
There’s no safety net for people anymore, folks. And, so, Occupy Oakland became a de facto
safety net because people cared enough to not just make a political point, but
to actually try to merge the various populations of people in Downtown
Oakland. And that’s why they had the
support of the businesses. That’s why
people were cheering them on. That’s why
so many people came out. And that’s why
you don’t have no broken windows! And if
they’re broken, it’s because of police informants who were out there last night
and, or it’s because of the police. It’s
not because of those people. And that’s
an important story that needs to be underscored.”
Dennis Bernstein (circa 22:26):
“And, again, back to the national security aspect of this. Becau-, just what you’re outlining,
Davey. This connection between the
protesters, who may soon be homeless and not be, uh, sleeping as a matter of
choice, are uniting with the people who have already been cast out and that is
when the Federal Government gets nervous.
And that’s when they kick in with these national security directives
that are all in place and have, uh, been practiced by all these police forces,
who love to get together. This is
overtime. I guess we have to close 15
more schools to pay for these kinds of—“
Davey D: “Five
schools today, right in Oakland.”
Dennis Bernstein: “—activities. Five schools today.”
Davey D: “And
some people estimate $2 million dollars was spent, not for last night, $2
million dollars was spent on the operation to remove Occupy Oakland. That’s how many teachers’ salaries? That’s how many schools that could have been
used, that could use supplies? So, five
schools are closing today, elementary schools in Oakland, which people are
protesting. That’s a story that hasn’t
been covered as much. Um, and it’s, it’s
being done at the expense of 17 police departments from all around the [S.F.]
Bay Area coming in—“
Dennis Bernstein: “Practicing
their—“
Davey D: “—practicing,
yes.”
Dennis Bernstein: “—P.A.T.R.I.O.T.
Act and employing the weaponry. See
they, this is the new police employing their weaponry that was guaranteed them
if they participate in these national security exercises. So, Oakland becomes a major city test
case. And let me tell ya, Davey, it is,
Oakland is on, you know this now, it’s on the national map.”
Davey D: “Right.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Last
night on CNN, they got Michael Moore on there and while they’re, uh, dialoguing
with a live audience. They’re running
footage of what’s going on in the streets of Oakland last night.”
Davey D:
“Right. And it’s important that
people get the framing. That people are
running from the tear gas.”
Dennis Bernstein:
“Exactly.”
Davey D: “It’s
not a riot, in terms of people tearing up stuff.”
Dennis Bernstein:
“Right.”
Davey D: “People
kept going back over and over again. I
don’t know how people were able to stand in the tear gas that long, but they
were determined to go back and reoccupy the place that they were kicked
out. And people, again, who don’t know
better realise that there’s a population of folks that are down there, that are
still down there, um, some of them because they wanna reoccupy, but many
because they’re just homeless. And they
haven’t had a place. And that was home. That was h-, downtown was there home. You know?
Maybe they didn’t have a tent.
Now, they’ll be back in door alleys.
Maybe they’ll be back in bus-stops.
But that was their home, those streets.
And we gotta start to really come to grips with that and stop being very
comfortable and making judgments based upon media systems that are wholl-, that
are owned by the very banks that we are protesting, who are parroting a, a
corporate line that suggests that, if you can’t make it, it’s your own fault. There’s a lot of homeless veterans coming
back.”
Dennis Bernstein: “That’s
right.”
Davey D: “There’s
a lot of young families that are out there.
And then, lastly, as Rachel Jackson pointed out on ‘Democracy Now!,’
keep in mind that, while this was going on, it was goin’ on in Atlanta. You know?
They were removing people in Atlanta.
That they are doing these coordinated efforts nationwide.”
Dennis Bernstein: “National
security, again.”
Davey D: “But
they don’t cover it that way.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Exactly—“
Davey D: “So,
they make it seem like Oakland’s by itself.”
Dennis Bernstein: “—disparate,
like, little problems that different cities are having.”
Davey D:
“Right.”
Dennis Bernstein (circa 25:50): “It is a national security operation. It’s structured under the P.A.T.R.I.O.T.
Act. These police forces get empowered
and get new weaponry, as they participate in these coordinated meetings. This is a rehearsal for bigger things to
come.”
Dennis Bernstein (circa 26:08): “Alright this is a special on The Morning
Mix. That is Davey D. He’s been out there really doing an
incredible job reporting on this with lots of people, we all care a great deal
about what’s going on in our City. We
actually have on the line, Davey, a lawyer, Jesse Palmer, who was, has been a
regular participant in Occupy Oakland, has been sleeping there on and off, was
there the night before, as the raid began, was there in the streets last
night. Jesse Palmer, are you there?”
Jesse Palmer: “I am.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Alright,
why don’t you just talk a little bit about, uh, as an attorney, your impression
of what happened in the initial routing of the camp.”
Davey D: “Well,
first of all, I’m, I mean, that’s my day job, but I’m not there in any way as
an attorney.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Alright,
but—”
Jesse Palmer: “I’m
there—“
Dennis Bernstein: “—you
have some skills that we don’t have.”
Jesse Palmer: “—right. I’m there as an inhabitant of planet
Earth. I’m, I mean, I think we need to
redirect, you know, what specifically happened with the camp, with the police,
and talk a little bit more, I mean, you’ve already touched on it, about how valuable
the camp was while it was happening because there was a General Assembly every
night. And what was really distinctive
about these General Assemblies was that there were hundreds of participants
from all walks of life. It was extremely
diverse in terms of age, in terms of racial composition. And the level of discourse that was happening
at those General Assemblies was something that I’ve never seen before and was
incredibly impressive. And I think
what’s happening with the Occupy Movement (and, you’re right, that it’s not
just in Oakland, it’s not just at Wall Street, but this is happening in small
towns and big cities all over the whole country and all over the world) is
there is a discussion of class and there is a discussion of income equality. And there is actually a discussion of
capitalism, which is the discussion that has not been able to happen in this
country for decades. And now this is,
this is a discussion that’s happening everywhere. And, and this is the discussion that was
happening at Occupy Oakland every single hour and every single day, every night
at the General Assembly. But even more
than the General Assembly, the way that the Occupation worked was that anybody
could speak to anybody else. So, in
normal society, you, you know, most people don’t talk to other people. But at Occupy Oakland you could talk to
people who were very different from you.
And you did, every day. And it
was just this blossoming of discussion and dialogue about really important
issues that have not been discussed and that, you know, people have been
diverted with single-issue politics. But
the Occupy Movement is not going for single-issue politics. It’s, in fact, tackling the big issue, which
explains all of the single-issue politics, the environmental destruction, the
attack on wages, the attack on unions.
This, there is a big explanation for all of this.
“So, the
police came and cracked down and destroyed the encampment, as you know
yesterday. And they came with
overwhelming force. And as you said, you
know, we were on the streets, you know, early in the morning and people were
picking out all of the odd police forces, the Pleasanton police force and the
Union City police force. And I saw the
East Bay Regional Parks, um, police force there. And, um, they came in with overwhelming
force. And they, you know, there was,
um, there was no real, it, I mean, there was no way to resist that. But at that time the Camp was destroyed. But I think what you’re pointing out is, is
correct that we came back in a very strong, very focused way. Um, and we’re in the streets last night. And what I saw at the march was the police
were using the tear gas and the concussion grenades, and the, some kind of,
rubber bullets or bean-bag rounds were flying around. But people were not scared. And we, and we weren’t dispersed. What normally happens in that kind of
situation is people scatter and it’s disorganised. But we fell back, maybe a half a block and
then people would gather back up. And
this was a determined crowd. And, you
know, this was not mostly homeless people, by the way. I mean, the, this is a very diverse crowd
that involves mostly people who were going to work. The reason that, you know, I slept there some
nights, but everyday I was going to work, after the, you know, so, during the
day, and most of the people involved in the Occupation, in fact, were going to
work during the day and would be there in the evening or when they weren’t
working. And that was the same character
of that crowd last night. The crowd
included every kind of member of society, including the homeless, but also
mostly including working people who are seeing the share of the resources in
the country, you know, diverted, not ending up, you know, to the people who are
working for it. Um, and, you know, just
this morning in the New York Times there’s this article about the income
inequality, you know, doubling since 1975, that the Congressional Budget Office
released. So, those are the real
big-picture issues. And the, the
scuffles with the police that, you know, what’s happening is there’s a new kind
of dialogue out there and people are not gonna be deterred by the police. And we’re not gonna allow the police to
change the focus. The focus is on a
discussion of class, a discussion of capitalism, a discussion of priorities,
and where, where is this society gonna go forward. And the way we’re gonna figure that out is
with these discussions.”
Davey D: “I
think, uh, what you’re saying there is quite crucial. And it’s hard work that many who have grown
comfortable in a society where we have 30-second headlines. And we have things put in nice little
packages. Um, it’s hard for them to
understand. You know, the media, for
example, is always asking, ‘What’s the agenda?
What’s the agenda?’ Well, you
can’t really have an agenda when you’re doing these discussions. It doesn’t wrap up in a nice little headline
and a sound-bite.”
Jesse Palmer: “Yeah,
I completely agree.”
Davey D: “And I
think that’s the bigger story. That this
is work. That it’s the journey that
counts more than the actual goal, that if people start to know and appreciate
one another and become familiar, we start to grow in ways that we just never even
anticipated. And I think that was the
bigger story. And that’s why I got so
upset when I was at the press conference la-, yesterday and I saw many of these
mainstream media folks laughing at the fact that people were, were flash-bombed
and tear-gassed. These are the folks
that are reporting the news to the rest of the world. And to me it’s just like, ‘You are a
journalist; you know what you’re supposed to do.’ And, you know, they’re giving excuses, ‘Well,
they, uh, had these perimeters. They had
these parameters on what journalists could do.’
So did the Tea Party.”
Jesse Palmer:
“Right.”
Davey D (circa 33:17):
“So, did the police, like, yesterday.
The police were doing the same thing, like, uh, ‘Look, if you want to go
the camp,” um, they took us on a tour after the press conference. ‘You can’t, you can only walk here. You can’t
take pictures here. You only talk to these people here.’ Even if, you know, I can’t just talk to any
old officer. I had to talk to the
spokesperson. It’s public servants. But they have a spokesperson. And the point that I’m making is that
everybody has a protocol. And I think
the protocol that was established in Occupy Oakland was not only good, but it
was democratically derived. And it was
nothing wrong with that, only if you wanted to make an issue of it, which some
of these lazy, hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year reporters from these corporate
media types made a big to-do about it because they wanted to make the story
about them and not the thousands of people that are supporting this movement
and the hundreds that were down at the Occupy Oakland [encampment]. So, I’m glad that you were able to really
explain this to folks because there’s a lot of misconception out there, as
folks desperately look for dumbed-down 30-second sound-bite narrative versus
something that is a little bit more complex, but much more enriching.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Alright,
that’s Davey D. We have a guest on the
line. [Attorney] Jesse Palmer’s been
participating in Occupation Oakland, as a, uh, participant of the planet. And we are watching this unfold around this
country and around this world. And more
and more response to this equal distribution of wealth opportunity,
possibility. And, uh, people are
desperate. I do wanna emphasise and
underline that the thing that makes the powers that be very nervous is
when those already pushed and forced
into the streets begin to unite with those who, either are facing that or, are
very concerned and care a great deal about what’s going on and the world that
we’re living in.”
Jesse Palmer: “And,
and, can—“
Dennis Bernstein: “Yes.”
Jesse Palmer: “I saw
a lot of young people who do not feel like they have the kind of future that
they wanna see. I mean what, what’s
happening is people, you know, people are trying to work hard. But they realise that the system’s rigged in
a way that I don’t think people realised that maybe 10 or 20 years ago. And the, you know, the, it, there’s an income
distribution, but there, there’s also just the, there are, the priorities of
this system are so seriously wrong that, you know, I mean the environmental situation,
I actually think, is also part of this.
It hasn’t really been spoken about very much, but what people are seeing
is that the society is taking us off the cliff, environmentally, destroying the
environment. And, yet, what it’s giving
the people out of that is not the things that they need. So, and, so, it’s just this foolishness.”
Dennis Bernstein (circa 36:09): “Alright, Jesse Palmer, I wanna thank you for
being with us on this special Morning Mix dealing with, uh, the police riots
led by, actually, 17 police departments to come into this encampment in Oakland
and destroy it and criminalise this 99%, yeah, of the people, movement, very
extraordinary. Thank you, Jesse
Palmer. Uh, we’re gonna open the phones
now, Davey D is here. I’m Dennis
Bernstein. This is your people’s radio
station. And we wanted to come in and
bring you something very special about something very terrible that was done to
a bunch of beautiful people. We’re gonna
open up the lines, uh, and let me see if I can get my numbers straight. It’s 510.848, uh—”
Davey D: “4425
is the open line.”
KPFA FREE SPEECH RADIO PHONE LINES OPEN
Dennis Bernstein: “4425. 510.848-4425, uh, give us a call, especially,
interested for people who are in Oakland, who have been participating in this,
who have been eyewitnesses. Uh, please
give us a call. Andrew, you ripped
something, uh, Andrew Phillips is here in the studio. You ripped something off of Facebook.”
Andrew Phillips (KPFA General Manager) (circa 37:19): “I did, Dennis.
I just, before I read that I want to make sure I get this information
out because one of these questions brought up is schools. And JR Valrey who is usually here Wednesdays
[on The Morning Mix], asked me to remind people that today people are meeting
in Mosswood Park around about four o’clock to march to the Oakland Tech High
School to prevent school closings in Oakland.
That’s today at Mosswood Park, marching to Oakland Tech High School at
four o’clock from Mosswood Park.
“Yeah, I
got this off Facebook: ‘When the police
blocked us and we pushed forward, they began full force poking their batons
into our bellies. I didn’t take a hard
hit then, but during that scene all of a sudden this woman cop just gets off
the deep end. She goes off the deep
end. She switches her grip and starts
wailing on this kid baseball-style, young adult, she was. Then somebody else goes down. We’re surrounded. Five or seven cops, along with one poor, very
supportive woman strapped in her car within this mayhem she was protected
witness. We kept chanting, loudly, ‘Let
them go! Let them go!’ while the
struggle went on. Two punching bags
continued to get pummelled. An
opportunity presented itself for me to acquire a nightstick out of a cop’s
hands. So, I took it right out of his
hands. He flipped. I tossed it low behind me. People scooted it out of his reach. And he basically went through me to get
it. He knocked me to the ground.’ If you want to see that, that’s called ‘Thugs
Surround.’ That’s on YouTube.
“Another
one here, great: ‘Dan, can you please
transmit to them that from Japan and France and Vancouver we are with them and
we’re sorry that they are going through this war, this brutality. Thank you, Dan. Occupy France is sending messages of
solidarity. A friend in Japan and many
others. Thanks.’
“And I
just wanna quickly apologise. ‘Cos I
heard there were tanks on the street yesterday.
There weren’t. They were just
armed vehicles. So, I’m sorry to say
there were tanks. They were just armed
vehicles.”
Dennis Bernstein: “They
look a bit like tanks.”
Davey D: “That,
that’s how people described them.”
Andrew Phillips (KPFA General Manager) (circa 39:11): “Yes.”
Davey D: “You
know, um, and it’s important to understand that they’re designed that way, so
people go ‘tank.’ Even though, is it
technically a tank? No. But is it, it’s not you’re normal police
vehicle. And it’s not the normal vehicle
that you see on the street. And so
people’re like ‘tank!.’ You know,
because you have a phalanx of police in there.
You have this armoured thing that is specifically designed to send a
message out to the folks and it’s, in that show of, it’s part of that show of
military strength.”
Dennis Bernstein: “This
is the equipment they got from the Feds.”
Davey D:
“Right. This is, you know, they
have the helicopters flying over all night.
You know you have all these things goin’ on. For what reason? What was the point? What were you trying to, uh, do? Test them out? Were you trying to intimidate people? Because all you did was make the crowds grow
larger. You know? Were you trying to suppress this, so it
disappears? Or are you trying to bring
this to the national stage and make an example out of this city?”
Dennis Bernstein:
“Alright, we’ve got a couple of people on the phone. Kirsten, who do we have there? Bonnie, uh, welcome to this special on what’s
going on in Oakland. Were you there?”
Bonnie (listener-caller):
“Um, I’ve been in Occupy San Rafael, Dennis.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Okay.”
Bonnie (listener-caller):
“And I wanna thank you and Davey D for your passionate coverage. There are homeless people here in Marin,
too. But I have a question. Where is the Mayor of Oakland? Where is the City Council? Where is [Oakland Councilmember] Jane
Brunner? Um, where is Barbara Lee, who I
dearly love. Is this part of what you’re
talking about? The Homeland Security,
have they shut those people up? Where
are they? Please, please give me your,
uh, you and Davey, your opinions on this.”
Davey D: “That
was a big question everybody asked last night and nobody has an answer. Um—“
Dennis Bernstein: “’I was
out of town when the incident occurred.’”
Davey D: “You
know, nobody has an answer and in many ways it’s shockingly similar to the, uh,
lack of response we saw during the Oscar Grant situation seven days after he
was shot. Nobody was to be seen. And until people started to, uh, blow
up. Then everybody wanted to come in
and, you know, and start having these conversations. But it was only then. And I think when you have 17 police
jurisdictions, uh, to show up to remove something that is well-known and
supported, every-, all the key people better be on hand to have a conversation
with folks and answer the hard questions.
And they just weren’t. And, so,
that’s a shame.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Mary
Anne in Tiburon, you’re on.”
Mary Anne (listener-caller):
“Hi there! You’re doing a
fabulous job. I wanna know, um, wel-,
how, wha-, how are you guys outfitted to take as much video as possible of
this? Because I’m from the ‘60s
Generation. And I walked out in my
living room one time and I saw dogs and police beating on Black people. And I was livin’ up in New Jersey and I
thought to myself, ‘What is goin’ on?!
And when people see that they can’t deny what’s goin’ on with the bull
that they put over as news. It’s going
to come out. But get the, do whatever
you can. Have a designated video camera,
whatever you guys do. I’m not that hip
with all the technology. But that’s what
you’re gonna need. And just because,
when, look what Madison did, Madison, Wisconsin. I don’t know how they did it, but they did it
in the winter. They did it, you know,
people of every walk of life. Farmers
came in with their tractors. That is
gonna happen pretty soon.”
Davey D (circa 42:38): “Well, first, everybody out there has a camera
and many people see themselves as citizen journalists. Um, there, you know, there’s a lot of
independent media out there. I was out
there last night and, you know, everybody, uh, you name it, anybody who’s
independent media was out there. You
know, documenting what goes on. The
battle that we have is that we still have a large segment of the population
that clings to the narratives that are put by the news. For example, yesterday there was a big debate
because the mainstream media kept saying it was only 200 cops when it was very
clear in the press conference that Chief Jordan said ‘hundreds.’ And people had estimated that it was 500 to
600. And that’s what we were going off
of to get the price tag. That question
was directed to him with those numbers and he didn’t deny that they were, you
know, he didn’t say, ‘No, it’s not 500.’
He, he tried to answer the question.
The point that I’m getting at is that you had people going, ‘Well, look,
you know the New York Times and this one and that one, they only said 200, so
that must be the official story. But
this is the same people that were saying everybody down at the Occupy were
dirty hippies. These were the same
people that, first of all, tried to ignore it and say it was a fringe
thing. And, so, the point that I’m
getting at is that sooner or later, we’re gonna have to go to other resources. Maybe a place like this, other independent
media, the citizen journalists in your community to get the real story and stop
validating the agenda that is masquerading the economic and corporate agenda
that is masquerading around as news these days because that is misleading
people.”
Dennis Bernstein:
“Richard from Richmond, you’re on KPFA.”
Richard from Richmond (listener-caller) (circa 44:16): “Yeah, well, it’s interesting. I’m going off to, uh, do my class at
Osher. This is on American Political
Culture. And, uh, just preparing my
critique of American Capitalism for the morning. One short comment, I think this situation is
very different from the situation I lived through and taught through when I was
at Berkeley in the late ‘60s. Then, you
could intimidate students with the threat that they weren’t gonna get
jobs. Now, capitalism has determined for
itself that people are not gonna get jobs.
The threats are not the same. The
threats don’t have the same power they had.
As you pointed out also people are living in the streets. They’re living in the streets because
capitalism has taken away their supposed right to homes and so on. So, you got a group of people who are not
gonna be threatened and intimidated the same way they were 40 years ago when
they were looking forward to cushy jobs and the watch-word was, if you
remember, classist, or something of the sort.
Now, the watch-word is democracy and the failures of capitalism.”
Dennis Bernstein:
“Alright. Thank you very
much. We’re gonna go to Erica in
Oakland.”
Erica in Oakland (listener-caller) (circa 45:25): “Hi, um, yeah, I’ve been going to Oakland with
my kids to the Occupy on and off throughout the whole two, three weeks. And it was kind of interesting that on
Saturday the 15th when, um, Danny Glover was there. The Mayor was there and she was smiling and
picturing and everything. And, yet,
yesterday she’s disappeared, how convenient.
When it’s, now, no longer a photo-op she’s out of the picture. And I just wanna thank you for doing the
show.”
Davey D: “Thank
you. And that’s very true.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Well
put.”
Davey D: “That
was very true. She was—”
Dennis Bernstein: “Out of
the picture.”
Davey D: “Yeah.”
Dennis Bernstein: “She
took a lot of pictures of Danny Glover and then beautiful interview you did
with Danny Glover, Davey. They were all
there. And she’s gone. Uh, we’re, uh, joined by, um—“
Andrew Phillips (KPFA General Manager):
“I just want to point out, Dennis, also that Facebook, Occupy Oakland on
Facebook has some great stuff and a lot of citizen journalists are taking a lot
of really fantastic videos. So, there is
some amazing stuff out there and all over this country. People are out there with their cell phones
and doing amazing coverage. And some of
them streaming it live. I know that one
of them, Janet Kobren has been streaming it live. She’s one of our listeners. There is a lot of citizen journalist
information out there.”
Dennis Bernstein: “And a
lot of people who are engaged at many different levels. Remember the nurses, uh, here in California
and across the country have agreed to have a, set up stations to do health
care. I mean, to do basic medical care
and it may be, Davey, that this is the only time that many of these people who
are already, some of these people are already living on the street, get health
care.”
Davey D:
“Right. As one of the Occupy
folks said to me yesterday, uh, she said, ‘You know, there are a lot of people
that have been damaged already. They
were damaged way before Occupy. And this
has been boiling and boiling and now people who never thought that they would
be damaged are also damaged. And now
they’ve been forced to, you know, to have to grapple with, with this carnage
that has existed, as you have a few people that are determined to marginalise,
uh, entire populations and to gather as much as they possibly can with no end
in sight. This is what this 1% is
doing. Um, and then turn around and
blame people for their own, fault for not having safety nets.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Back
to the kids. You know, I spent a number
of years, as a special ed teacher, teaching very poor kids who were called
emotionally disturbed.”
Davey D: “M-hm.”
Dennis Bernstein: “They
were rightfully disturbed children who were right at the edge of falling over
the cliff into the cracks of extreme poverty and hunger. The, this is a troubled population. There are many kids suffering and it is
shocking. It is shocking to see these
kinds of resources being used by Liberal politicians in one of the cities, uh;
I guess it’s become a test city for this stuff, who’s supposed to be responsive
to the people. I have to think that maybe
they use this as a target because they wanna say, ‘Well, if we could do it
here, we could do it anywhere.’”
Davey D (circa 48:23): “And I think that’s the case. You know?
And also try to, uh, redirect people’s attention as to what this is
about. This is about dealing with the 1%. And we’re seeing various manifestations of
that battle. This time maybe with the
police. You know, maybe with a absentee
mayor. Uh, maybe with school
closures. But many of our problems go
right back to the doorsteps of these financial institutions that very
deliberately and very corruptively, um, dismantled and destroyed our
economy. We should never lose sight of
that. And even though we’re dealing with
individual and some immediate battles, keep coming back to that because that’s
where it all emanates from at the end of the day.”
Dennis Bernstein:
“Alright. We have, uh, who on the
phone? Somebody. Are you there? Oakland are you there?”
Joyce from Oakland (listener-caller):
“Yes. This is Joyce from
Oakland.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Hi,
Joyce.”
Joyce from Oakland (listener-caller):
“Hi! I may lose you. I’m running out of batteries on my
phone. I just wanted to say, I, I
appreciate what you’re doing so much.
And the way that you’re delivering real news to us underneath the milieu
of this corporate smokescreen that we have going on in the media. Um, I work as a priest in Downtown Oakland. And I just wanted to comment on one of the
things that you said about schizophrenics.”
Davey D: “M-hm.”
Joyce from Oakland (listener-caller):
“Uh—”
Dennis Bernstein: “What,
what was said? What exactly—”
Davey D: “No, I,
I, I said something about that.”
Joyce from Oakland (listener-caller):
“Yeah. And I think that’s part of
the narrative about the ‘dirty hippie homeless people.’ And that they’re also the quote ‘crazy
people.’ And I just want to say, as a
member of NAMI, which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness born in the
East Bay, that those are also marginalised victims of this, um, of this system,
which is that we don’t have, we never have had adequate mental health
care. And there are people that are
homeless partially because of that. And
so, yeah, there are people with mental health crises. They’re on the streets. They’re now having some kind of services, um,
because of this Occupy Oakland movement.”
Davey D:
“Right.”
Joyce from Oakland (listener-caller):
“And I think that it’s important to remember that they’re a part of the
homeless population, too. And they’re
part of the, um, those who are victimised by the current system.”
Dennis Bernstein: “A lot
of vets out there, too.”
Davey D:
“Yeah. I think you’re point is
well taken. And I didn’t mean to, and
that’s good to correct me on that, uh, lump folks who are dealing with mental
health challenges, um, in the same vein as quote-unquote ‘criminal
behaviour.’ So, you’re right on
that. And thank you for the
correction. And we should definitely
take your words to heart.
Dennis Bernstein: “But
there are many troubled people.”
Davey D: “Yeah.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Pushed
on to the streets for the same kinds of budget cuts. People who should be getting support and the
kind of help that they need. And they’re
out there. A lot of them were sent to
war, shredded by a war. And they are now
wandering the streets like, uh, being lost trying to figure out who they are in
this world.”
Davey D:
“Right. And the Occupy Movements
in many cities have serviced, you know, those people that the city and the
government hasn’t serviced, um, because they’re spending money on, you know,
getting 17 police jurisdictions to come down versus keeping schools and other,
much needed services available for the public.”
TRANSITIONING TO FUND DRIVE MODE (ON THE LAST
DAY OF THE KPFA FALL FUND DRIVE)
Dennis Bernstein:
“Alright, Davey. We wanna thank
the callers. I wanna thank you from the
bottom of my heart, Andrew, here, for making the space available at this
station for giving the kind of spotlight focus on this crucial, ongoing, you
have to say transformation, in which there is an uprising of communities coming
together, uniting with the, those who are already left out, who are already
being marginalised, who have already been forgotten, uh, with people who are
facing that plight and others who care a great deal about what’s going on. We, I have to give out that phone number
because anybody who’s been listening to this station and can compare it to,
even KQED, the last thing I heard from the announcer there is ‘Police responded
to violent protesters throwing bottles and rocks.’ That was both locally and nationally. The big lie perpetrated by the corporate
media, the corporate military-industrial media.
That’s where we are right now.
So, this network, Davey, and this radio station remains vital in this
kind of battle. And I think what we need
to ask people to do [during our KPFA Fall Fund Drive], we have a $600 dollar
matching fund, is to reach down, um, without ev-, you know, knowing that the
premium is the open flow of information, reach down, stand up and say, ‘We
support this. And we’re gonna put our
money where our beliefs are.’ We have a
phone number. And if you heard something
that moved you, that was meaningful to you, if you heard something that
distinguished this network and this radio station, if Davey D’s work means
something to you, be making sure he is out on the street taking notes, pointing
out incredible things like, ’No damage here; we got 17 police forces, but
there’s no dangerous people around here.’
What in the hell is goin’ on? If
you support what you are hearing, you’re joining the one person, we, by the
way, we need, we’ve got about seven minutes, Davey, to get 50 people to call.”
Andrew Phillips (KPFA General Manager):
“Let’s give the phone number here.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Even
if it’s just for $20 bucks. 510.848-5732. I say ‘just $20 bucks’? $20, $25 dollars is a great deal of money for
many, many people. 1.800.439-5732. If you care about this kind of
reporting. If you care what you’re
hearing on this station, I wanna go shake the light board because I see one
beautiful person on the li-, oh, here we go.
1.800.439-5732.
510.848-5732. We’ve got six
people on the line. 510.848-5732. 1.800.439-5732. Won’t you please stand up now? Speak out and support free-speech radio. 1.800.439-5732. There’s a line bouncing there. I hope somebody’s gonna answer it soon. 510.848-5732.
There’s a line, somebody please pick it up. Davey.”
Davey D: “Well,
I just wanna say that, um, now more than ever, now that we understand that, uh,
wit’ each step the 1%, those in power, are trying to corrupt and hold and
redirect those who are supposed to be accountable to us. We’ve seen it with our political
parties. We’ve seen it with
politicians. We’ve seen it now with
media. You know, many of the big media
chains are owned by investment banks.
Many of them are owned by Wall Street.
And, so, the agenda of Wall Street is, ultimately, going to be reflected
by those, um, those institutions that are supposed to be covering our
stories. They’re gonna always cover it
with that bias. We are accountable to
you. Those who call up 510.848-5732,
those who call up 1.800.439-KPFA, this is your chance, this is your opportunity
to underwrite this radio station. When
you go up and down the dial you got big oil supporting one set of radio chain. You got Wall Street financial
institutions. They are underwriting
another set of media outlets. You have
big businesses, um, that have politicians in their pocket that will underwrite
another type of media institution. And,
so, when they get on the airwaves and they come across your TV screen, what you
get is something that doesn’t even reflect your reality. You have hundred-thousand-dollar pundits,
people who get paid $50,000 dollars just to make a speech, who will talk to you
and say that they’re down with you. But
never reflect the hardships that you’re going through. So, their analysis of a problem never really
includes your day-to-day reality. That
is not the case here on KPFA. We try to
make sure to bring to you that on-the-ground perspective that you understand
and that you are dealing with because we’re dealing with it. 510.848-5732.
1.800.439-KPFA. You have to now
resurrect those institutions that are around you, that reflect your reality,
and that will give you a platform to combat the ongoing assaults that are now
taking place on American citizens with media.
And, just to understand, and then I’ll just close, Dennis, remember
media, oftentimes, media from this country is used to disrupt, and to
marginalise, and to put to death countries and leaders all around the
world. ‘South of the Border,’ Oliver
Stone’s movie shows how that took place right there. Look around the world and you’ll see the,
that our media is used as propaganda machines and weapons to demonise and then
lead folks into war, and to lead folks into taking of resources, and to lead folks
into believing that maybe an entire country must somehow be quote-unquote
‘corrupt,’ or less than human. So,
therefore, whatever we do to them they deserve.
That is how we operate around the world.
But don’t be mistaken, folks.
That’s being used on us, right now, the 99%”
Dennis Bernstein: “And we
have two minutes. 1.800.439-5732. If you heard something in this hour, in this
day, in this 48-hour period that meant something to you, that really
distinguished this station from what you hear from the corporate media, we’re
asking you to speak up for it. We’re
asking you to stand up and put your money where your beliefs are. We’re asking you to take that risk, to do
that action that nobody watches you do.
You do it on your own because your mind and your heart and every cell of
your body tells you it’s the intelligent, right thing to do to support a
non-corporate network that is here for you, that you are a part of, that you
are a people’s producer. We are in the
99%. This is a station that’s on the
front line of that movement, if you make it so, if you make sure that we remain
viable and strong, and that we are powerful at the base, that we can fight back,
that we can do what we need to do to represent this kind of uprising. Yes!
This people’s uprising around the country, people uniting, people who
are already homeless, with people who are frightened, people who are losing
their houses, and those of us who care.
We may not be on the edge, but we care.
And we can’t turn our backs. We
can’t turn our eyes away. We can’t turn
our consciousness off. We believe in
this work. We wanna use this network and
this radio station, which is really an electronic leaflet for the people. 510.848-5732.
1.800.439-5732.
1.800.439-5732. 510.848-5732. If you care that you have an alternative and
you wanna make that alternative stronger, you wanna guarantee that this free
speech [going into next programme’s time-slot]
the First Amendment. If you want to
stand for that, for the First Amendment, then we’re asking you to stand up,
right now. 1.800.439-5732. 1.800.439-5732. 510.848-5732.
Davey D, I wanna thank you for being out there. Final word.”
Davey D: “I just
wanna say that right now. It’s all about
us recognising the humanity in one another.
And this station, I think, is going to always uphold its very principles
that founded us. We see the humanity in
you. Hopefully, you see the humanity in
us. And we support each other. And, so, give us a call as we close out. 510.848-5732.
1.800.439-KPFA. I wanna thank all
the people that have called in. I wanna
thank all the folks that helped us out, Rachel Jackson, Joseph from Berkeley,
uh, JR, a lot of folks were on the street giving us a lot of information. And, of course, you know, the rest of the
staff, from Mitch and Brian and you name it.
A lot of folks are still out there on those streets, gathering that
information and it will be reflected on our airwaves throughout the day and the
weeks to come.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Alright.”
Davey D: “We’re
out.”
Dennis Bernstein: “Davey
D, thank you. We’re out of here.”
***
Transcript by Felipe Messina
Photo 1 by flickr user Newtown graffitti, photo 2 by flickr user SWARM GALLERY OAKLAND, Photo 3 by flickr user dignidadrebelde.
MEDIA ROOTS – Felipe Messina of Media Roots speaks with Alexa O’Brien of US Day of Rage and Co-Organiser of Occupy
Wall Street to ask her about the origins of the Occupy Wall Street
movement and its looming interface with MoveOn and the Democratic Party,
our broken U.S. electoral system, the false left/right paradigm of our
U.S. two-party dictatorship, and what we can do about all of this
through collective action and the taking of the public square,
physically and digitally.
***
MR:
“Alexa O’Brien, with US Day of Rage, is co-organiser at the Liberty
Square Occupy Wall Street sit-ins, protests, and encampment, begun on September
17, 2011. Alexa, thank you very much for
your time.”
USDOR: “Oh,
thank you for inviting me.”
MR:
“US Day of Rage organised simultaneous actions across the United States with other groups to
raise awareness of the growing inequality facing the working-class in the
United States (and globally). Um, can
you talk about how the organisations came together in the beginning, at the
outset?”
USDOR: “This
is a really interesting story. And, um,
you know, US Day of Rage started on March 10th. That’s when the profile US Day of Rage and
the profile #USDOR, which is a hashtag that we also used on Twitter, um, in the
subsequent weeks, were parked, essentially.
Um, and, you know, one night I had been covering Bahrain and Egypt, but
Bahrain very intimately for several months.
Um, and, you know, we’d be at work, ‘cos I work a full-time job and
having, you know, friends of mine on Twitter emailing me pictures of, you know,
heads blown open. And, sort of,
understanding that, you know, my own country had a Fifth Fleet there and that
this was sort of at the, um, a couple months into Cablegate. Sort of, seeing those revolutions sort of unfold
and, um. And, so, you know, watching the
activity in Wisconsin on March 10th, you know, what I saw was,
essentially, a really dangerous level of cynicism towards government. And, really, actually, also the complete
blockade of political engagement by what are, essentially, corporate
interests. Um, and so, you know, we
started the profile and, much like many things this year, this year has been
like a magical year. It’s, it’s been a
very bizarre year. We got a thousand
followers within a week. It was very
weird. And we knew at that point, US Day
of Rage knew that we had, we had a responsibility because we had the kind of,
um, what we believed was, sort of, level-headedness and ability to, sort of,
get to core problems. Um, so we wanted
to create a space for Americans to be able to voice their grievances against
government without the ideological clap-trap that you find in the corporate
media. You know, these, sort of, like,
spectacles of arguments.”
MR:
“Right. I’ve heard David Graeber
speak on programmes like Democracy Now! talking about Adbusters, um, kind of
initiating a lot of the Occupy Wall Street actions. Was that similar to your experience? Was that someone that, uh, did you work with
David Graeber and Adbusters and those folks?”
USDOR: “Well,
Adbusters is a magazine and, you know, uh, the, saving our nation from becoming
a totalitarian nightmare isn’t a competition and it’s not a sporting
event. So, certainly, many people have
played a role in Occupy Wall Street. And
Occupy Wall Street at this point is, you can be parents, but once your
children, you know, you give birth to your children and they, they hit a
certain age, you know, they become autonomous creatures. And that’s what Occupy Wall Street is now. And we respect it as such. Um, I’m not sure I, I understand what Mr.
Graeber’s role was in, I don’t know much about him. I did see him at General Assembly meetings. It’s my own experience that, um, you know, I
look at Occupy Wall Street from this perspective: there were a few people within the General
Assembly that acted in an independent fashion, except for the Food Committee, um,
headed by Chris Underscore and, um, also the Tactical Committee, um, that, basically,
you know, combed Lower Manhattan, sort of, trying to, uh, ascertain
logistics. Um, there were mostly
independent people who took it upon themselves to organise things so that the
protest was safe. For one thing, you
know, the General Assembly, prior to September 17th, didn’t have any
consensus on whether or not it was violent or non-violent in ideology. You know, we, at US Day of Rage, organised
all the non-violent civil disobedience actions.
We made sure in early August that there were actually, uh, videos of
civil disobedience talks. Um, so that
people who we reached through digital outreach, um, were able to understand, at
least, de-escalation tactics or the idea of non-violent civil disobedience. The Arts & Culture Committee, Lorenzo
and, uh, you know, Jez Bold, I mean, there’s so many people in the Arts &
Culture Committee, they were just, and the Outreach Committee, they were
phenomenal. I think what ended up
happening, and this is my understanding, I mean, there’s a lot of untold
stories and, perhaps, they should remain untold because it doesn’t really
matter. But, if you look at what digital
did for this, digital, essentially, magnified the outreach of this particular
action of people in New York. You know,
the act of Take the Square, Antibanks, US Day of Rage, WL Central, ROAR
Magazine, I mean, all of these, uh, magnified the, and created an exponential
awareness and outreach for this action, so that it became what it was.”
MR:
“What I’m interested in is this further magnification of the entire
Occupy Wall Street, um, and as MoveOn.org, for example, seems to, uh, begin,
uh, its involvement. Um, well, I
understand Occupy Wall Street as an umbrella brand, uh, basically for the
organic, grassroots, uh, the one thing in common is the horizontalist
philosophy of the General Assemblies of everyday people participating in, uh,
this Wall Street Occupation. Um, and I
understand the OccupyWallStreet.org as a, basically, an unofficial de facto
online resource. And that website lists
various links, um, from the NYC General Assembly to the We Are the 99% to, your
organisation, US Day of Rage. Um, what
impressed me about the interviews that I’ve heard from you, Alexa, are the, um,
the critique of the electoral system and, uh, the need for electoral reform,
which, since the Occupy Wall Street protests have been magnified, it seems to
have largely been absent. Is this
something that I’m missing? Or is this,
uh, how do you see this playing out?”
USDOR: “Well,
you know, one of the things I always say, and, you know, and I quite mean it,
you know, I’m a nobody. And I’m not
master of the universe, you know? To me
this—”
MR:
“Sure.”
USDOR: “—act
is an act of conscience. I can’t see
into the future. I do know that it’s my
moral responsibility, as a citizen, and especially someone who, you know, while
I did raise children, I don’t have any children that I’m responsible for, at
present. And, therefore, I have much
more, I feel like I have more responsibility, you know, myself, because I can
take the risk of sticking my neck out and not having to worry about feeding
babies. You know?”
MR:
“Sure.”
USDOR: “So, to
say this like really specifically, um, US Day of Rage has always had one
demand, right? You know, free and fair
elections essentially remedy a myriad ills and abuses of a government that
preys on the resources and the spirits of citizens. Why were Americans so afraid before September
17th? One of the most
beautiful parts of this whole Occupation Movement across the country is that
Americans are starting to lose the fear.
You know, what is the public square?
There are several institutions to democratic society and, you know, we
don’t have an opinion on the Left or the Right in any kind of sense. Like, really, frankly, the ideological
bitchfest, excuse my language, of corporate media is really, actually, not the
Left or the Right. It’s, it’s a
corporate spectacle. It doesn’t really
represent the hearts and minds of millions of Americans about what’s really in
their self-interest.”
MR:
“Right.”
USDOR: “So,
the public square, the press, our elections, these are institutions that
underpin the stability and the justness of a society, especially, a democratic
society. So, when you have protests that
are conducted like photo opportunities for stars and celebrities where you’re
kettled into, essentially, cattle cages and you, you know, hoist your rubber
bracelet and say, you know, your piece, it does nothing.”
MR:
“Right.”
USDOR: “And we
knew that. We knew that. So, in order to reform our elections we knew
we had to start at the most basic, uh, point of the citizen, which is the
public square. You know, I was joking
around with one of the founders of Take the Square like, probably, in maybe
April and saying, you know, he was like, ‘well, what about take the squarein America.’ And I was like, ‘are you talking about Take the Walmart? Like, what?
Which squares are you talking about? Because civic space in the United States is
completely fiscalised.”
MR:
“Right, you were talking about that in an interview on The Morning Mix
with Davey D and, uh, that was something that gave him pause. Can you talk more about that?”
USDOR: “You
know we look at problems, like, structurally and in terms of how, what gives
people, what enfranchises people? ‘Cos
people always say, ‘well, Americans are apathetic.’ And I don’t doubt that there aren’t apathetic
citizens in different countries across the globe. But it’s really, Americans are demoralised
because they know, that on some level, that their elections are a farce. They know that the legislation that we put
out there is a gross aberration of the will of the citizens. And, you know, it’s like a bad marriage, you
know, you don’t have to even get too complicated about it. If my spouse is off stealing money from our
bank account, cheating at, you know, with 15 other people, you know, I’m not
gonna be emotionally engaged. I might
stay married. But I’m not gonna engage
in the marriage in an authentic, full-bodied way. Well, similarly, with Americans in government. You know, if our government is out there
cheating on us, you know, lying to us, spending our money without talking to
us, and then giving us some kind of excuse.
Americans disengage ‘cos it’s a lie.”
MR:
“Right. You know, I’ve seen
images from the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York and elsewhere
indicating people are tired of the two-party system. Yet, it’s st-, the, uh, that disaffection
with the two-party system or the false left/right paradigm is not really
something that I hear on the media and not even on the progressive media. Mostly, of course, there’s gonna be, uh,
discussion and illuminating complaints with the war, you know, anti-war
messages and, uh, with economic inequality, anti-Wall Street messages, but the
electoral process seems to be something that’s kind of taboo. It’s not really discussed. And as we move towards, uh, the 2012 Election
year, it just seems like we’re heading towards another year where, uh, we might
end up with the same type of, uh, leaders in power. Is this something that you see? Does US Day of Rage address this?”
USDOR: “Well,
we do. I mean we have a plan. Basically, we are basically taking, firstly,
we took a couple weeks, just simply getting grounded again, um, into phase
two. I mean, phase two for us, just to
be clear, I mean we called the Occupation of, we endorsed the call for the Occupation
of Wall Street because when we talk about taking the money out of politics you
wanna go right to the source. And, like,
let’s be honest. Who are, you know,
let’s talk about the pseudo-Left, so to speak.
You know the Democratic Party, I mean, who are their backers? It’s Wall Street.”
MR:
“Right.”
USDOR: “You
know the Republican Party. Who are their backers? It’s Wall Street. I mean, these are fickle interests. You know, they don’t really care about the
Left or the Right. They just care about
themselves. So, second to that, you
know, we are basically organising now for a call to an Article V Constitutional
Convention. And what that means is, most
Americans don’t know this, ‘cos we’ve never done one. But the framers created a method for escaping
from what they called ‘captured government.’
And that’s what we have now is a government captured by factions. Okay, so, think about government. Right?”
MR:
“M-hm.”
USDOR: “Think
about the Constitution. You and I could
sit here and pretend we’re on Crossfire and we—”
MR:
“Right.”
USDOR: “—could
talk about the difference between Executive power, which is the power to fight
wars, versus Legislative. But, really,
is there any difference when both are owned by Goldman Sachs?”
MR:
“Not much.”
USDOR: “No,
there isn’t. So, it, it’s a breakdown of
checks and balances. So, they created
this Article V Constitutional Convention capability, which means that if 34 States
pass resolutions, at the state level, calling for a Convention, all sides would
have the opportunity to talk about the changes they believe would restore
democracy. And, so, we could bypass
Congress and the Senate and the Executive and the Judicial branch and just get
this done. You know, overturn corporate
personhood, you know, overturn Citizens United.
Or, you know, it’ll, it can happen in one amendment. The point is that, the Department of Homeland
Security, the FBI, the NYPD, in conjunction with the CIA, whom they work with,
they all defend, look, Wall Street’s still blockaded. You know, on September 17th the
NYPD occupied Wall Street. You know,
it’s pro-, they will protect banks and corporations’ First Amendment rights
under Citizens United. But they’ll Mace
a girl on a sidewalk who’s peaceably standing there in dissent against the
system that doesn’t represent her and gawd knows what else. You know?”
MR:
“Exactly. That’s right. This reminds me of, you know, I’ve heard,
earlier this year, Ralph Nader talk about, um, I think he talked about a
Constitutional Convention for, um, revoking the, uh, corporate personhood. Is this the same, is this same process that,
are you aware of Ralph Nader’s approach that he’s mentioned earlier this year?”
USDOR: “I’m
not aware of Mr. Nader’s approach with regards to a Constitutional
Convention. I do know that he has, sort
of, nine points for electoral reform.
Those are, as far as I understand, you know, I’m a human being, I don’t
know everything, so hopefully, I’m not getting this wrong, but, you know a lot
of them have to do with, like, getting rid of earmarks, open ballot access,
holiday voting for working people, so that they can actually vote, uh, honest
and open debates, you know, full and balanced representation. I mean, there’s a lo-, tightly drawn
districts. You know, those are all very
honourable suggestions. I mean, part of
the reason and, I’m gonna take a deep breath, so I don’t completely talk your
ear off here. Um, we really wanna
just cut to the chase. You know, like, let’s
just make it so that corporations are not people in the eyes of the law. Or if they are that they are liable for the
same things that people are.”
MR:
“Right. And, uh, kind of going
over the point that I mentioned earlier about us living in a kind of a false
left/right paradigm, where people perceive the Republicans as the bad guys and
the Democrats as the good guys and, uh, the choices being limited to those two
and with this opportunity for consciousness-raising with the whole Wall Street
occupations spreading across the country, it seems like a really good
opportunity for people to, kind of, look beyond that. And, yet, we’re still, most people are still
gonna vote, so it just seems kind of logical to expand the two-party
system. Is that, would that be a
half-measure, in your view? Or is that
something that US Day of Rage looks at?
USDOR: “It’s not
a half-measure. I mean, any kind of
political engagement that restores democracy we don’t consider a
half-measure. I mean, listen, we’re
human beings. A lot of us are working
people who are just normal, average everyday citizens. And so, you know, we support and we engage
with the larger discussions from other groups, other Constitutional Convention
groups, other people who wanna reform our elections, even, you know, the
General Assembly at New York City. I
mean, we’re individual members of that body.
So, no, I mean, I hope that any group that wants to engage in electoral
reform approach us and we will approach them because united, you know, we can
actually get this done.”
MR:
“Yes, so—“
USDOR: “And
the other thing, too, is that we have a way of getting it done.”
MR:
“Yeah, that’s exactly right. And
with the whole Occupation Wall Street spreading across the country and, if the
Occupations persist, it seems like the Article V Constitutional Convention can
seem like a very likely possibility.”
USDOR: “It’s
true. And also, you know, social media
has also done wonders in many, many areas and sectors of America’s political
conscience. You know, take, for example,
an American I have great respect for, Brandon Neely, a former Gitmo guard, who
found his, people who he was a prison guard and detained at Guantanamo. He reached out to them several years ago and
made direct amends to them over Facebook.”
MR:
“Oh, wow.”
USDOR: “So,
the reality of social media, which I think some, the press is just beginning to
understand is, you shouldn’t torture people.
But you cannot torture people today because we will find you and we will
see your face on Twitter and Facebook.
Now, Neely is a, a vanguard. I
mean, he’s spoken out about Gitmo, so I’m not talking about Mr. Neely per
se. But I’m saying, you know this,
earlier on in the year, um, WL Central and myself and on the media, the Senator
from Hawaii Tweeted me to confirm that a Republican had placed the anonymous
hold on the Whistleblower Protection Act.
So, there are a lot of things that you could do with social media that
we couldn’t do before. And we’re, we
just can’t wait to get to it when it comes to the Article V Constitutional
Convention.”
MR:
“So, you don’t have any fears that a large organisation like
MoveOn.org might subvert the more grassroots, radical, message of the, um,
loosely collective Occupy Wall Street folks?”
USDOR: “What
I’ve learned strategically with things like this is that, you know, it wouldn’t
surprise me if the American, you know, I’m talking in a general way. Right?”
MR:
“Right.”
USDOR: “If the American brain, it needs to unravel
from the partisan, you know, the culture
war is over, everybody lost. Right?”
MR:
“Right.”
USDOR: “The
culture war they’ve grown up with. But
the reality of it is that the game generation, the internet generation, does
not trust traditional forms of organised politics. You know, we have learned how to engage with
each other through weak social ties online and that has also transferred into
our lifestyle. So, we might lose a few
more rounds. Hopefully, the U.S.
government won’t take drastic action.
Um, I think with this movement into the political sq-, into the civic
square we have started to change the game.
But it’s like the traditional media.
It’s like, I’m not worried whether or not they’re covering us because
they are becoming obsolete.”
MR:
“M-hm.”
USDOR: “We are
getting our information from Davey D on Twitter and then listening to his radio
show, or our friends in Bahrain, or our friends in Egypt. So, more will be revealed.”
MR:
“Yeah, that’s interesting that, well, I heard the input from Egyptians
into the original organising for the Occupy Wall Street protests.”
USDOR: “Yeah,
well, it was really funny because right when we were starting to go viral in
Egypt there was like a billion Arabic comments on our Facebook profile. And it was really hilarious because it was
appealing to all the racism against Muslims, like, in certain parts of the
United States. So, we were sitting
here, we were like, we’re like, ‘we’re an American organisation.’ They’re like, the Egyptians found us and
they’re like giving us all this advice.
It was really funny. Um, but it’s
all good, you know? It’s all good.”
MR:
“They held, I was gonna say they held out for a long time in Egypt.”
USDOR: “Yeah.”
MR:
“ I’m hoping that the Occupy Wall Street Assemblies will hold out as
long as possible. I know it’s gonna
start getting very cold soon in New York and the East Coast.”
USDOR: “Well,
something to keep in mind, too, is that digital, the internet is a civic space. I mean, although it’s, in the United States,
it’s surveilled and commercialised and there’s no privacy. You know, there’s no privacy in the centre
square either. Did you see that large,
um, monitoring station that the NYPD set up?
It’s like East Germany. You
know?”
MR:
“That’s right.”
USDOR: “Before
the wall came down. So, you know, the
bottom line is this is really about Americans, whether they’re afraid or
not. You know?”
MR:
“M-hm.”
USDOR: “As
long as we’re not afraid we have nothing to worry about. You know, if we, so I, I’m not worried in a
certain sense, like, I trust the good, um, the good people of our country, as
the more connected they get, the less afraid they get.”
MR:
“That’s right.”
USDOR: “You
know, we might have a cold winter on the internet or out on the squares, but
everything’s gonna be okay if we just keep plugging forward.”
MR:
“Yeah, it seems like that’s the case.
The police tactics of repression of the right to assemble and protest,
to dissent, seem to be responded to very quickly, uh, with social media, the
illegal arrests, police brutality involving that pepper spraying, and the
kettling, of course, what looked like entrapment on the Brooklyn Bridge and so
forth. It seemed to be responded to by
the people very quickly and, uh, they seem to be trying to, the police seem to
have to adapt to that quick response from the people.”
USDOR:
“Yeah. I mean, one of the
discussions that we had early on because we endorsed, basically, the occupation
of public sidewalks early on because at the time, and the situation with
Zuccotti has become more sophisticated because a lot of civil rights attorneys
have come in and talked about easement laws.
But originally we endorsed a call to occupy public sidewalks because we
thought it was the clearest assertion of First Amendment rights. You know, the NYPD is a para-, one of the
largest paramilitary forces in the world.
They have helicopters that can see a cigarette from a mile away. They have trucks, I’ve been told, that can
see through walls. And they photograph
New Yorkers on a daily basis and keep those, you know, facial recognition
software. So, we’re talking about a
serious force here.”
MR:
“Yeah. That’s something to keep
in mind. Well, as I wrap up here do you
have any final comments that you’d like to add?”
USDOR:
“Yeah. I wanna say that, you
know, free and fair elections inspire good citizenship and public service
because they engage the intelligence and the genuine good will of the American
people. You know, they produce the kind
of stewardship our nation desperately needs right now because they insure that
citizens can influence their destiny and make genuine contributions to
society. It’s now or never. Either we do this now or wait a hundred years
and have our children grow up in a totalitarian nightmare.”
MR: “I agree. Alexa O’Brien with US
Day of Rage is co-organiser at the Liberty Square Occupy Wall Street
Occupation. Alexa, thank you very much
for your time.”
USDOR: “Thank
you so much. Have a wonderful evening.”
***
Interview and transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots
MEDIA ROOTS- Who are these Occupy Wall Street people? What is this “99%”? The question is being asked many times over around the nation, even now as you’re reading this. Perhaps in providing answers, it’s best we start with the One Percent and work our way up.
MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, the most-cited living author in the world and one of the most passionately anti-capitalist intellectuals in the United States, has sent a powerful message of support to the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protests:
Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street — financial institutions generally — has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat” — seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”
The system is set against you. The airwaves and print are complicit in every way. The oligarchic banking class has a stranglehold of power over politicians astonishingly passionate in their supplication, picking distraction fights while nearly 7 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a million a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care annually. True joblessness hovers at the 20 percent mark, while a great many of those employed are overworked, underpaid and – if they’re teachers, policemen, firefighters, nurses or public servants – currently under threat of further cuts.
The 99% are those who refuse to accept a system designed to enable 400 of America’s wealthy elite to control more revenue than over 150 million American citizens. We are those who feel betrayed by the entire spectrum of political parties and promise-bleating politicians. Those who demand a fairer tax system. Those who don’t have health insurance, for a variety of reasons. Those struggling to find work. Those opposed to military adventurism and imperialistic overlording of the planet. Those enraged by the idea of corporate lobbyists orchestrating legislature. Those who see a problem with the highest imprisoned population percentage in the world, the widespread destruction of our constitutional rights and the continued destruction of basic social services. Those who reject the inarguably failed “trickle down theory” and the current crisis-tendency of sending jobs overseas.
We are those who feel that the elected leaders of America have forgotten us among the ranting political rhetoric and opposition demonization by politicians who longer represent us at all.
Even those who are well off but recognize that something must be done to enable those who are not a chance to rise and prosper.
We The People are the 99%. You are the 99%.
Finally, a politically neutral voice of dissent is rising, a peaceful occupation to represent the demand for true change. The Occupy movement is determined to establish national demand for a conversation on fairly setting society on a more healthy course. They have taken to the streets, they’re talking amongst themselves, rallying others and building understanding and conviction through communication. A determined, defiant spirit will guide them through, and their numbers are already skyrocketing. The headlines read 700 people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York – but the mere fact that there were 700 people there to be arrested stands as a much louder testimony that we will no longer sleep in the fires burning the world down around us.
This movement has sparked a wildfire of energy among those whose independent movements and issues are ignored by mandate. Labor unions are joining forces and dedicating support to the Occupy movement. In just the past few days, major organizations like the Communication Workers of America, the AFL-CIO and AFSCME have dedicated support for the protesters’ cause. The Occupy movement doesn’t operate in a top-down union style method. It is democratically driven to the core, but in meeting neutrally with these organizations we can align our goals and work together without risk of being co-opted.
Teachers and nurses associations are aligning themselves as well. Neighbors are stopping by with food and supplies. Just yesterday afternoon at City Hall in Los Angeles, dozens of pizzas and various other food and drink as well as medical and clothing supplies were being distributed freely by the people. For the people. I’m hardly a religious man, but the collective thousands at OccupyLA caring for one another without parasitic motive was the closest thing to truly Christ-like behavior among a large mass of people that I’ve seen in my 33 years.
Dismissing the New York uprising as merely another protest among countless demonstrations, many are attempting to write off this rapidly expanding movement, and will continue to with increasing severity as the Occupy movement continues to expand. But do not be mistaken – America’s first true digital-age movement is upon us, a movement every one of us can identify with. There is no promise-making leader with gleaming smiles and sparkling eyes. This is a collective of average and relatable individuals at work, rapidly growing despite (and in fact fueled by) an initial blanket of widespread silence from the mainstream press. As coverage begins to trickle in, as the voice of the movement takes hold, a great deal of misinformation will be broadcast. Do not believe it.
These Occupy movement protests aren’t the frivolous Foursquare check-in competitions among laid-off Apple employees that you’ll read about. All walks of life are attending, from families with babies to students to IT experts to WWII vets to college graduates with insurmountable debt and no employment options. From teachers who see their class numbers rise while funding gets cut and they’re continued to make less than garbage men, to grandparents hearing their lifelong contributions to Social Security and Medicare being discussed as money the government owns. At these protests, there are teach-ins educating the curious on topics ranging from the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, to the pharmaceutical industry’s stronghold on medical legislation, and beyond – including, more directly, just what it is we’re doing in the streets.
These people are leaders, spearheading dedicated efforts to overcome the designed hypnosis of rampant passive complacency America’s people have come to be known for. We stand by as we’re told that millions of families struggling to feed their children and pay their rent just aren’t trying hard enough. As trillions are spent invading foreign lands for dubious causes, unclear goals and indefinite futures – money desperately needed to revive our infrastructure. We buy into the political grandstanding and the massive industry of talking heads foaming about one or the other, entirely oblivious to the gruesome, sneering and nakedly obvious fact that the American public has not been dealt any cards in the system that’s been established. We’re not in the game, and our “representatives” have long since disconnected meaning from words.
Yet despite constant evidence to the contrary, we trust that politicians – who truly no longer represent the people – will turn away from the staggering amounts of money that corporations offer for favorable legislation and the power-wealth’s demands.
A brilliantly relevant quote, from the 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Last year, the share of the nation’s income that was assigned to wages hit an all-time low, while the piece of the collective financial pie going to corporate profits was at an all-time high. It wasn’t teachers who set the nation at such an incredible deficit, no matter what the anointed congressional speakers suggest. It wasn’t public employees, Planned Parenthood, PBS, NPR, nurses or policemen who crashed the stock market, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, poisoned our rivers and oceans, or paid themselves billions in bonuses. That would be the other guy – the elusive One Percent. The true “elite” that has shaped the conversation in Washington D.C. so as to completely omit a voice of and for the people, to the point where the mere suggestion of such is met with raging ridicule – for every mention of public health care, there are a dozen new claims of “death panels” and nazism associated. Sensible debate is a highly endangered species.
The soulful spirit of passionate & peaceful resistance from the 60s exists, stirring slowly from its slumber of comfort and convenience. Those in attendance now are the seedlings, the leaders guiding others into the warmth of understanding that We Are All The 99%. If you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck, if an illness or accident that puts you in the hospital would mean financial ruin for your family, if you share in the frustration of watching a blizzard of legislation passed and deals made that rampantly benefit corporate interest at the expense of public well-being, you are already among our numbers.
For just about every vocal movement throughout history, there has been a countermeasure, an opposition that speaks with equal passion and dissent from the idea. Yet with the Occupy movement, the only opposing assailants are the champagne-toasting core of the problem sneering down at protestors on Wall St., and the likes of Ann Coulter and Alex Jones who are feebly trying to “expose” the movement as a veiled operation for the Democratic party (which it most assuredly is not). Where are the picketers defending the multi-millionaires and the multinational corporations?
Now is the time to make a true difference. Now is the time to move beyond a Like button and a retweet. It was through several incremental steps, accumulated over many years, that birthed this multi-tentacled crisis. It’s ignorant and futile to imagine that one demand will reverse this cancer, or that a collective vote will impact a system rigged against the people. Conversations must take place. A spirit of effective action must take hold.
That is what you’ll find taking place in New York. in Los Angeles. in Boston. In Detroit and beyond.
“We have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy,” Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) warned this week. “I’m taking this seriously in that I’m old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy,” he said. “We can’t allow that to happen.”
One man’s nightmare is another’s American Dream.
That is the Occupy movement. Join us.
Writing and Photography by Johnny Firecloud, Founder, Managing Editor of Antiquiet.com
MEDIA ROOTS— On Friday, October 28, 2011, filmmaker Michael
Moore paid a visit to Occupy Oakland. He flew from Occupy Wall Street in New York to join in
solidarity with the current epicentre of the Occupy Movement in the wake of the brutal police-state
rioting on Tuesday night, which left 24-year-old Marine, Scott Olsen, in critical
condition after being shot in the head by a projectile fired by an officer of the
Alameda Sheriffs Department. 
MEDIA ROOTS — KPFA’s
Dennis Bernstein and Davey D broadcast their
analysis of the Occupy Oakland aftermath following the brutal police-state assaults
on Tuesday, October 25, 2011.
Davey D (8:00): “Davey
D, hangin’ out wit’ you. We are down
here. It’s probably about 7:15 in the
morning. Um, people are still out
here. The only difference is now, if you
look at, uh, what was Occupy Oakland, you see that the tents are all gone. And they’re steam-cleaning it. Last night, um, a lot of tear gas was lobbed
out here. You don’t smell it as
much. But we wanted to talk with people
that are still out here this morning.
How you doin’?”
Dennis Bernstein (circa 16:42): “And thank you, Davey D. You are, no doubt, listening to KPFA, the people’s
radio station, here in the [S.F.] Bay Area, Pacifica Radio. I’m Dennis Bernstein with Davey D [in the
studio]. [KPFA General Manager] Andrew
Phillips is in the studio. He’s been
rippin’ off Facebook and watchin’ the wires all night. Uh, Davey, amazing series of interviews. Let me just say, one of the things that I
think we’re seeing now in the way Oakland is being used. It’s a national story. And it’s a, it’s a national experiment
because what we saw with these 17 police departments is right out of the
P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act—“
Dennis Bernstein: “4425. 510.848-4425, uh, give us a call, especially,
interested for people who are in Oakland, who have been participating in this,
who have been eyewitnesses. Uh, please
give us a call. Andrew, you ripped
something, uh, Andrew Phillips is here in the studio. You ripped something off of Facebook.”
MR:
“They held, I was gonna say they held out for a long time in Egypt.”
MEDIA ROOTS- Who are these Occupy Wall Street people? What is this “99%”? The question is being asked many times over around the nation, even now as you’re reading this. Perhaps in providing answers, it’s best we start with the One Percent and work our way up. 
We are those who feel that the elected leaders of America have forgotten us among the ranting political rhetoric and opposition demonization by politicians who longer represent us at all.
Teachers and nurses associations are aligning themselves as well. Neighbors are stopping by with food and supplies. Just yesterday afternoon at City Hall in Los Angeles, dozens of pizzas and various other food and drink as well as medical and clothing supplies were being distributed freely by the people. For the people. I’m hardly a religious man, but the collective thousands at OccupyLA caring for one another without parasitic motive was the closest thing to truly Christ-like behavior among a large mass of people that I’ve seen in my 33 years. 
Yet despite constant evidence to the contrary, we trust that politicians – who truly no longer represent the people – will turn away from the staggering amounts of money that corporations offer for favorable legislation and the power-wealth’s demands. 
For just about every vocal movement throughout history, there has been a countermeasure, an opposition that speaks with equal passion and dissent from the idea. Yet with the Occupy movement, the only opposing assailants are the champagne-toasting core of the problem sneering down at protestors on Wall St., and the likes of Ann Coulter and Alex Jones who are feebly trying to “expose” the movement as a veiled operation for the Democratic party (which it most assuredly is not). Where are the picketers defending the multi-millionaires and the multinational corporations?