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Indybay Feature

Take Back the Plaza! Overnight Vigil + FTP March #O25

Date:
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Time:
3:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Occupy Oakland
Location Details:
Converge on OGP at 3PM to begin the open forum
Dinner/break out groups at 5PM
FTP March at 7PM
Occupy OGP and continue conversations all night.

During the early hours of October 25, 2011, hundreds of violent police officers stormed into Occupy Oakland’s home base at Oscar Grant Plaza, near city hall, to evict protesters & to remove their belongings. 96 of our comrades were arrested after the cops used tear gas, flash-bang grenades and less-than-lethal munitions to subdue the crowd.

Occupy Oakland’s spirit was not damaged, we were emboldened and radicalized as thousands returned that afternoon to stand up and fight back. Unforgettably, so did the p…olice. The battle for the plaza went on into the night, turning downtown Oakland into what looked like a war zone. Hot canisters of tear gas flew through the air, rubber bullets crashed into the bodies of our fellow occupiers, one hitting an Iraq war veteran in the head, putting his life in serious danger.

This year we say, FIGHT BACK! Let’s re-converge and re-claim our home!

Meet at Oscar Grant Plaza at 3PM for an open forum to discuss how to effectively combat state and police oppression before the 7PM FTP march on OPD. Let’s show these pigs we will never back down in the face of violent oppression!

After the march, let’s hold down the plaza all night and continue our conversations on how to better serve our community and how to empower each other to stand up and fight back against the OPD street gang who puts so many Oaklanders in danger.

*******

Please join us for a day of discussion on how to effectively combat
state and police oppression on October 25th at Oscar Grant Plaza (City Hall) at 3PM.

Schedule of events:

Converge on OGP at 3PM to begin the open forum
Dinner/break out groups at 5PM
FTP March at 7PM
Occupy OGP and continue conversations all night.

Please bring: Tents, warm clothes, shields, a defensive attitude and
hella friends!

*************
Added 10/16/12 -

Roughly 10 organizers for this event have been meeting regularly to make sure this night is a success, meaning no arrests or casualties. Knowing that we cannot and will not control autonomous actions & respecting the various forms of anger within those who will be participating, we would like to make it clear that un-targeted property damage is not part of the plan and is discouraged in the interest of extending our presence past the march. This is not to say that a second autonomous march later in the night is out of the question.

Rather than the tactic of smashing, this night would be a great time to exercise our defensive tactics. (Bring shields, “tools of violence,” work together and act smart!)

There are multiple goals to achieve through this action including, holding space through out the night, calling out OPD violence in a very public way & celebrating our unity against oppression.

The march will make stops at various downtown locations where the OPD has shown their ugly side against dissenters. We would like to stop at each location and project video and images of what the police have done to us there, on the walls of a near by building or on our mobile slide show screen. Calling out OPD is such a public way will be a huge win for the Occupy Oakland community by showing the general public what true violence is.

The march will then end at one of three undisclosed locations where we will hold that space through out the night. Remember to bring items that will help you accomplish this goal: Warm clothes, blankets, tents… (For those bringing small easy to erect tents, it would be awesome to see them go up on the return end of the march, and held high above our heads as we zero in on our target.)

See you all on the 25th & seriously, FUCK THE POLICE!
Added to the calendar on Mon, Oct 22, 2012 4:31PM
§Illegal Camping
by Oakland
800_illegal-camping-oakland.jpg
§Take Back OGP!
by Occupy Oakland
long-live-the-oakland-commune3.jpg
This Thursday October 25, Occupy Oakland will take back Oscar Grant Plaza with the intention of reclaiming the commons and the right of the people to organize in City Centers.

On October 25 of last year, the Oakland Commune at Oscar Grant Plaza was raided with enough brutal force to gain international attention. Since then, continuous state repression and police brutality have sought to divide Oakland and keep its residents from reclaiming public space in a time of local, national and global austerity.

The Oakland Commune served as a socio/political refuge for Oakland residents. It was open and free to all and provided a space where people could traverse race and class divides in order to share food, discussion and visions of a more just world. During this time, it was reported that crime within the beat that contained Oscar Grant Plaza went down 19 percent, which highlights the social efficacy of the community when allowed to come together and care for itself.

This Thursday October 25, Occupy Oakland will take back Oscar Grant Plaza with the intention of reclaiming the commons and the right of the people to organize in City Centers. This is a call out to all those who either experienced or were intrigued by the power of the Oakland Commune to come and contribute to the evening’s planned discussions on racism, patriarchy, state repression, and bridges to building a mass movement. A pot luck, community forum and general assembly are scheduled to begin at 4:00pm, followed by a march at 7:00pm. Films will be shown in the evening.

Come gather with us in the commons!

Comments (Hide Comments)
by rock on
A factual sidenote, though.

"rubber bullets crashed into the bodies of our fellow occupiers, one hitting an Iraq war veteran in the head, putting his life in serious danger"

Scott Olsen was hit by a green beanbag shotgun round, not a rubber bullet.
by Insurrectionist
If it was Athens, the city would have been torched.
by anticapitalista
Oakland is not Greece. Stop romanticizing distant struggles and focus on the task at hand.
by C'mon
This event has only showed up on the Indybay calendar 2 days before the actual action. It only recently showed up on the OO website within the past couple of days. I know that there was a facebook page( and probably other sites) that had promoted the action, but if we want to have a good turnout, there needs to be better outreach and promotion of the event with much more time in advance. Maybe there are internal dynamics and divisions going on within OO that I don't know about that has stalled attempts to widely dissemiante the event. Those issues need to be put aside and we need to be unified in our attempts to get people out into the streets. After all, this is the first anniversary of a very historic event in Oakland, within the Occupy movement and in the history of social movements in general. Hopefully, things will go smooth, there will be a good turnout and we will be ready to confront any problems that come our way. But in future, we need to prepare better. Solidarity
@Insurrectionist: But Oakland ISN'T Athens. Different socio-economic dynamic, political structure, and population. We know that all you want for Christmas is your Oakland revolution, but it's not gonna happen like that, so let go of the fantasies already.

@anticapitalista: Ditto.

@C'Mon: Poor planning you say? HA! Of course it's poor planning. OO thrives on last minute chaos and adrenaline. Since when do the hard core radicals in OO plan _anything_? A couple of sleek graphics from resident artists, some nifty websites, a Facebook invite and done. That's all the outreach Oakland will get. Why? Because all these people care about is inviting their own friends to the same old fucking party pinning the same old brick on the same old window. So old, so tired.

Yes, there are some new conflicts rising to the surface, but it has been shitty and conflicted since day one. No news there.

This was announced about a month ago on Facebook and on some obscure OOer's blog. There have been planning sessions, but actual outreach equals zero.

We'll see what happens. It will probably will begin with 300 people (most visiting from other places) having a nice BBQ and speak out. By nightfall the crowd will dwindle to half. A couple will get thumped by the cops, a couple will vandalize some shit, and the majority will run home (yes, run, because not one of these fuckers will come prepared for a real street fight against the police), feverishly typing a narrative to post online about how victorious the Oakland Commune was. Whee.
by Put down the Bong
And maybe one of these days. We'll get it together. ;-)
by Plan
Poor planning IS part of the strategy to destroy OO. They got you coming and going. They control the GA to oust legitimate groups like OOmedia.

Then they "plan poorly" like posting this up a couple days before the event WITH an FTP march. The FTP marches which you already know alienates most people. Remember how "Move-In Day" was organized? "MoveIn Day" was organized to be unorganized.

Lastly, "they" proclaim that "Occupy Oakland is Dead". "They" want you to go along with the fact that OO is dead so you can split up into your groups instead of unifying as one big movement. Divide and conquer.

The only way to win is with one big unified group like OO was.

The only way to rebuild Occupy Oakland is without those elements that destroyed it.
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