Feature Archives

On November 4, a rally in San Francisco's Union Square kicked off Bay Area participation in a national campaign to drive out the Trump/Pence administration. A long and spirited march snaked through the city following the rally. Protests were held on the same day in twenty-two cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle and Portland. To promote the day of action, Refuse Fascism, a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party, took out a full page ad in the New York Times.

For over fifteen days, tents, couches, tables of food, and dozens of students have decked the halls of Eliot Hall, Reed College’s administration building in Portland, Oregon. Students are occupying the building in protest of the college's financial ties to Wells Fargo. Demonstrators say the college holds around $300,000 in the bank on a daily basis. Wells Fargo is an American international banking and financial services holding company well known to be one of the primary investors in private prisons, immigration detention, the Dakota Access Pipeline, police foundations and the Israeli Apartheid, among other oppressive institutions.

The State of Wisconsin has violated the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe by allowing the Enbridge corporation to destroy wetlands, animal habitat, and their sacred rice lakes for a pipeline that the Minnesota Department of Commerce has deemed unnecessary and hazardous. In Cloquet, Minnesota, a growing front line camp of water protectors has become a base for launching nonviolent direct actions intended to shutdown construction on Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline. Every hour protesters stop work costs Enbridge thousands of dollars. This tactic of non-violent direct action is a last resort because the courts and regulatory processes have failed the people and mother earth.

Despite the fact that he froze services to low-income internet users soon after taking office, Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai came to San Francisco to talk to tech executives about bridging the digital divide for underserved communities. Pai was named by President Trump as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in January. When he visited San Francisco on September 12, protesters demonstrated at the site of the meeting in the city's financial district, saying net neutrality is a racial justice issue.

Tens of thousands of people hit the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley against a series of far-right rallies. Antifascist groups, labor, faith-based organizations, and a multitude of sectors mobilized to confront the far-right, showing that the autonomous power and energy that was unleashed after Charlottesville is still very much alive and is growing among the broader population. But, in the face of growing mass popular opposition not controlled or contained by the Democratic Party, through building a coalition that includes anarchists and antifascists, both the Right, Center, and liberal Left began to launch a series of attacks in the media against "antifa."

Lynda Carson wrote a piece shining light on David Duke's political donors in Northern California, publishing a second report on supporters in Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, and beyond. One of those named was Roger F. Grigsby, owner and founding chef of O'mei restaurant in Santa Cruz. Within a week of the Indybay article, the restaurant shut its doors. Grigsby has responded by claiming he is a victim of a "war on whites." In Minneapolis, Clubhouse Jäger owner Julius De Roma was also called out. Employees have quit, a DJ pulled out, and the Huge Improv Theater, a tenant of De Roma's, issued a statement: "we would like to formally tell Nazis and the KKK that they can fuck straight off." Clubhouse Jägerwas closed for business as of September 1 after the entire staff quit.

After thousands rallied in Phoenix, AZ to support immigrants and loudly denounce Trump’s attempts to pardon White supremacy, President Trump did it anyway. On August 25, he pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted for criminal contempt for disobeying a federal court judge’s order to stop the unconstitutional practice of detaining individuals based solely on suspicion about their immigration status. The President of the National Bar Association responded by writing, "Donald Trump’s pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, one of the most blatant bigots of this era, marks a dark day in the history of our nation."