MEDIA ROOTS — Abby and Robbie Martin grew up in Pleasanton, CA, a city located ten miles from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a secret nuclear weapons production facility.  They initially set out to explore the psychological impacts of taking nuclear testing into virtual space.  But as their investigation unfolded, they found that the LLNL—in conjunction with Site 300—has built an impressive greenwashing PR campaign cloaking a sinister reality. 

Despite a moratorium on nuclear testing, the nuclear arms race continues unabated at very high costs.  In addition to the startling cases of LLNL’s mismanagement of dangerous materials and ‘accidental‘ releases, the facilities are still testing every radioactive component of a nuclear bomb in open air, according to sources. 

Malignant melanoma (skin cancer) rates are six times higher among children born in Livermore; melanoma has been linked to radiation exposure.  And the amount of radiation which has been expelled from the lab since its inception is equivalent to that released from the bombing of Hiroshima.  Most disturbingly, the Livermore community is largely unaware of what the lab is actually doing and what its potential impacts are on its health and the environment.

Written by Abby Martin

***

The Continuing Nuclear Arms Race & The Lawrence Livermore National Lab:

Mismanagement, Dangers & Effects

Produced/Filmed/Directed/Edited by Abby & Robbie Martin

***

Abby Martin:  “The United States has the biggest weapons arsenal in the world and is the only country who has ever used nuclear bombs during war.  All of the nuclear weapons stockpile management and nuclear weapon technology come from two locations in the United States:  Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, which is surrounded by a giant plot of desert, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, a square-mile facility located right next to a city of 90,000 people.  If a large-scale disaster or nuclear accident happened here, it would affect the entire Bay Area—comprised of San Francisco/Oakland—with seven million people living in it.  This blue well behind me is used to measure radioactive runoff from the Lawrence Livermore Lab.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 0:36):  “The United States used to blow up full-scale nuclear weapons in open air until the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which permitted the continuation of nuclear testing underground.  In 1992, Congress passed the Nuclear Testing Moratorium Act, which banned all nuclear testing.  However, the treaty is not yet ratified.  And the U.S. still has over 5,000 nuclear weapons, 2,000 of which are on readiness alert at all times.  To compensate for the loss of full-scale underground nuclear testing, the Department of Energy created the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which built new facilities that test different components of a nuclear weapons explosion, using super computers to put them all together.

“Most of the PR surrounding the Lawrence Livermore Lab gives the impression that it’s a technology innovator, working to harvest the energy of the sun to create clean energy for the world.  As it turns out, out of the Lawrence Livermore Lab’s $1.5 billion dollar annual budget, less than 1% is alternative energy; the rest is defence and nuclear weapons development.

“Another, more elusive, site buried in the hills behind the Lawrence Livermore Lab is called Site 300, a live-fire explosives test range where they blow up highly radioactive compounds used to simulate many of the nuclear systems designed at the lab.  Site 300 is mountainous with many watersheds and canyons making contamination easy to spread and clean-up extremely difficult.  At Site 300, we found that they are testing depleted uranium and tritium, the radioactive hydrogen in the hydrogen bomb, in open air tests.  Site 300 happens to be located in a very high-velocity wind area.

“We took a closer look at Lawrence Livermore Lab and Site 300 and found out if the Livermore community is aware of its impact on their health and the environment and the potential danger it poses to the entire San Francisco Bay Area.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:25):  “Do you know about the Lawrence Livermore Lab?”

Livermore Man:  “Yes.”

Livermore Woman:  “I mean it’s common knowledge to grow up in Livermore—”

Livermore Man B:  “Oh, here we go.”

Abby Martin:  “What?”

Livermore Woman B:  “I’m aware of it, yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “What is it that you think they do there?”

Livermore Woman C:  “At the Lab?  Oh, it’s a government [Shrugs], testing on all kinds of different things?”

Livermore Man B:  “I’m not really educated to what exactly, what they do.  You gonna tell me?”

Livermore Woman C:  “I know they do a lot of research and they have, like, the top scientists from all over the world that work there.”

Livermore Woman B:  “They used to do, like, nuclear devices.  But to my knowledge they don’t really do that anymore.”

Livermore Man C:  “Well, what I think they do there is research and development.”

Abby Martin:  “What do you think it is they do there?”

Livermore Man:  “I worked there for nearly 30 years.”

Abby Martin:  “So, what did you do there?

Livermore Woman B:  “I don’t know.  My dad works in a machine shop there. [Laughs]  I don’t know what he does, though. [Laughs]”

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “In many ways, Livermore is a community that’s in denial.  It is also a community that I would call disempowered because you have a super-secret nuclear weapons laboratory and a community around it that’s supposed to not ask questions.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 3:39):  “We went to the lab in Site 300 to try to find out more.”

Site 300 Armed Military Gatekeeper:  “Can you just turn that off please? [Leaving Gate Booth]”

Abby Martin:  “Isn’t this publicly-funded property?”

Site 300 Armed Military Gatekeeper:  “The Federal, um, could you turn it off just to make?  I gotta make, I gotta call my captain.”

Site 300 Armed Military Captain:  “Um, could you go ahead and turn the camera off?”  [Camera Cuts Out]”

Abby Martin:  “I don’t know; I’ve read somewhere that they were testing depleted uranium.  I was, like, that can’t be true. [Inside a Reception Area]”

Receptionist Woman:  “No, nothing nuclear.”

Scott Yundt (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “What we’ve been able to place together from FOIA requests and from public documents is that they’ve released over a million curies of radiation from the lab since 1953 when they opened.  That’s about the same amount of radiation that was released in the bombing of Hiroshima.”

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “The state health department did a study of childhood cancers and this was a record study covering 30 years.  And they found that children born in Livermore have six times the expected rate of malignant melanoma.

“The study also found that, for one decade, there was a threefold increase in brain cancer in Livermore children.”  

Abby Martin (c. 4:47):  “Do you think that there’s any sort of impacts on the environment or to the health of the community with the testing that they’re doing there? [Outside in Downtown Livermore]”

Livermore Man:  “Probably very little over what most all of us do everyday. [Shrugs]”

Livermore Woman B:  “None that haven’t been around since I was a kid. [Shrugs]  So, I don’t know. [Laughs]  I mean I survived. [Young Woman Laughs and Shrugs]”

Livermore Woman C:  “Yeah, ‘cos they’ve had some problems with the, you know, ground w-, releases of some of the poisons and—”

Livermore Man D:  “I know that there was plutonium in a park near my house when I was growing up.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 5:16):  “During the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Lawrence Livermore Lab was flushing radioactive materials, including plutonium down the drain.  And it was recycled by the City of Livermore’s sanitation department as compost.  The City then gave away the toxic compost as landscaping. 

“Local residents around the lab have even coined a neighbourhood park, plutonium park, which is located adjacent to a school.

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “They kept a log book, you know, a guest register.  So, people signed it, but one day the lab showed up and took it with them.  And it’s never been seen again.  So, there’s no way to track who has this plutonium-contaminated sludge or if the particular bit of sludge they took home has plutonium contamination in it or not.

“And, in the midst of all this, Livermore Lab went and got some of this sludge because they were interested in looking at the uptake of plants after a nuclear war.”

Livermore Man D:  “Obviously, most cities don’t dump plutonium into their sewage treatment plants.  So, that’s a unique experience to our area.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 6:26):  “One of the most impressive PR campaigns coming from the lab is the National Ignition Facility (or the NIF).”

Scott Yundt (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “It’s a mega-laser that they love to talk about how it’s gonna save the world through creating nuclear fusion energy.  Most of what the National Ignition Facility is for is ‘stockpile management.’  And it’s really a way for them to test nuclear weapon components because it creates an environment—in that chamber—that is similar to the environment created by a nuclear weapons explosion.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 7:01):  “Just like many war technologies that the U.S. government rebrands as peace through force, the ‘Stockpile Stewardship’ program is nothing more than a cloak on the continued and unabated nuclear arms race.”

Scott Yundt (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “We have a nuclear-weapons-complex that is still stuck in the Cold War era.”

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “80% of the American population tell pollsters that they would feel safer if no county, including the United States, had nuclear weapons.” 

Abby Martin Narration:  “Despite the moratorium, we continue to find a way to test nuclear weapons.  But by testing each component of a nuclear bomb separately with Site 300, the NIF, and super computers, they’re able to pacify the public.  However, in the back of our minds, we all know that at any moment—by mistake, by miscalculation, or by madness—life, as we know it, could end on this planet.

“How is the looming threat of nuclear annihalation affecting our daily lives?”

For more information about Tri-Valley CARES go to http://www.trivalleycares.org/

Transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

*** 

MEDIA ROOTS — Judi Bari was an activist, a person of conscience, who exercised her First Amendment rights toward socioeconomic justice for much of her life.  She was one of the leading organisers to popularise environmental activism with Earth First!, which influenced the environmental activism contributing to the historic 1999 WTO resistance in Seattle, as well as the more recent Occupy Movement.  On May 24, 1990, a motion-triggered car bomb exploded under Judi’s car seat, as she and Darryl Cherney drove through Oakland en route to Santa Cruz during the Redwood Summer organising tour.

Judi Bari’s story, one of solidarity and collective action, has been documented in an important new film by Mary Liz Thomson (Director/Editor) and Darryl Cherney (Producer) entitled “Who Bombed Judi Bari?”  The documentary film will have its world premiere next week at the 2^nd Annual San Francisco Green Film Festival taking place March 1-7.  The world premiere screening will be on Friday, March 2, at 5pm (1746 Post Street, SF).  With the full production team in the house, this screening will likely be filled to capacity.  So, advance tickets are recommended for those interested in attending.

This is an important film for all because it speaks directly to our human rights in the face of state belligerence.  If we don’t care to question culpability when our neighbours are attacked, particularly where the state has motive to repress, we are unlikely to encourage future generations to take principled stands for socioeconomic justice.  From JFK, X, Ché, MLK, Fred Hampton, and countless others to 9/11, as the state obfuscates and destroys evidence outright, lack of curiosity becomes erosive to our humanity. 

Perhaps, we are learning.  In the case of the 1990 attempt on Judi Bari’s life, the FBI was thwarted in its plans to destroy all of the evidence.

According to Democracy Now:

“A U.S. federal judge in California has ordered the FBI to preserve evidence in a 1990 car bombing that nearly killed two members of the environmental group Earth First! The FBI was planning to destroy all evidence in the case, even though agents had never determined who carried out the attempted assassination of environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. The FBI initially arrested the activists for building the bombs themselves, but the pair later sued the FBI and won more than $4 million in damages.”

Messina

***

“Who Bombed Judi Bari?” trailer

***

SFGFF — This is a raw, personal and at times abrupt film, with a protagonist and story vitally important to American justice and the struggle for the environment.  Judi Bari was an environmental and social justice activist who popularized protests against clear-cutting (e.g. at Headwater Forests) together with the organization EarthFirst! in the 1980s and ’90s.  At times, she (and others) proceeded despite threats of death and violence.  Then, on May 24th, 1990 in Oakland, CA, a bomb explodes in Judi’s car and she suffers debilitating injuries along with confidant, and the film’s producer, Darryl Cherney.  In the aftermath FBI and local police accuse the team of bombing themselves.  It chronicles the rise of a powerful movement as well as the circuitous court cases that followed the blast.  Chock full of archival news footage, interviews and statements by Bari, viewers follow a path from non-violent eco protests to an ostensible assassination attempt on Judi’s life with an associated cover-up – ending with a surprising resolution.

***

“Redwood Summer: Where the 90s Begin,” by Mary Liz Thomson, et al. (1990)

***

Photo by Flickr user Gary Soup

MEDIA ROOTS — Among the lot of what is being starved under Obama’s junk economics austerity, schools are being underfunded and then attacked for struggling to perform academically.  Economic hitmen then move in to push the privatizations and the underlying attacks on labour, particularly since teachers are among the last segments of the workforce that are still organized.

MR

***

The War Against the OEA and Oakland Public Education 

A report by retired OEA leader Jack Gerson

***

Photo by flickr user Abdulrahman.stock

MEDIA ROOTS — You’ve likely heard of Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran shot in the head by a police tear gas canister at point blank range during the nationwide crackdown on the Occupy Movement.  The tragic event transformed him into an international symbol of police brutality, and it continues to be an important story signifying state repression. 

Yet, you probably haven’t heard of Kenneth Harding.  His story wasn’t featured on Democracy Now! and was scarcely covered in the progressive press.  However, the story of Kenneth Harding is as tragic and damning as that of Scott Olsen, Oscar Grant, Rodney King, or any number of people who have experienced the raw fist and boot of the US police state.

Kenneth Harding is another U.S. citizen dishonoured by his nation who was gunned down in cold blood by S.F. police this past summer.  S.F. police then blocked anyone from offering the gasping and dying Harding first aid as he bled to death before a crowd of hundreds left in aghast. 

Harding’s mother spoke with “The Morning Mix with JR” on KPFA last week to talk about an event she was organising to raise awareness around the murder of her son and push for an investigation to bring the killer cops to justice.  (See transcript below.) 

In another related story of unwarranted police killing, another man was recently brutally gunned down in Monterey Park, CA outside of a restaurant by one of a swarm of cops apprehending the man who had broken some windows with a metal bar.  Instead of collectively overpowering the man with their bare hands or waiting for back-up, one murderous cop lunges forward and shoots him, point blank, almost ten times, completely unprovoked, leaving Steven Rodriguez dead. 

In story after story, cops seems to be malfunctioning, losing their cool with their weapons, degenerating into wanton murder.  Unwarranted police aggression and their use of deadly force over the decades, poorly covered by corporate media, has conditioned many in the U.S. to seemingly accept and condone such lawlessness from police forces.

As the corporate media parroted police disinformation surrounding the Kenneth Harding story, the San Francisco Bayview National Black Newspaper documented the events from a grassroots perspective:

“When police stopped a teenager stepping off the T-train yesterday [16 Jul 2011] to show his transfer as proof he’d paid his fare – $2 at most – he ran from them. They shot him as many as 10 times in the back and neck, according to witnesses. For many long minutes, as a crowd watched in horror, the boy, who had fallen to the sidewalk a block away, lay in a quickly growing pool of blood writhing in pain and trying to lift himself up as the cops trained their guns on him and threatened bystanders.”

One M.D.s Letter to the SF Examiner Editor wrote: 

“I take exception to reports describing Kenneth Harding lying dead on the Bayview sidewalk. I have reviewed at least five videos which document him laying face down in a pool of blood and arching his neck in an attempt to breathe.

San Francisco police officers are trained in CPR, emergency airway management and first aid. A simple and humane maneuver might have been to simply roll him over on his back and apply a compression dressing to the wound in his neck.”

—Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D. San Francisco

Kenneth Harding “laying face down in a pool of blood and arching his neck in an attempt to breathe.”

Attorney for Harding’s family, Adante Pointer, discussed the glaring contradictions between “police department’s shifting stories” about the murder of Kenneth Harding by police and the accounts of hundreds of witnesses, many of which tried to administer first aid or get help, but were kept at bay by silent, cocked-and-loaded, cops brandishing firepower.  No one wanted to be next in some of the most dramatic minutes of U.S. history since Oscar Grant was gunned down in cold blood by BART police. 

As expected, the murderer cop in that case, Johannes Mehserle, was not administered a punishment commensurate with the crime of murder.  Instead, he was given a slap on the wrist and a mere one year jail sentence.  In the case of Kenneth Harding’s murder, we haven’t even seen the names of the guilty cops.  But Kenneth Harding’s mother continues to seek justice with the help of the SF Bayview community and independent, grassroots media to illuminate the struggle for justice around police terorrism.

***

THE MORNING MIX WITH JR — “You are listening to The Morning Mix.  Good morning ladies and gentleman.  I am your host, The Minister of Information, JR.  Today, we will be talking about the unjustified murder of unarmed young Black man, Kenneth Harding in San Francisco and the upcoming protest to shut down 3^rd Street in San Francisco this Sunday [22 Jan 2012].

“We’ll talk about the plight of the Black Farmers in California as well as the Black International Film Festival and the upcoming Carter G. Woodson Bowl, a.k.a. Black Jeopardy.  All of this after the news.”

JR (c. 7:05):  “We are back.  I am your host, the Minister of Information JR, for The Morning Mix.  Today, we will talk about the Carter G. Woodson Black History Bowl, a.k.a. Black Jeopardy.  We will talk about the Oakland International Film Festival.  We will also talk about the plight of the Black farmers in California.

“But, first, we need to address these unjustified police murders of unarmed people in the Black community all over the United States.

“Our next guest is the mother of Kenneth Harding, 19-year old unarmed Black man who was shot in mid-July [2011] over a $2 dollar bus transfer by the San Francisco Police Department.  We have his mother live in the studio today.  Her name is Denika Chatman.

“How are you Miss Denika?”

Denika Chatman (c. 7:58):  “I’m good.  Thank you for asking.”

JR (c. 8:00):  “Can you tell the people a little bit about your son, Kenneth Harding?  Who was Kenneth Harding before he was murdered by the San Francisco Police Department in such an atrocious way?”  

Denika Chatman (c. 8:12):  “My son was very filled with life.  He was the life of the party.  He could go anywhere and fit in.  He loved life.  And he was a college student, set to start college last fall.  He was an entertainer.  He was out here [in the S.F. Bay Area] trying to get his music out.  And he was very family oriented.  He loved his mother.  He loved his brother.  He loved his sister.  And he loved the Lord.”

JR (c. 8:45):  “Can you tell the people a little bit about what happened in the middle of July [2011].”

Denika Chatman (c. 8:51):  “Yes.  My son, Kenny, he was on a T-train in San Francisco, Muni Transit.  And the police, pretty much, racially profiled him, approached him, asked him to supply proof of purchase of transfer for being on the train.  And when he didn’t supply it, they removed him from the train where at that time he, just, had sat for a moment and then he took off running.  And while he was running, he was running with his hands up. 

“And they still shot him down and allowed him to lay in the streets for over 28 minutes while he bled out and died.  They wouldn’t allow the paramedics through to try to help him. 

“And, basically, I feel like he was ambushed because they came at him from two different directions over a $2 transit fare.

JR (c. 9:47):  “I just want to put it out there that this is on YouTube.  They can put Kenneth Harding into YouTube and this will come up.”

Denika Chatman (c. 9:56):  “That is correct.  There was over 150 people out there that day.  So, everybody pulled out their phones and started recording.  And that’s why there are so many videos of my son’s death on there.

“And I’ve never seen it.  I don’t want to see it.  But I do get the sympathy calls and support from everyone else who has seen them.”

JR (c. 10:19):  “What’s been going on since in the community of Hunter’s Point where this occurred?  What’s been going on since with people, such as Fly Benzo and Kilo and different people who support you?”

Denika Chatman (c. 10:33):  “That’s where the majority of my support comes from.  As far as Fly, him and his brother Pladee have been assaulted, hospitalised, incarcerated for speaking openly about what they witnessed on that day and for still speaking out in regards to it, which I don’t understand because there’s also a YouTube of what happened to Fly Benzo.  And I don’t understand why the courts won’t just use that as evidence and see what actually occurred on that day and that the police provoked all of this and just drop the charges. 

“And that’s why I endorse his campaign.  Free Fly Benzo.  His brother Pladee, he was assaulted as well. 

“Kilo Perry, the police have harassed him on several occasions; he has been incarcerated for speaking out for the murder of my son, for what he saw the police do.”     

JR (c. 11:29):  “Isn’t the San Francisco Police Department pushing charges that could result in Fly Benzo, otherwise known as Debray Carpenter, where he could be facing years in prison?”

Denika Chatman (c. 11:43):  “That is correct.  And I carry a lot of the guilt behind that because the battle he’s fighting is because he stood up for what he felt wasn’t right, the injustice done to my son.  And because of that he is looking at a lot of prison time.  And that’s why I’m fighting so hard for him on his side in solidarity because something has to be done.  And he shouldn’t have to go through this behind speaking out against injustice.

JR (c. 12:20):  “Can you talk a little bit about what you guys have going on January 22^nd?”

Denika Chatman (c. 12:24):  “Yeah.  On January 22^nd, we are having a peaceful protest march and rally starting at 3^rd Street and Oakdale, my son’s murder spot.  That is San Francisco. 

“And we are marching over to Candlestick Stadium to surround it.  It’s the NFC Playoff Championship Game and we know that the 49ers are gonna make it there.  So, we’re just trying to bring awareness to the game-goers that, ‘We don’t have no problem with you enjoying your game. We’re not even trying to disrupt the game. We just want to bring awareness that right outside of this stadium, the police are killing our children.’

JR (c. 13:08):  “Right.  Can you also talk a little bit about this concert that you have comin’ up?”

Denika Chatman (c. 13:13):  “Yes.  I can touch on it.  We’re having a big benefit concert for my son on February 10^th.  And I’ll just list a couple of the artists who will be there:  The Jacka, J-Diggs, Mac Mall, Turf Talk, Beeda Weeda.”

JR (c. 13:33):  “And this is at 330 Ritch in San Francisco.”

Denika Chatman (c. 13:36):  “Yes.  Everything is still being collaborated, put together, so we’re just waiting on finalisation right now.  But everything is approved to go.”

JR (c. 13:49):  “How has the police been responding to you and your family since this murder occurred?”

Denika Chatman (c. 13:54):  “Well, I went down to the Office of Citizen Complaints in San Francisco to turn in my complaint.  At that time, I had only been in my new home for not even ten days.  And at that time they were the only ones who had my address, my physical address, because I had to put it on the paperwork.  And within three to five days my home address was listed under Google with step-by-step directions on how to get to my home. 

“And I haven’t had any interactions with the police.  However, they still haven’t been forthcoming with any of the evidence, or the videotapes, or anything to prove that they did a righteous kill.”

JR (c. 14:40):  “If people would like to help you and your supporters and would like to help fight police terrorism in aiding the people who are supporting Kenneth Harding, where can they do that and how can they do that?”

Denika Chatman (c. 14:55):  “Well, we just established the Kenneth Harding, Jr. Foundation.  If you would like to support, you can come to our meetings, you can also follow me on Facebook at Justice 4 Kenneth Harding Jr.  And you can actually see everything that we’ve done up until this point as well as find out all the upcoming events and also posted on the page, anything that’s needed or anything that has to do with the Foundation we post it up there, so that if people want to participate or become part of his Committee.  They are welcome to do so.”

JR (c. 15:40):  “Well, Denika, I just want to salute you for standing on the front line when you’ve faced such an atrocity to your own family, the atrocious murder of your own son by somebody who was a so-called public servant.

“Do we know the name of the police officer that killed your son?”

Denika Chatman (c. 15:59):  “There were actually four of them.  And all their names are listed on the Justice 4 Kenneth Harding, Jr. site as well.”

JR (c. 16:06):  “Well, thank you for standing on that front line.  We appreciate your strength and your commitment and dedication.  And you know the Block Report is behind you.”

Denika Chatman (c. 16:16):  “Bless you, JR.  I also want to thank you for being a part of my son’s Board, being part of our Foundation. 

“And one thing that a lot of people don’t know, they can go get the new issue of the Bayview Newspaper, read my story.  It’s called ‘Picking Up the Pieces.’  And on there, I’m actually giving shouts out to you for coming to Seattle to see about me and my family after all of this occurred, for you for being on the front line with me in supporting me throughout all of this, to all my front-runners who are still standing on the front line, who didn’t allow the police to get to them and silence them.  Kilo Perry, Fly Benzo, Pladee Clayton, all o’ ya’ll.  I just wanna thank my true soldiers.”

JR (c. 17:05):  “Well, right on.  Salute.  Thank you for coming in.”

Denika Chatman (c. 17:08):  “Thank you for having me.”

***

Writing, transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo by ElvertBarnes

MEDIA ROOTS – I’m very excited to announce that an extensive lot of our footage from Occupy Oakland is going to be used to represent the S.F. Bay Area in the upcoming 99% Collaborative Film Project!  The film is unique in its collaborative fashion and is geared to represent an honest portrayal of the ongoing Occupy Movement.  At 2:18, the film trailer gets slightly sinister with our footage of Oakland’s police state crackdown.  Check it out and donate, so this epic film can be made!

Abby

***

WIRED – Most documentaries involve months of planning before the first frame of film is shot, but the creators of an in-the-works Occupy Wall Street documentary didn’t have that luxury. The protest movement was happening around them when they decided to make the film.

Now the filmmakers behind 99% — The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film are looking to raise funds to complete the project. They have footage from 75 filmmakers who captured imagery at various Occupy events across the country, but to finish the project, producers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites are looking to raise $17,500.

“It’s the amount we need to buy the hard-drive storage and editing space that will allow us to begin the massive process of sorting and editing,” the filmmakers say on the 99% Kickstarter page. “This will get us to the point that we can, at the very least, put together a promo reel to bring in additional funding.”

To drum up additional cash, the filmmakers will be holding an online screening. For $3.99, viewers can buy a ticket to watch early footage. The Jan. 7 screening will be hosted by Ewell and Aites, as well as producer Williams Cole, and will be followed by a question-and-answer period with some of the film’s contributors.

“To my knowledge, this is the first film about a current, ongoing event that’s been made in this collaborative fashion,” Ewell said in a press release announcing the screening. “And the process is devastatingly hard, rewarding and exciting.”

The Kickstarter campaign for 99% ends Jan. 13. Check out the trailer for the documentary above and head over to the 99% website to learn more.

© 2011 Wired