report from shut down san francisco

it seems that almost every time we have a protest in San
Francisco some kind of history is made- even on this day of grief
and sorrow as the imperial machine gets rolling.

there are plenty of reports at the san francisco indy media site - at
http://www.indybay.org -

here is my report -

began the day with listening to amy goodman on democracy now -
http://www.democracynow.org on the beginnings of the protest
around the world - and against all advise i got into my car and
headed accross the bay bridge during rush hour - when normally
traffic is completely backed up - today - there was no back up at
all..., that was probably due to the number of people who had
stayed home, given all that was going to be taking place in The
City (as San Francisco is sometimes refered to by people living in
other parts fo the bay area).

i parked my car about two or three miles away from where the main
protests were to take place - took the light rail/muni underground - and
even as i was underground - at every station that the train stopped - i
could hear loud crowds - soon enough i got off at the embarcadero station,
and could hear something going on... and lo and behold:

in my sight there were at least three major intersections that were
blocked by people sitting on the streets, doing yoga on the side, or just
plain hangin' out - there was a large police presence - and i heard a
report from my friend who had seen a big bus full of protestors being
taken away (that bus holds probably 200 people) - these were large city
(MUNI) buses...

we decided to join one of the affinity groups that had a pretty cool band
with it - and waited for the cops to show up and move us on - well they
did come - and began to arrest folks one by one who had not moved. But
check this out - the cops then took over the intersection! And this was
the case intersection after intersection, protestors would take over
intersections, cops would come, protestors would move on - and cops would
take over - Once the cops took over, they ended up doing the job of the
protestors - which was to block the intersection. For the police this was
about taking back control - for the protestors it didnt matter - the
objective was disruption - and it worked -

It worked in literally tens or dozens of intersections around the city -
the downtown area of san francisco was brought to a stand still - and the
cops reported feeling overwhelmed - and simply could not keep up with the
protestors just moving from one intersection to another - and with
thousands and thousands - there were so many intersections blocked that
they at some point must have just given up.

We could move around the downtown area - away from the major
intersections - almost at will - take over streets, and block traffic...
and then move on -

At 12:00 noon a major rally was planned, a large march began
through the main market street of downtown san francisco - at one
point we were stopped by the cops - and they seemed to want to
control the people, but somehow ended up being right in between
two very large groups of protestors (thousands on either side) -
after lots of yelling and shouting the cops relented and we marched
on - and on and on through ritzy neighbourhoods, through some of
the most poor neighbourhoods - and the march continued to grow -
tens of thousands - maybe, 15,000 maybe 20,000 -

this was just this big march going around and around the city - for
three or more hours - up the hills , down the hills, up the hills, down
the hills - at the same time there were thousands of people continuing to
block intersections - and somewhat smaller marches going on elsewhere -
finally the police gave up on following the big march - and we did not
even have a police escort as we went around San Francisco.

we returned to civic ctr. and there i learnt a lot more of what had
been taking place since the morning - Bechtel corporation building
had been shut down since morning (Bechtel is one of the corporate
sponsors of the war who will be getting a contract to "rebuild" iraq) -
And the federal building had been shut down - since morning - and the
march then moved to the federal building to provide support -

and this smaller march now walked around and around the federal
building, as protestors at the enterance continued to hold the line -

and then at 5:00 P.M. now another major march began in Powell
St. that was making its way around and around san francisco at
the time -at this point i just couldnt continue after having been on my
feet since 8:30 or so in the morning -

the protest continue as i write this, with 1300 people having been
arrested so far, and with thousands of people still on the streets - and
with a midnight rally/convergence planned, the police say they are
"surprised" with the stamina of the people -

this decentralized anarchist way of organaizing, of affinity groups, and
spokescouncils and all worked - congratulations san francisco -