Statement on the Occupation of the former Traveler's Aid Society at 520 16th Street

[Darren]

/http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/03/18697018.php

Thursday Nov 3rd, 2011 11:01 AM /


Last night, after one of the most remarkable days of resistance in 
recent history, some of us within Occupy Oakland took an important next 
step: we extended the occupation to an unused building near Oscar Grant 
Plaza. We did this, first off, in order to secure the shelter and space 
from which to continue organizing during the coming winter months. But 
we also hoped to use the national spotlight on Oakland to encourage 
other occupations in colder, more northern climates to consider claiming 
spaces and moving indoors in order to resist the repressive force of the 
weather, after so bravely resisting the police and the political 
establishment. We want this movement to be here next Spring, and 
claiming unused space is, in our view, the most plausible way forward 
for us at this point. We had plans to start using this space today as a 
library, a place for classes and workshops, as well as a dormitory for 
those with health conditions. We had already begun to move in books from 
the library. The building we chose was perfect: not only was it a mere 
block from Oscar Grant Plaza, but it formerly housed the Traveler's Aid 
Society, a not-for-profit organization that provided services to the 
homeless but, due to cuts in government funding, lost its lease Given 
that Occupy Oakland feeds hundreds of people every day, provides them 
with places to sleep and equipment for doing so, involves them in the 
maintenance of the camp (if they so choose), we believe this makes us 
the ideal tenants of this space, despite our unwillingness to pay for 
it. None of this should be that surprising, in any case, as talk of such 
an action has percolated through the movement for months now, and the 
Oakland GA recently voted to support such occupations materially and 
otherwise. /Business Insider/ discussed this decision in an article 
entitled "The Inevitable Has Happened." We are well aware that such an 
action is illegal, just as it is illegal to camp, cook, and live in 
Oscar Grant Plaza as we have done. We are aware that property law means 
that what we did last night counts as trespassing, if not burglary. 
Still, the ferocity of the police response surprised us. Once again, 
they mobilized hundreds of police officers, armed to the hilt with bean 
bag guns, tear gas and flashbang grenades, despite the fact that these 
so-called "less-than-lethal" weapons nearly killed someone last week. 
The city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect one 
landlord's right to earn a few thousand every month. Why is this? 
Whereas the blockade of the port -- an action which caused millions of 
dollars of losses -- met with no resistance, the attempt to take one 
single building, a building that was unused, met with the most brutal 
and swift response. The answer: they fear this logical next step from 
the movement more than anything else. They fear it because they know how 
much appeal it will have. All across the US thousands upon thousands of 
commercial and residential spaces sit empty while more and more people 
are forced to sleep in the streets, or driven deep into poverty while 
trying to pay their rent despite unemployment or poverty wages. We 
understand that capitalism is a system that has no care for human needs. 
It is a system which produces hundreds of thousands of empty houses at 
the same time as it produces hundreds of thousands of homeless people. 
The police are the line between these people and these houses. They say: 
/you can stay in your rat-infested park. You can camp out here as long 
as we want. But the moment that you threaten property rights, we will 
come at you with everything we have. / It is no longer clear who calls 
the shots in Oakland anymore. At the same time as OPD and the Alameda 
County Sheriffs were suiting up and getting ready to smash heads and gas 
people on 16th St, Mayor Quan was issuing a statement that she wished to 
speak to us about returning the building to the Traverler's Aid Society. 
It is clear that the enmity between the Mayor and the Police has grown 
so intense that the police force is now an autonomous force, making its 
own decisions, irrespective of City Hall. This gives us even less reason 
to listen to them or respect the authority now. We understand that much 
of the conversation about last night will revolve around the question of 
violence (though mostly they mean violence to "property," which is 
somehow strangely equated with harming human beings). We know that there 
are many perspectives on these questions, and we should make the space 
for talking about them. But let us say this to the cops and to the 
mayor: things got "violent" after the police came. The riot cops marched 
down Telegraph and then the barricades were lit on fire. The riots cops 
marched down Telegraph and then bottles got thrown and windows smashed. 
The riot cops marched down Telegraph and graffiti appeared everywhere. 
The point here is obvious: if the police don't want violence, they 
should stay the hell away.
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