Open Letter from Occupy Santa Rosa

An Open Letter from Occupy Santa Rosa

• Police Violence, Nonviolent Resistance, and Real Democracy •

February 7, 2012

In light of recent events in Oakland and the media response, especially the call from the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat on January 31 that all Occupy groups “condemn” Occupy Oakland, we offer this public response:

The Occupy movement is horizontally-organized, meaning each Occupy group decides what local and global injustices to highlight, and how to do so. But all Occupy groups are united by their anguish and anger over the many ways that the 1% have placed profit over people and planet, stealing the wealth of our families, damaging the earth that sustains us, and leaving the most vulnerable members of our global society to suffer without recourse. This structural violence leaves families unable to feed their children, veterans without treatment for war-induced trauma, countries ravaged and depleted by those very same wars, indigenous communities with poisoned land, and humans everywhere stripped of dignity, democracy and human rights.

We stand in absolute solidarity with Occupy Oakland and their creative use of nonviolent direct action to resist economic injustice and state repression. Their attempt to claim a vacant building for justice and community-building enjoined everyone to look directly at the vast waste of resources in this nation. Banks have shuttered about 8 million American houses since 2007, while 3.5 million homeless shiver in the cold. Experts foresee 8 million to 10 million more foreclosures in the years ahead. The response to Occupy Oakland’s action — kettling or corralling protestors on all four sides so that they could not disperse even if an order was given, deploying excessive, essentially military force, and mistreating arrestees by refusing medication (among other allegations) — was deplorable. It is this state repression, and not Occupy Oakland, that we condemn.

American TV screens and newspapers are filled with images of occasional and incidental confrontations at Occupy sites, rather than coverage of the immense positive and peaceful efforts made by Occupy groups across the nation. We salute the national Occupy movement for educating and organizing entirely nonviolent civil disobedience in the face of state repression, and for creating a democratic process that serves as a foundation for true political equality.

We believe that the people of this city and country are capable of seeing these efforts and these truths. But the 1% and the police and corporate media they control have done everything to spread misinformation and destroy the nonviolent Occupy camps that served as communication and organizing centers.

Occupy Santa Rosa has from its very inception been committed to nonviolence. We are also committed to a political process that is open, transparent, and accountable. We believe in the possibility of a truly inclusive democracy, and this is why the consensus-based General Assembly is at the heart of our organization. We work creatively and respectfully to include everyone’s perspectives on restoring economic justice and direct democracy to this country. If you don’t agree with something the movement is doing, you are welcome to show up and speak your mind.

Perhaps you have the idea we have been waiting for. Perhaps you will learn something new, something you can’t learn from the corporate media, about who we are.

Let’s work together to wrest our politics and our lives free from corporate control. Let’s take back the wealth that has been stolen by the 1%. Let’s make sure all people have land, housing, jobs with dignity, food, education, health care and liberty. Let’s create a General Assembly in every neighborhood, workplace, and school campus, so we can all learn how to govern ourselves and not rely on a corporate-selected elite to make decisions for us.

A quick peek at the various calendars of local Occupies show many positive community-building and educational events. In only one weekend, Occupy Santa Rosa supported an activist training for Move to Amend, the nation-wide campaign to abolish corporate personhood, and put on a fundraising event for school supplies at Community Market. This is in addition to the many working group meetings and discussions about solutions to foreclosures, the California budget crisis, and many other problems.

We will not be coaxed, belittled or intimidated from our purpose. We are creating a new world – one that will serve people and planet, one that will truly be our own.

In peace and solidarity,
The people of Occupy Santa Rosa

Approved by General Assembly on February 7, 2012