Late considerations on Berkeley's People's Park Tree sit, 2011.

In response to a letter to the University of California, Berkeley by the Berkeley Telegraph Avenue Merchant's Association, in which the Merchant's blame People's Park for blight; a tree sit in Berkeley's People's Park lasted nine days and tried to address The People's frustration with the city, the university, and the Merchant's Association's refusal to address public social programs in Berkeley, and how this is the real reason for problems in Berkeley's People's Park.

In the beginning of September, I found and was introduced to Penelope Clearwater and a second platform in the Cedar tree in the northeast of People's Park in Berkeley, California. A few days prior I had met Moonshadow. On the day I discovered that Moonshadow had company, two members of Clearwater's family were there with her bag of belongings. During the tree sit I brought carrots and food not bombs, and would come by the protest at least help to coordinate the effort, a few of us were involved with this. Treehorn was sleeping in the tree the day after I met Penelope and another platform was installed. The next day would see yet another platform had been installed. Whatever we were doing in this particular tree sit was more successful than the last. Ayr, Berkeley Oak Grove tree-sitter from a few years back is hanging out at time of writing and poses a question to Moonshadow. It seems we are fighting for the park and homeless advocacy. If Running Wolf was here he would remind us of the Ohlone and the importance of sacred spaces, and the disparity of genocide.

I tend to be out spoken in favor of anti-capitalism and tend to see common light on this issue with other tree enthusiasts. When in the company of Moonshadow we tended to speak of politics. We told jokes, kept our spirits up, and mostly laughed and criticized the UC Berkeley administration. He made it clear that he wasn't dimly aware of how university expansion, and policy seemed to work in tandem with transnational or neo-globalist tendencies. Yesterday's globalism seems to mirror today's trans-nationalism.

“It's not Vietnam, It's another company scam salute that flag for uncle sam, get your money now place your bets-It's Afghanistan, deaths, bayonets, chuck grenades, got enough money got enough bombs to wipe out this place? We're the infantry and the calvary, parachutes fill the sky, bodies burn and people die...” Paid Vacation, Circle Jerks.

The Circle Jerks song is my mantra when I cannot avoid my anger with classism, politics or other similar issues, and I hollered it pretty loudly one day in the park while college kids blithely went about their business one day during the tree sit. The relevance of the drug war comes up in conversation with Moonshadow. We were really blessed to have had such an intelligent young man like him to help us. Like the Lorax he speaks for the trees. He speaks on the side of the interests of the people in regards to the park and against inconsiderate attempts of the Telegraph Avenue Merchants Association who aren't committed to the cause of the homeless, jobless, and mental ill advocacy. The kinds of abuses that Moonshadow suffered in his nine days of tree occupancy can more or less be summed up in one quote.

“I'm not telling you one more time, get out of the park, or I'm putting you to jail.” “You wouldn't make it in Ohio, they'd hang you.” Fucking cops. Moonshadow had been complaining that the multiple evening and morning intrusions of spotlights and meanness of the police were beginning to disturb both his dreams and sleep. That was about day four of his tree sit when he made those remarks so I'm thinking that the two times Penelope Clearwater fell were related to this police harassment. Although at time of writing this is an unconfirmed theory as Moonshadow has left the state of California to avoid being detained by the standards of the Patriot Act.1 Hornbeam is in jail and hopefully not prison for warrants. Good cop, bad cop. Obvious evil. “You came out of thin air,” cops had said in congratulations to Moonshadow. Teeter totter, praise you, scare the hell out of you, butter you up, bother you. It's pretty much bullshit. I was personally involved with some aspects of the tree sit, and I feel as if the cops had to have known we were coming. I guess it's lucky for us that they have absolutely no budget.

If you had a chance to speak to Moonshadow, you may have found that he is more or less over qualified for the position of [tree-sitting,] Tuk Pukuni, [Ohlone: Tree People.] Ayr asked People's Park Gardener Nate the Great about the garden. The soil needs to be turned, and the mint is doing well. Funny to find common minded agrarian interests in the middle of an urban setting such as Berkeley. Things in the garden will explode in a few months due to rain, maybe also due to Tuk Pukuni and Muwekma, (Ohlone: The People.) September 9/11 is a work party in the Park to work on the garden and possibly the stage. Sometime during that day there was televised rebroadcasts of the jets smashing into the world trade center. Public masturbation.

The people were discussing the irony of the Merchant's Association. Cafe Mediterranean and Annapurna directly profit due to the urban history and allure of the park. The coffee shop and head-shop are the biggest complainers. Berkeley Mayor Bates is too busy with solar panel installation, and inviting corporate moguls such as Target to Berkeley to really create alternatives for low income and in need individuals. Same with the University of California, Berkeley. Meanwhile the Telegraph Avenue Merchant's Association maintain they want the western end of People's Park sterilized just as the UCB planners have the eastern section. This would eradicate the garden and forty plus years of local memory, although we won't let them forget. They fail to maintain in their several paged document to the UCB Administration that there is no city, state, or federal budget to arrest drug dealers in the park, provide rehabilitation, feed the homeless, help the mentally ill, house the homeless, or help find jobs to the jobless, yet drug and alcohol abuse seems to be the only issue relevant to the merchant's and to some of the corporate media at large.

I personally watched the CH4 NBC lady entrap Moonshadow in an argumentative didactic regarding drug use in People's Park. Using drugs as a dehumanization mechanism has been a tactic by the city and the UCB since before the park's inception in 1968. Just ask any Reagan supporter or elder in the state.

Eminent domain laws are really simple. The UCB ran out of money in the late 1960s and did not build anything of value with their site of eminence and lost usage privilege. Eminent domain in this usage is another term for it's more modern interpretation – hostile takeover! The people that used to live in People's Park, before it was a park, in houses, were bullied and coerced by the UCB to sell. Let there be no mistake about that. The peaceful protest at People's Park, the latest tree sit this month was an attempt to raise awareness about the oligarchic neo-globalist regime that runs the country, and it's educational institutions.

The People's Park tree sit this September was designed to prevent the Telegraph Merchant's plea to the UC Administration to become reality. We are still trying to save the Park after 40 years. I know that the “People,” have been working on reconstructing the planting berms in the garden, and have been turning the soil. Involvement in the park, it's garden, and how it relates to the community is generally the best measure against UCB encroachment. Direct action should always be taken, whatever the formation, especially if it is positive.



It's about abuses. It's about abuse. Capitalism is a sociological disorder. This is why Mayor Bates, UC Chancellor Birgeneau, members of the Telegraph Avenue Merchant's Association and the nameless and faceless Nazis of the UCBPD and BPD are doing this, because they are sick in the head. Power, capitalism, and avarice are their only motivations, not trees, people, or parks.
Trees are for the People!
Parks are for the People!
UCB, UCBPD, BPD GET OUT OF PEOPLE'S PARK!