difference is happy

I miss Oakland =(

∞ 8/4/2012 (2:31pm) 1 note

#new york times #oakland #radical politics #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #occupy oakland

Love and fluidarity to everyone on general strike right now in Oakland and beyond! #OccupyOakland

∞ 11/2/2011 (12:44pm) 2 notes

#general strike #occupy oakland #oakland #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #Nov 2

Love and fluidarity to everyone on general strike right now in Oakland and beyond! #OccupyOakland

This movement has killed despair. People have gotten off up the sofa. They’ve turned off “Dancing with the Stars” and come out into the streets. This is a victory… You have altered the national discussion. This is what people are talking about everywhere.

∞ 8 notes #michael moore #occupy oakland #apathy #hope #OCCUPY MOVEMENT

Michael Moore, speaking at #OccupyOakland

∞ 10/30/2011 (4:35pm) 1 note

Michael Moore speaks at #OccupyOakland. Speech begins at 06:30

#michael moore #occupy oakland #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #oakland #anti-capitalism #speech

One thing that struck me yesterday [at #OccupyOakland] was that even under these brutal conditions, the mood was not entirely grim. There was of course lots of outrage and anger, but also lots of joy. Somewhat like in the early civil rights movement, there is a feeling that the old order is now on the defensive and that its ignorant and brutal reactions are a reflection of its inability to grasp the new community in the making, the new liberated community that we and countless others around the world are trying to create, and that we are already feeling in our hearts.

∞ 2 notes #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #occupy oakland #oakland #community #community-in-movement #Ken Knabb

Ken Knabb, ‘Yesterday in Oakland’

∞ 10/29/2011 (8:05pm) 10 notes

March from Tahrir Square to US embassy in Cairo in support of #OccupyOakland!

#cairo #oakland #occupy oakland #egyptian revolution #xenophily #solidarity #video

∞ 10/29/2011 (4:55pm) 17 notes

Later, capitalism. We’re outta here.

Capitalism (including its police wing, the state) actually needs us for its own existence. The system only hangs together because we perform it every day. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, we are all caught up in this system and function to reproduce it everyday. The moment we begin to defect from this system by questioning its underlying tenets, refusing to buy into its ideologies, contracting other relationships, doing things differently, capitalism freaks out. The moment we undercut the system by refusing to participate in it, by refusing to let it draw its power from us any longer, it sends in its army of riot police, busts up our camps, busts up our alternative futures in the making. I believe this is exactly what the Oakland police riot was about. New forms of life despite and beyond capitalism were being created there in #OccupyOakland, and the capitalist state needed to assert control and bring people back in line. It doesn’t want people realising they are capable of running their own lives and self-governing. It doesn’t want people realising that when they self-organise into cooperatives they can provide for each others’ needs without the need for capitalism. Therein lies the crux: While capitalism needs us, we don’t need it. We are potentially autonomous. This autonomy is growing each day with the #Occupy movement. The general assemblies are already functioning as a parallel system of direct democracy to the stale representative democracy offered by the elites. Our relationship with capitalism is like that between an abusive husband and a battered wife. We’ve been battered for too long and we keep trying to leave, but he keeps threatening to kill us everytime we try to do so. He’s an alcoholic, drunk on money and power. But we have to break free eventually. We have to realise there’s absolutely no future if we keep believing our husband’s lies that he’s sorry and he can change and that staying together is for the best. He needs us, but we don’t need his ass. Right now is our best moment in history to leave his sorry ass once and for all. Let him self-destruct. In the meantime, we’ll be busy getting on with our own lives without him.

#anti-capitalism #capitalism #domestic violence #feminism #liberation #autonomy #autonomism #anarchism #state #Occupy Oakland #exodus #creativity #life

I understand the reasons for wanting to call this “Oscar Grant Plaza,” but it’s difficult for me to understand the movement’s choice to erase/overlook the memory of Frank Ogawa. There are very few locations in America that recall our Japanese American history and this plaza is one of those few memorials. Frank Ogawa was one of 110,00+ Japanese Americans stripped of their rights/property and unjustifiably incarcerated (without due process) by the US government during WWII. So, when I think of this movement I think of my grandmother, my grandfather and every single one of my other family members who, in 1941, lost everything within 48 hours before being shipped to live in horse stables stinking of manure for six months followed by years of incarceration in Utah and Arizona. To me, Frank Ogawa and Japanese American history seem like absolutely appropriate symbols for any movement based on equality, rights and liberation. His name, our Japanese American heritage and our U.S. history of incarceration should not be erased, overlooked or painted over by re-naming Frank Ogawa Plaza with Oscar Grant Plaza. After all, isn’t this movement coming from a fear that the gov’t can strip us of everything without notice? Isn’t that what Ogawa endured? If the plaza was originally named “Cesar Chavez Plaza” would you still be renaming it “Oscar Grant Plaza?” Point is: I love your message, but I wish it manifested itself in a way that didn’t ignore/erase my people’s history of struggle and oppression.

∞ 5 notes #asian americans #asian american movement #japanese american #people of colour #anti-racism #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #oakland #occupy oakland #frank ogawa

Kendra Arimoto, a Japanese American activist on a proposal at #OccupyOakland to rename the square they’re occupying

Breaking News: Cairo-Oakland Solidarity! →

∞ 10/28/2011 (11:57am) 11 notes

#cairo #oakland #occupy oakland #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #arab spring #Egyptian Revolution #democracy #solidarity

We are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “the Arab spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a system that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme.

∞ 12 notes #cairo #oakland #occupy oakland #tahrir square #OCCUPY MOVEMENT #Egyptian Revolution #democracy #anti-capitalism

Letter from Tahrir Square to #OccupyOakland