SF OccuPride 2012

SF Pride is next Sunday, and there is going to be a rather robust Radical Queer presence at the SF Pride parade. We’ve got a Coalition of groups and individuals all lined up and now we’re just in the final stages of outreach, getting as many people on board, especially those groups typically left out of Pride.

There are going to be several actions during the parade and a victory rally at the site of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots after the parade. If you are in the SF Bay Area, please come to this event! Bring your friends and family, bring pots and pans for a casserole in solidarity with Quebec, bring banners, signs, your angst and rage at the state of the Queer Community, but most importantly, bring your smile and your hope. This action is going to show people that there is still a Queer Resistance and we’re pushing back against the commercialization and exploitation of our community!

This is the link to the website: http://bayoccupride.com/ And here’s a direct link to the event flyer: http://bayoccupride.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/NEW-FLIER.png

* masks are OK (especially if pink and/or glittery!)

* please keep in mind, it’s a parade with a heavy police presence. there will be direct actions involving banks and other groups and we will have more info for the more ‘proactive’ members of our community at the rally point that morning (security concerns). we’ve consensed to keep the actual parade bloc a family friendly zone (no smashy smashy please).

We’re assembling at 10am at Mission and Main, and leaving at 10:30am SHARP. Please spread the word far and wide! Good luck and hope to see you there! <3

EDIT: the event is going to be livestreamed. we’ve got @pixplz, @punkboyinsf and others, so tune in 10:30am PST on Sunday 6/24 if you’re not in the Bay Area and you want to see some Radical Queers in action! <3

So I’m just going to quick talk about what happened tonight, 30 April, 2012, on the eve of the May Day 2012 General Strike. I don’t know everything yet, and I’m too busy getting ready for tomorrow to really sit down and do homework. You’re getting my on the ground observations and you’re getting the cursory bits of reseach and double checking i’ve done with others that were there. I’m not a journalist, I’m a big fat gay guy who spends too much time watching cat videos on the internet, so please remember to read actual news stories from this event. I am providing you with as neutral and informed an account as I possible can because I believe the truth is more important than being a movement celebrity and other dumb shit. 

So anyway, I believe we were hijacked and it was an utter clusterfuck. It started out as sort of a “pep rally” type thing at Dolores Park, but maybe 20 minutes after we got there, it turned into a march. I tweeted “LOL looks it turned into a surprise anticapitalist march. #osf #oo #ows #dolorespark”. although i frown on the tactic of spraypainting and paintbombing, it was a bit funny to see the normally sneering people outside some of the boojie restaurants in 18th street get a little taste of their own class warfare. that said, what happened once the march reached Valencia was a) the fastest i’ve ever seen a march fall apart in my life and b) the largest concentration of simultaneous D: faces i have ever seen in my life. This is where I disengaged from the march, advised people I was pulling out and they were on their own, and told some people who were distracted or otherwise slow on the uptake that the march was entering ‘smashy smashy land.”

So, rather than describe what happened (since 340958345 other blogs and news agencies will do just that), I think it is more important to point out who did this. But as I’m about to explain to you, I don’t know that I can do that. You see, I don’t know who, the people I’ll dub as the ‘ringleaders’ of the march were exactly. Nobody did. Yeah some of the aggro people we always have to deal with were there, but these guys weren’t it. You remember those asshole jock bullies in high school? Well that was who was leading the march tonight. Clean cut, athletic, commanding, gravitas not borne of charisma but of testosterone and intimidation. They were decked out in outfits typically attributed to those in the ‘black bloc’ spectrum of tactics, yet their clothes were too new, and something was just off about them. They were very combative and nearly physically violent with the livestreamers on site, and got ignorant with me, a medic, when I intervened and reminded them that I was there to fix them from police violence, not protester on protester violence. 

I am typically really bad with names, but I am great with faces. I love people. I love looking into their eyes, looking at their smiles and their body language and trying to guess at their life and stuff. I probably will forget your name the first few times I’ve met you, but I will not forget your face. Even people I pass on the street, I’ll remember you for weeks. With that said, I didn’t recognize any of these people. Their eyes were too angry, their mouths were too severe. They felt “military” if that makes sense. Something just wasn’t right about them on too many levels. I’m not one of those tin foil hat conspiracy theorists, I don’t subscribe to those theories that Queen Elizabeth’s Reptilian slave driver masters run the Fed. I’ve read up on agent provocateurs and plants and that sort of thing and I have to say that without a doubt, I believe 100% that the people that started tonight’s events in the Mission were exactly that. 

Now I’m not pointing a finger at SFPD, although it would not surprise me if certain elements were clued in on it. Generally, the officers seemed as upset and bewildered as we were. Remember that article that just came out about the banks cooperating against Occupy? They have hired Pinkerton, those fucking goons, the scourge of the labor movement from back in the day, to coordinate against us. It could be that they are the Feds, it could be that they are some corporate assholes or even some of our right wing blogger friends who stalk us at events. It very well could be SFPD, as apparently there were no arrests, yet several cruisers drove past myself and a few other people with what I assumed were protesters in the back seats. Bandanas still up over their faces. I actually laughed at them possibly being arrested, because of the damage they did (which is an asshole move, i’ll admit, but i did it out of anger.)

Isn’t it funny too, that for the last 6 months of sustained protests, we couldn’t fart sideways without riot police raising their truncheons against us anywhere in the Bay Area, yet these cops weren’t around tonight when the convergence in Dolores Park turned into a march. the 2 squad cars and van that were following us did so at a snail’s pace while the boojie restaurants on 18th street got vandalized. Some more police units on Valencia just let the protest pass, despite it’s obviously destructive intent, and the cops were driving past laughing as their cars were pelted with paint. The laughter is really what betrays something seriously wrong about tonight’s march. For six months, we’re beaten, harassed and arrested at the slightest provocation, park and public lodging rules enforced to the very last dotted ‘i’ and crossed ‘t’, but tonight, they let a pack of vandals run riot down Valencia street. 

The other thing that bothered me is the level of destruction and the targets. This was all Bay of Rage Indybay organized, from what I gather, but it was all wrong. Black Bloc goes after state or corporate property not that of the working class and poor. I disapprove of that behavior, as it is not something I would personally engage in, however, this was off. This wasn’t directed against corporations or big banks, with the exception of one single ATM I saw smashed. This was specifically directed against mom and pop shops, local boutiques and businesses, and cars. Lots and lots of cars. I won’t weep for the hipster dives or the WASP nests for nouveau riche white trash, but the working class, poor and immigrant owned places I will. At first it was a few luxury cars, but as I followed the march down Valencia from a distance, it was all types of cars. There was a little girl crying and her mom was holding her and telling some onlookers that people smashed their car windows right in front of them as they were walking to it. She’s always going to remember the ‘mean people’ smashing. Everyone everywhere was really upset and blaming Occupy. 

We’ve spent months radicalizing and empowering the Mission, working with and learning from groups who have already been here for decades, trying to use our momentum, enthusiasm and appeal to energize moribound organizations and skittish and apathetic people. We’ve been encouraging people to feel empowered to organize themselves, to get unions for day laborers, to march for and bring attention to our terrible immigration practices, hell the list goes on and on. It’s just convenient that these so called ‘protesters’ acted in such a way to undermine and burn all those bridges we’ve been so carefully building. The destruction was too calculated and precise in it’s seeming randomness to be Black Bloc or even those fucking suburban scumbags who get an anarchist patch at Hot Topic and think that gives them license to come to Oakland or SF and burn shit down. 

Like I said, I don’t know who did this, but I am 1000000% certain they were not OccupySF and they were not OccupyOakland. I know the action was marketed as an action against gentrification, but too many regular people suffered tonight. Too many car tires are slashed. An old, brown minivan on the corner of Valencia and Duboce has all the windows busted out and the tires are flat. How is the owner supposed to drive that to work? The point is, the Mission, my neighborhood, a working class neighborhood, albeit one infested with yuppies and hipsters, got fucked up tonight. All that work we’ve been doing is now jeopardized. All the interest in what we were doing that brought people in the Mission to ask OccupySF to help them organize is jeopardized. I’m sure the woman wondering how she’s getting to work in the morning because her car is jacked up now finds her job and way of life jeopardized. 

This was not OccupySF, this was not OccupyOakland. What it was, was fucked up and a failure. I don’t care about delusions of anarchist grandeur and being the vanguard. That’s masturbation. I care about results and I care about how I’m getting them. The end does not justify the means, the journey is just as, if not more important than the destination. Fuck the yuppies and the hipsters. They’ll join us when revolting becomes ‘cool’ and claim they did it all along. By doing this, and by allowing ourselves to be led on by provocateurs, we alienate them, we push them back into their sleepy little tyranny enabling coccoons. If you’re gonna break windows, if you’re gonna smash cars, be real with your targets. Even rich WASP assholes are family when your they’re your neighbor. If you don’t live in the mission tonight, if you don’t live along Valencia, you don’t know what damage that was done here. For months, years even, this will be a nest of counter revolutionary sentiment because of the actions tonight. If there’s one thing to be thankful of, at least the media isn’t blaming OccupySF or OccupyOakland for once. It’s strange when they actually bother to do research and report correctly. 

Anyway, I’m tired, it’s May Day and I’ve got a long day ahead of me. Good luck, stay safe, and be smart and considerate in your tactics. This shit was bunk as fuck tonight. 

PS: i get that certain affinity groups may have been involved in the planning and execution of this action, and that you may have worked with these people for years, but i’m telling you that the little love and revolution sandwich you have made has some fucking bacon in it. thank you, love scott.

OccupySF has a new street medic! woo hoo! 

for me, this is one of the most rewarding things i’ve yet to do in this movement. and it was really inspiring, personally, just seeing people’s faces light up when they realized there was a medic. and people on the bus on my way to the SOPA/PIPA rally in SF yesterday were really excited at the concept of a medic that does their best to keep protesters going. 

this new path is going to be really interesting. 

also, i’m going to be blogging again real soon. thanks for waiting and thanks for the messages of encouragement. :)

occupysf was raided. we no longer have our main ‘permanent’ camp at Justin Herman Plaza, but we still have our mobile “pop up occupation” and the 101 camp for now. lots of people arrested. injuries. 

everything is gone, but we’re not broken. we’re still alive and kicking. 

i need sleep. <3

Notes from an Occupation 12: Statement to the SFPD

Hello, my name is Scott Rossi and I am on the OccupySF Welcome Committee and Committee of Correspondence. I want to address this to the San Francisco Police Department specifically, but also to Police officers all over the country. 

I’m a Pennsylvania native, a 4 year California resident and I’ve been living and working in San Francisco for a year. I’ve been an active member of the Occupation since the first week of October. It’s been extremely difficult and exhausting, holding a full time job during the day and then joining the ranks of OccupySF during the evening. 

I joined up with the Occupation for a lot of reasons. The straws that broke the camel’s back were pretty much what got all of us involved: the insatiable greed of corporations and banks; the corruption and cooption of our Governments to these banks and corporations; the austerity cuts we are expected to bear without complaint while the rich get richer.

You may have seen a recent video by my fellow Occupier, Katt, in an attempt to reach out to you after the ‘barricade incident’ back on December 1. I’m making this one to bolster her efforts, and also in light of a stunning turn of events that happened in Washington DC yesterday, December 4. On the livestream of the police raid on OccupyDC, we were shown an officer refusing orders to taser an Occupier. Thousands of viewers saw this. It was amazing. We had heard rumors of it happening, but this was the first actual evidence. Unfortunately, no recording of the event has surfaced yet, but we’ve gotten confirmation from the videographer, so we know it’s not mass hysteria. 

I wish I knew that officer’s name and badge number because he surely deserves much praise for making what must have been one of the most difficult and possibly costly decisions of his life. I am making this video and writing this blog entry to ask you to do the same. 

I’m not asking you to mutiny or quit your job. What I am asking you to do is listen to your conscience, listen to the cries of the people you are sworn to protect and serve, and help us. 

We’re the same, you and I. As I mentioned before, I work a full time job, and then some. I pay my taxes. I have a 401k. I volunteer and give my free time to better the community. I care about people and the greater good. Many, if not all of you do as well. I believe that there is a social contract that we all are a part of and that we all must participate in and pay into in order to have a healthy society. I believe that there are rules and laws in order to better help realize that society. Unfortunately we played by the rules and abided by the laws and we still lost. The CEOs, the bankers, the politicians, they make the rules and they are not even playing by them. The deck was stacked against us from the beginning. 

Our 401k accounts, your pensions, they are the playthings of the rich. Our education and healthcare system is imploding under the crushing weight of the needful and the lack of resources which have been diverted to the wars, the bailouts, the banker bonuses. That’s not even addressing the money siphoned off through tax loopholes, hedge funds, offshore accounts and the rest, that could go towards helping our system be sustainable and worthy of us. 

I love this city more than any other place on Earth. I love all the crazy, lovely, wonderful people I meet here. I love the fog, the rain, those sunny days that never seem to come around enough, and that I never fully enjoy while they’re here. And I love you. I really really do. I empathize with your position and have nothing but compassion and goodwill towards you. I love this city and so do you. You see us every day. You’ve arrested us. You’ve no doubt looked at some of us and wondered how we got into the various predicaments some of us find ourselves in. You’re stuck between the most difficult of positions - follow orders and evict an encampment of peaceful protesters who are trying to make the world a better place, or disobey orders and be open to all the risks and consequences that position would entail. 

I appeal to the decent persons in your force. I appeal to the dream you had of being a Police Officer and all the good things you want to accomplish in this world. You are looked to by generations of children and citizens as heroes, and you are heroes, so I am asking you to do heroic things right now. We need heroes. We need you.

The Occupation is a thin and ragged line in the sand. We’re alone out there on the edge of a great night on one side, and a tsunami of rage, indignation and profound sadness on the other. We need help. We’re a nonviolent movement. We’re full of everybodies, anybodies and yes, even the people i’ll call ‘nobodies’ that many people would rather see tucked away in a doorway or an alley in the Tenderloin or SOMA. Many would prefer not to see them at all. We need help. We need safe spaces to do so. We need a kitchen so we can feed people and we need warm, dry places to sleep at night. 

I’m tired of the 99% vs. the 1% meme. This movement is bigger than that. It’s not a numbers game, that’s what got us into this position in the first place. This movement is about a new way forward. The old way isn’t working anymore, and that’s apparent to anyone who opens up the newspaper or is brave enough to turn on the television. We have some solutions to the many ills we face as a civilization. We’re a conversation and a safe space for all of those that are left out and left behind by our society. We need people to come talk to us and with us, and in order to do that, we need a space and we need to hold that space so we always have it. 

We should be allies, not adversaries. You fight crime and keep the peace. We’re trying to address many of the root causes and structural violence that lead to crime and punishment and recidivism. 

From time to time, the rules we’ve established as a society no longer work. They’re not working for us but working against us. This is one of those times. This is a time when good people, regardless of station, must not remain silent and enable terrible wrongs and evils, but must stand up and be loud and be heard. We won’t go home quietly. Too many of us don’t have homes. We will not and can not sit by and let these wrongs go unrighted. Not one step further, not one moment longer. Please, my brothers and sisters in the San Francisco Police Department. I saw your faces the other night. I saw your confusion, your sadness, that sense of betrayal, your anger! You’re given poor orders with little or no explanation. You’re not invited to be a part of the decision making process, and you’re not invited to express your opinion of those orders, nor are you invited to opt out  We need you. Stand down. Please. If you’re ordered to move on OccupySF, please say no. You know that this might be our last, best, chance to do things right by all of us. Talk to your union representatives. Talk to legal representation. Talk to US. Think of your families and talk to them. Do what’s right for them. Do you want a future where your children can be safe and have a good life? Please help the Occupation. Help us, don’t hurt us. We are you and you are us. 

I don’t really know what else to say. I just hope that this message doesn’t fall on deaf ears or blind eyes. I hope that you realize you’ve been misled to stand up for the property and monied interests in this nation instead of those of us that need your help most of all. If I’ve managed to sway but one of you, or make you at least question your role in the way things go, then I will count this as a victory. It’s not a numbers game with us in the Occupation. It’s about hearts and minds and people. It’s about the way forward. Don’t follow the same old historical trends. The People are speaking and we always win the day. Get on the right side of, and make history and be the first police department to protect people and not the property of the privileged. Come help us make it happen and make it work.

I love you all. I’m out. 

OH MY GOD MRS. BOOEY! She’s from OccupySF! She claims she’s got dementia and would go from being extremely warm and loving and lucid to just … wow. This basically. The first time I met her I got blasted with a tirade of every sexual, fat and racial slur against white people I ever heard and then some. 

We made a lot of inroads in helping her out, but it just got too much and I’m not sure what happened exactly, but she got 5150’d by the SFPD for attacking someone violently in the middle of the night. :(

(via av-revolution-deactivated201303)

hahahaahaa Oakfosho interviews me on livestream after the “Battle of the Barricades” on 12/1. thanks to MattB for snapping the picture!

Umm. So tonight, 12/1, something weird happened with the SFPD. I’m not sure of everything behind it, and I know I only have a partial picture, but I’m going to relay what I know, what I saw and what was relayed to me by other Occupiers which has formed a more complete picture of things. I have filtered out the junk, the speculation and the crazy talk from this. This is important because it is part of our story and also an indication of the turmoil we had heard tell of in the rank and file of the SFPD. 

So tonight, the SFPD showed up at OccupySF and nobody is really sure what the hell the objective was, why they were there or who ordered them there. Basically, 30 or 40 officers showed up during rush hour and started putting barricades around the perimeter of the camp without talking to anyone. This, after we had supposedly had a noon order of dispersal from the city and were already anxious. The police barricaded the entire perimeter of the park in, and people panicked, stormed the barricades and knocked them over. The police officer that was injured was running trying to stop a bunch of barricades from falling over domino style and he tripped and fell into the Embarcadero and his hand was run over by a car. That isn’t a joke, a number of people saw it happen in front of them. Another of our people was hurt in the melee. The asshole that hit, or tried to hit a cop? Well, fuck him, he can rot in jail. We’re a non-violent movement and I won’t have that upstaged because you want bragging rights. Anyway, so the barricades around Justin Herman Plaza were torn down and the police retreated towards 101 Market and the Federal Reserve. 

The General Assembly met and blockaded Market Street in front of the Federal Reserve, while dozens of people trickled in until there were several hundred people basically surrounding the SFPD and their barricades. This is where I arrived on the scene and saw the SFPD begin tearing them down themselves and tossing everything in the back of SFPD trucks. 

This is also where it gets interesting, because it’s the first time I had observed any of the rumored infighting myself. Over the last few weeks, several Occupiers had seen SFPD officers in heated arguments about what they thought should be done with us, with most of the SFPD allegedly siding with us being left alone. Since I hadn’t seen it, I made sure to tell people it was only rumored or that I had heard it from other people. But tonight I saw it with my own eyes, and 5 other people told me the same thing! 

Here’s what I saw: I was heading to Walgreen’s on California and Drumm to get batteries for my megaphone and there was 5 SFPD throwing barriers into the back of a pickup truck and they were having a loud conversation. As I got closer this is what I heard:

Officer #1: “I don’t understand what the fuck we’re doing here. Why are we here?”

Officer #2: “Just shut the fuck up, OK?”

Officer #3: “Why don’t we just arrest them all?” (mind you, GA was being held in the middle of the street and our facilitator was inviting the Riot Police at the Fed to come on stack and talk to us, hahaha)

Officer #2: “Listen, just shut the fuck up ok?”

So yeah, nothing major, except for the fact that their voices were raised and they had none of the professionalism you typically see with SFPD. Nothing too crazy though. It wasn’t until the other reports of similar scenes started coming in that I was starting to see a pattern. One story, observed by 2 different people, really stuck out to me. 

After the SFPD had cleared the barricades from in front of the Federal Reserve and 1 Market, they were grouped around Justin Herman Plaza and were clearing the piles of barricades there. Two officers/commanders were observed in a heated argument that went something like this:

Commander #1: “Are you questioning my orders?” A hush on the gathered SFPD people. 

Commander #2: “No, but we don’t have the morale or the manpower for this anymore.” 

And the first officer pulled the second through the gathered throng of police and out into the middle of the street where I’m told they continued a heated conversation at length. In front of the police and Occupiers and even some press. 

What really bothered me personally, was the looks on the officers’ faces this whole time. They looked lost and sad and just generally upset. Their entire operation was a clusterfuck, the Chief of Police was allegedly on the news changing his story left and right, saying at first that we were “too paranoid about a raid” and then telling another news station he needed to deploy the barricades to “contain the violence”. Several Occupiers heard police officers remark to the effect of “we were supposed to gain ground, but instead we lost it!” 

And indeed, they had lost it. 101 Market and 1 Market had previously been occupied by the SFPD with a labyrinth of barricades deployed as an area denial tactic after cleaning the camps 2 weeks ago. Not only did our “pop up Occupation” immediately retake their former stomping grounds at 101 Market outside the Federal Reserve, but we immediately called for a victory dance party and some random person brought us hot pizza after hearing about what had happened. 

I dunno. It was really weird. I am going to need to let tonight’s events marinate and I’m interested in seeing the city’s attempts at damage control, since it looks like this whole shit was mismanaged and I’m not even sure half of them knew what they were supposed to be doing out there. 

One thing that is cool is we took all the plastic bands that were holding the barricades together and made bracelets from them. It’s sort of a symbol of the “101 Market Tribe” and our bond with each other and a symbol of this weird weird weird weird night. 

Was tonight a victory? Is it a sign that the SFPD might be the first police department to “break” and stop doing beastly things that they’re told to do only to get the ire of the working classes and poor? San Francisco has its asshole cops, like those guys that were stealing poor people’s valuables in those SROs, but I have to say, out of all the cities I’ve lived in, all the protests I’ve seen or been a part of, San Francisco also has some of the best goddamn cops I’ve ever seen, and I think that’s going to work in our favor as a movement. 

I dunno, like I said, I’ve got to let this night marinate quite a bit. I’m not sure what the hell happened, and I’m not even sure how I feel about it. Jubilant, yes. Happy that my 101 Tribe peeps got their homebase back. But really, something isn’t right about this thing with the SFPD and I need to think on that and do some homework. 

Anyway, just telling our story the best I can.

Love and Solidarity,

Scott

OccupySF Welcome Committee and Committee of Correspondence

@scottanansi on twitter

Here’s the bracelet we made out of the zipties the SFPD was using to secure the barricades. HURRAH! ^___^

Whack A Mole Revolution: A guide to Pop Up Occupations

Version 1.0 12/1/11 OccupySF Committee of Correspondence and 101 Tribe Affinity Group

In the past few months, we have seen our Occupations rise and fall in the face of police raids and eviction actions. The political environment has become increasingly hostile to our presence, even as we gain support and new members from the 99%. This generally translates into the removal of our Occupations as a permanent presence, the mass arrest of dozens of Occupiers and the confiscation and destruction of much of our personal property. Setting aside debates and questions on the legality and constitutional backing for our actions, this requires a change in tactics. 

Maintaining a presence and offering educational and outreach experiences is extremely vital in this stage of our movement. We in OccupySF, specifically an affinity group known as the “101 Tribe”, have come up with a novel and fun tactic we want to share with Occupiers everywhere. We call this the “Pop Up Occupation”. 

The idea of a Pop Up Occupation, is centered around several core concepts: mobility, visibility, novelty, and creativity. Pop Ups are mobile and are a barebones Occupation, with a tiny kitchen (mostly sandwiches and snacks), mobile library, info table and a first aid kit (unless you’re lucky enough to have a street medic in your affinity group). The mobile and small nature of the Pop Up allows you to be present in high traffic areas where it wouldn’t typically be possible to have a presence aside from a few members of your Outreach team or on the occasion of larger protest actions. The final two core concepts go hand in hand: novelty and creativity. The response to the OccupySF Pop Up Occupation has been overwhelmingly positive. People see a bunch of happy, motivated, passionate and informed protesters with fun signs and chalk drawings on the sidewalk and they approach with a smile, buy us coffee, and most importantly, have great conversations that they can take home to their friends and families and coworkers.

Pop Ups present a great face to the world for your Occupation and the movement as a whole, without vilifying or detracting from the main site. They also throw the police departments off balance, especially if there’s more than one Pop Up in action. Generally, we’re expected to have a permanent encampment and settle in an area and start erecting tents and other structures, and then satellite encampments. This throws a monkey wrench into their assumptions and response plans, as it’s just a table, some storage bins, and a bunch of sleeping bags and blankets at night, and we change spaces every few days to a new protest site. Aside from educating the public at large, it also serves to educate Occupiers on the predations and abuses of the various banks and corporations we find in our communities. 

The following page is a reproduction of the 101 Tribe’s “Tips on How to Start and Maintain a ‘Pop Up’ Occupation/Affinity Group” sheet that was passed out today at the OccupySF General Assembly. Please read, reproduce and distribute this information to Occupations everywhere! This is part of the #O2 Occupy 2.0 movement. Love and Solidarity! 

101 Tribe’s Tips on How to Start and Maintain a “Pop Up” Occupation/Affinity Group

Foster trust between people in your affinity group.

a) Take the time to personally get to know each other and build trust

b) Build trust by proving reliability and communicating with each other

Come together and establish a working set of guidelines that all adhere to and consent upon

a) These guidelines are naturally unspoken rules and ideals that everyone in the affinity group follows on a daily basis, but discussing and writing them down is helpful in maintaining order and welcoming and integrating new Occupiers. 

i. for example: the 101 Tribe created and consensed on guidelines in one meeting. The three guidelines are: 

1. When present, all Occupiers in this affinity group with participate and engage in a minimum amount of protesting (flying, making signs, manning the info table, engaging the public through think tank discussions, cleaning, etc)

2. maintaining a tolerable level of hygiene (if you can smell yourself, we probably can too!)

3. No drugs or alcohol on site and no sloppy behavior

Know your 1st Amendment Rights to assemble and free speech

a) Groups are allowed a non wooden table for information

b) Signs and sign making materials are freedom of speech

c) Vandalism of property is different than chalk and signs

d) Be aware of site lie law and what police can choose to enforce

Civil Disobedience

a) 101 Tribe recommends being as mobile as possible, which involves keeping belongings in sight and keeping on site storage to a minimum.

b) Different affinity groups may have different goals as far as specific occupation site stability but be aware that if tents are erected, police will most likely commandeer property and area.

Have established daily or nightly meetings with your affinity group

a) set a time that works best for the majority of the group and discuss long term and short term plans. 

Establish and set a mission and goals

a) Be realistic about goals when setting concrete long and short term goals

b) Affinity groups should be in line with Occupation goals, but can be focused on a specific mission.

Dealing with violence

a) All affinity groups should declare with redundant accessibility that NON- VIOLENCE is of the primary values of this Occupation movement. Likewise, all and any members of an affinity group displaying any violent temperament or aggressive behavioral patterns, should be reminded by those not exhibiting such characteristics, that violence and aggression are not believed to be the best, or even favorable mode for addressing issues. While also reminding any such individuals displaying such behavior that they hold the ultimate dictate of their current state of able self maintenance as well that groups and people exist who specialize in aiding such self development. Should no responsive progress in their behavioral patterns be apparent, the next suggested action is to remind such people that all who hold contrast to such contexts are fully willing to expose such behavior. The next step is getting peacekeepers involved. 

Note: it is 4:16am and i should have gone to bed hours ago. i’ve been at OccupySF all day and most of the night. please forgive any spelling/punctuation/grammar errors. we’re sans scanner, so the second half of this was typed word for word via hard copy. 

Hello, my name is Scott Rossi. In case you haven’t figured out already, I’m an Occupier. No, I don’t sleep out on the streets very often, but that doesn’t mean I am any less important or valid to the movement than those out on the concrete. I put in my time everyday after work at Justin Herman Plaza, 101 Market and now the new “Pop Up Occupation” at Wells Fargo on Market and Drumm, and I am generally there until I am ready to drop from exhaustion. My diet consists of lots of carbs, liberally dashed with coffee and other caffeinated products, as well as fistfuls of vitamins and other supplements to make sure I’m getting around 100% or more of the things I need to keep going. I don’t have time to stop. None of us do. 

The Occupation is in a critical stage. We’re changing and growing, even as our Police departments come down on us and evict us from our homebases. Before the November 15th raid on Zuccotti Park in New York City, you could have made the argument that the Occupation was imploding. OccupySF was a perfect example of that. We were besieged by the violent homeless, so set in their ‘Lord of the Flies’ mentality, the mentally ill, and those with substance abuse issues. We were losing amazing people in unbelievable numbers. And then Mayor Bloomberg decided to act like the little pocket tyrant he really is, and began this transition period we find ourselves in. We’re asking the right questions of ourselves and our fellow Occupiers. We’re taking the right steps in fixing a lot of the problems that have dogged us since we became a light in the dark to society’s most vulnerable and traumatized populations. We’re finding ourselves and our souls down this path and it’s amazing! Are there problems? Fuck yeah there are! We’re amateurs. I work customer service for a goddamn porn company, I don’t know how to deal with violence deescalation or substance abuse issues. Christ, some of this shit has triggered my conquered compulsive overeating, which was an unwelcome surprise, but also cause for a look inward and outward.

Many of the larger Occupations are gone. In fact, with the eviction of OccupyLA and OccupyPhilly tonight, there’s only 3 ‘major’ Occupations left: OccupyBoston, OccupySF and OccupySeattle. There’s still over a thousand smaller Occupations and all of the major ones are just one the move now. None of these Occupations is any less important. We’re all everyday heroes, doing heroic things. In a sense, we’ve already won. We’ve changed the conversation at dinner. We’ve made it so those that are ‘mad as hell’ about all the shit we’re subjected to, no longer feel as though they’re the only ones who feel this way. Our little bands of everybodies and anybodies have stood up and slowed down the world. The global narrative was moving inexorably onward: AUSTERITY. BAILOUTS. MANAGED DECLINED. DEFICIT REDUCTION. CUTS CUTS CUTS. And then along came the Occupation, which was the period that brought that to a halt. NO. Now, we must work on the upstroke and make it an exclamation point. NO! NOT ONE MORE STEP INTO THAT NIGHT. WE ARE HERE. WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY BACK TO OUR HOMES. SEE US! HEAR US ROAR!

The Occupation isn’t for everyone. We’re just surfing on the front edge of a tsunami of rage and indignation. There will be other movements and they might absorb us or rise up alongside us. That said, I love it. At first, I thought it was a very vulgar and horrible choice of words for what we were trying to do. An ‘Occupation’ to end corporate hegemony, corporate money in politics, malfeasance misfeasance nonfeasance of government, austerity cuts at a time when people need more social services than ever? What the fuck? Who the hell chose that? Occupations are extremely terrible things: Iraq and Afghanistan, for starters. Or look in our own backyards and how the Police occupy various cities like Oakland, Detroit, Harlem and Compton? Why would we choose that? It’s like dropping a rusty, fucked up old car in a beautifully flowered meadow with trees and butterflies and shit. And then the ‘decolonize’ movement rose within the Occupation and the unintended brilliance and elegance of ‘Occupy’ hit me. It’s the era of ‘Free Speech Zones” and free speech only being applicable during business hours. I don’t fucking think so. Free speech is 24/7/365 in the USA. Again with the beauty of the word ‘Occupy’ - we had to occupy a public space in order to secure our right to free speech and assembly. Examples of the accidental serendipity that seems so commonplace with this movement. 

If it wasn’t for the Occupation, there wouldn’t be the ‘Decolonization’ movement, and we wouldn’t have such an amazing, unprecedented opportunity to teach priviliged white people like myself about our privilege. I always thought of myself as aware and considerate and educated to things like White Privilege. And then I attended a Multicultural Issues workshop and was humbled by my ignorance of just how badly my people don’t understand and get angry about it. We’ve clearly got a lot of work to do as an Occupation and as a Society when all this shit is done and over with. Another day, I happened upon a Decolonization talk at OccupySF and learned about how subtly oppressive language can be. How the phrase “you guys” immediately diminishes the presence of women and transgender people. It’s really insidious and just one example of many. It’s been quite an interesting personal journey trying to use more uplifting, empowering and neutral language in my everyday talk and be conscious of privilege when dealing with others. And that was just one single meeting of each of those groups I was lucky enough to attend. There’s been so many incredible things I’ve learned and it’s hard to quantify them all. It all just sort of blends into this amazing ur-feeling and it’s filling a void within that I didn’t even know I had! For that victory alone, for me, the Occupation has already won. And I’m just one of tens of thousands of Occupiers who are going through similar awakenings. 

I’ve also learned a lot about Victim Blaming and that’s not something I’ve been a stranger to. As a Gay man, I remember being told in high school to ‘act more masculine’ and people would stop bullying me. I’ve learned that “get a job!” hurts someone who is down and out just as much as “she shouldn’t have worn that skirt.” I’ve seen people cry when heckled by someone from a passing car with just that little phrase. And trust me, I know the whole “words are wind” thing, but when you’re already feeling vulnerable and facing arrest and now the spectre of indefinite detention after finally finding the courage to stand up for yourself, it really fucking kills you inside. 

Living on the streets is not easy. Humans are neurobiologically wired for connection, community, love and acceptance, and you sure as hell don’t get that on the streets. When you don’t get those deep needs met, you medicate, you get addictions, you go insane. It’s as simple as that. We do it in our own lives with Ben and Jerry’s or Pizza or Wine. The Homeless will find their grog or their high so they don’t care as much when all the ‘good spots’ are taken, or they’re forced to sleep in some random doorway in the middle of the night. There’s rarely shelter beds for these people, and even when there is, it’s still the same hostile, unforgiving environment, just behind closed doors and well and truly out of sight and out of mind for the rest of society. They’re still surrounded by all their failures, both of personal choices and those imposed on them by the indifference and institutional cruelty of society. The Government likes to play that game that there’s always housing options available, that there’s always somewhere to go, even when there clearly isn’t. Major cities are ridiculously short on shelter for their homeless, and it’s getting worse each year with budget cuts. I’ve had North Beach WASP types and Tea Baggers confront me and say that “these people” should look to charity for help, if the cities can’t help them. But that’s exactly what the Occupation is doing! Aside from the whole political aspect, we’re supporting these people out of the goodness and kindness of our hearts. We are empowering others to do the same. When we get donations, people frequently remark that this is the first time they’ve ever donated anything in their lives, and that they know that it’s going to a good cause, because they can fucking see it!

I get really angry with self identified ‘liberals’ and ‘christians’ saying they can’t be a part of the movement because of the homeless, the mentally ill and those with substance abuse issues. These people are us! Most of us are only a few paychecks away from living a life on the streets. You can’t just go get welfare or public housing and foodstamps and have a good quality of life. You’ll survive, but you cannot thrive. I’m fond of the saying “this is our only life and we should be living the shit out of it.” Everyone deserves that chance. Everyone should fight like hell for themselves, and even harder for those that can’t and haven’t yet come into this world. The people you hate on and victim blame are the very people we should be fighting for most vigorously. They don’t have computers and beds and couches and televisions, and for most of them, it’s not their fault and there’s no way out except that which the Occupation provides. 

I’ve said it before and said it again, for many people, this is the first time in a long time that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train. As we face the likely prospect of losing Bradley Manning/Justin Herman Plaza to an army of riot police, I’m faced with a very muddy brainspace and a very cloudy heartspace. I don’t know what these people are going to do when there’s no homebase for them to retreat to. I don’t know what our Pop Up Occupations are going to do when it’s raining and we’ve nowhere to go to stay dry. I don’t know how the police and mayor are going to be able to wake up every day, look at their children and wives, having done the monstrous, terrible evils they’re drawing up plans for right now. I’m not really the praying type, I typically just give thanks to the Universe for the bountiful, blessed and amazing life I live, but I’ve been doing a lot of praying lately. Praying for those of us that need this movement, as it’s all they have left; praying for the Mayor and the Police who are so misguided that they feel compelled to do these terrible things and follow these unconscionable orders; and praying for myself that I continue to have hope and fire in my heart, that my gift with words keeps flowing so that I can continue to inspire others to be greater and smarter and more amazing than I could ever hope to be. Frankly, I could use all your help and prayers and candles and whatever other bullshit you do every day to make your soul feel more whole. 

Love, 

Scott Rossi

my friend Carlos took this picture of me as we were setting up the “pop up Occupation” on market street in SF two nights ago. this is the type of glee and jubilation i get when we do amazing fun things like civil disobedience. :)

Yes, that title means I just mashed the keyboard. I couldn’t think of a title, and I can’t think of what this post will be about right now. We’re so busy in OccupySF. We’ve been facing near nightly police raids for over a week now. Some have been called off at the last minute, only after we pulled down a few hundred supporters and held an impromptu dance party. We lost our original camp at 101 Market outside the Federal Reserve, and our “bridge” camp at 1 Market, which was the site of the former HQ of Southern Pacific Railroad. The very same Southern Pacific Railroad that is responsible for the supreme court decision establishing corporate personhood, arguably one of the biggest reasons the world is so fucked right now. 

People I know and care about have been arrested. People I know and care about have been hurt by the police. People I know and care about have left this movement in tears; tired of the constant state of siege, both by the police and the various factions and individuals that have come to populate our Occupation. Nobody ever said this movement was going to be a picnic, and I don’t think anyone really expected it. Facing a phalanx of riot police advancing on you is the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life and I’ve lived through flash floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and been menaced by the most gigantic spiders Mother Nature has seen fit to throw my way. 

Riot Police suck. But, it’s America in 2011. Free speech is relegated to “free speech zones” and they are only open to business during regular business hours. Pizza has been elevated to the status of a vegetable. That will sure help the obesity problem Ms. Obama has so vigorously been fighting. I wonder how many more vegetables our esteemed congress critters will ‘discover’ through fiat. Yay congress! Fiat Vegetable! 

We’re so traumatized as a culture that the same victim blaming that is thrown against rape victims (“she was asking for it with that dress.” etc) is being applied to protesters. We have a reasonable expectation that the police are not going to beat our asses or mace us down our throats for exercising our First Amendment rights. Unfortunately, words are wind and I’m at the point where I’m worried about my safety when I leave OccupySF at night. Despite making it abundantly clear that I’m pacifist and I’d not only leave the movement if it endorsed violence, but that I’d denounce it. Apparently, there’s a secret club where you only get in if you’ve been followed by some agent from some agency, be it corporate or government. It’s pretty disgusting and certainly no club I wanted to be a part of. 

I’ve never really had that “fuck the police!” attitude before, but after my involvement in this movement, I’d by lying if I said it wasn’t growing on me. Sure, most of the cops down at OccupySF are OK. It appears they’re cycling them out now every day or two, rather than let us develop relationships with them like we used to. It probably is a cause of much of the “command issues” we’re hearing about from our moles in the SFPD. And the heated argument we saw between two of the officersm, about whether we should be allowed to stay, was pretty amusing. All that said, again, they’re OK. I try to think of it as that Looney Tunes cartoon where the sheep dog and the wolf live together and are friends, until they punch in. Then they’re ‘enemies’. At the end of the day, we’re all human beings and we’re all worried about the future. I know the off duty cops are perfectly wonderful people, if the officer who hung out with some of us in Starbucks is any indication. We’re going to have to deal with this until we win the ‘war of attrition’ and outlast the city’s pocketbooks. This isn’t just a protest, it’s a social and political Movement and we’re here to stay, in it to win it.

Ugh, so as I said earlier, we’re super busy at OccupySF. While wading into the midst of various feuds and melees between various camp factions and individual residents, some of whom act like 28 days later rage zombies, we’ve published our first declaration, “Declaration from the Occupation” ( which you can read here: http://occupysf.com/news/121-a-declaration-from-the-occupation ) and we’ve been busy working on a lot of other little projects. Essentially, you want to think of this movement as an exclamation point. The Occupations were a period that brought the global narrative to a standstill, now it’s time to work on the upstroke. There’s a lot of interesting stuff being talked about, which can all be summed up into “plant seeds during the winter and get ready for the American Spring.” It’s so exciting to be doing this. I’ve never had so much fun in my entire life, even with the spectre of detention and surveillance and no fly lists and whatever other bullshit the Government wishes to throw my way.

This is totally not the entry I thought it would be. I’m going to blame lack of sleep for this and I’m going to save it and post it and promptly turn off my computron and get some sleep. I hope everyone stays safe and warm. Hug your friends and tell them you love them. Educate yourselves and learn to know what’s going on in the world and how it affects you and those less fortunate than you. Talk to others about what’s bothering you. Remember, the Occupation has started the conversation. Join it.

Love and Solidarity, 

Scott

OccupySF 

this is one of the most amazing pictures i have ever seen in my life. 

the beginning is near. 

OccupyEverywhere

My roommate stopped down in OccupySF after we faced down another police raid and interviewed me. We are still here! :)