By Wendi Maxwell, Guest Contributor
(Wendi Maxwell looks behind the two-dimensional news stories to find the real motivations of the California Bay Area's radicals. Maxwell is a former policy maker for California adult literacy projects.)
What if the Occupy movement is not just about holding demonstrations in public places? What if its real impact is the ability to empower and unite communities to identify their own problems, propose their own solutions, and take matters into their own hands? Meet the Oakland Commune. (Photo right: Oakland Occupy Wall Street, hella occupy).
Oakland – Radical Politics
Oakland, birthplace of the Black Panthers, has a long history of radical activism. It’s no wonder then, that the Occupy Oakland movement has a different flavor than the original Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Oakland takes the term “occupation” literally. As an Occupy Oakland rally poster articulates:
"We live in a world where unemployment and staggering levels of debt are the new normal, where poverty and homelessness are met by police violence and incarceration. The entire global economy is broken, and politicians in the US and elsewhere remain powerless to do anything about it. It’s time to take power into our own hands, to occupy the spaces from which we have been excluded and reclaim everything that has been stolen from us.”
Banners at Occupy Oakland say “Occupy Everything.” An occupation challenges ownership of the space involved, and by taking control of the space, changes its usage. When foreign governments occupy a country after a war, they take control of the territory and change the rules. Occupy Oakland is taking control of the public plaza next to the Oakland City Hall. (Photo left: First Amendment Torn, by David Id, IndyBay)
In two weeks, it has changed from an open plaza where downtown workers take coffee breaks and homeless people sleep at night, to a miniature city inhabited and managed by hundreds of activists. The fledgling city boasts food and shelter, childcare, discussion groups, first aid stations, and even a media room powered by bicycle-driven generators. A weekly print “zine” – The Occupation Times – is issued every week.
Oakland Commune
The newly named Oakland Commune at one time numbered up to 150 tents, with evening gatherings of up to 3000 people in the downtown plaza opposite City Hall. (As of this writing, the downtown plaza has been “retaken” by the occupiers after having been leveled by police, and is actually larger than before the raid.) Oakland City Council, while professing sympathy with the occupiers, expressed concerns about public health issues.
To address the issue, on Day Two a labor coalition contacted by the demonstrators supplied porta-potties – something new and much-needed for the homeless people previously living in the plaza. The Council was concerned about outdoor fires for cooking; protestors arranged with a neighboring church to start using their kitchen.
Vacillating between supportive tolerance and irritation, City Hall soon had new complaints – there were more rats in the plaza than when only the homeless had lived there. Protestors took their success as an excuse to party, and police were concerned about things getting out of hand. Efforts at self-policing became violent. Finally the City issued an eviction notice to clear the plaza of all temporary structures. Oakland Commune ignored it.
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