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Roundup: Oakland General Strike and Beyond

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So many people have been writing and sharing wonderful views on Oakland’s General Strike — I thought I’d collect a few for my digital memory chest.

Where We Been

Grew up listening to him on KSFM 102.5 — now appreciating Davey D’s take on the day.

Mushim Ikeda-Nash, writer and one of the many dope teachers at East Bay Meditation Center, offers a perspective as a spiritual leader and involved Oakland parent.

Dope commenter, organizer, and now blogger in her own right, Huli breaks it down and offers a delightful new phrase: “peace bullies.”

A 10-year street medic, present for the attempted re-opening of the former Traveler’s Aid Society, supports liberating empty buildings and standing up to cops, but urges us to prioritize inclusive solidarity and sustainability, not spectacle.

Where We Goin

Ryan and I made this flyer a few weeks ago for East Bay Solidarity Network, to pass out at the Occupy/Decolonize Oakland encampment. (Click image to download & read)

And sure enough, what headline is the Chronicle running now?  “Occupy Oakland’s new target – foreclosed buildings.”

Some parts of Occupy Wall Street seem to be heading in a similar direction, as with this beautiful recent action, when #OWS folks occupied a boiler room to win tenants heat and water.

Official, institutionalized groups like Causa Justa / Just Cause and ACCE have been doing some anti-foreclosure work since before #OWS.  But I think that the movement now lends two vital long-term ingredients: (1) a crucial boost of irreverence for the law, and (2) more people power to defend this wave of “political disobedience.”

Despite some people’s insistence that occupiers are exercising “the right to assembly,” when it comes down to it, Oakland occupiers are maintaining an unpermitted encampment.  We are disobeying laws not for the sake of flauting unwanted codes, but for the sake of building new wanted realities. And we have enough support —thousands and thousands of people — to keep on making moves.

The strain of positive lawlessness underlying the movement is, in my opinion, a good thing: especially if it means that we, the 99%, are asserting that the law institutionally favors the 1%, and thus is not a reliable mechanism for real change.  And since nonprofits in this country, like big unions, are so bound up with legalism (in order to get grants/contracts, avoid lawsuits, and continue to exist as orgs), it’s important to have strong unofficial wings of mass movement, willing to take that extra step into illegal (but positive, life-affirming) territory.

At the same time, whenever we talk about positive lawlessness, the question arises: arrest risk.  Real talk, hella people simply cannot afford to be arrested, cuz they’re already overcriminalized because of racism, transphobia, anti-migrant terrorism, family responsibilities, etc.!  So it’s also important to continue having lower-arrest-risk actions, ideally led by people who aren’t trying to get arrested themselves.  For instance, this march led by POOR magazine (Prensa Pobre), scheduled for this Thursday.  From their web site:

We are asking the powerful Decolonize (Occupy) movements in the Bay Area to decolonize and march with us in solidarity with those of us in severe poverty who struggle to survive, raise our babies and face ongoing racist, classist laws legislations and false borders everyday on both sides of the bay as we present demands to the government offices that continue to racialize, criminalize, harass, evict and abuse us.

We will march and decolonize four govt spaces on both sides of the Bay – ICE, Welfare (DHS), HUD (Housing n Urban Development) & The Po’Lice in one day  at the front of each of these buildings – we ARE not trying to endanger ANY poor peoples/migrante peoples with arrests as none of us can risk arrest.

POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork(PNN) is a poor people-led.indigenous peoples led grassroots, arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, education, art and advocacy to youth, adults and elders in poverty across Turtle Island.

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It’s so encouraging to see issues like free education and housing coexisting with labor demands and greater organization of the working class across sectors.  In the long-long-term view, as Advance the Struggle reminds us, we — not the politicians and policymakers — will occupy the means of production and begin to build the world we desire.

See y’all out there. :)

Kloncke IRL: A Gathering

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Hey folks, sorry for the signal loss! It’s been mad busy around here, partly because of the following little experiment I’m planning, with the help of some good friends. In short, for one afternoon I’m going to try to translate the blog “in real life” (IRL).

The only the IRL ‘blogger’ (or blogger-heavy) gatherings I’ve attended myself have been conferences. Media conferences; technology conferences; things like that. In this type of scene, bloggers from across the country (or among many countries) not only get to expound their theories before a live, half-listening-half-Tweeting audience, but can also lock screen-addled eyes with many writers theretofore befriended — or offended — exclusively online. I’ve seen drama erupt at these idea emporiums, but I’ve also witnessed cyberdenizens leap over tables to greet each other, practically converging midair in an embrace of mutual affection, admiration, and I-can’t-believe-it’s-really-you.

For my own shindig, though, I want to go in a different direction. Very chill, more like a housewarming or offbeat birthday party than a serious networking meet-and-greet. Although there are plenty of online writers and creators I’d love to meet in person someday (and many wonderful ones I’ve already had the fortune to know), most everyone invited to Kloncke IRL are people I’ve known offline for a while.  Here’s the email I sent out about it (well, a slightly less colorful version) to my local peeps. Faraway compas, I love you and wish you could be here! My address has been changed for this version because, well, I don’t want it circling around, you feel me? But I’m posting it here because I occasionally meet people in the Bay who’ve read Kloncke but don’t know me personally (yet). If that’s you, shoot me an email, and come on out next Saturday! Love to have you.

 dear amazing wonderful human friends. 

as most of you know, i make a blog called Kloncke.

i know you know about this blog because many of you have left rad, sweet, insightful, and sometimes hilarious comments there.

i appreciate this a whole lot.  i appreciate YOU a whole lot!

and so, as a small means of saying thanks for reading, sharing, linking, and just being your fabulous selves, i want to warmly e-vite you to a gathering in my home, In Real Life (IRL).

what can you expect at such an event?

live incarnates of the cyber version; including:

  • vegetarian and vegan homemade treats
  • photographs, available by donation
  • group meditation
  • a reading of my recent guest column in make/shift magazine, on buddhism, feminism, and resistance
  • a “blogroll” table featuring your political, artistic, and spiritual lit to share or display (bring some!)
  • the colorful walls of our apartment
  • chillin and building with other lovely folks


Kloncke IRL
Saturday, October 15th  
 3–5pm (Reading at 4pm) 
 555 33rd Street, Oakland 
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this event will be free (of course!) but please bring your own mug or thermos (for tea) and, if you can, a cushion to sit on.  (we’ll also have a handful of chairs.)  unfortunately our apartment is up one flight of stairs with no elevator or ramp; please let me know if this will be a problem for you, and we can try to work something out.

also, please arrive scent-free so my peeps with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities can come and enjoy themselves without getting sick!

finally, Our place has limited space! Please RSVP so we can have a sense of numbers, and calculate how many walls to knock down. (j/k :)  feel free to RSVP-plus-one or two, but don’t roll through with a whole posse.  our kitten Eloise will be acting as bouncer, keeping careful track of the guest list.

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thanks, love, take care, see you soon, be well, and call or e-mail me with any questions,

katie loncke

More to come this week online: the next Newsies post on how the courts are stacked against us, inspired by a frustrating but illuminating experience this morning before a judge. Stay tuned. :)

Three “Humor” Videos

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via Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

via Chimaobi Amutah

via Sierra Pickett

Three humor videos with fearsome subtexts: about “throwing away” our old material (and perceptions of self — hello Buddhism); economic violence and growing up poor and Black in a food desert in the U.S.; and . . . well, while there’s nothing inherently sad or scary about being hard of hearing / deaf / Deaf / fluent in sign language, but watching it pushes me to consider how, for every hearing person who enjoys and appreciates it, there are countless events that remain stubbornly inaccessible to non-hearing folks.

Case in point: the other two videos in this post.

If I’m being honest, I feel like I don’t have time to make transcripts for the other videos. If I’m being really honest, I mostly just don’t feel like doing it.

[Fast-forward an hour of wandering the internet aimlessly, feeling background-guilty about not writing transcripts, and noticing a stream of thoughts that justify why I don’t have to do it.]

[Now starting to write transcripts. Hey, this ain’t so bad. Kinda fun, actually.  Helps that these two ppl are talented.]

Selected and /or outlined transcripts below the jump. Imperfect.

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I Know It’s Science, But It Feels A Lot Like Magic

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our 10" pan, after stripping and de-rusting

Having finished and submitted a grad school paper today, I am rewarding myself with another round of re-seasoning our cast-iron skillet.

Did you know that it’s virtually impossible to find out how to properly season one of these puppies just by looking it up on the Internet? Oh, sure, you’ll find instructions and opinions, but they differ wildly from person to person, sharing only the barest of fundamentals: you need to put oil in the pan and heat it up; then the pan will be smooth and non-stick.

But how? Why? Really?

Sheryl’s Blog explains. Fantastically. Scientifically. Read and be amazed.

Abstract Photos

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My fellow student Doug — a film, photography, and lighting teacher — showed us some incredibly beautiful images today where he made photographs of the ocean look like abstract paintings. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to fool around with my camera, trying to teach myself this new way of looking at things.

My images didn’t quite achieve abstraction, but ‘messing up’ on purpose — “making the familiar strange” — is a not-too-boring and awfully enjoyable way to spend an hour.

tree
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purple 2
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The Practice of Contemplative Photography, a book by Buddhist meditators Andy Karr and Michael Wood, who themselves were inspired by some of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s photographs, has been calling my name for over a year now. Time to finally check it out of the library and practice some of its exercises. (They used to have a web site with exercises and example submissions, but I can’t find it anymore . . .)

White Beans and Cabbage

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Dinner.  Cover recipe from Heidi Swanson’s new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day. The flavors here are more subtle than I’m used to (normally I just douse everything in lemon juice and pile on the cayenne and cumin), but once I lasered in, I found a lot to enjoy. Slight spiciness of the barely-cooked cabbage plays off the creamy sweetness of the beans (I used canned fagioli) and tiny diced Yukon Gold potatoes. I actually smiled at a burst of tangy-smokiness from the sauteed shallots.  It’s the kind of dish where each ingredient matters because it all comes together quite quickly in one pan, so you can fully taste the fresh produce* without relying a lot on spices. And because each flavor is independent, every spoonful yields a slightly different taste combination.  Which is dangerous, because it makes me curious to eat more and more even after I am so so full!

Here’s what I did, adapted from Heidi’s formula.

12 oz. fagioli white beans from a can, rinsed and drained
6 or 7 small Yukon Gold potatoes, each about golf-ball-size
1 large shallot
Half of 1 medium green cabbage
4 glugs extra virgin olive oil
two big pinches of salt
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Wash the potatoes well and dice them into tiny cubes. In a big frying pan (I used 2 skillets to ensure maximal crusty browning action) glub in 2 glubs of olive oil (that’s 2 each if you’re using 2 pans) and turn the heat to medium (5–6 on my burner dial). When the oil is hot, add the potatoes, sprinkle with the salt, and toss to coat. Cover and set a timer for 2 minutes; when it goes off, toss them again to help brown on all sides. Cook for a total of 5–7 minutes or until tender and golden.

Meanwhile, slice the shallot very thin, and chop/slice the cabbage thin, also. When the potatoes are cooked, add the shallot and the beans, and spread the beans on the bottom of the pan so they get a chance to get nice and crusty, too. (Scrape around the bottom of the pan to loosen all the crusty bits.) Let ’em hang out for a few minutes, finish chopping your cabbage, then add the cabbage and stir to warm through — just enough so it wilts a little and goes bright green.

When it all looks and smells tantalizing, turn out into a serving dish and serve with a dusting of parmesan cheese, or as-is for a vegan feast. Hell yes.  

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*Under communism, I am told, everyone will have fresh produce because there won’t be the kind of leave-the-unprofitable-extra-produce-to-deliberately-spoil bullshit that currently goes on, and instead we will grow food for use, not profit. Yay!

Zine Week Day 4: New Thoughts On Animal Liberation

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What, you thought Zine Week would adhere to linear time?

Just kidding; sorry for the lapse! Today’s zine, from a member of Austin-based group ¡ella pelea!, is especially exciting for its application of class consciousness theory from Advance the Struggle’s Oscar Grant pamphlet (featured on Zine Week Day 2) to the Animal Rights Movement (ARM) in the U.S.

in Buena Vista Park, SF

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Zine Week Day 3: A Stand Up Start-Up: Confronting Sexual Assault with Transformative Justice by Philly Stands Up

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Last month I talked a little bit about transformative justice and the dope workshop that folks from the Philly Stands UP collective offered here in Oakland. This zine is one I picked up at that workshop: kind of like a primer for the PSU model.

There’s a lot I like about this zine.  Its unpretentious candor.  The ways it contextualizes itself, pointing to overlapping work that others are doing. (The final chapter is an excerpt from Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology.) The way it foregrounds survivor support in its Points of Unity:

We are a group that survivors can come to for help and support.  We will always support survivors and ensure survivor autonomy, where they will always be in control of how a situation is dealt with.

. . .

We do not support the prison system as a viable means of rehabilitation for perpetrators, but we will always support a survivor’s wishes and engage the legal system on any level necessary.

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Zine Week Day 2: Justice For Oscar Grant by Advance the Struggle

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Sorry for the late post again! Today’s zine is already a Bay Area radical classic, examining the politics around the recent wave of struggle following a caught-on-tape police murder. A white cop shot a young Black Oakland resident in the back, while the young man was lying face-down on a subway platform. (This officer, by the way, may be released from prison next month, having served less than a year of his 2-year sentence.)

Published in its original version back in mid-July of 2009, the new updated edition contains the same dope analysis of the role of nonprofits, histories of rioting, racist policing and more, plus a new preface, more art, and a supplementary article: “Moving Beyond Violence vs. Nonviolence.”

In my forthcoming guest column in make / shift magazine, I draw on A/S’s analysis of the Oscar Grant movement to illustrate my own alternatives to liberal, relativist interpretations of Buddhist teachings. You’ll have to wait til the magazine comes out to read my application of their deft explications, but in the meantime why not throw down a few dollars for a copy (just click the Donate button on the Advance the Struggle blog) and print the primary source material yourself? :)

Ink drought in your printer? No worries; you can read the web version, too. Still donate, though!

Zine Week, Day 1: A Rejected Summation by brownfemipower

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I’m not really sure why it took me so long to get into zines. Even now I’m not particularly ‘into’ them, to tell the truth — which is strange, considering that I love handmade objects, and I obviously love informal self-publishing. True zine-ophiles (ha! xenophiles!) might cringe at overly broad definitions of the form, but to a layperson like me, the essence of zines seems to be (a) self-manufacture and (b) text and images. Why wouldn’t a blog count? (Unless, of course, you’re a stickler about the handmade-object thing, which, really, I wouldn’t blame you, because as I said, I have a crush on handmade objects.)

Today’s zine captured my heart immediately, not only because it was made by one of my all-time favorite bloggers / writers, who goes by brownfemipower (or bfp for short), but also because it arrived at my home in the mail as a gift, all the way from Ypsilanti, Michigan, accompanied by a beautiful note in sky-blue ink.

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