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)
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.
Yesterday I watched Ella once again engage her Sisyphusean toy: a tempting pink ball encased inside a large plastic donut, with side-holes just large enough to accommodate a grasping paw.
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Suddenly I wondered: is the ball’s ungettability upsetting to Ella, or does it just prolong the pleasure of the chase? In other words, does this game more closely resemble tanha, the craving that leads to suffering, or simply the jouissance of good old healthy exercise?
Yesterday, before my eyes, Oakland turned a corner. A successful general strike (or, as Clarence Thomas of the ILWU Longshoremen’s union put it, “the closest thing this generation has seen,”) shut down capital and commerce around the Town, including the fifth largest port in the nation. (And, as I understand it, the port workers went home with pay!)
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 plentyofonlinewriters 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 * * *
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. :)
Continuing in the vein of plants, pets, and partnership — or the ways in which companions both reflect the quality of our treatment, and express their own nature independent of us — in the past 20 hours since we brought her home, our newly adopted kitten Eloise has proven both delightfully surprising and shockingly predictable.
At the city shelter where we adopted her, the staff warned us that Eloise would probably be extremely shy. She and two siblings were found in a car (not sure whether this makes them stray or semi-feral), terrified of the long human arms reaching down to nab them. Within the cat pound’s contained visiting space, surrounded by cages, she seemed calm enough on our betoweled laps, but didn’t purr or rub her head against us like some of the older cats did. One of the women on staff wore a foreboding face when she advised us to handle the kitten as much as possible once we got her home, so that hopefully she would grow comfortable with humans. Sobered but optimistic, we left her over the weekend to be spayed Monday morning. Following that surgical ordeal, we anticipated a drugged bundle of quasi-hostility retreating to the remotest corners of our bathroom for the first days or weeks.
Sure enough, the minute we lifted her from the vet-issued cardboard carrying case and set her on our bathroom tiles, she fled to the farthest (and dirtiest) corner (straight past the cat bed I so lovingly fashioned for her out of a cardboard box and an accidentally-shrunken cashmere sweater). There she remained, cowering behind the dusty toilet.
Polaroid by Anastasia. More than 20 people came out to flyer under hot Oakland sun.
In a crucial step for Mel’s fight to win back his job and improve conditions at the site where he had been working as a security guard, over 20 people from the still-fledgling East Bay Solidarity Network staged an all-day fact-finding and outreaching session at the entrance to the offices of ABC Security: Mel’s former (and hopefully future) employer. Today was payday, and workers were coming to get their checks. As they entered and exited the long driveway leading to the private-property offices, we distributed our flyers explaining Mel’s fight. In a few hurried words, we tried to agitate* ABC guards by asking them how they felt about their job (most: from so-so to shitty) and what ever happened to that raise they’d been promised (three years and no sign of it). Some of the guards were hella down for what we’re doing (quote: “Yeah, the company doesn’t care if people die”), and their ire toward ABC’s owner only increased when we showed them photos of her mansion in the Oakland hills.
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Most importantly, though, the workers aided us by providing names of sites that employ ABC guards. Now that we’ve collected this client list (ranging from apartment complexes to warehouses and a golf course), we can use it to apply economic pressure to the company, escalating the fight to serious levels.
One of the highlights of the day, for me, was seeing Mel stand up to the supervisor who got him fired, with ten of us standing there to support him. Bolsters my hope that our group is helping shift the balance of power further toward the lowest-paid workers, and away from managers and millionaire CEOs.
Waiting for workers to pass through the driveway afforded us time to connect with each other, too. These are some lovely, vibrant people with great visions of building solidarity in the East Bay and beyond. (Earlier morning conversations focused around movements in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and how we might ally with / extend them here in Oakland.)
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted if/when we post an official account on the EastBaySol blog, but just wanted to share some of the joy of the day! Hope you’re well, friends.
Spent today shopping for an East Bay Solidarity Network sign-making party, agonizing for an embarrassingly long time over what color (and heft) of banner fabric to get, and what color felt for the letters, and later (with William) what font to use. But now it’s finished — grommets and all — and looks F%*@IN’ SICK, if I do say so myself. :)
Between printing the letters, cutting them out, tracing them onto the white felt, and then cutting out the felt and gluing the letters onto the banner, our core organizers also called all the people on our phone tree to mobilize for the next action, coming up on Wednesday. Cooperating on mini-projects over weeks and months is cultivating a beautiful ease among us. We crack each other up; we respect each others’ opinions. We brew each other tea. (Louise, if you’re reading this: we will miss you!)
Next week, after the action, I’ll share photos of the fight-specific signs we made. Right now it’s time to sleep the deep, delicious sleep of the DIY-satisfied.
Friends, I’m going through a down time, and I think it shows on the blog. Offline, I’m having various conversations, and even thoughts, which, for various reasons, I’m choosing not to share in this space — at least not yet.
Part of the issue, I think, is that I’m starting to develop a nagging sense of what I should be posting. More political writing, essays, analysis, etc. The sense of play I brought here, especially in the beginning when I was specifically trying to avoid political blogging, is evaporating.
So for a time, I’m gonna give myself a break and just post little things that make me smile.
Like this light in the sky, which literally stopped me in my tracks as my friend Sierra and I passed the SF main library at Civic Center, on our way to a show unknown to me at the time. (Sierra was surprising me for my birthday.)
Love this image from Mingus' site, labeled "watercolor painting of an octopus done in greens, yellows, oranges and pinks."
To me, femme must include ending ableism, white supremacy, heterosexism, the gender binary, economic exploitation, sexual violence, population control, male supremacy, war and militarization, and ownership of children and land.
Yesterday: downtown Oakland is in full Art-And-Soul festival mode, and a small squad of us from East Bay Solidarity Network gather outside its gated entrance to do our own jovial yet serious work. Once we finally locate one another in the crowd (who has whose cell numbers?), it’s on to the business of distributing xeroxed posters and tape (did we bring enough tape? it sucks to run out), and divvying out areas to flyer. Some of us are slow and others are impatient. Caught in between as an unofficially appointed problem solver, I feel my face edge toward a scowl. Luckily, though, our little gang laughs together more and more as months pass. And laughter is nature’s aspirin for the headache of logistics. Besides: no one’s getting paid here, and there are no managers or fears of getting fired and losing that paycheck, so we’re more free to move at our own pace.
Have I told you about our current fight? Mel Hill was a security guard working for ABC Security. After working at a number of different locations, he was stationed way, way out at a bus yard, miles from any public transport. The way Mel puts it: “I had leg muscles big as Popeye from walking to and from work.” He posted up in a little World War II tin shack (“hot when it’s hot; cold when it’s cold”) with no heat, electricity, water — nothing. Leaks in the roof let the rain in. Misery. After months of enduring this, with no administrative response to his complaints, he began bringing a yellow blanket along on his shifts, to keep himself warm. This, he was told by management, is “unprofessional” and unacceptable. Eventually Mel was fired, and brought his case to us, the East Bay Solidarity Network. We explained that in order for us to take on his fight to win his job back and improve site conditions, he would have to join the network and agree to be there for other people’s fights, as well.
There’s more than enough fights to go around.
Economic need compels people who don’t own the means of production (a.k.a. the vast majority of us) to work in conditions that are often terrible for our bodies. Job conditions are set up that way in order to save time and production costs (including wages). If we object, as Mel did, we get the message (implicitly or explicitly) that (a) we’re lazy, or (b) our bodies are the problem; our bodies are defective. Look: other people can do it. Why can’t you? Stop bringing the blanket. It’s unprofessional.
What can we do about this core of ableism within the exploitative, competitive, profit-driven system?
Master of not-fitting: Chican@ queer & disability scholar Gloria Anzaldúa
Kloncke 