11.1 If you can’t beat them…beat them harder
Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.
And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,
What they like, that let them do.
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.
Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.
– Percy Bisshe Shelley, “The Masque of Anarchy”
Although Occupy was a distinct, purposive political uprising in its own right, in many ways, the G20 Summit in Toronto in 2010 provided a premonition of what was to come in Oakland and other Occupy encampments the following year.
The response of law enforcement to the G20 protests was swift and severe—bringing to bear the tactic of “kettling,” or surrounding and entrapping protesters in a small area in order to arrest “persons of interest”—of which a total of 600 were captured.
In fairness to the police responsible for the maintenance of law and order during the G20 summit, the perception that the protests had descended into mayhem was not unwarranted. Black Blocs, noted for their predilection to inflict property damage on business establishments, smash windows, and even set police cars alight, were engaged in their usual tactics. In the mind of the black-clad battalions, the destruction of private property is an activity distinct from physical violence against civilians, and it’s a distinction about which adherents to the anarchist organization’s foundational principles remain adamant.
However, the group’s methods have also drawn justifiable criticism from detractors. One of the most vociferous of these critics is Occupy participant and writer Christopher Hedges, who points out that Black Bloc adventures in property destruction, which in some cases have endangered small business owners and journalists, tend to be counterproductive to one of the most important objectives of a mass movement: namely, to win hearts and minds among the public.
A year after one of the most prominent demonstrations of Black Bloc “diversity of tactics” in recent memory, similar circumstances would play out in multiple Occupy venues. And arguably the most spectacular confrontation between police and militant anarchists took place in Northern California.
11.2 Oakland
“I would rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.” – Emiliano Zapata
It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.
– Naomi Wolf, “Revealed: How the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/16/police_crackdowns_on_occupy_protests_from
Like so many municipalities in the U.S., Oakland and its citizens have suffered under the ravages of urban decay, the degradation of critical programs and infrastructure, violence, injustice, fraudulent sub-prime lending and wrongful foreclosures, all of it perpetuated and exacerbated by a corrupt economic system, and a political establishment that has failed to uphold the best interests of the citizenry. By the fall of 2011, thousands of Oaklanders decided they’d had enough. Like their counterparts in cities across America and around the world, they set up camp in a public space—in Oakland’s case, a plaza contiguous with City Hall named for Japanese-American activist and city councillor Frank Ogawa—and laid down the roots of a de facto community.
Occupy Oakland would soon garner a reputation for its remarkable staying power, even in the face of a police crackdown characterized by—quite literally—breathtaking violence.
Journalist Abby Martin, founder of the independent news blog Media Roots, and host of Breaking the Set on RT America, covered two police raids of the encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza, and managed to record video of the events as they unfolded—at considerable risk to her personal safety. She responded to my questions via e-mail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WaOp95d0M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgn4IXHyVdI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck
“My experience was one of shock – shock that such a harsh police presence would show up to tear gas and spray people sleeping in tents with rubber bullets in the middle of the night,” Martin recounted.
“People were beaten, kettled and subjected to crowd control methods for little to no reason multiple times in front of me.”
Among the tactics police used against the non-violent protesters: tear gas, flash grenades, rubber bullets, and helicopters outfitted with searchlights. While similar forms of state repression took place at Occupy encampments elsewhere, the crackdown on Oakland was particularly severe, because the demonstrators in Oakland were uncommonly persistent.
At first, the Oakland police raids seemed to backfire. Rather than frightening protesters off as they’d been intended to do, the attacks seemed to galvanize support for the Occupy Oakland cause, Martin recalls.
“The mood after the initial raid was anger, and mass organizing followed by the masses in the city,” she writes. “I think people in the community who didn’t necessarily care about Occupy’s cause at all initially became very upset with the way OWS was treated and ended up joining the efforts of the movement.”
But it was short lived. As the protesters bent but refused to break, the police intensified their assault.
“Occupy Oakland organized a massive May Day shutdown of the city and march to the ports of Oakland,” she recalls. “After that there was another crackdown and an attempt to re-occupy some spaces. But since the police were relentless, people eventually gave up and the movement there on out tapered.”
Collis recalls how the physical removal of Occupy encampments in late October and November of 2011 took place, in a seemingly coordinated fashion, within a brief window of time.
“Camping in a public square…ultimately is not a desirable goal. That was simply a tactic that forced the issue for a while,” he explained. “Which it very clearly did, [as evidenced by] the fact that the state, everywhere, in a very rapid fashion—in a matter of weeks—decided to physically remove all these camps.”
“[The respective authorities] all found different excuses and reasons to do that, and took different measures to eliminate that idea of camping in public.”
Despite its physical demise, however, Martin believes the movement’s achievements were significant.
“People say [OWS] is dead,” she said, “but it was literally beat out of existence.”
“The main thing [OWS] did was create awareness about class issues and the systemic problems all being rooted from the same system.”
Collis agrees.
“[Occupy’s] real gain was to add some fuel to the idea of people having agency, of change being possible…it was an adrenaline boost for people who desire, or are working toward, social change,” he says.
“And now you see the Quebec student movement, you see Idle No More, there’s more energy in the last couple years in the housing and rent movement here in Vancouver. All of these things, I think, we’re seeing because of the adrenaline that Occupy pumped back into the system.”